Twins third baseman Miguel Sano is launching an official rehab assignment, per a club announcement. He’ll open at the High-A level, with planned stops at the next two rungs on the ladder before MLB activation, MLB.com’s Do-Hyoung Park was among those to report. Sano has been working back from an injury to his Achilles that healed much more slowly than anticipated. The hope now is that the issue is behind him, but the Twins want to get Sano plenty of reps before bringing him back to the big-league roster. Sano, who’ll turn 26 on May 11th, is looking to bounce back after a highly disappointing 2018 campaign. No doubt the Minnesota organization would like to see him put in some of the work he was prevented from undertaking this spring.
More from the game’s central divisions …
- The Reds received some unwelcome news on starter Alex Wood, as manager David Bell told reporters including Bobby Nightengale of the Cincinnati Enquirer (Twitter link) that the southpaw recently suffered a setback while trying to work through the back problems that have sidelined him to date. Wood has yet to appear with his new organization, which had hoped he’d be one of three new veteran starters to bolster the rotation. An examination has been scheduled for Wednesday, at which time more on Wood’s outlook may be known. The 28-year-old is earning $9.65MM in his final season of arbitration eligibility after defeating the Reds in an arb hearing.
- Health issues are creating problems in the Tigers rotation, which means GM Al Avila is weighing the options for filling in. As Chris McCosky of the Detroit News writes, the top Detroit baseball decisionmaker doesn’t see much of interest in free agency; he says the front office will “have to keep our eye on the waiver wire and on guys in the minor leagues who have opt-out clauses.” With nothing doing there at the moment, the Tigers are looking internally. Ryan Carpenter and Kyle Funkhouser both are under consideration, with the team also pondering the possibility of utilizing Blaine Hardy in a swingman role once he’s activated from the IL.
- It’s awfully tempting to wonder whether one of the Tigers’ blue-chip pitching prospects could instead get the call, particularly after ace-in-the-making Casey Mize spun a rare complete-game no-hitter this evening. Whether that’ll be a possibility at some point remains to be seen, but it’s worth bearing in mind that there are some notable roster considerations that counsel against a quick promotion even beyond service-time considerations. As Avila tells McCosky, the organization anticipates a need to add something like ten prospects to the 40-man roster in advance of this winter’s Rule 5 draft. The club is obviously keeping a close eye on the downstream effects of its decisions.
What was failed to be mentioned was Mize was making his AA Debut tonight. He hit the first batter he faced in the first inning. That runner was erased on a double play. He didn’t give up another base runner until two outs in the seventh on his only walk.
Also I forgot to mention that Alex Faedo pitched a combined no no (7 innings) last Thursday for AA Erie.
Options for Detroit
Rotation
Waivers: Andrew Moore
Cheap Free Agents: James Shields, Bartolo Colon, Chris Tillman, Ervin Santana
Atlantic League: Seth Maness, Ross Detwiler, Cory Riordan, Dallas Beeler
Or they could upgrade the pen
Waivers: Alex Wilson, Jake Petricka
Cheap Free Agents: AJ Ramos, Erik Goeddel, Dario Alvarez, Bo Schultz, Tony Zychm Santiago Casilla
Mexican League: Fernando Salas, Jose Valverde, Al Alburquerque, Jose Valverde
Atlantic League: Felipe Paulino, Sammy Gervacio, Mike Antonini, Scott Shuman, Matt West,
(All doing very well early on)
Dead serious too, Detroit should at least look at some of these guys for a temporary buy low replacement.
None of those “cheap free agents” have thrown a baseball in competitive games in months. They need someone now. Aside from Ervin Santana I don’t think anyone of those guys could take the ball tomorrow and pitch. Though Santana looks like he can’t get too many people out. And the Indy League guys made it to the indy league for a reason. The Atlantic League is a long way from the MLB. They’ll probably grab a couple waiver claims but I wouldn’t make a bet on Jose Valverde and co. returning to the big leagues.
Ya. Jose valverde is a serious option…
Same with Shields and Bartolo Colon…..
We know you’re serious. That’s not the issue..
why not get Beeler, Zychm, Riordan, and Shultz just to show that you don’t care what year or level of pro baseball you think the 2019 Tigers play in.
Phillies2017, Wow! You spent a good deal of effort with this in depth search . Nice .
Or is just a guy who follows side-leagues a little too closely because his mlb team is unbearable to watch
I don’t know what kind of packages were offered, but I do wonder what the Tiger’s farm/rebuild would look like if they had traded Michael Fulmer when they had the chance.
It wasn’t long ago he would’ve brought back an absolute haul.
Its also hard to have a rebuild if you trade the building blocks. Just think of what Springer and Altuve would have gotten for Houston early on. Cubs should have moved Bryant when they had the chance. Judge would have brought a haul for the Yankess. But then, they would still be waiting for the rebuild to happen. Think of where the White Sox would be if they had traded Sale instead of building around him. (never mind,)
Your examples don’t make much sense. Judge and Bryant weren’t on teams that were rebuilding. Fulmer was at the peak of his career when the tigers were near the bottom of the division. It would have made no sense for the astros to trade altuve or even springer because they were near the end of their rebuild and once the Astros got good there was no reason for them to trade their stars.
I don’t get why they didn’t trade him. A team like the Tigers would’ve been better off with the haul of young talent he would’ve brought back then with him.
No one knew that Michael Fulmer would be so injury prone then.
Exactly he looked liked a safe bet to be a QS guy for many years, with ace potential.
Hindsight is 20/20, but at the time he was young and eating up innings and that’s all we can judge it for
That’s the reason I wonder why they didn’t trade him. They could have gotten a good package to help with the rebuild. Even if he achieved his potential, he would have wasted those years during the rebuild and then become very expensive to keep once the rebuild was over.
Astudillo > Sano all day every day
Haha I think they can both co exist. I like both of them too.
You’re probably right since I don’t expect Sano to ever play a significant productive stint in MLB again.
Funkhouser….was Rollengardner not available?
I think the Twins are nearing the point of being done with Sano. Of course, if he wasn’t 50-70lbs over his ideal playing weight over the past 2 years, his foot and leg injuries would heal a lot quicker. Even so, Sano’s myriad of off field issues, lack of respect shown the organization and his inability to recognize his responsibility to maintain his physical conditioning, Sano’s days are very likely numbered.
Luckily for the Twins or some other team, Sano stumbled and didn’t put together a couple great seasons to land a huge contract only to promptly finish eating his way off the field like Sandoval.
The same goes for Willians Astudilllo. I’m sure the trainers are on their case but it has no effect.
In Astudillo’s defense, he wasn’t 195lbs 8 years ago and his body is used to the excess baggage. In addition, Astudillo is really a catcher so his athleticism isn’t as important. Finally, Astudillo isn’t some top prospect; he’s more like the next Danny Santana. A guy who hits well to start and fans decide they like him before his performance craters when luck and scouting reports take their tolls.
Sano’s weight went about like this:
2010 = 195lbs
2011 = 200lbs
2012 = 220lbs
2013 = 230lbs
2014 = TJ surgery. Unknown weight.
2015 = 265lbs
2016 = 280lbs
2017 = 285lbs
2018 = 300lbs
Sano packed on massive amounts of fat and his body just wasn’t ready to cope with the dimentional expansion. It led to his legs suffering from stress reactions just from running, hamstring pulls and crippled recovery times because of the extra mass on the healing tissues. Just for the record, Miguel Sano was diagnosed with a stress REACTION, not a stress fracture in his leg two seasons ago. Stress reactions come from repetitive actions and are typically seen in runners who have tried to ramp up distance too quickly. It has nothing to do with being hit in the shin by a pitch (which cannot cause a stress reaction) even though apologists for Sano’s lack of discipline and work ethic typically cite the HBP as the reason for Sano’s injury.
I mean, the bottom line is Sano will not be an effective MLB player over 260lbs… and it will get worse as he ages. His ideal playing weight is probably 220-230lbs. Anything over 240lbs will almost assuredly negatively impact his game.
Your comparison of astudillo to Santana, beyond their similar plate discipline, is invalid. Astudillo possesses elite-elite level bat to ball skills, Santana did/does not. Willians was 14% better than Santana was over the course of their minor league careers leading up to their debuts (2353 PA for Santana and 2462 PA for Astudillo). Coupled with the fact that Willians started to hit for power during his last two minor league campaigns that carried over into a Venezuelan league stint portend that he is, in fact, a legitimate big league bat.
I think the Pirates make some sense on Sano.
I understand his potential is busted, but Pirates really need some pop to mix in.
Other than that, I don’t see many fits if he busts.
I’m sure Twins will see what he got first, but if it’s same old low obp, high k , big power, then they’d be wise to move on
Braves will be hard up for 3B in 2020.
Austin Riley
Good to see Detroit rewarding Mize with a promotion, and hopefully another to AAA soon.
Blue Jays, take note (see Pearson, Nate and Allgeyer, Nick)
I think the Tigers will look first at who is already on their 40 man that might be of use. Funkhouser, Farmer, Carpenter, Hall, Baez. Can any of them fill in the gap for now? They’re not any good but there is no need to rush Mize, Manning, Perez, Fadeo or Burroughs just to lose team control time during a throw away season.
2019 is the Hardest Year for Al Avila:
The Tigers plan to bring up many of their future hopefuls in 2020-221. I really like what they have coming up. For 2019, the Tigers need to stick with their rebuild plan and timeline and avoid the temptation to bring up players too soon. I see LH Ryan Carpenter as the likely call up. Also, I like LH reliever Caleb Theilbar’s excellent SO:BB ratio. Another candidate is AA LH Nick Ramirez but he struggles in AAA. Still, he should be used over Beau Burrows who isn’t ready and Kyle Funkhouser who doesn’t throw strikes yet.
All too common for the Dodgers to trade a pitcher that has health or injury issues. I wonder why teams are not catching on to this deception.