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Athletics Select Tyler Wade, Designate Cal Stevenson

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The A’s announced a series of roster moves today, recalling left-hander Hogan Harris and selecting utility player Tyler Wade. In corresponding moves, righty Adam Oller and infielder Nick Allen were optioned to Triple-A Las Vegas. To open a spot for Wade on the 40-man roster, outfielder Cal Stevenson was designated for assignment.

Wade is back in the majors for what’ll be a seventh straight year. A longtime prospect of some regard with the Yankees, the left-handed hitter settled into a depth role in the Bronx. He never tallied more than 145 plate appearances in a season, though he got into 103 games as a frequent pinch-runner and defensive replacement in 2021. Wade’s plus speed has allowed him to swipe 38 bases in his MLB career.

The 28-year-old got his most notable playing time after being traded to the Angels heading into 2022. He picked up 163 trips to the plate but only connected on one home run with a .218/.272/.272 batting line. The Halos outrighted him off their 40-man roster and traded him back to the Yankees last summer. He didn’t return to the majors with New York and elected minor league free agency at year’s end.

Wade hooked on with the A’s on a non-roster deal and has appeared in ten games for Las Vegas. He doesn’t have an extra-base hit but has walked six times while striking out on just seven occasions. Between his contact skills, speed and ability to cover any infield position and all three outfield spots, he’s earned a look on the big league bench. Wade doesn’t have any minor league options remaining, so the A’s will have to keep him in the big leagues or designate him for assignment now that he’s secured a spot on the 40-man roster.

While Wade steps into the infield mix, Oakland sends Allen out for the moment. The defensive specialist has long been regarded as one of the better prospects in the A’s system. He’s an excellent gloveman at both middle infield positions but faces questions about his offensive upside. Allen limped to a .207/.256/.291 line over 326 plate appearances as a rookie last season. He’s gotten starts in just five of the first 13 games this year and opened the season in a 1-16 slump. Oakland has given Aledmys Díaz and Kevin Smith most of the shortstop run in the past few days.

Wade’s promotion necessitated bumping a player from the 40-man roster. Stevenson loses his spot despite starting the season with eight hits and six walks over 29 plate appearances for Las Vegas. The 26-year-old outfielder hasn’t gotten much run at the major league level, appearing in 23 games last season with the A’s and struggling to a .167/.261/.217 line after being acquired in the Christian Bethancourt trade.

A former tenth round pick, Stevenson has been involved in a few trades as a professional. He’s also appeared in the Blue Jays, Astros and Tampa Bay organizations and put together an impressive .294/.409/.420 line over parts of five minor league seasons. Stevenson has never gotten much favor from prospect evaluators despite his plate discipline, largely because of limited power potential in his 5’9″ frame. Oakland will have a week to trade him or look to run him through waivers.

A’s, Tyler Wade Agree To Minor League Deal

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The Athletics have signed utilityman Tyler Wade to a minor league contract, reports Chris Hilburn-Trenkle of Baseball America. He’d elected minor league free agency earlier this month after playing the second half of the season on a non-roster deal with the Yankees.

Wade has appeared in the big leagues in each of the last six years. A Yankees fourth-round pick in 2013, he blossomed into one of the system’s more interesting prospects on the strength of plus speed and solid contact skills. Wade never cemented himself as a regular, however, consistently working as a depth player who bounced between multiple positions off the bench. He never tallied more than 145 plate appearances in an individual season in New York as the Yankees frequently bounced him on and off the active roster.

Last offseason, New York designated Wade for assignment as part of a 40-man overhaul to set their roster before the Rule 5 draft. The Angels acquired him a few days later. Because he’s out of minor league option years, the Halos had to carry him on their active roster to keep him in the organization. He spent the first three months of the 2022 campaign in Anaheim, picking up a personal-high 163 plate appearances over 67 contests. Wade didn’t hit well, though, connecting on just one home run while posting a .218/.272/.272 overall line. Anaheim designated him for assignment in July, and he returned to the Yankees on a minor league deal after going unclaimed on waivers.

The 27-year-old (28 next month) spent the rest of the year at Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre. Wade put up a .227/.353/.369 line with four homers through 170 plate appearances with the RailRiders. He walked in an excellent 15.9% of his trips against a manageable 20.6% strikeout rate, but his results on batted balls weren’t great. He didn’t get a new big league look in the Bronx.

Wade will presumably get an opportunity to compete for a big league job in Spring Training. The rebuilding A’s have very little in the way of position player certainty. Tony Kemp is the in-house favorite for playing time at second base, although he could be traded or non-tendered this offseason. Nick Allen is the top shortstop option but began his MLB career with a .207/.256/.291 line through 326 plate appearances. Wade’s also capable of factoring into the outfield mix if he can carve out another bench job.

34 Players Become Free Agents

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The Wild Card round of the 2022 postseason begins today, but for the majority of teams and players, the offseason is now underway. With that will come plenty of roster formalities, including veteran players who’ve been outrighted off their respective teams’ rosters reaching minor league free agency. This week, there have been 34 such instances throughout the league, per the transactions log at MiLB.com.

None of these are a surprise, to be clear. Any player who is not on his team’s 40-man roster at season’s end but has three-plus years of Major League service time, multiple career outright assignments and/or seven-plus seasons in the minors has the right to elect free agency. Everyone in today’s group of players falls under that umbrella. The majority of the group will likely find minor league deals over the winter, although a few of the players in question could potentially find a big league deal as a bench piece or middle-inning reliever.

There will be several more waves of players of this ilk, and we’ll make note of them in bunches over the coming weeks as we await the launch of Major League free agency, when all unsigned players with at least six years of Major League service time will reach the open market. For now, here’s the first of what will likely be several waves of newly minted minor league free agents:

Catchers

Infielders

Outfielders

Pitchers

Angels Trade Tyler Wade To Yankees

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11:10am: The teams announced that Wade has been traded from the Angels to the Yankees in exchange for a PTBNL or cash.

10:10am: The Yankees are set to reacquire utilityman Tyler Wade from the Angels, reports ESPN’s Jeff Passan (Twitter link). The Yankees are sending a player to be named later back to the Angels, tweets Joel Sherman of the New York Post. Wade will head to Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre for the time being.

Wade, whom the Yankees traded to the Angels in the offseason, was designated for assignment by the Halos earlier this month and assigned to Triple-A Salt Lake after going unclaimed on outright waivers. As such, he’s not currently on the 40-man roster.

The 27-year-old Wade was New York’s fourth-round pick back in 2013 and spent nine years in the organization prior to being traded to Anaheim. That deal, like this one, was for a PTBNL or cash. No player was ever announced as going back to the Yankees, so it seems the two sides settled on a cash return instead.

Wade appeared in 67 games with the Angels in 2022, playing every position other than catcher, first base or pitcher and generally providing solid defense (particularly in the middle infield). He tallied what’s already a career-high 163 plate appearances with the big league club but managed only a tepid .218/.272/.272 batting line in that time. Wade’s 20.2% strikeout rate was the lowest of his career, but his 6.1% walk rate was also down nearly five percentage points from his 2019-21 levels. Wade also posted bottom-of-the-scale marks in average exit velocity (83.9 mph) and hard-hit rate (just 16%).

Of course, offense has never been Wade’s calling card. He spent as much time with the Yankees as he did from 2017-21 (264 games 491 plate appearances) due to his versatility with the glove and his above-average speed. Both were on display with the Halos, evidenced by his eight stolen bases (albeit in 13 tries) and the aforementioned appearances at six different defensive positions.

It’s a depth move for the Yankees, bringing back a player they know well who can provide them some insurance at various positions around the diamond. Wade is a career .286/.353/.414 hitter in 1132 plate appearances at the Triple-A level.

Angels Select Michael Stefanic, Designate Tyler Wade For Assignment

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The Angels announced that they have selected the contract of infielder Michael Stefanic. Infielder Tyler Wade has been designated for assignment as the corresponding move.

Stefanic, 26, was signed by the Angels as an undrafted free agent back in 2018. Since then, he has worked his way up the minor league ladder, garnering attention for his contact and on-base abilities, though without offering much in the power department. In 46 games at Triple-A this year, he’s hit just a single home run but has a 11.9% walk rate against just a 5.7% strikeout rate. That’s resulted in a slash line of .320/.410/.399, 113 wRC+. He did manage 16 homers at Triple-A last year, but that’s the outlier on his ledger, as he’s never hit more than three in any other season of his career.

Despite that lack of power, the contact skills have been enough to garner some attention from prospect evaluators. Baseball America considered Stefanic the 14th-best prospect in the system in their most recent update, with FanGraphs currently ranking him 26th and comparing him to Nick Madrigal.

Defensively, Stefanic is ticketed for utility duty, as he’s played every infield position, as well as brief appearances in the outfield corners. However, the reports from both BA and FG note that he’s not an excellent defender anywhere, not even his primary position of second base.

For the Angels, they’re likely interested in taking that tradeoff, as they’ve had poor production from their non-first-base infielders this year. The infield group was weak on paper coming into the season and has since lost David Fletcher, Matt Duffy and Anthony Rendon to the IL, with Rendon’s injury being season-ending. As a result, the club’s overall second base output comes in at .227/.276/.308. That amounts to a wRC+ of 67, placing them 25th in the majors in that regard. Adding a bat-first player like Stefanic will hopefully give a boost to the offensive production from the dirt.

Stefanic is the second recent addition to the Angels’ infield, as the club signed Jonathan Villar yesterday. The two of them will bolster a group that consists of Luis Rengifo, Andrew Velazquez and David MacKinnon to cover second base, third base and shortstop. The club is 37-43, six games back of a playoff spot in the American League. With the August 2 trade deadline now less than a month away, they will surely be hoping for a solid stretch of play to get themselves into a firmer buyer position before then.

As for Wade, he was traded from the Yankees to the Angels in November of last year. During his time in the Bronx, he earned a reputation as a glove-first player, hitting .212/.298/.307 for a wRC+ of 68. Despite that lackluster offensive production, he was at least a valuable bench player given his versatility, lining up at second base, third base, shortstop and all three outfield positions. Although Wade changed uniforms, his game stayed largely the same this season. He has taken the field at those six positions again this year, while hitting .218/.272/.272 for a wRC+ of 57. The Angels are apparently looking for a little more thump in their lineup, swapping out a glove-first player for a bat-first one.

Wade surpassed three years of MLB service time last year, allowing him to qualify for arbitration for the first time. He and the Angels agreed to a salary of $825K, just a bit north of the $700K league minimum. The Angels will have one week to trade him or put him through waivers. Should he clear waivers, he would be eligible to reject an outright assignment and return to free agency, by virtue of having surpassed three years’ service time. However, doing so would mean forfeiting the remainder of his salary, as players need more than five years’ service to reject an assignment while still being guaranteed the money owed to them through their contracts.

J.P. Hoornstra of the Southern California News Group reported the selection of Stefanic prior to the official announcement (Twitter links). Wade also revealed his DFA to reporters, including Sam Blum of the Athletic, prior to the announcement.

Angels Acquire Tyler Wade, Designate Kean Wong

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The Yankees announced Monday that they’ve traded infielder/outfielder Tyler Wade to the Angels in exchange for cash or a player to be named later. Wade was designated for assignment Friday amid a series of moves as the Yankees set their roster in advance of the Rule 5 protection deadline. The Angels announced that they have designated utilityman Kean Wong for assignment in a corresponding move.

Wade, 27 tomorrow, has spent parts of the past five seasons on the Yankees’ bench, serving as an oft-used utility option while being frequently shuttled between the big leagues and Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre. Last year’s 145 plate appearances were a career-high (though they were spread across 103 games), and Wade’s .268/.354/.323 slash during that small sample was the most productive of MLB stretch of his career. In all, he’s a .212/.298/.307 hitter in 491 plate appearances for the Yankees.

Of course, Wade was always more of a defensive option than a player expected to make meaningful contributions with the bat. During his half-decade run with the Yankees, he saw time at every position other than first base, catcher and pitcher. The bulk of that workload came at second base (546 innings) and shortstop (331 innings), but Wade has 33 appearances at the hot corner and 57 in the outfield.

Wong, the younger brother of Brewers second baseman Kolten Wong, was a fourth-round pick by the Rays back in 2013 but has yet to find his footing in the big leagues. The 26-year-old has seen MLB times both with Tampa Bay and the Halos but managed only a .167/.188/.218 output in an admittedly small sample of 84 plate appearances. The younger Wong is a career .293/.355/.421 hitter in more than 1600 Triple-A plate appearances, however, and he also still has a pair of minor league option years remaining.

Another club in need of some infield depth could conceivably take a chance on Wong, who’ll either be traded, placed on outright waivers or released in the next seven days. Even if Wong goes unclaimed on waivers and is outrighted to Triple-A Salt Lake, he’ll have the opportunity to reject that assignment and become a free agent, given that it would be the second time in his career that he’s been outrighted.

Yankees Designate Clint Frazier, Rougned Odor And Tyler Wade For Assignment

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The Yankees announced they’ve designated Clint Frazier, Rougned Odor and Tyler Wade for assignment. The moves create roster space for the selections of prospects Oswaldo Cabrera, Ron Marinaccio, Everson Pereira, Stephen Ridings and JP Sears to the 40-man roster. That keeps all five from being selected in the Rule 5 draft.

Frazier and Wade are arbitration-eligible, but the Yankees evidently determined they weren’t going to bring either player back. It’s easy to envision both attracting interest over the coming days, and New York will ten days to explore offers.

Frazier was a middle-of-the-order presence as recently as last year, when he mashed at a .267/.394/.511 clip. That came in a small sample of 160 plate appearances during a truncated season, but it was the kind of offensive upside talent evaluators have lauded for the former #5 overall pick. While Frazier’s a limited defensive player with swing-and-miss concerns, he also flashed a tantalizing blend of raw power and plate discipline.

The 2021 season was a disaster, though. Not only did the 27-year-old’s line fall to a miserly .186/.317/.317, he didn’t play past the end of June due to recurring vertigo-like symptoms. It’s certainly not how either he or the team would’ve envisioned his time in pinstripes coming to an end.

MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz projects Frazier for a modest $2.4MM salary if he were to proceed through the arbitration process. It wouldn’t be a surprise to see another team roll the dice on his upside for that affordable sum, either via trade or waiver claim. If Frazier were to clear waivers, he’d have the right to elect minor league free agency.

That’s also the case for Wade, who’s projected for an affordable $700K arb salary. The 26-year-old doesn’t bring much power potential, but he draws a fair amount of walks, runs well and can handle multiple positions. Wade is coming off a .268/.354/.323 showing in 145 plate appearances, and it’d register as a surprise if he didn’t land elsewhere in the coming days.

The Yankees swung a deal to acquire Odor from the Rangers just before the start of the 2021 season. While the left-handed hitter had some timely hits, his overall production was lackluster. Odor managed just a .202/.286/.379 mark over 361 plate appearances. The 27-year-old will be guaranteed $12MM next season, the final year of his contract. Texas remains on the hook for essentially all of that sum, so any team that acquires Odor would only owe him the league minimum salary.

Turning to the prospects involved, Ridings may be the best known. The big right-hander already made his MLB debut this past season as a COVID replacement. While he only worked five innings of relief, he looked like a potential late-game weapon. Ridings averaged 97 MPH on his fastball and generated whiffs on a massive 18.9% of his offerings. The 26-year-old also posted dominant numbers in the high minors.

Cabrera is the highest-regarded of the group, according to Baseball America. BA’s #8 organizational farmhand, Cabrera is coming off a solid .256/.311/.492 showing with 24 homers over 478 plate appearances at Double-A Somerset. He’s regarded as a high-end defensive infielder with strong bat-to-ball skills and burgeoning power.

Pereira, a lefty-hitting center fielder, was limited to 221 low minors plate appearances by injuries. The 20-year-old probably isn’t a near-term big league option, but the Yankees didn’t want to chance another team taking a shot on his upside. A highly-regarded amateur coming out of Venezuela in 2017, he raked at a .303/.398/.686 clip when healthy enough to take the field this year. Neither Sears nor Marinaccio has ever made an organizational ranking at FanGraphs or BA, but both posted strong numbers in the high minors and could be big league options in 2022.

COVID Notes: 4/10/21

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The latest coronavirus-related situations from around baseball…

Latest Moves

  • Red Sox slugger J.D. Martinez isn’t available today due to COVID protocols, manager Alex Cora told reporters (including Julian McWilliams of the Boston Globe).  Martinez isn’t feeling well and could be back in the lineup as early as tomorrow, though the team is being cautious until Martinez gets his test results back. UPDATE: Martinez has been placed on the COVID IL, per Pete Abraham of the Boston Glove (via Twitter). Michael Chavis has been recalled to take his roster spot for the time being.

Earlier Today

  • The Blue Jays placed Lourdes Gurriel Jr. on the COVID-19 injured list, per Scott Mitchell of TSN Sports (via Twitter). Santiago Espinal was activated to take his roster spot. Gurriel left Friday’s game after feeling vaccine-related symptoms, so he’s not likely to be out for too long.
  • Ryan Borucki, meanwhile, makes a quick return from the COVID IL. Ty Tice has been optioned. Tice made one appearance, tossing a pair of scoreless innings.
  • The Astros shifted Pedro Baez from the COVID-19 injury list to the regular 10-day injured list.  Baez is suffering from right shoulder soreness, as manager Dusty Baker told MLB.com’s Brian McTaggart and other reporters that Baez “was trying to do too much too soon” in his preparations to return from the COVID list.  Baez was placed on the COVID list in early March, so he missed a good chunk of Spring Training while sidelined.  Since being put on the normal IL required Baez to be returned to the 40-man roster, the Astros had to move Austin Pruitt to the 60-day injured list in a corresponding move.
  • The Yankees reinstated both Gio Urshela and Rougned Odor from the COVID-19 injury list, the team announced.  In corresponding moves, infielder Tyler Wade was optioned to the alternate training site, and first baseman Mike Ford had been optioned to the alternate site after last night’s game.  It was only a brief absence for Urshela, who ended up missing just last night’s game due to some side effects after receiving a vaccine.  Odor himself was only in COVID protocols due to standard intake and testing procedure after he was acquired in a trade from the Rangers earlier this week.
  • Cubs first base/catching coach Craig Driver has tested positive for the coronavirus and has returned to Chicago, the team told reporters (including The Chicago Tribune’s Meghan Montemurro).  Contact tracing and testing revealed no other positive results within the team’s traveling party over the last three days.  Driver is in his second season on the Cubs’ coaching staff, after spending the previous two seasons as the Phillies’ receiving coach and bullpen catcher.

[RELATED: Upcoming Changes to MLBTR Commenting Policy]

Yankees Receiving Trade Interest In Mike Tauchman

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11:00am: Eight clubs have contacted the Yankees about Tauchman, Martino tweets.

9:10am: The Yankees are receiving trade interest in outfielder Mike Tauchman, SNY’s Andy Martino reports. They’re looking past his 2020 season and valuing him more in line with his 2019 output, per Martino, who adds that it’d take a reliever with some team control or another piece with legitimate value for the Yanks to part with the 30-year-old outfielder.

That teams are inquiring on Tauchman comes as little surprise at this juncture of Spring Training. He’s out of minor league options and looks to be without much of a path to regular playing time, given the presence of Clint Frazier, Aaron Hicks, Aaron Judge, Brett Gardner and Giancarlo Stanton all on the roster.

The Yankees also have veterans Jay Bruce and Derek Dietrich in camp on non-roster deals. Bruce, in particular, has been rumored to pique the Yankees’ interest. Neither has put together a particularly overwhelming spring performance thus far, but both are left-handed bats with pop who could bring some versatility to the mix. While Tauchman is capable of playing all three outfield spots, he doesn’t have any experience in the infield. Bruce has spent a good bit of time at first base, however, and Dietrich can play second base in addition to all four corner positions.

Yankees skipper Aaron Boone acknowledged the looming decisions after yesterday’s game, telling reporters: “The reality is we — and a few of our players — have decisions to make in the next 24, 48, 72 hours,” (link via the New York Post’s Dan Martin). “But no decision has been made as of right now.”

Bruce’s minor league deal with the club contained an opt-out clause yesterday, which gives the Yankees 48 hours to put him on the roster. There’s no formal indication that Bruce triggered that clause, although there’s little reason for him not to have done so. Exercising the clause puts pressure on the Yankees and, if he’s not going to make the Opening Day roster in the Bronx, gives him the opportunity to pursue a roster spot with another club.

Martino has suggested it’s possible that both Tauchman and Bruce make the Opening Day roster, with infielder Tyler Wade being optioned to Triple-A to begin the season, although that’s obviously not the most ideal scenario for the Yankees. Doing so would mean a bench of Gardner, Tauchman, Bruce and backup catcher Kyle Higashioka. Each of Gio Urshela, Gleyber Torres and DJ LeMahieu can play multiple spots around the infield, but there’s not much of a safety net on the bench if one of them needs to depart a game with an injury. Keeping Dietrich, who has ample experience at both second base and third base, would be a cleaner fit in the event that Wade is optioned.

The simplest course of action for the Yankees would be to let Bruce and Dietrich pursue other opportunities, keeping Tauchman and Wade both on the bench to begin the season. However, there’s a case to be made that Tauchman is somewhat redundant with Gardner back in the fold and so many other outfield options on the roster. And with the Yankees losing Zack Britton for up to four months and Justin Wilson working through some shoulder tightness — yesterday’s MRI came back clean — it could work to their benefit if they could pry a useful reliever away from another club in a deal for Tauchman.

The 2020 season was a rough one for Tauchman, who played through a shoulder injury and recently acknowledged (via Martin in the previously linked piece) that he “developed some bad swing-path patterns” while trying to compensate for the pain he was experiencing. Tauchman hit just .242/.342/.305 in 111 plate appearances last season, maintaining the strong plate discipline he displayed from 2017-19 but showing nowhere near the power he did the prior year.

The 2019 season was a breakout campaign for Tauchman, whom the Yankees plucked from the Rockies in exchange for lefty Phillip Diehl. In 296 plate appearances with the Yankees that year, Tauchman slashed .277/.361/.504 with 13 home runs. He won’t be eligible for arbitration until next winter, and the Yankees control Tauchman through the 2024 season.

Quick Hits: Padres, Reds, Yankees

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Dinelson Lamet will not be ready to join the opening day rotation, per MLB.com’s AJ Cassavell (via Twitter). On the plus side, he will get his first Cactus League start on Wednesday. That should get him on track to join the rotation at some point in April. The Padres have plenty of depth to work around Lamet’s absence, especially because of the delayed Triple-A season. In fact, slow-playing Lamet’s return not only benefits the right-hander, but it opens an opportunity for Adrian Morejon to get a start or two before the Triple-A season begins. Elsewhere around the game…

  • Reds owner Bob Castellini spoke recently with Paul Daugherty on the Reds Beat Podcast about a number of topics, including the Reds chances to win the National League Central. Castellini sees a division that the Reds can win. Castellini also said that he never expected that the Reds could be players for Trevor Bauer in free agency. He also gave the team’s reasoning for moving some key bullpen pieces this winter, “We have no idea what the financial aspects of this season is going to be — before, during or after. We have at least two very fine relievers that are possible closers: Sims and Garrett. Maybe even more. For instance, if Michael Lorenzen doesn’t start, he’s another very top reliever. We have five left-handed relievers. We are not trying to understand what’s going to happen financially this year, but we wanted to … keep a little in reserve in case we needed it when we needed it. We feel like our bullpen’s going to be all right. Better than all right.”
  • The assumption for the past few weeks has been that the Yankees are trying to decide between Jay Bruce and Mike Tauchman for their final bench spot. The latest from Andy Martino of sny.tv suggests that both might be in a position to make the opening day roster. Rather than DFA Tauchman and risk losing him to waivers, the Yankees are considering optioning infielder Tyler Wade instead. The Yankees have started trying out Gio Urshela at shortstop should they need him to serve as their reserve infielder in an emergency basis. Who, exactly, would step in for Urshela at third in that circumstance isn’t entirely clear. In the unlikely event that Bruce and Tauchman both made the team, Kyle Higashioka and Brett Gardner would make up the rest of the bench. Presumably, Wade will need to be on this roster sooner rather than later, even if the Yankees use his option to give some extra time to the Bruce vs. Tauchman debate.
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