Mariners, Luis F. Castillo Agree To Minor League Deal
The Mariners have signed right-hander Luis F. Castillo to a minor league contract and invited him to big league camp this spring, Jon Heyman of the New York Post reports. The 29-year-old Castillo — obviously not to be confused with the eight-year MLB veteran of the same first and last name currently in Seattle’s rotation — pitched briefly with the Tigers in 2022 and has spent the past two seasons in Japan.
The younger Castillo has pitched 3 2/3 shutout frames in the majors, yielding only two hits and no walks with four strikeouts for Detroit in that ’22 cup of coffee. He carries a career 1.93 ERA in 18 2/3 Double-A frames and a 3.28 ERA in 60 1/3 Triple-A innings spread across two seasons. The Tigers outrighted him off their 40-man roster following the 2022 season, and he elected free agency before going on to sign with Nippon Professional Baseball’s Chiba Lotte Marines in Japan.
Castillo pitched well with the Marines, logging 49 innings with their big league squad and recording a 3.12 ERA with a sub-par 17% strikeout rate but a microscopic 1.5% walk rate. He faced 200 batters that season with the Marines and issued only three walks (plus another two hit batsmen).
Castillo parlayed that impressive showing into a bigger look with NPB’s Orix Buffaloes. As with the Marines, he pitched quite well. Castillo pitched 94 1/3 innings out of the Buffaloes’ rotation (15 starts) and notched a 2.96 ERA with an improved 19.6% strikeout rate. The absurd walk rate he demonstrated a year prior unsurprisingly proved impossible to sustain, but his 4.8% walk rate was excellent nevertheless.
Whether the newly signed Castillo will serve as rotation depth or compete for a spot in the bullpen isn’t clear. The Seattle rotation is stacked with the presence of the other Luis Castillo, George Kirby, Logan Gilbert, Bryce Miller and Bryan Woo. Depth options like Emerson Hancock, Jhonathan Diaz and Blas Castano are all on the 40-man roster, while well-regarded prospect Logan Evans pitched quite well in Double-A last season and could be ready for a big league look this summer.
Cubs Open To Further Bullpen Additions
The Cubs added a new closer when they formally acquired Ryan Pressly (and $5.5MM) from the Astros in exchange for pitching prospect Juan Bello earlier this morning. That adds a much-needed veteran arm to a group that generally lacked late-inning, high-leverage experience. However, the Cubs “aren’t done” with addressing their bullpen, Bruce Levine reported recently in an appearance on 670 The Score’s Mully & Haugh Show (audio link). Meaghan Montemurro of the Chicago Tribune and Patrick Mooney and Sahadev Sharma of The Athletic both implied in writing about the Pressly swap that the Cubs would like to add another bullpen arm as well.
Among the pitchers with whom the Cubs have had some talks are Ryne Stanek and David Robertson, Levine noted. Both Stanek and Robertson had previously been reported to be among the Cubs’ targets. Either pitcher would make sense in the current context of the Chicago bullpen. Pressly seems all but certain to slot into the closer’s role after waiving his no-trade clause to approve a deal to a more favorable role with the Cubs. Any forthcoming addition to supplant Pressly would smack of last year’s Josh Hader signing in Houston — one that GM Dana Brown suggested earlier today “fractured” the relationship between him and Pressly to some extent (link via Matt Kawahara of the Houston Chronicle).
“Anytime you take a major league player out of a role where they feel comfortable, I think it’s going to fracture your relationship some,” Brown said of signing Hader and pushing Pressly into a setup role. “I think we continued to communicate. He’s a true professional. And I kept it real as a true professional myself. I think there was some frustration, which I totally understand from a competitor. You’re moving a guy at a position who felt like he didn’t deserve to lose his job, because you acquired another elite closer like a Hader.”
With Pressly in line to handle ninth inning duties, barring any major downturn in his performance, a veteran who’s pitched extensively in a setup role would make sense. Robertson, already a former Cub, would be a logical fit. He’s excelled in both a setup and closing capacity in the past. The Cubs have more than $35MM worth of space between their current luxury tax projection (per RosterResource) and the $241MM threshold, so even the likely eight-figure salary Robertson will command should fit comfortably onto the books.
Other setup options of note on the market include Phil Maton, Tommy Kahnle and Andrew Chafin. If the Cubs want to roll the dice on an injury rebound candidate, any of Kendall Graveman, Daniel Bard, Lou Trivino, Keynan Middleton or Drew Smith could be had on affordable deals. Pressly, free agent signee Caleb Thielbar and trade pickup Eli Morgan are the three newcomers to manager Craig Counsell‘s bullpen thus far in the offseason. Righty Colin Rea has experience both as a starter and a long reliever and could conceivably fill either role, depending on how the rest of the starting staff holds up.
Cubs Designate Luis Vazquez For Assignment
The Cubs announced Tuesday that they’ve designated infielder Luis Vazquez for assignment. His spot on the 40-man roster will go to veteran utilityman Jon Berti, whose previously reported one-year deal with the Cubs is now official.
Vazquez, 25, was a 17th-round pick out of Puerto Rico who made his MLB debut with Chicago in 2024. He appeared in 11 games and went 1-for-12 in a total of 14 trips to the plate. The rest of Vazquez’s season was spent in Triple-A, where he slashed .263/.347/.432 (104 wRC+) with the Cubs’ top affiliate in Des Moines. Vazquez has drawn walks at a stout 11.6% clip and fanned at a roughly average 22.5% rate over the past two seasons in Iowa. He’s shown off a bit of pop, swatting 17 homers in 543 plate appearances, and chipped in seven steals in 12 attempts.
Vazquez has played the overwhelming majority of his professional games at shortstop, logging 4929 innings at the position compared to just 268 at second base, 186 at third base, two in right field and one at first base. Baseball America ranked him 16th among Cubs farmhands last winter and praised him as the best defensive shortstop in the system while also lauding an offensive breakout he’d shown in 2023. He didn’t quite sustain his ’23 production this past year but did post slightly better-than-average offensive output in Iowa.
With a quality glove at shortstop, a pair of minor league options remaining and a couple above-average seasons of production in the upper minors in 2023-24, Vazquez could well hold appeal to another club. Chicago will have five days to trade him. If there’s no taker, he’ll be placed on waivers, at which point any other team could claim him. Waivers are a 48-hour process, so within the next week, there’ll be some resolution on the outcome of the slick-fielding shortstop’s DFA.
Twins Notes: Varland, Woods Richardson, Castro
The Twins entered the 2024 season with high hopes that prospect and Twin Cities native Louie Varland would step up and seize a spot in the rotation. The former 15th-round pick had the look of a late-round steal, having climbed to the No. 88 prospect in the game on FanGraphs’ top-100 rankings after pitching to a 3.06 ERA, 27.3% strikeout rate and 7.9% walk rate in 126 1/3 innings between Double-A and Triple-A in 2022 and notching a 3.81 ERA through 26 frames in his MLB debut late that season. Varland posted a 3.97 ERA with similar strikeout and walk rates in 81 2/3 Triple-A frames in 2023 and then held his own with a 4.63 ERA and continued K-BB rates in his 2023 range.
The 2024 season, however, could scarcely have gone worse for Varland. He lasted four starts in the rotation before being optioned to Triple-A with a 9.18 ERA (17 runs in 16 2/3 innings). Varland had a rollercoaster season in Triple-A, resulting in a 4.75 ERA through 16 starts, though a disproportionate amount of damage came in one start that saw him tagged for a staggering 11 earned runs. (He had a combined 3.67 ERA in his other appearances.) A late look in the majors yielded poor overall results, though Varland did finish with a nice stretch of 7 2/3 innings, wherein he allowed two runs with an 11-to-2 K/BB ratio.
Dan Hayes of The Athletic reports that as the Twins gear up for 2025, it appears increasingly likely that Varland will be ticketed for a relief role. The St. Paul native averaged better than 95 mph on his heater last season even when working as a starter; it’s reasonable to expect that velocity to play up in a transition to a shorter role. Varland has posted at least average swinging-strike rates in the upper minors and big leagues as well, so it stands to reason that he could see an uptick in whiffs with a more powerful repertoire.
One reason it’s become easier to move a former rotation hopeful like Varland to the ‘pen has been the reemergence of Simeon Woods Richardson. The former top prospect had tumbled down Minnesota’s starting pitching depth chart heading into ’24 after a dismal 2023 showing in Triple-A. But, as Woods Richardson explained in a sitdown with The Athletic’s Aaron Gleeman, an offseason and spring training of work with the Twins’ data team and coaching staff brought about a new arm slot that produced more velocity and a new-look slider that broke out as his most effective secondary pitch.
Woods Richardson wore down a bit late in the 2024 season as he pushed to a new career-high level in terms of workload (31 starts, 147 innings), but he finished the season with a 4.17 ERA, 20.6% strikeout rate and 8.4% walk rate. His four-seamer, which averaged just 90.7 mph in his brief MLB looks in 2022-23, sat at 93.1 mph on the season despite fading over his final six starts (92.1 mph average four-seamer, 6.75 ERA). Woods Richardson, acquired alongside Austin Martin in the trade that sent the final year-plus of control over Jose Berrios to Toronto, now looks like he’ll open the 2025 season locked into the No. 4 spot in Minnesota’s rotation behind Pablo Lopez, Joe Ryan and Bailey Ober.
Development from in-house arms of this nature will be key for the Twins in 2025, as ownership has handcuffed the baseball operations staff all offseason in terms of roster additions, as the Pohlad family explores a sale of the club. The Twins have been active in trade talks but have not yet pieced together a deal of much note. They’ve added some catching depth in small swaps for former top prospect Diego Cartaya and utilityman Mickey Gasper, but top trade candidates like Christian Vazquez and Chris Paddack remain with the club. The Twins still would like to add at first base and pick up a right-handed hitting outfielder, but there’s been no trade of note and not one major league free agent signing thus far, given payroll constraints from ownership. The Twins may not need to cut payroll from its current level, but they also don’t have much (or any) room to raise it without a trade that trims some salary from the books.
With those financial limitations in mind, the front office is considering some time at first base for utilityman Willi Castro, per Betsy Helfand of the St. Paul Pioneer Press. Twenty-six-year-old Jose Miranda, who bounced back from a 2023 season ruined by shoulder surgery to bat .284/.322/.441 last year (115 wRC+) is the top in-house option at the moment. He’s played 698 big league innings there and graded poorly from a defensive standpoint, although the former second baseman/third baseman was largely learning the position on the fly in 2022 when he tallied 595 of those innings; he’d entered that season with all of 225 career minor league innings at the position.
It seems unlikely that Castro would be a regular option at first, given the value of his versatility. He’s a viable backup at shortstop, second base, third base and anywhere in the outfield. Adding first base to that repertoire only further broadens his importance to the club. There’s been some thought that Castro and his own $6.4MM salary could be a candidate to change hands, though doing so would thin out the Twins’ depth at all those positions and remove one of the team’s best baserunners. With Minnesota at least ostensibly not required to slash payroll any further, trading Castro seems like a scenario to which the front office would be heavily opposed.
Red Sox, Abraham Toro Agree To Minor League Contract
3:29pm: Toro will make $1MM if in the majors, per Chris Cotillo of MassLive.
9:50am: The Red Sox and free agent infielder Abraham Toro have agreed to a minor league contract, reports Daniel Alvarez Montes of El Extra Base. The Republik Sports client receives an invitation to major league spring training.
Toro, who turned 28 last month, was a well-regarded prospect with the Astros who has at times flashed some of that potential in the majors. He posted a roughly league-average batting line and popped 11 homers in 95 games between Houston and Seattle in 2021 — the same season that saw the ‘Stros deal him to the M’s in exchange for reliever Kendall Graveman. Toro appeared in 60 games with Seattle following that trade, walking at a slightly above-average clip and fanning in only 13% of his plate appearances during that age-24 season.
At the time, Toro looked like a potential regular for the Mariners, or at the very least an oft-used and versatile semi-regular. The switch-hitter saw his output crater in 2022, however. Toro batted only .185/.239/.324 in 352 plate appearances with the Mariners. The following offseason, he was traded to the Brewers in return for Jesse Winker and Kolten Wong — a move that didn’t pay 2023 dividends for either team.
Toro hit well in Triple-A for the Brewers but never got a real look in the majors, tallying just 21 plate appearances as a Brewer. Milwaukee flipped him to the A’s in the 2023-24 offseason, netting righty Chad Patrick in return. Toro hit .240/.293/.350 in 364 plate appearances with Oakland before being passed through waivers and electing free agency at the beginning of the current offseason.
While Toro has yet to produce in the big leagues (.220/.285/.353), he’s spent the majority of his time in pitchers’ parks like T-Mobile and the Coliseum. He’s a switch-hitter with a career .305/.396/.486 batting line in parts of five Triple-A seasons, and he has experience at third base, second base and (to a lesser extent) first base.
Toro gives the Red Sox some more depth in the infield as the team continues to face a glaring question at second base. Top prospect Kristian Campbell may eventually claim that spot as his own, but he’s versatile enough to handle shortstop or an outfield spot as well. He also still has only 19 games of Triple-A experience under his belt (though he showed brilliantly there). Other second base options for the Red Sox include David Hamilton, Vaughn Grissom, Romy Gonzalez, non-roster invitee Nate Eaton and top prospect Marcelo Mayer. It’s also feasible that oft-injured Trevor Story could move over to second base, though for now he’s still ticketed for regular work at shortstop.
MLBTR Chat Transcript
Click here to read a transcript of Tuesday’s chat with MLBTR’s Steve Adams.
Tyler Jay Elects Free Agency
The Mariners announced Tuesday that left-hander Tyler Jay, who was designated for assignment last week, went unclaimed on outright waivers. He’s elected free agency in lieu of an outright assignment to the minors. Seattle had claimed Jay off waivers from the Brewers earlier this month.
Selected with the No. 6 overall pick by the Twins back in 2015, Jay was viewed as a polished college arm who could move quickly as a reliever but also had a chance to start. He ranked as one of the Twins’ top prospects — and one of the top prospects in the sport — following that lofty selection, but repeated injury troubles derailed his once-promising trajectory. Jay dealt with continued shoulder and neck injuries throughout his time in the Twins’ system; Jay was at one point evaluated for symptoms believed to be related to thoracic outlet syndrome but wound up avoiding surgery.
Jay was out of affiliated ball entirely and pitching for the Joliet Slammers of the independent Frontier League when he caught the Mets’ attention and landed a minor league deal several years later, in 2023. The Mets gave him his big league debut in 2024 at 30 years old. He wound up splitting time between the Mets and Brewers, allowing four earned runs on nine hits and six walks with six punchouts in 7 2/3 innings of work.
While it was far from a dominant debut showing, Jay pitched quite well in the minors. In 56 2/3 innings at the Triple-A level this past season, the lefty notched a tidy 3.02 ERA with a 20.9% strikeout rate and very sharp 5.1% walk rate. He also kept the ball on the ground at a strong 47.3% clip and averaged just 0.64 homers per nine innings pitched.
Jay doesn’t throw especially hard, sitting just over 92 mph with his heater, but it was a nice season in the upper minors for a former top pick who seems to have put a good deal of the health troubles that plagued him early in his professional career behind him. He’ll now head to the market and look to latch on as a depth option for a club, likely one with a more pressing need for left-handed bullpen help (or at least fewer candidates to fill said need) than the Mariners have.
Cubs Designate Matt Festa For Assignment
The Cubs announced Tuesday that they’ve designated right-hander Matt Festa for assignment. His spot on the 40-man roster will go to new closer Ryan Pressly, whose acquisition from the Astros has now been officially announced by both teams.
A former seventh-round pick by the Rangers, Festa has bounced around the league in journeyman fashion over the past few years. He broke into the majors with a strong rookie showing in a small sample of 8 1/3 innings for the 2018 Mariners and posted terrific Triple-A numbers the following season while also struggling in 22 MLB frames. Tommy John surgery wiped out Festa’s entire 2020 campaign and most of his 2021 season as well.
Festa returned in 2022 to throw 54 solid innings out of the Seattle ‘pen, logging a 4.17 ERA but with a terrific 29.2% strikeout rate against a solid 8.2% walk rate. He’s never been a particularly hard thrower, but that blend of inducing whiffs and limiting walks showed genuine promise. Injuries popped up again in 2023, however. Festa was limited to nine big league innings and just 34 frames in Triple-A. He walked an alarming 27.9% of his opponents in the majors, prompting him to be cut loose from Seattle’s roster at season’s end.
Festa latched on with the Padres on a minor league deal in the offseason. He wound up landing with the Mets and Rangers on subsequent minor league deals and pitching well enough to earn a decent major league look in Texas, where he tossed 22 2/3 innings of 4.17 ERA ball with a 25% strikeout rate and 7.6% walk rate. His lone appearance with the Mets (four runs in one inning) ballooned his ERA to 5.70 on the season, but Festa was a solid enough middle relief arm with the Rangers that the Cubs picked him up for cash earlier this winter when he was designated for assignment by Texas.
The Cubs will now have five days to trade Festa themselves. If there’s no taker, he’ll be placed on outright waivers. He’s been outrighted once in the past, so if Festa does clear, he’ll have the opportunity to elect free agency if he chooses.
Pirates, Ryan Borucki Agree To Minor League Deal
The Pirates have agreed to a minor league contract with free agent lefty Ryan Borucki, reports Jon Heyman of the New York Post. Borucki, a client of ISE Baseball, will earn a $1.15MM base salary (with additional incentives available) if he makes the big league roster. He’ll be in big league camp as a non-roster invitee this spring.
This will be Borucki’s third straight season in Pittsburgh. The Bucs originally signed the former Blue Jays southpaw to a minor league deal prior to the 2023 season. He was selected to the big league roster that May and stuck through the end of the 2024 season.
Borucki was excellent during his first season as a Pirate, logging 40 1/3 innings from the point of his original call to the majors that season and turning in a sharp 2.45 ERA with a 21.7% strikeout rate against a superlative 2.6% walk rate. He kept the ball on the ground at a better-than-average 45.9% clip, only allowed 0.89 HR/9 and was effective against both lefties (.149/.230/.254) and righties (.213/.224/.373).
Health troubles ruined Borucki’s 2024 campaign, however. He agreed to a $1.6MM deal avoiding arbitration, but a triceps issue limited him to only 11 innings. He opened the year with three shutout frames (five strikeouts, no walks) before being tagged for two runs in one-third of an inning and promptly heading to the injured list for what wound up being nearly five months. Upon returning in September, Borucki was roughed up for seven runs in 7 2/3 innings. He finished out the season with an ugly 7.36 earned run average in that small sample of 11 injury-marred innings.
Now back with the Bucs, Borucki will head to camp and look to work his way back into the team’s bullpen plans. The Pirates have added a pair of low-cost left-handed bullpen options this winter in Caleb Ferguson ($3MM) and Tim Mayza (just yesterday, at $1.15MM). They also have out-of-options former top prospect Joey Wentz, whom they picked up on a waiver claim and who pitched quite well for them in 12 innings down the stretch last year.
Borucki is the only veteran lefty who’ll be in camp on as a non-roster invitee. As such, in the event of injuries and/or significant struggles from that trio of southpaws on the 40-man roster, he could be one of the first men up — particularly since he’s already familiar with the organization and the bulk of the coaching staff.
Tristan Gray Elects Free Agency
4:21pm: Gray has indeed opted free agency. He can now sign with any club.
2:04pm: Pirates infielder Tristan Gray cleared waivers following last week’s DFA, MLBTR has learned. As a player with a prior outright assignment, he’ll have the option of rejecting a second outright in favor of free agency, if he chooses to do so. If he accepts an outright assignment, he’d likely be assigned to Triple-A Indianapolis and be in major league camp as a non-roster invitee.
Gray, 29 in March, landed with the Bucs back on Halloween when they claimed him off waivers from the A’s. Over the past calendar year, Gray has signed as a minor league free agent with the Marlins, been selected to the majors, and claimed off waivers by the A’s and Pirates.
The Pirates were Gray’s original organization, selecting him in the 13th round back in 2017. He was traded to the Rays less than a year later as part of the deal bringing outfielder Corey Dickerson to Pittsburgh. He went on to spend parts of six seasons the Rays organization, briefly making his MLB debut with Tampa Bay in 2023. He only appeared in two games and tallied five plate appearances, but Gray made the most of that tiny look when he popped his first big league homer off righty Jorge Lopez. Gray totaled 31 plate appearances between the Marlins and A’s in 2024 and went 3-for-28 with a double.
While he hasn’t hit much in a tiny big league sample, Gray has shown plenty of pop in the upper minors. He swatted 33 homers with Tampa Bay’s Triple-A club in 2022 and connected on another 30 in 2023. He’s played in parts of four seasons in Triple-A and posted a combined .238/.306/.472 batting line.
Gray has played all four infield positions in his professional career, though shortstop has been the most frequent, with 2477 innings there. The Marlins and A’s played him at the corners exclusively in 2024, however. Overall, Gray has 1439 professional innings at third base, 1312 at second base and 911 at first base. He’s a versatile left-handed bat with some platoon issues and strikeout concerns but plenty of pop and a better-than-average walk rate in each of the past two Triple-A campaigns.
MLBTR originally reported that Gray had already been assigned outright to Triple-A, which is not accurate. We regret the error.