Braves Release Nick Vincent
The Braves have released veteran righty Nick Vincent from their Triple-A affiliate in Gwinnett, per the transactions log at MiLB.com. The 35-year-old Vincent inked a minor league deal back on March 20.
Long one of the game’s more underappreciated relievers, Vincent has pitched at least 12 1/3 innings in the Majors every year dating back to his 2012 debut with the Padres. He’s worked to a sub-4.00 ERA in eight of those campaigns and notched identical marks of 4.43 in the other two. Overall, he sports a career 3.30 ERA with an above-average 24.1% strikeout rate and a very strong 6.2% walk rate in 411 2/3 Major League innings.
Despite that track record, Vincent has been outrighted three times in his big league career and has been relegated to minor league deals in free agency in recent years. The soft-tossing righty’s lack of velocity likely hasn’t helped his cause when it comes to appealing to modern front offices; Vincent’s heater has never averaged even 91 mph in a given big league season, and he averaged just 89.3 mph on the pitch in his 12 2/3 frames with the Twins in 2021. He’s typically offset that lack of zip on his fastball via pristine walk rates, a knack for inducing weak contact (career 87.2 mph average exit velocity, 32.2% hard-hit rate) and a better-than-average rate at keeping the ball in the yard.
Vincent’s time in Gwinnett didn’t go particularly smoothly, as he was tagged for 16 runs (albeit only 11 of them earned) in 19 2/3 innings. However, he was also dogged by a sky-high .462 batting average on balls in play, and his 30.7% strikeout rate and 4.5% walk rate were both excellent. Yesterday’s implementation of a maximum 13-man pitching staff likely doesn’t help Vincent’s cause in getting another big league look, but the majority of teams have more pronounced bullpen needs than the Braves currently do, so he ought to latch on elsewhere sooner than later.
Braves Designate Jacob Webb For Assignment, Reinstate Collin McHugh
The Braves have reinstated Collin McHugh from the COVID injured list and designated reliever Jacob Webb for assignment, per The Athletic’s David O’Brien (via Twitter).
Webb spent the past three seasons in Atlanta’s bullpen, making two postseason appearances en route to winning a ring last season. He was selected off waivers by the Diamondbacks in April before Atlanta purchased his contract back last week. Webb made six appearances in Triple-A with Arizona, posting a 10.12 ERA in a small-sample 5 1/3 innings. He has not appeared in the Majors this season.
McHugh should be a key cog for the Braves as they try to make up ground in the NL East. The 34-year-old has appeared in 21 games this season with a 3.42 ERA/2.21 FIP across 23 2/3 innings. He’s in the first year of a two-year guaranteed deal with a team option for 2024.
Ozzie Albies Undergoes Foot Surgery, Expected To Return This Season
4:43pm: Toscano writes that the Braves do anticipate Albies being able to return at some point this season.
2:43pm: Ozzie Albies recently underwent surgery to repair the fracture in his left foot, tweets Justin Toscano of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. It isn’t clear what impact, if any, the procedure has on his recovery timeline. In any event, Albies won’t be back until at least mid-August after landing on the 60-day injured list yesterday.
Albies fractured his foot during Monday night’s win over the Nationals. He stumbled out of the batter’s box after hitting a ground-ball, and the club announced the fracture diagnosis within an hour of his departing the game. Atlanta wasted no time in putting him on the 60-day IL the next morning, selecting utilityman Phil Gosselin to take his roster spot. Orlando Arcia will be the club’s primary second baseman for the foreseeable future.
A two-time All-Star, Albies had been off to a bit of a slow start this year, posting a personal-worst .244/.289/.405 line through 263 trips to the plate. Arcia has hit well through 18 games this season, but he’s a career .245/.296/.368 hitter at the major league level. The Braves will presumably want to see whether he can keep performing at anywhere near this season’s .327/.393/.519 pace, but it seems likely the club will at least look into possible acquisitions before the August 2 trade deadline — particularly if Arcia’s bat cools in the next month.
The Braves have won 13 in a row, pulling themselves within five games of the NL East-leading Mets entering play Wednesday. At 36-27, Atlanta currently occupies the third and final Wild Card spot in the National League, holding a two-game advantage over the Brewers.
Braves Select Phil Gosselin, Place Ozzie Albies On 60-Day Injured List
The Braves announced this morning that they’ve selected the contract of veteran infielder Phil Gosselin from Triple-A Gwinnett. Ozzie Albies, who suffered a fractured left foot in last night’s game, has been placed on the 60-day injured list to open a spot on the active and 40-man rosters.
It’s something of a homecoming for Gosselin, who was originally drafted by the Braves in the fifth round of the 2010 draft and made his big league debut with the team in 2013. Much has changed with the Braves since Gosselin was with the big league club from 2013-15, but he ought to be quite familiar with current manager Brian Snitker, a Braves organization lifer who has extensive experience coaching and managing throughout the Braves’ minor league system.
Gosselin returned to the Braves on a minor league deal this offseason and began the season with their Triple-A affiliate, where he’s slashed .297/.358/.473 through 204 plate appearances. He’s played more third base than any other position in the minors this year, but the Braves have also given Gosselin time at second base, first base and in the outfield corners. That’s nothing new for Gosselin, who has played every position other than catcher and pitcher in his professional career.
Since being traded from the Braves to the D-backs, Gosselin has bounced around the league and now seen time with seven teams. He’s settled in as a journeyman utility player, often filling a need but rarely sticking in any one place too long due in large part to a lack of offensive contributions. Gosselin sports a solid .261 batting average in 1122 career plate appearances, but he’s paired that with a below-average .314 on-base percentage and a very light .362 slugging percentage. For teams in need of a serviceable fill-in basically anywhere on the infield — just the situation in which the Braves currently find themselves — the 33-year-old has proven himself a fine role player.
Gosselin figures to see occasional action at second base in place of Albies, but Orlando Arcia is the likeliest option for regular work at the position while Albies mends. Acquired from the Brewers early in the 2021 campaign, Arcia is out to a .313/.393/.458 start in a small sample of 56 plate appearances this year. The former top prospect has a much more tepid .244/.296/.366 batting line in his overall big league career, however, so fans shouldn’t expect Arcia to continue hitting anywhere near that torrid pace.
Depending on Albies’ outlook and whether surgery is required, it’s possible the Braves could look to the trade market to add a more clear-cut starting option. If, however, Albies is expected back by season’s end, the Braves could opt for a piecemeal approach to their newfound second base shortage. Albies will technically be eligible to return on Aug. 13, but as of yet, the Braves have provided neither an update on how the injury will be treated nor on when Albies can be expected to return.
Ozzie Albies Suffers Foot Fracture
The Braves announced that second baseman Ozzie Albies has fractured his left foot. He departed tonight’s game against the Nationals in the fifth inning after suffering the injury.
Albies stumbled out of the batter’s box after hitting a ground-ball to shortstop. He was able to walk off the field under his own power, but he immediately departed the game and initial x-rays revealed a fracture. The club will no doubt provide a more specific timetable for his recovery over the coming days, but it’s likely he’s in for an extended absence.
The switch-hitting Albies has started 61 of Atlanta’s 62 games at the keystone. The lone other start went to utilityman Orlando Arcia, who’d seem to be the likeliest candidate to take over the position moving forward. Aside from the starting infield of Matt Olson, Dansby Swanson and Austin Riley, the only other primary infielders on the Atlanta 40-man roster are first baseman/DH Mike Ford and recent waiver claim Kramer Robertson. The latter is capable of playing second base but has exactly one MLB plate appearance under his belt.
Arcia has hit well in limited playing time off the bench this season, but he’s been a below-average offensive player in every other year of his career. The former Brewer shortstop is a lifetime .244/.295/.365 hitter in a bit more than 2000 plate appearances at the big league level. Albies is a two-time All-Star and Silver Slugger Award winner who has been above-average at the dish in every full season of his career.
Albies had been off to a bit of a slow start this year, as he owns a personal-worst .244/.289/.405 line through 263 trips to the plate. He’d rated well defensively, though, and his career track record suggested he was likely to turn the corner offensively. Those efforts will now be put on hold.
The Braves have been playing as well as anyone in the sport over the past few weeks. They’re amidst an 11-game win streak that has pushed them to 34-27 entering play Monday. A slow start coupled with the Mets’ excellent first couple months still has Atlanta five and a half games back in the NL East standings, but the defending champions currently occupy the league’s third and final Wild Card spot.
Depending on how long Albies is expected to miss, general manager Alex Anthopoulos and his staff could turn to the trade market for help. Players such as Brandon Drury (Reds), Rougned Odor (Orioles) and César Hernández (Nationals) are impending free agents on non-competitive teams and aren’t going to demand a huge trade return. If the club looks internally for depth behind Arcia, non-roster veterans Phil Gosselin, Hernán Pérez and Pat Valaika are at Triple-A Gwinnett, as is recent waiver claim Joe Dunand. Gosselin, in particular, is hitting well with the Stripers this season.
Braves Claim Mike Ford, Designate Joe Dunand
June 12: Dunand cleared waivers and was outrighted to Triple-A Gwinnett, per David O’Brien of The Athletic.
June 10: The Braves announced they’ve claimed first baseman Mike Ford off waivers from the Mariners and optioned him to Triple-A Gwinnett. Infielder Joe Dunand has been designated for assignment to clear 40-man roster space.
It has been a roller-coaster of a season for Ford, who’s now on his third different organization of the year. He signed a minor league deal with Seattle, then was selected onto the big league roster in April. Seattle designated him for assignment and traded him to the Giants fairly quickly, then acquired him back from San Francisco two weeks later once the Giants DFA him themselves. Ford held his second 40-man roster spot in Seattle for a few weeks, but the M’s again took him off the roster this past weekend.
Through it all, Ford has appeared in 17 MLB games. He’s compiled a rather bizarre .182/.357/.212 slash line, the product of eight walks but 12 strikeouts in only 42 plate appearances. It’s the fourth consecutive year in which he’s logged some big league time, with all of his pre-2022 MLB work coming in a Yankees uniform. The left-handed hitter broke in with an excellent .259/.350/.559 showing with 12 home runs in 50 games as a rookie, but he owns a .144/.273/.263 line in just shy of 200 plate appearances since the start of the 2020 camapign.
The 29-year-old adds a left-handed hitting depth option to the organization. Matt Olson obviously has first base accounted for, but the Braves have gotten subpar work (.252/.328/.360) out of their designated hitters. Ford is in his final minor league option year, meaning the Braves can keep him in Gwinnett for the rest of the season if they’re willing to carry him on the 40-man roster. He’s hit .271/.417/.417 in 14 Triple-A games this year.
Dunand was a recent waiver claim himself, coming over from the division-rival Marlins last week. His time in the organization may now be coming to close without a big league game, as the 26-year-old has just appeared in five games with Gwinnett. He did make a brief cameo in Miami earlier in the year, logging three appearances.
A former second-round pick, the right-handed hitting Dunand has a .209/.295/.376 line in 328 Triple-A plate appearances. He’s struggled with strikeouts throughout his minor league tenure, but the 6’2″ infielder has drawn praise in the past for his raw power potential. Dunand has played mostly on the left side of the infield in the minors, with a bit more work at shortstop than at third base. The Braves will have a week to trade him or look to run through waivers themselves.
AL East Notes: Ryu, Sale, Red Sox, Carpenter
It has been a little over a week since a forearm strain sent left-hander Hyun Jin Ryu to the 15-day injured list, and Ryu and the Blue Jays are still determining the next stage of rehab. Sportsnet’s Ben Nicholson-Smith (Twitter link) writes that Ryu has met with noted specialist Dr. Neal ElAttrache, and is also going to seek out other opinions.
As with any forearm injury, there was immediate speculation that Ryu would require Tommy John surgery, and it isn’t yet known if such a major procedure is necessary. The fact that Ryu wasn’t immediately slated for TJ surgery is perhaps a positive sign that his forearm strain doesn’t involve any serious UCL damage, yet on the flip side, it is possible that a TJ procedure was the initial recommendation, and Ryu and the Jays are trying to find a second opinion that involves an alternative recovery treatment. It certainly seems like Ryu is in for a lengthy absence regardless, and if he does ultimately require Tommy John surgery, his tenure in Toronto could already be over. TJ rehab usually takes 12-15 months, and Ryu is only under contract through the end of the 2023 season.
More from the AL East…
- Chris Sale threw a bullpen session on Friday and is scheduled to throw a live batting practice session on Monday. Red Sox pitching coach Dave Bush told The Athletic’s Jen McCaffrey and other reporters that Sale is roughly on the same pace as a pitcher just beginning Spring Training, so Sale would have roughly six weeks of work ahead before he is fully ramped up and ready to rejoin Boston’s rotation. However, Sale could potentially return sooner if he was used as a relief pitcher, and Bush said that “everything is on the table at this point” in terms of Sale’s potential role. “If it suits him and us for him to come back sooner and in fewer innings and we have a bullpen that’s capable of absorbing the extra innings, then maybe that’s an option,” Bush said.
- The Red Sox and Braves were among the teams who had interest in Matt Carpenter after the Rangers released the veteran infielder in May, Jon Heyman of the New York Post reports. The Rangers didn’t have a role for Carpenter at the big league level, but his big numbers at the Triple-A level surely caught the attention of multiple teams wondering if the former All-Star had gotten back on track. Much to Boston’s particular chagrin, Carpenter ended up signing with the Yankees, and he has already delivered four homers and a 1.250 OPS over his first 25 plate appearances in the pinstripes.
Dansby Swanson Wins Arbitration Case; Braves Win Case Over Adam Duvall
Two of the Braves’ remaining arbitration situations have been resolved. As first reported by the Associated Press, Dansby Swanson has won his case and will receive a $10MM salary. Adam Duvall, meanwhile, will make $9.275MM after losing his case. Both players will reach free agency after this season, as this was the final trip through the arb process for each.
Swanson and the Braves had an $800K dispute, with the team filing at $9.2MM. That came on the heels of a .248/.311/.449 showing last year, in which the shortstop started 158 regular season games. Swanson hit 27 home runs and drove in 88 runners, and he’ll be rewarded with a $4MM pay bump over that season’s $6MM salary in spite of the pedestrian batting average and on-base marks.
Duvall, meanwhile, blasted a career-high 38 homers in 146 games split between the Marlins and Braves. He only hit .228 with a meager .281 OBP, but the 33-year-old tied for fourth in Major League Baseball with 113 runs batted in. Duvall also claimed his first career Gold Glove Award for his work in right field, leading him to forego his end of a $7MM mutual option for the 2022 campaign. That was an easy call, as the Braves tendered him an arbitration contract, and he’ll make a fair bit more money than the option price even after losing at his hearing. Duvall’s camp had been seeking a $10.125MM salary, so he’ll land $1MM shy of his goal.
Of course, the differences in the 2022 campaigns for Swanson and Duvall are striking. The former is hitting at arguably a career-best level, carrying a .279/.348/.428 slash line and positioning himself well for a lucrative multi-year contract next winter. Duvall, on the other hand, has stumbled to a personal-worst .199/.260/.309 and has hit just three homers through 54 games.
The players’ respective performances this year are not supposed to play any role in the arbitrators’ decisions. The hearings are typically conducted over the offseason, but the lockout caused unsettled cases to linger into the season. Nevertheless, the cases presented are to be determined based on the players’ pre-2022 track records, their platform salaries and the performance of previous players in their respective service buckets.
Swanson and Duvall were two of five Atlanta players not to come to terms with the team before going to a hearing. The Braves won cases over both third baseman Austin Riley and reliever Luke Jackson earlier this year. Starter Max Fried still has a pending hearing, with a modest gap between the sides’ respective $6.85MM and $6.6MM filings.
Braves Acquire Jacob Webb From Diamondbacks
Right-hander Jacob Webb is back with the Braves, who announced on Tuesday that they’ve reacquired Webb from the D-backs in exchange for cash. Arizona had designated Webb for assignment over the weekend. The Braves placed righty Collin McHugh on the injured list in a corresponding move. An injury designation was not announced, nor was a corresponding 40-man roster move. That suggests that McHugh has been placed on the Covid-related injured list.
Atlanta designated Webb for assignment during the first week of the season, and the D-backs, who had the No. 1 waiver priority at the time, quickly scooped him up. Webb hasn’t appeared in the big leagues yet this season and has spent most of the minor league season on the injured list, though he returned to the mound late last month. He’s been jumped for six runs in 5 1/3 innings so far on the season, but the 28-year-old righty has fanned seven of 26 opponents (26.9%) and recently turned in consecutive scoreless outings (one inning apiece).
Webb has spent parts of three seasons in the Majors with the Braves, pitching to a pristine 2.47 ERA in 76 2/3 frames overall. His 21.9% strikeout rate and 9.6% walk rate are both worse than the league average, though, and fielding-independent metrics suggest that number is due to regress. Be that as it may, Webb is an optionable 28-year-old who averages 94.5 mph on his heater and has a knack for inducing weak contact (career 88.1 mph exit velocity and 31.8% hard-hit rate). It’s not hard to see why the D-backs were interested once he hit waivers, nor is it difficult to see why Atlanta would work out a deal to bring him back once a bullpen need arose.
The Braves haven’t announced whether McHugh tested positive or is on the Covid list for other reasons, though David O’Brien of The Athletic tweets that McHugh indeed tested positive. MLB’s 2022 health regulations stipulate a 10-day absence, though a pair of negative PCR tests and approval from a trio of medical professionals (team doctor, league-appointed doctor, MLBPA-appointed doctor) can override that 10-day requirement.
In 23 2/3 innings with the Braves, McHugh has notched a solid 3.42 ERA with a strong 26.3% strikeout rate and an excellent 5.3% walk rate. He signed a two-year, $10MM contract with the Braves over the winter, and Atlanta holds a third-year option over McHugh as well.
Braves Claim Kramer Robertson From Cardinals
The Braves announced that they have claimed infielder Kramer Robertson off waivers from the Cardinals and optioned him to Triple-A. To make room on the 40-man roster, outfielder Eddie Rosario was transferred to the 60-day IL.
A fourth round selection of the Cards in the 2017 draft, Robertson worked his way up to the bigs mostly by taking walks, as well as stealing a few bases. This year, in 38 Triple-A games, he’s walked in 19.3% of his plate appearances, producing a slash line of .220/.398/.371, 120 wRC+, along with 12 steals. He was able to make his MLB debut with the Cards but got into just two games, getting only a single plate appearance, which resulted in an RBI groundout.
Robertson’s played second, third and short at Triple-A this year, meaning he’ll provide some infield depth for the Braves. The club has Ozzie Albies, Dansby Swanson and Austin Riley as their regulars and Orlando Arcia as the primary bench infielder. Robertson will likely be jockeying with Joe Dunand, himself a recent waiver claim, to be the next call-up whenever the need arises.
As for Rosario, it was announced in late April that he was undergoing a laser procedure to deal with “blurred vision and swelling in the right retina.” The expected recovery timeline for that procedure was listed as 8-12 weeks, which would likely mean Rosario won’t be returning before July. With today’s transfer, he won’t be eligible to return until 60 days from the initial IL placement, which would be late June. Though he recently started hitting in a cage, per Justin Toscano of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, he’s not on pace to return in the next few weeks, making today’s transaction a mere formality.