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Brewers Had Offseason Extension Talks With Willy Adames

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Brewers owner Mark Attanasio spoke to reporters, including Curt Hogg of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, about a variety of topics prior to last night’s game in Milwaukee. Perhaps most noteworthy of those topics was the future of shortstop Willy Adames, who is currently slated to hit free agency following the 2024 campaign. Attanasio was candid about the fact that the club made “plenty of offers” to Adames throughout the offseason in hopes of retaining him on a long-term deal. While Attanasio did not provide further details on those offers, his comments appeared to suggest that he does not have confidence in his ability to keep Adames in Milwaukee long term at this point.

“He’s the best,” Attanasio said of Adames, as relayed by Hogg. “…Willy’s performance got to a point where it would be – we’ll see what happens after the season – but he’s going to command quite a significant package as a free agent.”

Attanasio certainly isn’t wrong to suggest that Adames has increased his stock with his play so far this season. The 28-year-old had generally established himself as an above-average shortstop on both sides of the ball entering the 2023 campaign, with a .255/.322/.448 slash line (110 wRC+) to go with a whopping 10 Outs Above Average during the 2022 campaign. While 2023 saw Adames maintain those top-of-the-scale defensive metrics at shortstop, his offense took a significant step back.

Despite career best strikeout (25.9%) and walk (11.1%) rates last season, Adames posted a career-worst 94 wRC+ while slashing a paltry .217/.310/.407 in 638 trips to the plate last year. That lackluster production was primarily due to Adames suffering a bit of a power outage. While his 64 home runs and 78 doubles between the 2020-22 campaigns gave him a healthy .220 isolated slugging across those three campaigns, 2023 saw that figure drop to just .190 as he slugged just 24 homers and 29 doubles. That combined with a career-worst .259 batting average on balls in play left Adames as a below average bat overall last year, raising some questions about his ability to command a significant deal this winter.

Fortunately for Adames, he’s largely put those concerns to bed with his performance in the first third of the 2024 campaign. He’s maintained the positive trends in terms of plate discipline from last year, sporting a healthy 10.4% walk rate while cutting his strikeouts down to just 20.7% of the time. On top of that, his .197 ISO suggests his power production is trending in the right direction, as does his hard-hit rate rebounding from just 36.1% last year to 40.7% so far this season. All that has left Adames with a solid .256/.335/.453 slash line (125 wRC+) to go with his best wOBA (.346) since 2021.

What’s more, it’s possible there’s even more offensive potential in Adames’s performance he has yet to tap into as indicated by his career-best .362 xwOBA. That figure is tied with Bryce Harper for 33rd among all qualified hitters this year, placing Adames’s expected production in the same stratosphere as elite infielders like Matt Olson and Rafael Devers. Even if Adames doesn’t end up reaching those heights this year, his current production at the plate in conjunction with defense at shortstop that has ranked in the 96th percentile or better of qualified fielders in each of the past three seasons is sure to make him among the most enticing infielders available this winter.

In the meantime, Adames has helped lead the Brewers to a command 6.5 game lead over the field in the NL Central as they’ve posted a 35-23 record to this point in the season. With such a solid lead in the division, one would be forgiven for assuming that Adames will remain in Milwaukee at least through the end of the 2024 campaign as the club continues to push towards its sixth playoff appearance in seven seasons. GM Matt Arnold indicated to reporters (including Hogg) during the conversation with Attanasio that nothing is guaranteed ahead of the trade deadline this summer, however, as he declined to say that the club’s star shortstop would be off the table this July.

“From my perspective you can never close the door on anything, but he is the heartbeat of our team in a lot of ways,” Arnold said, as relayed by Hogg. “Always want to stay open minded but also recognize the value that he brings to us everyday.”

If the Brewers were to collapse over the next two months, it would hardly be a surprise to see a budget-conscious club that prefers to avoid rebuilding and attempt to contend in perpetuity shop Adames around in hopes of finding longer term assets who could help the club win in the future. It’s much trickier to decipher whether they would seriously consider parting ways with Adames at the deadline if they remain firmly in the playoff picture, however. The Brewers famously dealt Josh Hader to the Padres at the trade deadline while in contention back in 2022, and the loss of the club’s closer surely helped to contribute to the 29-31 record from August 1 onward that left them on the outside looking in during the postseason that year.

On the other hand, the two prospects Milwaukee acquired in the deal, outfielder Esteury Ruiz and lefty Robert Gasser, have both gone on to contribute to the big league club in big ways this season. The Brewers flipped Ruiz during the 2022-23 offseason in order to land catcher William Contreras in a three-team deal with the Braves and A’s, and Contreras has since broken out as one of the league’s very best catchers. As for Gasser, the 25-year-old rookie has looked nothing short of dominant in four starts with the Brewers this season, posting a sterling 1.96 ERA and 2.52 FIP in 23 innings of work.

Given the major success the club has enjoyed in turning the prospects from that deal into production at the big league level less than two years later, it stands to reason that Milwaukee brass would at least consider parting ways with Adames if they felt they could reasonably replace his production down the stretch and come out ahead in the long term. On the other hand, the club’s struggles in 2022 following the Hader trade highlight the risks involved in such a maneuver and could leave Arnold’s front office reluctant to run the same risk just two seasons after it potentially cost the Brewers a postseason berth.

Brian Anderson, Michael Chavis Opt Out Of Minors Deals With Mariners

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Infielders Brian Anderson and Michael Chavis have both opted out of their minor league deals with the Mariners, according to Tacoma Rainiers broadcaster Mike Curto on X. Both players now figure to return to the open market as free agents.

Anderson, 31, is the more established big leaguer of the two. The Marlins’s third-round pick in the 2014 draft, Anderson made his big league debut with the club back in 2017 and hit a decent .262/.337/.369 in 25 games for the club that year. That cup of coffee was enough to earn Anderson a more regular role in Miami, and he quickly established himself as one of the more reliable bats in a Marlins lineup lacking in thump. From 2018 to 2020, Anderson slashed .266/.350/.436 with 42 home runs and 74 doubles in 341 games while splitting time between third base and right field with the Marlins. That performance was worth a wRC+ of 115, which was good for 11th among all qualified third baseman during that three year period while his 7.2 fWAR ranked 12th.

Unfortunately, Anderson would find his career derailed by injuries in 2021 as he missed nearly four month with oblique and shoulder issues. While he managed to appear in 67 games in between stints on the injured list, Anderson posted pedestrian numbers when he was healthy enough to take the field, hitting .249/.337/.378 with just 7 home runs and 9 doubles in 264 trips to the plate. His injuries woes continued in 2022, as he missed two months of time across three trips to the injured list for shoulder and back issues while posting a career-worst .222/.311/.346 slash line in 98 games with the club.

The back-to-back campaigns filled with injuries and ineffectiveness were enough for the Marlins to decide to non-tender Anderson during the 2022-23 offseason, making him a free agent for the first time in his career. The infielder landed on his feet with a one-year deal with the Brewers that winter, though a .226/.310/.368 slash line in 361 trips to the plate with the club last year did little to re-establish him as a big league regular. Anderson found himself designated for assignment before the 2023 season came to a close and lingered on the free agent market into Spring Training before eventually joining the Mariners.

As for Chavis, the 28-year-old was once a first-round pick by the Red Sox back in 2014 and was a consensus top-100 prospect in baseball prior to his big league debut. His career hasn’t lived up to that potential to this point, however, as after a decent rookie season where he slashed a roughly league average .254/.322/.444 in 95 games, he’s posted a slash line of just .231/.265/.382 over the past four seasons split between the Red Sox, Pirates, and Nationals. Chavis was outrighted off of Washington’s 40-man roster back in October and elected free agency as a result, eventually landing with the Mariners on a minor league deal in January.

Since joining the Mariners, both Anderson and Chavis have posted solid numbers at the Triple-A level for the club. Anderson has slashed .270/.358/.439 in 176 trips to the plate, while Chavis has impressed with a .290/.367/.485 line in 191 trips to the plate. Unfortunately for the pair, an excellent performance from Dylan Moore as the club’s right-handed utility infielder has left either without an obvious path to big league playing time with the Mariners, particularly after Luis Urias was optioned to the minors to act as depth already on the 40-man roster.

In addition to their solid slash lines at the Triple-A level this year, both veterans can offer solid versatility. The duo split time at both first and third base for the Rainiers during their time in Tacoma, and Anderson has past experience in right field while Chavis has played not only the outfield corners but also second base throughout his career. Looking ahead, it’s fairly easy to imagine in need of infield depth jumping at the chance to sign either player on a minor league deal. Even so, it seems unlikely that interested clubs would be confident enough in the 2024 performances of either player to offer a big league pact given the inflated offensive environment of the Pacific Coast League.

Red Sox To Place Vaughn Grissom On 10-Day Injured List

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Red Sox manager Alex Cora told reporters, including Ian Browne of MLB.com, following today’s win over the Tigers that second baseman Vaughn Grissom will need to be placed on the 10-day injured list due to what he termed a “mild” hamstring strain. Grissom exited the game after pulling up while running out a groundout earlier in the game, leading to catcher Connor Wong replacing Grissom at the keystone. According to Jen McCaffrey of The Athletic, Cora indicated to reporters that Wong’s surprise appearance at second base today was due to utility infielder Romy Gonzalez not being available, although he did not specify what was ailing Gonzalez or if he would be available tomorrow afternoon.

The news about Grissom constitutes another brutal injury blow for a Red Sox club that has struggled to stay healthy this year, particularly on the positional side. Grissom himself has appeared in just 23 games this season after being sidelined into May by a hamstring strain during Spring Training. Fortunately, as noted by Browne, that strain impacted his left hamstring, while today’s injury was a right hamstring strain. That Grissom’s injury is a new one should allow him to return to action more quickly than if he had re-injured the same hamstring as before, but he’ll nonetheless miss at least the next ten days without a clear timetable for his return to action.

When he’s been healthy enough to take the field, the start to Grissom’s Red Sox tenure has been a difficult one. He’s hit just .159/.209/.163 in 86 trips to the plate for Boston so far this season. That’s a particularly difficult pill to swallow for Red Sox fans given the fact that veteran southpaw Chris Sale, who the club swapped to Atlanta in order to acquire Grissom, has dominanted to a 2.12 ERA and NL-best 2.11 FIP in his first ten starts with the club, helping to anchor the club’s rotation alongside Max Fried in the absence of ace Spencer Strider.

While Grissom’s production to this point won’t exactly be difficult for the Red Sox to replace, his absence will only serve to further compound the club’s other positional injuries. Trevor Story, Triston Casas, Tyler O’Neill, and Masataka Yoshida are all already on the injured list, with Story out for the season and Casas also facing a lengthy absence. Fortunately, the club’s situation is not without silver linings. Cora told reporters (including MassLive’s Christopher Smith) earlier today that O’Neill’s ailing knee has responded well to a cortisone shot and the club figures to be without the outfielder for only the ten day minimum, a timeline which should allow him to return to action early next week.

Pete Abraham of the Boston Globe relayed similarly optimistic news regarding Yoshida, who told reporters that he’s no longer feeling any negative effects from the thumb injury that sidelined him last month. That won’t help the Red Sox in the short term, as Yoshida will still need to build up after a month of time rehabbing the injury before he can return to the big league club, but it’s still an encouraging sign for a team that figures to be without Grissom for at least a couple of weeks. Both Yoshida and O’Neill were hitting at an above-average clip overall at the time of their injuries, and if healthy should be able to step into the club’s outfield mix as key pieces alongside Jarren Duran and Wilyer Abreu.

The impending return of O’Neill, in particular, should be a relief for the Red Sox as it can provide the club with the opportunity to utilize versatile rookie Ceddanne Rafaela, who has mainly played center field for the club this year, on the infield dirt while Grissom is unavailable. In the meantime, the club figures to turn to Enmanuel Valdez and David Hamilton up the middle, with Gonzalez also a potential contributor at the keystone should he return to action in the coming days.

Julio Teheran To Opt Out Of Minors Deal With Cubs

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Veteran right-hander Julio Teheran is opting out of his minor league deal with the Cubs, according to Jon Heyman of the New York Post. Teheran signed with the Cubs back in April after a brief stint with the Mets earlier this year but now appears poised to return to the open market as a free agent.

Teheran, 33, has pitched in parts of 13 big league seasons since he made his debut with the Braves back in 2011. The right-hander first stepped into a full time role with the club as a member of their rotation back in 2013 and spent the next seven seasons in a mid-rotation role with the club, making at least 30 starts in each of those seasons and pitching to a 3.64 ERA (111 ERA+) with a 4.22 FIP overall during that time. That impressive durability allowed him to post the ninth-most innings among all big league pitchers across those seven seasons while making less starts than only Jon Lester, Jose Quintana, and Max Scherzer during that timeframe.

Teheran’s time with the Braves came to an end following the 2019 campaign, however, and he’s bounced between several MLB organizations in the five years since then. He’s pitched for the Angels, Tigers, Brewers, and Mets at the big league level during that time and spent the 2022 campaign out of affiliated ball, instead pitching in the Atlantic League and Mexican League that year. The right-hander’s results at the big league level have left something to be desired since he departed Atlanta; in 110 2/3 big league innings since the start of the 2020 season, Teheran has posted a 6.10 ERA with a nearly matching 6.11 FIP while striking out just 16.1% of batters faced.

While those results certainly leave something to be desired, Teheran’s 14-appearance stint with the Brewers last year, where he posted a league average 4.40 ERA with a 4.93 FIP in 71 2/3 innings, provided some reason for optimism that he could still be a useful arm at the big league level. That was enough to earn Teheran a one-year big league deal with the Mets in early April, although he only made one start for the club before being designated for assignment and returning to the open market. That’s when Teheran landed with the Cubs, who at the time were dealing with injuries to Justin Steele and Jameson Taillon in the rotation while veteran starter Kyle Hendricks was struggling badly.

Since then, however, Steele and Taillon have returned from the shelf to join Shota Imanaga in the club’s rotation and youngsters Ben Brown and Javier Assad have impressed in starting roles of their own, clouding Teheran’s path back to the big leagues in the Cubs organization. With the aforementioned quintet, Hayden Wesneski, and perhaps even Hendricks all ahead of him on the organizational depth chart, it’s understandable that Teheran would prefer to return to the open market in hopes of finding a club that can offer him a clearer path to the big leagues.

Teheran’s performance at Triple-A Iowa during his time with Chicago is unlikely to help him in that endeavor, as he struggled badly with an 8.82 ERA in 32 2/3 innings of work. Still, it’s certainly feasible to imagine a club in need of starting depth offering Teheran a spot in their minor league system, where an injury or two could create an opportunity for the 33-year-old to make his way back to the majors.

Giants, Camilo Doval Discussed Extension Last Year

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4:40pm: Slusser has since updated her report to note that the previously reported $50MM figure is not accurate. She adds that the offer was “closer to what an extension for a pre-arb reliever would have been,” although the specific terms of the offer are not clear.

2:54pm: The Giants and closer Camilo Doval had talks last year about a contract extension that would have paid Doval around $50MM, Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle reports.  It isn’t known if the Giants have since made a larger offer, or if the two sides have continued negotiations in any significant fashion.

In terms of the timing of the $50MM offer, Slusser writes that Edwin Diaz’s five-year, $102MM deal with the Mets from November 2022 happened “not long before” the talks between Doval and the Giants.  It might therefore be safe to guess the two sides held discussions during Spring Training 2023, as teams routinely explore longer-term contracts with their in-house players during spring camp.

Doval is still a pre-arbitration player, as the right-hander will only enter the arb process for the first of three times this coming offseason.  He is slated to hit free agency following the 2027 campaign, so it seems likely that the Giants’ offer covered Doval’s remaining two pre-arb seasons, his three arbitration years, and at least one of his free agent seasons, with possibly a club option or two also attached.

It would’ve been quite the financial commitment for a pitcher who had only 94.2 MLB innings under his belt heading into the 2023 season, especially for a Giants team that has been wary of giving any kind of long-term contract to a pitcher since president of baseball operations Farhan Zaidi took the front office.  It should be noted that the spring of 2023 did see the Giants complete a five-year, $90MM extension with Logan Webb, though a longer-term deal with a front-of-the-rotation starter carries less risk than a longer-term deal to a reliever.

There haven’t been many relief pitchers in history who have landed contracts (whether extensions or free agent deals) worth $50MM or more.  Doval was also something of a lightly regarded international prospect who signed for a $100K bonus in 2015, so even if he viewed the offer as unsatisfactory in the wake of Diaz’s deal resetting the market, it must’ve taken quite a bit of confidence on Doval’s part to pass up the life-changing security of San Francisco’s extension.

Now two months into the 2024 season, Doval’s decision to bet on himself is still looking sound.  Doval has a 2.89 ERA over 90 1/3 innings since Opening Day 2023, with an outstanding 30.4% strikeout rate, a 55.6% grounder rate, and a fastball averaging 99.2 mph.  Some other metrics stand out as red flags, as Doval has always been prone to walks, and his hard-contact numbers have been decidedly below average over the last two years.

Since traditional counting stats like saves are valued by arbiters moreso than deeper analytics, the number that might matter most to Doval’s future earnings are his Doval’s 75 saves in 87 chances over the last three seasons.  Assuming he stays healthy and effective for the remainder of 2024, he’ll head into his first round of arbitration with a strong three-year platform of quality results in the ninth inning.  This will subsequently line him up for increasingly larger salaries in his next two arb years if all goes well, and then a free agent deal in the 2027-28 offseason (when he is 30 years old) that might possibly set a new standard for closer contracts.

That is still a ways down the road, of course, which speaks to the longer-term risk that Doval is taking in foregoing an extension.  Nothing is preventing Doval and the Giants from coming together on a long-term deal at any point over the next four seasons, or San Francisco might also now be open to another options for their highest-leverage innings.  As Slusser writes, rookie Randy Rodriguez has looked good in his first taste of MLB action, and might be a potential closer of the future.  This could mean the Giants might eventually explore trading Doval in order to address needs elsewhere on the roster, while saving a bit of money on Doval’s escalating arbitration salaries, and perhaps selling high to some extent.  Those elevated hard-contact rates, for instance, or Doval’s continued control problems might have given the Giants some more concerns over Doval’s long-term viability than they had in the spring in 2023.

Alex Cora: No Plans To Discuss Red Sox Extension Mid-Season

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Red Sox manager Alex Cora entered the 2024 season without a contract lined up for 2025, and comments he made to reporters, including The Athletic’s Jen McCaffrey, yesterday indicate that he and the club do not intend to discuss a possible contract extension during the season.

“We’ll play it out, and whatever is decided is decided,” Cora said, per McCaffrey. “…My situation will be taken care of in the future, whatever the organization decides — or whatever I decide to do.”

Cora has been at the helm of the Red Sox since 2018, with the exception of the shortened 2020 season when he was replaced by Ron Roenicke while serving a one-year suspension due to his role in the 2017 Astros’ sign-stealing scandal. Boston, of course, won the World Series during the first season of Cora’s tenure. The Red Sox missed the postseason in 2019, however, and upon Cora’s return to he manager’s chair in 2021 have generally hovered in the vicinity of .500 with 277 wins and 267 losses entering play today. They’ve made the postseason just once during Cora’s second stint with the club, advancing to the ALCS in 2021 after securing a Wild Card spot.

Of course, much of the blame for that mediocre performance in recent seasons lies at the feet of the front office, which is currently on its third head of baseball operations since Cora joined the staff in 2018 after hiring former Cubs assistant GM Craig Breslow as chief baseball officer this past offseason. Given the turmoil the Red Sox have faced at the top of their baseball operations department and a payroll that has surpassed $200MM just once in the past five seasons after reaching a peak of more than $236MM in 2019 (per Cot’s Baseball Contracts), it’s hard to place Boston’s struggles in recent years at the feet of Cora.

In fact, the Red Sox have generally exceeded expectations to this point in the 2024 campaign, posting an even 29-29 record entering play today despite minimal additions after last year’s 84-loss campaign and significant injuries to key pieces such as Lucas Giolito, Garrett Whitlock, Trevor Story, and Triston Casas. The club’s solid play amid those injuries and low expectations have reinforced Cora’s reputation around the league as one of the game’s most respected managers, and should make him an enticing managerial candidate in the event that he doesn’t return to the Red Sox in 2025. Cora’s situation brings to mind that of former Brewers manager Craig Counsell, who departed Milwaukee after choosing to enter the 2023 season without an extension in favor of a five-year, $40MM contract with the Cubs this past winter.

McCaffrey notes that Cora was “keenly aware” of Counsell’s deal with the Cubs this past season, and it would hardly be a surprise if he hoped to land a similar deal for himself this winter. On the other hand, it’s at least possible Cora could look to take his impending free agent status as an opportunity to move out of the dugout entirely. The 48-year-old has previously suggested that he would like to move to a front office role at some point down the line, although he noted last autumn that he was not yet ready to make the jump.

Coincidentally, the Red Sox themselves figure to be in the market for an addition to their front office brain trust this winter, with Sean McAdam of MassLive.com noting that Breslow recently told reporters he doesn’t expect to hire a second-in-command until this winter. That’s hardly a surprising development, as it was reported just last month by Alex Speier of the Boston Globe that the club had hired an outside consulting firm to conduct an audit of the organization and offer Breslow recommendations regarding potential changes. As noted by McAdam, Breslow suggested that the ongoing audit could have an influence over his decision regarding the GM job, noting that it could nudge them toward promoting an in-house candidate or indicate that they’d be best served hiring from outside the organization.

While the opening in Boston’s front office and Cora’s previously stated long-term career goals appear to line up, there’s been no indication from either side that Cora and the Red Sox are considering the possibility of their manager moving upstairs next season. Instead, it appears that decisions by all parties, both regarding Cora’s future in the organization and the vacant GM role below Breslow in the baseball operations hierarchy, will be set aside until this winter as the club attempts to weather a storm of injuries and return to the postseason after back-to-back last place finishes in the AL East.

Phillies Claim Freddy Tarnok

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The Phillies announced that they have claimed righty Freddy Tarnok off waivers from the Athletics.  Tarnok has been optioned to Triple-A Lehigh Valley after first being activated off the 60-day injured list.  To create room on the 40-man, the Phils moved right-hander Dylan Covey to the 60-day IL.

It wasn’t publicly known that Tarnok had been designated for assignment, but Oakland had to make some kind of decision since was nearing the end of his 30-day rehab assignment.  Tarnok has pitched in six games for Triple-A Las Vegas since May 8, and with a 13.50 ERA to show for those 7 1/3 innings of work, Tarnok might have simply pitched himself out of the Athletics’ plans.  Tarnok has been on the IL since Opening Day due to inflammation in his right hip, and he was moved from the 15-day to the 60-day at the start of May.

A third-round pick for the Braves in the 2017 draft, Tarnok made his MLB debut in the form of a single game and two-thirds of an inning pitched during the 2022 season.  That winter, Atlanta dealt Tarnok to Oakland as part of the huge three-team, nine-player trade that sent William Contreras and Joel Payamps to the Brewers and Sean Murphy to the Braves, with Tarnok being one of the younger, controllable players the A’s landed in one of several fire-sale type trades during their latest rebuild.

Tarnok’s first (and officially only) season with the A’s consisted of five outings and 14 2/3 innings due to multiple injuries.  Shoulder problems led to a 60-day IL stint to begin the 2023 campaign as well, and hip surgery then ended his season altogether in August.  Recovery from that hip procedure lingered into the offseason and Spring Training, necessitating Tarnok’s IL stint at the start of this year.

Unsurprisingly, Tarnok has run into some troubles keeping the ball in the park in the Pacific Coast League, and his walk and strikeout rates have been average at best even prior to 2024 across his 71 career Triple-A innings.  However, Tarnok has a solid 4.18 ERA in those 71 Triple-A frames, and is still only 25 years old.  There’s no risk for the Phillies in having some more big league-ready rotation depth ready at Lehigh Valley in the event of injury, or if Philadelphia just wants to give some of its starters extra rest in advance of what the team hopes will be a deep postseason run.

Covey has yet to pitch this season after suffering a shoulder strain during Spring Training, and he likely would’ve been placed on the 60-day IL much earlier than today had the Phillies been in need of a 40-man roster spot.  As a reminder, a 60-day IL placement is retroactive to the start of the initial 15-day placement, so Covey can now technically be activated at any time since it has already been more than 60 days since Opening Day.

Padres Place Yu Darvish, Joe Musgrove On 15-Day Injured List

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1:18PM: The Padres have announced that both Musgrove and Darvish have placed on the 15-day IL.  Musgrove’s injury has been termed as right elbow inflammation and his placement date is retroactive to May 29, while Darvish has a left groin strain and a May 30 retroactive placement date.  Vasquez and Logan Gillaspie have been called up from Triple-A.

Darvish lasted only three innings before his hamstring forced him out of his start against Miami last Wednesday, though the injury has now been diagnosed as a groin problem.  This could be a new injury stemming from the initial issue, or simply a clearer diagnosis after a couple of days of testing.  The Padres listed Darvish day-to-day at first, so it seems possible that Darvish might be back after only 15 days if the injury is somewhat minor in nature.

12:30PM: Joe Musgrove has been scratched from his scheduled start today and will instead be placed on the Padres’ 15-day injured list.  According to Kevin Acee of the San Diego Union-Tribune (X link), Musgrove is again suffering from the triceps tendinitis that already sent him to the IL at the start of May.  Right-hander Randy Vasquez was recalled from Triple-A El Paso to take Musgrove’s spot on the active roster and to start today’s game against the Royals.

Somewhat ominously, Acee wrote that Musgrove’s triceps issue “is not believed at this time to be a season-ending injury.”  While this is positive news at the moment, the fact that there’s enough uncertainty over this lingering injury that an early end to Musgrove’s 2024 campaign is even a possibility is certainly not a good sign.  Even if no structural damage is found, even relatively minor cases of inflammation or tendinitis can lead to lengthy layoffs, if a pitcher simply continues to feel discomfort when throwing.

Musgrove looked pretty good in the two starts since returning from the first IL trip, posting a 2.16 ERA over 8 1/3 frames.  After laboring through three innings in his first outing on May 21, he looked much sharper on May 26 when tossing 5 1/3 shutout innings against the powerful Yankees lineup in a 5-2 Padres victory.  Considering how Musgrove had a 6.37 ERA in his 41 innings prior to that initial IL visit, it seemed as though he was over his triceps problems and back in his normal form as a frontline member of San Diego’s pitching staff.

Vasquez is a logical fill-in candidate while Musgrove is out, yet Vasquez doesn’t have much big league experience, and his 5.82 ERA over 21 2/3 innings this season indicates that he might not be an ideal choice as a longer-term rotation patch if Musgrove has to miss a significant amount of time.  Even beyond Musgrove, Yu Darvish is also dealing with a hamstring injury that forced him out of his last start, and it isn’t yet known if Darvish will be able to make his next start or if he might also need to visit the 15-day IL.

The Padres’ next off-day isn’t until June 13, plus the rotation has some depth question even with Darvish and Musgrove both healthy.  Dylan Cease, Michael King, and Matt Waldron have settled into rotation roles, and that trio plus Darvish, Musgrove, and Vasquez have accounted for all of the Padres’ starts this season.  Ryan Carpenter or Jackson Wolf could be the top Triple-A depth options, though even accounting for the Pacific Coast League’s hitter-friendly bent, Carpenter’s 8.74 ERA and Wolf’s 6.69 ERA are cause for concern.  (Vasquez also has a 7.45 ERA in 19 1/3 innings for El Paso.)

Nationals Request Unconditional Release Waivers On Victor Robles

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JUNE 1: The Nationals announced that they have requested unconditional release waivers on Robles.  The Talk Nats blog reported earlier today that the team was looking for a trade partner for Robles, but Washington will now instead move on from Robles entirely since it appears no deal was found.

MAY 27: The Nationals announced today that outfielder Lane Thomas has been reinstated from the injured list with fellow outfielder Víctor Robles designated for assignment in a corresponding move. The club’s 40-man roster count drops to 38.

Robles, now 27, was once the club’s top prospect and one of the top prospects in the entire league. Per the rankings from Baseball America, he was the Nationals’ #1 prospect in three straight years from 2017 to 2019. He was also on BA’s top 100 league-wide list from 2016 to 2019, getting as high as #5 overall going into 2018.  The expectation at that time was that Robles had the capability of being an all-around contributor and a long-term part of the outfield in Washington.

Things seemed to be in a good place in 2019, the year the Nats won the World Series. Robles hit 17 home runs and slashed .255/.326/.419. Despite the long balls, his 5.7% walk rate kept the on-base low and the wRC+ of 92 indicates he was actually a bit below average offensively overall. But thanks to above-average defense and stealing 28 bases, FanGraphs credited him as being worth 3.7 wins above replacement in his age-22 season.

Given his youth, the Nats undoubtedly expected him to continue evolving as a hitter as he aged. Unfortunately, things moved in the opposite direction in the years to come. From 2020 to 2022, Robles got into 291 games with the Nats but hit just .216/.291/.306 in that time for a wRC+ of 66. The club’s fortunes also faded in that time and they entered a rebuilding phase.

That theoretically left Robles with plenty of playing time to get back on track, but his health hasn’t really allowed him to do so. He only got into 36 games last year due to back spasms in the lumbar spine. He did perform well when on the field, hitting a solid .299/.385/.364, but hasn’t carried that over in 2024. He spent about a month on the injured list due to left hamstring strain and has produced a brutal line of .120/.281/.120 in the 14 games he has played.

Robles was slated to reach free agency after the 2024 campaign and the Nationals were likely hoping for a nice run of play this season, at least allowing them to flip Robles for something at the deadline before he slipped away from them for nothing. Unfortunately, his performance hasn’t inspired much confidence and they are cutting him off the roster today.

They will now have a week to trade him or pass him through waivers, though any interest is likely to be fairly modest after years of poor performance and injury absences. He’s making a salary of $2.65MM this year, with still about two thirds of that left to be paid out. Perhaps the Nats will try to eat some of that money to facilitate a deal but it’s also possible that Robles just ends up released. He has enough service time that he can reject an outright assignment in favor of free agency while keeping all that money intact.

It’s undeniably been a disappointing few years and hardly what the club had in mind, given the prospect pedigree and the promising start to his career. But for Robles personally, it’s not too late for him to find a second act somewhere. He just turned 27 last week and could perhaps get back on track with a run of good health and the right opportunity.

Tigers Notes: Carpenter, Canha, Harris, Spending

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1:03PM: Canha told reporters (including Petzold) and other reporters that he has a strain of his psoas muscle, but the injury “feels a lot better today” than it did Friday.  Canha won’t play today but intends to be in Sunday’s lineup, and coming out of that game in good health could determine whether or not an IL stint is needed.

9:45AM: Kerry Carpenter was placed on the Tigers’ 10-day injured list earlier this week with what was described as lumbar spine inflammation, but the issue has unfortunately proven to be more serious.  The club announced on Friday that Carpenter “is currently completing rehab for a lumbar spine stress fracture,” with no recovery timeline provided.  Manager A.J. Hinch could have more details during his pregame chat with media later today, but it would appear as though Carpenter will be sidelined for at least a month, and potentially quite longer depending on the severity of the fracture.

It’s tough news for the 26-year-old Carpenter, who has quietly been Detroit’s best hitter since he made his MLB debut during the 2022 season.  After hitting .273/.334/.474 with 26 homers in 572 plate appearances in 2022-23, Carpenter has taken it up another level this year, with a hefty 154 wRC+ from a slash line of .283/.342/.572 and eight home runs in his first 163 PA.

Carpenter’s production has again stood out within a Tigers lineup that has struggled to generate consistent offense.  Matt Vierling and Wenceel Perez have earned more playing time due to their solid numbers, while among the players projected to be regulars going into the season, Riley Greene and Mark Canha are the only other batters besides Carpenter who have hit well.  However, Canha’s status is also a question mark after he was scratched from Friday’s lineup due to soreness in his left hip.

“It’s been bothering me for a week or so,” Canha told reporters, including Chris McCosky of the Detroit News.  “It was getting worse and worse and today was the pinnacle.  It got to a point where I had to shut it down.”

For now, Canha is day to day, though he has undergone testing to see if a more serious problem is causing the hip discomfort.  Acquired in a trade with the Brewers last November, Canha has delivered a 120 wRC+ (.247/.358/.401 with six home runs) in his first 215 PA in a Tigers uniform, bouncing around between the DH spot, both corner outfield positions, and some occasional work at first base.  Canha’s numbers have generally been down in May, though one of his best hitting stretches of the season has actually come over the last week of play, when he was hampered by his hip injury.

Needless to say, the Tigers would be hard-pressed to lose both Carpenter and Canha for any notable length of time.  Removing both hitters would put more pressure on Greene, Vierling, and Perez to stay hot, and increase the pressure on Detroit’s many struggling hitters to get on track.  Colt Keith and the Jake Rogers/Carson Kelly catching tandem have started to pick it up after dismal starts to the season, but quite a bit more will be required to dig the Tigers out of their early hole in the AL Central race.  A trendy dark horse pick to win the division heading into the season, the Tigers sit in fourth place with a 28-29 record, 10 games behind the first-place Guardians.

While Detroit still has four months of regular season to cut into that deficit, it is fair to wonder if the clock is really closer to two months, as in the July 30 trade deadline.  The Tigers could conceivably be deadline sellers if they remain around .500 and the Guardians (or the surprising Royals, or the reigning division champion Twins) have all continued to pull away from the pack.  Even if the Tigers do get back into the race, it isn’t clear just how aggressive they might be in making potential additions at the deadline, given that president of baseball operations Scott Harris again reiterated earlier this week that the organization isn’t yet planning any significant payroll boost.

“We’re not quite there yet as far as spending at that level because we need to build the foundation of this team to put us in a position to supplement it with free agent signings in the upcoming winters,” Harris said in an MLB Network interview with Brian Kenny (hat tip to Evan Petzold of the Detroit Free Press).  “I have confidence that the resources will be there. The Ilitch family has always supported the Tigers, and they are ready and eager to do it….We just have to develop the core that we’re going to spend around, and we also have to target the players in upcoming winters that can really help us.”

The Tigers’ payroll has naturally dropped as the club has undergone a lengthy rebuilding period, and Detroit hasn’t enjoyed a winning season since going 86-75 in 2016.  The splashy signings of Javier Baez and Eduardo Rodriguez during the 2021-22 offseason seemed to indicate that the rebuild was over, yet multiple pitching injuries and a near team-wide offensive slump resulted in a 96-loss season.  Former GM Al Avila was fired in August 2022, leading to Harris’ hiring a month later as the person tasked with finally getting the Motor City back into contention.

The end of Miguel Cabrera’s contract removed the Tigers’ biggest financial commitment from the books last winter, plus Rodriguez departed to sign with the Diamondbacks (for four years and $80MM) after opting out of the last three years and $49MM on his Tigers contract.  Still, the team didn’t reinvest those savings back into the roster, as the Tigers opened the season with a payroll of roughly $97.6MM, and only made modest spends this past winter on Canha and free agents Kenta Maeda and Jack Flaherty.

Baez’s struggles have only worsened over his three seasons in Detroit, and the heretofore disastrous nature of that contract acts as a cautionary tale for those critical of Harris’ measured approach to spending.  That said, Petzold notes that Tarik Skubal’s remaining years of arbitration control (through the 2026 season) might serve as a window for the Tigers to make a push to contend, since Skubal has emerged as one of the best pitchers in baseball this season.  Other promising young starters as well as Greene, Carpenter, and Keith might already form a good enough core to contend, and if Harris and ownership hold off on bigger spending until even more prospects arrive and get established, the timeline might extend past Skubal’s time with the team.  Of course, locking up Skubal to a big extension would be a way for the Tigers to both increase payroll and secure a core player in a single move.

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