Jimmy Nelson Unlikely To Return In 2018
Brewers GM David Stearns and manager Craig Counsell indicated today that righty Jimmy Nelson is unlikely to make it back to the hill for the club this season, as Tom Haudricourt of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel was among those to report (Twitter links: 1; 2; 3; 4; 5).
That conclusion was largely evident from the fact that Nelson had not yet begun a rehab assignment. Stearns acknowledged today what was becoming clear, saying that time is running short. Further comments from Counsell removed any remaining doubt as to the team’s expectations. While neither man would rule out the possibility that Nelson will make a surprising late-season return, it seems there’s not much reason at all to think that’ll take place.
Nelson, 28, turned in a strong 2017 effort before succumbing to a shoulder injury that required surgery. He spun 175 1/3 frames of 3.49 ERA ball with 10.2 K/9, 2.5 BB/9, and a 50.3% grounder rate. Despite the season-ending procedure, Nelson’s big year allowed him to command a $3.7MM salary in his first trip through arbitration, a sum the Brewers were glad to pay in hopes that he’d be able to return in 2018 and in order to retain their rights over his 2019 and 2020 campaigns. (He’ll surely command the same amount in arbitration this fall.)
Since Nelson underwent shoulder surgery last September, the organization has expressed varying degrees of optimism that he’d at least potentially be ready to return at some point in 2018. There seemed to be quite a bit of promise in the run-up to camp, with a June return presented as a potential target. Unfortunately, his anticipated mound work continued to be pushed back. As recently as late June, Stearns said the team expected Nelson to appear this season, but the final strides have evidently yet to be made.
As Counsell explains, Nelson’s early rehab work increased expectations. Unfortunately, that did not carry forward to a ramped-up timetable. But the skipper says the goal all along was never to get Nelson back on the mound this year so much as it was to get him back to full health at whatever pace the process would allow.
There isn’t any setback to blame for the fact that Nelson likely won’t return to the MLB roster this year, per Counsell. Rather, the club’s top uniformed decisionmaker says, “it’s just that where we are in the schedule, [Nelson is] not going to get [to] pitch in major-league games.” The goal at this point seems to have shifted to putting Nelson “in a competitive situation” before he takes a breather over the offseason. It’s also possible the righty could appear in winter ball or some kind of instructional league, per Stearns.
Observers have long wondered if Nelson’s absence would lead the Brewers to seek a significant rotation upgrade. The organization has foregone any major moves to this point, though, expressing confidence in a unit made up of preexisting internal options and a few modest additions (namely, Jhoulys Chacin and Wade Miley). Results have been solid thus far, though the starting staff could still represent an area to improve later this month and in the offseason to come. While the team surely maintains hope that Nelson will be ready to go when camp opens next spring, Stearns & co. will have to weigh the ongoing uncertainty in tweaking the roster over the winter.
Cubs Acquire Terrance Gore
The Cubs have acquired outfielder Terrance Gore from the Royals, per an announcement from the Kansas City organization. Cash considerations will head back in return.
Gore, 27, will presumably reprise his role as a late-season/postseason threat on the bases. No doubt he’ll begin his tenure with the Chicago organization in the upper minors, where he has typically resided until rosters expand in September.
Since first cracking the majors in 2014, the light-hitting Gore has taken only 14 plate appearances at the game’s highest level. But he has appeared in 49 total games and racked up 21 steals.
Of course, utilizing a specialist in that manner only requires the commitment of a 40-man spot once rosters have expanded. For the time being, the Cubs won’t even need to tie up a slot on Gore, who had re-joined the Royals on a minors deal over the winter after being cut loose last fall.
Whether or not Gore could also feature on the Cubs’ presumptive postseason roster remains to be seen. The Royals carried him throughout the 2014 and 2015 postseasons, up to but not including the club’s successful return to the World Series in the second of those two memorable campaigns. Despite being in uniform for quite a few contests, Gore has only appeared in eight total playoff games, stealing four bags but never striding to the plate.
Brandon McCarthy To Retire At Season’s End
Veteran righty Brandon McCarthy says he’ll wrap up his playing career at the end of the season, MLB.com’s Mark Bowman writes. This is his 13th campaign in the majors.
McCarthy, 35, is still hoping to make it back from a knee injury that has sidelined him for a major portion of the 2018 campaign. Indeed, he says he’d have undergone season-ending surgery on the joint if he planned to continue pitching into the future.
Unsurprisingly, with just six weeks left in the regular season, McCarthy is only considering returning as a reliever. He’s also modifying his delivery in an effort to work through the knee problem. Whether or not it works out, it seems the towering veteran is committed to giving it one final go before finishing out his four-year, $48MM contract and riding off into the sunset.
It’s certainly possible McCarthy could be a useful asset for the Atlanta organization down the stretch. With a division title on the line, the club will need every good arm it can muster. And once the calendar flips to September, it won’t have to worry about active roster limitations.
It’s easy to look at McCarthy’s 4.92 ERA from 78 2/3 innings this year and question whether he has much left. But that only tells part of the story. After opening the year with a significant velocity loss, the speed readings ticked northward. McCarthy has generated a sturdy 48.0% groundball rate with 7.4 K/9 and 2.4 BB/9. He has surely been at least somewhat unlucky to surrender a .332 BABIP and 21.7% HR/FB rate (more than double his career level); indeed, both xFIP (3.75) and SIERA (4.09) viewed him as a still-productive hurler.
In any event, it remains to be seen whether McCarthy can come back from injury one final time. Doing so has, unfortunately, been a significant aspect of his career. The former 17th-rounder has only once taken the ball for all 32 starts in a season, in a 2014 campaign in which he recorded exactly two hundred frames. That’s just one of five years in which he reached triple-digit innings tallies.
As things stand, McCarthy owns a 4.20 ERA with 6.7 K/9 and 2.4 BB/9 through 1,223 2/3 lifetime MLB innings. Between his debut with the White Sox in 2005 and his current run in Atlanta, he has seen action with the Dodgers, Rangers, Diamondbacks, Athletics, and Yankees, never stopping in one place for more than three seasons.
No matter how things finish out for McCarthy late this season, he’ll wrap up a productive career as a highly respected veteran. Given his well-earned reputation for wit and wisdom, McCarthy seems sure to make a mark in the game — or some other arena — in the future.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.
James Paxton Likely Headed To DL; David Phelps Resumes Throwing
We’ll use this post to cover some notable health updates on a pair of Mariners hurlers: starter James Paxton, who has been a huge part of the club’s successes this year, and rehabbing reliever David Phelps.
The club seems to have averted disaster when Paxton was struck in the left arm last night with a comebacker, but that doesn’t mean the injury won’t have an impact. Ryan Divish of the Seattle Times reports that the southpaw is likely to require a placement on the disabled list despite the fact that an x-ray did not reveal structural damage.
Paxton, 29, has given up a few more home runs and earned runs than he did last year, but has otherwise turned in another stellar campaign. He owns a 3.68 ERA with 11.4 K/9 and 2.4 BB/9 on the season. Paxton still has yet to make more than 24 starts or reach 140 innings in a single campaign, though he has already set high-water marks in both regards this year and will surpass those levels when he returns.
Meanwhile, Phelps has marked a notable step in his recovery from Tommy John surgery. As Corey Brock of The Athletic tweets, Phelps has now thrown a baseball for the first time since going under the knife in March.
Of course, it’d be exceedingly optimistic to think Phelps will again pitch in the majors before reaching the open market at season’s end. But it’s certainly notable that he seems to be on a fast track to return. Last year, newly acquired Seattle reliever Zach Duke made it back after about a nine-month recovery period. Phelps still isn’t quite five months removed from his procedure.
Phelps’s market situation will certainly be improved if he’s able to get back up to full speed before camp opens next February. The 31-year-old has been a highly productive pitcher since moving into a full-time relief role at the start of a breakout 2016 season, but only made ten appearances in Seattle after being picked up in a trade with the Marlins last summer.
Angels Acquire Odrisamer Despaigne, Designate Dayan Diaz
The Angels have acquired righty Odrisamer Despaigne from the Marlins, Maria Guardado of MLB.com reports on Twitter. Cash considerations are headed to Miami in return.
To open a roster spot, the Halos designated fellow right-hander Dayan Diaz for assignment. With the move, the Marlins now have an open 40-man slot to work with.
Needless to say, this isn’t the sort of mid-summer trade acquisition the Angels envisioned making at the start of the season. Despaigne has mostly functioned as a gap-filling swingman since he reached the majors, so he isn’t the sort of pitcher who’d be targeted by a contender. Sitting 11.5 games out of postseason position, the Angels simply aren’t one. The move seems designed merely to relax the burden on the club’s injury-riddled pitching staff.
Despaigne has spent a bit of time working as a MLB long reliever this year, but has thrown more at Triple-A. Over 43 1/3 innings at the highest level of the minors, he hasn’t allowed a single home run but carries a 4.36 ERA with 8.3 K/9 and 2.5 BB/9. In his 331 major-league frames over the past five years, Despaigne has a 4.76 ERA, though estimators suggest he has been a bit better than that (4.30 FIP; 4.61 xFIP; 4.19 SIERA).
As for Diaz, who was claimed off waivers last fall from the Astros, he opened the year on the restricted list owing to visa troubles and really never got going. Though the 29-year-old reliever briefly reached the majors in 2016 and 2017, he has only made seven appearances at the High-A level this year.
Luke Hochevar Announces Retirement
Former first overall pick and nine-year MLB veteran Luke Hochevar has decided to hang up his spikes, he tells MLB.com’s Jeffrey Flanagan. He spent his entire career with the Royals, who selected him in the 2006 draft out of the University of Tennessee.
Hochevar was said to be pursuing a comeback earlier this year after undergoing a procedure to address thoracic outlet syndrome. But he was still experiencing pain when he attempted to throw despite being two years removed from the surgery.
Now 34 years of age, Hochevar made it to the majors after just 34 minor-league appearances. But he failed to gain traction as a starter, struggling mightily in that role before moving into the bullpen for the 2013 season.
That campaign turned into a coming-out party for Hochevar, who spun 70 1/3 innings of 1.92 ERA ball with 10.5 K/9 and 2.2 BB/9. But he missed the ensuing campaign after requiring Tommy John surgery, sidelining him for the club’s exciting run to the World Series and again putting his future in doubt as he entered free agency.
Hochevar ultimately decided to stay in Kansas City. Despite the health uncertainty, the club promised him $10MM on a two-year deal, which included a club option for 2017.
That decision worked out for all involved. Hochevar threw 88 innings of 3.78 ERA ball, with 9.1 K/9 against 2.6 BB/9, over the two guaranteed seasons of the contract. More importantly, he contributed 10 2/3 scoreless innings over nine postseason appearances in 2015, including five clean frames in the Royals’ successful return to the World Series.
In the end, Hochevar wraps up his playing career with 929 1/3 innings of 4.98 ERA pitching. That’s undoubtedly not what he or the K.C. org anticipated at the outset. But all’s well that ends well; he helped the team reach the promised land and tells Flanagan that he’ll retire feeling “grateful for the time I had in this game.” MLBTR wishes Hochevar the best in his new endeavors.
Dodgers Health Updates: Jansen, Dozier, Axford
As they seek to correct a skid, the Dodgers have also dealt with some fairly worrisome health situations. Here’s the latest:
- Sorely-missed closer Kenley Jansen said yesterday that he expects to be able to return sooner than had been feared, as Bill Shaikin of the Los Angeles Times was among those to report (links to Twitter). It seems he won’t require treatment that would have kept him on the shelf for an estimated four to six weeks. Though Jansen may well require an ablation procedure over the winter, as he has undergone before, he will evidently aim to make it back with a good chunk of the 2018 regular season still remaining. Skipper Dave Roberts said he’s “encouraged” by that possibility.
- New teammate Brian Dozier, meanwhile, is himself being monitored after being pulled from last night’s game. As Alanna Rizzo of Sportsnet LA tweets, Roberts says that initial EKG results showed some kind of abnormality in Dozier’s heartbeat. Just what that means isn’t yet known, though obviously it is a generally concerning development for the 31-year-old, who has been in fine form on the field since being acquired in advance of the trade deadline. MLBTR certainly sends its best wishes to the Dozier family; we hope to see him back on the field in short order.
- With the Dodgers bullpen struggling to cope with the absence of Jansen, recent acquisition John Axford hasn’t presented much of a solution thus far. Axford has given up six earned runs in just three appearances with Los Angeles. Now, per the above-cited Roberts/Rizzo update, the veteran reliever is headed for a DL stint after taking a comebacker off his leg. Indeed, Axford was diagnosed with a fractured fibula, though it’s only expected to keep him down for two to three weeks.
Blue Jays, Rockies Complete Seunghwan Oh Trade
The Blue Jays have acquired young righty Bryan Baker from the Rockies, according to Robert Murray of The Athletic (via Twitter). Baker represents the player to be named later from the pre-deadline deal that sent reliever Seunghwan Oh to Colorado, Jon Heyman of Fancred tweets.
That swap has already paid dividends for the Rox, who have received 8 2/3 innings of 2.08 ERA ball from Oh. On the other side, the Jays had already welcomed youngsters Chad Spanberger and Forrest Wall into their system under the pact.
Baker becomes the third and final piece of the trade. Now 23, he came to the professional ranks as an 11th-round pick in the 2016 draft. Baker has worked as a reliever for the past two seasons, so it seems likely he’ll be developed as a potential future bullpen asset.
Though he showed quite well in 2017, Baker has had some struggles this season. He has allowed a palatable tally of 19 earned runs through 45 innings, and compiled a healthy 11.6 K/9, but has seen a whopping 17 unearned runs cross the plate as well. There are obviously a variety contributing factors to that, but one of them is surely the fact that he’s exhibiting newfound command issues (6.8 BB/9).
Minor MLB Transactions: 8/14/18
There are quite a few minor moves to cover, with Baseball America’s Matt Eddy releasing several weeks’ worth of transactions. We’ll use this post to cover the most notable ones that haven’t yet featured on MLBTR:
- The Angels released outfielder Ben Revere, who could perhaps be an interesting player to target for contending clubs that like the idea of adding a good defender and baserunning threat to their system. Revere, 30, hasn’t seen the majors this year after seven-straight seasons of action at the game’s highest level. He’s slashing .277/.319/.406 with a pair of steals through 166 plate appearances at Triple-A.
- Ending a relationship that never seemed to work out, the Dodgers have cut loose infielder Erisbel Arruebarrena. Now 28, the former international signee hadn’t played much in the club’s system since he was suspended in May of 2016.
- The Phillies have released a pair of former big leaguers: infielder Danny Espinosa and outfielder Adron Chambers. Espinosa’s always fickle bat has not yet recovered from a 2017 nosedive. In 240 Triple-A plate appearances with three organizations this year, he owns a .295/.239/.312 slash. Chambers, meanwhile, hasn’t seen the majors since 2013 and last played affiliated ball in 2015, but came back from an indy stint to produce a .278/.328/.437 batting line in 138 Triple-A plate appearances.
- A host of players received their walking papers from the Diamondbacks. Righty Brian Ellington is among them; the flamethrower struggled badly with his command in limited minor-league action. Southpaw Anthony Vasquez was also released after after 85 2/3 innings of 5.04 ERA ball in the upper minors. The club also dropped several outfielders. Cesar Puello (.317/.426/.454) and Dan Robertson (.263/.361/.407) are both former big leaguers who were getting on base at Reno, but will now seek other opportunities.
- The Giants released two notable players in righty Chris Heston and backstop Ryan Hanigan. Heston, 30, only made nine appearances in the minors this year owing to injury. Hanigan, who’s closing in on his 38th birthday, is still looking to crack the majors for the 12th-straight season but did not help his cause with a .175/.254/.193 batting line in 63 plate appearances at Triple-A.
- The Cubs parted with Ryan Webb after he made just 11 appearances at the Rookie ball level. It is not immediately clear why the 32-year-old did not get a shot in the upper minors, or what’s next for him In eight seasons of MLB pitching, from 2009 through 2016, Webb owns a 3.43 ERA through 393 1/3 innings.
- A variety of other former major-league relief pitchers were also on the move. Among them: The White Sox signed once-promising Braves reliever Mauricio Cabrera. Righty Dallas Beeler was released by the Royals. A trio of former MLB lefties are back in free agency after being cut free: Elvis Araujo (Orioles); Paco Rodriguez (Twins); and Dario Alvarez (Mariners).
- Meanwhile, the Mariners parted with outfielder Kirk Nieuwenhuis and the Nationals did the same with Alejandro De Aza. One-time Rule 5 pick Taylor Featherston landed with the Reds.
Carlos Martinez Will Move To Bullpen For Rest Of Season
The Cardinals have decided to utilize righty Carlos Martinez as a reliever down the stretch, as Peter Baugh of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch was among those to report. Martinez has been sidelined with a shoulder strain.
Unsurprisingly, the move is expected only to be temporary. The idea seems to be that it would simply take too long to get Martinez back up to speed as a starter. By bumping him into the relief unit, he can perhaps make an impact down the stretch for the Cards before preparing to stretch back out next spring.
Martinez will first need to get back on the hill — and stay there. He has compiled 100 1/3 innings of 3.41 ERA pitching thus far this year, but has also dealt with a series of arm and back injuries that are fairly concerning in the aggregate. His average four-seam fastball is down a full tick from 2017, with his more-frequently utilized sinker falling 2.3 mph.
Surely, the Cardinals will exercise care in handling Martinez. The increasingly worrisome health situation takes place against the backdrop of a significant investment. Martinez remains under team control through 2023 under the extension he signed back in February of 2017, with a guaranteed $34.5MM due over the next three seasons before successive options priced at $17MM and $18MM (each of which come with $500K buyouts).
That’s not to say there isn’t also an interest in getting Martinez back in action as soon as possible. He hasn’t pitched in a relief capacity since he was still establishing himself in the majors, but clearly a pitcher of his abilities could make for a notable addition to the St. Louis bullpen. The Cards are still 2.5 games out of postseason position, but have played quite well of late and entered action today eight games over .500.