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Archives for June 2023

Rays Option Jalen Beeks

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The Rays announced Wednesday that they’ve optioned lefty Jalen Beeks to Triple-A Durham. His spot on the roster will go to righty Zack Littell, who’s been reinstated from the 15-day injured list.

It’s the first time since 2019 that Beeks has been optioned to the minors. He entered the season with four years, 70 days of Major League service time and has accrued another 76 days so far in 2023. That accumulation is notable, as Beeks is now just 26 days shy of five years, at which point he’d need to give his consent to be optioned to the minors. The optional assignment isn’t likely to impact his free-agent timeline, as it’s hard to imagine Beeks won’t be back up for the remaining 26 days he needs to get to that five-year milestone.

Beeks, 30 next month, has been a key arm for the Rays over the past several seasons but struggled so far in 2023. The lefty missed the 2021 season following Tommy John surgery, but in 2020-22 he combined for 80 1/3 innings of 2.91 ERA ball with a 29% strikeout rate and a 7.9% walk rate. This year, Beeks is sitting on a grisly 5.82 ERA with a diminished 23.5% strikeout rate and an elevated 11.8% walk rate.

The Rays’ bullpen ranks 16th in the Majors with a collective 4.12 ERA, but the depth has taken a hit — particularly in terms of left-handed arms. With Beeks optioned out and both Josh Fleming and Garrett Cleavinger on the injured list, Tampa Bay is leaning on Colin Poche and recent veteran signing Jake Diekman. The 36-year-old Diekman has already performed better with the Rays than with the White Sox, who released him earlier in the season; in 10 1/3 innings he he’s allowed four runs on four hits and four walks with 10 strikeouts. Diekman has walked “just” 10.5% of his hitters as a Ray, compared to the 22.5% he walked in a similar sample with the South Siders.

Twins Acquire Taylor Floyd From Brewers

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The Twins have acquired minor league right-hander Taylor Floyd from the Brewers.  The move completes the late-April deal that sent Trevor Megill to Milwaukee, as Floyd will act the player to be named later that was owed to Minnesota.

Floyd was a 10th-round pick for the Brew Crew in the 2019 draft, and the Texas Tech product has spent his entire pro career in Milwaukee’s farm system.  Working exclusively as a reliever, Floyd has missed a lot of bats (30.68% strikeout rate) over his 147 1/3 innings in the minors, but his walk rate rose drastically when pitching at high-A and Double-A ball in 2022.  As Fangraphs’ Eric Longenhagen explains, an unusual offseason training quirk altered Floyd’s normal submarine delivery heading into the 2022 season, which probably accounted for his lack of control.

Longenhagen still ranked Floyd as the 39th-best prospect in the Brewers’ system even in the wake of that shaky 2022 campaign, and it seems like Floyd has stabilized things in 2023.  In 23 2/3 innings at high-A, Floyd has a 3.04 ERA, 34.8% strikeout rate, and a much more palatable 7.6% walk rate.  The right-hander also has a 49.1% grounder rate, continuing his career-long trend of keeping the ball on the ground roughly around half the time.

Mets’ Drew Smith Issued 10-Game Suspension For Foreign Substance Violation

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TODAY: The league officially announced that Smith has been suspended for 10 games, and will be fined.  According to Jon Heyman of the New York Post, Smith won’t file an appeal, so his 10-game absence begins with tonight’s game against the Yankees.

JUNE 13: Mets reliever Drew Smith was ejected by first base umpire Bill Miller in the seventh inning of tonight’s matchup with the Yankees. Smith had been called upon to enter the game but was tossed before throwing a pitch after umpires checked him for foreign substances.

Smith is the third pitcher of the season to be ejected for foreign substances, each of whom has come from the two teams involved in tonight’s contest. Mets ace Max Scherzer was thrown out of a start in April, while Yankees starter Domingo Germán was ejected last month.

A foreign substance ejection comes with an automatic 10-game suspension. It’s likely MLB will formally levy that ban on Smith tomorrow. The righty will have the ability to appeal, though that would be heard by a league official. Neither Scherzer nor Germán pursued an appeal; both pitchers served out the suspension before returning to the roster.

Players suspended for an on-field rules violation cannot be replaced on the roster. Assuming Smith is indeed suspended, the Mets will have to play with a 25-man roster for a week and a half.

They’ll also be down one of their better high-leverage arms. The 29-year-old has a 4.18 ERA across 23 2/3 innings. He’d posted a 3.33 mark through 46 frames last year, however, and he’s striking hitters out at an above-average 27.7% clip. Smith has picked up a pair of saves and held eight more leads this year.

Braves, Jesus Aguilar Agree To Minor League Deal

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The Braves signed free-agent first baseman Jesus Aguilar to a minor league contract, per the team’s transaction log at MLB.com. He was released by the A’s earlier this month.

Aguilar, who’ll turn 33 later this month, hit just .221/.281/.385 with five homers in 115 plate appearances for Oakland after signing a one-year, $3MM deal in the offseason. Oakland’s hope had been that Aguilar could recapture his 2017-21 form — .262/.338/.476, 93 homers in 1972 trips to the plate — and emerge as a summer trade candidate. That didn’t happen in the season’s first two months, however, and Oakland has turned first base over to impressive Rule 5 pick Ryan Noda on a full-time basis now.

During that 2017-21 peak, Aguilar was an All-Star (2017) and consistent power threat, topping out with a career-high 35 dingers back in 2018. At his best, Aguilar walked between 10-11% of his plate appearances and kept his strikeouts at or south of the league’s average rate. In 2023, he walked at a sub-par 7% clip and fanned in 27.5% of his plate appearances while delivering career-worst marks in average exit velocity (86.7 mph) and hard-hit rate (29.3%).

For the Braves, there’s little harm in bringing aboard a slugger with some track record on a no-risk deal. Atlanta is set at first base with Matt Olson and has gotten better play from designated hitter Marcell Ozuna of late, so there’s no pressing need on the big league roster. Aguilar can play some first base in Triple-A Gwinnett for the time being, and should the Braves incur an injury or simply want some additional right-handed thump off the bench, he could be an option in the event that he’s playing well.

Lance McCullers Jr. Undergoes Season-Ending Flexor Tendon Surgery

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4:16PM: Brown spoke with reporters (including Danielle Lerner) today about McCullers’ injury, and didn’t give any more specifics on when in 2024 McCullers could return.  The right-hander will begin throwing in November.

2:53PM: The Astros announced that Lance McCullers Jr. underwent forearm surgery on Tuesday, which will end the right-hander’s 2023 season.  The procedure removed a bone spur and, more significantly, repaired McCullers’ damaged right flexor tendon.

McCullers has been rehabbing a muscle strain suffered early in Spring Training.  Houston GM Dana Brown said last month that the team was looking at the All-Star break as a very rough estimate for when McCullers would be fully ready to return, but in the interim, McCullers suffered a pair of setbacks — he went from mound work to throwing off of flat ground, and was then shut down altogether due to continued soreness in his right arm.  A subsequent MRI presumably revealed the flexor tendon damage, and thus McCullers will now close the books on his 2023 campaign without a single pitch thrown.

As Brown explained in a team press release, “each time [McCullers] built himself up to an increased pitch total off the mound, the pain would come back.  It’s unfortunate, but we look forward to him being back on the mound next season.”  Perhaps noteworthy is the fact that Brown and the release’s initial paragraph didn’t specify when McCullers could be back in 2024, which would seemingly hint that the righty won’t be ready for the start of Spring Training.

This will mark the second lost season for McCullers in the last five years, as he also missed all of the 2019 campaign due to Tommy John surgery.  A flexor tendon strain suffered during the 2021 playoffs also limited McCullers to 47 2/3 innings last season, though he did return in time to make some starts down the stretch and throughout the postseason during the Astros’ World Series championship run.  The press release noted that the Spring Training injury represented a re-aggravation of that same 2021 injury, so hopefully the surgery will finally correct the issue that has plagued McCullers for the better part of two years.

Between McCullers’ procedure and Luis Garcia’s Tommy John surgery, the Astros have lost two members of their projected starting five to season-ending injuries.  Jose Urquidy has also been on the 15-day IL since the start of May due to shoulder inflammation, and while an MRI came back clean, Urquidy isn’t expected back until perhaps the All-Star break.  (On the plus side, Urquidy did tell Danielle Lerner of the Houston Chronicle that he is hoping to throw a bullpen session in about a week’s time.)  If these injuries weren’t enough, former top prospect Forrest Whitley might also miss the rest of the season due to a lat strain.

Somewhat remarkably, Houston’s makeshift group of starters has still been one of the better rotations in baseball, in the latest testament to the organization’s minor league depth.  Framber Valdez and Cristian Javier have led the way as more experienced arms, but rookies Hunter Brown and J.P. France and swingman Brandon Bielak have all pitched well.  The latest edition of the MLBTR Podcast addressed what the Astros might do at the deadline in regards to adding starting pitching, including whether or not they might prioritize hitting over pitching in the wake of Yordan Alvarez’s oblique strain.

Between McCullers’ abbreviated 2022 season and now his lost 2023 season, it has been an unwelcome start to the five-year, $85MM extension the right-hander inked in March 2021.  McCullers is still owed $51MM between 2024-26, and if he is able to put his flexor problems behind him, there is plenty of time to better make good on the Astros’ investment.  Of course, it is also yet to be seen exactly how much of the 2024 season McCullers could miss, or whether or not he’ll be able to fully stay healthy given all the accumulated wear and tear on his arm in recent years.

Mets Release Tommy Hunter, Stephen Nogosek Elects Free Agency

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TODAY: Nogosek has elected to become a free agent after turning down the outright assignment, according to multiple reports.

JUNE 13: The Mets have sent a pair of recently-designated relievers through waivers. Veteran righty Tommy Hunter has been released, while right-hander Stephen Nogosek was sent outright to Triple-A Syracuse, tweets Anthony DiComo of MLB.com.

Hunter appeared in 14 games for the Mets this season after cracking the roster out of Spring Training. He allowed just under seven earned runs per nine innings over 23 2/3 frames. Home runs were the biggest culprit, as Hunter surrendered six longballs in 106 batters faced. He had a similarly high home run rate in 22 1/3 innings last year but found more success keeping runs off the board in 2022.

While it hasn’t been a banner season for the 36-year-old, he’s been an effective middle innings arm for the bulk of his career. Hunter has consistently shown excellent control, and this season’s 4.7% walk rate remains stellar. He’s only punched out 18.9% of opponents but had a decent 23.4% strikeout percentage a season ago. He figures to land a minor league deal elsewhere now that he’s back on the open market.

Nogosek cleared waivers after a similar start to the year. The out-of-options hurler posted a 5.61 ERA across 25 2/3 frames. He’s also allowed a half-dozen homers, though Nogosek’s strikeout and walk numbers (21.2% and 11.9%, respectively) are each above Hunter’s rates.

This is the second time the Oregon product has gone unclaimed on waivers in his career. The Mets also successfully outrighted him over the 2019-20 offseason. He’d therefore have the right to decline the assignment in favor of free agency.

Mitch Haniger To Undergo Forearm Surgery

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TODAY: The Giants announced that Haniger will undergo forearm surgery tomorrow, and a more specific timeline on his recovery will be provided on Friday.  Davis will miss the next 3-10 days with a Grade 1 ankle sprain, so while an IL stint will be necessary, the infielder looks to have avoided a more serious issue.

JUNE 13: Giants outfielder Mitch Haniger fractured his right forearm during tonight’s game against the Cardinals, the club informed reporters (including Maria Guardado of MLB.com). Third baseman J.D. Davis was also diagnosed with a right ankle sprain.

Haniger was hit by a Jack Flaherty pitch on a check swing in the third inning. He immediately departed with Blake Sabol taking his spot in left field. Unfortunately, x-rays quickly revealed the fracture, which is sure to result in another lengthy stint on the injured list.

It’s horrible luck for the veteran outfielder. Haniger has had plenty of injury concerns over his career, including some fluke issues that have kept him out for extended runs. A 2019 testicular rupture sustained when he fouled a ball off himself ended up necessitating multiple core surgeries that cost him all of 2020. He returned for a full season in 2021 but missed a large chunk of last year with a high ankle sprain in his right leg.

The Giants rolled the dice on Haniger’s power upside despite his injury history. San Francisco inked him to a three-year, $43.5MM free agent guarantee with a post-2024 opt-out clause. The first season of the deal hasn’t gone as planned. Haniger opened the year on the IL after suffering a Spring Training oblique strain. He returned in late April but started slowly, hitting .230/.281/.372 over 160 trips to the plate with his new club.

Haniger is now headed back to the IL, leaving the Giants with a gap to plug in the outfield. While they could turn to Sabol or Austin Slater more frequently alongside Michael Conforto and Mike Yastrzemski, it seems they’re considering bringing up one of their top prospects instead. As Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle noted (on Twitter), Luis Matos was pulled from tonight’s game with Triple-A Sacramento. The 21-year-old outfielder, who’s already on the Giants’ 40-man roster, is hitting .348/.415/.548 between the top two minor league levels.

Haniger’s injury isn’t the only concern from tonight’s game for San Francisco. Davis sprained his ankle while sliding into third base. He attempted to walk the injury off but moved rather gingerly and was taken out of the game. Casey Schmitt came in to replace him at the hot corner.

Davis has been one of San Francisco’s best hitters. The righty-swinging infielder is sitting on a .286/.369/.476 line with nine homers and a robust 10.9% walk rate through 245 plate appearances. If the injury sends him to the IL, Schmitt figures to take over third base. The rookie cooled offensively after a blistering start and owns a .276/.286/.405 slash over his first 32 MLB games. He’s walked just once in 119 plate appearances. Schmitt is making contact and regarded as a plus defensive third baseman, though, so he’d be a high-upside fill-in.

Vinnie Pasquantino To Undergo Season-Ending Shoulder Surgery

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The Royals announced Wednesday that first baseman Vinnie Pasquantino will require surgery to repair a torn labrum in his right shoulder. He’s expected to miss the remainder of the 2023 season. “It’s tough,” Pasquantino told the Royals’ beat after the announcement (Twitter link via Anne Rogers of MLB.com). “But this is something where we can just go ahead and attack this now and be better come 2024.”

It’s an awful development for an already last-place Royals club that has won the fewest games in baseball (18) and has the sport’s second-worst run differential (-104). The 25-year-old Pasquantino has proven to be an 11th-round steal in the 2019 draft, mashing his way to top prospect status before making his MLB debut in 2022. Dating back to last year, he’s played in 133 games and tallied 558 plate appearances for the Royals, batting .272/.355/.444 with 19 homers and 27 doubles.

Through the season’s first two months, Pasquantino boasted a .267/.343/.471 slash, but when the calendar flipped to June his bat evaporated. The lefty had just one hit in 23 June plate appearances. Given that there wasn’t one specific play on which the injury is known to have occurred, it’s certainly possible that it was impacting him throughout that cold streak before he ultimately landed on the injured list.

With Pasquantino on the injured list, fellow homegrown first baseman Nick Pratto will likely be given the everyday reins at first base. Kansas City had already been getting Pratto’s promising bat in the lineup as often as possible, giving him DH and corner outfield work to maximize his exposure to big league pitching. The results have been good, with the former No. 14 overall draft pick batting .281/.367/.425 in 169 plate appearances. Pratto, however, is also punching out at an untenable 34.3% rate and currently boasts a sky-high .430 BABIP. There’s likely some regression in store, particularly if he can’t cut back on that alarming strikeout rate.

Pasquantino has been one of the Royals’ only good hitters so far in 2023. He, Pratto, Salvador Perez, utilityman Matt Duffy and outfielder Edward Olivares are the only Kansas City hitters with even average offensive output, by measure of wRC+. The Royals currently sit 26th in MLB in team batting average (.230), 26th in slugging percentage (.378), 28th in runs scored (251) and 30th in on-base percentage (.293). Subtracting Pasquantino from an already inept offense is a gut punch. The Royals likely didn’t have any delusions about their standing at the trade deadline, but losing their promising young first baseman for the season only further solidifies them as a surefire seller.

Pasquantino will eventually be placed on the 60-day injured list whenever the Royals need to open a spot on the 40-man roster. He’ll continue to accrue Major League pay and service time while rehabbing, and he’ll finish out the 2023 season with exactly two years of MLB service time. That’ll keep him on track for arbitration eligibility following the 2024 season and free agency following 2027 season. An extension or a future optional assignment to the minors could change that outlook, of course.

Rangers Announce Four Roster Moves

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The Rangers announced a quartet of roster moves, including the news that top pitching prospect Owen White has been optioned to Double-A after making his Major League debut.  Texas also activated right-hander Joe Barlow from the 15-day injured list and called up catcher Sam Huff from Triple-A, while catcher Sandy Leon was designated for assignment.

White threw two relief innings in yesterday’s 7-3 loss to the Angels, essentially piggybacking off of the 4 1/3 innings thrown by starter Cody Bradford.  Since Jon Gray was a late scratch due to a blister problem, the Rangers had a bit of a scramble to fill innings, including a quick recall of Bradford (who was working on three days’ rest since his last Triple-A outing).

With three runs allowed in those two innings, it wasn’t exactly the most auspicious debut for White, who was charged with the loss.  Still, with one cup of coffee in the bigs now on his resume, White will return to Double-A and continue to prepare for what the Rangers hope will be a much longer and more productive stint in the majors down the road.  A consensus top-100 prospect, White has yet to reach Triple-A ball, but figures to get the promotion to Round Rock in the relatively near future.

As one top prospect heads back to the minors, another makes his return to the majors as Huff will again be part of the Rangers’ active roster.  Huff has appeared in 59 games since the start of the 2020 season (including five this season), but Jonah Heim has seemingly eclipsed him as the Rangers’ catcher of the future.  Today’s move indicates that Texas will stick with three catchers on the roster, as Heim figures to get most of the work behind the plate and Huff and Mitch Garver will either work in a backup capacity or Garver will continue to get DH at-bats.  Garver only recently returned from a two-month stint on the IL due to a left knee sprain, so with Garver being eased back into catching duty, the Rangers wanted the flexibility of an extra catcher.

Leon’s minor league contract was selected to the MLB roster when Garver was hurt, and while Leon has never been much known for his bat, he produced only a .146/.186/.195 slash line over 44 plate appearances.  If the veteran backstop clears DFA waivers, he has the right to reject an outright assignment in favor of free agency, if Leon prefers to join a team whose catching depth chart is a little less crowded.  Known as a defensive specialist and expert game-caller, Leon could garner some interest on the DFA wire given how teams are constantly on the lookout for catching help.

Barlow was placed on the 15-day IL on May 29 due to kidney stones.  The right-hander posted a 2.81 ERA over 64 relief innings for Texas in 2021-22, but blister problems brought an early end to his 2022 season, and Barlow then struggled in Spring Training this year.  After starting the season at Triple-A, Barlow had only appeared in five games for the Rangers before hitting the IL.

Pirates Select Osvaldo Bido

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TODAY: The Pirates officially announced the move, with Canaan Smith-Njigba optioned to Triple-A as the corresponding move.

JUNE 13: The Pirates are calling up right-hander Osvaldo Bido to start tomorrow’s game against the Cubs, tweets Justice delos Santos of MLB.com. Pittsburgh will formally select his contract before the game. They have a trio of vacancies on the 40-man roster, so they’ll only need to make a corresponding active roster transaction.

Bido, 27, gets a big league call for the first time. The 6’3″ hurler entered the professional ranks in 2017, signing out of the Dominican Republic at age 21. That’s far older than the typical international amateur and has contributed to a lack of prospect attention, but Bido has pitched his way up over six-plus seasons.

He’s spent the past two years with Triple-A Indianapolis. Bido posted a 4.53 ERA over 111 1/3 innings last season. He carries a 4.55 mark across 55 1/3 frames this year, starting 10 of 12 outings. He has a solid 23.5% strikeout percentage but has walked a little under 11% of opponents. He had fairly similar strikeout and walk marks in 2022.

The Bucs kicked off a stretch of 13 consecutive game days with tonight’s loss to the Cubs. They’ll need a five-man rotation for the next couple weeks, which could give Bido a chance to make multiple appearances. General manager Ben Cherington said over the weekend that righty Roansy Contreras was moving to relief (relayed by Jason Mackey of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette). Paired with season-ending surgery for Vince Velasquez, the Pirates are looking for some stability alongside Mitch Keller, Rich Hill, Luis Ortiz and Johan Oviedo.

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