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Archives for May 2018

Rays Acquire Wilmer Font

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The Rays have announced the acquisition of righty Wilmer Font from the Athletics. Minor-league righty Peter Bayer will go to Oakland in return.

Font had recently been designated for assignment by the A’s. His stop there hasn’t been any better than his opening to the season was with the Dodgers. In 17 innings this year, Font has allowed 24 earned runs on 31 hits.

Optimists will note that Font has managed 16 strikeouts to go with just five walks on the year. Those figures line up more with Font’s promising showing at Triple-A last year, when he worked to 3.42 ERA in 134 1/3 innings with 11.9 K/9 and 2.3 BB/9.

Ultimately, it’s tough to look past the fact that opposing hitters have somehow managed to drive the ball out of the park a dozen times in Font’s first 24 MLB innings. But the Rays certainly have a need for arms and don’t mind taking the risk, so they’ll see if they can get the 28-year-old on track.

Dombrowski, Cora On Decision To Remove Hanley Ramirez From Roster

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Red Sox president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski and manager Alex Cora each addressed the media today following the team’s decision to designate first baseman Hanley Ramirez for assignment. All links below are to the Twitter accounts of Jason Mastrodonato of the Boston Herald, Alex Speier of the Boston Globe, and Rob Bradford of WEEI.com, who were among the reporters covering the respective discussions.

As interesting as anything was simply the fact that the leadership duo divulged an unusual amount of information about how the move went down. And the story behind the decisionmaking process was certainly notable in its own right.

Both men stated that Cora reached out unprompted to suggest that Ramirez ought to be the player removed to make way for the return of Dustin Pedroia. Though Dombrowski says he was surprised to hear that recommendation from the rookie skipper, and noted that he had been “prepared to go in a different direction,” the veteran baseball ops executive elected to cut ties with the highly paid Ramirez. In his comments, Cora thanked Dombrowski for trusting his judgment.

It seems there was some concern on the part of all involved that Ramirez would not be a good candidate for a part-time role, which he was headed for after a tough recent run at the plate. On the flip side, Dombrowski says Cora assuaged any worry that bumping Ramirez would harm chemistry in the clubhouse.

The fact that Ramirez’s contract includes a vesting option for the 2019 season did not come into play, Dombrowski was careful to note. “The vesting option has nothing to do with it,” he said. “We’re trying to do everything we can to win.” Whether or not it was a driving factor in the decision, the option can no longer vest, as it had been on track to do had Ramirez remained a semi-regular part of the Boston lineup.

At the end of the day, the Sox decided to abandon the alternative roster decision they had originally intended to make. Dombrowski told Nick Cafardo of the Boston Globe a few days back that he knew how he’d proceed, though he wouldn’t say. And Cora confirmed today that the expectation internally had been the same as it was outside the organization: namely, that little-used, out-of-options reserve Blake Swihart would be the player moved off of the roster.

Swihart, of course, is a catcher that the team really has not trusted behind the dish. He requested a trade; we even examined possible landing spots. Evidently, so did the Red Sox. Dombrowski says they weren’t just interested in sending him out for a return that did not hold any appeal, though he also says the team wasn’t placing a particularly high price.

Now that it’s clear Swihart will remain in Boston, at least in the near-term, it seems there’s a renewed sense that he’ll be given some action. (Of course, the return of Pedroia also means that other players will be left looking for additional opportunities.) Cora indicated he may start Swihart at the catching position. Swihart will also evidently be considered for some time at first base, if he can show enough aptitude at a position where he has little experience.

Angels Release Ryan Schimpf

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MAY 25: Schimpf has cleared waivers and officially been released, per a club announcement.

MAY 22: The Angels have requested unconditional release waivers on infielder Ryan Schimpf, as per the team’s communications department (via Twitter).  After being acquired from the Braves on March 31, Schimpf appeared in five games for the Angels, totaling seven plate appearances.

Schimpf, who just turned 30 last month, will again be on the move but this time have some control over his next destination.  The infielder was traded three times in less than four months from December to March, starting with the Padres and then moving to the Rays and Braves before ending up in Anaheim.

Schimpf burst onto the scene with 20 homers in 330 PA as a rookie with San Diego in 2016, though even that early success revealed his all-or-nothing tendencies at the plate, as he racked up 105 strikeouts that season.  In 534 career MLB plate appearances, Schimpf has 178 strikeouts and just a .195 batting average, though he could get on base at a decent (.318 OBP) clip.  This extreme “three true outcomes” style made Schimpf less valuable given that homers aren’t hard to come by in the modern game, though it seems likely that another team will take a crack at signing Schimpf to see if it can iron out the holes in his swing.

Yankees Release Adam Lind

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The Yankees announced on Friday that they’ve released first baseman/outfielder Adam Lind for the second time this year. Lind inked a minor league pact with the Yankees during Spring Training and was released to pursue other opportunities, though he ultimately landed back with the Yanks on a second minor league pact. That seems unlikely this time, as he’ll now search for a different opportunity with a better path to the Majors than he has with the Yankees, where Greg Bird is nearing a return and Tyler Austin is showing power at the big league level.

New York also announced that the organization has acquired the rights to catcher Wilkin Castillo. who’d been playing for the Long Island Ducks of the independent Atlantic League. He’ll head to Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre in place of veteran Erik Kratz, who was traded to the Brewers today.

The 34-year-old Lind has appeared at two levels with the Yankees thus far, slashing a combined .302/.362/.477 with three homers in 94 plate appearances. The bulk of the damage he’s done, though, came in an eight-game stint with Class-A Advanced, while his work with the team’s Triple-A affiliate has been less inspiring.

That said, there’s no reason to think that Lind won’t catch on elsewhere as a depth option in the upper minors at the very least, if not in a greater role. He’s been an above-average bat in four of the past five MLB seasons, has a long history of hitting right-handed pitching at an especially strong clip, and produced a robust .303/.362/.513 slash with 14 homers in 301 PAs for the Nationals just last season. He’d make sense as a Triple-A stash for any number of clubs, while clubs like the Rockies have seen their first baseman struggle in the Majors and others, such as the Twins, have recently incurred an injury at that position (Joe Mauer, concussion).

Castillo, meanwhile, received a small bit of big league experience with the Reds way back in 2008-09 but hasn’t appeared in the Majors since. He has just 22 games and 37 MLB plate appearances under his belt and is a career .244/.280/.352 hitter in parts of 10 Triple-A seasons. He should be a familiar face for those in Scranton, having spent 45 games there last season.

Brewers Acquire Erik Kratz, Designate Jett Bandy, Option Orlando Arcia

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The Brewers made a significant series of roster moves on Friday, acquiring veteran backstop Erik Kratz from the Yankees in exchange for cash and designating Jett Bandy for assignment to clear a spot on the roster. Both teams have announced the trade. Additionally, Milwaukee announced that shortstop Orlando Arcia and righty Jorge Lopez have been optioned to Triple-A Colorado Springs in favor of veteran infielder Eric Sogard and right-hander Adrian Houser.

Set to turn 38 in June, Kratz is off to a .269/.356/.538 start with the Yankees’ Triple-A affiliate. While he doesn’t have a lengthy track record at the big league level, he’s shown throughout parts of eight big league seasons that he possess some pop, homering 24 times in 649 plate appearances and notching a .163 ISO. Of course, Kratz’s overall .203/.250/.366 slash line in that time has been sub-par and serves to illustrate why his time in the Majors has been sporadic. To his credit, he’s halted 34 percent of stolen-base attempts against him in the Majors and has been similarly effective throughout his minor league career (32 percent).

As for Bandy, the Brewers will have a week to trade him, Ttry to pass him through outright waivers or release him. The 28-year-old showed a bit of promise early in his career with the Angels but has struggled in two seasons with Milwaukee, hitting just .202/.282/.326. While Milwaukee GM David Stearns has made his share of shrewd moves since taking over the team’s baseball operations department, the decision to flip Martin Maldonado to the Angels in exchange for Bandy likely ranks among his most regrettable swaps, as Maldonado has provided more with the bat and also took home an AL Gold Glove last season in his first year with the Halos.

Arcia, meanwhile, looked to have gone a long way toward establishing himself as a regular in the Milwaukee infield last season. After struggling as a 21-year-old in his debut back in 2016, the longtime top prospect hit .277/.324/.407 with 15 home runs and 14 stolen bases last season. The 2018 season, however, has proven to be a full course reversal at the dish.

Through 146 trips to the dish this season, Arcia has mustered a feeble .194/.233/.273 slash with two homers and five doubles. His walk rate is down two percent, his strikeout rate is up five percent, and his 28.6 percent hard-contact rate is considerably south of the league average. Arcia has contributed quality glovework, to be sure, but that apparently wasn’t deemed enough to salvage his spot on the roster for the time being.

Tyler Saladino figures to be the primary beneficiary of the Brewers’ decision to offer Arcia a mental reset of sorts, as he’s hit well in his brief time since being acquired from the White Sox and offers a solid glove in his own right. While the 28-year-old certainly doesn’t possess the same upside as Arcia, who once ranked as one of the game’s 10 to 15 top overall prospects, he’ll serve as a stopgap while Arcia seeks to remedy his swing and improve upon his plate discipline in a lower-pressure setting.

Cardinals Unlikely To Put Innings Limit On Alex Reyes

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Alex Reyes’ rehab stint as he makes his way back from Tommy John surgery has been the stuff of legend. The vaunted prospect has fired 23 scoreless innings with a ridiculous 44-to-7 K/BB ratio in that time and, in what is almost certain to be his final rehab appearance, punched out nine consecutive hitters last night.

It’s already known that the Cardinals, who initially were mulling a bullpen role for Reyes upon his return, plan to use him in the rotation. President of baseball ops John Mozeliak reinforced that idea following last night’s start, writes Rick Hummel of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, saying Reyes is “likely” to be in the rotation and, more interestingly, indicating that he won’t be restricted in terms of innings. With a late-May start to Reyes’ workload, Mozeliak tells Hummel, “I don’t think he will have a cap.”

That’s not to say, of course, that the Cardinals won’t exercise caution with regard to Reyes’ workload. Logic would dictate that he could be eased back into the rotation in terms of pitch count early on, and with as many as six other rotation options at their disposal, the Cardinals can afford to get Reyes an extra day of rest here or there depending on how his body responds after not throwing a single regular-season pitch last year due to Tommy John surgery.

[Related: St. Louis Cardinals depth chart]

Reyes will step back into a rotation mix also featuring Miles Mikolas, Luke Weaver, Michael Wacha, fellow prospect Jack Flaherty and swingman John Gant, with ace Carlos Martinez also on the mend from a strained lat muscle. (Hummel notes that Martinez’s return from the DL could follow Reyes’ own activation in relatively short order). It’s not entirely clear how the Cards plan to divide up the workload, though pitching coach Mike Maddux rightly noted that any club would welcome the opportunity to have to gameplan for that sort of “problem.” Maddux also points out that the depth will be of particular use following the All-Star break, as the Cards open the second half with six games in a span of five days.

The exact date of Reyes’ highly anticipated return hasn’t been set, though it seems likely to come at some point early next week in a key series against the division-leading Brewers. While that return won’t mark the MLB debut for Reyes, who pitched 46 innings for the Cardinals in 2016, it’ll mark the latest in a recent series of promotions for the game’s next young wave of stars. Shohei Ohtani, Ronald Acuna, Gleyber Torres and Juan Soto (among others) have all debuted to considerable fanfare this season and provided several memorable moments. Reyes looks likely to be the next to step into that spotlight as yet another impressive young talent who’ll be expected to play a key role on a contending club.

Red Sox Designate Hanley Ramirez For Assignment

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10:34am: The Red Sox have formally announced the move via press release. Pedroia has been officially activated from the DL.

10:13am: In a surprising move, the Red Sox will designate first baseman/designated hitter Hanley Ramirez for assignment today in order to clear a spot on the roster for Dustin Pedroia’s activation from the disabled list, Alex Speier of the Boston Globe reports.

Hanley Ramirez | Kim Klement-USA TODAY Sports

Though the move is jarring considering the fact that Ramirez opened the season as Boston’s No. 3 hitter and showed quite well early on, he’s gone cold as of late and places some complicated financial constraints on the team. Ramirez’s contract contains a $22MM mutual option that would vest if he accumulated even 497 plate appearances this season, as MLBTR’s Mark Polishuk recently examined at greater length, and the organization surely doesn’t want that lofty salary to lock in. Keeping Ramirez on the roster but attempting to organically suppress his playing time would’ve been awkward and could have potentially even led to a grievance on his behalf if he felt the team’s motivation for keeping him out of the lineup were purely financial in nature. By cutting ties with him, albeit in surprising and abrupt fashion, the Sox spare themselves that difficult situation.

Still, such a move would’ve been virtually unthinkable not even four weeks ago. Ramirez looked resurgent early in the season, absolutely raking his way through April by hitting at a .330/.400/.474 clip as he distanced himself from last year’s shoulder woes in emphatic fashion. However, Ramirez’s bat has gone ice cold in recent weeks; he’s currently in an 0-for-21 freefall at the plate and, since the calendar flipped to May, has delivered a putrid .163/.200/.300 slash that has largely counteracted his terrific April. By measure of OPS+ (88) and wRC+ (90), his overall offensive output on the season now rates decidedly worse than that of a league-average hitter.

As with any player who has been designated for assignment, the Red Sox will have a week to trade Ramirez, place him on outright waivers or release him. Given the remaining $15.17MM on this year’s $22MM salary and that easily attainable vesting option, it’s all but certain that Ramirez will be released rather than sent elsewhere. At that point, he’d be free to sign a new contract with a new club that would only owe him the pro-rated league minimum and wouldn’t need to worry about the vesting provision in his prior agreement in Boston.

Looking ahead, the stunning decision to move on from Ramirez should lock J.D. Martinez in as Boston’s primary designated hitter and give Mitch Moreland and his superior glove regular reps at first base. The move also prolongs Blake Swihart’s purgatorial stay in Boston, though perhaps by jettisoning Ramirez from the roster, the Sox will open up a few more opportunities to work the scarcely used former top prospect into the lineup.

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.

Blue Jays Notes: Deadline, Vlad Jr., Osuna

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The Blue Jays’ recent skid — they’re 2-8 in their past 10 games and now sit at 23-27 on the season — could force the team’s front office to make some tough decisions in the coming months, writes Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic (subscription link). While there’s certainly still time to turn things around, the Jays look to be a Wild Card contender at best and a clear seller at worst. While impending free agents like J.A. Happ, Josh Donaldson, Curtis Granderson, Marco Estrada, Tyler Clippard, John Axford and Aaron Loup all stand out as plausible trade chips in the event that the team decides to sell off pieces, Rosenthal notes that the club could also have to weigh the possibility of listening on assets with mid-range control remaining. Kevin Pillar, Marcus Stroman and Aaron Sanchez are all controlled through 2020 and would be more attractive trade pieces that’d accelerate a turnaround and provide a more immediate boost to the farm.

As is the case throughout the league, the Blue Jays have the luxury of waiting for better health and potentially better performance before plotting their deadline course, but there’s certainly no shortage of key performers whose contractual control in Toronto is nearing its end.

A bit more on the game’s lone Canadian team…

  • Blue Jays fans (and fans of any club, for that matter) will want to check out this excellent look at the lengthy process of signing top prospect Vladimir Guerrero Jr., penned by Steve Simmons of the Toronto Sun. Simmons chats with former Jays GM Alex Anthopoulos (now the Braves’ GM), former Latin American scouting director Ismael Cruz (now with the Dodgers) and former president Paul Beeston about one of several trips to the Dominican Republic to meet with Guerrero in person. With MLB forbidding clubs from working players out privately at their own facilities, Anthopoulos solicited help from then-Jays first baseman Edwin Encarnacion to secure an independent field to host the workout, which Encarnacion attended as well. (Encarnacion provided a decisive endorsement for the then-15-year-old Guerrero.) Simmons’ story examines Guerrero’s connection with Canada dating back to his father’s tenure with the Expos (Guerrero Jr. was born in Montreal) and details the countless hours of work, millions of dollars and even trades to acquire international bonus allotments that went into signing the 19-year-old who is now arguably the game’s most anticipated minor leaguer. “I’ve never seen two guys more convinced about a player than Alex and Ismael were,” Beeston tells Simmons. “If you don’t believe in your GM and in your Latin American scouting director, you have the wrong GM and the wrong scouting director.”
  • It doesn’t seem as if there’s resolution in sight on the investigation into abuse allegations against Jays closer Roberto Osuna, writes FanRag’s Jon Heyman. Major League Baseball is still awaiting Canadian law enforcement to conclude its own investigation and has not yet seen any of the reports or findings from those efforts, per Heyman. In previous U.S.-based investigations, commissioner Rob Manfred and his staff have waited for criminal investigations to wrap up before making their own assessment, and it seems that’s also the case in this instance. Heyman also rightly points out that the deal could have significant ramifications for Osuna in terms of service time and free agency; the 23-year-old entered the season with exactly three years of MLB service time, so a suspension that costs him anything more than 15 days of service time would leave him shy of four full years of service at season’s end, thus pushing his path to free agency back by a full year. At present, Osuna can become a free agent after the 2020 season, but a suspension of even modest length would push that back to the 2021-22 offseason. At present, Osuna is still earning service time and being paid while on administrative leave.

MLB Daily Roster Roundup: Braun, Castillo, Davis, Iglesias, Sano

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ROSTER MOVES BY TEAM
(May 23rd-May 24th)

NATIONAL LEAGUE

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AMERICAN LEAGUE

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FUTURE EXPECTED MOVES

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