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Pirates Claim Ronny Simón, Designate Tanner Rainey For Assignment

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2:25pm: The Pirates announced that they have claimed Simón and optioned him to Triple-A Indianapolis, with Rainey designated for assignment as the corresponding move.

1:25pm: The Pirates have claimed infielder Ronny Simón off waivers from the Marlins. The latter club designated him for assignment last week. Right-hander Tanner Rainey has been designated for assignment to open a 40-man roster spot for Simón. Mike Rodriguez first reported that Simón would be joining the Pirates. Craig Mish of the Miami Herald reported that it would be a waiver claim. Alex Stumpf of MLB.com reported that Rainey was the corresponding move.

Simón, 25, got his first major league call just over a month ago. The Marlins selected his contract on April 20th and he stuck on the roster until he was designated for assignment on May 30th. He got into 19 games and stepped to the plate 56 times, producing a batting line of .234/.327/.277.

That was a fairly unremarkable performance from a statistical point of view but Simón got thrust into the spotlight in an unusual way. As relayed Jason Foster and Christina De Nicola of MLB.com, Simón had a nightmare game against the Padres last week. The Fish were up 6-0 on Tuesday but several errors and general defensive miscues from Simón allowed the Friars to engineer an 8-6 comeback victory.

Amid the chaotic contest, Simón was seen wiping tears from his face. After the game, he received plenty of encouraging messages from his teammates and even his opponents. Per the MLB.com story, Padres such as Manny Machado, Luis Arráez and Fernando Tatis Jr. sent supportive texts to Simón after the game. In addition to that challenging on-field experience, Simón also had to deal with getting sent into DFA limbo a few days later. However, he has quickly found a new home by landing with the Pirates.

Simón’s major league time isn’t much to go on. Presumably, the Pirates are paying more attention to his minor league work. In 2,328 minor league plate appearances, he has a .266/.341/.446 line and 108 wRC+. Before getting called up this year, he got into 15 Triple-A contests and had a massive .354/.441/.521 line in that small sample.

As of July of last year, FanGraphs considered Simón to be one of the top 20 prospects in the Rays’ system, noting that his switch-hitting and defensive versatility gave him a good shot to eventually become a utility player. He has experience at the three infield positions to the left of first base as well as the outfield corners. He’s generally been able to steal about 20-35 bases annually. The Rays didn’t give him a 40-man spot at the end of last year, which led him to sign a minors deal with the Marlins coming into 2025.

He still has a full slate of options, so the Pirates can keep him in the minors if they don’t have room at the big league level. Rainey’s DFA does open an active roster spot but the Pirates might recall a pitcher rather than playing with the pitching staff shorthanded.

Rainey, 32, signed a minor league deal with the Pirates in the offseason and was selected to the roster about a month ago. He has since tossed 7 2/3 innings over 11 appearances, allowing nine earned runs. There’s surely a bit of luck in there, especially from a 35.7% strand rate that is ridiculously low, but he also hasn’t done himself any favors by walking 16.2% of batters faced. On the positive side, his 24.3% strikeout rate and 45% ground ball rate are solid numbers.

He’ll now head into DFA limbo, which can last for as long as a week. The waiver process takes 48 hours, so the Pirates could take five days to try to line up a trade. Rainey’s overall track record includes 197 big league innings with a 5.44 ERA. From 2019 to 2024, he logged 182 1/3 of those innings with a 4.49 ERA, 28.5% strikeout rate and 14.1% walk rate.

Photo courtesy of Sam Navarro, Imagn Images

Ben Rortvedt Accepts Outright Assignment With Rays

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Catcher Ben Rortvedt, who was designated for assignment by the Rays last week, has cleared waivers and been sent outright to Triple-A Durham. He had the right to elect free agency but has chosen to accept. Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times was among those to relay the information.

Players with at least three years of big league service time have the right to reject an outright assignment and elect free agency. However, exercising that right means forfeiting any remaining salary commitments, unless a player has at least five years of service time.

Rortvedt is between three and four years. He qualified for arbitration for the first time after last season. He and the Rays avoided arbitration by agreeing to a $1.125MM salary for 2025. Rortvedt has pocketed about a third of that already but would have to walk away from the rest of it in order to head to the open market, so it’s not surprising that he has chosen to report to Durham.

For the Rays, they get to keep a bit of experienced non-roster depth behind the plate. Rortvedt had a solid season for them in 2024, getting into 112 games and stepping to the plate 328 times. His .228/.317/.303 slash line wasn’t tremendous, as his 87 wRC+ indicates he was about 13% below league average at the plate. However, catches are usually about 10% below league-wide par, so Rortvedt’s offense was passable enough.

He also received solid marks for his work behind the plate. Putting the two together, FanGraphs considered him to be worth 1.4 wins above the replacement on the year, with Baseball Reference putting him a bit lower at 0.9 WAR.

The Rays were satisfied enough to give him a raise and bring him back for 2025 but his bat has disappeared. Rortvedt slashed .095/.186/.111 in 70 plate appearances before getting designated for assignment last week. A tiny .122 batting average on balls in play wasn’t helping him out but his batted ball metrics all trended in the wrong direction as well. The Rays signed Danny Jansen in the offseason and then acquired Matt Thaiss last week, pushing Rortvedt down the depth chart. Since Rortvedt is out of options, he got pushed off the 40-man entirely.

Though he’s not having a strong season, he should get some regular playing time for Durham and could perhaps get his offense back on track. If he’s able to do so, he could be the first man up if either Jansen or Thaiss suffers an injury. Logan Driscoll is also on the 40-man roster but he started the year on the minor league injured list due to an ankle injury and still hasn’t played an official game this year.

If Rortvedt isn’t called up by the end of the season, he will be able to elect free agency, as is the case with all players with three-plus years of service who are outrighted off a 40-man roster during the season.

Photo courtesy of Mark J. Rebilas, Imagn Images

Submit Your Questions For This Week’s Episode Of The MLBTR Podcast

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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.

Craig Kimbrel’s Braves Deal Contains Rolling Opt-Out Clause

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The Braves signed veteran closer Craig Kimbrel to a minor league deal in the middle of March. He hasn’t been called up to the big leagues yet but it seems that could happen at any time with any club. Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic reports that Kimbrel’s deal has a clause that Rosenthal refers to as a “rolling opt-out”. This clause means that, if any other club offers him a major league job, Atlanta has to promote him or let him go.

The way Rosenthal describes it, it sounds more like an upward mobility clause than a strict opt-out. With an opt-out clause, a player usually has a specific date wherein he can trigger the clause and become a free agent. With an upward mobility clause, when the player triggers it, it gives teams around the league a chance to give the player a major league roster spot. There’s usually a time frame of 48 hours for such decisions. If any club wants the player, the original signing team then has to decide to call him up or let the claiming team have him.

Semantics aside, what seems to be unique in this case is the “rolling” nature of the clause. Rather than having specific dates mentioned in the contract, it seems that any of the 29 other clubs could trigger the clause at any time by offering Kimbrel a gig in the big leagues. If that happens, Atlanta would then have to decide to call him up or let him go.

That makes it somewhat surprising that Kimbrel isn’t in the majors already. He has thrown 17 innings in the minors this year, mostly at Triple-A but also with a few appearances at Double-A. He has a combined 1.06 earned run average on the year. His 12.5% walk rate is a bit high but he has struck out 32.8% of batters faced and kept 45.7% of balls in play on the ground. A .171 batting average on balls in play isn’t sustainable but his 2.43 FIP suggests he’s still doing quite well when correcting for some regression.

That’s a fairly small sample of work in the minor leagues but Kimbrel also has his lengthy major league track record. He is fifth on the all-time saves leaderboard with 440. He has a 2.59 ERA over 809 2/3 innings, along with a 38.8% strikeout rate and 10.4% walk rate.

More recently, his results have been less consistent, which is why he settled for a minor league deal coming into this year. He was quite shaky in 2019 and 2020, posting ERAs north of 5.00 in both of those seasons. He generally had better results for the 2021-23 campaigns but struggled again in 2024. He posted a 5.33 ERA with the Orioles last year, getting released in September.

Perhaps teams are putting more stock in last year’s struggles in the majors, as opposed to this year’s good results in the minors. His deal also comes with a $2MM base salary if he’s called up. Presumably, that’s prorated, leaving a bit less than $1.3MM to be paid out at this point. That’s relatively small by MLB standards but teams are often reluctant to add money in midseason pickups. Joel Payamps just passed through waivers unclaimed even though he was quite effective in 2023-24. His $2.995MM salary this year might have been a factor, in addition to the fact that his results have backed up.

Whatever the reasons, Kimbrel still doesn’t have a major league opportunity. But given that a number of clubs around the league are dealing with bullpen challenges and pitcher injuries are inevitable, a path could open for him. Given the specifics of this clause, he only needs one of the 30 clubs to bite.

Photo courtesy of Kareem Elgazzar, Imagn Images

Angels Release Tim Anderson

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The Angels announced that infielder Tim Anderson has been released. He had been designated for assignment two days ago. He’ll be a free agent once he clears release waivers, unless he has already.

This was the expected outcome when Anderson was designated for assignment earlier this week. He was unlikely to be claimed based on his performance this year and in other recent seasons. He has more than enough service time to reject an outright assignment and elect free agency, so the Angels have skipped over that formality.

He’ll now be free to sign with any club, though he’ll surely be limited to minor league offers. Anderson just produced a tepid .205/.258/.241 line over 90 plate appearances with the Angels. That continued a yearslong slump for him. Dating back to the start of the 2023 season, he has stepped to the plate 855 times with a .232/.269/.270 line. That leads to a 49 wRC+, indicating he’s been 51% worse than league average at the plate.

Based on that performance, he’s unlikely to get a major league opportunity in the immediate future. There’s no harm in a minor league deal, however, and Anderson has previous major league success. From 2019 to 2022, he slashed .318/.347/.473 for a 123 wRC+ with the White Sox. He also stole 53 bases while playing solid shortstop defense.

But early in 2023, he landed on the injured list due to a left knee sprain and hasn’t been the same since. The White Sox declined a $14MM club option for 2024, going for the $1MM buyout instead. Anderson landed a $5MM deal with the Marlins going into last year but was released in July. He signed a minor league deal with the Halos for this year and cracked the Opening Day roster but wasn’t able to produce. His 32nd birthday is next month. He’ll now see what kind of opportunities await him on the open market.

Photo courtesy of Jonathan Hui, Imagn Images

Diamondbacks Designate Joe Mantiply For Assignment

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The Diamondbacks announced a series of roster moves today, most of which were previously reported. They have selected right-hander Jeff Brigham and signed infielder Ildemaro Vargas. To open active roster spots for those two, infielder Jordan Lawlar and right-hander Kevin Ginkel have been optioned to Triple-A Reno. The club had one open 40-man roster spot but opened a second by designating left-hander Joe Mantiply for assignment.

Mantiply, 34, has fallen on hards time here in 2025 after a strong performance in previous seasons. From 2021 to 2024, he logged 198 1/3 innings with the Diamondbacks, allowing 3.63 earned runs per nine. His 22% strikeout rate in that time was around average but he only walked 6% of batters faced and kept 51.9% of balls in play on the ground. He racked up three saves and 50 holds in that span.

But this year, he allowed 13 earned runs in his first 7 1/3 innings. He was optioned down to Reno in mid-April while sporting an ERA of 15.95. He was recalled briefly a couple of weeks ago and allowed four more earned runs in 2 1/3 innings before getting optioned down again. He currently has an ugly 15.83 ERA on the year, though in a small sample of 9 2/3 innings.

There’s surely some bad luck in there, with his .512 batting average on balls in play and 56.5% strand rate both far to the unfortunate side of things. However, his strikeout rate has also dropped to 13.8% this year and he’s only been getting grounders at a 43.2% clip.

Those struggles have apparently been enough for him to lose his 40-man spot. He now heads into DFA limbo, which can last as long as a week. The waiver process takes 48 hours, so the Snakes could spend up to five days exploring trade interest.

Other clubs might be willing to look past this year’s struggles but MLB teams are generally loath to take on money via midseason pickups, even relatively small amounts. Joel Payamps, like Mantiply, is a pitcher with some recent success but having a bad year. He recently passed through waivers, with no club willing to take on what remains of his $2.995MM salary.

Mantiply is making $1.7MM this year, barely half of what Payamps is making. He is also left-handed and can be optioned to the minors, whereas Payamps is a righty and out of options. On the other hand, Mantiply is three years older. The next few days will tell if Mantiply can find a club willing to take him on.

If he goes unclaimed, he will likely stick with the D’Backs as non-roster depth. Players with at least three years of major league service time have the right to reject an outright assignment and elect free agency. However, players with less than five years of service have to forfeit any remaining salary in order to exercise that right. Mantiply is shy of the five-year mark and would therefore probably accept an outright assignment, in order to keep that salary coming to him.

Photo courtesy of John Hefti, Imagn Images

AJ Smith-Shawver Diagnosed With Torn UCL

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Braves right-hander AJ Smith-Shawver has been diagnosed with a torn ulnar collateral ligament in his throwing elbow, reports Mark Bowman of MLB.com. It is still being determined whether the righty will undergo Tommy John surgery or an internal brace procedure. In either case, he should miss the remainder of this season and part of the 2026 campaign as well.

The news is devastating but not surprising. Smith-Shawver started the first game of yesterday’s doubleheader against the Phillies. He was removed in the third inning and it was quickly reported that he felt a pop in his throwing elbow. He was placed on the 15-day IL before the second game of that twin bill with an elbow strain. “It doesn’t look good,” was manager Brian Snitker’s assessment of the situation. He was transferred to the 60-day IL earlier today, only enhancing the sense that bad news was coming.

All the warning signs have now proven to be accurate. Smith-Shawver will go under the knife and the only thing left to determine is if he’ll require a full Tommy John procedure or the internal brace variant. The latter generally comes with a slightly lesser return timeline, but even that reduced time frame is generally around a year or so. He will therefore spend the rest of the year on the 60-day IL and will perhaps start the 2026 season there as well.

He will collect big league pay and service time while on the IL but that’s a small consolation. He was in the middle of establishing himself as a true big league starter. He had logged 44 1/3 innings over nine starts this year with a 3.86 earned run average. His 10.9% walk rate was on the high side but his 21.9% strikeout rate was slightly above par for a starter. He’ll now have to wait until 2026 to build off that showing.

For the team, they are now down two starters. Reynaldo López had arthroscopic shoulder surgery earlier in the year and seems unlikely to return until late in the season, even in a best-case scenario.

Bryce Elder will be recalled to start on Sunday, per Bowman. Elder seemingly cemented himself in the big leagues in 2023 when he posted a 3.81 ERA over 31 starts. However, his results backed up last year, which bumped him down the chart to being a frequently-optioned depth piece. He was only able to make ten big league starts last year with a 6.52 ERA. He has continued to be shuttled to Gwinnett and back here in 2025. He has a 4.50 ERA in eight big league starts as well as an 8.76 ERA in three Triple-A starts.

If Elder falters, he still has options and the club has other arms available. Hurston Waldrep, Nathan Wiles and Davis Daniel are all on the 40-man roster and pitching in the Triple-A rotation. Ian Anderson and José Suarez are not on the 40-man roster but both have major league experience and are pitching in the Triple-A rotation as well.

Photo courtesy of Bill Streicher, Imagn Images

Tigers Place Jackson Jobe On IL With Flexor Strain

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The Tigers announced that they have placed right-hander Jackson Jobe on the 15-day injured list due to a grade 1 flexor strain in his right elbow. Righty Dylan Smith was selected to take his place on the roster, a move that was previously reported. Righty Alex Cobb was transferred to the 60-day IL to open a 40-man spot for Smith.

The news on Jobe doesn’t completely come out of nowhere. After Wednesday’s game, Evan Petzold of the Detroit Free Press noted that Jobe’s velocity was down a bit. Jobe wasn’t in the clubhouse to talk to reporters after the game and the Tigers even closed the clubhouse while reporters were waiting to speak to him within an hour of the game ending, which Petzold noted was a violation of MLB club and media regulations. The club hasn’t provided a timeline for how much time they expect Jobe to miss, though it’s always at least somewhat concerning when a pitcher’s throwing elbow is injured.

Either way, this IL stint interrupts his first extended look in the big leagues. A former third overall pick and one of the top prospects in baseball, he hasn’t quite hit his stride in the majors yet. He made a brief debut late last year and earned a rotation job here in 2025. He has made ten starts this year with a 4.22 earned run average, 17.9% strikeout rate, 12.4% walk rate and 43.2% ground ball rate.

Those aren’t exactly dominant numbers but Jobe is still quite young. He won’t even celebrate his 23rd birthday until July. The fact that he’s in the majors at all at this age is a testament to his talent. There’s still lots of time for him to fully break out and the injury perhaps provides an explanation for why he hasn’t quite been firing on all cylinders yet.

For now, the Tigers will have to fill his rotation spot. Chris McCosky of Detroit News suggests that Sawyer Gipson-Long is a likely candidate to take over for Jobe. Gipson-Long underwent internal brace surgery in April of last year. He is now healthy enough to have made five rehab starts, getting to 5 1/3 innings in his most recent outing. Prior to going under the knife, he made four starts for the Tigers in 2023 with a 2.70 ERA. He is on the 60-day IL so the Tigers would need to open a 40-man spot if he is to be reinstated in the coming days.

As for Cobb, this move doesn’t impact his timeline. His 60-day count is retroactive to his initial placement on the 15-day IL. Since he’s already been on the shelf more than 60 days, he’s eligible to be reinstated at any time. Dan Hasty, broadcaster for the High-A West Michigan Whitecaps, relays that Cobb is expected to start a rehab assignment with that club tonight. Cobb will surely need a few weeks of ramp-up after missing so much time. He’s been out all year due to right hip inflammation.

Photo courtesy of Junfu Han, Imagn Images.

Blue Jays Place Anthony Santander On Injured List

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The Blue Jays announced that outfielder Anthony Santander has been placed on the 10-day injured list due to left shoulder inflammation. Fellow outfielder Alan Roden has been recalled as the corresponding move.

The Jays signed Santander to a five-year, $92.5MM deal this offseason. Heavy deferrals reportedly knock the net present value closer to $70MM but it was still the club’s biggest offseason splash as they looked to bounce back from a disappointing 2024 season.

They haven’t received much from that investment so far. Santander has six home runs and has drawn walks at an 11.5% clip but has a 26.3% strikeout rate and a .179/.273/.304 batting line. That amounts to a 67 wRC+, indicating he’s been 33% worse than the league average hitter at the plate.

Santander’s .218 batting average on balls in play is really low but he’s also hitting the ball with less authority than before. He barreled up 11.7% of pitches last year but that mark is down to 4.6% this year. His current 40.8% hard hit rate would be his lowest since 2020. It’s possible that he hasn’t been fully healthy for a while. He was out of the lineup on May 10th with manager John Schneider describing his shoulder as “a little cranky”, per Mitch Bannon of The Athletic. He also missed some time due to hip soreness this month.

Ideally, a bit of rest will get him healthy and back on track. Last year, he hit 44 homers for the Orioles while only striking out 19.4% of the time and drawing walks at an 8.7% clip. That led to a .235/.308/.506 line and 129 wRC+. The Jays were surely hoping to get something resembling that level of production but haven’t gotten it yet.

The club has George Springer and Daulton Varsho in two outfield spots, while Nathan Lukes, Jonatan Clase and Myles Straw are also in the mix. Roden now comes up and joins that group, who will be jockeying for playing time in one of the outfield corners as well as the designated hitter slot. Roden cracked the Opening Day roster and hit just .178/.262/.260 in his first 84 big league plate appearances. He was then optioned down to Buffalo, where he has been mashing, putting up a .361/.446/.583 line for the Bisons.

Photo courtesy of Gary A. Vasquez, Imagn Images

Tigers Claim Ryan Cusick

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The Tigers have claimed right-hander Ryan Cusick off waivers from the Athletics, according to announcements from both clubs. He has been optioned to Triple-A Toledo. The righty was designated for assignment by the A’s earlier this week. The Tigers had an open 40-man spot but are reportedly planning to select righty Dylan Smith, so they will now need to make a corresponding move for him, though Alex Cobb could easily be transferred to the 60-day injured list since he’s already been out of action longer than 60 days.

Cusick, 25, is a former first-round pick but his recent results haven’t lined up to that billing. Atlanta grabbed him with the 24th overall pick in 2021 and gave him a $2.7MM signing bonus. Just a few months later, he was flipped to the A’s as part of the Matt Olson deal in March of 2022.

The A’s kept him in a starting role at first but he missed time due to injury and struggled to successfully develop his changeup as a third pitch. Over 2022 and 2023, he tossed 143 innings, mostly at the Double-A level, with a 5.60 earned run average. He was still starting in the first half of 2024 but the A’s moved him to the bullpen midway through, with encouraging results. He posted a 1.73 ERA in his final 26 innings. His 11.8% walk rate was on the high side but he struck out 28.2% of batters faced.

The A’s gave him a 40-man spot in November to keep him out of the Rule 5 draft but his results have backed up here in 2025. He posted a 6.75 ERA through 14 2/3 innings at the Triple-A level. He was playing in the hitter-friendly Pacific Coast League but didn’t do himself any favors with a 16.4% strikeout rate and 19.4% walk rate, though he did get grounders on 57.5% of balls in play.

Cusick may still be a work in progress but he has a full slate of options and the Tigers had a 40-man roster spot. They can send him to Toledo to see if they can help him get back on track after a rough start to his season.

Photo courtesy of Rick Scuteri, Imagn Images

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