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Diamondbacks To Promote Brandon Pfaadt

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The Diamondbacks are going to promote pitching prospect Brandon Pfaadt to make his major league debut tomorrow, reports Nick Piecoro of the Arizona Republic. The right-hander isn’t currently on the club’s 40-man roster, meaning they will need to open a spot for him between now and then.

Pfaadt, 24, was a fifth round pick of the club in the 2020 draft. The minor leagues were canceled by the pandemic that year, but Pfaadt emerged with a strong showing in 2021. He rose through three levels of the minors, going from Single-A to High-A and Double-A that year, tossing 131 2/3 innings total with a combined 3.21 ERA. He struck out 30.2% of batters faced while walking just 5.3%. After that strong showing, he was ranked the club’s #10 prospect by Baseball America going into 2022.

Last year, Pfaadt would continue to impress, throwing 167 innings between Double-A and Triple-A  with a 3.83 ERA, 31.6% strikeout rate and 4.6% walk rate. Going into this season, he was ranked the club’s #5 prospect by BA but amazingly was #26 in the entire league, highlighting a strong and top-heavy system loaded with premier prospects. Their report highlights his fastball, which averages around 93-94mph and has natural cutting action. His slider is his putaway pitch but he also has a changeup and a curveball. He is listed as the #51 prospect in the league at MLB Pipeline, #16 at FanGraphs, #32 at ESPN and was ranked #38 by Keith Law of The Athletic.

The righty was sent to Triple-A to start this year, where he’s posted a 3.91 ERA through five starts, striking out 28.6% of opponents while walking just 5.7%. As he’s been doing that, the Diamondbacks have been playing well, 16-13 record, despite an inconsistent rotation. Zac Gallen and Merrill Kelly have been their typically excellent selves so far this year, but the rest of the group hasn’t been nearly as strong. Madison Bumgarner got released after posting a 10.26 ERA in his first four starts. Ryne Nelson has a 6.39 ERA after six outings while Tommy Henry has a 6.52 after a pair. Zach Davies is on the injured list with an oblique strain while Drey Jameson was optioned out after some struggles.

Amid all of that uncertainty, the club will give Pfaadt a shot and see how he fares against big league hitters. Since the season is over a month old already, he won’t be able to earn a full year of service time, at least not the traditional way. The latest collective bargaining agreement has a couple of measures to discourage teams from trying to manipulate a player’s service time and delay their free agency. One of those measures is that a player can still get a full service year even if they didn’t spend the requisite 172 days in the majors. Any player with less than 60 days’ service time at the start of a season who is on two of the top 100 prospect lists at Baseball America, ESPN or MLB Pipeline can still get a full year if they finish in the top two of Rookie of the Year voting. Both Adley Rutschman and Michael Harris II managed to get a full year of service this way last year.

Pfaadt is on all three lists and could follow that path, though it will be a bit of a challenge. He will have to chase down other rookies who have already spent a month accruing stats, such as James Outman or his teammate Corbin Carroll. But for the Diamondbacks, it’s an exciting time as Pfaadt joins Carroll, Gabriel Moreno and other exciting young players on the roster, with prospects like Jordan Lawlar and Druw Jones set to join them in the upstart D’Backs in the years to come.

Image courtesy of USA Today Sports.

D-Backs’ Kristian Robinson Receives Work Visa, Could Soon Play In Minor League Games

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Diamondbacks outfield prospect Kristian Robinson was granted a work visa over the weekend, reports Nick Piecoro of the Arizona Republic. The development sets the stage for him to play in minor league games for the first time in nearly four years, though Piecoro writes that he’ll first need to recover from a minor hamstring injury.

Robinson, a native of the Bahamas, was a high-profile amateur signee over the 2017-18 international signing period. He appeared among Baseball America’s Top 100 prospects entering both the 2020 and ’21 seasons after impressing scouts with his power and athleticism in the low minors. At one point, Robinson looked like a potential organizational building block.

However, he’s been in limbo for the past few years for legal reasons. Robinson pled guilty to what was initially a felony assault charge stemming from an April 2020 incident with a law enforcement officer. (Zach Buchanan of the Athletic wrote in 2021 that Robinson said he’d been amidst a mental health crisis at the time.) As part of the plea agreement, Robinson’s charge was to be reduced to a misdemeanor if he successfully completed 18 months of probation without incident. In the interim, having a felony on his record prevented him from renewing a work visa that would allow him to continue to participate in minor league games. Robinson had been permitted to partake in extended Spring Training workouts but could not play in official games.

Robinson fulfilled his probation requirements this spring. With the charge reduced to a misdemeanor, he was able to reapply for and receive the work visa that permits him to get back to game action. While the layoff raises questions about Robinson’s ability to readjust to consistently facing professional pitching, he’s still just 22 years old and could reestablish himself as a legitimate prospect. Piecoro writes that he’s likely to be assigned to Low-A Visalia once he’s recovered from the hamstring issue.

“I think the talent is still there,” D-Backs farm director Josh Barfield told Piecoro. “The same explosive tools he had when he was one of our top prospects three of four years ago, that’s all still there. He’s still young. That’s the amazing part; he’s gone through all this and he’s still young. … I wouldn’t be shocked if he got off to a slower start as he gets his legs underneath him, but I think sometime by midyear we should start to see the guy that we saw before that we were so excited about.”

Over the 2021-22 offseason, the Diamondbacks added Robinson to their 40-man roster to keep him out of the Rule 5 draft. They immediately placed him on the restricted list (thus reallocating the spot) because his work situation had been frozen. Now that Robinson is cleared to return to game action, the D-Backs will soon have to decide whether to count him as part of the roster or to make him available to other clubs via waivers. Piecoro writes they’ll have 30 days before they formally have to reinstate him onto the 40-man.

Guardians Trade Konnor Pilkington To Diamondbacks

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The Guardians have traded lefty Konnor Pilkington to the D-backs in exchange for cash, per announcements from both teams. Arizona had an open spot on the 40-man roster, so a corresponding 40-man move was not needed. Pilkington has been optioned to Triple-A Reno.

Pilkington, 25, has had a rough start to his season in Triple-A, where he’s been clobbered for 13 runs on 19 hits and 11 walks with 14 strikeouts in 14 innings of work. His 2022 season in Triple-A featured similar struggles, evidenced by a 5.88 ERA in 56 2/3 frames, but despite his unsightly showing in Columbus, Pilkington had a solid MLB debut last year.

In 58 innings for the Guardians, he turned in a 3.88 ERA through 11 starts and four relief appearances. He’s added another two scoreless innings here in 2023. Pilkington’s career 19.5% strikeout rate is about three percentage points below the league average, and his 12.4% walk rate is about four percentage points higher than average. He’s more than held lefties in check in his big league career, yielding just a .238/.333/.286 batting line. Righties have been better but haven’t completely torched him, turning in a .234/.335/.372 output.

Pilkington has a pair of minor league option years remaining — this year included — and has had some success in the big leagues in a rotation role already. He’ll give the D-backs some optionable depth both this year and next, which of extra importance with Zach Davies on the injured list, Madison Bumgarner already having been released (hence the open 40-man spot) and young arms like Ryne Nelson, Drey Jameson and Tommy Henry all struggling to various extents to begin the season.

Tigers Sign Sam Clay To Minor League Deal

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The Tigers have signed left-hander Sam Clay to a minor league deal, according to his transactions tracker at MLB.com. He had signed a minors deal with the Diamondbacks in the offseason but was released, per the tracker.

Clay, 30 in June, has a bit of major league experience on his ledger to this point in his career. A Twins draftee, he never got the call to the big leagues with them, reaching free agency after 2020. The Nationals then signed him to a major league deal and put him into 58 games in 2021. He didn’t rack up a ton of strikeouts, just 15.9% of batters faced, but he got ground balls at an excellent 60.1% rate. The lefty posted a 5.60 ERA that year but might have deserved better, given his .342 batting average on balls in play and 65.4% strand rate, which were both on the unfortunate side of average. His 4.61 FIP and 4.42 SIERA were each about a full run better than his ERA.

Clay spent most of 2022 in the minors and eventually went to the Phillies and Mets in July with a couple of waiver claims in a span of a week. The Mets would later outright him off the roster in August. Amid all of that bouncing around, he tossed just 5 1/3 innings in the majors with a 8.44 ERA. But in 43 Triple-A innings, he had a much more palatable 3.56 ERA, getting grounders on almost two thirds of balls in play and striking out 24.1% of opponents.

Clay returned to the open market this winter and signed a minor league deal with the Diamondbacks. He wasn’t terribly effective in four spring outings and was released but will now join the Tigers. Per the transactions tracker, he’s been assigned to the FCL Tigers and will presumably get back into game shape after a layoff of about a month, at which point he’ll likely head to Triple-A Toledo. The Tigers have three lefties in the big league bullpen in Tyler Holton, Tyler Alexander and Chasen Shreve but Alexander currently has a 5.28 ERA on the year and Shreve a 7.84. Clay will give them a non-roster option to potentially turn to in the not-too-distant future.

Diamondbacks To Promote Dominic Fletcher

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The Diamondbacks are planning to recall outfield prospect Dominic Fletcher, according to The Athletic’s Zach Buchanan. Fletcher is already on the 40-man roster, though a corresponding move will be necessary to clear space for Fletcher on the active roster nonetheless. Per a team announcement, that move will come in the form of left-hander Anthony Misiewicz being optioned to Triple-A. Fletcher’s first appearance with the club will be his big league debut.

Fletcher, 25, is rated 15th in a loaded Diamondbacks system by MLB Pipeline. Known primarily for his quality defense in center field, Fletcher has also posted big numbers at the plate in the minors to this point in his career, with a .305/.378/.472 slash line in 558 plate appearances at the Triple-A level. That includes an absolutely torrid start to the 2023 campaign for Fletcher, who has dominated Triple-A pitching in his first 109 plate appearances this season. During that time, Fletcher has slashed .323/.417/.559 with three home runs, four triples, and five doubles in just 22 games.

Buchanan notes that Fletcher’s call up could be related to budding star Corbin Carroll leaving last night’s game against the Rockies with a left knee contusion. Carroll is not headed for the injured list, but it’s possible that Fletcher will fill in for Carroll in the outfield in the event he misses a game or two due to the injury. Carroll is off to a torrid start this season, slashing .309/.374/.536 in 107 plate appearances that have put him toward the front of the NL Rookie of the Year race.

As for Misiewicz, the 28-year-old has a career 4.40 ERA in 108 1/3 innings of work since he debuted with the Mariners in 2020. That being said, he sports a far more palatable career FIP of 3.70 and has pitched solidly for Arizona so far this season, posting a 3.86 ERA in four appearances. The left-hander figures to act as bullpen depth for the Diamondbacks going forward.

Corbin Carroll Leaves Game With Left Knee Contusion

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Corbin Carroll suffered a left knee contusion while colliding with the wall during a catch attempt in tonight’s 11-4 Diamondbacks victory over the Rockies.  In the sixth inning, Carroll leapt to try and catch a Ryan McMahon fly ball, but both jumped and landed at an awkward angle, as McMahon’s hit ricocheted off the wall for what ended up as an RBI double.  Carroll was visited by team trainers and left the field under his own power, though looked to be in obvious discomfort.

After the game, D’Backs manager Torey Lovullo told reporters (including Bally Sports Arizona) that Carroll’s knee hit only the padded area of the wall.  “All the tests have come back very very positive, and he’s day to day….we dodged a bullet,” Lovullo said.  This is certainly good news for Carroll, and the Diamondbacks also have off-days on both Monday and Thursday, so he might miss only three games if he does need a bit of extra time to deal with any lingering soreness.

Entering the season as a favorite for NL Rookie Of The Year honors, Carroll has been living up to those expectations, hitting .309/.374/.536 with four homers and 10 steals (from 12 chances) over 107 plate appearances.  Mostly splitting time between left field and right field, defensive metric are a little mixed on Carroll’s glovework, but there is no doubt about his overall value.  Carroll has already generated 1.1 fWAR over his first 27 games of 2023, a total topped by only 15 other players in the majors at this early stage of the season.

Carroll was the 16th overall pick of the 2019 draft, and quickly shot up prospect ranking boards despite the canceled 2020 minor league season and a shoulder injury that cost him all but seven games of the 2021 season.  Returning in prime form in 2022, Carroll hit .307/.425/.611 with 24 home runs and 31 stolen bases (in 36 chances) over 442 combined PA over three of Arizona’s minor league affiliates, and then made a quick impact in his first exposure to Major League pitching.  Called up for his MLB debut late last August, Carroll hit .260/.330/.500 over his first 115 PA in the Show.

Even prior to Carroll’s great start to the 2023 campaign, the D’Backs had already seen enough to make a long-term commitment to the outfielder, agreeing in March to an eight-year contract extension worth at least $111MM.  That deal is already looking like a wise investment, as Carroll is both playing well and leading the Diamondbacks to a 16-12 record and first place in the NL West.  Filling in for Carroll won’t be difficult for Arizona if it’s only for a couple of games, as Lourdes Gurriel Jr. or Pavin Smith can handle corner outfield duty in the interim.

Diamondbacks Release Madison Bumgarner

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The Diamondbacks announced that left-hander Madison Bumgarner has been released. The southpaw had been designated for assignment last week.

The move doesn’t come as a shock, given the combination of his contract and his poor results of late. He and the D’Backs agreed to a five-year, $85MM deal going into 2020 after the lefty had spent a decade as an incredibly effective pitcher for the Giants. Unfortunately, he seemed like a completely different pitcher once he switched jerseys, starting with a 6.48 ERA in the shortened 2020 season. His strikeout rate dropped to 15.8% after being in the mid-20s for much of his earlier career.

Given the strange nature of that year, it didn’t necessarily portend doom for the remainder of the contract. He bounced back somewhat in 2021, getting his strikeouts back up to a 20.2% level and his ERA down to a more respectable 4.67, but he didn’t get back to the dominant levels of his time with the Giants. His strikeouts dipped again to 16% last year as his ERA climbed north a bit to 4.88. Here in 2023, things went even further south, as he was torched for a 10.26 in his first four starts, punching out just 11.1% of opponents while walking 16.7%. As the club shifted to win-now mode and dedicated its rotation spots to young pitchers on the rise, Bumgarner wore out his welcome in Arizona.

His contract still runs through 2024, with a $23MM salary this year, leaving about $19MM and change left to be paid out before he’ll make $14MM next year. Given that hefty financial commitment and his recent struggles on the mound, it’s unsurprising that none of the 29 other clubs were willing to put in a waiver claim and take on that contract, leading to today’s release.

Bumgarner will now officially return to the open market and will be free to sign with any club, with the Diamondbacks remaining on the hook for that money. Any club that’s willing to give Bumgarner a shot will only have to pay him the prorated league minimum for any time spent on the roster, with that amount being subtracted from what the D’Backs pay. The level of interest he will garner remains to be seen. The minimal financial commitment will certainly be appealing but that will have to be weighed against his lack of effectiveness this year and in the previous three as well.

Diamondbacks Option Jake McCarthy, Drey Jameson

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The Diamondbacks optioned right-hander Drey Jameson to Triple-A Reno yesterday, opening up a roster spot for lefty Tommy Henry, who was recalled and started last night’s game. Today, the club is optioning outfielder Jake McCarthy as well, reports Nick Piecoro of the Arizona Republic, recalling infielder Emmanuel Rivera in a corresponding move.

Individually, the moves aren’t necessarily shocking. Both players have started a bit slow here in the early parts of this season and neither is fully established. Each player is 25 years old and came into this year with less than a year of service time. But their demotions, as well as Madison Bumgarner recently getting designated for assignment, perhaps point to the club having more of a win-now mentality than recent years.

The D’Backs went 25-35 in the shortened 2020 season before winning just 52 games the season after and 74 last year. The silver lining of those losing seasons is that they’ve been able to devote playing time to young players like Josh Rojas, Corbin Carroll, Christian Walker and others, who were able to use those opportunities to hone their skills cement themselves as viable big leaguers to varying degrees.

But this year, the club’s emerging young core has helped them jump out to a 13-11 start. With the Dodgers having a modest offseason and feeling less like inevitable conquerors while the Padres and Giants have had slow starts, the D’Backs find themselves leading the American League West. In order to stay that up there, it seems there’s less room for players to develop in the big leagues.

McCarthy looked to have taken a step forward last year, hitting .283/.342/.427 for a wRC+ of 116 while also stealing 23 bases. With him in the outfield alongside Carroll and Alek Thomas, the club felt good enough about its options on the grass to trade Daulton Varsho to the Blue Jays in the offseason. They did get Lourdes Gurriel Jr. back in that deal for some insurance, though he’s a short-term add since he’s an impending free agent. McCarthy hasn’t been able to carry over those results so far, hitting just .143/.229/.238 prior to today’s move. He’s surely due for some regression from a .160 batting average on balls in play, but he’s also not hitting the ball with much authority. He’s currently in the 9th percentile in terms of average exit velocity, 8th in hard hit rate and 34th in barrel rate. He’ll head to Triple-A to try to get into a groove.

As for Jameson, his numbers might not look disastrous at first glance, as he has a 3.71 ERA through six appearances. However, he hasn’t exactly been racking up the outs. He started the season in the bullpen and made three long relief appearances, but then was moved to the rotation when Zach Davies landed on the injured list. His first start was solid, tossing four shutouts innings against the Brewers, throwing 54 pitches in the process. His next start wasn’t quite as good, as he threw 71 pitches but logged only 3 2/3 innings against the Cardinals. Then on Sunday, he only lasted one inning against the Padres. It took him 43 pitches, allowing three hits, three walks and three earned runs in the process.

“If he pitched better, he’d still be here,” manager Torey Lovullo said frankly yesterday, per Theo Mackie of the Arizona Republic. “That’s one of the things that (General Manager Mike Hazen) told him. A 43-pitch first inning puts us way behind, we’re kind of in a box, we’ve got to play a little catchup now with our bullpen. This was a direct response to what he did yesterday and a little bit of what he did in St. Louis as well.”

Those comments seem to reflect the win-now mentality that the club currently has. “We felt like the best thing for Drey at this point in time is to go down, get his timing, get his rhythm and find his stuff,” Lovullo said. “I said it last night: Good major league hitters, when they know you’re throwing a fastball, will get wood on a bullet. I stand by his ability to make pitches and when he does, he’s going to find his way back here.”

With Jameson going to Reno to try to earn his way back to the majors and Bumgarner out of the picture, the club is down to four starters on the roster in Zac Gallen, Merrill Kelly, Ryne Nelson and Henry. They have some off days coming up that could allow them to get by with that group, but it sounds like that’s not the plan. “We have discussed the four-man,” Lovullo said. “We know the off days are there. It was thrown around. We have not made any decisions, but I don’t think a four-man rotation right now is anything we’re interested in.”

Since the club needs a fifth starter, it makes speculative sense that a promotion of prospect Brandon Pfaadt could be imminent, though the club hasn’t made any kind of official announcement in that department. A telling sign could be if he makes his next scheduled start, as he’s currently slated to take the ball for Reno on Wednesday. A consensus top-50 prospect in the league, Pfaadt isn’t on the 40-man roster and would require a corresponding move if he gets the call. He has a 3.54 ERA through four starts in Triple-A this year, striking out 30.1% of batters faced while walking 4.8%.

Diamondbacks Designate Madison Bumgarner For Assignment

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The Diamondbacks have designated left-hander Madison Bumgarner for assignment, reports Nick Piecoro of the Arizona Republic. The D-backs have formally announced the move. Left-hander Anthony Misiewicz has been recalled from Triple-A Reno to take Bumgarner’s spot on the 40-man roster.

The Bumgarner DFA comes on the heels of three-plus sub-par seasons for Bumgarner in Arizona, where he signed a five-year, $85MM contract prior to the 2020 season. The 33-year-old left-hander has been generally durable but ineffective for the Snakes, pitching to a lowly 5.23 ERA in 363 1/3 innings and 69 starts under that contract.

Things have taken a particularly pronounced downswing in 2023, however, as Bumgarner has been torched for 20 runs (19 earned) on 25 hits and 15 walks with just 10 strikeouts in 16 2/3 innings. The D-backs have lost three of Bumgarner’s four starts this season, including a seven-run three-inning clunker against the Cardinals yesterday, wherein Bumgarner got into a verbal altercation with St. Louis catcher Willson Contreras after apparently taking objection to Contreras’ reaction to a swing and reaction on a pitch he fouled straight back. The team’s lone victory of the season with Bumgarner on the mound came when he was pulled after 4 2/3 innings, three runs and six walks.

Bumgarner’s current 89.6 mph fastball average is down more than three miles per hour from its 92.9 peak. His 11.1% strikeout rate and 16.7% walk rate are both career-worsts by wide margins, and he’s seen his ability to induce swinging strikes (just  6.3%) and chases off the plate (21.1%) evaporate in this season’s four starts.

In seasons past, the Diamondbacks could perhaps sell themselves on occasional glimmers of hope and at least accept that if nothing else, Bumgarner was a durable innings eater who could somewhat narrowly keep his ERA south of 5.00. The Diamondbacks didn’t enter 2021 or 2022 as hopeful contenders anyhow, after all, and Bumgarner gave them a bridge to some of their starting pitching prospects while those promising young arms continued to develop in the upper minors.

That’s no longer the case in 2023, as MLBTR’s Anthony Franco outlined earlier this week in a piece for MLBTR Front Office subscribers, arguing within that the D-backs needed to move on as soon as possible. The D-backs entered the ’23 campaign with an emerging, exciting young core headlined by outfielder Corbin Carroll, and they have one of MLB’s top farm systems to further bolster that group in the near future. Zac Gallen and Merrill Kelly are strong rotation arms, and with a talented collection of youth complementing them (e.g. Ryne Nelson, Drey Jameson and, sooner than later, Brandon Pfaadt), the starting pitching outlook is bright.

Arizona is out to an 11-8 start, and while the season is still quite young, expectations have shifted. Bumgarner simply hasn’t been a competitive pitcher for them in any capacity this season, and his body of work in three seasons prior gives little reason to hope for a turnaround. With the division looking more vulnerable than it has in years and the D-backs potentially on the rise, it’s just not feasible to continue on with what increasingly looks like a sunk cost.

Exactly how the rotation shakes out from this point forward remains to be seen. Piecoro tweets that 25-year-old left-hander Tommy Henry is expected to start in Bumgarner’s place next time around, though one would imagine that Pfaadt — one of the sport’s top pitching prospects — will get a look in the near future after opening the season in Triple-A. Veteran Zach Davies is also a factor, though he’s currently out with a strained oblique and figures to be sidelined into next month.

What’s clear is that Bumgarner’s time with the D-backs is virtually over. Given the left-hander’s woeful performance not only in 2023 but throughout his D-backs tenure as a whole, there’s no chance another team will roll the dice on the remaining $34.3MM on his contract. Bumgarner is being paid $23MM in 2023 and is still owed a $14MM salary for the 2024 campaign.

The Diamondbacks could technically place him on outright waivers, but he has more than enough service time to reject an outright assignment while retaining his salary, and no team would claim the contract anyhow. As such, he’ll likely be placed on release waivers in the coming days and, upon clearing, become a free agent who’s eligible to sign with any other club. Any team that signs Bumgarner would only need to pay him the prorated league minimum for any time spent on the MLB roster. That sum would be subtracted from what the D-backs owe the lefty, but Arizona is effectively committing to eating close to $34MM in dead money by parting ways with Bumgarner at this juncture of his contract.

Reds, Rangers Join Teams Seeking Overdue Rights Fees From Diamond Sports

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The Diamond Sports Group bankruptcy continues, with a handful of new teams seeking missed payments. According to reports from Daniel Kaplan of the Athletic and Alden González of ESPN, the Rangers and Reds joined an MLB motion seeking overdue rights fees this week.

MLB first filed that motion in early April on behalf of the Twins and Guardians. Diamond, the corporation which operates the Bally Sports networks that carry local broadcasts for nearly half of major league teams, informed those clubs it wouldn’t meet its scheduled payments on April 1. The D-Backs filed a separate motion shortly thereafter seeking missed rights payments.

Diamond apparently also recently failed to meet its obligations to the Rangers and Reds. Despite the missed payments, the Bally Sports networks have continued to operate and carry local broadcasts in each market through the season’s first few weeks. Kaplan reports that the Rangers’ deal calls for Diamond to pay the team $111MM this season. The precise value of the first missed payment is unknown.

González writes that the Reds’ situation is a bit different from those of the other clubs. The Reds have an ownership stake (the precise extent of which is unreported) along with Diamond in the Bally Sports Ohio network that carries games in Cincinnati. As a result, they’re bucketed separately from the other franchises involved in the litigation. According to González, Diamond entered into a 15-day window to meet its obligations to the Reds, beginning Monday. If it fails to do so, the team would be able to get out of the deal and turn in-market local broadcasting responsibilities over to MLB.

The other clubs will have to wait a while longer for resolution. The bankruptcy court has scheduled a hearing for May 31 to consider MLB’s motion for those teams’ overdue fees. Diamond is expected to continue all broadcasts until then. The Reds’ partial ownership offers a potentially quicker endpoint in their case, though that’s only if Diamond doesn’t meet its obligations to them in the intervening two weeks.

MLB commissioner Rob Manfred has stated on numerous occasions that the league is prepared to take over local broadcasting for teams whose contracts are defaulted. For any local broadcasting deals that fall through, MLB would be able to make games available in-market through streaming and cable platforms free of blackout restrictions.

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