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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.

Yankees Designate Adam Ottavino For Assignment

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The Yankees announced this morning that they’ve designated veteran righty Adam Ottavino for assignment in order to clear roster space for fellow righty reliever Ian Hamilton, who’s being reinstated from the 15-day injured list.

It’s the second time the Yankees have designated Ottavino for assignment in the past week; he cleared waivers, elected free agency and quickly re-signed after his previous DFA. The 39-year-old righty and New York City native has pitched in three games with the Yankees and tossed 1 2/3 scoreless and hitless innings — albeit with four walks. He’s also punched out three of the nine batters he’s faced.

The swift turnaround likely didn’t come as a surprise after his quick DFA and re-signing. Veteran pitchers, especially relievers who can’t be optioned to the minors, can often find themselves in this situation. The Yankees themselves have gone through similar situations in the past with righties David Hale and Ryan Weber; both pitchers were designated for assignment by the Yankees several times in the same season, quickly clearing waivers and re-signing on each occasion.

If Ottavino is comfortable with the setup, it’s quite possible he’ll go the same route following this DFA. Fans sometimes bristle at the nature of these carousel scenarios, but the player tends to be on board. Since he can’t be optioned, the recurring DFAs/re-signings effectively amount to being optioned and resummoned to the majors when a fresh arm is needed. If Ottavino (or any other player in this situation) grows weary of the gambit, electing free agency presents a clear path to finding a more palatable situation. However, as a Brooklyn native, he may be more amenable to a cyclical arrangement of this nature than most other veterans with his level of service time (13+ years). And, of course, if another club chooses to claim Ottavino, he’d gladly head to a new club willing to carry him in the big league bullpen.

Selected 30th overall by the Cardinals back in 2006, Ottavino made his MLB debut with St. Louis in 2010 and then spent the 2012-18 seasons as a mainstay in the Rockies’ bullpen after being claimed off waivers by Colorado early in the 2012 campaign. Since reaching free agency, he’s repeatedly signed with his hometown Yankees and Mets, plus a one-year stay in Boston (where he attended college) after being traded over from the Yankees in 2021.

In his more than 13 years of MLB service, Ottavino has tallied 744 2/3 innings with a 3.48 ERA, 46 saves, 194 holds, a 27.2% strikeout rate and a 10.4% walk rate. He’s tacked on another 12 2/3 innings across five years and eight series in the postseason.

As for the 29-year-old Hamilton, he opened the season on the 15-day injured list. He was slowed by a lengthy bout with a viral illness early in camp which set him back a few weeks. He was hit hard in three Triple-A rehab outings, but the Yankees apparently feel his stuff is crisp enough and his arm is built up enough to rejoin the big league ’pen.

Hamilton was a minor league signee for the Yankees in 2023. He’d previously bounced from the White Sox, to the Mariners, to the Phillies, to the Twins, to the Guardians via the DFA carousel but has since broken out as a steady member of Aaron Boone’s relief corps. In 95 2/3 innings for New York across the past two seasons, he’s posted a 3.10 ERA with a 27.4% strikeout rate, 10% walk rate, 16 holds and three saves.

White Sox Outright Dominic Fletcher

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Outfielder Dominic Fletcher was not claimed off waivers following last week’s DFA and has now been assigned outright to Triple-A Charlotte, the White Sox announced Monday. He’ll remain with the organization as a depth option.

Now 27 years old, Fletcher came to the ChiSox last winter in a trade that sent pitching prospect Cristian Mena to the D-backs. At the time of the swap, he was coming off a .291/.399/.500 showing in Triple-A and had slashed .301/.350/.441 in his first 102 big league plate appearances. Impressive as those performances were, the Snakes had an outfield contingent made up of Corbin Carroll, Jake McCarthy, Lourdes Gurriel Jr. and Alek Thomas. They’d also had talks with free agent Randal Grichuk, whom they signed just a few days after trading Fletcher. There wasn’t much space in the Arizona outfield.

A move to a rebuilding White Sox club with ample opportunity for playing time looked like a positive for Fletcher, but he struggled in his new environs. The Sox gave Fletcher 241 turns at the plate, but he mustered only a .206/.252/.256 batting line. His subsequent .121/.211/.212 batting line in 38 plate appearances this spring didn’t inspire any further confidence, and the Sox brought free agents Mike Tauchman, Austin Slater and Michael A. Taylor to join Andrew Benintendi and Luis Robert Jr. in the team’s outfield mix.

Now off the team’s 40-man roster, Fletcher will head to Charlotte and hope to play his way into another opportunity. Even with all of last year’s struggles, his .263/.333/.389 line in 106 Triple-A plate appearances was respectable, if a bit below average in a hitter-friendly setting. Fletcher is a career .293/.376/.462 hitter in 889 Triple-A plate appearances, so he does have a track record to suggest he could earn another look.

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Royals Select Tyler Tolbert

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The Royals announced Monday that they’ve selected the contract of infielder/outfielder Tyler Tolbert from Triple-A Omaha. They had an open 40-man spot already and only needed to clear an active roster spot, which they did by placing outfielder Dairon Blanco on the 10-day IL due to right Achilles tendinopathy.

Tolbert, 27, will make his MLB debut the first time he gets into a game. The former 13th-round pick has never hit much in the minors but nevertheless leads all of Minor League Baseball with 215 steals dating back to the 2021 season. That’s partially due to the fact that some others who might’ve challenged him for that lead instead made their way to the big leagues sooner and have stuck there, but it’s nonetheless an impressive mark, particularly considering that he’s only been caught 15 times — a staggering success rate of 93.5%

Despite is impressive wheels, however, Tolbert’s bat is quite suspect. He turned 27 in January but has just 99 plate appearances above the Double-A level. He’s hit .153/.258/.177 in that small sample and carries a .269/.337/.391 output in 1036 Double-A plate appearances. Overall, Tolbert is a .245/.333/.359 hitter in pro ball.

On the defensive side of the coin, Tolbert has spent the majority of his career up the middle. Shortstop has been his primary spot on the diamond, but he has nearly 1800 innings in the outfield (1338 in center) and 528 frames as a second baseman under his belt. He’ll be a bench player for manager Matt Quatraro, offering a high-end pinch runner late in games or a defensive replacement in the outfield. He doesn’t draw particularly strong grades for his up-the-middle glovework, but he’d be an upgrade over defensively challenged left fielder MJ Melendez.

Tolbert will seemingly take the role of a speedy bench player, which has been Blanco’s primary job in recent years. Since the start of 2022, Blanco has appeared in 165 games for Kansas City but has only been sent to the plate 278 times. He has a roughly league average line of .258/.314/.417 but has stolen 58 bases in 70 attempts. His sprint speed was ranked in the 97th percentile last year and in the 100th in 2023.

It was noted back in February that Blanco was dealing with soreness in his Achilles. He eventually made the Opening Day roster but it seems the issue has lingered enough that the club will put him on the shelf for a while.

Braves To Select Jesse Chavez, Designate Hector Neris For Assignment

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11:08am: Atlanta has opted to designate right-hander Hector Neris for assignment, reports Mark Bowman of MLB.com. Chavez will take his spot on the 26-man and 40-man rosters.

11:03am: The Braves are selecting the contract of veteran right-hander Jesse Chavez from Triple-A Gwinnett, reports ESPN’s Jeff Passan. Atlanta has a full 40-man roster, so a corresponding move will need to be made.

The 41-year-old Chavez and the Braves can’t seem to help finding their way back to one another. This is his fifth stint with Atlanta in five years, despite never pitching on more than a one-year deal with the Braves over that half-decade stretch. He’s signed minor league deals with the White Sox, Cubs, Rangers and Angels since 2021 but each time wound up landing back with the Braves.

Despite his age, Chavez has remained effective during that span. In 201 innings since 2021 — all but 16 1/3 coming with Atlanta — the well-traveled righty has compiled a 2.91 earned run average with a 24.5% strikeout rate and a 7.4% walk rate. He’s most frequently held a long relief/multi-inning role in the bullpen but has garnered 26 holds and a save along the way.

Neris, 35, appeared in only two games with the Braves but was still tagged for five runs in that small sample. He yielded three runs without recording an out in his Atlanta debut on Opening Day and was tagged for another two runs in one inning of work yesterday. The Braves could’ve optioned Daysbel Hernandez, moved Joe Jimenez to the 60-day injured list — he’s likely out for the season following late-October knee surgery — and preserved some depth, but Neris’ early struggles were enough for the club to move on entirely.

It’s a rough sequence for Neris, who didn’t even sign with Atlanta until March 3 and only pitched one official inning during spring training before being selected to the Opening Day roster. The extent to which the lack of a more traditional build impacted him is impossible to pin down, but Neris averaged just 91.9 mph on his four-seamer during his pair of Braves appearances; he averaged 93.6 mph on his four-seamer during his first appearance of the 2024 season.

That said, Neris isn’t exactly coming off a dominant 2024 campaign. He finished the year with a 4.10 ERA between the Cubs and Astros but also blew five of his 30 save opportunities, walked nearly 11% of his opponents and posted a 24.6% strikeout rate that was his lowest since his 2015 rookie campaign in Philadelphia. Neris struggled enough in Chicago that the Cubs released him in mid-August.

As recently as 2023, Neris turned in a pristine 1.71 ERA in 68 1/3 innings for Houston. That never looked sustainable, not with a .219 average on balls in play and bloated 91% strand rate, but he still logged a sharp 28.2% strikeout rate and logged 31 holds and a pair of saves. Even with some regression expected, metrics like FIP (3.83) and SIERA (3.89) felt that Neris was a perfectly solid option in the ’pen.

The Braves have the opportunity to explore trade scenarios for Neris, but the likelier outcome is that he’ll become a free agent — whether by way of release waivers or rejecting a minor league assignment after clearing outright waivers. Neris has a lengthy track record in the big leagues and has continued to pitch effectively into his 30s — 3.27 ERA in 267 1/3 innings from 2021-24 — so another club will likely take a look on a minor league deal and hope that a lengthier buildup in the minors will get him back on track.

Brewers Place Aaron Civale On Injured List

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The Brewers are placing right-hander Aaron Civale on the 15-day injured list due to a left hamstring strain, manager Pat Murphy announced this morning (via Andrew Wagner of Freeman Sports and 105.7 The Fan). There’s no immediate timetable for his absence. Right-hander Grant Anderson is up from Triple-A Nashville in his place.

It’s yet another major blow to a pitching staff that Murphy, just four games into the season, described as “decimated” in his media availability today. Civale joins Tobias Myers (oblique strain), DL Hall (lat strain), Aaron Ashby (oblique strain), Robert Gasser (Tommy John surgery last June) and Brandon Woodruff (2023 shoulder surgery) on the injured list at a time when veteran Jose Quintana is still building up in Nashville. Quintana got a late start, signing midway through spring training, and agreed to be optioned to Triple-A to begin his season.

At present, the Brewers have just two healthy starters: Freddy Peralta and Nestor Cortes. They’re turning to swingman Elvin Rodriguez to start today’s game. Milwaukee signed the former Angels/Tigers prospect to a split big league deal this winter after Rodriguez spent the past season-plus pitching in Japan. Rodriguez, Tyler Alexander, Chad Patrick and Rule 5 pick Connor Thomas are all multi-inning options who’ll help cover for a depleted starting staff in Milwaukee.

Losing Civale would sting even with an otherwise full contingent of starters. The 29-year-old righty was traded from Tampa Bay to Milwaukee early last July and, after some early struggles with the Rays, righted the ship to post a 3.53 ERA, 20.9% strikeout rate and 8% walk rate in 74 innings for the Brewers over the final three months of the year. Civale is the rare pitcher who couldn’t seem to get on track with the Rays, but he has a solid track record in Cleveland and pitched well in Milwaukee last year. He entered the season with a 4.03 ERA in 636 1/3 career innings at the MLB level, including sub-4.00 ERA marks in both 2021 and 2023.

Civale had a shaky spring, however, and his 2025 debut was anything but up to his prior standard. He pitched just three innings and was gouged for five runs against the Yankees. His 91.4 mph average sinker velocity was down more than a mile per hour over his 2024 average, and his lesser-used four-seamer was also down about a half mile per hour. Much of the focus from that weekend series is on the Yankees’ new “torpedo” or “bowling pin” bats, but Civale appears to have been operating at less than 100% and will now be shelved for at least the next two weeks.

Colton Cowser Out At Least Six To Eight Weeks With Broken Thumb

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10:34am: Manager Brandon Hyde told the O’s beat this morning that Cowser will miss six to eight weeks at minimum (via Danielle Allentuck of the Baltimore Banner).

9:00am: The Orioles announced Monday that outfielder Colton Cowser has been placed on the 10-day injured list due to a fractured left thumb. A timetable for his return was not specified. Cowser suffered the injury last night while sliding into first base on a close play; he was ruled out (video link). Fellow outfielder Dylan Carlson has been recalled from Triple-A Norfolk in Cowser’s place.

It’s a sour start to the season for Cowser, last year’s runner-up in American League Rookie of the Year voting. He’s posted just a .125/.222/.313 slash through his first 18 plate appearances and will now be looking at an absence of some note while his hand mends.

Cowser enjoyed a monster spring, tallying 52 plate appearances with a .364/.462/.568 batting line, two homers and three doubles. The former No. 5 overall pick out of Sam Houston hit .242/.321/.447 with 24 homers, 24 doubles, three triples, nine steals, a 9.3% walk rate, a 30.7% strikeout rate and plus defense across all three outfield spots last year.

In Cowser’s place, the O’s will turn to Carlson, whom they signed over the winter on a one-year, $975K deal. Like Cowser, Carlson is a former top pick (No. 33 overall by the Cardinals in 2016) and top  prospect. Things never fully panned out for the switch-hitter in St. Louis, however. Carlson looked on the cusp of a breakout in 2021 when he slashed .266/.343/.437 with 18 homers as a 22-year-old, but he followed that with a .225/.309/.341 output over the next three seasons. The Cards shipped him to the Rays in exchange for reliever Shawn Armstrong at last year’s trade deadline. Armstrong was designated for assignment by St. Louis in August. Carlson was non-tendered by Tampa Bay over the winter.

Still only 26 years old, Carlson can handle all three outfield spots. His status as a switch-hitter with versatility on the defensive side of things will give the O’s plenty of flexibility when writing out the lineup or making in-game substitutions. Carlson is a much, much better hitter from the right side of the plate (.285/.361/.431) than from the left side (.219/.300/.355), which could set the stage for a some form of platoon with Heston Kjerstad in left field. The O’s also have righty-swinging Ramon Laureano in the mix for outfield time, though either Carlson or Laureano could also see some DH time against lefties over Ryan O’Hearn.

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