Yankees Select Yovanny Cruz
The Yankees announced that they have selected right-hander Yovanny Cruz to their major league roster. Fellow righty Elmer Rodríguez has been optioned to Triple-A to open an active roster spot. The Yanks had a couple of 40-man vacancies, so no corresponding move is required there.
More to come.
Royals Place Kris Bubic On IL With Elbow Soreness
The Royals announced that left-hander Kris Bubic has been placed on the 15-day injured list due to left elbow soreness. Right-hander Eli Morgan has been recalled in a corresponding active roster move.
More to come.
Gio Urshela Announces Retirement
Infielder Gio Urshela has announced his retirement as a player in a post on his Instagram page. In the post, he thanks the people who contributed to his career, including his family, friends, fans, baseball organizations, coaches, the people of Colombia and more.
Urshela, now 34, was signed by Cleveland back in 2008. An international amateur out of Colombia, he secured a signing bonus of $300K. He quickly developed a reputation as a plus defender at third base while also dabbling at the other infield positions. His bat was a bit more questionable. He didn’t strike out much in the minors but also didn’t draw many walks and it wasn’t clear how much thump he could produce with his contact approach.
He cracked the majors in 2015. His initial big league opportunities matched his profile. He could pick the ball at third and didn’t strike out a lot but also didn’t produce offensively. He was eventually designated for assignment in 2018 and flipped to the Blue Jays in a cash deal. The Jays put him on waivers later that year and the 29 other clubs all declined a chance to claim him. At that time, he had 499 major league plate appearances and a .225/.274/.315 line.
The Jays traded Urshela to the Yankees for cash late in 2018. He began the following season as non-roster depth for Miguel Andujar, who had just finished a solid rookie campaign, finishing second in American League Rookie of the Year voting behind Shohei Ohtani. Early in the 2019 campaign, Andujar suffered a torn labrum in his right shoulder, an injury that would eventually require season-ending surgery. Though that was unfortunate for Andujar, it turned out to be the opportunity for Urshela to break out.
Urshela took over the third base job in the Bronx that year with a big step forward offensively. He hit 21 home runs and slashed .314/.355/.534 for a 132 wRC+. FanGraphs credited him with 3.1 wins above replacement. He may have hit his personal zenith that year with some help from external forces. His .349 batting average on balls in play was well above average. That was also the juiced-ball year, with home run records set all around the league.
Regardless, Urshela still proved to be a viable major league hitter in subsequent seasons. Over the shortened 2020 season and the 2021 campaign, he hit 20 homers in 159 games and slashed .275/.320/.438 for a 108 wRC+. He was credited with 2.4 fWAR for that span.
Going into 2022, Urshela was part of a big trade. He and catcher Gary Sánchez were flipped to the Twins for third baseman Josh Donaldson, infielder Isiah Kiner-Falefa and catcher Ben Rortvedt. Urshela had a solid campaign in Minnesota, hitting 13 home runs and putting up a .285/.338/.429 line, translating to a 118 wRC+. FanGraphs put another 2.6 WAR on his ledger that year.
Ahead of the 2023 season, Urshela was traded to the Angels for pitching prospect Alejandro Hidalgo. That was unfortunately just before things started to turn sour for Urshela. He hit a respectable .299/.329/.374 for the Halos but went on the injured list in June due to a pelvic fracture. He didn’t require surgery but he missed the second half of that season and was never really able to get back on track after that.
He became a free agent and signed a $1.5MM deal with the Tigers going into 2024. He got into 92 games for Detroit but hit .243/.286/.333 for a wRC+ of 74. He was designated for assignment and released that August. He latched on with Atlanta and finished on a slightly higher note, slashing .265/.287/.424 in 36 games.
That strong finish was enough to get him a $2.15MM deal with the Athletics for 2025. He hit .238/.287/.326 in 59 games for the A’s before getting designated for assignment and released in August. He returned to the Twins on a minor league deal this past offseason. He hit .192/.250/.231 in spring training and was released at the end of camp.
Urshela finishes his career having played in 851 games with 3,028 plate appearances. He only walked in 5.9% of those but also limited his strikeouts to an 18.3% pace. He collected 759 hits, including 147 doubles, nine triples and 73 home runs. He scored 312 times, drove in 352 runs and stole seven bases. His career slash line finishes at .270/.314/.407. That leads to a subpar 97 wRC+ but is dragged down by his slow start and soft finish. From 2019 to 2022, he hit .290/.336/.463 for a 118 wRC+. Both FanGraphs and Baseball Reference credit him with about eight wins above replacement, mostly from that four-year peak. Baseball Reference pegs his career earnings over $25MM.
We at MLB Trade Rumors congratulate Urshela on a fine career and wish him the best for his post-playing days.
Photos courtesy of David Butler II, Jesse Johnson, Nick Wosika, Imagn Images
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Mets Select Daniel Duarte
The Mets announced that they have selected the contract of right-hander Daniel Duarte. In a corresponding active roster move, fellow righty Joey Gerber has been optioned to Triple-A. To open a 40-man spot, lefty A.J. Minter has been transferred to the 60-day injured list.
Duarte, 29, signed a minor league deal with the Mets in the offseason. He has been with Triple-A Syracuse and putting up good numbers, at least on the surface. He has thrown 17 1/3 innings over 12 appearances, allowing 2.60 earned runs per nine.
Beneath the hood, things aren’t quite as impressive. His 19.7% strikeout rate and 12.7% walk rate are both subpar numbers. His 45.8% ground ball rate is above average but only by a few ticks. His ERA would be far higher without good luck, since his .255 batting average on balls in play and 82.5% strand rate are both to the fortunate side. His 4.21 FIP is perhaps a better representation of how he has pitched this year.
It’s possible Duarte is up to give the Mets some emergency length out of the bullpen. Their rotation is in a transitional phase at the moment, thanks to the recent injury to Clay Holmes. That leaves them with a four-man rotation consisting of Christian Scott, Nolan McLean, David Peterson and Freddy Peralta, with Peterson often pitching behind an opener. They have Tobias Myers and Sean Manaea as potential options for some bulk work, though Manaea tossed four innings behind Peralta yesterday and won’t be available for a few days.
Scott is starting tonight’s game. He hasn’t gone more than five innings in any game yet this year. McLean is listed as the starter for tomorrow’s game. It would be Holmes’s turn on Wednesday, so the Mets will need to figure out a plan for that game, whether it’s leaning on Myers as part of a bullpen game or calling someone up from the minors.
Five of Duarte’s 12 appearances this year have been two innings or longer, including three of the past four. He hasn’t pitched since May 12th, so he should be fresh and could help out in the coming days, perhaps if Scott can’t go very long tonight. Gerber hasn’t pitched since a game for Syracuse on the 12th but has mostly been throwing one-inning outings in the minors this year. Duarte still has an option and could be easily sent back down to Syracuse if he soaks up some frames and another fresh arm is needed.
As for Minter, he underwent lat surgery last year and was still recovering from that procedure as the 2026 season began. He began a rehab assignment in April but was pulled back in early May due to some left hip discomfort, per Anthony DiComo of MLB.com. He started a new rehab assignment on May 15th, tossing an inning for Syracuse. Since he has been on the 15-day IL all year, his 60-day count is retroactive to the beginning of the season. He will therefore be eligible for reinstatement next week.
Photo courtesy of Reinhold Matay, Imagn Images
Orioles Claim Michael Siani, Designate Jose Espada
The Orioles claimed outfielder Michael Siani off waivers from the Dodgers and designated righty Jose Espada for assignment to clear space on the 40-man roster. Siani has been optioned to Triple-A Norfolk.
Siani was designated for assignment by the Dodgers last week when they acquired fellow outfielder Alek Thomas in a trade with the D-backs. The 26-year-old Siani has spent the entire 2026 season with the Dodgers’ Triple-A club after coming over from the Yankees in a February waiver claim. That capped off a busy winter for Siani, who bounced from the Cardinals, to the Braves, to the Dodgers, to the Yankees and back to the Dodgers in a series of DFAs and waiver claims.
In 107 plate appearances with the Dodgers’ top affiliate, Siani has slashed just .225/.355/.303. He’s walked at a huge 15.9% clip but has also fanned in 28% of his plate appearances and has yet to hit a home run. Siani has picked up five doubles and a triple in addition to a 5-for-7 showing in stolen base attempts.
An over-slot fourth-rounder with the Reds back in 2018, Siani has spent all of his major league time in the National League Central between Cincinnati and St. Louis. He briefly debuted with the Reds in 2022 but made only 25 major league plate appearances before being claimed by the Cardinals in September of 2023. He was a frequently used, defensive-minded fourth outfielder with the 2024 Cards when he logged a career-high 334 plate appearances.
In parts of four major league seasons, Siani owns an anemic .221/.277/.270 batting line (58 wRC+) but good grades for his defense and baserunning. He’s played 1014 major league innings in the outfield — primarily in center but with fleeting corner appearances mixed in — and been credited with overwhelmingly positive marks from Statcast’s Outs Above Average (16) and from Defensive Runs Saved (7). He’s also gone 21-for-26 in stolen base attempts, giving him a success rate of nearly 81%.
The Orioles lost Dylan Beavers to an oblique strain last week. Heston Kjerstad hasn’t played at all this season due to a hamstring injury and is on the 60-day IL. Siani adds some depth to an outfield group that has gotten good production from Taylor Ward and Leody Taveras but has seen former top prospect Colton Cowser and relatively high-priced slugger Tyler O’Neill (who signed a three-year, $49.5MM contract prior to the ’25 season) both struggle tremendously at the plate.
Espada, 29, is the cousin of Astros skipper Joe Espada. He’s pitched one scoreless inning with the O’s this year and another three shutout frames with them in 2025. The 2015 fifth-rounder (Blue Jays) has only five big league frames to his credit. Espada carries a 4.57 ERA and 27.5% strikeout rate in parts of three Triple-A seasons, but he’s also walked 15.5% of his opponents at the top minor league level. Beyond his work in North American ball, Espada tossed 27 innings with the Yakult Swallows of Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball back in 2024.
Espada has sat 93.6 mph on his four-seamer in the majors, coupling it with a slider that sits just under 93 mph. In the minors, he’s frequently used a splitter that averages just under 90 mph, but he hasn’t used the pitch heavily in his tiny sample of MLB work.
The O’s will have five days to trade Espada or place him on outright waivers. That’d be another 48-hour process, meaning his DFA will be resolved within a week’s time. Espada doesn’t have three years of big league service and hasn’t been outrighted at any point in his career, so he won’t have the right to elect free agency if he passes through waivers unclaimed. In that scenario, he’d head to Triple-A Norfolk and stick around as non-roster depth.
Submit Your Questions For This Week’s Episode Of The MLBTR Podcast
On the MLB Trade Rumors podcast, we regularly answer questions from our readers and listeners. With the next episode set for Wednesday, we’re looking for MLBTR’s audience to submit their questions and we’ll pick a few to answer.
The 2026 season is humming along. Do you have a question about a hot or cold start in the early going? The upcoming trade deadline? Next winter’s potential labor showdown? If you have a question on those topics or anything else baseball-related, we’d love to hear from you! You can email your questions to mlbtrpod@gmail.com.
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Guardians’ Kolby Allard Granted His Release
The Guardians granted left-hander Kolby Allard his release yesterday, per Tim Stebbins of MLB.com. Allard had an opt-out clause in his contract, and Cleveland apparently didn’t have a spot for him on the big league roster. He’ll be free to explore opportunities with other teams, though Stebbins adds that the Guardians would prefer to re-sign Allard on a new minor league pact if possible.
Allard, 28, has been hit hard in a small sample of 8 2/3 innings with Cleveland this season. He’s served up 10 runs on 16 hits and three walks in that time, fanning nine of his 45 opponents (20%). He’s also allowed more runs than innings pitched in an even smaller sample of 5 1/3 Triple-A frames.
Though his 2026 season hasn’t gone as planned, Allard was terrific with Cleveland as recently as last season. In 2025, he ate up 65 innings in a swingman role and notched a tidy 2.63 earned run average. Allard’s 15.3% strikeout rate was about seven percentage points shy of league average, but his 5.3% walk rate was excellent (more than three points lower than average).
A former first-round pick, Allard was dogged by repeated back injuries early in his career with Atlanta. He never wound up establishing himself as the steady No. 4 starter many believed him capable of becoming, but he’s consistently found big league work as a journeyman bouncing from team to team in the same type of swing role in which he thrived last season. Allard has never thrown particularly hard, though this year’s 89.4 mph average four-seamer is down about a half mile from last year’s 89.9 mph and well shy of its 92.4 mph peak back in 2019.
Any team in need of some length in the bullpen or perhaps a handful of spot starts in the near future could plausibly consider Allard as an option. He’d have a stronger case for a big league spot with better 2026 performance, but Allard was great last year, solid this spring (4.05 ERA in 13 1/3 innings) and isn’t going to cost a new club much more than the league minimum for any time spent on the big league roster.
If Allard does end up back in Cleveland, they’ll be glad to keep the depth. The Guards have managed to make it to this point in the season only needing five starters: Parker Messick, Gavin Williams, Tanner Bibee, Joey Cantillo and Slade Cecconi. However, Cecconi has struggled to a 5.60 ERA, and the depth options in Triple-A are somewhat lacking.
Logan Allen, Trent Denholm, Pedro Avila and Ryan Webb all have ERAs of 5.45 or higher with the Guardians’ top affiliate in Columbus — the latter pair closer to 9.00. A triceps injury has limited Austin Peterson to four starts, though he recently returned from the injured list. Yorman Gómez has yet to pitch this season due to a shoulder injury. Former top prospect Daniel Espino is working exclusively in short relief after a yearslong injury absence. Twenty-six-year-old Rorik Maltrud (2.50 ERA in 39 1/3 frames) is the only starter in Columbus who’s taken the mound at least five times and kept his ERA under 5.00.
Red Sox Notes: Mayer, Narváez, Bello
Red Sox infielder Marcelo Mayer is lobbying for some shortstop time, per Tim Healey of The Boston Globe. Whether or not he gets the chance seemingly depends on how much time Trevor Story is going to miss.
Story has been battling a sports hernia this year and landed on the injured list in recent days. If he undergoes surgery, he’ll miss two months or so, though it’s still not a guarantee that he will go under the knife.
Mayer came up as a shortstop in the minors and also dabbled at second and third base. He has only played the keystone this year and hasn’t even been working out at short, though in the wake of Story’s injury, he plans to start practicing there. He has told manager Chad Tracy that he would like to help the team by moving across the bag. The skipper seems open to it if Story is going to be out a while, though he leans toward keeping Mayer at second if Story is slated for a quicker return.
It’s an understandable position for Tracy. Mayer only played 84 innings at second base in the minors and is still getting accustomed to the position. He is also still young at 23 years old and hasn’t fully clicked as a major league hitter yet, sporting a career line of .223/.278/.359. Mayer was once one of the club’s top prospects and the Sox presumably still hope for him to be a big part of the future, as he is under control for five more seasons after this one. There’s some logic in keeping him with his current plan and not adding a new assignment to his to-do list for just a brief interlude.
Since Story has been sidelined, the Sox have primarily been using Andruw Monasterio at short. Isiah Kiner-Falefa and Nick Sogard could also chip in at the position if Mayer is going to be staying at the keystone.
There’s also a situation to watch behind the plate, as Healey notes Carlos Narváez is dealing with an injury to the middle finger on his right hand. Though Narváez says the finger went “a little sideways,” X-rays were negative and he may avoid the injured list. The injury first popped up after a slide and then was aggravated when Narváez hit a ball off the end of his bat.
Most clubs have two catchers on the roster, so it would be a bit risky to proceed with one of them unavailable due to a day-to-day injury. However, the Sox currently have three backstops on the roster, with Mickey Gasper and Connor Wong also present. Gasper has been getting some at-bats as the designated hitter lately and perhaps that would become less likely if Narváez is unavailable. If Boston wants Gasper’s bat in the lineup, they could put him behind the plate while Narváez is hurt, perhaps opening more DH time for Masataka Yoshida.
Turning to the rotation, Chris Cotillo of MassLive suggests that Brayan Bello may get squeezed out of the rotation soon. The righty is having an awful season, with a 7.16 earned run average through 44 innings. The Sox used an opener in front of him for his first two appearances in May, which went well. He only allowed one run in each, going seven innings in the first outing and then 6 1/3 the second time. He got used as a traditional starter again yesterday but allowed seven earned runs in five innings.
Cotillo notes that Garrett Crochet is expected to come off the injured list around the end of this month, which could lead to Bello losing his spot since his rotation mates are faring much better than him. Sonny Gray, Ranger Suárez, Connelly Early and Payton Tolle all have ERAs of 3.21 or lower this year.
Though he signed a multi-year extension with the Sox, Bello does have options and could be sent to the minors if the Sox decide that’s what’s best for him and the team. Pitching from the bullpen could be another possibility, though the club may want to think about the long term. Bello is signed through 2029 with a club option for 2030. Assuming the hope is that he will still be a part of the rotation for years to come, keeping him stretched out may be preferable. On the other hand, he hasn’t been optioned to the minors since April of 2023 and clubs are sometimes reluctant to send guys down after they have seemingly become established as big leaguers.
Photo courtesy of Dan Hamilton, Imagn Images
KBO’s Kiwoom Heroes Sign Keston Hiura
The Kiwoom Heroes of the Korea Baseball Organization announced this week that they’ve signed former big league infielder Keston Hiura for the remainder of the 2026 season (link via Jee-ho Yoo of South Korea’s Yonhap News Agency). They’ve waived another former big leaguer, outfielder Trenton Brooks, in a corresponding move. Hiura drew interest from Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball as well before signing with the Heroes. The GSI client will be guaranteed $400K for the rest of the 2026 season and has another $100K available to him via incentives.
Hiura, 29, was the ninth overall pick by the Brewers back in 2017. He ranked as a top prospect for years and has a huge track record in the upper minors but has struggled with high strikeout rates in the majors. He still sports a .235/.314/.442 line in the majors (101 wRC+), but the vast majority of that production came in a standout rookie showing back in 2019, when he hit .303/.368/.570 with 19 homers (and a 30.7% strikeout rate) in 348 plate appearances. In parts of five seasons since, Hiura has batted .203/.289/.381 while striking out at a 38.3% clip.
Big league struggles notwithstanding, Hiura has repeatedly shown himself to be a force against Triple-A pitching. He’s played parts of six seasons at the top minor league level and laid waste to Triple-A pitching, slashing .291/.392/.563 with 103 round-trippers, 77 doubles and five triples in 1684 plate appearances (392 games). Strikeouts have still been an issue, but not to the same level as in the majors. He’s fanned in 27.8% of his Triple-A plate appearances and drawn walks at a 10.3% clip. Hiura was drafted as a second baseman but has played more first base and left field in recent years.
Brooks, 30, appeared briefly in each of the past two major league seasons, totaling 72 plate appearances between the Padres and Giants. He hit .136/.208/.212 in that tiny sample but is a .279/.382/.472 hitter in his career at Triple-A. He struggled to find his footing in South Korea, going 31-for-143 (.217) without a homer. He’ll wrap up his Heroes tenure with a .217/.286/.259 slash.