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Ozzie Albies Suffers Hamate Fracture

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Sept. 23: Atlanta placed Albies on the 10-day injured list this morning, formally ending his season. Infielder Brett Wisely, recently claimed off waivers from the Giants, was recalled from Triple-A  Gwinnett to take his spot on the roster. The Braves also formally added fellow waiver claim Joel Payamps to their bullpen and optioned righty Nathan Wiles in his place.

Sept. 22: The Braves have been hit with yet another significant injury. Ozzie Albies was diagnosed with a fractured hamate bone in his left hand/wrist (relayed by Mark Bowman of MLB.com). The second baseman appeared to suffer the injury on a swinging strike in the third inning of tonight’s game. He took the next pitch before calling for a trainer and exiting.

Albies fractured the same wrist on a tag play last July. He was out of action for two months, only managing a late-season return before Atlanta’s brief playoff run. This will obviously cost him the final five games of a losing season. The far greater concern is that he has suffered similar significant injuries in consecutive years. It’ll presumably have some effect on at least the early stages of his offseason.

Hamate fractures typically cost position players around two months. If Albies requires a similar timeline, that would give him plenty of time to be ready for Spring Training. It’s not uncommon for a hitter’s power production to drop after a broken wrist, though, raising more questions about what Atlanta can expect from a player whose numbers have declined over the past two seasons.

Albies finishes the season with a career-worst .240/.306/.365 batting line. He picked up 16 homers and went 14-17 on stolen base attempts. Albies leads second basemen with 667 plate appearances. He had been very durable this season, but he wasn’t hitting the ball with much authority until the past few weeks. He hit .220/.290/.316 in the first half. Albies had a better showing down the stretch, batting .270/.328/.439 after the All-Star Break. He’ll look to avoid a similarly slow start as he comes back from another late-season injury.

The Braves hold successive $7MM club options on Albies for the next two years. The first of those comes with a $4MM buyout. That should still be a very easy call for the front office to exercise. The $3MM difference is on par with what utility/depth players like Kyle Farmer, Thairo Estrada, Josh Rojas and Kevin Newman commanded as free agents last offseason.

Albies’ injury adds to a handful of questions among the Atlanta infield. Ha-Seong Kim appears to be playing his way toward opting out of his $16MM contract. If he does, the Braves would need to find an upgrade over Nick Allen at shortstop. They’d presumably make an effort to bring Kim back on a multi-year deal in that scenario. Austin Riley will be coming back from core surgery. Nacho Alvarez Jr. hasn’t shown much consistency in his first real run as an everyday third baseman in Riley’s absence.

Red Sox Re-Sign Hobie Harris To Minor League Deal

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The Red Sox are in agreement with reliever Hobie Harris on a minor league contract for 2026, reports Ari Alexander. The Gaeta Sports Management client will be in Spring Training as a non-roster invitee.

Harris will return to Boston for a second consecutive season. The 32-year-old righty spent this season in the Sox organization. Harris signed a minor league deal with the Mets last November. The Red Sox selected him in the Triple-A phase of the Rule 5 draft less than a month later. Harris missed a couple weeks early on with shoulder inflammation. He has been healthy since June and turned in 39 innings of 4.15 ERA ball at Triple-A Worcester. He fanned a quarter of his opponents but allowed walks and home runs at higher than average rates.

A former Yankees draftee, Harris pitched in the big leagues with the Nationals two seasons ago. He made 16 appearances and allowed 12 runs (11 earned) across 19 1/3 innings. The Pittsburgh product only recorded nine strikeouts in his big league stint but has fanned a reasonable 24% of opponents over parts of five Triple-A seasons. Harris uses a three-pitch mix led by his mid-80s splitter. His four-seam fastball sits around 95 MPH and he throws an upper-80s cutter as his breaking pitch.

Orioles Outright Scott Blewett

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The Orioles announced this afternoon that reliever Scott Blewett accepted an outright assignment to the team’s Florida complex. The righty went unclaimed on waivers after being designated for assignment last week. Baltimore also activated Adley Rutschman from the injured list. Infielder Luis Vázquez was optioned to the complex in a corresponding move.

Baltimore acquired Blewett in a cash trade with Atlanta in June. He went down with an elbow injury a few weeks later and has spent the past two months on the 60-day injured list. The O’s decided not to put him back on the MLB roster once he returned to health last week. Blewett is out of options, so the Orioles needed to send him through waivers at that point.

The 29-year-old Blewett has been outrighted a few times in his career. He had the right to elect free agency but evidently preferred to spend the season’s final week at the O’s complex. He’ll qualify for minor league free agency at the end of the season anyhow. Blewett has tossed a career-high 44 1/3 innings between three teams this season. He carries a 5.48 earned run average with an 18% strikeout rate. He’ll probably be looking at minor league offers this winter.

Reds Notes: Hays, De La Cruz, Lowder

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The Reds completed a four-game sweep of the Cubs over the weekend. They’ve won five straight and pulled into a tie with the reeling Mets for the National League’s last playoff spot. Cincinnati went 4-2 against New York, meaning they have the tiebreaker. They also hold the tiebreaker over the Diamondbacks, who find themselves one game back.

Cincinnati now controls their own destiny. They’re off tonight before hosting the Pirates for three games. They finish the year with a weekend set in Milwaukee. That’s a tough series on paper, but the Brewers could have already secured home field advantage through the postseason depending on the result of their ongoing series against the Padres.

As they enter that critical stretch, the Reds are facing a potential absence from their left fielder. Austin Hays made an early exit from Saturday’s game with back spasms. He sat out yesterday’s series finale. Manager Terry Francona said on Saturday the team is hopeful that Hays will be ready for the start of the Pittsburgh series tomorrow (via the MLB.com injury tracker). The off day gives him a little extra rest.

If Hays is unable to go, Cincinnati could kick Will Benson to left field and plug Noelvi Marte in right. Pittsburgh is set to run a trio of right-handed starting pitchers — Johan Oviedo, Paul Skenes and Braxton Ashcraft — against Cincinnati. Hays hits in the middle of the lineup regardless of handedness, but he does most of his damage against left-handers.

A bigger factor for Cincinnati is getting their franchise player on track. The Reds have made their push back into the playoff picture despite a disappointing stretch from Elly De La Cruz. The switch-hitting shortstop has hit .212/.271/.315 in almost 200 trips to the plate since the beginning of August. He homered off Porter Hodge on Friday, his first longball in more than six weeks. The slump got to a point where Francona felt he needed to drop De La Cruz in the batting order. He has hit sixth or seventh over the past week after operating as the team’s #3 hitter for the entire season.

De La Cruz still has decent numbers overall. He’s up to 20 homers with a .263/.336/.436 batting line across 673 plate appearances. He’s tied for sixth in MLB with 36 stolen bases. Yet he clearly hasn’t played to his potential over the past few weeks. C. Trent Rosecrans of The Athletic observed over the weekend that De La Cruz has played through a pair of leg injuries (quad and hamstring) while starting all but one of the team’s 156 games. He certainly won’t come out of the lineup at this stage of the season, but it’s possible he’s battling fatigue.

On the pitching side, rookie right-hander Rhett Lowder seems likely to miss the entire season. The 2023 seventh overall pick has been on the injured list all year because of forearm and oblique injuries. Lowder made a two-inning rehab appearance at Triple-A Louisville on September 13. MLB.com’s Mark Sheldon writes that he was scratched from his second scheduled rehab outing after feeling that his shoulder didn’t recover as hoped from the first.

Lowder has already undergone imaging that came back clean, but it’s yet another setback that makes it difficult to imagine him returning even if the Reds make a deep playoff run. The Triple-A season is over, so Lowder won’t get any more game action. The Wake Forest product impressed late last season, working to a 1.17 ERA through his first six MLB starts.

Masyn Winn To Undergo Knee Surgery This Week, Expected To Be Ready For Spring Training

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Cardinals shortstop Masyn Winn is scheduled for his arthroscopic knee surgery on Thursday, the club informed reporters (including John Denton of MLB.com and Derrick Goold of The St. Louis Post-Dispatch). Winn had played through a meniscus tear in the second half before being shut down a couple weeks ago. The relatively minor procedure is not expected to impact his availability for Spring Training.

Winn is wrapping up his second full major league season. His offense regressed this year, as he hit .253/.310/.363 across 537 plate appearances. Winn had a slightly above-average .267/.314/.415 slash with 15 homers and 32 doubles a season ago. The injury probably played a role in that. Winn ran a .198/.265/.281 line over his final 132 trips to the plate. The 23-year-old played through the pain while the Cardinals held out some hope for a long shot playoff berth. St. Louis eventually opted to shut him down and turn his attention to 2026.

To his credit, Winn didn’t allow the injury or his late-season offensive struggles to impact his performance in the field. He recorded 22 Outs Above Average, per Statcast. That’s second among shortstops behind Bobby Witt Jr. Defensive Runs Saved (+3) wasn’t quite that bullish, yet Winn lived up to his reputation as one of the game’s most sure handed infielders. He was only charged with three errors in more than 1100 innings at the infield’s most demanding position.

Thomas Saggese is finishing the season at shortstop. Winn will be the unquestioned starter next spring, assuming there aren’t any setbacks in his rehab process. While the Cards could entertain trade offers on a few veterans over the offseason, it’d be a shock if they seriously considered moving Winn. He’s still a year away from arbitration and under club control for four seasons.

A’s Notes: Estes, Lopez, Harris, Newcomb

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A’s right-hander Joey Estes has undergone surgery to address a herniated disc in his lower back, according to the MLB.com injury tracker. That obviously ends his season a month after he landed on the 15-day injured list. Estes had just been recalled from Triple-A Las Vegas a few days before suffering the injury. He tossed four scoreless innings out of the bullpen against the Mariners on August 24.

That’ll go down as Estes’ only MLB appearance since April. The 23-year-old opened the season in Mark Kotsay’s rotation. Estes was tagged for six runs in each of his first two starts and immediately lost his active roster spot. The A’s optioned him and he spent the majority of the season in Vegas. Estes took the ball 17 times in the Pacific Coast League. He surrendered 5.51 earned runs per nine across 80 innings in that difficult setting.

A 16th-round pick by the Braves in 2019, Estes signed for an overslot $500K out of high school. Atlanta traded him to the A’s as arguably the fourth piece of the Matt Olson return shortly after the ’22 lockout. Shea Langeliers is the only player from that group who has panned out. Cristian Pache and Ryan Cusick have been cut loose.

Estes has occupied a 40-man roster spot since being called up at the tail end of 2023. He took the ball 25 times and logged 127 2/3 innings last year, but he posted an ERA above 5.00 with a modest 17% strikeout rate. Estes still has one minor league option year remaining. He’s not a lock to hold his 40-man spot throughout the winter. If he does, the A’s could send him back to Las Vegas as rotation depth.

Jacob Lopez has a much better chance of securing an Opening Day rotation spot. The 27-year-old southpaw has had a solid first season in Sacramento. The A’s acquired Lopez as part of the offseason deal that sent hard-throwing righty Joe Boyle to Tampa Bay. Lopez has fanned 28.3% of batters faced through 92 2/3 innings. While his 4.08 earned run average doesn’t jump off the page, he carried a 3.28 mark into his most recent start on August 24. Lopez was blasted for nine runs in two innings that day and landed on the injured list with a flexor strain thereafter. It’s fair to conclude he wasn’t pitching at anything close to full strength.

Unlike Estes, Lopez may be able to get back on the mound before the end of the season. The injury tracker notes that the rookie lefty threw a bullpen session yesterday while traveling with the team to Boston. The A’s are keeping open the possibility that Lopez makes an appearance during their final series against the Royals next weekend. That’d probably be a relief outing or very abbreviated start but would allow Lopez to enter the offseason with some positive momentum rather than finishing the year with a season-ending forearm injury.

The A’s are playing out their fourth consecutive losing season (barring a 9-0 finish to get to .500). Yet for the second straight year, they’ve had an encouraging second half. The A’s have had a winning record in each of the past three months. They’re 31-24 with a +66 run differential since the All-Star Break. Most of the credit goes to a talented offensive core. That’s not the entire explanation, as the A’s have quietly gotten excellent work out of a patchwork bullpen despite trading Mason Miller.

Since the deadline, the A’s have an MLB-best 2.81 earned run average from their relief group. They’re middle of the pack in strikeouts, walk rate, and whiffs. They’ve certainly benefited from an MLB-low .247 average on balls in play, but it’s still impressive production from an inexperienced group. Only Sean Newcomb, a journeyman brought in from Boston in a late May DFA trade, has even two years of service time among A’s relievers.

As MLB.com’s Theo DeRosa wrote this week, the A’s have found that success without many set roles. They haven’t had a designated closer since the Miller trade. Hogan Harris has picked up his first four career saves to lead the team over that stretch. He’s one of five relievers — Newcomb, Michael Kelly, Tyler Ferguson and Osvaldo Bido being the others — to record at least one save. (Bido’s was of the three-inning variety in a blowout victory.)

Harris, a pure reliever this season for the first time in his career, has become Kotsay’s most trusted leverage arm. He carries a 3.30 ERA with a solid 23.3% strikeout rate across 60 innings. Harris’ command comes and goes, but he looks like a solid bullpen piece whom the A’s have under club control for another five seasons.

Meanwhile, Newcomb has turned back the clock with his best season since at least 2019. The former first-round pick owns a 1.75 ERA while striking out a quarter of opponents over 51 1/3 innings since the A’s reacquired him. His 7% walk rate is the best of his career, and he has been lights out (0.96 ERA in 28 frames) in the second half. Newcomb will be a free agent and has certainly pitched his way to a major league deal after settling for a non-roster contract with the Red Sox last winter.

Blue Jays Outright Ryan Borucki

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The Blue Jays announced that lefty reliever Ryan Borucki has been outrighted to Triple-A Buffalo. He went unclaimed on waivers after being designated for assignment on Monday.

Borucki had sufficient service time to decline a minor league assignment. He probably would’ve remained unsigned for the rest of the season had he chosen free agency. Manager John Schneider said Monday that Borucki was hoping to stick with the organization (relayed by Arden Zwelling of Sportsnet). That’ll come to fruition after he accepted the outright assignment.

Toronto signed Borucki to a minor league contract late last month after he was released by the Pirates. The Jays selected his contract a little over a week later. Borucki managed 4 1/3 scoreless frames across four appearances, though he walked four of the 19 hitters he faced. The southpaw tossed 30 2/3 innings for the Bucs earlier in the season, working to a 5.28 earned run average. He had middling strikeout and walk numbers but got ground-balls at a 55% clip.

The Jays are familiar with Borucki, whom they drafted out of high school more than a decade ago. That came under a previous front office, but he spent his first four and a half MLB seasons with Toronto under the current regime. Brendon Little and Eric Lauer are the two southpaws in John Schneider’s bullpen. Mason Fluharty, Justin Bruihl and Easton Lucas are on the 40-man roster and on optional assignment. Borucki no longer carries a 40-man spot but that’s largely because he could not be optioned. The Jays might still view him as their third-best lefty reliever and could bring him back if Little or Lauer suffer an injury.

Dodgers Re-Sign Matt Sauer To Minor League Deal

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The Dodgers re-signed Matt Sauer to a minor league contract, per the MLB.com transaction log. He has been assigned to Triple-A Oklahoma City.

Sauer was on the Dodgers’ 40-man roster last week. Los Angeles designated him for assignment and released him on September 10. It’s not entirely clear why they opted for a release rather than an outright. Speculatively speaking, it’s possible that Sauer was nursing some kind of minor injury that made him ineligible to be placed on outright waivers. It’s immaterial now, as he’s back in the system without holding a spot on the 40-man roster.

The 26-year-old Sauer signed an offseason minor league contract and cracked L.A.’s roster for the season-opening Tokyo Series. Sauer has made 10 appearances in a long relief role. He owns a 6.37 ERA with an 18.6% strikeout rate through 29 2/3 innings. A former second-round pick of the Yankees, Sauer has worked out of the rotation in Triple-A. He has allowed just under six earned runs per nine despite serviceable strikeout and walk numbers over 18 appearances.

Unless this is a two-year contract, Sauer will return to minor league free agency at the beginning of the offseason if the Dodgers don’t add him back to the 40-man roster. He could provide relief depth for the final week of the regular season.

The Dodgers hold a 2.5 game lead on the Padres in the NL West. They’re very unlikely to catch the Brewers or Phillies for a top two seed in the National League. That means they’ll need to play in the Wild Card series even if they lock up the division.

It’s possible they secure the #3 spot with a few games remaining on the regular season schedule. There’s only one off day before the Wild Card series begin. That means the Dodgers would probably use lower-leverage arms for their final regular season series in Seattle to have their pitching staff as fresh as possible going into the postseason. That could open an opportunity for a multi-inning arm like Sauer to log some work in the final game or two.

Angels Place Jose Soriano On Injured List With Forearm Contusion

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The season is over for Angels starter José Soriano. The Halos placed the righty on the 15-day injured list with a right forearm contusion. Lefty Sam Aldegheri was recalled from Triple-A Salt Lake in a corresponding move.

Soriano was struck in the arm by a comebacker from Milwaukee’s Jake Bauers last night. The ball came off the bat at 107.4 MPH. Soriano immediately exited the game. X-rays did not reveal any fractures, but the injury was significant enough that he won’t be able to make his final two starts. That won’t mean much to an Angels team that is officially resigned to a 10th consecutive losing season.

The only potential impact on the standings is that it takes Soriano out of consideration to start against the Astros in the final weekend. The hard-throwing sinkerballer would have lined up to start Tuesday’s series opener against the Royals. That would have put him on schedule for the finale against the Astros next Sunday. That game may be relevant with Houston currently tied with the Mariners for the top spot in the American League West.

Soriano’s season concludes with a 4.26 earned run average in 31 starts. He’s second on the team behind Yusei Kikuchi with 169 innings. Soriano and Kikuchi have been the Halos’ two best starting pitchers overall, though they’ve each had rough second halves after stronger starts. Soriano is the sport’s top ground-ball specialist, at least among starting pitchers. His 97 MPH sinker has led to a massive 65.3% grounder rate. That’s almost six percentage points above the second-highest mark in MLB (minimum 100 innings).

The 26-year-old fell 11 days shy of qualifying for arbitration as a Super Two player last offseason. He’ll earn his first significant pay raise next winter and is under club control for three more seasons. Soriano should be assured of a rotation spot going into next year. That’d also be true of Kikuchi barring an unlikely trade that allows the Angels to shed the remaining two years and $42MM on his contract. The Angels will probably need to make three acquisitions over the winter.

Kyle Hendricks and Tyler Anderson are impending free agents. Jack Kochanowicz was one of the least effective starters in the majors. The Halos have given a handful of starts to each of Victor Mederos, Caden Dana and Mitch Farris. They’ll be in the mix for back-end or relief jobs but shouldn’t be in the projected starting five. That’s also true of the 24-year-old Aldegheri, who’ll probably make his first two MLB starts of the season next week. Aldegheri has been shelled in a pair of big league relief appearances but turned in a 3.72 ERA over 23 Double-A starts this year.

Diamondbacks Release Anthony DeSclafani

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The D-Backs released veteran righty Anthony DeSclafani, according to the MLB.com transaction tracker. He’d been designated for assignment on Monday. DeSclafani had more than enough service time to refuse a minor league assignment, so a release was inevitable.

DeSclafani was pitching in Triple-A with the Yankees when Arizona signed him to a big league contract in the middle of June. He initially worked out of long relief and was promoted to the rotation when the Snakes traded Merrill Kelly at the deadline. That lasted only three starts, as DeSclafani suffered a thumb injury in the middle of August and was sent to the injured list. He missed a month and was pushed back to the bullpen since returning. Nabil Crismatt has stepped into the fifth starter job.

The 35-year-old DeSclafani pitched twice after coming back from injury. He gave up five home runs (six runs overall) in 5 2/3 frames over those two outings. He carries a 5.12 ERA across 38 2/3 innings on the season overall. While his strikeout and walk numbers are serviceable, the recent home run barrage led the Snakes to make a change.

At this point, there’s no real reason for DeScalfani to look for another landing spot in 2025. He’ll be limited to minor league offers over the winter if he intends to continue pitching.

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