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Aaron Slegers

Rays Acquire Aaron Slegers From Pirates

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Per Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times, the Rays have acquired righty Aaron Slegers from the Pirates for cash considerations. To make room on the 40-man, Tampa has transferred lefty Anthony Banda to the 60-day IL.

Slegers, 26, was designated for assignment Thursday by the Pirates after being claimed off waivers from Minnesota in January. At a towering 6 foot 10, Slegers stands as one of the tallest pitchers in MLB history; despite the relative enormity, though, he’s not a fireballer: the longtime Twin’s averaged just 90.3 MPH on the four-seam in his brief MLB career thus far.

Deployed mostly as a starter during his six-year minor-league career with Minnesota, the Indiana product consistently struggled to miss bats, cratering to a caeeer-low 6.01 K/9 in 15 starts with Triple-A Rochester last season. He didn’t crack the organization’s top 30 prospects, per Baseball America, at any point during his tenure with the club.

The Rays will assign Slegers to Triple-A Durham, the team announced immediately, where he’ll slot in with a host of capable others in offering starter (or post-opener) depth for the parent club.

Pirates Place Lonnie Chisenhall On Injured List, Select Contract Of Melky Cabrera

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2:33pm: Bucs trainer Todd Tomczyk told reporters, including Rob Biertempfel of The Athletic (Twitter link), that it’s “inaccurate right now” to suggest Chisenhall will miss four-to-six weeks. The issue appears to be in his finger; for the time being, he’ll be shut down for ten days before being reevaluated.

10:21am: The Pittsburgh org has now announced the rest of its roster moves, as MLB.com’s Adam Berry covers (Twitter links). Jordan Lyles will also open the season with an IL stint owing to discomfort in his right side. He’ll be joined there by fellow reliever Dovydas Neverauskas, catcher Elias Diaz, corner infielder/outfielder Jose Osuna, and Polanco.

The club will indeed add Shuck, Cabrera, and lefty Francisco Liriano to the 40-man. To create roster space, righty Edgar Santana was placed on the 60-day IL while recovering from Tommy John surgery and the team designated relievers Jake Barrett and Aaron Slegers for assignment.

10:09am: Pirates outfielder Lonnie Chisenhall has been diagnosed with a broken hand, per Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic (via Twitter). He’s expected to miss four to six weeks of action to open the season. The team has also announced it’s Opening Day roster, which as expected includes veteran outfielder Melky Cabrera.

It’s a tough-luck development for the 30-year-old, who was hit by a pitch late in camp. This is hardly the way he hoped to begin an effort at a bounceback season after an injury-marred pair of seasons.

Chisenhall inked a one-year, $2.75MM deal with the Bucs over the winter. The hope was that he’d serve as the primary option in right field while Gregory Polanco is working back to full health. Instead, he’ll have to do the same before he can contribute.

To open the year, at least, Cabrera will get a run instead in the corner outfield. It seems he’ll be joined in the mix by JB Shuck, another minor-league signee who spent camp with the Pittsburgh organization, though that has yet to be announced.

Pirates Claim Aaron Slegers, Designate Dario Agrazal For Assignment

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The Pirates announced Friday that they’ve claimed right-hander Aaron Slegers off waivers from the Twins and designated right-hander Dario Agrazal for assignment. Slegers himself was recently designated for assignment by Minnesota to clear 40-man roster space for newly signed Nelson Cruz.

Slegers, a towering righty, stands at 6’10” and has pitched 29 innings for the Twins across the past two seasons but struggled to a 5.90 ERA in that time. Although Slegers hasn’t had much experience at the MLB level, he’s had quite a bit of success in Triple-A, where he’s pitched to a 3.54 ERA in 233 2/3 innings with 6.8 K/9, 1.8 BB/9 and average or better ground-ball tendencies. The Pirates surely found it appealing that the 26-year-old Slegers has a pair of minor league options remaining as well, which should give them some additional roster depth and flexibility in 2019, should he stick with the organization.

Agrazal, 24, has had some success in the minors himself, but having split the 2018 season between Class-A Advanced and Double-A, he’s further from the Majors than Slegers. This past season, the Panamian-born Agrazal pitched to a combined 3.65 ERA at those two levels, averaging an outstanding 1.2 walks per nine innings pitched but also a sub-optimal 5.4 strikeouts per nine. Agrazal has pounded the strike zone throughout his minor league career (1.3 BB/9) and possesses a low-90s heater that generates enough sink to produce consistently strong ground-ball rates. He’s never been one to miss many bats, however, which likely limits his appeal to the Bucs (and perhaps to other clubs throughout the league). The Pirates will have a week to trade Agrazal or run him through outright waivers. If he clears waivers, he can remain in the organization and be sent to the minors without a 40-man roster spot.

Twins Designate Aaron Slegers For Assignment

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The Twins announced Thursday that they’ve designated right-hander Aaron Slegers for assignment in order to open a spot on the roster for newly signed designated hitter Nelson Cruz.

Slegers, a towering righty, stands at 6’10” and has pitched 29 innings for the Twins across the past two seasons but struggled to a 5.90 ERA in that time. Although Slegers hasn’t had much experience at the MLB level, he’s had quite a bit of success in Triple-A, where he’s pitched to a 3.54 ERA in 233 2/3 innings with 6.8 K/9, 1.8 BB/9 and average or better ground-ball tendencies. As a starting pitcher who has had some success in the upper minors and has a pair of minor league options remaining, Slegers could hold some appeal to clubs in need of some depth and options at the back of the rotation. If he clears waivers, he’ll presumably head the Twins’ top affiliate on an outright assignment.

Pitching Notes: Bauer, Slegers, McCarthy, Cody

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In a recent podcast with Jeff Passan of Yahoo Sports, Indians right-hander Trevor Bauer suggested he’d only take one-year deals for the remainder of his career (partially due to the high stakes of a bet with a childhood friend). Although that seems radical and somewhat irresponsible on the surface, Eno Sarris dives into the subject in a piece for The Athletic and discovers that maybe the idea isn’t really all that bad. Although Bauer would be giving up a lot of security, he’d likely earn a significant bump in average annual value. Bauer has never had health issues, so in his case the health risks might not be as severe as other players seeking long-term deals to lock up the most total dollars possible. All in all, Sarris comes to the conclusion that the contract strategy could feasibly benefit Bauer in the long run.

Here are some other pitcher-related notes from around baseball…

  • The Twins placed righty Aaron Slegers on the disabled list today with shoulder inflammation, and plan to recall rookie Fernando Romero to make a start in his stead. Slegers had a rough go of it in three appearances (two starts) this season, allowing eight earned runs in 12 2/3 innings with just five strikeouts. Romero, on the other hand, has made ten starts this season and turned in a reasonable performance thus far ( 4.38 ERA).
  • Braves right-hander Brandon McCarthy is rehabbing his knee injury, David O’Brien of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports, but oddly enough he’s doing it at his home in Arizona with his own physical therapist. Obviously that’s far from the norm at this point in the season, particularly given Atlanta’s status as a contending team in the NL East. McCarthy came to Atlanta in a financially-motivated trade with the Dodgers, but has barely managed to exceed five innings per start in his tenure with the Braves thus far, and has posted an ugly 4.92 ERA.
  • Another Rangers prospect has gone down with the dreaded ulnar collateral ligament injury, and will require Tommy John surgery, Evan Grant of the Dallas Morning News reports. This time, it’s right-hander Kyle Cody, who had been attempting rest and rehab as an alternative to surgery. Cody was shut down for an extended period after experiencing issues during spring training; he’ll now go under the knife and likely be out until the beginning of 2020. The towering 6’7″ hurler was a sixth-round pick of the Rangers back in 2016.

Twins Activate Glen Perkins

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After spending more than 16 months on the shelf thanks to a shoulder injury that ultimately required surgery to reattach the labrum to the bone, left-hander Glen Perkins has been activated from the 60-day disabled list, the Twins announced. To make room on the roster, Minnesota put fellow lefty Dietrich Enns on the 10-day DL due to a shoulder strain. The Twins also announced that righty Aaron Slegers will make his Major League debut tonight as the 26th man in today’s doubleheader.

Perkins’ strong run as a setup-man-turned-closer seems longer ago than it actually was; the 34-year-old was an All-Star in each of the 2013-15 seasons, and he posted a 2.84 ERA with 9.8 K/9 against 2.1 BB/9 in 313 1/3 innings from 2011-15. The aforementioned shoulder injury, however, has limited Perkins to just two MLB innings since the conclusion of the 2015 season.

Perkins has spent the season rehabbing his shoulder and recently wrapped up a minor league rehab assignment in which he allowed five runs on six hits and five walks with 10 strikeouts in 7 1/3 innings. At his best, Perkins averaged 94.9 mph with his fastball, though Mike Berardino of the St. Paul Pioneer Press wrote yesterday that he sat 88-91 mph in his recent rehab outings and topped out at 93 mph.

It remains to be seen just how much Perkins can contribute down the stretch, though his return could be a boon for a Twins relief corps that has struggled for much of the season. It’s unlikely that he’ll step back into the ninth-inning spotlight early on, but he could still help a  Twins club that has been lacking a quality second left-hander behind sophomore setup man Taylor Rogers. Minnesota hoped veteran Craig Breslow could fill that role, but he was released earlier this summer. Fellow southpaw Buddy Boshers has had similar issues to Breslow; he’s dominated left-handed opponents but been clobbered by right-handed bats (.292/.375/.557).

As for Slegers, the 24-year-old make a spot start on the heels of a terrific season in Triple-A Rochester. The towering 6’10” right-hander has racked up 130 1/3 innings in Rochester, averaging 6.7 K/9, 1.9 BB/9 and 0.48 HR/9 with a 47.1 percent ground-ball rate en route to a 3.18 ERA. A fifth-round pick in 2013, Slegers is not ranked among Minnesota’s top 30 prospects over at MLB.com, but he’s now turned in very solid results over the past two seasons (3.41 ERA in 145 1/3 Double-A innings in 2016). Along with Perkins, he’ll fill one of two vacancies on Minnesota’s 40-man roster.

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