The Padres have claimed righty Kirby Yates off waivers from the Angels, per an announcement from the Los Angeles organization. Yates had been designated for assignment recently.
Yates, 30, only made it into one contest for the Halos this year. Over his 98 2/3 total MLB frames since the start of the 2014 season, he owns only a 5.38 ERA. But he has also generated 10.4 K/9 to go with 3.7 BB/9 in that span and showed career-best fastball velocity (94 mph) in his sole MLB appearance this year.
The Pirates are set to promote infielder Gift Ngoepe to the majors for the first time, as Ken Rosenthal of FOX Sports reports on Twitter. Upon making his MLB debut, Ngoepe will become the first player born in Africa ever to appear in the majors, as MLB.com’s Adam Berry notes on Twitter.
Ngoepe, who is represented by Josh Chetwynd and Steve Schneider of Elite Sports Group, had already been added to Pittsburgh’s 40-man roster in the fall of 2015 to protect him from the Rule 5 draft. The 27-year-old South African has nevertheless remained at Triple-A in the meantime, awaiting an opportunity.
Though he doesn’t offer much with the bat, Ngoepe is considered an excellent defender and has shown some base-stealing ability at times. (He has swiped 88 bags in the minors, though he hasn’t been very efficient.) Ngoepe is slashing .241/.308/.379 over his first 66 plate appearances of the current campaign.
It has been quite a week for the international market-to-Pittsburgh pipeline. Just two days ago, the Bucs made Dovydas Neverauskas the first Lithuanian player ever to reach the big leagues. For more on Ngoepe’s unlikely path to the majors, check out this recent piece from Berry and Carrie Muskat.
ESPN.com’s Keith Law provides his ranking of the top fifty amateur players (Insider link) who are eligible for selection in this summer’s Rule 4 draft. The group as a whole has generally disappointed, Law writes, perhaps leading teams to “flee to safety” by looking at safer collegiate performers with their top selections. Of course, such a strategy would also open up some greater opportunities for organizations with multiple early selections to take some risks on higher-upside, younger prospects.
Giants shortstop Brandon Crawford departed last night’s game with a groin strain, as Andrew Baggarly of the Mercury News reports. The veteran had already been scheduled to miss a few games on the bereavement list, but the club will be anxious to see how he feels upon his return. “I really haven’t felt anything like that before,” said Crawford, “so I can’t tell you how bad it is. It just felt tight. I didn’t feel a pop, so from what I hear, that’s good news.” San Francisco will likely bring up utilityman Kelby Tomlinson to fill in for Crawford during his three-day absence, Baggarly notes.
Here are a few more notes from out west:
The Dodgers will promote top prospect Cody Bellinger, according to MLB.com’s Ken Gurnick (via Twitter). The 21-year-old will provide a left-handed-hitting option at first base and the corner outfield, though it’s unknown how long he’ll remain in the majors.
Bellinger flew up top prospect charts with a strong 2016 season, in which he slashed .271/.365/.507 over 477 plate appearances, the vast bulk of them coming at Double-A. After an excellent stint in the Arizona Fall League, Bellinger sat at seventh among all prospects leaguewide in the ranking of Baseball America.
Since that time, Bellinger has taken Triple-A by storm. Through 77 trips to the plate, he owns a .343/.429/.627 batting line with five home runs and seven steals. Adding him to the active MLB roster, though, will require the creation of a 40-man space.
The Dodgers fielded trade inquiries on the blue-chip prospect over the winter, as they have recently for other hyped youngsters such as Corey Seager, Julio Urias, and Joc Pederson. But Los Angeles has held firm on those players, all of whom will now have reached the majors. With Pederson on the DL, a need arose for another outfield bat, and it’ll be Bellinger who gets the call — at least temporarily. As Andy McCullough of the Los Angeles Times tweets, Bellinger is expected to see time in left and center.
Looking longer term, Bellinger’s promotion comes late enough into the season that his path to free agency would be delayed by one year, but not so late that he’d avoid Super Two status. If Bellinger remains in the Majors to stay, he’d accrue 159 days of Major League service time, putting on track to reach arbitration after the 2019 season and free agency upon completion of the 2023 campaign.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.
The Braves have designated infielder Chase d’Arnaud for assignment, according to David O’Brien of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution (via Twitter). Atlanta has summoned outfielder Lane Adams from Triple-A to take the roster spot.
d’Arnaud, 30, has bounced around the league over his six seasons in the majors, but received his most extensive action yet last year with the Braves. Over 262 plate appearances, he slashed .245/.317/.335. While he had managed three hits and two walks in his ten trips to the plate thus far in 2016, the Braves evidently elected to go in another direction for the time being.
The 27-year-old Adams has seen the majors, but only briefly. He was off to a strong start at Triple-A, though, with a .333/.352/.588 slash line — but also 16 strikeouts against just a pair of walks — over his 54 plate appearances. He’ll join Emilio Bonifacio in the reserve outfield mix, though it’s also possible that the former could see more action in the infield with d’Arnaud’s departure from the roster.
The Marlins are “moving forward” in negotiations with the would-be ownership group headlined by Derek Jeter and Jeb Bush, according to Barry Jackson of the Miami Herald (links to Twitter). The organization is said to be “optimistic” that a deal will be reached to transfer control from current owner Jeffrey Loria to Bush, who’d be the new control person, and the four other members of the group. It’s said to be an “agreement in principle” that sets a $1.3B purchase price.
This report follows some conflicting signals sent throughout the day. Earlier, a report suggested that the Jeter/Bush group was the only possible bidder left due to a lack of interest. But even that group was said not to have submitted a firm offer, with financing still in the works. Marlins president David Samson flatly rejected this report, saying it was strewn with errors but declining to specify or correct them.
Later, Scott Soshnick of Bloomberg reported that the Jeter/Bush group had “won the auction” for the organization — which presents quite a different picture of the entire process. In addition to framing it as an “auction” for the first time, this report says that there were multiple other bidding groups, including one headed by businessman Wayne Rothbaum and another led by Tagg Romney (which included Hall-of-Fame hurler Tom Glavine). When asked to respond, Samson stated that he would not offer any comment, as Tim Healey of the Sun-Sentinel tweets.
Notably, none of the reports suggest that any paperwork has been signed. It’s important to bear in mind, too, that even in the event that a preliminary agreement is struck, it would still be subject to a lengthy finalization process — between the parties and also involving authorization from Major League Baseball.
The broad health arena appears to offer great potential for competitive advantage to individual MLB organizations. We have heard of medical and dietary advancements for various teams, for example, and there’s surely lots going on that isn’t being discussed fully in public. For the Cardinals, one area of focus is on training, but it’s all happening as part of a broader initiative, as Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch writes. The club is building up a “department of performance” that will combine training, medical, and other related functions under one roof.
Here’s more from the game’s central divisions:
12:32pm: Marlins president David Samson calls the Forbes story “inaccurate,” as Clark Spencer of the Miami Herald writes, though he did not provide details on bidding parties.
11:56am: Casting doubts on recent reports of keen interest from multiple bidding groups, Mike Ozanian of Forbes writes that the Marlins are currently drawing attention from just one potential suitor. And even that group — a team of investors led by Derek Jeter and Jeb Bush — has only yet made a “non-binding indication of interest” and is still hunting for cash to support a bid.
According to Ozanian, other potential bidders have not continued their initial pursuit of a deal with current Marlins owner Jeffrey Loria. Former hurler Tom Glavine was said to have joined forces with Tagg Romney (Mitt’s son), but that pairing has apparently fizzled already. That’s particularly problematic, per the report, since the group held out the promise of bringing a significant amount of cash to the table.
We have heard talk at times of at least one more possible challenger to take the reins in Miami. But Ozanian says that interest has also seemingly dried up beyond the two recognizable bidding groups noted above. There’s doubt, it seems, as to where an alternative to the Jeter/Bush team might come from.
If there’s truly just one passable pursuer of the organization, that surely doesn’t bode well for Loria’s sale price. As the report notes, there already seems to have been a precipitous fall in the numbers being discussed publicly. Just ten weeks ago, the club was said to be headed for a $1.6B sale.
1:00pm: Manager John Farrell provided some details in an appearance on MLB Network Radio on Sirius XM, as Evan Drellich of CSNNE.com recounts. The injury was to the “medial side of the right knee,” said Farrell, who says that significant swelling forced the DL move. It is still not known how long of an absence is to be expected.
11:07am: The Red Sox have placed third baseman Pablo Sandoval on the 10-day DL with a right knee sprain, the club has announced. He’ll be replaced by infielder Josh Rutledge, who has been activated from his own DL stint.
Sandoval, 30, has produced uneven results thus far upon returning from a long layoff. Through 67 plate appearances, he is hitting .213/.269/.377 with three home runs. And there are some questions about his glovework, with four errors on his ledger and poor grades from advanced metrics (in quite a small sample).
Still, there are some reasons for hope with the bat. Sandoval’s .164 isolated slugging mark matches his work from 2012, which would seem to be a positive development. But it remains to be seen whether he can right the ship in the on-base department. Sandoval is suffering from a .217 BABIP despite making plenty of hard contact, though his strikeout rate is up to 19.4% on a 14.6% swinging-strike rate — well above his career figures in both areas.
While Boston will be glad to get Rutledge back, the hope had been to see both players on the roster at the same time. The switch-hitting Sandoval has continued to struggle badly against left-handed pitching, making the pair a theoretically useful platoon match. (Rutledge hits from the right side, though he hasn’t carried noticeable splits historically.)
Instead, the Sox will lean on Rutledge — along with left-handed-hitting utilityman Marco Hernandez — to cover third base during Sandoval’s absence. It’s not clear at this point just how long the organization expects to be without the veteran.
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