It seems increasingly plausible that the Athletics may not only keep second baseman Jed Lowrie for the remainder of the season, Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle suggests, but also for the 2018 campaign. It seems a foregone conclusion that the club will exercise the veteran’s $6MM club option, though he could still be traded over the winter. Assuming that Lowrie remains in Oakland when the calendar flips to September, the focus will turn to assessing the desirability of retaining him as opposed to turning the reins over to youngster Franklin Barreto. Slusser notes that, despite the team’s general youth movement, there’s a feeling that Barreto could stand to receive a fair bit more developmental time at Triple-A before he is fully exposed to MLB pitching.
Here’s more from out west:
- The Angels aren’t sure when they’ll get righty J.C. Ramirez back from an elbow injury, Jeff Fletcher of the Orange County Register writes. Ramirez has been shut down with what has been diagnosed as a strain. “He’s in a no-throw situation as we assess his strength,” says GM Billy Eppler. Ramirez, 29, has been quite the pick-up for the Halos. Since joining the organization last year, he has provided 193 2/3 innings of 3.86 ERA pitching — a distinct turnaround from the marginal results he had produced previously.
- It’s likely that Dodgers lefty Alex Wood will skip at least one start, Andy McCullough of the Los Angeles Times was among those to report (Twitter links). Wood showed a downtick in velocity and coughed up three home runs in his outing yesterday, though he was able to complete six innings. After the game, manager Dave Roberts said that Wood had experienced a recurrence of inflammation in his SC joint. Given the Dodgers’ place in the standings, there’s little reason to take a risk.
- Struggling Rockies closer Greg Holland says he’s just not throwing enough “quality pitches,” as Nick Groke of the Denver Post writes. Manager Bud Black suggested there’s no cause for broader concern, while Holland noted that he has “been getting beat with mistakes in the middle of the plate.” The veteran righty was carrying a 1.56 ERA entering play on August 6th, but that number has more than doubled over his last five appearances. Assuming he can figure things out, Holland figures to be a key part of the Rockies’ hopeful run to and through October — and quite an interesting free agent to watch once the season ends.
Struggling Rockies closer Greg Holland says he’s just not throwing enough “quality pitches,”
That’s why I thought Britton to the Rockies would have made tremendous sense.
Yet, not even a nibble from Colorado
Maybe Colorado finally understands that going after pitching is not a good idea considering their ballpark. Many pitchers have had their careers take steep turns downward by pitching in Coors Field regularly.
But Britton is an extreme ground ball pitcher
I would think that 25 years in the front office in Denver is fully aware of the challenges of pitching at a mile above sea level. That said, it’s not like they can build a pitching staff and bullpen solely from within. They have to go out and sign free agent pitchers, and take some chances that other organizations won’t do. The Rockies are going to have busts in their signings, and they will be magnified because of their home field. They still have to go out, and get pitching. They need guys to pitch just like all the other teams do. It’s not like they can show up to games without pitchers, and just tell other teams, “We don’t have any pitchers for this game. Because well, we just don’t believe in signing guys because of Coors Field. Can we just use some of your pitchers instead?”
But not going after good pitching means you’re stuck with bad pitching which is going to get destroyed at Coors Field. You’d rather have good pitchers pitch slightly worse for you than have bad pitchers pitch terribly for you.
Does Lowrie even have any trade value right now?
Sure. He gets OB and has some power with playoff experience.
The problem is no need for 2B on playoff teams. Most are set at 2B with solid players.
Yankees have Torreyes who hasn’t been bad and Indians have had Kipnis on DL for awhile.
Lowrie would be a bench upgrade for those teams and would push no bat Urshella out of the Indians lineup until Kipnis is back
Yankees have Starlin Castro returning soon. Cost of keeping Toreyes around on the bench vs. acquiring Lowrie to take his spot makes this suggestion a non-starter.
Kipnis has been back in the Indians lineup since Aug 6th
And I have to imagine the Yankees, Indians or anyone else were not really interested in a middle infield addition at all. If anyone was, Asdrubal wouldn’t be with the Mets today.
Wood needs to be shut down for 2-3 weeks.
No problem with that. Get some rest but enough time to tune it back up for october
Completely agree with the A’s. Why give a young top prospect a chance to play when you can run Lowrie out there everyday?