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Minor MLB Transactions: 6/19/21

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The latest minor moves from around baseball…

  • The Rangers have outrighted left-hander Hyeon-Jong Yang to Triple-A, the team announced.  Yang was designated for assignment earlier this week, on the heels of posting a 5.59 ERA over his first 29 Major League innings.  A veteran of 14 KBO seasons, Yang made the jump to North American baseball this past offseason, signing a minor league deal with Texas that guaranteed him a $1.3MM salary for reaching the active roster.
  • Astros right-hander Francis Martes has returned from the restricted list and been optioned to Triple-A, according Chandler Rome of the Houston Chronicle (via Twitter).  Martes was issued a 162-game PED suspension in February 2020, so it will still a while before he is eligible to pitch in the majors.  Between two suspensions and a Tommy John surgery, the former top prospect hasn’t pitched in the big leagues since the 2017 season.  Astros manager Dusty Baker told Mark Berman of Fox 26 (Twitter link) and other reporters that the team plans to use Martes out of the bullpen.
  • Earlier this week, the Giants purchased the contract of right-hander Akeel Morris from the independent Long Island Ducks, as announced via the Ducks’ Twitter feed.  Morris pitched in parts of three MLB seasons from 2015-18, posting a 6.14 ERA over 22 total innings for the Mets, Braves, and Angels.  He has since pitched in Australia and in the indy leagues before catching on with the Giants, who have assigned him to their Double-A affiliate.

Minor MLB Transactions: 8/18/18

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The latest minor moves from around baseball…

  • The Royals have selected right-hander Jake Newberry’s contract from Triple-A Omaha and optioned fellow righty Jason Adam, per a team announcement. Meanwhile, righty Blaine Boyer is now a free agent after clearing waivers, Maria Torres of the Kansas City Star tweets. The 23-year-old Newberry is in line to make his major league debut long after joining the Royals as a 37th-round pick in 2012. Newberry has dominated at both the Double-A and Triple-A levels this season, with a combined 1.63 ERA and 9.6 K/9 against 2.5 BB/9 in 49 2/3 innings. Boyer, whom KC released Wednesday, has logged a godawful 12.05 ERA with 3.7 K/9 and 5.4 BB/9 in 21 2/3 major league frames this year.
  • The Angels announced that righty Akeel Morris has cleared waivers and been outrighted to Triple-A Salt Lake. The 25-year-old Morris, whom the Angels designated for assignment on Wednesday, has struggled at both the Triple-A and major league levels in 2018. He owns an ERA near 6.00 in a combined 53 2/3 innings between Salt Lake and Anaheim, with the majority of his work (39 2/3 frames) coming with the former.
  • The Braves have outrighted righty Chase Whitley to Triple-A Gwinnett, David O’Brien of The Athletic tweets. Whitley, 29, has thrown just one inning this year with the Braves. The former Yankee and Ray has recorded a 4.56 ERA/4.01 FIP with 7.25 K/9 and 2.31 BB/9 in 167 2/3 major league innings.

Angels Designate Akeel Morris For Assignment

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The Angels announced that they’ve reinstated catcher Rene Rivera from the 60-day DL and opened a 40-man roster spot by designating right-hander Akeel Morris for assignment. The Halos optioned catcher Jose Briceno to Triple-A to open room on the 25-man roster.

It’s been a tough season for the 25-year-old Morris both in the Majors and in Triple-A. The former Mets and Braves prospect has been tagged for nine runs on 18 hits and eight walks with seven strikeouts in 14 big league innings this season. His 5.79 ERA in the Majors is actually better than the 5.90 mark he’s posted with Triple-A Salt Lake this season, though Morris has punched out 40 hitters in 39 2/3 innings in Triple-A. He’s still been too prone to walks in the minors, however, which has been a persistent issue for him throughout his professional career.

The Halos will have a week to trade Morris or try to pass him through outright waivers, which would allow them to keep him in the organization without dedicating a 40-man roster spot to the righty. Morris will be out of minor league options in 2019, though, which might make other clubs with interest in the right-hander more reluctant to take a chance on him.

Angels Place Garrett Richards, Nick Tropeano, Zack Cozart, Jim Johnson On 10-Day DL

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The Angels have announced a significant roster shuffle occasioned by a few injuries. Starters Garrett Richards and Nick Tropeano are each hitting the DL, as are infielder Zack Cozart and reliever Jim Johnson.

It’s not fully clear how severe these injuries are, but it’s still an ugly casualty list for a team that has already had some worrying health issues arise recently. Richards has a left hamstring strain, while Tropeano is dealing with right shoulder inflammation.

With Shohei Ohtani already on the shelf, likely joining JC Ramirez and Matt Shoemaker there for a lengthy stretch, the team’s rotation depth has already been tapped into. It seems the team is likely to call upon John Lamb in the near-term, as Jeff Fletcher of the Orange County Register tweets that he’s with the team (though not yet active). That’ll require a 40-man move. Otherwise, the best 40-man possibilities are Parker Bridwell, Felix Pena, and Miguel Almonte.

Pena is among the four players coming up to take the open roster spots for the time being. He could presumably become a rotation option, but there’s a pressing enough need that it’s fair to wonder if outside possibilities will be pursued.

Along with Pena, the team has called up three additional right-handed hurlers to help absorb innings. Eduardo Paredes, Akeel Morris, and Jake Jewell will all come off of the Triple-A Salt Lake roster to join the club in Oakland. That’ll at least help the team deal with the absence of Johnson, who has a lumbar strain.

In some regards — without knowing details yet from the team — Cozart’s injury may be the most worrisome. It’s particularly poor timing given that Andrelton Simmons is also sidelined, though the real concern here is the question of severity.

Cozart has been diagnosed with a left shoulder subluxation, a potentially worrying injury. That injury has in recent years sent at least two players — righty Carson Smith and infielder Marco Hernandez — to the operating room for season-ending procedures. Hopefully, that won’t be needed in Cozart’s case, but the fates of those players serve to illustrate the seriousness of injuries of this general variety.

Injury Notes: Healy, Sheriff, Rizzo, J.C. Ramirez

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Mariners first baseman Ryon Healy showed up to the team’s clubhouse today in a walking boot; he twisted his ankle in a postgame workout, says Ryan Divish of the Seattle Times. It’s been described as a “pretty bad sprain”, and Healy will have an MRI soon. The expectation seems to be that he will require a DL stint, though the severity of the injury is unclear at this time. Healy provided the heroics in last night’s win; it seems likely that Dan Vogelbach will receive everyday at-bats in his absence.

More injury items from around the league…

  • Cardinals left-hander Ryan Sheriff has been placed on the DL with a toe injury; the team has recalled right-hander John Brebbia from Triple-A Memphis in a related move. Sheriff was added to the roster with the news that Brett Cecil would be out for an extended period of time; he allowed one earned run in his 2 2/3 innings of work this season. Sheriff also managed a 3.14 ERA last season in 14 1/3 innings of work for the Cardinals.
  • Anthony Rizzo has missed a couple of games for the Cubs due to back tightness, says Carrie Muskat of MLB.com. The first baseman’s back has evidently been bothering him ever since the club’s trip to Cincinnati. Rizzo has just three hits (including one home run) in 32 plate appearances to begin the season.
  • J.C. Ramirez is officially headed to the DL with forearm issues, Bill Shaikin of the Los Angeles Times tweets. We noted earlier that the righty had been experiencing forearm tightness; he now joins fellow Angels starters Matt Shoemaker and Andrew Heaney on the disabled list, leaving the club incredibly thin in the rotation beyond Garrett Richards, Shohei Ohtani and Tyler Skaggs. Parker Bridwell and Nick Tropeano seem to be the likeliest candidates to get rotation attention, but for the time being the club has recalled relievers Felix Pena and Eduardo Paredes (righty reliever Akeel Morris was optioned to Triple-A Salt Lake).

Angels Acquire Akeel Morris, Designate Troy Scribner

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The Angels announced on Tuesday that they’ve acquired righty Akeel Morris from the Braves in exchange for a player to be named later or cash. Atlanta designated Morris for assignment over the weekend. In order to clear a spot for Morris on the 40-man roster, the Angels designated right-hander Troy Scribner for assignment.

[Related: Updated Los Angeles Angels depth chart]

Initially a 10th-round pick of the Mets back in the 2010 draft, the now-25-year-old Morris overpowered hitters in the lower levels of the minors, posting gaudy strikeout totals that helped to overshadow some glaring control issues. He quickly shot up the Mets’ prospect rankings, ranking 19th and 22nd among Mets farmhands in the 2014-15 and 2015-16 offseasons, respectively. The Braves picked him up in the 2016 trade that sent Kelly Johnson to New York in what looked to be a surprisingly solid return for Johnson at the time.

Morris has continued to post solid numbers in the upper levels of the minors, as evidenced by last season’s 3.09 ERA, 10.2 K/9, 4.4 BB/9 and 32 percent ground-ball rate in 46 innings of Triple-A ball. The St. Thomas native also tossed 7 1/3 innings with the Braves’ big league club in 2017, allowing just a run on six hits and four walks with nine punchouts while averaging 93.1 mph on his heater. Morris is in his final option year, so the Angels will be able to shuffle him back and forth between Triple-A Salt Lake and Anaheim as they see fit this season.

As for Scribner, the 26-year-old made his own big league debut last season, pitching to a 4.18 ERA with an 18-to-10 K/BB ratio in 23 innings for the Halos. Unlike Morris, Scribner has worked primarily as a starter in the minors, spending the bulk of the 2017 season in Salt Lake, where he notched a 4.35 ERA with 9.0 K/9 against 3.3 BB/9 with a 36.6 percent grounder rate in 103 1/3 innings of work. The former Astros farmhand, whom the Angels acquired in March 2017 in exchange for cash, still has multiple minor league options remaining, which should enhance his appeal to clubs that are thin on rotation depth in the upper minors.

Braves Designate Akeel Morris

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The Braves have designated right-hander Akeel Morris for assignment. Morris’ 40-man spot will go to Josh Ravin, whose contract the club has purchased from Triple-A Gwinnett. Left-hander Rex Brothers has been optioned to make room for Ravin at the big-league level.

Morris, 25, made his big league debut with the Mets in 2015, but didn’t appear again in the majors until last July. He struck out nine hitters and allowed just one earned run across 7 1/3 innings for the Braves during his second stint, though he did walk four hitters. Even in Triple-A last season, the righty only managed a 32% ground ball rate and sported a 4.44 BB/9 mark.

Similarly, the right-handed Ravin walked nine hitters in just 16 2/3 innings with the Dodgers last season, and ended the campaign with a bloated 6.48. He did, however, manage to strike out 10.62 batters per nine innings. That’s where the 33-year-old’s upside lies; he had a whopping 14.01 K/9 across 35 1/3 Triple-A innings last season.

Braves Designate Roberto Hernandez For Assignment

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The Braves have designated right-hander Roberto Hernandez for assignment as part of a series of roster moves, reports MLB.com’s Mark Bowman (on Twitter). In addition to Hernandez’s DFA, the Braves have optioned right-hander Brandon Cunniff to Triple-A Gwinnett, recalled right-hander Akeel Morris from Double-A Mississippi and selected the contract of right-hander Jason Hursh from Gwinnett.

Hernandez, 35, made two starts within the past week for the Braves but served up eight runs on 13 hits and a walk with six strikeouts in nine innings. Four of those hits cleared the outfield fence, thus accounting for the vast majority of the runs he surrendered. While those results, clearly, are uninspiring, Hernandez proved at least capable of delivering a mid-4.00 ERA from 2013-15 with the Rays, Phillies, Dodgers and Astros, as he pitched to a 4.45 earned run average with 5.8 K/9, 3.1 BB/9 and a ground-ball rate near 52 percent. His Triple-A work this season, split between the Jays and Braves, was largely similar, as he posted a 4.60 ERA in 86 innings of work. If he doesn’t get another crack in the Majors this season, Hernandez should still be able to secure another minor league pact to serve as rotation depth for a club heading into the 2017 campain.

As for the players being added to the Braves’ roster, Morris was acquired from the Mets earlier this year in exchange for Kelly Johnson. The return for Johnson was somewhat of a surprise, as Morris ranked as a solid prospect within the Mets’ system. Morris is a relief prospect with a big fastball, gaudy strikeout numbers and questionable control, and none of that changed when he switched organizations. He’s posted a 2.78 ERA and averaged 11.9 K/9 in 22 2/3 innings with Atlanta’s Double-A affiliate, but he’s also issued 17 walks in that time. The 24-year-old Hursh was a first-round pick by the Braves back in 2013 (No. 31 overall), but he’s moved from the rotation to the bullpen in recent seasons. In 64 innings of relief between Double-A and Triple-A, he’s turned in a 1.83 ERA this year, though that pristine mark comes with a less exciting 45-to-26 K/BB ratio.

Mets Acquire Kelly Johnson

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4:38pm: The Braves sent about $450K to the Mets in the trade as well, tweets the New York Post’s Ken Davidoff. That will help offset the remaining $1.268MM on Johnson’s 2016 contract. The Braves, then, are saving about $818K in the trade.

10:56am: The Mets have officially struck a deal to acquire utilityman Kelly Johnson from the Braves, as Adam Rubin of ESPNNewYork.com first reported on Twitter. Minor league righty Akeel Morris heading back in return.

New York and Atlanta are division rivals, but that didn’t stop them from linking up last summer on a deal that brought Johnson and fellow veteran Juan Uribe to the Mets. Johnson returned to Atlanta after playing a limited but important role for the eventual National League champs, only to be sent north once again.

The contending Mets have seen some holes open up this year due to injuries. In particular, first baseman Lucas Duda, third baseman David Wright, and catcher Travis d’Arnaud are in various stages of lengthy absences, while outfielder Juan Lagares is limited by a thumb injury.

Johnson, 34, figures to provide a stopgap at any number of positions. Over 11 years with eight organizations, he’s lined up at second base, all four corner infield and outfield spots, and even shortstop (albeit only for one game). The left-handed-hitting Johnson looks like a particularly good fit at third base, where he could share time with Wilmer Flores, though it’s fair to note that Johnson has never carried much of a platoon split.

At his best, Johnson is a reasonably solid defender and an average or better hitter with some pop. The question is how much is left in the bat. Over 132 plate appearances this year, he’s slashed a meager .215/.273/.289 with a single home run. That’s a good ways off of his lifetime .250/.330/.420 slash and double-digit annual long ball output.

In Morris, the Braves are getting a 23-year-old reliever who has just a single MLB appearance under his belt. Heading into 2016, he had posted three straight seasons of sparkling results while steadily climbing the ladder. Over his first 25 1/3 innings this year, all coming at the Double-A level, Morris has surrendered 13 earned runs and issued 16 free passes — though he’s also allowed only 19 hits while racking up 36 strikeouts.

Jon Morosi of FOX Sports first reported that a trade between the teams was close (Twitter link). 

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