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Mariners Put Ryan Bliss On IL Due To Biceps Tear, Designate Jesse Hahn

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The Mariners designated right-hander Jesse Hahn for assignment today amid a series of roster moves, per a club announcement. Right-hander Casey Lawrence was selected from Triple-A Tacoma in his place. And, in a concerning bit of injury news, Seattle placed infielder Ryan Bliss on the 10-day injured list due to a torn left biceps. He suffered the tear during a swing in last night’s game. A timeline for his recovery hasn’t been provided, but given the nature of the injury, it seems all but guaranteed that Bliss will be facing a notable absence. Infielder Leo Rivas is up from Tacoma in his place.

Bliss wasn’t off to a roaring-hot start this season, as he’s currently sporting a line of .200/.282/.314. Regardless, the injury further depletes the Seattle infield, which has been an issue for quite a while. All throughout the offseason, they were looking to make notable upgrades to their group on the dirt. Their moves ended up being pretty modest, with Jorge Polanco re-signed and moved from second to third base. Donovan Solano was also signed to be a part-time contributor.

Going into the season, Bliss and Dylan Moore were the top candidates to play second base. Lately, Polanco has been in and out of the lineup due to some soreness in his side, taking the designated hitter spot whenever he’s been healthy enough to play. That has left Moore at third and Bliss at second. Luke Raley has been playing right field to cover for the injured Víctor Robles, opening first base for Rowdy Tellez and the DH spot for Polanco.

It’s less than ideal for a club that has been searching for more offense for a while. The lack of thump in the lineup seemed to be their undoing last year and they weren’t able to make a significant upgrade in the winter. The team has a combined .199/.301/.329 line and 92 wRC+ at the moment and a 4-8 record which has them in the basement of the American League West.

Bliss wasn’t the most essential part of their foundation but it’s another brick removed. Rivas has a .233/.333/.274 line in his big league career but hit .296/.441/.424 in Triple-A last year and is out to a hot start this year, slashing .304/.429/.609 through seven games. He will jump into the infield group though the M’s also have Solano, Moore, Tellez, Polanco and Miles Mastrobuoni in the mix for playing time alongside shortstop J.P. Crawford.

The pitching moves are a reflection of the fact that their recent schedule has been a grind. They lost an 11-inning game on Friday, the first of the six-game stretch, using nine pitchers in that contest. They had fairly regular bullpen usage in the following three games but then had another rough one last night, using seven pitchers in a 12-inning marathon.

With the group fairly taxed overall, they’ve decided to bring in a fresh arm. Lawrence is a 37-year-old who has been called on for such duties before, having worked long relief gigs with the Blue Jays, Cardinals and Mariners in the past. Signed to a minor league deal in the offseason, he’s been pitching in the Triple-A Tacoma rotation to start this year. His last outing lasted 4 2/3 innings on April 4, so he should be able to mop up a few frames today, if needed. After that, it wouldn’t be a surprise to see him bumped off the roster. He is out of options and the Mariners have a much-needed off-day tomorrow.

Hahn, 35, just made it back to the majors a few days ago after a long absence. The M’s selected his contract on April 5, his first time in the bigs since 2021. He has pitched four innings for the M’s since then, including the final two innings of last night’s extra-inning contest. He hasn’t been charged with an earned run yet this year but got a tough L last night when the Manfred Man came around to score in the 12th.

He’s now off the 40-man and will be in DFA limbo for a bit, a week at most. The waiver process takes 48 hours, so the Mariners theoretically have five days to explore trade interest. He has a 4.17 ERA in 315 1/3 bg league innings. He missed 2022 and 2023 due to a shoulder injury then pitched in Triple-A last year with a 4.29 ERA over 50 1/3 innings.

Photo courtesy of Joe Nicholson, Imagn Images

Rangers Place Wyatt Langford On Injured List

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The Rangers announced Wednesday that outfielder Wyatt Langford has been placed on the 10-day injured list due to a right oblique strain. Additionally, infielder Jonathan Ornelas has been optioned to Round Rock. Utilityman Ezequiel Duran and outfielder Dustin Harris have been recalled in a pair of corresponding transactions. Duran was only optioned to Triple-A yesterday, but he can return in fewer than the minimum 10 days since he’s technically replacing the injured Langford on the roster.

The 23-year-old Langford is out to a fast start, clubbing four homers through his first dozen games while slashing .244/.333/.561 overall. The 2023 No. 4 overall pick’s bid to follow up on a strong rookie showing last year will be placed on hold for the next week-plus at the very least, however, with a chance that he’ll require a lengthier stay.

Every injury is different, but even many Grade 1 oblique strains (the most mild on a scale of one to three) can sideline a player for upwards of a month. Texas will hope Langford’s current oblique strain plays out similarly to the one he sustained on the other side of his body early in camp this year, when a mild left oblique strain required him to be out of games for only about two weeks.

With Langford shelved for the time being, his reps in left field will fall to a combination of Harris, Duran, Kevin Pillar and Josh Smith. Leody Taveras and Adolis Garcia remain on hand to man center field and right field, respectively.

Harris, 25, could get his first stretch of any real action in the majors following this promotion. He was briefly called up last year but only appeared in two games, going 2-for-6 with a homer. He has a decent track record at the plate in the upper minors but is widely considered a sub-par defender with no true home on the diamond.

The Rangers have given Harris a look at all three outfield spots this season, and he’s also spent ample time at every infield position other than shortstop. He’s a lefty hitter who could work his way into Bruce Bochy’s lineup at a variety of positions, but he’s generally blocked from any sort of long-term regular role in Texas. Jake Burger, Marcus Semien, Corey Seager and Josh Jung have the infield locked down, while Langford, Taveras, Garcia and Evan Carter give him plenty of roadblocks in the outfield. Harris is out to a tough start in Triple-A this year but is a career .268/.361/.401 hitter in 894 plate appearances there (in addition to a .252/.358/.445 line in 660 Double-A plate appearances).

Cubs Place Justin Steele On Injured List

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11:05am: Steele tells ESPN’s Jesse Rogers that he first felt discomfort during his most recent start against the Rangers. He gutted through another couple innings, but the discomfort lingered in the days following that appearance. He believes it’ll be a minimum IL stint.

10:22am: The Cubs placed lefty Justin Steele on the 15-day injured list due to tendinitis in his left elbow, per a team announcement. Righty Ethan Roberts has been recalled from Triple-A Iowa to take his spot on the roster.

It’s something of a surprise IL placement for the excellent 29-year-old southpaw. The Cubs hadn’t previously acknowledged any elbow troubles for Steele — at least not publicly — and he’s coming off the best results of his season to date. He fired seven shutout innings with three hits, two walks and eight punchouts against the Rangers just two days ago.

Steele’s fastball averaged just 90.2 mph during that outing, however, tying him for the lowest mark of his career. At first glance, that could’ve been chalked up to frigid low-30s temperatures at Wrigley Field, but it seems there’s at least some degree of elbow trouble at play. On the whole, Statcast has measured Steele’s average heater at 90.8 mph this season — a career-low mark that’s down even relative to his early work in prior seasons.

The Cubs haven’t given any sort of timetable for Steele’s absence. He’ll be sidelined into late April at the very least, joining fellow starter Javier Assad on the injured list. The Cubs still have Shota Imanaga, Jameson Taillon, Matthew Boyd and Ben Brown locked into rotation spots. Veteran swingman Colin Rea seems likely to step into the starting five in place of Steele, though lefty Jordan Wicks gives Chicago a healthy option who’s on the 40-man roster down in Triple-A. Fellow Triple-A starter Caleb Kilian, also on the 40-man roster, was placed on the minor league IL over the weekend after giving up six runs in 2 1/3 innings during his 2025 debut.

The Cubs have an off-day tomorrow — one of five remaining off-days on their schedule in the month of April. They still have six consecutive days with a game from April 11-16, so they’ll need a fifth starter during that stretch, but they can plug Rea or Wicks in as the starter in a de facto bullpen game and navigate the rest of the month with only four starters, pending the rest of the group’s health.

Roberts, 27, has pitched in a pair of big league seasons with the Cubs but has yet to cement himself as a regular in the bullpen. He’ll give manager Craig Counsell a fresh arm for now, and his early work in Iowa is certainly eye-catching; he’s appeared in three games, tallied 4 1/3 innings and held opponents scoreless on four hits and no walks with eight strikeouts.

Jake Rogers Diagnosed With Oblique Strain, Could Miss More Than One Month

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April 9: Manager A.J. Hinch said this morning that Rogers was diagnosed with a strained oblique and noted that it’ll be more than a minimal IL stint, adding that strains of this nature often take a month or more to heal (via Chris McCosky of the Detroit News).

April 8: The Tigers announced Tuesday that they’ve selected the contract of veteran catcher Tomas Nido from Triple-A Toledo and placed fellow catcher Jake Rogers on the 10-day IL with tightness in his left oblique. Infielder/outfielder Wenceel Perez has been transferred from the 10-day IL to the 60-day IL to open a 40-man roster spot. Perez’s 60-day stint includes the time he’s already missed; he’ll be eligible to return in late May.

Rogers, 30 next week, was scratched from the lineup less than an hour ago. He felt the discomfort in his oblique area while taking swings in the batting cage prior to today’s game, per Cody Stavenhagen of The Athletic. The Tigers — whether influenced by the frigid temperatures at today’s home opener or not — will take the cautious route. They have not yet provided a timetable for his return or specified whether Rogers will head for an MRI. At this point, they’re using the term “tightness” and not “strain,” which suggests Rogers could escape with a relatively minimal IL stay.

Rogers has appeared in six games thus far and is out to a .222/.364/.333 start. He’s seeking a rebound from a down year in 2024, hopeful of returning to the 2023 form that saw him belt a career-best 21 homers while providing his typical brand of plus-plus defense behind the dish. Evan Woodbery of MLive.com pointed out earlier thiat his IL placement will snap a stretch of 37 straight Tarik Skubal starts caught by Rogers.

Nido doesn’t have the same power upside as Rogers, but he’s a plus defender with plenty of big league experience under his belt — most of it coming with the Mets. The 30-year-old veteran (31 this weekend) is a .210/.245/.309 hitter in 945 big league plate appearances accrued over parts of eight MLB seasons. Nido is just over seven weeks shy of six years of big league service time, and this new stint with Detroit will help him inch closer to the six-year mark. He appeared in 49 games between the Mets and Cubs last year, slashing a combined .192/.219/.315 with four homers.

Though Nido has never hit much outside a tiny seven-game sample in the shortened 2020 season, he’s consistently drawn above-average marks for his framing, his ability to block balls in the dirt and his prowess in controlling the running game. His throwing numbers did dip a bit below-average in 2022-23, but he bounced back with a 22.7% caught-stealing rate in 2024 — a couple ticks higher than the league-average 20.4% mark.

Jonny DeLuca To Miss 2-4 Weeks Due To Shoulder Strain

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The Rays announced Tuesday that center fielder Jonny DeLuca has been placed on the 10-day injured list due to a right shoulder strain. Manager Kevin Cash tells Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times that DeLuca is likely to miss two to four weeks. Infielder Coco Montes is up from Triple-A in DeLuca’s place.

It’s an abrupt halt to a blistering start in DeLuca’s 2025 season. The former Dodgers farmhand, acquired alongside Ryan Pepiot in the trade sending Tyler Glasnow to Los Angeles, is out to a .435/.480/.522 start with four steals in 25 plate appearances. He’s obviously not going to sustain that pace, which is buoyed by a .526 average on balls in play and comes in spite of a bleak 10.5% hard-hit rate, but DeLuca has been a key piece in an already injury-plagued outfield through nine games. Josh Lowe and Richie Palacios are both on the shelf as well. That leaves the Rays with rookies Jake Mangum and Kameron Misner in prominent roles alongside defensive nomad Christopher Morel in left field. Infielder Jose Caballero has been getting work in the outfield as well. Montes is primarily an infielder but does have a bit of left field experience in the minors and in Japan last year.

Tampa Bay’s 40-man outfield depth is more or less already depleted, though veteran Eloy Jiménez is out to a decent start in Triple-A. Even if he’s a defensive liability, he has experience in the corners and could be a serviceable short-term option. Prospects Chandler Simpson and Tre’ Morgan are other potential non-roster options who could be called upon if a need arises before the guys on the IL get healthy.

The Rays traded Jose Siri to the Mets in November and quickly revealed that they planned to use DeLuca as the primary center fielder to start the post-Siri era. DeLuca hit a pretty tepid .217/.278/.331 for the Rays last year but stole 16 bases and got solid marks for his glovework. As mentioned, he got out to a far better start this year, though in a small sample but with some flags. Regardless, it’s still a blow, especially given the other injuries the club is already dealing with.

Photo courtesy of Nathan Ray Seebeck, Imagn Images

Chadwick Tromp Elects Free Agency

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Braves catcher Chadwick Tromp went unclaimed on outright waivers following his recent DFA, reports Justin Toscano of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Atlanta assigned him outright to Triple-A Gwinnett, but he rejected the assignment in favor of free agency, as is his right as a player who’s previously been outrighted in his career.

Tromp, 30, began the season as the team’s backup to top prospect Drake Baldwin. Starter Sean Murphy suffered a rib fracture during spring training that caused him to miss the start of the year. Atlanta designated Tromp for assignment when Murphy was reinstated from the injured list a couple days ago.

The Braves now have a healthy Murphy and Baldwin on the big league roster, and they recently picked up catcher Jason Delay in a cash deal with the Pirates. Atlanta also has a pair of non-roster veterans, Sandy Leon and James McCann, in the organization. There’s enough depth that both Delay and McCann are playing in Double-A at the moment.

Dating back to his 2020 debut with the Giants, Tromp has appeared in 61 MLB games. He’s a .224/.235/.385 hitter with five home runs and 10 doubles in 162 plate appearances, but his 1.9% walk rate and 30.9% strikeout rate underscore a problematic approach at the plate. That said, the Aruban-born backstop is considered a strong defender and carries a career .254/.327/.419 batting line in part of seven Triple-A seasons. An organization with less catching depth than the Braves currently possess will likely add Tromp on a minor league deal and plug him into the Triple-A mix — if not directly onto the big league roster in a backup capacity.

White Sox Re-Sign Brandon Drury To Minor League Deal

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The White Sox announced Tuesday that they’ve agreed to a new minor league contract with infielder Brandon Drury. He’ll head to extended spring training for now. Drury was with the ChiSox this spring and enjoyed a monster performance in the Cactus League, hitting .410/.439/.821 with three homers and seven doubles in 41 plate appearances. He looked like a lock to make the team until he suffered a broken thumb right at the end of camp. The Sox released him from that minor league pact, but the two parties have now come to terms on a new deal.

Drury, 32, has run pretty hot and cold in his career. At the end of the 2021 season, he had a career batting line of .249/.296/.415. That production translated to a wRC+ of 83, indicating he was 17% below league average overall.

He then snapped off a really good performance over the next two years. He has never walked much but managed to launch 28 home runs with the Reds and Padres in 2022. He slashed .263/.320/.492 for a 123 wRC+. He signed a two-year, $17MM deal with the Angels going into 2023 and the first year went quite well. He launched another 26 homers and hit .262/.306/.497 for a 114 wRC+.

But everything went south last year. He battled various minor ailments throughout the year and produced a tepid line of .169/.242/.228. The White Sox were able to grab him on a minor league deal and it seemed for a while like they would get him on the upswing, though his aforementioned excellent spring performance was cut short by a broken thumb.

He will once again try to play his way onto the White Sox, which is certainly possible. He has played everywhere but catcher in his career, though he hasn’t played shortstop or the outfield recently. Still, the ability to play the non-shortstop infield positions gives him a chance to crack the lineup if he’s in good form. Miguel Vargas and Andrew Vaughn are taking most of the playing time at the corners right now with Lenyn Sosa at second, though none of them are performing well. Vargas and Sosa can be moved to other positions while Vaughn is only under club control through 2026 and is playing himself into non-tender territory.

If Drury can get healthy and back in form, he would be a candidate to spend some time in the majors with the White Sox. If he produces numbers like his spring performance or his 2022-23 seasons, he would be an intriguing midseason trade candidate.

Photo courtesy of Jayne Kamin, Oncea-Imagn Images

Víctor Robles Likely To Miss About 12 Weeks

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The Mariners today provided an update on outfielder Víctor Robles, who was placed on the 10-day injured list yesterday due to a left shoulder dislocation. Today’s update says that the dislocation caused a small fracture in the humeral head in his left shoulder. The club believes that the fracture will heal without surgery, though Robles will be continually monitored to ensure that is the case. Even if he does continue to avoid surgery, the club estimates it will take him six weeks to heal, followed by a six-week rehab process. That suggests he will miss about 12 weeks even in a best-case scenario.

Of course, if there are any setbacks along the way or if it’s determined that Robles will instead require surgical intervention, that timeline would change. In either scenario, given that Robles is already looking at an absence that would extend to around the All-Star break, doubts about his ability to return this season could arise. For now, however, the Mariners are surely relieved that the injury doesn’t look to be season-ending in nature.

Robles, 27, was a longtime top prospect with the Nationals who debuted in as a 20-year-old in 2017 but never quite found his footing as a regular in Washington. He looked on the cusp of a breakout when he hit .258/.328/.430 with plus defense in 2018-19, his age-21 and age-22 seasons, but in 1124 plate appearances from 2020 through the time of his release last May, he batted only .222/.301/.308.

The Mariners signed Robles to a big league deal early last June and were almost immediately rewarded for their show of faith. He filled a bench role early on but played so well in a limited role that he forced himself into the everyday lineup before long. In 77 games with Seattle, Robles turned in a superlative .322/.393/.467 batting line with four homers, 20 doubles and an eye-catching 30 steals in just 31 tries.

Robles was never going to sustain the .388 average on balls in play that propped up his batting line, but he also showed vastly improved contact skills, cutting the 24% strikeout rate he’d displayed from 2020-24 (27.3% with the Nats last year) all the way to 16.8% as a Mariner.

With Seattle, Robles proved much more aggressive, increasing his swing rate at pitches over the plate by several percentage points and also improving his contact rate on said swings. He swung at only 49% of pitches over the plate up through the 2023 season and made contact on 84.5% of those swings; with the Mariners, he offered at 53% of pitches in the zone and made contact at an 87.1% clip.

Even with some expected regression, the Mariners’ version of Robles looked like a more balanced hitter than the one who’d spent several years struggling in D.C. The Mariner front office clearly believed that to be the case, as Robles inked a two-year, $9.75MM contract covering his first two free agent years last summer. The deal spans the 2025-26 campaigns and includes a club option for 2027.

Now, Robles will spend around half of that contract’s first season (at least) on the shelf. He’d been slotted in as the everyday right fielder with Randy Arozarena in left field and Julio Rodriguez in center field. The Robles injury likely paves the way for more Luke Raley to see more outfield time. He’d originally been expected to play more first base in 2025, but a big performance in spring training from Rowdy Tellez forced the Mariners to reevalute. Seattle released Mitch Haniger and committed to Tellez and Raley splitting the load between first base and DH.

Raley and Dominic Canzone figure to get more time in the outfield. It’s also possible that utilitymen Miles Mastrobuoni and Dylan Moore could log some reps there. All three of Raley, Canzone and Mastrobuoni are left-handed hitters, so a platoon arrangement among them isn’t likely. Raley and the righty-hitting Moore could make sense as an on-paper platoon, but Moore has been used as an infielder exclusively thus far and played a career-low 138 innings in the outfield last year.

However it shakes out, the Robles injury is a significant setback for a Mariners club that currently ranks 21st in the majors in runs scored (36). It’s also likely to result in a defensive downturn; the early marks from Robles this season have been uncharacteristically below average, but he’s generally graded as a strong defender in center and is viewed as a potential plus defender in a corner.

Tigers Notes: Margot, Vierling, Rogers

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The Tigers placed outfielder Manuel Margot on the 10-day injured list due to left knee inflammation and recalled fellow outfielder Brewer Hicklen from Triple-A, per a club announcement.

Margot has gone 6-for-19 (all singles) to begin his Tigers tenure. He joins Parker Meadows, Matt Vierling and Wenceel Perez on the injured list for a Detroit club that has seen too many injuries in its outfield corps. The team didn’t provide an immediate timetable for Margot’s return. Notably, the left knee is not the same knee that Margot injured back in 2022, when he missed about half the year with a strained patellar tendon in his right knee.

The 29-year-old Hicklen was acquired from the Brewers on March 28 in exchange for cash. He’s hitless in a tiny sample of nine big league plate appearances but has appeared in parts of four Triple-A seasons, slashing .244/.352/.476 in 1366 plate appearances at the top minor league level. Hicklen will join Riley Greene, Kerry Carpenter and utilitymen Zach McKinstry, Ryan Kreidler and Andy Ibanez as outfield options for skipper A.J. Hinch.

The Tigers added in a separate announcement this morning that Vierling, who’s been out all season with a strained rotator cuff, is beginning a throwing program today. There’s still no firm timeline for his return, though Hinch noted to reporters that a motivated Vierling was out on the field playing begin throwing in 30-degree weather this morning — both a testament to his eagerness to return and the improved state of his shoulder (link via The Athletic’s Cody Stavenhagen).

In other Tigers injury news, the team scratched catcher Jake Rogers today due to tightness in his left oblique. As MLive’s Evan Woodbery points out, this means that reigning Cy Young winner Tarik Skubal will be caught by a different catcher for the first time since 2023. Backup Dillon Dingler is getting the start today, snapping a streak of 37 consecutive Skubal starts caught by Rogers.

There’s no indication from the Tigers whether Rogers will require an MRI or a trip to the injured list. Veteran Tomas Nido is on hand in Triple-A Toledo as an experienced option to pair with the 26-year-old Dingler if Rogers is forced to miss any time.

Rogers, 30 next week, is out to a .222/.364/.333 start in his first six games of the season. He’s a premium defender behind the dish and has been looking to rebound from a down year at the plate in 2024, when he batted just .197/.255/.352. As recently as 2023, Rogers popped 21 homers in a season while batting .221/.286/.444.

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