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Rimas Sports Agency Files Lawsuit Against MLBPA Over Recent Sanctions

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The Rimas Sports Agency has filed a federal lawsuit against the MLB Players Association in United States District Court in Puerto Rico, reports Jeff Passan of ESPN. The lawsuit is related to recent sanctions that the union placed on the agency.

It was reported in April of 2023 that the sports management agency had been launched by three individuals affiliated with the Rimas Entertainment music label. Those three were Rimas Entertainment CEO Noah Assad, his client Bad Bunny and Rimas executive Jonathan Miranda.

Almost exactly one year later, in April of 2024, it was reported by various outlets that the agency was facing sanctions from the MLBPA for violating agency regulations. Multiple other agencies filed complaints against Rimas, alleging that the firm had been offering gifts such as new cars or large sums of cash to players as an inducement to switch their representation. Additionally, individuals who were not yet certified as agents represented themselves as such and acted in that capacity.

[Related: When Agents Get Played]

Per the reporting from last month, it was expected that those individuals were not going to be certified as a result of the complaints while William Arroyo had his certification revoked. Back in April, Brittany Ghiroli of The Athletic reported that Michael Velasquez and Arroyo were believed to be the only two certified agents with Rimas.

According to Passan’s report from today, Rimas initially took their complaints to an arbiter, who turned them down. This 27-page complaint seeks a temporary restraining order and injunction against the penalties imposed by the union. The suit charges that the MLBPA “exceeded the scope of its statutory authority under the National Labor Relations Act.”

According to the suit, Velasquez was threatened with decertification and quit the company. With Velasquez quitting and Arroyo having his certification revoked, that apparently left Rimas with no one with the right to represent players. Per the lawsuit, entertainment attorneys Oswaldo Rossi, John Baldivia and Jimmy Barnes were seeking certification but were told by an MLBPA lawyer that “certifications will be conditioned on your agreement not to work for or with Rimas Sports, represent Rimas Sports clients.” The suit describes this as an “unprecedented condition imposed on them (that) is not part of the MLBPA Regulations” and says that “the intended effect of the MLBPA’s actions was precisely to eliminate the Rimas Companies from participating altogether in the sports agency market for MLB and MiLB players.”

It also accuses the MLBPA of “blanketly prohibiting any MLBPA certified agents from affiliating with Rimas Sports and Rimas Entertainment in any capacity.” They say this will prevent Rimas Entertainment, the non-sports part, from “contracting with clients who may wish to secure branding, sponsorship or endorsement deals” and that “these restrictions extend well beyond the scope of the MLBPA’s authority to regulate its agents.” Topps, the card company, evidently told Rimas that they were unable to discuss sponsorship deals relating to their clients.

Prior to the sanctions, Rimas was able to attract some recognizable big league names to its roster, including Francisco Alvarez, Ezequiel Tovar, Wilmer Flores and his brother Wilmer Flores. The most notable contract Rimas completed in the year after their forming was the seven-year, $63.5MM extension for Tovar. The lawsuit lists the inability to continue negotiating an extension for Alvarez among the harms done to the company by the MLBPA, as well as losing the opportunity to sign Ronald Acuña Jr.

MLB Announces Partnership With Roku For Sunday Broadcasts

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May 16: MLB will get $30MM from Roku over three years for this deal, per Evan Drellich of The Athletic. That will be $8MM in the first year, $10MM in the second and $12MM in the third. That’s well below what Peacock had been paying previously but right in line with what Peacock was trying to negotiate down to. He also notes that Roku has 120 million subscribers, according to the announcement from the company and the league. A report from Tony Maglio of IndieWire in March listed Peacock’s subscriber tally as 31 million.

May 13: MLB announced that it has officially reached a deal with Roku to broadcast Sunday games. The first game of the new multi-year deal will be this Sunday May 19.

The league previously had a deal with Peacock to broadcast early Sunday games. It was reported back in April that the Peacock partnership was likely ending. Peacock evidently was willing to continue the arrangement at a lower price point than the $30MM they had been paying annually. Later reporting indicated they wanted to renegotiate the deal to around $10MM. However, MLB was close to lining up another pact with a different platform. Shortly thereafter, further reporting indicated that Roku was likely to be the new platform.

Now that the Roku deal is official, the details show it will be slightly different than the Peacock arrangement. Previously, the “Sunday Leadoff” games on Peacock all started shortly after 11:30am or just after noon Eastern, with the other games starting at least 90 minutes later to give Peacock a window of exclusivity. That will be the case with some of the contests on Roku this year, but not all. Here is the full slate, with all times ET:

  • May 19, Red Sox @ Cardinals, 1:05pm
  • May 26, Blue Jays @ Tigers, 11:35am
  • June 2, Twins @ Astros, 1:05pm
  • June 9, Giants @ Rangers, 1:05pm
  • June 16, Cardinals @ Cubs, 1:05pm
  • June 23, Diamondbacks @ Phillies, 11:35am
  • June 30, Pirates @ Braves, 11:35am
  • July 7, Diamondbacks @ Padres, 4:10pm
  • July 14, Yankees @ Orioles, 11:35am
  • July 21, Brewers @ Twins, 1:05pm
  • July 28, Reds @ Rays, 11:35am
  • August 4, Giants @ Reds, 12:05pm
  • August 11, Angels @ Nationals, 11:35am
  • August 18, Marlins @ Mets, 12:05pm
  • August 25, Nationals @ Braves, 12:05pm
  • September 1, Dodgers @ Diamondbacks, 4:10pm
  • September 8, Rays @ Orioles, 12:05pm
  • September 15, Reds @ Twins, 1:05pm

Another change from the Peacock arrangement is that the games will be free, with no subscription required. There are no blackouts for Roku or MLB.TV users. The full details of how to access the games are provided by Brian Murphy of MLB.com.

Since there’s less of a focus on exclusivity and the accessibility is greater than under the Peacock, it seems that Roku and MLB are more focused on building the brand and fan interest, a sentiment that is present in statement from both parties.

“As television programming, live sports, and the leagues have fragmented across networks, apps, and multiple packages, Roku—home to all of them—plays an increasingly crucial role for viewers and advertisers,” said Charlie Collier, President, Roku Media, quoted in the MLB press release. “With this deal, Roku delivers free, live, weekly Sunday baseball and 24/7 baseball curation, destinations, and channels across our platform. The lead-in to all of television is now the lead-off for Sunday baseball as well. It’s a terrific partnership.”

“With free games available to anyone, MLB games on Roku will be widely accessible to fans,” said Noah Garden, MLB Deputy Commissioner, Business and Media, also from the statement. “Since Roku serves as an entertainment gateway for millions, this partnership offers a valuable new promotional and distribution platform for MLB games and content.”

Additionally, the broadcast teams will be “market-focused,” according to the announcement. The full slate of broadcasters wasn’t announced, but Chip Caray, Will Middlebrooks and Alexa Datt are listed for the first game between Boston and St. Louis. Since Caray and Datt cover the Cards and Middlebrooks the Red Sox, perhaps each game will feature a mix of broadcasters from both teams, though that’s speculation.

In addition to the live games, there will be an MLB Zone which “will include a more robust MLB FAST channel, with premium sports content around the clock including up-to-date highlights, MLB Game of the Week replays, Minor League Baseball game replays, and other baseball content.”

Ken Waldichuk Undergoes Tommy John Surgery

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May 16: The A’s announced Thursday that Waldichuk’s surgery repaired his flexor tendon and also reconstructed his left ulnar collateral ligament (in other words, Tommy John surgery). As we’ve seen with increasing frequency in recent months, Waldichuk opted for a hybrid Tommy John/internal brace procedure in hopes of prolonging the lifespan of his new elbow ligament. He’ll miss the remainder of the 2024 season and likely be sidelined for the bulk of the first half of the 2025 campaign.

May 13: Athletics left-hander Ken Waldichuk is slated for elbow surgery on Wednesday, per Martín Gallegos of MLB.com on X, though the club is not providing any details until after the procedure. Additionally, the club is going to select right-hander Aaron Brooks to start Wednesday’s contest, per Gallegos on X. Brooks isn’t on the 40-man roster and will need to be added.

The A’s announced in December that Waldichuk was going through a non-surgical rehab for a strained left flexor tendon and sprained ulnar collateral ligament in his left elbow. That news came from out of the blue, as the lefty did not spend any time on the injured list in 2023, making 22 starts and 13 relief appearances. He was transferred to the 60-day injured list when the club signed Scott Alexander in February.

Waldichuk tried ramping up a throwing program in April but didn’t seem to make much progress there. Gallegos relayed on X last week that the lefty would be seeing Dr. Neal ElAttrache today. It seems the renowned surgeon recommended that Waldichuk go under the knife, though the full extent of the procedure won’t be publicly known for a few more days.

Since Waldichuk had a UCL sprain, it seems fair to speculate that he may be in line for Tommy John surgery, which would obviously be bad news for him and the club. Acquired from the Yankees as part of the 2022 Frankie Montas trade, Waldichuk has tossed 175 2/3 innings at the big league level since that deal. His 5.28 earned run average in that time wasn’t especially impressive but his 21% strikeout rate, 10% walk rate and 39% ground ball rate were all close to league averages.

The club surely hoped he could progress towards even better results going forward. He tossed 95 innings in the minors in 2022, most of it in Triple-A, with a 2.84 ERA, 34.5% strikeout rate and 9.1% walk rate. Now it seems possible that 2024 could be a lost season, rather than one that saw him take a step up as a major league pitcher. He’s currently on pace to qualify for arbitration after 2025 and reach free agency after 2028.

Waldichuk is one of several Oakland starters currently on the injured list. Freddy Tarnok, Luis Medina, Joe Boyle and Paul Blackburn are also on the shelf, with Blackburn landing there earlier today due to a stress reaction of the fifth metatarsal of his right foot. Gallegos relays that Blackburn will be in a walking boot for at least two weeks, making his future timeline unclear.

Alex Wood is also battling a shoulder injury, though it’s not yet clear if he will go on the injured list as well. If he does end up missing time, the rotation will be left with just Ross Stripling and JP Sears as its consistent members. Joey Estes was recently recalled and made one decent start, allowing one earned run in five innings, though he had a 6.04 ERA in Triple-A before being recalled.

To help bolster that group, the A’s will call upon the 34-year-old Brooks. Signed to a minor league deal in the winter, Brooks has made eight Triple-A starts this year with a 4.57 ERA. His 16.8% strikeout rate isn’t strong but he has walked just 5.3% of hitters who have stepped to the plate while getting grounders on 49.6% of balls in play.

The righty has 180 innings of majors league experience under his belt, though he’s a few years removed from most of it. He appeared for the Royals, A’s and Orioles over the 2014-2019 period before spending 2020 and 2021 with the Kia Tigers in the KBO. He posted a 2.79 ERA in Korea and then came back to North America to sign with the Cardinals for 2022. He pitched just 9 1/3 innings that year with a 7.71 ERA before getting outrighted off the roster.

He spent last year with the Padres on a minor league deal, posting a 4.95 ERA for that club’s Triple-A team. He then got a minor league deal with the A’s, which has led to this week’s return to the big leagues.

Pirates Trade Roansy Contreras To Angels

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1:50pm: The Angels sent cash to the Pirates in the deal, reports Andrew Destin of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

1:18pm: The Angels are acquiring right-hander Roansy Contreras in a trade with the Pirates, reports Alex Stumpf of MLB.com. Pittsburgh designated Contreras for assignment five days ago.

The Halos have an open 40-man roster spot after designating lefty Amir Garrett for assignment last night, and they already cleared a 26-man roster spot earlier today when they announced that utilityman Niko Goodrum and righty Davis Daniel were optioned to Triple-A Salt Lake, with infielder Luis Rengifo coming off the injured list. A second 26-man roster move wasn’t revealed at the time, but it now seems that’ll go to Contreras, who’s out of minor league  and thus cannot be sent to Triple-A himself.

Still just 24 years old, Contreras was the headline prospect going from the Yankees to the Pirates in the 2020-21 offseason trade that sent Jameson Taillon to the Bronx. At the time of the swap, Contreras was widely regarded among the top-100 minor leaguers in the sport, and through the early portion of his career, the reasons for his prospect fanfare were apparent. Contreras debuted as a 21-year-old late in the 2021 season and tossed three shutout innings, then went on to make 18 starts and another three relief appearances for the 2022 Pirates. In all, he pitched 98 innings with a 3.67 ERA, 21.4% strikeout rate and 9.5% walk rate in the majors — all before celebrating his 23rd birthday.

That’s a fine start to any big league career, and as recently as April 2023, Contreras looked like a foundational rotation piece alongside Mitch Keller. The 2023 season went about as poorly for Contreras  as possible, however. He made 11 starts between April and mid-June — struggling so much that the Pirates dropped him to the bullpen. Through Contreras’ first 56 1/3 frames last year, he was torched for a 5.91 ERA with a greatly reduced 17.4% strikeout rate and a bloated 10.1% walk rate. His fastball velocity, which sat just shy of 96 mph from 2021-22, averaged a noticeably lesser 94.4 mph. Statcast painted the picture of a right-hander who opponents had little problem squaring up: 90.3 mph average exit velocity, 9% barrel rate, 42.7% hard-hit rate.

The 2024 season hasn’t brought better results. Despite a full-time move to the ’pen, Contreras’ 94.7 mph average fastball is still more than a mile per hour slower than his 2021-22 velocity out of the rotation. His 21.6% strikeout rate is a slight uptick from last year’s 21.4% mark, but his 10.8% walk rate is a career-high. His Statcast profile looks quite similar to the rough numbers he posted as a starter in 2023: 90.8 mph average exit velocity, 10% barrel rate, 42% hard-hit rate. Opponents hit .292/.370/.477 against Contreras this season. He’s sitting on a respectable enough 4.41 ERA, but his 5.01 FIP doesn’t match even that modest number. (His 4.13 SIERA is a bit more optimistic, forecasting some improvement in terms of homer-to-flyball ratio.)

Since the Pirates couldn’t send Contreras to the minors without first passing him through waivers, the club opted to DFA him. It’s clear they no longer viewed Contreras as a viable candidate to take a rotation spot alongside Keller, Paul Skenes, Jared Jones and veteran Martin Perez. With several pitching prospects having leapfrogged Contreras on the depth chart and no set-in-stone place in the team’s bullpen, the decision was made to designate him and evaluate other options. The cash return on the swap will surely frustrate Pirates fans, but that negligible return also speaks to the manner in which the leaguewide perception of Contreras has changed over the past 13 to 14 months.

The Angels have a full five-man rotation — Patrick Sandoval, Reid Detmers, Griffin Canning, Tyler Anderson, Jose Soriano — so it seems likely they’ll plug Contreras into the bullpen for the time being. It’s possible he’ll eventually get a look as a starter, with injuries always standing as an inevitability plus some notable workload concerns for Soriano, who’s making the transition from reliever to starting pitcher this season.

Ryan McMahon Could Be The Next Rockies Test Case

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The Rockies finished off a sweep of the Padres yesterday and hold MLB's longest active win streak at seven games. It's their best stretch in five years and has pulled them back ahead of the Marlins at the bottom of the National League.

Colorado is still 13 games below .500, though, leaving them without realistic postseason aspirations. Other teams will call on some of their veteran players throughout the summer. At the top of the list of interesting trade candidates is Ryan McMahon, whose early-season performance should get him some consideration for the first All-Star nod of his career.

McMahon has been a productive player for a few years. He's a plus defender at third base who'll top 20 home runs on an annual basis. While he strikes out a fair amount, he draws enough walks to keep a respectable on-base percentage. After adjusting for his home park, McMahon has been a slightly below-average hitter who provides plenty of defensive value -- a good everyday infielder who's a little shy of being a star.

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Astros Trade Brandon Bielak To Athletics

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The Astros traded right-hander Brandon Bielak to the Athletics in exchange for cash, per a team announcement. Houston designated him for assignment last week. The A’s designated left-hander Easton Lucas for assignment to open a spot on the 40-man roster.

Bielak, 28, struggled with the ’Stros this season, posting a 5.71 earned run average in ten appearances (17 1/3 innings). His 10.8% strikeout rate and 5.5% swinging-strike rate both stand as career-low marks.

That said, Bielak was a solid swingman in three prior seasons with Houston. From 2021-23, he notched a 4.05 ERA over the life of 142 1/3 innings, fanning a combined 19.2% of his opponents against a 9.8% walk rate. The former 11th-round pick made 15 starts and tallied another 33 relief appearances during that time. He’s not a flamethrower, but Bielak averaged 93.4 mph on his heater during that three-year stint and kept the ball on the ground at a strong 48.1% clip. He’s posted similar numbers in parts of four Triple-A campaigns, recording a 3.98 ERA with a 24.3% strikeout rate and 9.6% walk rate through 246 2/3 frames.

Bielak is out of minor league options, so he’ll jump right onto the Oakland staff. The A’s have placed starters Joe Boyle (back strain), Paul Blackburn (stress reaction in foot) and Alex Wood (shoulder tendinitis) on the injured list this month. They also announced that injured lefty Ken Waldichuk is done for the season due to elbow surgery. The addition of Bielak will help replenish some of that depth, whether he steps right into the rotation or provides a long-relief option. Rule 5 righty Mitch Spence has been Oakland’s primary long man this year, but he’s pitched well and could feasibly step into the rotation himself.

Because he has just 2.110 years of big league service, Bielak can be controlled for three more years beyond the current season. He’ll need to carve out a role for himself on the Athletics’ roster and get back to his 2021-23 form if that’s to even become a factor, but there’s potential for him to be a multi-year acquisition if Bielak can get back on track. He’ll be arbitration-eligible for the first time this winter and shouldn’t see an especially large raise, given his role as a low-leverage swingman and occasional back-end starter.

The addition of Bielak to the roster comes at the expense of the 27-year-old Lucas, who made his big league debut with the A’s last year but has only seen 10 1/3 total innings in the majors. It’s been a struggle in that small sample, to say the least. Lucas has been charged with a dozen earned runs (10.45 ERA) on 18 hits and a dozen walks with 13 strikeouts. A massive .459 average on balls in play has contributed to his ugly numbers, but Lucas hasn’t done himself any favors by walking just over 12% of his opponents.

As one would expect, things have gone better in the upper minors. Lucas split the 2023 season between Double-A and Triple-A, posting a combined 3.86 ERA in 46 2/3 innings. He punched out 25.8% of opponents against an 8.6% walk rate. The southpaw posted a 2.87 ERA in 15 2/3 innings of Triple-A work this year as well — albeit with just 13 strikeouts against six unintentional walks. The A’s acquired Lucas from the Orioles last July in the trade sending righty Shintaro Fujinami back to Baltimore.

Oakland selected Lucas to the 40-man roster last summer but passed him unclaimed through outright waivers just a couple months later, in November. Because of that prior outright assignment, he’ll have the right to reject a minor league assignment in favor of free agency even if he goes unclaimed a second time. As such, there’s a chance that today’s DFA ends his time with the A’s organization less than a year after he was acquired in a deadline swap.

Eric Lauer Opts Out Of Pirates Deal

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Left-hander Eric Lauer exercised an out clause in his minor league deal with thee Pirates and has been granted his release, tweets Kevin Gorman of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. He’s once again a free agent.

Lauer, 29 next month, pitched well for most of his time in Indianapolis, though his ERA ballooned from 3.95 to 5.52 after he was tagged for six runs through just two innings in his final appearance there. He’d signed a minor league contract back on March 7 after being non-tendered by the Brewers earlier in the offseason.

Though Lauer looked well on his way to a breakout with the Brew Crew in 2021 after adding a slider to his arsenal, his 2023 campaign was a disaster. From 2021-22, Lauer pitched to a 3.47 ERA in 277 1/3 innings, showing strong strikeout and walk rates along the way — particularly after incorporating that new breaking ball into his repertoire. However, last year saw the southpaw post a grisly 6.46 ERA in 46 2/3 innings. The Brewers optioned him to Triple-A Nashville in hopes of getting him right, but he served up a 5.15 ERA there as well.

Lauer incurred both shoulder and elbow injuries from 2022-23, so it’s certainly possible he wasn’t pitching at full strength during that miserable 2023 campaign. He lost more than two miles per hour off his heater last year, dropping from a 93.3 mph average in 2022 to just 91.2 mph before he was optioned.

While that ugly final outing in Indy skewed Lauer’s 2024 ERA, he fanned a sharp 29.1% of opponents in his brief stint with the Pirates organization, coupling that mark with a solid 8.7% walk rate. Even if he doesn’t get all the way back to his 2021-22 form, Lauer has a 4.30 earned run average in nearly 600 big league innings — a 4.11 mark if excluding last year’s tough showing. He also only has 4.111 years of big league service time, so if a team signs him and brings him to the majors at some point, he can be controlled through the 2025 season via arbitration (or even through 2026, if his MLB promotion comes with 60 or fewer days remaining on the season’s calendar).

The Opener: Lee, Pirates, Cubs, Trades

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As the 2024 regular season continues, here are three things we’ll be keeping an eye on around the baseball world throughout the day today:

1. Lee receiving second opinion:

Giants center fielder Jung Hoo Lee exited Sunday’s game against the Reds due to a dislocated shoulder suffered while trying to catch a fly ball off the bat of Jeimer Candelario at the wall. Since then, Lee has undergone an MRI that (as noted by MLB.com’s Maria Guardado) that revealed structural damage in his shoulder. That’s a worrisome discovery, but Lee and the Giants will not determine next steps until a visit with Dr. Neal ElAttrache in Los Angeles that’s scheduled for later today. The 25-year-old has flashed strong defense in the outfield while slashing .262/.310/.331 (89 wRC+) in his first taste of big league action.

2. Series Preview: Pirates @ Cubs

Thanks to a quirk in this year’s schedule, the Pirates and Cubs are set to face each other their second series over the past week with a four-game set starting at Wrigley Field this afternoon. Over the weekend, the Cubs took two of three from Pittsburgh in a series that notably included the debut of top pitching prospect Paul Skenes, who ultimately allowed three runs in four innings of work but struck out seven batters in his first big league appearance.

Skenes will get a second bite at the apple in Chicago, but not before fellow youngster Jared Jones (2.68 ERA through eight starts) takes on Cubs ace hurler Justin Steele (4.73 ERA through three starts) this afternoon. On Friday, Skenes (6.75 ERA) will face veteran righty Kyle Hendricks (10.04 ERA), and the series will wrap up over the weekend with a pair of tough match ups for the Pirates as Bailey Falter (4.15 ERA) and Mitch Keller (3.93 ERA) face off against Shota Imanaga (0.96 ERA) and Jameson Taillon (1.61 ERA) respectively.

3. Pending DFA resolutions:

Astros right-hander Brandon Bielak and Pirates right-hander Roansy Contreras were both designated for assignment five days ago. While the DFA window technically lasts for a whole week, outright waivers are typically a 48-hour process, meaning if either player is going to be traded it’ll very likely be today. If no trades are agreed upon, they’ll be run through the waiver wire and made available to all 29 other clubs.

The 28-year-old Bielak pitched  to a 4.05 ERA in 142 1/3 innings from 2021-23, striking out 19.2% of his opponents against a 9.8% walk rate. Metrics like FIP (4.76) and SIERA (4.65) aren’t as bullish on that stretch as his ERA, but he’s a fairly experienced righty who’s familiar pitching in long relief and out of the rotation. Meanwhile, Contreras is a former top-100 prospect who gave the Bucs 98 innings of 3.67 ERA ball to begin his career. He’s since struggled and been dropped to the bullpen, however. Both pitchers are out of minor league options, so any team that acquires either pitcher will need to add him directly to the MLB pitching staff in some role.

White Sox Acquire Corey Julks From Astros

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The Astros have traded outfielder Corey Julks to the White Sox, per announcements from both clubs. The Astros, who designated Julks for assignment last week, will receive minor league right-hander Luis Rodriguez in return. Julks has been optioned to Triple-A Charlotte. To open a 40-man spot for Julks, the Sox designated outfielder Rafael Ortega for assignment and recalled outfielder Dominic Fletcher to take Ortega’s spot on the active roster.

Julks, 28, was an eighth-round pick of the Astros back in 2017 and wasn’t really considered a very noteworthy prospect in the years following that selection. He put himself on the radar with a strong 2022 season, hitting 31 home runs and stealing 22 bases in 130 Triple-A games. In the hitter-friendly environment of the Pacific Coast League, his .270/.351/.503 batting line led to a 108 wRC+.

That got him to the big leagues in 2023 but he didn’t immediately hit the ground running in the majors. He stepped to the plate 323 times for the Astros last year and hit .245/.297/.352 for a wRC+ of 80, though he also stole 15 bases and got solid grades for his outfield defense.

He’s been back at Triple-A this year and has another five home runs and six more steals in 31 games. His 12.8% walk rate is a few points higher than the 9.5% rate he had in 2022. His overall production this year is considered to be around league average for the PCL, but it’s an intriguing combination of skills.

Despite the interesting stats, Julks is 28 years old now and was blocked by a crowded outfield mix in Houston, so they nudged him off their roster. The White Sox have far more of a need and more of an ability to take a chance on a player like Julks, given their status as a rebuilding club.

Giving playing time to a veteran can yield to a positive result, as the Sox just recently traded Robbie Grossman to the Rangers for Anthony Hoopii-Tuionetoa. A similar path with a player like Ortega would have been ideal but he hit .071/.176/.071 in his 17 plate appearances for the Sox in recent weeks and wasn’t trending towards any kind of Grossman-like return. The Sox decided it was a better use of a roster spot to grab Julks and see how things go with him, while giving Ortega’s spot on the active roster to Fletcher.

Julks still has two options, meaning he could potentially be sent to Triple-A for the rest of this year and one more. He also has less than a year of service time, meaning he can be cheaply retained for the foreseeable future.

For now, Fletcher will share the big league playing time with guys like Andrew Benintendi, Tommy Pham and Gavin Sheets. Pham is on a one-year deal and will be a trade candidate this summer. Sheets could perhaps be on the block as well since he’ll reach arbitration for the first time this winter and has been in good form this year. That could perhaps open some playing time for Julks later in the year, though the eventual return of Luis Robert Jr. from the injured list will also be a factor. Oscar Colás and Zach DeLoach are also on the 40-man but neither is performing especially well on optional assignment right now.

For the Astros, they have  Kyle Tucker, Yordan Alvarez, Chas McCormick, Jake Meyers, Mauricio Dubon, Joey Loperfido and Trey Cabbage in their outfield mix, with prospect Pedro León banging on the door as well. Since pitching depth is a greater concern for them, they recently grabbed Alex Speas off waivers and let go of Julks.

By doing so, they were at least able to add a pitching prospect to their system. The 20-year-old Rodriguez tossed 33 innings over 15 appearances in the Dominican Summer League last year with a 3.55 earned run average, 32.6% strikeout rate and 4.3% walk rate. In January, he got a brief mention on the FanGraphs list of top White Sox prospect from Eric Longenhagen and Tess Taruskin. They noted that Rodriguez has a fastball in the 88-90 miles per hour range and a strong curveball.

The Sox will now have a week to trade Ortega or pass him through waivers. He was signed to a minor league deal this winter and added to the roster in late April. He has received sporadic playing time which hasn’t gone well for him, as mentioned. He has enough service time that he can reject an outright assignment and elect free agency. He had a strong season with the Cubs in 2021, hitting .291/.360/.463 while stealing 12 bases and spending a lot of time in center field. But he hit .241/.331/.358 the next year and got non-tendered, with only limited big league looks since then.

Latest On Diamond Sports Group Bankruptcy

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Attorneys for MLB (as well as representatives for the NHL and NBA) fired their latest salvos at Diamond Sports Group during a Wednesday hearing in the broadcasting company’s ongoing bankruptcy proceedings. Evan Drellich of the Athletic and Alden González of ESPN were among those to cover the developments.

The most recent source of frustration is Diamond’s stalled negotiations with Comcast (Xfinity). The sides didn’t reach agreement on a new contract before May 1, leading Comcast to pull Diamond’s Bally Sports channels off the air at the start of the month. That has left Xfinity subscribers without the ability to watch in-market games for the 12 teams carried by Diamond. (Diamond has reached agreements with each of Charter, DirecTV and Cox.)

That’s understandably irritating for both the impacted fans and the league itself. “We are coming into the middle of yet another season where Diamond is an undependable partner,” an attorney for MLB said in today’s hearing. “This is not a deal that Major League Baseball and its clubs have signed up for. … It’s been two full weeks since carriage has been dropped by Comcast, and there is not a word of when it might get picked up, and on what terms.”

MLB has not filed any formal objection with the court, and it’s not clear if they’re considering doing so. Yet the Diamond/Comcast dispute only adds to MLB’s longstanding questions about Diamond’s viability. DSG reached a restructuring/streaming deal with Amazon in an effort to sustain operations past 2024. MLB officials have made no secret of their skepticism about the long-term significance of that partnership.

Representatives for Diamond tried to assuage some of those concerns by telling the court they’re close to a naming rights deal that will change the Bally Sports moniker to a new brand for 2025 and beyond. An attorney for Diamond called the ongoing dispute with Xfinity “disappointing” but said the company “(remains) optimistic” the sides will be able to work an agreement.

The court still needs to formally approve Diamond’s restructuring plan to end the bankruptcy proceedings. The confirmation hearing is currently scheduled for June 18.

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