Astros Notes: Imai, Pearson, Peña, Meyers
The Astros will activate Tatsuya Imai from the injured list tomorrow. Houston lists him as the probable starter against Bryan Woo in the second game of a four-game set against the Mariners. They’ll need to option a pitcher as the corresponding move.
Imai returns after a month-long absence due to what the team called arm fatigue. The righty has had a difficult start to his MLB career, struggling in two of his first three appearances. He walked 11 hitters over his first 8 2/3 innings and failed to complete three innings twice. Imai’s pair of minor league rehab starts haven’t done much to assuage the command concerns, as he has issued another eight walks in five frames.
The Astros will likely go back to a six-man rotation. Spencer Arrighetti and Peter Lambert have stepped up in depth roles since Houston lost Hunter Brown and Cristian Javier to shoulder injuries. Mike Burrows has pitched well in his past three times out after a rocky start to the year. The Astros will continue giving Imai starts to try to get him on track after signing him to a three-year free agent contract.
Lance McCullers Jr. has continued to struggle. Kai-Wei Teng and Cody Bolton are candidates for the sixth starter spot, while Ryan Weiss and Jason Alexander could be back up in the second half of May after recently being optioned.
Nate Pearson was expected to be in that conversation when he signed a one-year free agent deal early in the offseason. Pearson was held up by offseason elbow surgery and has been on the injured list all season. He’s on a rehab assignment and will need to secure a spot on the MLB roster or be placed on waivers because he’s out of options.
The Astros announced on Monday that they’re now viewing Pearson as a reliever (relayed by Chandler Rome of The Athletic). Pearson walked multiple hitters in each of his first three rehab appearances before tossing a perfect inning for Triple-A Sugar Land on Saturday. He’s averaging 96.4 mph on his four-seam fastball. Houston has been without Josh Hader all season and placed Bennett Sousa back on the injured list over the weekend with elbow inflammation.
Hader began a rehab stint last week and could be back when first eligible on May 24. The Astros could get a pair of key position players back in the next couple weeks as well. Jeremy Peña should begin a rehab assignment at Double-A Corpus Christi tomorrow, while Jake Meyers is likely to begin his own rehab stint this week (via Brian McTaggart of MLB.com). The series of injuries have contributed to a dismal first month and a half of the season. Houston dropped to a season-low 10 games below .500 with tonight’s loss, tying the Angels for the worst record in the American League at 16-26.
Matt Bowman, John Brebbia Have Upcoming Opt-Outs In Twins’ Deals
Relievers Matt Bowman and John Brebbia can opt out of their minor league contracts with the Twins on Sunday, reports Darren Wolfson of KSTP and SKOR North. Assuming the right-handers trigger their out clauses, Minnesota would either need to call them up or allow them to become free agents.
Bowman is sitting on a 1.77 earned run average with a 26% strikeout rate and near-55% grounder percentage over 20 1/3 innings at Triple-A St. Paul. The sinkerballer also pitched quite well during Spring Training, reeling off 7 1/3 frames with one unearned run and seven punchouts. Bowman made five MLB appearances for the Twins early in the 2024 season and has signed a handful of minor league contracts with the club over the past three years.
Minnesota picked up Brebbia just after Opening Day. The 35-year-old (36 later this month) had been in camp with Colorado and was granted his release at the end of Spring Training. Brebbia has struggled to a 5.40 ERA across 18 1/3 innings with St. Paul. He’s striking hitters out at a near-30% clip, but he has allowed at least one run in five of his past six appearances.
Neither Brebbia nor Bowman are generating huge swinging strike rates. They’re both journeyman middle relievers who sit around 92 mph with their fastballs. There’s no guarantee the Twins select either player. That said, they could easily carve out space in a bullpen that has been one of the worst in the league.
Only the Astros have a higher relief ERA than Minnesota’s 5.54 mark. They’re also 29th in strikeout percentage (above the Nationals, in this case) and have the eighth-highest walk rate. Kody Funderburk is the only Minnesota reliever who has a sub-4.00 ERA while throwing more than 10 innings. Funderburk has more walks than strikeouts and was optioned to Triple-A yesterday. Every other Minnesota reliever has struggled to prevent runs.
Their three relievers with the highest strikeout rates — Garrett Acton, Cody Laweryson and Cole Sands — are all injured. Luis García, Taylor Rogers, Eric Orze and Anthony Banda have drawn their highest-leverage assignments.
Mets To Select A.J. Ewing
The Mets are calling up top outfield prospect A.J. Ewing, reports Will Sammon of The Athletic. He should make his big league debut tomorrow when the Mets welcome Jack Flaherty and the Tigers to Citi Field. New York will need to create space on the active and 40-man rosters.
It’s an aggressive promotion the Mets are hoping will spark life into an offense that ranks 29th in scoring. The 21-year-old Ewing opened this season in Double-A. New York just promoted him to Triple-A Syracuse on April 27 and will give him an MLB look after 12 games there.
Ewing was a fourth-round pick out of high school in the 2023 draft. The Mets selected him with the #134 overall selection, their compensation for losing Jacob deGrom, and signed him away from a commitment to Alabama. It turned out to be an excellent find for New York’s scouting department, as Ewing’s plate discipline and athleticism have vaulted him up prospect lists.
The lefty-hitting Ewing has hit .290 with an on-base percentage close to .400 over parts of four minor league seasons. He’s out to an even better start this year, running a .339/.447/.514 line over 132 plate appearances between the top two levels. Ewing has walked nearly 17% of the time against a 15.2% strikeout rate. He’s also 17-18 in stolen base attempts, one year after he swiped 70 bags during his climb from Low-A to Double-A.
There are some parallels with the Mets’ decision to have Carson Benge break camp after he’d played just 24 Triple-A games. Benge had an ice cold start to his MLB career but has been one of the team’s best hitters over the past couple weeks. He has officially graduated out of prospect status, leaving Ewing as the Mets’ best prospect in Baseball America’s most recent update of the league’s Top 100 minor league talents. BA slotted Ewing the #33 prospect in the game. MLB Pipeline ranks him 78th overall and second in the system behind right-hander Jonah Tong.
Listed at 6’0 and 160 pounds, Ewing doesn’t have immense raw power. He has 15 professional home runs, just five of which have come since the start of the 2025 season. Baseball America and Keith Law of The Athletic each wrote over the offseason that Ewing makes more hard contact than the home run total might suggest, though his approach is geared more toward line drives and getting on base than hitting for power.
Ewing had some strikeout concerns early in his minor league career. He has toned that down considerably over the past year-plus, but he’ll face a much bigger challenge against MLB pitching. There’s no question about his athleticism, though, and Ewing’s plus-plus speed should make him an asset on the bases and give him defensive value.
Drafted as a second baseman, Ewing moved to the outfield in 2024. He has made four starts at second this year but is primarily a center fielder. He should step into the everyday center field role between Benge and Juan Soto for the time being. The Mets placed Luis Robert Jr. on the injured list in late April with a disc herniation. His return timeline is uncertain. They’ve divided center field between Tyrone Taylor and Benge — with MJ Melendez drawing into the lineup in right field — since Robert went down.
Taylor’s glove has made him a favorite of president of baseball operations David Stearns, but he has a .219 OBP through his first 76 plate appearances. Melendez came out of the gates hot but is 3-19 since the calendar flipped to May. He spent most of last year in Triple-A for a Kansas City team that had one of the worst outfields in MLB.
Melendez and Taylor certainly haven’t been the Mets’ biggest problems, but they’re easy enough to bump out of the lineup. New York’s .287 on-base percentage is the worst in MLB, meaning Ewing would only need to carry over a fraction of his minor league production to be an improvement. If both he and Benge are performing once Robert is back from the injured list, the Mets could give him reps at second base over the scuffling Marcus Semien and trade some defense for offense.
Benge, Melendez, Brett Baty and Francisco Alvarez are the only hitters on New York’s MLB roster who have minor league options. It seems safe to assume Benge and Alvarez aren’t getting demoted. Baty isn’t hitting but is the primary third baseman with Francisco Lindor and Ronny Mauricio hurt and Bo Bichette needed at shortstop. Melendez has been hitting third against right-handed pitching, itself an indictment of the rest of the lineup. There’s a decent chance the Mets designate someone for assignment tomorrow. Vidal Brujan, Andy Ibáñez and Austin Slater are all in bench roles.
Ewing entered the season as a Top 100 prospect at each of BA, MLB Pipeline and ESPN. He therefore meets the criteria to win himself a full year of service time if he finishes top two in Rookie of the Year voting. (The Mets cannot receive an extra draft choice because they didn’t call him up by the middle of April.) He’d otherwise fall short of a full service year and be under club control for six seasons beyond this one. He’ll be on track for early arbitration as a Super Two player during the 2028-29 offseason, but future optional assignments to Triple-A could change that trajectory.
Image courtesy of Sam Navarro, Imagn Images.
Rangers Notes: Eovaldi, Latz, Smith
The Rangers are sending Nathan Eovaldi for imaging after the veteran starter reported left side tightness, manager Skip Schumaker told reporters (including Kennedi Landry of MLB.com). Texas scratched Eovaldi from his scheduled start tonight in Arizona. Jakob Junis got the first couple innings of an impromptu bullpen game.
Schumaker’s bullpen should be well rested. The Rangers are coming off consecutive shutouts of what had been a hot Cubs lineup. They used three relievers after Jack Leiter on Saturday, but only Gavin Collyer tossed more than 13 pitches. Jacob Latz was their only reliever yesterday, tossing 20 pitches over two scoreless innings behind a masterful start from Jacob deGrom (seven scoreless with 10 strikeouts).
Although the pitching staff is well equipped to handle one missed start, it’d be tougher to weather an injured list stint if that proves necessary. Eovaldi has been one of the American League’s best pitchers over his time in Arlington. His 4.15 earned run average this year is higher than his ERA from any of his first three seasons, thanks mostly to a spike in his home run rate.
Eovaldi has had a trio of rough outings but has also reeled off four quality starts, including two excellent appearances against the Yankees each of his past two times out. He held New York to one run (an Aaron Judge homer) with 15 strikeouts in as many innings over those two starts. Texas won both games.
The Rangers have a below-average offense for the third straight season. Only the Giants and Mets have scored fewer runs entering play Monday. Texas has stayed close to .500 (19-21) thanks to a pitching staff that has the sixth-best ERA. Their bullpen deserves more of the credit for that than does the starting rotation, as their stitched together relief group has an MLB-low 2.80 mark. The top half of the rotation is Texas’ biggest on-paper strength, however.
Texas hasn’t made any changes to their rotation of deGrom, Eovaldi, Leiter, MacKenzie Gore and Kumar Rocker. Latz’s start in the second game of the season was the only one until tonight opened by someone other than the aforementioned quintet. deGrom is again pitching at a level that’ll have him in the Cy Young conversation if he stays healthy. The others all have an ERA north of 4.00, though all but Rocker are racking up strikeouts.
The rotation falls off sharply after the front five. Latz pitched well when called upon as a spot starter last season, but the Rangers could be hesitant to ask him to do that again. The lefty has seized the closer role after Texas opened the season with a committee approach. Latz has only allowed two runs across 20 2/3 innings on the year, recording the save in four of his last five times out.
Junis, Tyler Alexander and Cole Winn all recorded at least one save early in the season. Latz has gotten all the opportunities going back to April 13. He’s probably too valuable at the back of the bullpen to stretch back out as a starter, particularly if Eovaldi’s injury turns out to be mild.
Cal Quantrill has been working in long relief and could get a look. Jose Corniell, the only depth starter on the 40-man roster, had spent the last five weeks at the team’s Arizona complex and only made his first Triple-A appearance on Friday. Josh Stephan, who went unselected in last offseason’s Rule 5 draft and has no MLB experience, has been the organization’s best starter in Triple-A.
Schumaker also provided an update before Monday’s game on Josh Smith. The second baseman, who has been out for the past week with a glute strain, is also dealing with wrist inflammation (link via Shawn McFarland of The Dallas Morning News). Schumaker said the team is hopeful he’ll only be shut down for a few days, but it all but ensures that Smith won’t be activated from the injured list when first eligible on Thursday.
A productive utility player from 2024-25, Smith was tabbed as the everyday second baseman after the Marcus Semien/Brandon Nimmo trade. He has started very slowly, hitting .217/.324/.239 without a home run through 108 plate appearances. His strikeout and walk profile is strong, but he’s not making any impact. Smith, who has traditionally played very well in April, has also posted subpar defensive grades this year.
Ezequiel Duran has taken over second base in Smith’s absence. He’s hitting too well to take out of the lineup, batting .286/.359/.451 over 32 games. Duran had previously been playing mostly left field due to the Wyatt Langford injury, so the Smith injury indirectly opened the most playing time for outfielder Alejandro Osuna. The 23-year-old has reached base 16 times in his first 37 plate appearances since being recalled from the minors on April 22.
Braves, Jose Azocar Agree To Minor League Deal
The Braves and outfielder Jose Azocar are reuniting on a new minor league deal, per the team’s transaction log at MLB.com. He’d previously been designated for assignment by Atlanta and briefly elected free agency after clearing waivers.
Azocar, 30 today, went hitless in his only two plate appearances with Atlanta (and in his lone Braves plate appearance last season as well). He’s a career .243/.288/.318 hitter in 420 big league plate appearances. Azocar has swiped 20 bags and popped two homers in the majors. Most of his big league time has come with the Padres, though he also appeared in a dozen games with the Mets last year.
Azocar is out to a fine start in Triple-A this year. He’s taken 113 plate appearances with Atlanta’s Gwinnett affiliate and slashed .270/.348/.420 with a couple homers, eight steals, a 10.6% walk rate and a 16.8% strikeout rate. Those slash stats are near mirror images of Azocar’s career marks in Triple-A. He’s played parts of six seasons at the top minor league level and notched a .276/.321/.416 batting line in 1203 plate appearances.
While he’s never been a huge threat with the bat, Azocar possesses plus speed (88th percentile in 2025, per Statcast) and is a quality defender in all three outfield spots. He’s spent 459 big league innings in center, 370 in right and 238 in left. Defensive Runs Saved and Outs Above Average both peg him as at least average in all three slots, with Azocar’s center field work standing as his most effective to date.
The Braves placed Eli White — another speedy, glove-first, righty-swinging outfielder — on the injured list earlier this morning. However, his IL placement coincided with Ha-Seong Kim‘s return from the injured list, which is going to mean less infield work for Mauricio Dubón and Jorge Mateo, both of whom can play the outfield. With that pair supporting the trio of Mike Yastrzemski, Michael Harris II and Ronald Acuña Jr., there’s no need for another speed-and-defense outfielder on the bench. If the Braves incur more injuries in the outfield, however, Azocar could get another look, given that the Braves don’t have any minor league outfielders on the 40-man roster.
Orioles Select Josh Walker
The Orioles announced that they have selected left-hander Josh Walker to their roster. Right-hander Trey Gibson was optioned to Triple-A Norfolk in a corresponding active roster move. To open a 40-man spot, outfielder Heston Kjerstad was transferred to the 60-day injured list.
Walker, 31, has generally put up good numbers in the minors but has struggled in limited big league opportunities. He finished last season on Baltimore’s roster after they claimed him off waivers in August. They then signed him to a major league deal for 2026 and designated him for assignment a few days later. That may seem like a strange sequence but the O’s were presumably hoping that the salary, which has not been publicly reported, was enough to get him through waivers to be stashed as non-roster depth. This didn’t immediately pay off, as Atlanta claimed him in November. Baltimore was able to claim him back in December and then finally outrighted him in January.
He has tossed 14 1/3 innings for Norfolk this year, allowing 4.40 earned runs per nine. That ERA doesn’t jump off the page but he has perhaps deserved better. His 8.9% walk rate is around average while his 28.6% strikeout rate and 51.5% ground ball rate are both comfortably better than par. His 61.6% strand rate in that small sample is on the unfortunate side, which may have pushed some extra runs across, which is why his 3.48 FIP is roughly a run better than his ERA.
As mentioned, Walker has often done well in the minors without major league success. He has a 6.59 ERA in 27 1/3 big league innings. But dating back to the start of 2022, he has thrown 146 minor league innings with a 3.95 ERA. His 11.4% walk rate in that sample is high but he paired that with a 30.3% strikeout rate. He will now give the Orioles a fourth lefty in their bullpen alongside Keegan Akin, Dietrich Enns and Grant Wolfram. Walker still has one option remaining and can be easily sent back to Norfolk in the future.
Kjerstad has been on the 10-day IL all season due to a right hamstring strain. His 60-day count is retroactive to that initial IL placement, so he’ll be eligible for reinstatement in a few weeks. He began a rehab assignment on Saturday. Rehab assignment for position players can last 20 days, so the length of that rehab assignment roughly aligns with his IL timeline. If he is able to come off the IL later this month, he still has an option and could be bound for more time in the minors.
Photo courtesy of Morgan Tencza, Imagn Images
Dodgers Activate Mookie Betts
May 11th: Betts has now been officially reinstated, with Freeland optioned as the corresponding move. Jack Harris of the California Post reported earlier today that Freeland would be sent down for Betts.
May 10th, 10:55pm: The Dodgers and Espinal renegotiated the 45-day deadline attached to the advanced consent clause in Espinal’s contract, Katie Woo writes. Under the previous clause, the Dodgers could have released Espinal within the first 45 days of his contract and owed the infielder only the prorated portion of Espinal’s $2.5MM guaranteed salary. The reworked clause pushed forward that 45-day deadline, which Woo views as a sign that Espinal will be kept on the active roster, so Kim or Freeland will be optioned upon Betts’ return.
3:34pm: Mookie Betts has been out for over a month with a right oblique strain, but he is now on the cusp of returning to the Dodgers. After two rehab games, Betts is returning to Los Angeles today and is expected to be activated from the 10-day injured list tomorrow, according to Katie Woo of The Athletic.
Betts only made 32 plate appearances with a 99 wRC+ before landing on the 10-day injured list on April 5. That’s a negligible sample size on its own, though it also mirrors Betts’ diminished offensive output in 2025. In 150 games, he batted .258/.326/.406 with a 104 wRC+. That still made Betts an above-average hitter, but not to the heights he has set in his career. Betts won the AL MVP award with the Red Sox in 2018 and was at least 31% better than average by wRC+ in every season from 2019-24. It’s hard to criticize a hitter for merely being slightly above average, of course, and Betts’ track record gives the Dodgers plenty of confidence that he can return to normal as he distances himself from this injury.
There is also reason to believe Betts was unlucky last year. For one thing, he batted just .258 on balls in play, well below his career BABIP of .299. While Betts’ 89.1 MPH average exit velocity and 35.8% hard-hit rate were both lower than in 2024, his batting average, slugging percentage, and wOBA were all 9-16 points lower than their expected values.
Betts’ relative lack of offensive pop was offset by his superb defensive work at shortstop, and of course he was still a big contributor to the Dodgers’ second consecutive World Series victory. Even this year, losing Betts for over a month hasn’t slowed Los Angeles down, as the 24-15 Dodgers are again atop the NL West.
The duo of Hyeseong Kim and Miguel Rojas have capably filled in at shortstop during Betts’ absence, and Kim in particular has performed well, hitting .301/.366/.411 over 82 PA this season. Rojas will return to backup infield duty once Betts is back at shortstop, leaving the Dodgers to decide between Kim, Santiago Espinal and Alex Freeland at second base. Kim and Freeland have minor league options remaining, while Espinal (who has only a .438 OPS over 34 PA) would have to be designated for assignment if removed from the 26-man roster.
The Giants’ Long-Term Contracts Are Becoming A Big Problem
The Giants are in a real tough spot right now. They are 16-24 on the season, one of the worst records in baseball. An individual season being disappointing is something that happens to most teams but the current struggles are casting shadows over the long-term outlook since a lot of the disappointment is coming from the long-term core.
Aside from a stunning 107-win season in 2021, the Giants have been a .500 club or worse for a decade now. They have tried to get more aggressive recently, adding a number of large contracts to their books. Their three longest remaining commitments are to Rafael Devers, Willy Adames and Matt Chapman. All three are performing poorly, which could limit the club’s flexibility going forward. One major underwater contract is usually bad news for a team but three is obviously a much greater concern.
Devers is easily having the worst season of his career so far. He has a .232/.276/.364 batting line and 79 wRC+, indicating he’s been 21% worse than the league average hitter. That’s miles south of his career line, which is .274/.347/.502 and translates to a 125 wRC+. His 30.1% strikeout rate is more than three ticks worse than his previous career high. His 6.1% walk rate would be his lowest in a full season. The struggles can’t really be blamed on poor luck. Devers has a .310 batting average on balls in play. That’s a bit south of his .315 career rate but barely, and still above the .289 league average.
The Giants probably have to be hoping Devers is hurt. If not, the trends are gloomy. Though he was still a productive hitter as recently as last year, there have been some worrying things under the hood for a while. His bat speed was in the 68th percentile of qualified hitters in 2023 but that dropped to 61st in 2024 and 42nd last year. He’s down to 38th so far in 2026.
At the same time, he’s been getting attacked more and taking advantage less. 45% of the pitches Devers saw in 2023 were in the strike zone. That ticked up to 47.2% in 2024, 48.6% last year and 50.6% this year. He’s also been seeing more fastballs and less offspeed stuff. In 2023, he was getting 59.8% fastballs and 16.3% offspeed. That ratio has shifted to be 64.9% fastballs and 12.6% offspeed this year. He made contact on 76.2% of pitches in the zone in 2023, but that dropped to 71.9%, 71.4% and 69.4% in subsequent seasons.
Devers’ exit velocity and hard-hit rate stayed strong for most of that stretch but have nosedived this year. He is averaging 90.3 miles per hour off the bat this year, more than three points below last year’s 93.5 mph. His 46.2% hard hit rate is well below last year’s 56.1% clip. Last year, he still damaged four-seam fastballs. Statcast gave him a run value of 13 as he hit .249 with a .512 slug. This year, he’s at a -2 run value with a .192 batting average and .462 slug.
In short, teams don’t seem too scared of Devers and he’s not making them pay for that. Perhaps there is some ailment that explains this. Devers has dealt with back, shoulder and hamstring issues in his career. A disk injury in his lower back was hampering him last year, though he didn’t go on the injured list for it.
If that’s not what’s going on here and Devers is just suddenly hitting a decline phase at age 29, that’s extremely worrisome for the Giants. He’s not a burner on the basepaths and doesn’t provide defensive value. He was never a good third baseman and doesn’t seem likely to play there again (at least not with any kind of regularity). He’s still getting accustomed to first base and hasn’t received good grades there so far. He needs to hit to be useful to the Giants.
Adames is having an even worse season at the plate. He has a .209/.242/.342 line and 64 wRC+. His 3.6% walk rate is awful and about half of his previous career low, which was 7.9% in 2022. He has always had a somewhat high strikeout rate but this year’s 29.7% clip would easily be his worst in a full season. His hard hit rate, exit velocity and barrel rate are all down relative to last year.
The issue for Adames is perhaps one of aggression. He’s actually getting pitched in the zone less while making more contact on the whole. However, he is only swinging at the first pitch 26.1% of the time, compared to a 30.9% career rate. He is also only swinging at 65.1% of pitches in the zone, compared to a 70.2% career clip.
However you chop it up, it’s not good, but Adames at least covers a premium position at shortstop. Outs Above Average thinks he’s a bit worse defensively this year but Defensive Runs Saved has him trending up. Though Adames and Devers are both struggling to hit, Adames should be less of a concern due to his ability to cover shortstop, at least for now.
Chapman’s offense isn’t quite as dire as the other two but it’s still not good. His 9% walk rate and 22.9% strikeout rate are both near league average, but he has just one home run, a .235/.313/.322 line and an 86 wRC+. His 31.5% hard-hit rate is way down from last year’s 47.6% clip. Chapman’s glovework is still getting strong reviews, however, so he hasn’t been totally useless.
The club’s results aren’t entirely due to these three, as the pitching has also been lackluster. However, in a sense, that is connected to these three big contracts. The Giants have seemingly been loath to spend on pitching lately, presumably because so much of their payroll is already tied up. In the past two offseasons, their two-year, $22MM deal with Adrian Houser has been their largest pitching investment.
Making any kind of pivot is going to be very difficult, if not impossible. Chapman and Adames both have full no-trade protection. Even putting that aside, it’s not as though they have a ton of value. Adames will make $28MM annually from 2027 to 2031, leaving $140MM still to be paid out after the current season. Given his current performance, no club will be eager to take that on. Chapman is making $25MM annually through 2030, leaving $100MM on the deal after this season. He’s still picking it at third but he just turned 33, so teams know decline is coming eventually.
Devers does not have no-trade protection in his deal, which is why the Giants were able to get him from the Red Sox. But the deal runs through 2033 and isn’t cheap. Nominally, he’s getting paid about $30MM a year for the remainder, though $7.5MM is deferred annually and to be paid out through 2043. Even if some team were willing to acquire him, the optics for the Giants would be rough. Since his stock is down, they would receive something less than what they just gave up to get Devers last year, when they sent out Kyle Harrison, James Tibbs III, Jose Bello and Jordan Hicks. At this point, they would likely have to eat a substantial portion of the deal just to get anything of note.
It’s a rough spot for president of baseball operations Buster Posey, whose fingerprints are on all three deals, even though just one of them was technically signed under his watch. The Giants originally signed Chapman to a three-year deal with opt-outs heading into the 2024 season. At that time, Posey was on the club’s ownership board and Farhan Zaidi was still president of baseball operations. In September of 2024, the Giants signed Chapman to a six-year, $151MM extension. Reporting at the time indicating that Posey was instrumental in negotiating that deal with Chapman. Posey replaced Zaidi not long after. Adames was signed a few months later. The Giants traded for Devers a few months after that.
There aren’t easy answers. Presumably, the Giants don’t want to start a big rebuild when they have already been scuffling for most of the past decade. Even if they wanted to, they are fairly committed to the present. In addition to the three really big deals, they are paying Jung Hoo Lee a good amount of money through 2029 and Logan Webb through 2028. Houser and Harrison Bader are going to make hefty salaries through next year. They spent a bunch of money to hire Tony Vitello as their manager this year. In addition to his $3.5MM salary, they paid the University of Tennessee $3MM to buy out his contract and are still paying $4MM to Bob Melvin this year after picking up his contract option and then firing him.
Internal help may not be likely. The farm isn’t considered a disaster but is generally ranked in the middle of the 30 teams in the league. Most of their top prospects are in the lower levels. Addressing the weak spots of the roster via free agency is perhaps not plausible either, based on the way the club has seemingly pumped the brakes since adding Chapman, Adames and Devers to the books.
It seems Posey may be stuck trying to work around these three. He made one such move this weekend, flipping Patrick Bailey to the Guardians for a pitching prospect and a draft pick. Bailey is the best defensive catcher in the game but his offense has been poor and worsened this year. His limp bat may have been more tolerable if the rest of the lineup was producing but that was not the case.
That return won’t help the club in the near term. Rather, they have to hope that players like Jesús Rodríguez and Daniel Susac form adequate replacements for Bailey, with less value on defense but hopefully far more on offense.
If the club can’t climb back in the race in the coming months, more future-focused moves will be forthcoming this summer. Rental players like Robbie Ray, Luis Arraez and Tyler Mahle will be available but without huge value. Mahle has a 5.18 ERA. Ray is pitching well but his $25MM salary is hefty. Arraez is also having a good season but is making $12MM. A bigger sell-off will be difficult. Houser and Bader are both having poor seasons. The longer deals will be ever harder to move.
When Posey first got his current job, he spoke of wanting to get the Giants back into the memory-making business. The implication seemed to be a pivot towards big-name players. He has since hitched his wagon to Chapman, Adames and Devers. Now that all three horses are stuck in the mud, he may not be able to do much more than hope they dig themselves out.
Photo courtesy of Vincent Carchietta, Imagn Images
Marlins Outright Stephen Jones
Right-hander Stephen Jones has been sent outright to Triple-A Jacksonville, according to his transactions tracker at MLB.com. That indicates he cleared waivers after being designated for assignment last week.
It’s been a strange week for Jones, who started the season with Double-A Pensacola after signing a minor league deal with the Marlins. Miami added him to the big league roster on May 7th. He explained to members of the media, including Kevin Barral of Fish on First, that he had just been promoted to Triple-A. He sat in the bullpen for one game without being used by the Jumbo Shrimp before being told he was going to the big leagues. He didn’t pitch for the Marlins that night and was designated for assignment the next day.
It appears that Jones was nothing more than an emergency arm. The Fish had designated Chris Paddack for assignment on May 5th and would eventually give his rotation spot to Robby Snelling on the 8th. In the interim, they had an extra bullpen spot to use. They first recalled William Kempner for Paddack. After Kempner tossed on inning on the 5th, they optioned him out for Dax Fulton. Then Fulton tossed four innings on the 6th. Since he wasn’t going to be available for a few days, they swapped him out for Jones. They didn’t use Jones and then bumped him off the roster for Snelling.
The end result of all that shuffling is that Jones is now in position to potentially be a phantom player, one who makes a major league roster but never appears in a game. This is his first outright and he has less than three years of service time, so he has to accept the assignment.
He started this year with 16 2/3 innings at Double-A with a 3.24 earned run average. His 25.7% strikeout rate and 46.3% ground ball rates were good but he walked 17.6% of hitters who came to the plate. His previous stints in Triple-A have not gone well, with a 12.60 ERA in 60 innings at the top minor league level. He’ll look to post better results going forward in order to get back onto the roster.
Photo courtesy of Jim Rassol, Imagn Images
Blue Jays Designate Eric Lauer For Assignment, Place Addison Barger On IL
The Blue Jays announced that left-hander Eric Lauer has been designated for assignment. His roster spot goes to right-hander Yariel Rodríguez. It was reported yesterday that the Jays would be selecting Rodriguez to the roster. The Jays also placed infielder/outfielder Addison Barger on the 10-day injured list, retroactive to May 10th, with right elbow inflammation. Outfielder Yohendrick Pinango has been recalled to take Barger’s spot.
It’s been quite a rollercoaster ride for Lauer and the Blue Jays. He signed a minor league deal with the club heading into the 2025 season. He was added to the major league roster in late April as the Jays were dealing with some injuries and some poor performances.
Lauer ended up sticking around and played a notable role in the club’s strong season. Often getting shuffled between the rotation and the bullpen, Lauer made 15 starts and 13 relief appearances. On the whole, he logged 104 2/3 innings with a 3.18 earned run average, 23.9% strikeout rate and 6.1% walk rate. He added another 8 2/3 innings in the postseason with a 3.12 ERA, as the Jays went all the way to Game Seven of the World Series.
From there, things have turned sour, both in terms of performance and Lauer’s relationship with the club. The Jays retained him for 2026 via arbitration but the two sides couldn’t agree on a salary, eventually going to a hearing. It was a unique case because Lauer had been in arbitration before and raised his salary to $5.075MM in 2023. But he struggled and lost his roster spot, spending 2024 in the minors and in Korea, before having a bounceback with the Jays in 2025.
He filed at $5.75MM and the Jays at $4.4MM. The club won. He appeared to be frustrated by that outcome, telling Hazel Mae of Sportsnet that he felt his earning power was damaged by getting bumped to the bullpen late in the year when the Jays acquired Shane Bieber and called up Trey Yesavage.
Coming into 2026, there was a time where it looked like Lauer would again be pushed to a bullpen role. The Jays had signed Dylan Cease and Cody Ponce, in addition to re-signing Max Scherzer. With those three joining Kevin Gausman, José Berríos, Yesavage and Bieber, it looked like quite a crowded group. Lauer again seemed less than enthused, telling reporters that he preferred to be a starter.
In the end, he got his wish. Berríos, Bieber and Yesavage started the season on the IL. Yesavage has since been activated but the Jays have also lost Ponce and Scherzer to the IL. The injuries were enough for Lauer to get a rotation spot, even with Patrick Corbin being signed to jump into the mix.
But Lauer’s results haven’t been nearly as good as last year’s. He has made eight appearances this year. Technically, only six of those were starts, as he pitched behind an opener twice. That was something he also wasn’t happy about, per Keegan Matheson of MLB.com. “To be real blunt, I hate it. I can’t stand it,” he said. He added that the switch messed with his habits as a starter.
Whether it’s due to his routine being messed up or residual effects from batting the flu earlier this year, Lauer has a 6.69 ERA on the season. His 16% strikeout rate and 9.9% walk rate are both significantly worse than last year. His fastball has only averaged 90.4 miles per hour on the year. That’s a big drop from last year’s 91.7 mph, which was on the low end to begin with.
Perhaps the combination of the poor numbers and Lauer repeatedly going public with his frustrations has prompted the Jays to move on, even though they don’t have an obvious rotation solution and the schedule is about to get tricky. Subtracting Lauer leaves them with Gausman, Cease, Yesavage and Corbin in four spots. It doesn’t appear as though any of the guys on the IL are close to returning, so the club will need to figure out something by next week. They start a series against the Rays tonight, with Gausman, Corbin and Cease lined up. They are off on Thursday but then play 17 in a row after that.
Perhaps they will opt for some sort of bullpen game and/or piggyback situation. Spencer Miles has been pitching reasonably well and went three innings in front of Lauer yesterday, though that would be risky since he is so inexperienced. Miles came into this year as a Rule 5 guy with only 14 2/3 minor league innings under his belt, none above Low-A. Rodríguez has starting experience and pitched two innings in his most recent minor league outing. They could call up someone else from Triple-A, with Josh Fleming, Austin Voth, CJ Van Eyk, Chad Dallas and Grant Rogers all pitching in the Triple-A rotation at the moment, though no one in that group is currently on the 40-man roster. They could scoop up an external addition, with Chris Paddack being one starter who just became a free agent.
Lauer heads into DFA limbo, which can last as long as a week. The waiver process takes 48 hours, so the Jays could take as long as five days to explore trade interest. Given his salary and recent performance, he probably doesn’t have a lot of trade value.
If he were to clear outright waivers, he has enough service time to reject an outright assignment and elect free agency while keeping his money. The Jays might skip that formality and simply release him. If that comes to pass, they would remain on the hook for the contract. Any other club could sign him and pay him the prorated league minimum, which would be subtracted from what the Jays pay.
Barger’s IL placement is frustrating, since he just came off the IL due to a separate issue. He got out to a slow start this year and hit the IL due to a left ankle sprain. He was reinstated off the IL and was only able to play one game before this elbow inflammation has put him right back on the shelf. That’s less than ideal for the Jays as injuries have played a big role in their season so far. In addition to the aforementioned pitching issues, they have seen Barger, George Springer, Alejandro Kirk, Nathan Lukes and Anthony Santander miss time. Those injuries have surely contributed to a lackluster 18-22 start this year.
Now that Barger is out again, the Jays will return to having an outfield group consisting of Daulton Varsho, Myles Straw, Davis Schneider, Jesús Sánchez and Pinango. They just optioned Pinango when Barger got healthy but he has quickly come back. Position players normally have to wait ten days after being optioned before being recalled but an exception is made when someone goes on the IL. Pinango has a .423/.444/.462 line this year but with an unsustainable .478 batting average on balls in play, so he’s surely due for some regression.
Photo courtesy of Nick Turchiaro, Imagn Images