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Minor MLB Transactions: 10/30/20

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Rounding up some minor moves around the game:

  • Royals left-hander Mike Montgomery and right-hander Kevin McCarthy cleared outright waivers and have elected free agency, reports Jeffrey Flanagan of MLB.com (Twitter link). Montgomery, 31, was limited to 5.1 innings in 2020 due to a lat injury, derailing his chance of cementing himself in the Kansas City rotation. McCarthy was an oft-used bullpen piece in 2019 but only got into five games last season. Additionally, Kansas City claimed righty Carlos Sanabria off waivers from the Astros, per Flanagan (Twitter link). The 23-year-old reliever performed well in the high minors in 2019 and made his MLB debut in this year.
  • The Twins claimed right-hander Ian Gibaut off waivers from the Rangers, per an announcement from Texas. The 26-year-old pitched to just a 6.57 ERA in 12.1 innings this year but was once a well-regarded relief prospect. He comes with one option year remaining. Fellow Texas righty Luke Farrell cleared outright waivers.
  • The Twins also claimed left-hander Brandon Waddell off waivers from the Pirates, per Do-Hyoung Park of MLB.com (Twitter link). Additionally, Pirates’ catchers John Ryan Murphy and Luke Maile, utilityman Kevin Kramer, right-hander Yacksel Rios and outfielder Jason Martin all cleared outright waivers, per an announcement from Pittsburgh.
  • The Mets claimed right-hander Nick Tropeano off waivers from the Pirates, per an announcement from Pittsburgh. The 30-year-old pitched in seven games with a 1.15 ERA for the Pirates in 2020. He’s projected for a salary just under $1MM in arbitration.
  • The Nationals announced they’ve selected the contract of right-hander Steven Fuentes. The 23-year-old pitched to a 2.69 ERA/2.24 FIP in 63.2 Double-A innings in 2019 and would’ve been eligible for the Rule 5 draft this winter. Baseball America ranks Fuentes the #27 prospect in the Washington system.
  • The Cubs announced that they have claimed infielder Max Schrock via waivers from the rival Cardinals. Chicago also outrighted lefty Rex Brothers to Triple-A Iowa. Schrock picked up just 17 plate appearances for St. Louis in 2020 and collected three hits (two singles and a homer). Brothers, 32, threw only 3.1 innings with the Cubs and allowed three earned runs.
  • Speaking of the Cardinals, they announced outright assignments for righty Nabil Crismatt and lefty Ricardo Sanchez. Crismatt was successful for the Cardinals in 2020, notching 8.1 frames of three-run ball with eight strikeouts and one walk. Sanchez had some difficulty across 5.1 innings, though, as he gave up four earned runs and issued five walks.

Pirates Select Contracts Of Robbie Erlin, John Ryan Murphy

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The Pirates have selected the contracts of lefty Robbie Erlin and catcher John Ryan Murphy, per the team’s transactions page. Both had been assigned to the alternate training site but will now join the 40-man roster.

These moves were obviously made with an eye to structuring the Bucs’ Opening Day roster. With thirty roster spots to fill, the rebuilding club has quite a lot of openings to tinker with. These two players — both of whom are 29 years of age, were selected in the early rounds of the 2009 draft, and debuted in 2013 — are among the beneficiaries.

There was an especially clear need behind the dish in Pittsburgh. Murphy has never fully established himself as a MLB-caliber hitter, with a cumulative .219/.265/.357 slash line over 674 total plate appearances. But he’s trusted to handle backstop duties, having appeared with four different organizations over the past seven seasons.

Like most teams, the Pirates are likely to dedicate much of their added roster availability to pitching. Erlin will join a number of other arms hoping for their names to be called in on the bullpen phone. He could end up functioning as a situational lefty and/or long reliever. The 29-year-old carries a 4.57 ERA in 313 total MLB innings, all with the Padres.

Pirates, John Ryan Murphy Agree To Minor League Deal

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The Pirates have signed catcher John Ryan Murphy to a minor league contract with an invitation to Major League Spring Training, reports Rob Biertempfel of The Athletic (via Twitter). He’s represented by ISE Baseball.

Murphy, 28, spent the bulk of the 2019 season with the D-backs, although he finished out the year with a brief stint in the Braves organization. He’s a light-hitting backstop who’s generally considered to be among the game’s premier options in terms of pitch framing. Murphy was once considered a solid catching prospect with the Yankees and Twins, but to this point in his career he’s managed only a .219/.265/.357 batting line through 674 plate appearances. He hit well, particularly relative to other catchers, up through the Double-A level but owns a tepid .244/.306/.380 line through parts of five Triple-A seasons.

Pittsburgh’s catching mix is fairly open at the moment. Jacob Stallings is the favorite to handle starting duties after posting a respectable batting line and playing strong defense in 2019. Luke Maile joined the organization as a free agent and was given a 40-man roster spot, placing him in line to serve as the backup to Stallings. Murphy, though, will provide some competition for Maile (a high-end framer himself) and can otherwise serve as an experienced depth option in the upper minors if he’s unable to break camp with the team.

Braves Select John Ryan Murphy

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The Braves announced today that they have selected the contract of catcher John Ryan Murphy. A 40-man roster spot was cleared by placing injured utilityman Charlie Culberson on the 60-day injured list.

Murphy, 28, was added over the summer in a minor swap with the Diamondbacks. He had struggled to a .177/.250/.419 batting line in 69 MLB plate appearances with the Arizona organization.

The Braves likely intend to utilize Murphy to reduce the wear and tear on the club’s primary backstops. With the division all but sewn up, the focus now is on preparing the roster for the postseason. While he’s technically eligible for the playoffs if needed, Murphy is fourth on the depth chart.

Diamondbacks Outright John Ryan Murphy

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Diamondbacks catcher John Ryan Murphy has cleared waivers and accepted an outright assignment to Triple-A Reno, per a team announcement. The Diamondbacks designated Murphy for assignment last Saturday.

The 28-year-old Murphy will continue with the D-backs, who acquired him from the Twins for left-hander Gabriel Moya in July 2017. It was the second trade of Murphy’s career, as the Yankees sent him to the Twins for center fielder Aaron Hicks in a November 2015 swap. Needless to say, New York got the better end of that transaction.

Dating back to his big league debut with the Yankees in 2013, Murphy has hit .219/.265/.357 (65 wRC+) with 18 home runs in 673 plate appearances. While Murphy limped to a 70 wRC+ in 69 PA this year before Arizona cut him from its 40-man roster, his defense has been an asset in the desert. Baseball Prospectus has given the backstop outstanding grades behind the plate over the past year-plus, and Murphy even served as ace Zack Greinke’s personal catcher until the team went in another direction.

Diamondbacks Designate John Ryan Murphy

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The Diamondbacks announced Saturday that they’ve designated catcher John Ryan Murphy for assignment. His 25-man roster spot went to right-hander Taylor Clarke, whom the Diamondbacks recalled from Triple-A El Paso. Clarke started Arizona’s game in San Francisco on Saturday.

We may have seen the last of Murphy in Arizona, where he has played since the club acquired him from Minnesota for lefty Gabriel Moya in July 2017. Since then, Murphy’s just a .195/.243/.383 hitter in 299 plate appearances. The 28-year-old has taken 69 trips to the plate this season and slashed .177/.250/.419 with four home runs and a whopping 40.6 percent strikeout rate, though he has acted as the personal catcher for righty Zack Greinke. Murphy has caught all 11 of Greinke’s starts and graded as a plus pitch framer.

For the Diamondbacks, the decision to move on from Murphy shows they’re committed to giving more playing time to Carson Kelly, Nick Piecoro of the Arizona Republic writes. Kelly, whom the team acquired from St. Louis in the offseason as part of the clubs’ Paul Goldschmidt trade, has come out of Yadier Molina’s shadow to perform well so far in 2019. He and Alex Avila will comprise the D-backs’ top two catchers going forward.

NL West Notes: Dickerson, Dodgers, Ohtani, D-backs

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Padres outfielder Alex Dickerson has been diagnosed with a sprained ulnar collateral ligament in his left (throwing) elbow, and surgery is a possibility, writes MLB.com’s AJ Cassavell. It’s a tough break for the 27-year-old Dickerson, who missed all of the 2017 season following back surgery but showed some promise at the plate in his rookie campaign in 2016. That year, Dickerson slashed .257/.333/.455 with 10 homers in 285 plate appearances while walking at a 9.1 percent clip and fanning in just 15.4 percent of his plate appearances. Per Cassavell, the club is “hopeful” that Dickerson won’t require Tommy John surgery, but even if he doesn’t require surgery, he’s likely to miss at least the first month of the season.

More from the NL West…

  • Andy McCullough of the L.A. Times takes an excellent look at the Dodgers’ failed pursuit of Shohei Ohtani. The team had Clayton Kershaw, Justin Turner and Chris Taylor fly into L.A. to help sell Ohtani on the Dodgers in their in-person meeting, but it proved to be a somewhat frustrating experience. Both Turner and Kershaw candidly stated that the process felt like a “waste of time,” indicating that Ohtani already seemed set on signing with an AL club where he could serve as a part-time DH. Kershaw didn’t express any ill feelings toward Ohtani himself, though he voiced some frustration toward CAA, Ohtani’s agency, over the matter. “I’m kind of mad at his agent for making us waste all that time and effort,” said Kershaw. “Fifteen teams should have been out of it, from the beginning.” Ohtani’s agent with CAA, Nez Balelo, issued a rebuttal to McCullough in which he calls any assertion that Ohtani would meet with a team for which he had no interest in playing “unfounded and an insult to [Ohtani’s] personal ethics.” Balelo also points out that Ohtani met with more NL clubs (four) than AL clubs (three). It’s a fascinating column that is filled with quotes from Kershaw, Turner, Balelo, Dave Roberts and Andrew Friedman.
  • The D-backs have plenty of roster decisions to make by the end of Spring Training, but the bench presents a particularly enigmatic situation, writes Bob McManaman of the Arizona Republic. GM Mike Hazen and skipper Torey Lovullo need to determine whether they plan to carry seven or eight relievers, which will determine whether they utilize a four- or five-man bench. Even if it’s the latter, there are numerous battles for a spot. Lovullo calls a third catcher a “luxury” that he enjoyed in 2017, but Chris Herrmann or John Ryan Murphy (the two men who’d compete to fill that role) are vying with Yasmany Tomas and possibly Christian Walker for a potential fifth bench slot. The first four slots figure to go to Jeff Mathis, Chris Owings, Jarrod Dyson and Daniel Descalso, with Nick Ahmed and Ketel Marte likely holding the up-the-middle starting gigs. Notably, both Herrmann and Murphy are out of minor league options.

Diamondbacks Acquire John Ryan Murphy

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The D-backs announced that they’ve acquired minor league catcher John Ryan Murphy from the Twins in exchange for minor league left-hander Gabriel Moya. In a corresponding move, Yasmany Tomas has been transferred from the 10-day DL to the 60-day DL to clear a spot on Arizona’s 40-man roster.

John Ryan Murphy| Tommy Gilligan-USA TODAY Sports

Murphy’s tenure with the Twins will come to a disappointing end after roughly a season and a half. Acquired prior to the 2016 season in a straight-up swap for outfielder Aaron Hicks, Murphy floundered in his first season with the Twins in ’16 and has yet to see the Majors in 2017. Hicks, meanwhile, finally broke out and delivered on his former top prospect status as a member of the Yankees in 2017, though he’s been sidelined for about a month due to an oblique injury.

The 26-year-old Murphy showed plenty of promise in 2015, hitting .277/.327/.406 in his first extended look in the Majors as a member of the Yankees. With a long-term need behind the plate and a glut of outfield depth in his system, former Twins GM Terry Ryan moved the out-of-options Hicks to New York in exchange for Murphy with the hope that he could succeed Kurt Suzuki as the Twins’ starting catcher in the long run.

Murphy, though, logged just 90 plate appearances with the Twins in 2016 and hit .146/.193/.220. He posted a .609 OPS at the Triple-A level last year as well and hasn’t been much better in 2017, hitting just .222/.298/.330 with four home runs through 218 plate appearances. The Twins inked Jason Castro to a three-year pact this winter and have backup catcher/mop-up reliever extraordinaire Chris Gimenez controlled through 2018, while 26-year-old Mitch Garver’s strong minor league play has easily vaulted him over Murphy on the organizational depth chart. The inclusion of journeyman Anthony Recker in this week’s Jaime Garcia swap gave the Twins yet another experienced option at catcher and likely made Murphy all the more expendable in their eyes.

For all of his flaws at the plate, Murphy has halted 39 percent of stolen base attempts against him and has delivered superlative framing marks both this season and last in Triple-A Rochester. For a Diamondbacks organization that has placed a clear emphasis on catcher defense — highlighted by the signing of light-hitting Jeff Mathis to a two-year deal — the interest in Murphy is understandable. He’s probably behind Mathis, Chris Herrmann and Chris Iannetta on the depth chart for now, but Iannetta is a free agent at season’s end while Herrmann (also a former Twin) is a clear non-tender candidate, if not a DFA candidate.

In Moya, the Twins will pick up a left-handed arm that ranked as the 25th-best asset in a thin Diamondbacks farm system, per Jim Callis and Jonathan Mayo of MLB.com. The 22-year-old Moya has served as the closer with the D-backs’ Double-A affiliate this season and posted a gaudy 0.82 ERA with 14.0 K/9, 2.5 BB/9 and a 42.5 percent ground-ball rate. He’s saved 17 games at that level, though Callis and Mayo suggest that he doesn’t have the stuff to close at the game’s top level. They do note that unlike many relievers, Moya has four useful pitches, highlighted by a changeup and also featuring an average fastball and slider.

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.

Twins Assistant GM Antony On Hunter, Park, Murphy, Nolasco

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Jesse Lund, of SB Nation’s Twins blog Twinkie Town, recently did a wide-ranging interview with Twins assistant GM Rob Antony (Part 1, Part 2). Here are a few highlights.

  • The Twins weren’t necessarily surprised by Torii Hunter’s retirement in October, Antony says. That Hunter made his decision early in the offseason allowed the Twins time to plan, and helped them enter the bidding for KBO slugger Byung Ho Park. Later, Antony adds that the Twins had been aware of Park since he was in high school, and they were interested in signing him even then.
  • The Twins struggled offensively at the catcher position in 2015, and especially didn’t do well from the backup catcher spot. That deficiency led them to acquire John Ryan Murphy (who they got from the Yankees for Aaron Hicks). Murphy, Antony feels, can be a long-term answer as a starting catcher. That trade took place in November, and Antony says that the Twins wanted to make the deal quickly because many teams were looking for catching and the Twins wanted to get a player who might be around for several years. For that reason, they felt that the trade market was a better avenue to pursue than the free agent market.
  • The Twins considered blowing past their international bonus pool in recent years but did not do so because of the way the market for international amateur talent unfolded. “[W]hat ended up happening was a few teams – basically we had about six, seven players that we were prepared to just go get and spend millions of dollars on – well, some teams that lost out on guys they were after went after some of those same players and basically doubled what we were prepared to do,” Antony says.
  • The Twins have not discussed the possibility of eating a portion of the $25MM remaining on Ricky Nolasco’s contract in a potential trade, despite how poorly the first two years of his contract have gone. Nolasco’s role on this year’s team is unclear, but Antony emphasizes that the Twins plan to use him and still view him as a potentially helpful pitcher.

AL Central Notes: Jackson, Sox, Minor, Tigers, Twins

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Following their reported signing of Juan Uribe to a one-year deal, the Indians “seem to be considering” a run at free agent outfielder Austin Jackson, tweets Jon Heyman. Cleveland has a well-documented need in the outfield that has yet to be addressed — as Jeff Todd and I discussed on this week’s MLBTR Podcast. Jackson would add some stability to the picture at a potentially bargain rate at this juncture of the offseason and on the heels of a pair of so-so seasons at the plate. Heyman notes that there are other possibilities for Jackson, though, citing the White Sox, Angels, Brewers and “maybe” the Rangers, noting that Texas may not want to spend the money. It’s unclear whether Heyman was merely speculating on that last grouping of teams, though given the Angels’ reluctance to spend on free agents this winter and Texas GM Jon Daniels’ recent comments suggesting the payroll isn’t likely to grow much more, Jackson could be a stretch for either club.

Here’s more on the AL Central…

  • Heyman also tweets that the White Sox appear to be open to one more outfield addition — one that can handle playing some center field. Austin Jackson, of course, would fit the bill in that regard, he notes, as would Dexter Fowler, if the Sox are willing to spend more. Bruce Levine of CBS Chicago/670 The Score also writes that the Sox are interested in adding to their outfield depth and are indeed considering Fowler. However, Fowler is said to be one of Baltimore’s top targets, and the O’s reportedly “expect” that they’ll be able to land both Fowler and free-agent right-hander Yovani Gallardo.
  • Left-hander Mike Minor, who inked a two-year contract with the Royals earlier today, will be unavailable for the first six weeks to two months of the regular season, general manager Dayton Moore told reporters, including Rustin Dodd of the Kansas City Star (Twitter link). That Minor will be sidelined for some time to open the season isn’t unexpected, as the former Braves hurler is recovering from surgery to repair a torn labrum in his left shoulder.
  • The Tigers are reportedly set on adding relief arms to their Spring Training mix after adding Bobby Parnell on a minor league pact, but MLB.com’s Jason Beck tweets that the team could yet bring in another player on a minor league deal — likely an infielder. The infield market has been largely picked clean, though a few recognizable names such as Alberto Callaspo, Jonathan Herrera and Dan Uggla have yet to sign this offseason.
  • Twins skipper Paul Molitor tells reporters, including MLB.com’s Rhett Bollinger (Twitter link) that heading into Spring Training, he’s considering Kurt Suzuki his starting catcher and trade acquisition John Ryan Murphy the backup. Of course, it’d be somewhat surprising to see a manager promise a starting role to a just-acquired, inexperienced option with a seasoned veteran in house. Suzuki probably will get the nod on Opening Day, and I can imagine him getting some more time early in the year as Murphy learns a new pitching staff and acclimates to his new organization. However, barring a return to 2014 form for Suzuki, it seems likely that Murphy will at least work his way into a larger role than that of a traditional backup catcher, as Minnesota’s hope is that he can develop into its primary catcher beyond the 2016 campaign. It’s worth noting, too, that Suzuki has a $6MM option that will vest at 485 plate appearances. He’s averaged 491 PAs as the clear No. 1 catcher in the past two seasons, and the Twins probably would prefer to avoid that option vesting — especially if Suzuki’s production more closely resembles 2015 than 2014.
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