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Archives for February 2023

Nic Enright Undergoing Treatment For Hodgkin’s Lymphoma

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Marlins right-hander Nic Enright announced on social media that he was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s Lymphoma in December, as relayed by Craig Mish of The Miami Herald. It’s unclear what is next for Enright, but he does state that he has already completed the first round of treatments. “My goal is to use my platform to provide hope and inspiration to others who fight their battles with cancer,” he said in his post. “I’m going to continue to tackle this challenge with the same perseverance that I do baseball – and I can’t wait to return to the mound and the game I love. I might have cancer, but cancer does not have me!”

Enright, 26, was drafted by Cleveland in the 20th round of the 2019 draft. He worked his way up the minor league ladder and spent last year split between Double-A and Triple-A. He tossed 65 2/3 innings between those two levels in 2022, posting a 2.88 ERA with a 33.7% strikeout rate and 5.4% walk rate. He was left unprotected prior to the Rule 5 draft in December, which allowed the Marlins to select him.

Enright was lined up to battle for a spot in the Miami bullpen and perhaps make his major league debut this year. But baseball will now take a backburner as he focuses on the much more important issue of his health. We at MLB Trade Rumors wish him all the best in his recovery and look forward to seeing him on the mound again in the future. He’s the second pitcher to reveal a cancer diagnosis in as many months, as Liam Hendriks of the White Sox announced in January that he was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.

Astros Claim Matt Gage From Blue Jays

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The Astros announced that they have claimed reliever Matt Gage off waivers from the Blue Jays. The lefty was designated for assignment recently when the Jays signed Chad Green. Houston’s 40-man roster is now full.

Gage, 30, is coming off a strong season, one in which he made his major league debut. Signed by the Blue Jays to a minor league deal, he was selected to the club’s roster in June and spent the rest of the year as an up-and-down reliever who was frequently optioned and recalled. He posted a 1.38 ERA in 13 MLB innings, striking out 24% of batters faced and getting grounders at a 50% clip. His 12% walk rate was certainly concerning, but it was a solid debut nonetheless. He also tossed 42 1/3 innings in Triple-A with a 2.34 ERA, 27.4% strikeout rate, 9.5% walk rate and 47% ground ball rate.

Though he got squeezed off Toronto’s roster, he’ll now join the World Series champions, where left-handed relief is one of the few weak spots on the roster. Leaving aside Framber Valdez, who will be in the rotation, the only other southpaws on the roster are Blake Taylor and Parker Mushinski. All three of those players have options, making it possible that they will take turns swapping in and out of the active roster as the season goes along.

Nestor Cortes Diagnosed With Grade 2 Hamstring Strain

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Yankees left-hander Nestor Cortes has withdrawn from the World Baseball Classic due to an injured hamstring, reports Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic. The injury is actually a Grade 2 hamstring strain, per Andy Martino of SNY, and Cortes will not throw off a mound for the next two weeks. Kyle Freeland of the Rockies will take the vacated spot on the Team USA roster, reports Danielle Allentuck of the Denver Gazette.

Though he will miss the WBC, Cortes still believes he will be ready for Opening Day of the regular season. That’s certainly an encouraging outlook, but the fact that it’s even now a question is a noteworthy development for the Yankees. Not too long ago, they looked like they could open the regular season with an elite rotation consisting of Gerrit Cole, Carlos Rodón, Luis Severino, Frankie Montas and Cortes. However, it was reported in January that Montas is behind in his offseason preparations due ongoing shoulder issues and will potentially miss the first month of the season. With this injury to Cortes, it now appears to be a possibility that the club starts the year without two of its projected front five.

Cortes, 28, struggled in his first few seasons in the big leagues but has had a tremendous breakout over the past two. Since the start of the 2021 campaign, he’s thrown 251 1/3 innings with a 2.61 ERA, 26.9% strikeout rate, 6.4% walk rate and 31.2% ground ball rate. He reached arbitration for the first time this offseason, with he and the club agreeing to a $3.2MM salary for this year. He’ll be eligible to go through arbitration two more times before he’s slated to reach free agency after the 2025 season.

Though it doesn’t seem like Cortes is expecting to miss any of the regular season, there’s always the possibility that his recovery doesn’t go as planned. If he has to miss any time, it’s possible that pitchers like Domingo Germán and/or Clarke Schmidt step up to make some starts as long as he and/or Montas are out. There are also still many unsigned free agents that are available, such as Michael Wacha, Dylan Bundy and Chris Archer. Recent reporting has indicated that the club is reluctant to cross the final luxury tax tier of $293MM, with their competitive balance tax figure currently at $292.48MM per the calculations of Roster Resource, though they could always pivot as circumstances change.

There’s also the trade route, with Chris Flexen of the Mariners and Adrian Houser a couple of starters that make speculative sense as trade candidates. Though with Cortes still hoping to be ready for the start of the season, it’s also possible that no moves will be necessary.

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.

Now that baseball is around the corner and fantasy owners are getting ready for their drafts, we’ll be hosting fantasy baseball-focused chats with Brad regularly. Feel free to drop him some questions on Twitter @BaseballATeam as well.

Click here to join today’s fantasy baseball chat with Brad!

Brad will also be holding fantasy baseball chats exclusively for Trade Rumors Front Office subscribers, where he’ll be able to answer a much larger percentage of questions asked. Click here to learn more about Front Office.

MLB’s Joint Competition Committee Votes To Make “Ghost Runner” Rule Permanent; Place Limits On Position Players Pitching

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The rule that saw a free runner placed on second base in extra innings last year will continue in 2023 and beyond, reports Jesse Rogers of ESPN. Also, position players will only be allowed to pitch in extra innings, or in the ninth inning for a leading team that is up by ten or more runs or anytime for a trailing team that is down by eight or more. MLB’s Joint Competition Committee voted unanimously for both measures. (Twitter links and ESPN link).

The automatic runner rule was first put in place in the 2020 season. Given the interrupted Spring Training and then quick ramp-up to shortened season, there were concerns about the unusual campaign leading to more injuries. The hope with the “ghost runner” was that it would decrease the likelihood of marathon games and therefore decrease player workloads and mitigate the chances of an injury popping up.

Though the change rankled many baseball purists, there’s little doubting that it was successful in accomplishing the goal of preventing exceptionally long games. As pointed out by Eno Sarris of The Athletic, there were only 11 games to reach the 13th inning last year, compared to 37 in 2019. There were also no games that went beyond the 15th in 2022, while it happened eight times in 2019.

Though many fans dislike the rule, it’s not hard to see why players and teams like it. For the players, they now have less chance of playing in an exhausting contest that goes to, say, 18 innings or six hours or both. For the teams, those situations would usually lead to a taxed bullpen and resultant roster shuffling, which is now far less likely. That doesn’t even get to the logistics of a game going so long that it leads to rescheduling flights or throwing off sleep schedules or other logistical issues that could be created. Whether fans like it or not, it seems it is popular enough among those directly affected by it that it is now here to stay.

As for the rules on position players pitching, Rogers reported on that possibility earlier today. The league had tried to tamp down on the occurrence recently by mandating that it could only happen when a game involved a six-run lead or larger. Unlike the free runner rule, this one did not accomplish its goal. There were 32 instances of position players pitching in 2017 but that number rose to 132 last year. With the instances still growing, it seems both players and the league agreed that it was necessary to further limit the conditions where it was acceptable to turn to such a tactic.

Read The Transcript Of Our Chat Hosted By Former Yankees Pitcher Humberto Sanchez

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If you were a diehard Yankees fan or prospect watcher about 15 years ago, you likely know the name Humberto Sanchez.  A native of the Bronx, Sanchez was a 31st round pick by the Tigers in 2001, signing for $1MM as a draft-and-follow.  Sanchez started for the World Team in the Futures Game in 2006, and in November he became the key piece in the trade that saw the Yankees send Gary Sheffield to the Tigers.

Before the 2007 season, Baseball America ranked Sanchez the 57th-best prospect in baseball, calling him “the young power arm New York lacked in Triple-A.”  However, by April of 2007, Sanchez needed Tommy John surgery.  Yankees GM Brian Cashman said, “I knew there was a chance [his elbow] needed to be fixed. But we looked at it long term and in 12 months we will have him back.”  As it turned out, Sanchez would need a second procedure six months later, extending his recovery timeline.

17 months after the initial Tommy John surgery, Sanchez made it to The Show.  He told Sean Brennan of the New York Daily News, “When you have surgery, it feels like your dream has died. After surgery you’re thinking your career is pretty much in jeopardy and (getting the call) seems out of reach. You don’t know if you’re going to come back.”  Sanchez made his MLB debut at Yankee Stadium, entering in the top of the eighth with his team ahead by eight runs.  He pitched a scoreless inning, striking out Paul Phillips and getting Jerry Owens and Jim Thome to ground out.

Sanchez entered another game out of the Yankees’ bullpen a week later.  Though no one knew it at the time, Sanchez had thrown his last Major League pitch at the age of 25.  He battled forearm tightness the following year, and the Yankees released him in April ’09.  He re-signed on a minor league deal and picked up 35 2/3 innings across various minor league affiliates.  Sanchez went on to pitch in the Chinese Professional Baseball League, later pitching in the Mexican and independent leagues.  Facing eight batters was not the MLB career Sanchez or anyone else envisioned, but it can be a brutal game and at least he can say he pitched in the Majors.

For the past four years, Sanchez worked as a pitching coach for the Dominican Summer League Red Sox.  At present, he’s preparing to start a logistics venture with his brother.  You can find him on Instagram @Humbe528.  Humberto chatted with MLBTR readers today, talking about his experience playing alongside Yankees legends, what his MLB debut felt like, what it was like being traded, and much more.  Read the full transcript here.

If you’re a current or former MLB player and you’d like to chat with MLBTR readers, contact us here.  It’s fun and easy, and you get to choose which questions you publish and answer.

MLB, MLBPA Discussing Rule Change Regarding Position Players Pitching

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The 2023 Major League Baseball season will feature the implementation of several rule changes, including a pitch clock, limits on defensive shifts and bigger bases. There might be one more change coming, with Jesse Rogers of ESPN reporting that a change to the rules on position players pitching is being discussed by the league and the players.

Teams will occasionally put a position player on the mound when the result of a game already seems determined in a large blowout. The decision is usually about not using an actual member of the pitching staff in a game that where the odds of changing the outcome are extremely low, thus sparing them the extra usage.

However, it was thought by many that the sight was becoming far too common and rules were implemented to limit its usage. Going into the 2020 season, each player was designated as either a pitcher, position player or two-way player. To earn two-way status, the player had to pitch at least 20 innings and start at least 20 games as either a position player or designated hitter, in either the current season or the previous one. Position players were only allowed to take the mound in certain situations, if their team was winning or losing by at least six runs, or if the game went to extra innings.

Rogers reports that the rule hasn’t worked, with the problem actually becoming worse, with 32 instances of position players pitching in 2017 but 132 times last year. The league and the players both reportedly agree that it’s happening far too often, with the players also concerned about how the statistics affect arbitration and free agency, and they are talking about changing those existing rules. The change would see the limits stretched so that a team that’s winning a game would have to be ahead by 10 runs, whereas the trailing team would have to be down by at least eight.

The Opener: Signings, FA Market, Astros

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With football season now in the rear-view mirror, it’s finally time for baseball season! Here are three things we’ll be keeping an eye on around the baseball world throughout the day today:

1. Signings to be made official:

A flurry of signings were reported over the weekend that have yet to be made official: Michael Fulmer signed with the Cubs, David Peralta and Alex Reyes both landed with the Dodgers, while Andrew Chafin returned to the Diamondbacks. As with any not-yet official signings, a 40-man roster move will be necessary to accommodate each of these players. The Cubs and Dodgers both have a handful of players who could move to the 60-day IL once Spring Training gets underway this week, thus clearing 40-man spots for Fulmer, Peralta, and Reyes, but the Diamondbacks lack a clear candidate for such a roster move, meaning they’ll like need to clear roster space some other way.

2. FA market heating back up:

The free agent market had entered a bit of a lull in recent weeks, with signings becoming increasingly sparing despite several strong players left on the market clearly deserving of big league deals. That dam seems to have finally broken over the weekend with the signings of Fulmer, Peralta, Reyes, and Chafin. Could more deals be on the way, with Spring Training just around the corner? There’s a variety of quality free agents still available who could impact a club: Jurickson Profar and Michael Wacha, the last remaining of free agents from MLBTR’s Top 50 earlier this offseason, highlight the group, but others such as Luke Voit, Gary Sanchez, Elvis Andrus, and Matt Moore are all interesting players who should be able to find a big league job somewhere before Opening Day as well.

3. Will the Astros keep going with Javier extended?

Over the weekend, the Astros managed to extend starting pitcher and 2022 World Series hero Cristian Javier on a five-year deal that covered three arbitration years and bought out a pair of free agent years. This came as no surprise, seeing as newly-installed GM Dana Brown stated publicly that he was focused on extending members of the core that just brought last year’s World Series trophy to Houston. In addition to Javier, Brown name-dropped Kyle Tucker, Jose Altuve, and Alex Bregman as players he’s hoping to have extension conversations with. Recently, Tucker lost his arbitration case against the Astros for his 2023 salary, leaving him with a lower platform salary than he was hoping for as he proceeds through the rest of his arbitration years. An extension, of course, could change that situation entirely, and it’s possible the baseline for Tucker’s arb years being set could make extension talks go a little easier. Altuve and Bregman are both under team control through 2024, but Brown and agent Scott Boras have reportedly been in contact about extensions nonetheless.

Who’s Blocking Jordan Walker?

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The Cardinals selected Jordan Walker with the 21st overall pick in the 2020 draft. Since then, he’s been charging hard towards the majors, moving up the minor league ladder and prospect lists.

In 2021, he made his professional debut, splitting his time between Class-A and High-A. In 82 games between those two levels, he hit 14 home runs and stole 14 bases, leading to an excellent .317/.388/.548 batting line and a 151 wRC+. He moved up to Double-A for 2022 and kept it rolling, hitting 19 home runs and stealing 22 bases in 119 games. His .306/.388/.510 batting line led to a 128 wRC+, indicating he was 28% better than average. He then went to the Arizona Fall League and hit .286/.367/.558 over 21 games there.

Now Walker is considered one of the best prospects in the league. Baseball America and MLB Pipeline each have him at #4, Keith Law of The Athletic at #5, FanGraphs at #8 and Kiley McDaniel of ESPN at #14. Since Walker has little left to prove at Double-A, he’ll likely be in Triple-A to start 2023, potentially jumping to the majors at any point.

Walker has primarily been a third baseman in his career thus far, as that was the only position he played in 2021. However, an Nolan Arenado-shaped obstacle is stopping him from seeing much time at the hot corner in the big leagues, so the club has started giving Walker some outfield reps. Walker made 68 starts at third in Double-A last year but also 30 in the outfield (24 of those in right). In the fall league, all 21 of his starts were on the grass, with twelve in right field. Prospect evaluators have suggested he is adjusting well to the move, with his strong arm and athleticism likely to help him serve as an above-average defender in the outfield.

As long as Arenado is healthy, Walker will be looking to crack the Cardinals as an outfielder. As of right now, the club’s likely starters out there would be Tyler O’Neill, Dylan Carlson and Lars Nootbaar, with Juan Yepez, Alec Burleson and Moisés Gómez also on the 40-man roster.

O’Neill, 28 in June, is coming off a frustrating season but was tremendous the year before. In 2021, he hit 34 home runs and stole 15 bases, producing a .286/.352/.560 batting line and a 144 wRC+. His outfield defense was graded well by all three of Defensive Runs Saved, Ultimate Zone Rating and Outs Above Average, with all that leading to 5.6 wins above replacement per the calculations of FanGraphs. That placed him 13th among all position players in the majors, just ahead of guys like Aaron Judge and Jose Altuve. Unfortunately, he made multiple trips to the injured list last year, due to a shoulder impingement and hamstring strain. He only got into 96 games and had diminished results when playing, hitting .228/.308/.392 for a wRC+ of 101.

It’s a somewhat similar trajectory for the 24-year-old Carlson. He hit 18 home runs in 2021 and batted .266/.343/.437 for a wRC+ of 113, but slipped to eight homers and a .236/.316/.380 line last year for a wRC+ of 100. He also went to the IL a couple of times, though he still played 128 games on the year. However, he got strong grades for his work in center field, with 6 DRS, 3 OAA and 1.8 UZR last year in just 530 innings. He seems to be the favorite to take over up the middle with Harrison Bader now a Yankee, though O’Neill and Nootbaar can both also play there.

Nootbaar, 25, hasn’t really had a full season as a big leaguer yet, as he was optioned to the minors three times last year. However, he seemed to take off after his final recall in mid-July. From that point on, he walked in an excellent 16.7% of his trips to the plate, just barely trailing his 17.1% strikeout rate. He hit 11 home runs in that stretch and slashed .240/.367/.490 as part of the second half surge.

Yepez, 25 next week, is more of a corner infielder who can play one of the outfield corners from time to time. His work on the grass hasn’t been graded well and he likely won’t be an everyday option. However, his potent bat will be in the mix for time as the designated hitter, which could still have an impact on Walker’s path to the bigs. Yepez hit 12 home runs in a 76-game debut last year, leading to a batting line of .253/.296/.447 and a wRC+ of 109. Burleson, 24, is somewhat similar, as his bat is considered a stronger part of his game than his defense. He didn’t hit much in his 16-game debut last year but his Triple-A batting line was .331/.372/.532 thanks to launching 20 homers. Gómez, 24, has yet to make his MLB debut but got himself a spot on the 40-man after a strong 2022. Splitting his time between Double-A and Triple-A, he hit .294/.371/.624 for a wRC+ of 149.

Out of all of these players, the only one to have qualified for arbitration so far is O’Neill. He has between four and five years of service time, meaning he’s not slated to reach free agency until after 2024. The others still have many years of affordable control. Once Walker is deemed ready for a move to the big leagues, the outfield could start to get crowded in St. Louis. He seems to be headed towards right field as his predominant position, where he could line up with Carlson in center and O’Neill in left most of the time. That would bump Nootbaar into a fourth outfielder/designated hitter role, which he might be overqualified for if his second half results last year are anywhere close to legit. Perhaps the Cards would think about trading O’Neill next winter, when he has hopefully had a bounceback season in 2023 and will be just one year removed from free agency. That would free up left field for Nootbaar or one of the other young guys.

All of this is contingent on everyone being healthy, of course, as even a single injury could unclog the situation in a hurry. But there’s a lot of talent here for the Cards, as their player development pipeline seems to churn out quality big leaguers at an incredible rate. However, even top prospects don’t always find immediate success in the big leagues. Walker has yet to even reach Triple-A, so some more patience might be required, though it feels fairly inevitable that the Cards will be able to work from an outfield surplus again at some point, even though they just traded Bader at last year’s deadline.

AL Notes: Mahomes, Haggerty, Vogt, Rays

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Patrick Mahomes’ ties to baseball are well known, as the NFL superstar is the son of longtime big league reliever Pat Mahomes.  However, the future Chiefs quarterback was himself a standout high school baseball player, and was even a 37th-round pick for the Tigers in the 2014 draft.  As Tigers scout Tim Grieve told 12Up’s Mark Powell in an interview in 2020, there was no doubt Mahomes was going to play college football at Texas Tech, but the Tigers figured “let’s be that team that started to build the relationship so that if he wants to play baseball 2-4 years down the road, we’ve got our foot in the door.”

Mahomes would likely have been picked in the third or fourth round of the MLB draft if he hadn’t been committed to football, and his father initially felt baseball might be his son’s sport.  “He was going to get drafted as an outfielder, and I have no doubt he would’ve made it and been successful,” the elder Mahomes told USA Today’s Bob Nightengale this week. “He loved baseball.  But when he went out for football, and saw all of the nuances and things you had to learn to be a quarterback, I think it really intrigued him to see what he could do.”  Speaking to Patrick Mahomes’ overall athletic ability, his godfather LaTroy Hawkins thought basketball would end up being his sport of choice.

Now that Mahomes has led the Chiefs to another Super Bowl title, the sports world can turn its attention to the start of Spring Training this week.  Since every season is baseball season here at MLBTR, here are some notes from around the American League…

  • “There are indications” that Mariners utilityman Sam Haggerty had to undergo surgery to fix a grade 2 adductor strain suffered at the end of last season, Ryan Divish of The Seattle Times writes.  The team hasn’t officially confirmed Haggerty’s status, and GM Jerry Dipoto that Haggerty is “a little behind” in his offseason work.  However, Dipoto also noted that Haggerty has started full baseball activity and has “been hitting for quite some time.  So he’s in a good place.”  In his fourth MLB season, Haggerty got an extended look in a utility role with Seattle last season and delivered, hitting .256/.335/.403 (good for a 114 wRC+) over 201 plate appearances while playing in the field at second base and all three outfield spots.  Haggerty looks to continue to play a key role on the Mariners’ bench this season, especially since fellow utilityman Dylan Moore might be a little more impacted during camp while recovering from core surgery.
  • Stephen Vogt weighed two other “serious baseball job offers” before becoming the Mariners’ new bullpen and quality control coach in January.  As Vogt told NBC Sports Bay Area’s Brodie Brazil, “the Mariners were the best situation, the best offer, and being close to home — we did the best we could to make it not be a factor in our decision making.  The cherry on top is that I get to be with my family more in a season than I ever have.”  2022 was the last of Vogt’s 10 Major League seasons, and given that he has long been considered a future managerial candidate, it isn’t surprising that several teams were interested in being the first stop in Vogt’s post-playing career.
  • After a pretty quiet winter on the transactional front, the Rays are now viewing their slower offseason as an opportunity for their core players to enjoy some relatively rare stability, given how Tampa so often shuffles up its roster.  “Generally, we’re always trying to build that next year’s team to be as strong as we possibly can,” general manager Peter Bendix told Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times.  “And this year, that led to us having this continuity and banking on some of this continuity, allowing our young players to grow and develop together and see if we can kind of gain from the experience that they’ve had up until this point.”  The Rays did part ways with several players in trades, free agency, or non-tenders, yet most of those holes were filled internally.  As Topkin notes, Zach Eflin (signed to a three-year, $40MM contract) and Rule 5 Draft selection Kevin Kelly are the only new players on Tampa Bay’s 40-man roster.  Of course, there is still plenty of time in the offseason for the Rays to make some more additions, plus one of the team’s many non-roster invitees could win a job in Spring Training.

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