Rays Place Yandy Diaz On 10-Day IL
The Rays have placed third baseman Yandy Diaz on the 10-day injured list, Juan Toribio of MLB.com tweets. Infielder Daniel Robertson will come up to take the roster opening.
Diaz has been dealing with hamstring tightness that hasn’t resolved quite as rapidly as had been hoped. The club obviously felt it could no longer afford to carry an unavailable players.
There’s little reason at present to think that Diaz will be sidelined for more than the minimum, though it’ll all depend upon how the muscle heals up. The Rays will hope for a swift return for the 27-year-old, who has been everything they hoped for and more since arriving via trade.
Diaz has racked up 248 plate appearances of .286/.363/.502 hitting and 11 home runs on the season. That’s just the sort of output the Tampa Bay organization got last year from Robertson, but he scuffled to open the current campaign and ended up on optional assignment. There’s now a bit of a window for him to reclaim a MLB role, though there isn’t as much opportunity with Joey Wendle back in action.
D-Backs Agree To Terms With First-Rounder Corbin Carroll
The Diamondbacks have agreed to terms with first-round draft pick Corbin Carroll, according to MLB.com’s Jim Callis (via Twitter). The high school outfielder will receive the full slot value that comes with the 16th overall pick ($3,745,500).
This is the latest in a string of early draft signings for the Snakes, who had the game’s highest overall draft bonus pool due to a series of compensation picks. They’ve now reportedly inked four of their five highest selections, with only 26th overall choice Blake Walston still to go.
Carroll was the top target of the Arizona organization. He’ll forego a commitment to UCLA to begin his professional career. Entering the draft, MLB.com’s pundits graded him the 15th-best player available, right near his actual selection point. He landed 12th on the Baseball America board and ninth on the Fangraphs ranking.
There was one draft watcher who was quite a bit more bullish. ESPN.com’s Keith Law slotted Carroll way up in the number four spot on his own draft board. He posits that Carroll’s slate of exceptional tools — everything but his arm is a plus — warrant top-five consideration despite the youngster’s relatively diminutive frame. While Carroll stands at just 5’10, Law points to a variety of current big leaguers who deliver ample power from similarly modest heights.
Rays Select Contract Of Andrew Kittredge
The Rays have selected the contract of righty Andrew Kittredge, Juan Toribio of MLB.com was among those to tweet. He’ll take the active roster spot of fellow reliever Jake Faria, who was optioned down to Triple-A.
Kittredge, 29, had posted strong results in the upper minors and in a 2017 MLB debut. But he ended up being outrighted off of the 40-man roster at the end of the 2018 campaign after a rough extended showcase in the majors. All told, he carries a 6.04 ERA in 53 2/3 frames at the game’s highest level.
Thus far in 2019, Kittredge owns a sparkling 1.93 ERA with 13.3 K/9 and 1.4 BB/9 in his 37 1/3 innings at Triple-A. That’s enough to earn him another shot in the bigs, though he’ll have to perform better this time around to hold down a spot.
For the Rays, the move won’t require a 40-man roster spot because lefty Jose Alvarado remains on the restricted list. He is back in the United States after taking time away to deal with an undisclosed family matter in his native Venezuela. (Also via Toribio, on Twitter.) Alvarado will spend at least some time throwing at the Rays’ spring facility before he’s considered again for the MLB roster.
Angels Release Cody Allen
The Angels have released reliever Cody Allen, per a club announcement. He had recently been designated for assignment.
This move brings a formal end to Allen’s disappointingly brief tenure in Los Angeles. When he inked a one-year, $8.5MM contract with the organization over the winter, there were visions of a return to his glory days as the Indians’ closer. Instead, Allen is out the door before the trade deadline.
The 30-year-old’s downfall on the mound has been surprising, but the Halos’ decision to cut bait really isn’t. Allen was shellacked in his 23 frames with the organization, allowing nine home runs and issuing twenty walks to go with his 29 strikeouts. His swinging-strike rate has plummeted as his fastball has lost velocity; opposing hitters are having little trouble spitting on pitches out of the zone and squaring up those that aren’t.
While the Angels may not have seen a way to get Allen back on track, it stands to reason that some other organization will make an effort to do so. He’ll likely end up on a minor-league deal, perhaps getting a chance to spend some time at extended spring training to sort things out. If Allen does return to the majors this year, he’ll assuredly do so at a league-minimum salary, with the Halos paying the balance of the money he’s guaranteed.
Twins Place Byron Buxton On 10-Day IL
The Twins have placed outfielder Byron Buxton on the 10-day injured list, per a club announcement. He is still recovering from a right wrist contusion that was suffered recently on a hit-by-pitch.
It had been hoped that the injury would not require a trip to the IL, but Buxton evidently needs a bit more time off. The placement is retroactive to June 15th, as he has not appeared since being struck. He’ll be eligible to return as soon as Tuesday the 25th.
While this seems unlikely to be more than a blip, it’s still unfortunate to see even a brief pause in the season for the 25-year-old Buxton. The long-hyped youngster has come into his own thus far in 2019, turning in a cumulative .266/.324/.527 slash with nine home runs and ten steals over 227 plate appearances.
Jake Cave will get another look at the majors in Buxton’s absence. He was demoted after a weak start to the season but has been on a tear at Triple-A (.321/.373/.552).
Yankees Activate Giancarlo Stanton
The Yankees have activated outfielder Giancarlo Stanton from the injured list, per a club announcement. He’ll take the active roster spot of fellow outfielder Mike Tauchman, who was optioned down last night.
Stanton has been sidelined for nearly the entire season. While his activation today was expected, he had previously come close to a return only to run into more problems. What started as an IL stint for a biceps issue ballooned in duration as a shoulder strain and calf problem cropped up along the way.
It certainly has been an interesting rehab stint for the 29-year-old Stanton. That shows up also in his game action of late. In 21 minor-league plate appearances, he has launched five long balls and struck out ten times without drawing a walk — that after opening the year with seven free passes in 15 MLB plate appearances.
The Yanks will hope that Stanton can smooth out any remaining wrinkles and settle back into being a substantially above-average hitter. He wasn’t in top form last year, his first in the Bronx, but still produced a strong .266/.343/.509 batting line with 38 home runs.
Stanton was lined up opposite fellow outfield slugger Aaron Judge in his recent rehab appearances. Once the two are reunited in the majors, they’ll join an imposing group of right-handed power bats that also features Gary Sanchez, Luke Voit, Gleyber Torres, and the recently acquired Edwin Encarnacion.
MLB, MLBPA Launching Bargaining Talks
Major League Baseball and the MLB Players’ Association have been circling one another warily for some time now, with occasional moments of accord but a pervasive sense of tension. Now, as Tyler Kepner of the New York Times reports, they’re headed back to the formal bargaining table long before the expiration of the current collective bargaining agreement at the tail end of the 2021 season.
Ever since the last Basic Agreement was hammered out, readily discernible changes in teams’ market behavior have spurred growing unhappiness from the players’ side. Union chief Tony Clark put it in stark terms to Kepner, saying flatly that “the system doesn’t work.” He also offered a warning: “either we’re going to have a conversation now, or we’re going to have a louder conversation later.”
Of course, there were indications of systemic problems even before the latest CBA, with increasingly analytically advanced teams finding new ways to achieve cost-efficient on-field performance. But the changes to the game’s governing document only exacerbated matters for players, with new luxury tax rules creating new spending disincentives for teams. After two tense winters, we saw a dizzying run of extensions this spring. That spate of dealing seemingly reflected some fear and uncertainty in the free agent process as well as labor peace more generally. It put new money in players’ pockets, but also took quite a few potentially valuable seasons of future performance out of future open-market scenarios.
Over the past two and a half years, the MLBPA has hired a chief negotiator, added a familiar face to advise on PR, launched a still-unresolved grievance action against several teams, and otherwise made clear it is readying for a larger battle. While the league and union attempted to sort through a range of matters over the offseason, only a few rule changes were implemented.
Every on-field or transactional tweak proposed has understandably been viewed through a broader economic lens. MLB commissioner Rob Manfred’s pace-of-play initiatives have met headwinds from the players, perhaps owing to a need to find leverage that’s otherwise lacking. After all, the CBA is binding until it expires. And the players’ side will face many challenges in winning a better deal.
All of those developments have felt like a prelude to the unusual and potentially quite complicated process that is now being plotted out. Understandably, the initial discussion is a logistical one. Kepner says that the bigwigs on both sides of the aisle have chatted in person about how to approach this early engagement on the CBA.
On the league side, deputy commissioner Dan Halem says the goal is “a system that satisfies our competitive-balance concerns and basically keeps the overall economics where they are — but at the same time addresses the issues that [the players are] going to bring to us.” He reemphasized MLB’s oft-stated position that the players continue to enjoy the same-sized pie slice they always have, framing the matter as “really a distribution issue.”
It’s unlikely that Clark and company would fully agree with that sentiment. All can agree broadly with the goals of enhancing competition and ensuring that the game’s best talent is playing in the majors as soon as it’s ready. But the players also desire those results because they hope to unlock new earning avenues for more of their members. Per Kepner, they also wish to “restor[e] meaningful free agency” and improve the earning power of players with lesser service time. That sounds like something quite a bit different from redistribution; it sounds like the players ultimately want more pie. There are different ways to count the leaguewide dollars and cents. The players will undoubtedly argue their share has fallen and seek more.
White Sox Place Welington Castillo On Injured List
The White Sox have placed catcher Welington Castillo on the 10-day injured list, per a club announcement. He’s said to be dealing with a strained left oblique.
This move will create active roster space for the previously reported arrival of Zack Collins, who’ll receive his first taste of the majors. The South Siders also reinstated lefty Jace Fry from the injured list. He’ll take the place of the previously optioned Thyago Vieira.
Castillo, 32, has long been a solid offensive performer. But he’s slashing a meager .196/.289/.364 over 121 plate appearances this year. Unsurprisingly, he has ceded more and more time to James McCann, who has continued his scorching start at the plate.
It’ll be interesting to see how this backstop situation plays out over the course of the season. In addition to the introduction of Collins, there are some reasons to expect both veterans to move back towards their career norms. Castillo has only a .232 batting average on balls in play, while Statcast credits him with a .340 xwOBA that dwarfs his actual .290 wOBA. It’s just the opposite for McCann, who has enjoyed a .400 BABIP and .378 wOBA but carries a xwOBA just scarcely north of Castillo’s at .348.
Brewers Release Brett Lawrie
The Brewers announced today that they have released infielder Brett Lawrie. He had been attempting to work back towards the majors on a minor-league deal after a long layoff.
Lawrie, who’s still just 29 years of age, hasn’t appeared in the majors since 2016 owing to a variety of leg ailments. When he landed with the Milwaukee organization, the idea was to build him back up physically before setting him loose on the ballfield to see what was left in the tank. Though his contract contemplated up to $7MM in earnings, it did not include substantial guarantees.
Milwaukee GM David Stearns explains that things just did not progress as hoped, as Tom Haudricourt of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel reports (Twitter links). Though he credited Lawrie for his effort, Stearns says that the former first-round pick was ultimately not able to achieve “benchmarks” that had been agreed upon at the outset. Lawrie did not advance to a point that he was ready for game action, as he was never sent out on assignment with a Brewers affiliate.
Checking In On Huston Street & J.J. Hardy
Sometimes, notable players finish out their careers on farewell tours. Other times, they issue formal announcements with varying levels of fanfare. And then there are those that just don’t show up for a while. Some end up returning just when you were beginning to wonder if it was all over … then go through the process again, perhaps with a different result.
We often find ourselves wondering what happened to certain players whose careers didn’t have firm end points. Here are updates on two of them:
- Last we covered him on this site, long-time reliever Huston Street was still in the rumor mill. Evidently, we missed this strong hint that his playing days were over, so we’ll make amends by pointing our readers to this fun read on Street’s life in retirement from Pedro Moura of The Athletic (subscription link). So, what does a former closer do when he can’t tap into high-leverage situations for his adrenaline fix? Moura writes: “The best thing about retirement, [Street] said, is the infinite tank of energy he possesses. The challenge is finding places to exhaust it.” Whether he’s wheeling and dealing on real estate, pursuing other business ideas, or engaging in some late-night online gaming, Street certainly has not doused his competitive fire.
- While Street is comfortable saying he’s done with playing the game, shortstop J.J. Hardy is still keeping the door cracked. As The Athletic’s Dan Connolly writes (subscription link), Hardy isn’t exactly pushing to re-launch his career. But he also isn’t ready to file his retirement papers. “I guess it would probably take a lot, but I’m not going to go out there and say that I’m completely done,” says the 36-year-old. At the moment, Hardy is putting much more of his energy into the pursuit of woodworking than baseball — though there is some crossover. His first big project was a Lou Gehrig-themed guitar, auctioned off to benefit an ALS charity. If Hardy doesn’t end up putting down his chisel and picking up his ballglove, he’ll finish up a playing career that spanned 13 seasons (2005-17) with three organizations (the Twins, Brewers, and Orioles). At his best, Hardy was not only one of the finest defenders in the game, but featured impressive home run power. He socked more than twenty long balls in five seasons.