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Yankees To Recall Estevan Florial, Oswaldo Cabrera

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The Yankees are set to call up outfielder Estevan Florial, as first reported by Bob Klapisch of the Newark Star-Ledger (Twitter link). New York will also promote infielder Oswaldo Cabrera for his Major League debut, Daniel Alvarez Montes of El Extra Base reports. Both players are already on the 40-man roster. The Yankees have yet to formally announce the pair of promotions or the corresponding moves that will accompany them, although Cabrera has confirmed his first call to the Show on his Instagram.

This is the second call to the Majors this year for the 24-year-old Florial and the third season in which he’s received some big league action. Despite already receiving several MLB opportunities, however, Florial has appeared in just 16 Major League games and taken 40 plate appearances as a member of the big league club, hitting just .206/.325/.353 in that time.

That lack of production, of course, have come with sparse playing time. Florial has never gotten a true look and regular playing time at the big league level, despite ranking among the game’s top 50 or so prospects from 2018-19. His stock has dimmed since that time — due in no small part to a tepid .218/.315/.404 slash in Triple-A last season. However, Florial is enjoying a vastly better run in his second Triple-A stint this year, batting .286/.368/.490 with 14 home runs, 26 doubles, a pair of triples and a hefty 32 stolen bases.

Florial’s huge 30.8% strikeout rate in Triple-A isn’t an improvement over last year’s 30.9% mark, so the lack of bat-to-ball skills are a clear concern (and another reason he’s perhaps not as highly touted as a few years ago). Nonetheless, with the Yankees stumbling through a dismal 3-12 stretch over the past couple weeks that includes just nine total runs over their past seven games, they’ll look to augment the lineup and get some fresh faces into the mix in hopes of turning things around.

In addition to Florial, the Yankees will give the 23-year-old Cabrera his first call to the Majors. A switch-hitter who’s seen time at second base, shortstop, third base and in the outfield corners this year (albeit just one game in left and one in right), Cabrera will give skipper Aaron Boone plenty of versatility. He’s batting .262/.340/.492 through 208 Triple-A plate appearances with eight homers, a dozen doubles, three triples and ten steals to go along with a 9.4% walk rate and 26.6% strikeout rate.

While neither Florial nor Cabrera is necessarily among the sport’s overall top-ranked prospects, they’re both well-regarded within the Yankees’ system. Baseball America ranks Florial as the team’s No. 10 prospect and Cabrera at No. 12, while MLB.com places them back-to-back at Nos. 14 (Cabrera) and 15 (Florial).

Braves, Michael Harris II Agree To Eight-Year Extension

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The Braves have moved swiftly to lock up yet another budding star on a contract extension, announcing on Tuesday night that they’ve signed rookie center fielder Michael Harris II to an eight-year, $72MM contract spanning the 2023-30 seasons. The contract contains club options for the 2031 and 2032 seasons as well.

Michael Harris II | Dale Zanine-USA TODAY Sports

The Braves, one of the few Major League teams to publicly disclose terms of their contracts, added that Harris will earn $5MM per season in 2023-24, $8MM annually in 2025-26, $9MM in 2027, $10MM annually from 2028-29, and $12MM in 2030. The 2031 option is valued at $15MM, and the 2032 option is valued at $20MM. Both come with $5MM buyouts.

Harris, a frontrunner to finish in the top two of National League Rookie of the Year voting — perhaps alongside teammate Spencer Strider — would’ve been a free agent after either the 2027 (with a top-two Rookie of the Year finish) or after the 2028 season but will instead forgo a trip to the open market in his mid-20s to sign a long-term pact with his hometown team.

The eight-year pact continues an aggressive trend from an Atlanta front office that has been unafraid to pay sizable sums to its young stars early in their careers. Outfielder Ronald Acuna Jr. (eight years, $100MM) and second baseman Ozzie Albies (seven years, $35MM) both signed early, very club-friendly extensions that included a pair of club options beyond their guaranteed years. Acuna’s deal, like the one being discussed with Harris, was agreed upon before he even had a full year of Major League service time.

More recently, the Braves inked Matt Olson to an eight-year, $168MM extension the day after acquiring him in a five-player blockbuster with the A’s. And, this past summer, while so many teams were focused on the trade deadline in late July, the Braves hammered out a ten-year, $212MM extension for third baseman Austin Riley (before also making a handful of trades themselves, of course).

Harris, 21, was the No. 98 overall pick in the 2019 draft and bolstered his prospect stock with a torrid race through the minors that culminated in him skipping Triple-A entirely earlier this year. Despite being promoted right from Double-A, Harris hasn’t missed a beat in the Majors. He’s logged 268 plate appearances in the Majors, tonight’s performance included, and turned in a robust .287/.325/.500 batting line with a dozen homers, 14 doubles, two triples and 13 steals (in 13 tries). Couple that production with plus center field defense (5 Defensive Runs Saved and Outs Above Average alike), and it’s easy to see how the Braves have quickly become enamored of the dynamic young outfielder.

As with any extension for a young player, there’s certainly some risk to both sides. Harris has but 71 games of big league experience under his belt with no Triple-A seasoning of which to speak. In fact, he played only 43 games in Double-A prior to his promotion. And, as good as he’s been thus far in his big league career, the Braves would surely like to see him improve upon a dismal 3.7% walk rate. He’s currently sporting a .345 average on balls in play that’ll likely drop a bit, although players with Harris’ type of speed (94th percentile sprint speed, per Statcast) can often sustain BABIP numbers higher than the league average.

The risk for Harris, meanwhile, is the same that teammates such as Acuna and Albies took when inking their own deals. He’s locking in a life-changing sum of money, to be sure, but a top-two finish in Rookie of the Year voting would have put Harris on track for arbitration following the 2024 season (or, absent that top-two finish, after the 2025 campaign). As things stand, he could’ve either been a free agent following the 2027 season, heading into his age-27 season, or following the 2028 campaign (when he’d be heading into his age-28 season). Free agents who are that young are the sorts who tend to land decade-long contracts north of $200MM or even $300MM.

Certainly, we can’t know whether Harris will sustain his current pace for a full six years. We see players debut with great fanfare and fade from the spotlight somewhat regularly, and injuries can always impact a player’s development and open-market earning power. Harris is surely aware that any early-career extension like this has the potential to turn into an unmitigated bargain for the team, just as the Braves are aware that Harris isn’t necessarily a lock to cement himself among the game’s elite young outfielders. That’s the balance all teams and players strive to strike in early extensions like this, and it appears that in this instance, the Braves and Harris found a sweet spot that’ll clock in a ways short of the Acuna deal but line up nicely with the recent eight-year, $70MM extension signed by Pirates third baseman Ke’Bryan Hayes.

While these contracts tend to be bargains of significant nature when they hit — as they’ve done near universally for the Braves to this point — it’s also worth pointing out that they do inflate a team’s luxury-tax ledger earlier than might otherwise be the case. A $72MM contract for Harris will give him an immediate $9MM luxury hit (the contract’s average annual value) when he’d otherwise have counted for less than $1MM against the tax line.

Atlanta has a $207MM luxury payroll this year and $128MM already counting against next year’s ledger, and that’s before including a Harris contract or arbitration raises for any of Max Fried, A.J. Minter, Mike Soroka or Tyler Matzek (plus any free-agent or trade additions this winter). The extensions are still likely to be cost-effective moves for the team in the long run, but the Braves will have about $50MM of luxury commitments to Acuna, Albies, Riley and Harris alone next season if this deal indeed goes through.

None of that should serve as a deterrent, of course. Harris looks the part of a budding young star, and pairing him alongside Acuna in the outfield and alongside Acuna, Riley and Albies in the lineup for the foreseeable future gives the Braves the upside of an explosive quartet being controlled at a mere fraction of market value. The reduced nature of their salaries — relative to market pricing — ought to allow the team to continue to invest in free agents to supplement the core, keeping the Braves well positioned to contend in the National League East for the foreseeable future. That Harris grew up in the Atlanta area and attended high school just 37 miles south of Truist Park only makes him all the more marketable to the fan base, and surely only makes tonight’s deal sweeter for the latest homegrown, hometown star in Atlanta.

FanSided’s Robert Murray first reported that the two sides were “deep” in talks on an eight-year deal. Jon Heyman of the New York Post reported that the contract would contain at least one option and would be valued at $72MM (Twitter links).

Outrights: Sheffield, Peacock

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A couple of updates on some recent DFAs who were passed through waivers…

  • Right-hander Jordan Sheffield went unclaimed on outright waivers and has been assigned to Triple-A Albuquerque, the Rockies announced. Selected by the Rox out of the Dodgers organization in the 2020 Rule 5 Draft, the hard-throwing Sheffield has thrown 31 1/3 innings of 3.16 ERA ball in the big leagues across the past two seasons, though there’s plenty of reason to be skeptical of that number. Sheffield has fanned just 16.9% of his Major League opponents — against an unsightly 12.1% walk rate. While he doesn’t have an especially loud contact profile, Sheffield has benefited from a .226 average on balls in play he’s unlikely to sustain. He’s also struggled immensely in 18 2/3 career Triple-A frames: 10.61 ERA, 23 hits (eight home runs), 18 walks and just 15 strikeouts. Sheffield will remain in the Rockies organization but will no longer occupy a spot on the 40-man roster.
  • Blue Jays righty Matt Peacock, designated for assignment last week when the team signed Jackie Bradley Jr., has cleared waivers and been assigned outright to Triple-A Buffalo, per the transactions log at MLB.com. Peacock, 28, hasn’t pitched for the Jays this year but did log 10 innings between the D-backs and Royals, during which time he yielded six runs on a dozen hits and four walks with six punchouts. Peacock has a 4.95 ERA in 96 1/3 big league innings, mostly coming with Arizona, and has recorded a massive 59.3% grounder rate in that time. He has only a 13% strikeout rate but also a solid 7.4% walk rate. In parts of five minor league seasons, Peacock has a 3.71 ERA.

Red Sox Designate Yolmer Sanchez For Assignment

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5:35pm: The Red Sox formally announced all three moves. Sanchez has been designated for assignment, while both Hernandez and Refsnyder have been reinstated from the injured list.

4:30pm: The Red Sox have designated infielder Yolmer Sanchez for assignment, reports Pete Abraham of the Boston Globe (Twitter link). The team has yet to formally announce the move, but it’ll come as part of series of transactions that also includes the activation of utilitymen Enrique Hernandez and Rob Refsnyder, per Abraham.

Sanchez, 30, has been with the Red Sox since being selected to the big league roster on July 22. A former Gold Glove winner and regular with the White Sox, he’s seen his offensive output crater in recent years, though never quite to the extent it has so far in Boston. It’s a tiny sample, just 14 games, but Sanchez is just 4-for-37 with seven walks (11.4%), 13 strikeouts (29.5%) and zero extra-base hits through 44 trips to the plate — resulting in a dismal .108/.214/.108 batting line on the year.

Sanchez’s peak years with the bat came in 2017-18 in Chicago, when he posted a combined .253/.312/.390 batting line while playing second base on a near-everyday basis. Granted, even that career-best production was about nine percent worse than league-average, by measure of wRC+, but for a player with Sanchez’s speed and defensive skills, that was plenty to make him a solid regular at second base. His line dipped to .252/.318/.321 in 2019, but Sanchez also won a Gold Glove that year, so the Sox likely didn’t mind the tepid output at the plate.

In the time since winning that Gold Glove, though, Sanchez has barely seen the Majors. He logged just 21 plate appearances with the ChiSox during the shortened 2020 season and spent the 2021 season with the Braves’ Triple-A affiliate where he posted a grisly .216/.309/.352 line in 355 plate appearances. Things were going much better for Sanchez with Boston’s Triple-A club, for whom he’d turned in a .247/.377/.413 line in 305 trips to the plate.

Now that the trade deadline has passed, the only outcome for players who are designated for assignment is to be placed on outright waivers or release waivers. Sanchez has enough service time to reject an outright assignment to the minors if he goes unclaimed.

Mets Designate Nick Plummer For Assignment

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The Mets designated outfielder Nick Plummer for assignment and selected the contract of right-hander R.J. Alvarez from Triple-A Syracuse on Tuesday. New York has also formally placed right-hander Carlos Carrasco on the 15-day injured list due to an oblique strain (as was previously reported), optioned righty Adonis Medina to Syracuse and recalled right-hander Stephen Nogosek from Syracuse. They’ll need to make an additional move tomorrow when they select top prospect Brett Baty to the 40-man roster for his MLB debut.

Plummer, 26, was a first-rounder by the Cardinals back in 2015 and reached minor league free agency following the 2021 season, never having been called up to the big leagues. The Mets inked Plummer to a Major League contract despite that lack of MLB experience, and they indeed gave him his big league debut earlier this season. Plummer excited Mets fans with homers in back-to-back games in late May, but he went hitless over his next 22 plate appearances before being sent back to Triple-A Syracuse.

Things haven’t gone particularly well for Plummer in Syracuse, either. Through 58 games and 246 plate appearances this season, he turned in a lowly .232/.317/.370 batting line — numbers that loosely align with his career .222/.358/.360 output in just over 2000 career plate appearances in the minors. He’ll hit waivers or be released within the next week, as the passing of the trade deadline means that players who are designated for assignment can no longer be traded to other clubs.

The 31-year-old Alvarez will be taking a Major League mound for the first time since way back in 2015 if Showalter calls him into tonight’s game. He’s had a nice year in Syracuse, pitching to a 3.38 ERA in 34 2/3 frames — albeit with an unsightly 13.4% walk rate in that time. This marks the second time Alvarez has been selected to the Major League roster in 2022, but he didn’t get into a game before being optioned back to Syracuse and eventually designated for assignment (and subsequently outrighted). He’s up as an extra arm, and the Mets will need another 40-man move for Baty tomorrow, so it could be yet another brief stay on the 40-man roster for the former Padres and A’s righty.

A’s Shut Paul Blackburn Down For Rest Of Season

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The Athletics are shutting All-Star right-hander Paul Blackburn down for the remainder of the season, manager Mark Kotsay announced to reporters (Twitter link via Matt Kawahara of the San Francisco Chronicle). Blackburn has been plagued by discomfort in his pitching hand and recently saw a specialist regarding inflammation in his right middle finger. An exact diagnosis has not been announced by the team just yet, nor has a treatment plan, but it seems there’s enough concern that they’ll call it a season for the 28-year-old righty.

Blackburn was the Athletics’ lone All-Star representative — as one would expect for a club in the early stages of a rebuild — but was a plenty deserving candidate all the same. Through his first 16 starts this year, the right-hander worked to a tidy 2.90 ERA, and while that came with a pedestrian 18.8% strikeout rate, Blackburn’s strong 6.2% walk rate and 48.7% grounder rate helped him to overcome that sub-par mark.

Things have gone off the rails completely for Blackburn in his five most recent starts, however. In that span of 24 1/3 innings, he’s been tattooed for 25 runs on 31 hits — eight of which have left the yard — and eight walks. The average velocity on his sinker is down about a half mile per hour over those five starts, and it seems quite likely that Blackburn was pitching at less than 100 percent as he labored through that ugly stretch of five starts.

That string of poor outings ballooned Blackburn’s ERA from 2.90 all the way to 4.28, but that’ll still go down as one of the sharper seasons of his career to date. Blackburn was removed from the A’s 40-man roster prior to the 2021 season, after all, going unclaimed on waivers and battling his way back to the Major League roster. His early breakout and All-Star nod made for one of the best storylines of the year for A’s fans in an otherwise miserable campaign that has seen a beloved manager and several popular veterans depart while the front office commences yet another teardown of the roster.

Blackburn’s solid showing through 111 1/3 innings will net him a decent raise in arbitration, which he’ll reach for the first time this winter. While teams surely inquired on his availability prior to the trade deadline, it seems unlikely that the A’s would sell low on him following a season-ending hand injury. As such, even with a bump to a couple million dollars or so in the offing this winter, Blackburn figures to be back with Oakland in 2023. The A’s can control him all the way through the 2025 season.

Mets To Promote Top Prospect Brett Baty

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The Mets are calling top infield prospect Brett Baty up to the Major League roster, reports ESPN’s Jeff Passan (via Twitter). The 2019 No. 12 overall draft pick will need to have his contract formally selected to the 40-man roster. Mike Puma of the New York Post further reports that the move to select Baty won’t officially take place until tomorrow (Twitter link).

New York also appears set to recall righty Stephen Nogosek from Triple-A, as MLB.com’s Anthony DiComo tweets that there’s a locker in the clubhouse for him. Nogosek will likely take the roster spot of Carlos Carrasco, who’s IL-bound due to an oblique strain.

Baty, 22, has split the season between Double-A and Triple-A, posting monster numbers at each stop (albeit through just six games in Triple-A thus far). Ranked as the game’s No. 26 prospect at FanGraphs, No. 28 at Baseball America and No. 38 at The Athletic, the lefty-swinging Baty has turned in an outstanding .315/.410/.533 batting line with 19 home runs and 22 doubles in a combined 420 plate appearances. He’s walked at a hearty 11.7% clip and fanned in 24.8% of his plate appearances so far.

Rumors of a potential Baty promotion were swirling over the weekend, although Mets skipper Buck Showalter briefly put an end to those yesterday, when he specifically indicated that a Baty promotion wasn’t in the cards. Whether that statement only applied to Monday or whether the organization simply had a change of heart matters little at this point. Baty will join the Mets in Atlanta and figures to see regular playing time with Luis Guillorme out up to six weeks and veteran Eduardo Escobar currently banged up. (Teams don’t call up prospects of Baty’s caliber just to sit them on the bench or deploy them in minimal roles.)

Scouting reports on Baty suggest that he’s both begun to elevate the ball more often in 2022 — resulting in an uptick in power output — and improved defensively at the hot corner. The Mets have also tried him out in left field on occasion, but with Guillorme shelved and Escobar not at 100%, Baty seems likely to be installed at his traditional position, third base, for the time being. It’ll be a telling trial run, as Baty has all the tools necessary to be the long-term option at the hot corner in Queens — and this could well be the onset of that anointment.

The Mets are surely more focused on their production over the season’s final few weeks than on Baty’s service time, but it’s still worth quickly touching on his outlook in that regard. Baty can’t get to a full year of service in 2022, nor will he be able to accrue enough time to push the boundaries of Super Two eligibility. Even he’s up for the rest of the season, he’ll still be on track to reach arbitration eligibility following the 2025 campaign and will remain under team control all the way through 2028. Future optional assignments could further push back those critical milestones, of course.

If Baty indeed cements himself as a viable regular in the coming weeks, Escobar’s role on the club will become increasingly murky. Signed to a two-year, $20MM contract in the offseason, the 33-year-old veteran has floundered en route to a .216/.269/.384 batting line through 409 plate appearances. With Baty at third base and Jeff McNeil at second, Escobar’s role would seemingly be relegated to that of a pricey bench piece.

Rangers Designate Elier Hernandez For Assignment

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The Rangers announced Tuesday that outfielder Elier Hernandez has been designated for assignment. His spot on the 40-man roster will go to right-hander Kohei Arihara, whose previously reported selection to the Major League roster has now been formally confirmed and announced by the club. Additionally, Texas optioned right-hander Yerry Rodriguez to Triple-A Round Rock and recalled infielder/outfielder Mark Mathias in his place.

Hernandez, 27, made his big league debut earlier this season after spending parts of ten seasons in the minor leagues. Once a notable international signee of the Royals, he latched on with the Rangers organization prior to the 2021 season and, after a pedestrian minor league showing last year, forced his way onto the MLB roster with an impressive Triple-A effort in 2022. Through 62 games and 231 plate appearances in Triple-A this year, Hernandez slashed .295/.364/.546 with 11 homers, nine steals, an 8.7% walk rate and a 19.5% strikeout rate.

Unfortunately, that success has yet to carry over to the Majors. Hernandez hasn’t gotten much playing time, to be fair, but he’s managed just a .182/.200/.242 output in 35 trips to the plate. He’s punched out 15 times (42.9%) against just one walk (2.9%). Trades of DFA’ed players are no longer permitted now that the deadline has passed, so Hernandez will be placed on either outright waivers or release waivers within the week.

Mathias, meanwhile, is up for the first time in a Ranger uniform. Acquired alongside pitching prospect Antoine Kelly just before the trade deadline in the deal that sent reliever Matt Bush to Milwaukee, he’s appeared in eight games with Round Rock. Mathias has collected ten hits and four walks in 35 plate appearances, a continuation of the .318/.421/.518 pace at which he’d hit with the Brewers affiliate in Nashville.

Rangers Sign Wilson Ramos To Minor League Deal

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The Rangers announced they’ve signed catcher Wilson Ramos to a minor league contract. The club plans to assign him to Triple-A Round Rock.

It’s the first landing spot of 2022 for Ramos, who has lingered on the free agent market. The veteran backstop was playing for Cleveland last August when he tore the ACL in his left knee. That required season-ending surgery, and Ramos has seemingly spent the past year rehabbing. The 35-year-old is apparently now healthy enough to get back to game action, and he’ll look to work his way back to the big leagues for a 13th consecutive season.

Ramos split last year between the Tigers and Indians, tallying 163 plate appearances over 44 games. He hit .205/.248/.397, the worst offensive showing of his big league career. That was in large part due to a career-worst .213 batting average on balls in play, however, and he still connected on eight home runs. Ramos hit .239/.297/.387 during the shortened 2020 campaign as a member of the Mets, offense that aligns with the league average for catchers.

Of course, Ramos has been a well above-average hitting backstop at points in his career. He’s a two-time All-Star who won a Silver Slugger Award and picked up down ballot MVP support with the Nationals in 2016. That season saw Ramos connect on 22 homers and hit .307/.354/.496 through 131 games. By measure of wRC+, the Venezuela native has posted five above-average hitting seasons over the course of his career.

Texas has gotten good work from its catchers this season. Jonah Heim has seized the starting job with a .249/.321/.439 showing through 91 games. Offseason minor league signee Meibrys Viloria has impressed in 20 contests since being called up two months ago. Ramos adds an experienced veteran presence to the upper minors, where one of the organization’s more promising prospects, Sam Huff, figures to assume the bulk of the playing time behind the dish.

Marlins Designate Parker Bugg For Assignment

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The Marlins have designated reliever Parker Bugg for assignment, tweets Christina De Nicola of MLB.com. Cole Sulser has been reinstated from the 60-day injured list to take the active and 40-man roster spots.

Bugg, 27, was just selected onto the MLB club over the weekend. He didn’t wind up making it into a game, and he loses his roster spot in short order. The LSU product has spent his entire professional career in the Miami organization, entering the affiliated ranks as a 27th-round pick in 2016. He’s split this season between Double-A Pensacola and Triple-A Jacksonville, working to a 2.39 ERA across 37 2/3 innings. The righty has fanned a solid 26.7% of batters faced but walked an alarming 15.5% of opponents.

Miami will have a few days to try to run Bugg through waivers. He’s never previously been outrighted, so if he goes unclaimed, he’ll remain in the organization without requiring a spot on the 40-man roster. Bugg would be eligible for minor league free agency at the end of the season if he’s not on a 40-man.

Sulser missed a hair more than two months after straining his right lat in mid-June. An offseason acquisition from the Orioles alongside the hard-throwing Tanner Scott, he’s made 26 appearances during his first season in South Florida. Sulser has a 3.86 ERA across 23 1/3 frames, striking out an above-average 27.5% of opponents with a 10.5% walk percentage. He’ll presumably step back into the high-leverage mix for manager Don Mattingly for the stretch run.

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