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Diamondbacks Designate Jake Lamb

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The Diamondbacks have designated infielder Jake Lamb for assignment and selected infielder/outfielder Pavin Smith’s contract, per a team announcement.

Arizona has been Lamb’s only organization since he went in the sixth round of the 2012 draft, but it now looks as if his run with the club will end. Primarily a third baseman, Lamb looked like a legitimate building block for the Diamondbacks from 2016-17. He combined for above-average offense then and totaled 4.9 fWAR, adding 30 home runs in 2017 and earning his lone All-Star nod. However, thanks in part to shoulder problems, Lamb’s career took a negative turn the next season and hasn’t recovered since.

In 514 plate appearances going back to 2018, the 29-year-old Lamb has batted .199/.307/.330 with 12 home runs. He was amid a horrid season this year (.116/.240/.210 without a homer in 50 PA) before the Diamondbacks designated him. He was due to reach free agency in the offseason anyway, so the D-backs decided to cut the cord a few weeks early.

Smith, the No. 7 pick in the 2017 draft, signed a $5,016,300 bonus with the Diamondbacks on the heels of his selection. Despite his draft pedigree and the money he initially received, the former Virginia Cavalier is not regarded as a premium prospect anymore (Baseball America ranks him 18th in the D-backs’ system), though Smith did bat an impressive .291/.370/.466 in his first 506 Double-A plate appearances last year.

Diamondbacks Place Ketel Marte On 10-Day IL

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The Diamondbacks have placed second baseman Ketel Marte on the 10-day injured list with wrist inflammation, Nick Piecoro of the Arizona Republic tweets. They also recalled infielder/outfielder Josh VanMeter and right-hander Joel Payamps, and optioned lefty Joe Mantiply.

The Diamondbacks are arguably the majors’ most disappointing team at an NL-worst 15-28, and with their playoff hopes all but dead, it’s possible we have seen the last of Marte in 2020. His presence was among the reasons Arizona was a popular pick as a contender entering this year. After all, just a season ago, Marte posted an MVP-level 7.1 fWAR with a .329/.389/.592 line and 32 home runs and 10 stolen bases in 628 plate appearances.

On the heels of last season’s tremendous performance, there wasn’t much reason to believe Marte would fall off dramatically this year. But he, like his team, has. Thanks in part to a significant decrease in walk percentage (8.4 to 2.9) and a massive drop in power (.264 ISO versus .117), he has hit a relatively underwhelming .290/.342/.407 with two homers and a single steal over 173 PA. Marte has also endured a roughly 6 percent decrease in hard-hit rate, per FanGraphs, and has seen his expected weighted on-base average fall from .379 to .327.

Merrill Kelly To Undergo Thoracic Outlet Surgery

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Diamondbacks right-hander Merrill Kelly will undergo thoracic outlet syndrome surgery on Wednesday, Nick Piecoro of the Arizona Republic reports.

Kelly was already done for the season as a result of a procedure on a blood clot in his shoulder, though this latest surgery could perhaps put at least some of his 2021 campaign in danger. However, the Diamondbacks are optimistic Kelly will return to spring training at full health, according to general manager Mike Hazen. In the meantime, they’ll have to decide on a $4.25MM club option or a $500K buyout for Kelly for next season. Hazen said he doesn’t expect Kelly’s TOS procedure to “have a major impact on that decision right now,” though.

Before his health problems came to the fore, Kelly looked like a valuable summer trade chip for the Diamondbacks, as Steve Adams of MLBTR wrote leading up to the Aug. 31 trade deadline. A deal obviously didn’t materialize, as Kelly hasn’t taken the mound since Aug. 19. The 31-year-old ended the season with a 2.59 ERA/3.95 FIP and 8.33 K/9 against 1.44 BB/9 over five starts and 31 1/3 innings.

Diamondbacks Activate Madison Bumgarner From 10-Day IL

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SEPTEMBER 5: Bumgarner has been activated and infielder Andy Young was optioned to the team’s alternate training site, the Diamondbacks announced.

SEPTEMBER 2: Diamondbacks manager Torey Lovullo announced that left-hander Madison Bumgarner will return from the injured list Saturday, Steve Gilbert of MLB.com was among those to report.

Bumgarner, who has been out since Aug. 10 with a mid-back strain, will start against the Giants this weekend. The 31-year-old had an incredible run in San Francisco from 2009-19, when he registered a 3.13 ERA across 1,846 regular-season innings, made four All-Star teams and emerged as one of the greatest postseason performers in the history of the game. Thanks in no small part to Bumgarner, the Giants won three World Series when he was part of their organization.

Despite his overall brilliance as a Giant, they let him walk in free agency last offseason in favor of receiving draft-pick compensation via the qualifying offer. The division-rival Diamondbacks then swooped in with a five-year, $85MM guarantee, but the gamble hasn’t gone according to plan so far. Before going on the IL, Bumgarner made four starts and posted a hideous 9.35 ERA/8.60 FIP over 17 1/3 innings, during which he recorded career worsts in K/9 (6.75), BB/9 (3.63), groundball rate (23.7 percent) and average fastball velocity (87.8 mph).

The Bumgarner signing was among the reasons Arizona was a popular pick to vie for a playoff spot this season, but the team has instead crashed to a 14-22 record past the halfway point. While a postseason spot now looks out of the question, seeing Bumgarner end the year on a positive note – if he’s able to – would at least give the Diamondbacks some peace of mind heading into the winter. Conversely, should Bumgarner’s woes continue this month, it would be another negative for the D-backs entering the offseason.

Diamondbacks Make Several Roster Moves

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The Diamondbacks announced that they’ve selected righties Artie Lewicki and Keury Mella and lefty Joe Mantiply from their alternate site. They also recalled infielder/outfielder Josh Rojas, placed righty Taylor Widener on the 10-day injured list with a strained right rib cage and transferred a pair of hurlers – righty Merrill Kelly and Jeremy Beasley – to the 45-day IL. After all of that, Arizona has 39 players on its 40-man roster.

Lewicki has been part of the Arizona organization since it claimed him off waivers from the Tigers after 2018, but he hasn’t pitched for the Diamondbacks yet, owing to Tommy John surgery. He last took the mound professionally in ’18 for Detroit, where he recorded a 4.89 ERA with 6.98 K/9 and 3.26 BB/9 in 38 2/3 innings.

Mella, formerly a Red and Giant, joined the D-backs on a minor league contract in the offseason. The 27-year-old logged 17 innings as a Red from 2017-19, though he carries a much bigger sample of work – 172 2/3 frames – in Triple-A ball. Mella has notched a 4.59 ERA with 6.4 K/9 and 3.3 BB/9 at the minors’ highest level.

Mantiply also became a Diamondback on a minors pact last winter. He has 5 3/3 innings’ experience as a Tiger and Yankee in his past, though obviously most of his action has come in the minors. Mantiply, 29, combined for 39 2/3 frames at three different minors levels as a Yankee and Red last season, when he recorded a 4.31 ERA and put up 7.5 K/9 against 1.4 BB/9.

Indians Notes: Marte, White Sox, Clevinger, Padres

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Before the Diamondbacks traded Starling Marte to the Marlins yesterday, “the Indians made a run at” acquiring the outfielder, The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal reports (subscription required).  Marte would’ve been a enormous boost to Cleveland’s long-struggling outfield, and it is interesting to wonder what it would have cost the Tribe to land Marte.  Looking at what the D’Backs accepted from Miami, the Indians would have had to surrender a pitcher with some proven MLB-level ability (like Caleb Smith), another big-league ready young arm (like Humberto Mejia), and a lottery ticket of a long-term pitching prospect like Julio Frias.

Beyond the prospect cost, it’s fair to assume that Marte’s financial cost was also a factor for Cleveland — Marte has $1.71MM remaining this year, and a $12.5MM club option for the 2021 season.  Giving up a big prospect package and then declining Marte’s option wouldn’t have made much sense, and it isn’t yet clear what kind of payroll capacity the Tribe will have going into next season.

Some more Tribe notes…

  • Also from Rosenthal, he shares some details on the talks between Indians and White Sox about a possible Mike Clevinger trade.  The idea of a Clevinger trade to an AL Central rival seemed surprising at the time, and one Chicago official feels “the Indians used the Sox as a stalking horse, never intending to trade him within the division.”  The White Sox also denied that right-hander Michael Kopech was offered to Tribe as part of the Clevinger negotiations.
  • Clevinger wound up being traded to the Padres as part of a major deadline-day swap that saw the Indians acquire six players.  It was a trade born from a lot of “familiarity” between the two organizations, as president of baseball operations Chris Antonetti told MLB.com’s Mandy Bell and other reporters.  “We’ve spent a lot of time on their system….We have asked about all of these players in the past. Every one of them,” Antonetti said.  “I would comfortably say, at this point, we’ve had hundreds of iterations of deals with the Padres.”  Cleveland and San Diego have combined for five trades since July 2018.
  • In other Clevinger news, Terry Pluto of the Cleveland Plain Dealer reports that the right-hander turned down an extension offer from the Indians in the spring of 2019.  Terms and contract length weren’t revealed, though the deal would have almost assuredly gone beyond the four years of control the Tribe already held over Clevinger.  The righty was coming off an impressive 2018 season and heading into his age-28 campaign, so purely speculatively, I wonder if the Tribe’s offer was at least somewhat similar to the five-year, $38.5MM extension (with two club option years) reached with Corey Kluber prior to the 2015 season.  Kluber had a similar amount of service time and was coming off a better platform of a Cy Young Award-winning season, though he was also a year older than Clevinger would have been at the time of his hypothetical early-2019 extension.

NL West Trade Deadline Recap

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With the deadline in the rearview mirror, we’ll look back at each NL West team’s trade activity over the past month.

Arizona Diamondbacks

Colorado Rockies

Los Angeles Dodgers

San Diego Padres

San Francisco Giants

Deadline Day DFAs: Phillies, White Sox, Cubs, Marlins

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Given the flurry of transactions around the deadline, a number of players have been designated for assignment. This is, of course, the natural consequence of such a dramatic amount of shuffling to the roster via trade. These players will be available to the 29 other teams via waiver claim. We’ll use this post to track some of the more recent DFAs around baseball.

Latest Updates

  • The Marlins have designated left-hander Adam Conley for assignment, MLBTR has learned. The 30-year-old hasn’t pitched this season after going on the injured list in the wake of Miami’s clubhouse COVID-19 outbreak. Conley was a prominent member of the pitching staff, recently as a pure reliever, from 2015-19. He struggled to a miserable 6.53 ERA/5.19 FIP last season, although he posted much more palatable 4.09/3.60 marks the year prior.

Earlier Today

  • In perhaps the most surprising DFA of the day, the Phillies designated catcher Deivy Grullón for assignment, per the team. Grullon had been the Phillies presumptive third catcher after J.T. Realmuto and backup Andrew Knapp. The 24-year-old has long appeared on Philly prospect boards, making his first big-league appearance last season, going 1 for 9 in limited action. Rafael Marchan and Logan O’Hoppe are the other catchers in the Phillies’ 60-man player pool.
  • Philadelphia also DFA’ed right-hander Reggie McClain. The 27-year-old McClain had appeared in 5 games this season with a 5.06 ERA across 5 1/3 innings. These moves came as a consequence not of trades, necessarily, but because Jay Bruce and Ranger Suárez both were reinstated from the injured list.
  • The White Sox designated infielder Ryan Goins for assignment after activating Yolmer Sanchez, per Scott Merkin of MLB.com. Goings, 32, is a veteran of the Blue Jays and Royals. He appeared in 14 games for the White Sox this season, often as a pinch-runner. At the plate, he was 0 for 9 with a walk and a strikeout. Sanchez rejoins the White Sox after being designated for assignment by the Giants. Sanchez spent 2014 to 2019 with the White Sox.
  • The Cubs DFA’ed Ian Miller and Hernan Perez, per Mark Gonzales of the Chicago Tribune (Twitter links). Miller and Perez are making room for Andrew Chafin and Josh Osich, respectively, the pair of lefties acquired from the Diamondbacks and Red Sox. Miller, 28, is a speed specialist who appeared in just one game for the Cubs as a pinch-runner. Perez never cracked the rotation in Chicago after several years of regular reps with the Brewers. He appeared in just 3 games for the Cubs, going 1 for 6.

Marlins Acquire Starling Marte For Caleb Smith, Humberto Mejia

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In a major deadline swap that no one could’ve foreseen a month ago, the Marlins announced Monday that they’ve acquired All-Star center fielder Starling Marte from the D-backs. Heading to Arizona are lefty Caleb Smith, right-hander Humberto Mejia and a player to be named later (reportedly Class-A lefty Julio Frias).

Starling Marte | Kelley L Cox-USA TODAY Sports

Not long before the trade was agreed upon, Joel Sherman of the New York Post reported that the D-backs throughout the day had been signaling to other teams that they don’t expect to pick up their $12.5MM club option on Starling Marte.

The aversion to picking up the option on Marte registers as a major surprise. It’s certainly not for any lack of production; Marte has been flat-out excellent in Arizona, hitting at a .311/.384/.443 clip with a pair of homers, eight doubles, a triple and five steals. His defense in center has graded out as +0.5, per Ultimate Zone Rating, and -2 per Defensive Runs Saved. Through 33 games, FanGraphs has Marte at 1.1 WAR, while Baseball-Reference has him at 0.9 — a pace that is roughly in line with Mate’s characteristic 3-4 WAR output.

Of course, the 2020 season has brought about some pressing revenue losses for all 30 clubs, and D-backs owner Ken Kendrick was among the most outspoken owners about the hardships faced by teams with fans unable to attend games. Kendrick pined for revenue sharing with players, placing the blame on them for the difficult negotiations and steadfastly expressing that owners would not green-light any scenario that saw games played into November.

As surprising as the fact that the D-backs are moving on from Marte is the fact that the Marlins are the team that will acquire him. Miami entered the season expected to be a cellar-dwelling outfit in the NL East, and those expectations only grew when more than half their active roster was sidelined by a team-wide Covid-19 outbreak. But Miami has continued to persevere, hovering around the .500 mark and now sitting in a tie for a postseason bid in the National League. Some exciting young players, Sixto Sanchez perhaps chief among them, have made their big league debuts in 2020, as other young talents like Pablo Lopez have taken substantial steps forward.

Miami’s move to add Marte comes in simultaneous conjuncture with another trade shipping the versatile Jonathan Villar to the Blue Jays. Marte will now step into his roster spot while making up for some of the speed lost with the Villar trade (and more overall offensive output). He’ll cost the Marlins an additional $1.71MM in 2020 — the remainder of this year’s prorated $11.5MM salary — and they’ll surely be picking up that $12.5MM option, given the price they paid to acquire him.

Moving forward, that’ll position the Marlins to trot out an outfield with Corey Dickerson in left field, Marte in center and some combination of Harold Ramirez, Monte Harrison, Lewis Brinson, Jesus Sanchez, Garrett Cooper or an outside addition to patrol right field. Alternatively, the Fish could push Brian Anderson back to right field and pursue a new third base option, though their abundance of in-house outfield options makes that seem less likely. Assuming that the options on both Marte and Brandon Kintzler are picked up, the Marlins will have $35.85MM on the 2021 books before arbitration raises to Anderson, Jorge Alfaro, Jesus Aguilar, Ryne Stanek and Yimi Garcia, among others.

The 29-year-old Smith, controlled through 2023, has missed bats in droves since being acquired from the Yankees prior to the 2018 season (259 punchouts in 233 2/3 innings). He’s also been plagued by injuries in that time, though, including a brutal Grade 3 lat strain in 2018 and a hip injury that cost him just shy of a month last year. Smith was placed on the injured list earlier this month after the Marlins’ Covid-19 outbreak and has pitched just three innings so far. He looked rusty, issuing six free passes in that time. Overall, he has a 4.39 ERA and 10.0 K/9 against 3.8 BB/9 in his time with Miami.

But Smith also fits the modus operandi we frequently see under general manager Mike Hazen in Arizona. Rather than moving Marte for well-regarded but unproven prospects, he’s instead added a big league arm who can step immediately onto the roster and help this year and for years to come. Smith, in many ways, gives the Snakes a replacement for the recently traded Robbie Ray — one who bears some stark similarities to Ray, as a high-strikeout lefty with occasional control difficulties.

Also able to provide help in the very near future will be the 23-year-old Mejia, who made his big league debut earlier this season. He’s allowed six earned runs on 13 hits and six walks with 11 strikeouts in eight MLB innings. His promotion to the big leagues was in some ways necessitated by the aforementioned outbreak, as he’d yet to even pitch at Double-A when he was promoted. The Diamondbacks may well want to get Mejia some additional development time before bringing him to Chase Field, but he’s already on the 40-man roster and has gotten his feet wet in the bigs, so he’s a viable option anytime moving forward.

As for Frias, he’ll give Arizona a 22-year-old southpaw who shined as a 21-year-old in short-season Class-A last year, when he pitched to a 2.83 ERA with a 73-to-23 K/BB ratio in 70 innings. Frias isn’t considered among the Marlins’ best prospects, but Miami has a relatively deep system after years of rebuilding moves. FanGraphs called Frias a “low-slot lefty” whose heater touches 97 mph but who has battled poor command at times. He’s a much further-off piece, but any club would welcome the opportunity to add a power-armed, left-handed lottery ticket.

SportsGrid’s Craig Mish broke the news that the two sides were close to a deal (Twitter link). Joel Sherman of the New York Post reported (on Twitter) that a deal had been reached. MLB Network’s Jon Heyman, MLB.com’s Mark Feinsand and The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal reported various aspects of the return (all Twitter links).

Reds Acquire Archie Bradley

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The Reds have acquired closer Archie Bradley in a last-second deadline deal with the Diamondbacks, per announcements from both clubs. Utility man Josh VanMeter and outfield prospect Stuart Fairchild are headed to the D-backs in return for Bradley, and Arizona will also reportedly kick in $100K to help cover Bradley’s remaining salary.

Archie Bradley |Mark J. Rebilas-USA TODAY Sports

Bradley, 28, is in his second season as Arizona’s primary closing option and has been a quality member of the ’pen for the past four years now. The former No. 7 overall pick was long one of the game’s most highly regarded pitching prospects, but he struggled in 34 big league starts before finding a home in the D-backs’ relief corp. Dating back to 2017, Bradley has pitched to a strong 2.98 ERA and 3.17 FIP with averages of 10.1 strikeouts, 3.2 walks and 0.7 homers per nine innings (despite pitching in a hitter-friendly home park).

Controlled through the 2021 season, Bradley agreed to a $4.1MM salary in arbitration this past winter. That’s been prorated to about $1.48MM in this year’s shortened schedule, and roughly $617K of that sum remains to be paid out. He’ll be eligible for arbitration once more this winter.

Bullpen help has been a major area of need for the Reds throughout the 2020 season, as their relievers have combined to post a grisly 5.48 ERA and 5.20 FIP. Closer Raisel Iglesias has struggled to an ERA north of 5.00, while some of his top projected setup men, Michael Lorenzen (6.75 ERA) and Pedro Strop (designated for assignment) have not risen to the occasion. Cincinnati has received strong showings from Amir Garrett, Lucas Sims and Tejay Antone, but an established arm has long looked a sensible addition as they look to tread water in a disappointing NL Central that has seen the Cubs pull away from the pack for the division lead. The Reds, Cardinals and Brewers are all sub-.500 clubs vying for a second-place seed and perhaps a Wild Card spot.

As with most of the Diamondbacks’ trades today — Arizona also sent Starling Marte to the Marlins, Robbie Ray to the Blue Jays and Andrew Chafin to the Cubs — they’ll pick up an MLB-ready asset who can jump right onto the roster in VanMeter. The D-backs also added lefty Caleb Smith in the Marte swap and lefty Travis Bergen in the Ray deal. Diamondbacks general manager Mike Hazen and his staff have regularly chosen to prioritize controllable MLB pieces as the returns in their trades rather than pure prospects, and that trend carries over to the Bradley swap as well.

VanMeter, 25, is out to a 2-for-34 start in 2020 but posted a .237/.327/.408 slash in 260 plate appearances last year. He’s also a career .287/.353/.536 hitter in 573 plate appearances at the Triple-A level, pointing to potential for growth at the plate. Beyond his minor league track record, VanMeter possesses plenty of positional versatility, which is another hallmark of D-backs players under Hazen’s watch. He’s primarily been a second baseman in the big leagues but also carries experience at all four corner positions (plus 810 minor league innings at shortstop).

That said, Fairchild is very arguably the bigger get for the D-backs in this deal. A second-round pick in 2017, he’s regarded as an above-average runner with an above-average arm and the ability to play all three outfield slots. Fairchild posted big numbers in two very pitcher-friendly leagues last year, slashing .258/.335/.440 (130 wRC+) in Class-A Advanced and .275/.380/.444 (142 wRC+) with just a 12.8 percent strikeout rate in Double-A.

Fairchild was generally ranked in the Reds’ top 15 prospects, landing 10th at Baseball America, 11th at MLB.com, 13th at FanGraphs. That there’s not a more highly regarded prospect within the deal likely speaks to several factors: the team’s opinion of VanMeter and Fairchild as well as some possible pressure from ownership to reduce payroll.

Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic first reported the deal (via Twitter). John Gambadoro of 98.7 Arizona Sports reported the return (Twitter link). The Athletic’s Zach Buchanan added that the D-backs were sending $100K to Cincinnati as well.

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