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Archives for May 2023

D-Backs Outright Seth Beer

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Diamondbacks first baseman/DH Seth Beer has been sent outright to Triple-A Reno, according to the transaction log at MLB.com. That indicates he went unclaimed on waivers after being designated for assignment last week.

Beer has played parts of two seasons with the Snakes. The former first round pick was one of four prospects Arizona acquired from the Astros in the 2019 Zack Greinke blockbuster. He’d hit very well in the low minors after an incredible career at Clemson but came with questions about his lack of a defensive home. Beer continued performing at the plate through 2021, eventually reaching the majors towards the tail end of that season.

The left-handed hitter got into five games during his debut. He played a bit more last year, appearing in 38 contests and tallying 126 trips to the plate. He only hit .189/.278/.243 in his first real crack against MLB pitching. Beer spent the bulk of the season with Reno, putting up a solid but unspectacular .242/.361/.435 slash that was below his previous minor league production.

Arizona optioned Beer back to Reno to start the 2023 campaign. He’s been off to a rough start in his third crack at Triple-A, posting a .200/.266/.314 line over 79 plate appearances. Beer has homered just twice while striking out at a personal-worst 29.1% clip. Paired with the concern he could be limited to designated hitter, that slow start pushed Beer off the roster when the D-Backs promoted pitching prospect Brandon Pfaadt last Wednesday.

No other team was willing to devote him an immediate 40-man roster spot in light of his early-season slump. This is the first outright of his career and he doesn’t have three years of major league service. As a result, Beer does not have the ability to test free agency. He’ll remain in the Arizona system and try to hit his way back onto the big league radar.

A’s Change Target Site For Stadium In Las Vegas

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The A’s plans for a stadium proposal in Las Vegas have changed. According to reports from both Mick Akers of the Review-Journal and Howard Stutz of the Nevada Independent, the A’s have entered into a new land agreement for the construction of a stadium at the current site of the Tropicana hotel on the Vegas Strip.

Initially, the organization had been focused on a site just west of the Strip. They even announced a land deal last month, but the Nevada Independent reported yesterday the franchise was looking into alternatives due to concerns about the extent of the public funding for their previous plan. They’ve quickly settled on a new location and are moving on from the land they’d planned to build on a few weeks ago.

The A’s had been set to propose a plan that called for $500MM in public funding via county-issued bonds to be paid by tax dollars related to the stadium project. Both the Nevada Independent and Review-Journal report that the team’s public funding ask for the new site will be $395MM. The hope is that by reducing their ask on public funding by $105MM, their proposal will be more palatable whenever it’s formally put in front of the Nevada legislature.

Whether that’ll prove to be the case remains to be seen. The A’s are seeking approval from county and state officials for the construction of a park that’d be ready by the start of the 2027 season. If they receive government approval and sign a binding stadium agreement, they could then petition MLB for relocation out of Oakland.

The A’s lease at Oakland’s RingCentral Coliseum runs through the end of next season. The organization has until January 15 to formally sign a contract for the construction of a new facility if they’re to retain their status as revenue sharing recipients in the collective bargaining agreement.

Latest On Jacob deGrom

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The Rangers placed Jacob deGrom on the injured list on April 29 with inflammation in his throwing elbow. The two-time Cy Young winner had left his previous start early with some forearm discomfort, the second time this season he’d been forced to depart an outing for health reasons.

While deGrom is technically able to return to action this weekend, he won’t be reinstated when first eligible. Manager Bruce Bochy estimated this evening the four-time All-Star could be two to three weeks away (relayed by Evan Grant of the Dallas Morning News). According to Grant, deGrom will meet with team physicians next Monday to determine whether he can start to ramp up the intensity.

The Rangers are understandably going to be cautious with deGrom’s arm health. He’s battled forearm and shoulder issues over the past couple years, resulting in an extended chunk of missed action between 2021-22. deGrom returned at peak form in last year’s second half and the Rangers made him the highest-paid pitcher of the offseason, inking him to a five-year, $185MM guarantee.

Through his first six starts in a Texas uniform, the star hurler has tossed 30 1/3 innings of 2.67 ERA ball. Among pitchers with 30+ frames, only Spencer Strider has a superior strikeout rate to deGrom’s 39.1% clip. It’s exactly the kind of rate production for which general manager Chris Young and his front office had hoped, though the longstanding question has been how many innings they can expect deGrom to shoulder.

With deGrom out, Dane Dunning has stepped into the final rotation spot. Dunning was a solid back-of-the-rotation arm for Texas between 2021-22 and threw five scoreless innings against the Angels last week. He’s a capable fill-in, though his move to the rotation puts added pressure on a bullpen that has been shaky of late. Dunning was arguably Texas’ best reliever for the first month, tossing 20 1/3 frames of 1.77 ERA ball.

Braves, Chad Pinder Agree To Minor League Deal

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The Braves are in agreement with free agent utilityman Chad Pinder, reports Robert Murray of FanSided (Twitter link). It’ll be a minor league contract, tweets Justin Toscano of the Atlanta Journal Constitution.

It’s the third minor league deal of the season for the longtime A’s utilityman. He signed with the Reds over the winter but struggled in Spring Training, hitting just .103/.167/.154. After being informed he wouldn’t make the Opening Day roster, he opted out and quickly signed with the Nationals. Pinder spent a little over a month in the Washington system playing for Triple-A Rochester. He hit .218/.308/.309 over 62 plate appearances before being released last week.

While it hasn’t been the best start to the year, Pinder brings plenty of upper level experience. He played for Oakland between 2016-22, compiling a .242/.294/.417 line over 553 games. He’s struggled to reach base — particularly against right-handed pitching — but offers some power when holding the platoon advantage. Pinder is a career .264/.322/.456 hitter against lefties.

On the other side of the ball, the 31-year-old is capable of covering virtually anywhere on the diamond. Pinder has over 250 innings of big league experience at each of second base, third base and shortstop and in both corner outfield positions. The majority of his time has been spent at the keystone and in the outfield corners. He’ll add a versatile right-handed bat to the upper minors.

The Encouraging Developments Of Brandon Marsh

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Just as the trade deadline was approaching last year, the Phillies sent sent catching prospect Logan O’Hoppe to the Angels in order to acquire center fielder Brandon Marsh. The latter was one of the top prospects in the league a few years ago but was relatively overshadowed on an Angels team that had stars like Mike Trout and Shohei Ohtani. Marsh was perhaps best known for trying to make his head suit his surname, as he didn’t do too much to stand out with the bat.

Making his debut in 2021, he got into 70 games and took 260 trips to the plate. He struck out in 35% of those, walked in 7.7% of them and hit just a pair of home runs. He finished that year with a .254/.317/.356 batting line and an 85 wRC+, indicating he was 15% below league average. Up until the trade last year, it was more of the same. In 323 plate appearances for the Halos prior to the deal, he struck out 36.2% of the time, walked at a 6.8% clip and slashed .226/.284/.353 for a 79 wRC+.

The move to the Phillies seems to have been a turning point, however. His walk rate actually dropped to 4.3% after coming to Philadelphia last year, but his strikeout also dipped to 29.7%. That was still much higher than league average but a noticeable improvement from his own track record. That led to a .288/.319/.455 batting line and 114 wRC+. Here in 2023, he’s off to a tremendous .314/.402/.578 start and a 164 wRC+.

There’s one big caveat to throw out here, as Marsh currently has a .444 batting average on balls in play that no hitter could sustain. Last year’s league leader, for instance, was Paul Goldschmidt and his .368 mark. Once Marsh sees his BABIP figure regress, his overall numbers won’t be quite so gaudy. But digging under the hood reveals there’s still plenty of things to be encouraged by. He’s striking out at a 29.9% clip that is definitely still high but more manageable than the roughly 35% clip he was at previously. He’s also walking at an amazing 12% clip, well above this year’s 8.8% league average. Considering how rarely he took free passes before, that’s an excellent sign.

The batted ball metrics also shed some positive light on the better results, as basically everything has improved relative to last year. His barrel rate is up from 7.4% to 10.4%. His average exit velocity was 89.2 mph last year but is at 92 mph in 2023. His hard hit rate has gone from 38.2% to 47.8%. It’s still a fairly small sample of 117 plate appearances but he’s striking out less, walking more, hitting the ball harder and doing so more often. And it doesn’t seem to have come out of nowhere.

Back in October, when the Phillies were in the World Series, Marsh and hitting coach Kevin Long spoke to Sam Blum of The Athletic about the changes that had been made to his swing. “I devised a game plan on what I was going to do with his swing,” Long said. “And the mechanics of his swing. I always start by getting guys closer to the hitting position than further away. So we spread him out. We got him into his legs. It worked.”

All of these offensive improvements are a great coup since Marsh was already a valuable contributor as a glove-first center fielder. Defensive Runs Saved doesn’t seem to like him in center much, putting him slightly below average in each of his three seasons thus far. Ultimate Zone Rating has him in the positive range, though, and Outs Above Average has him at +5 through 1,251 innings. Marsh is also ranked in the 88th percentile in terms of sprint speed and has 17 stolen bases in his career thus far.

With all of those traits, FanGraphs calculated him as having produced 2.4 wins above replacement in 204 games over 2021 and 2022, even while hitting at a subpar rate. Now with much better offense this year, he’s already at 1.3 fWAR in just 33 games, more than halfway to his previous total in a fraction of the time. As mentioned earlier, he’s due for a bit of regression, but there are reasons to suspect he’ll eventually settle somewhere that’s much better than his previous work.

The 25-year-old came into this year with one year and 78 days of service time, meaning he won’t qualify for arbitration until after 2024 and isn’t slated for free agency until after 2027. For a Phillies team that has spent big on players including Bryce Harper, Trea Turner and Nick Castellanos, and would also like to get Aaron Nola signed to an extension, getting big value out of an overlooked player like Marsh is an important victory.

Evan White To Undergo Hip Surgery

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Mariners first baseman Evan White will undergo another procedure on his left hip, the team informed reporters (including Ryan Divish of the Seattle Times). The recovery estimate is three months.

White is already on the 60-day injured list. He suffered an adductor strain two games into his Triple-A season and was initially expected to miss two months. That won’t come to be, as White unfortunately is headed under the knife yet again. His 2021 campaign was cut short by the first surgery he underwent on his left hip. The former first round draftee then missed the bulk of last season due to a sports hernia surgery.

For a third consecutive year, White is now going to be sidelined by a notable procedure. The initial estimate suggests he could return sometime in August, though the organization would surely be cautious with his ramp-up based on his extensive injury history. Even in the best case scenario, he’s now set to miss the majority of the year.

White hasn’t played a big league game since 2021. A well-regarded prospect during his time climbing the minor league ranks, he stumbled to a .165/.235/.308 line in 306 MLB plate appearances between 2020-21. He’s spent the bulk of the past couple years on the injured list and has only gotten Triple-A reps when healthy enough to take the field.

The Mariners signed White to a $24MM extension before he made his big league debut. He’s making $3MM this season and due successive salaries of $7MM and $8MM over the next two years. The Mariners have a pair of club options thereafter but they’re certainly trending towards declining those given White’s various health issues.

Seattle also got unfortunate news on star reliever Andrés Muñoz. The hard-throwing righty has been out since April 8 with a deltoid strain. He’d been nearing a rehab assignment but suffered a minor setback. Divish tweets that he experienced some shoulder soreness during a recent bullpen session. The M’s sent Muñoz for an MRI, which revealed some inflammation. He received a platelet-rich plasma injection and isn’t expected to begin a minor league stint until the end of the month.

Muñoz was one of the game’s best relievers in 2022. He worked to a 2.49 ERA through 65 innings, striking out an incredible 38.7% of batters faced while keeping his walks to a solid 6% rate. That understandably earned him plenty of high-leverage looks as the season wore on, as he saved four games and held 22 more leads.

Angels Designate César Valdez, Select Chris Okey

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The Angels announced a series of roster moves, recalling right-hander Jimmy Herget and selecting catcher Chris Okey. In corresponding moves, righty César Valdez was designated for assignment while catcher Chad Wallach was placed on the 7-day concussion injured list . Sam Blum of The Athletic reported on the moves prior to the official announcement (Twitter links).

Valdez, 38, was just selected to the club’s roster yesterday. At that time, it seemed like he was there in case the club needed someone to eat multiple innings of long relief. José Suarez only last 2 2/3 innings on Sunday and Chase Silseth had to throw 3 1/3 innings of relief to get the club through that game. With Suarez then placed on the IL and Silseth seemingly ticketed to replace him in the rotation, the bullpen was a bit vulnerable going into Monday’s night game. But Patrick Sandoval was able to toss 6 1/3 frames last night and the Halos finished out the contest using only two relievers, Matt Moore and Carlos Estévez.

With the bullpen a bit more refreshed and an off-day coming up on Thursday, it seems they decided they could get by without Valdez and have designated him for assignment just about 24 hours after he was added to the roster. The veteran has been in and out of the majors over the years, having recently leaned hard into being a changeup specialist. He’s thrown the pitch 76.7% of the time over his 49 appearances dating back to the start of the 2020 season, posting a 4.84 ERA in that stretch.

The Halos will now have a week to trade Valdez or pass him through waivers. In the event that he clears, he would have the right to reject an outright assignment and elect free agency by virtue of having a previous career outright.

As for Herget, he will get a chance to get his season back on track after a rough start. He registered a 6.23 ERA through his first eight appearances and got optioned down to Triple-A Salt Lake. That was a disappointing dip from the encouraging breakout he had last year when he had a 2.48 ERA, eventually earning nine saves and six holds. Since being optioned, he has a 5.40 ERA in five appearances despite strong strikeout and ground ball rates of 28% and 50%, respectively. A .462 batting average on balls in play and 83.3% strand rate likely inflated his ERA but his 16% walk rate surely played a part as well.

Turning to the backstops, the Halos have been doing a bit of scrambling behind the plate this year. Max Stassi has been on the injured list all year with a hip injury and personal issue while Logan O’Hoppe had his hot start ended by a torn labrum that’s going to cost him four to six months. Chad Wallach was added to the roster over two weeks ago to join Matt Thaiss as the club’s catching tandem but will now join Stassi and O’Hoppe on the injured list.

All of that has created an opening for Okey, who made his major league debut with the Reds last year, though he got just 13 plate appearances in seven games. He was outrighted off the club’s roster in July and reached free agency at season’s end, signing a minor league deal with the Angels. He’s made 45 trips to the plate for the Bees so far this year but has hit just .125/.205/.225 in that time. His overall Triple-A batting line is a bit better, coming in at .208/.283/.333 in 401 plate appearances dating back to 2019.

In one other note relating to the Angels, Suarez won’t require but will be shut down from throwing for four weeks, per Rhett Bollinger of MLB.com. He’ll have to ramp back up at that point, meaning he likely won’t be available for a couple of months. He seems likely to be replaced by Silseth, who will join Sandoval, Shohei Ohtani, Tyler Anderson, Reid Detmers and Griffin Canning in the club’s six-man rotation.

Meibrys Viloria Elects Free Agency

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Catcher Meibrys Viloria has elected free agency, according to his transactions tracker at MLB.com. That suggests he cleared waivers after being designated for assignment by the club last week. He had the right to elect free agency by virtue of having previously been outrighted in his career.

The Guardians somewhat surprisingly opted to carry three backstops on their active roster to start the season, with Mike Zunino backed up by Cam Gallagher and Viloria, none of whom could be optioned to the minors. Viloria was seemingly third on the depth chart, as he was put into 10 games during his time on the roster but mostly as a late-game replacement, only garnering four plate appearances in roughly a month on the roster.

He had spent most of his previous career with the Royals, jumping to the Rangers in 2022 before coming to the Guards this year. He’s mustered just a .198/.270/.279 batting line in 280 plate appearances, dating back to the start of the 2018 season. However, he’s been roughly a league-average pitch framer over the past few years and is considered above-average in controlling the running game when looking at Statcast’s new caught stealing above average metric. He’s also hit much better in Triple-A, currently sporting a line of .280/.422/.440 in 430 plate appearances at that level.

He will now head out to the open market and look for his next opportunity. There are several teams around the league dealing with injuries to their catching depth, but given that Viloria just cleared waivers, he’s probably going to be limited to minor league deals.

Mets Notes: Scherzer, Peterson, Yacabonis, Carrasco

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The Mets announced that today’s scheduled starter, Max Scherzer, was scratched due to neck spasms. Left-hander David Peterson was recalled to start tonight instead. Right-hander Jimmy Yacabonis was placed on the 15-day injured list with a left quad strain, which opened a roster spot for Peterson and allowed the lefty to return less than 15 days after being optioned.

The issue with Scherzer appears to be minor, as he was not placed on the injured list, but it is at least somewhat concerning that he’s not at full health. The 38-year-old hasn’t quite seemed himself so far this season, seemingly unable to get into a good groove. He allowed eight earned runs in his first two outings but came back with five scoreless frames in his third. It was in his fourth start that he was ejected for excessive stickiness on his hands, which also led to a 10-game suspension. He showed a bit of rust after serving that sentence, allowing six earned runs against the Tigers last week.

All told, he has an ERA of 5.56 thus far, a significant difference from last year’s 2.29 mark. The severity of this neck issue will likely become more clear in the coming days but it appears to be yet another speed bump for a rotation that has seen many. Justin Verlander started the year on the injured list due to a teres major strain and just returned last week while José Quintana has been there all year due to rib surgery and isn’t expected to return until July. Carlos Carrasco began the year healthy but landed on the IL after just three starts due to a bone spur in his elbow. All of those hurdles are part of the reason the club has limped out to a 17-18 start and is seven games back of Atlanta in the NL East.

It remains to be seen whether Scherzer will just need a few days of extra rest or a significant stretch of time off. Peterson will likely be quickly optioned in the former scenario but could also stick around in the latter, joining Verlander, Kodai Senga, Tylor Megill and Joey Lucchesi in the improvised rotation. Scherzer seems to be on the optimistic side of things, telling Tim Healey of Newsday that he’s expecting to miss just a couple of days and take the ball against the Nationals this weekend.

In a bit of good news, Carrasco seems to be working his way back as well. The Double-A Binghamton Rumble Ponies announced that the veteran will be making a rehab start for them tonight as he tries to get back to the major league team. He was initially planned to start his rehab on the weekend but those plans were pushed back when he fell ill. It seems he’s recovered and the train is back on the tracks. He had a 3.97 ERA for the Mets last year but struggled to an 8.56 mark this year before the bone spur put him on the shelf.

If the Mets get a bit of luck, both Scherzer and Carrasco will be healthy and pitching well soon, which will likely nudge out Peterson and then one of Lucchesi or Megill. The former has a 4.43 ERA through four starts while the latter is at 4.33 in seven outings. Peterson hasn’t been able to fare well in his time this year, currently sporting a 7.34 ERA in his six starts.

The Reds Should Expand Their Youth Movement Even Further

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The Reds entered the 2023 season with a trio of young starters — Hunter Greene, Nick Lodolo, Graham Ashcraft — headlining their rotation, as well as a rookie third baseman (Spencer Steer) and a closer entering just his second big league season (Alexis Diaz). None of that quintet had more than a year of Major League service time. Ashcraft and Steer both had less than one full year. The Reds might’ve spent a small amount on veteran free agents this offseason (e.g. Wil Myers, Luke Weaver, Curt Casali, Luke Maile), but one look at the roster left little doubt this was a rebuilding team.

Six weeks into the season, the youth movement has brokered mixed results. Greene and Ashcraft (Sunday’s meltdown notwithstanding) have both looked impressive in the rotation. Diaz is doing his best impression of his older brother, striking out a stunning 51.2% of his opponents through 11 innings. Steer has delivered roughly league-average offense and shown some versatility, beginning to take regular reps at first base with Myers and Joey Votto both on the injured list. Lodolo has been extraordinarily homer-prone, but his strikeout and walk rates are every bit as encouraging as they were during a strong rookie effort in 2022.

Cincinnati fans are getting a glimpse at the hopeful future core for the Reds, but it’s becoming increasingly clear that more youthful reinforcements are — or should be — on the horizon. The Reds have every reason to let Lodolo try to sort through his homer woes at the big league level, but the fourth and fifth spots of the rotation are another story entirely. Those have been occupied by veterans Weaver and the just minutes-ago-DFA’d Luis Cessa for the bulk of the season, and the results rather unsurprisingly haven’t been good.

Weaver has made just three starts to Cessa’s six, and while a 7.88 ERA doesn’t inspire any confidence, Weaver has at least posted a 26% strikeout rate against an 8.2% walk rate. They’re both better than average marks — the strikeout rate in particular. Like Lodolo (and many other Reds hurlers who have the challenge of pitching at Great American Ball Park), Weaver’s home run rate is through the roof (2.81 HR/9). The Reds spent a couple million dollars to sign him as a free agent, and Weaver’s only had three starts. Ugly as they’ve been, he’ll get another few turns, even if the leash is (or should be) short.

Cessa’s spot seemed far more vulnerable. (Hence the bulk of this piece already having been written just prior to his DFA… thanks for prompting some last-minute rewrites, Reds!) In six starts, he allowed an earned run per inning, walked more batters than he struck out, and was moved to the bullpen for his most recent appearance. He didn’t start a single game from 2019-21, making the Reds’ decision to move him into the rotation last year and then to guarantee him a 2023 rotation spot a rather peculiar one.

Cessa posted a pedestrian 4.30 ERA in ten starts last season with an even less-encouraging 5.02 FIP. That might’ve made him a fine sixth or seventh starting option, but the Reds opted to only sign Weaver this offseason and leave the rotation largely unaddressed. Veteran Chase Anderson was re-signed on a minor league deal, but he’s already been traded to the Rays after triggering an opt-out in his contract. Right-hander Ben Lively was re-signed to a minor league deal, and the Reds selected him to the roster today alongside fellow offseason journeyman pickup Kevin Herget.

It’s not clear whether the 31-year-old Lively and 32-year-old Herget are short-term stopgaps or will get an actual look on the roster in the coming weeks, but even before this afternoon’s slate of moves, the crux of this argument has been that the Reds have more interesting options than the veterans they’ve plugged into the fourth and fifth spots of the rotation thus far. The promotions of Lively and Herget don’t change that.

Lefty Brandon Williamson and right-hander Levi Stoudt both came to Cincinnati by way of trade with the Mariners, coming over in the Jesse Winker/Eugenio Suarez and Luis Castillo trades, respectively. Neither has dominated in Triple-A to begin the season, though Stoudt did make his MLB debut in a spot start last month. Williamson, currently sporting an ERA north of 7.00 in 28 1/3 Triple-A frames, has not yet pitched in the big leagues. It’s worth noting that nearly all the damage against him came in one start, where he did not escape the first inning against the Cubs’ top affiliate and was thrashed for eight runs. Stoudt needs to improve upon the poor command he’s shown in Louisville before getting a real look in the big leagues.

The Reds have one particular minor league powerhouse who looks on the cusp of MLB readiness, however: left-hander Andrew Abbott. The 2021 second-round pick has skyrocketed through the minor leagues, reaching Double-A last year as a 23-year-old in his first full professional season and then overpowering both Double-A and Triple-A opponents early in the 2023 season.

Abbott opened the current campaign with 15 2/3 innings in Double-A, allowing just two runs on six hits and three walks with an astonishing 36 strikeouts. That’s not a typo; Abbott fanned a comical 64.3% of his opponents in those three Double-A starts before the Reds rather naturally jumped him to Triple-A. He hasn’t continued on at that deity-like pace at the top minor league level … he’s “merely” posted a 3.00 ERA with a 38.7% strikeout rate in another 15 innings of work. All in all, Abbott has 30 2/3 innings of 2.05 ERA ball with an eye-popping 50.8% strikeout rate to go along with a 7.6% walk rate, 41.5% ground-ball rate and 0.88 HR/9 mark.

The 23-year-old Abbott’s most recent start just happened to fall on Sunday, which would line him up to be fully rested come Saturday, when the Reds’ listed starter is TBD. That had been Cessa’s spot in the rotation, but Cincinnati opted to start Ashcraft on four days’ rest instead of giving Cessa his usual turn. (Ashcraft was blasted for eight runs in 1 2/3 innings.) It’s always possible that they’ll look into alternatives for the time being, preferring to give Abbott more seasoning and hold off on adding him to the 40-man roster just yet. But each of Williamson (May 5), Stoudt (May 6) and Herget (May 4) saw their most recent starts fall on a date that would line them up to pitch between now and Saturday.

If the Reds are indeed going to tap into their farm to make a change, Abbott is not only the best option in terms of 2023 performance — he’s also the starter who’s likeliest to be on full rest and ready to make that start. Even if Cincinnati bypasses him in favor of Lively or Herget this coming weekend, he’s already made the clear case that he’s a better option for the big league rotation than either Weaver or Cessa. And assuming Williamson can continue to shake off the impact of that catastrophic outing against the Cubs’ Iowa club — he rebounded with a quality start in his next appearance — it might not be long before either he or Stoudt stakes a claim to the fifth spot.

Going with a youth-forward rotation obviously has its pitfalls, but the Reds’ lack of offseason activity on the starting pitching front — both in terms of established big league starters and even in terms of veteran depth on minor league deals — clearly set the stage for that to eventually be the case in 2023. It’s not hard to imagine the Reds rolling with five starters who have under two years of big league service by sometime next month, if not sooner. The next step in the process should come this weekend. It’s only six starts, but Abbott looks like one of the organization’s four best rotation options at this point. Today’s moves might have added some fresh arms in Lively and Herget, but plugging either into the rotation would only continue treading water as they were with Cessa.

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