The Guardians announced some roster moves today, including the official signing of Matthew Boyd to a Major League deal, and then Boyd’s placement on the 15-day injured list as he continues to recover from Tommy John surgery. Right-hander Eli Morgan was also activated from the 15-day IL, while righty Darren McCaughan was optioned to Triple-A and righty Zak Kent was designated for assignment.
Debuting in the majors as a starter in 2021, Morgan has found a lot more success since moving to the bullpen, posting a 3.54 ERA in 145 innings for the Guardians from 2022-24. That includes a 1.64 ERA in 11 innings this year, though that impressive number is heavily tempered by a 5.47 SIERA, as Morgan’s secondary metrics include an 11.1% walk rate and a 15.6% strikeout rate. That K% is well below his 26.5% mark from 2022-23, though Morgan might be able to more fully get on track now that he has recovered from a month-long bout of elbow inflammation.
Cleveland acquired Kent from the Rangers this past March, in a trade that sent some extra international bonus pool money to Texas. Kent had spent his entire career in the Rangers’ system since being a ninth-round pick in the 2019 draft, but his time with Triple-A Columbus has consisted of just three appearances. Kent hasn’t pitched since April 14 due to a right elbow strain, so today’s transaction is likely a way for the Guards to move Kent off their 40-man roster and potentially move him to the big league 60-day IL.
This would give Kent the first MLB service time of his career, as he has yet to make his proper on-field big league debut. The righty has some solid minor league numbers (including a 2.73 ERA over 66 career Triple-A frames), but he has been hampered by injuries in each of the last three seasons.
https://www.baseball-reference.com/register/player.fcgi?id=kent–000zak
“today’s transaction is likely a way for the Guards to move Kent off their 40-man roster and potentially move him to the big league 60-day IL.”
I think they would just move him to the 60 if that was the case, I don’t think they’d have to DfA him if they were doing that.
I thought it was prohibited to DFA people who are hurt, though.
Those are both true, so I’d imagine there would be clarity on it soon. They could have just promoted him and added him to the 60-day IL without DFAing him if that’s what they wanted to do.
It’s possible to release someone that’s injured, so maybe they just released him and the announcement misclassified it as a DFA. Either way, my guess is that he ends up being released to clear the roster spot and they end up re-signing him immediately afterward.
I think the rule is that injured players can’t be put on outright waivers. Teams can work around this by releasing the player, provided he agrees to sign a minor league contract.
Tidy piece of business here
Morgan is junk. Time to move on