As expected, the Indians have activated righty Corey Kluber. He’s back on the hill today for Cleveland after missing a few weeks resting his lower back. The 31-year-old will be looking to improve upon a tepid start to the season. Over his first 37 1/3 innings, he has managed only a 5.06 ERA with 9.9 K/9 but an uncharacteristically high 3.1 BB/9. Righty Shawn Armstrong was optioned to create roster space.
Here’s the latest from the American League:
- Twins chief baseball officer Derek Falvey discussed the club’s first overall selection in the upcoming amateur draft, as Phil Miller of the Star Tribune reports. The team is taking a closer look at “a group of five to six [players], probably,” according to the club’s top baseball decisionmaker. With several candidates slated to visit with the organization just days before the draft, there’s still time for new information to shape the picture. Falvey says the Twins intend to “ask some difficult questions” of the candidates when they sit down with them, in addition to taking another look at their skills. As Miller well explains, the club’s management of its overall bonus pool will also factor in. Falvey acknowledged the possibility of reallocating some of the top slot’s cash to sign other players — though he also said he’s “not yet ready to say it’s something we’d do in the first round” — and acknowledged the need “to add as many upside assets” as possible.
- With the Athletics still lagging in the standings, eyes are beginning to turn to their deadline plans. As Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle writes, the organization will likely increasingly turn to more youthful options as it deals away veteran assets. In particular, she says, second baseman Jed Lowrie “almost certainly will be dealt” — helping clear the way for top prospect Franklin Barreto. The A’s will surely also entertain a move involving surprising slugger Yonder Alonso, and Slusser notes that the club could also part with a few lesser-performing veterans as well.
- The struggles have continued for former Rangers closer Sam Dyson. As Jeff Wilson of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram writes, Dyson surrendered two home runs as the club went down in extra innings. While he is still generating grounders at a healthy clip, everything else has gone wrong for Dyson, who now owns a 10.80 ERA with a dozen walks and just seven strikeouts through 16 2/3 innings. It’s not clear what the organization will do with the out-of-options righty, but manager Jeff Banister did not exactly deliver a strong vote of confidence after the game. “It’s an extreme challenge right now,” Banister said. “He’s on our staff. He’s one of our pitchers right now, and we have to find a way to continue to work.”
- The Royals had hoped that Jorge Soler would blossom upon arriving over the winter, but another young outfielder by the same first name is currently keeping him out of the lineup, as Rustin Dodd of the Kansas City Star reports. Jorge Bonifacio, who’ll turn 24 in a few days, is off to a .273/.325/.500 batting line with seven home runs in 120 plate appearances. That may not be quite sustainable, of course, but for now he’s producing and the Royals are giving him a chance to show it’s real. That’s not to say that K.C. is giving up on Soler, who has only seen 18 games of action due to injury and the limited opportunities he has found upon his return.
I’m going to be cheering for Kluber until I cough up a lung! GO TRIBE!
Kluber is a good dude. Easy to root for.
“Falvey says the Twins intend to “ask some difficult questions” of the candidates when they sit down with them,” A reminder that teams still have the hammer with even top talent. “Agree to take less, or we will offer you enough so that rejecting it will put you at risk with the NCAA while we get a pick next year.” I know, it’s just business, but between the draft and the CBA younger players can really get hosed.
Dyson hasn’t been the same since the Bautista Bat Flip. Interesting
Bautista hasn’t been the same since the Bautista Bat Flip.
To be fair, bautistas still been a good player since 2015. Dysons pitching like he wants to join grichuk in single A
Bautista’s .251/.352/.455 slash this year disagrees. He’s still been plenty good enough
He’s a career .255/.368/.492 hitter. Right on par with his normal self.
Exactly
but Dyson was great last year… only this year has been bad situ the facts busy your naritive
When a sinker ball pitchers pitches don’t sink, it equals bombs.
He pitched great in the WBC and looked to be back on track and then the regular season started
The A’s need a real CF. Trading Lowrie better bring in a CF for the future.
The A’s need a CF…and a LF (Davis is a DH with no arm and bad range) and a RF (Joyce is just awful as an everyday player) and a C (Phegley and Vogt are both backups at this point and Maxwell is not a plus anything either).
My #1 target for them is Carson Kelly from the Cardinals, who’s blocked forever by Yadi. I don’t know who they’d want for him (Perhaps Kelly + Grichuk for Sonny Gray?), if they could somehow get Kelly and either Happ or Almora (also La Stella), they’d be MILES AND MILES a better team – a contender even.
The A’s also have no room for Khris Davis & Ryon Healy in the same lineup, so one of them has to go, as both cannot play defense to save their lives. Mark Canha might not be breaking out either, and he’s a 1B-only guy who’s playing CF for no reason right now. No worries keeping one and trading the rest of them, honestly.
Idk why the Cards would need a SP their concerns rely upon RP and positional pop.
“you can never have enough ________”
But yeah, the A’s also have enough RP and positional pop too, so there is a match there.
They might also want Luke Weaver,Reyes that Injured and so on.
They aren’t going to move Healy or Kris Davis.. they will move other guys before them
Billy Beane doesn’t care about names, he traded Donaldson and Russell. If someone offered him what he liked for Healy or Khrush, he’d pull the trigger without a second thought.
Really wish they’d fire Melvin too, the guy is so clueless about lineup construction and reliever use.
Soler is a cautionary tale of an overhyped Cuban prospect. The road is starting to be littered with them! The Cubs fans that justified the hype were like..but he’s still young,his power potential,his ceiling and floor,and as soon as he was traded they were like..we always knew he’d be a bust. I said it when the Royals traded for him they’d regret not getting someone else instead!
And the white sox will experience the same thing in ROBERT.
Cub fan here, soler did rake during 2015 playoffs. He just can’t seem to stay on the field due to injuries. Game 3 of world series when he did hustle on ball down line and only got triple and Cubs lost 1-0 was the end of him in Chicago. Wade Davis is comparable to chapman and we gave up Torres for him so I would have thought royals could have gotten more. Hopefully he can stay healthy for you and contribute
He’s a bust… Yet he got the Cubs one of the best closers in the business. He gave them enough value in the trade alone. It’s like moncada, the Red Sox are a much better organization because they signed him now
Wade Davis on a 1/10 deal vs Soler on a 4/18 deal?
Yeah, I’ll take Soler having the higher WAR out of that. Have fun overpaying for Davis in the offseason.
Davis e.r.a. .98. World Series stud. Just stop
It doesn’t matter who has the better career from here on out though, its the fact that Soler was able to get a return of Davis that shows he has a lot of value.
Soler alone doesn’t have the value to trade one for one for davis, It just KC was betting on soler’s overhyped potential and turns out he’s a bust.
Stop what? 1 year of a RP vs 4 of an OF? You just stop.
First, he’s only 25, please stop talking. Second, this whole “overhyped Cuban prospect” thing is out of control and reeks of lowkey, soft racism – all prospects, hyped or not, are the same no matter where they are from. Stop limiting it to Cubans. Some are great and some are not – just like ALL hyped prospects.
Playing the racism card..oh no. Just covering the facts as the Cuban prospect became the popular thing a few years back..do to many things. Stop with the age thing on Soler and look at all his years in organizational ball. The money that his been thrown around to these guys is ginormous,and with all the hoopla of course they need to be scrutinized.
Soler is making a tiny $4.5M a year for 4 years, and I wish he’d loan you some to buy a clue with.
Then I’ll lend you some to take a reading comprehension class. What does his salary have to do with him being overhyped? The point I was making is,the overall money spent on others including him. Phillies2017 gets it somewhat and also wonders why you brought race into this.
Have you looked at what Soler’s done in organizational ball? Before he made his MLB debut his MiLB numbers were excellent. He had a .307/.383/.551/.935 slash with 28 HR and 46 2B/3B, with a 154 wRC+ in 151 games. He also has an above average OPS+ of 103 in a total of 830 MLB PA.
After seeing his above average performance at a young age and considering that scouts graded him as having plus hit and plus power tools, it’s understandable that the Royals made acquiring him a priority.
I’m not saying he is going to be a superstar, but it’s way too early to write off a 25 year old who mashed in the minors and has been an above average MLB hitter in less than 2 seasons worth of plate appearances,
Why do you have to bring race into it. Cuban prospects are (or should I say, were due to CBA changes) the ones getting over paid. One after the next: Cespedes, Chapman, Alex Guerrero, Yasmany Tomas, Luis Robert, Jorge Soler, Yasiel Puig, Erisbel Arruebarrena and the list goes on and on. Bottom line: just over the past 5 years, Hector Olivera, Alex Guerrero, Erisbel Arruebarrena, Miguel Alfredo Gonzalez, Yasiel Sierra, Rusney Castillo and Daniel Carbonell have all accounted for well-over $100,000,000 in virtually dead money and each of them received that money without ever playing a game in the MLB.
It’s a problem and that is why it was addressed in the new Collective Bargaining Agreement. It had nothing to do with race.
First off let’s distinguish between prospects and so called “finished projects,” because they are absolutely two separate things. Most you mentioned received MLB contracts, because they were considered close to major league ready (Cespedes, Chapman,Guerrero, Thomas, Arrumbarena, Puig, Sierra, Castillo, Olivera, so on so on). So you’re not talking about prospects. You had teams like the Dodgers in need of supplanting their MLB team with ready made talent, because of the destruction cause by McCourt.
Secondly since when did Cespedes and Chapman become dead money on their first contracts. I laugh because it’s all relative your busts signed to major money were Olivera and Castillo, but you can’t make a coherent argument that such others were outrageous contracts that crippled a franchise or were any risker than any other international major league contracts. That obviously comes with the outliers like Castillo. In fact Sierra, who you sighted, actually hasn’t been a bust. The Dodgers tried to turn him into something he’s not. He’s thrived as a RP and is on a pretty team friendly friendly contract, the way the relief market has shaken out, when he gets his opportunity.
Thirdly you’re delusional if you think the CBA addressed a problem linked to “overhyped prospects” as you called them because a majority of who you listed under the new CBA would still have received substantial contracts. The change in rules wasn’t solely about Cuban prospects it was about capping the potential earning bonuses of Latin America. With all due respect that’s just a bad post all around.
Thank you for schooling these fools, Blue_Painted_Dreams_LA. Great, informative post.
The ONLY reason I bring up racism is because its the only possible reason this absurd argument would exist. If these guys were white no one would care if they went bust or not, but with Cubans its suddenly this huge deal—uh why? It should not be a big deal.
You’re beyond absurd! Why do you bring white classification into this. Sounds like you’re the one stereotyping here!
Have to imagine if Aussie or Canadian players were given the media attention and contracts that some of the Cuban players have received recently then flopped, people would be critical of them too. It just doesn’t happen, the situation is kind of unique to Cubans currently. The best examples I can think of would be a veterans who receive big contracts and perform poorly, like Joe Mauer. Many are hypercritical of him too. Just think there could be other reasons to it then just racism.
It seems like white baseball fans sure enjoy saying “another Cuban bust!” Almost like they’re celebrating it – its disgusting and it needs to stop.
Gotta love all the ultra-sensitive “why you gotta bring race into it” types too – Im onto you, you hate people bringing it up because youre being outed as racist yourself. Take a look in the mirror, this is how you appear to non racist people like myself.
I’m 25, how much and I’ll sign for 4/16…. does that give me instant value
Dude, let it go. There are bad FA contracts all over the place to all sorts of players. Not sure why you are singling out the Cubans over and over again.
Exactly my point….it makes no sense—other than underlying racism of “this non-white/non-American guy making money over OUR BOYS!” – its the only thing I can think of that makes sense in 2017 America.
This could be a pretty quiet trade deadline year except for pitchers, Last I heard you need two organizations for a trade. A buyer has to have a need, salary cap flexibly, and prospects they are willing to trade. The seller as to have a player that will be an upgrade.. It’s too early to even see the big needs yet.
Another issue is that the players the sellers want to sell aren’t performing. Not all but quite a few, Frazier, Quintana, Cutch, Espinosa, Hellickson etc.
Not sure Espinosa would fall into that category. They traded FOR him in the past offseason. And though they are without Trout for 6+ weeks, the Angels are at .500 and will not necessarily be automatic sellers.
Braves should pick up Dyson