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A’s Agree To Minor League Deals With Nick Martini, Aaron Brooks

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The A’s have agreed to minor league deals with a pair of old friends, signing outfielder Nick Martini and righty Aaron Brooks, per the transaction log at MLB.com. Martini has been assigned to Triple-A and Brooks to Double-A.

Martini, 34, was recently designated for assignment by the Rockies and elected free agency after clearing waivers. He inked a minor league deal with Colorado over the winter and broke camp with the Rox after an excellent showing in spring training. However, Martini struggled greatly in 111 plate appearances, despite taking only five left-on-left turns at the plate and despite playing his home games at Coors Field. He slashed .225/.288/.294 during his time in purple — a tepid follow-up to a similarly rough showing with the 2024 Reds (.212/.272/.370 in 163 plate appearances).

Rough as Martini’s 2024-25 seasons have been, he’s only a season and a third removed from batting .264/.329/.583 in 79 plate appearances with Cincinnati. That was the final season of a limited but productive six-year stretch that saw the lefty-swinging walk machine bat .268/.362/.412 while drawing a free pass in 11.2% of his plate appearances. Martini regularly posts gaudy walk rates in the minors and has had little trouble frequenting the basepaths in Triple-A, as evidenced by his career .294/.399/.454 slash in parts of eight seasons at the top minor league level.

Brooks, 35, opened the 2025 season with el Caliente de Durango in the Mexican League. He’s posted an unsightly 5.92 ERA in 38 innings so far, although in the supercharged run-scoring environment of that league, a 5.92 mark is actually a slight bit better than the 5.99 league average. Brooks has fanned only 14.6% of his opponents but also touts a sharp 4.6% walk rate.

Brooks pitched for the A’s just last season — his third stint with the A’s dating all the way back to the time he was traded to Oakland alongside Sean Manaea in a deal that shipped Ben Zobrist to the eventual 2015 World Series champion Royals. Last year, Brooks tossed 26 2/3 big league innings and logged a 5.06 ERA with a similarly poor strikeout rate (10.1%) and strong command (6.7% walk rate).

If he ends up back in the majors, Brooks will be in his seventh season with at least some big league time. He’s totaled 206 2/3 innings in the majors and logged a 6.36 ERA, a 15.3% strikeout rate and a 6.8% walk rate between the Royals, A’s, Orioles and Cardinals. In addition to that MLB work, Brooks enjoyed a strong two-year run in the Korea Baseball Organization and has pitched a 4.65 ERA in 720 Triple-A innings.

The A’s have five starting pitchers on the injured list and have seen healthy rotation candidates like Osvaldo Bido and Joey Estes pitch poorly in 2025. Brooks is hardly a high-ceiling addition, but he’ll give them some more depth. On the position-player side of things, the A’s have Miguel Andujar on the IL, have already passed Seth Brown through waivers (though he’s reportedly coming back today), and recently optioned a struggling JJ Bleday to Triple-A (though he’s since been recalled). Martini gives them an experienced option to stash in Triple-A.

Tyler Alexander Elects Free Agency

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Brewers left-hander Tyler Alexander passed through waivers unclaimed after being designated for assignment and rejected an outright assignment to Triple-A, per Curt Hogg of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel. He’s elected free agency instead and is now clear to explore opportunities with any team.

Alexander, 30, inked a one-year deal worth a guaranteed $1MM over the winter. He’s worked in a swingman role with Milwaukee, tallying 36 1/3 innings across 21 appearances (four of them “starts” as an opener) and pitched to an unsightly 6.19 ERA. He’s fanned a below-average 18.3% of opponents but posted a strong 7.8% walk rate.

Metrics like FIP (3.57) and SIERA (4.26) feel Alexander has pitched far better than that rudimentary ERA would suggest. Part of that stems from a .331 average on balls in play that’s about 40 points higher than league-average. Alexander has also uncharacteristically struggled to strand runners; he’s left just 47.2% of his runners on base this year — miles below his career 71.7% mark. That career mark sits right around the 72% mark that most pitchers tend to regress toward over larger samples.

Alexannder has pitched 485 1/3 big league innings dating back to his 2019 debut with the Tigers. In that time, he’s recorded a 4.67 earned run average with a 19% strikeout rate and 5.3% walk rate. The 2015 second-rounder is a pronounced fly-ball pitcher and doesn’t throw particularly hard, sitting 90.2 mph on his four-seamer in 2025, but he has good command and experience pitching in a variety of roles. The Brewers are also on the hook for the remainder of his salary, minus the prorated minimum for any time spent on another club’s big league roster, making Alexander an affordable depth play for any club in need of depth for the bullpen or rotation.

Reds Designate Austin Wynns For Assignment

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The Reds have designated catcher Austin Wynns for assignment, the team announced Friday. His spot on the roster will go to first baseman Christian Encarnacion-Strand, who is being reinstated from the injured list.

Wynns, 34, has hit brilliantly in limited time with Cincinnati, slashing .390/.429/.661 in 63 plate appearances dating back to last season. That includes a .400/.442/.700 line in 43 plate appearances in 2025. That outrageous output is propped up by a .513 average on balls in play, however, and it belies a career slash line of .241/.287/.354 for the journeyman Wynns.

Because Wynns is out of options, the Reds couldn’t simply send him to the minors. He’d first need to pass through waivers, which may well be where he’s headed now that he’s been designated for assignment. He’s a career .274/.363/.401 hitter in parts of seven Triple-A seasons — solid Triple-A production for any catcher, particularly a third one on a team’s depth chart.

Third catcher has indeed been Wynns’ role since Tyler Stephenson returned from an oblique strain. Stephenson and Jose Trevino have logged nearly all the time at catcher since Stephenson made his season debut. Wynns hasn’t logged a single plate appearance in June and tallied only seven trips to the plate in May, despite being healthy and on the active roster that entire time.

The Reds will have five days to trade Wynns before he has to be placed on outright waivers, though they could start the waiver process (which takes 48 hours) at any point between now and then. If Wynns does pass through waivers unclaimed — which he’s done eight prior times in his career — he’ll have the right to reject a minor league assignment in favor of free agency.

Encarnacion-Strand, 25, has been out since mid-April with a back injury. The Reds acquired him alongside Spencer Steer three years ago in the trade that sent Tyler Mahle to Minnesota. At the time, Encarnacion-Strand’s stock was on the rise. The former fourth-round pick was ripping through Triple-A pitching and looked poised to make the jump to the big leagues. He did just that in 2023 and hit well as a rookie: .270/.327/.477, 13 homers in 241 plate appearances.

Since that time, wrist and back injuries have tanked Encarnacion-Strand’s output at the plate. He’s never been one to take many walks and has always been too much of a free swinger, and both of those flaws have been magnified as his power has dissipated amid health troubles. Over the past two seasons, “CES” has only 183 plate appearances in the majors, during which he’s batted .179/.208/.295.

In the absence of Encarnacion-Strand, Steer has been playing first base regularly. It’s possible the Reds will slide the versatile Steer across the diamond to make room for Encarnacion-Strand at first base. Neither player is a good defender at the hot corner, however, and Santiago Espinal is also in the mix at third base. The Reds could begin to move Steer all over the diamond again, as they’ve done in the past, if the goal is everyday at-bats for Encarnacion-Strand at first base. If not, Encarnacion-Strand could slide into a more limited role as a righty-swinging power bat off the bench.

Twins Recall Travis Adams For MLB Debut

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11:10am: The Twins announced that Adams has been recalled from Triple-A St. Paul. Southpaw Kody Funderburk was optioned to St. Paul in his place.

9:07am: The Twins are calling up right-hander Travis Adams for what will be his major league debut, as first announced by Adams’ agent, Lonnie Murray of Sports Management Partners, on Instagram. He’ll likely slot into the bullpen to provide some length after the A’s snapped a nine-game losing streak by putting 14 runs on the board against Minnesota yesterday. Adams is already on the 40-man roster and was optioned to Triple-A in spring training (hence it being a “recall” despite never having pitched in the majors). As such, the Twins will only need a corresponding 26-man move to bring him up.

Adams, 25, was the Twins’ sixth-round pick back in 2021. Minnesota already added him to the 40-man roster in November in order to protect him from being selected in the 2024 Rule 5 Draft. Given that Adams was coming off a season in which he posted 127 innings with a 3.90 ERA, 22.6% strikeout rate, 6.7% walk rate and 43.8% ground-ball rate between Double-A and Triple-A, it stands to reason that a few clubs might have indeed had interest in plucking him from the upper levels of the Twins’ farm were he left unprotected.

So far in 2025, Adams has pitched well. He’s made two abbreviated starts and 11 long relief appearances, totaling 42 innings with a 3.43 ERA, 21.3% strikeout rate, 5.7% walk rate and 43.4% ground-ball rate. He hasn’t pitched more than 4 1/3 innings in any game this season, but he’s averaged 58 pitches per outing in his past five turns — including 66 pitches in his most recent appearance — so he ought to be stretched out for whatever role the Twins envision.

Baseball America ranks Adams 22nd among Twins farmhands, while MLB.com lists him 21st. He doesn’t have one standout plus pitch but offers a wide array of average pitches and solid command. Each of BA, MLB.com and FanGraphs give Adams credit solid-average 50 grades on his fastball and a 55 (above-average) grade either on one other pitch or his command (his cutter at BA, his slider at FG, his command at MLB.com). Generally speaking, the 6’1″ righty is considered a back-of-the-rotation arm or potential multi-inning reliever.

It’s possible the Twins will consider Adams for some starts down the road. Fellow prospect David Festa was touted among the sport’s top 100 minor leaguers prior to exhausting his rookie status and was solid through three turns earlier this season, but he’s been slowed by some biceps/shoulder inflammation recently and was torched for eight runs in 3 2/3 innings in that blowout against the A’s yesterday. Festa got the first look in the rotation in place of the injured Pablo López — who’ll be out several months due to a teres major strain — but it’s not clear after yesterday’s rough outing whether he’ll get another look.

For now, the Twins have four starters locked in. Veterans Joe Ryan (2.91 ERA), Bailey Ober (3.48 ERA) and Chris Paddack (3.58 ERA) have all pitched well this season. Rookie right-hander Zebby Matthews, another top-100 arm, had a rocky first outing in the majors this season but has turned in a 3.94 ERA with a 20-to-5 K/BB ratio in 16 innings over his past three turns. That quartet seems set for the time being, with Festa, Adams and righty Simeon Woods Richardson (who was optioned last month but has looked better in Triple-A) among the options for the fifth spot on the staff.

Rangers To Recall Luis Curvelo For MLB Debut

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The Rangers are planning to recall right-hander Luis Curvelo for his MLB debut, reports Daniel Álvarez Montes of El Extra Base. Curvelo is on the 40-man roster after signing a big league deal in free agency this offseason and was optioned to Triple-A this spring (hence this technically being a “recall” despite never having pitched in the majors).

Curvelo, 24, originally signed with the Mariners out of Venezuela as a teenager during the 2017-18 international signing period. He became a minor league free agent this past offseason and landed a major league deal with Texas after having pitched to a 2.57 ERA with a 30.6% strikeout rate and 7.1% walk rate in Double-A last year.

So far in 2025, Curvelo has continued down that impressive trajectory. In his first crack at the Triple-A level, the 6’1″ righty has logged 22 innings with a pristine 1.64 earned run average, a 26.9% strikeout rate and a 7.5% walk rate. He’s been an extreme fly-ball pitcher in the past but is currently carrying a better-than-average 44.6% ground-ball rate. Curvelo is averaging 95.5 mph on his four-seamer and 95.0 mph on a sinker this year, but he’s thrown his 84.2 mph slider at a nearly 55% clip — far and away the most frequently used offering in his three-pitch repertoire.

Prior to the 2025 season FanGraphs’ Eric Longenhagen credited Curvelo with a 70-grade slider (on the 20-80 scale) but a 45 fastball that “plays down” due to the right-hander’s sub-par command. Outside of a rough 2022 season in High-A, Curvelo has never had much trouble throwing strikes — but he’s struggled at times with his precision/command within the strike zone.

Curvelo will be the second fresh arm added to manager Bruce Bochy’s relief corps for this weekend series against the Nationals. Veteran righty Chris Martin was just reinstated from the 15-day injured list last night. Texas optioned righty Kumar Rocker to Triple-A Round Rock to clear a roster spot for Martin’s return. They’ll need to open a second spot for Curvelo.

Jerry Reinsdorf, Justin Ishbia Reach Agreement For Ishbia To Obtain Future Majority Stake In White Sox

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The White Sox announced Thursday that chairman and majority owner Jerry Reinsdorf and minority owner Justin Ishbia “have reached a long-term investment agreement that establishes a framework for Ishbia to obtain a future controlling interest in the White Sox.” Under the terms of the agreement, Ishbia will make “capital infusions” into the White Sox in 2025-26 that will pay down existing debt and “support ongoing team operations.”

There will be no immediate transfer of control — and none until at least 2029. The agreement gives Reinsdorf the option of selling his controlling interest to Ishbia at any point from 2029-33. After the 2034 season, Ishbia will have the option to acquire the controlling interest from Reinsdorf. If and when Ishbia does acquire the controlling stake, other minority owners will have the opportunity to sell to him as well. His brother, Mat Ishbia, the principal owner of the NBA’s Phoenix Suns and WNBA’s Phoenix Mercury, and his father, Jeff Ishbia, will be “significant” investors under the new agreement, too.

Reinsdorf, who purchased the White Sox in 1981, made the following statement within today’s press release:

“Having the incredible opportunity to own the Chicago White Sox and be part of Major League Baseball for nearly 50 years has been a life-changing experience. I have always expressed my intent to operate the White Sox as long as I am able and remain committed to returning this franchise to the level of on-field success we all expect and desire.”

Operating the club “as long as [he is] able” is a statement of some note. Reinsdorf is 89 as of this writing. He’ll be 90 next February and will be 93 when the initial window of potential transfer opens in 2029. By the time Ishbia has the option of purchasing the majority stake outright and of his own volition, Reinsdorf would be just a few months from his 99th birthday. That’s not intended to delve too far into the macabre, but the question of Reinsdorf’s ability to oversee day-to-day operations of the club as he ages into his mid-90s is difficult to overlook.

There’s also the question of the White Sox’ location. They’ve been on Chicago’s south side more than a century — one of the eight charter MLB teams established back in 1901. Reinsdorf has previously sought to move the Sox to Central Florida in the late 1980s and early 1990s. There have been far more recent rumors and speculation about a potential relocation to Nashville, although Reinsdorf was also looking into a new stadium in Chicago’s South Loop as recently as last year. The Sox’ current lease at Guaranteed Rate Field runs through 2029 — the first year that the current agreement opens the window for Ishbia to become majority owner.

The 47-year-old Ishbia has a reported net worth of more than $5 billion. Earlier this year, he was viewed as the leading candidate to purchase the division-rival Twins from the Pohlad family, but Ishbia abandoned that pursuit when the opportunity to increase his stake in the White Sox arose.

The 180-degree turn reportedly shocked the Twins, who had previously believed there was a path to completing a sale to Ishbia prior to Opening Day. At the time, White Sox officials denied to Jon Greenberg and Dan Hayes of The Athletic that there was a path to control of the White Sox available to Ishbia, but less than four months later, the team has now publicly revealed the specifics of that path.

Reinsdorf has increasingly drawn the ire of White Sox fans amid a yearslong spell of noncompetitive clubs. The White Sox won the 2005 World Series but have reached the postseason only three times since, never advancing beyond the first round of play. Reinsdorf conceded to a rebuild in 2016 when he allowed then-GM Rick Hahn to tear the roster down to the studs and build a new core from the ground up. By 2019, the Sox had the top farm system in baseball and an emerging core built around potential stars like Jose Abreu, Yoan Moncada, Luis Robert Jr., Eloy Jimenez, Dylan Cease and Lucas Giolito — among others. The plan looked to have worked when the Sox reached the playoffs in 2020 and 2021, but by 2022 the wheels had come off as that core regressed and/or fell to injury.

Viewed anywhere from loyal (to a fault) to insular, Reinsdorf brought Tony La Russa back to manage the club in 2021 — going over Hahn’s head to bring his friend back for another go-around as manager. The Sox won in year one despite some clear hiccups along the way, but reports during that 2022 season of a miserable clubhouse culture emerged.

La Russa was out by season’s end, at which point Hahn hired former Royals coach Pedro Grifol as La Russa’s dugout successor. A losing team and further reports of clubhouse tumult persisted, and by Aug. 2023, Hahn and longtime executive vice president Kenny Williams were dismissed. The pair had ranked among the longest-tenured executives in the entire sport. Rather than conduct an outside search for a new front office, Reinsdorf promoted assistant GM Chris Getz to general manager just days after firing Hahn and Williams.

Getz fired Grifol last year after a historically bad 28-89 start to the season. The 2024 White Sox wound up setting the modern record for futility, losing 121 games. The 2025 Rockies are on pace to make that a short-lived record, but it was nevertheless a dubious distinction that shone a spotlight on the stunningly swift nature of the White Sox’ fall from an MLB-best farm system and team-on-the-rise status to the dregs of Major League Baseball.

Getz hired former big league outfielder Will Venable — who’d been Bruce Bochy’s right-hand man in Texas — as his club’s new skipper this past offseason. The second-year GM has been tasked with the latest rebuild, again rebuilding the farm system through a series of trades and high draft picks. Chicago’s farm system is unequivocally in a better spot than it was just a few years ago, but there’s little hope of a return to competitive play on the near-term horizon — particularly in an increasingly formidable AL Central that sent three teams to the playoffs in 2024 and currently has four teams with winning records.

If and when the time comes for Getz & Co. to reenter the free agent market to supplement a new core, Reinsdorf’s frugality in free agency will again return to the forefront of conversations surrounding the Sox. Despite playing in one of the largest markets in baseball, Reinsdorf tends to run the South Siders more like a small-market operation. They did run out a $193MM Opening Day payroll in 2022 and a $181MM payroll in 2023, as noted at Cot’s Contracts, but those are clear outliers. The Sox have never had a payroll of even $130MM outside those two seasons. Even more incredibly, Andrew Benintendi’s five-year, $75MM contract remains the largest contract in White Sox history. The White Sox and A’s are the only two teams in baseball that have never given out a contract of at least $100MM.

For all these reasons, the news of a light at the end of the tunnel on Reinsdorf’s ownership tenure has been met by fans with a blend of celebratory relief and frustration that there’s not a more immediate transition of power in today’s agreement. Even if we’re at least four years from a bona fide sea change, today’s announcement is still a turning point in White Sox history — one that provides a countdown clock for the turnover long coveted by the fan base.

Padres Non-Tender Jay Groome

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The Padres plan to reinstate left-hander Jay Groome from the ineligible list and non-tender him today, reports Dennis Lin of The Athletic. Groome was one of four players serving a one-year ban for breaking MLB’s regulations about betting on baseball games. Groome’s bets were placed in 2020-21, when he was not on a 40-man roster. In its official press release at the time, the league noted that Groome wagered a total of $453 over the course of 30 bets — none pertaining to games he played or to games involving the Red Sox (his team at the time).

It’s an oddity of a transaction. Non-tenders are reserved for the offseason; any player on a roster in-season was already tendered a contract by his club over the winter or signed as a free agent. However, MLBTR has confirmed that because Groome was on the ineligible list in the offseason, he could not be tendered a contract or non-tendered. That decision had to wait until he was eligible for reinstatement. Today marks the expiration of the one-year bans on Groome, A’s right-hander Michael Kelly, D-backs lefty Andrew Saalfrank and Phillies infielder José Rodríguez. Groome is out of minor league options and hasn’t pitched in more than a year, making the decision straightforward for San Diego.

Because Groome is being non-tendered, he won’t have to pass through waivers. He’ll immediately become a free agent. He’s eligible to re-sign with the Padres on a minor league deal — not uncommon among non-tendered players, particularly pre-arbitration ones like Groome — but can also explore opportunities with any team around the league.

The now-26-year-old Groome was the 12th overall pick by the Red Sox in the 2016 draft. He was a consensus top-100 prospect in the sport for two years thereafter, despite injuries limiting his time on the mound. Groome wound up opening the 2018 season on the injured list due to a flexor strain, and five weeks later the team announced that he’d require Tommy John surgery. That cost him his entire 2018 season and limited him to just four minor league innings in 2019. The canceled minor league season in 2020 did no favors for the towering 6’6″ left-hander’s development.

By the time the 2021 season rolled around, Groome was nearly five years removed from being drafted but had only 66 professional innings under his belt. He wound up making 21 starts between High-A and Double-A, totaling 97 1/3 innings with a 4.81 ERA, a huge 32.3% strikeout rate and a solid 8.7% walk rate. He struggled considerably with men on base, leading to a 65% strand rate and that bloated ERA, but the bat-missing ability and command were impressive — particularly given the long layoff from pitching on a regular basis.

In 2022, Groome was beginning to look like a potential big league starter again. He piled up 144 innings in the minors, pitching to a combined 3.44 ERA. His 22.8% strikeout rate and 10.6% walk rate both needed some work, but he was healthy and putting up generally solid results. The Red Sox shipped him to the Padres as part of the trade that brought Eric Hosmer (at league-minimum salary) and prospects Corey Rosier and Max Ferguson to Boston.

Groome fared well down the stretch in ’22 with the Padres’ Triple-A club, but his 2023 season was a nightmare. He managed to make a full slate of 30 starts in Triple-A, but there weren’t many other positive takeaways. Groome was torched for an 8.55 earned run average, walked nearly 17% of his opponents and surrendered an average of 1.67 homers per nine frames. He plunked another four batters and tossed nine wild pitches. A four-seamer that used to sit 92-94 mph tanked and sat at 91 mph on the season, and by measure of Statcast, Groome threw only 42.5% of his pitches on the entire season within the strike zone.

Groome landed on the minor league injured list after pitching just five innings last year. He had not been activated by the time the suspension was announced. The Padres had been granted a fourth option year on Groome due to the injuries and canceled minor league season, but he exhausted that during the 2024 campaign. Because he’s out of minor league options, San Diego would’ve had to carry him on the big league roster or tender him a contract and immediately designate him for assignment upon reinstating him. They’re instead going the non-tender route, perhaps in hope of quickly re-signing to a minor league contract.

Diamondbacks Designate Scott McGough, Reinstate Andrew Saalfrank

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The D-backs have designated right-handed reliever Scott McGough for assignment, the team announced. His spot on the 40-man roster goes to lefty Andrew Saalfrank, who has been reinstated from the ineligible list and optioned to the Diamondbacks’ Rookie-ball affiliate in the Arizona Complex League.

Saalfrank was one of four players suspended by Major League Baseball for one year after a league investigation revealed that the quartet had placed small-scale bets on Major League Baseball games while playing in the minor leagues back in 2020-22. Saalfrank, then pitching for the D-backs’ Low-A affiliate, wagered a total of $445 over 29 bets — four of them involving Diamondbacks games.

Saalfrank is eligible for reinstatement today, as are A’s righty Michael Kelly, Padres lefty Jay Groome and Phillies infielder José Rodríguez. None of the four bet more than $749 in total, and none were on the 40-man roster at the time their bets were placed.

That’s the key distinction for that quartet receiving one-year bans as opposed to former Padres/Pirates utilityman Tucupita Marcano, who received a lifetime ban (announced in conjunction with these four suspensions). Marcano wagered more than $150K on 387 bets involving MLB games while he was on a big league roster — including 25 bets on Pirates games while he was on Pittsburgh’s major league injured list (rehabbing a season-ending ACL tear).

Major League Baseball’s rules regarding gambling stipulate that “Any player, umpire, or Club or League official or employee, who shall bet any sum whatsoever upon any baseball game in connection with which the bettor has no duty to perform, shall be declared ineligible for one year.” Players, umpires, club officials and league officials who place bets of “any sum whatsoever upon any baseball game in connection with which the bettor has a duty to perform” are subject to permanent bans. Further details on the investigation and its findings were provided in a league-issued press release last year at the time of these suspensions.

The 35-year-old McGough will lose his spot on the roster as a result of Saalfrank’s reinstatement, though he was clearly already on thin ice. Arizona originally signed McGough to a two-year contract in the 2022-23 offseason when he was coming off a strong four-year run in Japan. He logged a pedestrian 4.73 ERA in 2023 but did have some better underlying numbers, including a hearty 28.6% strikeout rate. McGough’s second year in Phoenix was a rough one (7.44 ERA in 32 2/3 innings), prompting the Snakes to decline a club option for 2025.

McGough and the D-backs eventually agreed to a minor league deal later in the offseason. He pitched well enough in an extremely hitter-friendly Triple-A setting — 13 2/3 innings, 3.95 ERA, 30 K%, 6.7 BB% — to get another big league look in mid-May, but he faltered in a quick seven-game trial run. McGough allowed five runs (6.43 ERA) and issued more walks (six) than strikeouts (five) before being optioned back to Triple-A Reno just a couple days ago. He hadn’t gotten into a game with the Aces before today’s DFA.

The D-backs will have five days to place McGough on waivers or trade him. The former seems likelier, given his struggles. Assuming he passes through waivers unclaimed, the D-backs can hold onto him as a depth piece by assigning him outright to Reno. McGough does have one prior outright in his career, so he’d be able to reject that assignment in favor of free agency if he’d prefer to again explore opportunities with other teams.

Angels, Carson Fulmer Agree To Minor League Deal

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Right-hander Carson Fulmer is headed back to the Angels organization. Fulmer, who’d been with the Pirates on a minor league deal, was released by Pittsburgh earlier this week and has quickly signed a minor league deal to return to the Halos, per the MiLB.com transaction log. The Icon Sports client spent the 2023-24 seasons pitching between Triple-A Salt Lake and Anaheim as well.

A former first-round pick and top prospect, Fulmer never found his footing with the White Sox (his original club) or in subsequent stints with the Tigers, Orioles and Reds. He had a decent two-year run with the Halos, however, tossing a combined 96 2/3 innings with a 4.00 ERA, a 20.8% strikeout rate and a 10.5% walk rate from 2023-24. The bulk of that work came just last season, when he pitched a career-high 86 2/3 innings for Ron Washington’s club (29 relief outings, eight starts).

So far in 2025, Fulmer has worked 42 2/3 innings for the Pirates’ Triple-A club in Indianapolis and recorded a 4.64 ERA. He opened the season as a member of Indy’s rotation but struggled badly, yielding 17 runs in 28 2/3 innings. Since moving back to the bullpen on May 7, he’s pitched 14 innings with a 3.21 ERA and 12-to-5 K/BB ratio. Fulmer has pitched two or more innings in six of his seven bullpen appearances.

The Angels have spent much of the year scooping up pitching depth of all varieties as they try to piece together a passable staff. It hasn’t worked so far. Angels starters rank 22nd in the majors with a 4.33 ERA but are 28th in FIP, 29th in strikeout rate, 29th in walk rate and 30th in SIERA. Their bullpen has been even less effective, logging a 28th-ranked 5.75 ERA and issuing walks at the third-highest clip of any team in MLB. Fulmer is the latest in a growing line of veteran arms signed in-season on minor league deals, joining Hector Neris, Hunter Strickland, Buck Farmer, Andrew Vasquez and Sammy Peralta in that regard.

Royals Select Thomas Hatch

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The Royals announced Thursday morning that they’ve selected the contract of righty Thomas Hatch from Triple-A Omaha. Injured reliever Hunter Harvey moves from the 15-day IL to the 60-day IL to open a spot on the 40-man roster. Kansas City also technically optioned righty Andrew Hoffmann to Omaha but immediately re-added him to the roster as the 27th man for today’s doubleheader.

Hatch, 30, signed a minor league deal with the Royals back in February. He originally had signed a one-year deal with the Doosan Bears of the Korea Baseball Organization, but that arrangement fell through due to some concerns stemming from his physical. Hatch wound up signing with Kansas City instead, and he’s now back in the majors.

Hatch has pitched in parts of four big league seasons, all with the Blue Jays or Pirates, and spent time pitching with Japan’s Hiroshima Carp in Nippon Professional Baseball last year. The former third-round pick (Cubs, 2016) has totaled 69 big league innings and carries a 4.96 earned run average, a 19.7% strikeout rate, a 10.7% walk rate and a 46.9% ground-ball rate in that time.

Whatever concerns led to the voiding of his KBO deal haven’t manifested in an injury this year. Hatch has been healthy all season and working out of the Storm Chasers’ rotation down in Omaha. He’s posted decent overall results in 51 innings — 4.59 ERA, 20.8 K%, 8.6 BB% — but has been better and more consistent than that rudimentary ERA would indicate. Hatch allowed nearly one-third of his seasonlong run total in a single, disastrous outing on April 15, when the Orioles’ Norfolk affiliate trounced him for eight runs. Since that time, he’s started seven games and rattled off a far more presentable 3.68 ERA with below-average strikeout numbers but solid command and ground-ball tendencies.

The Royals were off yesterday due to a rainout in St. Louis, so the entire bullpen is fresh. However, they used six relievers on Tuesday and presumably want some extra length in the ’pen for today’s twin bill. Hatch won’t start either game, but he’s fully stretched out (seven shutout innings in his most recent Triple-A start) and can thus provide ample long relief if either Game 1 starter Noah Cameron or Game 2 starter Cole Ragans runs into a short start. Ragans is expected to start Game 2 today, so he’ll presumably be reinstated from the 15-day IL between games. Cameron, good as he’s been so far in his big league tenure, could wind up being optioned to make room for Ragans’ return — a testament to the strength of Kansas City’s rotation.

The move to the 60-day IL isn’t a reflection of any sort of new setback for Harvey. He’s already missed 57 days, and the move from the 15-day IL to the 60-day IL does not reset his minimum stay on the injured list. He’s technically eligible to return as soon as this weekend, but there’s no indication he’s close to returning. Harvey landed on the IL after experiencing shoulder discomfort in his most recent appearance back on April 7.

Harvey was subsequently diagnosed with a Grade 1 strain of his teres major. Harvey resumed throwing in early May but felt lingering discomfort and was shut back down. He hasn’t yet gone out on a minor league rehab assignment, and the team hasn’t provided an update on his status since May 23, when MLB.com’s Anne Rogers relayed that Harvey is playing catch but has still not progressed to the point where he’s able to more seriously ramp up his rehab.

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