Mariners Activate Steve Cishek, Option Dae-Ho Lee
The Mariners announced a series of roster moves today, including the activation of reliever Steve Cishek from the 15-day DL. Fellow right-hander Joe Wieland was optioned to create active roster space.
Seattle also made a swap of right-handed power bats, optioning veteran Korean slugger and MLB rookie Dae-Ho Lee. He’ll be replaced by Stefen Romero, at least for the time being, though expanded rosters could spur a return.
[Related: Updated Mariners Depth Chart]
Cishek ended up needing only a brief stint on the disabled list for a hip issue that wasn’t as serious as it initially sounded. His return further bolsters a pen that has some rather compelling arms.
As for Lee, 34, the demotion serves as a chance to get back on track before the stretch run. Though it’s not typical for players of his age to be optionable, Lee only just came over to North America after spending his entire career playing in Korea and Japan.
Lee, who has been used mostly against left-handed pitching, owned an .850+ OPS as recently as July 15th. But he has fallen off since, leaving him with a .246/.308/.440 overall batting line with 13 total home runs over his first 253 MLB plate appearances.
The 27-year-old Romero will now get a shot at carving out his own role for the M’s. Though he has struggled in rather limited major league time over the last three seasons, Romero owns a .314/.371/.551 slash on the year at Triple-A, where he has launched 19 long balls in 418 plate appearances.
Brewers Designate Ramon Flores, Activate Domingo Santana
The Brewers have designated outfielder Ramon Flores for assignment, per a team announcement. He’ll be replaced on the active roster by fellow outfielder Domingo Santana, who is finally ready to return from the DL.
Flores, who was out of options, came to Milwaukee over the winter in the deal that sent infielder Luis Sardinas to the Mariners. He made the Opening Day roster for the Brewers, but has largely struggled thus far in 2016.
Over 289 plate appearances on the season, the 24-year-old Flores carries an anemic .205/.294/.261 batting line. Though he has played in center some, Flores hasn’t graded well there, and his bat just hasn’t shown enough life to play in the corners.
Milwaukee obviously hoped for more for the former Yankees prospect. After all, he carries an excellent .282/.376/.449 batting line over his 655 career plate appearances at Triple-A. He not only hit 16 long balls in that span, but also recorded nearly as many walks (83) as strikeouts (94). In his brief time at the major league level, though Flores has been more solid than good in the K/BB department (with about a 2:1 ratio) and has shown no pop to speak of.
Brian Sabean: Giants Have Discussed Adding Carlos Gomez
The Giants have had internal discussions about pursuing newly-minted free agent outfielder Carlos Gomez, president of baseball operations Brian Sabean tells Tim Kawakami of the Mercury News. Sabean ultimately says he’s not sure whether San Francisco will put in an offer, but made clear that Gomez is “in play” as a target. Jon Heyman of Fan Rag tweeted earlier that the Giants were a possible landing spot, though Andrew Baggarly of the Mercury News notes on Twitter that the club is still “unconvinced” that Gomez would make for a useful acquisition.
Adding an outfielder doesn’t seem like a necessity for the Giants, who have numerous options on their depth chart. On the other hand, some cracks are showing as the club fades in the standings. Though Angel Pagan has found the fountain of youth, Hunter Pence has struggled since returning from the DL, Denard Span hasn’t hit as much as hoped, and Gregor Blanco is well off of his recent productivity. Kelby Tomlinson provides another option, and youngsters Jarrett Parker and Mac Williamson have both shown promise, but the overall unit has lacked punch of late and Williamson is shelved with a shoulder issue.
That’s a fairly crowded mix, and Gomez wouldn’t offer a clear upgrade given the recent struggles that led to his release by the Astros. It’s certainly possible to imagine him sharing time in center with Span, though, as Gomez remains a useful up-the-middle defender despite his offensive fall-off. Plus, he won’t cost anything beyond the league minimum and the impending roster expansion would largely alleviate any pressures in that regard (apart from clearing a 40-man spot).
Whether or not Gomez is a viable option seemingly depends upon his own motivations as much as those of the Giants. Sabean noted that the team needs to know whether the veteran would be willing to possibly accept a part-time role. Presumably, San Francisco isn’t interested in promising regular playing time to a player who carries a sub-.600 OPS in his age-30 season. Still though, Gomez’s lofty established ceiling remains a tantalizing prospect for teams that may think they can help him find his groove.
Cubs Place John Lackey, Hector Rondon On 15-Day DL
The Cubs have placed right-handers John Lackey and Hector Rondon on the disabled list for precautionary measures due to arm injuries, as MLB.com’s Carrie Muskat reported. The Cubs have the luxury of placing both pitchers on the DL to avoid risk of worsening their minor injuries and will recall left-hander Rob Zastryzny and right-hander Felix Pena from Triple-A Iowa.
[Related: Updated Cubs Depth Chart]
Lackey, 37, is dealing with shoulder soreness, while the 28-year-old Rondon has a triceps issue. Neither is believed to be serious, with Chicago acting to add some fresh arms while taking a cautious approach with two of their better arms.
The veteran Lackey has been one of the offseason’s better free agent additions, as he has already run up 158 1/3 innings of 3.41 ERA pitching with 8.9 K/9 against 2.4 BB/9. That strikeout-per-nine rate represents a career-best mark for the 14-year big leaguer, which is no small feat given his age. His two-year, $32MM contract looked like a solid buy upon signing, and seems an even better bargain with nearly half of it already in the books.
As for Rondon, 2016 has been another stellar campaign. Though he was bumped from the closer’s role with the addition of Aroldis Chapman, that wasn’t due to any performance issues from the former Rule 5 pick. Far from it. Over his 43 2/3 frames this year, Rondon carries a 2.47 ERA. He has compiled that mark while racking up 10.5 K/9 versus just 1.2 BB/9 — improving upon his two excellent prior seasons in both regards.
If any team can weather the loss of two such significant hurlers, it is the Cubs. That’s not necessarily due to any kind of unique pitching depth as it is the team’s likely-insurmountable 13-game lead in the NL Central. Chicago is also in excellent shape in securing home field advantage, pacing the Nationals by six games for the National League’s top record.
Nathan Eovaldi Undergoes Tommy John Surgery
AUG. 19: The Yankees announced today that Eovaldi underwent Tommy John surgery and also had his right flexor tendon repaired during the operation. Yankees head physician Dr. Christopher Ahmad performed the procedure, which figures to sideline Eovaldi for the remainder of this season and the entirety of the 2017 campaign as well.
AUG. 16: Yankees righty Nathan Eovaldi is set to undergo surgery to repair both a torn flexor tendon and a partially torn ulnar collateral ligament in his elbow, ESPN New York’s Wallace Mathews was among those to report (Twitter links). The pair of procedures will prevent him from pitching in 2017.
The news could well spell the end of Eovaldi’s tenure with the Yankees. He is entering his final season of arbitration eligibility, and will surely command at least some kind of a raise on his current $5.6MM salary. Unless New York looks to work out some kind of multi-year arrangement, then, Eovaldi will likely be non-tendered this fall.
Presuming that Eovaldi is fitted with a new UCL as part of the work being done, this will be his second trip through the Tommy John process — with his first coming during his amateur days. That prior procedure increased the 26-year-old’s likelihood of requiring Tommy John surgery this year, as MLBTR contributor Bradley Woodrum explained in his recent statistical study. That — along with the concurrent flexor tendon injury — also likely means that he’ll face a longer and more difficult road back than a typical, first-time TJ patient.
This crushing injury brings a disappointing end to what had already been a frustrating campaign. Eovaldi averaged 97.0 mph with his fastball and ran up a 9.3% swinging strike rate — both personal highs — but managed only a 4.76 ERA over his 124 2/3 innings. Despite a 49.6% groundball rate, Eovaldi surrendered a lot of hard contact and coughed up 1.66 home runs per nine innings.
Long an intriguing talent, Eovaldi has not yet managed to fully harness his gifts at the major league level. He has never previously had home run issues — quite the contrary, in fact — but still underperformed his fairly promising peripherals in each of the last two years, when ERA estimators valued him as a sub-4.00 pitcher.
Eovaldi carries a 4.21 ERA over his 739 lifetime innings, though a 3.85 career FIP also leads to a solid accumulation of 9.3 fWAR. That kind of output makes him a useful back-of-the-rotation arm with some room to grow, but it’s fair to wonder whether the bullpen lies in his future. After all, Eovaldi’s big-time fastball would likely play up in a relief role, where he could also limit his often-inconsistent secondary offerings and reduce the toll on his arm. And over his career, Eovaldi has limited batters to a sub-.700 OPS the first and second times through the order, with that number shooting up to .887 for hitters seeing him the third time in a day.
Astros Request Release Waivers On Carlos Gomez
The Astros have requested unconditional release waivers on outfielder Carlos Gomez, who had recently been designated for assignment, tweets MLB.com’s Brian McTaggart. Though Houston was said at one point to be likely to reach a deal to trade the former star, he’ll instead hit the open market in 48 hours, assuming no team claims the $2.21MM he is owed through season’s end.
With the move, Gomez’s disappointing tenure with the Astros officially ends. Acquired to provide a major boost to the organization just over one year ago, he ultimately contributed a meager .221/.277/.342 batting line in 486 plate appearances.
That represented an unbelievable fall-off given the 30-year-old’s recent track record. Though his numbers were down a bit early in 2015, he was coming off of a two-year run in which he slashed .284/.347/.491 and launched 47 home runs with 74 steals in 1,234 plate appearances. That was all the more impressive given Gomez’s excellent defensive metrics in center.
All told, at the time of the deal, he seemed to be one of the better all-around players in all of baseball. With one more year of control (2016) then left on Gomez’s highly affordable contract at the time, Houston GM Jeff Luhnow elected to part with four quality prospects to add Gomez and righty Mike Fiers.
It remains to be seen what will come next for Gomez, who not long ago seemed set for a monster contract in free agency after the present season. Instead, he’ll hit the open market early. The Cardinals and Mets had been said to have interest in his services, but recent reports have downplayed the likelihood of those landing spots. However with Giancarlo Stanton out for the year, the Marlins have been said to have interest and do appear to make for a good match.
Teams eyeing Gomez will probably be able to hang their hat on his still-useful outfield glove, which has fallen in defense metrics but remains playable in center. A signing, though, would mean a roll of the dice on his fading bat. Of course, once he clears release waivers Gomez can be had for nothing but the pro-rated portion of the league minimum — which amounts to roughly $125K — as Houston will cover the remainder of his $9MM salary.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.
Alderson: “No Present Plans” To Dismiss Terry Collins
Mets GM Sandy Alderson says that the club has “no present plans” to part ways with manager Terry Collins or any of his staff, as ESPNNewYork.com’s Adam Rubin reports. Alderson declined to endorse the skipper for the rest of the way, though he did so while noting that he would never issue such an assurance “unequivocally.”
Sitting at .500 entering play tonight, New York is beginning a critical, four-game series in San Francisco. The club sat at seven games over back after splitting a doubleheader on July 26th, but has gone just 7-and-14 since. Still, a recent report suggested that Collins’s job was safe for the time being.
Collins helped guide the Mets to a NL East title and World Series appearance last year, and entered his sixth season on the job with a seemingly firm grasp of the position. Indeed, he struck a new deal with the organization in November which guaranteed his salary through next season.
That successful campaign raised expectations, though, and Collins carries a sub-.500 mark during his time in New York. Of course, his tenure has coincided with a forced austerity plan occasioned by ownership’s financial limitations in the wake of the Bernie Madoff scandal.
At the time of his extension last fall, Collins suggested he was interested only in continuing on for a relatively short period of time. It seemed fairly likely that he had hoped to remain in command for this season and one more — the life of the deal — as the Mets sought to take advantage of their current window of contention.
Things haven’t gone as hoped, however, and some have argued that Collins is at least partially to blame. Certainly, Collins isn’t responsible for the team’s roster decisions over the winter and injuries to key players such as David Wright, Matt Harvey, and Lucas Duda. But there has been simmering frustration over his bullpen management, handling of struggling young outfielder Michael Conforto, and other matters — though much the same could be said of many other managers around the game.
It’s always difficult to assess from the outside just how much blame should fall on a skipper, excepting at least certain in-game decisionmaking. Conforto’s playing time, for instance, was presumably determined in conjunction with the front office. Still, Alderson’s somewhat tepid statement on his manager’s situation seems to suggest that the organization isn’t fully on board with his work this season.
Whether or not a change could make any kind of meaningful difference at this stage, of course, is an open question. And it’s not yet clear whether the Mets will see if a new in-uniform leader can effect a sudden turnaround, or whether instead the team will wait until the offseason to assess its options.
AL Notes: Mariners, Angels, Red Sox, Aybar
Major League Baseball’s owners have voted to approve the recent sale of the Mariners from Nintendo to a group led by new chairman and CEO John Stanton, as Bob Dutton of the Tacoma News Tribune reports. That step was largely a formality to finalize the major transaction, which also transfers the team-owned Root Sports network. The sale placed the value of the franchise at $1.4B.
Here’s more from the American League:
- Angels pro scouting director Hal Morris is leaving the organization, according to Keith Law of ESPN.com (via Twitter). The big league veteran had held his position since the fall of 2011, when he was hired by then-GM Jerry Dipoto. Much has changed since that time, of course, as Dipoto left his post last summer and the organization ended up replacing him with Billy Eppler over the offseason.
- Of the five young Red Sox international signees who were recently returned to the open market as a penalty for the team’s signing violations, only one — righty Cesar Gonzalez — had failed to sign with a new organization in the immediate aftermath of the move. As Evan Drellich of the Boston Herald recently reported, Gonzalez has now found a new home with the Padres. The 17-year-old was not considered a significant prospect, and landed only $25K from San Diego, per MLB.com’s Jesse Sanchez (via Twitter), though he’ll also get to hold onto his original signing bonus from Boston and will get a fresh start with a new organization.
- The Tigers are looking to just-acquired infielder Erick Aybar for a boost, though they won’t necessarily install him as the regular shortstop, George Sipple of the Detroit Free Press writes. It seems that the 32-year-old is likely to share time up the middle with Dixon Machado for the time being, and presumably he’ll move into more of a utility role upon the anticipated return of Jose Iglesias and Nick Castellanos from the DL later this year. Aybar got off to a hideous start with the Braves, though he had hit much better leading up to the trade. “I know it’s been a down year,” manager Brad Ausmus said of Aybar’s season to date. “He’s not necessarily here to replace anybody. If he comes in here and plays well he’ll play. Simple as that. We’re in the business of winning baseball games. If he helps us win baseball games he’ll play.”
Injury Notes: McCullers, Cain, Gray, Ross, Soto
The Astros still don’t know whether they can expect top young righty Lance McCullers Jr. to return this season from his elbow woes, as MLB.com’s Brian McTaggart reports on Twitter. “We won’t know until he gets evaluated in a week,” said manager A.J. Hinch. “It’s all guess work at this point.” After climbing back from a rough start to the year, Houston now sits just one game over .500 and is in danger of falling out of contention. The 22-year-old McCullers owns a 3.22 ERA — matching his results from a season ago — and is sorely missed.
Here are some more notable pieces of information on the injury front:
- Giants righty Matt Cain is headed to the DL with a lower back strain, as Henry Schulman of the San Francisco Chronicle was among those to tweet. San Francisco activated righty Cory Gearrin from his own DL stint in a concurrent move, which does at least bolster the pen. It seems possible that veteran righty Jake Peavy could slide back into the rotation in place of Cain, who hasn’t completed six innings in a start since May 21st and was tagged for 11 earned runs over his last two outings.
- While it’s still far from a sure thing, the Athletics may yet welcome back righty Sonny Gray this year, manager Bob Melvin said yesterday. As Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle tweets, the 26-year-old staff ace is beginning plyometric workouts and is feeling better. He recently hit the disabled list with a forearm strain and has struggled all year long, compiling an uncharacteristic 5.74 ERA in 116 innings of work.
- Tyson Ross has made it through a 30-pitch live BP session with added pen work, giving some hope that he’ll return for the Padres late this year, per Dennis Lin of the San Diego Union-Tribune (via Twitter). Still, the veteran righty will need to throw another such session before a rehab stint can be considered as he tries to return from shoulder troubles. With just one outing on his record for the season, Ross won’t command much if any raise on his $9.625MM arbitration salary in his final year of eligibility, but it will surely be difficult for the Pads to trade him over the winter if he can’t return to full health by the end of the year. Ross may yet feature as a spring or mid-season trade candidate next season, as he’ll qualify for free agency after the 2017 campaign.
- The Angels placed catcher Geovany Soto on the 15-day DL with knee inflammation, as Pedro Moura of the Los Angeles Times tweets. Soto had appeared to be a plausible August trade candidate, but his knee surgery earlier this year seems to have lingered. The 33-year-old carries a useful .269/.321/.487 slash on the year, though he has compiled that in only 86 plate appearances. He is set to return to the open market at season’s end.
Blue Jays Shake Up Scouting & Player Development
TODAY: Toronto has also relieved minor league field coordinator Doug Davis of his duties, Shi David of Sportsnet.ca. A part of the organization since 2006, Davis was one of the highest-ranking members of the player development staff.
YESTERDAY: The Blue Jays have made two significant changes at the top of their scouting department, Baseball America’s John Manuel reports. Scouting director Brian Parker and national crosschecker Blake Davis have been let go from their positions, per the report.
Parker has been with the Toronto organization since 2009 and took the seat atop the amateur scouting group in 2012. Davis has a history not only in scouting, but also as an agent, BP Toronto’s Gideon Turk explains in further detailing their respective roles.
The Jays’ drafting history over the last several years is somewhat mixed, though obviously it remains incomplete. As both of the above-cited pieces detail, the Parker-led drafts have focused on projectable righties. Among the selections, some have reached the majors (Manuel cites Matt Boyd and Kendall Graveman), while others have shown promise (e.g. Conner Greene, Sean Reid-Foley), but none appear particularly likely to be stars.
Regardless of how the work of these two men was assessed, their eventual departure from the organization was fairly likely with the installation of the Mark Shapiro/Ross Atkins-led front office. With this year’s draft recently going in the books — the Jays took right-hander TJ Zeuch with their first selection — it was an opportune time for Shapiro and Atkins to continue re-shaping their support group.