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West Notes: Zito, Flores, Wood

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With Aaron Brooks headed to Triple-A Nashville, the Athletics will need a starter sometime in the next few days. That could be A’s veteran Barry Zito, Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle reports. The 2002 AL Cy Young winner and three-time All-Star hasn’t appeared in the big leagues since 2013, but he’s pitched 137 innings for Triple-A Nashville this year, posting a 3.48 ERA, 5.9 K/9 and 3.9 BB/9. Zito had been scheduled to start for the Sounds on Saturday, but Sean Nolin will take the ball instead, and Zito is no longer listed among the Sounds’ upcoming probable pitchers. Zito has also briefly missed time recently with a shoulder injury, althoug Slusser characterizes that issue as “extremely minor.” Here’s more from the West divisions.

  • Mariners outfielder Ramon Flores has a compound fracture in his ankle and will miss the rest of the season, MLB.com’s Greg Johns tweets. As Tacoma Rainiers broadcaster Mike Curto tweets, Flores left yesterday’s game on a cart after falling while trying to make a play in the field. The Mariners acquired Flores with Jose Ramirez late last month when they traded Dustin Ackley to the Yankees. The 23-year-old Flores was off to a terrific start with Tacoma, batting .423/.524/.654 with eight extra-base hits and 11 walks in 63 plate appearances.
  • The Dodgers lost their first two games with new trade acquisition Alex Wood on the hill, but he picked up his first win with them yesterday against the Reds, as Bill Plunkett of the Orange County Register writes. Mat Latos, the Dodgers’ other starting pitching acquisition in that trade, had also struggled, so Wood’s victory likely came as a welcome sign for the Dodgers. Wood says his outlook hasn’t changed significantly since arriving from Atlanta, however. “For me, and I can probably speak for the other guys too, the expectations everywhere you go are high,” he says. “[Y]ou’ve got to come in and you have to perform … Not just to be a contributor or make trades look good or bad but to stay here and be a part of it, you know?“

Minor MLB Transactions: 8/15/15

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Here are today’s minor transactions from around the league.

  • The Orioles have announced that they’re released outfielder Travis Snider, who they designated for assignment last week. When the O’s acquired Snider from the Pirates for a pair of pitching prospects last winter, there was hope that he would provide a bit of left-handed power. He was mostly a disappointment in Baltimore, however, batting .237/.318/.341. He has another year of team control remaining after this one, but his $2.1MM 2015 salary likely made a waiver claim an unattractive proposition.

Athletics Designate Brad Mills For Assignment

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The Athletics have announced that they’ve designated lefty Brad Mills for assignment. They also optioned righty Aaron Brooks to Triple-A Nashville and recalled righty Dan Otero and switch-pitcher Pat Venditte.

The A’s added Mills to their roster yesterday so that he could make a spot start against the Orioles. He pitched five innings and allowed three runs, all of them coming on a homer to Adam Jones, as the Athletics lost 8-6. In parts of seven big-league seasons, Mills has a 7.97 ERA, 8.1 K/9 and 4.9 BB/9 in 79 innings. Unsurprisingly, he’s fared far better as a Triple-A innings-eater in that time frame.

Central Notes: Plouffe, Jackson, Indians, Brewers

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Trevor Plouffe’s agent (Nez Balelo at CAA) has been in Minnesota recently, but Plouffe and the Twins haven’t been discussing an extension, 1500ESPN’s Darren Wolfson tweets. Plouffe can become eligible for free agency following the 2017 season. Wolfson describes him as an extension candidate, and maybe he is, since the Twins are frequently loyal to their players. The Twins do have another potential long-term answer at third base in Miguel Sano, however, and Sano is younger and cheaper, as well as being an outstanding hitter. Trading Plouffe might ultimately make more sense. Here are more notes from the Central divisions.

  • The Twins also had interest in Edwin Jackson before Jackson signed with the Braves, Wolfson tweets. The Braves were prepared to offer a big-league deal, however, and the Twins apparently were not.
  • The Indians’ contracts for Michael Bourn and Nick Swisher didn’t turn out well, but the team would have been in even worse shape had it extended Justin Masterson, Terry Pluto of the Plain Dealer writes. In Spring Training in 2014, the Indians reportedly offered Masterson about $45MM over three years, which at the time looked like a lowball offer, given Masterson’s impending free agency and excellent 2013 season. Since then, though, Masterson has struggled in Cleveland, St. Louis and Boston, ultimately being designated for assignment by the Red Sox last week.
  • The Brewers’ farm system looks significantly improved after last month’s trades and the June draft, Tom Haudricourt writes for Baseball America (subscription only). In trading Carlos Gomez, Mike Fiers, Gerardo Parra, Aramis Ramirez and Jonathan Broxton, the Brewers got a solid group of prospects that includes Brett Phillips, Domingo Santana and Zach Davies. Many of the players they acquired are in the high minors, too, which now-former Brewers GM Doug Melvin suggested might shorten the amount of time the team needed to rebuild. Davies, who is relatively small and isn’t a hard thrower, doesn’t fit the pitcher type the Brewers usually like, but Melvin says the team’s analytics department lobbied for the Brewers to acquire him in the Parra trade.

Marlins Notes: Jennings, Barraclough, Ichiro

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The Marlins’ Dan Jennings is one of many managers throughout the game who might not remain in their current jobs by the start of next season, FOX Sports’ Ken Rosenthal writes. The Marlins have continued to struggle since replacing Mike Redmond with their GM, and Rosenthal notes that the Jennings is likely to head back to a front-office role. Fellow interim managers Pat Murphy (Padres) and Pete Mackanin (Phillies) will also likely be replaced, and other candidates to depart include Brad Ausmus (Tigers), Lloyd McClendon (Mariners) and others. Here are more notes on the Marlins.

  • Marlins righty Kyle Barraclough was surprised to be traded for Steve Cishek, and surprised that his new team promoted him to the big leagues last week, Craig Davis of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel writes. “It was just shocking to me,” says Barraclough. “I had read reports that the Cardinals were interested in Cishek, but I never thought it would be me that was going. They’ve got a good minor league system and I thought there’s tons of guys that they’re going to want except for me.” Barraclough had been struggling with Double-A Springfield in the Cardinals’ system, walking 20 batters in 24 2/3 innings there, but he thrived in a brief stint at Double-A Jacksonville, striking out nine batters and walking only one in four innings. He has yet to allow a run in three outings in the big leagues.
  • Counting his statistics in Japan, Ichiro Suzuki’s single against the Cardinals yesterday gave him 4,191 career hits, tying Ty Cobb for second all-time. Ichiro now has 2,913 hits in the Majors, and with another season, he might reach 3,000. MLB.com’s Joe Frisaro suggests the Marlins ought to retain Ichiro so that he can reach that milestone in a Marlins uniform. He isn’t likely to cost much, and he won’t be blocking anyone as he continues in a bench outfielder role. There is, of course, the matter of his declining performance — Ichiro will be 42 in October, and his 2015 batting average (.253) and slugging percentage (.308) are the lowest in his career since he came to the US.

Yankees Designate Chris Capuano For Assignment

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The Yankees have announced that they’ve designated lefty Chris Capuano for assignment. The move clears space on their active roster for righty Caleb Cotham, who they’ve recalled from Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre.

If this pair of moves sounds familiar, it’s because the Yankees designated Capuano in order to promote Cotham just before the trade deadline. Since then, Capuano accepted the Yankees’ outright and then returned on Wednesday when the Yankees designated Garrett Jones.

Capuano has a 6.97 ERA, 8.7 K/9 and 4.4 BB/9 this season and is making $5MM on a one-year deal, so the Yankees probably aren’t too worried that he’ll be claimed. He hadn’t pitched since being promoted, and is probably being designated in favor of Cotham right now because Cotham (who’s had a strong season in the high minors) just became eligible for promotion again after being optioned on August 5.

A.J. Pollock Interested In Extension With D-backs

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Outfielder A.J. Pollock is interested in pursuing an extension with the Diamondbacks, Nick Piecoro of the Arizona Republic writes. “I like my teammates. I like the coaches. The front office has been awesome,” says Pollock. “If they talk to me, I’ll obviously talk to them back.”

Yesterday, CBS Sports’ Jon Heyman wrote that the D-backs could consider extending Pollock. “He’s a big, big piece of what we’re trying to do,” GM Dave Stewart told Heyman.

The 27-year-old Pollock will have over three years of service time by the end of the season, making him eligible for arbitration for the first time, and putting him on pace to become a free agent after 2018. As Piecoro suggests, the only recent extension for an outfielder with between three and four years of service time is that of Michael Brantley, who signed a four-year, $25MM deal with one option prior to the 2014 season.

That deal is now almost two years old, though, and as nicely as it has turned out for the Indians, Pollock’s current track record is significantly better than Brantley’s was at the time. Pollock is currently hitting an excellent .312/.365/.474 with 28 stolen bases, and he’s a much better defensive outfielder than Brantley. Pollock’s 4.9 fWAR ranks 10th among big-league position players, ahead of top-performing stars like Anthony Rizzo, Yoenis Cespedes and Andrew McCutchen. Pollock doesn’t have a lengthy track record (due in part to a hand injury that cost him half his 2014 season), and his defense-heavy skill set isn’t ideally suited for getting paid in arbitration, but he’s an excellent extension candidate who should seek a significant payout in exchange for forgoing the arbitration process and delaying free agency.

Pollock’s camp would likely aim much higher than Brantley’s $25MM in extension discussions, then, perhaps pointing to recent deals for infielders Jason Kipnis ($52.5MM) and Matt Carpenter ($52MM) as starting points. Unlike Pollock, however, Kipnis and Carpenter had between two and three years of service at the times of their deals.

Week In Review: 8/8/15 – 8/14/15

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Here’s a look back at this week at MLBTR.

Trades

Signings

Top Prospect Promotions

Claims

Designated For Assignment

Outrights

Opt-outs

Key Minor League Signings

Dodgers Promote Jose Peraza

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The Dodgers have promoted top infield prospect Jose Peraza, who will make his big-league debut while starting at second base tonight, Bill Shaikin of the Los Angeles Times tweets. Regular Dodgers second baseman Howie Kendrick left Sunday’s game after injuring himself while running the bases. He had an MRI on his hamstring today, and the team has announced that it has placed him on the 15-day DL. Manager Don Mattingly said yesterday that he expected Kendrick to miss significant time.

The 21-year-old Peraza only recently joined the Dodgers organization, having arrived from the Braves in the massive three-team Mat Latos / Hector Olivera deal. He was hitting .302/.327/.398 in 469 Triple-A plate appearances this year.

MLB.com ranks Peraza the No. 29 prospect in the game, praising his excellent speed — Peraza has little power and doesn’t walk much but has been an effective offensive player in the minors thanks largely to his ability to run out hits and to his baserunning. He has 204 stolen bases in the equivalent of about three full seasons’ worth of minor league plate appearances. Baseball America ranked Peraza the No. 54 prospect in baseball heading into the season.

Jose Fernandez To DL With Right Bicep Strain

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SUNDAY: Fernandez is suffering from a right bicep strain, Spencer reports, and the righty will be placed on the DL.  There’s a chance Fernandez could return to pitch in 2015, as the Marlins were relieved that the injury showed no damage to his shoulder and wasn’t something that would require surgery.

SATURDAY: Marlins ace Jose Fernandez is dealing with stiffness in his right shoulder and has returned to Miami to see a doctor, the Miami Herald’s Clark Spencer reports (Twitter links). The nature and severity of the injury are unclear. “Let’s see what it is before we speculate on something,” says Marlins manager Dan Jennings.

Another significant injury to Fernandez would be yet another blow to what’s turned into an awful season for the Marlins, whose 43-67 record is tied with the Phillies for worst in the big leagues. The 23-year-old Fernandez has only pitched 43 innings this season after missing much of the last two seasons due to injury. That injury was an elbow problem that required Tommy John surgery, so his current shoulder issue would appear to be a somewhat, or completely, different issue.

Fernandez has been brilliant in those 43 innings, posting a 2.30 ERA, 11.1 K/9 and 2.1 BB/9. He pitched five innings yesterday against the Braves, striking out six batters and walking one while allowing two runs. He was removed after 76 pitches, including 38 thrown in the fourth inning, although there were no reported indications of any injury at that time.

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