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Rays Designate David Hess For Assignment

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The Rays have designated right-hander David Hess for assignment, placed outfielder Randy Arozarena on the paternity list and optioned righty Louis Head to Triple-A Durham, per a club announcement. That trio of moves clears a path for the previously reported promotion of top outfield prospect Josh Lowe and the reinstatement of first baseman Ji-Man Choi and righty Matt Wisler from the injured list.

It’s the third DFA of the season for Hess and his second with the Rays. The 28-year-old right-hander originally inked a minor league pact with Tampa Bay but was traded to the Marlins in early July and quickly immediately added to their MLB roster. The former Orioles righty had gotten out to a terrific start in Triple-A but was clobbered for seven runs in one inning at Coors Field in his second-to-last appearance with Miami, who designated him for assignment about a month after originally acquiring him.

Hess made his way back to the Rays on a new minor league deal, and he’s now been selected to the MLB roster and designated for assignment twice more. He didn’t get into a game the first time but did pitch two innings in his most recent call-up. Things didn’t go well, however, as he surrendered six runs in a pair of innings against the Red Sox. Because of the nature of that DFA carousel, Hess was pitching for just the fourth time in a span of nearly four weeks during his lone appearance in this most recent Rays stint.

On the whole, Hess has surrendered 22 runs in 20 big league innings this season. Most of the damage has come in that pair of ugly outings, but it’s still not a surprise to see a pitcher with that level of cumulative results bumped from the 40-man roster. He’ll now be placed on outright waivers or release waivers in the next couple of days. If he goes unclaimed, the Rays can assign him back to Triple-A Durham, where he’s pitched to a 3.28 ERA with a 27.2 percent strikeout rate and a 5.4 percent walk rate in 35 2/3 frames of relief work this year.

Looking to the rest of the Rays’ moves, Lowe looks to be a short-term replacement for Arozarena, who can miss up to three games. Brief or not, the promotion will give Rays fans a glimpse at the future, as Lowe is widely viewed as a long-term building block in the outfield.

Head, like Hess, has been riding the shuttle between the big leagues and Triple-A with dizzying frequency. Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times observes that this marks the staggering tenth time that Head has been optioned to Triple-A this season. Despite being bandied about between Durham and St. Petersburg, he’s held his own against MLB lineups, pitching to a 2.93 ERA with a 26-to-9 K/BB ratio in 27 2/3 innings of relief. Head has similarly strong numbers in Triple-A, and while it’s surely frustrating to be unable to secure a long-term spot in the bullpen, he’s a 31-year-old who made his MLB debut this season, so even the brief and inconsistent days of Major League service time and pay are a welcome turn of events.

Choi, who’s hitting .250/.364/.435 in 236 plate appearances, missed a bit more than two weeks with a strained hamstring. He also missed time in June with a groin strain. Wisler missed a similar chunk of time with a finger injury on his pitching hand. He’s been excellent since the Rays acquired him from the Giants, pitching to a 1.98 ERA with a 32.7 percent strikeout rate and a 3.8 percent walk rate in 27 1/3 innings.

AL Roster Moves: Rays, Mariners, Tigers

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The Rays have officially added Matt Wisler to their active roster, per the team. Wisler was acquired via trade from the Giants yesterday. To make room on the active roster, southpaw Ryan Sherriff was optioned to Triple-A. The Rays continue to adeptly re-work their bullpen, adding Wisler to previous trade acquisitions J.P. Feyereisen and Drew Rasmussen (though the latter is currently in Triple-A). Wisler presents a unique challenge for Tampa, as he is out of options and, therefore, must stay on the active roster, lest they expose him to waivers. In other AL roster moves…

  • The Mariners announced a slew of roster moves ahead of today’s game. Dylan Moore has been reinstated from the 10-day injured list, and Yohan Ramirez has been recalled from Triple-A. On the way out, Dillon Thomas and Donovan Walton were optioned to Triple-A Tacoma. Catcher Jacob Nottingham has also been outrighted to Triple-A.
  • Tigers infielder Jeimer Candelario has been reinstated from the bereavement list, per the team. He has been placed on the injured list as he goes through intake protocols. Candelario has been out since June 6th. He has batted .266/.336/.381 in 241 plate appearances this season.

Giants Trade Matt Wisler To Rays

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The Giants have traded righty Matt Wisler to the Rays in exchange for minor league left-hander Michael Plassmeyer, per a pair of team announcements. Tampa Bay has designated catcher Deivy Grullon for assignment in order to open a spot on the 40-man roster for Wisler. The Giants designated Wisler for assignment earlier in the week.

Wisler, 28, was long one of the game’s best pitching prospects, both with the Padres and the Braves. He never found his footing with either club, but he enjoyed something of a breakout campaign in the Twins’ bullpen during last summer’s shortened season, when he pitched to a 1.07 ERA with a 32.7 percent strikeout rate in 25 1/3 innings. Wisler walked far too many hitters last year (13.1 percent), but it was still rather surprising to see Minnesota non-tender him in spite of a very modest arbitration price. Wisler landed in San Francisco on a one-year, $1.15MM contract over the winter.

Things haven’t gone as hoped with his new club. Wisler has been tagged for a 6.05 earned run average in 19 1/3 innings with the Giants, but he’s actually maintained his huge uptick in strikeouts while also refining his control (7.3 percent walk rate). A great deal of Wisler’s success in Minnesota stemmed from a remarkable use of his slider, which he threw at an almost comical 83.5 percent clip in 2020. Wisler has incredibly thrown the slider with even greater frequency so far in 2021, using his slider at a 90.3 percent rate.

Wisler give the Rays an intriguing and fairly low cost arm who can be controlled through the 2022 season if he rights the ship in his new environs. He’s the type of low-cost acquisition who seems to thrive with great frequency in the Tampa Bay ’pen. Injuries to the Rays’ relief staff have pushed them to the trade market multiple times already in 2021. They also acquired righties J.P. Feyereisen and Drew Rasmussen from the Brewers in a trade that sent shortstop Willy Adames to Milwaukee.

The Giants will net a nicer return than one would expect from a player who’d been designated for assignment. Plassmeyer, 24, was a fourth-rounder in 2018 who went from Seattle to Tampa Bay in the Mike Zunino trade. He ranked 30th in a perennially stacked Rays farm system at Baseball America last year, and FanGraphs’ Eric Longenhagen has him 31st in the Tampa Bay system in 2021.

Plassmeyer isn’t an overpowering arm, but he’s walked just 4.6 percent of the hitters he’s faced in pro ball and has ascended to the Double-A level in 2021, making him a relatively near-term prospect. Plassmeyer’s 2019 season saw the lefty post a 1.91 ERA with a 21.2 percent strikeout rate, a 4.5 percent walk rate and a 45.2 percent ground-ball rate in 132 frames across three levels. He’s pitched to a 3.64 ERA so far in 29 2/3 frames  of Double-A ball, enjoying a nice uptick in strikeouts (26.1 percent) while maintaining his typically stellar control.

Giants Designate Matt Wisler For Assignment

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The Giants shuffled up their pitching staff Wednesday, per Alex Pavlovic of NBC Sports Bay Area (Twitter link), formally selecting the contracts of lefty Sam Long and right-hander James Sherfy (as previously reported, in the case of Long). Right-hander Matt Wisler was designated for assignment in one corresponding move, while outfielder Alex Dickerson was placed on the 10-day injured list due to an upper back strain with another.

Wisler, 28, was somewhat of a surprise non-tender by the Twins on the heels of a 1.07 ERA and a 32.7 percent strikeout rate in last summer’s shortened slate of games. Wisler has maintained that bat-missing prowess and actually made a dramatic improvement in the problematic 13.1 percent walk rate that likely contributed to his non-tender — he’s down to 7.3 percent in 2021 — but he’s once again become alarmingly homer-prone. In 19 1/3 frames, he’s been tagged for four long balls — a rate of 1.86 per nine innings pitched. The resulting 6.05 ERA prompted the Giants to move on.

San Francisco will now have a week to trade Wisler or attempt to pass him through outright waivers. He has enough service time to reject an outright assignment in favor of free agency, but doing so would require forfeiting the remainder of his $1.15MM salary, so he’s likely to accept an assignment if he passes through waivers unclaimed.

Sherfy, 29, has spent parts of three seasons in the division, appearing with the 2017-19 Diamondbacks and tallying a total of 45 1/3 innings pitched. He’s logged a combined 2.98 ERA in that time, punching out a quarter of his opponents against a 9.9 percent walk rate. So far in Triple-A Sacramento, he’s rattled off 7 2/3 shutout innings with an 11-to-1 K/BB ratio.

Dickerson, 31, was a revelation for the Giants from 2019-20 after coming over from the division-rival Padres in a trade, but he’s scuffled in 2021 and dealt with some all-too-familiar durability concerns. Dickerson topped a .900 OPS in his first two partial seasons with San Francisco, but he’s mustered only a .226/.295/.398 output so far this year. This will be the second IL stint of the season for him, as he previously spent 10 days on the injured list with a right shoulder impingement.

Giants Sign Matt Wisler

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8:12pm: The deal is official. Wisler has a chance to earn an additional $500K in performance bonuses, Alex Pavlovic of NBC Sports Bay Area tweets.

9:15am: The Giants are in agreement with righty Matt Wisler on a one-year, $1.15MM contract for the 2021 season, pending a physical, Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic reports (via Twitter). Wisler was recently a surprise non-tender by the Twins on the heels of a strong 2020 season. The Giants will be able to control Wisler through the 2022 campaign via arbitration.

Matt Wisler | Brad Rempel-USA TODAY Sports

Wisler, 28, was a waiver claim by the Twins last offseason but emerged as a key bullpen piece in 2020, racking up 25 1/3 frames with a pristine 1.07 ERA on the year. He punched out 35 hitters in that time (12.4 K/9) and recorded a strong 13.9 percent swinging-strike rate, although control issues and good fortune in terms of stranding runners also led fielding-independent metrics to cast a more negative light on his season.

Wisler walked 14 batters (5.0 BB/9) and hit another pair while stranding an unsustainable 99 percent of the runners he allowed. The resulting 3.35 FIP and 4.00 SIERA weren’t quite as rosy as that more rudimentary ERA.

That said, Wisler is still an intriguing addition for a Giants club that is known to be in the market for bullpen help. While he’s not a marquee name by any stretch of the means, Wisler is a former high-end pitching prospect who washed out as a starter but has been more interesting in a bullpen role.

This past season with the Twins, he leaned more aggressively into his slider usage than any pitcher in MLB, tossing the pitch at a ridiculous 83.4 percent rate. The 16.6 percent clip at Wisler threw his four-seamer was just enough to keep hitters off balance, and though they surely knew the slider was coming more often than not, that predictability didn’t matter; in the 92 plate appearances that ended with a Wisler slider, opponents posted a pitiful .148/.250/.222 batting line.

The Twins seemingly weren’t sold on Wisler’s ability to maintain his output. They wrapped up arb deals with all of their players who were tendered contracts prior to or just after last week’s tender deadline. Since cutting Wisler loose, president of baseball ops Derek Falvey has explained that the team couldn’t come to terms with Wisler on a mutually agreeable number but would still be open to a reunion. That won’t happen now, leaving another hole to be filled in the Minnesota ’pen.

With the Giants, Wisler will join a pretty wide-open late-inning mix. Tyler Rogers, Sam Coonrod, a returning Reyes Moronta and rebound hopeful Trevor Gott comprise the team’s top right-handed options at the moment, while Wandy Peralta and Jarlin Garcia are the most experienced southpaw options of the bunch. Wisler could eventually work his way into some high-leverage spots if he can build on his 2020 success, though he also served as an opener in Minnesota and could be an option to do so with San Francisco as well, depending on how their rotation shapes up.

Twins Non-Tender Eddie Rosario, Matt Wisler

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7:30pm: The Twins have non-tendered Rosario, per a team announcement. They’ve also opted not to tender a contract to right-hander Matt Wisler.

Wisler’ departure is somewhat of a surprise, given that he pitched to a 1.07 ERA with 35 strikeouts in 25 1/3 innings. Wisler allowed far too many walks (14) and hit a pair of batters as well, but his departure thins out a relief corps that has already lost Trevor May, Sergio Romo and Tyler Clippard.

Dec. 2, 1:35pm: Rosario has cleared waivers, according to multiple reports (including this tweet from USA Today’s Bob Nightengale).

Dec. 1: The Twins have placed outfielder Eddie Rosario on outright waivers, Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic reports. The club previously tried to find a taker for Rosario in a trade, but it wasn’t able to do so, according to Rosenthal.

Rosario has until Wednesday to join another team on waivers. If not, the Twins could non-tender Rosario or try to re-sign him for less than the $8.6MM to $12.9MM he’s projected to receive in arbitration this winter. Rosario is slated to go through arbitration for the final time in the coming months.

The 29-year-old Rosario has spent his entire career with the Twins, who chose him in the fourth round of the 2010 draft. He has typically been a productive hitter since he debuted in 2015, evidenced by his .277/.310/.478 line across 2,830 plate appearances. Rosario has even hit at least 24 home runs on three occasions, including a career-best 32 in 2019, but his somewhat above-average offensive production might not be enough to keep him in a Twins uniform. The club has touted outfield prospects Alex Kirilloff and Trevor Larnach nearing MLB readiness, making it no surprise that it seems willing to cut the cord on Rosario.

Assuming he hits free agency next, Rosario should draw a decent amount of interest on the open market. He’d be one of the most appealing corner-capable outfielders available behind the likes of George Springer, Marcell Ozuna and Michael Brantley, who should earn much richer deals. Teams that need help in the outfield but aren’t willing to spend on any of those three could pivot to Rosario.

Twins Notes: Arraez, Wisler, Bailey

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The Twins will be without second baseman Luis Arraez a bit longer than hoped after he sprained his left ankle while playing in an intrasquad game at their alternate training site, writes La Velle E. Neal III of the Minneapolis Star-Tribune. Arraez, on the IL due to tendinitis in his left knee, was eligible to return this week but will now be “reassessed” in the coming days, per skipper Rocco Baldelli, who termed the sprain as “mild.” The 23-year-old Arraez hasn’t come close to last year’s quietly excellent .334/.399/.439 output at the plate, but his .288/.336/.337 slash through 113 plate appearances this year remains respectable. He’s also still one of the hardest people in MLB to strike out, having fanned in just 9.7 percent of his plate appearances. Overall, Arraez is a .323/.384/.414 hitter with more walks (44) than strikeouts (40) through his first 479 MLB plate appearances. Veteran utilityman Marwin Gonzalez will likely continue to man second base in Arraez’s absence.

More out of the Twin Cities…

  • The Athletic’s Dan Hayes profiles breakout Twins reliever Matt Wisler, whom the organization claimed off waivers from the Mariners early last offseason. Hayes notes that the Twins had Wisler atop their wishlist of potential minor league free agents but were happy to be able to claim him instead when he hit waivers. Pitching coach Wes Johnson tells Hayes he was “ecstatic” when the Twins, who were near the bottom of the waiver pecking order, were awarded the claim. Johnson attributed the Wisler interest to Minnesota’s “phenomenal” team of developers, who helped to identify him as a breakout candidate. “We get a lot of information,” said Johnson. “…What you see is you see Matt Wisler has tremendous vertical depth up and down and he has late movement on that.” Wisler has thrown his slider at an outrageous 86 percent clip en route to a 1.11 ERA and a 34-to-14 K/BB ratio through 24 1/3 frames with Minnesota. Hayes also chatted with Twins president of baseball operations Derek Falvey and Wisler himself about the right-hander’s turnaround.
  • The Twins have yet to determine whether right-hander Homer Bailey will be on their postseason roster, but the veteran helped his case in last night’s return from the injured list. The 34-year-old, who’d made just one start in 2020 thanks to a lengthy bout of biceps tendinitis, returned with three innings of one-run ball, allowing two hits and a walk with a hit batter and three strikeouts. Via MLB.com’s Do-Hyoung Park, Baldelli offered praise for Bailey but wouldn’t commit to the composition of the team’s playoff roster just yet. “We’re going to need — especially in this year’s playoff situation — a number of guys, especially as we move forward in the playoffs and you have the possibility of playing in these five or seven-game series with no days off,” said Baldelli. Kenta Maeda, Jose Berrios, Michael Pineda and Rich Hill seem likely to get starting nods as needed, but both Bailey and a hopefully healthy Jake Odorizzi will provide alternative options or at the very least some long relief potential.

AL Notes: Lindor, Wheeler, Yanks, Twins

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Let’s take a quick look around the American League…

  • Indians shortstop Francisco Lindor is a prominent trade candidate, at least speculatively. However, as you’d expect, it’s going to be extremely difficult to pry the superstar out of Cleveland. The Indians would have to be “overwhelmed” by an offer in order to part with the 26-year-old four-time All-Star this offseason, Paul Hoynes of cleveland.com writes. Lindor has just two years of control left and doesn’t seem likely to sign an extension, meaning there’s a case the Indians should strongly consider trading him before next season. However, the perennial contenders apparently want to see how they fare coming out of the gate next season before deciding Lindor’s future, Hoynes suggests. If that’s the case, we may not see a Lindor trade until at least around next July’s trade deadline.
  • Right-hander Zack Wheeler has become popular on the open market, but it doesn’t appear the longtime Met will be sticking in New York. Although the Yankees have shown interest in the hard-throwing Wheeler, they seemingly aren’t willing to hand him a nine-figure contract, Andy Martino of SNY tweets. Signs are pointing to the 29-year-old Wheeler landing a contract worth at least $100MM, so if the Yankees don’t want to go there, they’ll likely have to look elsewhere for starting help.
  • Righty Matt Wisler, whom the Twins claimed off waivers from the Mariners in October, will make just over $700K in 2020, per Darren Wolfson of 5 Eyewitness News. That looks like a rather team-friendly amount for the out-of-options Wisler, who had been projected to earn $1MM next season. The 27-year-old Wisler, a former top prospect, divided last season between Seattle and San Diego and logged a 5.61 ERA/4.23 FIP with outstanding strikeout and walk rates of 11.05 and 2.81 across 51 1/3 innings.

Players Avoiding Arbitration: 12/3/19

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In the course of yesterday’s arbitration whirlwind, we covered quite a few players who reached agreements in advance of the non-tender deadline. But several others also struck deals last night (all projected salaries from MLBTR & contributor Matt Swartz) …

  • Righty Anthony Bass has agreed with the Blue Jays at $1.5MM, per Bob Nightengale of USA Today (via Twitter). Recently plucked from the waiver wire, Bass had projected to earn $1.7MM. The 32-year-old is coming off a season in which he threw 48 innings of 3.56 ERA ball with 8.1 K/9 and 3.2 BB/9. It was his most extensive MLB action since 2015.
  • Ben Gamel’s deal with the Brewers includes a $1.4MM salary as well as a $2.55MM club option for the 2021 season, also per Nightengale (Twitter link). The option functions as an earning ceiling for the outfielder. Gamel had projected at $1.6MM, so he’ll come in under that amount while giving up some upside in the event of a breakout. But the priority is surely to gain another opportunity at playing time. Gamel has hovered in range of league-average with the bat over the past several years but slipped to a .248/.337/.373 slash in 356 plate appearances last year in Milwaukee.
  • The Twins have agreed to a deal with righty Matt Wisler, the club announced. The salary isn’t yet known, but it’ll be guaranteed. Given that Wisler is out of options, he’s now rather clearly in line to take a spot in the Minnesota bullpen. The recent waiver claimee projected at $1.0MM. Anything in that range could be a bargain rate for a player that carried a sparkling 63:16 K/BB ratio in 51 1/3 relief innings last year. Of course, Wisler was also tagged for 32 earned runs and ten homers, so he’ll have to figure out how to avoid the long ball.
  • Infielder Donovan Solano has a $1.375MM deal with the Giants, per Henry Schulman of the San Francisco Chronicle (via Twitter). That tops his $1.2MM projection, so obviously the club felt there was some risk that he’d be able to command a greater salary in the course of the arb process. Soon to turn 32 years of age, Solano produced one of the game’s least-expected breakouts in 2019. Long a light-hitting utilityman who struggled to establish himself fully in the bigs, Solano turned in 228 plate appearances of .330/.360/.456 hitting last year in San Francisco.

Twins Claim Matt Wisler

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The Twins have claimed right-hander Matt Wisler off waivers from the Mariners, per an announcement from the Seattle organization. Minnesota opened three roster spots yesterday when outrighting Ronald Torreyes, Ian Miller and Ryan LaMarre, so a corresponding move wasn’t necessary.

Wisler, 27, was once one of the game’s top pitching prospects and was even a key piece in the trade that sent Craig Kimbrel from Atlanta to San Diego. The 2011 seventh-rounder has never really found his footing in the big leagues, though, and was shifted from a starting role to a bullpen setting back in 2017. That change didn’t prove fruitful, however, and he’s since bounced from Atlanta, to Cincinnati, back to San Diego, to Seattle and now to Minneapolis.

This past season, Wisler totaled 51 1/3 innings between the Padres and Mariners but struggled to a 5.61 ERA in that time. Home runs were his primary undoing, as the former top prospect yielded an average of 1.75 long balls per nine innings pitched.

Be that as it may, however, Wisler nonetheless provided cause for optimism. He averaged a hefty 11.1 K/9 against 2.8 BB/9 while posting a gaudy 14.9 percent swinging-strike rate and 37.7 percent chase rate on pitches outside the strike zone. Wisler’s curveball ranked in the 72nd percentile among MLB pitchers in terms of spin rate, and while his 92.8 mph average fastball velocity isn’t exactly formidable in today’s game, it’s only slightly below the league average 93.1 mph.

If the Twins want to get a look at Wisler in Spring Training, though, likely need to be prepared to carry him on the 40-man roster all winter, as they can’t pass him through waivers themselves and be assured of keeping him. Even if he goes unclaimed on waivers a second time, he has the requisite service time to elect free agency. Wisler is also out of minor league options, so he’d need to break camp with the Twins or another club next year or else be designated for assignment.

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