Rockies, Jordan Romano Agree To Minor League Deal
The Rockies are in agreement with veteran reliever Jordan Romano on a minor league contract, reports Thomas Harding of MLB.com. He’d been released by the Angels last week. The VC Sports Group client will report to the organization’s Arizona complex before being assigned to a minor league affiliate, Harding adds.
Romano signed a $2MM free agent deal with the Halos in December. It was a rebound flier on the two-time All-Star, who was coming off an ugly 8.23 ERA showing with the Phillies last year. Season-opening injuries to Robert Stephenson and Kirby Yates — plus Ben Joyce’s rehab from shoulder surgery — pushed Romano into the closer role.
Things started promisingly. Romano reeled off six straight scoreless appearances to begin the year, nailing down four saves in the process. A trip to the Bronx proved his undoing, however, as Romano allowed five runs while retiring one of nine opponents and taking two losses in that series. He rebounded with two straight scoreless outings with five strikeouts before surrendering four runs in a blowout loss in Kansas City on April 25. The Angels then designated him for assignment.
Romano wound up allowing nine runs over eight innings. He fanned 12 while recording a strong 13% swinging strike rate but issued six walks and hit a batter. His fastball averaged 94.5 mph and slider sat around 85 mph, down a tick from last season’s velocity. Both pitches were around three miles per hour harder during his peak years as one of the American League’s best closers in Toronto.
The 33-year-old has battled injuries in the interim. Romano missed time in 2023 with back inflammation and battled elbow injuries in ’24, eventually culminating in arthroscopic surgery. His 2025 season was cut short by inflammation and numbness in his right middle finger.
Colorado will take a low-risk flier to see if they can get Romano on track. The assignment to the complex indicates the Rockies will try to work out some mechanical or pitch mix tweaks before sending him back to game action.
The Rox have had a solid bullpen overall, though that’s skewed to an extent by the team using Chase Dollander behind an opener. Antonio Senzatela and Brennan Bernardino have had excellent starts to the year. The rest of the group has been up and down. Senzatela and Jimmy Herget are the only Colorado relievers who can’t be optioned.
Bob Skinner Passes Away
Bob Skinner, an All-Star left fielder and two-time World Series champion as a player, passed away on Monday at age 94. The Pirates announced the news this afternoon.
“As a member of the 1960 World Series championship team, Bob was an important part of one of the most beloved teams in our storied history and helped deliver a moment that will forever be woven into the fabric of our city,” Pirates owner Bob Nutting said in a press release. “Bob was a talented player, a proud Pirate and a respected member of the baseball community. On behalf of the entire Pirates organization, we extend our deepest condolences to Bob’s family, friends and all those who knew and loved him.”
Skinner played parts of 12 seasons in the big leagues, the majority of which came in Pittsburgh. A native of La Jolla, California, Skinner played a season at nearby San Diego Junior College. The Pirates had scouted him since high school and added him on a minor league deal in 1951. Skinner played one season in the minors before being drafted into the Marines during the Korean War. He was stationed in San Diego and played for his base team but was out of the professional ranks for two seasons.
After the conclusion of his service, Skinner returned to the Pirates for the 1954 season. He made his MLB debut that year but struggled as a rookie, leading the Bucs to send him back to the minors in ’55. Skinner made it back to the Majors one year later and finally settled in during his third MLB season, breaking out by hitting .305 in 1957.
Skinner took another step forward during the ’58 campaign. He hit .321/.387/.491 and drove in 70 runs to earn his first All-Star selection and some down ballot MVP support. That’d be his best statistical season, but the left-handed hitter returned to the All-Star Game in 1960. More importantly, the Pirates would go on to defeat the Yankees in a classic seven-game World Series for the franchise’s first championship in 35 years.
After a middling 1961 season, Skinner set a career high with 20 homers while batting .302 in 1962. The Pirates would traded him to the Reds a year later. Cincinnati dealt Skinner to the Cardinals midway through the ’64 campaign, a move that paid off handsomely for him personally. Although he was a role player by that point, he won his second career World Series when the Cards defeated the Yankees in another seven-game Fall Classic. Skinner went 3-4 as a pinch-hitter in that series (though all of his hits came in the St. Louis losses).
Skinner’s playing career ended after the 1966 season. That wasn’t close to the conclusion of his time in baseball, however. He jumped right into minor league managing and would up as an MLB skipper by 1968. The Phillies hired him to replace Gene Mauch midway through that season. Skinner himself was fired less than a year later as Philadelphia got out to a rough start to the ’69 campaign.
He had a brief stint as an interim manager with the Padres in 1977 but spent most of the decade as a hitting coach. That included a return to Pittsburgh in 1979, when the Bucs won another World Series. Skinner worked on the Braves’ coaching staff and as a minor league manager and scout with the Astros after that, remaining in baseball until 2009.
Skinner finished his playing career as a .277/.351/.421 hitter. He topped 100 home runs and tallied nearly 1200 hits while recording 531 runs batted in. MLB Trade Rumors sends our condolences to Skinner’s family — including his son Joel, a former MLB catcher and manager — loved ones, friends, and the countless people whose lives he impacted over his lengthy run in baseball.
Yusei Kikuchi Shut Down For 3-4 Weeks
The Angels are shutting down Yusei Kikuchi for the next three to four weeks, manager Kurt Suzuki tells reporters (link via Rhett Bollinger of MLB.com). The two-time All-Star landed on the injured list over the weekend with shoulder inflammation.
Kikuchi departed last Wednesday’s start at Rate Field after two innings. The Halos sent him for imaging two days later. The team hasn’t provided many more specifics beyond noting that Kikuchi received a second opinion over the weekend before deciding to attempt to rehab without surgery.
It’s not a worst case scenario but also not an especially encouraging update. Kikuchi will be reevaluated towards the end of the month. If he’s still able to proceed with non-surgical rehab, he’ll likely spend the majority of June building back up. The full shutdown means Kikuchi will need multiple bullpen and live batting practice sessions before he’s ready to begin a minor league assignment.
This is the second season of Kikuchi’s three-year, $63MM free agent contract. He was a relative bright spot for the Halos last year, turning in a sub-4.00 ERA over a career-best 178 1/3 innings. He has struggled to a 5.81 mark over his first seven starts this year. Kikuchi’s strikeout and walk profile is largely unchanged. The ugly run prevention is driven mostly by a spike in the batting average on balls in play against him.
Kikuchi has made a fairly notable mechanical change. He has raised his arm angle to one of the more over-the-top deliveries among lefty pitchers. Kikuchi had thrown from a similar arm slot during his first couple MLB seasons with the Mariners but had dropped his arm angle over the past few years. This year’s change has coincided with an altered pitch mix, as Kikuchi has scaled back on his slider in favor of more fastballs and a newly-added splitter.
It’s impossible to say whether any of those contributed to the injury. Potential shoulder and elbow problems are an occupational hazard for pitchers. In any case, the Angels will be without Kikuchi for quite some time. They recalled Sam Aldegheri to start tonight against the White Sox in what would have been Kikuchi’s turn. George Klassen, Caden Dana, and long man Mitch Farris are other possibilities to step into the rotation. The Halos have a front four of José Soriano, Reid Detmers, Jack Kochanowicz and rookie Walbert Ureña. They enter play tonight with MLB’s worst record at 13-23.
Nationals Designate Jackson Rutledge For Assignment
The Nationals announced they’ve designated reliever Jackson Rutledge for assignment. That opens the 40-man roster spot for Max Kranick, who has officially signed a major league deal with the team.
Rutledge was the 17th overall pick in the 2019 draft. The hulking 6’8″, 240-pound righty spent most of his minor league career as a starter. He never developed consistent enough control to stick in an MLB rotation and moved to the bullpen after the 2024 season. He held a middle relief role for almost all of last year, his first extended big league action.
After an encouraging April, the righty allowed an earned run average north of 6.00 in each of the next three months. Rutledge pitched well in August but struggled again to close the season. The Nats optioned him to Triple-A Rochester to begin this year, only calling him up for one day on April 13.
The Pirates tagged Rutledge for seven runs on six hits and a couple walks over 1 1/3 innings in his lone appearance. Rutledge has given up seven runs (five earned) across 13 1/3 frames in the minors. He has only fanned nine of 59 batters faced while walking eight and tossing four wild pitches.
Washington has five days to trade Rutledge or expose him to waivers. He has draft pedigree but hasn’t found a ton of success at either the MLB or Triple-A levels. His fastball is in the 94-95 mph range this year and he’s mixing a cutter and splitter. If another team believes they can unlock some of his early-career promise, they could option him to the minors for the remainder of the season. Rutledge has never been outrighted and has less than three years of service time, so the Nationals would keep him in the organization if he clears waivers.
Nationals Sign Max Kranick
May 5: Washington officially announced the signing of Kranick to a one-year contract with a club option for 2027. He has been placed on the 15-day injured list as he continues working back from the elbow procedure. The team did not disclose salary terms.
May 1: The Nationals and right-hander Max Kranick have agreed to terms on a deal, reports Will Sammon of The Athletic. The former Pirates and Mets righty underwent flexor tendon surgery last July and was non-tendered by the Mets in November. The Covenant Sports Group client’s contract is still pending a physical.
Kranick, 28, has pitched in parts of three seasons but never been able to carve out any staying power, thanks largely to injuries. He underwent Tommy John surgery in June of 2022 and missed the vast majority of the 2023 season as a result. The Mets claimed him off waivers in the 2023-24 offseason but didn’t call him to the majors in ’24 — despite solid results in the minors.
In 2025, the Mets gave Kranick a real look. He got out to a nice start and was sitting on a 3.65 ERA through 37 frames at the time of his flexor injury. Kranick’s 16.9% strikeout rate was well south of the 22.3% league average, but his 3.4% walk rate was outstanding. Those trends have been fairly typical for Kranick. He’s never missed many bats but has generally run a better-than-average walk rate (granted, not quite to his 2025 extent) when healthy.
Washington’s pitching staff has been one of the worst in the game this year. The Nats’ 5.11 team earned run average sits 29th in the majors. That’s due largely to struggles in the rotation (Miles Mikolas and Zack Littell, in particular), but Washington’s collective 4.90 ERA from the bullpen ranks 23rd in the game as well.
Given those poor results, it’s hardly a surprise to see the Nats bring in some outside arms. Kranick isn’t going to be ready to jump right into the mix, however. He threw for teams back in January and was said at the time to be targeting a second-half return from the injured list. Once the deal is finalized, he’ll presumably need to work through a throwing progression and then go through a lengthy minor league rehab stint.
Kranick has 3.011 years of big league service time, so if he makes it back to the majors with the Nats and pitches well, he can be controlled for another three seasons beyond the current campaign. He’s out of minor league options, so once he’s added to the active big league roster, Washington won’t be able to send him to the minors unless he clears outright waivers.
Padres Place Jake Cronenworth On IL
The Padres announced today that second baseman Jake Cronenworth has been placed on the seven-day concussion-related injured list. Infielder Sung-Mun Song was recalled to take his place on the roster. The Friars also reinstated left-hander Yuki Matsui from the 15-day IL and optioned fellow lefty Kyle Hart.
The club hasn’t released any details on Cronenworth’s injury, such as how he sustained it or how long they expect him to be shelved. For what it’s worth, he hasn’t been in good form all year. He is currently sporting a .144/.272/.196 line on the season. Ideally, some time to heal up will get him back in good form. He had a strong .246/.367/.377 performance just last year.
His injury will allow Song to get his first real major league action. The Padres signed him this offseason to a four-year, $15MM deal. He got that coming off a strong two-year showing in South Korea, slashing .327/.397/.524 over 2024 and 2025 with the Kiwoom Heroes.
He hasn’t yet had a chance to transfer that kind of production to North America. An oblique issue popped up in January and ultimately put him on the IL to start the year. After he got healthy and completed a rehab assignment, the Padres sent him to the minors in mid-April.
He was briefly recalled when the Padres were facing the Diamondbacks in Mexico City, as the club was allowed a 27th man for that series. Song technically made his major league debut but in about the briefest way possible. He pinch ran for catcher Luis Campusano in the top of the eighth and then was replaced by Freddy Fermin in the bottom of the frame.
Song has a .293/.364/.354 line in Triple-A this year. That looks okay but is actually subpar in the hitter-friendly Pacific Coast League, translating to an 82 wRC+. For what it’s worth, he’s been heating up. He departs El Paso sitting on an eight-game Triple-A hitting streak with a .351/.400/.459 line in that time. That’s a small sample but it’s possible he was just getting into a groove after starting the season injured.
He’s been splitting his time between shortstop, second base and third base. Presumably, Song will take over as the everyday second baseman while Cronenworth is out, though it’s perhaps worth considering the Fernando Tatis Jr. wild card. The Padres have been operating without a real backup middle infielder this season. Cronenworth has been the backup to shortstop Xander Bogaerts while Tatis has been the backup to Cronenworth.
Tatis came up as a shortstop but has been in right field for years. He only had one inning of major league experience at second base prior to this season but has logged 49 frames there in 2026. If the Friars felt comfortable with it, they could try Tatis there more often while Cronenworth is out. Tatis is out to a slow start this year, with a .252/.324/.301 line and no home runs yet, but he has a strong track record and a .275/.353/.504 career line.
The Padres have Ramón Laureano and Jackson Merrill next to Tatis in the outfield most nights. If they were to move Tatis to second from time to time, that would create more opportunities for guys like Miguel Andujar, Gavin Sheets, Nick Castellanos and Bryce Johnson.
Castellanos and Johnson aren’t hitting much right now but Andujar has a .305/.337/.476 line. He has been used mostly at third base and in the designated hitter spot this year but has some corner outfield experience. Sheets is hitting around a league average level while mostly playing first base. If he did play the outfield a bit more, that could open things up for Ty France, who has a .283/.321/.528 line this season.
Perhaps the Padres won’t overthink things, especially with Cronenworth potentially only missing a week. It’s possible they will go the simplest route and just have Song at second for the next little while. He is indeed at the keystone tonight, with Tatis in his usual right field spot.
Photo courtesy of Isaiah J. Downing, Imagn Images
White Sox Acquire Trevor Richards
The White Sox have acquired right-hander Trevor Richards from the Phillies in exchange for cash considerations, according to announcements from both clubs. Chicago has transferred right-hander Drew Thorpe to the 60-day injured list to open a 40-man spot. A corresponding active roster move will be required once Richards reports to the Sox.
The Phillies have had a number of bullpen injuries in the past few weeks. Closer Jhoan Duran hit the injured list with an oblique strain, while Zach Pop and Kyle Backhus also landed on the shelf. Duran was set to be reinstated tonight and Matt Gelb of The Athletic reported that Richards would be bumped off the roster for the closer. He is a veteran with at least five years of service time and therefore can’t be optioned to the minors without his consent. But instead of designating Richards for assignment, the Phils have found a trade partner and flipped Richards to Chicago.
Presumably, the Sox are interested in the recent form Richards flashed in the minors. The Phils signed him to a minor league deal in the offseason and started him at Triple-A this year. He got out to an amazing start. He faced 50 batters and struck out 26 of them, a massive 52% rate. He only issued three walks, a 6% clip. All that resulted in a 1.93 earned run average in 14 innings.
The Phils called Richards up to the big leagues a week ago when Backhus hit the IL. Between that promotion and today’s trade, he made two appearances for the Phils. He allowed one earned run over 4 1/3 innings, striking out five while issuing three walks.
Richards has shown flashes of potential in the big leagues before, as he’s been able to strike guys out but has also struggled with command. From 2021 to 2023, mostly with the Blue Jays, he logged 201 innings. His 31.3% strikeout rate was much better than league average, which is usually around 22 to 23%. But he also gave out walks at a 10.9% clip, about two ticks north of par. The end result was a 4.61 ERA for that span.
The control problems got even worse for him late in 2024. The Jays flipped him to the Twins at the deadline that year but Minnesota released him before the month of August was done. He faced 59 batters as a Twin and gave out 11 walks, an 18.6% clip. He also hit two batters and threw seven wild pitches.
Since then, he has only been briefly in the majors. He made five appearances last year, three for the Royals and two for the Diamondbacks. As mentioned, he had to settle for a minor league deal with the Phils coming into 2026. The White Sox will see if Richards can sustain any of the exciting numbers he showed in Triple-A to start this year.
As for Thorpe, he had Tommy John surgery in March of 2025. His 60-day count is retroactive to the beginning of the season, so he’ll be eligible for reinstatement in a few weeks. His current timeline is unclear but he hasn’t yet begun a rehab assignment, so it doesn’t appear as those he’s close to a return.
Photo courtesy of Morgan Tencza, Imagn Images
Marlins Notes: Alcantara, Rotation, Ramirez
Sandy Alcantara‘s name is all but perpetually ingrained on the rumor mill. The Marlins are always in a state of needing to keep an open mind to trade offers regarding their stars, and he’s currently one of two members of the roster earning more than $4MM. (Closer Pete Fairbanks is earning $13MM on a one-year deal.)
Alcantara is earning $17MM in the final season of his contract, though the team holds a $21MM club option (or $2MM buyout) on the 30-year-old for the 2027 season. After a shaky 2025 campaign — his first season back from Tommy John surgery — Alcantara looks a bit more like his old self. His 3.04 ERA is quite strong, but his rate stats are less encouraging.
Alcantara’s 16.1% strikeout rate is about six points shy of average. His 7.8% walk rate is better than average but still up a ways from his 5.6% peak. Ditto his 47.2% grounder rate — it’s about five points higher than par but about six points shy of his previous top levels. On the plus side, Alcantara’s 97.3 mph average four-seamer remains strong, he’s getting good results on a new 90.1 mph cutter, and his overall 11.2% swinging-strike rate is right in line with the league average, thereby suggesting his strikeout rate could climb up in the weeks ahead.
It’s still been a strong start overall, and other clubs would surely love to get their hands on Alcantara in hopes of restoring some whiffs and adding a former Cy Young winner to their playoff rotations. However, Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic cautions that Alcantara isn’t a lock to be traded. Beyond being a leader in the clubhouse, he’s a personal favorite of owner Bruce Sherman.
It’s not as though the Marlins, who opened the season with a comically low payroll in the $73-74MM range, feel financial pressure to trade Alcantara. If anything, the opposite might hold true. The Major League Baseball Players Association has filed grievances against the Marlins and a few other bottom-of-the-barrel payroll clubs in recent years, arguing that said teams aren’t sufficiently spending the money they receive from larger clubs via MLB’s revenue-sharing system.
In all likelihood, Alcantara will again command plenty of headlines this summer as the Aug. 3 trade deadline approaches. Miami is currently in second place in the NL East, but that’s a nominal feat in a generally disappointing division. The Fish are 8.5 games behind the Braves for first place. They’re technically only four games out in the Wild Card chase, but at 16-19 overall with a -28 run differential, the outlook isn’t especially rosy.
Rosenthal suggests that the Marlins could instead listen on righties Janson Junk and Max Meyer this summer, but Junk is a journeyman with a similarly low strikeout rate (17.4%) and a swinging-strike rate (8.4%) that sits considerably shy of league average. It’s doubtful another team’s going to part with much to acquire him, although given that he was a minor league free agent pickup in the 2024-25 offseason, any return would be considered found money. Meyer would make a far more compelling trade target (37 innings, 2.68 ERA/3.60 SIERA, 26 K%, 8.4 BB%), but the Marlins control the former No. 3 overall pick for three more years beyond the current season. If he’s pitching like this in July/August, the Marlins should have an even higher ask for him than they would Alcantara.
Miami probably hoped that free-agent pickup Chris Paddack would pitch well enough to make himself a deadline candidate as well, but that didn’t happen. The Fish designated him for assignment this morning, cutting bait on a $4MM contract and opening a spot in the rotation in the process. Reliever William Kempner is up from Triple-A Jacksonville to give the bullpen a fresh arm, but the Marlins will need a starting pitcher this Friday.
Braxton Garrett and top prospect Robby Snelling have been mentioned as candidates, but Fish On First reports that Garrett is still slated to make his scheduled start for Jacksonville tonight. If Garrett indeed takes the mound, he won’t be an option to start Friday. That’d be Snelling’s natural turn in the rotation. He’s been starting once every seven days in Triple-A, and his last start came on Friday, May 1.
Snelling, 22, is a former No. 39 overall pick who came to Miami from the Padres as part of the Tanner Scott trade. His stock was down a bit at the time of the swap, but he’s rebounded nicely and now ranks among the sport’s 100 best prospects. So far in six Triple-A starts, he’s posted a 1.86 ERA, a mammoth 40% strikeout rate and a concerning 13.6% walk rate. He has kept 57% of batted balls against him on the ground. He looks to have little left to prove in Triple-A after also posting a 1.27 ERA there in 11 starts last year (2.51 ERA overall in 25 starts between Double-A and Triple-A). He’s not on the 40-man roster, but the Fish have an open spot after Paddack’s DFA.
While the Marlins’ ability to develop young pitching always makes their rotation a point of focus, their catching situation has been a long-running point of focus for the opposite reasons. Miami has struggled to find a solution behind the plate since trading J.T. Realmuto to the Phillies nearly a decade ago. They’ve cycled through Jorge Alfaro, Jacob Stallings, Nick Fortes with cameos from veteran backups like Sandy Leon, Chad Wallach and Bryan Holaday.
There’s more hope on the Marlins’ catcher horizon than at any point in recent memory. Liam Hicks is enjoying a breakout showing at the plate, and Miami just called up top prospect Joe Mack for his major league debut. If Mack hits the ground running, Miami could shift from that revolving-door setup to suddenly having a pair of solid catchers on the roster — a luxury they haven’t enjoyed at any point in recent history.
Mack’s promotion coincided with a demotion for former top prospect Agustin Ramirez, but despite Ramirez’s immense defensive struggles behind the dish, the Marlins aren’t giving up on him as a catcher. Manager Clayton McCullough told the Marlins beat this week that his message to Ramirez was simple (link via MLB.com’s Christina De Nicola): “You’re going to go down to Triple-A, and you’re going to continue to catch. You’re not the first young player that has come up and had bouts of struggle and had to get optioned.”
Ramirez caught only 605 innings last year but was still dinged for a remarkable -14 Defensive Runs Saved. Statcast pegged him as the game’s least-effective catcher in terms of both throwing out would-be base thieves and even more so at blocking balls in the dirt. His minus-28 “blocks above average” was nearly double the second-worst player on the list (a 35-year-old Salvador Perez). Things haven’t improved in 2026, and Ramirez’s bat wilted as well; he hit just .230/.318/.345 in 129 plate appearances.
Ramirez was always a bat-first catcher, and the Marlins don’t have clear long-term options at first base or designated hitter. If he can get his swing back on track, there could yet be a path to seeing semi-regular time between first base, designated hitter (where he’d presumably share times with Hicks) and perhaps some occasional starts behind the plate. It’ll be Mack and Hicks getting the major league opportunities right now, but Mack is just getting his feet wet and Hicks has already cooled a bit after a blistering start to the season.
Astros Designate Dustin Harris For Assignment
The Astros announced a series of roster moves prior to tonight’s game. On the position player side, they reinstated infielder Nick Allen from the 10-day injured list and recalled infielder/outfielder Zach Dezenzo from Triple-A. In corresponding moves, they placed Yainer Diaz on the 10-day IL with a left oblique strain and designated outfielder Dustin Harris for assignment. The Diaz move was reported yesterday. On the pitching side, they recalled right-hander Jason Alexander and optioned fellow righty Ryan Weiss.
Harris, 26, was claimed off waivers a little more than two weeks ago. At the time, the Astros needed some help in the outfield. Dezenzo and Jake Meyers were both on the IL already. Joey Loperfido was also banged up and landed on the IL the next day. Zach Cole was on the IL in the minors.
Since being claimed, Harris has stolen four bases and been solid in the field but produced a tepid .226/.286/.290 line at the plate. That’s a small sample size of 11 games but it roughly matches his general profile. Harris is considered a speed-and-defense guy who isn’t likely to provide much with the bat. He has a .225/.307/.371 line in his big league career. His Triple-A line of .276/.366/.417 looks pretty solid but most of his time at that level has been in the hitter-friendly Pacific Coast League, so the line actually translates to a 101 wRC+, barely league average.
Both Cole and Dezenzo have now gotten healthy, which has squeezed Harris off the roster. Harris spent most of the past few years with the Rangers but exhausted his final option season in 2025. Texas outrighted him off the roster at the end of last season. He elected free agency and signed a minor league deal with the White Sox. He got a brief stint on Chicago’s roster before being put on waivers and claimed by Houston.
He now heads back into DFA limbo, which can last as long as a week. The waiver process takes 48 hours, so Houston could take five days to explore trade interest, though they could also put him on the wire sooner than that. If he clears waivers, he has the right to elect free agency since he has a previous career outright.
The Weiss option is also a notable development, since he was an interesting part of their offseason. The Astros needed rotation depth but had budgetary concerns. Weiss got a major league deal with a $2.6MM guarantee. He came into this year with no big league experience but had just finished a good season in South Korea. He made 30 starts for the Hanwha Eagles last year with a 2.87 earned run average, 28.6% strikeout rate, 7.7% walk rate and 48.5% ground ball rate.
If Weiss were able to put up similar numbers in North America, he could have been a sneaky bargain, but that has not panned out thus far. He has logged 26 innings in a swing role this season with a 7.62 ERA. His 22.9% strikeout rate is around average but he has walked 15.3% of batters faced, almost double league average. He’ll look to get back on track in Triple-A and could get another look with the Astros later in the year if he succeeds.
Photo courtesy of Jamie Sabau, Imagn Images
Diamondbacks Outright Aramis Garcia, Jesus Valdez
The Diamondbacks announced that they have outrighted catcher Aramis Garcia to Triple-A Reno and infielder Jesus Valdez to Double-A Amarillo. Garcia had been designated for assignment last week when Gabriel Moreno was activated from the 10-day injured list. There wasn’t any previous indication that Valdez had been removed from the 40-man roster. Arizona’s count on that 40-man is now down to 38.
Garcia, 33, is a veteran depth catcher who is out of options. He is a competent defender but is has hit just .210/.245/.321 in his career. That has put him in position to bounce on and off the Arizona roster with regularity. He signed a minor league deal with the Snakes ahead of the 2025 season. Last year, he was twice added to the big league roster. In both cases, he was designated for assignment a few days later and sent back to Reno after passing through waivers.
It’s possible the same sequence of events plays out this year. Garcia was called up to the big leagues to cover for Moreno’s injury and then was bumped off when Moreno was reinstated. Garcia has the right to elect free agency but might be comfortable sticking with the Aces and waiting for the next catching injury to pop up.
The Valdez outright might be a more unique situation. The 28-year-old was just added to the club’s roster a little over a week ago. The Diamondbacks and Padres were playing in Mexico City and were allowed a 27th man on the roster. Valdez was added to fill that extra bench spot for the Diamondbacks, getting called up from Double-A Amarillo. He didn’t appear in either of the Mexico City games and was optioned back to the Sod Poodles right after that series.
It appears that the Diamondbacks quietly put him on waivers and no one claimed him. That’s not especially surprising since Valdez hasn’t really been a notable prospect in his career and is a 28-year-old playing in Double-A, though he does have some Triple-A experience. Dating back to the start of 2021, he has a combined .241/.292/.401 line and 76 wRC+ in the minor leagues.
Photo courtesy of Mark J. Rebilas, Imagn Images