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Astros Reinstate Kyle Tucker From Injured List

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The Astros have reinstated outfielder Kyle Tucker from the 60-day injured list. Infielder Zach Dezenzo has been optioned to Triple-A in order to open an active roster spot. Left-hander Parker Mushinski has been designated for assignment to create room on the 40-man. Chandler Rome of The Athletic was among those to relay the moves on X.

Tucker got out to a brilliant start this season, hitting 19 home runs in 60 games while walking more than he struck out. He slashed .266/.395/.584 for a wRC+ of 175 despite a subpar .245 batting average on balls in play. On June 3, that wRC+ was third in the majors behind Aaron Judge and Juan Soto despite some poor treatment from the baseball gods.

But it was on that June 3 date that Tucker began a strange saga. He fouled a ball of his shin and landed on the 10-day injured list. The club continued to described his injury as a “deep bruise of the bone” or a “shin contusion,” all while seeming to expect him to make a quick return. His absence turned to weeks and then months as fans continued to wonder how a simple bruise could lead to such an extended absence.

Just a few days ago, Rome reported that Tucker had suffered a fracture, despite continued denials from general manager Dana Brown. After that report came out, Brown and Tucker both admitted that the player had indeed suffered a fracture.

Though the reasons for that obfuscation aren’t clear, the larger point is that Tucker is now back. He didn’t go on a rehab assignment and is in the designated hitter slot tonight, so perhaps the club is easing him back after a long layoff. Maybe he will experience some rust but he will obviously be a huge boon to the Astros if he can get anywhere near his pre-injury form.

Despite the lineup boost, he will give the club a bit less lineup flexibility if he stays in that DH slot. Yordan Alvarez has been the DH more than anyone else but he will perhaps have to play left field more regularly. It will also be harder to put Alex Bregman in there, as he has been battling a minor elbow issue of late. The club also likes to have Yainer Diaz as the DH sometimes when Victor Caratini is behind the plate, keeping Diaz’s bat in the lineup. Perhaps that will happen less often as a result as well.

The outfield group currently consists of Alvarez, Jake Meyers and Ben Gamel, with Chas McCormick and Jason Heyward also in the mix. Whenever Tucker is ready to take the field again, he will push into that group and take some of their playing time, but also free up the DH spot once again.

Mushinski, 28, could perhaps join a new club for the first time in his career. He was drafted by the Astros in 2017 and was added to their 40-man roster in 2022. He has served as a frequently-optioned depth arm for them since then. He has tossed 33 major league innings over those three campaigns with a 5.45 earned run average. His 8.1% walk rate and 45.2% ground ball rate are close to average but he’s only struck out 17.4% of batters faced.

His minor league work has been more impressive. In that same three-year span, he has tossed 114 2/3 innings for Triple-A Sugar Land, putting up a 3.30 ERA despite that club playing in the hitter-friendly Pacific Coast League. He has a 26.7% strikeout rate and 10.7% walk rate in that sample.

The Astros will have to put Mushinski on waivers in the coming days. He can still be optioned for what remains of this year but will be out of options next season. If he does get claimed, he has less than two years of service time and can therefore be controlled for five seasons beyond this one. If he were to pass through waivers unclaimed, he wouldn’t have the right to elect free agency since he has never been previously outrighted and has less than three years of service time.

Phillies Place Alec Bohm On Injured List

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The Phillies placed third baseman Alec Bohm on the 10-day injured list due to a left hand strain, per a team announcement, retroactive to September 3. Fellow infielder Buddy Kennedy is up from Triple-A Lehigh Valley to take his spot on the active roster.

Bohm hasn’t played in a game since August 29, when he departed due to left hand discomfort. X-rays that day were negative, per Todd Zolecki of MLB.com (X link), and it seems the club was hoping for a recovery with a few days off. But it appears that he hasn’t bounced back as hoped. Even though he’s already been out of action for a week, he’ll have to miss at least a week more as IL statements can only be backdated by three days.

The Phils aren’t in any danger of missing the playoffs, so they have some wiggle room to be cautious. Their 84-56 record is tied with the Dodgers for best in the National League and has the Phils eight games ahead of Atlanta and the Mets in the East division. They’re also three games up on the Central-leading Brewers, with a bye through the Wild Card round on the line there, as only two of three division winners get to skip the first round.

The games are still meaningful but they won’t be life-or-death situations, so they can afford to give Bohm a little breather and see how he responds with another week of rest. Their lineup will be doubly shorthanded for a while, as they also put outfielder Austin Hays on the IL yesterday due to a kidney infection. It’s unclear how long the club expects to be without Hays, but they will be missing a pair of regulars for the time being, though the Phils will surely be hoping that both are back before the postseason.

Kody Clemens, Edmundo Sosa and Weston Wilson have all seen some time at the hot corner during Bohm’s recent absence, so manager Rob Thomson will have some options in setting his lineups going forward, with Kennedy now in the mix as well. In the outfield, Nick Castellanos, Brandon Marsh and Johan Rojas figure to get most of the playing time, with Wilson and Cal Stevenson also outfield-capable options for the skipper to consider.

Red Sox Designate Rich Hill For Assignment

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The Red Sox announced Friday that they’ve designated left-hander Rich Hill for assignment. His spot on the roster will go to right-hander Luis Guerrero, whose contract has been selected from Triple-A Worcester.

Hill, 44, returned to the majors after sitting out the first two-thirds of the season. He’d said dating back to early in the offseason that he planned to wait until midway through the 2024 campaign before pursuing a return, taking the downtime to be with his family and, ideally, then being fresher for the finish to the current season. Hill began the 2023 season as a solid innings eater at the back of the Pirates’ rotation but faded considerably following a trade to the Padres.

Last month, Hill showcased for big league clubs and drew a wide array of scouts. He said at the time he felt he was ready to throw five innings and jump right onto a big league mound. The grizzled southpaw signed a minor league deal with the Red Sox — incredibly, his eighth career free-agent deal with Boston — and was indeed up in the majors after just one Triple-A appearance, wherein he tossed a pair of shutout innings.

The Sox didn’t plug Hill into the rotation, instead opting to use him in the bullpen. His first two outings could scarcely have gone better. He tossed 2 2/3 perfect innings, fanning three opponents. Over his next two appearances, Hill was tagged for a combined two runs on a homer and three walks. He fanned another two batters along the way. Overall, Hill pitched just 3 2/3 innings during his latest Red Sox run, logging a 4.91 ERA with five strikeouts and three walks.

Now that Hill has been designated, he’ll head to waivers. He’d be ineligible for a new club’s playoff roster if he’s claimed, though it’s at least somewhat feasible that a postseason contender seeking some pitching depth could still make a low-risk pickup and plug him into one of the final spots on its staff. If not, Hill can head to Worcester to continue pitching in Triple-A or again become a free agent. It’s not entirely clear whether he’ll aim to continue pitching, and with his 45th birthday coming next March, it’s fair to wonder how long he intends to keep going. At the very least, Hill fanned one-third of the batters he faced during this brief Red Sox run (five of 15), so there’s some reason to believe he could still have a bit left in the tank.

Guerrero, 24, has had a nice season in Triple-A, pitching to a 3.31 with a huge 33.1% strikeout rate but also a bloated 13.4% walk rate in 54 1/3 innings. MLB.com ranks him 28th among Sox farmhands, touting a fastball that sits 96-98 mph and reaches 100 mph at times. He complements that pitch with a splitter and slider. Guerrero throws hard and misses bats in bunches, but like so many young flamethrowers, his effectiveness is undercut at times by shaky command. This year’s 13.4% walk rate for Guerrero is an exact match for his career rate across all minor league levels combined.

Nationals Claim Michael Rucker, Designate Travis Blankenhorn

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The Nationals announced Friday that they’ve claimed right-hander Michael Rucker off waivers from the Phillies and opened a spot on the 40-man roster by designating infielder/outfielder Travis Blankenhorn for assignment. Rucker was optioned to Triple-A Rochester. Washington’s 40-man roster remains at capacity.

The 30-year-old Rucker was designated for assignment by the Phillies earlier this week when they selected Nick Nelson’s contract from Triple-A. The Phils picked Rucker up in a cash deal with the Cubs back in February after he’d been designated for assignment in Chicago. He never got into a game with the Phillies in the majors, instead spending most of the season on the 60-day injured list owing to an arterial vasospasm in his right hand. The Phils reinstated and optioned him prior to the trade deadline. He’s pitched 26 minor league innings this season and been tagged for a 6.58 ERA, with the bulk of the damage coming in Triple-A.

Grim as Rucker’s run-prevention has been, his 26.7% strikeout rate and 8.6% walk rate are both fine marks (particularly the former). He’s also kept the ball on the ground at a strong 45.2% clip. Rucker, however, has been plagued by an astronomical .479 average on balls in play during his time with the IronPigs.

As recently as 2022, Rucker was a solid member of the Cubs’ bullpen. He pitched a career-high 54 2/3 innings and logged a 3.95 ERA with a 21.8% strikeout rate and 8.7% walk rate in that time. His followup effort in 2023 resulted in a more troubling 4.91 ERA in 40 2/3 frames, but his strikeout and walk numbers remained generally serviceable and his grounder rate spiked to a strong 51.4%. Overall, Rucker carries a 4.96 ERA in 123 1/3 innings as a major leaguer.

As for Blankenhorn, he’s spent the past two seasons as a depth option in the Nationals’ system, appearing in a combined 23 games and batting .145/.232/.210 in 69 trips to the plate. Those are obviously woeful numbers but come in a small sample; Blankenhorn popped 23 homers for the Nats’ Rochester affiliate last season while batting .262/.360/.517, and he’s tallied another 26 big flies in Triple-A this year while hitting .238/.322/.499.

Originally a third-round pick by the Twins back in 2015, Blankenhorn has bounced around the diamond in his pro career, seeing time at all of the non-shortstop infield positions and in both outfield corners. He’s a career .154/.230/.264 hitter in exactly 100 big league plate appearances but carries a more productive .254/.343/.489 slash and 74 homers in 363 Triple-A games. This is Blankenhorn’s final minor league option season. He’ll presumably clear waivers and soon become a minor league free agent, whether by rejecting an outright assignment or by exercising that right at season’s end.

Marlins Outright Ali Sanchez, Kent Emanuel

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Marlins catcher Ali Sanchez and left-hander Kent Emanuel both went unclaimed on waivers following their recent DFAs and have been assigned outright to Triple-A Jacksonville, per the team’s transaction log at MLB.com. Both players can reject the assignment in favor of free agency if they choose, as is their right as players who’ve been previously outrighted in their careers.

Sanchez, 27, appeared in 31 games with the Fish and tallied 96 plate appearances. It was his third season with at least some big league action and by far the most playing time he’s received in the majors to date. Miami picked him up in a cash deal with the Cubs after Sanchez hit .240/.338/.388 in 41 games with Chicago’s Triple-A affiliate, but the journeyman backstop only managed a .167/.211/.190 batting line during his brief run with the Marlins.

While Sanchez hasn’t hit in 110 big league plate appearances, he’s played in parts of five Triple-A seasons and owns a lifetime .270/.344/.400 batting line at that level. As far as catchers go, that’s solid production, particularly given his massive 40% caught-stealing rate and typically above-average framing marks in Triple-A (via Baseball Prospectus). Even if Sanchez accepts his assignment to Jacksonville, he can become a minor league free agent at season’s end. He should draw plenty of interest as a depth option on a minor league deal this winter, given his defensive skills and offensive track record at the Triple-A level.

Emanuel, 32, has now been designated for assignment and outrighted to Jacksonville a stunning five times this season by the Marlins. He’s pitched 17 2/3 innings in the majors and yielded a 6.62 ERA over his five stints with Miami this season. He’s had similar results in Jacksonville, recording a 6.15 ERA, 19.2% strikeout rate and 5.8% walk rate in 45 1/3 innings.

Some may wonder why Emanuel continues to stick with the Marlins organization, but the two parties clearly have a good relationship and understanding as to how he’ll be utilized. And while a massive slate of five DFAs in a single season doesn’t exactly sound appealing, Emanuel is a journeyman lefty who has picked up 46 days of major league service time and pay this season. That’s $183K on top of his minor league earnings this season.

It’s not exactly uncommon to see minor league veterans in this type of up-and-down role willing to ride the DFA/outright carousel, knowing full well that they’ll be at or near the top of the list the next time the club needs a short-term fresh arm. The Marlins used lefty Devin Smeltzer in a similar role last year, and we’ve seen other teams like the Guardians (Anthony Gose) and Yankees (Ryan Weber, David Hale) adopt the approach over the years.

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Brian Cashman On Yankees’ Dominguez/Verdugo Decision

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Since a blistering start to the season, highlighted by a 21-7 showing in May, the Yankees have played at a sub-.500 pace, recording a 40-41 record dating back to the beginning of June. They’re 1-3 since the calendar flipped to September and have dropped seven of their past 11 games. A lineup anchored by Aaron Judge and Juan Soto has remained among the more productive units in the game, but the Yankees’ other outfield spot has been a weak point in the lineup for much of the season. Top prospect Jasson Dominguez is healthy and awaiting a big league opportunity as he rips through Triple-A pitching, but the Yankees have thus far stuck with struggling veteran Alex Verdugo — much to the chagrin of the fan base.

General manager Brian Cashman addressed the subject today, telling reporters that if Dominguez were to be called up to the majors, he’d need regular at-bats the team does not currently believe to be available (link via the New York Post’s Greg Joyce). Cashman suggested that Dominguez is “doing everything he needs to” in Triple-A at the moment but also pointed to recent improvement in Verdugo’s results.

“The evaluations that we’re having with our field staff and player development staff, front office staff, is just what is going to give us the best chance to win,” said Cashman. “As of right now, we’re staying pat with what we’ve got.”

It’s a frankly vexing stance for the GM to take, given the rate at which Verdugo has produced (or rather failed to do so) for the bulk of the season. Coming over in an offseason trade with the archrival Red Sox, Verdugo got out to a nice start in his Yankees tenure, hitting .267/.358/.446 through the end of April. Had he continued at or close to that pace, it’d be understandable and plenty defensible to say that the veteran Verdugo can’t simply be pushed aside. That hasn’t been the case. Dating back to May 1, Verdugo has posted an anemic .227/.276/.337 batting line. That’s 28% worse than league-average, by measure of wRC+ (72).

For much of that time, the Yankees didn’t have the luxury of even making a tough decision. Dominguez spent the early portion of the season rehabbing from Tommy John surgery performed last September. He was able to begin a rehab assignment in May and was optioned in June when that rehab window ended. At that point, Verdugo’s struggles hadn’t persisted much longer than a month. Judge and Soto were healthy and producing. There wasn’t a clear-cut path to an everyday role. Dominguez wound up suffering a fairly severe oblique strain in Triple-A — one that cost him more than six weeks of action.

Dominguez returned to action in late July, and since then has received all of one game in the big leagues — a quick look as the 27th man in this year’s Little League Classic, after which he was returned to Triple-A. Calls for the Yankees to swap out the veteran Verdugo have since mounted, and Dominguez’s torrid play with the Yankees’ top affiliate isn’t going to quell them anytime soon.

In 41 Triple-A games this season, Dominguez is sporting a hefty .313/.371/.497 batting line — 25% better than average in the Triple-A International League. After striking out in about a quarter of his minor league plate appearances last year, he’s cut that rate to 18.5% in Triple-A this season. Dominguez has been on a particularly potent heater over his past 20 games, slashing .375/.438/.613 with five home runs. Verdugo has turned in a .225/.260/.296 slash in that same time.

There’s no real service time gamesmanship at play here. Dominguez wouldn’t reach a full year of service time in 2024 even if he were called to the majors today. He’d also retain his rookie eligibility into the 2025 season as long as he spent fewer than 34 days on the active roster and accumulated fewer than 95 at-bats between now and the end of the regular season. However, as J.J. Cooper and Matt Eddy of Baseball America highlighted recently, Dominguez wouldn’t even be eligible to net the Yankees a draft pick under the CBA’s prospect promotion incentives, as one of the requirements for the PPI eligibility is having fewer than 60 days of MLB service. Dominguez already surpassed that total while on the major league injured list due to the aforementioned Tommy John surgery.

The Post’s Jon Heyman reported last night that there was a “spirited” debate among Yankees decision-makers on whether to call Dominguez to the majors this month and swap him into the lineup for Verdugo. The decision to keep Dominguez in the minors is hardly unanimous among the team’s decision-makers, per the report, with several Yankees execs strongly advocating for Dominguez’s promotion. However, both Cashman and manager Aaron Boone have faith in Verdugo’s abilities, Heyman writes.

On the one hand, the Yankees are a lock to reach the postseason whether they’re playing Verdugo or Dominguez every day. At 80-60, they’re tied with the Guardians for the fifth-best record in MLB. On the other, New York’s recent slide has also dropped them a half-game behind the Orioles for the division lead.

It’s debatable whether Dominguez would’ve shifted the Yankees’ fortune in any of their recent losses — he alone isn’t likely to have flipped the script in a four-run loss to Texas or a seven-run loss to St. Louis, for instance — but there’s no denying that the potential difference between Dominguez and Verdugo over the final three-plus weeks could prove pivotal in closing that half-game gap in the standings. That could be the difference between a Wild Card berth or a division-winning, first-round bye for the Yankees.

Dominic Smith Elects Free Agency

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First baseman Dominic Smith elected free agency rather than accept his outright assignment to Triple-A Louisville after being designated for assignment by the Reds, per the transaction log at MiLB.com. He can now sign with any club for the remaining three weeks of the regular season. However, Smith would not be postseason-eligible for a new club, and non-contenders may prefer to give those at-bats to a younger player who can be controlled beyond the current season. Smith, who has more than six years of MLB service, would become a free agent again at season’s end.

Smith’s time with the Reds proved quite brief. The 29-year-old appeared in only nine games and batted .192/.276/.269 in a tiny sample of 29 plate appearances before he was designated for assignment and passed through waivers unclaimed. The bulk of his 2024 season was spent in a Red Sox uniform. Boston signed Smith back in May after Triston Casas sustained a rib fracture and gave the longtime Mets first baseman 84 games and 278 plate appearances as their regular first baseman while Casas was shelved. Smith held his own with a .237/.317/.390 slash that was a bit below league-average in that time (96 wRC+), but the Sox moved on once Casas was healthy.

A former first-round pick (No. 11 overall) by the Mets, Smith long ranked among their top prospects prior to his debut and looked to be delivering on that status in 2019-20, when he hit .299/.366/.571 and belted 21 homers in a combined 396 plate appearances across those two seasons.

In the four seasons since that impressive showing, Smith’s bat has wilted. He admitted after the fact  that he’d tried to play through a small tear of the labrum in his right shoulder during his 2021 season, which understandably didn’t go well. An ankle injury the following season further hobbled Smith. His numbers in 2023-24 ticked back up a bit, but Smith’s offensive output in each of these past two seasons has nonetheless checked in below-average. Overall, since that potential 2019-20 breakout, Smith has slashed .241/.311/.360 between four teams (Mets, Nats, Red Sox, Reds).

The Opener: Marte, Guardians, Dodgers, Pitchers’ Duel

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As the final month of the regular season continues, here are three things we’ll be keeping an eye on around the baseball world headed into the weekend:

1, Marte nearing return:

The Diamondbacks have been without one of their stars since Ketel Marte went down with an ankle sprain around three weeks ago. Fortunately for fans in Arizona, it seems that absence will come to an end soon. MLB.com’s Injury Tracker indicates that Marte could return to action as soon as this weekend. It’s possible that Marte’s return will start with reps at DH rather than second base as the club eases their star back into regular duty.

Arizona has a firm grasp on a playoff spot at this point with a 79-62 record, but the club nonetheless figures to get a big boost from the return of Marte, who is slashing an incredible .298/.370/.560 with a wRC+ of 150 in 116 games this year. In his absence, the Snakes have relied on a platoon of Luis Guillorme and Kevin Newman at the keystone, though that partnership will continue for as long as Marte is used at DH — potentially pushing Joc Pederson and Josh Bell to spend more time on the bench.

2. Series Preview: Guardians @ Dodgers

Two of baseball’s best teams this year are set to square off in a three-game set over the weekend that could be a possible preview of the 2024 World Series. The Dodgers entered the season as the presumptive favorite not only in the NL West, but in baseball as a whole after an offseason spending spree that brought Shohei Ohtani, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Tyler Glasnow, and Teoscar Hernandez into the fold. By contrast, few expected the Guardians to be serious contenders after the club posted a 76-86 record last year and made almost no changes to their roster over the offseason. Even so, Cleveland’s 80-60 record gives them a four-game lead in the AL Central and the fifth-best record in MLB overall.

The Dodgers have mostly met their preseason expectations to this point despite lengthy absences from Yamamoto, Glasnow, and Mookie Betts while the Guardians have greatly exceeded expectations by establishing themselves as one of the best teams in the AL. As both clubs attempt to beat back a pair of divisions rivals nipping at their heels down the stretch and secure a bye through the first round of the postseason, the Guardians will send left-hander Matthew Boyd (2.38 ERA in four starts), veteran right-hander Alex Cobb (2.76 ERA in three starts), and youn righty Gavin Williams (4.55 ERA) to the mound at Dodger Stadium. The Dodgers haven’t formally announced their rotation for the series, but rookie Landon Knack (2.72 ERA in eight starts) is expected to start today’s game against Boyd, while right-handers Gavin Stone (3.53 ERA) and Jack Flaherty (3.01 ERA) would be on turn for the final two games.

3. Pitchers’ Duel in California:

Elsewhere in the NL West, two of the NL’s best hurlers face off. In Saturday’s game between the Giants and Padres at Petco Park, groundball specialist Logan Webb is set to take on strikeout artist Dylan Cease. Webb, a Giant for the entirety of his career to this point, has excelled this year with a 3.43 ERA and a 2.97 FIP in an NL-best 183 2/3 innings of work. This season has been more of the same for Webb, who has been among the league’s most consistent pitchers in recent years with a 3.16 ERA and 2.99 FIP in 740 1/3 innings of work since the start of the 2021 season.

Cease gets to his front-of-the-rotation production in an entirely different way. His groundball rate since 2021 is more than 20 points lower than that of Webb, but his strikeout rate (30.3%) is nearly ten points higher. Cease’s 3.62 ERA and 3.18 FIP in 164 innings of work this year aren’t far off from Webb, but his career has had far more ups and downs; Cease posted lackluster numbers in his final season with the White Sox last year that inflate his 3.56 ERA and 3.35 FIP in 690 2/3 innings of work since 2021. The two hurlers are set to face off tomorrow at 5:40pm local time.

Jerry Dipoto Expected To Continue As Mariners Baseball Ops President In 2025

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The Mariners’ second-half collapse led to a managerial change, but it doesn’t seem it’ll spur a shakeup at the top of the front office. Ryan Divish and Adam Jude of the Seattle Times report that Mariners’ ownership decided earlier this summer to retain president of baseball operations Jerry Dipoto. The report indicates that general manager Justin Hollander — the #2 in baseball operations — will also return.

It seems ownership made the decision not to change the front office at a time when the Mariners looked to be on their way to an AL West title. They got out to a strong start as the Astros and Rangers were struggling and jumped out to a big lead in the American League West. As of June 18, they had a ten-game lead, but things have turned sour since then. They have cooled as the Astros caught fire, so that Seattle now sits 4.5 games behind Houston in the division. It was amid this free fall that Servais was dismissed and replaced by Dan Wilson.

While the circumstances have changed for the worse, Divish and Jude write that Dipoto’s job status is not contingent on the team salvaging a now unlikely playoff berth. The Mariners have never been forthcoming with details on Dipoto’s contract. Divish and Jude suggest the sides might have quietly worked out an extension earlier in the year without announcing it publicly. According to the report, Hollander signed a multi-year extension when he was promoted to GM back in October 2022.

The upcoming season will be Dipoto’s 10th at the helm in Seattle. The M’s have made the playoffs once during his tenure. They snapped a 21-year playoff drought in 2022 and knocked out the Blue Jays in the Wild Card series. They were swept by the Astros in the Division Series. Seattle narrowly missed the postseason last year, ending just behind Houston and the Rangers in a tightly-contested AL West. They finished the season at 88-74.

While the M’s missed the postseason in two of the past three years, they won between 88 and 90 games in each. Expectations were understandably high coming into this season. Seattle has arguably the best starting rotation in the majors. While the front office was seemingly hamstrung by ownership’s payroll constraints that prevented them from making a huge free agent splash, the Mariners acquired Jorge Polanco, Mitch Garver, Mitch Haniger and Luke Raley in an effort to reshape the offense.

None of Garver, Polanco or Haniger have played up to expectations. Julio Rodríguez has slumped through the worst season of his career. Despite bringing in Randy Arozarena and Justin Turner at the deadline, Seattle’s offense has fallen flat. They entered play Thursday with a .217/.304/.365 team batting line. That’s unacceptable production even in MLB’s toughest home park for hitters. Their fortunes haven’t changed since the deadline. The M’s own a .213/.319/.350 slash going back to July 30.

Today’s win over Oakland pushed the Mariners back above .500 at 71-70. There’s a good chance they land above .500 for the fourth straight season, but a win total in the mid-80s would be an obvious disappointment. They’d need a huge 17-4 finish to match last season’s record. Winning 88 games again would probably have been enough to take the AL West in what has been a down year for the division. They’re very unlikely to get there, though, and they’d need a major slump from the Astros to avoid missing the playoffs again.

To Dipoto’s credit, there are plenty of positives to his tenure. Seattle has been one of the best pitching development organizations in the game. They hit on first-round selections of Logan Gilbert and George Kirby, while mid-round picks Bryce Miller and Bryan Woo have blossomed into high-quality arms. The M’s acquired and extended Luis Castillo while locking up Rodríguez as the face of the franchise on a deal that could span the better part of two decades. Even with Rodríguez’s down year, that’s probably not one the organization regrets.

Nevertheless, the bottom line results have not gotten the team into October with any kind of regularity. They rebuilt early in Dipoto’s tenure — probably the right call considering the team’s payroll outlook and thin farm system at the time — but they’ve been in win-now mode for at least the last four seasons. Barring a late push, they’ll only have one playoff appearance in that stretch.

Dipoto has been the sport’s most aggressive executive on the trade front. They’ll again head into the offseason needing to reshape the lineup. That should portend another trade-heavy winter in Seattle, one they hope will get them past Houston in Wilson’s first full season as manager.

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