Padres Interested In Matt Boyd
You can add Matt Boyd to the long list of starting pitchers on the Padres’ radar, as MLB.com’s Jon Paul Morosi reports that San Diego is “evaluating” the southpaw as a potential trade acquisition. Things still seem to be in the exploratory phase, however, as Morosi says no “serious talks” have taken place between the Padres and Tigers.
San Diego has been looking for a controllable front-of-the-rotation arm for months, dating back to offseason reports that linked them to such names as Marcus Stroman, Corey Kluber, Trevor Bauer, and Noah Syndergaard in trade rumors. Syndergaard is reportedly still a player of interest for the Padres, and it’s probably safe to assume that the Friars have at least checked in on virtually any top pitcher who might be on the market.
This search now includes Boyd, who has become one of the most intriguing names of this pre-trade deadline period thanks to a 3.87 ERA, 11.9 K/9, and league-best 7.1 K/BB rate over 107 innings for Detroit. The Astros, Cubs, and Red Sox are some of the teams known to have had some level of interest in the 28-year-old left-hander, who is controlled through the 2022 season.
Understandably, the Tigers want a big haul of young talent back in any Boyd trade, though San Diego’s deep farm system certainly has the quality to meet Detroit’s demands. Morosi also suggests that the Padres could offer Franmil Reyes or Hunter Renfroe off the Major League roster to address the Tigers’ lack of young outfield depth, perhaps even with Nick Castellanos going to San Diego as part of a larger multi-player deal if the Padres don’t want their current lineup to suffer an offensive hit.
Cardinals Place Yadier Molina On 10-Day IL; Activate Matt Carpenter
5:22pm: Molina will likely miss around three weeks and surgery won’t be required, Cardinals manager Mike Shildt told MLB.com’s Anne Rogers and other media.
4:14pm: The Cardinals have announced (Twitter links) a series of roster moves in advance of their second-half opener on Friday. Catcher Yadier Molina is heading to the 10-day injured list due to a right thumb tendon strain, with an IL placement retroactive to July 8. Coming back from the IL is infielder Matt Carpenter, who has been out of action since June 29 with a lower back sprain. The Cards also sent Rangel Ravelo and southpaw Tyler Webb to Triple-A and moved Jordan Hicks to the 60-day IL, while calling up catcher Andrew Knizner and selecting the contract of left-hander Chasen Shreve from Triple-A.
This is the second time this season that Molina has missed time due to his troublesome right thumb, as the same injury also put the longtime St. Louis backstop on the IL from May 31 to June 11. It’s fair to assume that the nagging nature of Molina’s thumb problem is at least partially responsible for his lack of production this season, though Molina was also struggling prior to May 31. Overall, Molina has only a .261/.286/.368 slash line and four homers over 276 plate appearances, making him one of several veteran Cardinals who are seemingly all having down years at the same time.
This list includes Carpenter, who has a career-worst .216/.325/.381 with 10 home runs over 326 PA. While his IL stint was minimal, he and the Cards are surely hoping that this brief time off combined with the All-Star break is enough to finally get his bat moving close to the MVP-level production that Carpenter provided over the last three-plus months of the 2018 season. Carpenter only had a .739 OPS over his first 234 PA last season before exploding for a .983 OPS over his final 443 PA.
Last season’s results notwithstanding, Carpenter’s cold streak this season has lasted longer and reached deeper depths than his slow start to 2018. His power and hard-hit ball rates have both fallen significantly, while the quality of his contact has also dropped off (.324 xwOBA in 2019, as opposed to a .392 xwOBA in 2018).
Carpenter will resume his usual duties at third base, though the hot-hitting Tommy Edman retained his spot on the MLB roster after his strong performance as Carpenter’s fill-in. Knizner and Matt Wieters will handle the catching duties while Molina is out.
Marlins Have Received Interest In Starlin Castro
The Marlins are firmly in seller mode as the deadline approaches, and one of the veterans who has received some interest from rival teams is Starlin Castro, as the Miami Herald’s Jordan McPherson reports that the Fish have received some calls about the second baseman.
Castro has been a trade candidate since the moment he first came to Miami, dealt in December 2017 (mostly as salary offset) as part of the blockbuster deal that sent Giancarlo Stanton to the Yankees. The rebuilding Marlins didn’t have much use for a veteran with a pricey contract, though their efforts to deal Castro over the last year and a half haven’t been successful. If nothing else, that time diminished the money attached to Castro’s services — he is still owed roughly $4.7MM of his $11MM salary for the 2019 season, and his $16MM club option for 2020 can be bought out for $1MM.
It’s easy to imagine Miami eating virtually all of that remaining salary just for the sake of accommodating a move, since Castro’s trade value is minimal. As MLBTR’s Connor Byrne recently outlined, Castro is suffering through the worst season of his ten-year career, hitting only .245/.272/.336 through 371 plate appearances and some of the least-impressive advanced metrics (via Statcast) of any player in baseball.
It’s probably safe to assume that interested teams are looking at Castro just as infield depth for the stretch run, and perhaps hoping that getting away from the last-place Marlins and into a pennant race would help jolt Castro back into something resembling his old self. Conversely, a team keen on adding Castro may not feel the need to give up even a minor prospect to acquire his services when it’s quite possible the Marlins could just release him after July 31 anyway. Marlins prospect Isan Diaz is tearing up Triple-A pitching and pushing hard for MLB playing time at second base, so if a trade partner for Castro can’t be found, the Marlins could release Castro and end up eating his salary anyway (with a new team then responsible for a prorated league minimum salary if they were to sign Castro).
NL East Notes: Stroman, Braves, Phillies, Doolittle
The Braves and Blue Jays haven’t had any discussions about Marcus Stroman, MLB Network’s Jon Heyman reports (Twitter link). While Stroman would be a fit on at least half the teams in the league, Atlanta stands out as a natural landing spot due to both the Braves’ talented but generally inexperienced rotation, and the connection between Stroman and Braves GM Alex Anthopoulos (who had the same job in Toronto from 2009-15). While a lack of talks to this point doesn’t mean that Stroman couldn’t eventually become a Braves target, Atlanta has been linked to other pitchers such as Madison Bumgarner or Zack Wheeler, and could simply prefer one of those players (or another arm altogether) to Stroman.
More from the NL East…
- The Phillies focused heavily on position-player additions during their splashy offseason, but a lack of focus on the rotation looks to now be a mistake, the Philadelphia Inquirer’s Scott Lauber writes. The team’s starters have delivered middling-to-mediocre results all season, and depth has now become a particular issue given Jake Arrieta‘s injury concerns. While the Phils could still make a move to acquire a starting pitcher (or two) at the deadline, such a move will cost the club more prospects from a system that has already been thinned out by other trades. As Lauber notes, the Phillies also haven’t done a great job of developing their own pitchers over the last four years, with Aaron Nola standing out as the last success story.
- Trades and trade rumors come with the territory for any baseball player, particularly at this time of year. This being said, there’s an obvious personal toll that comes with knowing one could soon to be moved to another team on another city, and it’s naturally hard to entirely block out all of the speculation. “You see a couple things and that’s all it takes for your brain to run wild a little bit with some of that stuff,” Nationals closer Sean Doolittle told NBC Sports Washington’s Todd Dybas about some early-season rumors buzzing that the Nats could start trading Doolittle and other veterans if the team continued to struggle. Doolittle is no stranger to midseason deals, of course, as it was almost exactly two years ago that he came to D.C. as part of a very notable five-player trade with the Athletics. Needless to say, the Nats’ re-emergence back into the postseason race has ended talk of the club being deadline sellers, which is good news for Doolittle given how he and his wife quickly grew to love being part of the Nationals family. “I will say it’s tough because you don’t have control over [a trade],” Doolittle said. “For some people, it might be easy to say, ‘Hey, I’m not going to think about it because I can’t control it.’ At the same time, that’s why it’s a little disconcerting, is you don’t have control over it. After going through it once before, it’s not as scary as maybe it was. I don’t know. I really want to be here. I like it here.”
Reds Sign Nick Ciuffo To Minor League Deal
TODAY: The Reds have officially announced the signing (via Twitter). Ciuffo has been assigned to Double-A and placed on the seven-day injured list.
TUESDAY: The Reds are nearing a minor league agreement with recently released catcher Nick Ciuffo, per a report from Roster Roundup (Twitter link). Ciuffo, who is still recovering from early-June thumb surgery, was cut loose by Tampa Bay last week. Based on the initial 8-10 week timeline that accompanied his surgery, he should be healthy in late July to mid August.
In need of a 40-man roster spot late last month, the Rays opted to designate Ciuffo for assignment in order to open space. Because injured players can’t be passed through outright waivers, Tampa Bay was limited in its options and released Ciuffo. It’s most common in these situations for the player to simply re-sign with his original organization on a minor league deal, but it seems that Ciuffo found an opportunity more to his liking with the Cincinnati organization. If the deal is ultimately completed, the Reds will hope to find some success with a second castoff Rays catcher; Curt Casali has batted .265/.343/.412 in 316 plate appearances since the Reds acquired him from the Rays in exchange for cash last season.
Ciuffo was the No. 21 overall pick by the Rays back in 2013. The 24-year-old hasn’t found much success in either Triple-A or the big leagues, however. Ciuffo has a .228/.276/.350 batting line in Triple-A Durham this season and has mustered only a .529 OPS in a tiny sample of 50 big league plate appearances dating back to 2018. The South Carolina native carries a .250/.292/.369 hitter in 370 Triple-A plate appearances to go along with solid framing marks and a career 42 percent caught-stealing rate.
Jake Marisnick Receives Two-Game Suspension
1:29pm: Marisnick is appealing the suspension, according to MLBPA communications director Chris Dahl (hat tip to Mark Berman of KRIV Fox 26).
12:28pm: Astros outfielder Jake Marisnick has been suspended for two games and fined an undisclosed amount as a result of the home-plate collision that fractured Jonathan Lucroy‘s nose and concussed the Halos’ catcher, the league announced Thursday. If Marisnick does not appeal the punishment, he’ll begin serving it tonight.
“After thoroughly reviewing the play from all angles, I have concluded that Jake’s actions warrant discipline,” MLB chief baseball officer Joe Torre said in a statement accompanying the announcement. “While I do not believe that Jake intended to injure Jonathan, the contact he initiated in his attempt to score violated Official Baseball Rule 6.01(i), which is designed to protect catchers from precisely this type of collision.”
The play in question (video link) saw Marisnick attempt to score on a flyout to Kole Calhoun. While the impact of the collision led Lucroy to drop the throw from right field, Marisnick was still ruled out due the collision. Lucroy appeared to have left a lane open, though Marisnick explained on Twitter after the incident that he misjudged the situation in making a split-second decision:
“Through my eyes I thought the play was going to end up on the outside of the plate,” Marisnick tweeted. “I made a split second decision at full speed to slide head first on the inside part of the plate. That decision got another player hurt and I feel awful. I hope nothing but the best for [Jonathan Lucroy].”
The suspension would cost Marisnick roughly $24K of this season’s $2.212MM salary (in addition to the fine). Through 72 games and 194 plate appearances this season, Marisnick is hitting .250/.309/.466 with eight home runs, 12 doubles, a triple and six steals.
Rockies Expected To Recall Kyle Freeland This Weekend
The Rockies are “expected” to call left-hander Kyle Freeland back up to the Majors to rejoin their rotation on Saturday, Kyle Newman of the Denver Post reports. Colorado optioned the southpaw to Triple-A last month after a prolonged cold spell.
That Freeland’s difficulties reached the point where an optional assignment was deemed necessary was a fairly stunning development. The 26-year-old finished seventh in the National League Rookie of the Year voting in 2017 and placed fourth in last season’s NL Cy Young race in what looked to be a breakout campaign. And while some might’ve anticipated a bit off regression, given Freeland’s average strikeout rate and good fortune on home runs clearing the fence, a downturn to the extent of this year’s 7.13 ERA and 2.43 HR/9 was utterly unforeseeable.
Freeland, though, is hardly the only Rockies starter who has taken a step back in 2019. Jon Gray and German Marquez have been solid, although even Marquez’s results pale in comparison to his 2018 output. Meanwhile each Antonio Senzatela, Jeff Hoffman, Tyler Anderson, Chad Bettis and Peter Lambert have all turned in ERAs of 5.32 or worse in their starts this season. Those catastrophic results make the Rockies a logical candidate to pursue rotation help on the trade market over the course of the next three weeks — if they do indeed decide to buy in a push to land an NL Wild Card spot. Colorado is 14.5 games out of the division lead but a much more manageable two and a half games back in the Wild Card race.
Royals Promote Bubba Starling
The Royals announced Thursday that they will select the contract of outfielder Bubba Starling prior to tomorrow’s game. A corresponding 40-man roster move will be announced tomorrow.
Starling, 27 next month, was the fifth overall draft pick by the Royals back in 2011. The Kansas native instantly became one of baseball’s top overall prospects, landing within the top 50 on the rankings of Baseball America, MLB.com and Baseball Prospectus in both 2012 and 2013. Starling’s prospect status dwindled as the former high school superstar struggled to perform up to expectations even in the lower minors.
At one point, Starling nearly walked away from the game entirely, as the Kansas City Star’s Sam Mellinger chronicled back in an excellent 2017 column. Starling, however, persevered through his lowest points in the game and will now be rewarded with his first call to the big leagues. After spending parts of three seasons scuffling in Triple-A, Starling has put together a much more palatable .310/.358/.448 slash with seven homers, 11 doubles, two triples and nine steals (in 12 attempts) through 285 plate appearances so far in 2019.
For the rebuilding Royals, there’s little reason not to take a look at Starling as they take a long-term approach to building out their roster. Kansas City has given significant roles to Hunter Dozier, Adalberto Mondesi and Nicky Lopez, with varying levels of success, as they seek to determine who can realistically be a part of the team’s next core of contending players. Both Dozier and Mondesi have resoundingly indicated that they can be part of the solution, and Starling will look to follow Dozier and Whit Merrifield in cementing himself as a late-blooming big league regular.
It shouldn’t be all that hard to find at-bats for Starling in a questionable outfield mix that has thus far received minimal contribution from offseason signee Billy Hamilton and the returning Terrance Gore. Alex Gordon has appeared resurgent in left field, while Merrifield has handled the outfield well after moving there to accommodate the now-struggling Lopez at second base. Hamilton, who had turned in a miserable .217/.284/.271 line and is a free agent at season’s end, seems to be in the most danger of losing significant playing time with Starling now in the fold. Carrying both him and Gore in reserve roles hardly seems an optimal roster construction, though Kansas City has also received negative production from veteran first baseman Lucas Duda, who has hit at an awful .157/.245/.292 pace through 102 plate appearances.
The Royals already jettisoned one underperforming veteran pickup when they released Chris Owings earlier in the year, and it wouldn’t be a surprise to see the team continue to create room for more intriguing minor leaguers as the second half of the season progresses. Beyond Hamilton and Duda, the Royals have received 90 marginal innings from Homer Bailey, who could be flipped to another team for a nominal return. Lefty Jake Diekman‘s bottom-line results have slipped of late, but a lefty reliever averaging 13.1 K/9 and nearly 96 mph on his heater will hold appeal to other teams on the trade market, even if the return won’t be particularly strong.
Mike Elias Discusses Orioles’ Deadline Approach, Organizational Progress
Rookie Orioles GM Mike Elias held a long and interesting chat with Dan Connolly of The Athletic (subscription link), touching upon a host of topics of interest to the broader player market. The full interview transcript is essential reading for fans of the Baltimore organization, in particular, but we’ll cover a few key bits of hot stove relevance here.
Though the Orioles roster isn’t exactly brimming with trade chips, it does have a few of note. Elias says that trade chatter volume is “already very high.” Deadline work is “really the main thing that the front office staff and I are spending our time on now in the month of July.”
While he wasn’t willing and/or able to predict how many moves the O’s will end up swinging this summer, Elias left no doubt that he’s ready for action. He did drop a few clues on some key player assets as well. Elias suggested the Orioles put a high value on reliever Mychal Givens, saying that “he’s striking out more people than ever and is throwing really hard.” While the results haven’t been there for Givens, he figures to be a target of contenders in search of pen upgrades — as we discussed in ranking him the top O’s trade candidate.
The most valuable potential summer trade piece on the roster is surely outfielder Trey Mancini, a player examined not long back by MLBTR’s Mark Polishuk. Elias largely reiterated his previously stated stance on Mancini, calling him “a very big part of the future of this team” while reiterating that the team is “in a position in our competitive cycle where we need to be open to anything that comes our way.”
On paper, the single likeliest player to be moved is starter Andrew Cashner. Prior reporting indicates the organization is unsurprisingly quite willing to do so. The veteran righty threw his trade status into some uncertainty with some ambiguous recent comments (also in a chat with Connolly) in which he suggested he’d need to decide whether to accept a trade despite lacking no-trade protection. Elias wisely skirted the topic, saying: “I don’t read too much into it. It’s not anything that we’ve discussed.”
That doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a matter of no moment whatsoever. MLBTR’s Steve Adams has argued that Cashner ought to be shifted into a relief role; some clubs would surely consider him as such, particularly entering the postseason. They’ll want assurances that the hurler will report if they strike a deal, making some added work for Elias to avoid complications. The GM heaped praise upon Cashner, saying that he has enjoyed “a big bounceback” and “looks terrific.” No doubt the O’s will hope they can massage the situation and come away with a decent return.
If interest never develops on Cashner, it could still make sense to hang onto him. After all, the club has an interest in filling innings even in a hopeless season. Elias discussed the difficulty of keeping palatable arms on the roster. To his credit, he didn’t sugarcoat the situation or pull punches, acknowledging that the organization has had to rely on players that may not quite have been prepared for the challenge. “They’re working hard,” he said of the many members of the staff, “but it’s difficult to come up and compete in the major leagues [and] in this division against major-league hitters if you don’t have major-league command or major-league stuff or some combination of the two of those things.” The O’s hope to build out greater depth to further “stabilize” the pitching situation. “I think we’ve made some minor additions recently in the past couple weeks and we’ll continue to do that,” said Elias.
That doesn’t mean the long-term focus will change, of course. Elias cited “three broad goals” and identified progress in each area. “[E]levating the talent level across the organization” was an obvious key. The top Baltimore baseball decisionmaker says he was pleased with recent amateur efforts. He calls 1-1 draft pick Adley Rutschman “a player that, across draft years, is somebody that stands out.” Elias also praised the organization’s international efforts: “it was just important for us to get it going and I think that we even exceeded our own expectations.”
Of equal importance for long-term sustainability, Elias gave a glimpse of some of the less visible work being done:
“We also want to elevate the capabilities of our baseball operations department and we have certainly done that on the international side. But [Vice President & Assistant General Manager, Analytics] Sig Mejdal and staff are doing so much behind the scenes to equip our decision-makers and our player development people and our scouting people with tools that they need to do their jobs well and compete around the league and provide us with an edge, one day, in terms of our decision-making and our capabilities. And we’ve got a lot going on there. And we’ve also got all kinds of projects going on behind the scenes in terms of planning with infrastructure, with facilities and all that’s happening. And happening with the support and involvement of ownership. So, I really think we’re moving things in the right direction this year, in a big way. We’re doing it fast and we’re gonna keep going.”
In one other area of particular contractual interest, Elias again addressed the subject of highly paid former slugging star Chris Davis. The 33-year-old has had some moments this year, but there’s no denying that his problems are far from resolved. Elias reiterated the team’s commitment to Davis:
“He’s a big part of this team and this team’s history and we’ve got him here. So it makes sense for everyone to try to make the most of the situation and get him back to where he needs to be. We think it’s possible. And we’ve seen flashes of it and it’s a big priority for us.”
While one wonders whether the O’s will eventually have a breaking point with Davis, who’s owed $23MM annually through 2022 (a chunk of it deferred), the club obviously isn’t there yet.
Eric Sogard: Face Of MLB [Trade Deadline]?
You remember Eric Sogard. He once rode his rec spec-chic good looks and charmingly scrappy play to internet stardom, nearly winning the memorable “Face of MLB” contest through a thrilling hijacking effort launched by the crafty A’s faithful.
The good times didn’t last in Oakland. Sogard was a solid contributor in 2013, but his high-contact, low-power approach fizzled as he turned in consecutive sub-70 wRC+ seasons at the plate. There was a second act in Milwaukee in 2017, when Sogard turned in a remarkable combination of 45 walks against 37 strikeouts despite a near-total absence of power (.104 ISO). But he collapsed in the following campaign, carrying a ghastly .134/.241/.165 slash in 113 plate appearances for the Brewers.
Thus it was with little fanfare that the Blue Jays inked Sogard to a minors pact this past offseason. He was a solid depth piece, destined to open the year at Triple-A. At most, Jays fans might have hoped they’d finally have an organizational replacement for fan-favorite Ryan Goins, a utility infielder who was feted as a hero upon his return to Toronto. He had been dumped unceremoniously the winter prior after appearing in a career-high 143 games, sneaking the ball over the right field wall nine times and producing 62 ribbies. (That last state is the one that Jays announcer Buck Martinez chose to support his questionable assertion, in the above-linked video, that Goins had a “great year” in 2017. Goins slashed .237/.286/.356.)
As it turns out, Sogard was called upon by the Jays when youngster Lourdes Gurriel Jr. got the yips. Sogard had hit well at Triple-A, mostly by hounding young pitchers into walks. He drew seven free passes against just four strikeouts in 38 plate appearances while socking a dinger and a pair of doubles among his eight base knocks.
There was nothing remarkable about any of this … until the ghost of Goins inhabited Sogard’s spectacles. Those nine long balls Goins hit in his legend-making campaign? Well, Sogard has matched him already in nearly half the tries. The 33-year-old journeyman is now through 261 plate appearances of .294/.364/.478 hitting in Toronto, handily topping even mid-prime Goins in output. He’s hitting well against righties but doing even more damage against same-handed pitching (137 wRC+).
Just what is going on here? Is it remotely sustainable? Is Sogard a legit deadline trade chip for the rebuilding Toronto team?
This Goins-Sogard thing has had far longer legs than I anticipated when I sat down to write this, but it will help illustrate one more point. In large part, it seems Goins just happened to loft a few over the course of the season. His nine homers averaged 400 feet with a 27.6 degree average launch angle. Otherwise, he averaged only an 8.3 degree launch angle that season and has typically sat lower even than that.
Sogard? Much as with his predecessor, every single one of his homers has gone down the right field line — two-thirds of them at the Rogers Centre. They’re likewise flying on fairly lofty flight paths — moreso, in fact. Sogard’s mean dinger is taking a parabolic path of 29.6 degrees, placing him 122nd on the list of all home run hitters in the majors this year, sitting comfortably among between a bunch of double-digit dinger men.
That’s about where the similarities end. Sogard is producing some true wall-scrapers. His long balls are averaging just 380 feet, good for 399th of 452 players registered by Statcast. They have left the bat at a meager 96.5 mph average exit velo. That’s just 445th of 456 players in the database; you have to run up the board to Yuli Gurriel (14 homers at a 99.4 mph average exit velo) to find another hitter with more long balls.
The baseball may not be juiced, per se, but it sure is flying like never before. And Sogard is taking full advantage, maxing out his meager power to the breaking point. He currently owns a .184 isolated power mark — more than double his career average (.090) — despite a meek 20.7% hard-hit rate, 85.3 mph average exit velocity, and grand total of three barreled balls this season. Oh, and he’s also sending the ball skyward like never before, with a hefty 19.2 degree average launch angle.
Now, I’m not going to sit here and tell you that Sogard absolutely can’t keep things going like this. But Rogers Centre has borne witness to more long balls than any other MLB stadium this year. The Jays’ pitchers are playing their part in that, to be sure. But let’s just say that teams weighing a move for Sogard will want to do some ballpark dimension overlays before pulling the trigger.
Even if many of his dingers would’ve snuck out elsewhere, it seems wise to bake in a healthy amount of anticipated regression. Sogard does possess undeniable mastery of the strike zone and outstanding contact ability. He carries a 3.7% swinging-strike rate this year and sits under four percent over his career. This isn’t a player selling out to put the ball over the wall. But it’s also not one who’s newly stinging the sphere.
Sogard, a poster boy? In a sense, yeah. Teams considering him will need to closely parse the changes to the broader state of play and try to assess how he’ll fit in moving forward. Can Sogard keep tucking balls into the front rows of the right field bleachers? That depends not only upon a look at Sogard, but other matters. Can pitchers find a way to adjust to these universal changes? Will the baseball undergo further physical change? Likewise, other deadline targets — those performing well and those struggling to adapt, hitters and pitchers alike — will be viewed with one eye on the ever-flying long ball.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.