Braves outfielder Michael Harris II went 3-for-4 with a home run yesterday, as the Triple-A Gwinnett Stripers fell to the Memphis Redbirds 8-2. He is now batting .421 with a 1.079 OPS over five rehab games. The 2022 NL Rookie of the Year has been out with a hamstring injury since mid-June, but if his performance at Triple-A is any indication, he certainly seems ready to return to the majors. Unfortunately for Atlanta, he is not eligible to come back until Wednesday when his 60 days on the IL are up.
Harris was off to a slow start over his first 67 games (.653 OPS, 80 wRC+), but he has always been a strong defender in center field, and he was an impact bat in the lineup in each of his first two big league seasons. He will be an immediate defensive upgrade over Jarred Kelenic in center, and if he can get back on track at the plate, his lefty bat will be a nice boost for the lineup. The Braves rank 21st in MLB with a 95 wRC+ against right-handed pitching this season.
Getting Harris back will be especially beneficial for Atlanta if Ramón Laureano’s heel continues to bother him. Laureano started in center field on Saturday but was removed from the game in the fourth inning with what the team described as “soreness in his right heel.” The outfielder appeared to hurt himself running out an infield single in the third, but he initially remained in the game. He came around to score on three consecutive walks. In the bottom of the third, he was involved in a misplay in shallow center field, in which four Braves defenders allowed a high pop-up to drop in between them for a double. It’s possible his sore heel caused him some trouble as he ran toward the ball. Laureano is batting .204 with a 75 wRC+ on the season, but he has looked much better since joining the Braves in mid-June, batting .269 with a 105 wRC+ over 26 games.
In further injury news from around the NL East…
- Right-hander Sean Reid-Foley, 28, is nearing his return to the Mets, reports Anthony DiComo of MLB.com. The reliever will make a multi-inning rehab appearance with Triple-A Syracuse today. It will be his sixth rehab outing. The Mets have not offered an exact timeline for Reid-Foley, but DiComo describes him as “very close” to a return. However, Tim Britton of The Athletic provides a slightly different update, suggesting Reid-Foley “needs some time” to build up to pitching multiple innings. Regardless of the precise timeline, he should be back before the end of the month. The righty has been out since mid-June with a shoulder impingement. Prior to his injury, he was enjoying a mini-breakout season, with a 1.66 ERA and 3.99 SIERA in 21 2/3 innings pitched.
- Reid-Foley isn’t the only 28-year-old right-handed reliever for the Mets nearing his return, as Dedniel Núñez will throw a bullpen session today (per Britton). Interestingly, Britton suggests that Núñez could make it back to the majors sooner than Reid-Foley. While Núñez is behind Reid-Foley in his rehab, Núñez has only been out since mid-July. He, too, has been enjoying a successful breakout season, with a 2.43 ERA and 2.23 SIERA in 33 1/3 innings pitched. The rookie was starting to pitch more high-leverage innings before suffering a forearm strain, and Britton says he will return to a late-inning role with the Mets.
- Lastly, Marlins ace Sandy Alcantara is making progress in his rehab from Tommy John surgery last October. He threw a sixth bullpen session on Saturday, reaching 75% intensity (per Isaac Azout of Fish On First). While the 2022 NL Cy Young winner will not pitch for Miami this season, he seems to making good progress toward a return next spring.
Can anyone explain to why Kelenic was never considered for RF? Is it simply b/c he’s left handed? Played RF in Seattle i believe. He’s a plus defender imo and typically the weakest outfielder plays LF….(I’m sure someone will hit me analytics saying he sux in the outfield or something lol)
He was mostly in CF until Laureano. I’d guess that b/c most of the league is right-handed pull-hitters, so LF would get more action than RF. However, Truist RF is trickier than most because of the wall, and I believe, a little bit more room to cover. Soler’s play in OF recently has been awful with a flyball hit to short RF (called off by Whit) where no one went after until Soler dove and it fell in between 4 players. I believe he hit the grand slam in the same game — so, just like they’re hoping, offense negates defense….smh.
Oh, the irony of not being able to call up Harris II, who seems ready, b/c they put him on the 60-day IL to clear up a spot for one of the band-aids. Make it stop.
Typically someone would be considered for left field and not right field because they don’t have a strong arm. A right fielders needs to throw out runners at home from a farther distance so he needs a stronger arm.
That’s what I mean, a stronger arm is needed in RF where as the weaker arm in LF because more often than not a fly ball is hit harder to left by Right handed pull hitters like Rundmc mentioned. More time to throw home….I dunno, always grew up throwing the slowest guy in LF. Unless it’s softball lol
You didn’t mention arm strength at all that’s why I did.
In little league right field was where they put the worst fielder on the team because more people hit the ball to left field than right because more people are right handed. But as you get older and throwing guys out at home became a thing that changed.
I’m not sure if you noticed but I was agreeing with you lol…all I was saying is Kelenic is an all around athletic outfielder and questioning why he hasn’t played RF. I get the asymmetrical park of Truist and short RF but more traditional symmetrical outfields he seems the better choice no?
Left field at Truist is larger than most ballparks and requires more athleticism. Right field there is no harder to play than left field. At least, that’s what I’ve read.
It always makes my brain hurt thinking about the RF needing to throw farther when RF and LF are technically the same exact distance to home plate lol….but I get the sentiment
Right field to home is about the same distance as left field to home, with small differences because ballparks are unique. The right fielder needs the stronger arm to throw runners out at third. A left fielder does not often throw across the field to first..
Distance wise it’s similar but the runner coming from 3b makes it easier to throw him out if the throw is coming from left field.
Um no
As mentioned above by @psychotic goldfish, the RFer needs the strong arm to throw runners out or keep them from trying to move over to 3B. That is why you need a stronger arm to play it.
It has always been understood in the game. I’m guessing all of you that didn’t know are young and just learning the game. But to clarify it for you, that is the reason RF always requires the strongest OF arm.
That’s why I was questioning Kelenic not playing RF? Better athletically/plus arm than Soler and Duvall at this point. Everyone just glossing over that point I was originally asking…But hey it’s the MLBTR Comment section, we love to naysay each other all day no matter what! hahaha
I think there was confusion because you followed up the orginal poster who clearly was questioning why RF requires a stronger arm due to him thinking they’re essentially the same thing on two different sides of the field – which they are definitley not.
Marlins should probably consider trading Sandy. Only 2 more years of control left and they just traded all the offense away.
Let the Miami fans have something nice and keep Sandy. Unless they can get two MLB top 100 prospects in the deal, I would hold onto him.
If they made him available i could see boston being interested..among others
.but you wont get 2 top 100 prospects for him ..sight unseen..if they want that return they need to hope he returns to ace form then move him at next years deadline
Agree, at least three or four consecutive quality starts are needed to get an elite return
Unless a team gives the Marlins a return that’s equal to his value at 100% health and performance, the Marlins are holding onto him until he can pitch again and establish his value again.
Anyone thinking their team will get a bargain deal for Sandy right now because of the injury is living off a pipe dream and has been playing too many video games.
Time to rebuild and start over for the Braves. Wiithout Soler and Rosario, they would have been eliminated quickly. The core is bad.
They are still a good team, just time to modernize the team name. Losing Strider did take them down a notch.
They are not a good team and never were outside the miracle 2021 year. Every season they made the playoffs, they were embarrassed out of it quickly in the first round (beating Marlins in ’20 doesn’t count).
Fried should be gone forever, and Albies needs to be gone forever. Start there.
With exception of Riley, Olson, Harris, and Strider, the team needs an overhaul. I love Sale though and want to keep him as well as most of the bullpen.
Lol. “Never a good team” but the record says otherwise. Rich coming from the clown with the traitor DJT in his profile pic and a username advocating trading literally the most talented non-pitcher in the game. Laughable.
Fried is gone at the end of the year. Albies is going nowhere and has a team-friendly contract even with his propensity to get injured.
I dislike Ozuna because of hia domestic violence allegations, but he obviously is a solid DH. Sales and Reynaldo Lopez are both good. And Acuna is obviously amazing but highly injury prone on a team friendly deal. You have blinders on if you can’t recognize that this is one of the 6-7 best teams in the Nl even without Strider, Harris and Acuna. And Harris will be back on Wednesday or Thursday.
LOL @ wanting the Braves to rebuild, but keep 35-year old Sale.
Yeah, that’s logical.
But what to expect from a troll name like “TradeAcuna”. and claming that they were never a good team. I haven’t heard dimwittery like that since @MetsFan22.
What does “modernizing” the team name have to do with anything? Will that allow them to win another World Series or something, is that what is really holding them back?…I’d love to hear the reasoning for you to be able to correlate the two?
@braveshomer
I think that person’s a troll.
As for “modernizing” the name, I feel that the Braves don’t really need a name change, but more of a brand change that I feel they’re missing out on. I pesonally feel that they should change the Braves brand to reflect paying homage to our military a,d the history of this country. I feel they’d do better to make it a patriotic name instead of where it’s been, always bordering on and sometimes crossing the lines of being offensive to Native American. But eliminate that brand and turn it to the patriotic version of the Brave(s), it’s something beautiful.
They are separate points. I was refuting “TradeAcuna” and saying that I like the team, AA is a star as management goes, maybe the best, my only preference is to change the team name. Make it clear that the chop is only for bigots. Would it impact results, speculative at best. Maybe a more modern, politically correct name, would increase national revenue opportunities, and more money may conceivably but not necessarily correlate to more money for payroll, which may but not necessarily correlate to enhanced results. So, changing the team name, in my opinion, is the right thing to do, since about half of Native Americans think that, but it is speculative and uncertain at best that the name has any correlation to results on the field. No one argues to chnge the team name to make them better, just because it is the right thing to do.
This friendly contract nonsense needs to stop. Albies is a bad hitter and his contract makes him that much more valuable.
I don’t care about being one of the best teams in the sport. Year in and year out they are embarrassed in the playoffs early. The core team is overrated.
Have you gotten your attention you’ve been trolling for?
Good that Sandy’s progressing, but we’ve seen that down here.
In other Marlins stuff, I find it laughable that people keep saying they need to keep getting add-on runs instead of sitting pat. Well, the reality is that our bullpen has proven over a few years, that there is no lead that they can’t blow…and it doesn’t matter if it’s the current bullpen or the one we traded away. They all suck equally.
@banned A bullpen that could please you does not exist.
The pre-deadline Marlins bullpen was inconsistent but had some good spells. Good in May and leading up to the deadline. Bad at the beginning of the season and when the rotation was too weak to go enough innings.
When Skip was thinking “who do I want in this situation?” It usually worked out well. If Skip was in a “who have I got?” situation bad things regularly happened.
The current bullpen is a lottery, and I don’t like the odds
@UKPhil
Actually, a bullpen that does not blow leads would make me happy.
and I never blamed Skip for the bullpen. He, like every manager, can only use the players they are given. He, and Mattingly before him, were given a horrible bullpen that has shown 3 of the last 4 years that they can blow any lead handed to them – regardless of how many innings the starters give them on any given night. In fact, one of the reasons our starters have pushed to always go that extra inning (Alcantara, Lopez when he was here, Luzardo, Garrett, etc. etc.) is because they too don’t trust the bullpen.
and another note about Skip Schumaker. He also called out the bullpen a few times earlier in the year. That bullpen started pitching effectively after the pressure was off after they blew every game in sight for the first three weeks. And if you want to claim that it was because the starters didn’t go enough innings, the bullpen blew half of the games in teh first week and a half of the season, so fatigue was not a reason. In fact, to add, they blew like the first 5 games they had leads in to start the season.
I watch the Marlins. Guys like you are going on stats. I know what happens with my team. You won’t find one Marlins fan that says that the bullpen was good. The current bullpen is just as bad as the pre-trade bullpen. Not one Marlins fan will sing praise for the bullpen we traded away because we saw them blow lead after lead after lead for, as I said, 3 of the last 4 years – and have done so at a ridiculous pace. I think you can even find the stat on that by looking at BSVs, failed Holds, etc. stats that cover the blown leads. And look at 2021, 2022 and this year. You’ll see it. The current bullpen is a lottery just like the one we traded away.
I don’t get why fans like you will actually debate a fan who is telling you how his team loses.
“Actually, a bullpen that does not blow leads would make me happy”
That bullpen does not exist. Even the Marlins have had come from behind wins against “hot” bullpens this year.
In 2022 and even 2023 we had Sandy delivering complete games to ease the pressure on the bullpen.
If you are The Braves, Yankees,Dodgers, even Phillies, your bullpen has about 50 high pressure games a season thanks to your offense.
Thanks to our offense, the Marlins’ bullpen has more like 100 high pressure games a season.
Up to and including Sunday’s game The Marlins were 10th in MLB in runs scored in August The team is 4 wins from 11 games. Welcome to the rest of the season with a genuinely bad bullpen.
“I don’t get why fans like you will actually debate a fan who is telling you how his team loses.”
After all this time you still don’t realise I am a Marlins fan who watches the games
I don’t know what games you’re watching. I guess anyone can claim anything on here.
Anyone that tries to say that the bullpen has not burned the Marlins in 3 of the last 4 years and knocked them out of the postseason chance the first week and a half this year is not someone that’s watching Marlins games. And they sure as heck aren’t defending the crappy bullpen we traded away.
All of your statement still doesn’t address Bass sucking from Day 1. Nearly every “Closer” we tried failing immediately before they could even have any fatigue. And you didn’t explain your reason for the Marlins blowing the first several leads out of the gate this year. Were you really watching?
@Banned. It might help if you actually read what I’ve written.
Yes, the bullpen, especially Scott and Nardi were a complete nightmare the first week and a half of the season. For the rest of April the rotation left the bullpen too many innings to be able to assess anything.
In May all the pitching did a great job. Come June and July the rotation was generally weaker than the bullpen, with a few bright spots like Bellozo, some Cabrera, some Munoz.
In 2023, and in May & August this year, the Marlins offense managed to achieve mediocrity. For the rest of the last few years that level was a dim and distant dream. In May that meant a winning record for the month. In August we’ve gone 5-8, largely due to us now having a genuinely bad bullpen instead of an inconsistent one.
So now, the Marlins need to find a way forward with a talented but inconsistent rotation that is going to need micro-managing for health reasons; a bullpen that needs to be built from scratch; an offense that is finally looking like something good can happen some nights
@ Banned. Yes it is more about lack of offense than anything else.
In May, the Marlins were 20th in MLB in runs scored and went 14-13
Overall for the season the Marlins are a solid 27th to 29th in all offensive categories (except Stolen Bases 12th)
@UKPhil
I never said our team was a juggernaut of offense. I’ve stated the FACT that our offense has been enough with our SPs to hand leads over to the bullpen that the bullpen eventually blows – no matter what the lead is. Why don’t you look that up? Prove me wrong there. You won’t be able to because, if you actually looked at the games and the box scores, you will see that the bullpen was handed leads and kept blowing them over and over and over again for 3 of the last 4 years . This was Tanner Scott, Yimi Garcia, Dylan Floro, Anthony Bass, AJ Puk, Andrew Nardi, Steven Okert, Anthony Bender, George Soriano, Huascar Brazoban, Adam Cimber, Zach Pop, etc. etc. etc. None of them for 3 of the last 4 years saw a lead that they couldn’t blow. Not one single one of them. Hot streaks are just hot streaks, and of course the one fluke season they actually held leads as a unit.
Feel free to look further at the stats of leads handed to them and leads blown by them in 2021, 2022, and 2024 by that group before this year’s trades. Can’t blame the offense when they scored enough runs to hand a lead over. And can’t blame the offense when, no matter how much a lead is handed, they still blew leads. Again, feel free to look up the stats that cover blown Saves, blown Holds, Blown leads, etc. And get back to me after you see it.
No. Just no. “He, too, has been enjoying a successful breakout season” there should NOT BE ANY COMMAS around “too.” This is an old rule that thankfully we did away with because it just makes sentences look awful.