When Yahoo Sports’ Jeff Passan reported that the Indians had demoted Jose Ramirez earlier today, there was immediate speculation that the Tribe might call up top prospect Francisco Lindor. Instead, Zach Walters and Giovanny Urshela will join the Cleveland roster while Ramirez and Lonnie Chisenhall have been optioned to Triple-A, the Indians officially announced. Lindor, a consensus top-nine prospect in baseball, is hitting .269/.342/.393 over 231 Triple-A plate appearances this season. The Tribe might feel he needs a bit more seasoning, though many pundits feel it’s just a matter of time before Lindor is at Progressive Field. Here’s some more from around the majors…
- The Pirates’ offseason signings have already proven to be a bargain, Travis Sawchik of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review writes. A.J. Burnett, Francisco Cervelli, Jung Ho Kang and Francisco Liriano will earn $28.5MM this season, and the quartet had already combined for 5.3 WAR over the Bucs’ first 54 games. Under the general estimate that one WAR costs $7MM, the four Pirates have provided $37.1MM of value with two-thirds of the season still left to play.
- In another piece from Sawchik, he notes that Corey Hart’s roster spot seems tenuous since the veteran is receiving so little playing time. Hart has just 42 plate appearances this season, in part because the Pirates have faced surprisingly few left-handed opposing starters but also because of Hart’s struggles at the plate over the last two seasons.
- Since taking Mark Teixeira fifth overall in 2001, the Rangers have had very little luck with their first round picks, Evan Grant of the Dallas Morning News writes (though Texas was able to trade some of those prospects for meaningful stars like Cliff Lee). This trend could be changing, however, now that Chi Chi Gonzalez and Joey Gallo are in the bigs and playing well early in their young careers.
- It’s time for the Reds to begin a rebuild, Paul Daugherty of the Cincinnati Enquirer opines. While club owner Bob Castellini is very competitive and is loath to move on from this generation of Reds stars, Daugherty notes that with a thin minor league system, Cincinnati needs to reload on young talent sooner rather than later.
Urshella is a supposed defensive stud, still it’s hard to see that bat doing enough to get every day AB’s
He is an upgrade over Chisenhall at this point. He at least will match his bat and is an upgrade in the field. That said, it would be a position that could be upgraded via trade if Urshella struggles with the bat.
Hart should be DFA’d, bring up Lombardozzi. If nothing else, Lombardozzi at least brings speed and positional flexibility.
I agree. I think he is probably done in the bigs.
Agreed–at this stage, Hart is Gaby Sanchez without the ability to punish lefties, which means he’s nothing.
Don’t forget too that Teixeira’s trade brought the Rangers a pretty solid core of guys that helped push the organization to where it is today! Easily one of the biggest trades of last decade.
For one year of Teixiera too. Ridiculous trade by the Braves in retrospect. Much worse than the Beltran for Wheeler trade.
Let me have the reds gm job. Ill tear it all down and they will be competing in 2017. Frazier would bring a haul.
I’m sure you would do just great.
I think just about anyone would do better than Jocketty. ranked #26 by ESPN at GM.
It would be interesting to see who would bid for Frazier and what kind of package he could land.
Indians, White Sox, Angels, Nats, Cardinals (play him at 1B), Pirates, Cubs (move Bryant to LF), Giants, and Padres could all use him to varying degrees.
nats dont need him they have rendon, but hes an upgrade there to almost every team. the astros would be a good fit as valbuena is better suited for a bench role, detroit could really use him but they have a weak farm, same with san diego. the mets could be a fit, move wright off third since theres no garuntee he will be himself. no to the cards though, frazier is a better 3b than carpenter, no sense wasting his good d at first. maybe the d backs, start with jake lamb as part of the package. the braves might be the best fit to me.
Rendon could stay at 2B allowing Frazier to replace Escobar but they don’t really need him. Same with Cards who could put him at 1B but that upgrade isn’t worth the cost.
Mets are out because what do you do with Wright when he returns?
D-Backs and Braves aren’t contendors this year and should be looking towards 2017 not selling farm pieces for Fraier.
Astros could use Frazier but with Correa, Lowrie, Valubuena the IF is crowded. Would solidy their status as a contendor though,
He would be a nice upgrade at 1b for the pirates
Saying that the Reds farm system is thin is an inaccurate statement. Yes, they are very thin when it comes to daily position players, virtually no depth at first base anywhere in our farm system. The Reds do have an over abundance of talent at pitching. 4 rookies currently staring on the big league roster if you count Iglesias who is on the DL. on top of that Stephenson is at AA and blowing things up. Move down to A Dayton and the entire roster is projecting as big league material. The will have plenty of pitching to trade off in the upcoming years.
Few A-ball players even reach the big leagues. The Reds have a fairly thin farm system. It’s not really a stretch to say that when you consider the evidence.
The Fact that 4 pitchers are now pitching in the majors from the minors this season is evidence that pitching is not thin. Otherwise the Reds would have had to trade away position players on the big league club in order to fill those positions. We could say every team is thin in the farm system if you are basing your conclusion that Few A-ball players even reach the big leagues. I believe that the Dayton club has 3 starters on the all star team and will be promoted up to AA sometime this year.
It’s evidence that the Reds staff doesn’t have quality depth. When Jason Marquis and Kevin Gregg are pitching on your big league staff, of course they’re going to need to be replaced soon.
Stephenson is still walking a bunch of hitters, Nick Howard is walking more than he’s striking out, Winker isn’t doing anything special in AA.
Blandino/Irvin/Travieso are all doing well, but the Reds system isn’t terribly strong. It’s fringe average at best imo.
Caminero should be added to that list of bargain offseason signings/trade acqusitions
The Reds organization are doing the same wrong thing that so many Teams do, hold on to aging Stars hoping for that one last moment of Glory, Make deal Before , After ,Today start moving forward instead of the watching the slow drip of deterioration , become a flood of hopeless. Don’t wait one more second!
man, I’m primarily a Giants fan but I’ve always has interest in the Pirates…i love the way they handle their club and spend their money..their off-season signings are proof of how to spend wisely
Its was a great off-season for the Pirates. If there was one mistake, I’d say it’s that they didn’t extend Gerrit Cole. Nothing against Josh Harrison, but after Cole’s great start to 2015, he might become unaffordable.
That assumes there was a willingness from the player and the agent to want an extension.