Rangers To Place Tyler Mahle On Injured List
Rangers manager Bruce Bochy informed the club’s beat today that right-hander Tyler Mahle is going to be placed on the 15-day injured list with some shoulder stiffness. Righty Jon Gray will be reinstated from his own IL stint in a corresponding move. Kennedi Landry of MLB.com was among those who relayed the news on X.
Mahle, now 29, underwent Tommy John surgery last summer just before hitting free agency for the first time in his career. The Rangers then signed him to a two-year, $22MM deal, knowing that they wouldn’t be able to count on him to join the club until some point in the middle of the 2024 season at the earliest. He was on the IL until two weeks ago and has since made three starts. He went five innings in the first of those, then four and two thirds, followed by just three innings in Sunday’s game.
It’s unclear if the shoulder was bothering him in his last outing or has been nagging at him since. While he was removed after just three innings, he also allowed four earned runs on six hits while recording just one strikeout, so his removal might simply have been about his performance rather than his health.
Shoulder issues have been a problem for him before, as he only made six starts after July 2 in the 2022 season due to a strain and some inflammation. Between those shoulder issues and his recent Tommy John layoff, it’s been three straight seasons of having a truncated workload.
The Rangers have fallen back in the standings lately and are now 11 games back of the Astros in the West and 12.5 games back of a Wild Card spot. Both the Playoff Odds at FanGraphs and the PECOTA Standings at Baseball Prospectus give them just a 0.4% chance of cracking the postseason at this point.
With the club’s season on the ropes, they can make their decisions based on optimizing results next year. Ideally, Mahle would be building up his workload since he hasn’t pitched much in recent years, but pitching through an injury would run the risk of aggravating a shoulder that has given him problems in the past, so it seems the club has decided a breather is the best decision for now. Assuming the issue isn’t major, perhaps he can return for the final few weeks and log some innings in September.
Going forward, the club’s rotation could be facing notable changes. Jacob deGrom is starting a rehab assignment this week and Max Scherzer will be as well, per Landry on X. When those two come back, they will likely slot into the rotation with Gray, Nathan Eovaldi and Andrew Heaney, with Cody Bradford and Dane Dunning also in the mix and perhaps Mahle coming back down the line.
Looking ahead to next year, Scherzer and Heaney are impending free agents with Eovaldi perhaps heading to the open market along with them. Eovaldi’s contract has a conditional $20MM player option that he unlocks if he totals 300 innings pitched over 2023 and 2024 or finishes in the top five in Cy Young voting this year. Even if he unlocks that option, which is possible since he’s at 271 innings since the start of last year, he might turn it down and elect free agency since he’s having a strong season and could look for a bigger guarantee in free agency.
Without those three, the Texas rotation for 2025 projects to include deGrom, Mahle and Gray. The latter two, as mentioned, are coming off lengthy Tommy John rehabs and could have workload concerns next year. Bradford has also missed significant time this year, due to a low back strain, and only has 14 big league starts to his name. Dunning has often been in the club’s swingman/sixth starter role, moving between the bullpen and rotation as needed. Prospects Jack Leiter and Owen White are on the 40-man roster but both have ongoing control issues.
The Rangers are still the reigning World Series champions for a few more months but the title defense has obviously not been what they had in mind. Perhaps that will lead them to shake up their rotation mix in the offseason, as there’s plenty of uncertainty in next year’s group.
Jacob deGrom To Begin Rehab Assignment
Rangers right-hander Jacob deGrom is set to begin a rehab assignment this week. The righty himself tells Jeff Wilson of Rangers Today (X link) that he’ll likely start for Double-A Frisco on Thursday. Manager Bruce Bochy says that it will either be Thursday or Friday, which will be the first of four rehab outings, per Evan Grant of the Dallas Morning News on X. If all goes according to plan, the righty could be back in the majors by September 10.
deGrom underwent Tommy John surgery in June of last year and is now about 14 months removed from that procedure. Once upon a time, it seemed as though deGrom would be part of a trio of heroes riding in to help the Rangers in the second half of 2024. Tyler Mahle also underwent Tommy John surgery last year and was slated for a midseason return, while Max Scherzer opened the season on the IL after undergoing offseason back surgery.
The 2023 World Series champions hoped that they could stay afloat through the first half of 2024 with a strong offense and a rotation mix consisting of Nathan Eovaldi, Jon Gray, Andrew Heaney, Michael Lorenzen, Cody Bradford, Dane Dunning and others. Ideally, they would have gotten stronger throughout the year and made a strong push in defending their title.
It hasn’t exactly played out that way, unfortunately. The team’s hitters have slashed a collective .239/.308/.381 for a 94 wRC+, putting them ahead of just seven teams in the majors. On top of that, the pitching has been a challenging carousel for the club all year. Due to various ailments, no one on the pitching staff has reached 130 innings pitched yet this year, while Eovaldi and Heaney are the only guys currently on the team with more than 100 frames. Lorenzen was traded to the Royals at the deadline and both Gray and Scherzer are currently on the IL.
The combination of injuries and some struggles around the roster have bumped the Rangers towards the back of the American League playoff race. They are 11 games back of the Astros in the West and then 12.5 games out of a Wild Card spot. The Playoff Odds at FanGraphs give them just a 0.2% chance of cracking the postseason while the PECOTA Standings at Baseball Prospectus are slightly more bullish at 0.8%.
At this point, the club is likely viewing deGrom’s return less as a spark plug for a 2024 postseason push and more about getting a few starts under his belt in preparation for the 2025 campaign. He and the Rangers signed a five-year, $185MM deal heading into 2023, though he’s only been able to make six starts on that deal so far, due to his aforementioned surgery.
The club managed to win the World Series last year even without him, but there’s still three years left on that deal, making him a key part of their next chapter. The righty has been one of the better pitchers in the world over the past decade, though the injuries have been an issue in recent years.
From 2014 to the present, he has a 2.53 earned run average in 1,356 1/3 innings pitched, striking out 31% of batters faced while only walking 5.8%. Among pitchers with at least 700 innings in that time, only Clayton Kershaw has a lower ERA while only Scherzer and Chris Sale topped deGrom in terms of strikeout rate.
In recent years, deGrom has provided even higher quality but with less quantity. He topped 200 innings from 2017 to 2019 but hasn’t even hit 100 since. The 2020 season was shortened to just 60 games by the pandemic and then deGrom missed time in the two subsequent seasons due to right side tightness, right forearm tightness and a stress reaction on his right scapula.
From 2020 to the present, he has tossed 254 2/3 innings with a 2.12 ERA and incredible 42% strikeout rate. That punchout rate is tops among all pitchers with at least 250 innings in that stretch, with Spencer Strider a distant second at 36.9%, while only reliever Emmanuel Clase bests deGrom in the ERA department.
At this point, it’s anyone’s guess what kind of form deGrom will be in when he returns. He is now 36 years old and coming off a lengthy injury absence. He also hasn’t been able to make more than 15 starts in a season since 2019.
The Rangers are set to lose both Scherzer and Heaney to free agency in a couple of months. Eovaldi could be joining them, as his deal has a conditional $20MM player option that he unlocks if he totals 300 innings pitched over 2023 and 2024 or finishes in the top five in Cy Young voting this year. Even if he unlocks that option, he might turn it down and head to the open market since he’s having a strong season and could secure a bigger guarantee over a longer deal in free agency.
If Eovaldi does depart, then the 2025 Ranger rotation on paper is deGrom, Gray, Mahle, Dunning and Bradford, with both Gray and Mahle slated for free agency after next year. Jack Leiter and Owen White are each on the 40-man roster but both have dealt with control problems.
Taken all together, deGrom’s form in the coming years figures to be a significant factor for the Rangers, considering how much they have invested in him and that there’s not a lot of long-term certainty in the rotation picture.
AL Notes: Verlander, Garcia, Buxton, Paddack, Rangers, Skubal
Justin Verlander “felt strong” during a bullpen session today in Houston, Astros manager Joe Espada told reporters (including Matt Kawahara of the Houston Chronicle), which should line Verlander up to return to the rotation on Wednesday when the Astros face the Red Sox. A neck strain has kept Verlander from pitching in the majors since June 9, and he has amassed only 57 innings this season due both this current ailment and a bout of shoulder inflammation coming out of Spring Training. However, Verlander has completed two minor league rehab outings and today’s bullpen session looks like the final checkpoint on his path to recovery.
While things are looking promising for Verlander, Luis Garcia is more of a question mark. The Athletic’s Chandler Rome wrote (via X) that as of Friday, Garcia hadn’t yet resumed throwing since he was shut down due to soreness over two weeks ago. This is the second time Garcia has hit a setback in his recovery from Tommy John surgery, and since Garcia went under the knife in May 2023, a normal rehab timeline would’ve had him ready to return to the majors by this point over 15 months past his procedure date. Though the Astros have said Garcia might return as a reliever rather than as a starter, he is running short on time to fully ramp up his readiness to rejoin Houston’s pitching staff in any capacity.
More from around the American League…
- Twins athletic trainer Nick Paparesta updated reporters (including The Athletic’s Dan Hayes) about several injured Minnesota players on Saturday, including Byron Buxton and Chris Paddack. Buxton received a cortisone shot in his inflamed right hip and recently worked out in a pool, so Paparesta feels “we’re kind of heading in the right direction.” This comes as a relief given Buxton’s long history of injury problems, including a more serious hip issue in 2022 that Paparesta feels may have created scar tissue related to Buxton’s current discomfort. As for Paddack, he is set to undergo an MRI on August 27, which will be his second scan since a left forearm strain sent him to the 15-day injured list on July 17. More will be known on Paddack’s timeline if the next MRI comes back clean, and he has already started playing games of catch in preparation to return to Minnesota’s staff before the season is over.
- Three of the Rangers‘ injured veteran starters took steps in their recoveries over the weekend, as Max Scherzer threw a bullpen session today and Jacob deGrom and Jon Gray each threw three-inning simulated games on Saturday. Gray seems to be the closest to returning, as he told MLB.com that he could return as a reliever during the Rangers’ series with the Pirates that begins tomorrow, if he isn’t lined up for a proper start during a series with the Guardians that gets underway Friday. A right groin strain sent Gray to the 15-day IL on July 29, while deGrom could begin a Double-A rehab assignment this week in his first game action since undergoing Tommy John surgery in June 2023. Scherzer hasn’t pitched since July 30 due to shoulder fatigue, and Texas manager Bruce Bochy said it hasn’t yet been decided if Scherzer will also embark on a rehab assignment next, or if he’ll first take part in a live batting practice session.
- Tarik Skubal had another quality start tonight in the Tigers‘ 3-2 win over the Yankees, as the star southpaw limited New York to one run (on three hits and four walks) over six innings of work. Skubal is up to a career-high 155 1/3 innings pitched, and manager A.J. Hinch told MLB Network’s Jon Morosi and other reporters that Sunday “could very well be his last start on regular rest” this season. Since Detroit is all but out of the wild card race, the team has no real reason to put too many extra miles on Skubal’s arm, though naturally the team isn’t going to shut him down completely as he pursues the AL Cy Young Award.
Max Scherzer Planning To Pitch In 2025
This has been a challenging season for Max Scherzer, who has been limited to eight starts. Back surgery and a thumb injury kept the three-time Cy Young winner from making his season debut until the middle of June. He has been back on the injured list for the last two weeks because of shoulder fatigue. The defending World Series winners have plummeted 11 games below .500 with a terrible month of August.
Unsurprisingly, it doesn’t seem Scherzer is comfortable with this season as a swan song. The eight-time All-Star told reporters that he expects to continue playing in 2025 (link via Evan Grant of the Dallas Morning News). “When I’m out there, I’ve been able to compete,” Scherzer noted. “I can still pitch at a high level. I look at things like my slider, which I went into the season wanting to fix, and it’s been really good. I still see myself as able to compete and win.”
Scherzer, who turned 40 in July, has been the fourth-oldest player in the majors this season. Two-time teammate Justin Verlander, Jesse Chavez, and Charlie Morton are older. Scherzer nevertheless remains capable of performing well when healthy. He has turned in a 3.89 ERA with a solid 24.1% strikeout percentage and an excellent 5.1% walk rate across 39 1/3 innings. Those aren’t vintage Scherzer numbers, yet it’s still quality mid-rotation production. That’s despite him pitching at what appears to be less than full strength. His velocity was down a tick relative to last season, which could be attributable to the various injuries through which he has battled.
An injury-plagued year is going to raise more concern for a player of Scherzer’s age. Still, this will be the first season (excluding the shortened schedule) in which he hasn’t reached 145 innings since his 2008 rookie year. While he battled injuries during last year’s postseason and was eventually pulled from the World Series roster, he still combined for 162 1/3 innings between the Mets and Rangers in the regular season and playoffs.
Texas is all but officially buried in the playoff race this year, but Scherzer came out of a bullpen session without issue today and looks to be on track for a return from the injured list relatively shortly. He could make another six or seven starts to finish the season.
Scherzer seems set on continuing his Hall of Fame career for an 18th year. There’s nevertheless uncertainty about where he’ll be playing. He’s in the final season of the three-year, $130MM free agent contract which he signed with New York in 2021. He’ll return to the open market during the upcoming offseason. Scherzer certainly isn’t going to match the three-year term or record-setting $43.333MM average annual value of his current contract, but he should still command a strong one-year deal.
Players like Jack Flaherty, Frankie Montas and Luis Severino all landed guarantees between $13MM and $16MM as rebound candidates last offseason. Scherzer is much older than that trio but he’s had a more accomplished career and has the ability to turn in an ace-caliber year. A deal in the $15-20MM range on a high-payroll club with legitimate World Series aspirations could be viable. That might be Texas, though they’ll need to make other moves in the rotation and strengthen the bottom part of the lineup if they’re to make a renewed push to contend.
What Would It Take For The Rangers To Duck Under The Luxury Tax Line?
The 2023 Angels entered the trade deadline as something of a long-shot contender but nevertheless embarked on an aggressive win-now push. In an effort both to break their postseason drought and perhaps to show impending free agent Shohei Ohtani a commitment to winning, the Halos went out and acquired Lucas Giolito, Reynaldo Lopez, C.J. Cron, Randal Grichuk and Dominic Leone. It was a valiant, if not desperate effort, and it fell short almost immediately. By mid-August, the Angels were buried in the standings with virtually no hope of climbing back into contention. With the former August trade waiver system no longer in place, GM Perry Minasian and his staff waved the white flag in a new and more drastic way: they put more than one quarter of the roster on outright waivers.
By placing Giolito, Lopez, Cron, Grichuk, Leone, Matt Moore, Hunter Renfroe and Tyler Anderson on waivers, the Angels positioned themselves to A) save an enormous amount of money, B) potentially dip back under the luxury tax threshold (they succeeded), and C) impact several postseason races ... just not in the way they originally envisioned. For those who don't recall, the Guardians claimed Giolito, Lopez and Moore. Renfroe was claimed by the Reds. Leone went to the Mariners. Grichuk and Anderson were not claimed.
Last week, MLBTR's Darragh McDonald previewed a handful of veterans who could hit waivers in just this fashion later this month. Since Darragh wrote that piece, one team has emerged as an even likelier candidate to go down this road; as the Astros have gone on an eight-game winning streak and the Mariners have kept in arm's reach, the Rangers have fallen to a daunting 10 games back in the AL West and 10.5 back in the Wild Card hunt. FanGraphs gives the Rangers a 0.6% chance of reaching the postseason. Baseball Prospectus' PECOTA is more bullish ... at 2.4%. Texas isn't mathematically eliminated, but they're not far off.
As Darragh noted last week and as both Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic and Jon Becker of FanGraphs have explored this week, there's an argument that the Rangers should jettison some of their impending free agents and cut back costs. In his column, Becker looked at how much money the Rangers would save by placing their impending free agents on waivers two days before the Aug. 31 postseason eligibility deadline. Rosenthal noted within his column that there's no clear path to dipping under the luxury tax for the Rangers, "so their only motivation would be to save on salary."
Technically that's true, but it's also not impossible for the Rangers to duck under the threshold without placing their entire roster on waivers for the taking. While sneaking under the tax threshold is a tall order, it could potentially be done without completely decimating next season's roster. Let's take a look at how they could get there and at what type of benefits they'd receive for doing so.
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Angels Claim Nick Robertson, Brock Burke
The Angels announced that they have claimed right-hander Nick Robertson off waivers from the Cardinals and left-hander Brock Burke off waivers from the Rangers. Both pitchers had been designated for assignment in recent days. The Halos had two vacancies on their 40-man roster and don’t need to make a corresponding move.
Each pitcher has shown some promise in past seasons but was struggling of late. They both got nudged off their respective roster spots but it makes sense for the Angels to take fliers on them. The Halos are out of contention and can use the remainder of the season to audition players for future roles, and had the open roster spots anyway.
Robertson, 26, pitched for the Dodgers and Red Sox in 2023. He tossed 22 1/3 innings in the majors with an unimpressive 6.04 earned run average but better underlying numbers. He struck out 24.5% of batters faced, gave out walks at an 8.5% clip and got grounders on 47.1% of balls in play. His .397 batting average on balls in play and 57.5% strand rate were both on the unlucky side, which is why he had a 3.88 FIP and 3.76 SIERA. He also had a strong 2.54 ERA in Triple-A last year with a huge 37.5% strikeout rate.
The Cards acquired him as one of the two pieces they got back from Boston in the Tyler O’Neill trade. He missed about a month of this season due to right elbow inflammation and has also been on optional assignment, only throwing 12 1/3 innings for the Cards. In that time, he had a 4.38 ERA, 26.9% strikeout rate and 3.8% walk rate. Oddly, he performed far worse in his 21 2/3 innings at the Triple-A level. He had a 7.48 ERA there, along with a 20.6% strikeout rate and 15.7% walk rate.
It’s not been an outstanding season so St. Louis decided to move on, but the Angels can see if he can find his way in a new environment. Robertson can be optioned for the rest of this year and will still have one option after that. He also currently has less than a year of service time, meaning he still has a ways to go before qualifying for arbitration or free agency.
Burke, 28, had a tremendous 2022 season. He tossed 82 1/3 innings for the Rangers that year with a 1.97 ERA, 27.4% strikeout rate and 7.3% walk rate. But his numbers backed up a bit last year, as he logged 59 2/3 frames with a 4.37 ERA and diminished 20.8% strikeout rate, though he did lower the walks to a rate of 3.6%.
This year, things have been even worse, which was partially self-induced on Burke’s part. He punched a wall in frustration after a poor outing and suffered a fracture in his right hand. Though it wasn’t his throwing hand, it still kept him on the IL for two months. Around that IL placement, he posted a 9.22 ERA in 13 2/3 innings and also spent about a month on optional assignment.
The results have obviously been trending in a bad direction and the wall-punching reflects poorly on him, but he can still be optioned for the rest of this year if the Angels so choose. He’ll be out of options next year but can be retained via arbitration through 2026.
West Notes: Eovaldi, Scherzer, Gurriel, Musgrove, Graveman
The Rangers are heading to Boston for a series with the Red Sox beginning tomorrow, but Nathan Eovaldi and Max Scherzer are both going to Texas for injury-related checkups, GM Chris Young told the Associated Press and other reporters. Eovaldi left his start Saturday after three innings due to tightness in his left side, though the meeting with team doctor Keith Meister is seen as precautionary since Eovaldi “thinks he can pitch through” the issue, Young said. “He’s so important to us that we’re not sure we want to push him. We may end up pushing him back or skipping a start. We don’t think it’s an IL at this point, but we will clearly decide that once he sees Dr. Meister.”
Scherzer was placed on the 15-day injured list on July 31 due to right shoulder fatigue, and Young said the veteran “just hasn’t turned the corner with his shoulder. Our hope is that maybe we get back and explore some other diagnostic measures and get him back on the mound. But I don’t know what the timetable is going to be.” Between this IL stint and an extended absence at the start of the season while recovering from back surgery and a nerve issue in his thumb, Scherzer has pitched only 39 1/3 innings over eight starts.
More will be known about both pitchers’ situations after the tests are complete, but there is clear cause for concern given how both Eovaldi and Scherzer have checkered injury histories. For Scherzer in particular, his situation is worrisome given how much time he has already missed, and whether or not his abnormal ramp-up this year simply kept him from being fully ready to pitch. If either Scherzer or Eovaldi are revealed to have more serious issues, it could put the rest of their seasons in jeopardy, as the Rangers might consider shutdowns if the team continues to fall back in the playoff race.
Some other notes from both the AL and NL West divisions…
- Lourdes Gurriel Jr. left the Diamondbacks‘ 12-5 win over the Phillies today due to left hamstring tightness, but manager Torey Lovullo downplayed the injury in postgame comments to MLB.com and other media. Lovullo said the removal was precautionary and that Gurriel is day-to-day, plus the outfielder isn’t even being sent for any tests at this time. Gurriel is hitting .269/.302/.414 with 14 homers over 453 plate appearances as the team’s regular left fielder, translating to a 98 wRC+ in the first season of the three-year, $42MM contract he signed to rejoin the D’Backs last offseason.
- The Padres will be activating Joe Musgrove from the 60-day injured list to start tomorrow’s game against the Pirates, after bone spurs in his right elbow cost him about two and a half months on the shelf. Talking with Kevin Acee of the San Diego Union-Tribune, Musgrove made changes to his mechanics and delivery in order to help manage the injury. “The spur is going to be there, the structure of the elbow is not going to change unless I get an operation,” Musgrove said. “So [I’m] trying to find a way to be able to throw and still execute and still have good stuff. Hopefully it will alleviate some of the stress on the elbow is kind of the goal….I felt great in this build back.” Between this injury and a previous elbow-related stint on the IL, Musgrove has thrown only 49 1/3 innings this season, with a shaky 5.66 ERA.
- Kendall Graveman wasn’t expected to pitch in 2024 after a shoulder surgery last January, but his hopes at an in-season comeback gained some momentum Saturday when he threw a 10-pitch bullpen session. Astros manager Joe Espada told reporters (including Matt Kawahara of the San Diego Union-Tribune) that Graveman hit 86-87mph in his first time throwing off a mound since the surgery. As Kawahara notes, there might simply be not enough time left in the season for Graveman to get fully ramped up and then complete a minor league rehab assignment, but that won’t stop the veteran from trying.
Rangers Select Matt Festa, DFA Brock Burke
The Rangers have selected right-hander Matt Festa‘s contract from Triple-A Round Rock, reports Evan Grant of the Dallas Morning News. To make room on the 40-man roster, the team has designated left-hander Brock Burke for assignment. In a pair of additional transactions, Texas placed right-hander Josh Sborz on the 15-day IL and recalled left-hander Walter Pennington from Triple-A.
Burke, 28, has struggled mightily this season. After getting off to a rough start in April, he missed two months with a fractured hand. He didn’t look sharp upon his return either, and the Rangers optioned him to Triple-A at the end of June. He was recalled earlier this month and continued to struggle. Overall, he has a 9.22 ERA and 4.30 SIERA in 13 appearances in the majors this season. He also has a 5.31 ERA in 16 appearances at Triple-A. The Rangers have little margin for error as they attempt to gain ground in the AL West, and evidently, they decided they could no longer afford to keep Burke on the roster. He showed tremendous promise in 2022 (1.97 ERA, 3.05 SIERA in 82 1/3 innings), but he has not been able to recapture that success over the past two years.
Festa, 31, does not have much of a track record in the major leagues; he has a 4.66 ERA and 3.96 SIERA over 90 games with the Mariners and Mets from 2018-24. However, he has looked sharp at Triple-A this year, with a 2.70 ERA and 3.10 FIP over 33 games in the Padres, Mets, and Rangers’ systems. He signed a minor league contract with Texas back in July and re-upped with the team after he was released in August.
Sborz, 30, was a postseason hero last fall, but he has, unfortunately, struggled with shoulder injuries in his follow-up campaign. He has a 3.38 ERA and 3.28 SIERA in 16 innings of work, but this is now his third trip to the IL. Pennington, 26, has made two brief appearances this season. He made his MLB debut for the Royals in July, facing two batters and recording two outs. Not long after, he was included in the trade that sent Michael Lorenzen to Kansas City. Pennington made his Rangers debut in August, and the results weren’t quite as strong. He gave up a solo home run and walked three batters over a single inning of work. He has a 2.13 ERA and 3.27 across 63 1/3 innings at Triple-A this year.
The Rangers have taxed their bullpen heavily over the second half of the season as they continue to deal with injuries to the starting rotation. Jon Gray and Max Scherzer both hit the IL just before the trade deadline and, most recently, Nathan Eovaldi has dealt with tightness in his right side. Grant notes that his next start, which would have been scheduled for Thursday against the Twins, will be pushed back or skipped entirely. José Ureña will remain in the rotation for the time being, and Grant suggests Dane Dunning will likely re-join the rotation on Wednesday to fill an open space caused by Saturday’s doubleheader. It is unclear who will start for Texas in Eovaldi’s place on Thursday.
AL West Notes: Verlander, Rodriguez, deGrom
Justin Verlander is slated to make a rehab start for Triple-A Sugar Land today, marking his first game action since June 9. Astros manager Joe Espada told reporters (including Matt Kawahara and Matt Young of the Houston Chronicle) that the loose plan is for Verlander to throw three innings or 50 pitches in the first of what is expected to be a two-outing rehab stint, though there’s plenty of fluidity built in as the 41-year-old ace works his way back from a neck strain.
If all goes well, Verlander would likely be activated for the start of the Astros’ series with the Orioles that begins on August 22. Verlander would become the sixth member of a six-man rotation Houston is planning to deploy during a busy stretch of the schedule, as after receiving three off-days within the first 15 days of August, the Astros then play every day from August 16 through September 2. Assuming Verlander returns in his usual top-of-the-rotation form, he’ll be a giant boost to a Houston team that is battling the Mariners for the AL West title, and will again be looking to make another deep playoff run. Between this neck problem and a season-opening bout of shoulder inflammation, Verlander has been limited to 57 innings in his 19th Major League season, but he has a solid 3.95 ERA when available to pitch.
More from around the AL West…
- Julio Rodriguez hasn’t played July 21 due to a high ankle sprain, but the Mariners outfielder has been taking part in some moderate-intensity running exercises as part of his recovery process. Manager Scott Servais told MLB.com and other media earlier this week that Rodriguez’s injury is viewed as a day-to-day situation by the team, as Rodriguez might be activated from the 10-day injured list without the need for a rehab assignment. “The swinging really isn’t the issue, from what [Rodriguez] said. It’s just more of the running and trying to get up to speed and taking the turns, things like that,” Servais noted. As such, Seattle could try using Rodriguez as a designated hitter if the team wants to take it easy on his ankle. The uncertain nature of high ankle sprains and the lack of a timetable makes it unclear when J-Rod might be back in action, but it could technically be as early as this coming week if he shows quick improvement and is able to run passably well.
- Jacob deGrom threw a live batting practice on Thursday, with Rangers skipper Bruce Bochy telling reporters (including Evan Grant of the Dallas Morning News) that deGrom will have another live BP session during the Rangers’ upcoming August 12-14 series in Boston. This is the first time deGrom had faced live hitters during his rehab from a June 2023 Tommy John surgery, and the four-time All-Star remains on pace with the standard 13-14 month recovery timeline. Since he’ll have a third bullpen session and then a minor league rehab assignment, deGrom might not return to the Texas roster before the end of August, but the veteran should be able to log some big league innings before 2024 is out, and gain some peace of mind about his health heading into the offseason.
Dodgers, Rangers Had Interest In Blake Snell Prior To Trade Deadline
Blake Snell was still wearing a San Francisco uniform once the July 30 trade deadline passed, as the Giants’ big asking price and the team’s own desire to retain its ace for the playoff hunt ended whatever chance existed of a blockbuster move. Reports linked such teams as the Orioles, Padres, Yankees, Mets, and Cubs to Snell’s market in some capacity, and the New York Post’s Jon Heyman writes that the Dodgers and Rangers also among the clubs “to check in” on Snell’s availability.
The degree of interest shown for either club isn’t known, and Heyman’s “check in” phrasing implies something of a due-diligence exploration to see how open the Giants might’ve been about moving Snell, and what it might’ve taken to land the southpaw. Snell would naturally be an upgrade to any rotation, particularly for teams like the Dodgers and Rangers who have been dealing with pitching injuries all season.
Considering how the Giants and Dodgers have made only two trades with each other since the 1968 season, it is hard to imagine San Francisco seriously considered dealing an ace pitcher to their arch-rivals down the California coast. Even though Giants president of baseball operations Farhan Zaidi worked as the Dodgers’ GM before being hired in his current job, it’s probably safe to guess that whatever talks Zaidi had with his old boss Andrew Friedman about Snell were fairly brief in nature. Los Angeles instead landed Jack Flaherty as its biggest pitching prize of deadline season, and will be counting on Flaherty and some injured pitchers returning from the IL to bolster the staff heading down the stretch and into October.
Landing Snell would’ve completely overturned an otherwise quiet deadline for Texas, as the Rangers brought Andrew Chafin and Carson Kelly into the fold in separate trades with the Tigers, while Michael Lorenzen was dealt to the Royals. The modest set of moves underscored the Rangers’ uncertainty about making a push with a roster that has underachieved for most of the season. Texas had gotten up to a 51-52 record on July 25, but have since lost nine of their last 12 games, probably closing the door on a defense of their World Series title.
Similar to the Dodgers, Texas has also been playing without most of its first-choice rotation for the better part of the year. Several arms were slated to make returns at midseason, but Max Scherzer‘s return was short-lived, and other pitchers (such as Jon Gray) have since gotten hurt in the interim. A win-now move like acquiring Snell might’ve backfired if the rest of the roster wasn’t up to par, so it could be that the Rangers also had something of a cursory interest in Snell’s services.
Beyond just this trade deadline, however, these teams’ interest in Snell could extend to the offseason. Snell can opt out of the second year of his Giants contract to re-enter free agency, which now seems to be likely given Snell’s incredible results since returning from the IL last month. (As Heyman hears from two rival general managers, “it would take a ‘catastrophic’ or ‘debilitating’ injury for Snell to exercise” his 2025 player option and remain in San Francisco.) Texas has a lot of money coming off the books this winter and Los Angeles is always open to signing top free agents, so these could be two teams to monitor if and when Snell hits the open market.