Oakland A’s lefty Sean Manaea is set to return to the big leagues when rosters expand. He will get the start against the Yankees on Sunday, tweets MLB.com’s William Ladson.
Manaea was emerging as the ace of Oakland’s staff when he hit the injured list with a left shoulder impingement in late August of last season. Eventual shoulder surgery has kept him behind the scenes of the 2019 season until now. At the time of the injury, Manaea had made 27 starts, going 12-9 with a 3.59 ERA/4.26 FIP across a career-high 160 2/3 innings.
He has been on a rehab assignment since early July where he appears back to his old tricks. In eight starts across High-A and Triple-A, he’s notched 13.1 K/9 while yielding 2.5 BB/9 and an overall 4.71 ERA.
The A’s currently field a veteran-laden, if starless rotation featuring Mike Fiers, Tanner Roark, Chris Bassitt, Brett Anderson, and Homer Bailey. A healthy Manaea should certainly buoy this group, as will the potential addition of prospect Jesus Luzardo at some point in September, though Oakland plans its September additions “to come in waves,” per Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle (via Twitter).
Fiers/Roark/Bassitt/Anderson boast ERAs that are a combined 3.98 runs lower than their relative FIPs, though whatever dark arts the quartet are engaged in, they’ve not shared with likely odd-man-out Bailey. With a 5.52 ERA/4.02 FIP in 8 starts since joining Oakland, Bailey is the only one of the five whose ERA has underperformed relative to his FIP. He’ll get at least one more start today, but the A’s could very well use the additional roster space to give each of their veteran hurlers an extra day of rest.
It’s not “dark arts” it’s clearly Olson, Chapman and Semien being elite defenders and the pitchers just throwing pitches that cause grounders and letting those 3 work.
A’s would be unbeatable if they had LeMahieu at 2B, like their original offseason plan was to sign him. Instead they played a guy with yips all year smh
Also Luzardo should make his debut next week too, after last night its plain as day he’s too good for AAA.
LeMahieu was never connected to us in a significant way.
No, but the A’s contacted his agents, and clearly he didn’t want to be in Oakland and would rather mash in a little league park.
Or they didn’t wanna pay 12m a year for a guy who’s away splits from Coors have always been mediocre. The Yankees are getting crazy production out of him the A’s weren’t likely to as well.
He clearly made the right choice
The numbers are misleading on Homer Bailey, he had two nightmare starts in Houston and Chicago but the rest have been solid
Bailey has pitched well against the Yankees twice in the last two weeks.
And 3 times in the year!
The problem for the A’s is who will they DFA. The roster is loaded with lots of young prospects. They will probably DFA a starter that is decent.
My guess would be to DFA Tanner Anderson. Or, call up Daniel Mengden or Luis Barrera (both on 40 man roster) and move them to the 60 day DL, which would remove them from the 40 man roster.
Aside from that, there’s not much room.
Corban Joseph’s definitely going to be first, Neuse coming up yesterday pretty much solidified that…I’d guess Tanderson goes once Luzardo comes up.
Fair assumption. And I really like Neuse and hope he takes off as our 2nd baseman. But what if he goes 2 weeks without a hit and you’ve already designated Joesph? Back to Profar at 2nd?
Then they’d move on to Mateo since he’s already on the 40 man…I’m really pulling for Neuse and his AB’s yesterday looked very calm and collected.
Here’s hoping. Prospects are so volatile though. We all thought Barreto was our future and I doubt he’ll ever see an at bat with the A’s again.
Mateo is worth a shot too although he’s cooled significantly in a league where every other player is hot.
Go A’s
Isn’t Buchter on shaky ground now Puk is there?
T Anderson
Joseph
Blackburn
Buchter
Cotton
Mengden
Wendelken
Herrmann
all aren’t talented enough to be blocking prospects. Cotton inexplicably is loved by everyone even though he’s pretty much never looked like anything more than a 5th SP, so he will stay but the A’s could cut the rest and lose nothing, as long as the prospects are truly ready.
I don’t think Buchter is going anywhere. He and Diekman haven’t looked that great all season, but I don’t know if I want to rely on a rookie 2 pitch pitcher in Puk who also is struggling with command.
Plus Puk in the bullpen is temporary, they would be silly to jettison Buchter since he’s the only lefty in the bullpen signed for next year
True, Buchter is the type of guy who probably will snap back, they might keep him around or trade him if a better FA/trade option appears. He also has 2 options, which is interesting.
Back to the topic, T Anderson will prob get DFA’d and Barrera will go on the 60-day. Joseph is also a prime DFA guy. Luzardo, Mateo, Fowler, Bolt and Laureano definitely up next couple of weeks. Might see Jefferies and Kaprielian too near the end – Kap is being ridiculous at AA and is 25 and on the 40 man. A’s should probably bring up everyone on the 40 man, being that its the last time they can do it!