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MLB Likely To Move Sunday Morning Broadcasts Off Peacock

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MLB’s streaming partnership with Peacock appears to have come to an end. The Athletic’s Andrew Marchand reports that MLB is closing in on a deal with an undisclosed platform to take over the Sunday morning broadcasts that had been on Peacock during the 2022-23 campaigns.

“Our initiative with Peacock was a valuable experience with a collaborative partner in our ongoing effort to explore a variety of streaming offerings for our fans as their consumption habits continue to evolve,” an MLB spokesperson told Marchand.

As has been the case for a number of teams’ local broadcasting contracts, MLB’s streaming deal with Peacock apparently hit a snag over rights fees. Marchand reports that NBC, which operates the Peacock streaming service, has paid the league $30MM annually for exclusive rights to 19 Sunday morning games in each of the last two seasons. While NBC expressed interest in retaining those broadcasts, Marchand writes that they sought to renegotiate the fee at a lesser amount.

MLB evidently felt it could secure a better deal with another service. Assuming a new agreement is reached, the Sunday morning games would remain in effect for this season on the new broadcasting platform. Last season, the Peacock-specific games began either shortly before or after noon ET, at least 90 minutes before the rest of that day’s slate.

Since 2022, MLB has also had a streaming partnership with Apple TV+ that affords the platform exclusive rights for two Friday night games each week. That deal, which Marchand writes is valued at $85MM per season, is a seven-year contract that remains in effect.

Orioles Acquire Yohan Ramirez From Mets

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The Orioles have acquired reliever Yohan Ramírez from the Mets for cash, the teams announced. New York had designated the righty for assignment on Monday. Baltimore’s 40-man roster now sits at capacity.

Ramírez spent a couple months in the New York organization. The Mets acquired him from the White Sox in a cash deal in December. He held his spot on the 40-man roster for the rest of the offseason and broke camp. A pair of rough outings quickly squeezed him off the big league team, though. After recording one out in a scoreless appearance in his season debut, he allowed seven runs on nine hits over his next five innings.

The 28-year-old has played for five teams over the past four-plus seasons. Ramírez has tallied 129 1/3 innings at the highest level, turning in a reasonable 4.31 ERA. He has punched out a decent 23.1% of batters faced, yet he’s also struggled to throw strikes consistently. Ramírez has walked over 12% of big league opponents. The sinkerballer induced grounders at a huge 58.4% rate last season but has posted more pedestrian ground-ball numbers in every other year.

While his stuff has clearly intrigued a handful of teams, Ramírez’s scattershot command has made him something of a volatile middle reliever. Perhaps more importantly, he’s also out of minor league options. Teams can’t send him to Triple-A without first running him through waivers, which no club has yet achieved.

Baltimore entered the day with a pair of openings on the 40-man roster. They snagged infielder Livan Soto off waivers this afternoon before their evening bullpen pickup. Neither move comes at much cost, although the O’s will need to devote an MLB bullpen spot to Ramírez once he reports to the team.

The Orioles already have four relievers on the active roster who can’t be sent down: Craig Kimbrel, Mike Baumann, Danny Coulombe and Jacob Webb. They’re not likely to send down any of Yennier Cano, Keegan Akin or Dillon Tate, while Jonathan Heasley is working as a long reliever. That’s a tough bullpen for Ramírez to crack, so it’s not out of the question that Baltimore tries to sneak him through waivers themselves in the next few days.

Julio Teheran Elects Free Agency

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Julio Teheran has elected free agency after clearing waivers, tweets Anthony DiComo of MLB.com. The Mets had designated him for assignment on Tuesday.

Teheran’s stint as a Met couldn’t have been much shorter. The veteran righty agreed to terms on a major league deal on April 3, a move that was announced by the team two days later. Skipper Carlos Mendoza tabbed him for a start in Atlanta on Monday. Teheran allowed four runs without making it out of the third inning and was DFA one day later.

While it wasn’t the most productive tenure, Teheran banked a major league salary for around a week. His contract called for a prorated $2.5MM salary for time spent in the majors, so he collected upwards of $80K. That’s a decent outcome for a player who had opted out of a minor league pact with the Orioles at the end of Spring Training.

The 33-year-old now sets out in search of his third organization of the 2024 campaign. He may need to settle for a minor league contract this time around, but he should find interest from teams looking for experienced rotation depth. Teheran started 11 of 14 appearances with the Brewers last season, allowing 4.40 earned runs per nine innings.

That was Teheran’s heaviest workload at the major league level since 2019. A two-time All-Star during his nine-year tenure with the Braves, he has pitched for four clubs since the start of the ’20 campaign. Over the last four-plus seasons, Teheran owns a 6.10 ERA with a well below-average 16.1% strikeout rate against a solid 7.2% walk percentage.

Rays Release Jake Odorizzi

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The Rays have released right-hander Jake Odorizzi, reports Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times. The righty signed a minor league deal with the club about a month ago but he’ll now head back to free agency.

Odorizzi, 34, has a lengthy track record of success in the majors but missed the entire 2023 season after undergoing an arthroscopic procedure on his throwing shoulder. Given that missed season and some other health issues in previous campaigns, he had to settle for the aforementioned minor league deal with the Rays.

He’s made two Triple-A starts this year but they have not gone well, to put it mildly. He allowed seven earned runs in 5 1/3 innings, striking out just two opponents while walking five. Topkin relays word from Odorizzi, who says he’s been dealing with a hamstring strain. He will heal up and then start throwing again before looking to sign his next deal.

From 2014 to 2019, Odorizzi had six straight solid seasons. He tossed between 140 and 190 innings in each of those, with his earned run average finishing between 3.50 and 4.50 in every campaign of that period. He had a combined 3.88 ERA in 991 2/3 innings for that time, striking out 23% of batters faced while walking 8.2% of them.

But his health, or lack thereof, has largely defined the subsequent seasons. He was only able to make four starts in the shortened 2020 campaign, with an intercostal strain the primary culprit. In the next two seasons, he just barely eclipsed the 100-inning mark in both, missing time due to a flexor strain in his right arm and a tendon strain in his lower leg. As mentioned, the shoulder procedure wiped out his 2023 season entirely and he’s now battling a hamstring strain.

All of those issues will surely tamp down interest, but pitching also figures to be in high demand around the league. Pitchers have seemingly been dropping like flies in recent weeks so clubs will surely be looking to add veteran depth in the coming months. Despite the recent struggles, Odorizzi’s track record ought to get him a few calls whenever he starts ramping up again.

Orioles Claim Liván Soto Off Waivers From Angels

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The Angels announced that infielder Liván Soto has been claimed off waivers by the Orioles while right-hander Zach Plesac has been sent outright to Triple-A Salt Lake. Both players were designated for assignment earlier this week. The Orioles had two open spots on their 40-man roster, which is now at 39. The O’s also announced their claim of Soto, noting that he has been optioned to Triple-A Norfolk.

This is the second time the Orioles have claimed Soto off waivers from the Angels this year. The first came back in February, though the Angels were able to claim him right back that same month, just over a week later. But now Soto is going from the Angels’ roster to the Orioles’ roster yet again.

Soto, 24 in June, has excelled in the majors so far, though in a small sample. He has slashed .375/.414/.531 in his 71 plate appearances in the big leagues. His minor league track record doesn’t suggest he can maintain anything close to that kind of production. In 1,505 trips to the plate on the farm since the start of 2021, he has a combined batting line of .246/.340/.355 for a wRC+ of 86.

Despite that subpar offensive output, he has other attributes. He had a bit of speed, racking up double-digit stolen base totals in the minors in 2021 and 2022, and has enough versatility to play the two middle infield spots or third base.

The Orioles have an infield filled with young talent, including Gunnar Henderson and Jackson Holliday up the middle. Ryan Mountcastle has been getting most of the playing time at first base this year while Jordan Westburg and Ramón Urías have been sharing third base and Jorge Mateo is on hand as a bench/utility option.

The recent promotion of Holliday likely left the O’s with a spot on the Tides for Soto and they had two open spots on the 40-man, so it’s understandable why they would put in a claim and add some extra depth. Soto is still young and has another option year remaining after this one, so he can theoretically continue serving as a depth option well into the future if he continues to hang onto his 40-man spot. Though the O’s also have a penchant for claiming guys and trying to run them through waivers later, so it wouldn’t be a surprise to see Soto sent down that path at some point.

As for Plesac, 29, he seemed to be emerging as a viable big league starter with Cleveland a few years ago. He had a 3.32 earned run average over 29 starts in 2019 and 2020, but his ERA climbed over the next two seasons, a combined 4.49 in 2021 and 2022. His first five starts in 2023 led to an awful 7.59 ERA and he lost his roster spot with the Guardians.

The Halos signed him to a $1MM deal this winter but put him on waivers after just two Triple-A starts and none of the other 29 clubs put in a claim. Since he has over three years of big league service time, he can technically reject this outright assignment and elect free agency. But since he doesn’t have five years of service time, doing so would mean forfeiting the remainder of his salary, so it seems fair to expect him to accept it and stay with the Halos as non-roster depth.

Jordan Montgomery Switches Agencies, Hires Wasserman

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Diamondbacks left-hander Jordan Montgomery has changed representatives, per Kiley McDaniel of ESPN. The southpaw had previously been with the Boras Corporation but will now be repped by Joel Wolfe and Nick Chanock of Wasserman.

Montgomery, 31, was just a free agent for the first time in the most recent offseason. He was coming off a strong three-year run between the Yankees, Cardinals and Rangers, posting a 3.48 earned run average over 524 1/3 innings. He also added 31 innings in last year’s postseason with a 2.90 ERA, helping the Rangers win their first World Series in franchise history.

Coming into the offseason, MLBTR predicted the lefty for a contract worth $150MM over six years while other outlets were in a similar range. But the offseason free agent market ended up being weaker than projected. The latter half of the winter was defined by the various players who remained unsigned, with the so-called “Boras Four” being the headliners.

Montgomery, Blake Snell, Cody Bellinger and Matt Chapman, all repped by Scott Boras, were projected for nine-figure deals at the outset of the offseason. But the four of them lingered on the market past the start of Spring Training and each one eventually pivoted to some form of short-term deal. In Montgomery’s case, he signed a one-year pact with the Diamondbacks with a $25MM guarantee. There’s also a $20MM vesting player option for 2025, which is available to Montgomery as long as he makes 10 starts this year. He can also add $5MM more to the value of that option, $2.5MM at 18 starts and $2.5MM at 23 starts.

The southpaw is highly likely to return to free agency again this winter. Even if he unlocks that player option, he probably won’t trigger it unless he’s facing some kind of injury absence, since finding $20-25MM again shouldn’t be tough to do if he has a fairly normal season. He hasn’t yet made his debut with the Diamondbacks since he didn’t agree to terms with them until the end of March and is still getting himself in game shape. He tossed four innings in a Triple-A game on Sunday.

For his second go at free agency, it seems he’s looking for a different approach, hiring Wolfe and Chanock to handle his negotiations. While losing a notable client like Montgomery is tough for Boras, he still figures to play a prominent role in the coming offseason. Each of Bellinger, Snell and Chapman could be free agents again while Boras also represents star players heading into free agency for the first time such as Juan Soto, Corbin Burnes, Alex Bregman and Pete Alonso.

Athletics Select Max Schuemann

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The Athletics announced that outfielder Brent Rooker has been placed on the 10-day injured list due to a costochondral cartilage injury. Infielder/outfielder Max Schuemann was selected to take Rooker’s place on the active roster. To open a spot for Schuemann on the 40-man, right-hander Luis Medina was transferred to the 60-day injured list.

Rooker was removed from Sunday’s game to due abdominal soreness, per Martín Gallegos of MLB.com, and hasn’t played since. Costochondral cartilage is connected to the ribs, which tracks with his reported soreness. The club has not provided any timeline for Rooker’s expected absence.

He had a late-bloomer breakout last year at the age of 28, hitting 30 homers for the A’s tough also striking out at a 32.7% clip. He played in eight games this year, starting in right field twice but mostly serving as the designated hitter. His absence will mean the club can rotate various guys through the DH slot and give plate appearances to their young and developing hitters.

It will also allow Schuemann to make it to the majors for the first time in his career, just a couple of months ahead of his 27th birthday, which is in June. A 20th-round selection of the A’s in the 2018 draft, Schuemann didn’t get a lot of attention from prospect evaluators until a breakout season in 2021.

That year, he went from High-A to Double-A to Triple-A, playing 119 games between those three levels. He paired a 10.1% walk rate with a 19.6% strikeout rate and slashed .271/.372/.388 for a wRC+ of 111. He also stole 52 bases in 57 tries and bounced around to various infield and outfield positions.

Going into 2022, Baseball America ranked him the #27 prospect in the system while FanGraphs gave him an honorable mention. That year, he continued to get on base at a decent clip and steal bases at the Double-A level, but he struck out in 39% of his Triple-A appearances. That was in a small sample of 41 trips to the plate over 11 games, but it perhaps suggested he was overmatched at the top level of the minors.

But Schuemann continued to improve in 2023. He finally got an extended stretch of Triple-A playing time, 433 plate appearances in 103 games, and responded well. He only hit nine home runs but drew walks at a 14.3% rate while keeping his strikeouts down to a 20.1% clip. He slashed .277/.402/.429  for a wRC+ of 109 while stealing 20 bases in 29 tries.

Per Melissa Lockard of The Athletic, Schuemann went to the Dominican Republic for some winter ball a few months back but was hit in the head with a pitch in his first game, then sat out the rest of the season. Whatever effects there were from that HBP seemed to have passed by the spring, as he hit .294/.405/.382 during Cactus League play.

During his minor league career, Schuemann has played all four infield positions and all three outfield spots. He’ll presumably plug into that roll for the big league club, bouncing all around the diamond as needed while the rebuilding A’s audition their young players for roles in the future of the club.

As for Medina, he was diagnosed with a Grade 2 sprain of the medial collateral ligament in his right knee in early March. His timeline isn’t clear but he hasn’t yet begun a rehab assignment and the club evidently doesn’t expect him back soon. This transfer means he will be eligible to be activated before late May.

Angels Notes: Silseth, Rotation, Stephenson

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The Angels got a bit of a scare recently when right-hander Chase Silseth was placed on the 15-day injured list due to right elbow inflammation and was sent for an MRI. Thankfully, that MRI found just inflammation and no ligament damage. The pitcher himself gave the good news to members of the media yesterday, including Rhett Bollinger of MLB.com, adding that he hopes to be back in about three weeks.

That’s obviously a much better outcome than the worst-case scenario of some kind of surgery that would have wiped out the rest of his season or even part of next year. Silseth was able to toss 52 1/3 innings for the club in a swing role last year with a 3.96 earned run average, showing enough promise to get a rotation job here in 2024. His first two outings didn’t go especially well, resulting in six earned runs allowed over eight innings, but it’s possible the injury was playing a role there.

With Silseth out, the Angels bumped José Soriano into the rotation, alongside Reid Detmers, Patrick Sandoval, Tyler Anderson and Griffin Canning. Soriano struck out six opponents in four innings last night but also allowed four earned runs on six hits.

It’s just one start and Soriano could certainly get in a better groove going forward, but he also may hit an innings limit at some point if he were to stay in the rotation. He underwent Tommy John surgery in both February of 2020 and June of 2021, meaning he hardly pitched over the 2020 to 2022 period before throwing 65 1/3 innings last year between the majors and minors. Perhaps he can hold down a rotation spot for a few weeks while Silseth is out and then slide back into the bullpen, allowing him to grow his workload relative to last year but without hitting a wall. The Angels are still interested in seeing what he can do as a starter over the long term but they are surely aware that he can’t suddenly launch into the 200-inning range this year.

Turning to the bullpen, Robert Stephenson is going to start a rehab assignment this Sunday, per Bollinger. He was the biggest signing for the Halos this winter, netting himself a three-year, $33MM deal. But he hasn’t yet made his debut as an Angel since he experienced some shoulder soreness during the spring and began the season on the injured list. He recently said he’s targeting a late April return and this seems to be in line with that.

After being acquired by the Rays last year, Stephenson was one of the best relievers in the league. He posted a 2.35 ERA in his 42 appearances, striking out a tremendous 42.9% of batters faced while walking just 5.7% of them. Since he was previously a first-round pick and highly-touted prospect, this seemed to be the long-awaited breakout that didn’t materialize in previous seasons as injuries got in the way. The Angels are still waiting to find out if their bet on Stephenson was a wise one but it seems he’ll be able to join the club shortly.

Getting both Silseth and Stephenson healthy will be good for the club, bolstering both the rotation and the bullpen. The Halos are out to an even 6-6 start through 12 games, but that’s largely in spite of some poor pitching. The club’s collective ERA of 5.09 this year is 29th out of the 30 clubs, ahead of only the Rockies and their dreadful 6.57 mark.

The Opener: Twins, Tigers, Jansen, Martinez

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As the 2024 regular season continues, here are three things we’ll be keeping an eye on around the baseball world throughout the day today:

1. Tigers/Twins game postponed:

The Tigers announced this morning that the club’s scheduled game against the Twins in Detroit this afternoon has been postponed due to inclement weather. Per the announcement, the game will be made up this coming Saturday as part of a straight doubleheader beginning at 1:10pm local time that afternoon. Ticket-holders for today’s game will be able to exchange their tickets to attend Saturday’s doubleheader or any other regular season game “of similar value” in the next 12 months. The series between the two division rivals is now expected to begin tomorrow at 6:40pm local time.

2. Jansen nearing impressive milestone:

Veteran closer Kenley Jansen is among the most reliable closers in MLB history, with a career 2.51 ERA and matching 2.51 FIP over his 15 seasons in the big leagues. This year, the 36-year-old veteran has a chance to further bolster his spot in the annals of MLB history during his next appearance. Jansen’s next save will be the 424th of his career, tying him with longtime Mets and Reds closer John Franco on the All-Time saves leaderboard. That would leave Jansen tied for fifth all-time in career saves behind only Mariano Rivera, Trevor Hoffman, Lee Smith, and Francisco Rodriguez. It’s a milestone Jansen could achieve as soon as tonight, when the Red Sox face the Orioles in Boston for a game scheduled to begin at 7:10pm local time.

3. When will Martinez join the Mets?

Veteran slugger J.D. Martinez signed a one-year deal with the Mets nearly three weeks ago, but has seen his start to the season pushed back by what has been termed “general body soreness” to this point. While there had previously been some optimism that Martinez would be able to make his big league debut at some point this weekend, that’s been dashed now that manager Carlos Mendoza told reporters (including Anthony DiComo of MLB.com) that Martinez has received a platelet-rich plasma injection in his lower back and will not return to hitting for at least three to five days. While the timing of Martinez’s debut with the Mets remains up in the air, the 36-year-old veteran has a real chance to impact the club’s struggling offense after slugging 33 homers in just 113 games with the Dodgers last year.

MLBTR Podcast: Reviewing Our Free Agent Predictions And Future CBA Issues

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The latest episode of the MLB Trade Rumors Podcast is now live on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and wherever you get your podcasts! Make sure you subscribe as well! You can also use the player at this link to listen, if you don’t use Spotify or Apple for podcasts.

This week, host Darragh McDonald is joined by Tim Dierkes, Steve Adams and Anthony Franco of MLB Trade Rumors to discuss…

  • Why did the 2023-24 offseason play out the way that it did? Was the slow offseason a trend or a blip? Looking at competitive balance tax and TV revenue issues. (2:40)
  • The decision between a middleground deal versus a short-term deal, focusing on Cody Bellinger of the Cubs but also other players who didn’t get the huge offers they were expecting (20:00)
  • There were very few long deals this winter, so can we glean anything about the trend of extending contracts to lower the average annual value? (34:50)
  • Why did we project big contracts for players with clear warts? (42:10)
  • Is the middle tier of the free agent market dying? (45:15)
  • With the next CBA negotiations coming after 2026, how will the players respond to recent events? (50:20)
  • Are the owners divided, with rich and poor teams getting pushed apart by the collapse of TV revenue streams? (59:05)
  • Is deferred money a real problem and is there any motivation to change the rules? (1:02:40)
  • Does MLB need more parity and what are the best ways to do it? (1:09:30)
  • Was Shohei Ohtani’s deferred money an extreme outlier or is it still a concerning trend? (1:13:10)
  • Will there be another lockout after 2026? (01:19:35)

Check out our past episodes!

The podcast intro and outro song “So Long” is provided courtesy of the band Showoff.  Check out their Facebook page here!

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