White Sox Release Oscar Colas
The White Sox have released outfielder Oscar Colas, according to an announcement from the club’s Triple-A affiliate Charlotte Knights. Colas was previously outrighted off the club’s 40-man roster back in March, so the move has no impact on Chicago’s major league roster.
It’s an unfortunate end to Colas’s time in the organization. The 26-year-old was a fairly high-profile player in Cuba and Japan before he came over to affiliated ball by signing with Chicago for a $2.7MM bonus in early 2022. He crushed minor league pitching that year and put himself on the map as a consensus top-100 prospect in the sport headed into the 2023 season. He broke camp with the team after a strong spring training, but ultimately struggled badly across 75 games with the White Sox that year. He hit just .216/.257/.314 in 263 trips to the plate, with an elevated 27.0% strikeout rate against a lackluster 4.6% walk rate.
Those numbers weren’t enough for the White Sox to continue riding with Colas even amid a disastrous 101-loss season, and he was shipped back to the minors. Once back in Triple-A, Colas regained his hitting prowess somewhat and slashed .272/.345/.465 with the Knights in 54 games down the stretch. As the White Sox dove headfirst into a rebuilding phase in 2024, many expected that Colas would receive another opportunity to come up and try to establish himself in the majors with the club. That never came to pass, however, as reps in right field were instead primarily split between Dominic Fletcher, Gavin Sheets, and Tommy Pham.
Relegated to Triple-A for almost the entirety of 2024, Colas hit .273/.368/.273 with a 26.3% strikeout rate and a 10.5% walk rate in the 13 games he did play in the majors last year but recorded no extra-base hits in the majors and saw his performance in the minors take a noticeable step back as he slashed just .246/.332/.400 across 400 trips to the plate. Colas did not factor into the club’s plans for the outfield this year either, as team brass added players like Mike Tauchman and Austin Slater to the mix rather than give Colas another opportunity. This year, he posted a brutal .163/.245/.255 slash line across the Double- and Triple-A levels in 29 games (110 plate appearances) before the White Sox decided it was time to pull the plug.
Now that the White Sox and Colas have parted ways, the outfielder is free to sign with any of the league’s 29 other teams. The outfielder won’t turn 27 until September and is not terribly far removed from sensational numbers in the upper minors, so it wouldn’t be a shock if an outfield needy club gave him a call to serve as a depth option or injury replacement. Another possible option would be to explore the possibility of playing overseas, building on his stint with NPB’s Fukuoka Softbank Hawks during the 2019 season. If Colas is unable to find an attractive stateside opportunity, he’s certainly young enough to find success overseas before attempting to make an MLB comeback as a handful of other players have done over the years.
Guardians Promote Nic Enright
The Guardians are recalling right-hander Nic Enright to the roster today, as noted by MLB.com’s Tim Stebbins. He’ll take the place of right-hander Hunter Gaddis, who is going on the bereavement list. Should Enright make it into a game during this coming stint in the majors, it would be his big league debut.
Enright, 28, was drafted by Cleveland during the 20th round of the 2019 draft. Having mostly worked in relief during his college days, he was used out of the bullpen right away in his professional debut, when he allowed just one earned run in 18 dominant innings at the rookie league level. He struck out 36.1% of his opponents while walking 11.1%, and was clearly ready for a larger challenge. The cancelled minor league season in 2020 stalled Enright’s promotion somewhat, but he nonetheless reached Double-A by the end of the 2021 season. After scuffling to a 4.31 ERA in his first taste of action at the level, he enjoyed a fantastic season in the upper minors in 2022 with a 2.88 ERA in 65 2/3 innings of work between the Double- and Triple-A levels.
That’s the sort of performance that puts a player on the radar for a call-up to the majors. The Marlins clearly saw him as potentially ready for the show, as they plucked him from Cleveland in the Rule 5 draft that December. As Stebbins wrote about back in March, however, Enright was diagnosed with Hodgkins’ Lymphoma just a couple of weeks after being drafted by Miami. MLBTR readers are encourage to read Stebbins’s story about Enright’s battle with cancer in full.
The righty continued to pitch while undergoing treatment and made a handful of rehab appearances in the minors with the Marlins before eventually being returned to the Guardians organization in late May. Perhaps unsurprisingly given the fact that Enright was simultaneously changing organizations and battling cancer while trying to continue his development as a pitcher, 2023 was a bit of a down season for him as he struggled to a 5.09 ERA in 46 innings of work at the Triple-A level.
Despite those difficulties, Enright continued to persevere and turned things around last year, when he dominated to the tune of a 1.06 ERA and a 49.2% strikeout rate at Triple-A. That phenomenal performance came in just 17 innings of work, however, as the right-hander missed most of last year due to a strain in his throwing shoulder. Enright has been able to avoid further injury this year through nine appearances and has a 2.00 ERA at Triple-A, albeit with identical 18.9% strikeout and walk rates that are clear cause for concern. Regardless of that potential red flag, however, the 28-year-old is now on the precipice of making his big league debut despite the substantial off-the-field hurdles he’s faced in recent years.
If Enright does make his debut with the Guardians this evening, he’ll be tasked with facing a tough Tigers lineup in Detroit. As for Gaddis, his absence from the Cleveland bullpen will surely be felt given that he’s he’s pitched to a brilliant 1.41 ERA and 2.82 FIP with a 26.1% strikeout rate across 95 2/3 innings of work since the start of the 2024 season. Fortunately, the Guardians will still have Emmanuel Clase and Cade Smith to handle the late innings in Gaddis’s absence.
Poll: Can Jeremy Pena Keep This Up?
It’s been a struggle for the Astros to even keep their heads above water this year thanks to the substantial losses they suffered over the offseason and a large number of lackluster in-season performances. Justin Verlander, Alex Bregman, and Kyle Tucker are all playing elsewhere. Yordan Alvarez is hurt. Jose Altuve, Yainer Diaz, and new addition Christian Walker have all been disappointing so far. And the rotation has virtually no certainty behind Framber Valdez and Hunter Brown. All of that makes staying just 2.5 games back in the AL West an impressive feat in its own right, even if the days of the dynasty that brought home two World Series championships appear to be over.
The development of shortstop Jeremy Pena is a major reason why they’re still in the hunt for the playoffs at all at this point. A third-rounder in the 2018 draft who debuted in 2022 with a brilliant season that earned him a Gold Glove award, Pena has always been a valuable player thanks to his excellent work at shortstop but has never been more than a league average performer at the plate. Entering 2025, the 27-year-old had slashed .261/.307/.399 with a wRC+ of exactly 100 during his MLB career.
As the Cubs demonstrated when they offered Dansby Swanson $177MM to become their starting shortstop, a league average bat with an excellent glove at shortstop is already incredibly valuable. Pena has seemingly taken his game to another level so far this year, however. He’s hitting an excellent .298/.362/.447 with six homers, six steals, and a wRC+ of 132 this season. Those numbers aren’t exactly appearing at the top of any leaderboards this early in the season, when relatively small sample sizes allow baseball’s most fearsome hitters to flirt with a .400 batting average or a 60-homer season virtually every year. But could Pena’s step forward be more sustainable than the typical hot start to a season?
There’s plenty of reason to believe that’s the case. One of the most positive changes in Pena’s profile is his substantially improved plate discipline. After striking out at a 20.4% clip and posting the third-lowest walk rate in the majors among hitters with at least 1500 plate appearances over the past three years, Pena is now one of just 19 qualified hitters with a strikeout rate under 14% this year (13.7%). He’s even walking a bit more frequently, with a 6.2% rate that grades out as merely below average rather than in the conversation for lowest in the league. Those improvements in plate discipline appear to be largely sustainable. Pena is swinging less often than ever (49.0%), and while that’s come with a decrease in swing rate inside the strike zone it’s also allowed him to cut down his swinging strike rate by nearly three points relative to his career norms.
While Pena’s increased passivity in the strike zone could be a cause for concern down the line, for now it seems as though swinging less often is doing wonders for his plate discipline. That willingness to take strikes inside the zone has been offset so far by increased power production. Pena’s .149 ISO to this point in the season doesn’t quite match his rookie campaign, when he launched 22 homers and 20 doubles, but it’s still ten points above his career norms and leaves room for him to flirt with a second 20-homer season after combining for just 25 long balls in 2023 and ’24. If this newfound power proves to be sustainable, that could help Pena avoid opposing pitchers challenging him in the zone more often to exploit the fact that he’s begun to swing less often.
The underlying metrics on Pena’s power output are mixed, however. He’s hitting the ball hard more often than ever before with a 40.1% hard-hit rate that would be the best of his career, but his 6.8% barrel rate is not substantially different from his career 6.2% mark, his average exit velocity is virtually unchanged, and his max exit velocity is actually lower than ever before. His bat speed has actually come down slightly as well. It’s not all bad news, however: in addition to his aforementioned hard-hit rate improvements, Pena is squaring the ball up more often than ever before (28.9%). In all, Pena’s xwOBA (.349) is more or less in line with his wOBA of .355, which suggests that he’s more or less earned his production to this point.
How do MLBTR readers feel about Pena’s strong start to the season? Is it a sustainable step forward for the young hitter, or will he revert back to average with time? Have your say in the poll below:
Will Jeremy Pena be an above average hitter going forward?
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Yes, Pena's improved discipline and power output are sustainable enough for him to remain an above average hitter. 59% (1,010)
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No, Pena's questionable power metrics and passivity at the plate will cause him to regress back to average with time. 41% (712)
Total votes: 1,722
The Opener: Acuña, A’s, NLCS Rematch
Here are three things we’ll be keeping an eye on around the baseball world as we head into another weekend:
1. Acuña to return:
The wait is finally over for fans in Atlanta: the Braves will be back to (mostly) full strength today when they activate outfielder Ronald Acuña Jr. from the injured list. The 27-year-old superstar and 2023 NL MVP hasn’t taken the field in nearly a fully calendar year after tearing his ACL last May, and the Braves have struggled somewhat in his absence. The club made the playoffs by virtue of a tiebreaker last year but went on to get swept out of the NL Wild Card series, and after an 0-7 start to the 2025 season they’ve only recently clawed their way back to a .500 record. A career .289/.379/.525 hitter, Acuña should certainly help with the offensive woes in Atlanta amid lackluster seasons from Ozzie Albies and Michael Harris II as well as a PED suspension for offseason signee Jurickson Profar.
2. Roster overhaul in West Sacramento?
The A’s are in a tough spot. The club worked hard to try and revamp their roster over the offseason for their first year away from Oakland, and while the early part of the season saw them flirt with contention, they’ve now crashed back down to Earth with nine consecutive losses. It seems as though that losing streak might be a cause for a shakeup to the roster; outfielder Denzel Clarke is reportedly on his way, and while that move by itself wouldn’t constitute a major change to the roster ESPN’s Jeff Passan teased the possibility of more moves to come as the A’s try to get things back on track. Will the roster look substantially different by the time they face the Astros next week — or even the Phillies this evening?
3. NLCS rematch in Queens:
The reigning World Series champions are coming to Queens, and for the Dodgers and Mets that means a rematch of last year’s NLCS. The Dodgers, of course, ultimately prevailed in six games last time around, but both teams made substantial upgrades in the offseason. The series starts tonight at 7:10pm local time in New York with longtime Dodger Clayton Kershaw on the mound for his second appearance of the season. The Mets will counter with Griffin Canning, who has a 2.47 ERA through nine starts. Saturday will see Tony Gonsolin (4.05 ERA) make his fifth start of the year against southpaw David Peterson (2.86 ERA), while Sunday’s game will feature Dodgers youngster Landon Knack (6.14 ERA) against Mets ace Kodai Senga (1.43 ERA).
Poll: Did The White Sox Find A Gem In The Rule 5?
There’s not been much for fans on the South Side of Chicago to get excited about of late. The club’s lengthy rebuild in the 2010s assembled a core that included well-regarded pieces like Lucas Giolito, Dylan Cease, Eloy Jimenez, Tim Anderson, Yoan Moncada, and Luis Robert Jr. but did not translate to much success on the field; the group ultimately made it to the playoffs in 2020 and ’21 but lost in the first round both years before regressing to an 81-81 record in 2022 and kicking off the latest rebuild.
Since then, White Sox fans have watched that core get dismantled, whether via trades or declined club options, and breakout ace Garrett Crochet followed them out the door over the offseason. Crochet’s excellent pitching performances were the one highlight of the White Sox season this side of the Campfire Milkshake, so that left fans with little to look forward to in 2025… or so we thought. In reality, the White Sox seem to have replaced their dominant ace with another potential front-of-the-rotation arm who came from the most unlikely of places: the Rule 5 draft.
Righty Shane Smith was plucked from the Brewers’ organization and made Chicago’s Opening Day rotation out of Spring Training. It was difficult to know what to expect from Smith, given that an organization as well-regarded for its pitching development as Milwaukee was comfortable leaving the righty unprotected this past winter. That’s quickly proving to have been a mistake. Through his first ten starts of the season, Smith has posted a sterling 2.36 ERA that stands as the eleventh-best figure among qualified starters this year, just ahead of Paul Skenes.
ERA is an imperfect estimator of talent, of course, and Smith’s personal figure is deflated by the fact that a six-run, five-inning outing against the Cubs saw five of those runs scored as unearned. Even setting ERA aside, however, his season has been an impressive one so far: a 3.32 FIP (26th) and 3.57 xERA (t-29th) lend credence to the idea of Smith as a potential front-end arm, even if he isn’t quite in the Cy Young conversation based on those more advanced metrics. Have the White Sox truly found a diamond in the rough, or is Smith’s hot start to his career just a flash in the pan?
Overall, Smith’s profile is a solid one, but there are signs that it’s closer to that of a league average starter than anything else. His 22.0% strikeout rate and 8.1% walk rate are both middle of the pack, and a 45.3% ground ball rate is above-average but not exactly elite. His .259 BABIP and 5.9% home run to fly ball ratio are both top-of-the-scale, but neither of those figures are particularly skill-interactive or sustainable, particularly for a hurler who rarely generates soft contact. If anything, those figures are potential red flags that indicate risk of future regression. Smith’s 3.96 SIERA and 97 xFIP- paint him as a roughly average MLB starter as well, offering all the more reason to think he might regress.
There are reasons for optimism as well, however. Smith generates swinging strikes at a well above average clip, which could be a sign for strikeout potential beyond the average rates that he’s shown to this point. An uptick in strikeouts would raise the floor on his whole profile in a way that could allow him to keep producing at this level. Even without that, however, it’s fair to point out that there have certainly been pitchers who have found consistent MLB success over the years despite mediocre underlying data. Smith’s metrics are better than, as one example, those of Javier Assad on the other side of town. Assad has a career 3.40 ERA across nearly 300 innings in the majors despite lackluster metrics, and that’s a figure any team would happily take from a Rule 5 pick.
How do MLBTR readers think Smith will pan out going forward? Will he be able to find another gear and keep producing like a front-half of the rotation arm, will he settle in as more of a reliable back-end starter, or will this hot start prove to be a total mirage? Have your say in the poll below:
What's next for Shane Smith?
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Smith was a savvy addition by the White Sox, but he'll be more of a solidly average starter going forward than anyting else. 63% (1,742)
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The White Sox pulled off a coup over the winter and Smith will remain a quality, front-half of the rotation arm going forward. 25% (684)
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Smith's early success is a mirage; like most Rule 5 picks, he won't amount to much going forward. 12% (318)
Total votes: 2,744
The Opener: Kirby, Perez, Heim
Here are three things we’ll be keeping an eye on around the baseball world throughout the day:
1. Kirby to make season debut:
The Mariners have been without star right-hander George Kirby all season due to shoulder inflammation. While a strong start from the club’s offense has been enough to propel them to the AL West lead with a 28-20 record, the return for an All-Star who sports a career 3.43 ERA and 3.22 FIP only further brightens the outlook. Kirby has been a workhorse by the standards of today’s game, throwing more than 190 innings in each of the last two seasons. That streak will end this year after the first significant absence of his young career, but the 27-year-old still figures to offer the Mariners stability at the top of their rotation. His first task will be facing the Astros and right-hander Lance McCullers Jr. tonight. McCullers recently came off the IL himself but has struggled to a 7.88 ERA through three starts since his return.
2. Perez nearing milestone:
Veteran Royals catcher Salvador Perez has had a rough start to the 2025 season despite some positive signs in the underlying metrics. For however lackluster his season-long numbers may appear so far, the 35-year-old was brilliant during yesterday’s game in San Francisco when he collected three hits, including a double and a homer. That double is of particular note because it was the 299th of his career. His next two-bagger will make him just the sixth player in Royals history to reach 300 with the club, joining George Brett, Hal McRae, Frank White, Amos Otis, and his own former teammate Alex Gordon. Perez is also within spitting distance of 300 career home runs, a club he’d be the second Royal in history to join behind Brett. At 276 dingers for his career, it’ll be a bit longer before he reaches that milestone, however.
3. Heim dealing with hand injury:
The Rangers had an injury scare last night when catcher Jonah Heim exited yesterday’s game due to a compressed nerve in his right hand. As noted by Bill Ladson of MLB.com, Heim struggled with throwing the ball back to righty Jacob deGrom as the veteran warmed up on the mound, prompting the club to swap him out with Tucker Barnhart for the day. Ladson adds that according to Bochy, x-rays on Heim’s hand came back negative. That led to optimism from the veteran manager that Heim could be back in the lineup soon, which would be a major relief for the Rangers given the 29-year-old’s strong .268/.314/.433 slash (111 wRC+) from the catcher position this year. The Rangers can afford to play it somewhat safe with Heim in the coming days, given that both Barnhart and Kyle Higashioka are currently on the roster as catching options.
The Opener: Crews, Hassell, Orioles, Angels, A’s
Here are three things we’ll be keeping an eye on around the baseball world throughout the day:
1. Crews to undergo testing:
The Nationals are promoting former top prospect Robert Hassell III for his big league debut today (weather permitting) after rookie Dylan Crews exited yesterday’s game with discomfort in his left side. Crews is expected to undergo testing today that will give the Nationals a better idea of his status. Hassell’s promotion seems to indicate that the Nationals believe a stint on the injured list is likely for Crews, who has struggled to a .196/.266/.354 slash line in 45 games. The former No. 2 overall pick has been turning things around, however, slashing .234/.315/.459 over his past 124 plate appearances and ripping three homers in his past nine games. If today’s imaging shows that Crews does not need an IL stint, perhaps the Nationals would instead facilitate Hassell’s promotion by placing center fielder Jacob Young, who collided with the outfield wall over the weekend and has been day-to-day ever since, on the injured list instead.
Hassell, a former No. 8 overall pick, will be the fourth player from the Nationals’ Juan Soto haul to make his big league debut, joining Washington’s star trio of James Wood, MacKenzie Gore and CJ Abrams. Hassell’s stock isn’t as high as it once was, but he’s hitting .288/.337/.405 (99 wRC+) with four homers and a 9-for-10 showing in stolen base attempts through 175 plate appearances with Rochester this season. MLBTR’s Steve Adams recently took a look at how Washington’s Soto haul seems to look better by the day, and Hassell’s promotion could further add to that.
2. Orioles look to avoid MLB-worst losing streak:
The Orioles are at risk of losing their ninth consecutive game today, which would be the longest losing streak in the majors this year. Last night’s 5-2 loss to Milwaukee gave them an eight-game losing streak that places them in a tie with the Rockies for the longest string of losses — a benchmark that Colorado has incredibly reached on three separate occasions in 2025. The Orioles will try to stave off that ninth loss tonight against the Brewers with Tomoyuki Sugano (3.08 ERA in nine starts) on the mound against Milwaukee rookie Chad Patrick (3.35 ERA in ten appearances).
3. Angels, A’s face off amid streaks:
While the Orioles try to end their current streak of losses at eight, the A’s will try to avoid losing their eighth game in a row tonight against the Angels. It’s the third game in a four-game set, and after Anaheim took each of the first two games, they’ve put together a little streak of their own in the opposite direction, climbing to five consecutive wins. With veterans Tyler Anderson (3.04 ERA in nine starts) and Luis Severino (4.22 ERA in ten starts) on the mound in West Sacramento tonight, will both streaks continue, or will the A’s put a stop to their division rival’s recent surge and halt their own freefall in the process?
Poll: Should The Royals Be Worried About Salvador Perez?
Veteran catcher Salvador Perez is the face of the Royals franchise, the last man standing from the club’s 2015 World Series team, and a nine-time All-Star with five Gold Gloves and five Silver Sluggers to his name. He’s one of the most important players in the organization’s history, and in that sense the 35-year-old’s legacy is already secure. That impenetrable legacy does little to help the Royals’ playoff odds in 2025, however, and in that regard Perez’s performance this year has been lacking. He’s hit just .218/.254/.324 across 46 games and 190 plate appearances so far in 2025. That leaves him with a wRC+ of just 57 and negative WAR according to both Baseball Reference and Fangraphs, and that’s in spite of a brief hot streak where he collected 14 hits (including eight doubles) in ten games from April 24 to May 6.
That sort of production just won’t cut it for a Royals club that has playoff aspirations. Their 27-22 record entering play today is enough to keep them in the thick of the Wild Card race, but the recent losses of both Seth Lugo and Cole Ragans from the front of their rotation will put more pressure than ever on the offense to score runs. Perez is typically a key part of that offense, and with other key cogs in the lineup like Vinnie Pasquantino and Jonathan India also struggling to produce early in the year, Perez remains as important as ever. Can he turn things around, or do the Royals have a tough decision to make this summer about a franchise legend’s playing time in a pennant race?
A look at the underlying metrics provides plenty of reason for optimism. The most glaring factor in Perez’s downturn in performance is his anemic .106 ISO, which would put him on par with the 2024 performances of light-hitting, contact-oriented bats like Nico Hoerner and Nolan Schanuel. That’s a worrisome comparison to make considering Perez averaged 30 homers per season from 2021 to 2024, but the good news is that all signs point to this power outage coming to an end sooner rather than later. Despite hitting just two home runs so far this year, Perez’s 13.0% barrel rate is actually his best since he smacked 48 bombs in 2021 and his 45.7% hard-hit rate is better than it was in either of the past two seasons. In fact, Perez’s barrel and hard-hit rates are almost identical to those of Pete Alonso this year.
That could make it easy to write off Perez’s lackluster performance so far this season as little more than a fluke that should correct itself in due time, and the Royals are surely hoping that’s the case. With that being said, there are at least some potential red flags in the veteran’s performance that are worth keeping an eye on. While Perez has never been a particularly well-disciplined hitter, his 22.6% strikeout rate and 4.2% walk rate are both trending in the wrong direction relative to his All-Star 2024 season. He’s also hitting slightly more balls on the ground with fewer line drives relative to last year. All four of those figures are well within the bounds of Perez’s career norms, however.
Perhaps the biggest reason for concern regarding Perez is his age. As a 35-year-old catcher, it would hardly be a surprise if he wasn’t as physically capable of maintaining peak performance across 162 games as he was in his younger days. Regular reps at first base and DH should help that somewhat, but it’s still worth noting that Perez has seen his offense take a turn for the worse when the calendar flips to July in each of the past two seasons. If that trend of Perez slowing down as the year progresses continues in 2025, he may be running out of time to turn his overall season numbers around despite the solid underlying metrics to this point in the year.
How do MLBTR readers think the rest of Perez’s 2025 campaign will play out? Will he bounce back to around where he’s been in recent years, as the underlying numbers suggest? Or has he struggled too deeply for too long in the first half to make up for a potential slowdown after the All-Star break? Have your say in the poll below:
What's Salvador Perez's Outlook For 2025?
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He'll be able to turn things around somewhat, but his slow start and history of slowing down in the second half will hold him back and he'll finish the year a league-average hitter. 52% (2,592)
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He'll continue to struggle and end the year a below-average hitter. 37% (1,857)
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He'll rebound and post a season similar to or better than last year when all is said and done. 11% (554)
Total votes: 5,003
The Opener: Buehler, Twins, Guardians, MLBTR Chat
Here are three things for MLBTR readers to keep an eye on today:
1. Buehler back from injured list:
The Red Sox have had plenty of pitching struggles this year between health and ineffectiveness, with ace southpaw Garrett Crochet standing out as the only consistent bright spot. Fortunately, they’re getting some reinforcements from the injured list. Right-hander Walker Buehler is expected to be active and on the mound for tonight’s game against the Mets. The two-time All-Star is in the midst of his first full season since 2021, and while he’s been merely average through six starts this year with a 4.28 ERA (98 ERA+) and 4.29 FIP, that should still provide a notable boost to Boston’s pitching staff. In this evening’s game, he’ll face off against Mets righty Clay Holmes. Holmes has been generally excellent in 2025, with a 3.14 ERA through nine starts, though he has looked a bit less dominant so far in May (4.00 ERA, 4.60 FIP) than he was in April (2.64 ERA, 2.22 FIP).
2. Twins, Guardians continue suspended game:
Yesterday’s game between Minnesota and Cleveland was suspended after three innings due to inclement weather, with the Twins leading by a score of 2-1. The suspended game is expected to continue today at 5:10pm local time, and today’s regularly scheduled game will begin 30 minutes after its conclusion. That, of course, is pending any further interruptions from mother nature; today’s forecast suggests rain throughout the afternoon and evening in Minneapolis. According to MLB.com, all ticketholders for today’s regularly scheduled game are also welcome to attend the continuation of yesterday’s suspended game while those with ticketholders can click this link for details on exchange and refund policies.
3. MLBTR chat today:
All of the league’s teams have now completed around 30% of their schedule, but there’s still plenty of baseball left to go and more than two months remaining until the trade deadline on July 31. Whether you’re looking ahead to the deadline or still trying to sort between the contenders and pretenders, MLBTR’s Steve Adams has you covered in a live chat scheduled for 1pm CT today. You can click here to ask a question in advance, join in live once the chat begins, or read the transcript once the chat is complete.
Poll: How Effective Has The Prospect Promotion Incentive Been?
The Prospect Promotion Incentive was instituted as part of the latest collective bargaining agreement prior to the 2022 season. As the name implies, it’s designed to incentivize teams to more quickly promote their top prospects to the majors and avoid service time manipulation to gain a seventh year of team control over a given player. If an eligible player wins the Rookie of the Year award or is a finalist for either the MVP or Cy Young award before he reaches arbitration eligibility, then his team will be awarded a pick immediately after the first round of the following year’s draft.
Over the first three years of the incentive’s existence, four players have earned a PPI pick for their team: Julio Rodriguez, Gunnar Henderson, and Corbin Carroll all did so by winning their league’s Rookie of the Year award, while Bobby Witt Jr. did so last year by finishing second in AL MVP voting. That’s more than one player per year bringing in an extra pick for their team, and that collection of some of the league’s brightest young stars would have otherwise been prime candidates for service time manipulation; all were viewed as among the game’s best prospects, and all except Carroll had not yet signed an extension with their club although both Witt and Rodriguez would do so later on. The Mariners, in particular, had a history of manipulating service time with their best prospects including a controversy surrounding their handling of then-top prospect Jarred Kelenic.
In the cases of Rodriguez, Henderson, and Witt, the club in question evidently felt that the combination of a potential PPI pick and a full season of their top prospect in the majors was the better choice to pursue than the possibility of a seventh year of team control. The fact that players who finish in the top-two of Rookie of the Year voting are awarded a full year of service time even if they have not yet reached 172 days naturally surely factors into that calculation as well; the Pirates held star right-hander Paul Skenes back from their Opening Day roster and ended up with the worst of both worlds when he won the NL Rookie of the Year award last year. Not only did they not receive a PPI pick for Skenes’s win after he wasn’t included on their roster to begin the year, but his win cost them that extra year of team control gained by holding him back in until May anyway. 2015 NL Rookie of the Year Kris Bryant surely would’ve appreciated the opportunity to get that same bump in service time and move his free agency up to the 2020-21 offseason.
Not all instances of the PPI’s influence are quite this cut-and-dry, however. One recent trend regarding PPI-eligible prospects has been for clubs to put potential Rookie of the Year candidates on their Opening Day roster (or promote them early enough in the season so that they retain PPI eligibility) before giving them a short run in the majors and optioning them to the minor leagues if they don’t excel. The Cubs recently did exactly this with top infield prospect Matt Shaw, who was promoted back today after making the Opening Day roster, struggling in 18 games, and then spending a month at Triple-A. The Orioles have used this tactic when handling the promotions of Grayson Rodriguez and Jackson Holliday, as well.
Exactly how much those demotions had to do with service time and how much they had to do with performance can be debated, but it’s a method that allows a team to essentially hedge their bets by only extracting that extra year of team control once the PPI-eligible player has struggled enough in the majors to make a top-two finish in Rookie of the Year voting extremely unlikely. Aside from those cases, there are also some teams that seem completely undeterred from holding down their top prospects by the PPI. The aforementioned Pirates fall into this group even after the debacle with Skenes last year, as they’ve shown no inclination towards promoting top pitching prospect Bubba Chandler despite his dominance at Triple-A and the club’s struggles at the big league level.
How do MLBTR readers view the incentive? Has it been a success because it’s allowed players like Skenes to earn a full year of service while getting players like Henderson the opportunity to break camp with the big league team on Opening Day of their rookie seasons? Or is the fact that players like Chandler are still being held down in the minors while players like Shaw and Holliday have been sent back to Triple-A once they’re no longer good bets to bring in a PPI evidence enough that the system is ineffective? Have your say in the poll below:
Does The Prospect Promotion Incentive Work?
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Yes, it's an effective tool to encourage teams to promote their young stars even if it's not utilized by every team. 57% (1,226)
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No, teams have continued to hold down their top prospects too frequently for it to be considered a success. 43% (942)
Total votes: 2,168