Pablo Sandoval To Undergo Tommy John Surgery
The Giants have announced that third baseman Pablo Sandoval will undergo Tommy John surgery, effectively ending his season and clouding his availability for 2020. Maria I. Guardado of MLB.com further elucidates that Sandoval was evaluated by Dr. Neal ElAttrache on Wednesday, who recommended surgery on the injured right elbow of the San Francisco fan favorite (link) The surgery will take place in the first week of September.
Sandoval was placed on the injured list on Aug. 14 with what was believed to be bone chips in his right elbow. Apparently, a further look from Dr. ElAttrache revealed the need for reconstruction of his UCL. This is certainly a most inauspicious end to the five-year, $95MM contract that Sandoval signed in 2015 with the Red Sox, although perhaps this news should be used as a chance to recognize Sandoval’s late resurgence with San Francisco, rather than another opportunity to rehash his tabloid-magnified struggles with Boston from 2015-2017.
While “Kung Fu Panda” was indeed one of the worst players in the bigs over that span, with -2.2 WAR amassed between ’15 and ’17, 2019 has offered the big-bodied third baseman an opportunity to provide at least passable production for the club that originally brought him to fame. His .269/.314/.509 (109 wRC+) line, buttressed by 14 home runs and a personal-best .240 ISO in 295 trips to the plate, earned him consistent looks in manager Bruce Bochy‘s lineup this year, as San Francisco fans were treated to what will likely be their last look at the World Series-winning alignment of Bochy, Madison Bumgarner, Sandoval, Joe Panik, and others.
Padres Call Up Austin Allen, Option Eric Yardley
The Padres have announced the promotion of 25-year-old catcher Austin Allen to the active roster. Sidewinding reliever Eric Yardley will be optioned back to Triple-A El Paso after appearing in just two games with the team. This will be Allen’s third stint with the team in 2019–his first year of action in the big leagues.
Allen’s recall should not be seen as having a great impact on the already crowded picture behind the San Diego dish. While Andy Green continues to dole out something of a 60/40 playing time split between Francisco Mejia and Austin Hedges, Allen’s promotion will likely be made in an effort to bolster the team’s tepid bench group. MLB.com beat writer AJ Cassavell points out that the Padres are in “dire need of bench help”–a fairly accurate portrait, considering that manager Andy Green has recently only had Hedges, Wil Myers, and rookie Ty France to turn to in search of late-inning at-bats.
In his previous two call-ups, Allen only managed a .250/.327/.318 line, but his minor league track record bears the markings of a potentially forceful big league bat. Across five seasons and 1998 at-bats in the developmental ranks, Allen owns a .296/.354/.490 batting line–production impressive from a player at any position, let alone a catcher. It remains to be seen how he will be deployed in the field for the team moving forward; Allen does have one appearance at first base this season, but that position is entrenched by the person and contract of one Eric Hosmer.
Yardley was called upon to spin 2.2 innings of work in last night’s 11-0 nothing beating at the hands of the Red Sox, but will be summarily issued back to Triple-A after amassing a 9.00 ERA across three innings this week. His own minor league track record portends a useful arm, as Yardley’s 2.63 ERA in 61.2 Triple-A innings this year is rather impressive considering the PCL confines in which he has been pitching.
Tigers Select Willi Castro
The Tigers have selected the contract of INF Willi Castro from Triple-A Toledo, the team reports.
Castro, 22, was acquired in a Deadline Day deal last season from Cleveland in exchange for Leonys Martin. The team’s 7th ranked prospect, per FanGraphs, was decent (his 112 wRC+ ranked 51st among all players with at least 200 plate appearances in the International League this season) in 525 PAs for Toledo in ’19, slashing .301/.366/.467 as the team’s primary shortstop. MLB.com lauds the prospect’s “soft hands, actions, and arm strength” at the position while noting that the switch-hitter will need to improve on both sides of the ball to become an everyday player.
Castro was called up to replace INF Niko Goodrum, whose most recent groin strain could be a season-ender. In 472 plate appearances for the club this season, Goodrum posted a solid 1.9 fWAR, though his strikeout rate took off on him during summer’s dog days, and the switch-hitter slashed just .215/.296/.393 against right-handed pitchers on the year.
Mets Designate Aaron Altherr For Assignment
The Mets have designated outfielder Aaron Altherr for assignment, Deesha Thosar of the New York Daily News reports.
It’ll be the fourth designation this season for Altherr, who was outrighted by New York in June after being cut loose by the Phillies and Giants earlier in the campaign. It’s been a season to forget for the 28-year-old, who’s slashed an ugly .082/.136/.164 (-22 wRC+) in 64 plate appearances. He did show signs of life in a brief stint with Triple-A Syracuse, slashing .274/.384/.565 in 73 plate appearances with the club.
It’s been a rollercoaster career for the longtime Phillie, who’s alternated sturdily productive seasons (2015, 2017) with outright dreadful ones (2016, ’18, and ’19) since his debut late in 2014. Altherr still boasts a mostly even split vs righties and lefties over the course of his big-league tenure, so he’ll mostly need to work on cutting down the strikeouts if he’s to stick as a bench option at the MLB level.
Braves Sign Francisco Cervelli
The Braves have signed catcher Francisco Cervelli to a major-league deal, the team reports.
Cervelli, 33, was granted his release Thursday by Pittsburgh to allow the 12-year-vet to join a contender down the stretch. After reportedly declaring in early July that his big-league backstop tenure, marred by persistent concussive setbacks, had come to its end, Cervelli reversed course, anchoring down on a proposed course that would again find him behind the dish as soon as he was able. He appears, after just six rehab games, to have reached that point.
The longtime Yankee backstop, who came into his own mid-decade with the Buccos after taking the reins from Russell Martin, has slumped to his worst career season in ’19, slashing just .193/.279/.248 in 123 plate appearances. Still, Cervelli’s just a year removed from a 125 wRC+, 2.6 fWAR line in just 404 PAs, so there may yet be some juice left in that tank.
He’ll look to stabilize a wobbly catching situation in Atlanta, where longtime starter Tyler Flowers has slumped miserably in the season’s second half, slashing just .188/.257/.359 in near-full-time duty. Whether or not Cervelli will receive regular time behind the dish isn’t yet clear, but a few more withered Flowers efforts and the Venezuelan could be thrust quickly into the mix.
Brewers Designate Jhoulys Chacin For Assignment, Select Cory Spangenberg
The Brewers have designated Opening Day-starter Jhoulys Chacin for assignment, Robert Murray of The Athletic reports. IF/OF Cory Spangenberg has also been selected from Triple-A San Antonio, per the team.
Chacin, 31, had hit the IL with a lat-strain a week ago after a dreadful 2019 campaign. The righty, who started some of the biggest games for the Central-winning Crew last season, pitched to a 5.79 ERA/5.69 FIP in the final year of a two-year, $15.5MM deal signed prior to the 2018 season. Chacin’s strikeout rate was actually the highest of his career, but his longstanding command woes re-appeared and he was unable to keep the ball in the park, the one trait at which he excelled so masterfully last season.
Chacin’s 3.50 ERA in ’18 was mostly a mirage – his .250 BABIP, the second-lowest mark in the NL, wasn’t going to be sustained, nor was a 0.84 HR/9 in Milwaukee’s puny Miller Park. Once an extreme sinkerballer in his Coors Field days, Chacin in recent seasons has become heavily reliant on a hard-to-identify slider, a pitch NL hitters have finally begun to figure out. The righty’s grounder rate, at 37.4%, was a career low, and he wasn’t able to throw enough strikes to compensate. Chacin’ll certainly be an intriguing buy-low option for many contenders, a number of which may have designs on inserting the hurler into some sort of righty-heavy relief role.
Spangenberg, now 28, had spent all of ’19 at San Antonio. The longtime Padre has posted some of the league’s highest strikeout rates in recent seasons, and doesn’t much appear to have mollified the issue in AAA, with a K rate still hovering near 30%. Still, he possesses an intriguing power/versaility combo off at the bench, and could conceivably fill in at a number of positions for the Crew down the stretch.
Padres Notes: Tatis, Paddack, Mejia
The latest from America’s Finest City, where a midseason malaise will keep the long-suffering Padres out of postseason play for the 13th consecutive season . . .
- Wunderkind Fernando Tatis Jr., who’s hit the shelf with a serious injury for the third time in the last calendar year, has no plans to change his hyper-aggressive manner on the field, writes MLB.com’s AJ Cassavell. “No, absolutely not,” Tatis responded when posed with the question. “If it’s part of it, it’s part of it. But I’m not going to change my game at all.” The team, though, won’t sit by in deference: “Nobody’s looking to change him much or at all,” Padres manager Andy Green noted. “But there will be moments in time where he learns, through time, that he doesn’t need to take a chance. That’s not necessarily saying he’s going to play soft or step off the gas pedal. He’ll play very similar to the way he always has. That’s the way we want him to play. He will continue to learn and grow the more he plays.” A public position slightly hedged typically means a great deal more beneath the surface, so it’s almost certain the club’ll place caution at the center of its future messages to the young star. Tatis’ .317/.379/.590 line was slightly inflated by an obviously unsustainable .410 BABIP this season, with Statcast pegging the rookie as the NL’s luckiest hitter in ’19, but it was nonetheless a banner debut for ESPN’s #1 overall prospect entering the season.
- Fellow rookie Chris Paddack, whose relentless first-half assault on National League hitters has been thwarted by further exposure and the absence of a quality third offering, isn’t on a concrete innings limit, as Cassavell explores in a separate piece. A 2016 Tommy John Surgery limited the righty to just 90 IP in 2018, but the club has no plans to clot his late-season leak: “That’s not where my head is,” manager Andy Green said. “Get him back on the bump, attack again, overcome. Obviously if there’s something going on, that would change my mind quickly. But I think health-wise, he feels good.” After a solid first-half showing, in which the 23-year-old’s typically dominant K/BB was marred only by a 1.31 HR/9 mark, Paddack has been drilled in 35 post-all-star-break innings, allowing nine homers and as many doubles en route to a .507 slugging percentage against and 5.56 FIP. The former eighth rounder out of a Texas high school is author to perhaps the most impressive minor-league numbers since the days of Tim Lincecum, but may find his relentless zone-pounding in need of curation.
- Catcher Francisco Mejia, who appears now to have wrestled full-time duties away from incumbent Austin Hedges, looks to be finding his stride in the season’s second half. The 23-year-old’s 142 wRC+, on the back of a much-improved 7.5% BB rate, ranks fifth among MLB catchers over that span. The once-undiscerning backstop has also sliced his strikeout rate nearly 10% from last season’s 30.6% mark, and is now chasing pitches at a far-more-respectable rate. Mejia will still need to improve his much-maligned (in prospect circles) defense to fulfill his lofty upside, but the Friars may well have found their backstop of the future.
Max Scherzer Not Yet Back To Full Health
Max Scherzer is back in the Nationals rotation, but he’s not yet back to full health, per MLB.com’s Jamal Collier. How he feels the day after a start is a touchstone for Scherzer, who classified his own health status as “not out of the woods yet.”
In what amounted to a rehab start, Scherzer went four innings in a series finale win in Pittsburgh on Thursday, but as he gutted out a 4-inning, 71-pitch return, he was clearly working a gear or two below normal. It’s uncertain how long it will take before he’s back to full-blown Mad Max status.
Still, Scherzer remains ever-confident in his ability to not only bounce back, but potentially emerge stronger. “You know, heck, in some ways this might make me a better pitcher,” Scherzer said, per Collier. “When I come out on the other side, I may be a better pitcher because of this because of what I’m learning how to do right now and how to still be sharp and yet still be controlled. So let’s look at this glass half full.”
While that’s certainly a scary proposition for opposing hitters, simply returning to full health as one of the two or three best pitchers in the game would be more than enough progress for the Nationals.
Scherzer’s understudy has also been dealing with an injury scare, but Joe Ross is set to make his scheduled start today at Wrigley Field. Ross had been immaculate in holding the line with a 0.42 ERA in four starts before a Josh Bell line drive off his shin forced him to leave his last start early.
As for Erick Fedde, the presumptive fifth starter before Ross’ recent run, he could eventually move to the bullpen. For now, he will likely get at least one more turn in the rotation. Dave Martinez suggested the Nats might keep a 6-man rotation for the next week or so. Even with days off already built in, the Nats would err on the side of caution in giving everyone an extra day or two between turns as they gear up for the final push in September. After all, even the Nats healthy contingent of starters – Stephen Strasburg, Patrick Corbin, Anibal Sanchez – have dealt with injuries in the past. Of course, if the Nats offense keeps this up – they’re averaging 10 runs per game over their last 9 games – Scherzer can take all the time he needs.
Diamondbacks To Audition Catching Prospect Daulton Varsho In Centerfield
The Diamondbacks have begun to experiment moving Daulton Varsho out from behind home plate, per Nick Pecoro of the Arizona Republic. Varsho is the Diamondbacks #3 ranked prospect per Baseball America, #5 per MLB.com, while Fangraphs has him as the #77 overall prospect in their latest rankings.
Varsho’s bat has long been his calling card. Baseball America’s Best Hitter For Average in the Diamondbacks system following the 2018 season, he made the jump to Double-A this year and continued producing a rare combination of power and speed. His 20 stolen bases make him the first catcher in the upper reaches of the minors to hit that threshold since 2006. His overall numbers suggest he’ll reach Triple-A by next year at the latest (.301/.377/.527 with 25 doubles and 17 home runs).
The party line remains that Varsho can and will catch at the major-league level, but a move out from behind the plate has long been rumored for the Wisconsin native. Perhaps most telling is the fact that the Diamondbacks are now putting that plan into action: he started two games in centerfield this week, his first looks at game action from behind the mound. The Dbacks believe Varsho’s athleticism will allow for a smooth transition to the outfield.
Carson Kelly‘s emergence as the full-time backstop in Phoenix has as much to do with this move as anything. Arizona is presumably preparing for a future in which Kelly and Varsho are in the same batting lineup. Kelly, 25, has shined in his first season as a regular starter, slashing .254/.349/.531 with 18 home runs. Defensively, he’s not the quickest off the mat, but he grades as an excellent pitch framer and he’s long been held in high regard as a game-caller.
The Diamondbacks have a solid collection of potential future centerfielders, but the likes of Alek Thomas, Kristian Robinson, and Corbin Carrol are years away from the major leagues. Ketel Marte started 78 games in centerfield, but he’s also a capable second baseman. As a franchise, take a look at the moves they’ve made in free agency and trades over the last year, and they clearly value versatility. Recent acquisitions with the utility gene include Wilmer Flores, Eduardo Escobar, Andy Young, and Josh Rojas. Varsho joining this group of highly flexible position players fits the organizational scheme, and for what it’s worth, it should make him a more marketable trade asset.
Health Notes: Carrasco, B. Lowe, R. Hill, Tigers, Mariners
The Indians and right-hander Carlos Carrasco are gaining hope he’ll be able to help their bullpen this year, Ryan Lewis of Ohio.com reports. Carrasco’s amid a remarkably encouraging recovery from leukemia, an illness that put a stop to his season in late May. Since beginning a rehab assignment at the Double-A level, the 32-year-old has tossed 2 2/3 innings of no-hit, five-strikeout ball, showcasing solid velocity in the process. The Indians will now move Carrasco’s rehab stint to Triple-A Columbus, where he’ll throw around two innings Sunday, according to manager Terry Francona.
- Rays infielder Brandon Lowe‘s season is seemingly over, but he’s not giving up on a return, Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times relays. Lowe, who has dealt with shin and quad injuries over the past couple months, explained Friday that he’s aiming to rejoin the Rays during the postseason. A playoff berth isn’t a certainty for the Rays, but at half a game up on the AL’s top wild-card spot, they’re on track to earn a spot. Although he hasn’t played in a while, Lowe’s among the reasons for the club’s success. The 25-year-old rookie wrapped up his regular season with a terrific .276/.339/.523 line, 16 home runs and 2.5 fWAR in 307 plate appearances.
- Dodgers lefty Rich Hill will throw a bullpen session Saturday for the first time since landing on the IL on June 20 with a flexor tendon strain, Jorge Castillo of the Los Angeles Times tweets. Hill estimates he’ll rejoin the Dodgers’ staff in two weeks, per Castillo, though it’s doubtful he’ll start for them again this season. The 39-year-old could at least be an asset out of LA’s bullpen heading into the playoffs, however.
- The Tigers have placed utilityman Niko Goodrum on the IL with a left groin strain, the team announced. Goodrum, one of the few reasonably effective hitters in the Tigers’ lineup, has put up a .248/.322/.421 line with 12 homers and a dozen stolen bases across 472 plate appearances. Not only that, but the versatile 27-year-old has totaled double-digit appearances at first, second, short and in the outfield.
- The Mariners have shut outfielder Mitch Haniger‘s rehab down temporarily as he deals with a back issue, according to Greg Johns of MLB.com. It’s a new injury for Haniger, who suffered a ruptured testicle June 6 and hasn’t suited up for a major league game since. He appeared in three rehab games before the back problem cropped up.