• The Tigers will name Anthony Iapoce as their new first base coach, Lynn Henning of the Detroit News reports (X link).  Tim Federowicz is leaving his position as the big league catching coach to take over as the manager at Triple-A Toledo, which was Iapoce’s previous job in 2023.  Iapoce worked as a hitting coach with the Rangers and Cubs from 2016-21 and then as a senior hitting coordinator with the Red Sox in 2022 before joining Detroit’s organization.  Federowicz retired from playing following the 2021 season, and the former catcher is already on his second Triple-A managerial stint after previously being the skipper of the Mariners’ top affiliate in 2022.
• The Royals announced the hiring of Joe Dillon as an assistant hitting coach.  A big leaguer with the Marlins, Brewers, and Rays from 2005-09, Dillon’s time in Tampa’s organization overlapped with the tenure of current Royals manager Matt Quatraro, back when Quatraro was working as an instructor in the Rays’ minor league system.  Dillon also has longstanding ties in Kansas City, as the Royals began his pro career when they selected him in the seventh round of the 1997 draft.  Since retiring as a player, Dillon has worked as a hitting coach and coordinator at the Major League and minor league level, including two years as the Nationals’ assistant hitting coach in 2018-19, and then working as the Phillies’ big league hitting coach in 2020-21.

Federowicz, 35, will bring plenty of experience to the role, having been a big league catcher from 2011 through 2019 and working in the minors for even longer. He got into 163 MLB games over that time, suiting up for the Dodgers, Cubs, Giants, Astros, Red and Rangers. He never hit much in the big leagues, producing a batting line of .192/.241/.328. However, he managed to stick around for many years as a backup catcher due to his reputation for working well with pitching staffs.

He announced his retirement from playing after the 2021 campaign and immediately jump-started the coaching phase of his career. He served as manager of the Tacoma Rainiers in 2022, the Triple-A affiliate of the Mariners. He’ll now quickly jump to a catching job in the majors after just a single season of managing in the minors.

Federowicz functioned as a second or third catcher for essentially the entirety of his big league tenure. His 173 plate appearances with the 2013 Dodgers marked a career-high, the only season in which he tallied at least 100 trips to the dish. Yet Federowicz consistently hung around as a priority depth option for clubs. That’s a testament both to his well-regarded work with pitching staffs and an impressive .293/.364/.483 line over parts of ten seasons in Triple-A.

Over the course of his career, Federowicz appeared with the Dodgers, Cubs, Giants, Astros, Reds and Rangers. He steps away as a .192/.241/.328 hitter in 443 plate appearances spread over 163 big league games. He hit twelve home runs and threw out a solid 30.7% of attempted base-stealers. In addition to his time in affiliated ball, Federowicz earned a Silver Medal as part of the U.S. National Team at this past summer’s Tokyo Olympics.

The 34-year-old is set to jump right into the next phase of his career, as Federowicz announced he’ll take over as manager of the Mariners’ Triple-A affiliate in Tacoma in 2022. MLBTR wishes Federowicz the best in his post-playing days.

9:54AM: The United States Olympic baseball team will have its full roster announced later today, though MLB Network’s Jon Heyman (Twitter link) reports that several well-known big league names will be part of Team USA.

Right-handers Homer Bailey, Edwin Jackson, and David Robertson will be part of the pitching mix, as will left-hander Anthony Gose.  Matt Kemp, Matt Wieters, and Todd Frazier are some of the veteran position players.  Bailey, Kemp, and Wieters all played in the majors as recently as 2020 and didn’t sign with a new team this past offseason, while Frazier appeared in 13 games for the Pirates just this season.  It was only back on May 13 that Frazier chose to become a free agent, after Pittsburgh designated him for assignment.

Beyond these experienced names, some notable youngsters will also be on the team, as Peter Abraham of the Boston Globe noted yesterday that Red Sox prospects Triston Casas and Jarren Duran are participating.  Rays right-handed pitching prospect Joe Ryan is also expected to be part of the team, according to Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times.  Any player not on a current 40-man Major League roster was eligible for Team USA, though naturally a team would have to agree to allow its minor leaguers to play.

Mike Scioscia will manage Team USA, and the team will take to the field on May 31-June 5 during a qualifying tournament in Florida.  The Dominican Republic, Nicaragua, Puerto Rico, Canada, Cuba, Colombia, and Venezuela are the other seven teams involved, and the winner of the tournament will automatically qualify for the Olympics.  The second- and third-place finishers will advance to a final qualifying tournament against Australia, Chinese Taipei, and the Netherlands on June 16-20 in Mexico, and the winner of that event will claim the sixth and final Olympic berth.

Japan, Mexico, Israel, and South Korea have already qualified for the baseball event at Olympic Games, which are scheduled to be held July 23-August 6 in Tokyo.  Originally set to take place in 2020, the Olympics were naturally postponed for a year due to the pandemic, and the Games are still slated to get underway in July despite a worsening COVID-19 situation in Japan.

Latest Moves

• The Rays have signed catcher Joe Odom to a minors pact, Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times tweets. A 13th-round pick of Atlanta in 2013, Odom stuck with the Braves organization through 2017 before joining the Mariners in the ensuing winter’s Rule 5 Draft. Odom did make it to the majors for the first time last season with Seattle, collecting 44 plate appearances, but the 28-year-old batted a meek .128/.209/.128 with no extra-base hits and 20 strikeouts. The Mariners outrighted him after that.

Earlier Today

• The Rangers signed right-hander Luis Ortiz to a minors contract, the team announced.  Ortiz has a 12.71 ERA over career 5 2/3 innings in the majors (with the Orioles in 2018-19), and is making his return to Texas after being drafted 30th overall by the Rangers in 2014.  He has been part of two notable deadline trades, included as part of the trade package sent to Milwaukee for Jonathan Lucroy in 2016, and then the Brewers shipped him to the Orioles in July 2018 as part of the Jonathan Villar/Jonathan Schoop swap.
• The Brewers signed outfielder/first baseman Dustin Peterson to a minor league deal, as originally reported by Ana Soriano of RIDA Sports (Twitter link).  Originally a second-round pick for the Padres in the 2013 draft, Peterson has a .262/.316/.382 slash line over 2918 career minor league plate appearances in the Padres, Braves, and Tigers farm systems.  At the big league level, Peterson has a .570 OPS over 49 PA with Atlanta and Detroit over the 2018-19 seasons.  Most recently, Peterson posted big numbers for the independent Sugar Land Skeeters in 2020 and is currently tearing it up in the Mexican Pacific Winter League.
• Catcher Tim Federowicz has signed with the Dodgers, as Federowicz revealed himself on Twitter.  This will be the veteran’s second stint in Los Angeles, as he spent his first four MLB seasons (2011-14) with the Dodgers.  It’s probably safe to assume that it is a minor league contract, as the Dodgers have Will Smith and Austin Barnes in the majors and top prospect Keibert Ruiz in the wings after his Major League debut last season.  Appearing in parts of eight seasons with six different teams, Federowicz has a .568 OPS over 443 career plate appearances and 163 games at the big league level.  He didn’t see any MLB action in 2020 after signing a minors deal with the Rangers last offseason.

Volquez and the Rangers have been in talks for several weeks about a new minor league deal, as the veteran is looking to play in his 15th Major League season after considering retirement earlier this year.  Volquez missed all of 2018 recovering from Tommy John surgery and then faced the threat of another surgery last year after suffering an elbow sprain in April.  At the time, Volquez indicated that he was just hoping to return for a final appearance or few appearances in 2019 before hanging up the spikes, but it seems like he’ll again look to win himself a spot on the Texas roster.

Volquez won’t be in line for a starting job now that Texas has revamped its rotation, though the 36-year-old can provide some depth in the event of an injury, and also work out of the bullpen.  Full-time relief work would be something of a new frontier for Volquez, who has started 273 of his 287 career appearances, though he performed well in the very small sample size of his 2019 pen work.  Volquez didn’t allow a single run in his seven games (6 2/3 IP) as a reliever last season, while posting an 11.57 ERA over 9 1/3 innings as a starter.

Gibaut wasn’t eligible for arbitration, though he was still non-tendered earlier this month as a way for the Rangers to clear some roster space.  2019 was Gibaut’s first season of big league action, as the 26-year-old posted a 5.65 ERA over 14 1/3 combined innings for the Rays and Rangers.  An 11th-round pick for Tampa Bay in the 2015 draft, Gibaut has a 2.44 ERA, 3.03 K/BB rate, and 11.2 K/9 over 221 2/3 career minor league innings, though that impressive track record was hit with some heavy control issues last season.  In addition to a 7.5 BB/9 over 18 total minor league frames, Gibaut also had a 6.3 BB/9 in his brief MLB tenure.

Federowicz hit .160/.213/.347 over 83 PA with the Rangers last season, and the veteran backstop will return as a potential Triple-A depth option, as Texas is known to be looking for upgrades to its lackluster catching situation.  Federowicz has appeared in parts of eight Major League seasons, and owns a career .568 OPS over 443 plate appearances with six different teams.

The 32-year-old Federowicz joined the Rangers in a June trade with the Indians and ultimately added to Texas’ offensive struggles behind the plate. He wound up batting just .160/.213/.347 in 83 trips to the plate with the Rangers, though he did hit four home runs. The well-traveled Federowicz produced even less for the Rangers’ Triple-A affiliate in Nashville, where he slashed .140/.190/.193 in 63 plate appearances. But he was far better with the Indians’ top minor league club, hitting .278/.353/.411 in 103 PA.

Factoring in his latest minor league performance, Federowicz owns an impressive .297/.367/.487 line with 69 HRs in almost 2,100 trips to the plate at the Triple-A level. Considering his next contract is very likely to be a minor league deal, he’ll try to build on his lifetime Triple-A numbers next year and put a below-average 2019 season behind him.

The 32-year-old Federowicz joined the Rangers in a June trade with the Indians. He then totaled 79 plate appearances and posted a subpar .169/.224/.366 line with four home runs in Texas before the team booted him from its 40-man roster on the last day of July. Federowicz wasn’t any better as a member of the Rangers’ Triple-A affiliate, with whom he batted .140/.190/.193 and hit a single homer in 63 attempts, but the well-traveled veteran did put up a playable line with the Indians’ top minor league club prior to the trade (.278/.353/.411, two HRs in 103 PA).

The Moore swap will go down as a rare August deal in a league that no longer features a waiver trade deadline. The teams were able to swing it because Moore’s on a minor league contract. He inked that pact with the Rangers back in mid-February.

The 35-year-old Moore has spent the season in Nashville, where he has hit .255/.363/.349 with two home runs in 124 plate appearances. Moore has combined for a more powerful line of .265/.327/.406 with 65 HRs across 2,526 career PA at the minors’ highest level. He has seen major league action in the past with several clubs – including his new team, the Royals, from 2012-13 – but hasn’t totaled more than 20 at-bats in an MLB campaign since 2010. Moore has batted .199/.239/.412 in 312 trips to the plate in the bigs.

Latest Moves

• The Royals announced that southpaw Brian Flynn was outrighted to Triple-A after clearing waivers.  Flynn has a 5.22 ERA over 29 1/3 innings for K.C. this season, a disappointing result for a reliever who posted solid numbers out of the Royals’ bullpen in both 2016 and 2018.

Earlier Today

• Cubs minor-league right-hander Oscar de la Cruz has cleared waivers. The 24 year-old has seen his once-lofty prospect status deteriorate due to a combination of injuries, command woes, and a suspension for a masking agent. He’ll remain with the club’s AA affiliate in the Southern League.
• Nationals right-handers Javy Guerra and Michael Blazek each cleared waivers and were outrighted to Triple-A Fresno. Because each veteran has previously been outrighted, they may elect free agency, but the shaky Washington bullpen could plausibly offer them the best opportunity to return to the big leagues in short order.
• Giants right-handed reliever Dan Winkler was outrighted. San Francisco acquired him as a salary offset in the Mark Melancon trade but never had any interest in letting him see the field amidst a disappointing 2019 season. Winkler can elect free agency because he has over three years of MLB service.
• Rockies left-handed relief arm Harrison Musgrave will remain on hand at Triple-A Albuquerque after clearing. The 27 year-old has had little success in 45 MLB games in Colorado over the past two seasons.
• Diamondbacks right-hander Joey Krehbiel will remain on-hand at Triple-A Reno. Fangraphs’ Eric Longenhagen and Kiley McDaniel named the 26 year-old reliever a prospect to watch thanks to a plus changeup preseason, but he’s had a nightmarish season in the Pacific Coast League.
• Veteran catcher Tim Federowicz has cleared. The backstop had been playing for the Rangers, but he may elect to catch on elsewhere on a minor-league deal.
• Phillies corner infielder Mitch Walding has also cleared waivers. He’ll remain in Triple-A Lehigh Valley, where he’s struggled to make contact in 2019.
• Eric Stamets, the Indians’ Opening Day shortstop, has cleared as well. The 27 year-old has put up anemic offensive numbers with Triple-A Columbus, where he’ll continue to try to right the ship, over the past two seasons.

The moves will clear roster space for two veterans who, now that the trade deadline is passed, don’t have much more utility on a Texas squad that is largely looking ahead to 2020.  Neither player had much trade value anyway, as Cabrera had only hit .235/.318/.393 over 368 plate appearances this season, while Federowicz was basically a stop-gap backup catcher only acquired in June.

Cabrera signed a one-year, $3.5MM deal with the Rangers last winter, holding down third base after Adrian Beltre retired.  While Texas did well on quite a few of their veteran signings, Cabrera simply didn’t produce much offensively, as his production dropped off significantly after being an above-average bat for much of the last decade.  Cabrera’s 23.1% strikeout rate this season is a career worst, while his .287 xwOBA ranks in the bottom 12th percentile of all qualified batters.

Between this subpar year and the fact that Cabrera turns 34 in November, the 13-year veteran may have a difficult time landing a Major League contract in the offseason.  It could even be difficult for him to find another gig for the remainder of this season, though Cabrera has enough of a track record that he’ll certainly get a call if another team suffers an injury in the infield.

Federowicz signed a minor league contract with Cleveland in February and was then traded to the Rangers once Kiner-Falefa was placed on the injured list.  The journeyman has appeared in parts of eight big league seasons, with a career .574 OPS over 439 PA.

Fellow receiver Isiah Kiner-Falefa was placed on the 10-day injured list. He’s dealing with a sprained ligament in his right middle finger, which explains the acquisition of Federowicz. To open 40-man space, the Rangers shifted injured pitching prospect Taylor Hearn to the 60-day IL.

For the Rangers, this move obviously wasn’t about installing offense into the lineup. The team simply wanted a reliable reserve catcher.

Federowicz, 31, has seen action in parts of seven MLB seasons. Through 360 plate appearances at the game’s highest level, he carries a .199/.247/.323 slash. He had been playing at Triple-A Columbus to open the year, carrying a .278/.353/.411 batting line in 103 trips to the dish.

• The Indians reassigned outfielder Brandon Barnes, catcher Tim Federowicz, and infielder/outfielder Mike Freeman to their minor league camp, MLB.com’s Mandy Bell reports (Twitter link).  Catcher Dioner Navarro will remain with the Tribe’s MLB Spring Training camp for now, though he has also been informed that he won’t be on Cleveland’s Opening Day roster.  It isn’t yet known if any of this group will opt out of their minor league deals in order to pursue opportunities elsewhere, though Bell hears that Federowicz will “check with his agent.”
• Francisco Liriano can opt out of his minors deal with the Pirates on Wednesday, though The Athletic’s Rob Biertempfel (via Twitter) believes the veteran southpaw will break camp with the team.  Liriano hasn’t exactly excelled this spring, posting a 5.14 ERA over seven innings while allowing more walks (six) than strikeouts (five).  Still, Liriano has an advantage since Pittsburgh has just two left-handed pitchers (closer Felipe Vazquez and Steven Brault) on the 40-man roster, creating the need for more southpaw depth in the bullpen.  Should Liriano crack the big leagues, he’ll earn a guaranteed $1.8MM, with another $1.5MM available in potential incentives.

Wojciechowski, 30, will give Cleveland some depth in both the rotation and the bullpen. He’s struggled to a 6.64 ERA with 9.2 K/9 against 3.0 BB/9 in 78 2/3 MLB innings, most of which came with the 2017 Reds, but he has plenty of experience at the Triple-A level. In 550 1/3 innings at the top minor league level, Wojciechowski has a 4.37 ERA with 7.6 K/9, 3.1 BB/9 and 1.2 HR/9, with all but 15 of his 108 appearances there coming as a starter. He split last season between the Triple-A affiliates for the White Sox and Orioles, working to a combined 4.53 ERA in 119 1/3 frames but with a 126-to-37 K/BB ratio. Wojciechowski’s ability to miss bats has jumped considerably in the past two seasons, and his walk rate has dropped along with that spike, which likely piqued Cleveland’s interest.

As for Federowicz, the 31-year-old has appeared in parts of seven MLB seasons split between the Dodgers, Giants, Reds, Cubs and Astros. He’s never hit much as a big leaguer, managing just a .199/.247/.323 line in 360 plate appearances. That said, he’s an accomplished (and then some) hitter in Triple-A, where he owns a terrific .303/.374/.501 line in nearly 1900 plate appearances.

With Yan Gomes traded to the Nationals, Cleveland is relying on some combination of Roberto Perez, Eric Haase and trade acquisition Kevin Plawecki to shoulder the bulk of the workload behing the plate in 2019. Federowicz will add another depth option to the equation, though it’s unlikely that he’ll emerge as a viable candidate to crack the Opening Day roster with his new organization.

As conveyed by Matt Eddy of Baseball America, who also covers quite a few other minor moves, these players have now elected free agency:

Athletics: RHP Raul Alcantara, LHP Danny Coulombe

Blue Jays: RHP Mike Hauschild, INF/OF Darnell Sweeney

Braves: LHP Rex Brothers, RHP Miguel Socolovich

Cardinals: LHP Tyler Lyons

Indians: RHP Evan Marshall, RHP Alexi Ogando

Mariners: RHP Christian Bergman, LHP Ross Detwiler, RHP Mike Morin, INF Zach Vincej

Marlins: OF JB Shuck

Mets: RHP Chris Beck, OF Bryce Brentz, RHP Scott Copeland, OF Matt den Dekker, INF Ty Kelly

Nationals: LHP Tommy Milone, OF Moises Sierra, RHP Carlos Torres

Orioles: RHP Jhan Marinez, INF Luis Sardinas

Padres: OF Matt Szczur

Phillies: INF Trevor Plouffe

Pirates: LHP Buddy Boshers, RHP Casey Sadler, RHP A.J. Schugel

Rangers: C Juan Centeno, LHP Anthony Gose, RHP Drew Hutchison, INF Tommy Joseph, RHP Chris Rowley

Rays: INF Brandon Snyder, RHP Ryan Weber

Reds: C Tim Federowicz, RHP Kevin Quackenbush

Tigers: INF Dixon Machado, RHP Jacob Turner

White Sox: RHP Tyler Danish