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Minor Moves: Angel Castro, Bruce Billings

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Here are today’s minor moves from around the league…

  • The Athletics have acquired righty Angel Castro from the Cardinals in exchange for cash considerations, St. Louis announced. Castro, a 31-year-old righty, has never seen MLB action. He owns a 4.01 ERA through 94 1/3 frames on the year at Triple-A, spending time both as a starter and reliever, and has posted 6.0 K/9 against 2.5 BB/9.
  • Right-hander Bruce Billings, who was released by the Yankees last week, has inked a minor league pact with the Dodgers, reports MLB Daily Dish’s Chris Cotillo (on Twitter). Billings, 28, allowed four runs in four innings for the Yanks this season and has struggled in the minors as well, posting a 5.06 ERA with a 54-to-27 K/BB ratio in 80 innings (15 starts) for Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre. Billings’ career marks of a 4.37 ERA and 7.8 K/9 rate at the Triple-A level are noticeably better.

Pirates Designate Ernesto Frieri For Assignment

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The Pirates have designated reliever Ernesto Frieri for assignment, Rob Biertempfel of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reports on Twitter. Frieri, 29, came to Pittsburgh in a swap of struggling closers at the end of June.

While his trade counterpart, Jason Grilli, has thrived in his new environs, Frieri has continued to struggle since the swap. Frieri has allowed 12 earned runs in 10 2/3 frames with the Bucs, while striking out ten and walking five batters. Frieri had at least shown with the Angels that he was still capable of missing bats (11.0 K/9) and limiting walks (2.6 BB/9), even if the results were still poor, but obviously those marks too have taken a downturn.

Frieri is earning $3.8MM in his first year of arbitration eligibility. This likely means two things: First, he seems fairly likely to get through waivers, and the Pirates could well welcome a claim anyway. And if he is instead stashed at Triple-A for the time being, Frieri will likely end up as a non-tender after the season.

Rangers Designate Jerome Williams For Assignment

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Rangers executive vice president of communications John Blake has announced (via Twitter) that right-hander Jerome Williams has been designated for assignment in order to clear roster space for Geovany Soto, who has been officially activated from the disabled list.

The 32-year-old veteran made a pair of starts for the Rangers and had wildly different results in the two outings. Williams hurled a strong quality start in his first game, yielding just one run on five hits and no walks with four strikeouts in six innings against a tough Oakland lineup. In his second start with Texas, however, the Indians rocked him for 10 runs on 13 hits in just four innings.

Overall, Williams has a 6.71 ERA this season while playing for both Texas teams — the Rangers and Astros. That’s a far cry from the solid work he put together from 2011-13, when he turned in a 4.46 ERA in 351 innings as a swingman for the division-rival Angels.

Placed On Revocable Waivers: Friday

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With the July 31 non-waiver trade deadline behind us, Major League teams must place players on revocable trade waivers in order to deal them to another club. A player that clears waivers can be dealt to any team, while a player that is claimed on waivers can be dealt to that team only (within 48.5 hours) or simply pulled back off waivers. A player can be placed on waivers a second time after being pulled back, but the waivers are no longer revocable the second time.

Here’s Friday’s rundown of which players have been placed on revocable waivers…

  • Both Ichiro Suzuki and Brendan Ryan have been placed on revocable waivers by the Yankees, reports George A. King III of the New York Post. Neither player has hit much this season, with the 40-year-old Ichiro slashing .276/.324/.321 and the 32-year-old Ryan hitting just .214/.263/.257. Both come with good defensive reputations despite their light bats. Ichiro, guaranteed $1.85MM through season’s end, is a free agent this winter. Ryan has $568K of this season’s $2MM salary remaining and is guaranteed $2MM in 2015 as well. He has a $1MM player option for the 2016 campaign.
  • Nick Cafardo of the Boston Globe reports that the Red Sox have placed left-hander Craig Breslow and infielder Kelly Johnson on revocable waivers (Twitter link). Breslow, who turns 34 today, has struggled this year and endured a rough patch of late, surrendering a dozen runs in his past 15 2/3 innings. The typically effective southpaw has been hit hard by both righties and lefties en route to a 5.01 ERA this season. He’s owed $1.09MM through year’s end, plus a $100K buyout on a $4MM option.
  • Johnson, 32, has been on the disabled list since being acquired by the Red Sox in exchange for Stephen Drew at the deadline. He batted .219/.304/.373 with the Yankees this year and is owed $852K through the end of the year. While Johnson is a versatile piece that has in the past offered both power and speed, he’s hit just six homers this year. Still, he could serve as a low-cost bench addition to a contending team.
  • The Mets have placed Curtis Granderson on revocable waivers, according to ESPN’s Jayson Stark (via ESPN New York colleague Adam Rubin). Granderson, 33, is hitting .224/.330/.392 with 15 homers and eight steals in the first year of a four-year, $60MM pact inked with the Mets. He’s owed $3.69MM through season’s end plus another $47MM from 2015-17, making for a total of $50.69MM remaining on his deal. Granderson got off to a terrible start but is hitting .249/.353/.443 with 14 homers since May 1. Then again, he’s also been slumping of late. A claim seems unlikely, given the sizable sum remaining on his contract. If Granderson goes unclaimed, he could be dealt to any team, but that also seems unlikely in the first year of a four-year contract.
  • Of note is that Stark also reports that Bartolo Colon has yet to hit waivers, though one would expect that the Mets will run him through the process at some point.

For a more complete explanation of how revocable trade waivers and August trades work, check out MLBTR’s August Trades primer. You can also check out MLBTR’s list of players that have cleared revocable waivers to see who is eligible to be traded to any team.

Yankees Designate Matt Daley For Assignment

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The Yankees have recalled right-hander Bryan Mitchell from Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre and designated fellow righty Matt Daley for assignment, the team announced via press release.

This marks the third time that the up-and-down Daley has been designated this season. The 32-year-old has appeared in a total of 14 1/3 innings with the Yankees, posting a 5.02 ERA with 10 strikeouts against six walks and one hit batter. In 100 2/3 career innings between the Rockies and Yankees, Daley has a 4.47 ERA with a very solid 98-to-36 K/BB ratio, but his average fastball velocity dipped below 86 mph in 2014.

Mitchell, a 16th-round pick in 2009, will be making his big league debut the first time he takes the hill for the Yankees. He has a 4.27 ERA overall in the minors this season, but his numbers improved after jumping from Double-A Trenton to Triple-A. In 25 frames with Scranton/Wilkes-Barre, Mitchell notched a 2.88 ERA with a 21-to-10 K/BB ratio in five starts.

Phillies Pull Hamels Back From Waivers

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1:53pm: The Phillies have pulled Hamels back off waivers after the two sides were unable to strike a deal, tweets Paul Sulivan of the Chicago Tribune.

FRIDAY, 8:43am: In an updated version of his original article, Wittenmyer writes that the Cubs may prefer to add an ace-caliber starter via free agency this winter. They’ll have multiple options to do so with Max Scherzer, James Shields and Jon Lester (whom Cubs president Theo Epstein and GM Jed Hoyer know well) hitting the open market. Jon Heyman of CBS Sports hears the same, reporting that the Cubs are “expected to be aggressive” on the free agent market.

THURSDAY: As many have been speculating since Cole Hamels was placed on revocable waivers, the Cubs have indeed been awarded the claim on the Philadelphia ace, Mike Missanelli of ESPN 97.5 in Philadelphia first tweeted. However, Gordon Wittenmyer of the Chicago Sun-Times reports that a deal is almost certainly not going to happen. The Phillies, according to Wittenmyer’s sources, have asked the Cubs for one of their prized young shortstops as the centerpiece to a trade. Because both Starlin Castro and Javier Baez are already on the 40-man roster and would therefore be subject to revocable waivers themselves, Addison Russell (and others) is the likely asking price, according to Wittenmyer.

The two sides will have 48.5 hours from the moment of the claim in order to work out a trade. Any 40-man roster players to change hands in a theoretical deal would also need to clear waivers. If and when the two sides decide that a deal cannot be reached, the Phillies can simply pull Hamels back off waivers. Hamels’ contract does allow him to block trades to 20 teams, but as ESPN’s Jayson Stark reported earlier today, the Cubs are not one of those 20 clubs. So, in the unlikely event that a deal is agreed upon, Hamels would have no say in vetoing the transaction.

While the Cubs have the financial capability to assume the remaining $100MM+ on Hamels’ contract and the prospect depth to acquire nearly any available player via trade, Wittenmyer reports that the team has “no desire” to use both surpluses on a single player.

It’s certainly not outlandish for the Phillies to ask for Russell and other high-end prospects in order to part with Hamels. The Cubs, after all, acquired Russell (along with 2013 first-rounder Billy McKinney and controllable starter Dan Straily) in exchange for a year and a half of Jeff Samardzija’s services and three months of Jason Hammel.

Clearly, Hamels has more long-term value than the combination of the two arms the Cubs sent to Oakland. While his salary is sizable, a $22.5MM annual commitment is actually below-market for a top-of-the-rotation arm, which Hamels clearly is. He’s pitched to a 2.42 ERA with 9.1 K/9, 2.6 BB/9 and a 46.9 percent ground-ball rate in 137 1/3 innings this season. He’s controlled through the 2018 season at that same $22.5MM rate, and his vesting option for the 2019 campaign comes with a $6MM buyout. However, if the Phils truly wish to shop Hamels — and there’s been little to no indication that they do — they’d likely be better suited to wait until the offseason, when all 29 other teams could bid for his services and potentially drive up the price.

For those who are unfamiliar with revocable waivers or post-July 31 trading, check out MLBTR’s primer on August trades.

Cubs Designate Ryan Kalish For Assignment

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The Cubs have designated outfielder Ryan Kalish for assignment in order to clear roster space for the newly acquired Jacob Turner, reports MLB.com’s Carrie Muskat (Twitter link).

The 26-year-old Kalish was once considered among baseball’s top 100 prospects by both Baseball America and Baseball Prospectus, but he’s never been able to capitalize on the tools that resulted in that hype, due in large part to a series of neck and shoulder surgeries. In an even 100 plate appearances with the Cubs this season, he batted .242/.303/.330 — numbers that aren’t much of an improvement over his career .243/.296/.346 batting line.

Kalish, a former ninth-round pick, has a .245/.319/.391 triple-slash in his career at the Triple-A level. He’s capable of playing all three outfield positions, though he spent more time in left than center with Chicago this season, and defensive metrics haven’t been kind to his glove at the Major League level.

Cubs Acquire Jacob Turner

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The Cubs have bought low on another once-promising right-hander, as they’ve announced the acquisition Jacob Turner from the Marlins in exchange for minor league right-handers Tyler Bremer and Jose Arias. Chicago placed a claim on Turner earlier this week after Miami designated the once prized prospect for assignment and placed him on revocable waivers.

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Turner, who only recently turned 23, is a former first-round pick of the Tigers, and it wasn’t long ago that he was regarded as one of baseball’s top prospects. Acquired by Miami as the centerpiece to 2012’s Anibal Sanchez/Omar Infante trade with Detroit, Turner has struggled with the Marlins and was designated for assignment because he is out of minor league options. While the Marlins reportedly had lost patience with Turner after his struggles in both the rotation and the bullpen, the move is a curious one for a team that typically doesn’t spend much; cost-controllable starters with this type of upside are hard to come by, and Turner’s rotation spot will reportedly be filled by Brad Penny, making this decision a puzzling one, to say the least.

Though Turner’s ERA jumped from 3.74 last year (in 118 innings) to 5.97 in this year’s 78 1/3 innings, there’s plenty to like about the rest of his numbers in 2014. Turner’s K/9 rate, swinging strike rate and average fastball velocity have all increased (though he has not shown a significant jump in the latter measure when taking into account only his innings as a starter). Meanwhile, his BB/9 rate has dipped from 4.1 to 2.6. He’s also seen his ground-ball rate spike from a solid 45.7 percent to a strong 51.3 percent this season. Sabermetric ERA estimators such as FIP (4.01), xFIP (3.93) and SIERA (3.98) all feel that Turner has been markedly better than his earned run average would suggest in 2014.

Turner, who signed a Major League deal out of the draft (before the CBA banned such contracts), has a $1MM option for next season and can be controlled via arbitration once he has accumulated three years of Major League service. He’s controllable through at least the 2018 season for the Cubs and represents a chance for Chicago to buy low on another talented but struggling arm, as they did in 2013 with Jake Arrieta.

Turner, of course, may never bounce back to the level which Arrieta has in 2014, but the marginal cost to acquire him made this a fairly easy call for president Theo Epstein and GM Jed Hoyer once the Rockies surprisingly neglected to make a claim.

The 24-year-old has a 3.10 ERA with 10.8 K/9 and 3.8 BB/9 in in 52 1/3 innings of relief between Class-A Kane County and Class-A Advanced Daytona this season. Arias, a 23-year-old Dominican hurler, has a 1.77 ERA with 11.3 K/9 and 3.8 BB/9 in 40 2/3 innings at Kane County this season. Neither pitcher ranked among the Cubs’ top 30 prospects (per Baseball America) heading into the season.

ESPN’s Keith Law first broke the news of the trade (on Twitter). Paul Sullivan of the Chicago Tribune tweeted that two Class-A pitchers were headed to the Marlins, with Law tweeting that both were relievers. Bremer’s brother, Noah, first tweeted his inclusion in the deal, while ESPN Chicago’s Jesse Rogers tweeted that Arias was the second pitcher.

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.

Giants Release Dan Uggla, Outright Tyler Colvin

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AUG. 8: The Giants have released Uggla and outrighted Colvin to Triple-A Fresno, according to the team’s transactions page.

AUG. 4: Uggla has declined to go to Triple-A, Pavlovic tweets, and it is “hard to see him back with [the] Giants at any point.”  As for Colvin, Giants assistant GM Bobby Evans told Hank Schulman of the San Francisco Chronicle (Twitter link) that the outfielder has been informed that the Giants would like to keep him at Triple-A if he clears waivers.  Colvin has the option of becoming a free agent.

AUG. 1: The Giants have designated Uggla and Colvin for assignment, tweets Alex Pavlovic of the Mercury News.

JULY 30, 9:21pm: The Giants have actually optioned Colvin to Triple-A, and have yet to formally make a move regarding Uggla, tweets Henry Schulman of the San Francisco Chronicle. The club has not confirmed that Uggla has or will be released, tweets Andrew Baggarly of CSNBayArea.com.

8:46pm: The Giants have released second baseman Dan Uggla and outfielder Tyler Colvin, reports MLB.com’s Chris Haft. San Francisco is expected to undertake several roster moves, possibly including new additions as well as the activation of several regulars from the DL.

While the club has been rumored to be pursuing several possible options at second base, nothing has reportedly come to fruition at this point. The Giants need roster space regardless, as Angel Pagan, Brandon Belt, and Hector Sanchez are all expected to be activated in relatively short order.

Uggla struggled mightily in his short time in San Francisco, failing to register a hit in 12 plate appearances while striking out six times (to go with three errors in the field). Of course, that is a continuation of his difficult time this year and last in Atlanta. Since the start of 2013, the 34-year-old has slashed .171/.291/.326 over 694 plate appearances, racking up 217 strikeouts along the way.

Colvin, meanwhile, owns a meager .225/.270/.384 line in 148 plate appearances on the season. He joined the Giants on a minor league deal after spending the prior two seasons with the Rockies. Once a well-regarded prospect, the 28-year-old had a strong 2012 campaign but has not produced at the MLB level since.

Dodgers Not Done Pursuing Pitching Help

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The Dodgers swung a trade with the Phillies yesterday and acquired right-hander Roberto Hernandez due to concerns over the health of Josh Beckett, but GM Ned Colletti told reports, including Bill Shaikin of the L.A. Times, that he hopes to make at least one more move. “There’s another pitcher out there we’re trying to get,” Colletti said.

Colletti said that the Dodgers would like to add a swingman to replace Paul Maholm, who is out for the season with a torn ACL, and added that the club is also looking at back-of-the-rotation arms and late-inning relievers. Referring to the Hernandez trade, Colletti candidly admitted that the trade talks accelerated quickly, as he hoped to swing a deal before news of Beckett’s injury broke. “Ruben [Amaro Jr.] could hold me up for even more,” he stated.

A number of back-end arms that I mentioned in last month’s look at the trade market for starting pitchers could likely be had for very little return from the Dodgers, including Kyle Kendrick, Kevin Correia and Colby Lewis. Bartolo Colon could represent a potentially more expensive but still effective option, assuming he clears waivers (which is highly likely). MLBTR’s Jeff Todd examined the trade market for right-handed relievers and left-handed relievers, and while some of them have since been dealt (as have some from the list of starters), many of those names could come into play as well.

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