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Giants Acquire Alex Young From Guardians

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The Giants have acquired left-handed pitcher Alex Young from the Guardians in exchange for cash considerations, reports Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle. The Guardians had designated him for assignment last week. He has been optioned to Triple-A Sacramento. In order to open a spot for Young on the 40-man roster, fellow lefty Aaron Fletcher has been outrighted to Sacramento.

Young, 28, was claimed off waivers from the Diamondbacks in July of last year. He threw 10 1/3 innings for Cleveland last year but has only logged one third of inning here in 2022. In 32 Triple-A frames on the year, he has a 3.66 ERA, which might not be eye-popping, though his rate stats are excellent. He has a 35.6% strikeout rate, well above the 22.3% MLB average. His 5.3% walk rate and 52% are also a few ticks better than league-wide marks. The reason those haven’t translated into a pristine ERA, however, is a whopping 23.8% HR/FB rate, more than double the 11.4% MLB average. The Giants will get him some work in Sacramento and hope to find a way to limit those long balls.

It seems the Giants were intrigued enough by those minor league numbers to consider him a better use of a roster spot than Fletcher. The 26-year-old was just claimed off waivers from the Pirates last week. Though there hadn’t been any public indication of a subsequent roster move, they evidently passed him through waivers in recent days. He made his MLB debut in 2020 and has logged 19 2/3 total innings at the big league level with an unsightly 9.15 ERA. His Triple-A ERA is a much more pleasant 1.45 this year, despite a meager 11% strikeout rate. He’s typically posted high ground ball marks, though, as evidenced by his 55.2% rate in Triple-A this season. He will stay in the Giants organization as depth, but without occupying a spot on the 40-man roster.

Chris Sale Undergoes Finger Surgery, Could Still Return This Season

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The Red Sox have announced that Chris Sale “underwent an open reduction and internal fixation of a left fifth finger proximal phalanx fracture” today. While the timeline isn’t crystal clear at the moment, the team believes it’s still possible for Sale to return later this year. (Twitter links from Chris Cotillo of MassLive and Chad Jennings of The Athletic.)

Yesterday, Sale had to leave his start against the Yankees without getting out of the first inning after a comebacker struck his pitching hand, clearly injuring it. The Red Sox later announced that his pinky finger, or “left fifth finger,” was broken. After the game, Sale himself said he expected to miss 4-6 weeks, though the fact that surgery was necessary raises the potential that a longer recovery time might be required.

In a lengthier look at the issue, Cotillo speaks to orthopedic surgeon Chris Geary, who believes that Sale won’t even be able to pick up a ball for 4-6 weeks. That means it would be late August before Sale can even begin to throw bullpen sessions, which wouldn’t leave him much time to go on a rehab assignment and get himself back into game shape, especially when considering he had just returned from a different injury. After being diagnosed with a stress fracture in his rib cage in the spring, he missed the first few months of the season and only recently returned, making one healthy start, followed by the start where his finger was broken.

While the club believes Sale can still return at some point, they may have to operate under the assumption that his season is done, at least from a rotation perspective. Ramping up towards shorter stints out of the bullpen wouldn’t take as much time as returning to a full starter’s workload, which would make it easier for Sale to return as a reliever.

The club has been especially snakebit in the rotation lately, with Rich Hill, Michael Wacha, Connor Seabold and Josh Winckowski all landing on the injured list in the past three weeks. With Sale sure to join them, that will leave Boston with a rotation of Nathan Eovaldi, Nick Pivetta and Kutter Crawford coming out of the All-Star break. James Paxton is still working his way back from April 2021 Tommy John surgery but has yet to begin a rehab assignment. Garrett Whitlock was in the rotation earlier this year but just returned from his own IL stint as a reliever and isn’t fully stretched out. Prospect Brayan Bello made a couple of starts recently, but allowed nine earned runs in eight innings.

Those struggles in the rotation have coincided with a slide in the standings. Since June 26, they’ve gone 6-14 and slipped to two games back of the Blue Jays for the final American League Wild Card spot. The August 2 trade deadline is now just over two weeks away and they will surely have to consider adding some arms, even if some of their injured hurlers are able to make it back onto the hill. Although, if they slide any further in the coming weeks, it might impact how aggressive they are willing to be.

Outrights: Barnes, Inciarte

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Updates on a couple of players who were recently designated for assignment…

  • Right-hander Jacob Barnes has cleared waivers and elected free agency, per his transactions tracker at MLB.com. He was designated for assignment by the Mariners last week. The 32-year-old is in his seventh season of MLB action, having signed a minor league deal with the Tigers and then cracking their Opening Day roster. Despite striking out over 25% of batters faced in both 2020 and 2021, his rate plummeted to 11.2% this year. Although his ground ball rate jumped a few ticks to 51.5%, he still registered an ERA of 6.10 on the year before getting designated for assignment in June. After reaching free agency, he landed with the Mariners on a minor league deal and eventually got selected to the big league club. However, he was designated assignment again the next day, without getting into a game for the M’s. He will now return to the open market and look for his next opportunity.
  • Outfielder Ender Inciarte, designated for assignment by the Mets last week, has cleared waivers and been outrighted to Triple-A Syracuse, per his transactions tracker at MLB.com. Inciarte, 31, signed a minor league deal with the Yankees in the offseason but was released in mid-June. He latched on with the Mets on another minors deal, eventually making the big league club but lasting just over two weeks on the roster. He filled a bench/defensive substitute role for the team, getting into 11 games but making only eight plate appearances. Despite strong defense, his offensive output at the MLB level has declined in recent years. He hit at a decent clip in his time in the Yankees’ system this year, slashing .252/.336/.408, wRC+ of 101. As a veteran with more than five years of MLB experience, he has the ability to reject an outright assignment without forfeiting any salary, though it’s unclear whether he’s done so or not.

Guardians Designate Tanner Tully For Assignment

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The Guardians announced a couple of roster moves today, activating right-hander Carlos Vargas from the 60-day injured list and optioning him to Double-A Akron. To make room on the 40-man roster, left-hander Tanner Tully has been designated for assignment.

Tully, 27, has been on and off the Guardians roster all year. He was first selected as a COVID substitute in April, being removed from the roster five days later. (COVID substitutes can be removed from rosters without being exposed to waivers.) He was selected to the roster in the more traditional sense in June, before being designated for assignment a couple of days later. A few days ago, he was selected back to the team but has now been DFA’d for a second time this season.

With all of that roster shuffling, he’s only been able to throw six MLB innings this year, his first taste of the majors. Though those innings came in three relief appearances with the Guardians, he’s been working as a starter in the minors. In 14 Triple-A starts this year, he’s thrown 76 1/3 innings with a 4.95 ERA, 51.4% ground ball rate, 16.9% strikeout rate and 3.3% walk rate.

The Guardians will have one week to trade him, pass him through waivers or release him. If he were to clear waivers, he would be eligible to reject an outright assignment and elect free agency by virtue of having previously been outrighted in his career.

Angels Place Mike Trout On IL With Ribcage Inflammation

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The Angels have announced that Mike Trout has been placed on the 10-day injured list due to left ribcage inflammation. They also announced the previously reported claim of infielder Phil Gosselin, and that outfielder Monte Harrison has cleared waivers and been outrighted to Triple-A Salt Lake.

At this point, there’s been no indication from the team as to how long they expect Trout to be out of action. He has missed some time recently due to back spasms, though the club avoided putting him on the IL until now. Perhaps they were waiting for the All-Star break, when the 10-day minimum absence would sting the least, though further word will surely come from the Angels in time.

Trout had been fairly healthy for the early portions of his career, playing in at least 114 games for the eight seasons from 2012 to 2019 and only coming in below 134 in one of those. He followed that up by getting into 53 of the club’s 60 games in the shortened 2020 season. Last year, however, he made it into only 36 contests, as a calf issue that didn’t initially seem serious eventually lingered and finished his season.

This year, he’s gotten into 79 of the club’s 92 games so far, already more than doubling his total from last year. He hasn’t shown any signs of slowing down in terms of overall production, hitting an excellent .270/.368/.599 for a 168 wRC+. He’s produced 3.8 wins above replacement already, according to FanGraphs.

Regardless of how much time he misses, it’s yet another disappointing setback in a season full of them for the Angels. Despite a hot start to the year wherein the club was 24-14 in mid-May, they’ve played at a miserable 15-39 pace since and are now 39-53 overall. The club is 10 1/2 games out of a playoff spot and seems more likely to sell than add at the deadline. Taking that into consideration, it makes sense to give Trout some time off to get healthy, rather than pushing him and potentially worsening the issue.

As for Harrison, he was signed to a minor league deal in the offseason after being released by the Marlins. Despite once being a highly-rated prospect, strikeout issues have kept him from living up to his athletic potential. Despite a 35% strikeout rate in the minors this year, he was selected to the big league for some bench/pinch running/defensive replacement duties. He played nine game but got just 14 plate appearances, striking out in eight of them, before being DFA’d. Having been previously outrighted in his career, he has the ability to reject the outright assignment and elect free agency, though it’s not yet clear which path he’s taken.

Angels Claim Phil Gosselin From Braves

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The Angels have claimed infielder Phil Gosselin off waivers from the Braves, according to Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic. The Angels already had a vacancy on their 40-man roster, meaning no corresponding move will be required.

This will be Gosselin’s second stint with the Halos, as he spent the 2021 season with the club. The 33-year-old veteran has also spent time with the Braves, Diamondbacks, Pirates, Rangers, Reds and Phillies throughout his career.

In 104 games with the Angels last year, he served a utility role, playing all three non-shortstop infield positions as well as the outfield corners. His 373 plate appearances on the year were a career high for him, a time in which he put up a batting line of .261/.314/.363 for a wRC+ of 87.

This year, he signed a minor league deal with Atlanta and got selected to the big league club just over a month ago. He’s managed to get into just 12 games so far, making 24 plate appearances. His line on the year is .261/.292/.261, while playing mostly second base. He hit well in the minors before his promotion, however, slashing .297/.358/.473.

The Angels are likely hoping Gosselin can give a boost to them at either second or third base, as they’ve struggled to get any kind of production out of their infield this year. Their second basemen have collectively hit .232/.284/.313. The resultant wRC+ of 71 is 24th in the league. Third base is even worse, as the team’s line from that position is .222/.292/.301 for a wRC+ that ranks 28th.

Gosselin is unlikely to help too much, as he’s the owner of a career batting line of .261/.313/.360 for a wRC+ of 82. However, the club’s been giving a lot of playing time at the keystone to Michael Stefanic and his .206/.325/.235 batting line (72 wRC+), as well as time at the hot corner to Jonathan Villar, who’s hitting .167/.222/.167 since becoming an Angel for a wRC+ of just 12.

Read The Transcript Of Today’s Fantasy Baseball Chat With Brad Johnson

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Brad Johnson has been writing about fantasy baseball for more than a decade and has considerable experience in Roto, H2H, dynasty, DFS, and experimental formats.  As an expert in the field, Brad participates in the Tout Wars Draft and Hold format and was crowned the league’s winner in 2020. Brad’s writing experience includes RotoGraphs, NBC SportsEDGE, and right here at MLB Trade Rumors. He’s also presented at the First Pitch Arizona fantasy baseball conference.

We’ll be hosting fantasy baseball-focused chats with Brad regularly, and feel free to drop him some questions on Twitter @BaseballATeam as well.

Click here to read a transcript of today’s fantasy baseball chat with Brad!

“Optimism” Between Padres, Joe Musgrove In Extension Talks

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The Padres and right-hander Joe Musgrove have intermittently engaged in contract talks during the season, both back in April (when San Diego reportedly floated an eight-year deal worth roughly $88MM), and in recent weeks.  It was just back on July 2 that The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal wrote that negotiations had seemingly “fizzled,” thus making it seem like Musgrove would test the free agent market this winter.

However, the two sides have restarted negotiations, according to Kevin Acee of The San Diego Union-Tribune.  More promisingly, “there is optimism the deal could be completed this week.”  Whether the All-Star break represents any sort of deadline is unknown, though Musgrove has already stated that he doesn’t want talks to linger into the season’s final two months.

This much in-season negotiating is already fairly unusual, considering most players generally set Opening Day as the unofficial deadline for the end of extension talks, in order to avoid any distractions once play begins.  It is also pretty unusual to see a player primed for a big free agent payday instead sign an extension with his current team this close his trip to the open market, but Musgrove stated in April that he was open to negotiating during the year.  Also, considering how the lockout wiped out three months of offseason business, it could be that Musgrove was a little more flexible in continuing contract talks that likely would’ve taken place long ago in a more normal winter.

If it wasn’t for the lockout, it seems possible that the Padres might have locked up Musgrove months ago, yet he has only enhanced his value with an excellent start to the 2022 season.  Named to his first All-Star team, Musgrove has a 2.42 ERA, above-average strikeout (24.8%) and walk (5.6%) rates, strong hard-contact numbers and some of the best fastball spin rates of any pitcher in the sport.  These numbers have put Musgrove in the NL Cy Young Award discussion, and made him the ace of an overall solid San Diego rotation.

Acquired from the Pirates as part of a three-team trade in January 2021, Musgrove has taken his performance to a new level as a Padre, also delivering a great 2021 season that included the first no-hitter in Padres franchise history.  It has made for quite the homecoming for the SoCal native, and both Musgrove and the Padres have naturally had mutual interest in keeping the relationship going for years to come.

It now seems certain that Musgrove will score a nine-figure contract if he reaches the open market, so San Diego will certainly have to significantly bump its offer up from the $88MM range (and the $11MM average annual value range).  Locking up Musgrove to a major extension would add another long-term commitment to the Padres’ books, though the organization has shown a willingness to spend at the luxury tax level, paying the tax in 2021 and currently sitting just under the $230MM threshold.

Extending Musgrove would allow the Padres to cement him as the second cornerstone of its future rotation, alongside MacKenzie Gore.  Sean Manaea and Mike Clevinger are also both scheduled to hit free agency after the season, and Nick Martinez could also be a free agent if he exercises the first of three player options in his contract.  Yu Darvish and Blake Snell are under contract only through the 2023 season, and there has even been some speculation that the Padres could look to trade Snell to create a bit more flexibility under the tax line and thus avoid a second straight year of overage.

Chi Chi Gonzalez Elects Free Agency

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The Brewers announced over the weekend that right-hander Chi Chi Gonzalez has chosen to become a free agent, rather than accept an outright assignment to the Brewers’ Triple-A affiliate.  Gonzalez was designated for assignment last week and cleared waivers, and he had the ability to test the open market again because he has already been outrighted during his career.

The 30-year-old Gonzalez is now en route to pitching for his third different organization of 2022, after already seeing action with the Brewers and Twins in 18 1/3 combined innings.  Minnesota signed Gonzalez to a minor league deal in March, and Gonzalez pitched in two games before being DFA’ed and then claimed off waivers by the Brewers a month ago.  This brief tenure in Milwaukee consisted of four games for Gonzalez, two of them starts.

All told, the righty has a 6.87 ERA over his 18 1/3 IP, continuing a string of disappointing results over four consecutive seasons.  Gonzalez didn’t pitch in 2017-18 due to Tommy John surgery, and since returning in 2019, the righty has a posted a 6.17 ERA over 202 2/3 innings.  Home runs have been a persistent issue for Gonzalez, and that trend has continued in 2022 with five homers allowed in his brief sample size of work.

Gonzalez did have a 3.44 ERA in 36 2/3 innings with the Twins’ Triple-A club this year, also delivering a 23.2% strikeout rate that (while modest) represented a step up for a pitcher who doesn’t miss many bats.  Gonzalez also had a 55.7% grounder rate at St. Paul, though while he has pretty consistently delivered excellent groundball numbers at the minor league level, the righty has only a career 42.4% grounder rate at the big league level — naturally, a setback for a homer-prone pitcher who doesn’t record many strikeouts.

It seems likely that Gonzalez will catch on somewhere, though his lack of minor league options makes him a candidate for further trips to the DFA wire down the road.  A turn to full-time relief pitching could eventually be required for Gonzalez to try and find a consistent niche for himself on a Major League roster, yet with clubs always on the lookout for rotation depth, Gonzalez will probably get another opportunity to make starts.

Rangers, Kumar Rocker Agree To Terms

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The Rangers and No. 3 overall draft pick Kumar Rocker have agreed to terms on a $5.2MM bonus, reports Jon Heyman of the New York Post. The right-hander’s bonus clocks in well south of the pick’s $7,587,600 slot value, which should afford the Rangers flexibility further down their board. Rocker is represented by the Boras Corporation.

Rocker was the No. 10 overall pick by the Mets a year ago and was reportedly set to ink a $6MM bonus before medical concerns scuttled that deal. He’d eventually go on to have an arthroscopic procedure on his right shoulder last August. Rather than returning to Vanderbilt for his senior season, Rocker instead opted to pitch for the Tri-City Valley Cats of the independent Frontier League (an official partner league of MLB). Health hasn’t looked to be an issue at all for Rocker this time year; he’s pitched 20 innings for the Valley Cats and turned in a 1.35 ERA with a dominant 32-to-4 K/BB ratio while reportedly running his heater back up to 99 mph.

The selection by the Rangers improbably reunites Vanderbilt’s 2021 co-aces, as Texas took right-hander Jack Leiter with the No. 2 overall pick in the draft just last season. Leiter and Rocker were widely viewed as two of the top arms in last year’s draft — evidenced by their top-ten selections — and will now give the Rangers a pair of high-ceiling arms upon which to build. (Leiter certainly seems pleased with the Rangers’ selection, celebrating the pick with a pair of tweets last night.)

Rocker, 22, starred alongside Leiter for the entirety of his three years at Vanderbilt, pitching to a 2.89 ERA with a 33.2% strikeout rate and a 7.8% walk rate in 236 1/3 innings for the Commodores in a tough SEC setting. The 6’5″, 245-pound righty has an upper-90s heater, and scouting reports from Baseball America, The Athletic, ESPN, MLB.com and FanGraphs credit him with a slider that draws 60 to 70 grades on the 20-80 scale. Rocker has also worked with a curveball and changeup, both drawing at least average ratings in most reports.

While Rocker was one of the most recognizable names in this year’s draft, his selection at No. 3 overall nonetheless registered as a draft-night surprise. Most rankings had him as a late first-rounder or even in the second round, considering last summer’s shoulder surgery and some oft-cited inconsistency in his stuff at Vanderbilt. The Rangers were clearly heartened by Rocker’s strong showing in the Frontier League, and they’ll also now have the option to use the savings on their No. 3 selection to scoop up some lingering, hard-to-sign talents who remain on the board.

Despite picking at No. 3, Texas entered the draft with just the 14th-largest bonus pool — a reflection of the fact that they surrendered their second- and third-round picks (and the associated bonus pool allotments) to sign free agents Corey Seager and Marcus Semien this past winter. Because of those forfeitures, Rocker remains the only selection Texas has made thus far. The Rangers’ next pick will come in Round 4, and there are still a few highly regarded high school options on the board, headlined by Clemson-committed righty Brock Porter, who’s regarded as a first-round talent but was not selected on Day 1 of the draft.

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