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Mets Acquire Phil Maton From Rays

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The Mets have acquired right-hander Phil Maton from the Rays, per announcements from both clubs. The Rays will receive a player to be named later or cash considerations. Mets president of baseball operations David Stearns said the club is taking on all of Maton’s remaining salary, per Anthony DiComo of MLB.com on X. The Mets designated left-hander Joey Lucchesi for assignment to get Maton onto their 40-man roster. The Rays recalled right-hander Manuel Rodríguez to take Maton’s place on their active roster.

Maton, 31, signed with the Rays as a free agent in the offseason. The two sides agreed to a one-year deal with a $6.5MM guarantee, in the form of a $6.25MM salary and a $250K buyout on a $7.75MM club option for 2025.

Thus far, that deal hasn’t played out the way the Rays had hoped. Maton has tossed 35 1/3 innings, allowing 4.58 earned runs per nine. He has struck out just 19.7% of batters faced while giving out walks at an 11.8% clip. His 49.5% ground ball rate is strong but he’s also allowed six home runs on the year, a rate of 16.2% per fly ball.

That performance is significantly worse than what Maton provided in recent seasons. From 2020 through 2023, with Cleveland and Houston, he tossed 220 innings with a 3.93 ERA, 27.8% strikeout rate, 9.2% walk rate and 40.4% ground ball rate. He was also quite good at avoiding damage, with his average exit velocity being among the best in the league in his career.

The Mets are essentially buying low in this deal, getting a veteran reliever without giving up any prospect talent. Perhaps that will change if the PTBNL turns out to be a player of significance, but they may be effectively buying Maton.

The bullpen has been the biggest issue for the Mets this season. Their relievers have a collective 4.16 ERA, which is in the bottom half of the league. A couple of their better relievers have been lost to season-ending elbow surgeries, with Brooks Raley and Drew Smith both done for the year. Sean Reid-Foley and Shintaro Fujinami are also on the injured list due to shoulder issues.

Despite those bullpen struggles, the club has stayed in the playoff race. They are currently 44-45, just 2.5 games back of the Padres for the final Wild Card spot. It was reported last week that the club was going into the deadline with a buyer’s mentality and could focus on bullpen help, with this move fitting into that framing.

Obviously, the Mets will be banking on Maton’s struggles this year being a bit of a blip and he’s already shown some positive signs of a turnaround. After a four-run outing on June 9, he was sitting on an ERA of 6.56. But over the past month, he has only allowed one earned run in 12 innings, striking out 11 opponents while giving out just one walk. Even if he can’t fully maintain that level of dominance, it’s not unreasonable to expect something better than his season-long numbers.

For the Rays, they have been doing some modest selling of late, though nothing that would necessarily tank their chances of competing here in 2024. They flipped starter Aaron Civale to the Brewers, netting a prospect and some cost savings. But that didn’t really downgrade the rotation as they were able to call up Shane Baz to take Civale’s rotation spot. They are 44-46 and 5.5 games back in the playoff race, giving them a chance of climbing back into it.

Now they have been able to shed a bit more money, getting rid of a player that has largely been underperforming on the season, recent hot streak notwithstanding. The Rays are generally quite good at finding or developing relievers and Rodríguez could fill in for Maton, as he has a 2.79 ERA in the majors this year and a 1.09 mark in Triple-A.

Speaking of that money, the Mets will be taking on more than the Rays are saving, thanks to the competitive balance tax. Maton is still owed about $2.74MM on his salary, as well as the $250K buyout. The Rays will scrub that from their books but the Mets are a third-time CBT payor and well over the fourth and final tax threshold. That means they are paying a 110% tax on any additional spending, so will be actually paying around $6MM to get Maton on the club for the final few months of the season.

Under owner Steve Cohen, the Mets have been pretty unafraid of spending money and are once again flexing some financial muscle to upgrade the club. The Mets have been walking a fine line since about this time last year, looking to keep the big league club in contention without significantly harming the pipeline of young talent in the farm system and also trying to avoid adding long-term costs to their ledger. They still spent money in the offseason but limited themselves to short-term deals and this move is essentially a midseason version of that.

The cost is primarily financial but they also could lose Lucchesi. The lefty made one spot start for the big league club this year but has primarily been kept on optional assignment. He has made 15 Triple-A starts this year with a 4.20 earned run average, 17.9% strikeout rate, 9.7% walk rate and 53.6% ground ball rate.

Lucchesi is a decent depth option but he may have been on the road to getting squeezed off the roster anyway. He is in his final option year and will therefore be out of options next year. The Mets have also had improved rotation depth as the season has gone along. David Peterson and Kodai Senga each started the season on the injured list but Peterson has since returned and Senga recently started a rehab assignment. The Mets have also seen Christian Scott jump up from the minors and take hold of a rotation spot.

The current rotation consists of Scott, Peterson, Luis Severino, Jose Quintana and Sean Manaea, with Senga on his way back. José Buttó and Adrian Houser are currently in the big league bullpen but either could be considered rotation depth and the club also has Tylor Megill on optional assignment. That’s enough starting depth that the club is reportedly considering trading someone from that group while still trying to compete here in 2024, much like the Rays did with the aforementioned Civale deal.

Whether that comes to fruition or not, Lucchesi was largely buried in that rotation picture. The Mets have bumped him off the roster and will now have five days to see if they can work out a trade. DFA limbo can last for a week, but the waiver process takes 48 hours.

The lefty has some track record as a viable big league starter, as he posted an ERA just over 4.00 with the Padres in 2018 and 2019, logging 130 innings or more in both of those seasons. He then struggled in 2020 and got flipped to the Mets as part of the Joe Musgrove trade in January of 2021. He required Tommy John surgery that summer and missed most of the 2021-2022 seasons. He returned to the mound last year and his results were fairly comparable to this year. He was mostly kept on optional assignment and posted a 4.74 ERA in Triple-A.

Perhaps a club in need of some starting depth will take a flier on Lucchesi since he can be optioned for the remainder of this year and can also be retained beyond this season via arbitration. But as mentioned, he will be out of options next year and will have less roster flexibility going forward. If he were to clear waivers, he could reject an outright assignment by virtue of having more than three years of service time. But since he has less than five years, electing free agency would mean walking away from the rest of his $1.65MM salary. In that instance, he would likely accept an outright assignment and stick with the Mets as non-roster depth.

Latest On Phillies’ Rotation

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The Phillies are making an adjustment to their rotation. Rookie right-hander Tyler Phillips will make his first big league start on Saturday against the A’s, tweets Matt Gelb of the Athletic. Fellow rookie Michael Mercado is set to work from the bullpen.

Mercado, 25, just stepped into the starting five in late June. He threw five innings of one-run ball against the Cubs in his first MLB start. The Braves teed off on Mercado on Saturday, though, tagging him for five runs on a trio of homers before he could escape the second inning. While one poor start won’t change the organization’s view on Mercado, most prospect evaluators suggest his fastball-curveball arsenal is better suited for relief work.

A former second-round pick of the Rays, Mercado joined the Phils in a minor trade at the beginning of last offseason. He has started 10 of 14 appearances with Triple-A Lehigh Valley. Mercado has a stellar 1.71 earned run average at the top minor league level. However, he has walked more than 11% of batters faced while averaging fewer than four innings per appearance.

Phillips has had a more conventional starting role with Lehigh Valley. He has started all 15 Triple-A appearances and averaged slightly more than six innings per game. His 4.89 ERA is a lot more pedestrian than Mercado’s mark, although he has shown somewhat better control (9.4% walk rate). Mercado throws a bit harder than Phillips does and has demonstrated a lot more bat-missing ability in the minor leagues. Phillips, whom the team added to the 40-man roster last week, has a modest 19.8% strikeout rate for the IronPigs. To his credit, Phillips punched out seven hitters across four innings of relief behind Mercado against Atlanta in his big league debut.

The Phillies have built enough of a cushion that they shouldn’t be concerned about some short-term uncertainty in their starting five. They’re eight games clear of the Braves for the division lead and 4.5 games ahead of the Dodgers for the National League’s top seed. An excellent rotation has been a major reason. Philadelphia’s front four of Zack Wheeler, Aaron Nola, Ranger Suárez and Cristopher Sánchez is arguably the best in MLB.

The fifth spot is the only question mark. Taijuan Walker allowed a 5.60 ERA over 10 starts before inflammation in his index finger sent him to the injured list a few weeks ago. Spencer Turnbull managed great results as a sixth starter, but he sustained a lat strain that’ll knock him out into August.

Barring injury, the Phils look like the rare contender that doesn’t need to urgently pursue rotation help over the next three weeks. Wheeler’s status is worth monitoring after the Phils lifted him at 76 pitches during tonight’s start. The team announced that the star righty was battling lower back tightness. After the game, skipper Rob Thomson called it a precautionary measure with the Phillies already holding an eight-run lead (X link via Alex Coffey of the Philadelphia Inquirer). Thomson suggested the team would evaluate Wheeler tomorrow but indicated the club expects he’ll be fine to make his next start.

Astros Notes: McCullers, Bloss, Verlander

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Lance McCullers Jr.’s return from last year’s flexor surgery hit a snag. Manager Joe Espada told reporters this afternoon the team was pausing the righty’s throwing program after he experienced arm soreness coming out of his recent bullpen sessions (link via Chandler Rome of the Athletic). The team didn’t provide much detail, as Espada noted only that McCullers won’t throw for a few days “until we sit back down and reevaluate how we’re going to move forward.”

It’s possible this is merely a minor setback and McCullers will be able to resume throwing in the coming days. Still, any mention of arm soreness is going to raise alarm with the pitcher’s injury history. McCullers lost the 2019 season after undergoing Tommy John surgery the previous November. He returned and stayed healthy for most of the 2020-21 campaigns, but he battled forearm discomfort during the ’21 postseason.

McCullers was out into August ’22. He returned to make 11 starts down the stretch and into the playoffs before suffering another arm injury while ramping up during the 2022-23 offseason. That eventually necessitated surgery. McCullers hasn’t pitched in a game since starting Game 3 of the 2022 World Series.

That kind of extended layoff makes it difficult for the Astros to bank too heavily on McCullers contributing down the stretch. Yet the team has pointed to returns from Luis Garcia and McCullers as possible stabilizers for a rotation that is barely hanging on. Garcia is on a rehab stint as he works back from last May’s Tommy John procedure. He could be back around the start of August. Even if all goes well with Garcia, the rotation depth remains perhaps the team’s biggest question.

Houston is operating with four starting pitchers at the moment. Framber Valdez, Hunter Brown, Ronel Blanco and Spencer Arrighetti are the only healthy starters on the 40-man roster. They should get a fifth arm back this week. Espada suggested that Jake Bloss is likely to return from the 15-day injured list to start on Thursday against the Marlins (X link via Matt Kawahara of the Houston Chronicle). Bloss suffered a shoulder injury during his MLB debut on June 21 and has been shelved for around three weeks.

Getting Bloss back nominally completes the rotation, but the club can’t feel great about relying on a pair of rookies for the final two spots. Arrighetti has had an inconsistent debut campaign and is sitting on a 5.96 ERA across 16 starts. The Astros just drafted Bloss in the third round last summer. He has made two starts above Double-A. Blanco, who has had a fantastic year after securing the fifth starter job in Spring Training, had never topped 88 innings in any minor league or MLB season before this one. He’s up to 103 frames with a 2.53 ERA after firing seven innings of two-run ball tonight.

Blanco’s emergence and Hunter Brown’s midseason turnaround have helped key the Astros’ recent push back into contention for the AL West. They’ll need more sources of reliable innings down the stretch, which will likely come through some combination of injury returnees and trade. Beyond Garcia and McCullers, Justin Verlander has been out since mid-June with neck discomfort. The future Hall of Famer suggested on Tuesday that he’s still unsure precisely when he’ll be ready for game action (link via Kawahara). Unsurprisingly, the New York Post’s Jon Heyman wrote recently that Houston is looking to add at least one starting pitcher from outside the organization before the July 30 deadline.

Pirates Outright Justin Bruihl

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Pirates reliever Justin Bruihl accepted an outright assignment to Triple-A Indianapolis, the team announced. Pittsburgh had designated the left-hander for assignment over the weekend. Pittsburgh also reinstated Quinn Priester from the 15-day injured list and optioned Edward Olivares to Indianapolis.

Bruihl has been a member of the Bucs for around a month. Pittsburgh signed him to a big league contract on June 6 (coincidentally in tandem with Priester’s IL placement). Manager Derek Shelton called upon Bruihl seven times. He surrendered six runs on nine hits and a walk across 5 2/3 frames. That brief stint at PNC Park marked Bruihl’s fourth consecutive season logging MLB action. He split the 2021-23 campaigns between the Dodgers and Rockies, combining for a 4.22 ERA over 72 appearances.

While Bruihl was hit hard in his limited MLB action this season, he has had a solid year in Triple-A. Splitting his time between the top affiliates of the Reds and Pirates, he owns a 2.89 ERA in 28 innings. He has fanned around a quarter of batters faced against a slightly elevated 10.2% walk rate.

Bruihl has been outrighted once before, as he cleared waivers after being designated for assignment by the Rockies last August. That gave him the right to elect free agency, but he bypassed that to remain with Indianapolis. He’ll try to pitch his way back into a bullpen that entered play Tuesday ranked 26th in the majors with a 4.51 earned run average. Bruihl would be eligible for minor league free agency next offseason if Pittsburgh doesn’t add him back to the 40-man roster.

Breslow On Deadline: Red Sox Committed To Picking A Lane

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There’s now just three weeks until the July 30 trade deadline and many clubs will have to decide whether to buy or sell or a mix of both. Red Sox chief baseball officer Craig Breslow recently appeared on today’s episode of the Fenway Rundown podcast with hosts Chris Cotillo and Sean McAdam, with Cotillo and McAdam both writing up columns at MassLive after the podcast.

Perhaps most notably, Breslow suggested that the Sox would pick a buy/sell lane, as opposed to trying to walk a fine line between the two paths. “The lane that we pick is going to be dictated by a host of considerations and none more meaningful than what is happening on the field,” Breslow said. “So I’m still adamant and committed to picking a lane. We’re going to get more and more information over the next couple of weeks. But the one thing that we can do that helps steer that direction is to win as many games as possible on the field.”

Choosing how to approach a deadline can be a tricky one for a front office executive, as Breslow himself highlights. “My job is different than the job Alex (Cora) has or the job that the players have, whereas they can be almost singularly focused on doing everything that they need to do to prepare to win that night’s game, I have to think about how we can best be positioned to win tonight’s game and tomorrow’s game and next year’s game. Trying to balance all of those things is is difficult at times.”

That difficulty sometimes leads decision makers to try to opt for a mix of buying and selling, something that Red Sox fans are surely familiar with. In 2022, the club was hovering around .500 as the deadline approached. Then-CBO Chaim Bloom traded Christian Vázquez to the Astros for Wilyer Abreu and Enmanuel Valdéz in the most clearcut “sell” move but also held onto impending free agents Nathan Eovaldi, Xander Bogaerts, Michael Wacha, Rich Hill and J.D. Martinez, while “buying” by acquiring Tommy Pham from the Reds and Eric Hosmer from the Padres.

That plan didn’t work out in the short term, as the Sox slid further back in the race down the stretch and also struggled in 2023, which led to Bloom being fired and replaced by Breslow. The Vázquez deal looks better in hindsight with Abreu becoming a valuable contributor while Valdez has served a multi-positional role on the club, but the hindsight also cuts both ways as the decision to not trade the other candidates looks unwise now.

Given the frustration of that deadline, perhaps it’s refreshing that Breslow is declaring that he will lean into one camp or the other, though he still hasn’t decided between the two paths. The club is 49-40 and currently holding the final Wild Card spot in the American League, with teams like the Royals, Astros and Rays not far behind. As Breslow mentioned, the results in the next few weeks will help him make his decision on how to play his cards prior to the deadline.

If the Sox remain in a playoff spot, it seems fair to expect Breslow will pick the buyer lane and he gave some clues as to what he might be looking to do in that scenario. He used the “You can never have too much pitching” cliché and also mentioned a right-handed bat as a possibility.

“You can never have too much pitching. You’re always an injury away or, a handful of unfortunate outings away from being in a hole and, at times when you don’t have starting pitching depth to get through the second half of the season, that places a pretty significant burden on a bullpen,” Breslow said of the logic of looking for pitching. In terms of the offense, he says that the club is “also pretty left-handed heavy (from an offensive standpoint). The chance to maybe look to add some right-handed offense could make sense.”

The Sox currently have a rotation consisting of Tanner Houck, Nick Pivetta, Brayan Bello, Kutter Crawford and Josh Winckowski. Houck was quite dominant earlier in the season but his results have slipped a bit in recent weeks. He had an earned run average of 1.91 after his outing on June 6 but a 5.19 ERA over his five most recent starts. That could be random variation but it’s also possible that there’s some fatigue setting in since his tally of 111 innings this year is already a personal best at the big league level. Winckowski and Crawford are somewhat similar, as neither has gone much beyond the 130-inning range before. Bello has a 5.19 ERA while Pivetta has good strikeout/walk ratios but with ongoing home run problems keeping his ERA above 4.00.

Overall, the rotation has been a strength this year, as Boston starters have a collective 3.59 ERA that is seventh-best in the majors. But there are some question marks in there and the depth isn’t amazing. That’s thanks in part to Lucas Giolito, Garrett Whitlock and Chris Murphy all requiring season-ending UCL surgery. Chase Anderson is in the bullpen as a long man but has a 4.89 ERA despite a very lucky .203 batting average on balls in play. Bryan Mata is on a rehab assignment but has mostly been pitching in stints of two to three innings. Brandon Walter has been on the injured list all year. Cooper Criswell has been pretty good this year but Brad Keller has had fairly tepid results.

All told, there would be plenty of sense in adding to that group, especially if any of their current rotation members are going to hit any kind of workload limits. Cora recently spoke to McAdam for a piece at MassLive about providing breathers to the club’s starters, though those plans haven’t been finalized yet. And as Breslow mentioned, an injury could happen at any time and increase the need. Some pitchers that could be available at the deadline include Garrett Crochet, Erick Fedde, Tyler Anderson, Griffin Canning, Yusei Kikuchi, Cal Quantrill, Austin Gomber and Trevor Rogers, among others.

As for the lineup, as Breslow said, it skews left-handed. Tyler O’Neill, Connor Wong and Ceddanne Rafaela are the only right-handed hitters on the club who have stepped to the plate 180 times or more this year. Getting another righty in there could balance things out but the most obvious spot to upgrade would be first base and the club could have Triston Casas coming back. “You go around position-by-position and you look at where we haven’t gotten the production that, that we would need,” Breslow said. “And obviously Triston is a huge loss that we need to overcome, but it seems like his rehab is going and we would expect him back.”

The Sox have received a tepid slash of .226/.316/.384 from the first base slot this year, which translates to a 94 wRC+ that is 19th-best in the league. That includes strong work from Casas, who slashed .244/.344/.513 in 22 games before landing on the injured list due to torn cartilage in his midsection. Dominic Smith has taken most of the playing time in the absence of Casas but has hit just .227/.327/.355. Both Smith and Casas are lefties, so the return of the latter wouldn’t change the lefty-righty balance but it should nonetheless upgrade the overall offense if Casas is healthy and back to his old self. Casas has not yet begun a rehab assignment but is taking dry swings and could progress to hitting off a tee this week, per Alex Speier of the Boston Globe on X.

If the Sox try to get another righty bat onto the roster regardless, some of the potential candidates would include Luis Robert Jr., Taylor Ward, Brent Rooker, Justin Turner, Danny Jansen and others, with other clubs perhaps pivoting to selling in the coming weeks and making other bats available.

As for whether the Sox could take on money at the deadline, Breslow was optimistic on that front. “Anytime that I’ve been around,” he said, “or been aware of this team being in contention, playing meaningful games, staring down a potential playoff run, the resources have been there. I don’t anticipate this even going any differently.”

Per the payroll data at Cot’s Baseball Contracts, the Sox were among the biggest spenders in the league for most of this century but have pulled on the reins more recently. As recently as 2019, they had the top payroll in the majors but came into this year 12th with an Opening Day mark of $171MM. For competitive balance tax purposes, the club’s number is currently at $208MM per the calculations of Cot’s and $218MM in the eyes of Roster Resource.

The lowest tier of the CBT is $237MM this year, so the Sox should have ample room to take on money even if they want to stay under that line. Though that’s also contingent on Breslow’s framing of the club’s willingness to spend real dollars being correct.

Reds Sign Tony Kemp To Minor League Contract

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The Reds brought back Tony Kemp on a minor league contract. The move was announced by Cincinnati’s Triple-A team in Louisville, where the second baseman/left fielder has been assigned.

It’s the second time this year that Kemp has signed a non-roster deal with the Reds. He first joined the organization in February. The Vanderbilt product played in eight Spring Training games with Cincinnati. He didn’t make the team and was granted his release. A week later, Kemp signed a big league deal with the Orioles that guaranteed him $1MM.

The veteran’s stay in Baltimore was fairly brief. Kemp appeared in five games before being designated for assignment in tandem with Jackson Holliday’s first big league call. Kemp inked a minor league deal with the Twins after being released by Baltimore. He appeared in 46 games for Minnesota’s Triple-A team, hitting .279/.358/.436 while striking out just 12.8% of the time. Kemp opted out of that contract last week and returned to free agency.

Cincinnati still doesn’t have a path to playing time at second base. Jonathan India went on a tear in June to reestablish himself as David Bell’s leadoff hitter. India was scratched from tonight’s starting lineup with a left knee contusion (h/t to Gordon Wittenmyer of the Cincinnati Enquirer), but there’s nothing to suggest that’s more than a day-to-day concern.

Barring an injury to India, Kemp’s better path to playing time is probably in left field. The Reds are shorthanded in the outfield at the moment. Jake Fraley is away from the team attending to a family matter. TJ Friedl, Nick Martini and Stuart Fairchild are all on the injured list. Kemp has more than 2100 innings of second base and left field experience at the MLB level. If the Reds were to call him up, they’d only be responsible for the prorated portion of the $740K minimum salary for any time he spends in the majors. The Orioles remain on the hook for the rest of his salary.

Giants Designate Nick Ahmed For Assignment

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The Giants announced a series of roster moves today, with left-hander Blake Snell as well as infielders Wilmer Flores and Thairo Estrada all reinstated from the injured list. One spot on the active roster was already opened when they traded outfielder Austin Slater to the Reds. They opened two more by optioning left-hander Kolton Ingram and designating shortstop Nick Ahmed for assignment. The latter move drops the 40-man roster count to 39.

Ahmed signed with San Francisco on a minor league deal early in Spring Training. The longtime Diamondback essentially took over for Brandon Crawford as a glove-first veteran shortstop. Ahmed hit well during exhibition play and made the roster, locking in a reported $1.5MM base salary in the process. He picked up the Opening Day nod at shortstop — the first time a player other than Crawford got that honor since Miguel Tejada back in 2011 — and went on to start 50 games overall.

As is typically the case with Ahmed, virtually all of his contributions came on defense. Statcast credited him as four runs better than average across 426 innings. Defensive Runs Saved was less bullish, grading him one run below par. He hit in the bottom third of the batting order and ran a .232/.278/.303 slash line with one homer over 172 plate appearances.

Ahmed is a two-time Gold Glove winner who has been one of the sport’s preeminent defensive shortstops throughout his career. While he’s still a good defender, his numbers have taken a step back from elite levels as he has gotten into his mid 30s. Ahmed has never been much of an offensive threat and has particularly struggled over the past few seasons. Since the start of the 2021 campaign, he owns a .222/.273/.330 line in a little more than 900 trips.

Estrada’s return from the IL will likely push Brett Wisely from second base to shortstop, at least against right-handed pitching. Righty hitting Tyler Fitzgerald is in the lineup tonight against Toronto southpaw Yusei Kikuchi. While the 25-year-old Wisely is stretched defensively at shortstop, he provides a higher offensive ceiling than Ahmed brought. Wisely owns a decent .278/.313/.421 slash through 135 plate appearances in his second MLB campaign.

The Giants have five days to trade Ahmed or place him on waivers. He has well over five years of MLB service time and would retain his entire salary if he clears waivers and becomes a free agent. A release is the likeliest outcome. Once Ahmed clears waivers, he could sign with another team for the prorated portion of the $740K minimum.

Meanwhile, Snell returns for his first MLB action in nearly six weeks. San Francisco’s late signing could hardly have gone worse to this point. Snell has battled groin issues throughout the year and been limited to six starts. Opponents have teed off on the defending NL Cy Young winner for a 9.51 earned run average through 23 2/3 innings. Snell will try to get his season on track when he takes on the Blue Jays this evening.

Dodgers Place Tyler Glasnow On Injured List

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The Dodgers announced that they have placed right-hander Tyler Glasnow on the 15-day injured list with lower back tightness. Righty Michael Petersen has been recalled in a corresponding move. Fabian Ardaya of The Athletic previously relayed word from manager Dave Roberts on X that Glasnow would be hitting the IL since his back tightened up on Sunday and Ardaya also tweeted about Petersen’s presence in the clubhouse. Per Jack Harris of the Los Angeles Times on X, the team is hoping it’s a minor issue and that Glasnow could be back shortly after the All-Star break.

Around the All-Star break, teams are generally more willing to give players a stint on the IL even for something small as it can allow the player to miss fewer games than otherwise. With the four-day break coming up next week, Glasnow might only miss a couple of turns through the rotation before returning.

It’s also possible that the Dodgers are using this minor issue and the break to simply get Glasnow a bit of rest. Due to some notable injuries earlier in his career, his career high for innings pitched in a major league season is the 120 frames he pitched with the Rays last year. He’s already at 109 innings here in 2024 and will surely set a new benchmark as long as he returns from this back issue in good form and avoids any other injury stints.

By and large, the Dodgers have seemed willing to pump the brakes on the regular season workloads of their pitchers with the aim of keeping everyone healthy for later in the year and into the postseason. They have been fairly committed to giving their starters more rest than other clubs, often deploying bullpen games or spot starts in order to keep their starters from getting overworked, and this may be part of that as well.

Glasnow’s results have been strong on the year, as he has allowed 3.47 earned runs per nine frames. He has struck out 33.6% of batters faced while limiting walks to a 6.8% clip. He’s also kept 48.2% of balls in play on the ground. Despite those grounders, the home runs have been an issue, with 14% of his fly balls leaving the yard. That’s above the 11.2% league average this year but below Glasnow’s career rate of 15.5%.

In the meantime, the club will have to navigate the next portion of their schedule without those contributions. Justin Wrobleski just came up to make a spot start but is still with the club, so perhaps he will stick around to help cover for Glasnow in the rotation alongside James Paxton, Bobby Miller, Gavin Stone and Landon Knack. The club also has Ryan Yarbrough on the roster for some multi-inning relief work. Kyle Hurt is on optional assignment while prospect River Ryan is in Triple-A but not on the 40-man roster.

Fairly or unfairly, Glasnow has reputation for being injury prone but there’s nothing at this point to suggest this is anything more than a precautionary move. The Dodgers are 7.5 games up on the Padres in the West and, as mentioned, have been on the precautionary side with their pitchers all year.

Nonetheless, the constant rotating of pitchers on and off the IL will be an interesting situation to monitor. Significant rotation injuries seemed to undercut the club in the postseason last year. Currently, the club has Glasnow, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Clayton Kershaw, Walker Buehler, Tony Gonsolin, Dustin May and Emmet Sheehan all on the injured list. Sheehan is done for the year after undergoing Tommy John surgery in May and Gonsolin is unlikely to come back this season with his own Tommy John procedure having taken place at the start of September last year.

But the others are all candidates to return at some point in the second half, joining the current rotation mix. Even if a few of those guys suffer setbacks, the Dodgers should have more healthy rotation options in October than they did at that time last year.

Fantasy Baseball: Incoming Prospect Power

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Hello friends.

We're not yet to the MLB-sanctioned halfway mark but we are past that point going by games played. The biggest prospect names of the preseason have mostly made their way to the bigs but much like time remains undefeated, so too are there always more prospects.

Going by the questions in my weekly chat here at MLBTR (every Monday at 12 pm EST), much attention remains focused on our ever-changing answer of "Who's next?" Who are the next big prospects to get called up but also who are the ones that maybe my league-mates might not be paying attention to? And when?

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Astros Seeking Rotation Help, First Base Upgrade

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The Astros’ recent hot streak has positioned Houston as a clear buyer heading into the July 30 trade deadline. At 46-44 (including 13-4 over their past 17 games), they’re two games back of the division-leading Mariners and 3.5 back in the Wild Card hunt. Among their deadline targets, per the New York Post’s Jon Heyman, are at least one starting pitcher and an extra bat — ideally a first baseman. Heyman calls D-backs first baseman Christian Walker the Astros’ preferred target, though it’s not yet clear whether Arizona will sell any veterans heading into the deadline.

The 33-year-old Walker would be one of the most impactful bats on the market — if the Diamondbacks ultimately end up selling. That’s far from certain right now. Arizona is all but buried in the NL West, where the Dodgers hold a commanding 7.5-game lead over the second-place Padres and a 10-game lead over the D-backs themselves. The Snakes, however, are only two and a half games behind the Padres for the final National League Wild Card spot. They’re three and a half games back of the Cardinals, who hold the second Wild Card spot at the moment.

If the Diamondbacks were to fall out of the race, it stands to reason that Walker would at least be available. The slugging, slick-fielding first baseman is a clear qualifying offer candidate, so Arizona wouldn’t necessarily be obligated to move him, as Walker could net them a draft pick if he turns down a QO and signs elsewhere. But Walker is hitting .265/.337/.507 with 22 homers this season and carries a stout .253/.332/.491 slash with 91 homers in 1721 plate appearances dating back to Opening Day 2022. He’s won a Gold Glove in each of the past two seasons as well. That type of plus offense and defense would make him one of the most in-demand players on the summer trade market.

That’s especially true for an Astros club that has gotten virtually nothing out of its first basemen this season. Houston already released Jose Abreu midway through a three-year, $58.5MM contract — a move that underscores the team’s urgency to turn things around. Jon Singleton has batted just .243/.339/.366 in 233 plate appearances while playing poor defense. Houston’s need for an alternative option is clear, and the team is clearly reluctant to give outfield prospect Joey Loperfido any time at first base (at least in the majors).

As for the team’s rotation, that’s been an area of need for much of the season — though help could be on the horizon. The ’Stros lost both Cristian Javier and Jose Urquidy to UCL surgery earlier this summer. JP France had shoulder surgery recently. They’ve seen both Justin Verlander (twice, including currently) and Framber Valdez require trips to the injured list. The only healthy starters on Houston’s roster at the moment are Valdez, Ronel Blanco, Hunter Brown and rookie Spencer Arrighetti. Swingman Shawn Dubin made a start against the Twins recently but was hit hard.

The Astros are hoping to have Verlander back sooner than later, however, and righty Luis Garcia is on a rehab assignment right now as he finishes up his rehab from last May’s Tommy John procedure. Lance McCullers Jr. could join the staff in the season’s second half as well. Still, Houston starters rank 21st in MLB with a 4.37 ERA, and that includes some solid work out of Javier before his UCL injury.

Even if the Astros are planning to get some combination of Verlander, Garcia and McCullers back for the stretch run, it’s possible injuries and workload concerns further impact the situation. Blanco didn’t pitch in 2020, pitched just 45 innings in 2021, 51 innings in 2022 and 125 1/3 frames last year. He’s already at 96 innings pitched. Arrighetti is within 40 innings of the 124 2/3 frames he tossed a year ago. McCullers hasn’t pitched since 2022. Garcia tossed only 27 innings last year before surgery.

There’s good sense to Houston adding some depth and stability, even if it’s not necessarily a top-tier arm who’d slot into a theoretical playoff rotation. Doing so would lessen the reliance on currently injured arms in the season’s second half and safeguard against further injuries.

One factor to consider in any Astros trade scenarios is one of salary. General manager Dana Brown said early in the 2023-24 offseason that he didn’t expect to have much financial flexibility. Houston still spent over the winter, most notably on Josh Hader’s $95MM contract, but that only further raises the question of how much flexibility the team has this summer.

Per RosterResource, Houston is right at the $257MM threshold for the second tier of luxury tax penalization. There’s no major penalty for crossing into tier two — just a hike in the tax rate itself — and it’s unlikely the Astros would add another $20MM and push themselves up to the third tier of penalty (where their top pick in the ’25 draft would be pushed back 10 places). But Houston has only paid the luxury tax twice under owner Jim Crane, and the team has never trotted out a higher payroll than its current 2024 outlay. Time will tell how much Crane is willing to add, but it’s doubtful Brown and his group will be given a proverbial blank check when shopping this month.

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