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Braves Place Arodys Vizcaino On DL, Select Evan Phillips, DFA Phil Gosselin

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The Braves have selected right-handed reliever Evan Phillips from Triple-A Gwinnett, Gabe Burns of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution tweets. They’ll send closer Arodys Vizcaino to the disabled list (retroactive to June 21) to open up a 25-man spot for Phillips, Burns adds, and designate infielder Phil Gosselin for assignment to create 40-man space, per Mark Bowman of MLB.com.

Phillips, who joined the Braves as a 17th-round pick in 2015, is set to make his major league debut after opening the season in impressive fashion in the minors. Across 35 innings this season, the 23-year-old has pitched to a 2.31 ERA with 12.86 K/9, 3.6 BB/9 and a 50.7 percent groundball rate. Phillips doesn’t rank among the Braves’ top 30 prospects at MLB.com or their 32 best farmhands at FanGraphs, though FG’s Eric Longenhagen wrote entering 2017 that his three-pitch mix “may work in middle relief.”

The Braves’ hope is that Phillips will help make up for the loss of Vizcaino, who has dealt with shoulder soreness throughout the season. Thanks in part to that, Vizcaino hasn’t pitched since last Sunday. When he has taken the hill, Vizcaino has continued to show off high-end velocity, helping him to convert 15 of 17 save opportunities and post a 1.82 ERA with 10.01 K/9 and 3.64 BB/9. A.J. Minter and Dan Winkler stand out as the Braves’ best ninth-inning possibilities while Vizcaino’s out, though his shoulder issues could also help push the playoff contenders to acquire veteran relief help prior to the July 31 non-waiver trade deadline.

Gosselin, 29, joined the Braves off waivers from the Reds on May 3. It’s his second stint as a member of the Braves, though he hasn’t actually played with the club this season. Gosselin has instead racked up 126 PAs at Gwinnett and hit .236/.325/.364.

Braves Claim Phil Gosselin From Reds

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The Braves announced this afternoon that they’ve claimed infielder Phil Gosselin off waivers from the Reds and assigned him to Triple-A Gwinnett. Atlanta had open space on its 40-man roster, so there’s no corresponding move necessary with Gosselin’s claim.

This will mark Gosselin’s second stint with the Atlanta organization, as the Braves were the club to initially select him out of the University of Virginia in the fifth round of the 2010 draft. Gosselin went on to make his Major League debut for the Braves three years later, and in parts of three seasons with Atlanta, he slashed .282/.321/.345 through 185 trips to the plate.

Since being traded to the Braves in the deal that saw Atlanta effectively purchase pitching prospect Touki Toussaint from the D-backs by absorbing the remainder of Bronson Arroyo’s contract, Gosselin has spent time in Arizona, Pittsburgh, Texas and Cincinnati. All told, he’s a lifetime .263/.314/.361 hitter that’ll provide the Braves with some depth at second base, shortstop and third base while playing at the Triple-A level.

Reds Release Ben Revere

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The Reds have released outfielder Ben Revere, Mark Sheldon of MLB.com was among those to report. Revere joined the Reds a month ago on a minor league contract. Meanwhile, offseason minor league signings Phil Gosselin and Kevin Quackenbush have made the club. Gosselin will be part of the Reds’ bench, while Quackenbush will work out of their bullpen.

Revere was vying for a backup role in Cincinnati, but given the presences of outfielders Billy Hamilton, Adam Duvall, Scott Schebler and Jesse Winker, he looked like a long shot to make an impact with the team. The 29-year-old was ineffective over the previous two seasons, one with the Nationals and the other with the Angels, as he accounted for minus-1.2 fWAR and a .243/.282/.320 batting line in 683 plate appearances.

Revere’s signature speed was on display in 2017 during a 21-steal showing, but he’s no longer the solid regular he was earlier in his career with the Twins, Phillies and Blue Jays. Between his first full season, 2011, and 2015, Revere racked up 9.2 fWAR and batted .296/.329/.350 in 2,630 PAs. He also amassed 176 steals, the second-highest total in the league during that span.

NL Central Rumors: Brewers, Darvish, Reds

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The latest on a pair of NL Central clubs:

  • The Brewers remain in discussions with free agent right-hander Yu Darvish, Robert Murray and Jon Heyman of FanRag report. A deal isn’t necessarily imminent, though, they suggest. Milwaukee reportedly made Darvish a contract offer a week and a half ago, and the playoff-hopeful club has since added quality pieces to its roster in Lorenzo Cain, Christian Yelich and Matt Albers. On the heels of the Cain and Yelich pickups, owner Mark Attanasio indicated last weekend that general manager David Stearns has been working to bolster the team’s starting staff, and he added that the Brewers have the payroll flexibility to acquire a big-time free agent. Darvish certainly fits the bill as arguably the premier player on the open market.
  • Even after signing Albers, Boone Logan and J.J. Hoover this offseason, the Brewers may not be done strengthening their bullpen, per Tom Haudricourt of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (Twitter link). They haven’t allocated much money to the group, pulling in Albers and Logan for a combined $7.5MM in guarantees and only handing Hoover a minor league deal. Their relief corps was actually among the majors’ most effective last year (seventh in K/9, tied for eighth in ERA), though Anthony Swarzak and Jared Hughes have since signed elsewhere.
  • The division-rival Reds, meanwhile, have addressed their bullpen this offseason by signing Hughes and David Hernandez. After landing Hernandez today, they’re probably done making additions to their big league roster, GM Dick Williams told Zach Buchanan of the Cincinnati Enquirer and other reporters (Twitter link). The Reds are likely to turn to minor league signing Phil Gosselin as their backup shortstop, Williams added.

Minor MLB Transactions: 1/2/18

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We’ll track the day’s minor moves in this post:

  • The Reds have reached a minor league agreement with utilityman Phil Gosselin, Chris Cotillo of SB Nation reports (Twitter link). The 29-year-old Gosselin divided last season between the Pirates and Rangers organizations, hitting an ugly .146/.180/.188 over a small sample of big league PAs (50). While Gosselin was also ineffective at the Triple-A level (.260/.299/.326 in 292 PAs), he’s not far removed from a useful two-year showing in the majors. From 2015-16, Gosselin combined for 1.4 fWAR on the strength of a .280/.340/.411 line in 358 trips to the plate with the Braves and Diamondbacks.

Earlier updates:

  • The Phillies have agreed to a minor league contract with right-handed reliever Steve Geltz, Cotillo tweets. Geltz worked exclusively with the Dodgers’ Triple-A affiliate in 2017 and posted a 2.67 ERA, 9.67 K/9 against 4.00 BB/9 and a 37.1 percent groundball rate over 27 innings. The 30-year-old previously saw major league action with the Angels (2012) and Rays (2014-16). Across 104 1/3 big league frames, Geltz owns a 4.23 ERA to accompany 8.54 K/9, 3.71 BB/9 and a 28.8 percent grounder mark.
  • Infielder Ivan De Jesus Jr. is joining the Red Sox on a minor league deal, per Cotillo (Twitter link). De Jesus, 30, has past experience with the Boston organization, having been a member of it in 2012 and ’14. More recently, he spent last season with the Brewers’ Triple-A club and batted a robust .345/.407/.488 in 466 trips to the plate. He hasn’t been nearly as successful across 545 major league PAs with the Dodgers, Red Sox and Reds, having slashed .242/.303/.327.
  • The Cardinals have added backstop Steven Baron on a minors pact, according to MLB.com’s Jenifer Langosch (via Twitter). (As she also notes, and we covered previously, the club also added catcher Francisco Pena.) Baron, 27, was the 33rd overall pick in the 2009 draft, but he has never hit much at all in the minors and has only minimal MLB experience. Still, he’ll represent another upper-level depth option for the Cards, who’ll become his first organization other than the Mariners. Baron spent most of 2017 at Triple-A, where he slashed .256/.339/.329 in 187 plate appearances.

Elected Free Agency: Siegrist, Edgin, Hutchison, Locke, Bolsinger, Van Slyke, Maness

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The indispensable Matt Eddy of Baseball America provides an overview of a vast number of players electing free agency following the 2017 season in his latest Minor Transactions roundup. Eddy largely focuses on players with big league service time (significant service time, in some cases) that were outrighted off the roster that are now hitting the open market for the first time. (Players with three-plus years of service that are not on the 40-man roster at season’s end can elect free agency, as can any player that has been outrighted on multiple occasions in his career.)

While the vast majority of these players seem likely to sign minor league pacts this winter — they did, after all, go unclaimed by 29 other teams on waivers — a number of them are still intriguing with recent success in their past and/or multiple years of arbitration eligibility remaining. Eddy’s rundown also contains a number of re-signed minor leaguers and released minor leaguers without big league experience as well as Arizona Fall League assignments on a per-team basis, so it’s well worth a full look.

We’ve updated our list of 2017-18 MLB free agents accordingly, and here are some of the new names now checking in on the list…

Depth options in the rotation

Josh Collmenter, Asher Wojciechowski, Drew Hutchison, Jeff Locke, Kyle Kendrick, Mike Bolsinger, Christian Bergman, David Holmberg

Collmenter is just two seasons removed from being the D-backs Opening Day starter but hasn’t had much success of late. Hutchison had solid Triple-A numbers and once looked like a long-term rotation piece in Toronto before Tommy John surgery. He can be controlled for another three seasons in arbitration. Locke was injured for most of an ugly first (and likely only) season in Miami, and Kendrick made just two starts for the Red Sox.

Wojciechowski (6.50 ERA in 62 1/3 innings with the Reds), Bolsinger (6.31 ERA in 41 1/3 innings with the Jays), Bergman (5.00 ERA in 54 innings with the Mariners) and Holmberg (4.68 ERA in 57 2/3 innings with the White Sox) all soaked up innings for injury-plagued pitching staffs. Bolsinger has had the most MLB experience of the bunch.

Corner Bats

Scott Van Slyke, Tyler Moore, Cody Asche, Conor Gillaspie, Jaff Decker

Van Slyke has long been a solid bat against left-handed pitching but appeared in just 29 games with the Dodgers and didn’t hit well with their Triple-A affiliate or with the Reds’ Triple-A affiliate. (He was included in the Tony Cingrani trade to balance out the financial side of the deal.) Moore, also a right-handed bat, showed power but struggled to get on base.

Once one of the Phillies’ top prospects, Asche hit well in Triple-A Charlotte but flopped in a brief stint with the ChiSox. Gillaspie was unable to replicate his 2016 rebound with the Giants, while Decker showed some on-base skills in the Majors and minors but didn’t hit much overall. (He can play center but hasn’t graded well there in the Majors.)

Utility Infielders

Ruben Tejada, Phil Gosselin, Dusty Coleman, Chase d’Arnaud

Each of the four can play all over the diamond, but none provided offensive value in 2017. Tejada has the most big league experience but hasn’t received much playing time since 2015 (and hasn’t performed well when he has gotten opportunities). Gosselin has a solid defensive reputation but a light bat through 551 MLB PAs. Coleman hit four homers in 71 PAs in his MLB debut this year but logged a .268 OBP. d’Arnaud saw his fair share of 2016 action with the Braves but has never produced much at the plate.

Bullpen options

Kevin Siegrist (L), Josh Edgin (L), Seth Maness, Kevin Quackenbush

Siegrist and Edgin are intriguing names for clubs in need of left-handed bullpen help. Both have recent success on their track records, though Edgin wasn’t as sharp in 2017 as he was prior to 2015 Tommy John surgery. Siegrist’s control eroded in 2017 as he missed time due to a back/spinal injury and tendinitis in his left forearm, but he was one of the Cardinals’ top setup options in both 2015 and 2016. Both lefties are controllable through 2019.

Maness drew headlines for returning from a torn UCL in roughly seven months thanks to an experimental new “primary repair” procedure, but while he stayed healthy in 2017, the results weren’t great in the Majors and especially not in Triple-A (6.13 ERA in 47 innings). Quackenbush was excellent as a rookie in 2014 and solid in 2015-16 before imploding in 2017 (7.86 ERA in 26 1/3 innings). He was better but not great in Triple-A (3.90 ERA, 7.8 K/9, 2.9 BB/9). Maness could be controlled through 2019, while Quackenbush would have three more years of control.

Rangers Outright Gosselin, Espino, Middlebrooks, Hoying

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The Rangers announced on Tuesday that infielders Phil Gosselin and Will Middlebrooks, right-hander Paolo Espino and outfielder Jared Hoying have cleared waivers and been assigned outright to Triple-A Round Rock. Both Gosselin and Middlebrooks have rejected the assignment in favor of free agency, per the team. The Rangers’ 40-man roster is now at 36 players, though two of those vacancies are presumably ticketed for right-hander Chi Chi Gonzalez and infielder Hanser Alberto, each of whom is on the 60-day disabled list.

Texas claimed Gosselin, 29, off waivers from the Pirates back in August, though he only appeared in 12 games and logged eight plate appearances. Gosselin struggled between both organizations this season, but he did hit .288/.340/.411 in 358 plate appearances at the MLB level from 2015-16.

Middlebrooks, meanwhile, took 39 plate appearances over the course of 22 games and hit just .211/.321/.368. He did post a .258/.327/.529 batting line and club 23 homers over the life of 342 PAs with the Rangers’ Triple-A affiliate. It’s been quite some time since the now-29-year-old Middlebrooks looked like a possible rising star, but he’s displayed quality power numbers in the minors in each of the past two seasons and should land another minors pact this winter.

The 30-year-old Espino made his MLB debut this season with the Brewers but logged a 6.00 ERA and a 20-to-10 K/BB ratio in 24 innings. A veteran of 11 minor league seasons, Espino has a 3.76 ERA with 8.0 K/9 against 1.9 BB/9 across 505 1/3 career innings in Triple-A.

As for Hoying, the 28-year-old has been up and down with Texas over the past two years, hitting a combined .220/.262/.288 in 126 plate appearances. He’s a career .254/.308/.465 hitter in parts of five Triple-A seasons.

Rangers Claim Phil Gosselin From Pirates

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The Rangers have claimed utilityman Phil Gosselin from the Pirates and optioned him to Triple-A Round Rock. They’ve also outrighted infielder Tyler Smith to Round Rock.

The Pirates acquired Gosselin in a minor trade this spring after the Diamondbacks designated him for assignment. Gosselin has split his time between Pittsburgh and Triple-A Indianapolis this season, batting just .150/.190/.175 in limited duty in the big leagues and .266/.304/.336 at Triple-A. He can be optioned, but he doesn’t really play shortstop, giving him somewhat limited utility as a bench piece, and the Pirates likely thought he was expendable with the addition of Sean Rodriguez last week. The 28-year-old Gosselin has shown a bit of offensive ability in parts of five seasons in the big leagues, batting .272/.320/.368.

The Rangers claimed the 26-year-old Smith from the Mariners late last month. He’s hit  .237/.326/.342 at the Triple-A level this season and has mostly played shortstop. He collected three hits in brief big-league duty with Seattle earlier this year.

NL Central Notes: Lorenzen, Kang, Gosselin, Cardinals, Gonzales

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Reds righty Michael Lorenzen’s August 19 home run soon after the death of his father Clif was the most notable highlight of the team’s season. But Lorenzen’s father was troubled by substance abuse, and their relationship was complex, as the Cincinnati Enquirer’s Zach Buchanan writes in a long piece about what that home run meant. After Lorenzen’s father left when he was 12, Lorenzen began getting into trouble himself, and his older brother, Jonathan, had his own pro baseball career derailed when the Dodgers released him after he allegedly had sexual intercourse with a 15-year-old girl at their Spring Training site. Michael Lorenzen cites finding faith as a teenager as a turning point in his life. Now, Lorenzen looks back at his home run — which came in the seventh inning of a 9-2 win against the Dodgers — as evidence that his father’s death had a purpose, as he frequently receives messages from fans telling him that moment was an inspiration to them. Here’s more from the NL Central.

  • The Pirates expect that third baseman Jung Ho Kang will not attempt to move his February 22 court date in South Korea and will therefore miss the beginning of Spring Training, Rob Biertempfel of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review writes. The Bucs’ acquisition of fellow infielder Phil Gosselin from the Diamondbacks on Friday was made with the expectation that Kang would be out indefinitely as he faces trial for driving drunk and leaving the scene of a DUI crash. Kang’s arrest in early December was his third DUI arrest in South Korea. The Gosselin trade “does serve as insurance (for Kang’s absence) if needed,” says Pirates GM Neal Huntington. “But we also have been looking for an extra right-handed hitter, and Gosselin is a guy who can play multiple positions.”
  • Cardinals manager Mike Matheny is unimpressed by Baseball Prospectus’ recent PECOTA projection that his team would finish a disappointing 76-86 this season, Rick Hummel of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch writes. “That’s unbelievable. Yeah, I saw it. I hope the guys saw it, too,” Matheny says. “I just want to make sure our guys take a good look around and see what we really are and what we have. We’ve got guys who are motivated. Guys have an edge as to how it finished last year. We’ve got the makings of a fun, fun season.” Matheny says his team will pay increased attention to defensive coaching in Spring Training this year, and it seems part of his plan for improving in 2017 will be getting better defensive performances from his infielders. He notes that many of his infielders (such as Aledmys Diaz and Kolten Wong) enter the upcoming season with what could be valuable extra years of experience, and points out that other players, such as Jedd Gyorko and Randal Grichuk, played positions last season at which they had limited big-league experience. Gyorko could return to a roving role this year. The offseason signing of Dexter Fowler will bump Grichuk back to a corner outfield spot.
  • Cardinals lefty Marco Gonzales threw from a mound on Friday for the first time in almost a year, Hummel also notes. Gonzales had Tommy John surgery in April and also missed much of the 2015 season due to injury. The former first-round draft pick hopes to pitch in game action by May. That timeline (which presumably would include a rehab assignment) would have him back on an active roster (whether that’s in Triple-A Memphis or in St. Louis) by early summer.

Pirates Acquire Phil Gosselin, Designate Nefi Ogando For Assignment

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The Diamondbacks announced that they’ve traded recently designated infielder Phil Gosselin to the Pirates in exchange for minor league righty Frank Duncan. Right-hander Nefi Ogando has been designated for assignment in order to open a spot on the roster, the Pirates announced. (Gosselin was designated for assignment earlier in the week when the D-backs signed Daniel Descalso to a one-year deal with a club option for 2018.)

The 28-year-old Gosselin originally came up with the Braves back in 2013, but he’s spent the majority of the past two seasons with the Diamondbacks. Primarily a second baseman, Gosselin batted .283/.338/.409 in 316 plate appearances with the D-backs over the past two seasons and is a .283/.331/.385 hitter in 501 Major League plate appearances.

Gosselin grades out as a fairly solid second baseman from a defensive standpoint, though despite the fact that it’s been his most frequent position in the Majors, he’s still logged only 487 innings there. He’s also spent some time at shortstop, third base, first base and in the outfield corners as a Major Leaguer.

Gosselin should get a chance to make the Pirates’ roster out of Spring Training, though he could vying for the same utility infield job as the out-of-options Alen Hanson. Hanson’s status could complicate matters for Gosselin, as he still has two minor league options remaining and wouldn’t need to be exposed to waivers in order to be sent down. Even if Gosselin isn’t a fixture on the roster in 2017, the Bucs have the ability to control him through at least the 2020 season, as he has just two years, 85 days of Major League service time to this point in his career.

Duncan, 25, reached Triple-A for the first time in 2016 and posted a combined 2.34 ERA with 7.5 K/9, 2.3 BB/9 and a 55.7 percent ground-ball rate between Double-A and Triple-A. Despite those gaudy numbers, Duncan drew a somewhat lukewarm review from Fangraphs’ Eric Longenhagen in his review of the Pirates’ farm system. Longenhagen noted that Duncan “fills the zone and eats innings, but his stuff (sinker in the upper-80s, fringe-average breaking ball, below-average changeup) is that of an up-and-down arm more than a big-league mainstay.”

Losing his spot on the roster as a result of this move is the 27-year-old Ogando, whom Pittsburgh claimed off waivers from the Marlins back on Dec. 23. There’s plenty to like about Ogando, who has averaged better than 95 mph on his fastball and induced grounders on 57.6 percent of the balls put into play against him in his brief MLB sample of work (19 2/3 innings, 3.66 ERA). However, despite Ogando’s ability to overpower hitters with his fastball, he’s fanned just 10 hitters in the Majors to go along with 10 walks.

A look at Ogando’s minor league production reveals a similar tale; though he throws in the mid- to upper-90s, he’s averaged 7.4 K/9 in his minor league career and just 7.0 per nine in Triple-A. Walks have been a persistent issue for him in the minors as well, as he’s consistently averaged between four and five walks per nine innings pitched. Ogando has changed hands on waivers three times in the past 14 months, going from Philadelphia to Miami to Pittsburgh, so it’s possible that another club will want to try its hand at harnessing his intriguing velocity.

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