NL Notes: Kang, Brewers, Mets, Reds
After spending several years with the Pirates, who released him Aug. 5, it’s possible free-agent infielder Jung Ho Kang will resurface in the National League Central. Kang took infield practice with the Brewers’ Triple-A affiliate in San Antonio on Thursday, as journalist Joe Alexander noted. Tom Haudricourt of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel corroborated Alexander’s report Friday, tweeting that Kang has been working out with the Brewers’ top farm club. Kang and the Brewers have not reached an agreement on a minor league contract yet, though, as general manager David Stearns said the two sides still have issues to work out, per Haudricourt. The once-valuable Kang, 32, is looking to rebuild his stock after batting a hideous .169/.222/.395 in 185 plate appearances with Pittsburgh this season.
Here’s more on a pair of other NL teams…
- Mets outfielder Brandon Nimmo finally began a rehab assignment Friday at the Single-A level, Tim Healey of Newsday was among those to report. A bulging disc in Nimmo’s neck has shelved him since May 21, meaning it’s likely he’ll need a solid amount of time to work back, as Healey notes. The Mets have charged into playoff contention in recent weeks despite Nimmo’s absence, though they’ve since lost fellow noteworthy position players Jeff McNeil, Robinson Cano and Dominic Smith to the injured list. Unlike McNeil and Smith, Nimmo was in the throes of a surprisingly difficult season when he went down. After getting on base at a .404 clip and totaling 4.5 fWAR during what looked like a breakout 2018, the 26-year-old Nimmo came out of the gates this season with a .200/.344/.323 line and 0.2 fWAR in 161 PA.
- Cano and closer Edwin Diaz, the Mets‘ two biggest winter acquisitions, have joined Nimmo in enduring trying seasons. The Mets expected the great track records of Cano and Diaz to carry to their organization when they picked up the two during the offseason in a blockbuster trade with the Mariners. Instead, they’ve struggled, and the top best prospects the Mets surrendered – outfielder Jarred Kelenic and righty Justin Dunn – have excelled, as David Schoenfield of ESPN.com observes. Kelenic and Dunn were already well-regarded prospects at the time of the deal, but their stocks have only risen this season. Both players reflected on the swap with Schoenfield, Kelenic saying: “I looked up at a TV and my name was up there as a rumor. I was like, ‘Are you kidding me? Is anyone else seeing this?'” Kelenic was in disbelief the Mets were set to move him just a few months after choosing him sixth overall in the draft. As for Dunn, a Long Island native, he understands why general manager Brodie Van Wagenen dealt him. “He had to do what was best for the organization,” Dunn stated, adding that “he had to do the right move for his team, which was to try and win now.”
- Reds third baseman Eugenio Suarez departed the team’s loss to St. Louis on Friday with a left thumb sprain, per an announcement from Cincinnati. X-rays came back negative on Suarez, who’s day-to-day. The big-hitting 28-year-old’s production has taken steps back this season compared to 2018. However, Suarez has still slashed a more-than-respectable .259/.341/.530 with 33 home runs in 504 PA, further justifying the Reds’ decision to hand him a seven-year, $66MM extension prior to last season.
Braves Remove Ender Inciarte With Hamstring Injury
10:02pm: Inciarte’s injury does indeed look “significant,” Mark Bowman of MLB.com tweets. The Braves will further evaluate him Saturday.
7:17pm: Already facing mounting health challenges, the Braves are now left with another potentially significant injury. Center fielder Ender Inciarte was removed from tonight’s game with what the team is labeling a right hamstring injury, as David O’Brien of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution was among those to cover on Twitter.
After a slow start at the plate, Inciarte suffered a lumbar strain that robbed him of a significant chunk of the season. While his status with the club once seemed in question, Inciarte has been on fire at the plate since returning. He’s now a critical part of the team’s outfield mix with Nick Markakis and Austin Riley on the shelf (and the latter having endured a lengthy slump).
While we won’t know more about Inciarte’s status until he has undergone further medical review, it’s quite worrisome to see him limp off with a hammy problem. There are just six weeks left in the regular season, with the postseason beckoning thereafter, so there’s not much time to give a significant muscle injury adequate rest. The club will have to hope that it’s just a low-grade strain.
Earlier today, the Braves demoted Adam Duvall and Johan Camargo, both of whom have struggled at the plate in recent weeks. The former seems like an obvious replacement option — that’s the entire reason he was tendered a contract and kept all season long, after all — and he’ll be able to come right back from Gwinnett without waiting the usual ten days if Inciarte hits the injured list. But that would leave a suboptimal outfield group to supplement Ronald Acuna, with Duvall potentially joining Matt Joyce, Charlie Culberson, and Rafael Ortega as options.
If Inciarte ends up being diagnosed with a significant injury, it’s likely the Braves will end up taking a hard look at the waiver wire for upgrades. Left-handed-hitting speed demon Billy Hamilton did just come available today; he carries a generally similar profile to Inciarte, albeit with much lesser abilities with the bat. Some will no doubt raise the call for top prospects Christian Pache and Drew Waters. It’d certainly be a bold and fascinating gambit for the team to promote either of the talented twenty-year-olds, though there’s no real indication whether that will seriously be considered.
Outrighted: Yacabonis, Mantiply, Lail
Let’s catch up on a few announcements regarding players who have been outrighted after clearing waivers …
- The Orioles announced that righty Jimmy Yacabonis is destined for Triple-A after clearing. He had struggled in a 41-inning showcase this year, managing only a 5.40 ERA with 7.2 K/9 against 5.3 BB/9. Yacabonis has produced similar numbers in parts of two prior seasons in the majors.
- A pair of hurlers are heading to the Yankees’ top affiliate via outright assignment. Southpaw Joe Mantiply struggled in his lone outing with the Yanks after being acquired from the Reds. That was his first time in the bigs since a brief 2016 debut. Righty Brady Lail also lost his 40-man spot after a single MLB appearance. He has worked to a 2.79 ERA with 11.8 K/9 and 2.8 BB/9 over 42 minor-league frames this year.
Pitcher Notes: Carrasco, Scherzer, German
The latest on a few notable right-handers…
- The Indians’ Carlos Carrasco took a significant step Friday toward returning to a major league mound, Mark Feinsand of MLB.com explains. Carrasco, out since the end of May because of a leukemia diagnosis, threw his first live batting practice session, tossing 25 pitches to Single-A hitters. The Indians are deciding on a next step for Carrasco, who still doesn’t have a timetable for a return. Regardless of whether the 32-year-old does come back this season, manager Terry Francona said what Carrasco accomplished Friday was “a huge boost to him.”
- The Nationals had hope that ace Max Scherzer would come off the injured list this weekend, but that isn’t going to happen, Eddie Matz of ESPN.com reports. Scherzer, shelved since July 25 with a mild rhomboid strain, still has to build his arm up more before he slots back into Washington’s rotation. He threw a 60-pitch simulated game this past Tuesday and will aim for “75, 80 pitches” on Saturday, according to manager Dave Martinez. If that goes well, it seems quite possible Scherzer will come off the IL sometime next week. The three-time Cy Young winner’s injury issues have limited him to just two starts since the beginning of July.
- Yankees righty Domingo German has thrown 120 innings between the majors and minors this year, putting him on pace to eclipse the professional-high 123 2/3 he amassed in 2017. The starter-needy, World Series hopeful Yankees are unlikely to limit German’s workload, though, in part because he missed three weeks earlier this season with a hip flexor strain, George A. King III of the New York Post writes. “There are no innings limits when you are in October. All safeties are off,” general manager Brian Cashman said, adding that German “already has had a timeout.” The 24-year-old German has been one of the top options in a shaky New York rotation this season, having pitched to a 3.96 ERA/4.64 FIP with 9.62 K/9 and 2.02 BB/9 over 116 MLB frames.
A Minor Signing Pays Off For Giants
Giants infielder Donovan Solano has somewhat quietly held his own since the team selected his contract from Triple-A Sacramento on May 7. Dating back to then, Solano has slashed .331/.363/.471 (119 wRC+) with four home runs across 168 plate appearances. Not bad for someone who had to settle for a minor league pact when he joined the Giants last offseason.
Solano’s output this year has been all the more impressive considering he hadn’t appeared in the majors since 2016 prior to his promotion to San Francisco’s roster. He logged a fair amount of playing time with the Marlins from 2012-15 and a bit with the Yankees the year after his Miami tenure ended, but he only managed a .257/.306/.331 line during that 1,168-PA span between the two teams. What’s more, Solano didn’t acquit himself particularly great as a minor leaguer with the Marlins, Yankees or Dodgers, evidenced in part by his lifetime .724 OPS in 2,570 PA at the Triple-A level. He was solid – albeit far from excellent – as a member of the Giants’ top minors affiliate at the outset of the season, hitting .322/.392/.437 (108 wRC+) with a pair of homers over 97 attempts as part of the hitter-friendly Pacific Coast League.
Solano’s early season production in Sacramento was enough to earn him another big league call-up, and he hasn’t looked back. His effectiveness has played a role in the resurgence of the Giants, who have rallied from the dead this summer to at least enter the National League wild-card conversation. The question is: Might the Giants – who haven’t gotten much from any second base choice but Solano – have actually found a legitimate late bloomer? Going by the numbers, it’s a mixed bag.
Solano’s .397 batting average on balls in play isn’t going to continue, which is especially ominous for someone who doesn’t hit for much power, and his 87 mph average exit velocity ranks toward the bottom of the league. He also seldom walks, having drawn free passes at a subpar 4.8 percent clip.
Solano has, however, offset his lack of walks to some degree by striking out less than most hitters (20.2 percent). When he has put the bat on the ball, the right-hander has increased his line drives and hard-contact rate (according to FanGraphs), cut down on grounders, and recorded quality production against righty and lefty hurlers alike. Solano has struggled mightily at the Giants’ pitcher-friendly confines of Oracle Park, where he has batted .266/.289/.304, though he has made up for that by slashing a fantastic .397/.435/.641 on the road. Overall, Statcast shows little difference between Solano’s weighted on-base average (.356) and expected wOBA (.359).
While Solano had made clear improvements this season, it’s highly debatable whether he could emerge as a multiyear solution for the Giants. Even if he doesn’t, the Giants couldn’t have expected Solano to put up what has easily been a career campaign in 2019 when they inked him to a no-risk deal. Given the work Solano has done in a San Francisco uniform, he looks like one of the winter’s top minor league signings at this point.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.
Giants To Promote Logan Webb
TODAY: Webb is indeed taking the ball tomorrow, skipper Bruce Bochy tells reporters including MLB.com’s Maria Guardado (via Twitter).
YESTERDAY: The Giants haven’t named a starter for Saturday’s game in Arizona, but president of baseball operations Farhan Zaidi “strongly hinted” in a radio appearance on KNBR the job will go to right-hander Logan Webb, Henry Schulman of the San Francisco Chronicle tweets. Webb is already on the Giants’ 40-man roster, so calling him up from the minors wouldn’t require a corresponding move in that regard.
Now 22, Webb joined the Giants as a fourth-round pick in 2014. He underwent Tommy John surgery two years later, which limited him to 70 innings from 2016-17, but has come back to thrive since then. The hard-throwing Webb’s currently one of San Francisco’s highest-regarded farmhands, ranking among the team’s top 10 prospects at MLB.com (No. 5), Baseball America (No. 8) and FanGraphs (No. 9).
The majority of Webb’s work this year has come in Double-A ball, where he put up a 2.18 ERA with 10.23 K/9, 2.61 BB/9 and a 65.5 percent groundball rate in 41 1/3 innings en route to his first Triple-A promotion. Webb made his inaugural Triple-A start Monday and fired seven innings of one-run, seven-hit ball, notching seven strikeouts and no walks along the way.
While Webb has been stellar on the mound this season, his year hasn’t been free of issues. Webb received an 80-game suspension May 1 after testing positive for the performance-enhancing drug dehydrochlormethyltestosterone. But it doesn’t appear that ban will prevent Webb from debuting this year for the starter-needy Giants, who are continuing to hang around the .500 mark and the National League wild-card picture.
Poll: Who Will Win The AL Central?
The two best teams in the American League Central brutalized their opponents on Thursday. The Twins crushed the Rangers, 13-6. The Indians pulled off an even more decisive victory, destroying the mighty Yankees by a 19-5 score. On the heels of those wins, Minnesota and Cleveland entered play Friday neck and neck in the division, which has largely been the case over the past couple weeks. The Twins hold a half-game lead over the Indians, the three-time reigning AL Central champions.
The fact that the race has gotten this close is somewhat hard to believe. For most of the season, the division has looked like the Twins’ in a runaway. They owned an 11-game edge over the Tribe as recently as June 15, but the Indians have chipped away since then. Despite the long-term absences of arguably their two top pitchers – Corey Kluber (out since May 1 with a fractured forearm) and Carlos Carrasco (out since May 30 because of leukemia) – the Indians have remained on the Twins’ heels. The Indians also traded away high-end starter Trevor Bauer prior to last month’s deadline, though they received immediate help for their lineup in outfielders Yasiel Puig and Franmil Reyes in return.
Cleveland’s starting staff, which should at least get Kluber back sometime soon, has gotten by mostly because of young sensation Shane Bieber and Mike Clevinger. Meanwhile, the ERAs of rookie Zach Plesac and Adam Plutko have far outperformed much weaker peripherals, while first-year right-hander Aaron Civale has been excellent over his first few starts. And the Indians’ lineup, which was a sore spot earlier in the season, has risen from the dead with help from Jose Ramirez and Jason Kipnis – both of whom struggled mightily at the outset of the campaign – among those complementing Carlos Santana and Francisco Lindor.
The Indians went into play Friday with 169 home runs – 67 fewer than the major league-leading Twins’ 236. Minnesota’s on track to breeze past the single-season record of 267 that the Yankees set just a year ago, but the Twins’ co-leader, designated Nelson Cruz (32 HRs), has been on the injured list since last week because of a strained wrist. Their lineup’s still in enviable shape – Max Kepler, Jorge Polanco, Mitch Garver, Miguel Sano, Eddie Rosario and Luis Arraez are among those enjoying standout seasons – but the team has nonetheless stopped operating at a breakneck pace. Since it held its 11-game lead over the Indians two months ago, Minnesota has gone a mediocre 26-26. Starters Jose Berrios, Jake Odorizzi, Kyle Gibson and Martin Perez have all slowed down to some degree as the season has moved along, while the Twins’ bullpen – despite the acquisitions of Sam Dyson and Sergio Romo before the deadline – hasn’t thrived.
Considering the Twins have been atop the AL Central throughout the year and currently lead the division, they’re the front-runners to take it this year. Indeed, FanGraphs gives the Twins a 60.6 percent chance to win the division and the Indians 39.4 percent odds. But it would be unwise to count out Cleveland, which has remarkably rallied to make it a legitimate race and still has six regular-season matchups left against Minnesota. Which of the two teams do you expect to win the division?
(Poll link for app users)
Who will win the AL Central?
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Twins 55% (4,286)
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Indians 45% (3,503)
Total votes: 7,789
White Sox Outright AJ Reed
The White Sox have outrighted first baseman AJ Reed, MLB.com’s Scott Merkin tweets. That leaves the club with two 40-man roster openings.
A former second-round pick, Reed was once considered a premium prospect with the Astros. But his bat has failed to translate in limited opportunities at the major-league level.
Reed had already been optioned off of the active roster to Triple-A, where he’ll continue after today’s transaction. Claimed from the Houston organization earlier this summer, the 26-year-old struggled badly in 14 games with the Sox and has continued to rack up strikeouts at Charlotte.
Fernando Tatis Jr. Expected To Miss Remainder Of Season
Padres shortstop Fernando Tatis Jr. is expected to miss the remainder of the season, manager Andy Green tells reporters including Kevin Acee of the San Diego Union-Tribune (Twitter link). The exceptional rookie is dealing with a back issue that drove him to the injured list earlier today and is evidently more serious than had originally been hoped.
It’s exceedingly disappointing news for fans of the San Diego organization, who have long awaited the arrival of a superstar of just this kind. Tatis has more than justified the hype that preceded his ascension to the majors at the outset of the season.
Through 372 plate appearances, Tatis carries an eye-popping .317/.379/.590 batting line with 22 home runs and 16 steals. He’s not carrying the greatest strikeout and walk numbers, lagging the league average in both areas, but has had little trouble making loud contact. Tatis is also a big positive on the bases and has shown a flair for the dramatic in the field — even if metrics aren’t glowing in their overall evaluation of his fielding performance.
Details on the injury still aren’t fully known, but it’s not difficult to see the reasoning behind the pessimistic outlook. There isn’t much reason to push a rehab schedule to get Tatis back in the bigs for a brief stretch, particularly if it means risking a more significant injury. The Padres aren’t going to crack the postseason this year regardless.
That said, it’s still a tough pill to swallow. The Friars drew ample attention when they carried Tatis on the Opening Day roster, passing on a chance to gain an extra season of control by holding him down for a few weeks to open the season. That was a questionable, if ultimately admirable, decision that obviously paid off in some ways even if it means some future sacrifices. The club will now lose the chance to draw fans to the yard to see Tatis over the next six weeks. Regardless, Tatis is one of the most exciting and most valuable player assets in the game.
Mets Select Paul Sewald, Designate Tim Peterson
As they continue to cycle through right-handed relief arms, the Mets have made a few tweaks to the makeup of their bullpen and roster. The club announced that it has selected the contract of Paul Sewald. To create 40-man space, Tim Peterson was designated for assignment, while an active roster spot was freed by optioning Drew Gagnon.
The 29-year-old Sewald has now regained the 40-man roster spot he lost earlier this season. He hasn’t found much success in the majors, with a 5.18 ERA over 128 2/3 career innings, but has managed a bit better than a strikeout per nine at the game’s highest level. Sewald has matched his career MLB strikeout rate (9.2 K/9) this year at Triple-A, combining that with 2.6 BB/9 to produce a 3.35 ERA over 51 innings.
Peterson, 28, was similarly useful in his 46 2/3 innings with the club’s top affiliate, working to a 3.09 ERA with 8.9 K/9 and 2.3 BB/9. But he has struggled in limited MLB work, allowing 5.91 earned per nine in 35 frames over the past two seasons.