Dodgers Select Jack Little
The Dodgers announced they’ve selected reliever Jack Little onto the MLB roster. They optioned Emmet Sheehan to Triple-A Oklahoma City in a corresponding move. Tony Gonsolin was transferred from the 15-day to the 60-day injured list to open a 40-man roster spot. Bill Plunkett of The Orange County Register first observed that Little was in the clubhouse, while Fabian Ardaya of The Athletic noted that Sheehan was heading out.
Little gets his first big league call after five-plus seasons in the minor leagues. The 6’4″ righty has been a pure reliever dating back to his college days at Stanford. The Dodgers drafted him in the fifth round in 2019. Little has never been a high-end prospect but has posted solid numbers in the upper minors. He combined for a 3.79 ERA over 57 innings between the top two levels a year ago.
The 27-year-old Little has spent all of this year in OKC, allowing only 2.20 earned runs per nine across 32 2/3 frames. He’s 10-11 in save chances and has fanned a slightly above-average 24.3% of batters faced. He averages 94 MPH on his fastball while mixing in a slider and changeup. Little is an extreme fly-ball pitcher, but he’s done well at avoiding home runs in the minors. He has the sixth-lowest ERA among the 84 pitchers with 30+ innings in the Pacific Coast League this year.
Sheehan heads to OKC one day after being activated from the 60-day IL following Tommy John rehab. He pitched pretty well in his return last night, striking out six while working four innings of one-run ball against San Diego. The Dodgers evidently preferred a fresh arm in their bullpen rather than keeping Sheehan in the rotation in the short term. He’ll need to spend at least 15 days in the minor leagues unless he’s recalled to replace a pitcher going on the injured list.
Gonsolin’s move to the 60-day IL is even more notable. He went on the shelf on June 7 with elbow discomfort. The Dodgers announced that initial imaging didn’t reveal any UCL damage. While they haven’t provided any indication that has changed, they’ve already ruled him out for at least two months. Gonsolin has made seven starts this season in his return from an August ’23 Tommy John surgery. The 60-day clock backdates to his initial IL placement, but that still rules him out into the first week of August at the earliest.
Anthopoulos On Trading Chris Sale: “Will Not Happen”
The Braves enter play tonight seven games below .500. They’re 12 back of the Mets in the division and 6.5 out in the Wild Card race with five teams to jump. They’ve got their work cut out for them in getting to October for an eighth straight season, but that remains the focus for the front office.
President of baseball operations Alex Anthopoulos spoke with Nick Cellini and Chris Dimino of 680 The Fan this afternoon. The veteran executive made clear he’s operating with a buyer’s mentality six weeks before the trade deadline. He was even more forceful in pushing back against the idea that they’d consider trading away key players — at least barring a terrible stretch of play in July.
Anthopoulos interrupted a question about other clubs potentially attempting to pry defending Cy Young winner Chris Sale out of Atlanta. “No, zero. I’ve seen the speculation. It’s completely ridiculous to me. We are not selling, especially someone that has club control beyond the current year,” he said. “Will not happen. I never make definitive statements unless I’m going to stick to them. Once you make definitive statements and then you go back on them, you’re a liar and you’re done.
Will. Not. Happen. Bold, italicize it, caps. So much so that I’m trying to make a trade now — it’s very hard to make a trade in June — just to signal to everybody that we will not sell. (If) you get to the end of July and things are completely changed, I guess we would reevaluate, but you’d have to be extreme. We’re built to win. Our expectations are to win. Our expectations are to go for it the entire time.”
It’s not common for an executive to rule out trading a player that definitively. It’s even rarer for them to reverse course after making a public statement to that effect. Skeptics will point to Nationals’ GM Mike Rizzo saying the team was “not trading Juan Soto” less than two months before they did exactly that, but the turn of events required Soto rejecting an intervening $440MM extension proposal. Anthopoulos left the door slightly open to selling if the team’s play over the next month and a half made a postseason run all but impossible. Even in that scenario, it’s not clear that they’d be willing to discuss players who are signed beyond this season.
MLBTR examined the Sale situation in a post for Front Office subscribers last week. He’s playing this year on a $22MM salary and is under control via an $18MM option for one more season. They’ll rubber stamp the option unless he suffers a significant injury in the second half. Sale would command upwards of $30MM annually (for at least two and possibly three years) if he were a free agent. After running into some tough batted ball luck in April, he’s been every bit as dominant as he was last season. Sale had not allowed more than two earned runs in any of his past 10 starts coming into tonight’s game against the Mets. He is through another six scoreless innings at the time of this writing.
Even if the Braves miss the postseason in 2025, they’ll certainly go into next year expecting to contend. Having Sale atop the rotation makes that much more reasonable. At the same time, they’d bypass an opportunity at a massive trade haul this summer. Teams would be willing to give up significant young talent for the ability to control Sale for two postseason runs. The Braves still expect to be in that position themselves. If they remain well below .500 on July 31, however, they’d arguably be leaving significant value on the table as an at best long shot contender for one of Sale’s two remaining control years.
Anthopoulos argued that the next few weeks represent a huge opportunity. They’re currently playing the second game of a three-game set against the Mets. They’ll head to Miami this weekend before squaring off against the Mets (for four) and Phillies (for three) next week. They rearranged their rotation to ensure that Sale is lined up for both New York series rather than starting last weekend against the Rockies and taking on the Marlins in a few days.
They’re far enough behind New York and Philly that it’s difficult to see them winning the NL East, but they could theoretically pull back into the race if they go on a tear over the next two weeks. They’ll also take on St. Louis, one of the teams above them in the Wild Card standings, in their final series before the All-Star Break. While those will be tough sets, they have softer matchups against a few teams toward the bottom of the American League standings (the Angels, Orioles and A’s) in the first two weeks of July.
In the meantime, they’re evidently searching for a short-term boost. In this morning’s radio interview (which Atlanta fans will want to give a full listen), Anthopoulos identified the offense as the team’s biggest disappointment to date. Jon Heyman of The New York Post wrote last week that they were pursuing outfield and shortstop help.
Nick Allen is a Gold Glove-caliber shortstop but isn’t going to provide anything offensively. Left field would be the obvious area to upgrade in the outfield. Neither Alex Verdugo nor Eli White have stepped up since Jurickson Profar’s performance-enhancing drug suspension. The Braves will get Profar back in early July, but he’s coming off a nearly three-month layoff and faces questions about the sustainability of last year’s breakout season. He’s also ineligible for postseason play this year, so the Braves probably want a contingency plan for that position regardless of how Profar performs next month.
Latest On Dodgers’ Outfield Alignment
The Dodgers started Hyeseong Kim in center field tonight against San Diego right-hander Stephen Kolek. Kim was flanked in the corners by Andy Pages and Teoscar Hernández, leaving Michael Conforto out of the lineup. Manager Dave Roberts said pregame that he’s unsure whether the lefty-hitting Conforto will get a start against rookie righty Ryan Bergert in tomorrow’s series finale (relayed by Sonja Chen of MLB.com).
Roberts didn’t frame it as a benching, saying he envisions Conforto “playing a lot still.” At the same time, the veteran skipper acknowledged that Kim has earned the opportunity for regular playing time. Kim is a natural middle infielder, but the Dodgers have Mookie Betts and Tommy Edman playing at those spots. That leaves center field as the clearest position for Kim to get consistent at-bats.
Signed to a three-year offseason deal out of Korea, the 26-year-old Kim began his Dodger tenure on optional assignment. Los Angeles called him up in early May. Kim was expected to work as a multi-positional player off the bench. He has thrived in his first look at MLB pitching, running a .382/.425/.544 batting line through his first 30 big league contests. He’s obviously not going to continue hitting that well, but he’s putting the ball in play at an above-average rate and has gone 6-6 on stolen base attempts.
Pages is playing at an All-Star level, while Hernández remains a middle-of-the-order bat. Getting Kim regular outfield work will come at the expense of Conforto, who is hitting .168/.305/.277 in his first season as a Dodger. He has hit below the Mendoza line in each month. Kim’s ability to play up the middle also allows the Dodgers to use Pages in left field. He’d otherwise need to play center when Conforto is in left.
It’s clearly not what the Dodgers envisioned when they signed Conforto to a surprising $17MM free agent deal. It was a fairly sizable bet on his strong finish to the 2024 campaign while with the Giants. He’d been up-and-down through the season’s first couple months before posting an OPS above .840 in both August and September. An injury to any of L.A.’s outfielders or a slump from Kim could reopen everyday work for Conforto, but he may lose some playing time in the short term as they ride the hot hand.
KBO’s Samsung Lions Sign Gerson Garabito
The Samsung Lions of the Korea Baseball Organization announced the signing of right-hander Gerson Garabito (h/t to Dan Kurtz of MyKBO). Texas released Garabito last week, which Evan Grant of The Dallas Morning News reported at the time was to facilitate his signing in the KBO. The Lions recently released righty Denyi Reyes, who suffered a stress reaction in his right foot (link via Yonhap’s Jeeho Yoo).
Garabito, 29, worked in low-leverage relief for Texas over the past two seasons. He combined for a 5.77 earned run average through 34 1/3 innings. The 6’0″ righty was also hit hard this year at Triple-A Round Rock. Garabito allowed an 8.53 ERA while averaging just over three innings across 10 starts. There’s very little in this season’s production to find encouraging, but he managed a 3.42 ERA across 55 1/3 Triple-A frames a year ago.
Reyes’ tenure in Korea comes to a disappointing end. The 28-year-old pitched fairly well for the Lions in 2024, working to a 3.81 ERA across 26 starts. That was up slightly over 10 starts this year before he suffered the foot injury. He’s a free agent and might look for a minor league opportunity to return to affiliated ball. Reyes made 12 MLB appearances with the Orioles and Mets between 2022-23.
Pirates Outright Brett Sullivan
June 18: Sullivan cleared waivers and was outrighted back to Indianapolis, according to the MLB.com transaction log. It’s not clear if he’ll elect free agency or accept the assignment.
June 16: The Pirates announced that right-hander Dauri Moreta has been reinstated from the 60-day injured list and optioned to Triple-A Indianapolis. To open a 40-man roster spot, catcher Brett Sullivan has been designated for assignment. Sullivan was on the active roster, so the Bucs now have an open spot there. That perhaps suggests that catcher Joey Bart will be reinstated from the IL. The club is off today so that may not be official until tomorrow.
Pittsburgh called Sullivan up last week to add depth behind the plate after losing Endy Rodríguez to injury. Bart has been out since late May, so the Bucs needed a backup catcher behind Henry Davis. Sullivan picked up three starts behind the dish. He went 1-6 with a walk and three strikeouts. It marked his third straight season logging limited MLB action. Sullivan appeared in 40 games with the Padres as a depth catcher in 2023-24. He’s a .204/.250/.291 hitter through 112 plate appearances at the highest level.
This is the second DFA of the season for the 31-year-old Sullivan. San Diego outrighted him off the 40-man roster during Spring Training. They traded him to the Bucs for outfielder Bryce Johnson a couple weeks later in a swap of non-roster players. Sullivan has spent the majority of the year in Triple-A, where he’s hitting .218/.254/.318 in 30 games. He’ll be traded or placed on waivers this week. If he goes unclaimed on waivers, he could elect free agency in lieu of an outright assignment back to Indianapolis.
Moreta last appeared in the majors in 2023. The 29-year-old reliever has been on the injured list since undergoing UCL surgery in Spring Training 2024. He’s been on a rehab assignment since late April. Pitchers typically can spend 30 days on a rehab stint but that is sometimes extended for those coming back from elbow surgery. Moreta is evidently healthy but struggled to command the ball on his rehab stint, walking nearly 17% of batters faced. The Pirates will keep him in Triple-A for now as he tries to find more consistency.
Jose Azocar Elects Free Agency
Outfielder José Azocar elected free agency after being outrighted by the Braves, according to the MLB.com transaction log. Atlanta designated him for assignment on Monday when Stuart Fairchild returned from the injured list.
Azocar spent a few weeks as the last player off Brian Snitker’s bench. He only played twice, entering as a late-game substitute both times. It’s a similar role that the 29-year-old played for the Mets early in the season. Azocar is a plus runner who can handle all three outfield positions. It’s a light bat, though, and his playing time has dropped in each of the past four seasons. He’s also out of options, so teams cannot send him to Triple-A without running him through waivers — at which point he can refuse the assignment in favor of free agency.
Over parts of four seasons, Azocar is a career .244/.290/.319 hitter over 418 plate appearances. He’s hit a pair of homers while stealing 19 bases in 28 attempts. Most of his playing time came with the Padres between 2022-24. He landed with the Mets on a late-season waiver claim last year but has now cleared waivers on three occasions this season. He’s likely looking at minor league offers, where he owns a career .286/.322/.434 Triple-A batting line.
A’s Notes: Ginn, Gelof, Fisher
The A’s activated J.T. Ginn from the injured list on Tuesday, but the 26-year-old righty is not immediately returning to the rotation. Manager Mark Kotsay said before Tuesday’s game that Ginn would be available out of the bullpen (via Jessica Kleinschmidt). He’s already made his first relief appearance, firing three scoreless innings behind Mitch Spence last night.
Ginn had started his first four appearances of the season. He posted a 5.60 ERA across 17 innings while missing time to both elbow inflammation and a quad strain. The former second-round pick started six of his eight MLB outings last year as a rookie, allowing 4.24 earned runs per nine through 34 frames. The A’s evidently prefer him in multi-inning relief in the short term rather than bumping someone — likely Spence or Jacob Lopez — out of the starting five.
Zack Gelof is also nearing a return, as he began a rehab stint at Triple-A Las Vegas tonight. He took three plate appearances as a designated hitter in his first game action in over six weeks. Gelof has missed the entire season. He fractured his wrist on a Spring Training hit-by-pitch and required hamate surgery. That knocked him out for a month. He began a rehab assignment in early May but quickly suffered a rib injury that cost him another month and a half. He’ll need a while to get up to MLB readiness but should make his season debut within the next couple weeks. Position players can spend up to 20 days on a rehab assignment.
Luis Urías has stepped in as the regular second baseman in Gelof’s absence. He’s having a decent year, hitting .249/.338/.407 with seven homers through 207 plate appearances. Urías is playing on a cheap one-year deal and is an impending free agent. The 30-45 A’s will presumably try to drum up trade interest before next month’s deadline.
In an A’s-adjacent development, Sportico’s Kurt Badenhousen reports that owner John Fisher is pursuing a sale of his Major League Soccer franchise, the San Jose Earthquakes. Fisher has owned the MLS franchise for nearly two decades. According to Sportico, he intends to sell the majority stake of the soccer organization and has contracted an investment bank to facilitate the sale. Sportico valued the team around $600M in January.
That sale comes in the first year of what is expected to be a three-year process for the construction of the A’s new stadium in Las Vegas. The A’s secured upwards of $350MM in public funding towards an estimated $1.75 billion cost estimate. Fisher has reportedly sought to raise at least half a billion dollars in private funding through selling minority shares of the Athletics. It’s unclear whether and to what extent his desire to sell the Earthquakes is related to the A’s stadium plan. Last week, Mick Akers of The Las Vegas Review-Journal reported that the A’s have scheduled a groundbreaking ceremony for their new facility on June 23 — though that’s largely an aesthetic measure after construction crews began preliminary work at the site in April.
Brewers Trade Wes Clarke To Astros
The Brewers traded minor league first baseman Wes Clarke to the Astros, reports Francys Romero. He was not on the Brewers’ 40-man roster and will not occupy a roster spot with Houston. It’s not clear what Milwaukee received in exchange, though most trades of this nature are typically for cash considerations.
Clarke, 25, was a 10th-round draftee in 2021. A college catcher at South Carolina, he has moved off the position to full-time first base/designated hitter work this year. Clarke showed big power in college and hit 26 home runs in Double-A two seasons ago. He ranked among Milwaukee’s top 20 prospects at Baseball America going into the ’24 campaign as a result. His stock has dropped since then, as his already high strikeout rates reached untenable levels since he was promoted to Triple-A Nashville.
The righty-hitting Clarke posted a .243/.340/.458 mark with 18 homers in 87 contests last year. That’s a solid enough slash line, but he struck out in more than 35% of his plate appearances. Clarke has slightly improved the strikeout rate this year (30.2%) but has dropped to a .216/.352/.358 slash with six longballs in 182 trips to the dish. His exit velocities aren’t much different from last season, so perhaps the Astros feel he’s been a bit unlucky on batted balls. Clarke has plus power and an extremely patient approach, but the swing-and-miss and limited defensive value make for a difficult profile.
Marlins To Recall Adam Mazur
The Marlins will recall righty Adam Mazur to start tomorrow evening’s game against Philadelphia, manager Clayton McCullough told reporters (including Daniel Álvarez-Montes of El Extrabase). He’ll go against Ranger Suárez in his team debut. SportsGrid’s Craig Mish first reported that Mazur was likely to get the call. He’s already on the 40-man roster, so the Fish only need to make an active roster move involving a pitcher.
It’s not a big league debut for the 24-year-old Mazur. He took the ball eight times for the Padres last summer. The former second-round pick struggled in his first look at MLB hitters, giving up a 7.49 ERA through 33 2/3 innings. He’d only had five Triple-A starts at the time, as San Diego was pressed into calling him up by injuries to their more established starters. The Padres optioned him back to Triple-A just before the trade deadline.
Three days later, Mazur was on the move. The Marlins acquired him as part of the return for Tanner Scott and Bryan Hoeing last July. Mazur has been on optional assignment to Triple-A Jacksonville for the better part of a calendar year. He struggled over eight starts there last year but has posted better numbers this season. Mazur owns a 3.62 ERA with a 22.2% strikeout percentage and tidy 6.5% walk rate. He has allowed home runs at an elevated rate, but it’s a generally solid performance to earn him his first call to loanDepot Park.
Miami has been operating with a four-man rotation of Sandy Alcantara, Eury Pérez, Cal Quantrill and Edward Cabrera. They lost Max Meyer and Ryan Weathers to injury and have been utilizing bullpen games to handle the fifth starter role. McCullough didn’t specify whether Mazur will get more than one start for this recall, but it stands to reason that he’ll get a real rotation opportunity at some point this year. Alcantara, Quantrill and potentially Cabrera could all be in trade discussions this summer. Quantrill also left tonight’s start early with a leg issue, though McCullough said postgame that it was just a cramp (via Isaac Azout of Fish on First).
Angels Re-Sign Shaun Anderson To Minor League Contract
The Angels brought back righty Shaun Anderson on another minor league contract, as reflected on the MiLB.com transaction log. The tracker also indicates that the Halos released Buck Farmer and Andrew Vasquez from their minor league deals. Anderson will head to Triple-A Salt Lake.
Anderson has signed three separate minor league deals with the Halos this year. They’ve called him up twice but needed to designate him for assignment to take him off the active roster, as he’s out of options. Anderson elected free agency both times and has returned to the organization on new minor league pacts.
Around the transactions, the 30-year-old Anderson has made six big league relief appearances. He has surrendered nine runs on 16 hits (including a trio of homers) in 10 2/3 innings. He’s been pitching out of the rotation in Salt Lake, allowing 5.74 earned runs per nine through 42 1/3 innings. Anderson has an ERA just under 4.00 in seven Triple-A campaigns but has allowed a 6.20 ERA through 162 2/3 MLB frames.
Farmer and Vasquez each signed with the Angels last month. Farmer allowed 12 earned runs in as many innings for the Bees. Vasquez allowed nine earned across 13 frames with 10 strikeouts and five walks. Neither pitcher has logged any MLB action this year.