Marlins Promote Jazz Chisholm
One of the Marlins’ key acquisitions of the 2019 trade deadline is now set to make his Major League debut just after the 2020 trade deadline. The Marlins have called up star shortstop prospect Jazz Chisholm in time for tonight’s game against the Blue Jays, Jordan McPherson of the Miami Herald reports (Twitter link). The club has officially announced the promotion as well as some other transactions, including outfielder Jesus Sanchez being optioned to the Marlins’ alternate training site and left-hander Josh D. Smith being outrighted to the training site.
Chisholm came to Miami from the Diamondbacks in a one-for-one deal for right-hander Zac Gallen on July 31, 2019. With Gallen already looking like a very solid starter at the MLB level, there will certainly be some extra expectation placed on Chisholm, though the 22-year-old has shown a lot of promise in his pro career.
Signed out of the Bahamas during the 2015-16 international signing window, Chisholm has gained attention on top-100 prospect lists in recent years, though his pre-2020 rankings covered rather a wide range. The Athletic’s Keith Law (who ranked Chisholm 15th) and Fangraphs (33rd) were the most bullish, with Baseball Prospectus (52nd), MLB.com (66th), and Baseball America (88th) not quite as enthusiastic.
Law was impressed at how Chisholm’s strikeout rate dropped after some adjustments made once he joined the Marlins’ farm system, and noted Chisholm’s “elite tool package at a premium position right now,” with “the hands, footwork, and arm to” remain at shortstop over the long term. To provide slight contrast, BA’s scouting report feels Chisholm is too “overly aggressive” at the plate, and won’t be a solid hitter unless he “improves his approach, uses the entire field and puts the ball in play more often.”
Chisholm hasn’t played above the Double-A level, where he combined for 458 plate appearances for the Diamondbacks and Marlins affiliates in 2019. As noted earlier, Chisholm improved once coming to Miami’s farm system — Chisholm hit .284/.383/.494 with three homers in 94 PA with Double-A Jacksonville, as opposed to .204/.305/.427 over 364 PA for Arizona’s affiliate in Jackson. While a small sample size in a Marlins uniform, it does show promise that Chisholm has unlocked something in a new environment.
He will now add some infield depth to what is suddenly a revamped Marlins infield in the wake of Jonathan Villar‘s trade to the Blue Jays. Chisholm has played shortstop almost exclusively in his career, though Miami manager Don Mattingly told McPherson and other reporters that Chisholm has been playing second base at the team’s alternate training site. Chisholm could handle second base until Isan Diaz is fully ready to return to the Fish, and then some combination of Chisholm, Diaz, and utilityman Jon Berti (who is a right-handed hitter, unlike the two youngsters) could conceivably juggle second base duties for the remainder of the season.
Indians Notes: Marte, White Sox, Clevinger, Padres
Before the Diamondbacks traded Starling Marte to the Marlins yesterday, “the Indians made a run at” acquiring the outfielder, The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal reports (subscription required). Marte would’ve been a enormous boost to Cleveland’s long-struggling outfield, and it is interesting to wonder what it would have cost the Tribe to land Marte. Looking at what the D’Backs accepted from Miami, the Indians would have had to surrender a pitcher with some proven MLB-level ability (like Caleb Smith), another big-league ready young arm (like Humberto Mejia), and a lottery ticket of a long-term pitching prospect like Julio Frias.
Beyond the prospect cost, it’s fair to assume that Marte’s financial cost was also a factor for Cleveland — Marte has $1.71MM remaining this year, and a $12.5MM club option for the 2021 season. Giving up a big prospect package and then declining Marte’s option wouldn’t have made much sense, and it isn’t yet clear what kind of payroll capacity the Tribe will have going into next season.
Some more Tribe notes…
- Also from Rosenthal, he shares some details on the talks between Indians and White Sox about a possible Mike Clevinger trade. The idea of a Clevinger trade to an AL Central rival seemed surprising at the time, and one Chicago official feels “the Indians used the Sox as a stalking horse, never intending to trade him within the division.” The White Sox also denied that right-hander Michael Kopech was offered to Tribe as part of the Clevinger negotiations.
- Clevinger wound up being traded to the Padres as part of a major deadline-day swap that saw the Indians acquire six players. It was a trade born from a lot of “familiarity” between the two organizations, as president of baseball operations Chris Antonetti told MLB.com’s Mandy Bell and other reporters. “We’ve spent a lot of time on their system….We have asked about all of these players in the past. Every one of them,” Antonetti said. “I would comfortably say, at this point, we’ve had hundreds of iterations of deals with the Padres.” Cleveland and San Diego have combined for five trades since July 2018.
- In other Clevinger news, Terry Pluto of the Cleveland Plain Dealer reports that the right-hander turned down an extension offer from the Indians in the spring of 2019. Terms and contract length weren’t revealed, though the deal would have almost assuredly gone beyond the four years of control the Tribe already held over Clevinger. The righty was coming off an impressive 2018 season and heading into his age-28 campaign, so purely speculatively, I wonder if the Tribe’s offer was at least somewhat similar to the five-year, $38.5MM extension (with two club option years) reached with Corey Kluber prior to the 2015 season. Kluber had a similar amount of service time and was coming off a better platform of a Cy Young Award-winning season, though he was also a year older than Clevinger would have been at the time of his hypothetical early-2019 extension.
Isan Diaz To Return To Marlins After Opting Out Of Season
Isan Diaz opted out of the 2020 season at the start of August, but will now be rejoining the Marlins for the stretch run. Craig Mish of SportsGrid reports that both the league and the players union have each agreed to let Diaz return. News broke yesterday that Diaz was exploring reinstatement, and Marlins president of baseball operations Michael Hill told reporters that Diaz was already at the team’s alternate training complex in Jupiter, Florida.
Diaz played in two games for Miami at the start of the season before deciding to step away, saying “This has been a decision that I have discussed with my family, and I feel it’s the best one for me and my overall well-being” in a statement released on Instagram. Diaz will surely soon reveal the reasons behind his change of heart, though on the surface, it is completely understandable why he would have chosen to not play (given that the Marlins were embroiled in a team-wide coronavirus outbreak in late July/early August) and why he would be eager to come back, given that the club’s health situation seems to be back on track.
Diaz will naturally need some time to ramp up before he is ready to return to action, though his presence was likely a factor in Miami’s decision to trade Jonathan Villar to the Blue Jays yesterday. While the former top prospect hasn’t shown much (.560 career OPS) over 210 Major League plate appearances, Diaz will provide added second base depth and a left-handed platoon partner for Jon Berti, who is slated to handle second base with Villar gone. Utilityman Berti has a .244/.341/.308 slash line over 91 PA this season.
A second-round pick for the Diamondbacks in the 2014 draft, Diaz was part of the prospect package acquired from the Brewers in January 2018 in exchange for Christian Yelich. Diaz crushed Triple-A pitching in 2019, hitting .305/.395/.578 slash line and 26 homers in 435 PA before being called up to the majors.
Dodgers Acquire Kendall Williams As Part Of Ross Stripling Trade
The Dodgers have acquired right-hander Kendall Williams as one of the players to be named later in yesterday’s trade that sent Ross Stripling to the Blue Jays. Williams was Toronto’s second-round pick in the 2019 draft, and the 20-year-old took an above-slot bonus to begin his pro career rather than attend Vanderbilt.
MLB Pipeline ranks Williams as the 13th-best prospect in the Jays’ farm system, calling him “the quintessential projectable high school right-hander” with “potentially huge upside.” The 6’6″ right-hander has a fastball that is approaching mid-90’s velocity, though his biggest asset could be his overall four-pitch arsenal rather than any one signature offering. Baseball America’s scouting report cites Williams’ slider, curveball, and changeup “could all be average or better.”
There’s certainly enough potential here to see why the Dodgers would be intrigued in adding such a young arm to their already-deep minor league talent pool, particularly for a solid but non-elite pitcher like Stripling who wasn’t even a full-time rotation member. From the Jays’ perspective, they naturally see a promising but longer-term asset like Williams (who isn’t one of the upper-tier prospects in their farm system) as a reasonable price for Stripling, who has already shown that he can deliver at the MLB level and can help the Blue Jays win both in 2020 and in 2021-22 before he is scheduled to reach free agency.
COVID-19 Notes: Athletics, Mariners, Astros
The latest on some coronavirus-related situations around baseball…
- The Athletics haven’t played since Saturday due to a positive COVID-19 test within the organization, which led to the postponement of Sunday’s game with the Astros and games set for today and tomorrow against the Mariners. However, the team’s traveling party hasn’t delivered any further positive results after a round of tests conducted both Sunday and yesterday, Susan Slusser and Matt Kawahara of the San Francisco Chronicle report. For now, signs seem to be pointing towards the A’s returning to the field on Friday to begin a series with the Padres, as Slusser and MLB Network’s Jon Heyman (Twitter links) reports that Thursday’s game with the Mariners will also be postponed. Looking at both the Seattle and Oakland schedules, one would think September 14 or 17 would be natural days for re-scheduled days, as both clubs are off on those days. [UPDATE: The A’s announced the makeup dates for the Mariners series — a doubleheader in Seattle on September 14, and a previously-scheduled game in Seattle on September 26 will now also be a doubleheader.]
- The Astros have re-opened their alternate training site in Corpus Christi, GM James Click told the Houston Chronicle’s Chandler Rome and other reporters. This was the second time in a little over a week’s time that the facility had been closed down due to a positive coronavirus test.
Blue Jays, Pirates Came Close On Joe Musgrove Trade
The Blue Jays and Pirates nearly completed a trade sending righty Joe Musgrove from Pittsburgh to Toronto prior to yesterday’s trade deadline, Robert Murray reports (via Twitter). That arrangement “fell apart at the eleventh hour,” however, and the Jays pivoted to acquire both Robbie Ray and Ross Stripling instead.
Musgrove, 27, was a Jays draft pick back in 2011 (No. 46 overall) and has settled in as a solid rotation piece in Pittsburgh after coming over from the Astros in the Gerrit Cole trade. From 2018-19, Musgrove tossed 285 2/3 innings of 4.28 ERA ball with more promising secondary marks: 3.72 FIP, 8.1 K/9, 1.9 BB/9, 0.94 HR/9, 44.9 percent ground-ball rate. He was hit hard in three starts this season, however, and was placed on the injured list early in August. He’s said to be nearing a return but remained on the IL through the deadline, which undoubtedly complicated negotiations as the two sides tried to align on value. He’s controlled through the 2022 season, so he’d have been a relatively long-term play for a Jays club that is emerging from a rebuilding effort.
While it was a busy week for the Blue Jays, deadline season came and went without much activity from the last-place Pirates, due largely to injuries and underperformance up and down the roster. Also on the injured list for the Bucs was right-hander Keone Kela, who’d surely have been moved had he not recently sustained a forearm injury. Chris Archer, too, would’ve been a near-lock to be moved had he not undergone thoracic outlet surgery prior to the season.
Over on the active roster, more established players like Josh Bell, Adam Frazier and Gregory Polanco have played so poorly that the Bucs would’ve needed to sell low and likely accept middling returns. Forcing a move with a lackluster return wasn’t something GM Ben Cherington and his staff considered.
“We’d much rather hold than make trades that we’re not confident in that later come back and bite us,” Cherington tells Jason Mackey of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Without getting into specifics, the GM acknowledged that he thought he was close to lining up on a couple deals that didn’t quite pan out in the end. Ultimately, the only player the Pirates traded was Jarrod Dyson, who went to the White Sox for $243K of international bonus pool space.
While it was a frustrating deadline for many Pirates fans, there’s still ample opportunity down the road for Cherington and his staff to reshape the club. Kela is a free agent at season’s end, and Archer’s $11MM club option seems likely to be bought out for $250K rather than exercised. Injuries torpedoed trade possibilities for that pair, but the Bucs control each of Musgrove, Bell, Frazier, Polanco, Trevor Williams, Chad Kuhl and Richard Rodriguez through at least the 2022 season. If the team does ultimately opt for a larger-scale tear down, be it this winter or next summer, they’ll still have more than one season of control over each player to market to other clubs.
As for the Jays, they didn’t get the two-plus years of Musgrove they apparently sought, but they did land two-plus years of Stripling. The 30-year-old has struggled through his past four appearances after an otherwise solid start to the year, but he has a strong track with the Dodgers, carrying a career 3.51 ERA and 3.60 FIP (387 innings) into the 2020 season. They also rolled the dice on another struggling but established NL West starter, Robbie Ray, adding him and Stripling to the already acquired Taijuan Walker — who was excellent in his Blue Jays debut over the weekend.
It’s arguable that Musgrove would’ve been a more impactful addition than Stripling and/or Ray, and it’s worth wondering whether they’d have acquired either player had the Musgrove swap come together. Regardless, the Jays are positioned quite well to return to the postseason for the first time since the 2016 season. At 18-15, they’re a game back of the second place Yankees and currently leading the Tigers by a game and a half for the No. 8 seed in the American League.
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