Trade Rumors Front Office Subscriber Chat, Today 2pm CT
MLBTR's Steve Adams is hosting a live chat today at 2pm CT, exclusively for Trade Rumors Front Office subscribers.
Unlock Subscriber-Exclusive Articles Like This One With a Trade Rumors Front Office Subscription
- Access weekly subscriber-only articles by Tim Dierkes, Steve Adams, and Anthony Franco.
- Join exclusive weekly live chats with Anthony.
- Remove ads and support our writers.
- Access GM-caliber tools like our MLB Contract Tracker
Astros Select Braden Shewmake
The Astros announced that they have selected the contract of infielder Braden Shewmake. He’ll take the active roster spot of infielder Nick Allen, who has been placed on the 10-day injured list due to back spasms, retroactive to April 19th. To open a 40-man spot, right-hander Cristian Javier has been transferred to the 60-day injured list.
More to come.
Cubs Re-Sign Dylan Carlson To Minor League Deal
The Cubs re-signed outfielder Dylan Carlson to a minor league contract after he was designated for assignment and elected free agency last week. The team never formally announced it, but Carlson’s deal is reflected on the MLB.com transaction log and he suited up for the team’s Triple-A Iowa club yesterday. Carlson is represented by ALIGND Sports.
Carlson, 27, went hitless in four plate appearances with the Cubs before being cut from the big league roster. He’d signed a minor league contract in free agency over the winter and made the club this spring (albeit at least in part due to an injury to right fielder Seiya Suzuki).
A former first-round pick who was once one of the sport’s top-10 overall prospects, the switch-hitting Carlson had a promising beginning to his career with the division-rival Cardinals. His MLB debut as a 21-year-old during the pandemic-shortened 2020 season wasn’t especially eye-catching, but Carlson played 149 games for St. Louis in 2021 and slashed .266/.343/.437 with 18 homers, 31 doubles, four triples, a pair of steals and a 9.2% walk rate. His 24.6% strikeout rate was a bit high, but it was a strong full-season debut for a player who was still just 22.
That form has never resurfaced. Carlson hit .236/.316/.380 the following season and has seen his bat decline further in subsequent years. Since that intriguing 2021 campaign, he’s totaled 1253 MLB plate appearances and posted an anemic .220/.302/.339 batting line — about 17% worse than league-average, by measure of wRC+. Along the way, he’s bounced from the Cardinals, to the Rays, to the Orioles and now the Cubs, seeing his role reduced at each stop.
Back with the Cubs now, Carlson will provide some depth in the upper minors. Chicago’s roster has been decimated by injury, but nearly all of the health problems for the Cubs have been on the pitching side of things. With Suzuki back in right field, the Cubs’ outfield includes him, Ian Happ and Pete Crow-Armstrong. Michael Conforto, Scott Kingery and Matt Shaw are all in the mix for occasional outfield reps as well.
Carlson could get another look in the event of an injury, but former top prospect Kevin Alcantara and waiver pickup Justin Dean are both already on the 40-man roster, potentially putting them ahead on the depth chart. Both Alcantara and Dean have fanned in more than 35% of their minor league plate appearances, but Alcantara has also ripped eight homers and is slugging north of .600.
Twins Place Mick Abel On Injured List
The Twins announced this morning that they’ve placed rookie right-hander Mick Abel on the 15-day injured list due to inflammation in his right elbow. A corresponding move wasn’t announced, though it’s already been reported that prospect Kendry Rojas is joining the major league roster tomorrow and that top prospect Connor Prielipp has been added to the major league taxi squad. Abel’s IL placement is surely related to those forthcoming moves (which the team has yet to formally announce). The Twins will take advantage of today’s off-day by moving up right-hander Simeon Woods Richardson, who’d been slated to start Wednesday, to start in place of Abel tomorrow, per Betsy Helfand of the St. Paul Pioneer Press.
Selected by the Phillies with the No. 15 overall draft pick back in 2020, Abel has long been hailed as a quality pitching prospect. He went from Philadelphia to Minnesota alongside top catching prospect Eduardo Tait at last year’s trade deadline in the deal sending star closer Jhoan Duran (also currently on the injured list) back to Philly.
Now 24 years old, Abel has seen his stock rise and fall over the years. He slipped off most top-100 rankings prior to the 2025 season but enjoyed a resurgent year that saw him both make his major league debut in Philadelphia and pitch well enough to be included as a key component in one of the deadline’s most notable trades.
Abel has gotten out to a nice start in 2026. He entered camp without a rotation spot assured to him but won a job with a dominant performance in the Grapefruit League: 22 innings, 2.05 ERA, 32.9% strikeout rate, 4.9% walk rate. The right-hander was hit hard in his first two appearances with the Twins this season but bounced back with 13 shutout innings and a 16-to-3 K/BB ratio across his last two starts (against the Tigers and Red Sox, respectively). He’s currently sitting on a 3.98 ERA, a 24.7% strikeout rate and a 10% walk rate in 20 1/3 frames. Metrics like FIP (2.79) and SIERA (3.93) agree, to varying extents, that he’s been a quality arm.
With Abel on the shelf, the Twins will have four starters locked into spots: Joe Ryan, Taj Bradley, Bailey Ober and Woods Richardson. Candidates to take Abel’s spot on the staff include Rojas, Prielipp and Zebby Matthews — the latter of whom Abel beat for a spot on the Opening Day staff. Matthews, however, has pitched to a 7.71 ERA in his first four turns through the Triple-A rotation. The former top-100 prospect is still only 25, but he’s slid down the depth chart a bit with a rough spring and even rockier start with Triple-A St. Paul. Minnesota also recently recalled 24-year-old starting pitching prospect Andrew Morris and plugged him into the major league bullpen. He’s still stretched out enough to make a start, follow an opener or work in some hybrid/piggyback role if the team sees fit.
It’s not yet clear how long the Twins expect Abel to be sidelined. His IL placement is retroactive to April 17. If it’s indeed just a minor bout of inflammation — and the Twins have yet to indicate the potential that anything more serious is at play — he’d be eligible to return as early as May 2. Presumably, the team will provide more information on Abel’s status in the near future, although with an off-day on the calendar today, a formal update may not happen until tomorrow, when skipper Derek Shelton addresses reporters prior to Tuesday’s series opener against the Mets in Queens.
Braves Notes: Fuentes, Kim, Roster Decisions
Braves prospect Didier Fuentes was a healthy scratch from a scheduled start yesterday and could be an option to join the big league pitching staff in the near future. As Chad Bishop of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution breaks down, Fuentes’ scratch doesn’t necessarily guarantee a recall to the majors, but the Braves are light on options to summon as they embark on a sequence of 10 games in 10 days. Each of Hayden Harris, Dylan Dodd and Rolddy Muñoz was optioned late last week, meaning they can’t be recalled for 15 days (from the date of their option) unless they’re directly replacing an injured player on the roster. Skipping Fuentes’ start yesterday also helps to manage the promising 20-year-old’s workload after he only pitched 70 total innings (majors and minors combined) in 2025.
Fuentes has been terrific so far in Gwinnett this season. He’s taken the ball three times, tossed a total of 16 2/3 innings and held opponents to four runs (2.16 ERA) on eight hits and six walks with 20 strikeouts. He’s also plunked three batters and tossed a wild pitch, so his command hasn’t exactly been pristine, but the results and bat-missing capabilities are impressive.
Throughout spring training, there were calls from Atlanta fans to plug Fuentes into the rotation — understandably so. To this point in the season, however, there are five Braves pitchers who’ve started multiple games — Chris Sale, Reynaldo López, Grant Holmes, Martín Pérez, Bryce Elder — and none has an ERA higher than 3.42 (Holmes). Despite all the injuries, Atlanta starters remarkably lead the majors with a 2.65 ERA. Metrics like FIP (4.02) and SIERA (4.05) are far more bearish, but it’d be hard for Braves brass to tell any of the current starters he’s losing his place in the rotation. Atlanta already briefly jettisoned Pérez, but he quickly re-signed on a new deal and responded by tossing six shutout innings in Philadelphia on Friday.
None of that includes righty Spencer Strider, who’s working his way back from an oblique injury and could return early next month. The Braves will need to figure out a way to plug Strider back into the rotation whenever he’s cleared to return. Elder looked to be very much on the roster bubble in spring training, but he’s allowed only two earned runs through his first 23 1/3 innings. Pérez, as previously mentioned, just fired six shutout innings on the road against a top division rival. He now has a 2.21 ERA on the year. Perhaps another injury will make the decision easier, but if everyone’s healthy, it’s fair to say that “too many effective starters” isn’t a problem many foresaw Atlanta encountering a few weeks back (though it’s a “problem” they’ll surely welcome with open arms).
On the position-player side of the roster, the Braves will have some decisions looming regarding seldom-used veterans currently holding down bench spots. Catcher Sean Murphy is on a rehab assignment. Shortstop Ha-Seong Kim is headed for a simulated game Thursday, manager Walt Weiss told the Atlanta beat (via MLB.com’s Mark Bowman). He could begin a rehab assignment next week himself.
The return of Murphy, on paper, would seem to be bad news for veteran backstop Jonah Heim, who’s 5-for-23 in limited action as the No. 2 catcher behind reigning National League Rookie of the Year Drake Baldwin. As Bowman points out, however, infielder Kyle Farmer has only received seven plate appearances all season. The organization loves his presence in the clubhouse, but he’s even more seldom-used than Heim. Keeping Heim over Farmer could allow the Braves to more comfortably use both Baldwin and Murphy in the same lineup, splitting time at catcher and DH, with Heim on hand as an emergency option.
Of course, when Kim returns — likely in mid-May — both Heim and Farmer could be squeezed out. No one on the Braves’ bench can be optioned, so two of Farmer, Heim, Jorge Mateo and Eli White are likely to find themselves displaced, barring other injuries that allow the team to kick those decisions down the road a bit.
Mateo has hit quite well, albeit in a tiny sample of 20 plate appearances. His prior track record doesn’t create much optimism about him sustaining this pace, but he’s still an elite runner with 98th-percentile sprint speed (per Statcast) and some defensive versatility. White has been the team’s worst hitter … in a similarly tiny sample of 22 plate appearances. He’s a terrific outfield defender, however, and Statcast measures his sprint speed even better than Mateo, placing him at the very top of the MLB scale with 30.4 feet per second (100th percentile).
Submit Your Questions For This Week’s Episode Of The MLBTR Podcast
On the MLB Trade Rumors podcast, we regularly answer questions from our readers and listeners. With the next episode set for Wednesday, we’re looking for MLBTR’s audience to submit their questions and we’ll pick a few to answer.
The 2026 season is a few weeks in. Do you have a question about a hot or cold start in the early going? The upcoming trade deadline? Next winter’s potential labor showdown? If you have a question on those topics or anything else baseball-related, we’d love to hear from you! You can email your questions to mlbtrpod@gmail.com.
Also, if you want to hear your voice on the podcast, send us your question in audio form and we might play it. iPhone users can find instructions on how to do so here.
In the meantime, don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.
The Opener: Ohtani, Miller, Waldichuk
Here are a few items to track to begin the week…
1. Ohtani’s 51-game on-base streak
An RBI double in the third inning of Sunday’s game against the Rockies pushed Shohei Ohtani‘s on-base streak to 51 games. He now sits alone in third place in Dodgers’ history (since 1900). Shawn Green is next on the list at 53 games. Ohtani will need another week of reaching base safely to catch Duke Snider, who compiled a 58-game on-base streak in 1954. The Dodgers face left-hander Jose Quintana in the final game of the series tonight. Left-on-left matchups have been no issue for Ohtani. He has a .998 OPS in 27 plate appearances against southpaws this season.
2. Miller nearing Padres’ record
Flamethrower Mason Miller locked down his eighth save on Sunday against the Angels. The right-hander retired the side in order, pushing his scoreless innings streak to 32 2/3 innings. Miller is now one clean frame away from Cla Meredith‘s franchise record. He’s permitted just two hits and two walks this season. Of the 34 outs Miller has recorded, 27 have come via strikeout. Miller was last scored upon on August 5. Lourdes Gurriel Jr. turned around a 103 mph fastball for a game-tying two-run homer in the eighth inning. Miller was saddled with a blown save, but the Padres ultimately won in 11 innings. San Diego opens a three-game set against Colorado on Tuesday.
3. Waldichuk visiting specialist
Left-hander Ken Waldichuk is getting a second opinion on his injured forearm today, reports Spencer Nusbaum of The Athletic. The initial recommendation for the lefty was Tommy John surgery. Waldichuk missed the 2024 season while recovering from TJ and did not reach the majors last year. He made his long-awaited big-league return in Washington’s second game of the season. Ian Happ rudely welcomed him back with a three-run homer on his first pitch. Waldichuk left an April 12 matchup against the Brewers in the middle of a Brice Turang at-bat. He hit the 15-day IL shortly after, and soon moved to the 60-day IL.
Photo courtesy of Isaiah J. Downing, Imagn Images
Twins To Promote Kendry Rojas; Connor Prielipp Added To Taxi Squad
The Twins will promote left-hander Kendry Rojas from Triple-A to the active roster prior to Tuesday’s game with the Mets, according to Declan Goff and Darren Wolfson of SKOR North. Rojas was already added to the 40-man roster last November in advance of the Rule 5 Draft, and Bobby Nightengale of the Minnesota Star Tribune writes that the corresponding 26-man roster move is Kody Funderburk‘s placement on the paternity list.
In addition, left-hander Connor Prielipp will also be joining the Twins for the start of their series with the Mets, as per The Athletic’s Dan Hayes. It isn’t an official call-up yet, as Prielipp is only part of the taxi squad. Prielipp joined Rojas as two of the six 40-man additions Minnesota made back in November, so the Twins would just have to make another 26-man roster move if Prielipp is officially promoted.
Both Rojas and Prielipp will be making their Major League debuts whenever they appear in a game. In Rojas’ case, this might just be a cup of coffee while Funderburk is absent, though the Twins’ relief corps has struggled enough that adding a raw but talented young arm could help spark the pen. Funderburk, Taylor Rogers, and Anthony Banda are the bullpen’s current trio of left-handers, and Banda in particular has gotten off to a rough start in 2026.
Tuesday’s game in New York begins a stretch of 13 games in 13 days for the Twins, so it is possible Rojas or Prielipp might receive a spot start in order to help preserve the rotation. The club could look to use either southpaw as a traditional starter or as a long reliever, or perhaps Minnesota could deploy a piggyback with Rojas and Prielipp paired with another starter.
Rojas missed time due to a hamstring injury this year and has only pitched 7 1/3 total innings, though the 23-year-old has yet to allow a run in that small sample size. (Six innings were with Triple-A St. Paul, and 1 1/3 IP were with A-ball Fort Myers on a rehab assignment.) In those 7 1/3 frames, Rojas has posted seven strikeouts, but also four walks. Over 38 1/3 career innings at the Triple-A level, Rojas has a 14.06% walk rate, along with a 20.31% strikeout rate and a 6.10 ERA.
How well Rojas can harness his control appears to the chief question facing the lefty’s future as a viable big league arm. Baseball America ranks Rojas as the eighth-best prospect in the Twins’ farm system and MLB Pipeline has him tenth, with both outlets noting that he projects as a back-end rotation arm if he remains a starting pitcher. As per BA, Rojas “has a balanced arsenal with all his pitches projecting as at least average,” though he doesn’t have a true plus pitch. His fastball might be his top offering, as the pitch usually sits around 95mph and Nightengale writes that Rojas hit the 99mph threshold during his time in St. Paul.
The Blue Jays landed Rojas as an international signing in 2020, and his time in Toronto’s farm system was hampered by lat, shoulder, and abdominal injuries. Prior to last summer’s trade deadline, the Jays shipped Rojas and outfielder Alan Roden to the Twins in perhaps the most surprising move of Minnesota’s deadline fire sale, as controllable reliever Louis Varland and Ty France went the other way. Varland immediately became a critical piece of Toronto’s pen, but Rojas and Roden fit the Twins’ trade model of obtaining players that were at or close to big league readiness.
Prielipp is a homegrown product, selected by the Twins in the second round of the 2022 draft. BA ranked him as the 96th-best prospect in baseball prior to the 2026 season and slotted him fourth on their list of Twins prospects, while Pipeline put Prielipp fifth. Both outlets give 60-grades to the southpaw’s changeup and slider, and Prielipp generates a ton of spin on the latter pitch. Prielipp also has a mid-90s fastball that can hit 98mph.
After reaching Triple-A ball for the first time last season, Prielipp had some struggles but has now looked sharper over 15 2/3 innings for St. Paul in 2026. Over 36 2/3 innings of Triple-A ball, Prielipp has a 3.93 ERA, a 30.13% strikeout rate, and a 13.46% walk rate, so control is also a concern on his end. Staying healthy has been Prielipp’s largest issue, as he underwent a Tommy John surgery in college at Alabama and then an internal brace surgery that sidelined him for big chunks of the 2023-24 seasons. Prielipp has thrown only 128 1/3 total innings of minor league ball.
AL East Notes: Sandoval, Lukes, Orioles
Patrick Sandoval was in Boston today to undergo some testing after felt some left biceps soreness in the aftermath of his last minor league rehab outing. Red Sox manager Alex Cora didn’t have any info on the outcome of those tests when speaking with MassLive.com’s Chris Cotillo and other reporters earlier today, and it wasn’t yet known if Sandoval would even be formally pulled off his 30-day minor league rehab assignment. Sandoval has made two starts during the assignment as he continues to work his way back from an internal brace surgery in July 2024.
Kutter Crawford also hasn’t pitched since 2024 (due to wrist and knee injuries that cost him the entirety of the 2025 campaign), and the right-hander’s own rehab assignment has also been put on pause due to a new health concern. Crawford underwent an MRI today after he felt some elbow soreness following his first rehab outing, so both Crawford and Sandoval are currently in limbo as they await their next steps.
The Sox have avoided any injury setbacks within their starting five, though these setbacks for Sandoval and Crawford create more questions about the team’s rotation depth. Johan Oviedo is on the 60-day injured list due to a flexor strain, and recent call-up Tyler Uberstine is on the Triple-A injured list due to shoulder soreness. Top prospect Payton Tolle made his MLB debut last season and is Boston’s first option for a call-up if a need develops in the rotation.
Here’s more from around the AL East…
- Nathan Lukes has been battling vertigo symptoms for the last month, and visited a specialist in Phoenix on Friday to help combat the issue, Sportsnet’s Shi Davidi writes. Lukes felt greatly improved following the session, and he responded by going 7-for-11 over the Blue Jays‘ three-game series with the Diamondbacks. It was a much-needed breakout series for the outfielder, who had just two hits and an ugly .182 OPS in his first 34 plate appearances. The Jays have been dealing with a lot of injuries and slumping hitters over the first few weeks, so getting Lukes right both physically and at the plate would be a big help in getting Toronto’s season on track.
- The Orioles are another struggling team with a crowded injured list, but the O’s should be getting some reinforcements back this week. Left-hander Dietrich Enns (foot infection) started a minor league rehab assignment yesterday, and fellow southpaw Keegan Akin (groin strain) has two rehab outings under his belt. The Baltimore Sun’s Jacob Calvin Meyer wrote that Adley Rutschman (ankle inflammation) and Tyler O’Neill (concussion symptoms) were both running the bases prior to today’s game, in the latest step in their recovery processes. It isn’t yet known if either might need a brief rehab assignment before returning to the O’s, and Rutschman isn’t eligible to be activated from the 10-day IL until Tuesday at the earliest.
MLBTR Live Chat
Mark P
- The Weekend Chat is back after a one-week hiatus! We’ll get things rolling after a few questions pile up in the queue….
Ross Atkins
- Should I trade Jeff Hoffman for either Andrew or Trevor? Right now, I think other Hoffmans might serve the Jays well.
Mark P
- Dustin Hoffman is enough of a method actor that if you told him to “act like a relief pitcher,” he could give you some solid innings out of the pen.
The Jays are in a tough spot with Hoffman. As much as his underlying metrics are all still good, that doesn’t mean much if he’s still getting taken yard on a regular basis. Toronto was more than open to moving Hoffman into a setup role in the offseason if they’d been able to obtain another closer, and I think the move might be to just do it now and install Varland for save situations
Travis Bazzana
- I know you won’t answer me…just like Chris Antonetti…but when are the Guards going to realize that I should be in The Show? I’m the 2B, Rocchio is the SS and Angel Ramirez should play everyday. Isn’t it time to finally trade the glutton of Middle Infielders away for a true, everyday power bat in the OF?
Mark P
- You won’t have to wait long to see Bazzana in the majors, as he’s maybe a month or so away from his MLB debut. In terms of trades, why would a team trade an “everyday power bat” for one or two spare part middle infielders?
With Club Sauce?
- If the Vegas A’s are forced to change their name, what should they go with? Vultures? Valkyries? Victorfrankensteins? Trying to be semi-alliterative here. I also wanted to try a ‘blue’ based Arrested Development joke but was worried my question would get DQ’d so I’ll just finish with: BEES???!?!
Mark P
- “Vegas Vagabonds” fits for alliteration purposes, and the fact that this franchise has moved so often in its history.
But, I’m on record as preferring that they just remain the A’s. The name is the only connective thread over all of the cities over the team’s 126 years
Pirates
- Are we for real this time?
Mark P
- While we’re seen the Pirates collapse after hot starts before, this does legitimately seem like the best roster the Buccos have fielded in quite some time. I’d say they’re for real, but with the caveat that the entire NL Central currently has a winning record, so the Pirates haven’t even done much to separate themselves from the pack.
Zach
- Do you have any changed ROTY picks from the beginning of the year now nearly a month in?
Mark P
- My ROY picks were Sal Stewart and Kazuma Okamoto, so a .500 record isn’t bad
Rally Reds
- Reds have to be encouraged with their pitching depth considering their ridiculous 10-0 record in close games, and Hunter and Lodolo yet to return, right?
Mark P
- That kind of record in close games (Reds are 6-0 in one-run games specifically) is bound to regress, though there are always a couple of teams every year with absurdly slanted close-game records. Maybe this is Cincinnati’s year to get lucky, and you’re right that it’s particularly good that the Reds are banking these wins without arguably their two best arms