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Kirk McCarty

Guardians Select Kirk McCarty

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Prior to yesterday’s contest with the Blue Jays, the Guardians selected left-hander Kirk McCarty onto the major league roster. It’s the second time this season that Cleveland has selected him, although this stint on the 40-man figures to last longer than his prior stay.

McCarty’s first big league call came in April as the Guardians were battling COVID-19 issues. Selected as a designated substitute player, he spent five days on the roster and made one appearance. McCarty worked three innings of four-run ball in mop-up work against the Yankees on April 24, and Cleveland eventually returned him to Triple-A Columbus. Because he’d been selected as a COVID replacement, he was taken back off the 40-man roster without passing through waivers.

This time around, McCarty’s promotion is more typical. He’s not coming up in response to any virus concerns, and Cleveland would need to run him through waivers to take him off the 40-man again. That the 26-year-old has earned a seemingly more lasting roster spot is a testament to his strong start in Columbus. McCarty has tossed 16 2/3 frames of two-run ball over four appearances at the minors’ top level, striking out 15 batters against six walks.

In a corresponding move, Cleveland reassigned righty Enyel de los Santos to Columbus. Also originally selected as a COVID replacement, de los Santos made six appearances in relief. He punched out nine of the 26 opponents he faced and averaged north of 96 MPH on his fastball, but he also issued five walks and hit a batter.

Guardians Promote Richie Palacios, Activate Luke Maile

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The Guardians announced they’ve recalled left fielder/second baseman Richie Palacios to make his major league debut. Cleveland also activated catcher Luke Maile from the 10-day injured list. In corresponding moves, backstop Bryan Lavastida was optioned to Triple-A Columbus, while left-hander Kirk McCarty was returned to the minors and removed from the 40-man roster.

Palacios was already on the 40-man, having been selected before Rule 5 protection day last November. A third-round pick out of Towson in 2018, the left-handed hitter has played his way up the minor league ladder with strong numbers at every stop. Palacios had a nice run in the low minors during his post-draft summer, but he missed the entire 2019 campaign after tearing the labrum in his shoulder. The canceled 2020 minors season cost him another year, but the Brooklyn native played his way onto the 40-man roster with an impressive showing last year.

Splitting the season between Double-A Akron and Columbus, Palacios hit .297/.404/.471 in 428 plate appearances. While he only hit seven home runs, he rapped 33 doubles and swiped 20 bases. As his excellent on-base percentage attests, Palacios drew walks in a robust 13.6% of his plate appearances against just a 16.4% strikeout rate. Baseball America named him the #14 prospect in a deep Guardians’ farm system this winter, praising his hit tool, plate discipline and gap power while noting some questions about his best defensive fit.

The Guardians signed Maile to a one-year deal over the winter to serve as the #2 backstop behind Austin Hedges. He missed the first few weeks of the year with a left hamstring strain, leading Cleveland to turn to the 23-year-old Lavastida for a brief first look. He collected just one hit and three walks in 15 plate appearances, but that was to be expected for a player with just 36 games above High-A coming into the year. Lavastida will have a chance to get more regular reps at Triple-A with Maile back to spell Hedges as needed.

McCarty, meanwhile, was selected to the majors as a COVID substitute last week. Cleveland was without Cal Quantrill, Owen Miller and Anthony Castro at the time, but Quantrill and Miller have since made it back. Tanner Tully, who had also been selected as a COVID replacement, was returned to Columbus over the weekend. Cleveland now has one open 40-man roster spot, but both Castro and Yu Chang remain on the COVID injured list and will have to be reinstated once healthy.

Guardians Announce Several Roster Moves

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11:20am: Mandy Bell of MLB.com relays word from manager Terry Francona, who confirms that Quantrill, Miller and Castro are on the Covid-IL. Zack Meisel of The Athletic provides a quote from Francona, who says “I don’t know that we’re out of the woods yet. I hope we are, but I don’t know that that’s going to be the case. We’ll see.”

10:45am: The Guardians announced a series of transactions prior to today’s doubleheader against the White Sox, placing right-hander Cal Quantrill, infielder Owen Miller and righty Anthony Castro on the injured list. No designation was provided, likely indicating that all three are being placed on the Covid-related IL. In their place, Cleveland has selected the contracts of right-hander Enyel De Los Santos and lefties Kirk McCarty and Tanner Tully. Additionally, top shortstop prospect Gabriel Arias is up as the 29th man for today’s twin bill — as first reported last night by Andrea Alejandra Gil of Brujula Deportiva 106.3 FM in Maracay, Venezuela (Twitter link).

It’s not clear whether any of the players placed on the injured list today tested positive or have been deemed close contacts and thus require testing that leaves them unavailable for today’s games. The 2022 health and safety protocols jointly agreed upon by MLB and the MLBPA technically call for a 10-day absence for players who test positive, but players are able to return more quickly than that — provided they receive a pair of negative PCR tests, show no signs of fever and are then subsequently approved by a team medical staffer and a joint committee of one MLB-appointed and one MLBPA-appointed medical expert. Mets outfielder Brandon Nimmo, for instance, returned to the team in less than half that 10-day window.

Of the players added to the big league roster today, only De Los Santos has prior MLB experience. A well-regarded prospect during his time with the Padres and the Phillies, De Los Santos debuted with Philadelphia in 2018 but has yet to carry his strong Triple-A production over to the big league level. He’s seen action in parts of three MLB seasons but carries a 6.06 ERA in 65 1/3 innings. De Los Santos has fanned 24% of his opponents against a 10% walk rate, but he’s also yielded an average of 1.9 homers per nine frames — far too many to succeed over any lengthy sample. He’s fared vastly better in Triple-A, where he sports a career 3.37 ERA in 237 2/3 innings and just 1.1 HR/9.

The 27-year-old Tully, meanwhile, was a 26th-rounder back in 2015 who posted a 3.50 ERA in 113 innings between Double-A and Triple-A last year. He’s never posted particularly high strikeout or ground-ball rates, but Tully has walked only 4.5% of the hitters he’s faced in his pro career.

McCarty, 26, was Cleveland’s seventh-rounder back in 2017 and has gotten out to a fast start in Triple-A Columbus, holding opponents to one run on seven hits and five walks with a dozen punchouts through 11 1/3 innings. He was knocked around for a 5.01 ERA in 124 Triple-A frames a year ago.

As for Arias, the 22-year-old infielder is regarded as a potential key piece down the line for the Guardians. Acquired from the Padres (alongside Miller and Quantrill) in the trade that sent Mike Clevinger to San Diego, Arias entered the season ranked among the game’s top 100 prospects at Baseball America (No. 100), MLB.com (No.  73), Baseball Prospectus (No. 57), FanGraphs (No. 95) and ESPN (No. 73).

Arias hit .284/.348/.454 with 13 home runs, 29 doubles, three triples and five steals in 483 trips to the plate last season, and he’s out to a near-identical start in 2022, hitting .278/.350/.472 in 40 plate appearances. He’s starting at second base in Game 1 of today’s doubleheader.

In all likelihood, it’ll be a one-day look for the highly touted Arias, but he’ll give Cleveland fans a brief glimpse of the future. The fact that he’s both on the 40-man roster and being considered for roles like this speak to his general proximity to MLB readiness, and it wouldn’t be a surprise at all if he were to get a lengthier audition at some point in 2022. Amed Rosario and Andres Gimenez are getting a good portion of the middle-infield time early in the season, but Rosario has at least some outfield experience and, of course, injuries are inevitable over the course of a 162-game schedule. Arias is one of many high-end middle infield prospects in the upper levels of the Cleveland system; Brayan Rocchio, Tyler Freeman and Jose Tena, among others, have all received a good bit of fanfare.

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