The Orioles announced a number of roster moves just before today’s series opener against the Yankees. Third baseman Jordan Westburg and catcher Gary Sánchez have each landed on the 10-day injured list. Westburg’s placement, which is retroactive to April 27, is due to a left hamstring strain. Sánchez is battling right wrist inflammation. The O’s selected third baseman Emmanuel Rivera and catcher Maverick Handley onto the MLB roster in their places. Baltimore also confirmed the Walter Pennington waiver claim which MLBTR had reported this afternoon. They needed to create two openings on the 40-man roster, which they did by transferring Grayson Rodriguez and Colton Cowser to the 60-day injured list.
It continues a frustrating start to the season for Westburg. He made the All-Star game behind a .264/.312/.481 showing a season ago. He’s been out to a much slower pace this year, posting a .217/.265/.391 slash through 23 games. Westburg has hit four homers, but a drop in his hard contact rates have contributed to a mediocre .242 average on balls in play. He had a stretch of seven consecutive hitless games during the middle of the month. He’d begun to turn things around, with hits in six of his last seven, before hamstring discomfort kept him out of Sunday’s lineup.
Ramón Urías has drawn into the lineup at the hot corner over the past few days. He’ll take over as the starting third baseman while Westburg is on the shelf. Urías is a good depth infielder. He won a Gold Glove a few seasons ago and has shown himself to be a slightly above-average hitter over parts of six seasons. He has raced out to a .317/.386/.400 start this year, drawing eight walks against 11 punchouts over 70 trips to the plate.
Rivera comes up to join Jorge Mateo as multi-positional infielders on Brandon Hyde’s bench. It’s his first major league call of the season. Baltimore had outrighted the defensive specialist off their 40-man roster during the offseason. He accepted a minor league assignment and has appeared in 17 games with Triple-A Norfolk. Rivera is batting .308/.370/.338 with plus contact skills but minimal power (two doubles and no homers) across 73 plate appearances.
A veteran of parts of four MLB seasons, Rivera has suited up for four teams at the highest level. That includes a productive 27-game stint with the Orioles late last year. His overall offensive track record is fairly modest, as he owns a career .244/.306/.369 batting line. He has above-average marks for his third base defense. He’s out of options, so the Orioles would need to DFA him again if they want to take him off the big league roster at any point.
Baltimore also makes a change behind the plate. Sánchez has worked as Adley Rutschman’s backup after signing an $8.5MM free agent deal. He has started 10 games — nine at catcher and once as the designated hitter — without making an impact. Sánchez has three hits, all singles, with one walk and 12 strikeouts across 35 plate appearances. His injury opens the door for Handley’s major league debut.
A Stanford product, Handley was selected in the sixth round of the 2019 draft. The righty-hitting catcher owns a .224/.342/.344 line over parts of six minor league seasons. Handley’s offensive upside is limited by middling power, but he’s a very patient hitter who has worked a lot of walks. He went unselected in last winter’s Rule 5 draft but has been hitting well in Norfolk to begin the season. Handley owns a .346/.433/.558 slash through 15 games. His broader minor league numbers suggest he’s unlikely to carry anything like that over against MLB pitching, but he should provide a reasonably high-floor backup behind Rutschman as long as Sánchez is out of action.
The IL transfers for Rodriguez and Cowser are essentially procedural moves. They backdate to the time of their initial IL placements in late March. Rodriguez opened the season on the shelf with elbow inflammation and was shut back down after sustaining a mild lat strain. He’s still a few weeks from throwing and probably down into June or July. Cowser broke his left thumb diving into first base during the first week of the season. That came with an initial 6-8 week timetable. There haven’t been any recent updates on his status, but the O’s determined he wouldn’t be ready for MLB action before the final few days of May at the earliest.
Surprising they didn’t call up Mayo.
Mayo has been inconsistent at Norfolk plus has 5 errors last I checked. Also they are paying Rivera a guaranteed $1MM salary so that may play into it.
Somewhat surprised myself, even though he isn’t exactly lighting the world on fire in Norfolk and hasnt produced in his cup of coffee in the majors. The O’s offense has been pretty terrible outside a bright spot or two. Realistically the guy doesn’t carry too much trade value either so eventually you have to give him a chance. Would’ve thought it would be when there was another position player injury but what do I know?
No it’s not. He is just starting to heat up a bit, but they are not calling him up for an injury – you call him up to stay. This is exactly what Rivera is there for.
They’re holding Mayo
The Orioles season has gone about as badly as possibly so far. This past offseason was the time to open up the checkbook and make a big trade or two. What they did simply wasn’t enough to take them to the next level. They easily could have traded for guys like Crochet or Luzardo, easily could have signed a couple top tier free agents, and so on. Instead they replaced Corbin Burnes with Charlie Morton, and didn’t do much else. I’d be quite unhappy if I was an Orioles fan right now.
Who did you want the Orioles to sign?
Should’ve signed burnes or if not him then someone like Flaherty
Or could’ve traded for a starter like Castillo or luzardo
yeah, the Mariners were eager to trade him esp when they started to take on injuries to their starting rotation. boy did the O’s miss out when the M’s traded Castillo.
Wait, he wasn’t traded?
Wait, Burnes didn’t accept Baltimore’s higher AAV offer to sign near his family and new twins?
Huh. I was huge fan of getting Luzardo and I do wish that the O’s could have him. But even that wasnt a slam dunk trade with his injuries last season. he has done well so that’s a miss but the other two above really aren’t worth wishing over, that’s rotisserie baseball and not reality.
Congrats Maverick! Hyped he’s getting a chance.
He deserves it. He just keeps working. Hope he takes advantage of the opportunity
There should be a Goose Goslin joke in there somewhere.
Mayo hasn’t been playing well enough at Norfolk this season to be starting at 3B over Urias, and it’s better for his development to play every day at Norfolk than to be a bench player with the Orioles. Rivera is better suited for the bench and occasional 3B starts. And Basallo wasn’t about to be brought up just to be Adley’s backup.
All true but Baltimore should have traded Mountcastle before the season and O’Hearn by this trade deadline. If their front office doesn’t want to spend, they need to get talent back for expiring contracts like Tampa and Cleveland.
They don’t need to trade o’hearn yet since basallo (the lefty future 1st baseman) won’t be ready until 2026
But mountcastle is about to become expendable with mayo coming
Maybe even westburg too with Holliday behind
O’s better turn it around soon… season catches up quick and the division is unforgiving.
Hyde should’ve been canned at the end of last season.
How do the O’s not call up Mayo with Westburg going on the IL? Emmanuel Rivera will really help the sputtering offense
Even if he’s not lighting Triple A up, give him a shot
Instead of yanking him up and down, I’m glad that the O’s are going to let let Mayo find his way in Norfolk first. I think his cup of coffee last year was bitter. I’d like to see his confidence up before we throw him in the fire when he’s even struggling in AAA.
$1MM is chump change in the MLB. I think Baltimore paid Tony Kemp $1MM for like 5 games of good vet locker room vibes last year.
The O’s injuries are just insane – it’s like the Rays a couple of years ago. There’s nothing you can do but wait it out and hope they have a shot when guys come back but that seems unlikely.
You can’t blame Hyde for this start, but this stretch has really highlighted his weaknesses. His in game decision making is just so weak but the last two years talent repeatedly bailed him out. He just can’t think 2 moves ahead and it’s as if he decides before the game starts what moves he’ll make regardless of game situations.
He also seems so uptight I think it impacts the team. Maybe the blessing of this disastrous start will be a fresh look in the dugout
Okay get this logic: my name is Mike Elias and I don’t draft pitchers with my high picks. I am also loathe to sign free agent pitchers to long term contracts (the Burnes offer notwithstanding, but could it have been offered knowing he was going to reject it?) On top of those two key points, for the most part I like to sit on my (plethora of) hitting prospects and won’t trade them for pitching. Okay so given those three proclivities, something has to give if you want to have any semblance of a competent pitching staff. So what’s next Mike? You’ve boxed yourself into a corner due to your ironclad stubbornness in regard to acquiring pitching talent.