Dodgers Activate Jedd Gyorko From IL
10:54 am: Gonsolin’s promotion won’t merely be a one-day spot start. Manager Dave Roberts tells Ken Gurnick of MLB.com the rookie will stay on the active roster through at least next week to make one additional start.
9:04 am: The Dodgers announced today they have activated infielder Jedd Gyorko from the 60-day injured list. Additionally, the club has recalled right-hander Tony Gonsolin from Triple-A Oklahoma City and optioned right-handed reliever Josh Sborz and first baseman Edwin Ríos to clear active roster space (h/t to Jorge Castillo of the Los Angeles Times). No corresponding 40-man roster move was required.
Gyorko’s first game back will also be his first as a Dodger. He suffered back and wrist issues while playing for the Cardinals, but LA nevertheless acquired him at the deadline while he was on the shelf. With the NL West all but a mathematical lock, the Dodgers could afford to acquire a player not healthy enough to contribute immediately who could play a role for them in October. Gyorko has experience at all four infield positions, although he’s probably best suited in the corners, and was a solid all-around player for St. Louis between 2016 and 2018. His injury-ravaged 2019 season means LA will almost certainly buy him out for $1M after the season, rather than exercise his $13MM club option for 2020, but he adds to the club’s already-enviable depth. He’s starting at first base today against Atlanta.
Gonsolin will start this afternoon’s game. The rookie is a solid prospect who has pitched well but not spectacularly with Triple-A Oklahoma City in abbreviated outings. Over 41.1 innings, he’s worked to a 4.35 ERA (better than it appears at first glance in the Pacific Coast League) with high strikeout (26.2%) and walk (11.0%) rates. He’s pitched quite well in three MLB appearances.
Sborz and Ríos, both 25, each made their MLB debuts in 2019 as well. Sborz tossed three innings out of the bullpen and has dominated in Triple-A this year, while Ríos raked in limited big league action as a lefty bench bat. The corner infielder has slashed .266/.339/.551 in Triple-A, which looks more impressive at first glance than it actually is. That output’s only six percent better than average for the level, although Ríos has a stronger track record of hitting in the high minors the past couple years.
Yankees Place Thairo Estrada On IL, Recall Tyler Wade
10:18 am: Estrada suffered the injury running the bases in yesterday’s game, manager Aaron Boone tells Bryan Hoch of MLB.com (via Twitter).
10:06 am: The Yankees announced today they have placed infielder Thairo Estrada on the 10-day injured list with a right hamstring strain. Utiltyman Tyler Wade is up from Triple-A Scranton Wilkes-Barre to take his place.
Estrada, 23, made his MLB debut in April. He’s been up-and-down from Scranton all year, totaling his first 61 MLB plate appearances. Regarded generally as a utility prospect, Estrada’s .266/.313/.452 line in Triple-A is unremarkable. It was encouraging to see him healthy until today, though, as he lost most of 2018 after being shot in a robbery attempt in his native Venezuela after the 2017 season.
Wade’s ridden the Scranton-New York shuttle multiple times over the past three seasons. The 24 year-old has put up a .177/.250/.257 line (37 wRC+) in the big leagues, although he’s never gotten an extended run to get into a rhythm. Instead, he’s mostly spent time in Triple-A, where he’s hit fairly well and stolen a few bases but never shown enough power to play his way into the Bronx full-time.
Nationals To Reevaluate Ninth Inning
The Nationals are reconsidering their usage of closer Sean Doolittle, manager Dave Martinez tells Mark Zuckerman of MASN. Any significant change could affect both the team’s 2019 postseason push and Doolittle’s employment in 2020.
Washington lost in fourteen innings to the Brewers last night, a game which bizarrely saw Milwaukee hit five home runs after the eighth inning, as the Athletic’s Jayson Stark points out (via Twitter). Beyond the sting of losing to a team now only two and a half games behind them in the standings, the marathon afair again magnified the organization’s biggest flaw: its relief corps. While questions about the bullpen’s depth have persisted for months (some might even argue years), now the unit’s one perceived measure of stability is taking the heat.
Doolittle blew a three-run lead in the ninth last night, surrendering a trio of longballs while recording just one out. He’s allowed multiple runs in three of his last five appearances and has coughed up seven homers in nine innings since July 29. That shocking stretch of ineffectiveness has pushed the veteran southpaw’s ERA to 4.33, a far cry from his 2.24 mark between 2017-2018. What’s more, his 25.5% strikeout rate in 2019, while solid, pales in comparison to the elite 33.9% figure he put up over the previous two seasons. In the aggregate, Doolittle’s numbers have dropped from stellar to average.
How can one explain Doolittle’s downturn? Both pitcher and manager believe his workload is taking its toll. Saturday was the reliever’s eighth outing of August, although his 54 appearances on the season only ranks 29th in baseball. Indeed, Wander Suero, not Doolittle, has actually been the Nats’ most-used relief arm. That said, a pitcher who spent time on the injured list every year between 2014 and 2018, as Doolittle had, may need to be handled with further care. Martinez acknowledged he and his reliever will meet today to discuss Doolittle’s workload, and the hurler himself reluctantly expressed a willingness to cut back on his innings, noting he hasn’t “been pulling (his) weight here these last couple weeks.”
It’s possible little will come of this reevaluation. After all, Martinez has worked Doolittle especially hard precisely because of the club’s lackluster bullpen. Daniel Hudson could stand to pick up a few save opportunities, but he’s pitched in 55 games himself and is a two-time Tommy John survivor, so the club surely won’t want to overload him, either (and his peripherals indicate he’d probably be miscast in that role anyhow). Tanner Rainey boasts an electric arm but an 18.8% walk rate, while Roenis Elías is out with a hamstring strain. Speculatively, fellow trade deadline acquisition Hunter Strickland could pick up a few ninth inning opportunities, but it’s obviously a suboptimal situation.
If the club does cut back Doolittle’s innings down the stretch, it’d be disappointing given the club’s slight lead in the NL Wild Card and still-manageable deficit in the NL East. Ironically, though, these struggles could be a boon to the club’s 2020 roster. As MLBTR’s Steve Adams noted Friday, Doolittle’s contract comes equipped with a $6.5 million club option which turns into a mutual option if he records the final out of 16 more games this season. Even considering his abysmal August, he could surely top that minuscule sum on the open market, so the ability to elect free agency would greatly impact his 2020 earning power and potential destination. If Martinez gets more judicious with Doolittle’s role to keep him fresh, the club could stand to pick up an extra year of control as a side benefit.
It seems from his comments Doolittle would be at peace with such a move, since he was forthright in admitting his recent performance has been unacceptable. Indeed, it’s not as if the club would limit his workload solely with the games finished clause in mind. There’s a real case to be made the player needs more rest. In addition to acknowledging some fatigue, Doolittle’s fastball velocity was down two miles per hour last night, and his fastball spin is trending marginally down with it. It behooves everyone involved to get Doolittle right sooner than later.
Yankees Activate CC Sabathia From IL
As expected, the Yankees announced they have activated left-hander CC Sabathia from the 10-day injured list. He’ll start today’s series finale against Cleveland after missing around three weeks with right knee inflammation.
It hasn’t been a banner final season for the 39 year-old, who has been especially plagued by the league’s home run surge. Sabathia’s 2.39 HR/9 is by far the worst mark of his career. While a career-worst 38% ground ball rate surely plays some part in that, an unsustainably high 21.1% HR/FB rate has contributed to that whiplash. Sabathia’s strikeouts (21.1%) and walks (7.7%) in 2019 are identical to those he put up in 2018, when he gave New York a 3.65 ERA over 153 innings.
Sabathia’s a back-end starter at this point, clearly, but it’d still be nice for the Yankees to get some volume from him down the stretch. The Bombers have ridden a power lineup and stellar bullpen to a league-best 83-42 record despite a mediocre rotation.
AL Notes: Laureano, Harvey, Brusdar, Lourdes
We’ll kick off this Sunday by taking a look at some injuries and minor-league news around the Junior Circuit.
- Athletics center fielder Ramón Laureano is making slow but steady progress from a stress reaction in his shin, he tells Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle (via Twitter). Laureano plans to begin running next week in an effort to mount a late-season comeback. His July 31 injury was always expected to shelve him for at least a month, and there’s little indication his early-September target date to return has changed. The 25 year-old has quietly emerged as one of baseball’s better young players. In 595 MLB plate appearances since debuting last August, Laureano has coupled well above-average offense (a .285/.341/.506 slash, good for a 122 wRC+) with a flair for the dramatic on defense, even if he’s not always the most consistent at tracking down fly balls, per Statcast. His return would be welcome news to a club just a half game out of the league’s final postseason spot.
- Laureano might not be the A’s only end-of-season reinforcement. Matt Harvey, whom the club brought aboard on a minor-league deal this week, acquitted himself well in his first action with his new employer, notes Melissa Lockard of the Athletic (via Twitter). Harvey tossed four scoreless Triple-A innings in the hitters’ haven that is Las Vegas, striking out five without issuing a walk along the way. He’ll obviously need more than one encouraging outing to erase the memories of his woeful past few seasons, but as MLBTR’s Connor Byrne noted Wednesday, it’s not hard to imagine Harvey factoring into the club’s uncertain pitching mix down the stretch.
- Harvey isn’t the only minor-league pitcher who could impact his team’s playoff push in the coming weeks. As Do-Hyung Park of MLB.com pointed out, the Twins have pushed pitching prospects Brusdar Graterol and Jorge Alcala up to the minors’ highest level, where both will work out of the bullpen. The promotion of Graterol, a husky 20 year-old righty from Venezuela, will generate the most attention. A top 100 prospect at Fangraphs, Baseball America and MLB Pipleline, Graterol pitched well in 11 games with Double-A Pensacola. The organization surely hopes he can emerge as an above-average starter long-term, but it isn’t hard to imagine him contributing in the bigs in short stints imminently thanks to his plus three-pitch arsenal. Alcala, too, might factor into the Twins’ end-of-season bullpen, where command issues always figured to push him anyways. The 24 year-old Dominican righty was acquired from Houston in the Ryan Pressly trade last summer and boasts mid-high 90’s gas, but he’s long issued too many walks to be an elite prospect and has an ERA pushing 6.00 in Pensacola. Both hurlers have to be added to the 40-man roster this offseason to avoid selection in the Rule V draft, so the Twins could expedite their promotions a few months given their tenuous hold on the AL Central.
- In non-playoff news, young Blue Jay Lourdes Gurriel, Jr. will get more clarity on a return date from a left quad strain after an MRI today, tweets Shi Davidi of Sportsnet. The 25 year-old has been out since August 9 and hopes to return by the end of the month. Gurriel’s yet to settle in defensively- he’s now playing left field after breaking in as a subpar infielder- and doesn’t sport great plate discipline, but he’s emerged as a solid right-handed power bat in 2019. Over 321 plate appearances, Gurriel’s hitting .279/.331/.548 (127 wRC+).
Phillies Place Roman Quinn On Injured List
The Phillies placed outfielder Roman Quinn on the 10-day injured list today, following his removal from Friday’s game with the Padres. It’s a right groin muscle strain for the 26-year-old Philadelphia product, as detailed by a report from Scott Lauber of the Philadelphia Enquirer (link).
After managing a 97 wRC+ in 50 games in his rookie 2018 season, 2019 has been nothing short of a trial for the center fielder from Florida. Quinn already missed a month this season due to a similar injury, and he has only output a .213/.298/.370 slash when healthy. However, August had seen Quinn getting into a serious groove, with a .368 batting average, three homers, and four stolen bases on the month.
The pervasiveness of these lower-body injuries is especially troublesome for a player of Quinn’s profile, who bases much of his game on his 30.1 ft/sec sprint speed (6th among active players this year). In his stead, it is expected that fellow rookie Adam Haseley will receive a larger share of up-the-middle playing time.
Veteran Jared Hughes, whom the Phillies claimed off waivers from the Reds this week, was brought onto the 25-man roster to replace Quinn for the time being. The righty pitched a clean frame in tonight’s 5-3 loss to San Diego.
Rays Expected To Call Up Trevor Richards
The Rays are expected to call up pitcher Trevor Richards to start Sunday’s game against the Tigers, according to a tweet from Juan Toribio of MLB.com (link). Peter Fairbanks was optioned to Triple-A Durham in an accommodating move.
This will be Richards’ first appearance in a Rays uni since being acquired by the club in a deadline deal. A Marlins product who started 45 games for Miami since his debut in 2018, Richards was sent to Tampa along with reliever Nick Anderson in exchange for righty Ryne Stanek and outfielder Jesus Sanchez on July 31st. While Anderson has already appeared in six games for a 72-52 Rays club, Richards has been plying his craft in Triple-A, where he has mostly been working in short spurts (5.1 innings through three minor league appearances).
Perhaps most noted for his past employment as a public school substitute teacher, Richards has been mostly passable as a major league starter thus far in his career–even if free passes have been problematic for the 26-year-old righty. In 238.1 big league innings, Richards has posited a 4.46 ERA and 4.37 FIP. His 10.2% career walk rate sits notably above the 8.3% MLB average.
Robert Gsellman To Injured List With Triceps Injury
After being generally harangued for their win-next-year approach at July’s trade deadline, the Mets have ripped off an 11-5 record this August. At 63-60, New York sits just 2.0 games back in the NL Wild Card race. But if the Mets are going to summon a truly amazing late-season turnaround, they will be doing so, at least temporarily, without the late-inning services of reliever Robert Gsellman. As a report from Newsday’s Tim Healey intimates, Gsellman has been moved to the 10-day injured list with a tight right triceps. The 10-day IL stint is retroactive to Wednesday, so Gsellman will be eligible to return next weekend when the Mets host the Braves.
As has been noted here and in most other corners of the internet, New York’s bullpen has been entirely unreliable this year, with a 5.22 collective ERA that ranks third-worst in the majors. Gsellman hasn’t exactly helped matters with consistency, as his 4.66 ERA and 4.13 FIP through 63.2 innings would indicate. The righty had been on a good run of late though, with a 2.97 ERA in his last seven appearances dating back to July 26th.
In the immediate term, the Mets will recall Walker Lockett to take Gsellman’s space on the active roster. This is Lockett’s fourth recall of the 2019 season. Dating back to last year’s debut with the Padres, Lockett has a 8.63 ERA in 32.1 innings at the game’s highest level.
NL Notes: Kimbrel, Scherzer, Swanson
MLB.com’s Jordan Bastian offers that the “expectation” is that Cubs closer Craig Kimbrel will be activated for Sunday’s contest with the Pirates. Signed this midseason to a 3-year/$43MM contract, Kimbrel got off to a rocky start in Chicago before a knee injury robbed him of participation in the club’s last 13 games. Through his first 14 appearances in blue pinstripes, the bearded hurler holds a 5.68 ERA across 12.2 IP. While the club is yet to announce his activation, Gordon Wittenmeyer points out that Kimbrel was on the team’s travel roster for their charter to Williamsport, Pennsylvania, and is indeed expected to be activated from the injured list in time for the third edition of MLB’s Little League Classic (link).
Wittenmeyer also relays that Steve Cishek appears as though he’ll be ready to return from the IL on Tuesday after throwing another bullpen session Saturday. Both returns would be welcome news for Cubs skipper Joe Maddon, who has been tinkering with troublesome iterations of Pedro Strop, Kyle Ryan, Derek Holland, and Brandon Kintzler in late-game situations.
More news from around the senior circuit…
- Saturday saw sidelined Nationals ace Max Scherzer throwing his second simulated game of the week, and MASN’s Mark Zuckerman reports that the legendary righty is on track to return on Thursday. “He felt good,” manager Dave Martinez told Zuckerman. “He’s a little bit ornery, but that’s a good thing. Now we’ll see how he feels tomorrow.” It hardly counts as high-level baseball journalism to say that the Nationals are going to need Scherzer in peak form in coming weeks. Sitting atop the tightly packed NL Wild Card race, Washington will play 11 games before season’s end against the Brewers, Mets, Cubs, and Phillies–four teams currently chomping at their heels for the right to play in the postseason play-in game. When healthy, the 35-year-old righty has posted typically ridiculous numbers, with a 2.41 ERA, 2.09 FIP, 12.66 K/9, and 1.67 BB/9 in 134.1 innings this year.
- Though the Braves lost Ender Inciarte to injury this weekend, it’s not all doom and gloom out of the Big Peach–as noted in an article from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s Gabriel Burns, sturdy shortstop performer Dansby Swanson is ramping up baseball activities. The 25-year-old infielder has missed 22 games this year due to an incidental heel injury but was seen taking ground balls before Saturday’s game. Before being hurt, Swanson was putting together his most complete full-season at the plate, with 17 home runs and a 102 wRC+ in 100 games. His injury was partly responsible for the team’s signing of defensive specialist Adeiny Hechavarria, but the team would eagerly clear a place for Swanson at the team table if he were able to return by late August as currently expected. Atlanta holds a 4.5 game lead in the race for the NL East pennant.
Ender Inciarte Placed On Injured List
Following a string of earlier reports regarding the hamstring injury sustained by Braves outfielder Ender Inciarte yesterday, the team has officially placed him on the 10-day injured list. Gabriel Burns of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution shares that Inciarte is expected to be out 4-6 weeks after an MRI scan revealed a strain of the Grade 2 variety (link). Outfielder Adam Duvall has been recalled from Triple-A Gwinnett to take Inciarte’s place on the active roster.
2019 has been a hard-luck season for Inciarte so far: it was just four weeks ago that the defensively gifted outfielder was activated after missing 55 games with an injury to the lumbar region in his torso. Since that activation, Inciarte had rebounded with a .293 batting average and 15 RBI in 90 plate appearances. Though his contact-and-defense profile has never been a glamorous one, Inciarte’s absence is sure to cause frustration for a Braves team already thoroughly bitten by injury bugs.
While the Braves hold a 4.5 game lead on their NL East counterparts, the team has had a hard time keeping key players on the field in recent weeks. After injuries to Nick Markakis and Austin Riley, Inciarte’s month-plus departure will reduce Atlanta’s grass patrol to Ronald Acuna Jr., Matt Joyce, Charlie Culberson, Rafael Ortega, and the just-promoted Duvall–a rather thin crew after the talented sophomore from Venezuela.
Braves fans may have hoped that an Inciarte injury would, at least on the bright side, result in the promotion of one of Cristian Pache or Drew Waters, but Atlanta will turn instead to the veteran Duvall as a depth fill-in. After being acquired from the Reds last year, the Braves tendered a $2.875MM salary to the battle-tested slugger this offseason. He’s spent the majority of 2019 in Triple-A but has been a roughly league-average hitter when called upon in 19 MLB games this year (.250/.297/.500 slash line and 99 wRC+). Inciarte’s injury will also precipitate a temporary move back to center field for Acuna Jr., per Burns’ report.