With the Twins set to play 20 games in a 19-day span heading into the All-Star break, including four games against the Royals this weekend, they’ll dip into the minors and call on prospect Felix Jorge to make his MLB debut tomorrow, reports Mike Berardino of the St. Paul Pioneer Press. The 23-year-old Jorge currently sits eighth among Minnesota farmhands, per Jim Callis and Jonathan Mayo of MLB.com, and also ranked eighth among Twins prospects entering the season, per Baseball America. The right-hander doesn’t overpower opponents but has walked just 1.7 hitters per nine innings dating back to 2015. He currently has a 3.26 ERA with 6.4 K/9, 2.3 BB/9 and a 50.4 percent ground-ball rate through 85 2/3 Double-A frames. Both scouting reports peg Jorge as a fourth or fifth starter, noting that he’s added some bulk to his slender frame and sits in the low 90s with a bit of sink on his heater while also offering an above-average changeup. Jorge is already on the 40-man roster, so there won’t be a DFA or 60-day DL move required to add him.
More on the game’s Central divisions…
- Aledmys Diaz was caught off-guard by the Cardinals’ decision to option him to Triple-A, writes Rick Hummel of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. However, the 26-year-old offered a professional attitude to the media following the move’s announcement, telling reporters that he’s happy to do whatever is best for the Cardinals in the long run. General manager John Mozeliak also weighed in on what he labeled a difficult decision, telling the media: “What we really want to see is that he’s able to take a deep breath and go down and work on some things offensively, as well as his whole game. … (Diaz) hasn’t been picking the ball up (at the plate) and he’s been chasing a lot of balls outside the zone.” Mozeliak also noted that injured second baseman Kolten Wong won’t be back with the team until after the All-Star break.
- Cubs manager Joe Maddon spoke candidly about the organization’s decision to designate Miguel Montero for assignment following the catcher’s blasting of Jake Arrieta and the Cubs’ pitching staff, Mark Gonzales of the Chicago Tribune writes. “(There are) too many young guys in (the clubhouse) who are impressionable,” said Maddon. “…With this young impressionable group, to me, and a really good group that’s going to be together for a long time, you don’t want to foster, nurture, condone (Montero’s) kind of message.” President of baseball operations Theo Epstein was alerted to Montero’s comments by GM Jed Hoyer on Tuesday night this week, per Gonzales, and the two reached the decision to move on from Montero after speaking with Maddon late that night. Epstein stresses that Montero shouldn’t be viewed as any kind of scapegoat for the team’s overall struggles, though he said they felt Montero was “not being a good teammate” and demonstrated a lack of accountability in such a public manner that they were forced to act.
- The White Sox announced yesterday that righty Jake Petricka has been placed back on the disabled list due to a right elbow strain. Fellow righty Juan Minaya was summoned back from Triple-A just a day after being sent there. The elbow issue is the latest in a slew of injuries for Petricka, who has missed time due to a forearm strain, hip surgery and a lat strain in recent years. The 29-year-old’s hard sinker has led to a sizable 63 percent ground-ball rate, though Petricka has averaged just 6.5 K/9 against 4.0 BB/9 as a big leaguer. Nonetheless, that huge ground-ball rate has helped him post a 3.70 ERA through 163 innings in the Majors. No timetable was given for a return to the mound.
Just waiting to hear how Arrieta is trash because of his “political tweets” lol. Great move by Theo and Jed. Good for Joe for telling them what he wanted and for them listening to him!
He sucks because he is awful at pitching and thinks he deserves an insane contract
I do not think a cy young award winner is an awful pitcher not to mention he won a World Series last year. This is such an ignorant comment. He may not deserve what he thinks he is worth but by no means is he an awful pitcher
No i dont care what anyone says. Arrieta is awful because he believes he is an elite pitcher. If he just kept his mouth shut and didnt constantly say ridiculous comments he would be fine. His mouth wrote checks his arm cant cash. He is costing his team games this year with a negative WAR. 2015 was a fluke even RA dickey has a cy young.
what he did in 2015 does not matter. he declined last year and declining more this year. he is a 4th starter on a good team
this!
He did not win the world series last year the Cubs did. And he won the Cy Young in 2015 … who cares … that was 2 years ago … now he stinks … so deal with it
I remember when he came over for Feldman, the consensus was that if he can be a cost effective, serviceable 4-5 starter, it was a win. Now had he been just from the beginning, nobody would complain.
However, when you go from being a Cy Young winner to that, it’s hugely disappointing.
This being said, it’s funny how few sports fans don’t understand that an awful lot of space lies between “superstar” and “sucks.”
Agreed he ain’t great but he very good for a couple more years so lay off him .I blame Boris the great greed of MLB
See Porcello, Rick
I don’t think anyone was interested in Arrieta’s tweets here. No reason to even bring that up.
Yeah, wtf.
Yea, Making a comment like that is like saying “you are now aware of your rate of blinking’. No good could come from it.
…
There is that one troll “just another fan” that was ranting against arrieta for his tweets. Then again that jerk is a troll.
wasn’t me
Good move by Maddon, Theo, and Jed. Miggy has been a clubhouse cancer dating back to Arizona. Me, me, me. That’s all he’s about. He’d me more suited for a game like golf. 1 person. A team sport needs team cooperation.
I think the end of miggy started when he whined about his role literally 2 days after the world series
By all accounts, he mentored Contreras and Kyle well. Just did not know how to censor himself.
Montero made the mistake of not blaming himself for Arietta’s slow delivery that gave him no chance to throw out those stealing on Arietta’s slow and consistent delivery. A pitcher does not have to throw pickoff throws to base to keep one from stealing.. If the pitcher does not want to throw to the base to disrupt the runners timing, the pitcher must make subtle changes to his deliver to throw off the timing of the runner.
It is very true that Arrieta is slow to the plate and Montero didn’t have a chance in most of the SB attempts. Arrieta admitted as much. But he can’t just brush off the fact that he’s tied for slowest pop time in the league. You aren’t going to throw many guys out if that’s the case. So it’s pretty clear he as well has things to work on. He’s half the problem in that battery being slow, and all he did was point his finger at the other. Should have just said we have things to work on in regards to the run game.
It doesn’t really matter if Montero was right or not. You just don’t call out a teammate like that to the press. Cubs did the right thing.
Let’s move on.