The Braves announced that they have claimed right-hander Dereck Rodríguez off waivers from the Twins and optioned him to Triple-A Gwinnett. Fellow righty Kyle Wright was transferred to the 60-day injured list in order to open a spot on the 40-man roster.
Rotation depth has suddenly become a serious issue for the Atlanta club. Both Max Fried and Kyle Wright have landed on the injured list recently, with the former battling a forearm strain and the latter a lingering shoulder issue. The reported plan for Fried is for him to be shut down long enough that he will then have to effectively rebuild from scratch, suggesting a potential absence of a couple of months. Last week, Wright said he is expecting to be out of action even longer than Fried, so it’s not a shock to see him land on the 60-day injured list today. He’ll now be ineligible to return until 60 days from his initial IL placement, which was on May 4, ruling him out officially until early July.
Those injuries have cast a spotlight on the club’s starting mix, which is down to three primary members in Spencer Strider, Charlie Morton and Bryce Elder. The club has some depth starters on its 40-man roster that it could call upon, but it doesn’t seem like Michael Soroka will be up in the immediate future. He’s still looking to get into a consistent rhythm after hardly pitching since 2019 due to various injuries, including a pair of Achilles ruptures. Mark Bowman of MLB.com recently spoke to manager Brian Snitker about Soroka, though it doesn’t seem as though the club is going to let the recent injuries to Fried and Wright alter their approach to Soroka’s return to action. Other options on the roster include Dylan Dodd and Jared Shuster, though neither fared especially well in their brief major league looks earlier this year. Ian Anderson won’t be an option for the rest of the year after undergoing Tommy John surgery last month.
All of those question marks give the club a significant challenge in navigating the next couple of months, which is surely what led to the claim of Rodríguez. The right-hander who turns 31 next month had a solid debut season with the Giants in 2018 but has struggled since. That first season in the bigs saw him post an ERA of 2.81 in 118 1/3 innings, but his ERA jumped to 5.64 in the following season. He’s only been able to scratch out sporadic major league outings since then, appearing in five games since the start of 2020.
He’s spent the past couple of seasons bouncing on and off the Twins’ roster. He was twice selected to join the club in 2022, once in April and once in September, making one appearance before getting quickly designated for assignment in each case. He returned to the organization on another minor league deal this winter and was added to the 40-man a couple of weeks ago. He pitched two thirds of an inning on Friday before getting optioned back to Triple-A. It wasn’t publicly reported that he was designated for assignment but the Twins evidently tried to pass him through waivers in recent days, which led to today’s claim.
Prior to getting called up to the big leagues this year, he had made seven appearances for the St. Paul Saints, tossing 19 1/3 innings with a 4.66 ERA while striking out 23.5% of batters faced against an 11.8% walk rate. In 94 2/3 innings at Triple-A last year, he had a 4.75 ERA, 22.7% strikeout rate and 7.9% walk rate. He’ll head to Gwinnett and will presumably be competing with the likes of Dodd and Shuster for roles in the majors over the coming months. The big league club is still in first place in the National League East but have lost four in a row and seem less of a lock in that division than they did a week ago.
The Dark Knight Rises
Jays fan here but i am absolutely bewildered how the rox can call up guys giving BB in the 18% area, there crying out for arms and they do t claim this guy or get him for cash or PTBL
RIP Kyle Wright’s shoulder.
So we shouldn’t be offended if he gives us the cold shoulder from now on?
De-de-de-de-dereck (cue Captain Holt gif)
Honestly curious why Rodriguez continues to get looks. His rookie year was anomaly as his peripherals were not good. Hasn’t really been effective. Even his minor’s numbers aren’t eye popping.
Never hurts to try for a diamond in the rough. Never know, He may turn things around.
You’re not wrong, but if there is consistent suck in the minors and majors, unless he learns a new pitch or adds five mph to his fastball, I just don’t see it.
Pudge Jr
Because there’s a massive pitching shortage! If there were a bunch of pitchers better than him he wouldn’t have a job.
They should expand the 40 man to a 50 man roster to give more new guys a chance on top of the Derek and tommy moline retreads
I’ve said for years the 40 should be upped to 45, and daily to 30. Too many pitchers going down and a little security for the guys on 40 man bubble might save a few careers. They bounce around too much to be healthy
I bet Atlanta could pry ERod loose from Detroit if they offered them Grissom and Riley for ERod and Boyd, and throw ERod 10 million bonus and he’d tear up his opt out
@wiley: Hilarious. Braves give up Riley? If you’re going for laughs, you should get some for that.
I think ATL is approaching (and they don’t wanna be) the inevitable situation where MadBum has to be considered. He hasn’t pitched for several weeks now, so a ramp up will be necessary. Just sayin’
I think Atlanta will either use Dylan Lee; Colin McHugh; or someone else as a starter before they were to try bumgardner. Madison doesn’t bring anything to the table at this point.
I dunno…that’s not looking like good options moving forward. MadBum needs to be a least considered or given a try in my opinion. Who knows, we could catch lightning in a bottle for half a season.
Only until I catch some white lightnin’ in a bottle and chug it down would I consider that as a viable option.
Learned that excruciating Odorizzi lesson last year.
Madbum not worth the risk. No way he’d fit in the Brave’s clubhouse. He’d ba a cancer
MadBum not worth the risk. He wouldn’t fit in the clubhouse – he’d be a cancer
In North Carolina, way back in the hills
Me and my old pappy, and he had him a still
We brewed white lightnin’ ’til the sun went down
And then he’d fill him a jug and he’d pass it around
Mighty, mighty pleasin’, pappy’s corn squeezin’
Whshhhoooh… white lightnin’
No he doesn’t. Julio Tehran is will get a look before he does.
I think you have to bring Dodd or Schuster up, and leave them in the rotation. Get some MLB level experience, and worst case it turns into a bullpen game, which you’re doing anyway. You could bring them both up, because you have no lefty starters, and let em go. It’s either that or a guaranteed bullpen game.
Saw talk about MadBum – not worth the risk. He wouldn’t fit in the clubhouse – he’d be a cancer
He’d actually be a Leo but if I said he’d not be a disruption, I’d be lion.
Yeah it seems like MLB rosters should be 28 or 30. You could do 28 if teams only were required to have 13 position players. That way teams could go with 15 pitchers. With the DH not really a need for 13 on the bench which is required now so increasing it to 14 seems pointless. Deeper pens could keep arms fresher and maybe even some teams going to 6 man rotation if you had or could have 15 pitchers. Of course most teams having a hard time including Braves keeping 5 healthy or finding 5 good.
I think the Braves will end up having to go get a starter or two to fill the spots for Wright and Fried because there is really not anyone in the minors that is ready for the major league level just yet. But they might have to wait until at least the trading deadline because at this point in the season there isn’t many teams that is ready to trade anybody at the moment