Orioles To Promote Trey Gibson
Trey Gibson was added to the Orioles’ taxi squad earlier today, and manager Craig Albernaz confirmed to reporters (including the Baltimore Banner’s Andy Kostka) that the O’s would be officially selecting the right-hander’s contract to the active roster on Sunday. The Orioles have available space on their 40-man roster, so just a 26-man move will be required to add Gibson before he makes his MLB debut in a start against the Yankees.
More to come…
Mets Sign Luis Torrens To Two-Year Contract Extension
The Mets and catcher Luis Torrens have agreed to a two-year, $11.5MM contract extension, according to The Athletic’s Will Sammon. The deal breaks down as $5.75MM in each of the 2027 and 2028 seasons, as per the New York Post’s Jon Heyman, plus another $2MM is available in bonuses. Torrens is represented by Octagon.
Torrens was set to become a free agent at season’s end, but the new deal will keep him in Queens through the 2028 season. Today is Torrens’ 30th birthday, so landing the first multi-year contract of his nine-year career in the majors is quite the present for the veteran catcher. Acquired in a cash transaction from the Yankees in May 2024, Torrens has hit .225/.281/.347 over 444 plate appearances and 152 games in a Mets uniform.
Francisco Alvarez‘s injury-plagued 2025 season opened the door for Torrens to receive a lot of regular playing time. Torrens’ 92 games played in 2025 was the second-highest total of his career, after his 108 appearances with the Mariners in 2021. Over Torrens’ other seven seasons in the majors, however, he played in only 221 games, limited to backup or part-time duty.
The $11.5MM price tag may seem steep for a light-hitting backup catcher, yet Torrens is also one of baseball’s better defensive backstops. Torrens was a finalist for NL Gold Glove honors at the catching position in 2025, with Statcast crediting him with +11 Catching Runs for his excellent framing and outstanding ability to gun down baserunners. Since the start of the 2024 season, Torrens has thrown out 37 of 84 baserunners attempting to steal.
While Torrens’ extension pales in comparison to the other big contracts on the Mets’ books, it does represent another notable outlay given the team’s luxury tax situation. Because this will be New York’s fifth straight season exceeding the highest level of tax penalization, the club is paying a 110% levy on any new spending, so Torrens’ contract comes with a $12.65MM tax bill. Given how badly the Mets have struggled in 2026, the team could be deadline sellers, but it remains to be seen how much (if any) payroll reduction might take place that could impact their tax status to any great extent.
Orioles Designate Albert Suarez, Option Tyler Wells
The Orioles announced four roster moves this morning, including the news that right-hander Albert Suarez has been designated for assignment. Righty Tyler Wells was also optioned to Triple-A, while left-hander Nick Raquet was called up from Triple-A. Left-hander Dietrich Enns was also activated from the 15-day injured list.
Perhaps the most intriguing transaction is still to come, as The Baltimore Banner’s Andy Kostka reported earlier today that top pitching prospect Trey Gibson is joining the team in New York. Gibson is on the Orioles’ taxi squad for now, but he could be officially selected to make his MLB debut in a start tomorrow at Yankee Stadium.
This is second time in a week that the O’s have designated Suarez. The righty’s first trip through DFA limbo saw him clear waivers, elect free agency over an outright assignment, and then quickly re-sign with Baltimore on a new minor league contract. That new deal was then promptly selected back to the 26-man roster yesterday when Ryan Helsley was placed on the 15-day IL, and Suarez threw 2 2/3 innings in Friday’s 7-2 Orioles loss to the Yankees.
Wells also threw 25 pitches over 1 1/3 innings of relief work yesterday, so today’s moves are largely about getting some fresh arms into the bullpen with the O’s having a quick turn-around of an afternoon game after Friday’s night game. Between Wells’ work last night and his two remaining minor league options, he was a logical candidate to be sent down on paper, even if the move is a surprise given how the righty has been both pitching well and something of a roster fixture.
Wells has a 3.44 ERA, 23.7% strikeout rate, and 5.3% walk rate over 18 1/3 relief innings this season. After working mostly as a regular starter in 2022-23, Wells missed most of the next two seasons due to a UCL surgery, and the Orioles chose to deploy him as a multi-inning reliever this year since their rotation was full.
The option means that Wells has to spend a minimum of 15 days at Triple-A before he is eligible to be recalled, unless Baltimore has another injury vacancy in the interim. Given how the Orioles have been bitten hard by the injury bug this year, it’s probably safe to assume that Wells will be back in the Show before that 15-day span is up.
Another swift reunion between Suarez and the O’s also can’t be ruled out, assuming Suarez clears waivers again. Suarez could again decline an outright assignment and test the open market just to weigh his options, or Suarez and the Orioles may have a handshake agreement already in place to bring the righty back on another minors deal in due course.
Enns returns to action after a foot infection kept the southpaw on the IL for almost a month. Enns rejoins a Baltimore pen that now has an equal amount of lefties and righties, as Enns and Raquet join Keegan Akin and Grant Wolfram as the left-handed contingent of the relief mix. Even with Enns activated, the Orioles still have seven other pitchers and 11 total players on their swollen injured list.
Braves Re-Sign Carlos Carrasco, Select Him To Active Roster
TODAY: The Braves announced that Carrasco has been selected to the 26-man roster, so Carrasco must have quickly re-signed a new minor league deal after his brief stint in free agency. Right-hander Anthony Molina was optioned to Triple-A in the corresponding 26-man roster move, and Atlanta will fit Carrasco into one of two open slots on their 40-man roster.
MAY 1: Carlos Carrasco elected free agency after clearing outright waivers, according to the MLB.com transaction log. The Braves designated him for assignment on Thursday when Dylan Lee returned from the paternity list.
There’s a decent chance this is a procedural move and Carrasco will re-sign with Atlanta on a new minor league contract. Initially acquired from the Yankees last July in a cash trade, Carrasco has subsequently signed a pair of minor league deals. He finished last year at Triple-A Gwinnett and quickly re-signed once the offseason began.
Carrasco pitched well in his first four turns through the Triple-A rotation this year. He owns a 1.71 ERA with a solid 20.7% strikeout percentage and tidy 6% walk rate over 21 innings. Carrasco tossed a perfect inning with a strikeout of CJ Abrams in his lone MLB appearance this season.
The 39-year-old righty doesn’t have huge stuff at this stage of his career. His fastball sits around 92 mph and he has leaned more heavily on his slider and changeup to fool Triple-A hitters. He owns a 6.33 ERA at the major league level since the start of 2023.
Twins Place Cole Sands On 15-Day IL, Promote John Klein
The Twins announced that right-hander Cole Sands has been placed on the 15-day injured list due to a left forearm strain. The placement is retroactive to April 29. Right-hander John Klein was called up from Triple-A in the corresponding move, and Klein was already added to Minnesota’s 40-man roster last November in advance of the Rule 5 draft.
More information on the severity of Sands’ injury should be known later today when Twins manager Derek Shelton speaks to the media. Some forearm strains are very minor, but naturally teams tend to proceed with caution when a pitcher has any sort of forearm or elbow-related issue.
Sands has a 4.63 ERA, 22% strikeout rate, and eight percent walk rate over 11 2/3 bullpen innings for Minnesota this season, and batters have a hefty 51.4% hard-hit ball rate against his offerings. Sands’ fastball is averaging 93.1mph, down from the 95mph velocity he posted in 2025. His 3.65 SIERA is almost a full run better than his real-world ERA, however, and the fact that Sands allowed two runs in his most recent appearance (two-thirds of an inning against the Mariners on April 28) could imply that his forearm issue had something to do with that tough outing.
While Sands hasn’t been as sharp this year, he has been a workhorse reliever for the Twins since the start of the 2024 season. His absence is another hit to a Minnesota bullpen that has been pretty ineffective, and the Twins now have another hole to fill in covering Sands’ high-leverage innings.
Klein may be able to at least help in the depth department, as the 24-year-old has been a starter for most of his five minor league seasons. Klein has had a rough go of things in 2026, posting a 7.48 ERA and allowing 10 homers over only 21 2/3 innings (starting six of seven games) for Triple-A St. Paul. This extreme difficulty at keeping the ball in the park is a new issue and maybe even just a fluke for Klein, who has posted solid homer rates over the rest of his career.
Klein will be making his MLB debut whenever he appears in his first game, and pitching for the Twins carries some extra hometown weight for the native of Brooklyn Park, Minnesota. An undrafted free agent who signed with the Twins in 2022, Klein has been hit hard at the Triple-A level in both 2025 and 2026, but he has a respectable 24.17% strikeout rate and 8.32% walk rate over the entirety of his 288 2/3 career innings in the minors.
MLB Pipeline ranks Klein 20th on their list of Twins prospects, and Baseball America has the right-hander 24th on their list. Both outlets project Klein more as a swingman or long reliever than as a starter at the big league level, as Klein lacks any plus secondary pitches. Klein’s top pitch is a mid-90’s fastball that has topped out at 97mph, but there could be a higher ceiling given how Klein has added a couple of miles of velocity within the last two seasons.
Marlins To Select Josh Ekness
The Marlins are selecting the contract of right-hander Josh Ekness from Triple-A Jacksonville, according to SportsGrid’s Craig Mish. Miami only had 39 players on its 40-man roster so Ekness will take that last open slot, and he’ll take the 26-man roster spot of right-hander Cade Gibson, who was optioned to Triple-A after yesterday’s 6-5 loss to the Phillies.
Gibson was charged with four earned runs over just 1 2/3 innings of relief on Friday, plus he threw 50 pitches during that rough outing. He’ll head back to Triple-A while the Marlins bring Ekness’ fresh arm into the bullpen, and Ekness will be making his MLB debut whenever he appears in a game.
Ekness’ 5.68 ERA and 10.2% walk rate over 12 2/3 innings for Jacksonville this season are nothing special, though some outlier metrics (like a .400 BABIP and a 59.1% strand rate) are likely to blame for that inflated ERA. The key statistic from the Marlins’ perspective was surely Ekness’ 35.6% strikeout rate, which is a tick above the impressive swing-and-miss numbers he has shown earlier in his minor league career.
A 12th-round pick for the Marlins in the 2023 draft, Ekness ranks 30th on MLB Pipeline’s ranking of Miami’s top 30 prospects. He relies heavily on two plus pitches — a fastball with upper-90s velocity, and a sweeper that sits in the mid-80s. As Mish puts it, Ekness “has closer stuff,” and “profiles as a potential future leverage arm” if he can harness his control.
Miami has gotten pretty good results out of its relief corps this season, despite the struggles of closer Pete Fairbanks. With Fairbanks now on the 15-day injured list due to nerve irritation in his throwing hand, the Marlins’ bullpen is in a bit of flux, which could provide Ekness with an opportunity to stick on the 26-man roster.
Mariners To Select Nick Davila
The Mariners are selecting right-hander Nick Davila‘s contract from Double-A Arkansas, the New York Post’s Joel Sherman reports. The corresponding 26-man roster move isn’t yet known, and the M’s have an open spot on their 40-man roster.
The 27-year-old Davila will be making his big league debut whenever he appears in a game. It is a little unusual to see a team promote a player from Double-A rather than Triple-A, but it could be that the Mariners are particularly intrigued by Davila’s red-hot start to the season. Davila has a 2.00 ERA, a 29.4% strikeout rate, and eye-popping walk (2.9%) and grounder (69.6%) rates over nine relief outings in Arkansas this season.
It’s a small sample size, and obviously facing MLB hitters is a much taller order than Double-A competition. But, Davila has shown good control in the past, and he has shown flashes of his ability to miss bats. Even if the Mariners might just be calling on Davila to be a fresh arm in the bullpen for a few days, it’s still a career milestone for the right-hander and an opportunity to show what he can do during what might be a cup of coffee-type of promotion.
Davila began his career as an undrafted free agent with the Tigers in 2020, though Davila would surely have been drafted if the pandemic-shortened 2020 draft had been longer than only five rounds. Davila has been pitched in Seattle’s farm system for the last four seasons, and his 18 2/3 innings with Tacoma in 2023 represents his only taste of Triple-A ball. Injuries sidelined him for most of the 2024 campaign, but Davila returned to post a 3.55 ERA over 50 2/3 Double-A innings in 2025, though with a 10.1% walk rate and only an 18.3K%.
The Astros’ Ominous Long-Term Outlook
In case you're just tuning into the 2026 season, things aren't going great in Houston. The Astros escaped with a split in a doubleheader with the Orioles yesterday despite allowing a combined 15 runs in those games. They enter play Friday sitting on a 12-20 record. Houston's bullpen has been far and away the worst in baseball, due in no small part to star closer Josh Hader's lengthy stint on the IL to begin the season. Bryan Abreu went from arguably the game's best setup man to a low-leverage middle reliever in short order; his fastball is down more than two miles per hour, and his ERA sits just shy of 13.00. Veterans Enyel De Los Santos and Steven Okert were low-cost pickups last year who played big roles. Both have regressed (and then some) in 2026.
Meanwhile, a rotation that brought in several new arms this winter has only been marginally better. Again, injuries have played a role. Ace Hunter Brown is out with a shoulder strain. Offseason pickup Tatsuya Imai, a star righty in Japan's Nippon Professional Baseball, struggled before hitting the IL with arm fatigue. Cristian Javier is sidelined into at least June with his own shoulder strain. Ronel Blanco and Hayden Wesneski are still on the mend from 2025 Tommy John surgery. Neither is expected back before the All-Star break.
The lineup has at least provided good production. Houston hitters are batting .265/.346/.438 as a team. A disproportionate amount of their production has come from slugger Yordan Alvarez, who's decimating opposing pitchers at an MVP-caliber clip, but he's not alone. Christian Walker has more than just righted the ship after an awful start in 2025 -- he's arguably hitting better than he ever has before. Jose Altuve and Carlos Correa have been comfortably better than average at the dish. Isaac Paredes has found his stride after a slow start himself.
Even on this side of the ball, however, the 'Stros have had challenges. Jeremy Peña has been limited to just 10 games thanks to a pair of injuries (broken finger, hamstring strain). Jake Meyers looked solid through a dozen games before an oblique strain sent him to the shelf. The reacquired Joey Loperfido was solid through 20 contests before straining his quad. In recent weeks, Houston has regularly trotted out lineups including players like Braden Shewmake, Daniel Johnson and Dustin Harris, each of whom was acquired simply because the club needed warm bodies and lacked depth.
That's a symptom of a much larger and more concerning trend in Houston -- one that calls into question the club's outlook well beyond the current season.
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Nick Martini, Jacob Barnes Sign With Mexican League Teams
A pair of players who were in the big leagues last season signed with Mexican League teams. Reliever Jacob Barnes joined the Algodoneros de Unión Laguna yesterday, while outfielder Nick Martini signed with the Piratas de Campeche tonight.
Barnes, who recently turned 36, has made 334 career appearances while pitching in the big leagues in 10 straight years. The righty was in the Opening Day bullpen for the eventual American League champion Blue Jays last year. Barnes made six early-season appearances, allowing nine runs (eight earned) through eight innings. The Jays outrighted him off the 40-man roster in late April, bringing him back on a minor league contract.
That didn’t go well, as Barnes allowed nearly seven earned runs per nine over 25 Triple-A innings. Toronto released him in August. Barnes has a mid-90s fastball and was a serviceable middle reliever for the Nationals in 2024, when he worked to a 4.36 ERA across 66 innings. He’ll be teammates with swingman Erasmo Ramírez and infielder Emmanuel Rivera, each of whom also logged MLB time last season and signed with the Algodoneros in the middle of April.
Martini, a lefty-hitting outfielder, played in 43 games for the Rockies last season. He was on the MLB roster for the first two months. Martini hit .225/.288/.294 over 111 plate appearances and was designated for assignment at the end of May. He landed with the A’s on a minor league deal, hitting .259/.383/.434 over four months at Triple-A Las Vegas without getting another MLB opportunity.
A veteran of parts of six seasons, Martini has shown strong on-base skills throughout his minor league career. He doesn’t have much defensive value, but his career .248/.328/.382 slash at the MLB level isn’t far below average. He’s a .290/.397/.451 hitter in nearly 3000 Triple-A plate appearances.
Tommy Kahnle Triggers Upward Mobility Clause
May 1: Kahnle has triggered the assignment clause, reports Ari Alexander of 7 News Boston. The Sox will know by Sunday whether another team is willing to carry him on the MLB roster.
April 30: Veteran right-hander Tommy Kahnle, currently pitching with the Red Sox’ Triple-A affiliate, has an upward mobility clause in his deal that he can trigger tomorrow, writes Christopher Smith of MassLive.com. The clause was reported at the time of Kahnle’s signing in Boston, but it still bears mentioning with the seasoned setup man pitching well in the upper minors at present.
If triggered, an upward mobility clause would push the Sox to make Kahnle available to all 29 other clubs. If any other club would put him on its major league roster, the Red Sox would either have to select Kahnle to their own 40-man roster or, if they’re not willing to do so, allow him to depart to an organization that would put him in the major league bullpen. Such clauses are common in minor league deals for veteran players.
Through the season’s first month, Kahnle has done a nice job trying to force Boston’s hand. The 36-year-old has pitched 8 1/3 innings out of the Worcester bullpen, allowing three earned runs (3.24 ERA) on eight hits and three walks. He’s fanned eight of the 36 batters he’s faced (22.2%), hasn’t allowed a home run and has done a decent job avoiding too much hard contact (88.3 mph average exit velocity, no barrels, 41.7% hard-hit rate).
Kahnle’s 92.7 mph average fastball would be the lowest of his career, although through the first month of the 2025 season in Detroit, he wasn’t much higher (93.1 mph). He sat 93.6 mph the rest of the way. It seems reasonable to expect Kahnle’s heater to gain a bit of life as he continues to build up this season, but the four-seamer is a secondary pitch for him anyhow; Kahnle is perhaps the foremost changeup specialist in the game. This season’s 59.5% usage rate on his changeup is actually a stark decrease relative to recent seasons. From 2022-25, Kahnle threw 79% changeups against just 18.7% fastballs with a very, very occasional slider (2.4%) mixed in to throw some hitters off balance.
Although he’s coming off a lackluster season with the Tigers — hence the minor league deal — Kahnle has a lengthy track record of success in the majors. He’s been hurt more frequently than he or the teams for which he’s pitched would prefer, but from 2016-24, the right-hander logged a combined 3.11 ERA, 31.1% strikeout rate and 10.1% walk rate in 271 2/3 innings between the White Sox, Yankees and Dodgers.
It’s not clear whether the Red Sox would be amenable to adding Kahnle to the big league bullpen. Relief pitching has been a strength in an otherwise disappointing season for Boston. Sox relievers have combined for a 3.67 ERA that ranks eighth-best in the majors. The only Red Sox relievers who can be optioned are Greg Weissert, Zack Kelly and Tyler Samaniego. Plugging Kahnle into the ‘pen would give the Red Sox a sixth reliever who cannot be sent down without being exposed to waivers.
The decision will belong to chief baseball officer Craig Breslow, but interim skipper Chad Tracy — who managed Kahnle for several weeks to begin the season — sounded amenable to the idea. Asked by Smith just yesterday whether Kahnle could help the big league club, Tracy replied:
“For a veteran of his caliber that’s been around, yes, he can help out. He’s been around the big leagues for a really long time. He knows how to pitch. He’s been here, he’s pitched in the playoffs. So absolutely can help out.”
If not the Red Sox, there seems to be a decent chance Kahnle could draw the interest of another club. Each of the Nationals, Cardinals, Twins, Royals, Angels and Astros have received a combined ERA of 5.00 or worse from their bullpen so far in 2026. The Phillies, Astros, Cubs and Marlins all have their closers on the injured list. Chicago’s Daniel Palencia is expected to return soon, but he’s one of six Cubs relievers on the shelf.