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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.

Royals Outright Luke Maile

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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

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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

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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

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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

White Sox Option Andrew Vaughn, Tim Elko

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The White Sox announced today that outfielders Andrew Benintendi and Mike Tauchman have been reinstated from the injured list. In corresponding moves, first basemen Andrew Vaughn and Tim Elko have been optioned to Triple-A Charlotte.

Looking at recent developments, Vaughn being optioned to the minors isn’t a shock. His bat has hovered around league average for most of his career but he’s been far worse here in 2025. He’s currently sporting a .189/.218/.314 line on the year. He has five home runs but the batting average is obviously rough. A tiny 3.6% walk rate means his on-base percentage is also quite low. His 44 wRC+ indicates he’s been 56% below league average at the plate this year.

Zooming out for a wider view, it’s been a pretty surprising trajectory. Vaughn was a slugger in college, hitting 50 home runs in 160 games for California, leading to a .374/.495/.688 batting line. The Sox took Vaughn third overall in the 2019 draft and signed him with a $7.2212MM bonus. The hope was that he was a potential middle-of-the-order bat who could be a key staple of the lineup for years to come.

It hasn’t played out as hoped. Vaughn cracked the Opening Day roster in 2021 but, as mentioned, his results have been fairly middling so far. He has shown a bit of pop but nothing special, finishing each previous season of his career between 15 and 21 long balls. The batting averages haven’t been great and he hasn’t drawn many walks. From 2021 to 2024, he took 2,258 plate appearances for the Sox with 72 home runs. His 20.3% strikeout rate was good but his 6.5% walk rate was subpar. His combined .253/.310/.415 batting line led to a 102 wRC+, indicating he was 2% better than league average in that time.

That’s not disastrous production but the Sox were surely hoping for more, especially because he doesn’t provide value in any other way. He’s not a burner on the basepaths, with just three career stolen bases. His defense isn’t great anywhere on the field. Earlier in his career, the Sox got him some outfield time while they had José Abreu at first. The results were disastrous, with Vaughn getting terrible grades from advanced defensive metrics. He has since settled in as the regular at first but both Outs Above Average and Defensive Runs Saved consider him to be subpar there as well.

Coming into 2025, it wasn’t even a guarantee the Sox would tender him a contract. In the end, they did, and avoided arbitration by agreeing to a $5.85MM salary for this year. For a club that lost 121 games last year, the hope was presumably that Vaughn would finally have a big breakout at the plate and turn himself into a viable summer trade candidate, but that has not happened.

For now, Vaughn will head down to Charlotte to see if there’s some way to get himself back on track, but it seems his rope with the White Sox is running out. As mentioned, he was a non-tender candidate at the end of last year. He can be retained for next year via arbitration but it’s hard to see that happening with this year’s swoon. If he’s down in the minors for a few weeks, they would gain an extra year of club control, but that’s not likely to matter if he’s a non-tender candidate anyway. If he shows any promise at all in the coming months, the Sox will surely try to flip him prior to the July 31st deadline.

Elko getting optioned isn’t a shock in a vacuum. He was only promoted two weeks ago and has a .161/.188/.452 line in his first 32 big league plate appearances. But he had been taking some of the first base playing time recently and would have been a candidate to replace Vaughn there. With both Vaughn and Elko getting optioned, the Sox are subtracting their two primary first basemen.

General manager Chris Getz says that Miguel Vargas and Lenyn Sosa will be mixing in at that position, per James Fegan of Sox Machine. Sosa is a utility player with a subpar bat. Vargas is a former top prospect who may be having a breakout at the plate. He struggled in his initial big league call-ups with the Dodgers and this year’s batting line was .139/.236/.203 as of April 21st. Since then, however, he has a .315/.379/.565 line and 166 wRC+. That’s still a small sample of 103 plate appearances but his previous prospect status perhaps gives it some credibility.

He has been the club’s regular third baseman with passable defense there. DRS considers him to be a roughly league average defender at that spot, though OAA has him at -5 in his career and -3 this year. Perhaps the Sox feel it’s better if he moves to the less-demanding first base position. Josh Rojas is playing third base for now but he’s not hitting well this year and will likely be traded if he turns his season around. Perhaps Vargas will move back to third if Vaughn earns his way back to the majors.

Photo courtesy of Jay Biggerstaff, Imagn Images

Rockies Designate Scott Alexander For Assignment

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The Rockies announced that right-hander Tanner Gordon has been recalled to start tonight’s game, a move necessitated by Chase Dollander landing on the injured list yesterday. In a corresponding move for Gordon, left-hander Scott Alexander has been designated for assignment. The club’s 40-man count drops from 39 to 38.

Alexander, 35, was signed by the Rockies in the offseason. Colorado gave him $2MM on a one-year deal to serve as a veteran arm in a bullpen that was generally lacking in experience. That hasn’t worked out. His 53.4% ground ball rate this year is above league average but below his usual pace. He’s never been a huge strikeout rate guy but his 8.3% clip is low even by his personal standards. That has led to a 6.06 earned run average in 16 1/3 innings.

That performance has bumped him off the roster. Given his numbers and his salary, no club is likely to claim him off waivers. As a veteran, he has more than enough service time to reject an outright assignment while keeping his salary in place. He will likely be on the open market soon, either by being released by the Rockies or by electing free agency.

If that comes to pass, the Rockies would be on the hook for what’s left of his salary. Any other club could sign him at that point and would only have to pay him the prorated league minimum for any time spent on the roster. That amount would be subtracted from what the Rockies pay.

It’s possible some clubs would be interested in that arrangement, despite this year’s numbers. From 2015 through 2024, Alexander tossed 309 1/3 big league innings with a 3.20 ERA. His 18% strikeout rate was a few ticks shy of par but he got grounders at a massive 67.4% rate. Among pitchers with at least 300 innings pitched in that decade, only Zack Britton kept the ball on the ground at a higher clip.

The numbers in 2025 haven’t been great but it wouldn’t be a surprise if some team thought Alexander could bounce back, especially by getting away from Coors Field. He has a 7.20 ERA at home this year compared to a 4.26 ERA on the road. His 48.7% grounder rate at Coors is far lighter than his 63.2% rate in away games this season.

Photo courtesy of Jayne Kamin, Oncea-Imagn Images

Athletics To Promote Logan Davidson

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The Athletics are promoting infielder/outfielder Logan Davidson to the majors, reports Martín Gallegos of MLB.com. He’s not yet on the 40-man roster, so the club will need to open a spot for him. Moving Zack Gelof to the 60-day injured list would be one one way of doing that but it also seems like the A’s are planning to make a series of moves today.

Last night, Jeff Passan of ESPN reported that the A’s would be shaking up their roster on the heels of a nine-game losing streak, with outfielder Denzel Clarke to be promoted. Manager Mark Kotsay also relayed that infielder Gio Urshela would be heading to the 10-day injured list with a left hamstring strain. The full slate of moves hasn’t yet been announced but it seems that Davidson will also be a part of them.

Now 27, Davidson was the Athletics’ first-round pick back in 2019. The A’s grabbed him 29th overall and signed him to a slot-value bonus of more than $2.4MM. He quickly became one of the club’s top prospects but his stock then faded.

Even as a college player, his obvious power came with concerns about the swing-and-miss in his game. Those fears have been borne out in his time as a minor leaguer. After the minor leagues were canceled in 2020, Davidson took 1,437 plate appearances in the minors across the 2021 to 2023 seasons with a 27.6% strikeout rate. His 11% walk rate was good but he had a fairly modest tally of 31 home runs. The result was a combined line of .246/.332/.379 and an 85 wRC+ over those three campaigns. He largely fell off lists of the top prospects in the system in that time.

Since then, he has regained some promise, to a degree. He overcame some hip injuries that were plaguing him and was healthy enough to get into 87 Triple-A games last year, plus 41 more this year. The strikeouts are still a big flag but there have been some positives as well. In 347 plate appearances last year, he struck out at a 31.1% clip but launched 14 homers. So far this year, in 186 Triple-A plate appearances, he has just two homers and a 31.2% strikeout rate. However, his 20.4% walk rate is a massive spike from last year’s 7.8% clip at Triple-A.

Dating back to the start of 2024, he has 543 plate appearances, mostly at the Triple-A level but with a handful in the Complex League as well. In that span, he has a 30.8% strikeout rate, 12.5% walk rate, 17 home runs, .303/.400/.506 line and 120 wRC+.

Being a productive hitter while striking out that often will be hard to maintain in the majors, but Davidson can at least be useful in other ways. He stole seven bags last year and has added seven more swipes already this year. Defensively, he has been bouncing all around the diamond, having played every position except the battery.

At the time they selected Davidson with a first-round pick, the A’s were probably hoping to get more than a utility guy. But considering where his stock was a couple of years ago, that might not be a terrible outcome. Time will tell how the A’s plan to deploy him. As mentioned, Urshela is going to the IL. He had been in a bench role, with Miguel Andujar taking over at third and Luis Urías at second lately. Perhaps Davidson will therefore slot into a multi-positional bench role, with his switch-hitting ability enhancing his versatility.

Photo courtesy of Rick Scuteri, Imagn Images

White Sox Outright Yoendrys Gómez

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The White Sox announced to reporters, including Scott Merkin of MLB.com, that right-hander Yoendrys Gómez has cleared waivers and been outrighted to Triple-A Charlotte. He had been designated for assignment earlier this week.

While no player wants to be booted out of the major leagues, it’s possible that this is the best result for Gómez in the short term. He came into 2025 out of options, which has led to him bouncing around the league in a long relief role. He started the year with the Yankees but was designated for assignment about three weeks into the season. He was claimed off waivers by the Dodgers but lasted a little over a week with that club. The Sox then claimed him on May 10th and he was DFA’d on the 20th.

Around those transactions, he logged 17 2/3 innings over 12 long relief outings, posting a 6.62 earned run average in the process. But now that he has cleared waivers, perhaps the Sox will let him get stretched back out as a starter in Charlotte.

That’s a role in which he has shown some promise in the past. Though he made his professional debut in 2017, the canceled 2020 season and a Tommy John surgery in 2021 kept him from climbing too high on the minor league ladder. He went into 2022 without having pitched any higher than Single-A.

Over the 2022 through 2024 seasons, he went through High-A, Double-A, Triple-A and the majors. He logged 195 2/3 innings on the farm over those three seasons with a 3.36 ERA. His 11.6% walk rate in that time was certainly high but he also punched out 27.2% of batters faced. Baseball America considered him one of the top 30 Yankee prospects in each season from 2019 to 2024.

But as mentioned, his out-of-options status has had him in a sort of holding pattern for this year. He hasn’t shown enough for a proper big league rotation job, with a 5.23 ERA in 31 big league innings over three seasons. He has been bouncing around to various clubs in a mop-up role.

While losing his roster spot probably isn’t fun, it might at least be a chance to get back into a groove as a starter. The White Sox have a fairly inexperienced rotation, so there could be opportunities available later in the year. Adrian Houser was just signed but he’s on a one-year deal and should be traded this summer if he’s throwing well. Davis Martin, Jonathan Cannon, Sean Burke and Shane Smith all came into this season with less than a year of service time. Injuries are also fairly inevitable, with the Sox having already lost Drew Thorpe and Ky Bush to Tommy John surgery this year.

Photo courtesy of Jonathan Hui, Imagn Images

Astros Sign Greg Jones To Minor League Deal

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The Astros announced that they have signed infielder/outfielder Greg Jones to a minor league contract. Per his MLB.com transactions tracker, he’s been assigned to the Florida Complex League club for now, but should report to Triple-A Sugar Land at some point in the near future.

Jones, 27, was released by the White Sox a couple of weeks ago. That opened a 40-man roster spot for the Sox to claim Yoendrys Gomez, who has since been designated for assignment. At the time of the claim, Jones was on the minor league injured list with an unknown ailment. Injured players can’t be placed on outright waivers, which essentially forced the Sox to release him since they wanted to open that roster spot.

That has freed up Jones to sign this deal with the Astros. His current health status is unclear but he will provide the Astros with a nice set of wheels whenever he’s ready to go. In 375 minor league league games, he has stolen 167 bases in 192 tries, an 87% success rate. Defensively, he has played the two middle infield spots and all three outfield positions.

The offense has been less impressive, however. From the start of 2023 to the present, he has 769 plate appearances on the farm, mostly at the Triple-A level. He has 28 home runs in that time but has also been struck out in 37.3% of those trips to the plate. The result is a .247/.326/.428 line and an 84 wRC+ for that span. He has been sent to the plate just eight times at the major league level with a .143/.250/.571 line in those.

For the Astros, there’s no risk on a minor league deal. Jones is a former first-round pick, with the Rays having selected him 22nd overall in 2019. At the very least, he seems capable of being a useful bench player who serves as a pinch runner and defensive replacement. Any progress with the bat would be a nice bonus.

Photo courtesy of Isaiah J. Downing, Imagn Images

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