The Diamondbacks announced Thursday that they’ve placed catcher Gabriel Moreno on the 10-day injured list due to a right hand contusion (retroactive to June 16) and selected the contract of fellow catcher Aramis Garcia from Triple-A Reno. Righty Christian Montes De Oca was transferred from the 15-day IL to the 60-day IL to open a 40-man spot for Garcia, who returns just nine days after being outrighted off the 40-man roster.
Moreno originally hurt his hand while trying to block a wild pitch earlier this month. He’s played just three games in 12 days since taking that errant pitch off his hand. Arizona was clearly hoping to avoid an IL stint, but things have reached a point where they’ll sit him down for the next week and get another catching option on the roster to complement Jose Herrera.
The 25-year-old Moreno is enjoying another solid all-around year. The former top prospect’s .270/.324/.414 batting line isn’t elite but is firmly above league average (106 wRC+). That’s big production from any catcher, a position that is regularly manned by below-average hitters, but it’s especially nice for a player with Moreno’s elite defensive grades. He draws plus marks for his framing, blocking and throwing alike. Since 2023, he ranks as the game’s third-best defender behind the plate, by measure of the Defensive Runs Saved metric, and the seventh-best in MLB according to Statcast. Because Moreno’s IL stint is backdated three days (the maximum allowed under MLB rules), he’ll be eligible to return a week from now.
As for Garcia, he’s a 32-year-old journeyman who was briefly up with the Snakes in the wake of the original injury to Moreno. He only appeared in one game, however, and didn’t take a plate appearance before being designated for assignment and passed through waivers. He’s played in parts of six big league seasons and carries a career .211/.248/.325 line in 327 trips to the plate during that time. He currently sports a .250/.399/.524 line in 38 Triple-A games and is a career .235/.306/.430 hitter in parts of seven seasons at that level.
Presumably, Garcia will see a bit more game action this time around. Herrera, who’ll serve as the primary catcher with Moreno down, has played eight games in 12 days since Moreno was originally banged up. It’s a heavy workload for any catcher but particularly a glove-first backup who’s hitting .171/.284/.244. Herrera is up to 101 plate appearances this year — already just 23 shy of his career-high in the majors, where he’s a lifetime .199/.279/.256 hitter.
The 60-day IL move for Montes De Oca was an inevitability. The 25-year-old righty landed on the injured list earlier this month due to elbow inflammation, but the D-backs announced five days ago that he was headed for surgery to repair a stress fracture in his lower back. That surgery was likely to take him out for most or all of the remaining season anyhow — a miserable turn of events for a young hurler who’d tossed 2 2/3 innings of scoreless ball in his MLB debut just days prior to landing on the injured list.
Snakes can’t catch a break. Their Gose is cooked.
But they did break their catcher. They almost got it right.
Can’t catch a break? The Dodgers currently have the most players currently on the IL, plus the most days of players on the IL and they are in first place and one game off the best record in baseball.
But the Dodgers designed their roster that way. They fully intended to have half their roster on the IL. They put together a roster of super high upside, super fragile guys knowing many would be unavailable, but if they could keep enough healthy, they’d do well, which they have.
Most teams can’t afford to build a team that way.
Maybe not “half their roster” but half their pitching. Still, you had a balanced and measured response that seems fair.
@Canuckle – Except the Dodger owners are middle of the pack in terms of being the wealthiest MLB owners. So it’s not that other teams can’t afford it, it’s they choose not to.
statista.com/statistics/1125149/wealthiest-mlb-tea…
The Dodgers are owned by parts of the Guggenheim family. Worth over $300 BILLION… but sure. Try to drum up sympathy for the richest team in the sport.
Zerbs
The Dodgers should be commended for bringing more global fans to MLB and for presenting an exciting product, but their ownership is not merely middle of the pack wealthy.
Dang it.