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Felix Jorge

Reds Release Junichi Tazawa, Chris Volstad, Felix Jorge

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The Reds recently released a trio of hurlers, Chris Hilburn-Trenkle of Baseball America reports. Righties Junichi Tazawa, Chris Volstad, and Felix Jorge were all cut loose before the coronavirus-related roster freeze went into effect.

Each of these pitchers had joined the Cincinnati organization on minor-league deals. It was unlikely in each case that they’d earn a roster spot out of camp.

Tazawa, once a highly productive reliever, failed to crack the majors last year. The nine-year MLB veteran came to the Reds late last season after he was cut free from the Cubs. He had received one spring outing but obviously didn’t show enough to impress the Reds’ brass.

Volstad is another 33-year-old righty with significant MLB action under his belt. He was looking for a comeback after not appearing in the 2019 season. Volstad carries a 5.00 ERA in 772 1/3 career MLB innings.

The 26-year-old Jorge has only minimal experience at the game’s highest level. He has battled health issues over the past two campaigns. Back in 2017, the last time he completed a substantial number of innings, he worked to a 3.68 ERA in 149 upper-minors innings while also earning a brief call-up.

Reds Sign Buddy Boshers, Felix Jorge

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The Reds have landed some additional pitching depth, signing lefty Buddy Boshers and righty Felix Jorge to minors deals, according to Bobby Nightengale of the Cincinnati Enquirer (Twitter link) and MLB.com’s Mark Sheldon (Twitter link). Both receive invitations to participate on the major-league side of spring camp.

Boshers, 30, has thrown 86 1/3 total MLB frames over parts of three seasons, working to a 4.59 ERA with 8.1 K/9 and 2.6 BB/9. The reliever did not receive any chances last year at the game’s highest level, but did turn in strong results at Triple-A. Over 57 total innings, he worked to a 3.32 ERA while racking up 9.8 K/9 against 2.8 BB/9.

As for Jorge, who turned 25 earlier this month, he has only received a brief taste of the majors. Unlike Boshers, most of his experience has come as a starting pitcher. In his most recent full season, 2017, Jorge turned in 149 innings of 3.68 ERA ball over stints at Double-A and Triple-A. He hasn’t shown much swing-and-miss ability in the upper minors, but has long been seen as a possible future MLB talent. Jorge ended up missing all of 2018 with a triceps injury, so he’ll first need to show he’s back at full health.

Reds Re-Sign Mason Williams To Minor League Deal

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The Reds announced a slew of minor league signings today (Twitter link), including the re-signing of outfielder Mason Williams to a minor league contract with an invite to Spring Training. Cincinnati also confirmed its previously reported minor league deals/invites to MLB camp for infielder Christian Colon and righty Anthony Bass. Furthermore, Bobby Nightengale Jr. of the Cincinnati Enquirer tweets that the Reds agreed to a minor league pact and an invite to Spring Training with former Twins right-hander Felix Jorge, though the organization has yet to announce that addition.

Williams, 27, is a former Yankees top prospect who didn’t pan out in the Bronx but fared reasonably well with Cincinnati last season. The Reds gave Williams his largest slate of MLB work to date, as the 2010 fourth-rounder appeared in 51 games and hit .293/.331/.398 with a pair of homers, five doubles and a triple in 132 plate appearances during that time.

Williams’ return to the organization is all the more notable given Cincinnati’s decision to non-tender Billy Hamilton. While Williams assuredly won’t be viewed as a concrete solution in center, he’ll join the competition for an outfield job with the Reds this spring and could stand a decent chance at eventually cracking the roster if the team doesn’t bring in a more established option via free agency or trade. Williams does, after all, have more than 5000 professional innings in center field under his belt between the Majors and the minors.

As for Jorge, he’s a slight-of-frame righty listed at 6’2″ and 170 pounds but long rated as one of the more polished arms in the Twins’ system. He never drew Top 100 prospect billing throughout the league but did make a pair of starts for the Twins in 2017 and has a solid track record up through the Double-A level. Now 25 years old, Jorge missed much of the 2018 season due to injury and has only a handful of innings in Triple-A, but he owns a career 3.75 ERA with 5.6 K/9 against 2.1 BB/9 in 209 innings at the Double-A level. He’s never been one to miss many bats, but Jorge has typically demonstrated pinpoint control throughout his minor league tenure and has kept the ball on the ground at better than a 50 percent clip in recent seasons.

Cincinnati also indicated that it’ll bring right-hander Alex Powers back to the organization as a non-roster invite to MLB camp after a trio of solid seasons. The former White Sox farmhand has been with the Reds since 2016 and delivered his most encouraging season yet in 2018, pitching to a 2.34 ERA with 11.7 K/9, 2.3 BB/9, 0.64 HR/0 and a 42.5 percent grounder rate in 42 1/3 innings of relief. Powers will turn 27 next month, meaning those fairly gaudy numbers came against much younger and less-experienced competition, but the bottom-line results were enough for the Reds to want to take a look this spring.

Twins Release, Re-Sign Felix Jorge

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The Twins have released and re-signed right-hander Felix Jorge, as Mike Berardino of the St. Paul Pioneer-Press was among those to Report (Twitter links). Jorge had recently been designated for assignment.

Typically, of course, a player in this situation — being removed from the 40-man roster for the first time — would simply be outrighted after clearing waivers. As Berardino explains, though, there’s a slight twist and an obscure rule at play here. Because Jorge was on the disabled list upon his DFA, he had to be activated or released.

In any event, the result is the same, as the Twins will hang onto the 24-year-old prospect. That’s a positive for the club. Though Jorge was hit hard in a very brief MLB debut last year and has been out for all of 2018 due to injury, he has long been considered a quality starting pitching prospect.

As MLBTR’s Steve Adams explained at some length upon the Twins’ decision to designate Jorge, there has long been hope that Jorge had a future as a back-of-the-rotation starter at the game’s highest level. Last year, at the Double-A level, he put up 134 2/3 innings of 3.54 ERA ball with 6.6 K/9 and 2.5 BB/9, along with a 50.2% groundball rate.

Twins Designate Felix Jorge For Assignment

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The Twins will select the contract of catcher Willians Astudillo from Triple-A Rochester and clear a spot on the 40-man roster by designating right-hander Felix Jorge for assignment, tweets Mike Berardino of the St. Paul Pioneer Press. Minnesota is clearing an active roster spot for Astudio by placing utilityman Taylor Motter on the 7-day DL with concussion-like symptoms. Motter recently crashed hard into the wall while trying to chase down a deep fly-ball to the right-center field gap against the White Sox.

Jorge, 24, made his big league debut with Minnesota in 2017, tossing a combined 7 2/3 innings but allowing nine runs in a pair of spot starts. Inauspicious as that debut may have been, the righty did turn in a strong season in Double-A last year, working to a 3.54 ERA with 6.6 K/9, 2.5 BB/9, 0.74 HR/9 and a 50.2 percent ground-ball rate in 134 2/3 innings (22 starts).

This season has been a lost affair for Jorge so far, as he’s been sidelined due to a triceps issue in the minors (as Berardino recently noted). He made a pair of rehab assignments for the Twins’ Rookie-level affiliate in the Gulf Coast League, but he’ll now have to go through the DFA process before it’s determined if he’ll join the rotation in Triple-A Rochester or end up with another club — either via trade or via waiver claim.

There’s certainly reason to believe that other clubs would have interest in Jorge, if healthy. He’s long rated as one of the Twins’ better prospects, ranking among their top 30 in each offseason dating back to 2012-13, per Baseball America. While Jorge’s upside is limited by a pedestrian fastball, he’s said to have at least an average slider and changeup, and he’s demonstrated strong control throughout his minor league tenure, averaging just 2.2 walks per nine innings pitched in 689 innings. He also has a pair of minor league options remaining, which obviously enhances his appeal.

That said, Jorge is also behind a number of starters on the Twins’ depth chart in Triple-A, as each of Fernando Romero, Stephen Gonsalves and Adalberto Mejia (who’ll start Saturday in Minnesota in his 2018 debut), and between this year’s triceps issue and the best-case scenario of a back-of-the-rotation arm, the Twins felt comfortable jettisoning him from the 40-man roster.

As for Astudillo, he’ll be making his MLB debut with the Twins and will arrive on the scene as something of an oddity. The 26-year-old has a comically low strikeout rate in the minors both this season (4.8 percent) and throughout his career (3.2 percent). He also rarely walks, though, doing so at a 2.7 percent clip this year and 3.4 percent for his career. Put another way, the 5’9″, 225-pound Astudillo has walked in just five of his 188 PAs this season but has also struck out on just nine occasions. He’s hitting .290/.321/.489 with seven homers on the season and will give the Twins another option behind the dish, where they’ve struggled tremendously all season long.

Central Notes: Jorge, Diaz, Montero, Petricka

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With the Twins set to play 20 games in a 19-day span heading into the All-Star break, including four games against the Royals this weekend, they’ll dip into the minors and call on prospect Felix Jorge to make his MLB debut tomorrow, reports Mike Berardino of the St. Paul Pioneer Press. The 23-year-old Jorge currently sits eighth among Minnesota farmhands, per Jim Callis and Jonathan Mayo of MLB.com, and also ranked eighth among Twins prospects entering the season, per Baseball America. The right-hander doesn’t overpower opponents but has walked just 1.7 hitters per nine innings dating back to 2015. He currently has a 3.26 ERA with 6.4 K/9, 2.3 BB/9 and a 50.4 percent ground-ball rate through 85 2/3 Double-A frames. Both scouting reports peg Jorge as a fourth or fifth starter, noting that he’s added some bulk to his slender frame and sits in the low 90s with a bit of sink on his heater while also offering an above-average changeup. Jorge is already on the 40-man roster, so there won’t be a DFA or 60-day DL move required to add him.

More on the game’s Central divisions…

  • Aledmys Diaz was caught off-guard by the Cardinals’ decision to option him to Triple-A, writes Rick Hummel of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. However, the 26-year-old offered a professional attitude to the media following the move’s announcement, telling reporters that he’s happy to do whatever is best for the Cardinals in the long run. General manager John Mozeliak also weighed in on what he labeled a difficult decision, telling the media: “What we really want to see is that he’s able to take a deep breath and go down and work on some things offensively, as well as his whole game. … (Diaz) hasn’t been picking the ball up (at the plate) and he’s been chasing a lot of balls outside the zone.” Mozeliak also noted that injured second baseman Kolten Wong won’t be back with the team until after the All-Star break.
  • Cubs manager Joe Maddon spoke candidly about the organization’s decision to designate Miguel Montero for assignment following the catcher’s blasting of Jake Arrieta and the Cubs’ pitching staff, Mark Gonzales of the Chicago Tribune writes. “(There are) too many young guys in (the clubhouse) who are impressionable,” said Maddon. “…With this young impressionable group, to me, and a really good group that’s going to be together for a long time, you don’t want to foster, nurture, condone (Montero’s) kind of message.” President of baseball operations Theo Epstein was alerted to Montero’s comments by GM Jed Hoyer on Tuesday night this week, per Gonzales, and the two reached the decision to move on from Montero after speaking with Maddon late that night. Epstein stresses that Montero shouldn’t be viewed as any kind of scapegoat for the team’s overall struggles, though he said they felt Montero was “not being a good teammate” and demonstrated a lack of accountability in such a public manner that they were forced to act.
  • The White Sox announced yesterday that righty Jake Petricka has been placed back on the disabled list due to a right elbow strain. Fellow righty Juan Minaya was summoned back from Triple-A just a day after being sent there. The elbow issue is the latest in a slew of injuries for Petricka, who has missed time due to a forearm strain, hip surgery and a lat strain in recent years. The 29-year-old’s hard sinker has led to a sizable 63 percent ground-ball rate, though Petricka has averaged just 6.5 K/9 against 4.0 BB/9 as a big leaguer. Nonetheless, that huge ground-ball rate has helped him post a 3.70 ERA through 163 innings in the Majors. No timetable was given for a return to the mound.
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