Rays, White Sox Swap Joe Rock For Oliver Dunn
The Rays and White Sox announced a one-for-one trade that sends lefty reliever Joe Rock from Tampa Bay to Chicago. Minor league infielder Oliver Dunn goes to the Rays; Dunn had not been on Chicago’s 40-man roster.
Chicago optioned Rock to Triple-A Charlotte and transferred Kyle Teel to the 60-day injured list to open a 40-man spot. That’s a procedural move, as the 60-day window backdates to Opening Day. Teel won’t be back until late June at the earliest after suffering an LCL sprain in his left knee over the weekend.
A 6’6″ southpaw, Rock was a second-round pick by Colorado in 2021. The Rays acquired him in Spring Training 2024 for former first-rounder Greg Jones. Rock spent that season working out of the Triple-A rotation, struggling to a 4.58 earned run average. He made a very brief MLB debut last summer, pitching 7 2/3 innings of two-run ball with 11 strikeouts over three appearances.
Rock otherwise spent the season in a swing role in Triple-A, posting a 5.21 ERA across 96 2/3 frames. The Rays moved him to short relief this year in the hope that his stuff would play up in 1-2 inning stints. Rock has missed more bats, striking out 27 of 78 opponents (34.6%) in the minors.
His 92.9 mph average fastball isn’t much above where it sat last year, though, and Rock has battled the worst control of his career. He has walked 17 batters and plunked four more, giving out free passes to more than a quarter of batters faced. Rock has allowed 10 runs (nine earned) through 15 Triple-A innings this year.
The lack of strikes had pushed the Ohio University product to the fringe of the roster. The Rays didn’t designate Rock for assignment but had soured enough on him that they were willing to deal him for a depth infielder on a minor league contract. Chicago will see if a change of scenery can get him on track. Rock is in his second of three option years, so there’s still some roster flexibility.
Sean Newcomb and Bryan Hudson have pitched well as Will Venable’s top two lefty relievers. The Sox brought Brandon Eisert back up from Charlotte last week as a third southpaw in the MLB bullpen. Tyler Schweitzer, Tyler Gilbert and Chris Murphy are on the 40-man roster and on optional assignment. The Sox certainly aren’t lacking left-handed bullpen arms.
Dunn is a 28-year-old utilityman who appeared at the MLB level with the Brewers from 2024-25. The lefty batter owns a .206/.261/.290 slash with one home run in 145 career plate appearances. Milwaukee sent Dunn unclaimed through waivers last September and allowed him to walk as a minor league free agent. He signed a non-roster deal with the Sox in December.
After struggling to a .208/.315/.338 line in Triple-A a year ago, Dunn has gotten out to a much better start this season. He hit .296/.397/.533 with eight homers in 40 games for Charlotte. Dunn takes a lot of pitches and had shown strong on-base numbers up through Double-A. He’s primarily a third baseman who can play the middle infield if necessary and has some left field experience in the minors.
The Rays recently lost one of their left-handed bench bats when Jake Fraley suffered a sports hernia injury that required surgery. They’re also a little shorthanded in the infield with Ben Williamson day-to-day with back tightness. Tampa Bay might add Dunn directly to the MLB bench if Williamson requires an injured list stint. They don’t have any depth infielders on optional assignment to Triple-A, and Dunn has outhit internal non-roster pieces Logan Davidson and Raynel Delgado. Tampa Bay has a pair of openings on the 40-man roster if they want to select Dunn’s contract.
Guardians Re-Sign Kolby Allard To Minor League Deal
The Guardians are bringing left-hander Kolby Allard back on a minor league contract, reports Tim Stebbins of MLB.com. Cleveland had granted the southpaw his release yesterday, but it seems Allard didn’t find an MLB opportunity with another club.
Cleveland’s front office and coaching staff clearly appreciates what Allard brings to the table as a depth arm. He’s capable of working multiple innings and held a low-leverage relief spot for the majority of the 2025 season. Allard worked to a 2.63 ERA across 65 innings a year ago despite sitting 90 mph with his fastball and running a well below-average 15.8% strikeout rate.
Allard fills up the strike zone but has fringy stuff. He has given up 16 hits to allow 10 runs across 8 2/3 MLB frames this year. He has pitched three times with Triple-A Columbus, surrendering seven runs with an uncharacteristic seven walks over 5 1/3 innings. The Guardians have signed him to five minor league contracts over the past two seasons.
Nationals Option Brady House
May 19th: The Nats made their full moves official today. They optioned House and outfielder Joey Wiemer in order to recall Crews and first baseman Andres Chaparro.
May 18th: The Nationals announced they’ve optioned third baseman Brady House to Triple-A Rochester. That creates an active roster opening, which they’ll reportedly fill tomorrow by recalling former #2 overall pick Dylan Crews.
It’s a surprise demotion, as House has started 38 of Washington’s 48 games this year. He was in the lineup for tonight’s extra-inning loss to the Mets and still hitting third in Blake Butera‘s lineup. Despite continuing to hit him in the middle of the order, the Nats now decide to send House down for his first work against Triple-A pitching since he made his MLB debut last June.
House, the #11 overall pick in the 2022 draft, limped to a .234/.252/.322 line over 73 games as a rookie. This year’s numbers are better but still middling. House carries a .227/.282/.399 mark across 177 trips to the plate. He’s drawing walks at a modest 7.3% clip against a 28% strikeout rate. He’s in the bottom 15 among hitters (minimum 150 plate appearances) in contact rate.
The plate discipline remains a work in progress, but House’s seven home runs tied him with Daylen Lile for third on the team behind James Wood and CJ Abrams. He’d connected on three of those homers this month, albeit with a .224 average and .264 on-base percentage entering tonight’s game. House has graded poorly defensively, tying Junior Caminero for the lead among third basemen with eight errors. Both Defensive Runs Saved and Outs Above Average have him bottom five at the position.
Washington’s infield defense probably won’t improve much with a combination of Jorbit Vivas and José Tena covering third base. Curtis Mead has hit well off the bench and could get a look there too, though the Nationals seemingly prefer him as a first baseman. That’ll open some at-bats at designated hitter for Wood and Lile, as Crews will surely be in the lineup on an everyday basis. Jacob Young is the team’s best defensive outfielder; he’s day-to-day after taking a fastball to the ribs this evening, though Butera said postgame that x-rays were negative (via Mark Zuckerman of Nats Journal).
House entered this season with 105 days of MLB service. He needs to be on the big league roster for 67 days this year to cross the one-year threshold before the end of the season. He’s a little less than two weeks short of that right now, but there’s ample time for him to play his way back onto the active roster during the summer.
Jake Fraley To Undergo Sports Hernia Procedure
Rays outfielder Jake Fraley will undergo sports hernia surgery tomorrow, reports Marc Topkin of The Tampa Bay Times. He’ll be out for six to eight weeks.
Fraley landed on the 10-day injured list on Saturday. The surgery timetable may lead to a transfer to the 60-day IL at some point. Fraley has had at least one injured list stint in every season of his MLB career. He had three absences last year between Cincinnati and Atlanta, capping him at 76 games. Between the injuries and his limited usage against left-handed pitching, Fraley has yet to reach 400 plate appearances in a season.
It has been a slow start for the 30-year-old outfielder. Fraley has hit .232/.300/.390 with two home runs in 90 trips to the dish. It’s nevertheless suboptimal for the Rays to lose him, as their bench skews very heavily to the right side. Topkin notes that the Rays’ two lefty-hitting outfielders who are on optional assignment, Jacob Melton and Victor Mesa Jr., are themselves on the minor league injured list.
Middle infielder Carson Williams came up as the corresponding move for Fraley’s IL placement. Manager Kevin Cash tells Topkin that’s driven partially by Ben Williamson, who hasn’t played since Friday while dealing with back tightness. Cash didn’t rule out an injured list stint. Teams can backdate an IL placement by up to three days, so the Rays may view Tuesday as the cutoff for deciding whether to put him on the shelf for at least another week.
Athletics Outright Michael Stefanic
The Athletics sent infielder Michael Stefanic outright to Triple-A Las Vegas, per the MLB.com transaction tracker. They’d designated him for assignment on Saturday when they acquired Alika Williams from Pittsburgh to replace Stefanic as a utility infielder.
Stefanic had a brief stint on the big league roster. The A’s had called him up on Tuesday when they lost Jacob Wilson to the injured list. Stefanic played twice, once starting at second base and entering the other game as a pinch-hitter. He went 2-5 with a run scored. It marks five consecutive years with some MLB action for the 30-year-old infielder. He’s a lifetime .231/.315/.269 hitter at the major league level.
The righty-hitting Stefanic has been a fantastic Triple-A performer throughout his career. He owns a .326/.422/.447 batting line in more than 2000 plate appearances. Stefanic has elite strike zone judgment and pure contact skills, but he doesn’t hit for much power. He’s also more of a second/third baseman than a true shortstop, which limits his value off the bench for MLB clubs. That’s evidenced by the A’s going with Williams as a more valuable defender behind their middle infield pairing of Jeff McNeil and fill-in shortstop Darell Hernaiz.
Stefanic has been outrighted a handful of times throughout his career. That gives him the right to elect free agency, though it seems likelier he’ll accept the assignment back to Las Vegas and hang around as non-roster infield depth.
Kyle Teel Shut Down With LCL Sprain
It will be quite some time before Kyle Teel makes his season debut. The White Sox second-year catcher sprained the lateral collateral ligament (LCL) in his right knee, relays Brooke Fletcher of Chicago Sports Network. He’ll be down for 3-6 weeks before he’s able to start a new rehab assignment.
Teel suffered the injury on Saturday in a rehab game with Triple-A Charlotte. Manager Will Venable told reporters (including James Fegan of Sox Machine) that the lefty batter got hurt when his cleat got stuck during a swing. He was working his way back after sustaining a Grade 2 strain of his right hamstring while playing for Italy in the World Baseball Classic.
It’s a frustrating setback for a surprisingly competitive Sox team. Chicago enters their series in Seattle with a 24-22 record that has them in a Wild Card spot and only a game behind Cleveland in the AL Central. A playoff berth still seems like a long shot given the Sox’s rebuilding pitching staff, but they’re a more live threat than most would’ve anticipated at the beginning of the season.
The offense has been a big part of that. Chicago is tenth in scoring and ranks in the top half of the league in both on-base percentage and slugging. Only the Yankees have hit more home runs than the Sox’s 66 longballs. Teel would likely have slotted into the top half of the lineup after a .273/.375/.411 showing over his first 78 MLB games.
Chicago has instead rolled with a Drew Romo/Edgar Quero pairing behind the plate. Romo, who entered the season with essentially no MLB track record, has connected on four homers in 13 games since being called up to supplant Reese McGuire as the backup catcher. Quero has had a very tough year, yesterday’s walk-off homer against the Cubs notwithstanding.
The Sox could transfer Teel to the 60-day injured list if they need to open a spot on the 40-man roster at some point. That’ll backdate to Opening Day and would be a formality, as he’s unlikely to be ready for MLB action until late June at the earliest. Quero and Romo are the only healthy catchers on the 40-man.
Nationals To Recall Dylan Crews
The Nationals are likely to recall Dylan Crews from Triple-A Rochester tomorrow, reports Mark Zuckerman of Nats Journal. He’ll meet the big league club in D.C. for the second game of their ongoing series against the Mets.
Zuckerman writes that the call-up was independent of what happened in tonight’s game. Washington center fielder Jacob Young was hit in the midsection by a 93 mph fastball from Mets starter Christian Scott. He was replaced by Joey Wiemer. It’s too soon for the Nats to know whether Young will miss any time, but that could end up being a coincidental corresponding move for the pre-planned Crews promotion.
Crews will get his first MLB look of the 2026 season. Washington optioned the former #2 overall pick and top prospect at the end of Spring Training. Crews had a dismal camp, striking out 11 times in 34 plate appearances while collecting three hits (all singles). That followed a .208/.280/.352 showing in his first full MLB season in 2025.
Washington’s front office felt Crews needed a reset against Triple-A pitching. He had a middling start to the season, batting .247/.346/.404 in April. Crews has gone on a tear since the calendar flipped to May, hitting .291/.339/.527 with seven doubles and a couple home runs in 14 games. He has still fanned in a quarter of his plate appearances, but the recent form was enough to convince the club he’s ready for another shot against MLB arms.
The Nationals can justify Crews’ demotion based on the slow start to his MLB career and his unimpressive spring. That said, they’re surely also aware of the service time ramifications. Crews entered this season with one year and 35 days of MLB service. He needed to spend 137 days on the big league roster to cross the two-year mark in 2026. There are only 132 days remaining in the regular season, meaning Crews will fall narrowly short of that mark even if he’s in the Majors for good.
That’ll push his path to free agency back to the 2031-32 offseason at the earliest, barring an overhaul of the service time structure in the collective bargaining agreement. Crews would be on track for early arbitration as a Super Two player after the 2027 season if he sticks in the big leagues, though he still has a full slate of options and could plausibly be sent back down if he continues to struggle against MLB pitching.
Crews spent most of last season as Washington’s right fielder. He has divided his time between all three outfield spots in Triple-A. Young is one of the sport’s premier defensive outfielders but doesn’t provide much at the plate. James Wood and Daylen Lile aren’t coming out of the lineup. They could rotate through a designated hitter spot divided mostly between Jorbit Vivas and José Tena if the Nationals prefer Crews in a corner.
If Young requires an injured list stint, it’d be simple enough to plug Crews into the everyday center field role. They’d otherwise need to drop someone from the active roster if Young is day-to-day. Wiemer still has an option remaining and hasn’t hit since his out-of-nowhere tear in the first week of the season. The slumping Vivas would seem the other candidate if Washington needs an active roster spot, but he is out of options.
Dodgers Sign Jonathan Hernández
The Dodgers announced the signing of reliever Jonathan Hernández to a major league deal. Chayce McDermott was optioned to Triple-A Oklahoma City in a corresponding move. L.A. transferred Ben Casparius to the 60-day injured list to open a spot on the 40-man roster.
Hernández spent the first six weeks of the season with the Phillies on a minor league contract. He was granted his release yesterday after triggering an opt-out provision. Philly opted not to give him an MLB look, but he’ll get his first major league opportunity since 2024 with the two-time defending champions.
The 29-year-old Hernández has spent the majority of his career with the Rangers. He pitched his way into a late-inning role in Texas in 2020 but underwent Tommy John surgery the following April. The hard-throwing righty pitched well upon his return in the second half of ’22. He ran into trouble over the next couple seasons, combining for a 5.40 ERA over 62 appearances between 2023-24.
Texas waived Hernández late in the ’24 season. He had a brief stint with the Mariners and spent last season in the Rays’ system on a minor league contract. An injury kept him out until September and limited him to 12 Triple-A appearances. The sinkerballer has been healthy this year, working 15 innings of eight-run ball with Philly’s top affiliate. He has recorded 22 strikeouts against five walks while getting ground-balls at a lofty 57% clip.
Hernández has a standard sinker-slider combination, sitting in the 96 mph range with the heater. He’ll be available in middle relief as the Dodgers enter the 12th day of a two-week stretch without an off day. Hernández hasn’t pitched in five days and should be at full strength. He’s out of minor league options, so it could be a brief stint on the roster if L.A. needs to swap him out for another fresh arm later in the week.
Casparius has been out since April 13 with shoulder inflammation. The transfer officially rules him out of MLB action until June 12. Casparius has yet to begin a rehab assignment so he might not be ready by then either way. According to the MLB.com injury tracker, he was throwing at the club’s Arizona complex earlier this month.
Fabian Ardaya of The Athletic first reported the Hernández signing.
Astros Activate Jeremy Peña, Designate Cody Bolton
The Astros made a few moves going into tonight’s series opener in Minnesota. Jeremy Peña is back from the injured list, while the Astros officially placed Jose Altuve on the 10-day IL with a Grade 2 left oblique strain. Houston also recalled righty Jason Alexander from Triple-A Sugar Land and designated right-hander Cody Bolton for assignment.
Peña returns after a near five-week absence due to a Grade 1 strain of his right hamstring. He jumps right back atop the lineup tonight against Minnesota rookie southpaw Kendry Rojas. Peña had collected hits in eight of his first 10 games before the injury, albeit without much power. He batted .256 and is still looking for his first home run of the season.
Carlos Correa initially replaced Peña as Joe Espada’s primary shortstop. Correa’s season-ending ankle surgery has left Houston with a combination of Braden Shewmake and Nick Allen over the past two weeks. Shewmake has dramatically outhit Allen to seize the majority of the playing time. He’ll now slide to second base in Altuve’s stead, though he’ll be hard-pressed to continue hitting as well as he has. Shewmake is a career .241/.305/.384 hitter at the Triple-A level, so the Astros will mostly be counting on him to hold the fort defensively.
Alexander is up for the third time this season to provide a fresh arm in long relief. He hasn’t pitched in Triple-A since last Tuesday. Houston is pitching Tatsuya Imai tonight, leaving them without much certainty about the workload they’ll get from their starter. Imai has only gone beyond four innings once in his first four MLB starts. He gave up six runs on five hits and three walks over four frames last Tuesday against Seattle, his first big league appearance after a month-long IL stay.
Bolton pitched three innings of mop-up work in yesterday’s blowout loss at the hands of the Rangers. He wouldn’t have been available for at least a day or two. He’s out of options, so the Astros needed to DFA him to swap him off the big league roster. Bolton has logged 20 innings since Houston called him up in late March. He has a 5.40 ERA with a league average 23.2% strikeout rate but a near-15% walk percentage. Bolton has struggled to get opponents to expand the strike zone, leading to a lot of free passes.
The Astros have five days to trade the 27-year-old swingman or place him on waivers. An acquiring team would need to plug him directly onto the big league staff. Bolton has never been outrighted in his career, so he would not have the ability to elect free agency if he goes unclaimed.
Cardinals Outright Jared Shuster
For the second time this season, the Cardinals outrighted Jared Shuster to Triple-A Memphis (relayed by Jeff Jones of The Belleville News-Democrat). The left-hander has the right to decline the assignment in favor of free agency, though he previously forewent that option in the middle of April.
Shuster has made four MLB appearances with the Cardinals in two stints on the roster. He has worked multiple innings in three of those and allowed two earned runs. Shuster has tallied 7 2/3 frames with just six hits and two unintentional walks. He has only recorded two strikeouts, though, missing bats on 3.5% of his pitches.
A first-round pick by Atlanta in 2020, Shuster is a pitchability lefty whose arsenal was headlined by a plus changeup. The Braves hoped he’d move quickly and slot at the back of a rotation, but the lack of swing-and-miss has kept him in a depth/swing role. Atlanta traded him to the White Sox after the 2023 season in the Aaron Bummer deal. Chicago lost him on waivers to the A’s last summer, and he signed with St. Louis after the A’s released him in December.
Shuster carries a 5.12 earned run average with a 15% strikeout rate across 149 1/3 MLB innings. He has a 5.45 ERA over parts of five Triple-A seasons, including this year’s 9 2/3 frames of nine-run ball in Memphis. Shuster is out of options and needs to clear waivers each time a team wants to assign him to the minors.