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Dana Brown Discusses Astros’ Deadline Priorities

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The Astros are among a number of teams in the thick of a tightly-contested American League playoff picture. Six games back of the Rangers in the division but jockeying for position in the Wild Card race, the defending World Series champions enter deadline season looking to add to the roster.

General manager Dana Brown has already expressed a desire to add a left-handed bat, preferably one who can play multiple positions. In an appearance on the Sean Salisbury Show on 790 AM this morning, Brown reiterated that adding to the offense is the priority. He said that while the front office is “always open to acquiring an arm,” the club is “focused right now on a bat.”

It doesn’t seem anything is imminent. Brown suggested the trade market has yet to really heat up, in large part because of the number of clubs that have yet to pick a direction. With the 12-team playoff format and only a few organizations at the nadir of a rebuild, most front offices can still see a path to contention. The Nationals, Rockies, Royals and A’s are the only teams that are double-digit games out of a playoff spot.

Brown expressed a general openness to being aggressive in the pursuit of short-term help. Asked if there were any prospects the front office deemed “untouchable,” the GM said they were willing to consider moving anyone. Brown did specifically say the Astros wouldn’t deal Drew Gilbert — last year’s first-round pick and arguably the top prospect in a middling farm system — for any impending free agents. He left open the possibility of moving Gilbert for an MLB player with multiple seasons of club control, however.

That’s not to say the Astros are likely to move Gilbert so much as an acknowledgement the front office will consider various ways to push for a seventh consecutive playoff appearance. Houston’s offense has been surprisingly pedestrian, entering play Wednesday tied for 14th in MLB in run-scoring. Yordan Alvarez has been down for a couple weeks with an oblique strain and seems unlikely to return before the All-Star Break. Michael Brantley still hasn’t played as he works back from last summer’s shoulder surgery.

Those injuries have pushed Yainer Diaz and Corey Julks into regular playing time in the left field/designated hitter mix. Diaz has hit seven home runs in 139 plate appearances but has only walked three times. Julks has a .257/.297/.393 line in 60 games. José Abreu has had a disastrous initial season in Houston at first base, although he has hit a homer in two of his last three games as he looks to find his form.

Brown has generally seemed more comfortable with the club’s rotation outlook even as he’s acknowledged an overarching need around the league for pitching depth. Houston has had to lean on J.P. France and Ronel Blanco after losing Lance McCullers Jr. and Luis Garcia for the season and José Urquidy for a couple months.

The GM acknowledged to Salisbury that any other starting pitching injury would spur more urgency to look outside the organization. Houston’s top three of Framber Valdez, Cristian Javier and Hunter Brown has been excellent. France has done a decent job preventing runs despite a middling strikeout rate. Blanco has a 4.70 ERA with 11 walks over four starts. Getting Urquidy back from shoulder discomfort not long after the Break would go a long way towards stabilizing the staff.

Rotation Remains Potential Deadline Focus For Blue Jays

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Blue Jays general manager Ross Atkins met with reporters this afternoon. With the deadline in a little over a month, Toronto’s front office leader called the starting rotation the “obvious area” for the team to address (relayed by Keegan Matheson of MLB.com).

Atkins noted the team would “balance” the desire for an external upgrade with potential MLB returns of Hyun Jin Ryu and Alek Manoah. Those pitchers are in dramatically different spots but both high-variance options at this point. Ryu is working back from last June’s Tommy John procedure. He has been targeting a return shortly after the All-Star Break.

Manoah is healthy but in the minor leagues. Toronto optioned last year’s AL Cy Young third-place finisher to their Florida organizational complex three weeks back. He’d posted a stunning 6.36 ERA through his first 13 starts, leading the club to try to get him back on track in a lower-pressure environment.

He returned to game action this week but was tagged for 11 runs in 2 2/3 innings by the Yankees’ rookie ball affiliate. Atkins said today he still “absolutely” expects Manoah to return to the MLB level in 2023 (via Ben Nicholson-Smith of Sportsnet). He’ll throw a bullpen session on Friday before the Jays decide their next steps.

For the moment, the Jays are rolling with a starting group of Kevin Gausman, José Berríos, Chris Bassitt and Yusei Kikuchi. They don’t have a set fifth starter since sending Manoah down. Trevor Richards has kicked off three bullpen games in that spot and pitched well, but he’s only working three-inning stints. It’s obviously not an ideal setup, even with the likes of Mitch White and Bowden Francis capable of taking multiple innings of relief behind him.

Gausman is one of the best pitchers in the game. Berríos has bounced back from a rough 2022 campaign. While Bassitt’s first season in Toronto has been inconsistent, the club isn’t going to bump him from the rotation in year one of a three-year free agent deal. Kikuchi has a 3.75 ERA and quality strikeout and walk numbers over 16 starts, but he has surrendered an MLB-leading 20 homers.

Getting either Ryu or Manoah back would theoretically fill the rotation. Yet neither player is a lock to perform well and everyone aside from Gausman has been shaky at times in the not too distant past. Toronto lacks reliable depth beyond the top four — hence the Richards bullpen games — and they’ve been fortunate to avoid an injury to any of their starters (Ryu’s surgery rehab aside).

Adding another starter indeed looks like an obvious goal for the front office. Atkins acknowledged a few weeks back the club was scouring the market. They’re firmly in a win-now window and would be justified in targeting either impending free agents (i.e. Lucas Giolito or Jordan Montgomery) or players with multiple seasons of club control. Even at 44-37, Toronto is in fourth place in the loaded AL East. They’re tied with the Angels and mere percentage points back of the Yankees for the final two Wild Card spots in the Junior Circuit.

Max Scherzer Reportedly Open To Waiving No-Trade Clause

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The Mets have dropped seven of their last ten, leaving them at 35-43 heading into Tuesday’s game against Milwaukee. Coming off a 101-win season and boasting the highest player payroll in MLB history, they’re on the shortlist of the most disappointing teams in the league.

A little more than a month from the trade deadline, New York could wind up being one of the more fascinating clubs to follow. Ownership and the front office would surely prefer the club plays its way back into contention and puts them in position to add this summer, though that’s no small feat. Hopes of winning the NL East are gone, and the team sits 8 1/2 games out of the last Wild Card spot with six teams to surpass.

If the Mets pivot to selling off veteran pieces, opposing teams could at least ponder a run at Max Scherzer. The three-time Cy Young award winner is in the second season of a three-year, $130MM free agent deal. He’s making an MLB-record $43.333MM annually and can opt out and retest free agency at season’s end.

Scherzer’s deal contains a full no-trade clause, so the Mets couldn’t move him without his consent. Industry sources suggest to Anthony DiComo of MLB.com that Scherzer would be amenable to waiving the provision in the right circumstances — presumably one that’d see him shipped to a team with legitimate 2023 championship aspirations. Scherzer famously waived a no-trade clause in his deal with the Nationals at the 2021 deadline, enabling the stunner that landed him and Trea Turner in Dodger blue.

That’s not to say a trade is likely this time around. The no-trade clause is one of myriad roadblocks. The Mets aren’t going to pull the plug on the ’23 season until absolutely necessary; the roster still has a few weeks to take itself off the bubble. Even if the Mets were to consider moving veteran players, parting with Scherzer would represent a much bigger decision than relinquishing pure rentals like David Robertson and Tommy Pham.

While Scherzer could join Robertson and Pham on the open market, he’s by no means a lock to do so. He’d have to forfeit the largest single-year salary in MLB history. Scherzer isn’t performing at vintage level and will turn 39 next month, so there’s no assurance he’d do much better than $43.333MM on the open market. The eight-time All-Star might be able to top that guarantee but would probably have to spread it over a two-year deal with lesser yearly salaries.

Over 13 starts and 70 2/3 innings, he’s carrying a 3.95 ERA. His 26.2% strikeout rate is still quite good but a few points below typical levels. His velocity and swinging strike numbers aren’t far off his customary marks, though he’s allowing home runs at a career-high clip.

If the Mets feel Scherzer is unlikely to opt out, they could view dealing him this summer as too much of a blow to their 2024 chances even if they’re definitively out of this year’s mix. The record salaries, meanwhile, could be a problem for teams considering a run at him. It’s unlikely another franchise would absorb the approximate $14.2MM Scherzer will collect between August 1 and season’s end, to say nothing of the ’24 commitment they could assume if he doesn’t test free agency.

Of course, the Mets could shoulder much of Scherzer’s deal to facilitate a trade if they wanted to restock the farm system. Andy Martino of SNY reported last week that owner Steve Cohen was willing to leverage his spending capacity to bolster the prospect pipeline — either by taking on another team’s undesirable deal or covering contracts of players shipped out of Queens. New York put that into action by paying down Eduardo Escobar’s $9.5MM salary to the league minimum to facilitate his trade to the Angels.

Doing the same with Scherzer would be in a completely different stratosphere — both in terms of the money New York is retaining and the hit they’d deal to the MLB roster. There’s no indication it’s a consideration right now. That Scherzer may not be categorically opposed to changing uniforms at least leaves open the possibility of a second blockbuster in three years, but the no-trade clause is far from the only impediment.

Reds Outright Silvino Bracho

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The Reds sent reliever Silvino Bracho outright to Triple-A Louisville, according to the transactions log at MLB.com. He was designated for assignment on Sunday.

Bracho has made five appearances for Cincinnati this season. He has tossed 7 1/3 innings of three-run ball, striking out and walking six batters apiece. Bracho has reached the big leagues in three of the past four seasons, but this year’s brief workload represents his largest since he tossed 31 innings for the D-Backs back in 2018.

The right-hander has pitched 21 1/3 frames over 21 outings in Louisville. His 4.22 ERA is fine but built on a huge 98.7% strand rate. Bracho has decent strikeout and walk numbers for the Bats. He’s allowed seven homers in that time, though.

It’s the second time this season in which the Reds have sent him through waivers. He bypassed the right to test minor league free agency in favor of the outright assignment in May. He’ll again have the option to rejoin Louisville or explore other opportunities.

Braves To Reinstate Kolby Allard From Injured List

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The Braves will reinstate left-hander Kolby Allard from the 60-day injured list to start tomorrow’s game against the Twins, the team informed reporters (including Justin Toscano of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution). It’ll be his season debut.

Allard, a former first-round draftee, made his first three major league appearances with Atlanta in 2018. The Braves dealt him to the Rangers the following season. He spent four years in Texas but never posted an ERA below 4.96. At the start of last offseason, the Rangers traded him back to the Braves for Jake Odorizzi.

So far, neither team has gotten anything out of the swap. Odorizzi might not throw a pitch as a Ranger. He underwent arthroscopic shoulder surgery in April and will miss the entire season; he’s headed to free agency at year’s end. Allard has been down since suffering a Grade 2 oblique strain in Spring Training.

The southpaw has made just two rehab starts for Triple-A Gwinnett. He has combined for 6 2/3 innings of two-run ball with eight strikeouts. Allard tossed 62 pitches in his most recent outing on Thursday, so it’ll likely be a relatively brief start. The Braves optioned AJ Smith-Shawver yesterday, leaving a vacancy in the fifth rotation spot behind Spencer Strider, Bryce Elder, Charlie Morton and Jared Shuster.

Allard will reoccupy a spot on the 40-man roster. Atlanta already has a vacancy after designating Charlie Culberson for assignment last week. They’ll only need to make a corresponding active roster transaction tomorrow.

Royals’ Josh Taylor To Undergo Lower Back Surgery

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Royals reliever Josh Taylor will undergo surgery to repair a herniated disc in his lower back, tweets Anne Rogers of MLB.com. The team hasn’t provided a recovery timetable.

Taylor has been on the injured list for a month while battling a shoulder impingement. The back issue apparently arose during his rehab process. Taylor missed the entire 2022 campaign as he battled a lower back strain.

It’s obviously an unfortunate setback that makes it seem likely he’ll find himself on the 60-day injured list once the club needs a 40-man roster spot. A 60-day IL transfer could be backdated to the time of his initial placement even though he’s now dealing with a separate injury.

Kansas City acquired the southpaw over the offseason in a swap that sent Adalberto Mondesí to the Red Sox. The deal hasn’t worked for either team, as both players have battled injuries. Mondesí still hasn’t played for Boston as he works back from last year’s ACL tear. Taylor has made 17 appearances for K.C. but been tagged for 16 earned runs in 17 2/3 innings. He has struck out just under 32% of opposing hitters, an excellent clip, but nine walks and four homers contributed to the inflated ERA.

This is Taylor’s second season of arbitration eligibility. He’s making $1.025MM this year and eligible for the process twice more. An extended absence would increase the odds of Kansas City non-tendering him next offseason, though it’s unclear precisely how long he’ll be out.

Wilson Ramos Signs With Long Island Ducks

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Veteran catcher Wilson Ramos has signed with the Long Island Ducks of the Atlantic League, the club announced. He’d briefly appeared in the Mexican League earlier in the year before making the jump to independent ball.

Ramos, a two-time All-Star, is looking to play his way to the majors for a 13th season. The Venezuela native didn’t make it there last year, as his only affiliated experience was a three-game stint with the Rangers’ Triple-A team. He appeared in 44 games between the Tigers and Indians two seasons back but had his year cut short when he suffered a season-ending ACL tear in August.

Now 35, Ramos is unlikely to recapture his 2016-18 peak form. The bat-first backstop claimed a Silver Slugger award and some down-ballot MVP support in the first of those seasons and combined to hit .298/.343/.483 over that stretch.

He was still a productive hitter thereafter, posting a .262/.321/.407 line over three clubs between 2019-21. That wasn’t quite enough to compensate for Ramos’ shortcomings as a defender, though, and the knee injury dealt a major hit to his efforts to find his way back to the big leagues last season.

Brewers Should Look To Add At First Base This Summer

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The Brewers knocked off the Mets yesterday, pushing four games above .500. With the Reds losing later in Baltimore, Milwaukee nudged back into first place in the NL Central.

No one will be overwhelmed with the Brew Crew’s first couple months. They’ve been outscored by 20 runs on the year and carry a 23-27 record since the start of May. Yet the Cardinals’ disastrous start leaves the door wide open for Milwaukee to take the division, even with Cincinnati outpacing most expectations and the Cubs playing their way back into the mix.

In his first summer leading baseball operations, GM Matt Arnold figures to look for ways to improve the offense. Milwaukee has been a pitching and defense team for years, but the lineup has become particularly problematic in 2023. The Brewers rank 25th in runs despite the generally hitter-friendly nature of American Family Field. Only the A’s have a lower batting average than Milwaukee’s .226 clip, while the Brewers rank 25th in on-base percentage (.303), 28th in slugging (.373) and have the game’s third-highest strikeout rate (25.7%).

Any time a team is struggling to that extent, there’ll be multiple areas of concern. For Milwaukee, none stands out more than first base. The Brewers have gotten just a .223/.294/.378 showing out of the bat-first position. By measure of wRC+, that’s 25th in MLB. The struggles have mounted over the last two months, coinciding with the team’s slide from an 18-10 start. Since May 1, Milwaukee first basemen are hitting .217/.286/.349. Only the Angels have gotten less in that span.

That’s in large part due to an extended slump from Rowdy Tellez. The left-handed hitter had an excellent April (.247/.333/.533) but has hit only .203/.269/.327 in 167 plate appearances over the past two months. His walks and contact quality have both fallen off precipitously. Tellez drew a free pass in over 12% of his trips to the dish in the first month; that’s down to a pedestrian 8.4% clip since.

The drop in batted ball results is even more concerning. Tellez’s calling card has always been big power potential. He popped 35 home runs a season ago and routinely posted excellent batted ball metrics. That hasn’t been the case in 2023. Tellez’s rate of hard contact (batted balls hit 95+ MPH) has fallen from the 45-48% range between 2020-22 to a roughly average 38.4% clip. The softer contact is borne out in the results. He’s on a 25-homer pace with an overall .218/.293/.408 batting line.

Unless Tellez breaks out of this slump in the next few weeks, Arnold and his front office could prioritize a first base upgrade at the deadline. Early-season dice rolls on Luke Voit and Jon Singleton didn’t pan out; neither is still in the organization. Darin Ruf broke a bone in his knee almost immediately after signing and is out into August. Owen Miller is better served as a multi-positional infielder than an everyday first baseman. Keston Hiura is raking in Triple-A again, but he’s struggled to put the ball in play whenever he’s gone up against big league arms.

It’s still too early to know exactly which first basemen could be attainable. Five teams (the A’s, Rockies, Nationals, Cardinals and Royals) are double-digit games out of a playoff spot. Oakland might be open to selling high on Rule 5 find Ryan Noda, but that’s by no means a guarantee. Washington hasn’t gotten much from Joey Meneses or Dominic Smith this year. Colorado could deal C.J. Cron, but he only returned from a nagging back issue yesterday and didn’t hit well before the injury.

Kansas City lost Vinnie Pasquantino to season-ending shoulder surgery and probably wouldn’t have traded him anyhow. It’s still tough to imagine the Cardinals moving Paul Goldschmidt and dealing such a major hit to their 2024 chances; even if they did put the defending NL MVP on the market, they almost certainly wouldn’t want to move him to one of their top divisional competitors.

The Brewers may have to wait a few more weeks to hope for other teams to fall out of contention. Justin Turner is having a strong season and can opt out of his deal with the Red Sox at year’s end. Boston is only three games out of a playoff spot right now; if they dropped five or six back by the deadline, they could listen to offers. Maybe the Orioles would sell low on Ryan Mountcastle, although he’s having an even poorer season than Tellez to date. Pittsburgh’s Connor Joe is a right-handed hitter with a good track record against lefty arms. He’s miscast as a regular but could be a fallback platoon partner with Tellez if Milwaukee can’t swing a bigger upgrade.

Regardless of what the Brewers do this summer, Tellez’s recent struggles put his longer-term future with the organization in doubt. He’s playing this season on a $4.95MM salary and would be in line for a raise in his final season of arbitration. His current trajectory points towards a non-tender. That’d be true on virtually every team and is particularly the case for a Milwaukee organization that has tended not to value the slugging first baseman highly (i.e. non-tendering Chris Carter in 2016 and declining a net $6.5MM option on Eric Thames three years later).

Image courtesy of USA Today Sports.

MLB Announces Futures Game Rosters

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Major League Baseball announced rosters for the 2023 Futures Game this evening. The contest — a seven-inning exhibition between some of the sport’s most talented minor leaguers — kicks off All-Star festivities in Seattle on Saturday, July 8.

As Jonathan Mayo of MLB.com notes, 28 of the 50 players on the roster are included on MLB Pipeline’s recent Top 100 prospects list. Six of Pipeline’s top ten will participate. The full rosters (MLB Pipeline prospect rank included, if applicable):

American League

National League

No Extension Talks To Date Between Reds, David Bell

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The upstart Reds have been one of baseball’s best recent stories. Cincinnati’s influx of young position player talent has pushed them to a 15-9 showing this month. They’re three games above .500 overall, battling for the NL Central title and positioned as surprising deadline buyers.

Given that performance, it stands to reason the front office and ownership are happy with the work of the coaching staff. Nevertheless, there doesn’t seem to be any urgency in hammering out a deal with manager David Bell. The fifth-year skipper is in the final season of a two-year extension he signed in September 2021.

“I think we’ll just talk about playing through the year and addressing (the contract situation) later,” general manager Nick Krall tells Mark Sheldon of MLB.com. “At this point, we haven’t done anything.”

Obviously, that’s not to say Bell’s in any danger of being let go. The GM expressed general happiness with the manager’s work, telling Sheldon that Bell has “done really well with the clubhouse culture.” One would expect such public praise from a front office executive, but the Reds have backed that up by retaining Bell through a handful of very tough years.

Cincinnati made the expanded 2020 playoffs in Bell’s second season at the helm, finishing seventh in the National League at 31-29. They’d missed the postseason in all three full schedules, going 75-87 in 2019 before narrowly coming up shy of a Wild Card berth in 2021. Amidst payroll constraints, the Reds embarked on a rebuild thereafter and lost 100 games last season.

The Reds stuck by Bell during those down seasons. With the club on the upswing, it’d seem likely they’ll try to get another multi-year deal done at some point. Krall’s comments suggest that’s not likely to happen until late in the season or after the year wraps up.

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