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Rockies Place Kyle Freeland On Injured List

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The Rockies placed starter Kyle Freeland on the 15-day injured list, retroactive to July 11, with a subluxation in his non-throwing shoulder. Colorado also selected the contract of reliever Tommy Doyle, as reported this afternoon, and recalled Michael Toglia. To clear a spot on the 40-man roster for Doyle, lefty Ryan Rolison landed on the 60-day IL.

Freeland suffered the injury during his final start before the All-Star Break. He disclosed the shoulder and suffered a slight tear in the labrum, writes Patrick Saunders of the Denver Post. Fortunately, Freeland won’t require surgery and is expected to pitch again at some point in 2023.

The 30-year-old southpaw has been Colorado’s most reliable pitcher this season. Over 19 starts, he’s worked 103 innings of 4.72 ERA ball. He’s striking out fewer than 15% of opponents but has kept his walk rate to a quality 7.7% clip. Freeland and Austin Gomber are the only Colorado starters to work over 60 innings; the former is the only pitcher on the team to keep an ERA below 5.00 while working more than 20 frames.

Rolison, a former first round pick, could have had an opportunity to carve out a spot with that pitching staff in flux. The 26-year-old southpaw has unfortunately had serious injury concerns over the past two seasons. He missed all of last year, undergoing a season-ending shoulder procedure in June. Rolison returned from the IL at the end of May but quickly experienced renewed shoulder discomfort.

There’s now a serious question if Rolison will be able to return this season. The IL placement will prevent him from making his MLB debut until mid-September at the earliest. The only silver lining is that he’ll collect MLB service and be paid at the prorated $720K big league minimum rate for time he spends rehabbing from here forward.

Rockies To Select Tommy Doyle

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The Rockies are adding right-hander Tommy Doyle to their roster today, per Thomas Harding of MLB.com and Patrick Lyons of DNVR. He’s not yet on the 40-man roster, so the club will need to make a corresponding move or moves to get him aboard.

Doyle, 27, got a cup of coffee with the Rockies during the 2020 season, logging 2 1/3 innings over three games. Unfortunately, he allowed six earned runs in that time and currently has a career ERA of 23.14. He spent all of 2021 in the minors before being outrighted off of the club’s roster at the end of that season, then spent all of 2022 on the minor league injured list.

This year, Doyle has been in Triple-A, tossing 26 2/3 innings with a tiny 1.01 ERA, striking out 27.9% of opponents and getting grounders on half the balls he’s allowed in play. He wouldn’t be able to continue keeping runs off the board at that rate with an 11.5% walk rate, .226 batting average on balls in play and 78.1% strand rate, but it’s been impressive enough to get him back into the big leagues and a chance to lower that career ERA.

The righty still has a couple of options and just 14 days of service time, allowing him to serve as an optionable depth piece for the club for the foreseeable future, as long as he continues to hang onto that 40-man roster spot.

Rockies To Sign Chris Flexen

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The Rockies have agreed to a deal with free-agent righty Chris Flexen, reports Thomas Harding of MLB.com. The O’Connell Sports client will join Colorado’s Triple-A rotation in Albuquerque for the time being and provide the Rox with some much-needed starting pitching depth.

Flexen, 29, was designated for assignment by the Mariners earlier in the month and went through an unusual cycle that saw him traded to the Mets and immediately designated for assignment a second time. The Mets took on the remainder of Flexen’s $8MM salary as a means of effectively purchasing reliever Trevor Gott from Seattle but weren’t interested in retaining Flexen themselves; he was released a few days after that second DFA.

Originally drafted by the Mets in 2012, Flexen never found his footing in his first several looks at the big league level but broke out overseas in the Korea Baseball Organization, thriving with the Doosan Bears in 2020. His lone season of KBO excellence (3.01 ERA in 116 2/3 innings) was enough for the Mariners to sign him to a two-year, $4.75MM deal the following offseason.

Flexen made good on that investment during his first two seasons in Seattle, logging a tidy 3.66 ERA in 317 1/3 innings, mostly working out of Seattle’s rotation. He was pushed to the bullpen following the 2022 trade deadline, when the Mariners acquired Luis Castillo, but generally continued pitching well in a relief setting. Even with that move to shorter stints, Flexen’s combined workload from 2021-22 was enough to trigger an $8MM vesting option for the 2023 season.

Heading into the 2023 campaign, Flexen was locked in as the Mariners’ long reliever and sixth starter — not because of his own performance but simply due to the depth the M’s had in the rotation. He quickly returned to the rotation after Robbie Ray required season-ending flexor surgery and a UCL repair, but things haven’t gone well for Flexen in any role this year. He appeared in 17 games — just four of them starts — and was tagged for a grisly 7.71 earned run average.

Flexen’s 3.66 ERA from 2021-22 never quite lined up with his below-average 16.5% strikeout rate, but a downturn of this magnitude still couldn’t have been expected. He’s been extraordinarily homer-prone this year (2.36 per nine innings) and has seen his generally strong command trend to worse-than-average levels as well (9.7% walk rate). That said, Flexen has also been plagued by a .350 average on balls in play, and his staggering 21.6% homer-to-flyball rate is sure to regress closer to his career 10% mark (though pitching in Colorado or Albuquerque likely won’t help that cause).

The Rockies aren’t in a position to be particularly picky with their rotation at the moment. Colorado entered the year with a suspect rotation in the first place and has seen the vast majority of its starters hit the injured list or perform poorly enough to be cut loose. Right-hander Jose Urena was released less than two months into the season despite signing a guaranteed $3.5MM deal over the winter. German Marquez underwent Tommy John surgery on May 12. Antonio Senzatela returned from last year’s torn ACL early in the season but lasted just two starts before being shut down with an elbow strain; he’s on the 60-day injured list at the moment. Young righty Ryan Feltner suffered a skull fracture in mid-May when he was hit by a Nick Castellanos comebacker. He thankfully avoided a more catastrophic injury but, like Senzatela, is on the 60-day IL and hasn’t pitched in two months.

Lefty Kyle Freeland was the lone member of the team’s Opening Day rotation who looked like he’d make it through the first half of the season unscathed — until he suffered a dislocated right (non-throwing) shoulder in the team’s final game before the All-Star break. He’ll quite likely head to the injured list himself.

In the wake of that staggering slate of injuries, the Rockies are left with a patchwork starting pitching staff that’s in dire need of reinforcements. Flexen may be bound for Triple-A right now, but that seems like it could be a short-term stay. Colorado’s only healthy starters at the moment are lefty Austin Gomber, righty Chase Anderson — another veteran acquired amid this wave of injuries — and right-hander Connor Seabold. They’ve taken looks at younger and less-experienced arms like Peter Lambert, Karl Kauffmann and Noah Davis this season, but none have performed well. On the whole, Rockies starters have “overtaken” the A’s for the worst ERA in baseball, currently sitting at a disastrous 6.47 mark in that regard.

There’s a clear path back to the Majors for Flexen in Colorado — perhaps clearer than with any other club that might’ve had interest. The Rays, for instance, were linked to Flexen over the weekend but have a deeper staff. There’s a short-term opening in Tampa Bay’s rotation, but it’s plenty feasible that as they get healthier, Flexen would again be pushed out. While pitching his home games at Coors Field certainly isn’t an enviable task, Flexen surely recognized the broader opportunity to settle back into a consistent starting role in Colorado and the staying power it presents. Even if his struggles continue, the Rockies will likely welcome a veteran innings eater to simply patch things over in the season’s final months. And, as the previously mentioned Urena demonstrated last year when he was acquired under relatively similar circumstances, if he handles that role well the Rockies could well be open to re-signing him on a guaranteed deal.

For now, Flexen will build up in Albuquerque and wait for a spot in the big leagues, but that opportunity could — and very likely will — present itself before long.

MLB To Open 2024 Season With Dodgers-Padres Series In South Korea

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Major League Baseball and the MLB Players Association announced the “World Tour” schedule for the 2024 season. The ’24 campaign will kick off with a two-game series between the Padres and Dodgers in Seoul on March 20-21.

Those will be the first MLB regular season contests ever played in South Korea. The league had been slated to play four exhibition games in the nation — two in Seoul, two in Busan — over the 2022-23 offseason. That event was canceled, which MLB attributed to a contractual issue with a local promoter.

While the season-opening Korean set is the most notable development, the World Tour will also again take clubs to Mexico and the United Kingdom. The Rockies and Astros are slated for a two-game set in Mexico City on April 27-28. The Padres and Giants played there this April. MLB had previously announced a two-game set between the Mets and Phillies in London on June 8-9. The Cubs and Cardinals met in England last month.

Along with the three regular season series, MLB is sending the Rays and Red Sox to Santo Domingo for a pair of Spring Training games. The Dominican Republic exhibition contests will take place on March 9-10.

MLB and the MLBPA formed the World Tour program during the most recent round of collective bargaining. The league will schedule up to 24 regular season games and 16 Spring Training contests scattered throughout Latin America, Asia and Europe over the course of the CBA.

The Rockies Should Make Their Catcher Available At The Trade Deadline

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There’s no secret to the fact that the Rockies enter the 2023 trade deadline in position to be sellers. General manager Bill Schmidt already told Patrick Saunders of the Denver Post last week that he’s received particularly high levels of interest in his veteran relievers. Within that same interview, Schmidt noted that he’d entertain offers on position players, but it would take a “legitimate” offer on someone like catcher Elias Diaz, who’s signed through the 2024 season, for the Rox to consider such a move.

It’s understandable for any baseball operations leader to take that stance. Any general manager or president of baseball ops is going to insist on a quality return — particularly for a player with multiple seasons of affordable control — unless ownership is simply mandating that they slash payroll. That’s clearly not the case in Colorado, where owner Dick Monfort annually broadcasts optimism about his team’s chances and is generally willing to spend (to varying extents) in free agency and via extensions for in-house players.

Diaz, 32, is a first-time All-Star this season, thanks largely to a .277/.328/.435 batting line. He’s smacked nine homers and added 15 doubles and a triple while walking at a 7.2% clip against a 21.3% strikeout rate. It’s not exactly elite production; wRC+ pegs him nine percent below average after weighting for his home park, and OPS+ has him four percent below average. However, relative to other catchers throughout the league, Diaz has been quite productive. The average catcher in 2023 is hitting .233/.300/.384. Even when adjusting for home park and league run-scoring environment, catchers have rated 13% worse than average at the plate, by measure of wRC+. In that regard, Diaz has been an above-average hitter relative to his position.

Of course, that’s just one season. Diaz’s offense has been a roller coaster throughout his career, peaking with a .286/.339/.452 slash (114 wRC+) in a much more pitcher-friendly Pittsburgh setting back in 2018 but at times bottoming out as it did just last year, when he hit .228/.281/.368 despite playing half his games at Coors Field. He’s had some good fortune on balls in play this year, with a .327 BABIP that’s about 50 points higher than the career .274 mark he carried into the season. There’s no major uptick in quality of contact that’s driven that change, either; Diaz averaged 88.4 mph off the bat in 2022 with a 39.3% hard-hit rate and is at 88.3 mph and 40.1% in those respective areas this year. It’s possible his bat will take a step back in the season’s second half, although even if it does, it shouldn’t wilt to last year’s surprisingly anemic levels.

Defensively, Diaz is a bit of a mixed bag. Framing metrics have universally panned Diaz’s work over the past two seasons, but he was above-average as recently as 2021. In terms of pitch blocking and throwing, Diaz is one of the game’s best. Dating back to 2021, he ranks eighth among all big league catchers in Statcast’s new Blocks Above Average metric, trailing only a handful of elite defenders (Austin Hedges, Sean Murphy, Jose Trevino, Jacob Stallings, J.T. Realmuto, Yan Gomes, Adley Rutschman).

It’s a similar story with Diaz’s throwing; he regularly boasts better-than-average pop times, and as recently as 2021 he paced the NL with a gaudy 42% caught-stealing rate. He’s at 29% this year, which is far better than it would’ve sounded in previous years, as the new rule changes in 2023 have contributed to a league-wide drop in caught-stealing numbers. The league average typically sat around 25% in seasons past, but it’s down to 20% this year. Statcast pegs Diaz as third-best in MLB with its Caught-Stealing Above Average metric (which strives to gauge throws on a case-by-case basis rather than treating all stolen base scenarios as equal).

There’s also Diaz’s contract to consider. He signed a three-year, $14.5MM extension with the Rockies a couple years ago, buying out his final arbitration season and first two free-agent years. He’s in the second year of that contract right now, earning a reasonable $5.5MM salary with a $6MM salary owed to him in 2024. It’s an affordable enough contract that any club could stomach it.

Relative to open-market prices, Diaz’s annual salary lines up with the type of money that steady mid-30s veterans or younger bounceback options might typically find. For context, Omar Narvaez signed a two-year, $15MM contract with an opt-out/player option this offseason despite having a down year in 2022. Mike Zunino signed a one-year, $6MM deal while seeking a rebound in Cleveland. The previously mentioned Hedges commanded a $5MM guarantee due solely to his defense. Diaz may not be an unmitigated bargain, but he’s at the very least a fairly priced backup — arguably one with some surplus value on his deal.

In general, it’s been a poor year for catchers throughout the league. Only 11 teams have received a wRC+ mark better than Diaz’s 91 from their catchers in 2023. Contenders and playoff hopefuls like the Rays, Astros, Reds, Marlins, Padres and Guardians have all received awful offensive production behind the plate. Speculatively speaking, Diaz could make sense for any of the bunch. That doesn’t mean they’ll all have interest, of course, but there ought to be a market for the veteran.

The Rockies, meanwhile, once again find themselves without a viable path to the postseason. Schmidt has voiced an understandable desire to add pitching to his system, and it stands to reason that there are clubs who might be willing to part with some arms in order to pry loose a catcher who could help not just for the current postseason push but also solidify the position next year. Colorado’s top catching prospect, Drew Romo, isn’t having a particularly strong season in Double-A this year but could conceivably be up in 2024 nonetheless. In the meantime, there’s little harm for a last-place club to let a journeyman like current backup Austin Wynns soak up the majority of starts in the season’s final couple months. He’s a sound defender who posted decent offensive production as recently as 2022. As far as 2024 is concerned, the Rox could always sign a veteran to a one-year deal this winter if need be.

Schmidt has pushed back against the notion of tearing everything down and trotting a Triple-A team out, citing the game’s integrity. That’s a commendable tack, and it provides some context for the type of offers he’d need to part with Diaz and other veterans. Diaz won’t simply be given away for the best offer, nor should he. It also bears pointing out that midseason trades of catchers can be difficult to pull off; acquiring a backstop in the midst of a playoff push and asking him to learn a new pitching staff on the fly is no easy task.

If no serious offers present themselves for Diaz, so be it. The Rockies can always listen in the offseason or hope for better results on a team scale in 2024. However, the Rox also have a history of hanging onto players who appear to be obvious trade candidates, either extending them (e.g Daniel Bard, C.J. Cron, arguably Diaz himself) or simply letting them walk in free agency (e.g Jon Gray, Trevor Story). Schmidt contended to Saunders that he simply didn’t receive “legitimate” offers for players like Gray and Story, and that’s certainly possible. Story, in particular, at least netted the Rox a draft pick after rejecting a qualifying offer.

Diaz won’t be a QO candidate post-’24, however, and his trade value is very arguably at its apex. He’s a first-time All-Star with strong throwing/blocking skills, enough offense for his position and an affordable contract. This summer is the best time to extract a quality return for him. Colorado shouldn’t simply trade him for a handful of magic beans, but setting too high an asking price and holding onto him runs the risk of again losing a quality player for little to no return at a time when the organization as a whole is hungry for quality minor league talent.

Kyle Freeland Suffers Dislocated Right Shoulder

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Rockies southpaw Kyle Freeland suffered a dislocated right shoulder while making a diving attempt at a Brett Wisely bunt in today’s 1-0 loss to the Giants.  Freeland was in obvious pain on the field, and told reporters (including Patrick Saunders of the Denver Post) afterwards that “that was one of the worst feelings I’ve had, pitching-injury-wise.”  An MRI tomorrow will check for any further damage, but perhaps the one plus is that the dislocated shoulder quickly went back into the socket, as Freeland said x-rays were taken to examine the shoulder and rule out any broken bones.

Schmidt: Rockies’ Relievers Drawing Trade Interest

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The Rockies enter deadline season at the bottom of the NL West. They’re positioned to listen to trade offers on veteran players, particularly those whose contracts are expiring at season’s end.

General manager Bill Schmidt discussed the team’s outlook with Patrick Saunders of the Denver Post in a piece Rockies’ fans will want to read in full. The baseball operations leader told Saunders the club is getting the most interest in some of its veteran relievers. Schmidt declined to specify which players. However, Saunders reports that left-hander Brent Suter is drawing the most attention, with righty Pierce Johnson and southpaw Brad Hand also generating some interest.

All three players are fairly straightforward trade candidates. Jon Heyman of the New York Post wrote last week the Rox were taking offers on their impending free agents. Johnson and Suter are ticketed for free agency. Hand is controllable via $7MM club option, but that price point might be a bit beyond Colorado’s comfort zone. If the Rockies did trade him, that provision would convert to a mutual option.

Suter, claimed off waivers from the Brewers last offseason, is playing this season on a $3MM arbitration salary. The 33-year-old carries an excellent 2.81 ERA across 41 2/3 innings. He’s only striking out 19.2% of batters faced on a modest 8.4% swinging strike percentage. Yet he’s long shown excellent control and an ability to stay off barrels, allowing him to keep his ERA below 4.00 in each of the last four seasons.

His trade candidacy could be complicated by his health with less than a month until the August 1 deadline. Suter is currently on the 15-day injured list after straining his left oblique in late June. It’s unclear how long he’ll be out of action, although Saunders writes that he completed a 20-pitch bullpen session yesterday.

Of course, the Rockies have shown a willingness to operate outside the norm for deadline sellers. Colorado has resisted trading some impending free agents in past seasons when they’ve been well out of contention. Players like C.J. Cron, Elias Díaz and Daniel Bard were signed to multi-year extensions. Trevor Story and Jon Gray walked in free agency, with no compensation in Gray’s case since Colorado declined to make a qualifying offer.

Schmidt suggested the organization would take a similar approach this summer. “We are going to listen on guys, but people have to remember that teams have to want your players, too. … You’re not going to run out a Triple-A team out there — for the integrity of the game,” he told Saunders. “But if there is interest in our players and we think it’s a good decision for our organization, long-term, then we will make considerations.” He said the club would ideally bring back minor league pitching in deadline deals; Colorado’s one move thus far saw them ship out Mike Moustakas for High-A righty Connor Van Scoyoc.

It’s possible the Rockies retain Suter even if he’s healthy enough to draw continued interest at the end of the month. Schmidt implied they could look into an extension, saying he “could see him, going forward in the next year or two, giving us veteran experience in our bullpen.”

The GM also expressed openness to listening on the team’s veteran position players, although Saunders unsurprisingly suggests there’s been less interest in the bulk of that group. Cron, Randal Grichuk and Jurickson Profar are all impending free agents. None has played especially well in 2023. Cron and Grichuk missed notable chunks of time with early-season injuries; Profar has been healthy but stumbled to a .246/.328/.382 line despite playing in the sport’s most hitter-friendly home venue.

Charlie Blackmon is also in the final season of his deal. He has never seemed a particularly plausible trade candidate for myriad reasons. The veteran has full no-trade rights as a career-long Rockie with over 10 years of MLB service. He’s making $15MM this year and is likely to be on the injured list into August after suffering a right hand fracture last month. Demand figures to be minimal, but Schmidt said he’d discuss potential trade scenarios with Blackmon if they arose. The GM noted there’s interest on the club’s part in bringing him back for a 14th season if Blackmon wants to continue playing.

Díaz might be the most interesting Colorado trade candidate on the position player side. Schmidt tells Saunders he’s willing to listen to “legitimate” offers on the first-time All-Star, who’s amidst arguably the best season of his career. The 32-year-old backstop is hitting .279/.331/.442 with nine homers through 296 trips to the dish. He’s making $5.5MM this season and under contract for $6MM next year. Given that extra season of club control, it seems Colorado is prepared to hold to a high asking price on the veteran.

Rockies Sign Wynton Bernard To Minor League Deal

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In a move that eluded MLBTR last week, the Rockies recently signed outfielder Wynton Bernard to a minor league contract. He was assigned to Triple-A Albuquerque and has already appeared in six games there.

It’s a familiar setting for the minor league journeyman. Bernard spent most of the 2021-22 campaigns in Albuquerque as well. After more than a decade in the minors, he reached the majors last August when Colorado selected his contract. The Niagara product appeared in 12 big league contests, hitting .286/.286/.310 through 42 trips to the dish.

The Rockies outrighted Bernard off their 40-man roster at season’s end. He signed a non-roster pact with the Blue Jays in January and spent the bulk of the year with their top affiliate in Buffalo. Through 264 plate appearances, the right-handed hitter put together a solid .271/.360/.393 batting line. He walked at a strong 11.4% clip, kept his strikeout rate a tad below 20%, and stole 15 bases in 18 tries.

Toronto released Bernard a week ago. He signed back with Colorado a day later to again offer non-roster depth at all three outfield spots. The Rockies could look to move impending free agents Jurickson Profar and Randal Grichuk at this summer’s trade deadline, which might open a late-season opportunity for Bernard to get another look at the highest level.

Rockies Outright Jorge Alfaro

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The Rockies have sent catcher Jorge Alfaro outright to Triple-A Albuquerque, per his transactions tracker at MLB.com. That indicates he cleared waivers after being designated for assignment last week. He has the right to reject this assignment in favor of free agency but it’s not publicly known if he has done so.

Alfaro, 30, began the year on a minor league deal with the Red Sox. He mashed for the Triple-A club, hitting .320/.366/.520 in 191 plate appearances. He opted out of that deal and landed with the Rockies, who added him to their major league roster a few weeks ago. Unfortunately, he slashed just .161/.188/.387 in his 32 trips to the plate and was cut from the roster last week.

This has been a frustrating pattern for Alfaro, who has continually shown promise in the minors and then floundered in the majors. His career batting line in the big leagues is .254/.302/.396 whereas his Triple-A line is a much stronger .270/.317/.434. Since he’s generally considered a subpar defender behind the plate, that mercurial offensive performance has led to him continually bouncing on and off of rosters.

Since Alfaro has more than five years of major league service time, he has the right to reject an outright assignment while retaining his salary. He’ll therefore have to decide between reporting to Albuquerque and hoping for another shot with the Rockies or returning to the open market to see if there are other opportunities waiting for him. Since every club in the league just passed on the chance to grab him off waivers, he would probably be limited to minor league offers.

Rockies Outright Connor Kaiser

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Rockies infielder Connor Kaiser went unclaimed on outright waivers following this weekend’s DFA, tweets Thomas Harding of MLB.com. He’s been assigned to Triple-A Albuquerque and will remain with the organization while no longer occupying a spot on the 40-man roster.

Kaiser, 26, was added to the roster for his big league debut a few days ago when Ezequiel Tovar was placed on the paternity list. He appeared in three games during Tovar’s absence but went hitless in four trips to the plate during that span. Colorado designated Kaiser for assignment when Tovar returned from paternity and when a 40-man roster spot was needed to select the contract of veteran reliever Fernando Abad.

A third-round pick by the Pirates back in 2018, Kaiser has since bounced to the Padres and Rockies organizations in minor league free agency. He joined the Rox over the winter and turned in a solid .263/.357/.485 batting line with eight homers, 13 doubles, three triples and seven steals in 224 plate appearances at the Triple-A level while seeing time at shortstop and third base.

The Rox now have Tovar back in the fold and Ryan McMahon slotted in at the hot corner. Elehuris Montero is also an option at third or first, while Alan Trejo and Harold Castro can play around the diamond. Coco Montes gives the Rox another infield option on the 40-man roster down in Triple-A. Kaiser will remain on hand as a depth option, perhaps getting another call and another chance at logging his first big league hit if the Rockies incur an injury among that group of infield options.

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