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Archives for June 2017

Rockies Notes: Holland, Wolters

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The Rockies’ signing of Greg Holland — who has a 1.14 ERA, 12.2 K/9, 4.2 BB/9 and 23 saves in 23 2/3 innings thus far after missing the entire 2016 season to injury — was the best free agent move of the offseason, ESPN’s Buster Olney writes. With all the uncertainty surrounding Holland’s return to the mound, Olney writes, the Rockies focused on learning about Holland’s character. Rockies bullpen coach Darren Holmes, who, like Holland, has an offseason home in Asheville, North Carolina, was a key to the team’s attempt to find out about Holland. “I know he’s got the trust of everybody — and he’s got the trust in spades,” says Rockies GM Jeff Bridich of Holland. “This is a man who is hell-bent on getting back to where he was before he was hurt.” Joining the Rockies on the list of teams who made the best offseason signings are the Pirates, Rays, Red Sox, Cubs and others. Here’s more from out of Colorado.

  • Manager Bud Black has been a key to the Rockies’ surprisingly strong season, writes Paul Sullivan of the Chicago Tribune. The best quote in the piece, though, comes from Nolan Arenado, who explains why Holland has been such a breath of fresh air for the Rockies. “He seems in so much control,” says Arenado. “Closers here since I’ve been here, they’ve haven’t been very, uh, you know, you’ve been kind of nervous when they come in. When he comes in the game, it feels really good.”
  • The Rockies’ pitching staff is having success this year with the help of an inexperienced catcher, Tony Wolters, Nick Groke of the Denver Post writes. Earlier this week, former Dodgers scouting director Logan White told MLBTR contributor Chuck Wasserstrom about his team’s decision to draft an infielder named Russell Martin and convert him to catcher. Wolters began his pro career as a shortstop and second baseman, then underwent a similar conversion that began in the Indians organization in 2013. He’s now winning praise for his work behind the plate, just as Martin ultimately did. “Kevin Cash was living with me that spring,” says Indians manager Terry Francona. (Cash, now the Rays’ manager, was then the Indians’ bullpen coach.) “We’d go home at night and if there wasn’t a college basketball game on, then we’d talk about baseball. And we were going back and forth. And I said, ’Man, he looks like he can do this.'”

MLBTR Originals

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Here’s a look back at this week’s original content from the MLBTR writing staff.

  • MLBTR contributor Chuck Wasserstrom spoke to longtime ESPN writer Jayson Stark, who reflected on his career so far, saying, “I really never set out to become the Alex Trebek of baseball. That just happened by accident.”
  • Chuck also chatted with longtime Dodgers scouting director Logan White about the pair of drafts in 2002 and 2003 that netted Russell Martin, Matt Kemp, Jonathan Broxton, James Loney, A.J. Ellis and Chad Billingsley. Of Martin, White said, “I wanted the scouts to look for guys we could convert to catch. I asked one of my big questions, ‘Is there anybody that’s playing second or short, third, good feet, good hands, we can convert?’ The area scout was Clarence Johns and the East Coast supervisor was John Barr, who’s now with the Giants as their scouting director. They both were at a game and Russ was messing around in the outfield or the bullpen, catching somebody. Just playing, not really in gear or anything. And they said, ‘Hey, you know what? We think this guy would be perfect.’ So we intentionally drafted him to convert him. The rest is history.”
  • Jason Martinez profiled prospects from the Yankees, A’s, Astros, Pirates and Phillies in the latest entry in his Knocking Down The Door series.
  • Connor Byrne looked at Marlins outfielder Christian Yelich’s trade candidacy.
  • Our new Taking Inventory series lists potential trade candidates from teams who look like they could become sellers at this year’s deadline. First up in the series this week were the Phillies (by Steve Adams) and the Pirates (by myself).

Yankees Designate Tommy Layne For Assignment

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The Yankees have designated left-handed reliever Tommy Layne for assignment, reports Bryan Hoch of MLB.com (on Twitter). In a corresponding move, the team has recalled Triple-A right-hander Domingo German.

The 32-year-old Layne joined the Yankees last August after the division-rival Red Sox designated him, and his first taste of action with the Bombers went well. Layne tossed 16 innings of 3.38 ERA ball, generated ground balls at a 46.5 percent clip and posted 7.31 K/9 against 3.94 BB/9. Most impressively, Layne held the 38 lefty-swingers he faced to a .147/.237/.147 line.

Layne’s initial work with the Yankees earned him a roster spot this season, but he has been among the few weak links in one of the majors’ top bullpens. Prior to his designation, Layne logged a 7.62 ERA, 6.23 K/9 and 5.54 BB/9 over 13 frames. He also experienced a dip in velocity, saw his swinging-strike rate drop from 8.9 percent last year to 6.6 percent this season and was subpar against the 26 same-handed hitters he faced (.318/.423/.409).

East Notes: Rosario, Red Sox, Chapman

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As Baseball America’s fifth-ranked prospect, the Mets’ Amed Rosario could conceivably help a scuffling team that has gotten little production from the left side of its infield this year. Despite the Mets’ struggles, though, and the strong likelihood that the Super Two deadline has passed, a promotion isn’t imminent, according to Ken Davidoff of the New York Post. Instead, the Mets want the 21-year-old to continue developing with Triple-A Las Vegas, where he has slashed .339/.379/.500 with six home runs and 11 stolen bases in 269 plate appearances. While Rosario’s in a rather hitter-friendly environment, his output has still been 30 percent better than the Pacific Coast League average. “I think so far this season is so far going pretty excellent, I would say,” Rosario told Davidoff through an interpreter. “I think we’re really seeing the fruits of the labor that’s been put in.”

More from New York and another East Coast city:

  • Red Sox third baseman Pablo Sandoval was out of the lineup Saturday, and he’ll likely sit through at least Monday as they work with him on his defensive issues, reports Ian Browne of MLB.com. Sandoval has made four errors in only 48 chances, notes Browne, and has already posted minus-6 Defensive Runs Saved in just 186 1/3 innings at the hot corner. Now in the third season of a five-year, $95MM contract, Sandoval has also acquitted himself poorly on the offensive side, having batted just .205/.253/.364 in 95 plate appearances.
  • The Yankees expect closer Aroldis Chapman to come off the disabled list next weekend, manager Joe Girardi said Saturday (via Mark Fischer of NJ.com). The flamethrowing southpaw landed on the DL on May 13 with an inflamed left rotator cuff, which came after back-to-back rough outings that saw Chapman combine to allow four earned runs on six hits and two walks (three strikeouts) over 1 1/3 innings. Prior to those performances, Chapman gave up only one earned run, six hits and four walks, with 18 punchouts, in 11 1/3 frames.
  • Red Sox left-hander Eduardo Rodriguez’s recovery from a partial dislocation of his right kneecap is on an encouraging path, writes Jason Mastrodonato of the Boston Herald. Rodriguez played catch from 130 to 140 feet Saturday, after which manager John Farrell stated: “He’s made, I think, very good progress in the days since being examined by Dr. (James) Andrews. We’re taking this in five-day work increments. He’s coming up on this first five days. We’ll map out increases in physical activity, agility work, all that, after tomorrow. We would hope in the coming days, he’s back on the mound here soon.” The 24-year-old was in the midst of arguably his best season before the injury, with a 3.54 ERA, 9.59 K/9 and 3.1 BB/9 in 61 innings.

Minor MLB Transactions: 6/10/17

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Saturday’s minor moves:

  • Utilityman T.J. Rivera has lost his spot on the Mets’ roster, as the team optioned him (and right-hander Tyler Pill) to Triple-A on Saturday, Mike Puma of the New York Post was among those to report (Twitter link). The Mets sent Rivera and Pill down to make room for outfielder Yoenis Cespedes and righty Seth Lugo, both of whom are back from the disabled list. Rivera ranks among the Mets’ top nine in plate appearances this year, having taken 114 and batted a passable .255/.310/.402. He swatted his second home run of the season Saturday, but it wasn’t enough to stave off a demotion.
  • The Padres have outrighted righty Tyrell Jenkins to make room for reliever Carter Capps, whom they reinstated from the 60-day disabled list and optioned to Triple-A El Paso, tweets AJ Cassavell of MLB.com. A former big-time prospect with the Cardinals, Jenkins joined the Padres off waivers from the Reds over the winter and has struggled with San Diego’s Triple-A affiliate, notching a 6.71 ERA, 6.42 K/9 and a 5.98 BB/9 over 61 2/3 innings in the hitter-friendly Pacific Coast League. Capps, meanwhile, continues to work his way back from the Tommy John surgery he underwent as a Marlin in 2016.
  • The Twins have selected the contract of left-hander Nik Turley from Triple-A and optioned fellow southpaw Randy Rosario, per Phil Miller of the Star Tribune (on Twitter). Minnesota will need to dump someone from its 40-man roster to make room for the addition of Turley, who has excelled at both the Double-A and Triple-A levels this season. The 27-year-old will make his major league debut Sunday with a start in San Francisco, with which he was a farmhand in 2015.

Rosenthal’s Latest: Pirates, Orioles, Twins, Mariners

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At 27-35, the Pirates on track to miss the playoffs for the second straight year. But the club’s recent woes aren’t threatening the job security of either GM Neal Huntington or manager Clint Hurdle, says FOX Sports’ Ken Rosenthal, who reports that the two are good bets to sign contract extensions before the season ends. Huntington has been at the helm since 2007, Hurdle dating back to 2011, and the team has gone to the playoffs three times during their six-plus-year partnership. The Pirates are now headed for their fourth sub-.500 season under the Huntington-Hurdle tandem, though, and look as if they’ll sell at the deadline, as MLBTR’s Charlie Wilmoth wrote earlier Saturday.

More from Rosenthal:

  • The Orioles have experienced a fair amount of success since 2012, when they hired GM Dan Duquette to team with manager Buck Showalter. Despite that, Duquette and Showalter have an “unsteady” relationship, according to Rosenthal. Therefore, with their contracts set to expire after next season, one or both might end up on the outs in the near future. Showalter, who will be 62 after next season, could take over Duquette’s current job, per Rosenthal.
  • If the 32-26 Twins remain in contention around the deadline, not only will they have a hard time parting with trade candidates such as Ervin Santana and Brian Dozier, but they could end up as buyers, suggests Rosenthal. In that situation, the Twins would likely target cheap starting help to aid a rotation that’s missing Phil Hughes and Hector Santiago, both of whom are on the disabled list. Hughes and Santiago have struggled even when healthy this year for Minnesota, whose rotation entered Saturday a solid 12th in the majors in ERA but a troubling 26th in FIP.
  • The Mariners will have to address long-term needs in their rotation either at the deadline or during the offseason, notes Rosenthal. Hisashi Iwakuma, Yovani Gallardo and Drew Smyly are only under control for another two years at the most (the first two have club options for 2018), leaving Seattle with James Paxton, Felix Hernandez and Ariel Miranda as its only current prominent starters under contract through 2019.

Cafardo’s Latest: Yankees, Vargas, Gray, Cobb, Volquez

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The Yankees are 35-23 and atop the AL East, but both GM Brian Cashman and manager Joe Girardi are currently lame ducks, notes Nick Cafardo of the Boston Globe. Cashman isn’t worried about his contract status, telling Cafardo: “I’ve been to this point a few times now. It’s just not unusual. It’s not something you can spend a lot of time thinking about. When the time comes, hopefully things will be taken care of, but it’s not something I talk a lot about.” Cashman, in his 20th year as the Yankees’ GM, is likely underpaid, writes Cafardo. The same goes for Girardi, who has been in his position since 2008. Both make around $4MM per year, which Cafardo points out is a far cry from the salaries of contemporaries such as Cubs president Theo Epstein ($10MM), manager Joe Maddon ($7MM) and Dodgers president Andrew Friedman ($7MM).

Now for the latest pitching-related rumblings from Cafardo:

  • Royals left-hander Jason Vargas and Athletics right-hander Sonny Gray are the hurlers who are most asked about in trade discussions (in that order), reports Cafardo. While Vargas is a soft-tossing 34-year-old with below-average strikeout and ground-ball rates (7.14 and 37.0, respectively), he’s only walking 2.06 batters per nine and his run prevention hasn’t shown signs of wavering this season. Vargas’ ERA is currently at 2.18 through 74 1/3 frames and hasn’t gone over 2.39. Unlike Vargas, who will be a free agent next winter, Gray comes with multiple years of team control. He’s on a more-than-reasonable $3.575MM salary this year and isn’t scheduled to become a free agent until after the 2019 season. The 27-year-old Gray hasn’t prevented runs to the extent that he did from 2013-15 (2.88 ERA in 491 frames), but he has rebounded from a dreadful 2016 to log a 4.37 ERA, 8.94 K/9, 2.66 BB/9 and a 56.7 percent grounder rate over 47 1/3 innings. Also, his 3.35 FIP is right in line with the 3.36 mark he registered from 2013-15.
  • The Yankees are leaving the door open for southpaw C.C. Sabathia’s return in 2018, according to Cafardo. A free agent in the offseason, Sabathia’s next deal certainly won’t come anywhere close to his expiring five-year, $122MM contract. Still, the erstwhile ace is making a case for a decent payday at the age of 36. Across 71 1/3 innings this year, the soft contact-inducing Sabathia has recorded a 3.66 ERA, 7.32 K/9, 2.9 BB/9 and a 48.8 percent ground-ball rate.
  • Righty Alex Cobb is the Rays starter most likely to end up on the move by the trade deadline, relays Cafardo. The 29-year-old hasn’t been as stingy as he was prior to 2015, when he underwent Tommy John surgery, but has given the Rays 79 2/3 innings of 4.29 ERA ball (with a matching FIP) this year. Along the way, the impending free agent – who’s on a $4.2MM salary – has somewhat offset a low K/9 (6.44) with a quality BB/9 (2.6) and generated grounders at a 43.9 percent clip.
  • If the Marlins go into fire-sale mode, righty Edinson Volquez could draw interest, suggests Cafardo. The offseason signing has been lights out recently, especially during his 11-strikeout no-hitter last Saturday, and has dropped his ERA nearly a run and a half over the past three weeks (from 4.87 on May 18 to 3.41). Volquez, 33, has helped his cause by pairing his best K/9 in five years (8.52) with a 48.6 percent ground-ball rate, though his BB/9 (4.59) is also at its highest since 2012. An acquiring team would take on the remainder of Volquez’s $9MM salary this year and another $13MM in 2018.

Baseball Blogs Weigh In: Mariners, Braves, Bucs, Nats, Dodgers, Rox

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This week in baseball blogs:

Please send submissions to ZachBBWI @gmai.com.

Brewers Place Jonathan Villar On DL, Promote Lewis Brinson

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The Brewers have announced that they’ve placed infielder Jonathan Villar on the 10-day DL with a lower back strain. To take Villar’s place on the active roster, the Brewers have promoted outfield prospect Lewis Brinson.

Villar’s injury is the latest setback in a miserable campaign for a player who was an offensive standout for the Brewers last year. Then a shortstop/third baseman, Villar led the majors in stolen bases (62) and delivered a terrific .285/.369/.457 batting line with 19 home runs in 679 plate appearances. Villar, now a second baseman, remains a threat on the base paths (14 steals), but his work at the plate hasn’t given him the opportunity to swipe as many bags. Across 248 PAs, Villar has batted a meager .213/.283/.342. As long as Villar’s out, the majority of the work at the keystone figures to go to Eric Sogard, who has hit a red-hot .375/.500/.609 in 80 PAs.

With Brinson now up, Milwaukee has added its two best prospects in as many days, having promoted left-hander Josh Hader on Friday. Brinson is regarded as the better of the two, as Baseball Prospectus (No. 12), MLB.com (No. 13), FanGraphs’ Eric Longenhagen and Baseball America (No. 20) each rank the 23-year-old among the game’s 20 best prospects, while ESPN’s Keith Law (No. 38) is only slightly less bullish.

Brinson joined the Brewers last summer as the centerpiece of the package they received from the Rangers for catcher Jonathan Lucroy and reliever Jeremy Jeffress. The right-handed-hitting Brinson, a first-round pick in 2012, has done nothing but produce since he joined the Milwaukee organization, slashing .382/.387/.618 in 93 PAs with its Triple-A affiliate in Colorado Springs last year and .312/.397/.503 in 204 plate trips this season. Along the way, Brinson has drawn walks in 10.8 percent of PAs and added six homers and seven stole bases. Brinson has the type of power and speed that could lead to his emergence as a 30-30 threat in the majors, according to MLB.com. Unsurprisingly, his speed also comes in handy in center field, continues MLB.com, as it it helps him overcome “shaky jumps and reads.”

Brinson could open in left field for the Brewers (depth chart), whose top option, Ryan Braun, has been on the disabled list since late May. Once Braun returns, it’s unclear how the Brewers will handle the young outfield quartet of Brinson, Domingo Santana, Keon Broxton and Brett Phillips for the rest of the season and in the coming years. All four have minor league options remaining, and only Santana has fared well this year at the big league level. If Brinson holds his own, it could lead to a bench role or a minor league demotion for the strikeout-prone Broxton, whose output has paled in comparison to that of both Braun and Santana. The Brewers could also trade Braun, who’s controllable through 2020, but there’s no indication they’re in any rush to do that.

In the event Brinson remains with the Brewers for the rest of the season, he’ll accrue 114 days of service time and should fall short of Super Two eligibility. If that happens, Brinson wouldn’t be eligible for arbitration until after the 2020 season and he wouldn’t be in line to hit free agency until the conclusion of the 2023 campaign.

Injury Notes: Stanton, Hernandez, Dozier

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Here are a few notes on developing injury situations throughout the league.

  • Marlins slugger Giancarlo Stanton left today’s game with what appeared to be a hand or wrist injury after being struck by a 95-MPH fastball by Trevor Williams of the Pirates, Tim Healey of the South Florida Sun Sentinel and other reporters have noted. It appears, however, that Stanton and the Marlins have lucked out, as the team announced after the game that X-rays were negative and that Stanton only has a hand contusion. He is day-to-day.  Losing Stanton would have been a significant blow to the Marlins — he’s in the midst of a healthy and terrific .288/.365/.566 season, and the team, as Healey notes, is already dealing with injuries to lineup regulars Justin Bour, Adeiny Hechavarria and Martin Prado.
  • Phillies second baseman Cesar Hernandez suffered an oblique or abdominal injury on Friday and appears likely to head to the disabled list, CSNPhilly.com’s Jim Salisbury writes. Hernandez was not placed on the DL before today’s game, but he was not in the lineup. As Salisbury notes, the Phillies do have a good second base prospect in Scott Kingery who’s batting .304/.379/.621 at Double-A Reading, although Kingery has not yet played at Triple-A, so it’s unclear whether they would see him as a candidate to play second at the big-league level if Hernandez were to miss significant time.
  • The Royals have announced that OF/3B Hunter Dozier has been placed on the minor-league DL with a hamate fracture. Dozier, the eighth overall pick in the 2013 draft, currently ranks as the Royals’ top prospect, according to MLB.com. But he’s had a rough 2017 season, missing almost two months to start the season with an oblique strain and now dealing with his hamate issue, which will likely cause him to miss several weeks. Dozier batted .294/.357/.506 for Triple-A Omaha last season.

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