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Dodgers To Select Eduardo Salazar

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The Dodgers are calling up right-hander Eduardo Salazar, reports Fabian Ardaya of The Athletic. The club has a full 40-man roster and the righty is not yet on it, so a corresponding move will be required to add him.

Salazar, 26, signed a minor league deal with the Dodgers in the offseason after previously having spent his entire career in the Reds’ organization. He was able to make his major league debut last year with Cincinnati, allowing 11 earned runs in 12 1/3 innings. He struck out five opponents but also allowed 11 hits, gave out five walks and hit four batters.

He was outrighted off the Reds’ roster in August and was able to elect minor league free agency at season’s end. The Dodgers clearly saw something they liked, perhaps the ability to generate ground balls. Salazar averaged over 93 miles per hour on both his four-seam fastball and his sinker, while also offering a slider and a changeup. He got grounders at a 51.1% clip in his brief time in the majors and even more than that in the minors last year.

Salazar has made three Triple-A starts already this year, having thrown 15 2/3 innings with a 2.87 ERA. His 14.3% strikeout rate is nothing special but his 7.9% walk rate is fine while opponents have pounded the ball into the dirt at a 58.3% clip.

The Dodgers’ pitching staff is getting a bit squeezed. They already opened the season with Clayton Kershaw, Walker Buehler, Tony Gonsolin, Dustin May, Emmet Sheehan, Brusdar Graterol and Blake Treinen on the injured list. In recent days, Bobby Miller and Connor Brogdon have joined them.

The Dodgers have a four-man rotation of Tyler Glasnow, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Gavin Stone and James Paxton but nonetheless are planning on two straight bullpen games today and tomorrow. That’s due to Miller’s recent IL stint and the plan to keep Yamamoto on a weekly schedule for now as he transfers from Japan to North America. Glasnow, Paxton and Stone pitched in the last three days and won’t be available for the next two games either.

With an off-day on Thursday, the club is trying to fight through the next two contests as best they can, with guys like Landon Knack, Kyle Hurt, Ricky Vanasco and Salazar all being rotated through the roster either today or tomorrow. Pitchers who were already in the mix like Michael Grove and Ryan Yarbrough could be called upon to eat some innings as well.

Taking all that into consideration, it’s possible Salazar is slated for a short stay in the big leagues but he has a couple of options and could therefore be sent back to Triple-A without being exposed to waivers.

Brewers Place Christian Yelich On Injured List Due To Back Strain

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The Brewers announced that outfielder Christian Yelich has been placed on the 10-day injured list, retroactive to April 13, due to a low back strain. Infielder/outfielder Owen Miller was recalled as the corresponding move.

Yelich, 32, last played on Friday with back soreness keeping him out of the lineup in recent days. Since IL stints can be backdated by three days as long as a player doesn’t play, the club waited to see how he responded to a bit of time off. It seems he is still sore enough that he’ll need a bit more time on the shelf, but the backdating means he could potentially be back in a week.

Though the move isn’t surprising and his absence may be brief, it’s nonetheless frustrating for the Brew Crew. Yelich hit a torrid .333/.422/.744 in his first 11 games, launching five home runs in that time. He wasn’t going to be able to maintain that forever but it’s still unfortunate that he was dragged down in the middle of such a heater.

With outfielder Garrett Mitchell also on the injured list, Milwaukee has mostly been using Jackson Chourio, Blake Perkins and Sal Frelick as their regular outfielders in recent days with Joey Wiemer in a fourth outfielder role.

The recall of Miller gives them a versatile bench piece for the time being. Since the start of 2022, he has played all of the non-shortstop infield positions as well as the outfield corners. He’s hit just .241/.289/.349 in that time but has 17 stolen bases in 19 tries and has received solid grades for his glovework.

Braves Place Ozzie Albies On Injured List With Toe Fracture

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The Braves announced that infielder Ozzie Albies has been placed on the 10-day injured list with a right great toe fracture. Infielder David Fletcher has been selected to take his place on the roster. Atlanta had a couple of vacancies on its 40-man roster and won’t need to make a corresponding move in that regard.

Albies was hit on the toe by a pitch in the second inning of last night’s game against the Astros. He stayed in the game and played the rest of it, but it appears that some post-game testing revealed a fracture. The fact that he didn’t immediately leave the contest perhaps suggests it will be a brief stint on the IL, but the club hasn’t yet provided any estimates of that nature.

For however long he’s out, it will be a blow the club. Albies has been a consistently strong hitter and was out to a hot start this year. He’s hit .273/.326/.479 in his career but currently sits on a robust slash of .317/.386/.492 in 2024.

Losing that kind of production would be unwelcome at any time but it’s compounded by the fact that Atlanta is also without right-hander Spencer Strider and catcher Sean Murphy. Strider required season-ending elbow surgery recently while Murphy still has an uncertain timeline as he works his way back from an oblique strain. Even if Albies is slated for a short stint on the IL, having three key contributors all out at the same time isn’t ideal.

In the meantime, the club has Luis Guillorme on the roster and has now added Fletcher as well, with those two the likeliest to cover the keystone while Albies is out. Fletcher was acquired from the Angels in December in a move that was largely motivated by financial concerns. Atlanta took on the contracts of Fletcher and Max Stassi while shipping out Evan White and Tyler Thomas. Stassi was quickly traded to the White Sox and Fletcher was outrighted off the roster.

Atlanta took on some extra money here in 2024 by making that deal but will be paying slightly less in 2025 and 2026, while it also allowed them to retain some non-roster infield depth in the form of Fletcher. They knew this would be the case thanks to the peculiar specificity of Fletcher’s situation.

Fletcher has long been a strong defender at multiple positions but with a contact-oriented approach at the plate that generally leads to subpar offense. He had a strong performance in the shortened 2020 season, hitting .319/.376/.425 for a wRC+ of 121. The Halos decided to bank on that as a breakout by signing Fletcher to a five-year, $26MM extension going into 2021.

Unfortunately, his production dipped back down and he got nudged out of playing time for the Angels, with that 2020 season looking like a clear outlier. Though his 9.5% career strikeout rate is much stronger than league average, he’s also only walked at a 6.2% clip and hit just 16 home runs in 2,180 plate appearances. He’s hit .277/.323/.359 in his career and just .259/.296/.327 since the 2020 season.

Twice last year, the Angels passed Fletcher through waivers unclaimed, hardly a surprising outcome since any claiming club would have to take on the remainder of the contract. Since Fletcher had over three years of service time, he had the right to reject an outright assignment and elect free agency. However, since he has less than five years of service time, exercising that right would mean forfeiting what’s left of his deal. He obviously waived that right and stayed with the club, getting added back to the roster at a later date both times.

As mentioned, Atlanta also outrighted him off the roster after acquiring him, since they were undoubtedly aware of Fletcher’s position. But now the injury to Albies has opened the door for him to get back to the majors. His service time count currently sits at four years and 168 days. Since a new year rolls over at 172 days, Fletcher is just four days away from reaching the five-year plateau.

Assuming he sticks on the roster while Albies is out, that will change his status significantly. If he’s bumped off the roster again in a few weeks and clears waivers, then he could elect free agency without sacrificing any of the money on his contract. That would allow him to seek out the best situation for himself while a signing club would only have to pay him the prorated league minimum, with Atlanta staying on the hook for the remainder. He’s making $6MM this year and $6.5MM next year with an $8MM club option for 2026 that comes with a $1.5MM buyout.

For now, Fletcher will provide Atlanta with some depth all over the diamond, as he has played the three infield positions to the left of first base as well as the outfield corners, getting strong marks wherever he’s lined up.

Blue Jays Designate Mitch White For Assignment

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The Blue Jays announced today that right-handers Jordan Romano and Erik Swanson have been activated off the injured list. In corresponding moves, they optioned righty Nate Pearson to Triple-A and designated righty Mitch White for assignment.

Romano and Swanson were key pieces of the Toronto bullpen last year but they haven’t been able to contribute to the club thus far in 2024. During the spring, Romano had some inflammation in his elbow while Swanson had some tightness in his forearm, leading both to start the season on the injured list.

With those two unavailable, the club has turned to Yimi García and Chad Green for most of the high-leverage work, with those two filling in admirably. García has a 1.17 earned run average through seven appearances, with 11 strikeouts to go with just one walk. Green, meanwhile, has a 2.35 ERA in his seven appearances, with seven punchies and two walks.

Despite that strong work from those two, the Jays are surely glad to get Romano and Swanson back. Romano has emerged as the club’s closer over the past three years, which included saving 36 games in each of the past two campaigns while keeping his ERA under 3.00 in each. Swanson had 29 holds and four saves last year while posting a 2.97 ERA on the season. Those two, along with García and Green, give the Jays a strong four-headed bullpen mix to finish out games.

The health of that group has nudged White off the roster. Now 29, White was a second-round pick of the Dodgers back in 2016 and was considered by Baseball America to be the #69 prospect in the league in 2018. The Jays acquired him in a 2022 deadline deal alongside Alex De Jesus, with prospects Nick Frasso and Moises Brito going the other way.

At the time of that deal, White had thrown 105 2/3 big league innings with a 3.58 ERA, 22% strikeout rate and 8.3% walk rate. Unfortunately, the jersey swap corresponded with an immediate downturn in his results. White tossed 43 innings for the Jays in 2022 with a 7.74 ERA and 15.3% strikeout rate. There was a bit of bad luck in there, as his .368 batting average on balls in play and 54.3% strand rate were both on the unfortunate side, which is why his FIP was 3.76 in that time and his SIERA 4.70.

Luck or not, the poor results meant the Jays couldn’t guarantee a rotation spot to White going into 2023. At that time, four rotation spots were taken by Alek Manoah, Kevin Gausman, José Berríos and Chris Bassitt. White went into Spring Training battling Yusei Kikuchi for the final spot but dealt with some shoulder and elbow injuries and had to start the season on the IL. By the time he got back, there was no rotation spot for him and he worked a long relief role in the bullpen.

He didn’t take to that move, posting a 7.11 ERA in 10 outings before being designated for assignment. The 29 other clubs passed on the chance to grab him off waivers and he was sent outright to Triple-A. He got stretched out in Buffalo and finished the season in good form, with a 1.89 ERA over his last 33 1/3 innings, pairing a 31.4% strikeout rate in that time with a 10.2% walk rate.

The Jays added him back to the 40-man in November to prevent him from reaching minor league free agency, which put him in a similar spot to where he was a year prior, coming into spring out of options and battling for a spot. The Jays had to put Manoah on the IL this spring, which opened a rotation spot, but Bowden Francis beat White for that gig. Now that Yariel Rodríguez has also been stretched out and has seemingly bumped Francis from the rotation, White has been moved even further back. He has only made four long relief appearances this year but his uninspiring 5.40 ERA in those surely didn’t help him.

White has now been bumped off the roster yet again and the Jays will have one week to work out a trade or pass him through waivers. Since he cleared waivers last year, doing so again would give him the right to elect free agency. It’s possible he may garner interest based on his past results and strong finish at Triple-A last year. The fact that he’s out of options means that he needs an active roster spot somewhere, but he has less than three years of service time, meaning he can be controlled for three more seasons beyond this one.

A number of teams around the league are dealing with significant pitching injuries and it was less than a week ago that the Jays managed to flip Wes Parsons to the Guardians for international bonus pool space. Parsons is optionable but is more than two years older than White and doesn’t have the same past prospect pedigree.

Carl Erskine Passes Away

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Former big league right-hander Carl Erskine passed away today after a brief illness, per multiple sources, including Dana Hunsinger Benbow of The Indianapolis Star. He was 97 years old.

Erskine was born in Anderson, Indiana in 1926. As a boy, he was friends with Johnny Wilson (Wikipedia link), who was black and would go on to play baseball in the Negro leagues as well basketball for the Harlem Globetrotters. Erskine would later mention his friendship with Wilson when the issue of race came up as he shared a locker room with Jackie Robinson.

The young Erskine was signed by the Brooklyn Dodgers and would go on to spend his entire baseball career with that organization, though he played for them in both Brooklyn and Los Angeles. The righty made his debut in 1948, the year after Robinson broke the color barrier. Erskine told Benbow that Robinson once approached him and asked “Hey Erskine, how come you don’t have a problem with this black and white thing?” It was then that Erskine mentioned his friendship with Wilson, telling Robinson: “I didn’t know he was black. He was my buddy. And so I don’t have a problem.”

For his initial season in 1948, Erskine worked a swing role, starting nine of his 17 appearances and tossing 64 innings with a 3.23 earned run average. He would gradually increase his workload in the seasons to come, getting to 79 2/3 in 1949 and then 103 the season after that before getting into the 185-265 range for each season from 1951 to 1956.

It was in that latter stretch that Erskine racked up his most notable career highlights. He made the All-Star team in 1954, a year in which he tossed 260 1/3 innings with a 4.15 ERA. He tossed two no-hitters, one against the Cubs in 1952 and another against the Giants in 1956.

In 1955, Erskine tossed 194 2/3 innings in the regular season with a 3.79 ERA. The Dodgers had made it to the World Series seven times at that point in history but lost each time, including the ’52 and ’53 teams that Erskine was a part of. Erskine’s best World Series performance was in the ’53 series when he struck out 14 batters in Game 3, though the Dodgers eventually lost the series to the Yankees. The Dodgers faced the Yankees again in ’55 and Erskine only tossed three innings in the series but the Dodgers finally emerged victorious to capture the first title in franchise history.

When the Dodgers moved from Brooklyn to Los Angeles for the ’58 season, Erskine went with them, though his career was tailing off by then. He tossed 98 1/3 innings that first year in L.A. with a 5.13 ERA, then had a 7.71 ERA in 23 1/3 frames the next year, which was his final major league action. He finished his playing career with an even ERA of 4.00 in 1,718 2/3 innings.

He returned to Indiana after his playing days and worked various jobs. A profile last year from Tyler Kepler of The New York Times says Erskine “sold insurance, worked as a bank president and coached baseball at Anderson College.” Though perhaps the most notable of his post-playing endeavors was his work with people with developmental disabilities.

Erskine’s son Jimmy was born with Down syndrome, with Carl and his wife Betty deciding to raise him at home, an unusual path in a time when most such cases saw the child sent to an institution of some kind. The couple would later form the Carl and Betty Erskine Society to raise money for the Special Olympics. That charity work led to Carl being given the Buck O’Neil Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum last year.

By all accounts, Erskine was beloved by everyone in the Dodgers’ organization, baseball in general and his community in Indiana. MLBTR joins all of them in sending condolences to the Erskine family and everyone else mourning him today.

Astros Promote Forrest Whitley

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2:28pm: The Astros made it official, announcing Whitley’s recall with Spencer Arrighetti optioned in a corresponding move. Arrighetti’s rotation spot will likely be taken by Justin Verlander, who is expecting to be activated off the injured list shortly.

12:31pm: The Astros are recalling former top prospect Forrest Whitley for his first MLB promotion, reports Michael Schwab of the Juice Box Journal (X link). He’s already on the 40-man roster, so they’ll only need to make a corresponding active roster transaction.

Whitley, now 26, took a circuitous route to the majors. He was a first-round pick in 2016 out of a San Antonio high school. The 6’7″ righty dominated for his first year and a half, pitching his way to Double-A as a teenager. By 2018, he looked the part of a potential ace and the top pitching prospect in the sport.

Things haven’t played out the way Whitley or the Astros envisioned from that point. He was hit with a 50-game suspension for violating the minor league drug policy going into the ’18 season. Whitley battled shoulder issues the following year and lost his feel for the strike zone. The canceled 2020 campaign cost him another year of reps, although Houston nevertheless made the easy call to select him onto the 40-man roster to keep him out of the Rule 5 draft.

Whitley has held that spot ever since, although it didn’t always seem as if that were a guarantee. He underwent Tommy John surgery in March 2021 and posted subpar results when he returned. His control issues resurfaced as he pitched to a 6.53 ERA in the upper minors in 2022. He got off to another rough start last season before sustaining a lat strain that ended his year in May. The Astros were granted a fourth minor league option as a result of Whitley’s injury history.

The front office decided to keep him on the 40-man roster throughout last offseason. They moved him to the bullpen this year upon optioning him to Triple-A Sugar Land. Whitley hasn’t gotten off to a great start, allowing four runs on a trio of homers in three innings, but he’s a fresh arm for a bullpen that has been tasked with 71 innings through the season’s first three weeks. Only the Dodgers and Padres — who leaned heavily on their relief groups during their abbreviated series in Seoul a week before every other team’s Opening Day — have used their bullpens more heavily than Houston has.

While Whitley’s promotion isn’t going to be met with the same level of fanfare as it would have a few years ago, it’s surely rewarding for the righty all the same. It’s the culmination of a nearly eight-year climb through the minors that has been littered with injury setbacks. It could prove to be a fairly brief call — Houston may need to continue cycling through middle relievers until their rotation finds any kind of groove — but he could get the chance to make his debut.

Dodgers To Promote Andy Pages

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The Dodgers are calling up top outfield prospect Andy Pages, as first reported by Francys Romero (X link). The 23-year-old is already on L.A.’s 40-man roster, so they’ll only need to make a corresponding 26-man move, though it’s possible his promotion still leads to a 40-man move. Speculatively speaking, fellow outfielder Taylor Trammell could be at risk with Pages’ ascension to the big leagues, and Trammell is a recent waiver claim who’s out of minor league options.

Pages currently ranks as baseball’s No. 94 overall prospect at MLB.com and No. 95 overall at Baseball America. He garnered additional top-100 fanfare heading into the 2023 season but saw his stock take a bit of a hit due to injury troubles; Pages’ 2023 campaign ended when he underwent surgery to repair a torn labrum in his left shoulder in early June.

That injury came on the heels of Pages’ first promotion to the Triple-A level. He appeared in just one game with the Dodgers’ Oklahoma City affiliate but had turned in a stout .284/.430/.495 batting line in 142 Double-A plate appearances prior to that move up the minor league ladder. The righty-swinging Pages has obliterated Triple-A pitching in the early stages of the 2024 season, tallying 73 plate appearances and recording a .371/.452/.694 slash with five homers, three doubles, a triple, two steals, an 11% walk rate and a 17.8% strikeout rate.

Pages draws praise for his raw power — which couples nicely with a swing and approach geared for lifting the ball — and plate discipline. He can play all three outfield positions, though scouting reports at BA and MLB.com suggest he profiles best in a corner, where he has the speed and instincts to be a capable defender.

The Dodgers’ outfield currently features Teoscar Hernandez in right, with a combination of James Outman, Enrique Hernandez, Chris Taylor and the aforementioned Trammell rounding things out in the other two spots. Jason Heyward is currently on the injured list with a lower back issue, though when healthy, he and Hernandez can be expected to roam the corners most days. Pages could potentially serve as a righty-hitting complement to Heyward and/or Outman, though it shouldn’t come as a surprise if the Dodgers plan to get him more regular work than the short side of a platoon.

Given the timing of the promotion, Pages can’t accrue a full year of big league service time in 2024 — at least not solely by remaining on the roster. Because he was regarded as a top-100 prospect on multiple outlets, he’d qualify for a full year of service time if he finishes in the top two in this year’s National League Rookie of the Year voting. Barring that — and pending future optional assignments bac to the minors, which are a firm possibility — Pages will be controllable all the way through 2030. If he’s in the big leagues to stay, he’ll be a surefire Super Two player who’s eligible for arbitration four times, rather than the standard three, beginning in the 2026-27 offseason.

Twins, Tony Kemp Agree To Minor League Deal

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The Twins are bringing veteran second baseman/left fielder Tony Kemp aboard on a minor league contract, reports Jon Heyman of the New York Post. The Ballengee Group client will presumably head to Triple-A St. Paul to begin his tenure with the organization.

Kemp, 32, began the season with the Orioles but was designated for assignment when Baltimore called up No. 1 overall prospect Jackson Holliday. He went unclaimed on waivers and rejected an outright assignment in favor of free agency. He’ll now join up with a Minnesota club that has seen its infield depth immediately thinned out by injuries.

Minnesota lost star third baseman Royce Lewis to a quad strain in the first game of the season, and shortstop Carlos Correa recently hit the injured list with an oblique strain. That’s pushed utilitymen Willi Castro and Kyle Farmer into more regular roles. Former top prospect Austin Martin has gotten some time on the infield dirt as well, but he’s also being used in the outfield with Max Kepler currently on the injured list due to a knee contusion suffered when fouling a ball into his leg. Jose Miranda, another former top prospect who had a strong debut showing in 2022 before seeing his 2023 campaign ruined by shoulder surgery, is also back in the corner infield mix at the big league level.

While Kemp’s 2023 season was one he’d like to forget — he hit just .209/.303/.304 in 419 plate appearances with Oakland — he was a solid contributor for the A’s from 2020-22. In that time, he hit .252/.341/.361 while playing both second base and left field. Kemp is a career .237/.324/.351 hitter who’s walked in 10.1% of his plate appearances and fanned at just a 13.3% clip. That latter number could hold particular appeal to a Twins club that has been allergic to contact both this year and last. Dating back to 2023, no team in baseball has a higher strikeout rate than Minnesota’s woeful 26.7% clip.

The Opener: Yelich, Blue Jays, MLBTR Chat

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As MLB’s regular season continues, here are three things for MLBTR readers to keep an eye out for today:

1. Yelich to the injured list?

Brewers outfielder Christian Yelich has enjoyed his best start to a season since 2018-19, hitting .333/.422/.744 with five home runs in just 46 plate appearances. Unfortunately, lower back soreness has limited Yelich to just 11 games so far and could cause him to miss even more time.

As relayed by Todd Rosiak of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, manager Pat Murphy told reporters yesterday that while Yelich’s soreness hasn’t improved in recent days, the club feels it’s best to wait until the “last minute” before making the decision to place him on the shelf. Murphy went on to indicate that decision would come today. Should Yelich require a trip to the 10-day IL, the Brewers figure to turn to a Triple-A depth option such as Vinny Capra or Owen Miller to fill out the club’s positional mix while mostly relying on Jackson Chourio, Sal Frelick, Joey Wiemer, and Blake Perkins in the outfield.

2. Blue Jays bullpen getting healthy:

It’s been an uneven start for the Blue Jays, with the club’s 9-8 record putting them in a three-way tie at the bottom of the AL East. A patchwork bullpen that has posted a 5.00 ERA so far in the 2024 campaign has been an Achilles heel. Fortunately for fans in Toronto, it appears plenty of help is on the way. Keegan Matheson of MLB.com suggests that both closer Jordan Romano and setup man Erik Swanson could be activated from the injured list today.

Over the past four seasons, Romano has pitched to a 2.29 ERA and 3.13 FIP while racking up 97 saves in 199 appearances. Meanwhile, Swanson enjoyed a strong inaugural season in Toronto after coming over in the Teoscar Hernandez trade last year. He posted a 2.97 ERA and 3.51 FIP in 66 2/3 innings of work. The high-leverage duo’s return should take pressure off Chad Green and Yimi Garcia and deepen the group overall. Toronto will need to make a pair of active roster moves to accommodate the return of Romano and Swanson ahead of this evening’s game against the Yankees, which begins at 7:07pm local time.

3. MLBTR Chat today:

The 2024 season is now in full swing, and some clubs have gotten off to surprisingly strong starts while a handful of others have unexpectedly struggled to open the year. If you have questions regarding your favorite club’s start to the campaign, or perhaps questions about the summer trade deadline or 2024-25 offseason, MLBTR’s Steve Adams will host a live chat with readers today at 11am CT. You can click here to ask a question in advance, and that same link will allow you to join in on the chat once it begins or read the transcript after it is completed.

MLB Trade Rumors is not affiliated with Major League Baseball, MLB or MLB.com

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