Headlines

Go To Pro Hockey Rumors
Go To Hoops Rumors

Archives for July 2016

Rangers, Marlins Swap Pedro Ciriaco, Eric Jokisch

By | at

The Rangers have announced a deal with the Marlins involving two minor leaguer players. Lefty Eric Jokisch, who had been outrighted to Triple-A by Miami, will head to Texas in exchange for infielder Pedro Ciriaco.

The 26-year-old Jokisch lost his 40-man spot with the Marlins in a recent series of roster moves. He had pitched to a 4.37 ERA in 35 Triple-A frames on the year, but had recorded just 22 strikeouts while issuing 16 free passes.

Ciriaco, meanwhile, has appeared in six straight major league campaigns but has yet to do so in 2016. The light-hitting 30-year-old is known mostly for his high-quality glovework. He was playing on a minor league deal.

Red Sox Designate Sean Coyle

By | at

The Red Sox have designated infielder Sean Coyle for assignment, the team announced. His roster spot will go to utilityman Michael Martinez, whose acquisition is now official.

[Related: Updated Red Sox Depth Chart]

Coyle, 24, was originally a third-round selection in the 2010 draft. He had shown plenty of promise in the 2013-14 campaigns, when he posted .800+ OPS batting lines with double-digit home runs at High-A and then Double-A.

Things haven’t progressed quite as well since, however. Following a tough 2015 season, Coyle has posted a meager .165/.263/.280 slash over 250 plate appearances this year while splitting his time between the Double-A and Triple-A levels.

Red Sox Acquire Michael Martinez From Indians

By | at

The Indians announced today that utilityman Michael Martinez has been traded to the Red Sox in exchange for cash considerations. Martinez had been designated for assignment this past Saturday.

[Related: Updated Red Sox & Indians Depth Charts]

The 33-year-old Martinez has never hit much in the Majors but brings some defensive versatility to the Red Sox’ depth chart. Though he’s just a .199/.244/.272 hitter at the big league level, Martinez does have experience at second base, third base, shortstop and all three outfield positions. He batted .283/.306/.383 in 63 trips to the plate with Cleveland this season and is a lifetime .282/.336/.395 hitter in parts of nine seasons at the Triple-A level.

Jose Altuve Hires Scott Boras

By | at

Astros superstar Jose Altuve has changed agencies and is once again represented by Scott Boras, tweets Yahoo’s Jeff Passan. Robert Murray of FanRag Sports first noted the potential change yesterday (on Twitter). The 26-year-old had previously been repped by Boras but left his agency in 2013.

The agency switch won’t have any immediate impact on Altuve, who is in the midst of one of the game’s most attractive contracts (from the team perspective). He’s earning a modest $3.5MM this season in what would have been his second arbitration season, and he’ll take home $4.5MM in 2017 — his would-be third arbitration season. Houston also holds club options valued at $6MM and $6.5MM for the 2018-19 seasons which are, of course, a lock to be exercised barring some form of catastrophic injury. Altuve is currently slated to hit the open market for the first time as he heads into his age-30 season, so he’ll have plenty of earning potential three years down the line as a free agent.

Altuve’s agency switch will be reflected in the MLBTR Agency Database, which contains agent information on well over 2,000 Major League and minor league players. If you see any notable errors or omissions, please let us know via email: mlbtrdatabase@gmail.com.

Pirates Shopping Jon Niese

By | at

The Pirates are actively shopping Jon Niese and have called around to a number of teams to gauge interest in the left-hander recently, Rob Biertempfel of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review first reported. Stephen J. Nesbitt of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette hears the same and adds that the Bucs are anticipating at least a handful of scouts to be on hand this coming Sunday to watch Niese start the final game of the season’s first half.

Acquired from the Mets this offseason in a one-for-one swap with Neil Walker, Niese has struggled through the worst season of his nine-year career in the Majors. The 29-year-old currently holds a 4.87 ERA — his highest full-season mark of any in his career — and is averaging more walks per nine innings (3.1) than he has since 2010. The main problem for Niese, though, is that he’s been astonishingly prone to the long ball with Pittsburgh, surrendering 19 home runs through his first 98 innings. That mark is already higher than the total number of homers he allowed in the 2011, 2013 and 2014 seasons (individually, not combined), and it sits one behind last year’s total of 20 homers despite the fact that he’s pitched 80 fewer innings.

Of course, there are some positives about Niese’s numbers as well. His 6.2 K/9 rate is an improvement over last year’s career-low rate, his 54.7 percent ground-ball rate is a slight improvement over his career-high, and his average of 89.2 mph on his heater is right in line with the marks he’s put up over the past few years. xFIP, which normalizes his current outlier home run rate, doesn’t actually feel that Niese has been significantly worse than he was in 2015.

Even if you’re squinting to try to salvage some hope for Niese’s season, though, the fact remains that he’s allowed considerably more runs and been much more hittable than the Pirates were hoping when acquiring him in that December trade. And, with young arms like Tyler Glasnow, Jameson Taillon, Chad Kuhl and Steven Brault all working their way up to the point of making their MLB debuts, the club has a number of younger options to deploy in favor of Niese and his $9MM salary.

That salary figures to stand as an obstacle to trading Niese, though Pittsburgh could absorb a portion of the remaining $4.23MM on that 2016 income in order to facilitate a trade. The Bucs also hold club options over Niese that are respectively valued at $10MM and $11MM for the upcoming 2017 and 2018 seasons, but Nesbitt writes that the club is likelier to buy out his 2017 option for $500K than pick it up in hope for a 2017 rebound.

His 2016 struggles notwithstanding, Niese was a solid mid-rotation arm for the Mets for many years prior to the trade. From 2012-15, Niese averaged 174 innings of 3.65 ERA ball in Queens, thriving due to strong ground-ball tendencies and a solid, if unspectacular 511-to-197 K/BB ratio. If the Bucs are willing to eat some cash, a team in need of pitching could roll the dice on Niese in hopes of a rebound that would make his club options look like a reasonable price to pay. From a speculative standpoint, the Orioles and Royals make some sense, as both are in need of rotation innings and could stand to add an arm that is controllable beyond the current campaign.

Matt Harvey To Undergo Surgery For Thoracic Outlet Syndrome

By | at

Matt Harvey has elected to undergo surgery to alleviate thoracic outlet syndrome in his right shoulder, agent Scott Boras tells ESPN New York’s Adam Rubin. The operation will end Harvey’s 2016 season.

Harvey was placed on the disabled list earlier this week, and it was reported soon after that he was to be evaluated for thoracic outlet syndrome — a compression of nerves and blood vessels in the shoulder area that is often alleviated by the removal of a rib in the patient. Twins right-hander Phil Hughes underwent the same procedure earlier this week, and other recent examples of players to undergo the procedure include Chris Carpenter, Jaime Garcia and Chris Young.

The injury has undoubtedly contributed to Harvey’s down season. The 26-year-old has posted a 4.86 ERA with diminished strikeout (7.4 K/9), walk (2.4 BB/9) and ground-ball (40.8 percent) rates while also seeing a 1.5 mph dip in his fastball velocity. Harvey has reportedly been experiencing numbness in his hand while pitching and, via Newsday’s Marc Carig (on Twitter), told manager Terry Collins following his most recent start (in Collins’ words): “My shoulder’s dead. My arm’s dead. There’s no energy there. I couldn’t feel the ball.”

The loss of Harvey is magnified by the fact that two of the Mets’ excellent young starters, Steven Matz and Noah Syndergaard, are pitching through bone spurs in their elbows. Matz’s spur is said to be the larger and more severe of the two, and surgery has been mentioned as an option for him as well, though he’s hoping to delay the procedure until the offseason, as going under the knife would essentially end his 2016 campaign as well. Right-hander Zack Wheeler, too, has suffered some setbacks in his recovery from Tommy John surgery and doesn’t currently have a projected return date.

For now, the Mets will utilize Syndergaard, Matz, Jacob deGrom and Bartolo Colon as their front four starters, with right-hander Logan Verrett stepping into the rotation this weekend. Additional alternatives include lefty Sean Gilmartin and right-handers Rafael Montero, Robert Gsellman, Gabriel Ynoa and Seth Lugo (as can be seen on their depth chart), though several of those pitchers have struggled while pitching in the hitter-friendly environs of Triple-A Las Vegas this season.

Pirates To Promote Josh Bell

By | at

The Pirates will promote top first base prospect Josh Bell to the Majors to make his big league debut tonight, according to multiple reports (Logan Stout first tweeted word of Bell’s promotion).

[Related: Updated Pirates Depth Chart]

Josh Bell

In Bell, the Pirates are promoting a player that ranks 38th on Baseball America’s just-updated Top 100 prospects list (published today). Jim Callis and Jonathan Mayo of MLB.com currently have Bell rated as the game’s No. 43 prospect. A 23-year-old switch-hitter that was selected 61st overall in the 2011 draft, Bell has had a monster season at Triple-A Indianapolis, slashing .324/.407/.535 with 13 homers, 19 doubles and four triples in 359 plate appearances. BA notes that Bell’s defense at first base is somewhat questionable — he just transitioned to the position in 2015 after previously playing right field — but both BA and MLB.com write that he could be a difference-maker at the plate and has middle-of-the-order potential. The 2016 season marks the first in which Bell has truly tapped into the power potential that led the Bucs to give him an over-slot bonus of $5MM back in 2011 when he slipped out of the first round due to signability concerns.

Bell’s promotion could mean that incumbent first baseman John Jaso will move into a bench role. Jaso, inked to a two-year, $8MM contract as a free agent this offseason, has provided his typical brand of steady production against right-handed pitching, but he’s limited to a strict platoon and is more good than great against righties (.285/.362/.413 this season). As Bell’s excellent Triple-A production (which recently landed him on Jason Martinez’s “Knocking Down the Door” series) indicates, he carries significantly higher upside at the plate. And, with an OPS north of .900 against both lefties and righties in Triple-A this season, Bell could be a long-term option that doesn’t require a platoon partner.

Bell becomes the latest top prospect to join the Pirates’ ranks, as they’ve promoted Top 100 mainstays Jameson Taillon and Tyler Glasnow this year and also called up highly regarded organizational prospects such as Chad Kuhl and Steven Brault to make their big league debuts. Even if he’s in the Majors to stay, Bell will accrue just 86 days of big league service time in 2016, which would leave him well shy of eventually achieving Super Two designation. If this promotion to the big leagues proves to be permanent, the Bucs will control Bell through the 2022 season and he won’t be arbitration eligible until the completion of the 2019 campaign.

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.

Latest On Royals’ Search For Rotation Help

By | at

The Royals are known to be on the lookout for starting pitching, having been connected to the likes of Ervin Santana, Rich Hill and Matt Moore in recent weeks. Their needs have been accelerated by the struggles of Chris Young and injury setbacks for Mike Minor and, more recently, Kris Medlen. As Sam McDowell of the Kansas City Star writes, Medlen suffered a Grade 1 strain in his throwing shoulder while pitching on a rehab assignment from rotator cuff inflammation at Triple-A Omaha and will be shut down from throwing for at least the next two weeks due to the injury.

With uncertainty permeating their rotation, Kansas City is casting a wide net in looking at trade candidates, writes MLB.com’s Jon Morosi. Among the pitchers they’re considering are right-handers Jeremy Hellickson and Andrew Cashner as well as lefties Hill and Jorge De La Rosa, according to Morosi. Each of those names would constitute a strict rental, as each is a free agent at season’s end, though previous ties to Santana and Moore suggest that the Royals are possibly open to the steeper price (be it financial or in terms of prospect cost) of adding a player controlled beyond the 2016 campaign. Indeed, McDowell’s colleague Rustin Dodd linked Kansas City to multiple Rays starting pitchers just last night. GM Dayton Moore called the rotation an “area of vulnerability” and confirmed that he’s been “evaluating the landscape” of potentially available options, writes the Star’s Vahe Gregorian.

Royals starters currently rank 29th in the Majors in collective innings pitched at 455 2/3, and they’re a mere one-third of an inning ahead of the rebuilding Reds in that woeful distinction. More troublesome than that sum is the fact Royals starters simply haven’t pitched well even when they’re on the mound. The Royals’ excellent bullpen could perhaps cover persistently short starts if the team were regularly receiving quality five-inning outings from its starting staff, but Royals starting pitchers have posted a collective 5.02 ERA that ranks 25th in the Majors this season. The bullpen has helped to stop the bleeding, but the recent loss of Wade Davis has thinned out the relief corps, and even if he’s not on the shelf for long, they’re on pace for a lofty total of 556 2/3 innings from the bullpen this season.

With that in mind, Hellickson strikes me as the most logical target among the names listed by Morosi. He’s made 18 starts this season and, after a patch of struggles in late April/early May, has averaged 6 1/3 innings per start over his past 11 turns (nine of which have been quality starts). He’s been the most durable of the bunch and probably offers the best blend of affordability in terms of salary ($7MM in 2016) and prospect cost. Hill is earning $1MM less but has pitched considerably better when on the mound, so he should be expected to command a larger return than Hellickson in a trade. Cashner, meanwhile, is earning $7.15MM but has been limited to 59 innings by a hamstring strain and a neck strain. And De La Rosa, a former Royal (2006-07), is earning $12MM this season and lost his rotation spot in May before righting the ship and regaining his starting job recently.

For the time being, the Royals are relying on a rotation consisting of Yordano Ventura, Ian Kennedy, Danny Duffy and Edinson Volquez, with either Dillon Gee or Brian Flynn slated to step into Young’s spot on Sunday following Young’s move to the bullpen. While Duffy has been scintillating since returning to the rotation — a trend that continued last night — and Kennedy has given the club 100 solid innings (3.97 ERA), Ventura has struggled since April. Volquez, meanwhile, has been highly inconsistent, yielding four or more runs in half of his 18 starts this season.

David Huff Signs With KBO’s LG Twins

By | at

Left-hander David Huff has signed a contract with the LG Twins of the Korea Baseball Organization, the team announced (Korean link to Naver Sports; hat tip to Dan Kurtz of MyKBO.net). Huff’s base salary with his new club is $550K, per the announcement.

The 31-year-old Huff made a pair of appearances with the Angels this season but was tagged for seven earned runs in 5 1/3 innings. That marks the second abbreviated season of Major League work for Huff, who last saw significant time in the bigs with the Yankees and Giants in 2014 (combined 59 innings). The Indians selected Huff out of UCLA with the 39th overall pick in the 2006 draft, and while he debuted with Cleveland as a 24-year-old in 2009, Huff never fully established himself as a regular contributor in the Majors. He’s had some solid stretches, to be sure, but the overall result of his time in the Majors is a 5.17 ERA with 5.4 K/9 against 3.0 BB/9 in 393 1/3 innings. He’s logged a considerably better 4.06 ERA in 640 1/3 innings of Triple-A ball, however, and averaged more strikeouts (7.0) and fewer walks (2.2) on a per-nine-inning basis at that level.

Huff has been under contract with the Angels and made an appearance for the club’s Triple-A affiliate in Salt Lake City as recently as Sunday, so the Halos are presumably receiving some type of financial compensation for selling his contractual rights to the KBO’s Twins.

Red Sox Acquire Aaron Hill

By | at

JULY 8: Ken Rosenthal of FOX Sports reports that Hill receives a $1MM assignment bonus due to the fact that he was traded (links to Twitter). Hill received the same bonus this past winter when being shipped from Phoenix to Milwaukee, he adds. Tim Britton of the Providence Journal tweets that the Sox are only paying a “modest” amount of the remaining commitment to Hill, with Arizona and Milwaukee on the hook for most of the remaining money.

JULY 7: The Brewers announced that they have traded Aaron Hill and cash considerations to the Red Sox in exchange for minor league right-hander Aaron Wilkerson and minor league second baseman Wendell Rijo. The Sox announced the trade as well, adding that outfielder Ryan LaMarre has been designated for assignment to clear a spot on the roster.

[Related: Updated Boston Red Sox and Milwaukee Brewers depth charts]

Aaron Hill

The 34-year-old Hill, traded from the D-backs to the Brewers this past offseason, has been enjoying a rebound campaign in Milwaukee, batting .283/.359/.421 with eight homers, 11 doubles and four steals in 292 plate appearances. While he’s played second base for most of his career, Hill has played third base in 59 games this season, compared to just 20 contests spent playing second base. He’ll provide the ailing Red Sox with some infield depth and also presents Boston with a capable platoon partner for Travis Shaw, who has batted .211/.240/.380 against left-handed pitching this year. Hill is in the final season of a three-year, $35MM deal that pays him $12MM in 2016. The D-backs, however, are on the hook for $6.5MM of that sum as part of the aforementioned trade, and the Brewers will cover a yet undetermined portion of the money remaining on his deal, so the financial implications for the Red Sox figure to be relatively minimal.

LaMarre, 27, is the roster casualty for Hill. He signed with Boston on a minor league deal this winter and appeared in six games but has spent most of his time in Triple-A, where he’s batted .313/.383/.475 in 180 trips to the plate. The Sox will have 10 days to trade LaMarre or try to pass him through outright waivers in an attempt to keep him in the organization as a non-40-man player. Prior to this season, the former second-round pick had spent his entire career in the Reds organization. He’s a .267/.332/.409 hitter in parts of four Triple-A seasons.

For the Brewers, they’ll now turn to a combination of Will Middlebrooks, Hernan Perez and Jake Elmore at the hot corner, GM David Stearns told the media (Twitter link via the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel’s Todd Rosiak). Middlebrooks has enjoyed a nice season at Triple-A Colorado Springs, batting .282/.308/.508 with 10 homers, although that production does come in an excessively hitter-friendly environment. Perez and Elmore give the Brewers a pair of alternatives that come with a fair share of MLB experience, though each is more of a utility player than an everyday option for the club in the long term.

Of the two prospects acquired by the Brewers in this deal, Rijo has received more fanfare on prospect rankings. MLB.com’s Jonathan Mayo and Jim Callis have him 17th among Boston farmhands at the moment, while Baseball America rated him 15th following the season and Fangraphs’ Dan Farnsworth placed him 22nd in the offseason. The 20-year-old opened the season at Double-A but struggled as one of the youngest players in the Eastern League, hitting just .186/.245/.266 in 51 games. He was moved back down to Class-A Advanced when Yoan Moncada arrived in Double-A, and he’s batting an improved .270/.364/.324 in 11 games. Callis and Mayo note that a previous ACL injury has dropped Rijo from a plus runner to an average runner, but he offers plenty of gap power and the upside for double-digit home runs once he adds to his 5’11”, 170-pound frame. BA notes that he’s made some improvements at second base and has the potential to be an everyday option that racks up doubles, though Farnsworth pegged him as more of a bench player or fringe regular.

Wilkerson was absent from the club’s prospect rankings, but the 27-year-old did just land on Jason Martinez’s most recent edition of “Knocking Down the Door” here at MLBTR due to his strong performance for Boston’s Triple-A affiliate. In 92 1/3 innings between Boston’s Double-A and Triple-A affiliates this season, Wilkerson has compiled an oustanding 2.14 ERA with 9.9 K/9 against 2.4 BB/9 and a 40.3 percent ground-ball rate (via MLBFarm.com). The Texas native went undrafted out of college due to the fact that he required Tommy John surgery as a senior in college. That unfortunate realization led him to the independent circuit, where eventually caught the eyes of Boston scouts and signed with the Sox as a 25-year-old back in 2014. The Boston Herald’s Evan Drellich profiled Wilkerson’s unusual path to affiliated ball back in April, and as Jason noted in the above-linked piece, that path may have him on the cusp of the Major Leagues. The Brewers are currently relying on Matt Garza, Jimmy Nelson, Chase Anderson, Junior Guerra and Zach Davies in the rotation, but Wilkerson could be one of the top alternatives in the event that the club incurs an injury in the rotation or finds a trade partner for Garza.

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.

MLB Trade Rumors is not affiliated with Major League Baseball, MLB or MLB.com

Do not Sell or Share My Personal Information

hide arrows scroll to top