Chris Taylor Diagnosed With Fractured Forearm
10:09pm: Taylor said he suffered a non-displaced fracture just above the wrist, which typically comes with a four- to-six week recovery (Twitter link via Bill Plunkett of the Orange County Register).
5:50pm: Dodgers utilityman Chris Taylor has been diagnosed with a fractured forearm, per a club announcement (via Jorge Castillo of the Los Angeles Times, on Twitter). He’ll be replaced on the active roster by Matt Beaty.
It isn’t known at present what kind of an absence the club can anticipate from Taylor, a shape-shifting defender and steady offensive producer. Initial imaging did not uncover the break; whether that’s good, bad, or indifferent isn’t evident.
With the trade deadline landing in two weeks’ time, the Dodgers will have an opportunity to pursue reinforcements. Corey Seager and A.J. Pollock are both back, reducing the pressure. The organization is as laden with depth as ever, with top middle-infield prospect Gavin Lux among the players waiting in the wings in the upper minors.
The Dodgers won’t worry too much about a stretch sans Taylor. With a commanding division lead, the club can focus its deadline efforts on shaping its roster for the postseason. Unless the injury is quite a bit more severe than it seems at first glance, Taylor ought to have time to get back to health and up to full speed before October.
Giants Place Evan Longoria On 10-Day IL
Giants third baseman Evan Longoria has been forced to the 10-day injured list with plantar fasciitis, manager Bruce Bochy told reporters including Kerry Crowley of the Bay Area News Group (Twitter link). His timeline to return is not yet known.
It’s unfortunate to see Longoria go down at this particular time. He has been on a tear in the month of July, launching six long balls in just thirty plate appearances. That has coincided with a nice little run for the San Francisco club itself.
So, time to change the trade deadline plans? Likely not. The front office is no doubt focused on maximizing value from the team’s trade chips. As tantalizing as the Wild Card may seem, it’d be awfully tough to forego a chance at securing a nice haul of young talent in hopes of somehow sneaking past quite a few other teams — most, more talented on paper — to earn a slot in the one-game play-in contest.
Longoria is not a likely trade candidate himself regardless of the team’s situation. His recent hot streak has only boosted his season slash to .241/.318/.446 — just about league average overall output when adjusted for park effects. That’s an improvement over Longoria’s subpar 2018 work, but hardly a return to his glory years. Even with the Rays picking up the deferred portion of his remaining contractual guarantee, the 33-year-old is hanging $52MM of obligations (including an option buyout) on the San Francisco books.
The loss of Longoria could have a slight impact on the trade season, though. With a resurgent stick and league-minimum salary, former hot corner stalwart Pablo Sandoval is a bit of an interesting trade chip for the Giants. He’ll now have a chance at something of a pre-deadline showcase in Longo’s absence.
Latest On Tyler Glasnow
Rays righty Tyler Glasnow will not be allowed to throw for at least two weeks after his latest MRI, manager Kevin Cash told reporters including MLB.com’s Juan Toribio (Twitter link). The skipper says he doesn’t know whether the young righty will have time to ramp back up in order to return this season.
That’s not terribly encouraging news for the Tampa Bay organization, which is battling to stay within shouting distance of the division lead while holding on to Wild Card position. Glasnow has been sidelined for more than two months with forearm issues. He had raised hopes recently of a valiant return down the stretch, but the hour is beginning to get late.
With Glasnow reaching new performance levels early this year, the Rays had the makings of a three-headed monster in the rotation with veteran Charlie Morton and reigning AL Cy Young winner Blake Snell. Though Morton has been an exceptional performer, Glasnow has been on the shelf since his eighth start of the year and Snell has failed to match his 2018 effort (in terms of earned run average, at least).
Understandably, the Rays are taking a cautious path with a key player-asset. Glasnow is set up for arbitration eligibility in the offseason as a Super Two, meaning he won’t be a free agent until 2024. That makes him an important piece in the long-term puzzle.
Glasnow’s long-term future remains bright, so long as he’s able to put this nebulous forearm problem behind him. He followed up a strong 2018 effort with 48 1/3 innings of 1.86 ERA ball to open the current campaign. Best of all, Glasnow averaged 10.2 K/9 against 1.7 BB/9 with a 51.7% groundball rate. With a 97+ mph heater, 12.0% swinging-strike rate, and increasing ability to start batters off with strikes and stay in the zone, the talented righty has threatened to establish himself as a front-line starter.
MLBTR Chat Transcript: 7/15/19
Click here to read a transcript of today’s chat with host Jeff Todd.
Dodgers Designate Zac Rosscup
The Dodgers have designated lefty Zac Rosscup for assignment, per a club announcement. Taking his active roster spot is fellow reliever Casey Sadler. The swap clears a 40-man opening for the Los Angeles org.
Rosscup, 31, has traveled far and wide over the past several seasons. This year alone, he has appeared in the majors with three clubs. While he’s getting loads of swinging strikes, Rosscup is walking batters with alarming frequency (19 in 18 innings).
Sadler was added in a recent swap with the Rays that followed his own DFA. He has only made two appearances with the Dodgers’ top affiliate, allowing four earned runs in six innings but compiling nine strikeouts against one walk in that stretch.
Top 60 Trade Candidates At The All-Star Break
This is the first update to our annual ranking of top trade candidates in the run-up to the trade deadline, drawing from our power ranking approach to pending free agents. You can check out the original list (and review the methodology) here. Essentially, we’re ordering players based upon our assessment of both their trade value and likelihood of being dealt.
It’s subjective; it’s debatable; and that’s what makes it fun. Without further ado:
1-2. Will Smith, RP & Madison Bumgarner, SP, Giants (Last Ranked: 1, 2): Yeah, the Giants are still within shouting distance of Wild Card position — but they still have the NL’s third-worst record. There are a host of teams ahead of them that look better on paper and have greater motivation to keep pressing to contend. The San Francisco club remains well-positioned to take advantage of holding arguably the two best rental chips on the market (along with other trade assets).
3. Zack Wheeler, SP, Mets (LR: 47): With the Mets collapsing since our last ranking, Wheeler flies up the board. We’ll respect the results of our recent survey and list MadBum first, but there are probably some teams that will be more interested in the younger, cheaper, harder-throwing New York hurler. By most standards, Wheeler looks much the same as he did in his eye-opening 2018 campaign. he has allowed a few more long balls and a greater batting average on balls in play while carrying a lower strand rate, which helps explain why his ERA has ballooned from 3.31 to 4.69. He has allowed more hard contact, but Wheeler’s velocity and strikeout rates have headed northward.
4-5. Ken Giles, RP & Marcus Stroman, SP, Blue Jays (LR: INJ, 3): Both Jays hurlers are controlled through the 2020 season, and both are throwing well. In fact, “well” is an understatement for Giles, who has pitched to a sensational 1.45 ERA with better than 15 strikeouts per nine innings pitched. Stroman’s numbers aren’t quite so gaudy, but the ground-ball machine is on pace for his third 200-inning season in the past four years while maintaining an ERA in the low 3.00s. Smith and Bumgarner might be the top starter/reliever rental combo on the market, but this duo is the best starter/reliever pair with control beyond the current season.
6. Nicholas Castellanos, OF, Tigers (LR: 8): We noted in our first ranking that the 27-year-old could move up the ladder if he kept up a hot streak, and he has done just that. He sprints into the rental-bat lead after a .354/.420/.532 run over his past twenty games. The return here probably won’t be that strong — even a red-hot J.D. Martinez netted the Tigers a lackluster return as a rental two summers ago — but Castellanos is among the game’s safest bets to be traded.
7-8. Sam Dyson (Giants) & Shane Greene (Tigers), RP (LR: 11, 12): We had this pair of quality relievers stashed a bit further down the list the last time around, owing to the fact that neither absolutely must be traded with another season of arbitration eligibility remaining. But that reasoning increasingly feels strained given the dearth of worthwhile rental relievers on the market this year. The quietly excellent Dyson doesn’t have quite the shiny ERA or recent save numbers of Greene, but he’s arguably as good or better. Both hurlers profile as groundball-heavy setup men for most contenders.
9. Matthew Boyd, SP, Tigers (LR: 9): There’s no rush or need for Detroit to move Boyd, who is controlled all the way through 2022, but interest in him is strong. Boyd’s strikeout rate has exploded in 2019, as he’s averaging 12 strikeouts against just 1.7 walks per nine innings pitched. He’s been plagued by the long ball of late — as has much of the league despite commissioner Rob Manfred’s claim of no intentional alterations to the ball — but Boyd is the best long-term arm that is likely to be available this month. We admittedly may use the term “controllable” too aggressively for players like Stroman, Giles and others signed for only one more season; Boyd is the epitome of a “controllable” trade asset, though.
10-11. Tony Watson (Giants) & Jake Diekman (Royals), RP (LR: 6, 7): Both of these pending-free-agent lefty specialists were tagged in their most recent outings, but teams will take broader views of their merits. They’re among the likeliest players to be dealt in the league.
12. Clint Frazier, OF, Yankees (LR: NR): Every day the Yanks go without another outfielder coming down with yet another injury seems one day closer to the departure of Frazier. It’s easy to imagine Frazier going to a non-contender, but there could also be some interesting scenarios where he ends up on a club that still has hopes of reaching the postseason this year.
13-15. Todd Frazier, 3B, Mets; Pablo Sandoval, 3B, Giants; Justin Smoak, 1B/DH, Blue Jays (LR: NR, 15, 4): As noted with regard to Wheeler, the free-falling Mets are likely to jettison any and all pricey vets on expiring deals. The resurgent Frazier, hitting .256/.340/.443 as of this writing, falls directly into that category, as he’s earning $9MM this season before a return to the open market. Over in San Francisco, the Kung Fu Panda has continued to rake since our last check-in on the game’s top trade chips. That’s less true of Smoak, who has been in a deep funk in recent weeks and hasn’t played up to expectations on the season as a whole. If you’re looking at the last few seasons on the whole, though, Smoak is easily the best bat of this trio of corner-infield rentals.
16. Mike Leake, SP, Mariners (LR: 22): Since last publishing this list, Leake has made two strong starts and two awful ones — highlighted (err… lowlighted?) by a seven-run drubbing at the hands of the Orioles. However, Leake has a superlative 21-to-1 K/BB ratio over 26 innings in that same stretch of time. He’s sitting on a 4.32 ERA and, in an era proliferated by five-inning starts, he’s averaging 6 1/3 frames per outing. Leake won’t front your rotation, but if you need durable innings and ground-balls to round out the starting five, he’s a solid option. The Cardinals are already paying part of his salary, and the Mariners would surely kick in some cash to get a deal finalized for Leake, who’s signed through 2020.
17-18. Mychal Givens, Orioles & Roenis Elias, Mariners, RP (LR: 17, NR): Call it a hunch, but the O’s seem well-positioned to move on Givens. He’s in his first year of arbitration with two more to go, so there’s no rush. And outwardly, the results make this an awkward time, as he has surrendered a home run-driven 4.76 ERA. But Givens has also racked up 20 strikeouts in his last 11 1/3 innings. He fits any budget and seems an obvious candidate to function in late innings for a contender. With the Orioles as far from contention as possible, I’m betting they’ll find a deal for their most talented relief pitcher. As for Elias, we examined him at length earlier. In short, he’s a solid, cheap reliever ($910K) controlled for two more seasons who currently plays on a rebuilding team that is run by Jerry Dipoto. Need we say more?
19. Kirby Yates, RP, Padres (LR: 5): With the Pads continuing to put out word that they’re chasing starting pitching, it’s feeling less and less likely that they’ll seriously pursue deals involving Yates. There’ll be a strong desire to keep him, both for this year and next, so long as the club is in the hunt for a Wild Card bid. But there’ll still be a pull towards a deal, as interest would be huge.
20. Corey Dickerson, OF, Pirates: This is by no means a declaration that we think the Pirates will be sellers. To the contrary, they’re very much in the NL Central and Wild Card races at the moment. But the emergence of Bryan Reynolds simply gives Pittsburgh too many outfielders. It’s the quintessential “good problem to have.” The team’s reported preference is to move Dickerson, a pending free agent making $8.5MM, rather than one of its other outfielders. Doing so could fetch them some needed bullpen help or a back-of-the-rotation arm to help solidify the pitching staff. The Buccos could also just accept a nominal prospect return and then use the saved funds to help take on a pitcher.
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Brodie Van Wagenen Addresses Mets’ Struggles, Deadline Plans
Embattled Mets GM Brodie Van Wagenen discussed his team’s dire straits today with the media. Deesha Thosar of the New York Daily News and Mike Puma of the New York Post were among those to round up the choicest quotes. MLB.com’s Christina De Nicola approached it from a bit of a different perspective, focusing on the forward-looking aspects of Van Wagenen’s chat.
With the Mets all but buried in the standings, Van Wagenen faced the music on his “come get us” pre-season bravado with respect to the rest of the NL East contenders. As he put it today, “they came and got us.”
That may put a satisfactory wrap on a memorable quote, though it also glosses over some of the actual causes of the Mets’ failings by suggesting their rivals simply got the better of them. Van Wagenen’s claim that the club was the favorite in the division wasn’t just an attention-grabbing statement worthy of skepticism; it also seemingly represented a key driving factor for the team’s decisionmaking over his first offseason at the helm.
Van Wagenen did accept blame for how things have gone, though he did so in a curious manner, deflecting even as he absorbed culpability. “I wouldn’t want to put the blame on players or coaches or scouts or anybody of that matter,” he said, “but I can tell you that this team we built was one of unified vision and it hasn’t worked, so I accept my responsibility in that capacity as well.” Likewise, he seemingly minimized the role of big-picture roster-building when he cited a failure to “do enough of the little things right as a team.”
At the end of the day, the top roster-building decisionmakers have to own their missteps. There are quite often intervening factors that do help explain unanticipated struggles, to be sure. But it’s hard to argue that unforeseeable or simply unlucky happenings have really driven the disaster in Queens this season — Jed Lowrie aside, at least. (The oft-injured veteran has yet to play. He is now said to be dealing with a calf injury, with no apparent target for a return.)
The single major blunder, to this point, has been Van Wagenen’s signature trade — the swap that brought in ace closer Edwin Diaz and highly compensated veteran Robinson Cano. It seemed a highly questionable decision at the time, albeit one that would almost certainly deliver short-term rewards. Instead, both players have struggled mightily, and rather unexpectedly, even as the key prospects sent in the trade have prospered.
“You have to look at where we were and where we are now,” Van Wagenen said when asked whether he has had second thoughts on the deal. He noted that Diaz and Cano still have the remainder of the season to “change the narrative.”
Once again, this explanation seems to miss the mark. The real problem isn’t (just) the ensuing struggles of those players. It’s the series of conceptual failings that led to the deal in the first place. First, the deal was rough for the Mets from a value standpoint, given the huge amount of Cano’s contract the team absorbed. Even assuming that away, it was legitimately questionable whether the Mets had a strong enough roster to justify that kind of outlay for such clearly win-now players (a closer and an aging second baseman). Beyond all that, there were quite possibly better ways to utilize the team’s resources — a dedicated pursuit of Manny Machado, increased offer to Yasmani Grandal, etc. — even in a scenario in which the team pushed for contention.
The point here isn’t to lay on the blame. Van Wagenen had a distinctly difficult task as an agent-turned-GM who was trying (with limited resources) to turn around a roster that had struggled in the prior season. That was the strategic direction of ownership — even if the new GM pitched it in his interviews. And it wasn’t a ridiculous thing to attempt. It’s just that the undertaking came with obvious risks, especially in the manner it was pursued, and several of the downside scenarios have come to fruition — none moreso than the big-picture one, in which the Mets are left yet again facing a need to pursue some amount of rebuilding or reloading while also carrying a series of player assets that hints towards near-term contention.
It was a tricky spot; it is now, all the more. Van Wagenen will need to adapt on the fly. So, where do the Mets go from here?
Most notably, Van Wagenen slammed on the brakes so far as expectations are concerned. In mid-June, Van Wagenen said that the Mets were “right where we wanted to be.” Now, about a month later? “In the second half of the year I think we have low expectations for what we can be,” he said bluntly. Rather than posturing as front-runners, says the GM, the Mets will fashion themselves as “underdogs” who’ll “try to prove some people wrong this year and certainly try to improve on it next year.” It’s a starkly different look from an executive who said before the season, upon his latest hot stove conquest: “This action, rather than our inaction, should demonstrate to the fans that we say what we do and we do what we say.”
Without any pretense to immediate contention, the Mets can turn to making the best of the roster they have compiled. “We have to face our reality, to some degree, about where we are in the standings,” said Van Wagenen. Rental players — Zack Wheeler, Todd Frazier, Jason Vargas (who does have an option remaining) — seem clearly to be on the block. But the question remains whether the Mets will also “face reality” with respect to their broader organizational position, which is certainly a question that can’t be answered by Van Wagenen alone.
Van Wagenen says the Mets will be “open-minded, … thoughtful and measured” at the deadline, though that characterization obviously doesn’t offer much in the way of specific direction. He was clear that he does not “anticipate being in a situation where we’d have a total teardown rebuild.” He also says he “fully expect[s]” the team’s best veterans with future contract control “to be on our roster” past the trade deadline — though he didn’t rule out deals of star pitchers Jacob deGrom and Noah Syndergaard. The front office has been bombarded with phone calls of late, adds Van Wagenen. It’ll certainly be interesting to see whether any of those chats lead to creative scenarios in which it makes sense for the Mets to move some of their best and best-known players.
If there’s a definitive statement on the Mets’ near-term approach to be found in Van Wagenen’s words today, it probably resides in this passage:
“The reason why we put some chips on the table this year is because we felt like we had a core of starting pitchers from which we could build around. … Right now, as we look at the halfway point, we feel like we have a core going forward, just maybe a different core. … We have a core from which we can compete, and we’ll look at our moves with both win now or certainly win in 2020 [perspectives] and looking beyond that.”
You can probably read that to mean just about whatever you want it to, but it certainly sounds as if Van Wagenen sees a vision of the future. Perhaps it suggests the club’s ace hurlers are now open to be moved … or that they are part of the “different core.” If there’s a core in place, one might think that a big push for 2020 would yet make sense … yet Van Wagenen was careful to note that the team needs to be “looking beyond that” point in time.
Whatever the precise core concept — it presumably features Michael Conforto, Pete Alonso, and Jeff McNeil at a minimum — there’ll be an awfully tough path to navigate. Whether they pursue immediate contention or some manner of rebuilding, the Mets face a tricky financial situation in 2020, when they owe about $115MM to players (not including David Wright) even before accounting for raises to Syndergaard, Diaz, Conforto, Steven Matz, Seth Lugo, Brandon Nimmo, and a few others. For a team that hasn’t yet cracked $160MM in payroll to open a given season, it’ll be challenging to add enough to spur a turnaround. And with so much already on the books, no small part of it (Cano, Lowrie, Jeurys Familia, Yoenis Cespedes) largely immovable, it’ll also be tough to embark upon a dedicated rebuilding effort.
Reds See Themselves As Trade Deadline Buyers
Reds president of baseball operations Dick Williams chatted over a few elements of the club’s trade deadline approach with C. Trent Rosecrans of The Athletic (subscription link). Of particular note, he left no doubt of the organization’s intention to seek roster improvements over the next few weeks.
“We’re going to look around to see what we can do to make us better, which would put us in the buyer category,” says Williams. “We feel like we’re in the thick of the race so we think it’s important to see what we can do to improve the club,” he went on to explain.
The Reds have been much better since a terrible start to the season. But they don’t look much like a typical contender at 41-46. Fortunately, they’re far from buried due to the failure of any single NL Central rival to pull away from the pack. Entering play today, just 4.5 games separated the cellar-dwelling Cincinnati club from the pace-setting Cubs. (The second-place team in the NL West faces three times the deficit.)
It’s sensible for the Reds to continue pressing under the circumstances. They parted with some prospect capital for near-term improvements over the winter. While everything hasn’t gone according to plan, the club has little reason to pull out of the race now with a sell-off that likely wouldn’t net all that much future value.
That’s not to say that the Cincinnati front office intends an all-in approach. Williams says the club won’t “focus exclusively on this year, but we will be looking to see if we find deals that make us better.” With a determination to improve the club’s outlook now and in the near future, it seems that Williams and his staff will be most intrigued by controllable targets. (That said, he did not rule out entirely the possibility of limited rental acquisition efforts.)
If the Reds are in it to win it, then it seems the NL Central will have five buy-side clubs. The Pirates could yet pivot, or at least consider deals that improve their future outlook without stripping too much immediate talent from the roster. But they won’t be true sellers if they stay within a few games of the pace. A rapid turn from the Cincinnati org or one of its competitors could yet change the math, but it appears likeliest that the full pack will remain in the chase.
It is fascinating to consider the ways in which this dynamic will shape the market. For one thing, most if not all of the potential rental targets on these rosters won’t be put up for sale. Even if most of the teams only operate as limited buyers, all will presumably be looking into adding assets. That’ll skew the overall market development quite a bit — particularly if the NL Central teams engage in any amount of direct transactional competition or hot stove one-upmanship with their inter-division competitors.
Zack Cozart To Undergo Season-Ending Shoulder Surgery
6:05pm: GM Billy Eppler says that Cozart will not return to action this year, as J.P. Hoornstra of the Southern California News Group was among those to tweet. The club is reinstating backstop Kevan Smith from the IL to take the place of injured catcher Jonathan Lucroy.
4:55pm: The Angels announced today that infielder Zack Cozart will undergo an “arthroscopic debridement of his left shoulder.” He has been shifted to the 60-day injured list, making roster space for today’s earlier transactions.
It’s not clear at the moment just what the expectations are moving forward for Cozart, whose tenure in Los Angeles has been an unmitigated disaster. There is no indication at present whether he will attempt to return later this season, though there does not appear to be much cause for optimism at this point.
Cozart had already been out for about a month when he revealed that his attempt to return without surgery had stalled out. After a few more weeks of waiting, he’ll now go under the knife. His three-year, $38MM contract expires at the end of the 2020 campaign.
When they signed him, the Halos hoped that Cozart would team with Andrelton Simmons on the left side of the infield to form an outstanding defensive and solid offensive pairing. Instead, Cozart has struggled to stay on the field and performed miserably when he has been able to suit up. The 33-year-old owns a meager .190/.261/.296 batting line in his 360 plate appearances in Anaheim.
Mets Release Matt Kemp
The Mets have released outfielder Matt Kemp, according to the International League transactions page. He had been with the organization on a minors deal.
Kemp, 34, only took 36 plate appearances in eight games with the Mets’ top affiliate. He turned in an unremarkable .235/.278/.324 slash there and obviously was not viewed as a candidate to ascend to the MLB roster. Before that, he struggled to a .200/.210/.283 batting line in 62 major-league plate appearances with the Reds.
A broken rib limited Kemp earlier this season. That seems also to be the cause for his unavailability at Triple-A Syracuse. If he’s able to get back to health, it seems likely that some other organization will take a shot on a minors deal. Kemp did pop 21 long balls and carry a 122 wRC+ in over five hundred trips to the plate with the Dodgers in 2018. That said, the former star’s long-term outlook in the game is obviously in doubt.