Rangers Notes: Eovaldi, Latz, Smith
The Rangers are sending Nathan Eovaldi for imaging after the veteran starter reported left side tightness, manager Skip Schumaker told reporters (including Kennedi Landry of MLB.com). Texas scratched Eovaldi from his scheduled start tonight in Arizona. Jakob Junis got the first couple innings of an impromptu bullpen game.
Schumaker’s bullpen should be well rested. The Rangers are coming off consecutive shutouts of what had been a hot Cubs lineup. They used three relievers after Jack Leiter on Saturday, but only Gavin Collyer tossed more than 13 pitches. Jacob Latz was their only reliever yesterday, tossing 20 pitches over two scoreless innings behind a masterful start from Jacob deGrom (seven scoreless with 10 strikeouts).
Although the pitching staff is well equipped to handle one missed start, it’d be tougher to weather an injured list stint if that proves necessary. Eovaldi has been one of the American League’s best pitchers over his time in Arlington. His 4.15 earned run average this year is higher than his ERA from any of his first three seasons, thanks mostly to a spike in his home run rate.
Eovaldi has had a trio of rough outings but has also reeled off four quality starts, including two excellent appearances against the Yankees each of his past two times out. He held New York to one run (an Aaron Judge homer) with 15 strikeouts in as many innings over those two starts. Texas won both games.
The Rangers have a below-average offense for the third straight season. Only the Giants and Mets have scored fewer runs entering play Monday. Texas has stayed close to .500 (19-21) thanks to a pitching staff that has the sixth-best ERA. Their bullpen deserves more of the credit for that than does the starting rotation, as their stitched together relief group has an MLB-low 2.80 mark. The top half of the rotation is Texas’ biggest on-paper strength, however.
Texas hasn’t made any changes to their rotation of deGrom, Eovaldi, Leiter, MacKenzie Gore and Kumar Rocker. Latz’s start in the second game of the season was the only one until tonight opened by someone other than the aforementioned quintet. deGrom is again pitching at a level that’ll have him in the Cy Young conversation if he stays healthy. The others all have an ERA north of 4.00, though all but Rocker are racking up strikeouts.
The rotation falls off sharply after the front five. Latz pitched well when called upon as a spot starter last season, but the Rangers could be hesitant to ask him to do that again. The lefty has seized the closer role after Texas opened the season with a committee approach. Latz has only allowed two runs across 20 2/3 innings on the year, recording the save in four of his last five times out.
Junis, Tyler Alexander and Cole Winn all recorded at least one save early in the season. Latz has gotten all the opportunities going back to April 13. He’s probably too valuable at the back of the bullpen to stretch back out as a starter, particularly if Eovaldi’s injury turns out to be mild.
Cal Quantrill has been working in long relief and could get a look. Jose Corniell, the only depth starter on the 40-man roster, had spent the last five weeks at the team’s Arizona complex and only made his first Triple-A appearance on Friday. Josh Stephan, who went unselected in last offseason’s Rule 5 draft and has no MLB experience, has been the organization’s best starter in Triple-A.
Schumaker also provided an update before Monday’s game on Josh Smith. The second baseman, who has been out for the past week with a glute strain, is also dealing with wrist inflammation (link via Shawn McFarland of The Dallas Morning News). Schumaker said the team is hopeful he’ll only be shut down for a few days, but it all but ensures that Smith won’t be activated from the injured list when first eligible on Thursday.
A productive utility player from 2024-25, Smith was tabbed as the everyday second baseman after the Marcus Semien/Brandon Nimmo trade. He has started very slowly, hitting .217/.324/.239 without a home run through 108 plate appearances. His strikeout and walk profile is strong, but he’s not making any impact. Smith, who has traditionally played very well in April, has also posted subpar defensive grades this year.
Ezequiel Duran has taken over second base in Smith’s absence. He’s hitting too well to take out of the lineup, batting .286/.359/.451 over 32 games. Duran had previously been playing mostly left field due to the Wyatt Langford injury, so the Smith injury indirectly opened the most playing time for outfielder Alejandro Osuna. The 23-year-old has reached base 16 times in his first 37 plate appearances since being recalled from the minors on April 22.
Front Office Subscriber Chat Transcript
Anthony Franco
- Good afternoon, hope you all enjoyed your weekend!
- Looking forward to another of these, let's get it going
My WS Teams
- Could the Cubbies or Mariners make a big time move for Freddy Peralta seeing that the Mets are out of it? What would it cost?
Coach Wall
- Given their terrible start, is it time for the Mets to deal? Freddy Peralta could bring 2 prospects to replace what they gave up to get him. What say you?
Anthony Franco
- Too early. He'd be the best rental pitcher available at the deadline, the return will still be strong in mid-late July
- They're pretty close to cooked but doubt they're ready to wave the white flag yet and waiting until July just allows potential buyers to have a better feel for whether they're going to be in or out. Cubs will be in Peralta two months from now too
- As for the price, similar to what they gave up is about right. Trade value is down a little bit -- acquiring team now can't make him a QO, half-season instead of full, Tobias Myers (presumably) not included -- but Williams/Sproat wasn't a massive package and some of the drop in trade value is counteracted by teams like the Cubs losing a bunch of starters to injury
Jackalope
- How real is the Riley O'Brien breakout? If the cards fall out of contention, will he be a midsummer trade candidate?
Tony
- It's difficult to see the Cardinals hanging on to the race. What would o'brien bring back at the deadline?
Anthony Franco
- He's cheap, building back-end experience, and has the 99-100 MPH sinker that hitters seem to have a really tough time differentiating from the breaking stuff
- I think he's the second- or third-best reliever in a good bullpen, and he's old enough (31) that it saps some of the value of the five remaining years of club control, but he's a good trade chip
- I'd have him below Jose A. Ferrer (and obviously way below Mason Miller) when they got traded but do think they could pull a couple mid-level prospects for him and should at least be open to the conversation
Another Eric Lauer Question
- Could I be a long shot to be DFA'd today when Yaril Rodriguez is added to the 26?
Anthony Franco
- Nice call to the person who sent this question in at 1:40 this afternoon
Jed's Dead
- Giants looking to unload some salary. I don't think the Cubs make sense for any of their position players, but Robbie Ray would be enticing to me. Even if not for another month or two, what sort of package do you think it would take to acquire him?
busted posey
- I am stuck with 4 unlovable and unmove-able contracts (Devers, Chapman, Adames and Jung Hoo Lee). Luis Arraez and Robbie Ray are potentially trade-able rentals. Could I get back more now vs. at August deadline?
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Luis Gil Shut Down With Shoulder Inflammation
The Yankees are shutting down righty Luis Gil after he was diagnosed with shoulder inflammation, manager Aaron Boone told reporters on Friday (link via Greg Joyce of The New York Post). He won’t throw for at least three weeks.
Gil, the 2024 American League Rookie of the Year, has had a frustrating last year and a half. He missed the first four months of the ’25 campaign after suffering a significant lat strain early in camp. Gil returned in August and managed a 3.32 earned run average across 57 innings. His strikeout rate was down 10 percentage points from the previous season, though, and he gave up a couple homers to take the loss in his lone Division Series start against the Blue Jays.
New York acquired Ryan Weathers over the offseason, pushing Gil to fifth on the rotation depth chart. A number of early-season off days allowed them to use a four-man rotation for a couple weeks, dropping Gil to Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre to open the year. He came back up on April 10 and was knocked around in three of his four starts. The Yankees optioned him back to Triple-A on April 27. They gave a couple starts to prospect Elmer Rodríguez and will welcome Carlos Rodón back from injury on Sunday.
Gil did not pitch with Scranton between his option and today’s diagnosis. Boone nevertheless told reporters that the Yankees believe this is a new injury and was not a factor in his poor MLB performance in April. If it were determined that Gil had suffered the injury while he was on the big league roster, the Yankees would need to rescind the option and place him on the Major League injured list. He’d accrue service time for as long as he’s unavailable in that case. Gil will not be credited with service time if he remains on the Triple-A injured list.
That’s a secondary consideration, one that’d be a moot point if Gil can’t right the ship to ensure the Yankees tender him an arbitration contract. He won’t resume throwing until close to the end of May in the best case scenario. Even if he’s cleared, he’ll need to progress through a series of bullpen/live batting practice sessions before the Yankees put him into a game.
Rodríguez and the also recently optioned Brendan Beck are the only healthy depth starters on New York’s 40-man roster. Hard-throwing prospect Carlos Lagrange, who turned heads with a dominant Spring Training, is not yet on the 40-man but working out of the Triple-A rotation. He leads Scranton in strikeouts but has continued to battle his longstanding control problems and has only once completed five innings in a start. The Yankees are continuing to develop him as a starter, but he’d probably be better suited breaking into MLB as a reliever if he’s going to be a factor this year.
The Yankees rotation is in good shape despite the lack of experienced upper minors depth. Rodón slots alongside a front four of Max Fried, Cam Schlittler, Will Warren and Weathers — each of whom has pitched very well so far. Gerrit Cole is four starts into his rehab from Tommy John surgery and a few weeks away from his first MLB appearance since 2024.
Tigers, Carl Edwards Jr. Agree To Minor League Deal
The Tigers are in agreement with right-hander Carl Edwards Jr. on a minor league contract, as first reflected on the MLB.com transaction log. The Ballengee Group client will report to Triple-A Toledo.
Edwards elected free agency on Monday after being designated for assignment by the Mets on April 30. He’d made two appearances and tossed six innings of one-run ball with 11 punchouts. It was impressive work but came in mop-up situations against the Nationals and Rockies, respectively. As a journeyman who can’t be optioned to the minor leagues, Edwards had an uphill path to holding his spot on the 40-man roster.
Those six innings matched Edwards’ big league workload from the 2025 season, which he split between the Rangers and Angels. He only made one MLB appearance in ’24 with the Padres. It has been three years since his most recent extended big league action, when Edwards spent a few seasons holding a middle relief spot in Washington.
A reliever for most of his career, the 34-year-old has built up as a starter in Triple-A this year. He made four starts and got up to five innings in an appearance twice. The numbers weren’t great, as Edwards surrendered 13 runs (10 earned) while walking 11 batters across 17 frames. Detroit could look to keep him stretched out in Toledo even if Edwards is unlikely to be more than a long relief option at the MLB level.
Dodgers Place Tyler Glasnow On Injured List
The Dodgers placed Tyler Glasnow on the 15-day injured list with lower back spasms. Righty Paul Gervase has been recalled from Triple-A Oklahoma City and will be available out of the bullpen for tonight’s series opener against the Braves.
Glasnow exited Wednesday’s start against the Astros after one inning. He tweaked his lower back while warming up for the second frame. Glasnow downplayed the issue postgame, noting it’s a minor problem with which he has dealt throughout his career. The Dodgers nevertheless opted to shelve him for a couple weeks to allow the issue to subside.
The All-Star righty has worked to a 2.72 earned run average in his first seven turns through the rotation. He’s tied with Chris Sale for sixth in the National League with 49 strikeouts. Glasnow continues to perform at a top-of-the-rotation level when he’s healthy. The durability is the ever present caveat. Glasnow has yet to reach 140 innings in an MLB season. Aside from the shortened 2020 schedule, he has gone on the injured list at least once in each year since 2018.
There’s no indication this will be more than a minimal IL stay. The Dodgers were off yesterday but will play 13 in a row and 19 of the next 20 days. Glasnow will miss at least two starts. Los Angeles will welcome Blake Snell from the injured list to make his season debut tomorrow. Emmet Sheehan is taking the ball tonight in the series opener, while Justin Wrobleski is lined up for the weekend finale.
Skipper Dave Roberts said Roki Sasaki is likely to go on Monday for the series opener against the Giants (via Fabian Ardaya of The Athletic). That’d set up Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Shohei Ohtani for the final two games of the San Francisco series. Glasnow’s injury means the Dodgers can delay a decision on whether to bump Sasaki or Sheehan from the six-man rotation. They’ll play with a nine-man bullpen tonight but will need to option a pitcher tomorrow to activate Snell, so it’s likely to be a one-day stint for Gervase.
José Azocar Elects Free Agency
Outfielder José Azocar elected free agency after clearing outright waivers, according to the MLB.com transaction tracker. The Braves had designated him for assignment on Wednesday when they called up rookie infielder Jim Jarvis.
Azocar signed a minor league deal with Atlanta shortly before the New Year. It was his second stint in the organization after he’d spent a couple weeks on the MLB bench last season. Azocar only played in two games last year. He began this season at Triple-A Gwinnett, hitting .270/.348/.420 with a pair of home runs in 113 plate appearances.
Atlanta called Azocar up last week when Ronald Acuña Jr. landed on the injured list. He started Sunday’s game in right field and went hitless in two at-bats. He came off the bench as a pinch-runner a day later and stole a base. That was the extent of this year’s MLB stint.
Azocar has now appeared in parts of five big league seasons. He’s a .243/.288/.318 hitter over 420 career trips, most of which came during his first two seasons (2021-22) with the Padres. The 29-year-old (30 next week) carries a .276/.321/.416 line over parts of six Triple-A campaigns. He’s a good runner who can play anywhere in the outfield. Azocar should sign a minor league contract somewhere in the coming days, and a return to Atlanta would hardly be a surprise.
Brewers Outright Greg Jones
The Brewers sent outfielder Greg Jones through outright waivers, relays Adam McCalvy of MLB.com. Milwaukee designated the speedster for assignment on Monday when they welcomed Jackson Chourio and Andrew Vaughn back from injury.
Jones was a first-round pick by the Rays out of UNC-Wilmington in 2019. A shortstop at the time, Jones had big tools as a switch-hitter with power and elite speed. However, concerns about his infield defense and pure hitting ability both turned out to be founded. The Rays moved Jones to center field by 2023. He hit for enough power and stole enough bases to secure a spot on their 40-man roster but never played in the Majors with Tampa Bay.
The Rays flipped Jones to Colorado for left-hander Joe Rock going into the 2024 season. Jones made a brief debut with the Rox and had an even smaller cameo with the White Sox as a waiver claim last year. After he suffered an injury while playing in Triple-A, Chicago released him. Jones finished the season on a minor league contract with Houston and signed an offseason non-roster deal with Milwaukee.
Milwaukee called Jones up in mid-April when Christian Yelich landed on the injured list. His 11 games and 22 plate appearances were career highs. Jones went 2-21 with nine strikeouts and was squeezed off the roster by Chourio and Vaughn. He’s out of options and needed to clear waivers before Milwaukee could assign him back to Triple-A.
This is Jones’ first career outright assignment. The only other time he’d cleared waivers was when Chicago released him, as injured players cannot be outrighted. As a result, he doesn’t have the right to refuse the assignment in favor of free agency. He’ll head back to Triple-A, where he’s a lifetime .262/.344/.438 hitter with 72 stolen bases but a 36.5% strikeout rate over 166 games.
Front Office Subscriber Chat Transcript
Anthony Franco
- Good afternoon, hope all is well!
- Looking forward to another of these, let's get it rolling
Fanthony Aranco
- The MLBTR team was (justifiably) incredibly down on STL, how long would this have to continue for you or the rest of the team to believe?
Guest
- If the Cardinals keep playing like they are now, what will they do are the Trade Deadline?
Anthony Franco
- I'll probably dig into this in more detail for the Front Office post next week. I mostly remain skeptical they can keep this up with that rotation. They're again managing to keep them all healthy but this level of pitching to contact on the starting staff just doesn't seem like it's going to work all season
- Can buy this as a slightly above-average offensive team, especially if Nootbaar looks better post-surgeries. Still out on most of the bullpen in front of O'Brien
- They're seven games over and I think they'll probably land around .500 but the NL playoff field is deep enough that they'd still be my pick to finish last in the Central
- Can't see Bloom pushing in prospect value to make any huge deadline splashes but if they're still 5-7 games above .500 in late July, the front office owes it to the team to at least make a moderate buy in the bullpen, maybe add a fourth OF
4 Sale Cheep
- Who are some players we didn't expect to see on the trading block before the season but might end up moving thanks to their team not digging out of their unexpectedly bad start?
Anthony Franco
- Your mileage may vary on whether the Giants were ever going to be good but sure looks like Robbie Ray and Luis Arraez will be out there in July. Mets are running out of time to get things going, so Freddy Peralta could be the top rental available.Sonny Gray would be a pretty big one (albeit with a complicated contract given the big option buyout)
- Taylor Ward could fit here, though Baltimore felt like a longer shot contender to me from the beginning. Still have a tough time seeing Houston completely blow it up but they're down to a year and a half of arb control over Jeremy Peña and he could bring back a Kyle Tucker-like haul if he's healthy
The Legend
- what might a Drake Baldwin extension look like?
Anthony Franco
- https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2026/04/will-braves-add-drake-baldwin-t...
- Steve thought I was light there for what it's worth. I'm a little more cautious given the market's trepidation on paying catchers and (to a lesser extent) Atlanta's ability to get a lot of guys to sign below what I would have expected on early-career deals
Power Outage
- Brewers have 1 home run from SS, 3B, LF, and CF combined. I know rushing people isn't great but Pratt or Made or even Brock Wilken so someone needs to get a shot here pretty quick right?
-
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Astros Select Logan VanWey
May 8th: The Astros have now officially selected VanWey.
May 7th: Astros reliever Logan VanWey is meeting the team in Cincinnati for their weekend series with the Reds, reports Chandler Rome of The Athletic. Houston has an open spot on the pitching staff after optioning Jason Alexander during Thursday’s off day. They also have a vacancy on the 40-man roster because they designated outfielder Dustin Harris for assignment on Tuesday.
Assuming they select VanWey’s contract rather than adding him to the taxi squad, he’ll be in Joe Espada’s bullpen for the first time this season. The former undrafted free agent reached the majors last April. He was on and off the MLB roster a few times throughout his rookie year, logging 10 2/3 innings across nine appearances. He gave up seven runs (six earned) on 15 hits while recording seven strikeouts and three walks.
The Astros dropped VanWey from the 40-man roster halfway through the offseason. He went unclaimed on waivers and remained in the system on an outright assignment. The 27-year-old righty has made 15 apperances this year with Triple-A Sugar Land. He has allowed 10 earned runs through 15 2/3 frames but has fanned 19 of 70 opponents, an above-average 27% rate.
VanWey doesn’t have huge raw stuff. His fastball sits in the 91-93 mph range and he works mostly with a low-80s slider as his main secondary pitch. It wasn’t a big swing-and-miss arsenal in his limited MLB work, though he has missed a fair number of bats in the minors. VanWey last pitched on Tuesday and will give Houston a fresh arm for the middle innings.
Giants Infield Notes: Arraez, Schmitt
Luis Arraez has been a rare bright spot amidst a tough start to the season for the Giants. The three-time batting champion is out to a .316/.340/.398 start with a grand total of six strikeouts over his first 144 plate appearances.
That’s about what one expects from the game’s top contact hitter. More surprising is how well he’s taken to a move back to second base. Arraez had graded as a well below-average defender for his entire career and had mostly moved off the keystone last year in San Diego. He prioritized signing with a team that would allow him to return to second base. The Giants obliged, at least in part because of their faith in one of the sport’s most respected infield coaches, Ron Washington.
Even the front office probably didn’t anticipate Arraez playing this well defensively. Statcast has credited him with nine Outs Above Average, the best mark for a second baseman in MLB. Defensive Runs Saved has him at +5, tied for tops in the National League (with Washington’s Nasim Nuñez) and second in the Majors behind Seattle’s Cole Young. Arraez has recorded 110 assists and played nearly 300 innings without committing an error.
The whole package has made him San Francisco’s most valuable player through six weeks. The team around him has not played up to expectations. The Giants have lost eight of their last nine games and sit a season-high nine games below .500.
Their 14-23 record is tied with that of the Mets for worst in the National League. They’re already facing what seems like an insurmountable gap behind the Dodgers and Padres in the NL West. Every team in the NL Central is above .500, cluttering the path for underperforming teams like San Francisco, New York and Philadelphia to pull back from slow starts.
Susan Slusser of The San Francisco Chronicle observes that the player’s and team’s respective trajectories point toward Arraez being a valuable trade chip closer to the deadline. They’ve gotten a strong return on their one-year, $12MM deal. Arraez will return to the market next winter in advance of his age-30 season. He’d be a candidate for a qualifying offer if he keeps up this kind of defense and the Giants hang onto him beyond the deadline.
The QO would give the Giants some leverage if they’re on the fence about an Arraez trade. Still, if they get close to the deadline without erasing a good chunk of the early-season hole they’ve dug themselves, they should at least see what’s available on the trade front as a matter of diligence.
Arraez is one of their few obvious potential chips. A lot of their struggles come from underperforming veterans on contracts that’d be difficult or impossible to move. Their top impending free agents are Arraez and mid-rotation starter Robbie Ray, though the latter is playing on a heftier $25MM salary. Tyler Mahle is on a $10MM deal that’d be easier for an acquiring team to eat, but he’s alternating good and bad starts and having a difficult time missing bats.
In the short term, Arraez is part of a fairly rigid infield. The Giants brought up top prospect Bryce Eldridge to split time with Rafael Devers between first base and designated hitter. Matt Chapman and Willy Adames, neither of whom has hit well of late, are locked in on the left side.
That leaves Casey Schmitt without an obvious spot in the order. He has easily been the team’s best offensive player, batting .296/.344/.539 with six homers — twice as many as anyone else on the club. They obviously can’t afford to take him out of a lineup that has scored 17 fewer runs than any other.
Schmitt has started the past two games at second base while Arraez nurses a bruised thumb. The latter is expected to return to the lineup for this weekend’s series against the Pirates. That might be a precursor to the first outfield work of Schmitt’s career.
President of baseball operations Buster Posey and manager Tony Vitello each said this week that Schmitt would bounce around the diamond to get continued playing time (link via Alex Pavlovic of NBC Sports Bay Area). The first-year skipper said that he feels Schmitt is athletic enough to handle the corner outfield, though he cautioned the team would “need to do (that) intelligently.”
Schmitt hasn’t logged a single inning of outfield work at San Diego State or at any point in his minor league or MLB career. He told Pavlovic he’s open to playing anywhere necessary to stay in the lineup. Schmitt is a plus runner who has shown the versatility to bounce around the infield. It’s certainly not out of the question that he could be a capable or better outfielder, though Oracle Park isn’t the easiest home park in which to pick that up.
The Giants made a point of improving the outfield defense with the Harrison Bader signing. That pushed Jung Hoo Lee from center to right field. Bader started ice cold offensively and landed on the injured list on April 12 with a left hamstring strain. Lee has picked up a few starts in center as a result, but he’s still mostly playing right field. Drew Gilbert has been the primary fill-in up the middle. Heliot Ramos has started all but three games in left field.
Lee and Ramos have each struggled offensively. Despite nearly average contributions from Gilbert, the Giants have had one of the game’s weakest center field groups (.176/.212/.272 in 133 PAs). Using Schmitt on the grass could be one of their only immediate options for trying to spark some life into the offense.