Mariners Outright Austin Shenton, Jesse Hahn
The Mariners announced that both infielder/outfielder Austin Shenton and right-hander Jesse Hahn have cleared waivers and been sent outright to Triple-A Tacoma. Both players were designated for assignment in separate transactions last week.
Shenton, 27, was the player more likely to be claimed. He is relatively young, can still be optioned for this year and one more, and has decent numbers on the farm. From 2021 to 2024, he stepped to the plate 1,540 times for various minor league clubs. His 27.3% strikeout rate in that time was high but he also drew walks at a strong 14.1% clip and hit 71 home runs. That led to a combined .281/.390/.529 line and 138 wRC+. He also had a decent .214/.340/.405 line in his first 50 big league plate appearances, which came with the Rays last year.
He was flipped to the Mariners going into 2025 and his offense has fallen off this year. Before getting designated for assignment, he posted a .207/.284/.413 line in 169 Triple-A plate appearances. Part of that is a .242 batting average on balls in play but his 29% strikeout rate is high even for him, while his walk rate is down to an uncharacteristically low 8.3%.
Shenton isn’t considered an especially strong defender and isn’t a burner on the basepaths, so he needs to hit to provide value. He has done that through large portions of his minor league career but his dip this year has apparently been enough that no club is willing to give him a 40-man roster spot at the moment. Since this is his first career outright and he has less than three years of big league service time, he doesn’t have the right to elect free agency, so he’ll provide the M’s with some non-roster depth.
As for Hahn, he’s a 35-year-old hurler who hasn’t been a mainstay in the big leagues since 2020. He missed 2022 and 2023 due to a shoulder injury and then was stuck in the minors in 2024. This year, the Mariners have twice selected his contract to serve as an emergency arm. The first time, he made two appearances before being designated for assignment and passed through waivers. He returned on a fresh minor league deal and was selected back to the roster last week, this time getting DFA’d after just one appearance.
Now that he has been passed through waivers again, he has the right to reject this outright assignment and elect free agency, though he could accept it or return to the M’s on a new deal like he did last time.
Photo courtesy of Mark J. Rebilas, Imagn Images
Orioles Select Chadwick Tromp, Designate Cooper Hummel For Assignment
The Orioles announced that they have selected the contract of catcher Chadwick Tromp. Utility player Cooper Hummel has been designated for assignment as the corresponding move. The club’s 40-man roster count stays at 39.
The moves seem to be motivated by the Baltimore catching corps being banged up. Gary Sánchez has already been on the injured for about a month due to wrist inflammation. Adley Rutschman took a foul ball off the mask yesterday and left the game, getting replaced by Maverick Handley. Rutschman is still on the roster but it’s possible he isn’t going to be available for a day or two, with Handley in the lineup today, so the club has added another backstop for insurance.
Tromp, 30, signed a minor league deal with the O’s in April. He had been with Atlanta for a number of years but got squeezed out there. That club promoted Drake Baldwin to pair with Sean Murphy as the big league catching tandem earlier this year. Tromp is out of options, so he got sent off the 40-man, eventually clearing waivers and electing free agency.
He has since played 20 games for Triple-A Norfolk, getting 71 plate appearances. He has three home runs and a strong 11.3% walk rate, though also a high strikeout rate of 25.4%. His .254/.338/.413 line translates to a 106 wRC+. His major league career has led to a less impressive .224/.235/.385 line and 62 wRC+ in 162 plate appearances, though he’s considered a solid defender and has often hit well in the minors.
It’s possible it will be a fairly short stay in the big leagues. As mentioned, Rutschman has avoided the IL so far and might be back in the lineup in a few days. Given Tromp’s out-of-options status, it’s possible he is destined for DFA limbo again in the near future, though optioning Handley is another possibility the O’s could consider.
Hummel losing his roster spot today is an unfortunate bit of collateral damage connected to the catching situation. The O’s just added him to the roster yesterday. Like Tromp, he is out of options and got squeezed away from another club.
He started the season with the Astros and hit .316/.435/.447 in spring training but didn’t make the Opening Day roster. He was sent through waivers unclaimed, elected free agency and signed a minor league deal with the Yankees. He was hurt for a while and only got into ten Triple-A games for the Yanks but nonetheless decided to trigger a release clause in that deal, which allowed him to sign with the O’s.
Now it’s possible that Hummel is destined for the open market again. The O’s will likely place him on waivers in the coming days. He could get claimed based on his strong minor league numbers but no one grabbed him earlier in the year. If he goes unclaimed, he would have the right to elect free agency, as he did a couple of months back.
Dating back to the start of 2021, he has 1,460 minor league plate appearances with a 17.6% walk rate and 20.8% strikeout rate. That’s helped him produce a combined .284/.419/.475 line and 132 wRC+ in that time. He has also played catcher and the four corner spots, though his last work behind the plate was in 2023.
Photo courtesy of Brett Davis, Imagn Images
Athletics Outright Seth Brown
First baseman/outfielder Seth Brown has been sent outright to Triple-A Las Vegas, according to his transactions tracker at MLB.com. That indicates he cleared waivers after being designated for assignment last week.
Brown has the right to elect free agency but is unlikely to do so. Players with at least three years of service time have the right to reject outright assignments and head to the open market. However, a player with less than five years of service would have to forfeit his remaining salary in order to exercise that right. Brown is in between those two markers. He and the A’s avoided arbitration in the offseason by agreeing to a $2.7MM salary. He presumably wants to keep that money flowing and will therefore report to Vegas.
For the A’s, they will hold onto Brown as a relatively expensive non-roster depth piece, though one with some major league success under his belt. He hit .224/.294/.457 for a 111 wRC+ during the 2021 and 2022 seasons. He dipped in 2023, producing a .222/.286/.405 line and 91 wRC+.
His 2024 was fairly similar to his 2023 but with a strong finish. He hit .202/.263/.347 for a 77 wRC+ in the first half but then had a .263/.304/.413 line and 107 wRC+ in the second half. That gave the A’s enough confidence to tender him a contract going into 2025, but that bet hasn’t paid off thus far. He hit .212/.328/.308 for an 89 wRC+ before getting designated for assignment last week.
Due to that performance and his salary, no club was willing to take him on. He’ll now look to get back in a groove and work his way back to the majors, as he did in 2024. The A’s are giving some playing time to fairly inexperienced players like Denzel Clarke and Logan Davidson, so it’s entirely possible that they decide to send those guys back to the minors at some point. And as always, an injury could arise at any time, which could lead to Brown getting called back up.
Photo courtesy of Jayne Kamin-Oncea, Imagn Images
Royals Select John Rave
The Royals announced that they have selected the contract of outfielder John Rave. Infielder Cavan Biggio has been optioned to Triple-A Omaha as the corresponding active roster move, which was reported yesterday. The Royals had three vacancies on their 40-man roster due to Luke Maile, Chris Stratton and Hunter Renfroe recently being designated for assignment. Their count goes from 37 to 38 with today’s moves.
Rave, 27, gets the call to the majors for the first time. The Royals selected him in the fifth round of the 2019 draft, signing him to a modest bonus of $297.5K. Through most of his minor league career, he has been a fringe prospect who does a lot of things well but doesn’t really excel at anything. From 2021 to 2024, he stepped to the plate 1,942 times in 454 minor league games. He hit 63 home runs and stole 63 bases. His 12.3% walk rate was strong but he also struck out at a high clip of 25.1%. It all added up to a combined .255/.349/.433 batting line and 103 wRC+.
He’s been at a higher level of production this year. Through 44 Triple-A contests, he has already hit nine long balls and swiped 17 bags. His 22.8% strikeout rate is close to average while his 10.9% walk rate is still strong. He has a .301/.382/.549 line and 141 wRC+. Some of that might be due to a .358 batting average on balls in play but that’s not drastically ahead of the .321 BABIP he had over the previous four seasons.
Rave is considered capable of playing all three outfield spots. Between the defense and his ability to steal a base, he doesn’t need to a hit a ton to be a useful part of the outfield picture in Kansas City. The club has been struggling for years to find solutions on the grass. Even though they emerged from their rebuilding period last year and made the playoffs, they got a collective .222/.281/.367 line and 79 wRC+ from their gardeners. It’s been more of the same this year, with a .239/.288/.336 line and 72 wRC+.
Renfroe was booted from the roster last week after more than a year of struggles in Kansas City. MJ Melendez was optioned to the minors last month. Drew Waters and Kyle Isbel are only marginally below league average at the plate with some solid defense. Jonathan India isn’t a natural outfielder and isn’t hitting much this year either.
In short, there’s not much blocking Rave from earning some decent playing time. He’s in right field today and batting sixth, with Isbel in center and Nick Loftin in left. If the outfield group continues to be lackluster through July, the Royals should be targeting upgrades on the trade market.
Photo courtesy of Jayne Kamin-Oncea, Imagn Images
Brewers Reinstate DL Hall, Option Logan Henderson
The Brewers announced that left-hander DL Hall has been reinstated from the 60-day injured list. They opened a 40-man roster spot last week when right-hander Joel Payamps was designated for assignment but are now back to an even 40. Righty Logan Henderson has been optioned to Triple-A Nashville as the corresponding active roster move.
Hall was diagnosed with a lat strain back in February. He was placed on the 60-day IL fairly quickly, getting put there in early March when the club signed Jose Quintana. That indicated the Brewers didn’t expect him to be available until late May but he has managed to get healthy right around that time frame. He started a rehab assignment earlier this month and was able to make four starts as part of that rehab.
The Milwaukee rotation has been in flux all year long. They came into the year knowing that Brandon Woodruff would need some more time to get fully healthy after his 2023 shoulder surgery. In addition to Hall’s injury, they also lost Aaron Civale, Nestor Cortes, Aaron Ashby and Quintana to the IL early on. That has led to pitchers like Henderson, Quinn Priester, Chad Patrick and others getting starts.
But the injury situation has been settling more recently. Civale and Ashby have come off the IL in the past week, though Ashby has joined the bullpen rather than the rotation. Hall is now back as well with Woodruff likely to be reinstated in the next week or two.
As the group gets a bit less snakebit, Henderson has been nudged out despite a strong start to his career. Through four starts, he has a 1.17 earned run average. He’s not going to maintain a 100% strand rate nor his .256 batting average on balls in play, but his 35.8% strikeout rate and 7.4% walk rate are both strong figures. He has fairly similar strikeout and walk numbers in his minor league work so he should get another rotation opportunity in the future.
For now, it’s possible Hall will get a shot to put a stretch of good outings together, something that he has been hard-pressed to do. The Brewers sent Corbin Burnes to the Orioles in February of 2024 for Joey Ortiz, Hall and a competitive balance round draft pick. The lefty dealt with a knee sprain last year, which limited his workload. He logged 43 big league innings and another 41 in the minors. As mentioned, a lat strain has been the culprit this year.
Though he was once a top prospect, he hasn’t been able to build a sizeable track record thanks to those injuries and the O’s largely using him in relief. He debuted back in 2022 but still has just 76 big league innings under his belt. Assuming Hall is taking a rotation spot, he will slot in next to Civale, Priester, Patrick and Freddy Peralta. If Woodruff is able to return soon, he’ll push someone else out of that group.
A few stars could align for the Brewers to trade some pitching this summer. They are currently 26-28 and 4.5 games back of a playoff spot. Even if they manage to gain some ground there, it wouldn’t be a shock for them to trade some of their veteran arms. Peralta is in the final guaranteed year of his deal, though with an affordable $8MM club option for 2026. Civale, Cortes, Quintana and Woodruff are all impending free agents and making decent money. Quintana and Woodruff have mutual options for 2026 but those are almost never picked up.
Perhaps the Brewers could make some of those pitchers available, especially since they have some strong replacements on hand. In addition to Henderson now being in Nashville, the Brewers have Tobias Myers and Jacob Misiorowski there as well. It may lead to a situation where the club is able to flip a veteran or two, adding talent elsewhere while opening opportunities for younger and more controllable pitchers.
Photo courtesy of Benny Sieu, Imagn Images
Submit Your Questions For This Week’s Episode Of The MLBTR Podcast
On the MLB Trade Rumors podcast, we regularly answer questions from our readers and listeners. With the next episode set for Wednesday, we’re looking for MLBTR’s audience to submit their questions and we’ll pick a few to answer.
The 2025 season is chugging along. If you have a question about the campaign, a look ahead to the deadline or anything else baseball-related, we’d love to hear from you! You can email your questions to mlbtrpod@gmail.com.
Also, if you want to hear your voice on the podcast, send us your question in audio form and we might play it. iPhone users can find instructions on how to do so here.
In the meantime, don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.
Royals Outright Luke Maile
May 24: The Royals announced this afternoon that Maile has cleared outright waivers and accepted an assignment to Triple-A. The 34-year-old will remain in the organization going forward to serve as non-roster catching depth behind the club’s tandem of Perez and Fermin.
May 19: The Royals announced that right-hander Taylor Clarke has been reinstated from the paternity list. Catcher Luke Maile has been designated for assignment as the corresponding move. The club’s 40-man roster count drops from 39 to 38.
Maile, 34, signed a minor league deal with the Royals in the offseason and was selected to the big league roster on May 2nd. The Royals already had two catchers on the roster in Salvador Perez and Freddy Fermin but Perez was dealing with some hip tightness at the time. Perez didn’t start on May 2nd or 3rd but was back in the starting nine by May 4th.
That didn’t leave a lot of playing time for Maile. Though he was on the roster for almost three weeks, he only got ten plate appearances over three games. He certainly made the most of those, with two walks and three hits, including a home run, creating a gargantuan .375/.500/.750 slash line.
His career offensive output is far more modest. He has a .209/.276/.322 batting line over 1,260 big league plate appearances. His 63 wRC+ indicates he’s been 37% worse than average overall. However, despite that lack of punch at the plate, he’s been in and out of the big leagues for most than a decade. That’s thanks to his solid reputation for his defense and work with a pitching staff.
He has been squeezed off the Royals’ roster and into DFA limbo. He will likely end up on waivers in the coming days. It’s possible he could attract interest from clubs looking for veteran catching depth.
Photo courtesy of Gregory Fisher, Imagn Images
Cooper Hummel Granted Release By Yankees
May 24: The Yankees opted not to promote Hummel and granted him his release, reports Brendan Kuty of The Athletic. He’s again a free agent.
May 22: Utility player Cooper Hummel has triggered a release clause in his minor league deal with the Yankees, reports Joel Sherman of The New York Post. Triggering the clause gives the Yanks 72 hours to decide on whether to add Hummel to their roster, trade him or release him. Since he triggered the clause yesterday (Wednesday), the team will need to make their decision by some time on Saturday.
Hummel, 30, signed a minor league deal with the Yanks in April. He started the season on the Astros’ roster but came into this year out of options. He hit .316/.435/.447 during spring training but the Astros decided not to carry him on the Opening Day roster. He was designated for assignment, cleared waivers and elected free agency. That freed up him to sign with the Yankees.
He played in just three Triple-A games before landing on the minor league injured list with an unknown issue. He was reinstated from the IL on May 10th and has since appeared in seven more contests.
That doesn’t give the Yanks much to go on but Hummel has an impressive minor league track record on the whole. He has stepped to the plate 1,460 times at the Triple-A level from 2021 to the present with a 17.6% walk rate and 20.8% strikeout rate. His combined line of .284/.419/.475 translates to a 132 wRC+. He has done that while bouncing around the diamond, suiting up at catcher and the four corner positions. He also notched double-digit steal totals in both 2023 and 2024.
Despite doing all that fun stuff in the minors, he has only 235 major league plate appearances, most of which were with the Diamondbacks back in 2022. His .159/.255/.275 line in the majors is obviously far less enticing than his work on the farm.
The next few days will provide some clarity on whether the Yankees or any other club are willing to give Hummel some major league time. As mentioned, he is out of options but he also has just one year and three days of service time at the moment. That means he wouldn’t get to the two-year mark even if he were called up today. The Yanks or some other club could therefore keep him in the majors for the rest of this season and still have five seasons of club control after that.
Photo courtesy of Reinhold Matay, Imagn Images
Royals Acquire Diego Castillo
The Royals have acquired infielder Diego Castillo from the Mets, according to his transactions tracker at MLB.com. He has been assigned to Triple-A Omaha. The log doesn’t specify what the Mets are receiving in return but it seems likely to be a cash deal.
Castillo is a 27-year-old infielder and not to be confused with the 31-year-old pitcher of the same name, who is in the Rockies’ system on a minor league deal. The infielder signed a minor league deal with the Mets in the offseason and has appeared in 13 Triple-A games so far this season. He has a rough .167/.217/.262 line, though it’s a tiny sample of 46 plate appearances and he has been held back by a .188 batting average in balls in play.
That performance probably didn’t help his standing with the Mets. Additionally, the club’s infield picture is far stronger than it was to start the year. Jeff McNeil started the season on the injured list but has been back for a few weeks now. Brett Baty has been heating up after a cold start. Luisangel Acuña is performing well enough as a bench piece. Ronny Mauricio is also back on the field and playing minor league games after missing 2024 due to a torn ACL.
For the Royals, both Michael Massey and Jonathan India are having rough years, so the second base production hasn’t been great. The Royals have received a collective .217/.251/.280 line from the keystone this year, with Massey taking most of the playing time. That results in a wRC+ of 44, which puts the Royals ahead of just the Rockies in terms of offensive production from that position. They just recalled Nick Loftin as the corresponding move for outfielder Hunter Renfroe being designated for assignment, so Castillo will perhaps take up Loftin’s spot on the Omaha roster.
Though Castillo is out to a slow start this year, his minor league track record is solid. From the start of 2021 to the present, he has stepped to the plate 1,663 times on the farm with a 13.3% walk rate, 14.9% strikeout rate, .278/.377/.418 line and 108 wRC+. Defensively, he has spent time at all four infield spots and the outfield corners. His major league batting line is only .208/.257/.383, but that’s in a fairly small sample size of 292 plate appearances, most of which came with the 2022 Pirates.
Photo courtesy of Jesse Johnson, Imagn Images
Athletics Designate Seth Brown For Assignment, Option JJ Bleday
The Athletics announced a huge batch of roster moves today. They selected the contracts of catcher Willie MacIver and infielder Logan Davidson. They also recalled left-hander Jacob Lopez, infielder CJ Alexander and outfielder Denzel Clarke. Infielder Gio Urshela was placed on the 10-day injured list with a strained left hamstring, opening one spot. They opened three more by optioning right-hander Carlos Durán, catcher Jhonny Pereda and outfielder JJ Bleday to Triple-A Las Vegas. They opened a fifth active roster spot by designating infielder/outfielder Seth Brown for assignment. That also opened one 40-man spot for MacIver/Davidson. A second was opened by transferring infielder Zack Gelof to the 60-day IL.
The Clarke, Urshela and Davidson moves had been previously reported. Jeff Passan of ESPN reported the Clarke promotion last night and hinted that more moves could be coming, with the A’s looking to shake things up and snap a nine-game losing streak. That has certainly come to pass.
Brown, 32, has been a productive player for the A’s before but has fallen off. He hit 45 home runs between the 2021 and 2022 campaigns, slashing .224/.294/.457 for a 111 wRC+. However, he has a line of .224/.286/.385 and a wRC+ of 90 since then. That includes a .192/.311/.288 line and 79 wRC+ this year.
He was outrighted off the roster last summer but earned his way back to the big leagues. He played well enough in the second half that the A’s tendered him an arbitration contract for 2025 and the two sides avoided arbitration by agreeing to a $2.7MM salary.
Perhaps not coincidentally, Brown is not quite in a position to both elect free agency and keep that money coming to him. Players with at least three years of big league service have the right to reject an outright assignment and elect free agency, but players with less than five years have to forfeit their remaining salary in order to do so. Brown came into this year with four years and 96 days of service time, putting him 76 days shy of the five-year mark. 57 days have passed in the 2025 season so far. Based on his performance, he probably won’t get claimed off waivers. More likely, he will clear and accept an outright assignment, allowing the A’s to keep him around as non-roster depth.
Bleday, 27, seemed to be having a breakout last year. The former top prospect hit 20 home runs and slashed .243/.324/.437 on the year for a 120 wRC+. Defensively, he was miscast as a center fielder but the offensive performance was certainly encouraging. Unfortunately, he is slashing .204/.291/.365 for an 86 wRC+ so far this year.
It’s possible there’s some luck in there. His batting average on balls in play was .279 last year but is down to .231 here in 2025. His barrel rate is down but his average exit velocity and hard hit rate are actually higher than last year. His strikeout rate has ticked up a bit but he’s also been walking more.
Regardless, the A’s are seemingly going to try Clarke in center for a while. Bleday can try to get into a groove in the Pacific Coast League and perhaps return to the big leagues after a bit of a refresher. He came into this season with his service count at 2.055. If he stays down the rest of the year, he won’t get to the three-year mark in 2025, delaying his path to free agency. But if he’s recalled in the not-too-distant future, he’ll still have a shot to get there.
Amid the rest of the shuffle, MacIver gets called to the big leagues for the first time. The A’s have Shea Langeliers as their primary catcher but Pereda has been backing him up lately. With today’s swap, it seems MacIver will get a shot at holding that backup job.
The 28-year-old MacIver was drafted by the Rockies way back in 2018, in the ninth round, and has been grinding in the minors since then. He reached free agency after 2024 and signed a minor league deal with the A’s coming into 2025. He has put up a monster .389/.469/.548 line in 147 Triple-A plate appearances this year. His .480 BABIP is surely not sustainable but his 12.2% walk rate and 18.4% strikeout rate are both good figures.
As for Gelof, he began the season on the 10-day IL due to hamate surgery. He started a rehab assignment at the end of April but that lasted just three games before he was pulled off due to a stress reaction in his ribs. He hasn’t started a new rehab assignment yet. His 60-day count is retroactive to his initial IL placement, so is technically eligible for reinstatement a few days from now. However, that doesn’t seem likely, as he’ll surely need a few weeks of minor league games at some point to get into game shape.
Photo courtesy of Jayne Kamin-Oncea, Imagn Images