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AL Central Notes: Grandal, Keller, Twins

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The White Sox announced Friday that they’ve reinstated catcher Yasmani Grandal from the 10-day injured list and optioned fellow backstop Zack Collins to Triple-A Charlotte. Grandal missed nearly two months following surgery to repair a tendon tear in his left knee, during which time Chicago leaned on Collins and Seby Zavala to shoulder the workload behind the dish. It’s been an odd season for Grandal, who has walked at an astonishing 24.4 percent pace through 246 trips to the plate and matched his career-high in isolated power (slugging percentage minus batting average). But Grandal is also batting just .188, thanks in large part to a .189 average on balls in play. The end result is a nonconventional .188/.388/.436 batting line that still translates to a 134 wRC+ because of that enormous on-base percentage and Grandal’s considerable power. Notably, Grandal’s 26 percent strikeout rate isn’t a huge increase over his 24 percent career mark, and he’s sporting career-highs in hard-hit rate and exit velocity (by a wide margin). There’s good reason to think the batting average and overall batting line can tick upward — provided he’s back to full strength.

More from the AL Central…

  • Royals righty Brad Keller exited last night’s start early and is being evaluated for what the club describes as “posterior right shoulder discomfort,” writes Anne Rogers of MLB.com. The right-hander said after the game that his shoulder felt “tight” and “sore.” The 26-year-old Keller has had a rough year overall but looked to be on the right track after a disastrous three-month run to begin the year. Keller pitched to a 6.67 ERA through the end of June, but in his past nine starts he’s worked to a 3.42 ERA (4.37 SIERA) with greatly improved strikeout and walk rates. A former Rule 5 pick out of the D-backs organization, Keller has emerged as a mainstay in the Kansas City rotation, pitching to a 3.50 ERA in 360 1/3 innings from 2018-20. This year’s struggles have weighed down his numbers, but he still possesses a solid 4.01 ERA in 494 innings since the Royals gave him his first big league opportunity. He’s never been on the injured list outside of a two-week absence last summer due to a positive Covid-19 test.
  • Twins fans could get a look at some of the organization’s top prospects next month. Rosters can’t expand to the extent that they once did — only to 28 players — but manager Rocco Baldelli said this week in an appearance on MLB Network Radio on SiriusXM that the club will likely take a look at some promising youngsters when rosters expand (Twitter link, with audio). “I do think we could get a look at a few of these guys,” Baldelli said, though he declined to provide specific names. “I think there’s value in experience. … Calling guys up in September, giving them a little bit of that, I think helps.” Baldelli specifically pointed to the pitching staff, noting that there will be “some innings available” to the club’s upper-level pitchers. Speculatively speaking, that would seem to bode well for prospects such as Jordan Balazovic and Joe Ryan — the former a consensus top-100 arm and the latter a key arm acquired in the Nelson Cruz trade. Minnesota has given a few rookies some opportunities in the starting rotation this year — Griffin Jax and Charlie Barnes among them — but they’ve yet to promote any of their top-ranked prospects on the pitching side of things (in part due to injuries).

Players Avoiding Arbitration: 1/15/21

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The deadline to exchange arbitration figures is today at 1pm ET. As of this morning, there were 125 arbitration-eligible players who’d yet to agree to terms on their contract for the upcoming 2021 season. Arbitration is muddier than ever before thanks to the shortened 2020 schedule, which most believe will lead to record number of arb hearings this winter. Be that as it may, it’s still reasonable to expect dozens of contractual agreements to filter in over the next couple of hours.

We’ll highlight some of the more high-profile cases in separate posts with more in-depth breakdowns, but the majority of today’s dealings will be smaller-scale increases that don’t radically alter a team’s payroll or a player’s trade candidacy. As such, we’ll just run through most of today’s agreements in this post.

I’ve embedded MLBTR’s 2021 Arbitration Tracker in the post (those in the mobile app or viewing on mobile web will want to turn their phones sideways). Our tracker can be sorted by team, by service time and/or by Super Two status, allowing users to check the status on whichever groups of players they like. You can also check out Matt Swartz’s projected arbitration salaries for this year’s class, and we’ll do a quick sentence on each player’s agreement at the bottom of this post as well, with the most recent agreements sitting atop the list.

Today’s Agreements (chronologically, newest to oldest)

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Quick Hits: Keller, Straily, Lotte Giants, Neris, Red Sox

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Brad Keller posted a 2.47 ERA, 2.06 K/BB rate, 5.76 K/9, and 52.8% grounder rate over 54 2/3 innings this season, as the 25-year-old continues to establish himself as a front-of-the-rotation option for the Royals.  Keller was aided this season by an improved slider that essentially looked more like his fastball and moved like a curveball, as the right-hander told Fangraphs’ David Laurila.  The first step was remaking a slider delivery that initially left Keller unable to “see the plate because my front arm was covering the catcher….I was constantly pulling off on everything, yanking my front side.  I needed to clean that up and keep my shoulders more square.”

Working on advice from Royals pitching coach Cal Eldred during the league shutdown, Keller fixed his delivery and turned his slider into a prominent part of his arsenal.  38.2% of his pitches were sliders in 2020, well up from a 31.2% usage in 2019 and a 26.2% usage in 2018.  As per Fangraphs’ pitch value and slider runs above average (wSL) metrics, Keller had the third-most effective slider of any pitcher in baseball, behind only Dinelson Lamet and Zach Plesac.

More from around baseball as the Dodgers sit a game away from a championship…

  • Dan Straily’s first season in Korea was a success, and the right-hander tells Jeeho Yoo of Yonhap News that he has yet to make a decision about a potential second season with the KBO League’s Lotte Giants.  Before anything, Straily wants to return to the United States to see his family for the first time in nine months, as COVID-19 travel restrictions kept him in South Korea.  “I want to be with my wife when the decision starts coming up and my agent starts talking to the team about this,” Straily said.  After inking a one-year, $1MM contract with the Lotte Giants last winter, Straily posted a 2.50 ERA with 205 strikeouts over 194 2/3 innings, becoming arguably the league’s top pitcher and a popular figure with fans.  It was a solid rebound season after a tough 2019 for Straily that saw him allow 22 homers over only 47 2/3 innings with the Orioles, resulting in a 9.82 ERA.
  • The Phillies hold a $7MM club option on Hector Neris for 2021, which the team could see as an acceptable price tag for a reliever who has been generally solid over parts of seven MLB seasons.  However, in an offseason where the Phillies are dealing with revenue losses and trying to get under the luxury tax threshold, NBC Sports Philadelphia’s Corey Seidman sees Neris as a possible extension candidate.  Seidman floats the possibility of a two-year contract worth $9MM-$10MM, which seems like a good number from the Phils’ perspective, though it remains to be seen if Neris or his agents would accept such an offer.  The team has some leverage in the sense that Neris probably wouldn’t like to test the very uncertain 2020-21 free agent market, yet Neris might also have confidence that the Phillies wouldn’t actually decline his option since the Phils are in such dire need of bullpen help.
  • Chaim Bloom’s first year in charge of the Red Sox front office was a tumultuous one, and the Boston Globe’s Alex Speier looked beyond the unprecedented events (the pandemic’s effect on the season and the Mookie Betts trade) to examine patterns about how Bloom will shepherd the team going forward.  The Sox mostly targeted controllable players, and the sheer volume of transactions was also different, as the 2020 club had the most roster turnover of any Red Sox team of the past decade.  “It goes back to being more open-minded and willing to be more aggressive with the bottom end of our 40-man roster,” assistant GM Eddie Romero said.  “The 40-man roster became more of a living document.  It was a daily conversation.  It required daily upkeep.”

Royals’ Brad Keller To Make Season Debut Thursday

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Royals starter Brad Keller will make his season debut Thursday against the Cubs, manager Mike Matheny announced (via Jeffrey Flanagan of MLB.com). The right-hander has been behind schedule because of a positive coronavirus test.

The 25-year-old Keller is about to begin his third season as a member of the Royals, who grabbed him during the December 2017 Rule 5 Draft. While Rule 5 picks rarely turn into productive major leaguers, Keller has proved to be a steal for the Royals. He has totaled 2.0-plus fWAR in each of his two seasons in Kansas City, with which he has amassed 305 2/3 innings of 3.68 ERA/3.98 FIP pitching with 6.42 K/9, 3.53 BB/9 and a 52 percent groundball rate.

Getting Keller back won’t suddenly turn a 3-9 club into a a contender, but it should at least make KC more competitive. The Royals’ rotation hasn’t been particularly productive this year, but Danny Duffy and rookie Brady Singer have performed respectably over a combined six starts.

Brad Keller Returns To Royals Camp

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Right-hander Brad Keller is on his way back to Royals camp, MLB.com’s Jeffrey Flanagan was among those to report (Twitter link). He had been sidelined owing to a COVID-19 diagnosis.

Fortunately, it seems Keller has emerged from his infection without any significant complications. While he hasn’t yet provided any detail regarding his situation, it seems fair to presume he is in good health since he’s now ready to get back to work on the ballfield. Keller had to clear two negative tests before he was able to return.

If the Royals are to mount a surprise run at the postseason in 2020, they’ll need Keller to be at his best. Soon to turn 25, Keller carries a rather nice 3.68 ERA through 305 2/3 MLB frames over the past two seasons.

Though he has averaged a modest 6.4 K/9 and 3.5 BB/9 to this point in his MLB career, the sinker-baller has more than good fortune to cite for his success. Keller owns a 52.0% lifetime groundball rate and 0.65 HR/9 rate to date, both notable numbers in this era of the long ball.

If Keller can continue to tamp down on the dingers, he’ll keep delivering big value to the organization and set himself up for a nice payday as a first-time arbitration-eligible player. Even if he settles in as a back-of-the-rotation starter, Keller already rates as a Rule 5 heist.

Brad Keller, Ryan O’Hearn Test Positive For Coronavirus

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Royals right-hander Brad Keller and first baseman Ryan O’Hearn have tested positive for the coronavirus, per the team. Keller said in a statement that is dealing with minor symptoms at the moment, while O’Hearn is asymptomatic. They’ll both need a pair of negative tests before they’re cleared to return to the team. For now, they’ll isolate as they await those negative tests. Keller and O’Hearn join Salvador Perez as known Royals players to have tested positive in the early days of Summer Camp.

The hope is obviously that both will make swift recoveries and be ready when games begin later this month, although there’s no way of knowing when either will be cleared. Keller, 25 later this month, is a lock for the Royals rotation and served as their Opening Day starter a year ago. The former Rule 5 pick tossed 165 1/3 frames of 4.19 ERA ball over the course of 28 starts for Kansas City this past season.

O’Hearn, who’ll turn 27 in late July, had a big Spring Training before the league shutdown and was competing with Ryan McBroom for regular reps at first base. There’s an obvious platoon pairing between the two if the organization sees fit, but both are looking at the 2020 season as a hopeful proving grounds. O’Hearn posted a monstrous .262/.353/.597 slash (153 wRC+) in 170 plate appearances in 2018 but saw his production decline precipitously in 2019 (.195/.281/.369).

Have The Royals Found Another Rule 5 Gem?

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After selecting Joakim Soria out of the Padres’ farm system in the 2006 Rule 5 Draft, it could be argued that the Royals are still in the “playing with house money” honeymoon phase of the Rule 5 process.  After all, even landing a Rule 5 player who can stick on a Major League roster for an entire season is a success, never mind landing a two-time All-Star like Soria through his 2007-11 heyday as Kansas City’s closer.

Eleven years after drafting Soria, it seems like the Royals again struck gold via the Rule 5 process.  While Brad Keller has yet to reach All-Star levels, the right-hander has already enjoyed enough success over his first two MLB seasons that he looks like a solid building block for a young K.C. team.

Keller was an eighth-round pick for the Diamondbacks in the 2013 draft, and through five pro seasons had compiled some decent but unspectacular numbers in the Arizona farm system.  Over 130 1/3 innings for Double-A Jackson in 2017, Keller posted a 4.68 ERA, 7.6 K/9, and 1.95 K/BB rate, which wasn’t quite good enough for him to make the grade amidst something of a 40-man roster crunch for the D’Backs.

Coming off a 93-win season and a NLDS appearance in 2017, the Diamondbacks were focused on using much of their available 40-man spaces on players who could potentially provide immediate help in 2018, as GM Mike Hazen explained to the Arizona Republic’s Nick Piecoro two years ago.  “Our scouts liked [Keller]. We liked him,” Hazen said.  “We made the conscious decision not to add him because of where he was in proximity to the Major League team, where we were in the cycle, what we wanted to use our 40-man spots for, we wanted to be aggressive in the offseason in claiming guys…that were closer to the big leagues in our mind.”

So, the D’Backs left Keller unprotected in December 2017 draft, and it didn’t take long for another team to pounce on the right-hander.  However, that other team wasn’t actually the Royals, whose spot in the Rule 5 draft order didn’t fall until the #18 spot that year.  Instead it was the Reds who took Keller with the fifth pick, and then promptly dealt him to Kansas City for cash considerations.  (The Royals swung a similar move just one pick later, acquiring sixth pick Burch Smith for cash from the Mets after New York selected Smith out of Tampa Bay’s farm system.)

Smith also ended up spending the entire 2018 season on the K.C. roster, though he was cut loose after posting a 6.92 ERA over 78 innings.  Keller, on the other hand, was much more of an immediate success.  After posting a 2.01 ERA over his first 22 1/3 frames of work out of Kansas City’s bullpen in 2018, Keller was promoted to the rotation and continued to succeed.  The righty had a 3.28 ERA over his 20 starts, striking out 83 batters (against 43 walks) over 118 innings.

Keller’s sophomore year wasn’t quite as impressive, though he still managed a quite respectable 4.19 ERA, 1.74 K/BB, and 6.6 K/9 over 165 1/3 frames, all as a member of the Royals rotation.  It could be argued that Keller was perhaps fortunate to manage that 4.19 mark, as some ERA predictors (4.94 xFIP, 5.23 SIERA) were significantly higher, and batters made much more solid contract off him in 2019 than in 2018.  The Statcast metrics also took a dim view of Keller’s 2019 performance, with a whole lot of blue — as in, below-average — numbers for Keller in comparison to other pitchers in exit velocity, xwOBA, strikeout percentage, and several other categories.

That said, advanced metrics don’t tend to favor low-strikeout hurlers like Keller who specialize in keeping the ball on the ground.  Among pitchers with at least 300 innings tossed over the last two seasons, Keller has the lowest (8.4%) home run rate in baseball, and the second-highest (52%) grounder rate.  These outstanding numbers are particularly valuable in this era of the lively ball, and Keller could further benefit from some improved defense behind him, should Maikel Franco provide any sort of upgrade at third base.

All told, 4.8 fWAR over two seasons already represents a very nice return on the Royals’ initial minor cash outlay to Cincinnati.  Keller doesn’t turn 25 until July, and he doesn’t reach arbitration eligibility until this coming offseason, putting him under the Royals’ control through the 2023 campaign.  Under normal circumstances, Keller could be a player the Royals might have already locked up to a contract extension, and while all extension talks are halted under the current transactions freeze, it wouldn’t be a surprise if K.C. began some talks with Keller’s representatives once regular business gets back underway.

While truly major Rule 5 Draft success stories are relatively few and far between these days, a team only needs to hit on one pick to make the enterprise worthwhile.  Finding a big league talent for virtually nothing is a win for any team, and if that talent is a mid-20’s starting pitcher who looks like he can hang in at least the middle of a big league rotation, the Royals got a valuable boost to their latest rebuilding effort.

Royals Shut Brad Keller Down For Rest Of Season

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Brad Keller’s season for the Royals is over. Manager Ned Yost announced to reporters today that the right-hander has been showing signs of arm fatigue and will not pitch again in 2019 (Twitter link via Jeffrey Flanagan of MLB.com).

Keller’s shutdown removes Kansas City’s best starting pitcher from the rotation, though the organization and fans alike are likely relieved that there’s no serious injury at play. Right-hander Jorge Lopez and lefty Eric Skoglund are both in the rotation this weekend and could see increased opportunities down the stretch with Keller no longer in the mix for starts.

The 24-year-old Keller saw his innings total make a somewhat modest increase from 140 1/3 in 2018 to 165 1/3 in 2019. He didn’t quite replicate last year’s excellence, when he posted a 3.08 ERA with 6.2 K/9, 3.2 BB/9, 0.45 HR/9 and a 54.4 percent ground-ball rate. Keller did, however, enjoy a second consecutive quality season, compiling a 4.19 earned run average with 6.6 K/9, 3.8 BB/9, 0.82 HR/9 and a 50 percent grounder rate. While the uptick in walks is of mild concern, Keller’s ability to keep the ball in the yard (and on the ground, in particular) was maintained even at a time when home-run rates throughout the league exploded.

By the time the season has wrapped up, Keller will have racked up two full years of big league service, putting him on pace to become eligible for arbitration following the 2020 season. He’s gone from a flier in the 2017 Rule 5 Draft to a hands-down member of the Kansas City rotation and is easily among the most successful Rule 5 selections in recent memory. The loss of Keller no doubt stings for the Diamondbacks, who received no compensation for him in the aforementioned Rule 5 process and have seen several pitching injuries crop up this season. Such statements are easy to make with the benefit of hindsight, and trades have alleviated some of the depth issues for the D-backs, but they’d surely take a mulligan on protecting Keller, given the opportunity.

Looking down the road, Keller, Danny Duffy and Jakob Junis are the sure things in next year’s rotation for the Royals. Other options currently on the 40-man roster include Lopez, Skoglund, Mike Montgomery, Glenn Sparkman, Trevor Oaks, Heath Fillmyer and Scott Blewett. Beyond that largely underwhelming group is a collection of more promising arms, headlined by recent draftees such as Brady Singer, Daniel Lynch, Jackson Kowar and Kris Bubic. Any of that bunch could conceivably reach the big leagues next season, giving the Kansas City organization some hope for better days in the not-too-distant future. That said, it still wouldn’t be a surprise to see the Royals add some veteran options to the starting mix this offseason as a means of bridging the gap.

MLB To Issue Suspensions Stemming From Royals/White Sox Altercation

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Major League Baseball will announce a series of suspensions following this week’s brawl between the White Sox and the Royals, per reports from ESPN’s Jeff Passan and The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal (Twitter links). Royals right-hander Brad Keller will receive a five-game ban for throwing at White Sox shortstop Tim Anderson, while Anderson himself will be hit with a one-game ban “because of language used during the benches-clearing incident with Kansas City,” per Passan. Rosenthal adds that White Sox skipper Rick Renteria will receive a one-game suspension as well.

The benches-clearing incident in question — “brawl” is a questionable term for the majority of MLB on-field altercations — began with a Tim Anderson bat flip following a fourth-inning home run against Keller. Upon making contact, Anderson turned to his dugout, flipped the bat toward them and, as he tells it, yelled “let’s go” to fire up his teammates. Keller, taking exception to the showmanship, took the “old-school, unwritten rules” route and hit Anderson in with a pitch (on the hip/butt) in his next plate appearance. As is the case in every such instance, Keller transparently claimed after the game (and in an appearance on MLB Network this morning) that he was simply trying to bust Anderson inside, and a pitch “got away” from him.

The Anderson suspension is particularly surprising, as the only previous instances of a player being suspended for language have stemmed from using on-field slurs that transcend pure profanity. Passan, however, further tweets that Anderson was suspended for “racially charged” language heard by the umpiring crew. Keller’s suspension is standard in the case of pitchers throwing at players. While the suspension will cost Keller five times as much in terms of pay and MLB service time, suspensions for starting pitchers are always in five-game increments due to the fact that they ensure a pitcher will miss a start. (A suspension of one to four games wouldn’t necessarily cause a starter to miss any time at all.)

The debate over intentional plunkings has been ongoing for years, as traditionalists advocate for the upholding of “the code” of unwritten rules that has long been woven into the fabric of the game’s history. Detractors point to the fact that throwing at someone on purpose has the potential to seriously injure a player; it’s common to see pitchers badly miss a spot even when trying to throw a pitch for a strike, and it seems almost inevitable that an intentional beaning will eventually lead to a fractured wrist, concussion, etc.

Incidents like this one are now the source of further scrutiny given MLB’s “Let the kids play” marketing slogan, kicked off by an ad in which Ken Griffey Jr. calls for those “unwritten rules” to be thrown out in favor of players showing emotion on the field with celebrations for home runs, key strikeouts and other big moments. Commissioner Rob Manfred has been vocal about wanting to appeal to a younger generation of fans, and that campaign seems a key part of the effort. A second such ad aired leading up to the 2019 season, and MLB’s official Twitter account even tweeted the slogan in support of Anderson this week. If the league simply wanted to continue allowing players to “police themselves,” it wouldn’t be a surprising outcome to see them maintain the status quo. Continuing to administer a punishment that has proven meaningless, however, sends a contradictory message to the one they’re pushing in their marketing.

The debate isn’t confined solely to the game’s fan-base, of course. Players have been weighing in on the matter all week. CC Sabathia plainly stated on Buster Olney’s podcast this week (audio link) that he’s 100 percent in favor of bat flips and any other display of on-field emotion and doesn’t understand why a pitcher would be bothered by it. Reds lefty Amir Garrett tweeted that rather than throw at a batter in his next plate appearance, the pitcher should, “Strike him out, and do whatever you gotta do. Fist pump, moonwalk, cartwheel.” On the other side of the coin, Blue Jays outfielder Randal Grichuk tweeted that players have gotten “excessive” with their celebrations and called for more stoicism.

2017-18 Rule 5 Draft Update

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At this point of the season, it’s reasonable to expect the remaining Rule 5 players who are on big league rosters to hold those spots for the remainder of the season. That doesn’t mean that each has necessarily impressed to the point where he’s viewed as a viable long-term option, but with rosters set to expand in a couple of weeks and this much time already invested in each player, the remaining prospects who are clinging to eligibility have likely secured themselves a look in 2019 — even if it means opening the season in the minors.

When I last checked in on this year’s Rule 5-ers back in June, there were nine players either on active MLB rosters or on the big league disabled list, with the rest of this year’s class having been returned to their original organizations. That number hasn’t changed, though the complexion of the list is a bit different, and there have been some encouraging strides among the bunch. Here’s how the class looks at present:

Active Big Leaguers

  • Victor Reyes, OF, Tigers (from D-backs): Reyes still isn’t hitting much, but the Tigers have given him much more time in the outfield as the season wears on. The 23-year-old played just nine complete games through the end of June, but since July 1, he’s logged 22 full games of action in addition to numerous partial appearances where he’s either been pinch-hit for or entered the game as a pinch-runner or defensive replacement. Reyes is hitting just .244/.279/.256 through 86 PAs in July and August, so he’s not impressing at the plate in spite of the recent uptick in playing time. He is 7-for-8 in stolen base attempts and has registered solid defensive marks in the outfield. It still seems likely that he’ll be ticketed for regular work in Triple-A next season once he can be optioned.
  • Brad Keller, RHP, Royals (from D-backs): As the Kansas City Star’s Maria Torres noted over the weekend, Keller has been a rare bright spot in a largely abysmal season for the Royals. Keller posted underwhelming numbers in Double-A last season and skipped Triple-A entirely, but the Royals deserve some credit for nabbing him anyway last December. In 100 1/3 innings this year, Keller has posted a terrific 3.32 ERA. And while his 6.0 K/9 and 3.6 BB/9 marks are underwhelming, he’s notched a strong 54.8 percent ground-ball rate. It remains to be seen if Keller can sustain his minuscule 0.45 HR/9 rate, though he’s never averaged even a homer per nine frames in the minors. Fielding-independent pitching metrics are fairly spread out on him, due in no small part to that low homer rate, but if he can settle in even as a pitcher capable of delivering an ERA in the low 4.00s over a season’s worth of starts, that’d make him a very successful pick.
  • Burch Smith, RHP, Royals (from Rays, via trade w/ Mets): Kansas City hasn’t been as successful with Smith, whose ERA sits at an ugly 6.54 through 64 2/3 innings — mostly out of the bullpen. He’s averaged 8.6 K/9 against 4.5 BB/9, and in addition to issuing too many walks, he’s been far too homer-prone (1.95 HR/9). More than 18 percent of the fly-balls against Smith have left the yard — a troubling trend for a pitcher with just a 39.4 percent ground-ball rate. Smith barely pitched from 2014-17 due to injuries, including Tommy John surgery, so the Royals may not want to give up on him in spite of the poor results. At this point, they’ve come far enough along that it could make sense to keep him around and see how he fares in the upper minors next season. He’ll be 29 in April, but he has minor league options remaining.
  • Carlos Tocci, OF, Rangers (from Phillies, via trade w/ White Sox): Tocci has been the most seldom-used player in the Majors, functioning almost exclusively as a defensive replacement for much of the season. He’s appeared in 51 games and totaled just 103 plate appearances, but the Rangers have given him a slight increase in playing time in August. This month, he’s started nine games and shown a bit of promise in that tiny sample, hitting .300/.323/.367 in 33 plate appearances — albeit with nine punchouts and just one walk. Tocci is hitting .207/.255/.250 overall, though, and appears ticketed for minor league work in 2019 even if his glove has been solid in limited work to date.
  • Elieser Hernandez, RHP, Marlins (from Astros): Hernandez, who turned 23 back in May, made the jump from High-A to the Majors and, unsurprisingly, has posted less-than-stellar results. He’s tossed 56 2/3 innings for Miami, including five starts, while working to a 5.08 ERA with 6.2 K/9, 3.5 BB/9, 1.27 HR/9 and an extremely low 26.3 percent ground-ball rate. Some struggles were to be expected given the considerable jump he faced, however, and it’d be fair to say he’s at least held his own, given that he skipped both Double-A and Triple-A. He should survive the season with the rebuilding Marlins, and he’ll likely be ticketed for upper-minors work in 2019.
  • Brett Graves, RHP, Marlins (from Athletics): Graves was on the DL back in June, having missed the first two-plus months of the season with an oblique injury. Since making his big league debut, he’s posted a 6.23 ERA with 10 strikeouts against seven walks (two intentional) and three hit batters in 17 1/3 innings. The 25-year-old has primarily been a starter in the minors but has been used out of the bullpen in Miami to this point. He’s displayed good ground-ball tendencies thus far (53.6 percent) and has yet to allow a homer. Though he missed notable time this year, Graves was activated early enough that he’ll accrue the requisite 90 days on the active roster to shed his Rule 5 status this season — provided he doesn’t incur an injury before rosters expand.

On the Major League Disabled List

  • Julian Fernandez, RHP, Giants (from Rockies): Fernandez underwent Tommy John surgery back in April. He’ll accrue MLB service time while spending the season on the 60-day disabled list and will retain his Rule 5 status heading into 2019, if the Giants wish to hang onto him all offseason.
  • Pedro Araujo, RHP, Orioles (from Cubs): Araujo is the last of three Orioles picks from the 2017 Rule 5 Draft remaining on the big league roster, but he’s been on the DL since June 11 due to an elbow sprain. When he was active, he showed plenty of ability to miss bats (13.9 percent swinging-strike rate, 9.3 K/9) but also averaged 5.8 walks and a staggering 2.89 homers per nine innings pitched. It’s not clear if he’ll return this season, but if he doesn’t, he’ll retain his Rule 5 eligibility into 2019. The Orioles won’t be able to option him until he spends 90 days on the active MLB roster, and he’s a bit more than two weeks shy of that right now.
  • Nick Burdi, RHP, Pirates (from Twins via trade w/ Phillies): The flame-throwing Burdi missed nearly all of 2016 due to injury and underwent Tommy John surgery in 2017, but he’s finally on the comeback trail in a new organization. Pittsburgh sent the former Louisville standout on a rehab assignment earlier this month, and he’s pitched seven innings with an 11-to-4 K/BB ratio across three levels so far. He’s yielded five earned runs in that time, though the Bucs likely aren’t focusing heavily on bottom-line results at this point of his recovery. Burdi will have to carry over his Rule 5 eligibility into the 2019 season if the Pirates wish to retain him, but he’s a highly intriguing bullpen piece who could be worth the investment. Burdi’s heater received 80 grades on the 20-80 scale prior to surgery, and he’s been touted as a potential big league closer since his college days.

Returned to Original Organization

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