Athletics Select Scott McGough
With rosters expanding from 26 to 28 today, the Athletics made a number of moves. They activated right-hander Luis Severino from the 15-day injured list, recalled infielder/outfielder Max Schuemann and selected right-hander Scott McGough. Right-hander Eduarniel Núñez was optioned to Triple-A Las Vegas to open up an extra active roster spot. Left-hander Ben Bowden has been transferred to the 60-day injured list to open a 40-man spot for McGough.
McGough, 35, signed a minor league deal with the A’s in June after being cut loose by the Diamondbacks. Since signing that pact, he has tossed 24 Triple-A innings with a 3.38 earned run average. His 18.4% strikeout rate in that time wasn’t great but his 7.8% walk rate and 48.6% ground ball rate were solid figures.
After a solid run in Japan from 2019 to 2022, McGough returned to North America by signing with the Diamondbacks for 2023. He gave Arizona 70 1/3 innings with a 4.73 ERA, 28.6% strikeout rate, 10% walk rate and 48.6% ground ball rate that year. His results have backed up since then, however. Between last year and this year, he tossed 39 2/3 innings with a 7.26 ERA, 16.2% strikeout rate, 14.6% walk rate and 38.9% ground ball rate. He has seemingly righted the ship somewhat lately, so the A’s will bring him back to the majors.
As for Bowden, he was placed on the 15-day IL just over a week ago due to a lat strain. His current health status is unclear but this move indicates the A’s don’t expect him back this season. He’ll stay on the 60-day IL for the remainder of the campaign. There’s no IL in the offseason, so he’ll need to be reinstated or removed from the 40-man within five days of the conclusion of the World Series.
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Blue Jays Select Dillon Tate
As active rosters expand from 26 to 28 today, the Blue Jays are selecting right-hander Dillon Tate. The other spot will be taken by infielder Isiah Kiner-Falefa, who was claimed off waivers from the Pirates yesterday. To add Tate to the 40-man, the Blue Jays transferred righty Nick Sandlin to the 60-day injured list. Mitch Bannon of The Athletic was among those to relay the moves.
Tate, 31, signed a split deal with the Jays earlier this year. That pact pays him at a $1.4MM rate in the big leagues and a $500K pace while in the minors. He spent the early parts of the year getting shuffled between the majors and Triple-A Buffalo. In May, he was outrighted off the 40-man. Since he has at least three years of service time, he could have elected free agency. But since he was shy of five years of service, he would have had to forfeit his remaining salary commitments in exercising that right.
He understandably accepted and has been put back on the roster today. He has thrown 35 Triple-A innings with a 2.06 earned run average this year. His 12.7% walk rate is on the high side but his 22.7% strikeout rate is decent and his 47.9% ground ball rate is strong. He has seemingly benefitted from an 85.8% strand rate, which is why his 3.74 FIP is far higher than his ERA, but that’s still a decent number.
The Jays also have Braydon Fisher, Mason Fluharty, Paxton Schultz and Justin Bruihl on the 40-man but weren’t able to recall any of them since they were all optioned recently. An optional assignment for a pitcher comes with a 15-day minimum, unless someone is going on the injured list. Fisher was the one optioned longest ago, back on August 21st, so he’ll be eligible to be recalled later this week.
Tate is still optionable but is 11 days away from the five-year service marker, at which point he could not be optioned without his consent. Fisher pitched pretty well for the Jays earlier this year but was squeezed down to the minors when Shane Bieber was activated from the injured list. Perhaps Fisher will be recalled once eligible and Tate sent back to serve as a depth role in Buffalo. For now, he’ll give Toronto a fresh arm for a bullpen which saw heavy usage over the weekend.
As for Sandlin, he landed on the 15-day IL due to right elbow inflammation on July 8th. This transfer is retroactive to that date, so he’ll be eligible for reinstatement in the next few days, though he won’t be healthy by then. Per Hazel Mae of Sportsnet, he just had another injection in his elbow as he tries to get back on the mound. Whenever he’s healthy, he’ll presumably need a few weeks to ramp back up to full strength.
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Guardians Select George Valera
Active rosters expand from 26 to 28 today. Zack Meisel of The Athletic reports that the Guardians are calling up outfielders George Valera and Jhonkensy Noel as well as right-hander Zak Kent. Infielder Will Wilson is being optioned to open a third active roster spot. Valera wasn’t on the 40-man but the Guardians had vacancies there.
Valera, now 24, was once one of the top prospects in baseball. He crushed his way through the lower levels of the minors. He was eligible for the Rule 5 draft back in the 2021-22 offseason but the Guards made the easy decision to give him a 40-man spot and protect him.
More recently, some injuries and Triple-A struggles dropped his stock. Hamate surgery and a hamstring strain limited him to just 79 games in 2023. Another hamstring strain limited him at the start of 2024 and then that season was later ended by surgery to address a ruptured patellar tendon in his right knee. As the recovery for that procedure was going to carry into 2025, the Guards decided to non-tender Valera. That opened a 40-man roster spot for the offseason, when there’s no injured list, but ran the risk of Valera signing elsewhere.
Thankfully, the Guards were able to get him back via a minor league deal for 2025 and he has seemingly gotten back on track at the plate somewhat. Over those injury-shortened 2023 and 2024 campaigns, he slashed .235/.343/.427 in the minors for a wRC+ of 99. Here in 2025, he has been able to appear in 28 Triple-A contests with a .255/.346/.457 line and 113 wRC+.
Though he spent two years on Cleveland’s 40-man, this is his first time getting called up to the show. He is in today’s lineup, batting seventh and serving as the designated hitter, and will make his major league debut in the process.
The Guards are hanging around the playoff race, currently just four games back of the final Wild Card spot, and will add Valera into the outfield mix alongside Noel, Steven Kwan, Daniel Schneemann, C.J. Kayfus, Nolan Jones and Ángel Martínez.
Going forward, Valera could spend more time in Triple-A next year if the Guards don’t have big league playing time for him. Given how much time he has missed due to injury, he would ideally get regular playing time somewhere. He spent three years on the 40-man and therefore burned three options but the Guards could apply for a fourth for 2026. A team is sometimes granted a fourth option for a player who has missed significant time due to injury.
Photo courtesy of Adam Cairns, Imagn Images.
Red Sox Acquire Ali Sánchez
With active rosters expanding from 26 to 28 today, the Red Sox are calling up right-hander Zack Kelly and catcher Ali Sánchez, per Tim Healey of The Boston Globe. The latter had signed a minor league deal with the Mets just over a week ago but the Red Sox traded for him last night, per Healey. The Mets received cash in the deal, per Christopher Smith of MassLive. The Sox opened a 40-man spot for Sánchez by moving infielder Marcelo Mayer to the 60-day injured list, per Jen McCaffrey of The Athletic.
At first blush, it might be a bit confusing that the Sox and Mets swung a trade after the deadline. However, as MLBTR explained last month, certain trades are still allowed. A player on a minor league contract which has not been selected to the majors can be traded. That’s true even if the player was in the majors earlier in the season via a different contract. Last year, for instance, Cavan Biggio played for the Dodgers. After being designated for assignment and released, he signed a minor league deal with the Giants. After the deadline, he was traded from the Giants to Atlanta.
The situation is basically the same with Sánchez, who has played for the Blue Jays and Red Sox in 2025. The Sox designated him for assignment a couple of weeks back. He cleared outright waivers, elected free agency and signed with the Mets. Since this Mets deal hadn’t been selected to the majors, he was eligible to be traded back to Boston. By being acquired last night, prior to September, he’s eligible to be on Boston’s postseason roster.
Sánchez will give the Sox a three-catcher setup for the final month of the season, joining Carlos Narváez and Connor Wong. Sánchez still has a fairly limited major league track record. He has appeared in four big league seasons but with just 47 total games played. In those contests, he has a .185/.222/.235 slash line.
However, he’s generally regarded as a strong fielder and his offensive numbers have been better in a larger sample of minor league playing time. From 2022 to the present, he has stepped to the plate 943 times at the Triple-A level with a .272/.348/.418 line. That translates to a 96 wRC+, which is 4% below league average but decent for a catcher, especially a backup catcher.
Wong is slashing just .189/.253/.231 on the season, so perhaps there’s a scenario where Sánchez plays himself into the #2 slot behind Narváez and cracks the postseason roster. For now, he’ll give the club a bit more cover for a potential injury while also giving the skipper a bit more freedom for in-game roster moves. Sánchez is out of options but has just over a year of service time and can therefore be retained beyond this season if he’s holding a roster spot at season’s end.
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Red Sox Release Walker Buehler
The Red Sox announced that they have released right-hander Walker Buehler. That the corresponding move for the Sox to select prospect Payton Tolle, a move which was reported yesterday. The Sox also optioned outfielder Jhostynxon García and recalled infielder Nick Sogard. Chris Cotillo of MassLive reported Buehler’s release prior to the official announcement.
The Sox signed Buehler to a one-year, $21.05MM deal in the offseason. That was a bet on a bounceback. Buehler had been an ace earlier in his career with the Dodgers. He finished 9th in National League Cy Young voting in 2019 and then fourth in 2021. However, he required Tommy John surgery in 2022, the second of his career. He was back on the mound in 2024 but wasn’t as sharp, posting a 5.38 earned run average.
He didn’t have a ton of momentum going into free agency but helped his cause somewhat with a decent playoff performance. He tossed 15 innings in the postseason last year with a 3.60 ERA, including getting the final outs in Game Five against the Yankees.
The Sox pushed in some chips with the hope of Buehler being better in 2025 but it didn’t pay off. He made 22 starts for the Sox with a 5.40 ERA, almost an exact match for his regular season work last year. He only struck out 16.5% of batters faced while giving out walks at a 10.8% clip. He averaged 94 miles per hour on his fastball, one tick below last year and a few ticks below his prime, when he was in the 96-97 mph range.
Clearly, the Sox ran out of patience. He was bumped to the bullpen a week ago. He made one long relief appearance on Sunday. They could have kept him around as a long reliever but rosters expand in September, giving every club an extra arm and a bit less need for someone to be on mop-up duty.
By cutting Buehler loose now, they are giving him a chance to land somewhere else. He will be postseason eligible with a new club as long as he joins that new organization prior to September 1st. Given his performance and the roughly $3.4MM left on his contract, it feels unlikely that anyone would claim him off release waivers. The waiver process takes 48 hours. It’s unclear when exactly the Sox started that process. If they did it after last night’s game, perhaps Buehler could be a free agent by Saturday night. That would give him about 24 hours to sign somewhere else. If they are just putting him on the wire now, then the timeline is tighter, though it’s likely that his agent will be fielding calls from interested clubs while the waiver process plays out.
Assuming he does clear waivers, the Sox will remain on the hook for what remains of that salary. Another club could sign him and would only have to pay him the prorated portion of the major league minimum salary, with that amount subtracted from what the Sox pay. For a contending club need to patch a rotation hole, they might be tempted to take a free look at Buehler and hope to strike gold.
For the Sox, they are going into the stretch in decent position. They have a record of 75-60. They are just 3.5 games back of the Blue Jays in the American League East. They have the top Wild Card spot and are 5.5 games ahead of the Royals, the top non-playoff team in the A.L. With still a lot of meaningful games left, they have decided Buehler isn’t one of their horses. They head into the final few weeks of the season with Garrett Crochet as their clear ace, backed up by Lucas Giolito, Brayan Bello and Dustin May. They are giving Tolle a shot at taking a spot and also have Kyle Harrison in Triple-A, if needed.
Photos courtesy of Brian Fluharty, Gregory Fisher, Imagn Images
Drew Millas Undergoes Finger Surgery
August 29: Millas underwent season-ending surgery on his left index finger, interim manager Miguel Cairo tells reporters (including Bobby Blanco of MASNsports.com). He’s expected to be ready for Spring Training.
August 27: The Nationals announced today that catcher Drew Millas has been diagnosed with a fracture and dislocation of his left second finger. He had been removed from today’s game after Austin Wells made contact with his hand on a swing.
At this point, it’s unclear how much time Millas is expected to miss, but a stint on the injured list feels assured. That will inevitably lead to a roster move of some kind. Millas and Riley Adams are the only two healthy catchers on the 40-man roster right now.
Keibert Ruiz is currently on the concussion IL. His last game was July 5th and he still hasn’t begun a rehab assignment. Just over a week ago, Mark Zuckerman of MASNsports.com provided an update on Ruiz. He had begun doing some first base drills, not for a positional switch, but just to get him on the field and tracking baseballs without putting him at any real risk of exacerbating his situation.
The Ruiz injury opened up playing time for Millas and he had been making the most of it. He has a .313/.365/.458 slash line in 54 plate appearances this year. He likely wasn’t going to hit at that level forever but it’s nonetheless frustrating for him to have this injury get in the way of his progress.
The Nats are off on Thursday but will need to provide Adams with a backup by Friday. Their non-roster options aren’t terribly inspiring. Francisco Mejia in in Triple-A and has major league experience but he’s hitting .178/.222/.287 this year. CJ Stubbs and Brady Lindsly are also non-roster options but they have no major league experience and are also having poor seasons. Stubbs has a .148/.279/.240 line this year and Lindsly’s is .137/.267/.216.
Perhaps the Nats could look to find a catcher outside the organization. The trade deadline has passed but deals can still happen under certain conditions, such as for players on minor league deals that have not been selected to the majors this year. The Nationals could therefore try to trade for someone like Jakson Reetz of the Orioles, Payton Henry of the Phillies or Brian Serven of the Tigers.
It’s also possible that some catchers end up on waivers this week. Late August is a popular time for waiver activity. That’s due to the fact that a player claimed in September is not postseason eligible with his new club. For clubs falling out of contention who would like to save some money, this time of the year is the best to put a guy on the wire and hope another club grabs his contract. Though for the Nats, they may not want to spend thousands of dollars for a Band-Aid in a lost season.
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Diamondbacks Recall Jordan Lawlar
The Diamondbacks announced that they have recalled infielder Jordan Lawlar and left-hander Brandyn Garcia. First baseman Pavin Smith has been placed on the 10-day injured list, retroactive to August 28th, due to a strained left squad. Right-hander Taylor Rashi has been optioned to Triple-A Reno in the other corresponding move.
Lawlar, now 23, has been one of the top prospects in baseball for a while now. He forced his way up to the majors late in 2023, just after his 21st birthday. However, he didn’t immediately hit the ground running, producing a .129/.206/.129 line in is first 34 plate appearances. The Snakes were in contention then and weren’t in a position to just throw him out there as an experiment.
Going into 2024, the Diamondbacks weren’t quite ready to just hand him a big league job, given his youth and those numbers. They already had Geraldo Perdomo and Ketel Marte at the middle infield spots. They could have tried Lawlar at third base but instead acquired Eugenio Suárez from the Mariners. At the time, he had one guaranteed year remaining on his contract.
Lawlar could have forced his way into taking the job from Suárez, especially when Geno struggled badly early in 2024. However, Lawlar required thumb surgery in March and was out of action for several months. Then a hamstring injury cost him more time. He would only play 23 minor league games that year. Meanwhile, Suárez had such a strong surge in the second half that the Snakes picked up his $15MM option for 2025.
That left Lawlar fairly blocked for big league playing time this year. He did his best to unblock things, as he slashed .336/.413/.579 in Triple-A through mid-May and basically forced the Snakes to call him up. They believed that they could spread the playing time around but it didn’t really work out. He was recalled on May 12th but optioned back down on May 29th. In that stretch of barely over two weeks, he got into eight games and received 22 plate appearances. He didn’t take to the sporadic playing time, not recording a hit in that span.
The Diamondbacks fell out of contention and sold at the deadline, which included sending Suárez back to the Mariners. Ideally, Lawlar would have come up to take over at the hot corner but he had suffered a hamstring strain in late June. He got back on the field a couple of weeks back. After ten Triple-A games to get back in shape, he’s now coming up.
The Snakes can now use the final month of the season to finally give Lawlar some regular big league playing time and see how he handles it. His performance could then impact their offseason moves. He will still have one option season after this one, so they don’t have to give him the job in 2026. However, he doesn’t have much left to prove in the minors, so it’s probably time to let him sink or swim in the show.
That’s perhaps especially true given the club’s other priorities. Arizona traded away impending free agent Merrill Kelly at the deadline. Zac Gallen is still on the club for now but is an impending free agent himself. Corbin Burnes is had Tommy John surgery and will miss at least part of 2026. The bullpen lost Justin Martínez and A.J. Puk to UCL surgeries. The front office will definitely be looking for pitching this winter. Outfield upgrades might also be on the menu, given the struggles of Alek Thomas and Jake McCarthy.
With all of that going on, the front office might lean towards going into 2026 with Lawlar and Blaze Alexander competing for the third base job, as opposed to spending money or prospect capital to bring in someone else.
Photo courtesy of Mark J. Rebilas, Imagn Images
Padres Place Xander Bogaerts On IL With Foot Fracture
The Padres announced that shortstop Xander Bogaerts has been placed on the 10-day injured list due to a non-displaced fracture in his left foot. Shortstop Mason McCoy has been recalled in a corresponding move. Per Kevin Acee of the San Diego Union-Tribune, the Padres think Bogaerts has a chance to be back for the postseason, which implies he will miss the remainder of the regular season.
The Friars haven’t yet announced how Bogaerts injured himself but it seems likely it happened on Wednesday. As seen in this clip from MLB.com, Bogaerts fouled a ball of himself in the eighth inning and collapsed in pain. He managed to stay in that game and then the Friars were off yesterday, but it seems they did some recent testing that found the fracture.
Bogaerts isn’t quite the same hitter he was at this peak but is still a solid everyday player. His .262/.330/.387 batting line this year translates to a 103 wRC+, just 3% above league average, but he has 20 stolen bases and seven Outs Above Average at shortstop. Despite the tepid offense, FanGraphs has credited him with three wins above replacement this year.
The options to cover shortstop in his absence are far less inspiring. Veteran Jose Iglesias will probably get the bulk of the playing time there now. He’s a solid defender but is hitting just .228/.303/.276 this year. McCoy is also considered strong with the glove but has a .182/.250/.218 line in 63 big league plate appearances. His Triple-A work is better but still not great. His .265/.341/.413 line since the start of 2024 translates to a wRC+ of 80 in the hitter-friendly Pacific Coast League.
That’s a notable drop-off for a club still playing meaningful baseball. The Padres are trying to chase down the Dodgers in the National League West, currently just two games back. They are holding onto the second Wild Card spot, seven games clear of the Reds, the top team not in playoff position. Their odds of making the postseason are still good but no club wants to lose its starting shortstop going into the stretch run. It also sounds like it’s not a guarantee that Bogaerts is back by October.
With the trade deadline having passed a month ago, the Padres have fewer options for finding external solutions. It’s possible they find an upgrade they like on waivers. For instance, the Pirates have reportedly put infielder Isiah Kiner-Falefa on the wire. The Padres could grab him and he would be postseason eligible if claimed prior to September 1st, though doing so would mean taking on the roughly $1.21MM still remaining on his contract. That’s not a huge amount in the larger context of MLB payrolls but the Friars have been dealing with a tight budget for years now.
It’s possible that other players have been put on waivers without reporting reaching the public, though teams are usually making such players available as a way to try to save money, so those other guys might have similar salary obligations to Kiner-Falefa.
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Orioles Outright Vimael Machín
The Orioles announced that infielder Vimael Machín, who had been designated for assignment earlier in the week, has cleared waivers and been outrighted to Triple-A Norfolk. He had the right to elect free agency since he has a previous career outright but has accepted the assignment.
Machín, 31, signed a minor league deal with the O’s in the offseason. He was selected to the roster a week ago when Jordan Westburg landed on the injured list. He hit a home run in his first game but didn’t do much apart from that. That homer was his only hit in 12 plate appearances, with one walk as well, leading to a .091/.167/.364 slash line.
He also got some criticism from fans for a play against the Red Sox on Sunday, seen in this video from MLB.com, where he either forgot how many outs there were or simply didn’t act aggressively enough to turn a double play. Playing third base, he fielded a sharp grounder, lightly jogged to tag the bag for a force out but then threw too late to record the out at first. Instead of the inning being over, a wild pitch and double followed to knock in two more runs.
He was designated for assignment the next day. The 29 other clubs passed on the chance to grab him off waivers. By accepting the assignment, he’ll continue to provide the O’s with non-roster depth. He has a .204/.286/.264 line in 373 big league plate appearances but a .289/.367/.449 line in 1,341 Triple-A plate appearances since the canceled 2020 season. He has minor league experience at every position on the diamond, though just one inning at catcher, two on the mound and just one in center field.
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Yimi García To Undergo Season-Ending Elbow Surgery
The Blue Jays announced to reporters, including Mitch Bannon of The Athletic, that Yimi García will undergo surgery to clean up scar tissue in his throwing elbow. He won’t return this year but is expected to be ready for next year’s spring training. He’ll be transferred to the 60-day injured list whenever the Jays need a roster spot.
It’s the second straight season marred by elbow issues for García. He hit the IL in June of last year for right elbow ulnar neuritis. He was reinstated from the IL in July, just in time for the Jays to trade him to the Mariners for outfielder Jonatan Clase and catcher Jacob Sharp. A few weeks after that trade, right elbow inflammation put García back on the shelf and he finished the season there.
He hit free agency and the Jays brought him back via a two-year, $15MM deal. A shoulder impingement put him on the IL in May. He was reinstated in early July but went back on the IL a few days later due to a left ankle sprain. While on the IL, his experienced a recurrence of ulnar nerve symptoms in his elbow. This surgery now wipes out any hope of him returning to the club.
Despite the injury problems, the results have still been decent, to varying degrees. Last year, he tossed 39 innings with a 3.46 earned run average, 32% strikeout rate and 7.8% walk rate. This year, in 21 innings, his strikeout and walk rates regressed to 27.8% and 13.3% respectively. However, he also increased his ground ball rate from 27.3% to 41.2%, leading to a 3.86 ERA.
The Jays presumably knew they weren’t likely to get García back for the stretch run. Ahead of the deadline, they added Seranthony Domínguez and Louis Varland to bolster their bullpen for the stretch run.
Domínguez is an impending free agent, so that opens up a spot in next year’s bullpen. If García can return to health as hoped, he could slot into that opening, though Ryan Burr and Nick Sandlin are also on the IL and could be back in the mix next year.
The Jays also provided an update on outfielder Anthony Santander, per Ben Nicholson-Smith of Sportsnet. Santander is progressing well enough that he could begin a rehab assignment next weekend with a chance to return later in September.
Toronto fans haven’t yet had a chance to see Santander at his best. Signed to a five-year deal in the offseason, he slumped to start the season and then tried to play through a left shoulder subluxation. He was eventually placed on the IL in late May with a .179/.273/.304 line on the year. But just last year, Santander launched 44 homers for the Orioles, which is why the Jays signed him. If they can get him healthy and clicking again, the switch hitter could be a difference maker down the stretch.
The Jays have largely been using George Springer as their designated hitter but he has also been playing the outfield on occasion. If Santander is able to come back, those two would presumably take turns as the DH. That could lead to less playing time for corner outfield guys like Nathan Lukes, Addison Barger and Davis Schneider but Lukes can also play center while Barger can also play third and Schneider second. The distribution of playing time will likely depend on who is healthy and playing well a few weeks from now.
Infielder Ernie Clement recently got spiked on a slide, which led to a hairline fracture of his left middle finger and some stitches in his leg, per Nicholson-Smith. He hasn’t yet gone on the IL and could be fully healed up by the time Santander is back but those minor scrapes are the things that could impact lineup decisions down the road. Santander is on the 60-day IL and will need a 40-man spot when he’s activated. He could take García’s spot if the Jays don’t use it on someone else in the coming weeks.
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