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Archives for June 2024

Jasson Domínguez Expected To Miss About Eight Weeks

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Yankees outfielder Jasson Domínguez is going to miss a lot time with an oblique strain. SNY relayed video on X of manager Aaron Boone discussing the issue, with the skipper saying Domínguez will miss “up to eight weeks” before he can play in games because the strain is “pretty significant.”

It’s yet another unfortunate setback for Domínguez, who arrived in the big leagues with such flair last year. With the Yankees playing out a lost season in 2023, the prospect was brought up as a September call-up, then went on to hit four home runs in his first eight games.

Unfortunately, he then required Tommy John surgery, which ended that exciting debut and put him on track for a challenging 2024. He began the season on the injured list while rehabbing from that surgery and was only reinstated last week. Since the Yankees have a solid big league outfield consisting of Juan Soto, Aaron Judge and Alex Verdugo, with Giancarlo Stanton in the designated hitter slot and Trent Grisham on the bench, Domínguez was optioned to get regular at-bats in Triple-A.

But this past weekend, just a few days after being reinstated from the IL, he was placed on the minor league IL with some side tightness. Now it seems he’s slated for another lengthy injury layoff, with the eight-week timeline set to take him into the middle of August.

It’s a rough blow for the Yankees on a number of fronts. In the short term, the big league outfield is in good shape, as mentioned. But if any of their major league outfielders should suffer an injury, this will leave their outfield depth thin. Everson Pereira, another of the club’s outfield prospects, recently underwent UCL surgery and is out for the year. With Domínguez now out as well, the Yankees don’t have an outfielder on the 40-man roster who could be recalled to cover for someone else’s absence.

In the longer term, it’s obviously less than ideal for a top prospect to lose almost an entire season of development like this. Both Verdugo and Soto are slated for free agency after this season while Grisham will be a non-tender candidate, giving the club little certainty in the outfield going forward apart from Judge. They obviously hope to re-sign Soto but that’s no guarantee and they will need to replace Verdugo and likely Grisham even if they can lure Soto back.

Ideally, Domínguez would be getting regular playing time and convincing the Yankees that he can be a part of their 2025 club, but that will have to be on pause for now. He should still have a few weeks of playing time at the end of the season if things progress as planned from here, but it’s more of the waiting game for Domínguez now.

Royals Among Teams With Interest In Tommy Pham

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There may be no player who is more likely to be traded over the next month than Tommy Pham, who is hitting well as an affordable rental on the worst team in the league. It’d be very surprising if the White Sox didn’t move him before the July 30 deadline.

Jon Heyman of the New York Post reports that the Royals are one of the teams that have shown interest. There’s nothing to suggest the Royals are the favorite or that any Pham trade is imminent. Heyman writes that multiple clubs are unsurprisingly looking at the veteran outfielder.

Kansas City has the worst outfield among playoff contenders. Royal outfielders have been the least productive offensive group in the majors. They entered today’s game with a cumulative .209/.268/.343 batting line. They’re 28th in batting average and slugging and dead last in on-base percentage. Six of the seven players who have logged meaningful outfield reps for K.C. have been well below-average hitters. The lone exception, utility player Garrett Hampson, has league average numbers propped up by a .418 batting average on balls in play.

The Royals have used Hunter Renfroe, Kyle Isbel and MJ Melendez as their primary outfield. Melendez is hitting .180/.246/.364 over 224 plate appearances. Isbel’s .225/.270/.348 line isn’t much better. Renfroe had a terrible first two months after signing a two-year free agent deal. He’d started to heat up in June before suffering a left foot injury that shelved him last week. Since Renfroe went down, the Royals have rotated Adam Frazier, Dairon Blanco and primary designated hitter Nelson Velázquez through right field. None of that trio has provided much offensively this year.

Pham is probably a better hitter than anyone in the Kansas City outfield. The 36-year-old ran a .256/.328/.446 line with 16 home runs across 481 plate appearances between the Mets and Diamondbacks last season. That didn’t translate into the kind of free agent interest that his camp was anticipating. Pham remained unsigned into the middle of April. He eventually inked a minor league contract with Chicago, though that came with an understanding that he’d be called up by the end of the month after getting some tune-up work in Triple-A.

The deal comes with a $3MM base salary and includes a $500K assignment bonus in the event of a trade. Pham and the Sox front office were likely both hoping for such an outcome. A trade would allow the Sox to recoup a mid-level prospect while giving the outfielder an opportunity to play for a contender.

Pham has held his up his end of the bargain, turning in solid numbers over 39 games. He’s hitting .276/.349/.388 over 169 plate appearances. His power is down — he has only three homers — but he’s drawing walks at a solid 9.5% clip against a 20.1% strikeout rate. Pham had a minimal injured list stint earlier this month because of a mild left ankle sprain.

Chicago gave Pham 26 starts in center field while Luis Robert Jr. was on the shelf. That’s his first fairly regular work there since 2018. A contender wouldn’t view him as more than an emergency option in center, but he’s a roughly average defender in left field.

That has been Melendez’s purview in Kansas City. He’s a former top prospect who hasn’t made enough contact to tap into his power upside. Melendez has punched out in 26.5% of his career plate appearances and owns a .217/.302/.388 line over parts of three seasons. He’s a left-handed hitter who hasn’t found consistent success against pitchers of either handedness.

The Royals presumably still have hope for Melendez, who is in his age-25 season. K.C. general manager J.J. Picollo said he anticipates improvements from the in-house outfielders while acknowledging the team could look outside the organization if they don’t start getting more production.

Earlier this week, Picollo told Jayson Stark and Doug Glanville on The Windup podcast that the team would like to add a player with the versatility to move between the infield and outfield. That’s not Pham, who has played all 7000+ innings of his MLB career on the grass. Picollo’s comments certainly don’t rule out acquiring a traditional outfielder, though. The GM expressed a broad desire to deepen the batting order and suggested he’d be aggressive in supporting the organization’s best chance at a playoff berth since their 2015 World Series.

The White Sox won’t have any qualms about trading Pham within the division. Conversely, the return would be modest enough that Kansas City shouldn’t be concerned about surrendering the kind of prospect capital necessary to a division rival. Beyond the desire for offensive help, Picollo has spoken on a couple occasions about their desire to add power arms to the bullpen. White Sox closer Michael Kopech fits the bill and has reportedly drawn some attention from K.C., among others. There’s no indication the teams have actively explored any kind of package deal, but it’s easy enough to see the potential appeal of that kind of arrangement.

Angels Place Jose Soriano On Injured List, Outright Cole Tucker

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The Angels placed starter José Soriano on the 15-day injured list, retroactive to June 17, with an abdominal infection. Los Angeles is off tonight, so they didn’t immediately reveal the corresponding move. The Halos also announced that Cole Tucker went unclaimed on waivers and was outrighted to Triple-A Salt Lake after being designated for assignment on Monday.

Soriano has been a rare bright spot in a rough season. Los Angeles transitioned the hard-throwing righty to the rotation this year. It was a gamble, as Soriano had been one of the club’s better relievers as a rookie. The second-year hurler has taken well to the starting role. In 72 1/3 innings, he carries a 3.48 earned run average. While Soriano’s strikeout rate has plummeted from last year’s 30.3% clip to a modest 20.3% mark, he has offset that with a drastic uptick in grounders.

Among pitchers with 50+ innings, only Framber Valdez has run a higher ground-ball rate than Soriano’s 60.2% clip. The Angel hurler has also trimmed his walk rate by almost three percentage points. This year’s 9.5% walk percentage still isn’t great, but it has been sufficient for Soriano to work to mid-rotation results. He has held huge velocity in extended stints, averaging 97.8 MPH on his sinker.

Tucker, 27, signed a minor league deal in April. He hit well in 10 games for Salt Lake to earn an MLB look a couple weeks later. Tucker didn’t carry that success over in 25 contests for the Halos. Over 57 trips to the plate, he hit .180/.263/.300 while striking out nearly 30% of the time. A former first-round draftee of the Pirates, Tucker has played in the majors in six consecutive seasons. He owns a .213/.266/.316 batting line over 536 plate appearances between Pittsburgh, Colorado and Los Angeles.

This is the fourth career outright for Tucker. He has the right to test free agency each time he clears waivers. The Angels didn’t announce whether he’ll rejoin Salt Lake or head back to the open market in search of a minor league opportunity elsewhere.

Jesús Tinoco Elects Free Agency

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7:05pm: Tinoco’s transactions log at MLB.com indicates that he indeed chose to become a free agent.

3:45pm: The Rangers announced that right-hander Jesús Tinoco has been assigned outright to Triple-A Round Rock. That indicates he cleared waivers after being designated for assignment earlier this week. He has the right to elect free agency though it’s not clear if he has chosen to do so.

Tinoco, 29, signed a minor league deal with Texas in the offseason and posted some encouraging results for the Express. He tossed 21 1/3 innings for that club, allowing 3.80 earned runs per nine. His 11.2% walk rate was on the high side but he got ground balls at a 47.1% clip and struck out 30.3% of batters faced.

He was selected to the big league roster on May 23 but his results tailed off from there. He threw 10 major league innings for the Rangers but allowed nine earned runs in that time. He struck out nine opponents but gave out seven walks. Since he’s out of options, the club’s only way to remove him from the active roster was to remove him from the 40-man as well.

Tinoco has generally been able to rack up strikeouts on the farm but less so in the majors. Dating back to the start of 2021, he has a 4.60 ERA in the minors while striking out 26.3% of batters faced. In that same time frame, he has a 5.34 ERA in the big leagues with an 18.8% strikeout rate.

He will now have to decide whether to return to Round Rock or pursue opportunities elsewhere. The fact that he cleared waivers shows that no club is willing to give him a major league spot right now but he shouldn’t have trouble getting another minor league opportunity somewhere.

Nationals Release Robert Gsellman

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The Nationals have released right-hander Robert Gsellman, according to Talk Nats on X. The righty had been pitching for Triple-A Rochester but is now a free agent and can be signed by any club.

Gsellman, 30, signed a minor league contract with the Nats in the offseason and has been pitching in a swing role for the Red Wings. He tossed 36 innings over 17 appearances, including four starts. Unfortunately, he allowed 35 earned runs in that time, leading to an ugly earned run average of 8.75.

That’s obviously not great and surely led the Nats to move on, but the underlying numbers suggest he wasn’t nearly as bad as all that. His 20.1% strikeout rate and 11.2% walk rate were both subpar, but not by much, while his 45.6% ground ball rate was pretty decent. But his .373 batting average on balls in play and 49.7% strand rate were both far to the unlucky side, which is why his 4.83 FIP with the Red Wings was actually pretty normal.

Gsellman has 366 innings of major league experience, mostly with the Mets but most recently with the Cubs. In that time, he has a 4.60 ERA, 18% strikeout rate, 7.8% walk rate and 48.3% ground ball rate.

Other than the ERA, his Triple-A stats this year have been pretty close to his previous work. Given that a number of teams around the league are dealing with mounting pitching injuries, it’s possible some club sees him as the same guy he was coming into the year and brings him aboard via another minor league deal.

Mariners Sign Rob Kaminsky To Minor League Deal

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The Mariners have signed left-hander Rob Kaminsky to a minor league deal, according to his transactions tracker at MLB.com. The southpaw has been assigned to Triple-A Tacoma and will give the club some non-roster depth.

Kaminsky, 29, has a small amount of major league experience, having pitched for the Cardinals in 2020. He appeared in five games that year with a 1.93 earned run average in a small sample of 4 2/3 innings. He lost his roster spot later that year and has been limited to minor league deals in subsequent seasons.

For the most part, his minor league results have involved few strikeouts but lots of ground balls. From 2021 to 2023, he tossed 78 innings in the minors with a 4.96 ERA. His 21.4% strikeout rate in that time was subpar but he got opponents to hit the ball into the dirt around half the time.

This year, Kaminsky made two appearances for the Staten Island Ferry Hawks of The Atlantic League, tossing 6 2/3 innings. He struck out five but also allowed five walks. Last month, he retweeted some footage of himself pitching at Driveline, with his fastball seeming to get above 92 miles per hour and his secondary offerings in the mid-to-high 80s. In his brief big league stint, Statcast had his fastball averaging 91.6 mph, his knuckle curve at 84.9 mph and his changeup at 83.1 mph.

The M’s have had some bullpen injuries this year, with each of Matt Brash, Jackson Kowar, Gregory Santos and Gabe Speier on the injured list. Brash and Kowar each had Tommy John surgery and won’t be coming back this season. Tayler Saucedo is the only lefty in the big league bullpen at the moment. The Mariners are plenty familiar with Kaminsky as he was in their system the previous two seasons, so have tapped him for an extra left-hander in the minors.

Dodgers GM: Betts And Yamamoto Injuries Won’t Impact Deadline Plans

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The Dodgers were recently dealt a couple of significant blows, with both Mookie Betts and Yoshinobu Yamamoto slated for lengthy stays on the injured list. General manager Brandon Gomes addressed the injuries recently, per Jack Harris of the Los Angeles Times, saying that the club was unlikely to alter their deadline plans as a reaction. “I actually don’t think it meaningfully changes anything at this point,” Gomes said, “With the expectation that those guys are gonna be back for the postseason.”

Betts was hit by a pitch on his hand and suffered a fracture, with an expected recovery time of six to eight weeks. Yamamoto has a more nebulous timeline with his strained rotator cuff, though the club is expecting him back at some point this season.

Those are obviously significant losses. Betts has more walks than strikeouts this year and has ten home runs as well, leading to a line of .304/.405/.488 and a 158 wRC+. He has done all that while essentially learning shortstop on the fly, having just been handed the job during Spring Training. Despite limited big league experience at the position, he seems to be doing a passable job. Outs Above Average has him at -4 this year but Defensive Runs Saved puts him at +4. FanGraphs has credited him with 3.5 wins above replacement so far on the season, second in the National League to his teammate Shohei Ohtani. Yamamoto, meanwhile, has an earned run average of 2.92 through his first 14 major league starts.

Subtracting those two players from the roster will undoubtedly have an impact on the club’s overall talent level, but it’s understandable that the Dodgers don’t plan to panic and completely change course. The club currently sports a record of 46-30 and the only club above .500 in the National League West. Each of the Diamondbacks, Giants and Padres are just below .500, with each of those three being either 9 or 9.5 games back.

That gives the Dodgers plenty of breathing room and pretty strong odds of winning the division, even with the injury challenges. The Playoff Odds at FanGraphs give them a 92.5% chance of taking the West while the PECOTA Standings at Baseball Prospectus are even more bullish at 95.8%. Both of those outlets give the club around a 99% chance of getting some kind of playoff spot.

With that comfortable position in the standings, the club is likely going to be focusing on whatever moves put their club in best position to win games in October, as opposed to the interim. Going out to grab an innings eater for the back end of the rotation might stabilize things for the next few months but such a pitcher wouldn’t be a big factor in a playoff series when clubs can shorten their rotations to three or four pitchers.

Even without Yamamoto and Walker Buehler, who also landed on the injured list recently with a minor issue, the Dodgers currently have a healthy rotation of consisting of Tyler Glasnow, Bobby Miller, Gavin Stone and James Paxton. They have Clayton Kershaw, Dustin May and Kyle Hurt as options to come off the injured list later this year, as well as Yamamoto. Landon Knack is on the 40-man roster and pitching in Triple-A, potentially coming up to replace Buehler. River Ryan, one of the club’s top prospects, was recently reinstated from the minor league injured list and is pitching in Triple-A as well.

With all of those potential starters, they should be able to find a way to get through the regular season. The larger question will be whether there’s enough for a strong postseason rotation. Glasnow has been great this year but has a lengthy injury history. He’s never topped 120 innings in a major league season and is currently at 93. Yamamoto is now a question mark. Buehler has a 5.84 ERA on the year and is now on the shelf. Miller’s ERA is at 6.00 and he just came off the IL. Paxton and Stone have respective ERAs of 3.65 and 3.01 but less impressive peripherals.

While that group is likely enough to get the club into the postseason, their deadline moves will understandably be focused on how it will play once they get there. In his article, Harris suggests the Dodgers will be focused on high-impact starters, with Garrett Crochet of the White Sox and Jesús Luzardo of the Marlins listed as hypothetical examples. Though as he points out, both of those pitchers have multiple years of control and their respective clubs will set lofty asking prices.

At shortstop, the thinking is likely similar, as the club can get by for now with Miguel Rojas taking over for Betts. Rojas is an excellent fielder who has normally been unimpressive at the plate, with a career slash line of .259/.312/.357. He’s having a strong season, however, with a .288/.333/.449 line in 2024. Perhaps that will regress a bit as he moves from a part-time role to a full-time gig, but he could still be a serviceable shortstop with a numbers a bit lower than that.

It wouldn’t be a surprise to see the club monitor the middle infield market in the weeks to come while Betts is out, as plenty of other players are struggling. Gavin Lux has received plenty of playing time at second base but is hitting .212/.261/.283 this year. Chris Taylor has moved between the infield and outfield but is sitting on a dismal line of .115/.211/.177. Enrique Hernández has also been in a multi-positional role and has better numbers than Taylor but his .201/.277/.309 line isn’t great either. Cavan Biggio was brought aboard for some extra infield cover with Max Muncy out of action but he’s hitting just .197/.325/.276 on the year between the Blue Jays and Dodgers.

Looking ahead to the postseason, it’s possible that Betts and Rojas could be the primary middle infield tandem if Betts is back and Rojas stays in good form, but the club may not rely on Rojas like that on account of his career numbers. Perhaps that will lead the club to make some kind of middle infield move between now and the end of July, but that was likely the case even before Betts got hurt.

Per the piece from Harris, the Dodgers are willing to put Betts back at shortstop later in the year but haven’t made a final decision. If they want a more experienced option at the position and want to upgrade on Rojas, it’s unclear who could be available. Harris lists Willy Adames and Bo Bichette as theoretical fits but also notes the difficulties in acquiring each. The Brewers have a healthy lead in their division, which likely means Adames is staying. As for Bichette, even if the Jays fall out of the race, there are reasons not to trade him. He’s having a down year and is currently on the IL, so the Jays may not want to sell low. With another year left on his contract, they may prefer to hold if they can’t get what they feel is fair value.

Other speculative shortstop targets may not be too appealing. The White Sox will certainly make Paul DeJong available and he’s having a nice bounceback year, but he still strikes out a ton and has been prone to long periods of ineffectiveness in the past. The Marlins would love to get something from Tim Anderson but he’s performing even worse than he did last year. Ha-Seong Kim is an impending free agent but the Padres are hovering in the playoff race and surely would prefer not to trade him to their division rival.

Astros To Promote Jake Bloss

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11:23am: Manager Joe Espada confirmed that Bloss will be called up to start Friday’s game, per Matt Kawahara of the Houston Chronicle on X.

11:05am: The Astros are expected to promote pitching prospect Jake Bloss from Double-A to the majors, per a report from Chandler Rome and Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic. The young righty will be making his major league debut by starting Friday’s game. He is not yet on the club’s 40-man roster, so a corresponding move or moves will be required.

It’s an incredibly quick rise to the majors for Bloss, who was just drafted last summer. He will be celebrating his 23rd birthday on Sunday, two days after his planned major league debut. The Astros selected him in the third round out of Georgetown University and he was able to make his professional debut shortly thereafter. He made seven appearances last year between the Complex League and Single-A, tossing 18 2/3 innings with a 2.89 earned run average.

Coming into this year, Baseball America ranked him the #8 prospect in the club’s system, noting that he mixes a fastball with a curveball, a slider and a changeup, with the curve being the standout secondary offering. Keith Law of The Athletic put him in the #12 slot.

Here in 2024, Bloss has seemingly raised his stock with some good results. The Astros initially sent him to High-A but his four good starts there prompted a quick promotion to Double-A. He’s made 12 starts combined between those two levels with a 1.74 ERA in 62 innings. He has benefited from .181 batting average on balls in play that he won’t be able to maintain, but his 25.8% strikeout rate is strong and his 9% walk rate around par.

FanGraphs didn’t release their list of top Astros prospect for 2024 until June 11, so they were able to give more weight to this season’s performance. They moved Bloss up to the #2 slot in the organization and said he is “trending up and tracking like a mid-rotation starter.” He has also snuck onto their top 100 list, currently listed in the #99 spot. As noted in the report from Rome and Rosenthal, general manager Dana Brown has been singing the praises of Bloss recently.

While there’s plenty to like about Bloss, the aggressive move to skip him over Triple-A and to the majors after so little professional experience is a reflection of the significant rotation struggles that the Astros have been dealing with this year.

Each of Luis Garcia and Lance McCullers Jr. underwent elbow surgery last year, so the club knew they couldn’t expect anything from those two in the first half of 2024. But since the season has started, the injury situation has gotten worse. Both José Urquidy and Cristian Javier required Tommy John surgery, knocking both of them out of action for the rest of the year. Justin Verlander started the season on the injured list due to right shoulder inflammation and is now back on the shelf due to neck discomfort. J.P. France has been battling shoulder problems all year and is on the minor league injured list.

Framber Valdez had a brief stint on the IL as well but has been pretty close to his usual self. Ronel Blanco has stepped up and been a huge help but the group has been flimsy apart from that. Hunter Brown had a 9.78 ERA through the end of April, though he has been much better lately and has brought that number down to 4.72. Spencer Arrighetti was pushed into action but has an ERA of 6.37 through his first 12 major league starts. Blair Henley was called up for a spot start earlier in the year but it went about as poorly as possible, as he recorded just one out and allowed five earned runs.

Bloss will now be thrown into that mix to see if he can get major league hitters out, in spite of his youth and limited track record. Whether it’s just a spot start or if he is sticking around will likely depend on various factors. The Astros have two off-days next week and could perhaps survive with a four-man rotation for a while once they make it through this weekend. If Verlander can be back after a brief IL stint as hoped, he could be back by the time they next need a full five-man set.

Perhaps that points to this just being a one-off outing for Bloss, though Arrighetti may not be guaranteed to stick around based on his results. However it plays out, it’s an exciting week for Bloss but also highlights what a rough season it has been for the Astros so far. Thanks in part to their rotation struggles, they are 34-40 and 6.5 games out of a playoff spot.

Yankees Sign Tim Hill

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The Yankees announced that they have signed left-hander Tim Hill to a one-year deal. Fellow lefty Clayton Andrews has been designated for assignment in a corresponding 40-man move. Andrews was on optional assignment, so the club will still need to make a move to get Hill onto the active roster once he reports to the team. Jeff Passan of ESPN reported Hill’s impending signing on X prior to the official announcement. Hill was released by the White Sox earlier this week, meaning the Yanks will only have to pay him the prorated league minimum for any time spent on the roster.

Hill, 34, is a veteran ground ball pitcher who signed with the White Sox in the offseason. That one-year deal guaranteed him $1.8MM as the Sox were surely hoping to have him serve as a solid veteran presence in a relief corps that had been thinned out by trades.

But the topline results were poor, as Hill made 27 appearances for Chicago with a 5.87 earned run average. The Sox decided to move on, designating him for assignment last week. Since Hill had more than enough service time to reject an outright assignment while keeping his money, he was released and went to the open market.

Despite the poor ERA, there are reasons why the Yankees would still be intrigued. Hill has always been a ground ball guy, with a 60.5% rate of wormburners in his career. For context, the major league average is usually around 43% or so and is at 42.6% this season. Hill’s numbers in that department have actually been better than ever, as he has had 65.6% of balls in play go into the dirt while with the Sox.

But a lot of them were finding holes, as he has a massive .436 batting average on balls in play for the year. That’s well beyond his .310 career BABIP and this year’s .287 league average. That might have something to do with the poor defenders on the White Sox. That club has a collective -19 Outs Above Average on the year, which is better than just four other teams. Defensive Runs Saved is way more pessimistic, as the Sox are in dead last with a score of -49. The second-worst club by that metric is the Rays at -28.

Hill’s 11% strikeout rate is subpar but it’s understandable that the Yankees perhaps expect some better results going forward. If he can keep making opponents pound the ball into the ground but with some better defense and better luck, the ERA should come down. It’s for those reasons that his 3.45 FIP and 3.89 SIERA are far more attractive.

It’s a fairly low-risk gamble for the Yankees to take. Since the Sox released Hill, they remain on the hook for most of what’s left of his salary. The Yanks will pay him the prorated league minimum for any time spent on the roster, with that amount subtracted from what the Sox pay, and easily can move on at any point if it doesn’t work out.

As noted by Passan, the Yankees’ bullpen could use some help. They have had Scott Effross, Lou Trivino and Jonathan Loáisiga on the injured list for most or all of the season, while Nick Burdi and Ian Hamilton recently joined them. Last night, Gerrit Cole came off the injured list and tossed 62 pitches over four innings against the Orioles. The game eventually went to ten innings with the Yanks using six different relievers. They don’t have another off-day until Monday, so Hill will give the club a fresh arm for a fairly weary bullpen.

Andrews, 27, has only been a Yankee for a short time. He came up as a Brewers prospect but that club designated him for assignment in February. The Yankees acquired him in a small trade and then passed him through waivers in early April, though he was added back to the roster just over a month later.

In between those transactions, the lefty has made just one appearance at the big league level. Back on May 21, he was put into a game against the Mariners and then proceeded to allow a Luke Raley home run, hit Cal Raleigh with a pitch and strike out Mitch Haniger before being replaced.

He’s spent most of his time in Triple-A, tossing 24 2/3 innings with a 5.84 ERA. His 25.9% strikeout rate and 51.8% ground ball rate at that level are both strong but he’s also given out walks at an awful rate of 20.4%, as well as hitting two batters and throwing two wild pitches. That lack of control has been an issue for Andrews before and has likely contributed to bumping him off the Yankees’ roster.

They will now have a week to trade him or pass him through waivers. Despite the wildness, some other club might be enticed by the strikeouts and ground balls like the Yankees were, especially since Andrews can still be optioned for the rest of this year and one more season. If he were passed through waivers unclaimed, he would have the right to elect free agency by virtue of his previous outright.

The Opener: Rickwood Field, Abrams, Toro

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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. MLB at Rickwood Field to Honor Willie Mays:

The Giants and Cardinals are set to face off this evening in a game at Rickwood Field in Birmingham, Alabama scheduled for 6:15pm local time. The game, which will be televised nationally on FOX, was initially scheduled as a tribute to the Negro Leagues and their storied history but has taken on additional meaning after the recent passing of MLB legend Willie Mays earlier this week. Mays briefly played a professional in the Negro Leagues during the 1948 season as a member of the Birmingham Black Barons, appearing in 13 games for the club as a 17-year-old in the midst of a season where the Black Barons went on to capture the NAL pennant before losing the final Negro League World Series to the Homestead Grays in five games.

The Black Barons (and, by extension, Mays) called Rickwood Field their home ballpark. First established in 1910, it’s the oldest professional ballpark in the US and two years older than Fenway Park in Boston. More than 75 years after the last Negro League game was played there, Major League play returns to Rickwood Field tonight as St. Louis and San Francisco face off with right-handed youngsters Andre Pallante and Keaton Winn on the mound. Tonight’s game will (as relayed by The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal) feature the first entirely black crew of umpires in AL/NL history and figures to celebrate not only the storied history of the Negro Leagues, but also the life and career of Mays.

2. Abrams to undergo MRI:

Nationals shortstop CJ Abrams was scratched from yesterday’s lineup against the Diamondbacks due to what manager Davey Martinez told reporters (including those at MLB.com) was being termed discomfort in his left wrist. Martinez went on to add that Abrams wasn’t sure what was causing the discomfort, and that the club planned to send their young star for an MRI to ensure all was well. The 23-year-old Abrams has enjoyed a breakout season with the Nationals this year as he’s slashed an impressive .261/.313/.478 with 10 stolen bases and 11 home runs in 66 games this year. That strong slash line comes in spite of a difficult month of May where Abrams hit just .205/.216/.304 in 27 games.

Abrams’s breakout campaign has helped the Nationals to be surprisingly competitive this season, as the club is currently tied with the Cardinals for the second of three NL Wild Card spots despite a lackluster 36-37 record. A significant stretch of time without Abrams would be a brutal blow to the Nationals’ odds of holding onto that position, as his 1.2 fWAR leads the club’s positional corps. Nasim Nunez took over for Abrams at shortstop yesterday and could be the club’s top option to fill in if Abrams requires a trip to the injured list.

3. Toro battling shoulder soreness:

A’s infielder Abraham Toro is dealing with a bout of shoulder soreness, as noted by MLB.com’s Martin Gallegos yesterday. The issue first cropped up during Oakland’s doubleheader against the Twins on Sunday and has caused him to miss each of the past two games. As relayed by Gallegos, Toro was scheduled to meet with team doctors to discuss how to handle the injury but manager Mark Kotsay told reporters after the game that he had no update on Toro’s status and that more information about the infielder would be available today.

Toro, 27, has had a decent season with the A’s this year. He’s posted a roughly average slash line of .256/.298/381 in 71 games for the club this year while splitting time between first base, second base, third base, and left field throughout the year. In the aftermath of the club’s decision to designate J.D. Davis for assignment earlier this week, it appeared likely that Toro would be handed the keys to third base full time, although with Toro now possibly injured, Oakland will have to find a new solution at the hot corner. Infielder Tyler Nevin has handled third base duties so far during Toro’s absence and could be the club’s long-term answer there if Toro misses further time, although rookie third baseman Brett Harris is also on the 40-man roster after getting a 17-game cup of coffee in the majors earlier this year.

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