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Kevan Smith

Angels Select Dustin Garneau’s Contract, Place Kevan Smith On 7-Day Concussion IL

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The Angels have selected the contract of catcher Dustin Garneau from Triple-A, the team announced.  Garneau will take the spot of backup catcher Kevan Smith, who has been placed on the seven-day version of the injured list due to a concussion.  No additional roster move was necessary, as the Angels had an open 40-man roster spot.

Smith left last night’s game in the fifth inning after taking a C.J. Cron foul tip off his mask.  Selected off waivers from the White Sox roster last fall, Smith has played quite well in his first season with the Angels, hitting .290/.397/.435 over 73 plate appearances.  Between Smith’s strong numbers and Jonathan Lucroy’s comeback season, the Halos have been receiving both good production and good pitch-framing behind the plate.

Garneau inked a minors deal with Los Angeles over the offseason, and will look to at least get a bit more Major League action than he did in 2018, when he appeared in just a single game for the White Sox.  Garneau, 31, has a .194/.269/.321 slash line over 280 career plate appearances for the White Sox, A’s, and Rockies over the last four seasons.

Angels Claim Kevan Smith, Designate Joe Hudson

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The Angels announced Friday that they’ve claimed catcher Kevan Smith off waivers from the White Sox and cleared a spot on the 40-man roster by designating fellow backstop Joe Hudson for assignment.

Smith, 30, has spent parts of the past three seasons with the White Sox, totaling 146 games and 497 plate appearances with a .281/.318/.376 batting line, seven homers and 23 doubles in that time. He’s struggled enormously when it comes to controlling the running game, though, posting an anemic 14 percent caught-stealing rate. From a pitch-framing standpoint, Baseball Prospectus has given Smith rougly average marks between the Majors and minors over the past few seasons while rating his blocking skills to be below average.

Smith is out of minor league options, meaning he can’t be sent to the minors next year unless he first clears waivers — assuming he even sticks on the 40-man roster all winter, which is far from a given.

As for Hudson, the 27-year-old hit well with the Double-A and Triple-A affiliates for the Angels this season, albeit in minuscule sample sizes. Hudson notched a .970 OPS in seven games with the Double-A club before moving up to Triple-A and hitting .311/.380/.478 in 101 PAs. He’s also drawn solid framing marks over the past couple of seasons in the minors and has a career 43 percent caught-stealing rate.

Hudson went 2-for-12 in a late-season cameo with the Angels — a brief stint that marked his MLB debut. Generally speaking, however, he’s struggled with the bat in the upper levels of the minor leagues, hitting just .196/.297/.289 in parts of three Double-A seasons.

White Sox Notes: Castillo, Abreu, Smith, Santiago, Davidson

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“I see as much young talent here as I’ve ever seen anywhere,” White Sox catcher Welington Castillo told Steve Greenberg of the Chicago Sun-Times about his new team’s spring camp, and that includes Castillo’s previous stint on the north side of Chicago.  “In 2013, when I was with the Cubs, we weren’t even close to what we’ve got here,’’ Castillo said. ‘‘In 2014, [the Cubs] started changing; you started to see more about the big prospects.  But they still weren’t really coming to the big leagues.  The White Sox, our prospects are already here, and they’re building together.  This organization is still a step ahead of the Cubs [in 2014].”  It remains to be seen if the current Sox core can possibly match up with what the Cubs have accomplished over the last three seasons, though given the amount of top-tier young players the White Sox have acquired in their rebuild, there is no shortage of promise for a quick return to contention for the franchise. 

Here’s more from the White Sox camp…

  • Both Jose Abreu and Kevan Smith made early exits from today’s Cactus League game with the Rangers, as MLB.com’s Alyson Footer and others reported.  Left hamstring tightness forced Abreu out of the game after two innings, while Smith suffered a left ankle sprain in the fifth inning.  More will be known about both injuries tomorrow, though manager Rick Renteria doesn’t believe either issue is particularly serious.  X-rays on Smith’s ankle already came back negative, yet any missed time could hurt the catcher in his battle with Omar Narvaez for the backup catcher’s job behind Castillo.  Abreu’s roster spot obviously isn’t in question, though any type of injury to their best hitter is worrisome for the White Sox.
  • Renteria hinted that Hector Santiago may have won himself a 25-man roster spot, telling The Athletic’s James Fegan (Twitter link) and other reporters that he likes to use a left-hander (like Santiago) in relief of a right-handed starter, and noted Santiago’s ability to provide multiple innings out of the pen.  Chicago signed several veteran relievers to minor league deals this winter, though Santiago is standing out from the competition with excellent spring numbers, posting an 0.75 ERA over his first 12 innings.  Santiago’s minors contract with the White Sox will pay him $2MM should he crack the Major League roster.
  • Matt Davidson is “not paying attention to anything else other than really my contact rate” this spring, the third baseman tells James Fegan of The Athletic (subscription required).  Davidson hit 26 homers in 443 PA last season, but contributed little else besides that pure power, with an overall .220/.260/.452 slash line and a whopping 165 strikeouts against just 19 walks.  Davidson knows he has to become a more well-rounded player in order to stick with the Sox given the strong competition for jobs in camp and during the regular season.

Added To The 40-Man: Kevan Smith, William Cuevas

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Here are the day’s minor moves from around the league…

  • The White Sox have purchased the contract of catcher Kevan Smith and placed Geovany Soto on the 10-day disabled list due to forearm tightness, as Dan Hayes of CSN Chicago writes. Chicago outrighted the 28-year-old Smith off the 40-man roster back in February. He made his Major League debut with the South Siders last year, collecting a pair of singles in 16 at-bats over the life of seven games. A former seventh-round pick, Smith is a career .251/.322/.386 in 585 plate appearances across parts of three seasons with Triple-A Charlotte.

Earlier Moves

  • The Tigers announced following today’s game that they’ve selected the contract of right-hander William Cuevas from Triple-A Toledo. Detroit had an open 40-man spot, but the corresponding 25-man move was somewhat of a surprise, as the team optioned right-hander Joe Jimenez back to Toledo. Jimenez, one of the Tigers’ most touted prospects, tossed a scoreless inning of relief in his MLB debut today against the Twins, but his initial stay in the Majors will ultimately prove to be brief in nature. Cuevas will give the Tigers a long option in the ’pen after the team’s relief corps was depleted in today’s 11-5 loss. The 26-year-old has worked both in the bullpen and rotation in recent years as a minor leaguer but is stretched out as a starter at the moment. He brings a career 3.65 ERA with 6.5 K/9 against 3.0 BB/9 in Triple-A to what will be his second Major League team; Cuevas made his big league debut with the Red Sox last season when he threw five innings of relief across three appearances.

White Sox Outright Kevan Smith

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The White Sox have outrighted catcher Kevan Smith to Triple-A, per a club announcement. He has already cleared waivers, it seems, as the organization says he’ll be a non-roster invitee. The move leaves the club with a free spot on its 40-man roster.

Smith, 28, earned his first brief call-up to the majors in 2016 after an injury to Alex Avila opened an opportunity. But he never really got much of a chance, as he was sidelined with back issues and ultimately saw action in just seven MLB contests.

Though he never rated as a top prospect, Smith has shown his share of promise. He put up .800+ OPS offensive years in 2013 (at High-A) and 2014 (at Double-A). But he owns a less exciting .245/.315/.380 batting line in his 565 Triple-A plate appearances over the past two seasons.

AL Notes: Yankees, Red Sox, Davis, Norris, Avila

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Yankees GM Brian Cashman discussed his team’s oft-debated trade deadline stance in an appearance on the podcast of ESPN.com’s Buster Olney (audio link). He said that the club is “open to everything and anything” over the month to come, noting that he’d raise any interest in the organization’s major league assets with ownership. Cashman made clear that New York isn’t going into a selling stance, but also suggested that such a time may come and has been discussed internally. “The clock is ticking,” he said, “and the more that we stay in this mode that we’re currently in, I think it’s going to force us into some tough decisions that we didn’t want to be in. There’s some time on the clock, but it’s getting late, as people would say.”

Here’s more from the American League:

  • Red Sox president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski says that trade chatter is picking up around the game, Scott Lauber of ESPN Boston was among those to report (Twitter links). Boston had contact with ten rival organizations just yesterday, he added. Meanwhile, the club announced that director of pitching analysis and development Brian Bannister will don a uniform to aid pitching coach Carl Willis in working with the staff. Bannister will not be in the dugout during games, but will seemingly take more of a hands-on approach in trying to solve the organization’s pitching woes.
  • It’s always concerning when a pitcher hits the DL with forearm issues, as was the case earlier today for Royals closer Wade Davis, but Kansas City doesn’t seem to be ringing any alarm bells. As Rustin Dodd of the Kansas City Star reports (links to Twitter), manager Ned Yost says that Davis’s ligament isn’t implicated. Yost added that Davis pitched through a similar problem last year, and Davis himself notes that he isn’t too concerned at this point.
  • The Tigers have placed lefty Daniel Norris on the DL with an oblique strain. That’s not great news for a team that has had some rotation questions arise, as Norris had showed some interesting results in his four big league appearances this year. He has allowed seven earned runs and 17 hits in 13 innings, but his sparkling 16:3 K/BB ratio is certainly promising.
  • White Sox backstop Alex Avila is headed to the DL after leaving tonight’s game with a hamstring strain, as Dan Hayes of CSN Chicago tweets. It’s too soon to know how long he’ll be out, but hamstring problems can linger. The 29-year-old has compiled a sturdy .231/.361/.347 batting line on the year while serving as part of a platoon with Dioner Navarro behind the dish. Brett Hayes could be an option behind the dish for the Sox, though he’d need to be added to the 40-man roster. The seven-year big league veteran has a .225/.354/.425 batting line through 13 games for Chicago’s Triple-A affiliate since being acquired in a minor trade earlier this summer.

White Sox Place Alex Avila On DL With Strained Hamstring

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The White Sox have placed catcher Alex Avila on the disabled list with a strained right hamstring and called up Triple-A backstop Kevan Smith to replace him, reports Jon Morosi of MLB Network (Twitter link).

Prior to suffering the injury against the Rangers on Saturday, the lefty-swinging Avila posted a .214/.333/.250 batting line in 28 plate appearances. While those numbers certainly aren’t great, they’re easily superior to the ones his platoon mate, Dioner Navarro, has compiled thus far (.100/.129/.100 in 30 PAs).

Navarro looks poised to accrue more playing time with Avila down, though Smith has put up an outstanding line at Triple-A Charlotte this year, batting .345/.394/.586 with two home runs in 33 PAs. The 27-year-old has hit an impressive .290/.367/.454 in 1,988 career minor league trips to the plate while throwing out 31 percent of base stealers in six seasons. He’s now primed to see his first major league action.

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