The Indians have informed veteran outfielder Matt Joyce that he won’t make the roster, manager Terry Francona told reporters Friday (Twitter link via STO’s Andre Knott). The team is giving Joyce a bit of time to ponder his next step — presumably exploring other opportunities out there and weighing a potential assignment to Triple-A Columbus. The 34-year-old Joyce had a rough 2018 season with the A’s (.208/.322/.353 in 246 PAs) and is just 5-for-27 with seven punchouts and three walks thus far in Spring Training. However, he’s only one season removed from batting .243/.335/.473 with Oakland in 2017 and has generally functioned as a quality platoon bat over the past decade in the Majors. Of course, finding another opportunity could be tough, as there are still other veteran left-handed-hitting outfield bats looking for work on the market — including Carlos Gonzalez and Denard Span.
With Joyce out of the mix for the Indians, it seems they’ll lean on some combination of Greg Allen, Jake Bauers, Leonys Martin, Tyler Naquin and Jordan Luplow in the outfield. Once Bradley Zimmer has fully recovered from shoulder surgery, he’ll reemerge as an option as well.
Here’s more from the AL Central…
- Another veteran in camp with the Indians on a minor league deal, Tyler Clippard, will be sidelined from baseball activities for three to four weeks due to a mild pectoral strain, the club announced. The Indians, however, would like to keep Clippard, per Francona. That seemingly suggests that the Indians view the right-hander as a legitimate part of their MLB pen this year, though it’s tough to know what the roster landscape will look like when he is ready to resume competitive action. The 34-year-old Clippard has appeared in three spring contests and tallied 2 2/3 scoreless innings with three strikeouts and a walk. Last year, in 68 2/3 frames with the Blue Jays, he logged a 3.67 ERA with 11.1 K/9 and 3.0 BB/9 against an alarming 1.70 HR/9 mark.
- It seems there’s a realistic chance that Royals right-hander Kyle Zimmer will head north on the active roster, MLB.com’s Jeffrey Flanagan writes. He’s throwing in the mid-nineties and showing an impressive curveball, per skipper Ned Yost, who says that the progress throughout camp has been remarkable. The 27-year-old Zimmer, once the fifth overall pick in the draft, has yet to appear in the big leagues. He re-signed with the club on a MLB deal back in November but can still be optioned to Triple-A. Flanagan notes that the Royals are likely to carry an eight-man bullpen, though several spots are already earmarked for Wily Peralta, Brad Boxberger, Jake Diekman, Tim Hill, Kevin McCarthy and perhaps Rule 5 pick Sam McWilliams.
- White Sox GM Rick Hahn discussed his team’s plans for its top prospects, as Madeline Kenney of the Chicago Sun-Times reports. Hahn cited a tepid spring showing at the plate as the basis for the decision to place exciting youngster Eloy Jimenez back at Triple-A. Jimenez slashed .355/.399/.597 in 228 plate appearances there last year. As for top pitching prospect Dylan Cease, Hahn says the righty is ready to succeed in the majors. But he’ll also head back to the upper minors as part of the team’s plan to “get him through an entire season strong.” Cease threw a career-high 124 innings last year and so likely won’t be asked to take 32 starts in the season to come. Hahn says he’ll likely join the MLB roster at some point during the summer.
So he literally said he’s ready for the Majors but we’re not promoting him.
Yes the Sox will send these guys to the minors so they can get injured like the rest of them
They’ll send him down for a couple of weeks just to get an extra year of control over him. It’s the same thing that the Cubs did with Kris Bryant.
Maybe don’t compare him to Bryant. Completely different situation. The year Bryant was sent back he batted .350 slugged over .800 w/ 7 bombs, Eloy hit .073 Bryant was College POY, MiLB POY, MLB ROY then MLB MVP in 4 consecutive years. The Cubs ABSOLUTELY sent him back to the minors to take advantage of the service time issue. It’s a terrible loophole.
Thankfully for Bryant, he still came back to the show, won ROY and the Cubs went to the NLCS that year. In spite of playing in easily the worst division in baseball, the W Sox still won’t sniff the playoffs this year.
They rushed T Anderson stunting his development, Moncada is already being compared to Buxton as a major league bust. All of their “prospect” pitchers that graduated last year were horrible. Again, that’s why they’re called “prospects”.
Comparing Moncada to anyone or throwing the word bust into any sentence with him is just an injustice. As a Cub fan, above all, you have to be keenly aware of the preaching that Jed and Theo do advising not to make any real judgment on a player until that have 1400-1600 plate appearances——Moncada is at 900. There is still a lot of time for the light bulb to go on. If you are saying not to compare Eloy to Bryant, please don’t even infer a comparison to Moncada to anyone.
Well said. The Sox haven’t had a prospect who made it big in the Majors since Sale. (Abreu was an experienced professional when they signed him.) Maybe Anderson will continue to improve. Maybe Engel will become a better offensive force. Maybe some of these kid pitchers will find a formula for consistent mastery. Maybe. Yeah, maybe. But there have been plenty of prospects since then who bombed. With that record of poor player evaluation or failed development, I think the organization is quite right to proceed cautiously with their “can’t miss” prospects.
I took it as, he isn’t ready for a full work load, and they plan to ease him in. Going from 123 innings to 180-200 is a lot to ask.
Cease hasn’t a pitch in AAA and has only thrown 52 innings in AA. There’s no point in him starting the season in the bigs only to have to shut him down early.
Exactly. If Cease being in AAA to start irks anyone, people are reaching the point of ripping Mgmt no matter what…..and MLBPA created the Eloy no brainer incentive to hold back. Stale gripe until next collective bargaining.
Finally some common sense and logic.
He also said Eloy is being sent down because he hit poorly this spring. I guess we can stop blaming service time manipulation for Eloy staying in the minors now.
If they’re so concerned about his service time why not keep him down in aaa for the whole season and manipulate service time again this time next year.. Aren’t competing this year anyways
Eloy Jimenez’ MLB service time issue will become moot once the White Sox sign him to a long term extension as is their custom with the organization’s best young talent. They did it with Chris Sale, Jose Quintana, Adam Eaton and most recently Tim Anderson. The last two were extended even before they hit their arbitration eligibility.
There is a rumor circulating from Dominican baseball write Hector Gomez that the White Sox already have an 8yrs/$100M extension offer ready for Jimenez. It would be an unprecedented move for a prospect who has yet to face a single pitch in an official big league game but it if it happens it would not surprise me one bit.
The White Sox may suck at signing elite MLB free agent talent but they do have a fine track record of offering extensions as well as dishing out some significant dollars to international FA’s who never appeared in an MLB game prior to their deals. They did it with a 6yrs/$68M contract to Jose Abreu in 2013 and also gave Luis Robert a $26M signing bonus in 2017 that had a matching $26M penalty.
You really have to be trolling.
how is joyce still playing?
Terribly.
I could have told Joyce the day they signed him he wasn’t going to make the team.
Yep. Surprised it took Chewy this long to tell him.
I’m really liking what Trayce Thompson has shown this spring. I se him in the mix for RF.
Kinda funny the Zimmer brothers are mentioned in the same article
I believe the White Sox are now officially in Year #6 of their 5 year plan…..
I believe you’re sadly mistaken. For one, the White Sox never claimed to have a 5-year plan. In fact, by trading mostly for advanced prospects to kick-start their rebuild back in December of 2016 and by continuing a policy to draft mostly college talent in the June Draft the White Sox have indicated a plan that would be more in the 3-4 year range.
With the onset of the 2019 season, the White Sox are just entering year 3 of their rebuild. Most sites I have seen predict a 10-15 win jump in wins this season. I also envision the team continuing that trend in 2020 which would put them in the neighborhood of a .500 record or better.
White Sox didn’t contend in 2016, so the trading of assets you mention wasn’t the first sign of a rebuild. The White Sox have been claiming this rebuild way before the 16 season…
The sox seemed to be going more for a retool before giving in and trading away Sale and Q and going for the rebuild
Technically he’s right. The Sox didn’t start their rebuild til 2016. It gets confusing because Rick/Kenny are so clueless and inept at self scouting that they claimed to be “All In” a few years back (when they traded the #1 prospect in baseball for James F’n Shields) then proceeded to end up with a worse record than teams ACTIVELY tanking. So, although their record looked like they were rebuilding, technically they weren’t. Sale and his scissors, Drake LaRoche, Adam Duh Dump Dunn, etc… That team was put together to “win” in the eyes of the brilliant Kenny and Rick. So, technically, they aren’t 5 years in.
I wish all you White Sox fans would shut up- I am also a fan of the pale hose but give it a rest if y’all are that disgusted with the team and its management; become a Cubs fan you will fit in
How about you raise your standards?
Nahhh, we’re good. Just keep your trash on the south side. But seriously, you guys will be fine once Reinsdorf is gone. I actually sympathize, as a die hard Bulls fan, I’m beyond frustrated with his inexplicable loyalty to inept front office guys. He’s rendered both the Bulls/Sox irrelevant jokes which is inexcusable in a major market like Chicago.
cease is a lot more defensible than eloy because a SP needs to throw more than 120 innings per year. its clearly service time for every top prospect everywhere that went back to the minors (except vlad jr, obviously). its annoying, but its the right call from a business end unless they’re willing to sign a long-term deal before their debut.
You’d rather lose a whole year of 28 year old Eloy over 15 games of 22 year old Eloy? How can any real White Sox fan complain about what they’re doing?
Oh that’s right the media tells you guys what to think, and your herd mentality does the rest.
i’m not complaining. try reading next time.
Why is it annoying? Why does it have to be defensible? They’re not breaking any rules so why should they have to have any defense?
By saying those things sure seems like complaining to me.
If people aren’t breaking any rules, why don’t they just tell the truth as to why they keep guys in the minors?
It is annoying because the best possible players should be playing in the majors. I think it is the smart move for the team, but the system is broken when teams are keeping good players in the minors to take advantage of a loophole
‘Best players’ according to who? How many guys dominate the minors only to come up and nothing in the majors?
IMO the ‘Best players’ narrative is conjured up by armchair GMs, sportswriters with nothing better to do, and the agents.
If the guy is ready, then he should come up, but it is up to the org to decide that., and quite frankly these guys may be able to do one thing (hit) in the game, but the game is not made up of 9 DHs hitting..
I’m tired of hearing ‘this 19,20,21 year old has to come up because he hits the ball well’; Is that everyone’s criteria for who belongs in the majors? No wonder we see so many sloppy MLB games in a season now. Guys being brought up only to try to hit the ball. Not to field their position well, know how to run the bases, or even how to slide properly.. Nope they can destroy the ball in the minors so they ‘must’ be ready. I guess people really do love watching 4 hour games where each team has 4 errors.
Eloy hit .355 in the “AAA /Minors “ does anyone realize how many bad pitchers or bad fielding positions players can be found there
That is dominance. And once you dominate the minors, you are supposed to get called up to the majors. He has nothing else to gain from being in AAA.
The guy can hit, great. Now, can he field his position? How good is his situational hitting? Does he know what to do with two outs? Does he even know how to slide? Eloy can destroy the ball sure, but if he is out there making error after error costing the team games then how much was it worth it to bring him up?
The game has not yet become a game of home run derby. Players need to be completely ready, or you get a very sloppy product on the field.
Hitting comes and goes during a season, but defense should be there all year. If he (or any other ‘cant miss’ player) cannot be a good defender then bringing him up instead of leaving him to learn his position (heck even learn the game) in the minors is just dumb.
Hahn, like every other GM in his position, has to BS about his soon to be star. The rules demand it.
I just find it humorous how all the Sox fans who said the Cubs were a terrible organization for keeping Bryant down are now saying it’s a smart business decision. It was smart with Bryant and it’s smart with Jimenez. What wouldn’t be smart is to sign him now for 8 years and $100 million.
Exactly. The hypocrisy and delusional selective reasoning would be humorous if it weren’t so damn thirsty and pathetic.
Cub fans more concerned about the other team in town than about the teams within their own division. Perfect recipe for a pratfall, which began with the Heyward signing and accelerated with Darvish.
Albatross.
And let’s not forget about Chatwood!
Haha!
Well said. Best post of the day.
I can’t believe anyone would even question why Hahn would keep Eloy down in AAA for an extra year of control. Hahn would be an absolute idiot to bring him up before then. And don’t bring any of this BS that the Sox owe it to the fans to put their best product on the field from Day 1. Do you really think 2 or 3 extra weeks of Eloy is going to suddenly make the Sox a World Series contender? The Sox are a good 2 years away from that (everything would have to fall perfectly in place for it to happen next year, and I don’t see that happening).