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Rafael Devers Unwilling To Play First Base

By Darragh McDonald | May 8, 2025 at 11:59pm CDT

Red Sox designated hitter Rafael Devers spoke to members of the media today, including Alex Speier of The Boston Globe. Devers said that chief baseball officer Craig Breslow recently asked him about playing first base in the wake of the Triston Casas injury. Devers said that he is unwilling to take up the position, adding that the club told him to put away his glove when they moved him from third base to designated hitter this winter. He feels that the team has now gone back on its word. He also responded “Sí, claro” when asked if he was upset by the request.

“I know I’m a ballplayer,” Devers said, via translator, relayed by Speier, “but at the same time, they can’t expect me to play every single position out there. In break training, they talked to me and basically told me to put away my glove, that I wasn’t going to play any other position but DH. So right now, I just feel like it’s not an appropriate decision by them to ask me to play another position.” Devers added this about Breslow,  per Speier, “I’m not certain what (issue) he has with me. He played ball, and I would like to think that he knows that changing positions like that isn’t easy.” Speier relayed more from Devers: “Here in the clubhouse, thankfully, the relationship that I have with my teammates is great. I don’t understand some of the decisions that the GM makes. Next thing you know, someone in the outfield gets hurt and they want me to play in the outfield.” As for the first base spot, Devers seems to think an external addition is the answer, per Christopher Smith of MassLive: “Now I think they should do their job essentially and hit the market and look for another player (to play first base). I’m not sure why they want me to be in between the way they have me now.”

Perhaps he will alter that stance in time but he seems to be taking a strong stand for now. Per Smith, Devers doesn’t think there’s a chance he’ll change his mind. “I don’t think so. They told me I’m a little hard-headed. They already asked me to change once and this time I don’t think I can be as flexible.”

It’s been a strange few months in terms of the relationship between Devers and the Red Sox. Throughout the winter, the club was connected to third basemen Alex Bregman and Nolan Arenado, despite Devers seemingly having that spot locked down. Devers has never been a strong defender, so there was some on-paper logic to the consideration of moving him elsewhere, but there was the question about Devers himself and how he would feel about being displaced. The two sides had agreed to a nine-figure extension in January of 2023, a contract which runs through 2033, so the long-term relationship would obviously be a real consideration.

Breman remained unsigned into the middle of February. The Sox scooped him up at that time on a three-year, $120MM deal, though one with notable deferrals and opt-outs after each season. The club didn’t immediately come out and declare their intentions in terms of defensive alignment and Devers was adamant that he would stick at third base. He said that he had been promised by the club that he could stay at the hot corner for the long term. Manager Álex Cora dismissed that promise because “That was under Chaim,” referring to former chief baseball officer Chaim Bloom. The Sox fired Bloom towards the end of the 2023 season and eventually replaced him with Breslow.

It soon became clear that the Sox wanted Bregman, the superior defender, to take over at third. Devers would be the club’s full-time designated hitter, not even playing the field occasionally. “Raffy is going to DH,” Cora said in March. “We had a conversation, we talked about it. He’s DHing. He’s the DH of the Boston Red Sox. One thing is we don’t want him to overthink it. Don’t get caught up in the whole thing. He’ll be OK.”

Though Devers was clearly not happy with being moved off his position, reportedly even thinking about asking for a trade at one point, he did strike a more amicable tone eventually. In the middle of March, with the start of the season just about two weeks away, he said: “I’m good to do whatever they want me to do,” he said. “I’m here to help. I’ve already spoken with them about that, and they know where I stand. I’m just ready to play.”

That all seemed to be working fine enough for the first few weeks of the season, until Casas suffered his aforementioned injury. A ruptured left patellar tendon last week led to knee surgery for Casas and he is going to miss the remainder of the 2025 campaign.

That quickly led to speculation about Devers being a good fit to replace Casas. In the initial aftermath of the injury, the Sox used guys like Romy González and Abraham Toro to cover the position. Those two have generally been light-hitting utility guys in their careers, less than ideal solutions for a bat-first position like first base.

Moving Devers into the spot would seemingly make things easier for the Sox. While learning a new position midseason would certainly be a challenge, first base is generally considered to be lower than third base on the defensive spectrum, with many subpar third basemen having become adequate first basemen over the years. Doing so would also free up the DH spot, opening up more at-bats for players other players. Outfield prospect Roman Anthony and infield prospect Marcelo Mayer are both somewhat blocked from regular playing time at the moment. It’s also tough to find a spot for Masataka Yoshida, currently on the injured list, as he’s also an outfielder. A poor defender, he was the club’s primary designated hitter last year.

Cora has publicly said a few times recently that he hasn’t asked Devers about the switch, but it appears the Red Sox privately considered the plan and Breslow initiated the conversation, which Devers didn’t take kindly to.

From his perspective, it’s understandably been a jarring half year. As of a few months ago, he thought he was Boston’s third baseman and seemingly felt secure in that role. Now he’s been shaken from that security and has been asked to adapt.

Still, his response has been bizarre and hasn’t always reflected well on him. It’s pretty rare for a player to refuse to do something his team asks of him. In fact, there have been dozens of players over the years who have switched positions in order to help their team. Learning first base might not be Devers’ ideal outcome but there’s little harm in exploring the possibility by taking some grounders and feeling it out, especially if the team thinks it can help them win some more games in the long run. Though Devers maintains the clubhouse rapport is good, it’s fair to wonder if any of his teammates are upset about this hardline stance, since it’s doesn’t appear to be a team-first decision.

Additionally, when discontent develops between a team and a player, efforts are usually made to keep it private. It’s especially uncommon for a player to criticize his team’s front office leader, especially for making a fairly understandable inquiry.

It’s inevitable more developments are forthcoming with this story. For now, it appears Devers will stay in the DH spot. If the Sox are unhappy with his refusal, there’s not too much they can do about it. Whatever drama has been happening off the field doesn’t seem to be impacting him at the plate. He has a .246/.370/.430 batting line and 123 wRC+ this year, even though he went hitless in his first five games of the season. They surely don’t want to subtract that bat from the lineup.

For the record, Devers does not have no-trade protection in his contract, so they technically could just run him out of town if they really wanted to. But there’s no indication that is a consideration or even a remote possibility. Even if they did come to a point of wanting him gone, shipping out a contract that still runs for eight-plus years and has far more than $200MM left on it is hard to move at any point. That would be especially true in the middle of a season, when clubs have mostly spent their budgets. Also, other clubs are surely aware of the public drama and would try to use it as leverage in any talks if Breslow called them up.

Unless more developments arise, it seems Devers will stick in the DH spot. The Sox will try to cover first base with guys like González and Toro, at least for now, though it’s possible they could pursue first basemen in the coming weeks and months.

As for the relationship between Devers and the Sox, this surely isn’t the last we’ll hear about it. As mentioned, Bregman can opt out of his contract after this season and seems to be trending towards doing so, since he’s having a great year. There may eventually be questions about whether Devers would be an option to retake that spot in 2026 or if the club would want to keep him as a DH for the rest of his contract, while someone like Mayer or Trevor Story or Kristian Campbell takes over at third. That means more twists and turns are fairly inevitable, in a saga that has already had plenty.

Photo courtesy of Ken Blaze, Imagn Images.

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Boston Red Sox Newsstand Rafael Devers

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Pirates Fire Manager Derek Shelton

By Steve Adams | May 8, 2025 at 11:58pm CDT

The Pirates announced Thursday that they’ve fired manager Derek Shelton, who’d been in his position for the past five-plus seasons. Bench coach Don Kelly has been elevated to the managerial position.

“Derek worked incredibly hard and sacrificed a lot over five-plus years. His family became a big part of the Pirates family, and we will miss that,” general manager Ben Cherington said in a statement within today’s press release. “He’s an incredibly smart, curious, and driven baseball leader. I believe he was the right person for the job when he was hired. I also believe that a change is now necessary. I wish Derek and his family all the best in their next chapter.”

Shelton, 54, was hired by the Pirates in the 2019-20 offseason, replacing longtime skipper Clint Hurdle. He’d served as the bench coach in Minnesota prior to his hiring and has also had a long run as a big league hitting coach, spending 2005-09 in Cleveland and 2010-16 in Tampa Bay. The Jays hired Shelton as a quality control coach for the 2017 season, after which he spent two years in Minnesota.

Shelton was the first major hire under Cherington, though he’d been under consideration for the managerial vacancy in Pittsburgh even before the Pirates fired former GM Neal Huntington (a curiously timed move, given that he’d been leading the early stages of said managerial search). In parts of six seasons under Shelton, the Bucs have posted a 306-440 record, topping out at 76 wins in a given season (a mark they reached twice). Pittsburgh is out to a 12-26 start on the season, effectively tanking any faint trace of playoff hopes they had coming into the season. Owner Bob Nutting referenced that grim start to the season in his own statement.

“Derek is a good man who did a lot for the Pirates and Pittsburgh, but it was time for a change,” said Nutting. “The first quarter of the season has been frustrating and painful for all of us. We have to do better. I know that. Ben knows that. Our coaches know that. Our players know that. There is a lot of baseball left to be played. We need to act with a sense of urgency and take the steps necessary to fix this now to get back on track as a team and organization.”

There’s no denying the Pirates’ poor performance under Shelton, but it’s also hard to pin that performance on a skipper who was never handed much to work with. Nutting’s mention of acting with “urgency” feels borderline farcical at a time when, for the second straight year, the Pirates have baseball’s top pitching prospect obliterating Triple-A lineups as the back end of the major league staff flounders.

Last year, it was Paul Skenes, who didn’t make his MLB debut until May 6 and promptly took baseball by storm. Skenes started the All-Star Game, won NL Rookie of the Year and finished third in Cy Young voting. This year, Bubba Chandler is sitting on a 2.25 ERA and 38.3% strikeout rate in seven Triple-A starts. The Pirates’ fourth and fifth starters, Bailey Falter and Carmen Mlodzinski, have ERAs of 5.06 and 6.16, respectively. Jared Jones, their second- or third-best starter, has been on the injured list all season. It’s impossible not to wonder if Nutting feels burned by Skenes earning a full year of service by virtue of that Rookie of the Year win and is thus waiting even longer to pull the trigger on Chandler’s promotion.

Beyond the contradictory nature of those “urgency” comments and the Pirates’ actions with Chandler, Nutting has flatly refused to invest in the team via free agency. The Pirates have never signed a free agent to a larger contract than the three-year, $39MM deal signed by Francisco Liriano more than a decade ago.

As shown in MLBTR’s Contract Tracker, they haven’t signed a single free agent to a multi-year deal since their nearly decade-old signing of righty Ivan Nova on a three-year, $26MM contract. Not only that, the Pirates have only once topped $8MM on a one-year free agent deal in that same span — Aroldis Chapman’s $10.5MM contract in the 2023-24 offseason. Using that same data from our Contract Tracker, the Pirates have spent a total of $173.65MM on free agents since their last playoff appearance a decade ago.

Certainly, free agency isn’t a cure-all that’s bound to fix everything that ails an organization. Major free agent signings can often be a setback, in fact. But completely eschewing even the middle tiers of the open market and steadfastly avoiding any kind of mid-range spending to complement the roster does not put the baseball operations or dugout staffs in position to succeed.

That’s not to say Shelton and the front office are without fault, but the margin for error for those key decisionmakers is rendered razor-thin when ownership is content to average the $69.4MM payroll (excluding the shortened 2020 season) that’s been trotted out in the five 162-game seasons under Shelton. Pittsburgh was 55-52 at last year’s trade deadline. Shelton and his staff clearly bear some responsibility for the team’s post-deadline struggles. However, critics would be remiss not to point out that ownership’s tight budget, which led Cherington & Co. to pursue cost-effective deadline acquisitions like Bryan De La Cruz and Isiah Kiner-Falefa (while subtracting Martin Perez), didn’t put give them the best chance to capitalize on their strong play through the first two-thirds of the season.

The Pirates’ player development — or the lack thereof — over the past several seasons also surely factors into the decisions. Skenes has been a roaring success. Jones looked the part of a potential high-end starter prior to his injury. Mitch Keller, Bryan Reynolds and Oneil Cruz are all quality big leaguers — the latter standing as a potential star. However, the majority of the organization’s top prospects over the years, particularly the hitters, simply haven’t panned out. Injuries have impacted some of them, most notably including Ke’Bryan Hayes and Endy Rodriguez. But prospects like Nick Gonzales, Liover Peguero and Henry Davis have all struggled upon reaching the majors. Other young hitters (e.g. Jack Suwinski) looked to be on the cusp of breaking out before taking significant steps back in their second and third looks at big league pitching.

With Shelton being shown the door, Kelly will now be tasked with the unenviable goal of trying to right this ship. The former big league utilityman retired after the 2016 season and took a role in the Tigers’ player development department for the 2017 season. He then spent a year in Detroit’s scouting ranks before being hired by the Astros as their first base coach. Shelton tabbed Kelly as his bench coach just weeks after being hired, and Kelly has been his right-hand man for the pair’s nearly six years in Pittsburgh.

There’s no “interim” tag in today’s press release from the Pirates. Cherington told the Pirates beat today that Kelly’s appointment is “permanent for 2025” (link via Noah Hiles of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette). He could end up being considered for 2026 and beyond, but for the time being, the team is only committing to the remainder of the current season. That seems to set the stage for a broad-reaching managerial search this winter.

“Donnie is as respected as any person in our clubhouse and throughout our organization,” Nutting said of Kelly in today’s press release. “He is a Pirate. He bleeds black and gold. No one is more committed, and no one loves this team or city more than Donnie. He is the right person to manage our team and help get us back on track.”

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Newsstand Pittsburgh Pirates Derek Shelton Don Kelly

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Cubs To Promote Cade Horton

By Anthony Franco and Darragh McDonald | May 8, 2025 at 11:57pm CDT

The Cubs are promoting pitching prospect Cade Horton, per reporting from Patrick Mooney and Sahadev Sharma of The Athletic. Tommy Birch of The Des Moines Register first reported this afternoon that Horton was traveling to New York in advance of this weekend’s series against the Mets. The young righty is not yet on the club’s 40-man roster, so they will need to open a spot for him.

Chicago’s rotation has taken a few notable hits recently. They came into the season with Justin Steele and Shota Imanaga as a one-two punch atop the rotation. Unfortunately, Steele required UCL surgery last month, putting him out of action for the rest of the year. Imanaga suffered a hamstring strain a few days ago. He is surely facing a far shorter absence than Steele but has been placed on the 15-day IL, meaning he’ll miss at least a few turns through the rotation.

Those are the two most obvious losses, but the clubs has also been without Javier Assad all year. He started the season on the 15-day injured list due to an oblique strain. He started a rehab assignment last month but re-aggravated the same muscle, suffering a Grade 2 strain.

Those injuries have created an opening for Horton to make it to the majors for the first time. The Cubs have “TBD” listed as their starter for Saturday’s game at Citi Field, which will seemingly be when Horton takes the ball. It seemed the decision on Imanaga’s rotation spot came down to promoting Horton or stretching out veteran swingman Chris Flexen.

Horton is the higher-upside play. Chicago selected him out of Oklahoma with the seventh overall pick in 2022. The 6’1″ righty has been the organization’s top pitching prospect over the past few seasons. His arsenal is headlined by a mid-90s fastball and a slider that grades as a plus pitch. Horton’s fastball velocity had dipped slightly to the 94 MPH range last year but has rebounded to sit at 95.8 MPH on average with Triple-A Iowa this season.

The 23-year-old has been out to an excellent start in Triple-A. Horton carries a 1.24 ERA while striking out nearly 31% of batters faced through 29 innings. He’s issuing walks at a lofty 12% clip, but the high-octane stuff will get him an opportunity to step into Imanaga’s rotation spot. If Imanaga makes it back within a few weeks, it might be a brief call-up, but the Cubs could theoretically push Ben Brown or Colin Rea to the bullpen if Horton forces their hand with a strong showing over his first few starts.

It’s too late for Horton to reach a full year of service time the traditional way. He meets the necessary prospect criteria to qualify for the Prospect Promotion Incentive, however. That means he could earn a full service year if he finishes in the top two in NL Rookie of the Year balloting. The Cubs would not receive a bonus draft choice if that happens because they didn’t promote Horton early enough to spend 172 days in the majors.

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Chicago Cubs Newsstand Top Prospect Promotions Transactions Cade Horton

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Carl Edwards Jr., Matt Foster Sign With Mexican League Teams

By Anthony Franco | May 8, 2025 at 10:59pm CDT

A pair of former big league relievers are among those who recently signed with Mexican League teams. Carl Edwards Jr. rejoined the Tigers de Quintana Roo on Tuesday, while Matt Foster signed with the Algodoneros del Unión Laguna last week.

This is the second time this year that Edwards has signed with Quintana Roo. He initially joined the team in mid-March. He left to sign a minor league deal with the Angels before the season began. Edwards made seven Triple-A appearances and was called up by the Halos last month. He pitched twice in the big leagues, allowing three runs in as many innings. The Angels designated him for assignment, and he elected free agency after going unclaimed on waivers.

Edwards evidently preferred to return to Mexico rather than accept an outright assignment with the Halos. He’s making his Mexican League debut tonight. This year’s brief stint with the Angels marked his 11th consecutive season logging major league action. He’s only made three combined appearances over the past two years but was a decent middle reliever for the Nationals between 2022-23.

Foster, 30, is a righty who elected free agency at the start of the offseason after being waived by the White Sox. The Alabama product had pitched in parts of four seasons with Chicago, tallying 119 1/3 innings. He spent most of the 2020-22 seasons in Chicago’s middle relief group. Foster underwent Tommy John surgery early in the ’23 campaign.

That cost him nearly a year and a half of action. He tossed 6 2/3 frames of two-run ball for the Sox late last season after his return. That came with a 91.9 MPH average fastball velocity that was down two ticks from where he’d been sitting before the surgery. MLB teams were clearly skeptical of the diminished stuff. He allowed a run on three hits in an inning of work in his debut with the Algodoneros.

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Mexican League Transactions Carl Edwards Jr. Matt Foster

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Yankees Outright Carlos Carrasco

By Anthony Franco | May 8, 2025 at 9:10pm CDT

The Yankees announced that Carlos Carrasco went unclaimed on waivers and was outrighted to Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre. The veteran righty has more than enough service time to decline the assignment in favor of free agency, though the team did not provide any indication that he’ll do that. He’d been designated for assignment on Tuesday.

Carrasco, 38, signed a minor league deal a couple weeks before the opening of Spring Training. He posted a 1.69 ERA over 16 innings in March. Between the strong camp and injuries to Gerrit Cole and Luis Gil, Carrasco opened the season in Aaron Boone’s rotation. He couldn’t carry the spring success into the regular season. Carrasco surrendered nearly six earned runs per nine across 32 innings. His 17.6% strikeout rate was a few percentage points below league average, while he gave up seven home runs (1.97 per nine).

That’s more or less a match for Carrasco’s 2023-24 production. He held rotation spots with the Mets and Guardians, respectively, for the bulk of those two years. He hasn’t missed bats and has struggled to keep the ball in the park. Carrasco allowed a combined 6.18 ERA in 41 starts over that stretch. His 1.75 HR/9 rate over the past three seasons is the highest among active pitchers who have logged at least 200 innings.

Carrasco has been an upper mid-rotation starter for the majority of his career. He’s now a depth arm as his velocity has declined into his late 30s. He’s still a solid strike-thrower and a highly-respected veteran, so the Yankees would presumably be happy to keep him in the organization at Scranton. Brandon Leibrandt and Jake Woodford are the most experienced non-roster depth starters with the RailRiders.

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New York Yankees Transactions Carlos Carrasco

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Royals Sign Trevor Richards To Minor League Deal

By Darragh McDonald | May 8, 2025 at 7:32pm CDT

The Royals have signed right-hander Trevor Richards to a minor league deal, according to an announcement from the Omaha Storm Chasers, Kansas City’s Triple-A affiliate. The righty has been assigned to Omaha and will give the Royals some non-roster bullpen depth.

Richards, 32 next week, hasn’t been in good form lately. The Twins acquired him from the Blue Jays at last year’s deadline, sending minor league infielder Jay Harry the other way. Richards logged 13 innings for Minnesota but he gave out 11 walks in that time, an awful rate of 18.6% of batters faced. He also hit two opponents and threw seven wild pitches. Less than a month after being acquired, he was designated for assignment and outrighted to the minor leagues.

He had to settle for a minor league deal with the Cubs coming into 2025, which didn’t pan out. He tossed 8 2/3 innings for Triple-A Iowa with a 7.27 earned run average in that small sample. He struck out 29.3% of batters faced but with a 17.1% walk rate. The Cubs released him earlier this week.

The Royals will surely be hoping for a bounce back, as Richards had some success prior to this rough patch. He tossed 201 big league innings over the 2021 to 2023 seasons, mostly with the Jays but also with the Rays and Brewers. His 4.61 ERA in that time wasn’t amazing but he had a huge 31.3% strikeout rate. His 10.9% walk rate was still a bit high but far more acceptable than his recent work.

For the Royals, there’s no harm in adding another arm on a minor league deal. Their bullpen is in good shape this year, with a collective 2.93 ERA, fifth-best in the majors. But pitcher injuries are fairly inevitable, so it’s nice to have some experienced non-roster depth on hand.

Photo courtesy of Jesse Johnson, Imagn Images

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Kansas City Royals Transactions Trevor Richards

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Reds To Place Hunter Greene On IL With Groin Strain

By Darragh McDonald | May 8, 2025 at 5:49pm CDT

Right right-hander Hunter Greene has a grade 1 right groin strain, per Mark Sheldon of MLB.com. He has not yet been placed on the 15-day injured list but manager Terry Francona says that will happen before Greene’s turn in the rotation comes up again. There’s no strict rush to make the move, as IL stints can be backdated by as many as three days. Even if the IL move isn’t officially made for a day or two, he would be eligible to return on the same date.

It’s an unfortunate but not shocking development. Greene departed last night’s contest after just three innings. He came out to warm up for the fourth but called a trainer out to the mound and was removed from the game. The Reds announced it as a right groin injury and that he would be undergoing an MRI.

It’s still not clear how long they expect him to be out of action but it seems the Reds will be without their ace for at least a couple of turns through the rotation. Greene has an excellent 2.36 earned run average through eight starts so far this year. He’s had a bit of help from a .224 batting average on balls in play and a 92.5% strand rate but his 34.7% strikeout rate and 4.5% walk rate are both excellent figures. His 30.1% K-BB% is actually tops among qualified pitchers this year. ERA estimators like his 3.07 FIP and 2.41 SIERA suggest he’d still be having great results even with some regression in the luck department.

Losing that kind of performance would be a blow for any club. The Reds are 19-19 and trying to stay afloat in the National League race. Obviously, subtracting Greene doesn’t help, regardless of who comes up to take his place.

They will be left with Nick Lodolo, Nick Martinez, Brady Singer and Andrew Abbott to start their next four games. The team is off on Monday and could theoretically stick with those four guys on regular rest through next Friday, but they would need to figure something else out by next weekend. That could be giving a rotation spot to someone else, just a spot start or some creative solution such as a bullpen game.

Chase Petty is on the 40-man roster and made his major league debut already this year, so he would be an option to be recalled. Rhett Lowder probably isn’t an immediate option. He’s been on the 15-day IL all year due to a forearm strain. He recently started a rehab assignment, tossing three innings in the Complex League on Tuesday, but he’ll probably need another few weeks to ramp up as a sort of delayed spring training. Randy Wynne was up with the club earlier this year but was outrighted off the 40-man a few weeks back. Veteran Wade Miley is in the system on a minor league deal, working his way back from last year’s Tommy John surgery, though he recently departed his second rehab outing with a groin issue and his timeline is unclear.

Photo courtesy of Brett Davis, Imagn Images

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Cincinnati Reds Hunter Greene

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Padres Release Andrew Bellatti

By Steve Adams | May 8, 2025 at 3:55pm CDT

The Padres released right-hander Andrew Bellatti, who’d been pitching with their Triple-A affiliate, per the team’s transaction log. The former Phillies righty signed a minor league deal with the Friars late during spring training.

Bellatti has pitched only 4 2/3 innings in El Paso, but they haven’t gone well. The 33-year-old surrendered six runs on 10 hits and five walks with five punchouts en route to a regrettable 11.57 earned run average. That follows up a tough 2024 season spent entirely at the Triple-A level, wherein Bellatti was tagged for a 5.48 ERA while walking more than 16% of his hitters with the Phillies’ top affiliate.

Back in 2022, Bellatti had an out-of-the-blue campaign in Rob Thomson’s bullpen. He’d previously pitched only 26 2/3 MLB frames, most of which came with the Rays in 2015, but after signing a minor league deal with the Phils, Bellatti rattled off 54 1/3 innings with a 3.31 ERA with a massive 33.9% strikeout rate. He was slowed by a triceps injury the following season and recorded just 24 2/3 innings with an inflated 5.11 ERA and diminished walk and strikeout rates.

Overall, Bellatti has a 3.83 ERA in 105 2/3 big league innings, with the vast majority of his production coming back in 2022. The righty averaged 94.4 mph on his four-seamer during that peak season but was sitting at just 91.7 mph in his brief run with the Padres’ top affiliate.

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San Diego Padres Transactions Andrew Bellatti

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Poll: Jacob Wilson’s Hot Start

By Nick Deeds | May 8, 2025 at 2:59pm CDT

When the Athletics began to properly invest in the franchise for the first time in years this offseason, putting together their largest Opening Day payroll since 2021 and highest payroll for luxury tax purposes in franchise history, it came with an understanding that the additions of players like Luis Severino and Jeffrey Springs would not be enough to propel the club to contention in a crowded AL West division without substantial steps forward from young talent already within the organization.

Fortunately for the A’s, that’s exactly what has happened. The club’s first season in West Sacramento is going quite well, with a 20-18 record that places them second in the AL West even after they dropped their latest series to the division-leading Mariners. With the division’s recent top dogs in Houston and Arlington now both struggling to stay above .500, the A’s have been able to fight their way into contention thanks in large part to excellent performances from recent first-round picks Jacob Wilson and Tyler Soderstrom. Wilson, in particular, is an interesting player to consider after he rattled off a 15-game hit streak to open the season. During that time, he hit .368/.368/.544 across 57 plate appearances.

It’s an impressive slash line, to be sure, but his .358 BABIP during that time did not exactly appear sustainable, especially when he had not drawn a single walk during that stretch. Of course, looking at sample sizes of less than 60 plate appearances comes with far too much noise to be all that valuable when discussing balls in play. Wilson took the 150th plate appearance of the season yesterday, providing a slightly larger body of work to examine. Overall, he’s hitting .357/.383/.476 with a wRC+ of 148. He’s walking just 4.0% of the time, and hardly striking out more than that (4.7%). His .361 BABIP is well outside of the typically expected range, and his 2.2% barrel rate shows that he won’t be hitting for much power any time soon; if anything, he’s hitting for more power now (.119 ISO) than expected based on his batted ball results.

All of that suggests that Wilson is extremely unlikely to keep up his current level of production, but that shouldn’t be taken as a suggestion that he’s guaranteed to revert to the 86 wRC+ he posted in 28 games last year. There are two notable hitters who have found great success in the majors in recent years with a similar approach to Wilson at the plate: Luis Arraez and Steven Kwan. Of course, there’s also plenty of players like Nick Madrigal and Billy Hamilton who fail to find success in the majors due to their lack of power. The question remains: has Wilson shown enough similarities to players like Kwan and Arraez that he can be counted on for sustained success as an above-average MLB hitter?

It’s hard to come up with a more straightforward comp for Wilson than Arraez. After all, one need look no further than Arraez’s 2023 season with the Marlins to find a nearly mirror image of what Wilson has done so far in 2025. In 147 games with the Marlins that year, Arraez hit an excellent .354/.393/.469 with a wRC+ of 130. He struck out in 5.5% of his at-bats while walking 5.7% of the time, and his ISO sat at just .115 while he floated a .362 BABIP. Arraez accomplished this feat thanks primarily to his line drive rate, which sat at an MLB-best 28.5%. Hitting the ball on a line that often is a nearly surefire way to rack up a lot of hits. Another key factor is Arraez’s relatively small amount of fly balls; just 28.7% of his batted balls were hit in the air that year, a bottom-ten figure in the sport. That puts obvious limitations on a player’s home run power, but it’s great news for a player’s batting average.

Of course, it should be remembered that Arraez is something of a unicorn. Attempting to replicate his approach leaves a player very prone to year-to-year swings in productivity, as seen by the fact that Arraez himself has stuck with that approach in 2024 and ’25 but seen his wRC+ drop to just 109 in that time due to a 48-point drop in BABIP. Some of that can be explained by a small dip in line drive rate (26.3%), but much of it comes down to the randomness involved with batted balls that aren’t hit especially hard. Perhaps Kwan’s approach, which involves more patience (39.4% career swing rate) than either Arraez (46.0%) or Wilson (51.8%), could be an option for Wilson if replicating Arraez doesn’t work out. But for now, Wilson’s Arraez-esque approach does seem to be working for him. His 23.7% line-drive rate is hardly the best in the league right now, but it’s still a well above-average figure. And his ability to limit soft contact is very similar to Arraez; 16.8% of Wilson’s batted balls have been hit softly this year, as compared to 15.2% of Arraez’s last season.

How do MLBTR readers view Wilson’s future? Will he be able to emerge as a rare unicorn able to get by on pure contact like Arraez, or will he need to make adjustments to be more patient at the plate like Kwan in order to be an above-average hitter? Have your say in the poll below:

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MLBTR Originals MLBTR Polls Oakland Athletics Jacob Wilson (b. 2002)

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Chet Lemon Passes Away

By Darragh McDonald | May 8, 2025 at 1:57pm CDT

Former White Sox and Tigers great Chet Lemon has passed away at the age of 70, per an obituary from Jeff Seidel of the Detroit Free Press. A specific cause of death wasn’t listed but Lemon’s ongoing health problems have been previously documented. He was diagnosed with polycythemia vera, a rare blood disorder, while still a player in 1990. The obituary notes that Lemon suffered a series of clots and at least 13 strokes over the years. That led to at least 300 hospital visits in the past 30 years and left Lemon unable to walk or talk.

Lemon was born in Jackson, Mississippi in 1955 but he and his family moved to Los Angeles six months later. He grew up in L.A. and played ball at John C. Fremont High School. He was drafted out of that school by the Athletics in 1972.

In June of 1975, still in the minor leagues, Lemon and Dave Hamilton were traded to the Chicago White Sox for Stan Bahnsen and Skip Pitlock. Lemon made his major league debut with Chicago late that year, getting into nine games. He got a more proper debut in 1976, playing 132 games for the Sox as the regular center fielder, a new position for him since he was an infielder in the minors. He didn’t do too much at the plate that year, with a .246 batting average and only four home runs, but the move to the grass seemed to work out well as he only made three errors all season long.

An offensive breakout emerged in 1977, as Lemon hit .273 with 19 home runs that year. He would carry that kind of production over into subsequent seasons, getting selected to the All-Star team in 1978 and ’79.

Ahead of the 1982 season, he was traded to the Tigers for Steve Kemp. In Detroit, he was shifted to right field for one season but was moved back to center in 1983. He continued to provide quality defense up the middle while hitting about 20 homers annually. In that era of Tiger baseball, Lemon was part of a core that also included Alan Trammell, Lou Whitaker, Kirk Gibson, Willie Hernández, Jack Morris and many others.

In 1984, Lemon hit exactly 20 long balls, drove in 76 runs and scored 77, making his third All-Star team in the process. The Tigers went 104-58 that year, dominating the American League East, finishing 15 games ahead of the second-place Blue Jays. Lemon would only hit .167/.219/.167 in the playoffs but the Tigers nonetheless cruised through the postseason, sweeping the Royals in the ALCS with a 3-0 victory in the final year before the league championships went to a best-of-seven format. They then beat the Padres 4-1 in the World Series.

Lemon would continue producing in roughly the same fashion through the rest of the decade. As mentioned, he was diagnosed with his condition in 1990. He kept playing that year but battled multiple injuries and hit only five home runs in what eventually turned out to be his final season.

In total, his playing career consisted of 1,988 games and 7,872 plate appearances. He recorded 1,875 hits, including 215 home runs. He stole 58 bases, scored 973 runs and drove in 884. He was considered an excellent defensive center fielder. He made three All-Star teams and won a World Series ring. He spent most of his post-playing days coaching young players, including the creation of the Chet Lemon Foundation, which strives to “empower the next generation of athletes through scholarship opportunities, while also championing stroke and aphasia awareness … and providing crucial resources and support to those affected by stroke and aphasia,” per the foundation’s web site.

We at MLBTR join the baseball world in sending our condolences to Lemon’s family, friends, fans and everyone else mourning him at this time.

Photo courtesy of Junfu Han, Imagn Images.

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