Cubs Designate Corbin Martin For Assignment
The Cubs announced Thursday that righty Corbin Martin has been designated for assignment. His roster spot will go to fellow right-handed reliever Gavin Hollowell, who has been recalled from Triple-A Iowa.
Martin signed a minor league deal with Chicago back in January. His contract was selected to the major league roster in mid-April, and he’s appeared in seven games with sub-par results. The 2017 second-rounder (Astros) started out nicely, with four shutout innings, but he’s allowed runs in three consecutive appearances and only completed one inning in that time. Over those three outings, Martin has faced 11 batters and yielded four hits (two of them homers) and four walks en route to six earned runs.
More to come.
Royals Notes: Ragans, Rotation, Estévez
The Royals got a bit of injury scare yesterday with Cole Ragans departing his start. He’ll continue to be evaluated but the Royals appear to be hopeful that the move was precautionary and that Ragans won’t need to go on the injured list.
Ragans threw 58 pitches over three innings before departing last night. After the game, he told Anne Rogers of MLB.com that he felt soreness and tightness in the bottom of his triceps and elbow. That sounds a bit ominous, especially for a guy with two prior Tommy John surgeries, but Ragans feels this is different. “I’ve been through the elbow stuff,” he said. “I know it’s not what I’ve been through before.” Manager Matt Quatraro told broadcaster Joel Goldberg that he was being cautious with the removal and that he’s hopeful Ragans can make his next start.
The southpaw isn’t out to his best start, with a 4.84 earned run average and 15.2% walk rate so far this year. Regardless, the Royals don’t want to lose him, knowing what he’s capable of. In 2024, he finished fourth in American League Cy Young voting after posting a 3.14 ERA over 32 starts.
If Ragans does ultimately end up on the IL, the Royals are in a decent spot to cover for him, with Stephen Kolek currently on the outside of the rotation looking in. Kolek started the year on the IL himself due to an oblique strain. He came off the IL a couple of days ago and made a spot start when Noah Cameron was experiencing some back tightness. Kolek had a strong start, getting the win against the Guardians after throwing six innings of three-run ball. But since Cameron is expected to make his next start, Kolek was optioned to Triple-A.
A pitcher who is optioned normally has to wait 15 days before being recalled but an exception is made when someone is placed on the IL. If Ragans or Cameron were put on the shelf, Kolek could be promptly recalled.
Kolek has a 4.03 career ERA and just posted a 2.76 ERA on his rehab assignment before that spot start. He would be in the rotation for a lot of teams but is currently blocked by Ragans, Cameron, Seth Lugo, Michael Wacha and Kris Bubic. Other depth options on the roster including Mason Black and Mitch Spence but the Royals recently lost Ryan Bergert and Ben Kudrna to season-ending surgeries.
There’s also a notable injury situation to watch relating to the Kansas City bullpen. Reliever Carlos Estévez exited a rehab game yesterday due to shoulder discomfort. That’s a bit of a worrisome development since that’s a new injury. He landed on the IL a little over a month ago due to a left foot contusion suffered when he was hit by a comebacker.
Even before getting hit by that comebacker, his velocity was down and his early-season results were poor. His fastball averaged around 97 miles per hour for most of his career. He was closer to 96 last year. He was below 90 mph in spring training and posted a 7.20 ERA. In his lone regular season outing, he was at 91 mph and allowed six earned runs in a third of an inning.
Perhaps this shoulder discomfort provides an explanation for the diminished stuff but time will tell what sort of remedy will be required. With Estévez out, Lucas Erceg has been the closer. He has racked up ten saves but not in smooth fashion, having walked 17.7% of batters faced. Among pitchers with at least 15 innings pitched this year, only Connor Phillips of the Reds has a higher walk rate than that. Ideally, Estévez would come back and bump Erceg back to a setup role but it doesn’t seem like that will happen anytime soon.
Photo courtesy of Steven Bisig, Imagn Images
Yankees Select Brendan Beck
The Yankees announced Thursday that they’ve selected the contract of righty Brendan Beck from Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre. Right-hander Yerry de los Santos was optioned to Triple-A following last night’s game. New York already had a trio of 40-man roster vacancies. Their roster is now at 38.
Beck will be with the club for today’s afternoon tilt against the Rangers and could make his big league debut. Veteran righty Paul Blackburn is slated to start for the Yanks after Ryan Weathers was scratched due to illness. Beck, a starter with the Yankees’ top affiliate, could be a long relief option behind Blackburn, whose longest outing of the season has been three innings. Weathers will slot back into the rotation next week, manager Aaron Boone told reporters last night (link via ESPN’s Jorge Castillo). Weathers himself told the team’s beat that he got sick shortly after his last start and wound up losing nine pounds in under 48 hours (via SNY’s Chelsea Janes), so he’ll understandably be pushed back a few days as he regains strength.
The 27-year-old Beck — the younger brother of Giants righty Tristan Beck — was the Yankees’ second-round pick out of Stanford back in 2021. He’s a soft-tossing righty with plus command whose pro career has been marred by injuries. Beck required Tommy John surgery not long after being drafted and then missed all of the 2024 campaign due to another elbow surgery.
Beck returned from that second elbow procedure in 2025 and delivered a terrific season between Double-A and Triple-A, combining for 131 1/3 innings with a 3.36 ERA, a 23.6% strikeout rate and a 6.9% walk rate. He’s had an uneven start to his 2026 season, serving up a 5.11 ERA in 37 frames, but nearly all the damage against him thus far came in a pair of nightmare outings that saw him yield seven and eight runs. He’s held opponents to two or fewer earned runs in four of seven starts this year and is coming off a strong seven-inning outing against the Blue Jays’ top affiliate, where he held his opponents to a pair of runs on five hits and a walk with four strikeouts.
The Beck brothers, whose mother was born in England and whose grandfather was born in Wales, pitched for Great Britain’s team in this year’s World Baseball Classic. Brendan tossed four shutout innings with four strikeouts. This is his first career selection to the 40-man roster, so 2026 will be the first of three minor league option years for him. The Yankees can control Beck for at least six years beyond the current campaign.
The Opener: Cubs, Rays, Reynolds
Reigning NL Cy Young winner Paul Skenes flirted with history again on Wednesday. The big righty was perfect through 4 2/3 innings against the Diamondbacks, until he couldn’t make the play on a Lourdes Gurriel Jr. roller up the third base line. Nolan Arenado followed with a clean single, then Skenes retired the next 10 hitters.
1. Cubs walk it off again
A Michael Busch bases-loaded walk pushed across the winning run for the Cubs in the 10th inning last night. It was their third straight walk-off victory in an important NL Central battle against the Reds. Chicago has won seven in a row. Cincinnati is now last in the division after dropping the first three games of the series. The Reds’ 20-17 record would pace the AL Central, but it’s not enough to get out of the basement on the NL side. With a win on Thursday ahead of a nine-game road trip, the Cubs can go more than a month without losing at Wrigley Field.
2. Rays getting national spotlight
Tampa Bay shut out the Blue Jays on Wednesday behind a strong outing from Shane McClanahan. Ian Seymour slammed the door for his first career save. The Rays have now held opponents to three runs or less in 13 consecutive games, a new franchise record (per MLB). The streak will be on the line against the Red Sox on Thursday evening, with the nation watching. The matchup will be broadcast on ESPN, marking the Rays’ first regular-season game on the network since 2021 (h/t Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times). “It’s kind of like the ‘first time, long time’ caller on a talk radio station,” broadcaster Karl Ravech said. “It’s the first time, long time for the Rays on a national game for us.”
3. Reynolds joins elite company
Pirates outfielder Bryan Reynolds singled in the third inning of Wednesday’s matchup against Arizona, giving him 1,000 hits in his career. The 31-year-old is now the fifth Pittsburgh player to record 1,000 hits, 200 doubles, and 140 home runs (h/t Jason Mackey of MLB.com). Pirates legends Roberto Clemente, Andrew McCutchen, Dave Parker, and Willie Stargell round out the group. Reynolds has been a remarkably steady presence in the Pittsburgh lineup since becoming a full-time player in 2021. He’s reached 145 games and 600 plate appearances in five straight years. Before a lackluster 2025, Reynolds had been at least 10% better than league average at the plate during that stretch.
Photo courtesy of Matt Marton, Imagn Images
Carlos Correa To Undergo Season-Ending Ankle Surgery
The hits keep coming for the Astros. Brian McTaggart of MLB.com reports that third baseman/shortstop Carlos Correa will require season-ending surgery to repair a left ankle injury. Correa was scratched from last night’s game and subsequently reported to have suffered a potentially major ankle injury. He was in the clubhouse today on crutches.
Correa himself told reporters in Houston that he suffered a torn tendon in his left ankle (video link via McTaggart). The requisite surgery to repair the injury will sideline him for the next six to eight months. (Notably, that’s not the ankle that caused enough medical concern to scuttle a pair of major free agent deals a few offseasons back.) As Correa explains, it was a freak incident:
“I was hitting in the cage — normal day, feeling great. I went through my whole routine, took a swing, and felt a pop. It just completely snapped on me, and then I fell to the ground, couldn’t put weight on it. Just a normal swing, but I felt a loud pop. I heard it. I felt it. I knew right away something was wrong.”
With Correa’s season over, the Astros will entrust shortstop to Nick Allen and Braden Shewmake for the time being. Both are light-hitting defensive specialists, though Shewmake took Shohei Ohtani deep for a go-ahead home run last night. Star shortstop Jeremy Peña is on the mend from a hamstring strain and will reclaim everyday shortstop work once healthy. Peña’s return would have pushed Correa back to third base, but the hot corner will now be manned by Isaac Paredes moving forward, with a resurgent Christian Walker at first base, Jose Altuve at second base and Yordan Alvarez at designated hitter.
Correa is the latest in a dizzying line of major Astros injuries. He joins not only Peña but Hunter Brown (shoulder strain), Josh Hader (biceps tendinitis), Yainer Diaz (oblique strain), Jake Meyers (oblique strain), Tatsuya Imai (arm fatigue), Cristian Javier (shoulder strain), Joey Loperfido (quad strain) and Taylor Trammell (groin strain) as Astros to suffer new injuries this season. The ‘Stros are also still without pitchers Ronel Blanco, Hayden Wesneski and Brandon Walter, all three of whom underwent UCL surgery during the 2025 season.
Suffice it to say, the 2026 season hasn’t gone according to plan. Houston’s 15-22 record is the fifth-worst in Major League Baseball. Long-term absences for key players like Correa, Brown, Hader and Peña have conspired to dig an early hole from which they’ll be hard-pressed to climb out. The pitching, in particular, has been egregiously bad. Houston not only ranks last in the majors with a team-wide 5.65 ERA — they’re 64 points north of the 29th-ranked D-backs, who sit at a collective 5.01. The bullpen’s 6.20 ERA is the highest in MLB by nearly a full run over the 29th-ranked Angels (5.35). The rotation’s 5.13 ERA ranks 29th, narrowly leading Arizona (5.20).
The 2026 trade deadline is still just under three months away, but the mountain of injuries and a dismal pitching performance thus far makes it hard to envision the ‘Stros recovering — even with Alvarez and Walker combining to create one of the more formidable lineup duos in the game. The Astros will face some tough decisions at this year’s deadline, due not only to the current state of affairs but also an increasingly concerning long-term outlook that doesn’t create much optimism.
[Related: The Astros’ Ominous Long-Term Outlook]
As for Correa, he’s still signed for another two seasons beyond the current year. He’ll earn $30.5MM in 2027 and $30MM in 2028, though the Twins are paying $10MM per year (2026-28) as part of the trade that sent Correa and more than $70MM of his remaining contract back to Houston. His six-year, $200MM deal also contains a quartet of vesting club options valued at $25MM, $20MM, $15MM and $10MM, spanning the 2029-32 seasons. Those options can vest based on the total plate appearances Correa logs in the immediately preceding season.
Cubs Re-Sign Vince Velasquez To Minor League Deal, Outright Yacksel Ríos
The Cubs re-signed righty Vince Velasquez to a minor league contract, per the MiLB.com transaction log. The tracker also indicates that reliever Yacksel Ríos cleared outright waivers after being designated for assignment on Sunday.
Velasquez elected free agency last week following his own DFA. The 33-year-old had signed an offseason minor league deal with Chicago. He started three of four appearances with Iowa, allowing eight runs (seven earned) through 17 innings. He struck out 19 opponents while issuing nine walks and hitting a batter.
The Cubs brought Velasquez up for a long relief spot. He pitched 2 1/3 scoreless frames in a blowout loss to the Dodgers. That was his first MLB appearance in three years. Velasquez threw 31 pitches and wasn’t going to be available the next day, so the Cubs designated him for assignment to bring up a fresh arm (Ríos, coincidentally).
Ríos spent a week on Chicago’s active roster. He only got into one game, retiring all five batters faced with a pair of strikeouts against L.A. on April 26. That was also his first MLB outing since 2023. Ríos averaged 98.5 mph with his heater in that lone appearance. He’d posted more middling numbers with Iowa before he got called up, allowing six earned runs with an 8:6 strikeout-to-walk ratio through 10 2/3 frames.
The 32-year-old righty has a previous career outright on his résumé, meaning he can elect free agency. There’s a decent chance he’d follow the Velasquez path and return to the Cubs on a minor league deal even if he opts to test the market.
Dodgers Notes: Glasnow, Snell, Hernández
The Dodgers are sending Tyler Glasnow for a precautionary MRI after his early exit on Wednesday afternoon, manager Dave Roberts tells reporters (including Maddie Lee of The Los Angeles Times). The big righty felt a back spasm while warming up in the second inning of today’s start in Houston. The Dodgers got him out of the game at that point.
Roberts said the team doesn’t believe Glasnow will need a stint on the injured list. The pitcher said it’s a recurring issue which he battles a couple times per season. Glasnow had a minimal IL stint in 2024 due to lower back tightness and was scratched from a start last September with the same issue.
Glasnow allowed a leadoff home run to Brice Matthews before rebounding with strikeouts of Yordan Alvarez and Isaac Paredes. He became the 45th active pitcher to reach 1000 career punchouts in the process. Glasnow has fanned just under a third of opponents en route to a 2.72 earned run average over his first seven starts.
The early exit forced the Dodgers to lean heavily on their bullpen. Jack Dreyer, Edgardo Henriquez, Kyle Hurt, Blake Treinen, Tanner Scott and the just activated Brock Stewart all pitched in what turned out to be a blowout 12-2 win. Los Angeles is off tomorrow and none of their relievers topped 27 pitches, so they may not need to make any changes to the staff heading into a weekend series against the NL-leading Braves.
L.A. entered play on Wednesday as one of the two teams (along with the Yankees) whose rotation had a sub-3.00 earned run average. Shohei Ohtani was the National League’s Pitcher of the Month for April. Justin Wrobleski is second in MLB behind Ohtani in ERA. Glasnow and Yoshinobu Yamamoto have each pitched very well. Roki Sasaki and Emmet Sheehan are the two of L.A.’s season-opening starters who have struggled.
That sextet has accounted for all of the Dodgers’ starts so far. That’ll likely change within the next 10 days. Blake Snell, out all season after offseason shoulder fatigue, is set for his final rehab appearance on Saturday with Low-A Ontario (via the MLB.com injury tracker). He’s expected to rejoin the MLB rotation after that, so he should make his season debut in the middle of next week.
The Dodgers have firmly maintained they view Sasaki as a starter even as the former NPB star struggled with walks and home runs throughout Spring Training and the early part of the regular season. They might be more willing to move Sheehan to the bullpen, though he has a much better strikeout and walk profile than Sasaki does. If Glasnow does require an IL stint, that’d take the decision out of the club’s hands.
In other injury news, utilityman Kiké Hernández began a rehab assignment with Triple-A Oklahoma City last night. Hernández began the season on the 60-day injured list after last fall’s elbow surgery. That officially rules him out until at least May 24. Position players can spend up to 20 days on a rehab assignment, so the Dodgers clearly anticipate Hernández being ready to go when he’s first eligible.
Barring a setback, he’ll return to the MLB roster on either May 24 or 25. The Dodgers have used Alex Freeland and Hyeseong Kim as their middle infield tandem with Mookie Betts and Tommy Edman both on the injured list. Santiago Espinal and fourth outfielder Alex Call occupy the final two spots on the bench. Call has a couple minor league options remaining but has been a productive short side platoon bat for the past couple seasons. Espinal, who broke camp after an offseason minor league deal, has more than five years of MLB service and can refuse an assignment to the minors.
Nick Sandlin Elects Free Agency
May 6: Sandlin cleared waivers and elected free agency, according to the MLB.com transaction log. It wouldn’t be a surprise if he returns to the Halos on a fresh minor league contract.
May 4: The Angels announced that left-hander Sam Aldegheri has been recalled from Triple-A Salt Lake. In a corresponding move, right-hander Nick Sandlin has been designated for assignment. The club’s 40-man roster count drops to 39.
Sandlin, 29, signed a minor league deal with the Halos in the offseason. He was added to the big league roster about three weeks ago. Since then, he has logged 8 2/3 innings but has unfortunately surrendered 11 earned runs in that time. He allowed nine hits, including two home runs. He walked five batters and hit another three while striking out five opponents.
The Angels have bumped him off the roster after those struggles. He has options but he just hit five years of big league service time in recent weeks. By getting to that line, he can no longer be optioned to the minors without his consent, hence the DFA. He can be in DFA limbo for as long as a week. The waiver process takes 48 hours, so the Halos could take five days to field trade interest, but they could also put him on waivers sooner than that.
Sandlin does have some major league success but the past year or so has been rough for him. From 2021 to 2025, he logged 211 2/3 innings in the show with a 3.19 earned run average. His 11.4% walk rate was high but he struck out 27.3% of batters faced. Injuries hobbled him with the Jays last year. He made trips to the injured list for a lat strain and then later for elbow inflammation. He only tossed 16 1/3 innings around those IL stints. The Jays outrighted him in November and Sandlin elected free agency.
The Angels were hoping for a bounceback but couldn’t get it. He started his season with a 1.42 ERA in 6 1/3 Triple-A innings but with poor underlying metrics. That low ERA was mostly a byproduct of a .222 batting average on balls in play and 87.5% strand rate. When he got called up to the majors, his results regressed to an extreme degree.
If Sandlin clears waivers, he would have the right to elect free agency. His recent form has been rough but some clubs may be interested in signing him to a minor league deal, hoping he can get back to his previous form with some regular reps.
Photo courtesy of Jay Biggerstaff, Imagn Images
Daniel Johnson Elects Free Agency
Daniel Johnson elected free agency after being outrighted by the Astros, according to the MLB.com transaction log. Houston designated him for assignment on Monday when they recalled Zach Cole from Triple-A.
Johnson appeared in eight games, collecting two hits and walks apiece over 17 plate appearances. The lefty-hitting outfielder has appeared in parts of five MLB seasons but has fewer than 200 career trips to the dish. Johnson owns a .191/.249/.306 line with five home runs in 75 games, striking out at a 28% clip along the way.
The New Mexico State product began this year with the Marlins on a minor league contract. Johnson didn’t get to the Majors with Miami but spent a couple weeks in the bigs with Houston given their need for a left-handed hitting outfielder. He’s a .255/.321/.448 hitter in nearly 1800 plate appearances over parts of seven Triple-A campaigns.
Fernando Tatis Jr.’s Power Outage
The Padres are 36 games into their season. Outfielder Fernando Tatis Jr. is still searching for his first home run. The 27-year-old has yet to leave the yard despite hitting the ball harder than just about everyone. Tatis was slugging .305 heading into Wednesday, nearly 200 points below his career mark. He has six extra-base hits in 148 plate appearances.
Tatis isn’t going to get shut out in the home run column all season. He’s recorded 12 barrels, which should’ve translated to around a half-dozen homers, based on the rate those batted-ball events tend to leave the yard. Luis Rengifo has the second-most barrels without a home run at six. Last season, Jose Tena had the most barrels without a home run, also with six. If he continues to barrel the ball at a 12.5% clip, Tatis will get on the board before long.
Since his 42-homer season in 2021, Tatis has been more of a mid-20s guy in the power department. He has exactly 25 dingers in his two full campaigns during that stretch. Injuries and an 80-game PED suspension sidelined Tatis for all of 2022. A stress fracture in his leg cost him two months in 2024, but he still hit 21 home runs in 102 games. Even as Tatis’ combination of power and speed has trended toward the latter, he’s still been an extremely productive offensive force. The outfielder has had a wRC+ above 130 in each of the past two seasons.
Tatis has slashed .250/.320/.305 through 34 games. He’s been 20% worse than league average at the plate by wRC+. And that’s with a .337 BABIP, his highest since his rookie season. So, what’s gone wrong for the superstar?
Suboptimal directional contact
The easiest way to turn loud contact into a parade of singles is to use the whole field. Tatis had been almost exactly league average in terms of directional contact for his career. His pulled, up the middle, and opposite field contact rates have seldom skewed more than 5% off of the league norm. Tatis has upended that trend this season. He’s pulling the ball just 20.8% of the time (per Statcast), well below the league average of 37.4% and nowhere near his career mark of 37.7%. Tatis is going up the middle at a massive 46.9% clip, nearly 10% higher than league average. He’s using the opposite field on 32.3% of his batted balls, a nearly 7% jump from his previous career high (25.4% in 2024).
Using the whole field isn’t inherently bad, particularly when you rank in the 99th percentile in hard-hit rate. Tatis has a solid .280 expected batting average, which ranks in the 82nd percentile. It’s just not the ideal path toward turning hard hits into damage.
Decline in fly balls
Tatis isn’t just spraying the ball more than ever. He’s also hitting it on the ground at a career-high 52.1% rate. Tatis has typically leaned slightly higher than average on grounders, but his lifetime mark was only a couple of percentage points above the league average of 44.2%. Tatis still provided plenty of power with a 49.0% groundball rate in 2025, which was a career-high at the time. He posted a sub-20% line drive rate for the first time as a big leaguer, but his fly ball rate remained intact last season.
The jump in groundballs has come at the expense of fly balls this year. Tatis’ line drive rate is up to 28.1%, the best of his career. He’s trimmed his pop-up rate to 3.1%. But Tatis is lifting the ball at just a 16.7% clip, a 9% drop from his career average, and well below the leaguewide mark of 24.1%. He’s also pulling the ball in the air at a career-low 5.2% rate. It’s the eighth-lowest mark among qualified hitters. The bottom 10 in pulled air rate is littered with no-power speedsters like Victor Scott II, Chandler Simpson, Jake Mangum, and Luisangel Acuna. It’s not the kind of group you want to be in, particularly as a high-impact offensive contributor.
Bump in strikeouts
Tatis entered the league with a swing-and-miss issue. He had a strikeout rate near 30% with a concerning 67.1% contact rate as a rookie. Even during the massive 2021 season, when he finished third in NL MVP voting, Tatis struck out at a bloated 28.0% rate. He had the fifth-lowest contact rate among qualified hitters. While the power has ticked down in recent seasons, Tatis has also made more contact. He was in the low-20s for strikeout rate in 2023 and 2024. The 2025 campaign saw him punch out at just a 18.7% clip.
The strikeout rate has jumped back up to 25.0% in 2026. Tatis’ called strike + swinging strike rate is at 26.9%, his highest since 2021. His whiff rate is above 30% for the first time in three seasons. These numbers are in line with the first three seasons of Tatis’ career, but he was a premier power bat in those years.
Now what?
The Padres handed Tatis a 14-year, $340MM extension heading into the 2021 season. It gets more expensive the longer it goes. Tatis will be making $36MM a year from 2029 through 2032. He’s generally been worth the money up to this point, lost 2022 season aside. Tatis has been a 5+ WAR player (per Baseball Reference) in 2021, 2023, and 2025. He has two Gold Gloves for his splendid work in right field, and he’s chipped in some additional defensive value by playing second base this year. It’d be nice if he hit more like a corner outfielder than a second baseman.
Tatis appears to be himself from a physical perspective. His bat speed remains elite at 74.6 mph, and his fast swing rate is higher than ever (51.1%). His stance is a bit more closed, and he’s standing slightly further back from the plate, but he hasn’t made any massive changes with his setup. Tatis’ intercept point is much closer to the plate than normal, which explains the change in contact direction. His sprint speed is right in line with the past couple of years. He’s not broken. He’s just been the worst parts of his previous selves in 2026.
Photo courtesy of David Frerker, Imagn Images