Marlins Outright Stephen Jones
Right-hander Stephen Jones has been sent outright to Triple-A Jacksonville, according to his transactions tracker at MLB.com. That indicates he cleared waivers after being designated for assignment last week.
It’s been a strange week for Jones, who started the season with Double-A Pensacola after signing a minor league deal with the Marlins. Miami added him to the big league roster on May 7th. He explained to members of the media, including Kevin Barral of Fish on First, that he had just been promoted to Triple-A. He sat in the bullpen for one game without being used by the Jumbo Shrimp before being told he was going to the big leagues. He didn’t pitch for the Marlins that night and was designated for assignment the next day.
It appears that Jones was nothing more than an emergency arm. The Fish had designated Chris Paddack for assignment on May 5th and would eventually give his rotation spot to Robby Snelling on the 8th. In the interim, they had an extra bullpen spot to use. They first recalled William Kempner for Paddack. After Kempner tossed on inning on the 5th, they optioned him out for Dax Fulton. Then Fulton tossed four innings on the 6th. Since he wasn’t going to be available for a few days, they swapped him out for Jones. They didn’t use Jones and then bumped him off the roster for Snelling.
The end result of all that shuffling is that Jones is now in position to potentially be a phantom player, one who makes a major league roster but never appears in a game. This is his first outright and he has less than three years of service time, so he has to accept the assignment.
He started this year with 16 2/3 innings at Double-A with a 3.24 earned run average. His 25.7% strikeout rate and 46.3% ground ball rates were good but he walked 17.6% of hitters who came to the plate. His previous stints in Triple-A have not gone well, with a 12.60 ERA in 60 innings at the top minor league level. He’ll look to post better results going forward in order to get back onto the roster.
Photo courtesy of Jim Rassol, Imagn Images
Blue Jays Designate Eric Lauer For Assignment, Place Addison Barger On IL
The Blue Jays announced that left-hander Eric Lauer has been designated for assignment. His roster spot goes to right-hander Yariel Rodríguez. It was reported yesterday that the Jays would be selecting Rodriguez to the roster. The Jays also placed infielder/outfielder Addison Barger on the 10-day injured list, retroactive to May 10th, with right elbow inflammation. Outfielder Yohendrick Pinango has been recalled to take Barger’s spot.
It’s been quite a rollercoaster ride for Lauer and the Blue Jays. He signed a minor league deal with the club heading into the 2025 season. He was added to the major league roster in late April as the Jays were dealing with some injuries and some poor performances.
Lauer ended up sticking around and played a notable role in the club’s strong season. Often getting shuffled between the rotation and the bullpen, Lauer made 15 starts and 13 relief appearances. On the whole, he logged 104 2/3 innings with a 3.18 earned run average, 23.9% strikeout rate and 6.1% walk rate. He added another 8 2/3 innings in the postseason with a 3.12 ERA, as the Jays went all the way to Game Seven of the World Series.
From there, things have turned sour, both in terms of performance and Lauer’s relationship with the club. The Jays retained him for 2026 via arbitration but the two sides couldn’t agree on a salary, eventually going to a hearing. It was a unique case because Lauer had been in arbitration before and raised his salary to $5.075MM in 2023. But he struggled and lost his roster spot, spending 2024 in the minors and in Korea, before having a bounceback with the Jays in 2025.
He filed at $5.75MM and the Jays at $4.4MM. The club won. He appeared to be frustrated by that outcome, telling Hazel Mae of Sportsnet that he felt his earning power was damaged by getting bumped to the bullpen late in the year when the Jays acquired Shane Bieber and called up Trey Yesavage.
Coming into 2026, there was a time where it looked like Lauer would again be pushed to a bullpen role. The Jays had signed Dylan Cease and Cody Ponce, in addition to re-signing Max Scherzer. With those three joining Kevin Gausman, José Berríos, Yesavage and Bieber, it looked like quite a crowded group. Lauer again seemed less than enthused, telling reporters that he preferred to be a starter.
In the end, he got his wish. Berríos, Bieber and Yesavage started the season on the IL. Yesavage has since been activated but the Jays have also lost Ponce and Scherzer to the IL. The injuries were enough for Lauer to get a rotation spot, even with Patrick Corbin being signed to jump into the mix.
But Lauer’s results haven’t been nearly as good as last year’s. He has made eight appearances this year. Technically, only six of those were starts, as he pitched behind an opener twice. That was something he also wasn’t happy about, per Keegan Matheson of MLB.com. “To be real blunt, I hate it. I can’t stand it,” he said. He added that the switch messed with his habits as a starter.
Whether it’s due to his routine being messed up or residual effects from batting the flu earlier this year, Lauer has a 6.69 ERA on the season. His 16% strikeout rate and 9.9% walk rate are both significantly worse than last year. His fastball has only averaged 90.4 miles per hour on the year. That’s a big drop from last year’s 91.7 mph, which was on the low end to begin with.
Perhaps the combination of the poor numbers and Lauer repeatedly going public with his frustrations has prompted the Jays to move on, even though they don’t have an obvious rotation solution and the schedule is about to get tricky. Subtracting Lauer leaves them with Gausman, Cease, Yesavage and Corbin in four spots. It doesn’t appear as though any of the guys on the IL are close to returning, so the club will need to figure out something by next week. They start a series against the Rays tonight, with Gausman, Corbin and Cease lined up. They are off on Thursday but then play 17 in a row after that.
Perhaps they will opt for some sort of bullpen game and/or piggyback situation. Spencer Miles has been pitching reasonably well and went three innings in front of Lauer yesterday, though that would be risky since he is so inexperienced. Miles came into this year as a Rule 5 guy with only 14 2/3 minor league innings under his belt, none above Low-A. Rodríguez has starting experience and pitched two innings in his most recent minor league outing. They could call up someone else from Triple-A, with Josh Fleming, Austin Voth, CJ Van Eyk, Chad Dallas and Grant Rogers all pitching in the Triple-A rotation at the moment, though no one in that group is currently on the 40-man roster. They could scoop up an external addition, with Chris Paddack being one starter who just became a free agent.
Lauer heads into DFA limbo, which can last as long as a week. The waiver process takes 48 hours, so the Jays could take as long as five days to explore trade interest. Given his salary and recent performance, he probably doesn’t have a lot of trade value.
If he were to clear outright waivers, he has enough service time to reject an outright assignment and elect free agency while keeping his money. The Jays might skip that formality and simply release him. If that comes to pass, they would remain on the hook for the contract. Any other club could sign him and pay him the prorated league minimum, which would be subtracted from what the Jays pay.
Barger’s IL placement is frustrating, since he just came off the IL due to a separate issue. He got out to a slow start this year and hit the IL due to a left ankle sprain. He was reinstated off the IL and was only able to play one game before this elbow inflammation has put him right back on the shelf. That’s less than ideal for the Jays as injuries have played a big role in their season so far. In addition to the aforementioned pitching issues, they have seen Barger, George Springer, Alejandro Kirk, Nathan Lukes and Anthony Santander miss time. Those injuries have surely contributed to a lackluster 18-22 start this year.
Now that Barger is out again, the Jays will return to having an outfield group consisting of Daulton Varsho, Myles Straw, Davis Schneider, Jesús Sánchez and Pinango. They just optioned Pinango when Barger got healthy but he has quickly come back. Position players normally have to wait ten days after being optioned before being recalled but an exception is made when someone goes on the IL. Pinango has a .423/.444/.462 line this year but with an unsustainable .478 batting average on balls in play, so he’s surely due for some regression.
Photo courtesy of Nick Turchiaro, Imagn Images
Rays Outright Justyn-Henry Malloy
The Rays announced Monday that outfielder Justyn-Henry Malloy cleared waivers and was assigned outright to Triple-A Durham. Tampa Bay designated him for assignment over the weekend. Malloy doesn’t have a prior outright or three years of major league service, so he doesn’t have the choice to reject the assignment and opt for free agency. He’ll remain in the organization as non-roster depth.
Malloy came to the Rays in a cash swap with the Tigers back in January. Detroit had previously designated him for assignment. The 26-year-old was a sixth-round pick by Atlanta back in 2019 and went to Detroit as the headline piece in in 2022’s Joe Jimenez swap. At the time, Malloy wasn’t a nationally ranked prospect but was a clear arrow-up commodity, having slashed .289/.408/.454 between Double-A (54 games) and Triple-A (eight games) during his age-22 season. He continued to post terrific Triple-A numbers in parts of three seasons with the Tigers’ Toledo affiliate, but Malloy still hasn’t hit in the majors.
Granted, the Tigers never gave Malloy a full season of big league at-bats to figure things out, but that’s a tough order for a win-now club with a young player who’s struggling at the plate. For all his minor league success, Malloy flailed away with a .203/.291/.366 line through 71 games as a rookie in 2024. He struck out in a whopping 37% of his 230 plate appearances. Things were better in a smaller sample last year, when Malloy batted .221/.346/.308 in 127 turns at the plate and scaled his strikeout rate back to 25.2%.
That’s still below-average production, however, and any hope for a rebound following a change of scenery has been dashed with a catastrophically poor performance in Durham thus far. Malloy has stepped into the batter’s box 132 times over the course of 34 games and recorded an anemic .128/.273/.266 batting line. By measure of wRC+, that’s 55% worse than average in the Triple-A International League. Malloy has walked at a stout 15.2% clip but also gone down on strikes in 31.1% of his plate appearances. He’s not impacting the ball when he does make contact, either; his 30.4% hard-hit rate is the lowest of his career in any Triple-A or MLB season.
Given the big league struggles and Malloy’s calamitous start to the season, it’s not particularly surprising that he passed through waivers. He’ll try to get back on track and force his way up for a major league look with Tampa Bay, but he has a long road ahead of him if he’s to play himself back into big league consideration.
Mets Outright Eric Wagaman
The Mets have sent infielder/outfielder Eric Wagaman outright to Triple-A Syracuse, according to his transactions tracker at MLB.com. That indicates he cleared waivers after being designated for assignment last week.
Wagaman, 28, has never appeared in a big league game as a Met. He was claimed off waivers at the end of April and optioned to Triple-A Syracuse. He was briefly recalled at one point but then was optioned again without appearing in a game.
It’s possible the Mets had this outcome in mind when they claimed him. They only rostered him for about a week. Since this is Wagaman’s first career outright and he has less than three years of service time, he doesn’t have the right to elect free agency. The Mets will therefore get to keep him in the system without him taking up a roster spot.
Both Wagaman and the Mets will presumably be focused on getting him into a nice groove at the plate. From 2022 to 2024, he made 897 plate appearances in the minors. His 9.5% walk rate and 16.9% strikeout rate in that span were both strong figures. He hit 35 home runs. He produced a combined batting line of .276/.348/.473, leading to a 131 wRC+, indicating he was 31% better than league average.
That got him up to the majors late in 2024 with the Angels and he spent the entire 2025 season in the big leagues with the Marlins. But between those two clubs, he slashed .250/.293/.381 for a wRC+ of 85. His strikeout rate was still good but he wasn’t drawing walks as much as he did on the farm. He also hit just 11 home runs in 588 plate appearances.
It’s clear that teams still see some potential. The Marlins designated him for assignment in December but they were able to get minor league pitcher Kade Bragg from the Twins in a trade. Wagaman scuffled in Triple-A to start this year, hitting .159/.284/.254 in 18 games. That led to him being designated for assignment again, this time claimed by the Mets.
If Wagaman can get back to that strong form he showed from 2022 to 2024, the Mets could consider calling him up if they have a need in the majors. Wagaman has experience at the four corner spots, though he’s played mostly first base. The Mets have the worst record in baseball at 15-25 and would be in position to sell guys at the deadline if they don’t turn things around. That’s not a position the club wants to be in but the upside is that they can experiment with fringe guys down the stretch to see if anything clicks.
Photo courtesy of Nathan Ray Seebeck, Imagn Images
Pirates Re-Sign Ryan Harbin To Minor League Deal
The Pirates have re-signed right-hander Ryan Harbin to a minor league deal, according to his transactions tracker at MLB.com. He has been assigned to Triple-A Indianapolis but likely won’t appear in a game for that club immediately due to injury.
Harbin, 24, was added to Pittsburgh’s 40-man roster in November. The Bucs didn’t want to lose him in the Rule 5 draft after an intriguing 2025 season. His 4.69 earned run average didn’t look great but there were other numbers with more allure. His 16% walk rate was way too high but he struck out 31.9% of opponents and induced grounders on 45.5% of balls in play. He got some bad luck from a .361 batting average on balls in play and 66.1% strand rate, which is why his 3.41 FIP was more than a run lower than his ERA.
He could have worked his way into a big league opportunity here in 2026 but that hasn’t played out so far, as he suffered a teres major injury in February. That injury came with a six-week shutdown period. He was placed on the 60-day injured list in the minors in mid-March.
In late April, the Pirates needed a 40-man spot for Chris Devenski. They could have recalled Harbin and put him on the 60-day IL in the majors, but doing so would have meant paying Harbin a big league salary and giving him major league service time. They decided to go another way, cutting him from the roster. Injured players can’t be put on outright waivers, so the Bucs had to release him.
That put them at risk of Harbin signing elsewhere, but it seems it worked out okay from the team’s perspective. The Pirates now get to keep him without using a roster spot and without paying him big league money. Once he recovers from his injury, he’ll look to get back on track and hopefully earn his way back onto the roster.
Photo courtesy of Kim Klement Neitzel, Imagn Images
White Sox Sign Dustin Harris To Minor League Deal
The White Sox brought outfielder Dustin Harris back on a minor league deal, the team announced. He’s headed to Triple-A Charlotte. Harris was with the South Siders earlier this season but went to the Astros on waivers last month. Houston designated him for assignment last week, and Harris opted for free agency over an outright assignment upon clearing waivers.
The 26-year-old Harris has taken 102 plate appearances in the majors across parts of three seasons and turned in a .225/.307/.371 slash. He logged a career-high 52 plate appearances with the ‘Stros this year and hit .233/.333/.302 before being cut loose.
Harris was once a notable prospect in the Rangers system but hasn’t found success in the big leagues yet. He’s always had a bat-first profile with strong contact skills but power that plays closer to average. In parts of four Triple-A seasons, he’s a .276/.366/.417 hitter with a big 11.2% walk rate and a 20.4% strikeout rate that’s lower than the major league average. Harris fanned only seven times in his 52 plate appearances with Houston (13.5%).
Harris was drafted as a corner infielder but has been almost exclusively an outfielder in recent seasons. He’s played 21 innings at first base over the past three seasons and none at third base (majors and minors combined). He’s never played the infield in the big leagues but does have experience in all three outfield spots.
Bringing Harris back gives the ChiSox a left-handed bat to stash in Triple-A, but they apparently don’t feel there’s an immediate opening for him in the majors. The Sox are going with top prospect Sam Antonacci in left field, Tristan Peters in center field and former top prospect Jarred Kelenic more often that not at the moment. Veteran Andrew Benintendi remains in the left field/DH mix, and the Sox also have veterans Randal Grichuk and Derek Hill on the bench. Infielder/outfielder Luisangel Acuña can play all over but has seen his playing time dwindle as his struggles at the plate mount. Austin Hays and Everson Pereira give the Sox two more outfielders to consider in the big league mix, but both are on the 10-day IL with relatively short-term injuries at the moment.
Marlins Release Chris Paddack
The Marlins have released right-hander Chris Paddack, according to his transactions tracker at MLB.com. He had been designated for assignment last week. It seems the Marlins took a few days to explore trades but couldn’t find a deal to their liking, so he’s been sent out to the open market.
The Fish signed Paddack to a one-year, $4MM deal in the offseason. The club had traded Edward Cabrera and Ryan Weathers in order to add a number of young players to their system. They then hoped that Paddack could cheaply replace some of the lost rotation innings.
They quickly pulled the plug on that experiment when it didn’t work out. Paddack made seven appearances for Miami, tossing 30 2/3 innings and allowing 7.63 earned runs per nine. They decided to give his rotation spot to prospect Robby Snelling, who had been pitching well in the minors. Paddack has more than enough service time to reject an outright assignment and keep his money, so the Fish have skipped that formality and simply released him instead.
Though the Marlins couldn’t swing a deal for Paddack, teams are now presumably interested in buying low on him. Miami will remain on the hook for the remainder of Paddack’s salary. Another club could sign him and would only have to pay him the prorated league minimum for any time spent on the roster. That amount would be subtracted from what the Marlins pay.
The interest will be muted by Paddack’s results. Since a strong rookie year in 2019 where he posted a 3.33 ERA, he has a 5.23 ERA over the seven subsequent seasons. For what it’s worth, this year’s numbers probably overstate how poorly he pitched. His 18.5% strikeout rate and 39.3% ground ball rate were a few ticks worse than average but his 6.8% walk rate was quite strong, a usual strength of his. His .343 batting average on balls in play and 57.3% strand rate were both to the unfortunate side. His 4.97 FIP and 4.26 SIERA suggested he deserved far better.
It’s maybe not the most exciting thing to look at a pitcher with an ERA over 7.00 and squint for optimism but Paddack is cheap and can at least take on some innings. That could be useful for some club, especially with so many teams dealing with mounting injuries.
Photo courtesy of Rhona Wise, Imagn Images
A’s To Promote Henry Bolte
The Athletics are calling up outfield prospect Henry Bolte, as first reported by Terrel Emerson. He’s not on the 40-man roster, but the A’s have a vacancy there, so they’ll only need to make a corresponding 26-man roster move when they formally select Bolte’s contract.
A 2022 second-round pick, Bolte is the hottest-hitting prospect in baseball at the moment. He recently rattled off hits in 12 consecutive plate appearances (video link) and is sitting on a .348/.418/.658 batting line (157 wRC+) with a dozen homers, seven doubles, three triples, 17 steals (in 19 tries), a 9.6% walk rate and a 22% strikeout rate in 177 Triple-A plate appearances. He’s averaging 90.4 mph off the bat to go along with a strong 43% hard-hit rate.
The A’s young outfield has impressed in recent seasons, but both Tyler Soderstrom and Lawrence Butler have fallen short of expectations thus far. Soderstrom is hitting .207/.293/.407. Butler is at just .179/.278/.282 on the season. Both players have been plagued by BABIP marks that are about 60 points shy of league average despite quality batted-ball profiles. Soderstrom and Butler are both averaging better than 90 mph off the bat with a hard-hit rate just over 48%. They’re also both walking in at least 11% of their plate appearances. Both stand as candidates for positive regression based on the strength of their contact.
Soderstrom and Butler typically man the outfield corners. However, center fielder Denzel Clarke has been out of action for a few weeks due to a bone bruise in his left foot, which has given Butler some time in center. The A’s have also given former second baseman Zack Gelof some run in center, and he’s hit well in the new role, batting .274/.328/.484 in a small sample of 69 plate appearances. His batted-ball fortune is on the other end of the spectrum, about 50 points higher than league average, at .341. In all likelihood, his slash stats will come down a bit, but Gelof is still enjoying his most productive stretch since 2023.
It’s not fully clear how the outfield mix will be tweaked to accommodate Bolte. He’s played primarily center field. The A’s aren’t calling him up to sit on the bench in a backup role, so it seems like Bolte will handle center field regularly. Soderstrom and Butler could play full-time corner roles, with Gelof perhaps mixing in across all three spots in addition to work at second base and third base. It might be natural to think he could platoon in right field with the lefty-swinging Butler, who’s just a career .221/.262/.378 hitter versus lefties, but the righty-swinging Gelof has been even worse against lefties in his own career: .157/.238/.252. The A’s do have some infield injuries at the moment, with Max Muncy on the IL and Jacob Wilson possibly joining him there.
However it shakes out, Bolte is likely going to play every day. He’s ranked fifth among A’s prospects at MLB.com, seventh at Baseball America and tenth at FanGraphs. Bolte topped the latest Prospect Hot Sheet at Baseball America, where J.J. Cooper noted that he’s still a bit too prone to getting beaten in the zone but has developing power and can absolutely punish in-zone mistakes.
There’s not enough time left in the season for Bolte to accrue a full year of major league service, so even if he sticks from here on out, he’ll be controllable six more years beyond the current season. The May timing of his promotion means he’ll qualify as a Super Two player if he stays up for good, making him eligible for arbitration four times rather than the standard three. Then again, if Bolte hits the ground running, the A’s could always look to render that Super Two trajectory moot by signing him long term, as they’ve done with Soderstrom, Butler, shortstop Jacob Wilson and designated hitter Brent Rooker over the past couple years.
Cubs Outright Corbin Martin
May 11: Martin cleared waivers and has been assigned outright to Triple-A Iowa, per the MiLB.com transaction log. He’s been outrighted before, so he’ll have the right to elect free agency if he chooses.
May 7: The Cubs announced Thursday that righty Corbin Martin has been designated for assignment. His roster spot will go to fellow right-handed reliever Gavin Hollowell, who has been recalled from Triple-A Iowa.
Martin signed a minor league deal with Chicago back in January. His contract was selected to the major league roster in mid-April, and he’s appeared in seven games with sub-par results. The 2017 second-rounder (Astros) started out nicely, with four shutout innings, but he’s allowed runs in three consecutive appearances and only completed one inning in that time. Over those three outings, Martin has faced 11 batters and yielded four hits (two of them homers) and four walks en route to six earned runs.
Now 30 years old, Martin was a highly regarded prospect, going from Houston to Arizona as part of the 2019 Zack Greinke blockbuster. Injuries have consistently hampered him, however. He’s pitched in parts of five major league seasons between Houston, Arizona, Baltimore and now Chicago, totaling 80 2/3 innings with a 6.81 earned run average. Since being drafted, he’s undergone Tommy John surgery and surgery to repair a ruptured tendon in his lat. The first procedure wiped out his entire 2020 season and a good portion of the 2021 campaign. The second cost him all of the 2023 season.
The Cubs will have five days to trade Martin, place him on outright waivers or release him. Outright waivers are a 48-hour process, meaning his DFA will be resolved within the next week.
Blue Jays To Select Yariel Rodriguez’s Contract
The Blue Jays will be selecting the contract of right-hander Yariel Rodriguez from Triple-A Buffalo, according to reporter Francys Romero. Sportsnet’s Ben Nicholson-Smith and Shi Davidi note that Rodriguez will be added to the roster prior to Monday’s game with the Rays. Toronto has only 39 players on its 40-man roster, so only a 26-man move will need to be made as the corresponding move for Rodriguez’s arrival.
After signing a five-year, $32MM contract with the Jays prior to the 2024 season, Rodriguez debuted in the Show by posting a 4.47 ERA, 23.1% strikeout rate, and 10.9% walk rate over 86 2/3 innings. While Rodriguez technically started all 21 of his games in 2024, he was used as an opener or piggyback starter on several occasions. Rodriguez then made just one “start” as an opener in 2025, and otherwise worked in a relief role while posting a 3.08 ERA, 22.1K%, and 11.4BB% over 73 innings and 66 appearances.
The poor walk rates are the most obvious red flag from Rodriguez’s first two MLB seasons, and his strikeout rates have sat only around league average. His 4.27 SIERA from the 2025 season is a better reflection of his performance than the 3.08 ERA, as Rodriguez benefited from a .228 BABIP and an 81.2% strand rate. On the plus side, the move to the bullpen helped Rodriguez bump his fastball up to 95.7mph (from 93.9mph in 2024), and he did a good job of limiting hard contact, though the righty allowed eight homers in his 73 frames.
The Blue Jays made the decision to outright Rodriguez to Triple-A back in December, removing him from the 40-man roster. The Jays probably wouldn’t have been too upset if another club had claimed Rodriguez off waivers and removed the $17MM in remaining salary off Toronto’s books, yet that same salary may have been the reason the Blue Jays felt confident in outrighting Rodriguez just to clear a 40-man slot.
After delivering a 1.50 ERA over six relief innings for Cuba during the World Baseball Classic, Rodriguez has a 2.63 ERA and a whopping 43.1% strikeout rate over 13 2/3 innings for Buffalo this season. These standout numbers are undermined, however, by a 15.5% walk rate, as Rodriguez’s control has become an even bigger concern. This makes Rodriguez an interesting addition to a Jays bullpen that entered Sunday’s action leading the majors in strikeout rate (26.1%) while also tied for the second-lowest walk rate (8.3%) for any relief corps in the sport.
Mason Fluharty hasn’t pitched well and he has two minor league options, though optioning Fluharty to make room for Rodriguez would leave Joe Mantiply as the only left-hander in Toronto’s bullpen. Among the right-handers, Tommy Nance is out of options, and Rule 5 pick Spencer Miles can’t be optioned to the minors without first being offered back to the Giants. (Miles is also pitching so well that the Jays are surely keeping him around.) Unless there is an unknown injury impacting the pitching staff, it will be interesting to see what the corresponding move is when Rodriguez is officially selected.