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Archives for April 2025
Angels Select Michael Darrell-Hicks, Release Hans Crouse
The Angels announced a trio of roster moves, including the news that right-hander Michael Darrell-Hicks’ contract was selected from Triple-A Salt Lake. In corresponding moves, the Angels released right-hander Hans Crouse and optioned righty Caden Dana to Triple-A.
Darrell-Hicks wasn’t selected during his draft year in 2022, but he signed a free agent deal with the Angels and is now in the majors less than three years after his college career came to an end. The 27-year-old became a full-time reliever in 2024 and had a 2.60 ERA, 26.44% strikeout rate, and a tiny 4.98% walk rate over 62 1/3 combined innings at the Double-A and Triple-A levels. Most of that success came in Double-A as Darrell-Hicks’ ERA spiked upwards in the hitter-friendly Pacific Coast League, and the righty has a 4.15 ERA in four appearances and 4 1/3 innings of Triple-A ball this year.
MDH’s first taste of big league action will give the Halos a bit of extra bullpen depth. Dana threw 56 pitches in a three-inning relief outing on Friday, and Ryan Zeferjahn also made an early exit from Friday’s game with hamstring tightness. With two pitchers likely unavailable today, optioning Dana and calling up Darrell-Hicks gives Los Angeles a fresh arm to utilize in today’s game with the Guardians.
To add Darrell-Hicks to the 40-man roster, the Angels parted ways with Crouse, which is a little surprising given that the righty seemed to be facing an injury scare of his own. Crouse left a Triple-A outing on Thursday after just four pitches, and there hasn’t yet been any word on his status.
Crouse made his MLB debut in the form of two games with the Phillies in 2021, and didn’t return to the Show until he posted a 2.84 ERA over 25 1/3 relief innings for the Angels last season. His impressive bottom-line results were augmented by a strong 31.8% strikeout rate, though Crouse also had a 15.9% walk rate and some batted-ball luck in the form of a .231 BABIP. His control issues continued into Spring Training this year and might’ve cost Crouse a shot at the Opening Day roster.
A second-round pick for the Rangers in the 2017 draft, Crouse was a prospect of some note during his time in the Texas farm system, cracking the MLB Pipeline and Baseball America top-100 prospect rankings prior to the 2019 campaign. Crouse had big strikeout totals in the minors but his walk rate spiked big in 2023 before somewhat normalizing with Triple-A Salt Lake in 2024, which was his first year in the Angels’ organization. Assuming first and foremost that he is healthy, Crouse figures to draw some attention from a team interested in his ability to miss bats.
Braves Activate Sean Murphy, Designate Chadwick Tromp
The Braves announced that catcher Sean Murphy has been activated from the 10-day injured list. Fellow backstop Chadwick Tromp was designated for assignment to create space on Murphy on the active roster.
The moves are surprising on a couple of levels, firstly because Murphy played only three games during his Triple-A rehab assignment. Murphy was expected to spend the full nine innings behind the plate in another Triple-A game today and then likely get activated from the IL prior to Tuesday’s game with the Phillies, but the Braves instead opted to bring Murphy back a little early.
Murphy suffered a cracked left rib after he was hit by a pitch during a Spring Training game at the start of March. Given a 4-6 week recovery timeline, Murphy’s return falls squarely within that timeframe, so the fact that the Braves felt confident enough to forego Murphy’s last rehab game is a good sign that the catcher is back to full health.
Now entering his third season in Atlanta, Murphy is looking to bounce back from a dreadful 2024 campaign. Murphy was an All-Star in 2023, but an early-season oblique injury cost him most of the first two months of the 2024 season, and he never really got on track, leading to a .193/.284/.352 slash line over 264 plate appearances. The catcher’s hopes of a rebound year were then delayed by his rib injury, though he’ll end up missing only the first nine games of the Braves’ season.
Murphy hasn’t missed much, as the Braves are a dismal 1-8 over their first nine games Most of Atlanta’s starting lineup has gotten off to a cold start, so there’s an even greater need for Murphy to regain his 2023 form.
It appears as though the club will keep Drake Baldwin on the big league roster as Murphy’s backup, which is the other unexpected element of today’s news. Indications were that Baldwin would optioned back to Triple-A in order to get more regular playing time. Instead, the Braves chose to DFA Tromp, who is out of minor league options and must clear waivers in order for the Braves to move him to the minors.
Baldwin is hitting only .154/.241/.192 over his first 29 Major League plate appearances, so it isn’t as if the top prospect is forcing his way into continued playing time. It could be that the Braves plan to somewhat ease Murphy back into regular duty, thus leaving the door open for Baldwin to still get a good chunk of at-bats and try to acclimate himself against big league pitching.
Tromp has appeared in 28 games for the Braves since the start of the 2022 season, getting some spot duty in place of other catchers like Murphy, Travis d’Arnaud, and William Contreras. If Tromp clears waivers, he has the right to reject an outright assignment and elect free agency, since he has previously been outrighted in his career. It is possible he could explore other opportunities on the open market, but Tromp’s lack of minor league options somewhat limits his appeal to other teams looking for catching depth. The Braves have another veteran in Sandy Leon at Triple-A and just acquired Jason Delay earlier this week in a trade, so the club could be ready to move on from Tromp entirely.
Rockies Promote Chase Dollander
TODAY: The Rockies officially selected Dollander’s contract, and optioned Bradley Blalock to Triple-A in the corresponding move.
APRIL 4: The Rockies are going to promote their top pitching prospect, reports Patrick Lyons of Just Baseball. Right-hander Chase Dollander will make his major league debut when he starts for the club on Sunday. There’s already an opening on the 40-man roster, so the club will only need to make a corresponding active roster move.
Dollander, now 23, has been a hyped-up name for a while now. He put up big numbers for Tennessee and was ranked as one of the top players available in the 2023 draft. The Rockies selected him with the ninth overall pick and then signed him to a slot-value bonus of $5,716,900.
He made his professional debut last year in impressive fashion. He tossed 118 innings over 23 starts, going from High-A to Double-A in the process. He allowed just 2.59 earned runs per nine, striking out 33.9% of batters faced while giving out walks at a 9.4% clip.
Going into 2025, the industry consensus is that he’s one of the top prospects in the league. Baseball America currently lists him #7 overall and MLB Pipeline #24. FanGraphs had him at #12 to start the season, but with the now-graduated Dylan Crews as one of the guys ahead of him. ESPN had Dollander at #14, though also behind Crews. Keith Law of The Athletic was more bearish, putting Dollander down at #75, with concerns about some of his results in Tennessee.
The Rockies reportedly gave some consideration to having Dollander in the season-opening rotation. They sent him to Triple-A Albuquerque instead, where he made one start, allowing one earned run over four innings. The big league club started the season with just four games before their first off-day, having Kyle Freeland, Antonio Senzatela, Ryan Feltner and Germán Márquez start those.
Austin Gomber likely would have had a fifth spot but he started the season on the 15-day injured list with shoulder soreness. He made a rehab start for Albuquerque but was scratched from making a second due to inflammation in that shoulder, per Thomas Harding of MLB.com. Perhaps due to Gomber’s setback, Dollander will get an early-season call-up.
The big unknown will be how Dollander handles the challenges of pitching at Coors Field, the most hitter-friendly venue in the big leagues. Geoff Pontes of Baseball America believes Dollander is well-positioned to succeed, even though plenty of other talented arms have struggled there. Pontes points out that pitchers with low release heights, such as Dollander, have previously fared well at Coors. The piece also cites the spin efficiency of Dollander’s fastball, which sits between 96 and 98 miles per hour, as a factor that could work in his favor. In addition that fastball, he throws a changeup, a curveball and another breaking ball that is characterized as either a slider or a cutter by various sources.
If Dollander can thrive at Coors, he could become the most important arm in the rotation for their next competitive window. The club has been losing for a long time now but have seen some young players come up and establish themselves as building blocks, such as Ezequiel Tovar at shortstop and Brenton Doyle in center field.
In the rotation, there’s little long-term certainty. Márquez and Gomber are impending free agents while the contracts for Senzatela and Freeland are only guaranteed through 2026, with options for 2027. It’s possible the Rockies sign new deals with those pitchers but they’re all in their 30s now regardless. At 23 years old, Dollander could potentially be the rock of the group for many years to come, if everything breaks right.
Though he wasn’t on the Opening Day roster, he is getting called up early enough to potentially earn a full service year in 2025. A baseball season is 187 days long but a player needs only 172 days on the active roster or injured list to get a full year. If he’s not optioned down to the minors at any point, he would be on track to qualify for free agency after the 2030 campaign, though a notable optional assignment would push that trajectory by one year.
If he does stay up, the Rockies would be eligible to potentially receive an extra draft pick. The current collective bargaining agreement introduced measures to combat service time manipulation. One such measure is that a team can earn an extra draft if they promote a top prospect early enough to earn a full service year. To qualify, a player must be on two of the three Top 100 lists of BA, ESPN and MLB Pipeline. The player must then win Rookie of the Year or place in the top three of MVP or Cy Young voting in their pre-arbitration seasons.
Those will perhaps be factors later in the year. For now, one of the best young pitchers in the game is coming up to the majors. Facing big league hitters for the first time is always a fascinating challenge for any pitching prospect but the interest level is arguably even higher in this case, given the unique circumstances of Coors Field and Dollander’s potential importance to the franchise.
Photo courtesy of Rick Scuteri and Steven Branscombe, Imagn Images
Brewers Place Nestor Cortes On 15-Day IL Due To Flexor Strain
The Brewers announced that left-hander Nestor Cortes has been placed on the 15-day injured list due to a flexor strain in his throwing elbow. Southpaw Grant Wolfram was called up from Triple-A to take Cortes’ spot on the active roster.
This is now the second time in eight months that a flexor strain has sent Cortes to the IL, as a similar injury sidelined him last September when Cortes was still pitching with the Yankees. He was able to make it back for two appearances in the World Series, including his infamous relief outing in Game 1 that saw Cortes allow Freddie Freeman’s walkoff grand slam.
Brewers assistant GM Matt Kleine told reporters (including Curt Hogg of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel) that Cortes was feeling some elbow discomfort leading up to his last start, though Cortes still delivered six innings of shutout ball against the Reds on April 3. Kleine doesn’t think the flexor strain is a “long-term issue,” and Cortes himself told Hogg and company that his concern level is “pretty low.” A previous round of scans cleared Cortes to pitch three days ago, but Cortes said he’ll seek out a second opinion just out of due diligence.
Cortes is now the seventh starting pitcher on Milwaukee’s absurdly crowded injured list, as the Brewers have already just about reached critical mass for pitching health just over a week into the season. Tobias Myers and Aaron Ashby both sustained oblique strains during Spring Training, Aaron Civale made one regular-season start before a hamstring strain sent him to the IL, and Brandon Woodruff started the season on the 15-day IL as he continues his lengthy recovery from a shoulder surgery. In other longer-term absences, DL Hall is on the 60-day IL after suffering a lat strain this spring, and Robert Gasser is recovering from a Tommy John surgery last June.
Freddy Peralta now stands as the only healthy member of the Brewers’ projected rotation. Tyler Alexander, Elvin Rodriguez, and Chad Patrick (all swingmen or multi-inning relief options in an ideal world) comprise the makeshift rotation behind Peralta, and Rule 5 Draft pick Connor Thomas might now be called upon to make a start or two in Cortes’ absence, with Wolfram taking Thomas’ spot as a left-handed bullpen arm. The Brewers signed veteran Jose Quintana to provide more rotation depth at the start of March, but he is still building up his arm at Triple-A due to his late start to Spring Training.
Cortes was acquired as part of the biggest trade of the Brewers’ offseason, as Cortes, Caleb Durbin, and $2MM in cash considerations came from the Yankees for Devin Williams back in December. Both Cortes and Williams are pending free agents, but Milwaukee was able to save a little cash in dealing its star closer while also getting a new long-term infield piece and (in theory) a veteran arm to stabilize the rotation.
This injury to Cortes now possibly throws that plan out of whack, and the southpaw and the Brewers can only hope that the strain is as relatively minor as it seems. Between his last regular-season game in 2024 and Game 1 of the World Series, Cortes missed about five weeks, which would represent a pretty big chunk of the 2025 campaign if he needs a similar recovery period this time around.
Wolfram’s promotion is also worth noting, as the 28-year-old lefty is now on the verge of making his Major League debut. An 18th-round pick for the Rangers in the 2018 draft, Wolfram spent his entire career in the Texas farm system before inking a guaranteed deal with Milwaukee last December, putting him onto a 40-man roster for the first time. Wolfram had a 3.34 ERA, 25.6% strikeout rate, and 10.9% walk rate over 56 2/3 innings with Triple-A Round Rock in 2024, and his first two Triple-A outings for the Brewers have resulted in a 6.00 ERA over three innings.
Pirates Place Colin Holderman On 15-Day Injured List
The Pirates announced that right-hander Colin Holderman has been placed on the 15-day injured list due to a right knee sprain. Righty Chase Shugart has been called up from Triple-A in the corresponding move.
The nature or severity of Holderman’s knee issue isn’t known, but if he has been trying to pitch through discomfort, that might explain his unimpressive numbers to date this season. After giving up a run in an inning of work in yesterday’s 10-4 Pirates loss to the Yankees, Holderman’s ERA stands at an ungainly 9.64 over 4 2/3 frames, and he also has a 16% walk rate.
Naturally, this is a pretty small sample size to gauge a pitcher who has been a reliable bullpen arm for the Bucs over the previous two seasons. Holderman posted a 3.52 ERA, 24.6% strikeout rate, and 9.7% walk rate over 107 1/3 innings in 2023-24, though his walk and barrel rates spiked considerably from 2023 to 2024. Holderman’s impressive 52.8% grounder rate in 2023 also dropped to 37.5% last year.
With Holderman on the IL and struggling closer David Bednar optioned to Triple-A, Pittsburgh is already without two key members of its late-inning mix. Dennis Santana now looks like the prime candidate for saves or highest-leverage work of any kind, while Justin Lawrence and Caleb Ferguson will factor into the late-inning workload as well. Shugart will also get his first MLB look with his new team, as the Pirates only just acquired Shugart in a trade with the Red Sox back in January.
Padres Select Logan Gillaspie, Designate Tom Cosgrove
The Padres announced that they have selected the contract of right-hander Logan Gillaspie from Triple-A. In corresponding moves, left-hander Omar Cruz was optioned to Triple-A, and left-hander Tom Cosgrove was designated for assignment.
Gillaspie first joined San Diego’s organization as a waiver claim off the Red Sox roster in November 2023, and he tossed 11 1/3 MLB innings (to a 7.15 ERA) last season. The Padres didn’t tender him a contract after the season, but then re-signed Gillaspie to a minors deal in December, and the righty has 2 2/3 innings of 6.75 ERA ball under his belt at Triple-A El Paso so far in the young minor league season.
Gillaspie is out of minor league options, so he’ll have to be designated for assignment the next time the Padres want to send him back to the minors. This could happen in relatively short order, as it would seem like Gillaspie has been promoted just to give San Diego a fresh arm in the bullpen. Cruz tossed 68 pitches over three innings of relief in yesterday’s 6-4 loss to the Cubs, and the Padres don’t have another off-day until Thursday. It wouldn’t be a shock to see Cruz recalled before the week is over, and once he’s had time to rest up from his extended outing.
Cosgrove is the other pitcher involved in today’s set of roster moves, and the 28-year-old heads to DFA limbo for the first time in his pro career. A 12th-round pick for San Diego in the 2017 draft, Cosgrove had an excellent 1.75 ERA in 51 1/3 innings during his 2023 rookie season, though secondary metrics indicated that Cosgrove enjoyed a lot of good fortune in managing that stellar ERA.
The luck turned in the other direction last season, as Cosgrove had only an 11.66 ERA in 14 2/3 big league innings, and he also struggled at the Triple-A level. In 2025, Cosgrove got off to another rough start, with a 7.36 ERA and four walks in his first 3 2/3 innings of work in El Paso. It was enough to make him the odd man out on the Padres’ 40-man roster, and Cosgrove will have to accept an outright assignment if he clears waivers since he doesn’t the service time or the past outright on his resume that would allow him to reject the assignment in favor of free agency.
Jerry Reinsdorf Not Pursuing Sale Of White Sox
Reports emerged last October that longtime White Sox majority owner Jerry Reinsdorf was considering selling his controlling interest in the team, and that Reinsdorf was in talks about a possible sale to an ownership group fronted by former big league pitcher and executive Dave Stewart. There hasn’t been any news on that front in the intervening months, and USA Today’s Bob Nightengale wrote today that a sale isn’t happening whatsoever. The 89-year-old Reinsdorf “has made it perfectly clear to friends that he has zero interest in selling as long as he remains in good health,” and “he has rebuffed all of minority investor Justin Ishbia’s requests to purchase controlling interest of the team.”
The latter point is particularly noteworthy, as Ishbia and his brother Mat were viewed as the lead candidates to buy the Twins until about six weeks ago, when the Ishbias reversed course and instead looked to increase their minority share in the White Sox. Team VP of communications Scott Reifert made it clear at the time that this “has no impact on the leadership or operations of the Chicago White Sox and does not provide a path to control” for the Ishbias, and today’s report from Nightengale would seemingly further quiet the speculation that Reinsdorf is looking to move on from the team he has owned since 1981.
Reinsdorf’s long tenure is highlighted by the 2005 World Series, which marked the first Sox championship (and the first baseball title in Chicago as a whole) since 1917. Beyond that signature achievement, however, the Pale Hose have only sporadically been contenders over Reinsdorf’s four-plus decades, and the club has topped the .500 mark only six times since that World Series year. Most recently, of course, the Sox posted the worst record in modern baseball history, and one can only hope that last season’s 41-121 debacle is the low point of what looks like it’ll be another lengthy rebuild.
Reinsdorf’s ownership style has long faced criticism on many fronts, chiefly related to a relative unwillingness to spend despite playing in a large market. As per Cot’s Baseball Contracts, the Sox payroll did rank seventh in baseball as recently as the 2022 season, but that marked Chicago’s only appearance within the top 10 spenders over the last 14 years. Andrew Benintendi’s five-year, $75MM deal from the 2022-23 offseason is the largest contract the White Sox have ever given to a player, and Reinsdorf’s longstanding reputation as a hawk in labor talks has only added to the perception that the Sox aren’t willing to heavily invest in player salaries.
With both the White Sox and the NBA’s Chicago Bulls (Reinsdorf’s other team), the owner has been known to both take a heavy hand in front office business, while also employing longtime confidants in key executive roles. While keeping trusted employees in place could naturally be viewed as a sign of loyalty, the flip side of Reinsdorf’s approach is that his teams are often accused of insularity, which keeps the clubs from fully embracing newer trends or perspectives. For instance, when the White Sox were looking for a new GM in August 2023, then-assistant general manager Chris Getz was promoted into the top job after Reinsdorf seemingly had a brief or non-existent search for external candidates.
All of this to say, South Side fans may not be enthused by Nightengale’s report, given how Reinsdorf’s popularity in Chicago is probably at the lowest point of his ownership tenure. There have also been some rumblings that Reinsdorf could even be open to moving the White Sox if he can’t get his desired new ballpark project in the South Loop area launched, as the team’s lease at Rate Field is up after the 2029 season. Commissioner Rob Manfred downplayed the idea of the White Sox moving in an interview last October, but Chicago fans might not be totally comfortable until there is a firm plan in place for the team beyond 2029.
Red Sox Promote Hunter Dobbins
10:18AM: The Red Sox have officially announced Dobbins’ call-up. Manager Alex Cora indicated to reporters (including MassLive.com’s Christopher Smith) that Dobbins might be the starter in the second game of the doubleheader.
7:49AM: The Red Sox will be calling up right-hander Hunter Dobbins from Triple-A Worcester, according to Chris Henrique of the Boston Sports Journal. Dobbins will be Boston’s 27th man for its doubleheader with the Cardinals today, and since he was already added to the 40-man roster last November, no corresponding transactions are required.
If Dobbins gets some action in either of the two games, it will mark the 25-year-old’s Major League debut. The Red Sox selected Dobbins in the eighth round of the 2021 draft, even though he had undergone a Tommy John surgery that year while pitching for Texas Tech. The surgery rehab delayed Dobbins’ pro debut until 2022, but the results have been solid since the righty has gotten back onto the mound.
Over 311 career innings in the minors, Dobbins has a 3.88 ERA, 23.8% strikeout rate, and 7.94% walk rate. Only 24 1/3 of those innings have come at the Triple-A level, and he was expected to get more seasoning in Worcester as the 2025 season develops. Dobbins has started 61 of his 63 career games, though he’ll likely work out of the pen today as a fresh arm for the Sox to utilize over the twin bill.
Baseball America ranks Dobbins as the 11th-best prospect in Boston’s farm system, and MLB Pipeline isn’t far behind with a #13 ranking. Dobbins’ five-pitch arsenal includes a fastball that can touch 98mph and a splinker that he started using last season — as BA’s scouting report puts it, “he doesn’t have a single killer pitch to generate a ton of whiffs, but he steers clear of barrels.” Dobbins allowed only two homers over his 125 2/3 combined innings of Double-A and Triple-A ball in 2024, though he has already surpassed that total in his lone Triple-A appearance this year, as he was tagged for three homers and five earned runs in a 3 2/3-inning relief outing on April 1.
White Sox Designate Travis Jankowski, Reinstate Mike Tauchman From 10-Day IL
The White Sox announced that outfielder Travis Jankowski was designated for assignment. The move was made to create a roster spot for Mike Tauchman, who has now been activated from the 10-day injured list.
Tauchman suffered a hamstring strain during Spring Training, which opened the door for Jankowski (who signed a minor league deal in March) to make the Opening Day roster as part of Chicago’s outfield mix. Jankowski has appeared in seven of the team’s eight games, playing right and center field while hitting .214/.267/.214 in the small sample size of 15 plate appearances.
This brief stint made it 11 straight seasons of MLB action for Jankowski, who has spent most of his career in a part-time or platoon capacity with seven different teams. Jankowski has been outrighted off a 40-man roster in the past, so if he clears DFA waivers in the next few days, he has the right to elect free agency rather than accept an outright assignment to Chicago’s Triple-A affiliate.
It isn’t out of the question that Jankowski could be claimed off waivers, or that a team in need of outfield help could arrange a trade with the White Sox during the DFA period. Jankowski’s left-handed bat and his ability to play all three outfield positions makes him a useful depth piece, plus he is a well-known veteran presence who has made a lot of connections during his lengthy career.
As for Tauchman, he is now set to make his White Sox debut after signing a one-year, $1.95MM free agent deal with the team during the offseason. Tauchman is coming off a pair of solid seasons with the Cubs, and the Peoria native will now look to continue that steady play on the other side of Chicago. Since the Sox are firmly in rebuild mode, Tauchman is a prime candidate to be traded before the deadline, particularly if he replicates the 110 wRC+ he posted in 2023-24.
