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Ichiro Suzuki To Serve As Instructor For Mariners

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Ichiro Suzuki’s role with the Mariners has expanded, as the team announced Tuesday that the future Hall of Famer will work as an instructor with the Major League and Triple-A clubs — beginning tonight.

Ichiro will have a particular focus on outfield work and baserunning, and he’ll work in conjunction with hitting coach Tim Laker as well. Per the Mariners’ release, he’ll work the majority of the team’s home games, and he’ll also continue his role as a special assistant — although he’ll now be reporting to GM Jerry Dipoto rather than chairman John Stanton.

Ichiro’s legendary career officially came to an end earlier this season when he announced his retirement as a player following the Mariners’ two-game series against the Athletics in Tokyo. The former AL Rookie of the Year and Most Valuable Player was a 10-time All-Star and 10-time Gold Glove winner during his career in the United States. One of the game’s all-time great hitter, Ichiro spent parts of 19 seasons in the Majors — 14 with the Mariners — and finished with a cumulative .311/.355/.402 line (on the heels of a nine-year career with Japan’s Orix Blue Wave, for whom he batted .353/.421/.522 in 4098 plate appearances).

Tigers Place Josh Harrison On IL, Select Harold Castro

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The Tigers announced Tuesday that they’ve placed second baseman Josh Harrison on the 10-day injured list, retroactive to April 27, due to a left shoulder contusion. In his place, the club has selected the contract of infielder Harold Castro. Lefty Matt Moore was moved from the 10-day injured list to the 60-day injured list in a corresponding 40-man roster move.

Harrison, 31, inked a one-year deal worth $2MM with the Tigers this winter, reuniting him with Pittsburgh double-play partner Jordy Mercer in the Detroit infield. He’s off to an ugly start to the season, however, hitting .156/.212/.233 through his first 99 trips to the plate. Harrison’s strikeout rate hasn’t spiked to a worrisome degree, though, and over the course of a full season one would imagine that his .181 average on balls in play will bounce back even as his hard-hit and line-drive rates have fallen off from their 2018 levels.

Castro, 25, made his big league debut with the Tigers last season but tallied just 10 plate appearances (with three hits) in September before being outrighted off the 40-man roster following the season. He stuck around with the Tigers, though, and will now get another crack at the Majors on the heels of a strong start in Toledo. Through 76 PAs, Castro is hitting .353/.392/.544 with three homers and four doubles. It’s possible that his newfound spot on the 40-man roster will be in jeopardy once Harrison is ready to go, though Castro does still have three minor league option years remaining, so the organization could also keep him on the 40-man as a valuable depth option who can be shuttled between Toledo and Detroit over the course of the season.

Angels Designate John Curtiss For Assignment

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The Angels announced that they’ve designated right-hander John Curtiss for assignment in order to open a spot on the roster for prospect Griffin Canning, whose contract has now formally been selected from Triple-A Salt Lake. It was reported last week that Canning would make his MLB debut today.

Acquired in a minor January swap that sent infielder Daniel Ozoria to the Twins, Curtiss made just one appearance with the Angels, tossing 2 1/3 inning and allowing a run on two hits and three walks with a strikeout. It was only one appearance, but Curtiss averaged 92.1 mph on his heater in that outing — a substantial dip from the 95.2 mph he averaged as a rookie with the Twins in 2017.

Curtiss, long one of the more promising bullpen prospects in Minnesota’s system, has also struggled quite a bit in Triple-A early in the season. Through 8 2/3 innings, the 2014 sixth-rounder has been tagged for nine runs on 11 hits and eight walks with 11 strikeouts. The Angels will have a week to trade Curtiss, release him, or try to pass him through outright waivers. Even with his early 2019 struggles, Curtiss still has a career 3.16 ERA with nearly 11 strikeouts per nine frames at the Triple-A level (88 1/3 innings); given that success and the fact that he still has a minor league option remaining, he could draw interest from other clubs — assuming the velocity drop was a blip on the radar and not part of a larger-scale issue.

As for Canning, he’ll ascend to the Majors less than two years after being the Angels’ second pick in the 2017 draft. The Mission Viejo, Calif. native skyrocketed up three levels in the Angels’ system last season and has torn through Triple-A lineups early in 2019, pitching to a 0.56 ERA with a 17-to-2 K/BB ratio in 16 innings out of the rotation. He entered the year as a consensus Top 100 prospect and is viewed by the organization as a potential mid-rotation piece who could help to stabilize the rotation for years to come.

Mariners Option Mallex Smith To Triple-A

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The Mariners announced Tuesday that they’ve optioned center fielder Mallex Smith to Triple-A Tacoma and recalled outfielder Braden Bishop in his place.

Certainly, that’s not the outcome Seattle hoped for when reacquiring Smith from the Rays as part of the offseason’s Mike Zunino swap. Smith, fresh off a .296/.367/.406 performance and controlled for another four years, was viewed as the hopeful center fielder of the future for the Mariners. That may very well be the case, but it had become increasingly difficult for the organization to look past the fleet-footed 25-year-old’s early struggles in 2019.

Smith has taken 110 plate appearances with the Mariners this year but managed only a .165/.255/.247 batting line in that time. His strikeout rate has skyrocketed from just 18 percent in 2018 to 30 percent in 2019, while his line-drive rate has fallen by nearly 10 percent as well. The drop in liners and hard-hit balls notwithstanding, Smith’s .234 average on balls in play still seems like it should bounce back, particularly given his considerable speed, but the contact issues he’s experiencing are something he’ll try to remedy in a lower-pressure environment in Tacoma.

From a service time perspective, the injury to Smith isn’t likely to change his trajectory. He entered the season with two years, 125 days of MLB service time already under his belt, meaning he need only acquire 47 days of service in 2019 to surpass the three-year mark and remain on track for free agency following the 2022 season. Smith has already acquired nearly that much service time, so he’s essentially a lock to reach three years of service time if he returns to the Majors at any point in 2019 (which seems quite likely). He’ll be arbitration-eligible in each of the next three offseasons.

With Smith in the minors for now, the Mariners can rely on Bishop in center field or slider Mitch Haniger from right field to center. In the latter scenario, Domingo Santana and Jay Bruce could man the outfield corners, with Daniel Vogelbach and Edwin Encarnacion working at first base and at designated hitter.

Josh Fields Opts Out Of Brewers Contract

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The Brewers announced Tuesday that righty Josh Fields has been released from their Triple-A affiliate in San Antonio. Per Tom Haudricourt of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel (on Twitter), Fields exercised the April 30 opt-out clause in the minor league deal he signed with Milwaukee last month.

The former Dodgers righty was off to a miserable start to the season in San Antonio, where he’d yielded eight runs (seven earned) on seven hits and four walks with five strikeouts in just 7 2/3 innings of work. Fields allowed runs in six of his first seven Triple-A appearances this year, though he did finish out that otherwise forgettable stint with three shutout innings across three appearances (one hit, no walks, three strikeouts), so perhaps he’s begun to turn a corner.

Since being acquired by the Dodgers in 2016, the now-33-year-old Fields has racked up 117 1/3 innings of relief and pitched to a terrific 2.61 ERA with 8.8 K/9, 2.6 BB/9 and 1.22 HR/9. Beyond that recent track record, Fields generally averages nearly 95 mph on his heater with strong swinging-strike and opponents’ chase rates, all of which should be alluring to other clubs. He’s an extreme fly-ball pitcher thanks to a heavy reliance on a four-seam fastball, but Fields has allowed well less than a homer per nine innings pitched dating back to 2014 (even when factoring in an outlier 1.58 HR/9 mark in 2017).

Marlins Option Lewis Brinson, Activate Garrett Cooper

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The Marlins have optioned down struggling outfielder Lewis Brinson, as MLB.com’s Joe Frisaro was among those to tweet. He’ll be replaced on the active roster by Garrett Cooper.

It’s quite a disappointing outcome for Brinson as he prepares to celebrate his 25th birthday. The hope was that he’d have translated his obvious abilities into MLB production by this point. At the moment, Brinson has one year and 58 days of MLB service on his odometer, meaning he can only stay in the minors for 39 days if he’s to crack two full years of MLB service by season’s end.

Brinson turned in a disappointing first season in Miami after arriving as a major part of the Christian Yelich swap. Things have gotten even worse in 2019, as Brinson’s already meager power and walk numbers have cratered yet further.

All told, Brinson is sitting on a .190/.240/.321 slash line with a 30.4% strikeout rate and 4.8% walk rate through 543 plate appearances at the game’s highest level. That’s a fair sight shy of what he has produced over a similar stretch at Triple-A: .342/.398/.560 with 18 home runs and 18 steals in 497 plate appearances. And it’s well short of expectations for a player long tabbed as one of the twenty or so best prospects in baseball.

As for the 28-year-old Cooper, he’ll hope to finally get back to full health and stay that way. He was sidelined most recently with a calf strain. The Marlins have hoped for some time to give him an opportunity to prove he’s capable of hitting in the majors, but he has played in only 36 total games at all levels since joining the organization via trade in the 2017-18 offseason. Cooper will likely see time in the corner outfield and at first base.

Padres Place Fernando Tatis Jr. On Injured List

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2:18pm: This move is now official, with Tatis being diagnosed with a hamstring strain of as-yet-unannounced severity. Righty Phil Maton is heading onto the active roster for the time being.

12:46pm: The Padres expect to place phenom Fernando Tatis Jr. on the 10-day injured list, according to MLB.com’s AJ Cassavell (via Twitter). He’s dealing with a hamstring issue, the full severity of which isn’t yet known.

The San Diego organization is obviously interesting in keeping Tatis in the lineup as much as possible, having opened him on the MLB roster rather than keeping him down for a few weeks to keep him shy of a full year of service. But that same consideration also counsels in favor of caution. Rather than risk a more significant hammy issue, the club will evidently put Tatis on ice for a bit.

It doesn’t seem as if there’s much concern that Tatis has suffered a serious injury, though he’s still awaiting a full examination. The plans in his absence will likely involve Manny Machado sliding to short and Ty France getting some extra time at the hot corner.

San Diego already needed to clear an active roster spot to add Cal Quantrill for a start on Wednesday. It’ll still need to open 40-man space for him, perhaps by shifting another player to the 60-day IL.

Nationals Select Dan Jennings, Place Anthony Rendon On IL

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The Nationals have announced a trio of roster moves. The club has selected the contract of southpaw Dan Jennings, creating 40-man roster space by designating righty Austin Adams for assignment and clearing an active roster spot by placing third baseman Anthony Rendon on the 10-day injured list with an elbow contusion.

While the Nats had resisted a move on Rendon, their best player, he wasn’t healing quite fast enough from a recent hit-by-pitch and the roster pressure proved too great.  His placement is retroactive to April 27, meaning he’ll be eligible to return as soon as May 7.

Jennings, who recently inked a minors deal with the D.C. organization, will try to help steady one of the game’s shakiest middle-relief units. The 32-year-old has long been a steady hurler, with a 2.96 ERA over 344 frames in the past seven seasons.

As for Adams, who’s closing in on his 28th birthday, he has seen minimal opportunities in the majors over the past three seasons. It’s interesting that the club didn’t give him a lengthier audition given the volume of strikeouts he has racked up at Triple-A. After averaging 15.2 K/9 against 3.9 BB/9 in 46 1/3 frames last year with the Nats’ top affiliate, Adams has racked up a 20:3 K/BB ratio in an even ten frames so far in 2019.

Reds Reportedly “Contemplating” Near-Term Promotion Of Nick Senzel

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The Reds are “contemplating” a call-up for top prospect Nick Senzel, according to Jon Heyman of MLB Network (Twitter link). The much-hyped 23-year-old could make it onto the roster as soon as this Friday, per the report.

Senzel might already have forced his way onto the MLB roster, but he had to overcome an injury incurred shortly after being optioned down late in camp. The Cincinnati organization had decided not to carry him on its Opening Day roster owing to some combination of a desire to give Senzel more time to adapt to playing in the outfield and service-time considerations.

The second overall pick of the 2016 draft, Senzel has thrived at the plate ever since joining the profession ranks. He carries a smooth .900 career OPS through just over a thousand trips to the plate at all levels. Expectations are that he’ll be a quality all-around performer right from the jump in the majors.

While the Reds understandably wanted to give Senzel a chance to get comfortable on the grass, where he’s moving after appearing almost exclusively as an infielder, the club needs to do everything possible to keep pace in a brutal NL Central division. It remains to be seen how the roster will be sorted once Senzel is up, but odds are he’ll receive the lion’s share of time in center after appearing there exclusively thus far this season at Triple-A.

Having waited to this point, the Reds are not at risk of allowing Senzel to accrue a full year of MLB service this season. That means the earliest he could qualify for free agency would be after the 2025 season. Should Friday prove to be the day for Senzel’s arrival, he could reach up to 150 service days this year, which would put him on track for eventual Super Two qualification.

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