Angels Release Amir Garrett, Adam Kolarek
The Angels have released a pair of lefties that were each in the system in a non-roster capacity. Amir Garrett and Adam Kolarek have both been let go, per each player’s transactions tracker at MLB.com.
Garrett, 32, signed a minor league deal with the Giants this winter. That club decided he wasn’t going to make the Opening Day roster and released him, which freed him up to sign a minor league deal with the Angels. He was selected to the big league roster at the end of April and was in the majors for about two weeks. He tossed 5 1/3 innings in that time, racking up an impressive 11 strikeouts but also giving out five walks, leading to a 5.06 earned run average.
He was designated for assignment in the middle of May but returned to the Halos on a new minor league deal. He has tossed 33 2/3 innings at the Triple-A level this year with a 5.08 ERA, 28.5% strikeout rate and 10.6% walk rate. He’s been in good form lately, with a 1.59 ERA over his eight most recent appearances. In 11 1/3 innings in that stretch, he has 20 strikeouts and just four walks, all of that taking place in the hitter-friendly Pacific Coast League.
Despite that strong run in recent weeks, the lefty has little utility for the Angels at this point. They are out of contention and will likely be using what’s left of the season to evaluate guys who could help in the future. That includes plenty of internal arms and they also claimed a couple of arms yesterday in Nick Robertson and Brock Burke, who are both optionable and controllable. Garrett, on the other hand, is a veteran with over six years of service time.
Perhaps those waiver claims nudged Garrett out, giving him a chance to a find a new club in the coming weeks. He has some success on his track record, mostly combining lots of strikeouts with lots of walks. In 330 2/3 big league innings to this point in his career, he has a 4.95 ERA, 26.7% strikeout rate and 13.3% walk rate.
With the trade deadline now in the past, teams are fairly limited in terms of their avenues for adding talent. Garrett can be wild but he has been an effective setup guy in the past, racking up over 20 holds with the Reds in both 2018 and 2019. His numbers this year are decent and could lead to him getting a shot somewhere else in the coming weeks. If he signs before the end of August, he’ll be postseason eligible with a new club.
Kolarek, 35, is also a veteran with a notable track record, but he’s had less success this year. The Angels signed him in the offseason to a deal worth $900K and then ran him through waivers. Since Kolarek has more than three years of service time but less than five, he could have returned to free agency but would have left that money on the table by doing so.
He accepted his assignment and has tossed 31 innings at the Triple-A level this year but with a 6.97 ERA. There’s surely some bad luck in there, as his .415 batting average on balls in play and 58.5% strand rate are both on the unfortunate side, but his rate stats aren’t amazing either. His 22% strikeout rate and 48.9% ground ball rate are close to average but his 12% walk rate is a few ticks worse than par.
His major league track record consists of 149 1/3 innings with a 3.62 ERA. His 15.9% strikeout rate in that time is low but he has only walked 6.8% of batters faced and has gotten grounders at a huge 63.9% clip. His Triple-A numbers this year haven’t taken the same shape but some club could perhaps take a shot on him, especially since the Angels are on the hook for what’s left of that salary. Any other club would only have to pay him the prorated league minimum for any time spent on the roster, which would be subtracted from what the Halos pay.
The Opener: Harris, Judge, LLWS
Here are three things to keep an eye on around baseball today:
1. Braves to reinstate Michael Harris II:
Braves manager Brian Snitker told reporters (including Mark Bowman of MLB.com) that Michael Harris II will be activated from the 60-day injured list today. He will join the Braves in San Francisco as they attempt to secure a series victory over the Giants. The center fielder has been out since mid-June with a hamstring strain.
Harris tore things up at Triple-A over six rehab games, batting .435 with a 1.065 OPS. The Braves will hope he stays hot in the majors; before his injury, he was hitting just .250 with a disappointing .653 OPS in 67 games. Atlanta will need to make an additional transaction or two to clear space for Harris on the 26 and 40-man rosters. Bowman implies the Braves could DFA Adam Duvall as a corresponding move. Duvall is in the midst of a dreadful season (.178/.240/.315, -1.1 FanGraphs WAR), and as Bowman points out, the righty-batting Duvall did not get the start last night even with a left-handed pitcher on the mound.
2. Aaron Judge going for home run No. 300:
Yankees outfielder and AL MVP frontrunner Aaron Judge has been sitting on 299 career home runs since Sunday, when he took Rangers southpaw Andrew Chafin deep for his MLB-leading 42nd homer of the season. With his next long ball, Judge will become the 162nd player in MLB history to join the 300-homer club. He will also, almost surely, become the fastest player to hit 300 home runs. That honor currently belongs to Ralph Kiner, who hit his 300th home run in his 1,087th career game. Judge has played just 954 games since his debut in 2016. In other words, Judge will become the fastest player to reach the 300-homer mark whether he hits his next bomb today, next week, or next month. However, he’ll have a pretty good shot tonight, as the Yankees play their final game of the season against the hapless White Sox. White Sox pitchers have given up the third-most home runs in MLB this season (157).
3. Little League World Series starts today:
The Little League World Series kicks off this afternoon in Williamsport, Pennsylvania. Ten teams from around the United States and another ten from around the world will compete to be crowned LLWS champions. The tournament, which airs on ESPN, runs through August 25. Meanwhile, the Yankees and Tigers will take the field in Williamsport for the Little League Classic on August 18.
Dodgers’ River Ryan To Undergo Tommy John Surgery
The Dodgers announced Tuesday that top pitching prospect River Ryan will undergo Tommy John surgery. He’ll miss the remainder of the 2024 season and quite possibly all of the 2025 campaign while recovering. Ryan, who posted a 1.33 ERA through his first four big league starts, hit the injured list over the weekend after suffering a UCL sprain in his most recent start.
Ryan’s 2024 season was already known to be over, but the Tommy John procedure marks a worst-case scenario in the wake of his UCL injury. An internal brace procedure might’ve come with a shorter timeline for recovery, but he’ll require a full ligament replacement, which tends to shelve pitchers for upwards of 14 months. Every rehab process is different, and there’s always a chance Ryan might heal a bit faster than the standard pitcher, but a 12-month recovery is typically an absolute minimum for pitchers who require Tommy John surgery.
The 25-year-old Ryan was an 11th-round pick by the Padres in 2021. He went to the Dodgers in a trade that now looks like a heist, sending first baseman/outfielder Matt Beaty back to San Diego. (Beaty played in 20 games with the Padres and hit .093/.170/.163 before being cut loose.) Ryan hadn’t even made his professional debut at the time and had signed for a $100K bonus, so he was hardly a high-end prospect. Ryan simply getting to the majors would’ve been a player development success story for Los Angeles, but he instead ascended to the point where he’s regarded as one of the top pitching prospects in the sport. Ryan climbed as high as No. 21 overall on FanGraphs’ top-100 prospect rankings and sits 99th on MLB.com’s top-100 list at the moment.
The reasoning behind that rise isn’t especially difficult to see. Ryan spent the majority of the 2023 season in Double-A and pitched to a tidy 3.33 ERA in 97 1/3 frames before being bumped to Triple-A late in the year. He was hit hard in those two starts but returned to Triple-A this year and carved up opponents with a 2.76 ERA, 28.8% strikeout rate and 9.1% walk rate in five starts. He was limited in the minors this season due to a shoulder injury, but Ryan graduated to the majors with a 3.22 ERA, 28.5% strikeout rate and 10% walk rate in parts of three professional seasons since being traded to the Dodgers organization.
Ryan becomes the latest Dodgers hurler to land on the injured list in what’s been a trying season for their rotation depth. Los Angeles entered the year with Clayton Kershaw on the injured list and knowing that Tony Gonsolin would miss most/all of the season recovering from last summer’s Tommy John surgery. They’ve since seen Emmet Sheehan (Tommy John surgery) and Dustin May (esophageal surgery) fall to season-ending surgeries, while Yoshinobu Yamamoto (strained rotator cuff) and Walker Buehler (hip and elbow) land on the shelf with long-term injury troubles of their own. Prospects Nick Frasso (shoulder surgery) and Kyle Hurt (Tommy John surgery) are on the minor league injured list and done for the year as well. Last year’s breakout right-hander, Bobby Miller, has made just seven MLB starts and been ineffective both with the Dodgers and with Triple-A while navigating a shoulder injury of his own.
With that laundry list of injuries, the Dodgers currently have a rotation that includes Kershaw, Tyler Glasnow, Gavin Stone and deadline pickup Jack Flaherty. Buehler is expected to return from the injured list later this week, but he’s been bludgeoned for a 5.84 ERA in eight big league starts and has a 5.01 mark in another eight Triple-A starts this season — his first year back from 2022 Tommy John surgery. He offered a glimmer of hope in his most recent rehab start, tossing 5 1/3 innings and holding the Rangers’ Triple-A club to one run on one hit and three walks with five punchouts.
Because Ryan’s injury occurred while pitching at the big league level, he’s on the MLB injured list and will spend his 2025 rehab on the big league injured list as well. He’ll earn major league pay and service time while recovering from the injury. That’ll give him at least a full year of service while he recovers, putting him on track for arbitration in the 2027-28 offseason and free agency following the 2030 season. Of course, future optional assignments could change one or both of those trajectories, and for now the immediate focus will simply shift to the long process of getting the talented young righty back to full strength with an eye toward a late-2025 or early-2026 return.
Mike Cubbage Passes Away
Former major league infielder and coach Mike Cubbage has passed away after a battle with cancer, according to a report from Bradley Locker of the New York Post. He was 74.
Cubbage played parts of eight seasons between 1974-81. A left-handed hitter, he was drafted by the Washington Senators in the second round in 1971. The Senators had also taken Cubbage in the sixth round of the ’68 draft, but the Charlottesville native had honored his college commitment to the University of Virginia. A few months after selecting him for a second time, the Senators moved to Texas and became the Rangers.
After playing parts of four seasons in the minors, Cubbage made his debut with Texas early in the ’74 season. He nevertheless spent most of that year in Triple-A. Cubbage appeared in 58 MLB contests the following season. Texas included him in a four-player package to land future Hall of Famer Bert Blyleven from the Twins midway through the ’76 campaign. Cubbage played regularly for Minnesota over the next four-plus seasons. He topped 100 games on three occasions while working as the Twins’ primary third baseman. He hit .266/.336/.378 in just under 2000 plate appearances with Minnesota.
Cubbage signed with the Mets as a free agent going into the 1981 season. He finished his career with 67 games for New York. While he didn’t make a huge impact on the organization as a player, he quickly embarked on a lengthy run as a minor league manager in the New York system. Cubbage reached the MLB coaching staff in 1990, working as a hitting coach under Davey Johnson. He served as the MLB team’s interim manager for a week in 1991 and continued coaching throughout the decade. Cubbage was on the Red Sox’s staff in the early 2000s and subsequently worked in various scouting roles. He was a member of the Nationals’ pro scouting department during the team’s 2019 World Series season.
In just over 700 MLB games, Cubbage was a .258/.330/.369 hitter. He connected on 34 homers and drove in 251 runs. His playing days served as a springboard into a true “baseball lifer” career that spanned nearly four more decades. MLBTR sends our condolences to his family, loved ones, friends and the various people he impacted over his lengthy career.
Angels, Corey Knebel Agree To Minor League Deal
The Angels are signing reliever Corey Knebel to a minor league contract, as first reflected on the MLB.com transaction log. He’ll report to Triple-A Salt Lake. Knebel was granted his release from a non-roster deal with the White Sox earlier this month.
Now 32, Knebel is trying to get back to the majors for the first time since 2022. He has generally been a productive pitcher when healthy — highlighted by an All-Star season as Milwaukee’s closer back in ’17 — but has had various arm issues. He underwent a Tommy John procedure in 2019 and subsequently missed time with lat and shoulder concerns. Knebel didn’t pitch last season as he rehabbed a capsule strain that he suffered with the Phillies two years ago.
Most of his time with Chicago was also spent on the minor league IL. Knebel made six rehab appearances split between the complex and High-A. He only pitched six times for Triple-A Charlotte, though he impressed with 5 1/3 scoreless frames while striking out eight. While it wasn’t enough to convince the Sox to give him a look, that production evidently intrigued the Los Angeles front office.
It’s a fairly inconsequential move for the Halos, who aren’t anywhere near the playoff mix. Knebel will return to free agency this offseason regardless of whether he makes the MLB team. The final six weeks could serve as an audition as he tries to secure a big league opportunity going into 2025.
Phillies Outright Nick Nelson
The Phillies announced this afternoon that reliever Nick Nelson went unclaimed on outright waivers. He’ll stick in the organization at Triple-A Lehigh Valley without occupying a 40-man roster spot.
A fourth-round pick of the Yankees in 2016, Nelson landed in Philadelphia at the start of the 2021-22 offseason in a four-player trade. The Phils had carried him on their 40-man roster since that point. They nudged him off the roster on Sunday as the corresponding move for their waiver claim of Kyle Tyler from Miami.
Nelson made 47 appearances in 2022, logging 68 2/3 innings of relief for the Phils during their pennant-winning season. Philadelphia gave Nelson one inning of mop-up work during the Fall Classic. He hasn’t been much of a factor over the two years since then. Nelson has combined for four major league appearances against 46 Triple-A outings since the start of 2023. The Phils stretched him out as a depth starter with Lehigh Valley a year ago but returned him to the bullpen this season.
A rough showing this year pushed him off the roster. Nelson has surrendered upwards of seven earned runs per nine across 40 2/3 frames for the IronPigs. His 17.8% strikeout rate is subpar while he’s walking more than 11% of batters faced. The Phils can keep Nelson around as non-roster depth for the stretch run. He’ll have sufficient service time to reach minor league free agency next winter unless Philadelphia adds him back to the 40-man within a few days of the start of the offseason.
A’s Move Ross Stripling To Bullpen
The A’s are bumping Ross Stripling into a relief role, manager Mark Kotsay said before tonight’s matchup with the Mets (X link via Martín Gallegos of MLB.com). Oakland recalled right-hander Joe Boyle to start today, so the 6’7″ hurler will presumably stick in the starting five.
Oakland acquired Stripling and Alex Wood in the hope that they’d serve as veteran anchors to a fairly young rotation. The A’s reportedly took on $9.25MM of Stripling’s $12.5MM salary when they acquired him from the Giants in February. They signed Wood for $8.5MM on a one-year free agent deal. Neither acquisition has provided much in terms of on-field value. Wood made nine starts before suffering a shoulder injury that required season-ending surgery. Stripling lost two months to an elbow injury and hasn’t gotten good results when healthy.
Over 14 starts, the veteran right-hander carries a 5.72 earned run average. He’s striking out a career-low 12.5% of opposing hitters. Stripling has continued to attack the strike zone but simply hasn’t missed enough bats to be consistently effective. He has completed six innings in three of his 14 appearances. He allowed six runs in one of those. His only quality starts are a seven-inning, one-run performance against the Red Sox on April 3 and the six scoreless frames he worked against Pittsburgh on May 1.
Oakland welcomed Stripling back from the injured list just before the trade deadline. There presumably wasn’t much interest from other teams. (The A’s did move Paul Blackburn, whom they’ve tagged for seven runs tonight, to the Mets on deadline day.) Stripling has made three starts since returning. He had a nice showing against the Giants on July 31 but was hit hard by the Angels and White Sox in his other appearances.
With Stripling scuffling, the A’s are going with almost entirely unproven arms in their rotation. JP Sears is the most established member of the staff. Rule 5 pick Mitch Spence got a rotation spot in the middle of May and has turned in back-of-the-rotation production. The hard-throwing Boyle joins Joey Estes and Osvaldo Bido at the back end. Stripling assumes the long relief role which the A’s opened by designating Kyle Muller for assignment this afternoon.
Sears is the only member of that group who entered the season with even a year of major league service. They’re all trying to establish themselves as longer-term members of the pitching staff. Stripling, by contrast, seems likely to be a one-year acquisition. He’ll be a free agent next winter. He turned in an excellent 3.01 ERA for the Blue Jays two years back but carries a 5.52 mark over 161 1/3 frames since signing a $25MM contract with San Francisco over the 2022-23 offseason.
Fantasy Baseball: Streaming Endgame – The Lefties
Hello friends.
Pardon my absence these last two weeks, as I've had some family health issues to deal with. But I'm back now, babies, and ready to buckle down for our fantasy stretch run.
With all due respect to hitters and relievers, the most value that'll be found on the wire from now until close will come from streaming pitchers. And by value, I mean the production that can realistically help you catch up (or shore up) certain categories in your quest for a championship. I don't just mean streaming pitchers from the waiver wire, either. The band of pitchers you consider "must starts" will almost necessarily whittle itself down as decisions need to be cut with a knife that's more and more subtle as the season comes to a close.
With that in mind, let's update our previous looks at targeted streaming. That is, paying a more particular mind to which teams should be avoided and targeted according to the pitcher handedness of your possible options.
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Yankees Planning To Place Jazz Chisholm On IL With UCL Injury
The Yankees are likely to place Jazz Chisholm Jr. on the 10-day injured list with an injury to the UCL in his left elbow, manager Aaron Boone told the New York beat (relayed on X by Chris Kirschner of the Athletic). The organization is unsure whether Chisholm will need to undergo surgery.
If there’s a silver lining, it’s that the injury is to Chisholm’s non-throwing arm. It’s nevertheless a tough blow that’ll subtract the Yankees’ key deadline acquisition from the lineup. Chisholm has gotten out to an excellent start to his time in the Bronx. He already has seven homers in 14 games. He’s hitting .316/.361/.702 across 61 trips to the plate since the trade.
Chisholm had connected on 13 longballs with Miami. This is his first major league campaign reaching the 20-homer mark. He has also swiped 27 bases (including a perfect 5-5 showing with the Yankees) and now carries an above-average .257/.328/.445 slash line on the year. The Yankees have won nine of 14 games since Chisholm joined the team. They enter play tonight half a game behind the Orioles for the top spot in the AL East. Baltimore is tied with the Guardians for the #1 seed in the American League, so that’s very much in play for New York as well.
While Chisholm had spent his entire Marlins career in the middle of the diamond (primarily at second base or in center field), he has moved to the hot corner in the Bronx. Chisholm has been in the starting lineup for all 14 games since the Yankees acquired him. Thirteen of those have come at third base, while he has made one start in center field. The hot corner has been a problem for New York all season. Yankee third basemen aside from Chisholm have hit .231/.292/.320 through 419 trips to the plate.
Oswaldo Cabrera and DJ LeMahieu have gotten the bulk of that work and neither has hit at a league average level. The Yankees have deployed LeMahieu as the right-handed half of a first base platoon with lefty-swinging Ben Rice lately. That could point to Cabrera, who gets the nod there tonight against White Sox righty Jonathan Cannon, as the primary option if Chisholm goes on the shelf. Oswald Peraza, who is hitting .244/.352/.384 in a fairly pedestrian Triple-A campaign, is on the 40-man roster. So is Jorbit Vivas, whom the Yankees acquired in an offseason trade with the Dodgers. The Yankees briefly called Vivas up around the All-Star Break but didn’t get him into a game. He’s hitting .242/.379/.374 over 58 Triple-A contests.
The Yankees can no longer turn to the trade market for anything more than a minor league depth pickup. Amed Rosario is headed to the waiver wire after being designated for assignment by the Dodgers last night. If Chisholm is out for an extended stretch, the Yankees could look to put in a claim for the righty-hitting infielder. New York is behind everyone other than the Phillies, Guardians and Orioles in the waiver priority, though. There’s a good chance that another team claims Rosario before the Yankees get an opportunity.
Red Sox Re-Sign Brad Keller To Minor League Deal
The Red Sox have re-signed right-hander Brad Keller to a minor league deal, per Chris Hatfield of SoxProspects.com on X. The veteran elected free agency earlier today but has quickly returned to Boston on a non-roster pact.
Keller, 29, is a veteran with more than five years of service time. That gives him the right to reject optional assignments to the minor leagues. Earlier in the year, he did consent to be optioned by Boston, getting recalled a few days ago. The Sox optioned him a second time but he decided to exercise his right to explore the open market. It seems he didn’t find much to his liking and quickly reunited with the Sox on this minor league deal.
The righty had a nice run with the Royals earlier in his career but he has hit a few bumps in more recent seasons. In the 2018-2020 seasons, Keller logged 360 1/3 innings with Kansas City, allowing 3.50 earned runs per nine in that stretch. His 16.8% strikeout rate was below par but his 9.1% walk rate was around average and his 52.1% ground ball rate was quite strong.
But his ERA crept north of 5.00 in both 2021 and 2022. Last year, he was only able to make 11 appearances before requiring surgery to address thoracic outlet syndrome. This year, he has split his time between the White Sox and the Red Sox, tossing 37 1/3 innings with a 5.30 ERA, 17.8% strikeout rate, 7.7% walk rate and 49.6% ground ball rate.
The Sox bolstered their rotation prior to the deadline by acquiring James Paxton from the Dodgers but he recently suffered a torn calf after just three appearances with Boston. Cooper Criswell is currently on the injured list with COVID but the club is planning on slotting him into the rotation when he’s healthy. Whenever that happens, he’ll join Tanner Houck, Brayan Bello, Nick Pivetta and Kutter Crawford.
The club has Quinn Priester on the 40-man roster as depth but he has allowed 11 earned runs in 6 1/3 Triple-A innings since being acquired from the Pirates. Wikelman Gonzalez is also on the 40-man but he has a 5.93 ERA at Double-A this year and would have to skip Triple-A completely to help the big league club at this point. The club has Naoyuki Uwasawa and Jason Alexander on hand as non-roster depth but Keller has far more major league experience than those two and could be ahead of them in line to get the call whenever a fresh arm is needed next.