The latest injury notes from around baseball…
- The Angels have placed shortstop Jose Iglesias on the 10-day injured list with a left hamstring strain, the team announced. Iglesias, whom the Angels acquired from the Orioles in the offseason, has batted .283/.317/.396 with four home runs and two stolen bases over 167 plate appearances. He hasn’t started since May 25, leaving shortstop to David Fletcher.
- The Astros have put catcher Jason Castro on the 10-day IL (retroactive to May 25) with left Achilles soreness and recalled backstop Garrett Stubbs, Mark Berman of Fox 26 tweets. Castro, who opened his career with the Astros from 2010-16, rejoined the team on a two-year, $7MM guarantee during the offseason. The deal looked good for the Astros before Castro’s IL placement, considering he has hit .271/.397/.479, though he has only taken 59 plate appearances while playing second fiddle to Martin Maldonado.
- The Indians sent outfielder Jordan Luplow to the IL on Friday with an ankle issue, according to the team. It’s a problem Luplow has been dealing with since spring training, and manager Terry Francona said the club is “trying to figure it out” (via the Associated Press). The 27-year-old Luplow is off to a .165/.325/.433 start with seven home runs in 121 plate appearances. Despite the low BA, Luplow’s production has been 13 percent better than average, according to FanGraphs’ wRC+ metric.
- The Giants will go three to four weeks without first baseman/outfielder Darin Ruf, Kerry Crowley of NBC Sports Bay Area tweets. Ruf went on the 10-day IL list on Thursday with a strained right hamstring, joining fellow first baseman Brandon Belt on the shelf. Both players have recorded well-above-average production this season, but the Giants will have to go without the pair for at least a couple weeks. They started LaMonte Wade Jr. at first base on Friday.
Brandon Belt well above average? BS!
His eye is good. That’s it
Belt’s OPS+ is 134
@YouCannnnn people like to ignore the fact that’s he’s provided consistently above-average offense for about a decade… I guess because he’s not a 40-homer guy, he gets hurt fairly often, and is streaky?
he also swings and misses through way too many fastballs
Vosler and Wade Jr. are both a little bellow league average (small sample size, especially for Vosler). Belt and Ruf this season are over 30% above league average in wRC+.
Not sure what trashing Belt is supposed to accomplish.
Weird. Castro is almost one full point higher in WAR than Maldonado! Houston must be going back to the old-fashioned stats or the “eye test”.
As for the Giants, since they don’t have a 1B now, put POSEY at 1B and recall BART. Problem solved! And no, I am not interested in serving in their front office.
honestly i’d really like that. it would probably allow posey to play more than twice a series. although i am worried about bart’s game calling ability messing with the mojo of our staff right now
Wilmer:
Terrible idea. Anyone that thinks moving Posey from catcher to any other position just doesn’t understand the game. Catchers run the game. You can’t run it from 1B.
The biggest difference between the 2020 Giants, who struggled to get over .500 (they didn’t) and the 2021 Giants that are 11 games over .500, is because Posey is the catcher.
Even if Bart were ready (he isn’t), they’re better off with Posey behind the plate, and a temporary committee of Wade, Flores, or even Dickerson, filling in at 1B, than they are putting Bart out there.
It’s not a coincidence that Wood, DeSclafani, and Gausman are all having the best season of their careers. It’s Posey that makes the difference.
Wilmer:
Sorry, I shouldn’t have written “…doesn’t understand the game”. What I should have said is doesn’t understand the importance of the catching position, which is significantly different. I definitely overstated the matter.
At Some Point It becomes pointless to expect much from an Angel team that has an anemic offense and the absolute worst bullpen in baseball has twice as many errors as wins and an ownership that has absolutely no game plan on how to win games. Thank the Good Lord We have the Lakers,Clippers, Kings, DUCKS, Rams, Chatgers, & Dodgers to distract Angel fans until next years pitiful attempt with players bought at Kmart on the Blue Light special!
It’s unfortunate that LAA has a generous owner that Interferes with baseball operations.
What do you call a team led by Joe Maddon that has twice as many errors as wins and no game plan?
Vintage Maddon!
Oh I also forgot to mention he has no idea how to deploy pitchers out of a bullpen as well. Lol. When listing recent bad free agent signings Joe is at the top of the list!
Also forgot to mention this 3x Manager of the Year wearing 2 World Series Championship rings has forgotten far more about the sport than Joe Superfan could ever hope to know.
All them fancy stats and numbers don’t mean squat when “league average” is crappy.
Hmm, that’s a good point. I’m subscribing to your newsletter.
The Gigantes have been surprisingly good this year so far. I recall sticking up for the signing of Kevin Gausman while many on this site trashed the move. He has been terrific this far.
With this anemic hitting are there any dumpster diving hitters available that could help? Yasiel Puig comes to mind in the Mexican league,but he must be some kind of cancer if all the mlb teams have passed on him. As bad as we are Tito won’t touch him with a ten foot pole. It’s a shame because other than J-Ram he’d be our best hitter.