Jordan Luplow Signs With Atlantic League’s High Point Rockers
Outfielder Jordan Luplow has signed with the High Point Rockers of the Atlantic League, the team announced this week. The 31-year-old made his debut yesterday.
Luplow has played for six big league teams across parts of seven MLB seasons. He’s carved out a role as a thorn in the side of left-handed pitching, consistently drawing walks and hitting for power against southpaws. His .227 average against lefties isn’t much, but Luplow has walked in nearly 14% of his career plate appearances when holding the platoon advantage and has slugged .495 in those matchups.
The resulting .268 ISO (slugging minus batting average) ranks 13th among the 226 players who tallied at least 500 plate appearances versus lefties during Luplow’s active years in MLB (2017-23), just behind prominent sluggers like Paul Goldschmidt, Austin Riley and Rhys Hoskins. Overall, Luplow is a .212/.314/.423 hitter in 1060 major league plate appearances. He’s picked up five years of MLB service thanks in large part to his ability to consistently hit for power against lefties.
The 2024 season was the first since 2016 in which Luplow didn’t appear in a major league game. He tallied at least 27 games and 87 plate appearances each year from ’17 to ’23. The 2014 fourth-rounder opened the 2024 season with the Phillies’ Triple-A affiliate and looked like a prime candidate to join the Phils’ big league club at some point. He hit .255/.343/.450 with 10 homers and a dozen steals in 62 games, but Luplow suffered a torn anterior cruciate ligament in his right knee last June, ending his season.
Now that he’s healthy, Luplow will look to shake off any residual rust in the Atlantic League. Based on his track record as a quality role player, big league scouts will surely be keeping an eye on his progress there — particularly those from teams that have struggled against left-handed pitching in 2025. As of this writing, the ten teams with the worst output against left-handed pitching so far in 2025 (by measure of wRC+) are the Guardians, Brewers, Pirates, Rays, Braves, White Sox, Royals, Rockies, Orioles and Angels.
Not all of those teams will be clear fits. Atlanta has a crowded outfield, for instance, and will soon welcome Ronald Acuna Jr. back now that he’s begun a rehab stint. The White Sox and Rockies have younger, controllable players to whom they’d prefer to allocate playing time. But outfield-needy teams who’ve struggled against lefties, such as Kansas City and Cleveland, could make sensible landing spots. Of course, on a minor league deal, most clubs could justify taking a no-risk look at a veteran with Luplow’s track record — so long as he looks to be back in form following that knee injury.
Rangers Place Corey Seager On Injured List
The Rangers announced Tuesday that they’ve placed shortstop Corey Seager on the 10-day injured list. The move is retroactive to May 11. Seager is again dealing with a right hamstring strain — the same injury that sent him to the IL from April 23 to May 3. Catcher Kyle Higashioka has been reinstated from the 10-day IL in a corresponding move. He’d missed the previous 12 days with an intercostal strain.
It’s surely a frustrating situation for Seager and the Rangers. As mentioned, he only just returned from the IL barely a week ago, but it seems he wasn’t 100% healthy. He only played once in the past week and the club has now decided to put him back on the shelf.
Since the move is retroactive, he could potentially return in just over a week. Regardless, the Rangers will be without one of their better bats for a while. The club’s offense has scuffled enough this year to force various changes, including a coaching staff shake-up. Seager has not been a part of the problem when in the lineup. He has a .300/.346/.520 line and 143 wRC+ for the year. He’s one of just three players on the team with at least 100 plate appearances and a wRC+ above 113, with Wyatt Langford and Josh Smith being the others.
Despite that, the club has managed to stay afloat in the American League playoff race, currently sporting a 21-21 record. They will now have to try to keep things rolling without one of their best players.
The last time Seager was on the IL, Smith took over as the regular shortstop, though Smith is himself banged up. He missed Monday’s game due to back soreness and is out again today, with Ezequiel Durán covering short for those two games. Sam Haggerty might be the next line of defense at the position while Smith is out.
Assuming Smith feels better in a day or two, he would jump back in there. As mentioned, he is one of the Rangers having a great year at the plate, currently sporting a .316/.395/.474 line and 149 wRC+. Durán, on the other hand, is hitting .130/.160/.174.
Higashioka’s reinstatement will give the Rangers three catchers. When Higashioka’s injury popped up a few weeks ago, Tucker Barnhart was selected to the roster to serve as Jonah Heim‘s backup. Heim is catching tonight with Higashioka in the designated hitter spot. Joc Pederson is often the DH but he doesn’t start against lefties, so perhaps Higashioka will take the small side of a platoon with him at times. The Rangers are facing southpaw Kyle Freeland and the Rockies tonight.
Teams are sometimes reluctant to use a catcher in the DH spot, as an injury to the player behind the plate would then force them to move the DH to the catcher position. Moving a DH into any defensive spot means a team forfeits its DH and puts the pitcher into the lineup. Having a third catcher on hand gives the club a chance to avoid that scenario.
Photo courtesy of Kevin Jairaj, Imagn Images
Jake Bloss To Undergo UCL Surgery
Blue Jays pitching prospect Jake Bloss will undergo UCL surgery. The club announced the news to reporters, including Mitch Bannon of The Athletic. He’ll be out for the rest of this year and part of 2026 as well.
Though Bloss’ experience in the majors thus far is quite limited, his loss is nonetheless a notable blow to Toronto’s depth. The 23-year-old was one of three players — arguably the top player — the Jays received in last summer’s trade sending Yusei Kikuchi to Houston. Bloss, a 2023 third-rounder, made his MLB debut with the ‘Stros last year and was roughed up for nine runs on 16 hits and three walks in 11 2/3 frames. That said, he turned in a terrific 3.18 ERA with a solid 23.3% strikeout rate and a 9.5% walk rate in 93 1/3 innings between High-A, Double-A and Triple-A last year.
With that showing in the upper minors and a taste of big league action already under his belt, Bloss felt on the cusp of breaking through with a real MLB opportunity. The Jays opened the season with Kevin Gausman, Jose Berrios, Chris Bassitt, Max Scherzer and Bowden Francis in the rotation, leaving him without a real spot, but Bloss stood as one of the top depth options in the event of injury.
Had Bloss performed well, he might well have been the very first man up. However, the right-hander was tagged for eight runs in eight spring innings and hasn’t looked right since the calendar flipped to the regular season. Bloss served up eight runs (albeit only three of them earned) in four innings during this year’s Triple-A debut. He followed that with another 10 earned runs in 7 1/3 innings across his next two starts. Fast forward three more starts — the most recent featuring another four earned runs in just 3 1/3 innings — and Bloss is more than halfway to last year’s total of 33 earned runs despite having pitched only about one quarter as many innings.
Today’s announcement lends a likely explanation for the struggles Bloss has endured so far. He now becomes the latest Jays prospect of note to undergo a notable surgery, joining Ricky Tiedemann (Tommy John surgery last year), T.J. Brock (Tommy John surgery in January) and Adam Macko (meniscus surgery in February) in that regard. Toronto is also still waiting on Alek Manoah‘s return from last year’s UCL procedure.
Bloss won’t turn 24 until June. He’s in the second of three minor league option years. There’s plenty of time for him to return as a meaningful contributor to the Jays over the long haul. In the short term, however, his struggles and the injury that ostensibly caused them further thin out a depth chart that’s already dotted with notable injuries.
The Blue Jays recently signed Spencer Turnbull and Jose Ureña to major league deals. Ureña has already made a pair of starts. Turnbull will need to build up. Toronto also picked up Connor Overton on a minor league deal and could search for further depth along those lines. They’ve also given lefty Easton Lucas a quartet of starts, two of which were terrific and two of which were disastrous, with the end result being a 7.41 ERA.
Since Bloss was on optional assignment, he isn’t currently accruing major league pay or service time. The Jays could potentially call him up and place him on the major league 60-day injured list. Doing so would allow them to open a 40-man roster spot but would also mean Bloss starts to earn that big league pay and service. Bloss came into this year with 39 days of service time, putting him 133 short of the one-year mark. There are still 138 days left in the season. Even if the Jays want to open a 40-man spot by calling up Bloss, they probably won’t do so in the next week.
Jason Foley Undergoes Season-Ending Shoulder Surgery
Tigers right-hander Jason Foley underwent season-ending surgery. Manager A.J. Hinch announced the news to reporters, including Cody Stavenhagen of The Athletic.
It’s been an odd season for Foley, who led the 2024 Tigers with 28 saves. Detroit surprisingly optioned him to Triple-A Toledo after a rough spring training. He took the demotion in stride and carved up Triple-A opposition, firing 6 2/3 shutout innings with a 41% strikeout rate in five appearances. He looked as though he was on the cusp of a return to the majors, but Foley was diagnosed with a shoulder strain in the middle of last month and hasn’t pitched since. Now, he won’t throw again until the 2026 season.
Unfortunately for Foley, he won’t accrue big league service time right now since he’s on the minor league injured list. He could pick up some big league time if the Tigers call him to the majors and place him on the 60-day IL whenever they next need a roster spot. Enough time has passed in 2025 that Foley won’t be able to move from three years of service to four years. The Tigers surely weren’t intending for their original demotion of Foley to buy them another season of club control, but it’s effectively done just that — so long as they tender him a contract anyhow.
Foley and the Tigers agreed to a $3.15MM salary this past offseason, avoiding a trip through the arbitration process. Typically, when a player who’s agreed to an arbitration salary subsequently misses the entire season, he and the team agree to the same salary for the following year. That could well be the case here.
Even with Foley out for the year, there’s good reason for the Tigers to tender him this winter. He was sharp in Triple-A prior to the injury and just last year posted 60 innings of 3.15 ERA ball. Dating back to 2022, Foley has given the Tigers 189 1/3 innings with a 3.18 ERA, an 18.4% strikeout rate, a 5.9% walk rate and a 54% ground-ball rate. He’s saved 35 games and picked up another 40 holds along the way.
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Astros To Promote Colton Gordon
The Astros will recall left-hander Colton Gordon from Triple-A Sugar Land to start tomorrow’s game, reports Chron.com’s Leah Vann. Gordon, who’ll be making his MLB debut, will step into the rotation spot of the injured Hayden Wesneski. He’s already on the 40-man roster, so Houston will only need to make a corresponding 26-man roster move to bring him to the majors.
Gordon, 26, has gotten out to a terrific start in 2025. He’s taken the mound eight times and logged 42 1/3 innings of 2.55 ERA ball, fanning 25.3% of his opponents against a 4.7% walk rate. Both those marks are better than average — considerably so, in the case of that walk rate — as is his 43.5% ground-ball rate.
The Astros’ 2021 eighth-rounder out of the University of Central Florida, Gordon entered the 2025 season ranked 20th among Astros prospects at Baseball America and 14th at MLB.com. He doesn’t throw hard, sitting just 91.1 mph on his four-seamer, but the 6’4″ southpaw benefits from above-average command and a deep, six-pitch arsenal that helps keep hitters off balance. In addition to that four-seamer, Gordon also throws a sinker, slider, changeup, curveball and cutter.
With Wesneski (elbow inflammation) joining Spencer Arrighetti (broken thumb), J.P. France (2024 shoulder surgery), Cristian Javier (2024 Tommy John surgery) and Luis Garcia (2023 Tommy John surgery, and multiple setbacks) on the injured list, Houston’s pitching depth is being put to the test. Gordon and righties AJ Blubaugh and Miguel Ullola are the top internal options in Triple-A, while righties Ryan Gusto and Shawn Dubin are both on the big league roster and capable of starting. Dubin, however, just made his season debut after a lengthy IL stint due to shoulder inflammation and is not stretched out. He’s pitched only in one-inning stints so far and appears set for a second straight year working primarily out of the bullpen, so perhaps his days as a rotation option are behind him.
The ‘Stros boast a formidable one-two rotation punch in Hunter Brown and Framber Valdez, but the rest of the group is on shakier standing. Lance McCullers Jr. just returned from an injury absence of more than two years, so it’s tough to know what to expect from him. Ronel Blanco was a godsend for the 2024 Astros but never seemed likely to replicate last year’s 2.80 ERA, which was propped up by a tiny .220 average on balls in play and bloated 83.6% strand rate. He’s worked to a 4.04 ERA in 2025, which is more in line with last year’s 4.17 SIERA and 4.15 FIP. To Blanco’s credit, he turned in one of the best starts by any pitcher in MLB this season last time out, blanking the Reds over eight innings of two-hit ball with 11 strikeouts, but he entered that start with a 4.98 ERA, a 21.9% strikeout rate and 11% walk rate.
Given the injuries up and down the staff, Gordon ought to get several chances to prove himself in 2025. He was only selected to the 40-man roster this past November, so he’s in the first of three minor league option years. He can be controlled through at least the 2031 season.
Kyle McCann, Art Warren Sign With Mexican League Teams
Former A’s catcher Kyle McCann signed with los Piratas de Campeche in the Mexican League over the weekend, the team announced. He’s not the only former big leaguer headed to Mexico this week. MLBTR has learned that former Reds and Mariners reliever Art Warren is signing with los Tecos de los Dos Laredos. McCann is represented by the Ballengee Group. Warren is a client of Gaeta Sports Management.
McCann, 27, made his big league debut last year and got into 54 games with Oakland. He posted a .236/.318/.371 slash in 157 plate appearances, smacking five homers and six doubles along the way. The former fourth-rounder drew walks at a strong 10.2% clip but was also set down on strikes in an ugly 37.6% of his plate appearances. The year prior, McCann posted a .270/.351/.474 line in Triple-A Las Vegas, but in that ultra-hitter-friendly setting, that seemingly strong slash line actually checked in 11% worse than league average by measure of wRC+ (89).
Defensively, McCann had some issues. His 19% caught-stealing rate was worse than the 21.9% league average, and he posted well below-average framing marks in his 324 innings behind the plate. Statcast credited him with average numbers in terms of blocking balls in the dirt. McCann didn’t play any first base in the majors, but he’s played more than 800 minor league innings there and Baseball America called him an average defender at the position back in their 2021 scouting report.
Warren, 32, posted strong numbers in his first two big league looks with the 2019 Mariners and 2021 Reds. In 26 1/3 innings between those two teams, he notched a sparkling 1.03 earned run average with a massive 37.9% strikeout rate against a 9.7% walk rate. He looked set for a nice run in the Reds’ bullpen after that 2021 showing, but his 2022 follow-up was wrecked by injury.
Warren logged 36 innings for the ’22 Reds but was rocked for a 6.50 ERA. His four-seam fastball, which had averaged 95.2 mph in 2021, saw a sharp drop to a 93.5 mph average. The right-hander’s eye-popping 19.2% swinging-strike rate plummeted to 12.1%, resulting in a deflated 24.2% strikeout rate. His command also eroded, evidenced by a 13.3% walk rate.
The Reds placed Warren on the injured list with a flexor strain that July. He returned six weeks later, struggled for about a month, and was optioned to Triple-A Louisville. That option was quickly rescinded when elbow damage was discovered, and Warren was instead placed on the major league injured list. Two weeks later, the team announced that Warren had undergone a UCL procedure that would wipe out the rest of his 2022 campaign and his entire 2023 season.
Warren was non-tendered and eventually signed a minor league deal with the Yankees once he was healthy. He struggled immensely with their Triple-A squad last year in his return from surgery. In 26 2/3 frames, he served up 26 runs (8.78 ERA) on 36 hits and 22 walks. Eight of those hits were long balls. Warren still punched out 29 batters in his 26 2/3 innings of work, but with the barrage of walks, that only came out to a 21.2% strikeout rate (against a 16% walk rate). His average fastball in Triple-A sat at the same 93.5 mph average he showed in 2022 before undergoing his UCL repair.
The hope for both McCann and Warren is surely to parlay solid play in Mexico into a return to affiliated ball on a minor league deal. McCann has actually already suited up for three games — two at catcher, one as a DH — and gone 3-for-11 with a pair of doubles but also seven strikeouts. Warren’s new club, los Tecos, has been picked over by MLB teams in recent weeks. They’ve seen Cory Abbott (Rangers), Beau Burrows (Pirates), Nick Margevicius (Tigers), Sean Poppen (Angels) and Andrew Vasquez (Angels) all sign minor league deals with affiliated clubs.
Diamondbacks Designate Garrett Hampson, José Castillo For Assignment
The Diamondbacks announced that they have recalled infielder Jordan Lawlar, a move that was previously reported. They also reinstated right-hander Kendall Graveman from the injured list. To open roster spots for those two, lefty José Castillo and infielder Garrett Hampson were both designated for assignment. The club’s 40-man roster count drops to 38.
Hampson, 30, inked a minor league deal in free agency and broke camp with the D-backs after hitting .283/.393/.348 in 56 trips to the plate this spring. He hasn’t been able to carry that production over to the regular season. He’s appeared in only 18 games and taken just 41 turns at the plate, batting .167/.359/.167 in that span. He’s been a pest for opposing pitchers in the sense that he’s taken 10 walks, but Hampson is also 5-for-30 (all singles) and has bottom-of-the-scale contact metrics when he’s put the ball in play.
Arizona is Hampson’s fourth team in four seasons. He spent the first five seasons of his career with the Rockies but since his final season there has had one-year stints with the Marlins, Royals and now D-backs. He hasn’t hit much in any of those spots, combining for a .237/.308/.323 slash in 750 plate appearances dating back to 2022. However, Hamspon is a plus runner (84th percentile sprint speed, per Statcast) who can be deployed virtually anywhere on the diamond. Even though he’s been seldom used with the D-backs, he’s still seen time at five positions: second base, shortstop, third base, left field and center field.
Castillo, 29, has spent the better part of the past half decade in injury rehab. Since a strong MLB debut with the 2018 Padres, the southpaw has been on the injured list due to a torn ligament in his pitching hand, a torn lat and Tommy John surgery. Just making it back to the majors in the wake of so many rapid-fire injuries is a feat, but Castillo’s brief time with the Snakes didn’t go well. He pitched 6 1/3 innings out of Torey Lovullo’s bullpen — already his most in a big league season since ’18 — and was pounded for eight runs on 10 hits and three walks with three strikeouts.
As a rookie, Castillo fired 38 1/3 innings of 3.29 ERA ball for the Friars, fanning a gaudy 34.7% of his opponents against an 8.1% walk rate. He was terrific in a small 5 1/3-inning sample in Triple-A Reno this year, allowing only a run on four hits and no walks with seven strikeouts and a 58% grounder rate. That performance could lead to some interest from other teams, although Castillo’s once-95-mph heater has understandably dipped to an average of 93.3 mph in the wake of all those injuries.
Both Castillo and Hampson can spend a maximum of one week in DFA limbo. The D-backs can look to trade them during that time or simply place them on outright waivers. Since waivers take 48 hours to process, the team has up to five days to orchestrate trades of either player, should there be a market. In the event that they’re placed on waivers and go unclaimed, both players have enough major league service time to reject an outright assignment in favor of free agency.
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Evan Longoria To Sign One-Day Contract, Retire As Member Of Rays
Three-time All-Star and 2008 American League Rookie of the Year Evan Longoria will sign a one-day contract to officially retire as a member of his original organization, the Rays, reports Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times. He’ll be honored in a ceremony before the Rays’ game on June 7.
Longoria sat out the 2024 season and said last summer that he was not pursuing a return to playing but was also not formally filing his retirement paperwork just yet. That left the door ever so slightly cracked for one final comeback bid, but Longoria will now formally call it a career after nearly 2000 big league games and more than 8200 major league plate appearances.
Longoria, 39, was the No. 3 overall pick by the Rays out of Long Beach State back in 2006. He was in the majors less than two years later, getting his first call to the majors on April 12, 2008. He signed a six-year, $17.5MM extension just six games into his major league career. At the time, bets of that magnitude on such young and unproven players were nowhere near as commonplace as they are in today’s game.
That extension, which contained a trio of club options, was the largest deal ever guaranteed to a player with such little MLB experience at the time it was signed. Longoria wasted little time in proving it money well spent. He hit .272/.343/.531 with 27 homers, 31 doubles and a pair of triples as a rookie, making the American All-Star team just a few months into his MLB career.
From 2008-13, Longoria was on the short list of best players in MLB. Only Miguel Cabrera, Cliff Lee, Justin Verlander and Felix Hernandez generated more wins above replacement than Longoria’s 34.8 in that span, per FanGraphs. His 12th-inninng walk-off home run (video link) in the final game of the 2011 regular season wound up propelling Tampa Bay to the postseason that year, and Longoria’s celebratory trot with both arms above his head as he rounded first base is a timeless memory for Tampa Bay fans — one that the team commemorated with a statue outside of Tropicana Field.
Longoria proved such a bargain and such a critical piece to the Rays’ success that in November 2012, they extended him for a second time — this time on the first nine-figure contract in franchise history. Tampa Bay exercised all three of Longoria’s club options in one fell swoop and tacked on another six years and $100MM in new money (bringing the total guarantee to $136MM over nine seasons).
Longoria didn’t quite keep up his early career form, but in five subsequent seasons with the Rays (2013-17) after signing that second contract, he still slashed .265/.325/.457 (113 wRC+) while maintaining his brand of standout defense at the hot corner. FanGraphs (19.8 WAR) and Baseball-Reference (22 WAR) suggested he was still one of the game’s top 25 or so position players even if he wasn’t quite at the very top of the sport anymore.
With Longoria set to secure 10-and-5 rights early in the 2018 season — ten years of service, including five straight with the same team — the Rays made the decision to look for a trade in the 2017-18 offseason. Players with 10-and-5 rights gain full no-trade protection, and Longoria’s remaining five years and $81MM were more palatable to larger-market clubs than the cost-conscious Rays. In December 2017, the Rays lined up on a swap sending Longoria to San Francisco in exchange for outfielder Denard Span, infielder Christian Arroyo, lefty Matt Krook and righty Stephen Woods. At the time of the swap, Arroyo was a few years removed from being a first-round pick out of high school and was considered to be a top-100 prospect on some rankings.
Longoria’s first season as a Giant was a disappointment — the least-productive of what would end up being 16 seasons in the majors. He bounced back to league-average offense with solid defense in 2019, but at that point his days of star-level output were behind him. Longoria had a down showing in 2020 and posted big rate stats in a more limited, part-time role in 2021-22. He signed a one-year deal with the Diamondbacks in 2023 and had a nice first half of the season before fading down the stretch.
That 2023 season with Arizona, during which Longoria played in the second World Series of his career, will now officially prove to be his last. He’ll walk away from the game with a career .264/.333/.471 batting line, 342 home runs (tied with Ron Santo for 108th all-time), 431 doubles (145th all-time), 26 triples, 58 stolen bases, 1017 runs scored and 1159 runs batted in (185th all-time).
Longoria made three All-Star teams, won three Gold Gloves, won a Silver Slugger and landed MVP votes in six of his 16 MLB seasons. FanGraphs pegged him at 55.2 wins above replacement, while Baseball-Reference was even more bullish, crediting him with 58.9 (133rd all-time among position players). Between his pair of extensions and that final one-year deal with the D-backs, he earned more than $148MM in a 16-year career that will garner some legitimate consideration among the electorate when his name is on the Hall of Fame ballot five years from now.