Headlines

Go To Pro Hockey Rumors
Go To Hoops Rumors

Archives for 2023

Guardians Option Logan Allen

By | at

The Guardians today optioned left-hander Logan Allen to Triple-A and recalled right-hander Michael Kelly in a corresponding move, per Mandy Bell of MLB.com. The move seemingly opens up a rotation spot for righty Cal Quantrill, who is currently on the injured list but scheduled to start tomorrow’s game.

This move highlights the rotation surplus in Cleveland. Allen, 24, was considered by many evaluators to be one of the top 100 prospects in the game coming into this season. He was promoted to the big leagues just over two months ago and has done little to dampen his stock. He has a 3.47 ERA through 62 1/3 innings in 12 starts. He’s struck out 22.9% of opponents, walked 8.7% of them and gotten grounders on 44.3% of balls in play. He might be getting a bit of a boost from a 79.9% strand rate, but his 3.70 FIP and 4.28 SIERA still suggest he’s been solid overall.

Most clubs would love to have that kind of performance. That may not be the production of an ace but it would make him a serviceable mid-rotation arm in any of the 29 other rotations. The Guardians, however, are spoiled in this department.

They have three more-established arms in Shane Bieber, Aaron Civale and Quantrill. The latter had a 5.61 ERA before landing on the injured list but has been much better in previous campaigns, with a 3.38 ERA last year and a 2.89 the year before. Bieber and Civale are having solid results, with ERAs of 3.69 and 3.18, respectively. Then the Guards also have two other top 100 prospects they promoted this year: Tanner Bibee has a 3.79 ERA while Gavin Williams is at 2.84 through his first two career starts.

Despite Triston McKenzie being shut down due to a sprain of his UCL, Zach Plesac struggling to the point of being outrighted off the roster and Daniel Espino, yet another top 100 prospect, requiring season-ending shoulder surgery, they still have so much pitching that Allen has been squeezed out. It’s possible this is just a short-term option, with Allen essentially being given an early start on the upcoming All-Star break, but there’s still obviously a logjam here. General manager Mike Chernoff suggested as much (link via Bell), implying that sending Allen to Columbus will allow the team to monitor his workload a bit. “While he’s down, he doesn’t have to go out and throw 100 [pitches] and try to prove something,” Chernoff said of Allen.

Even with all of that starting pitching, however, the club is below .500 at 39-40 thanks to their tepid offense. The team as a whole has hit .248/.313/.375 for a wRC+ of 90, placing them 24th out of the 30 clubs in terms of overall production. But with the weak American League Central, that record is enough for the Guardians to currently possess the top spot in the division, half a game up on the Twins.

All of that will give the Guardians’ front office much to think about. With the expanded playoffs and weak Central divisions, there are very few clubs that make for obvious sellers. Teams that are clearly in the seller lane like the Athletics or Nationals have already sold many of their most appealing players. That creates the possibility for more deals between contenders this year, trading from areas of surplus in order to address areas of need.

There are many contending clubs that could use a rotation upgrade, either due to injury or underperformance, and the Guards would get plenty of interest if they made any of their arms available. They could certainly entertain the idea of moving one of their rookies for some kind of blockbuster, but the more likely path would be moving one of the more experienced arms. The low-budget Cleveland club has operated this way for many years, often trading away players in their arbitration years as they get more expensive and closer to free agency.

Each of Bieber, Civale and Quantrill would fit this bill. Bieber is making $10.01MM this year and slated for one more pass through arbitration before reaching free agency after 2024. His strikeout rate and velocity are both down compared to previous years but he’s still keeping earned runs off the board. Each of Civale and Quantrill have one extra year of control beyond that, slated for the open market after 2025. Civale is making $2.6MM this year while Quantrill is earning $5.5MM.

Each of those individuals would garner varying levels of interest based on how highly they are valued by other clubs, but each undoubtedly has value and could potentially land the Guardians some kind of offensive upgrade. Another injury or two before the August 1 deadline would obviously change their calculus, but the ingredients seem to be in place for the Guardians to be a team to watch over the next month.

Royals’ Owner: “Total Confidence” In GM J.J. Picollo, Manager Matt Quatraro

By | at

Entering play Thursday at just 22-58, the Royals have the second-worst record in Major League Baseball, narrowly leading an Athletics team that has aggressively torn down its roster amid payroll cuts and efforts to restock the farm system. Unlike their floundering AL West counterparts, Kansas City did not enter the season in the early stages of a rebuild and with such minimal expectations. The Royals did recently push for a somewhat accelerated retooling period, but they added several veterans for a second straight offseason and at least hoped to keep afloat in a weak division. No one viewed the Royals as contenders heading into the year, but this level of struggle was not expected either.

Brutal as the Royals’ season has been, owner John Sherman today voiced “total confidence” in first-year general manager J.J. Picollo and rookie manager Matt Quatraro, per Anne Rogers of MLB.com (Twitter links). Of course, that doesn’t mean Sherman considers the 2023 season acceptable — far from it. Said the Royals’ CEO: “I feel accountable for where we are right now with our baseball team. We are committed to do what it takes to return to form. … This is a real year of evaluation, and that evaluation right now is painful.”

Picollo is still new to the top spot in the baseball operations hierarchy but has been with the Royals organization since 2006, when he was hired as the team’s director of player development. Quatraro, meanwhile, is in his first year with the club after previously serving as an assistant hitting coach in Cleveland and as a third base coach and bench coach with Tampa Bay.

The Royals fired president of baseball operations Dayton Moore back in September and elevated Picollo in his place. Moore had been one of the longest-tenured baseball operations leaders in the sport, originally ascending to the position of general manager in 2006. The Royals gave him a title bump to president of baseball ops in 2021, simultaneously promoting Picollo from assistant general manager to GM.

Picollo has had baseball operations autonomy for less than a year, but the moves made this past offseason generally haven’t panned out. A two-year deal for Jordan Lyles has thus far produced disastrous results (6.68 ERA in 91 2/3 innings). Zack Greinke again returned to Kansas City on a one-year deal and had been pitching as a capable innings eater, though a recent trio of rough starts has pushed his ERA north of 5.00. The signing of lefty Ryan Yarbrough is tougher to judge, as he’s been out nearly two months after being struck in the head by a comebacker.

To Picollo’s credit, the Royals’ low-cost investment in former Yankees stopper Aroldis Chapman has worked out as well as one could’ve hoped. The 35-year-old’s fastball velocity has rebounded to its highest level since 2017, and his 42.9% strikeout rate is his highest mark in a 162-game season since 2018. The southpaw’s 16.8% walk rate is still far too high, but command issues have long been an part of the Chapman experience. As it stands, he’s a slam-dunk trade candidate and could net Kansas City some minor league talent of note between now and the Aug. 1 trade deadline.

Lackluster performance from the Royals’ offseason additions are only a small part of the team’s 2023 woes, of course. Much of their recent rebuilding effort staked its hopes on developing polished college pitchers —  with a heavy emphasis on that in the 2018 draft — but those efforts have yet to bear fruit.

Brady Singer looked like he’d broken out with an outstanding 2022 season, but he’s regressed in alarming fashion this year, pitching to a 5.88 ERA with worrying negative trends in his strikeout rate, walk rate and velocity. Fellow college arms Daniel Lynch, Jackson Kowar, Kris Bubic, Jonathan Heasley and Asa Lacy haven’t developed as hoped. On the position-player side of things, youngsters like MJ Melendez, Michael Massey, Nate Eaton, Samad Taylor and Kyle Isbel have all struggled at the big league level in 2023.

As for Quatraro, while Royals fans surely can’t be pleased with the on-field results in his first year on the job, the roster composition is such that no skipper could be reasonably expected to have coaxed passable results from this group. Managers are evaluated based on far more than sheer wins and losses anyhow — arguably more so than ever in today’s game.

Based on recent history, Sherman’s comments are wholly unsurprising. There’s little to no recent precedent for a general manager or first-year manager being on the hot seat just three months into his first season on the job. Details of Picollo’s contract remain unclear, but the organization signed him to a multi-year extension late in the 2021 season. Granted, Moore was also extended and promoted at that point, but he’d had a 16-year runway as baseball ops leader by the time he was dismissed; Picollo has been in his current role for just nine months. Quatraro, meanwhile, signed a three-year deal that runs through the 2025 season and has a club option for the 2026 campaign.

If the Royals are to turn things around in the near future, they’ll need a lot of help from a farm system that entered the year ranked in the bottom half of the league — as low as 29th at both Baseball America and MLB.com. Picollo will have the opportunity to add to that system over the next month when he markets Chapman and presumably closer Scott Barlow, but the underwhelming performances from many of Kansas City’s veteran players leaves the Royals without many trade chips to dangle to contending clubs.

Tigers Designate Anthony Misiewicz For Assignment

By | at

The Tigers have designated lefty Anthony Misiewicz for assignment, per a team announcement. His spot on the 40-man roster will go to left-hander Zach Logue, whose contract has been selected from Triple-A Toledo (as reported earlier this morning). Left-hander Joey Wentz has been optioned to Triple-A Toledo to open a spot for Logue on the active roster, as expected.

It’s been a tumultuous ten months for the 28-year-old Misiewicz, who had a decent 2020-21 run with the Mariners but has now been on five teams since last August. The Royals acquired Misiewicz from the Mariners just prior to last year’s trade deadline, sending cash to Seattle after the left-hander had been designated for assignment. He’s since bounced to the Cardinals and the Diamondbacks — both in cash trades — and then the Tigers via waiver claim. He’ll now find himself either traded or placed on outright waivers once again.

After pitching to a 4.43 ERA in 102 2/3 innings between Seattle and Kansas City from 2020-22, Misiewicz has been hit hard in both Arizona and Detroit this year. The southpaw has tallied just 8 1/3 frames on the season, yielding eight runs on eight hits (two homers) and three walks. He has a 4.41 ERA and 19-to-6 K/BB ratio in 16 1/3 minor league innings between the Tigers and D-backs organizations so far in 2023.

This year’s struggles notwithstanding, Misiewicz is a 28-year-old lefty who entered the year with a 4.43 ERA, two minor league option seasons remaining (this year included), a roughly average strikeout rate and better-than-average walk rates. This year’s 93.1 mph average fastball is down half a mile from last year’s levels and 1.3 mph from its 2021 peak, but Misiewicz could nonetheless appeal to other clubs looking for left-handed bullpen depth. The Tigers will have a week to find a trade partner or pass him through waivers.

Tigers To Select Zach Logue

By | at

The Tigers appear set for a roster move, as left-hander Zach Logue is in the clubhouse this morning while fellow southpaw Joey Wentz does not have a locker, tweets Evan Petzold of the Detroit Free Press. Chris McCosky of the Detroit News tweets that Detroit is set to make a 40-man roster move to add Logue prior to this afternoon’s game against the Rangers. Wentz, notably, has a minor league option remaining, so he’s not necessarily the 40-man roster casualty for this move.

Logue, 27, was a December waiver claim out of the Athletics organization, less than one year after Oakland acquired him in a four-player package that sent Matt Chapman to Toronto. The 2017 ninth-rounder was coming off a solid year between Double-A and Triple-A at the time of the swap but was clobbered for a 6.79 ERA in his first 57 MLB frames in 2022, to say nothing of a similarly concerning 8.12 ERA in 78 2/3 frames at Triple-A last year.

The Tigers wound up passing Logue through waivers themselves after initially claiming him, which allowed them to send him to Triple-A Toledo to begin the season without occupying a spot on the 40-man roster. It’s been a tough year for Logue with the Mud Hens, however. In 15 appearances (13 of them starts), he’s totaled 51 2/3 innings and been tagged for a grisly 5.92 ERA with a below-average 21.6% strikeout rate and a higher-than-average 12.4% walk rate.

Logue’s last appearance came out of the bullpen, but he tossed 87 pitches in a game as recently as June 20, so if the Tigers need him to make a spot start he should be able to do so without any real pitch restrictions. That said, he could also just add some length to the bullpen after what’s been a taxing week for Detroit’s relief corps. The Tiger bullpen had to cover 8 1/3 innings Monday after Matthew Boyd departed his start in the first inning. (Boyd later required Tommy John surgery.) Tigers relievers Mason Englert, Brendan White and Garrett Hill have all had outings of 40-plus pitches over the past three days. Infielder Jonathan Schoop took the mound and recorded the final four outs in last night’s blowout loss to Texas.

A 4 2/3-inning start from Wentz yesterday contributed to that bullpen workload, and short starts have unfortunately been all too common for the former top prospect as he tries to establish himself in the Detroit rotation. The 25-year-old Wentz, acquired from the Braves as part of the Shane Greene trade, has pitched 71 2/3 innings this season but been hammered for a 6.78 ERA in that time. Wentz has fanned 20% of his opponents against a 9.4% walk rate — both worse than league-average marks but neither seeming indicative of struggles of  this magnitude.

However, Wentz is also allowing an average exit velocity of 90.6 mph and an opponents’ barrel rate of 11.2%, both of which align with his glaring home run issues this year. Wentz is averaging 2.01 homers per nine innings pitched, and paired with a somewhat elevated walk rate, it’s been a recipe for disaster. He’s only completed six innings twice in 15 starts, and six of his past eight starts have fallen shy of five innings.

With Wentz at least temporarily dropped from the rotation, the Tigers’ already muddled starting staff now even further lacks clarity. Rookie Reese Olson is taking the ball today and will be followed by veteran Michael Lorenzen tomorrow. The Tigers welcomed Matt Manning back from the injured list this week, and he’ll fill a third spot. However, Detroit starters Eduardo Rodriguez, Casey Mize, Tarik Skubal, Spencer Turnbull, Alex Faedo, Beau Brieske and the previously mentioned Boyd are all on the injured list. Manning is lined up to start Sunday’s game, but the Tigers’ Saturday starter is listed as TBD. If Logue isn’t needed in relief prior to that point, he’d presumably be one option to take that start. Petzold wrote yesterday that Skubal could be back as early as the first week of July, which would add a much-needed quality arm to that beleaguered staff.

The Opener: Wainwright, Sale, Free Agents

By | at

Yankees right-hander Domingo German is the talk of baseball after throwing just the 24th perfect game in Major League history last night. The right-hander set down all 27 Athletics hitters in a row, punching out nine along the way and finishing out the evening with a tidy 99 pitches. As fans buzz about that history-making performance, here are three things we’ll be keeping an eye out for today…

1. Wainwright milestones approaching:

Cardinals righty Adam Wainwright will take the ball tonight and make the 400th start of his illustrious career. He’ll become just the 140th pitcher to ever make as many starts in his career, and a victory over the Astros would push him to 199 total victories in his career. The final season of Wainwright’s career hasn’t gone as he hoped either from a team or personal level. The Cardinals currently sit 13 games under .500 and nine games back in the NL Central, while Wainwright has struggled to a 6.56 ERA with a career-low 10.9% strikeout rate through his first nine starts and 46 innings on the season.

2. Sale headed for MRI:

Red Sox lefty Chris Sale, already on the 60-day injured list due to a stress reaction in his shoulder blade, is headed for an MRI to provide further clarity on his potential timetable to return, Alex Speier of the Boston Globe tweets. A specific return date for Sale hasn’t been clear to this point, though his placement on the injured list occurred on June 2, meaning he’ll be out until at least early August. The oft-injured Sale, 34, had a dismal start to the season but looked like the Sale of old in six starts prior to landing on the injured list, pitching to a 2.25 ERA with a 29.5% strikeout rate against just a 3.6% walk rate in 36 innings. With Sale, Corey Kluber and Tanner Houck all on the IL, the Red Sox have deployed James Paxton, Brayan Bello, Garrett Whitlock and Kutter Crawford in the rotation recently.

3. MLBTR Free Agent Power Rankings this afternoon:

It’s been a couple months since the last edition of MLBTR’s Free Agent Power Rankings was published. We’ll have an updated version of our forward-looking rundown of the top end of this year’s free agent market published later on this afternoon. It’s a pitching-heavy group, headlined of course by two-way superstar Shohei Ohtani. But, with some key free agents struggling and others thriving well beyond expectation, there are also some changes in the rankings further down the list. The Aug. 1 trade deadline is the clear focus for most baseball fans right now, but if you’re looking to peak ahead to the upcoming winter, check back this afternoon for a glimpse at what the market will have to bear.

Hunter Greene Likely Out Into August

By | at

The Reds’ surge toward to the top of the NL Central has been one of the top storylines in Major League Baseball this month, and the fact that they’ve done so with negligible contribution from their starting rotation is a remarkable testament to the core group of position players in Cincinnati. Reds fans hoping for a swift return from right-hander Hunter Greene, placed on the injured list last week due to discomfort in his right hip, will have to hope others can pick up the slack on the starting staff for quite some time, however. General manager Nick Krall told the team’s beat last night that Greene is headed to Arizona for a strengthening program and will need to follow that with a throwing program of four to six weeks in length (link via Gordon Wittenmyer of the Cincinnati Enquirer). That makes a return sometime in August a best-case scenario.

Greene, 23, leads the Reds with 73 1/3 innings pitched and has been their most consistent starter throughout the 2023 season. He’s made strides over his 2022 rookie season, largely by scaling back the number of home runs he’s allowed (1.72 HR/9 in 2022, 1.10 in 2023). Greene’s 31.4% strikeout rate is right in line with last year’s excellent 30.9% mark, and while his 9.7% walk rate remains north of the league average, his punchouts have helped him to offset that below-average command. Of the 82 pitchers in MLB this year with at least 70 innings, only three — Spencer Strider, Shohei Ohtani, Kevin Gausman — have a higher strikeout rate than Greene. Only five — Strider, Shane McClanahan, Luis Castillo, Pablo Lopez and Blake Snell — have posted higher swinging-strike rate’s than Greene’s 14.3%.

Suffice it to say, a prolonged absence from Greene isn’t what an already dismal Reds’ rotation needed. Even with Greene’s solid production leading the group, Cincinnati starters rank 28th in the Majors with a 5.88 ERA, leading only the Rockies and A’s in that regard. The Reds’ rotation has MLB’s eighth-highest walk rate (8.8%) and has allowed home runs at the third-highest clip of any starting staff in the game (1.68 HR/9).

Greene and fellow sophomore starter and former top prospect Nick Lodolo, who’s dealing with a stress reaction in his tibia, will now be sidelined beyond the Aug. 1 trade deadline. That leaves Cincinnati with a patchwork rotation currently led by top prospect Andrew Abbott, who’s posted a pristine 1.21 ERA through his first five turns on a big league mound.

The rest of the group has struggled immensely this year. Righty Graham Ashcraft impressed early with a new cutter and improved movement on his slider, but he’s been torched for 47 runs in his past 33 innings. Veteran Luke Weaver has made 12 starts, allowing at least four runs in eight of them and at least three runs in ten of them; he’s averaging five innings per appearance and sitting on a 6.86 ERA. Prospects Brandon Williamson (5.82 ERA in 38 2/3 innings) and Levi Stoudt (nine runs in seven innings) have both debuted this year despite shaky numbers in the upper minors. Neither has found much success yet, though Stoudt’s sample is obviously quite limited.

Depth options like journeyman Ben Lively and righty Connor Overton are both on the injured list as well, the latter after undergoing Tommy John surgery. The Reds signed former Cubs righty Alec Mills to a minor league deal last month, and he’s already been selected to the big league roster despite pitching just 11 minor league innings on the season. The 31-year-old Mills pitched to a 5.66 ERA in 136 2/3 innings for Chicago in 2021-22.

Given the context of their current rotation, it’s hardly a surprise that Krall has already publicly acknowledged a desire to add pitching via the summer trade market. It’s similarly unsurprising, however, that Krall indicated within last night’s comments that the asking prices on the nascent trade market are beyond the team’s comfort zone. “Right now the conversations are in places that we are not – where we don’t want to go,” said Krall.

Trades of major significance this time of year are rare, though certainly not unprecedented. But, with the expansion of the playoff field to a dozen teams, there are very few clubs that are decidedly out of the playoff picture. Several of the teams who fit that bill — A’s, Rockies, Royals — are in their current predicament in large part due to a lack of starting pitching. Today’s brand of MLB front office tends to wait until closer to any and all deadlines — trade deadline, non-tender deadline, Rule 5 protection deadline — before making decisions, preferring to gather as much information as possible. Jumping the market this early would likely come at a steep cost — one that Krall and his group have thus far deemed prohibitive.

Steve Cohen Discusses Mets’ Front Office, Deadline Outlook

By | at

Steve Cohen conducted a press conference this afternoon, as promised. The Mets’ owner addressed the struggling franchise, which goes into play tonight carrying a 36-43 record that has them 8 1/2 back of the National League’s final playoff spot.

Cohen predictably expressed frustration with the team’s performance. However, he stressed he had no plans to remove general manager Billy Eppler or skipper Buck Showalter midseason (link via Andy McCullough of the Athletic).

“If you want to attract good people to this organization, the worst thing you can do is be impulsive, and win the headline for the day. You’re not going to attract the best talent. You’re not going to want to work with somebody who has a short fuse,” Cohen told reporters. “I know fans want something to happen. I get it. But sometimes you can’t do it, because you have long-term objectives.”

While there’s no sweeping leadership change in the near future, Cohen hinted at a noteworthy front office move further down the line. He indicated the club planned to hire a president of baseball operations at some point, though he declined to put a timetable on that process. The Mets have been without a team president since Sandy Alderson moved to an advisory capacity last offseason.

Initial expectations were that Alderson’s replacement would be focused on the business side while Eppler retained baseball operations autonomy. Cohen’s comments this afternoon suggest he’s likely to bring in a new baseball operations leader, pushing Eppler into the #2 role in the front office. Andy Martino of SNY writes that the Mets still also intend to hire a business-oriented team president. The president of baseball ops/GM hierarchy is relatively common around the game, though it’s rarer for a club to hire a president to take over the front office while retaining the same GM who previously led baseball operations. Martino suggests Eppler would be involved in the hiring process for the baseball operations president.

“My view is this is a very complex job and there’s a lot to do, and it’s a lot on one person,” Cohen said of the front office structure (relayed by Anthony DiComo of MLB.com). “That’s still out there. We’ll see. At some point, we will fill that position.” How that might affect Eppler’s future with the organization is undetermined. No new hire seems imminent, so the second-year GM will continue running the front office for the near future at least.

If that hiring process runs into next offseason, it’s sure to invite plenty of speculation about David Stearns’ future. The Mets reportedly showed interest in Stearns over the 2021-22 offseason prior to hiring Eppler. He was still serving as Brewers’ president of baseball operations at that time, though, and Milwaukee owner Mark Attanasio declined to grant the Mets permission for an interview.

Stearns remained Milwaukee’s front office leader through the end of last season. At that point, he stepped into an advisory role and ceded day-to-day autonomy to GM Matt Arnold. At the time, the 38-year-old spoke of a desire to “to (take) a deep breath, (spend) time with my family and (explore) some other interests” with fewer baseball operations responsibilities. He remains under contract with Milwaukee through the end of the 2023 season, so other teams would have to wait until the upcoming offseason to gauge his interest in new opportunities.

Whether the Manhattan native has any interest in jumping back to the top of a front office isn’t clear. For now, ties between the Mets and Stearns are simply speculative. Abbey Mastracco of the New York Daily News wrote again last week that some within the industry expect the Mets to renew their pursuit of Stearns next winter.

While the front office structure will be a pivotal decision for Cohen in the long term, the more immediate focus is on navigating the trade deadline. With a little over a month before August 1, he declined to commit to the club’s direction. However, Cohen did imply the team would have to cut into their deficit over the next four weeks for the front office to consider short-term help.

“If I’m in this position, I’m not adding,” Cohen said (via McCullough). “I think that would be pretty silly.” He didn’t sound anxious to tear the roster down, either, saying the team “would probably do very little” if they’re out of contention. David Robertson, Tommy Pham and Carlos Carrasco are the club’s notable impending free agents. Max Scherzer, Omar Narváez and Adam Ottavino all have opt-out clauses at year’s end. The team has options on Mark Canha and Brooks Raley, while Pete Alonso is arbitration-eligible for one more season.

Cubs’ Brandon Hughes Undergoes Debridement Procedure On Left Knee

By | at

Cubs reliever Brandon Hughes underwent a debridement surgery on his left knee today, the team informed reporters (including Maddie Lee of the Chicago Sun-Times). It was already known Hughes was going under the knife, though this specific surgery represents a change of plans.

Initially, doctors anticipated Hughes would require an osteotomy, a procedure that involves readjusting the bone. A debridement instead involves the removal of damaged tissue from the area. Lee suggests the new procedure comes with a quicker recovery timeline than the osteotomy, which was expected to sideline him into next year’s Spring Training.

The Cubs haven’t provided more specifics on Hughes’ new timeline, leaving it unclear whether a return this season is possible. Teammate Adrian Sampson underwent a debridement surgery on his knee in early May; he began a rehab assignment last weekend, roughly seven weeks post-operation. Obviously, there’s no guarantee Hughes will follow a similar path. The Cubs placed him on the 60-day injured list yesterday, so he’s ineligible to return until mid-August in any event.

Hughes, 27, emerged as a closing option for David Ross late last season. He posted a 3.12 ERA over 57 2/3 frames as a rookie. The southpaw has allowed 11 runs in 13 2/3 innings this year, striking out 17 but issuing eight walks.

Dana Brown Discusses Astros’ Deadline Priorities

By | at

The Astros are among a number of teams in the thick of a tightly-contested American League playoff picture. Six games back of the Rangers in the division but jockeying for position in the Wild Card race, the defending World Series champions enter deadline season looking to add to the roster.

General manager Dana Brown has already expressed a desire to add a left-handed bat, preferably one who can play multiple positions. In an appearance on the Sean Salisbury Show on 790 AM this morning, Brown reiterated that adding to the offense is the priority. He said that while the front office is “always open to acquiring an arm,” the club is “focused right now on a bat.”

It doesn’t seem anything is imminent. Brown suggested the trade market has yet to really heat up, in large part because of the number of clubs that have yet to pick a direction. With the 12-team playoff format and only a few organizations at the nadir of a rebuild, most front offices can still see a path to contention. The Nationals, Rockies, Royals and A’s are the only teams that are double-digit games out of a playoff spot.

Brown expressed a general openness to being aggressive in the pursuit of short-term help. Asked if there were any prospects the front office deemed “untouchable,” the GM said they were willing to consider moving anyone. Brown did specifically say the Astros wouldn’t deal Drew Gilbert — last year’s first-round pick and arguably the top prospect in a middling farm system — for any impending free agents. He left open the possibility of moving Gilbert for an MLB player with multiple seasons of club control, however.

That’s not to say the Astros are likely to move Gilbert so much as an acknowledgement the front office will consider various ways to push for a seventh consecutive playoff appearance. Houston’s offense has been surprisingly pedestrian, entering play Wednesday tied for 14th in MLB in run-scoring. Yordan Alvarez has been down for a couple weeks with an oblique strain and seems unlikely to return before the All-Star Break. Michael Brantley still hasn’t played as he works back from last summer’s shoulder surgery.

Those injuries have pushed Yainer Diaz and Corey Julks into regular playing time in the left field/designated hitter mix. Diaz has hit seven home runs in 139 plate appearances but has only walked three times. Julks has a .257/.297/.393 line in 60 games. José Abreu has had a disastrous initial season in Houston at first base, although he has hit a homer in two of his last three games as he looks to find his form.

Brown has generally seemed more comfortable with the club’s rotation outlook even as he’s acknowledged an overarching need around the league for pitching depth. Houston has had to lean on J.P. France and Ronel Blanco after losing Lance McCullers Jr. and Luis Garcia for the season and José Urquidy for a couple months.

The GM acknowledged to Salisbury that any other starting pitching injury would spur more urgency to look outside the organization. Houston’s top three of Framber Valdez, Cristian Javier and Hunter Brown has been excellent. France has done a decent job preventing runs despite a middling strikeout rate. Blanco has a 4.70 ERA with 11 walks over four starts. Getting Urquidy back from shoulder discomfort not long after the Break would go a long way towards stabilizing the staff.

Rotation Remains Potential Deadline Focus For Blue Jays

By | at

Blue Jays general manager Ross Atkins met with reporters this afternoon. With the deadline in a little over a month, Toronto’s front office leader called the starting rotation the “obvious area” for the team to address (relayed by Keegan Matheson of MLB.com).

Atkins noted the team would “balance” the desire for an external upgrade with potential MLB returns of Hyun Jin Ryu and Alek Manoah. Those pitchers are in dramatically different spots but both high-variance options at this point. Ryu is working back from last June’s Tommy John procedure. He has been targeting a return shortly after the All-Star Break.

Manoah is healthy but in the minor leagues. Toronto optioned last year’s AL Cy Young third-place finisher to their Florida organizational complex three weeks back. He’d posted a stunning 6.36 ERA through his first 13 starts, leading the club to try to get him back on track in a lower-pressure environment.

He returned to game action this week but was tagged for 11 runs in 2 2/3 innings by the Yankees’ rookie ball affiliate. Atkins said today he still “absolutely” expects Manoah to return to the MLB level in 2023 (via Ben Nicholson-Smith of Sportsnet). He’ll throw a bullpen session on Friday before the Jays decide their next steps.

For the moment, the Jays are rolling with a starting group of Kevin Gausman, José Berríos, Chris Bassitt and Yusei Kikuchi. They don’t have a set fifth starter since sending Manoah down. Trevor Richards has kicked off three bullpen games in that spot and pitched well, but he’s only working three-inning stints. It’s obviously not an ideal setup, even with the likes of Mitch White and Bowden Francis capable of taking multiple innings of relief behind him.

Gausman is one of the best pitchers in the game. Berríos has bounced back from a rough 2022 campaign. While Bassitt’s first season in Toronto has been inconsistent, the club isn’t going to bump him from the rotation in year one of a three-year free agent deal. Kikuchi has a 3.75 ERA and quality strikeout and walk numbers over 16 starts, but he has surrendered an MLB-leading 20 homers.

Getting either Ryu or Manoah back would theoretically fill the rotation. Yet neither player is a lock to perform well and everyone aside from Gausman has been shaky at times in the not too distant past. Toronto lacks reliable depth beyond the top four — hence the Richards bullpen games — and they’ve been fortunate to avoid an injury to any of their starters (Ryu’s surgery rehab aside).

Adding another starter indeed looks like an obvious goal for the front office. Atkins acknowledged a few weeks back the club was scouring the market. They’re firmly in a win-now window and would be justified in targeting either impending free agents (i.e. Lucas Giolito or Jordan Montgomery) or players with multiple seasons of club control. Even at 44-37, Toronto is in fourth place in the loaded AL East. They’re tied with the Angels and mere percentage points back of the Yankees for the final two Wild Card spots in the Junior Circuit.

MLB Trade Rumors is not affiliated with Major League Baseball, MLB or MLB.com

Do not Sell or Share My Personal Information

hide arrows scroll to top