Let’s kick off the week with updates on a trio of American League clubs…
- The wild card-contending Rays haven’t set specific timetables for the returns of injured starters Tyler Glasnow, Blake Snell and Yonny Chirinos, but the three figure to come back in that order, Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times writes. Glasnow, who has been out since early May with a forearm injury and will finish 2019 as a reliever, could rejoin the team in the second week of September, per Topkin. Meanwhile, Snell is “probably 10 days behind [Glasnow] at least,” according to manager Kevin Cash. Snell, the reigning AL Cy Young winner, underwent arthroscopic surgery on his left elbow a month ago. Chirinos has been down for three weeks with an inflamed right middle finger – an injury that has thrown a wrench into a solid season for the 25-year-old.
- Utilityman Hanser Alberto was waiver fodder last offseason, switching teams on multiple occasions before finally settling in with the Orioles for good in March. Since then, the 26-year-old has enjoyed what has easily been a career season. He’s slashing .314/.337/.440 with 10 home runs in 432 plate appearances, and the right-hander been downright dominant against lefties – whom he has victimized for a .402/.422/.540 line over 180 PA. A .446 batting average on balls in play has buoyed Alberto’s numbers versus southpaws, though, and Statcast isn’t really buying into his above-average production. Nevertheless, he’ll garner trade interest in the offseason, Roch Kubatko of MASNsports.com hears. It’s up in the air whether the O’s will strongly consider moving Alberto, who has played second and third with regularity this year and will enter arbitration for the first time in the offseason.
- Tigers lefty Blaine Hardy’s season came to an end two weeks ago when he underwent a platelet-rich plasma injection in his elbow. Looking ahead to the offseason, Hardy realizes his Tigers tenure could conclude next. “You know and I know I might not be in Lakeland next year,” the 32-year-old told Chris McCosky of the Detroit News, referring to the team’s spring training home in Florida. Hardy has been a fairly successful reliever in Detroit since he debuted in 2014, but after elbow issues helped limit him to a 4.47 ERA/5.72 FIP with 5.89 K/9 and 2.64 BB/9 in 44 1/3 innings this year, it’s possible the Tigers will non-tender the soon-to-be out-of-options hurler as he readies for his second trip to arbitration. Regardless, Hardy’s glad he decided to call it a year instead of trying to gut out his elbow problems through the season. The Tigers were on the verge of demoting Hardy to Triple-A Toledo before his PRP injection, leading him to tell McCosky: “I had so many people in my corner say it would’ve been career suicide if I decided to go down to Triple-A and keep pitching through this. If something happened, and they found the tear at Triple-A, it would have been hard to retro it back to a big-league deal.”
I know I said this on an earlier post but Tigers should call up Tim Adleman. ERA in the low 3’s in the IL with a k rate of like 9.6 / 9.
That’d be the third former Reds castoff resurfacing in the bigs. Rookie Davis and Tim Melville being the others
And Mason Williams, 293/331/398 in 123 ABs for the Reds last year is tearing up AAA with the Orioles Norfolk team and is clamoring for a call up. Should be soon.
Lets just get this DET season over with.
It’s time to add six more teams, with one eventually moving to London. With the sport being more popular (In terms of overall numbers, and increasing level of play in Asia especially) there is enough talent. The Rays and A’s stadium issues won’t be a hinderence.
Road trips from San Diego would be…
I also can’t tell if this is a joke or not. Popularity may be up, but attendance is down almost across the board.
Butts in the seats are not as important to MLB as is T.V. contracts.
i dont but Alberto long-term as a starter, but i can see him as a solid-hitting utility guy.
The O’s are planning on sending Martin to AAA next season, which means Villar and Alberto as your starting SS and 2B. There is NOTHING in the middle infield at the top end of the farm system. There are no infielders on the 40-man roster not already in Baltimore, and to my knowledge there are no infielders at AAA or AA who deserve a spot on the 40-man roster. As I see it, the only way Alberto isn’t the starting 2B next year is if the O’s acquire a starting SS/2B or they “convince” some team to give them something useful for him. Honestly I feel like he’s one of those guys that is more valuable to Baltimore than he is to another team.
He’s a good clubhouse guy as well. Though if any team gives us a real prospect you’d have to strongly consider it. Maybe some sort of package deal with another guy (Givens?) could fetch us something decent. There’s always a plug and play FA Defesnive minded SS out there because Villar certainly isn’t an ideal SS. None of that really matters because we project to lose 100 games again. But I’d certainly deal him if the offer was sufficient. He’s definitely not a long term piece.