Brewers Designate Javy Guerra For Assignment
3:55pm: Bush will be shut down for two to four weeks, per Todd Rosiak of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
3:04pm: The Brewers announced a series of roster moves Monday, all pertaining to the bullpen. Right-hander Javy Guerra has been designated for assignment, with his spot on the 40-man roster going to veteran lefty Alex Claudio, whose contract has been selected from Triple-A Nashville. Milwaukee also placed righty Matt Bush on the 15-day IL with tendinitis in his right rotator cuff and recalled right-hander Jake Cousins from Nashville.
Guerra, 27, was once one of the top prospects in baseball when he was a shortstop, but he converted to the mound several years ago and has been trying to establish himself as a flamethrowing reliever. He’s seen MLB time with the Padres, Rays and Brewers but has yet to find much consistency. So far in 8 1/3 innings with the Brewers, who acquired him from the Rays in exchange for a PTBNL (Victor Castaneda) back in November, he’s tossed 8 1/3 innings but allowed eight runs on 10 hits, nine walks and a pair of hit batters.
Guerra has averaged a blazing 98.4 mph on his heater this year and 98.1 mph overall in parts of five big league seasons on the mound, but command has regularly been an issue. Overall, he’s tallied 52 innings of relief work between those three previously mentioned clubs and walked nearly as many batters (12.1%) as he’s struck out (14.5%). The Brewers will have a week to trade him or attempt to pass the out-of-options righty through waivers.
Bush’s injury comes on the heels of some pronounced struggles for the 37-year-old this year. He’s pitched 7 2/3 innings but been tagged for seven runs on six hits and six walks with eight strikeouts. It’s a small sample, but that’s a 17.1% walk rate through his first nine appearances, which is nearly 10 percentage points higher than the combined 7.7% mark he posted from 2016-22. Add in that Bush’s average fastball is down from 97.4 mph in 2022 to 94.8 mph in 2023, and there are a few pretty glaring signs that he perhaps has not been pitching at full strength. The Brewers have not yet provided a potential timetable for his return.
Claudio, 31, is a familiar face for Brewers fans, having spent the 2019-20 seasons pitching in the Milwaukee bullpen. He returned on a minor league contract over the winter and has gotten out to a nice start in Nashville, allowing a pair of runs with a 5-to-2 K/BB ratio and a mammoth 73.3% ground-ball rate in his six innings of work so far.
Hearty ground-ball rates are nothing new for Claudio, who’s posted a career 59.8% mark over the life of 347 2/3 innings at the big league level. He struggled upon departing the Brewers organization, pitching to a 5.51 ERA in 32 2/3 innings with the 2021 Angels, but Claudio’s broader body of MLB work is solid: 3.60 ERA (3.83 FIP, 3.67 SIERA), 17% strikeout rate, 6.5% walk rate, 59.8% grounder rate, 14 saves, 51 holds. He does have emphatic platoon splits, however, which makes the three-batter minimum a particularly disadvantageous rule change for Claudio.
Cousins, 28, has given up five runs in 4 1/3 innings with Nashville so far, though virtually all of the damage against him came in one outing. What’s surely of greater intrigue to the organization is that he’s punched out 11 of the 24 batters he’s faced so far (45.8%).
Cousins has just 43 1/3 innings of big league work under his belt to this point in his career, but he’s averaged 95.9 mph with his sinker, 95.3 mph with his four-seamer and notched a massive 17% swinging-strike rate. His 14.7% walk rate and six plunked batters (out of 184 faced) show command that needs some serious refinement, but Cousins has the stuff to miss bats in droves. If he can throw more strikes, as he’d done so far in Triple-A (two walks in 24 batters faced), he has the potential to become a legitimate high-leverage arm. That’s far easier said than done, of course, but it’s easy to see why the Brewers continue to be intrigued by Cousins.
A’s Designate Dermis Garcia For Assignment
The Athletics announced Monday that they’ve designated first baseman Dermis Garcia for assignment. His spot on the 40-man roster will go to lefty Sam Long, whom they acquired from the Giants in exchange for cash yesterday. Long is going directly onto the active roster, and in a corresponding move, righty Adrian Martinez has been placed on the 15-day injured list with a right elbow strain.
Garcia, 25, was a longtime Yankees prospect who never got a call to the big leagues before reaching minor league free agency. He signed with the A’s in March of 2022 and parlayed a .264/.349/.498 showing (106 wRC+) into his big league debut. He got into 39 games with the 2022 A’s, batting .207/.264/.388 with five home runs, a 6.4% walk rate and a dismal 44% strikeout rate.
Making contact has long been an issue for Garcia, who has regularly shown above-average power but has also regularly punched out in more than 30% of his plate appearances in a given season. Overall, he’s fanned in 33.4% of his minor league plate appearances. The A’s will have a week to trade Garcia or attempt to pass him through outright waivers.
The injury to Martinez is a concerning development for an A’s club that has struggled immensely to develop pitchers and has thus far received underwhelming results from the early stages of its current rebuild. The 26-year-old Martinez, one of two players acquired from the Padres in exchange for Sean Manaea, posted sharp minor league numbers for the majority of his time with the San Diego organization but has been hit hard with the A’s — both in limited MLB action and in their ludicrously hitter-friendly Triple-A Las Vegas setting.
Oakland has had the worst starting staff in baseball this season, and it hasn’t been particularly close. Martinez has been working primarily out of the bullpen for them in 2023 but has done so in multi-inning stints, logging 17 1/3 frames of relief with a 6.75 ERA.
Martinez started the season quite strong, with a 3.27 ERA through 11 innings, but he’s been torched for nine runs in a combined 6 1/3 innings over his past two appearances. The Venezuelan-born righty actually has a decent 20.1% strikeout rate and 7.2% walk rate in 75 Major League frames, but he’s been undone by a sky-high 1.92 HR/9 mark. The A’s haven’t announced a timetable for his return. Given that Martinez threw as many as 70 pitches in a single relief outing, it’s feasible that he could have eventually been a rotation option for the team if needed. That may still be the case, but it’s now dependent on how long he’ll be sidelined. The A’s have not yet announced a potential timetable or any details beyond the initial diagnosis.
Steven Brault, Starlin Castro Sign With Atlantic League Team
Left-hander Steven Brault, right-hander Brett de Geus and infielder Starlin Castro have signed with the new and yet to-be-named Atlantic League team based in Frederick, Md., the team announced this week (Twitter links).
Brault, 30, spent the 2022 season in the Cubs organization but was on the injured list for the majority of the season. The former Pirates hurler originally inked a one-year, Major League deal with the Cubs in the offseason, but that was reworked as a minor league pact following some injury concerns. Those proved to have merit, as Brault pitched in just 16 innings between the minors and the big leagues, due in large part to a shoulder strain.
The few innings Brault managed to pitch with the Cubs were solid. He tossed nine frames and allowed three runs on eight hits with an 8-to-5 K/BB ratio. Brault is best known for his six-year run with Pittsburgh, where he frequently bounced between the Pirates’ rotation and bullpen, ultimately tossing 343 1/3 innings of 4.77 ERA ball in 107 appearances (52 starts, 55 in relief).
Castro, 33, hasn’t appeared in the Majors since the Nationals released him in the summer of 2021 on the heels of a 30-game suspension under Major League Baseball’s joint domestic violence, sexual assault and child abuse policy. He had a brief 28-game stint in the Mexican League last year, where he batted .240/.312/.323 in 109 plate appearances for los Leones de Yucatan. A stint in the the Dominican Winter League didn’t go any better this past offseason; Castro managed only a .219/.250/.250 output in 168 plate appearances.
From 2010-21, Castro played in 1573 Major League games and logged nearly 6600 plate appearances with the Cubs, Yankees, Marlins and Nationals. He holds a career .280/.319/.412 batting line.
The 25-year-old de Geus was one of the top picks in the 2020 Rule 5 Draft but struggled to a 7.56 ERA in 50 innings between the Rangers and Diamondbacks that season. The former Dodgers farmhand spent the 2022 season in the D-backs organization, tossing 22 2/3 of 5.96 ERA ball with their Double-A affiliate.
Reds Designate Jason Vosler For Assignment
The Reds announced Monday that they’ve designated infielder Jason Vosler for assignment and selected the contract of outfielder Henry Ramos from Triple-A Louisville.
Vosler signed a minor league deal with Cincinnati late in the offseason and rode a solid .263/.341/.526 spring performance to a spot on the team’s Opening Day roster. He roared out of the gates with a trio of home runs in his first 15 plate appearances, coming over a span of five games, but has since gone cold at the plate. Dating back to April 7, Vosler has taken 50 turns at the plate and turned in a .106/.160/.128 batting line with 20 strikeouts.
The 29-year-old Vosler has now seen Major League time in each of the past three seasons, including a pair of stints with the Giants. He’s logged 97 Major League games and 258 plate appearances but has a rather unsightly .210/.279/.408 slash to show for it. He’s been vastly better in Triple-A, where he’s a .272/.344/.485 hitter in 345 games.
Vosler has plenty of power, substantial experience at both infield corners, and also seen brief spells at second base, in left field and even at shortstop. He still has a minor league option remaining, so a team looking for a left-handed bat and some corner depth might be inclined to take a look via a small trade or waivers. The Reds will have a week to find a trade partner or attempt to pass him through waivers.
As for the 31-year-old Ramos, he’ll get what’s just the second look of his big league career. The older brother to Giants outfielder Heliot Ramos, Henry received a cup of coffee with the 2021 D-backs but only received 55 plate appearances, hitting .200/.255/.300 with a homer and two doubles. He also had a short stint with the Korea Baseball Organization’s KT Wiz last year, but the majority of his recent professional experience is in Triple-A. In parts of six seasons there, he’s .297/.352/.472 hitter — including a .314/.400/.486 start to his season in Louisville this year (41 plate appearances).
Read The Transcript Of Today’s Fantasy Baseball Chat With Nicklaus Gaut
Nicklaus Gaut has been writing about fantasy baseball since 2019, covering a variety of roto and point league topics at RotoBaller and RotoGraphs, with over a decade of playing experience. He plays multiple formats but has recently leaned more heavily into NFBC high-stakes contests, entering his first Main Event and Online Championships in 2023. You can follow him here on Twitter.
Our regular fantasy chat host, Brad Johnson, is on vacation for a few weeks, so Nicklaus will be stepping in to field your questions while Brad’s away! Click here to read a transcript of today’s chat!
AL East Notes: Rodon, Pearson, Tate
The Yankees are still waiting on Carlos Rodon‘s team debut after signing him to a six-year contract this offseason. The lefty took a positive step this weekend when he resumed playing catch, writes Dan Martin of the New York Post. The goal is for Rodon to continue throwing throughout the upcoming week, though there’s no concrete timetable for when he might take the mound for the big league club just yet. Rodon pitched just two official innings during Grapefruit League play this spring before a forearm strain sidelined him. He’s spent the first several weeks of the year rehabbing that injury, but a recent flare of back pain has further slowed the process for the team’s $162MM co-ace. The Yanks still rank sixth in the Majors with a 3.53 ERA from their rotation, though that’s due largely to a superhuman start from Gerrit Cole (0.79 ERA in 34 innings). Nestor Cortes Jr. has a 3.09 ERA in 23 1/3 frames of his own, but each of Domingo German, Clarke Schmidt and Jhony Brito have pitched to a 4.50 ERA or higher through their first four to five starts of the season.
More from the division…
- Former top prospect Nate Pearson‘s start to the season in the Triple-A Buffalo bullpen is garnering plenty of attention, and he figures to be among the top candidates for a look whenever the Blue Jays look to the minors for some reinforcements, writes Ben Nicholson-Smith of Sportsnet. As Nicholson-Smith points out, the Jays haven’t made a single move pertaining to their bullpen yet in 2023. The Toronto Sun’s Rob Longley wrote yesterday that the Pearson watch is picking up some steam. Much of the Toronto ‘pen has performed well in 2023, with Jordan Romano, Erik Swanson, Trevor Richards and Tim Mayza out to nice starts. Both Yimi Garcia and Adam Cimber have allowed runs in three of their past four outings, though, and Anthony Bass has yielded at least one run in four of his past five trips to the mound. Pearson has a 2.16 ERA and 45.7% strikeout rate in 8 1/3 innings to begin the year in Triple-A, although he’s also walked 14.3% of his opponents and thrown three wild pitches, so his command hasn’t exactly been pristine. The former first-round pick was once ranked as one of the top three pitching prospects in all of baseball but has seen his career slowed by repeated injuries.
- Orioles righty Dillon Tate is expected to begin a minor league rehab assignment this week and told reporters that he’ll likely need five or six appearances before he’s ready to make his 2023 debut (Twitter link via Jake Rill of MLB.com). Tate, who’ll turn 29 in a week, suffered a flexor strain during his offseason program back in November and hasn’t pitched yet this year (spring training or regular season). The former No. 4 overall draft pick stepped up as a key setup man in Baltimore’s bullpen last year when he tossed 73 2/3 innings of 3.05 ERA ball. Tate’s 20.5% strikeout rate was a bit below the league average, but both his 5.5% walk rate and 57.4% ground-ball rate were outstanding. He finished out that breakout season with five saves and 16 holds.
Reds Have Discussed Extension With Nick Lodolo
The Reds locked down a hopeful core member for at least the next six years earlier this week when signing righty Hunter Greene to a $53MM extension, and they’re hopeful of doing so with another promising young arm. Jon Heyman of the New York Post reports that Cincinnati has been discussing an extension with left-hander Nick Lodolo as well.
There are plenty of similarities between Lodolo and Greene. Both are former top-10 overall draft picks — Greene No. 2 in 2017, Lodolo No. 7 in 2019 — and both entered the 2023 season with exactly one year of Major League service after debuting for the Reds early in the 2022 season. Both pitchers were widely regarded as top-100 prospects in the sport before making their respective Major League debuts last year.
That’s not to suggest that Lodolo should or will sign on for identical terms, but the framework is likely one that could interest the Reds. Both Greene ($7.23MM) and Lodolo ($5.4MM) signed life-changing signing bonuses out of the draft, arguably creating less urgency for either pitcher to sign a long-term contract. That didn’t stop Greene from doing so, but every player’s personal motivations, appetite for risk, etc. are different, of course.
It’s not clear when or whether talks between the Reds and Lodolo’s reps at Excel Sports Management will gain steam, but the team’s interest in hammering out a long-term contract shouldn’t come as a great surprise. Lodolo made the transition from the upper minors to MLB rather seamlessly in 2022, pitching 103 1/3 innings of 3.66 ERA ball in his debut campaign. His 29.7% strikeout rate trailed only his own teammate, Greene, and breakout Braves righty Spencer Strider among rookie starters last season. Loosening the parameters and looking at all MLB pitchers with at least 100 innings pitched in ’22, Lodolo ranked 14th out of 124 in terms of strikeout rate.
Lodolo paired that innate ability to miss bats with a solid 8.8% walk rate and an above-average 46% grounder rate. Were it not for a lower back strain that wiped out all of May and June for the left-hander, Lodolo might well have factored into NL Rookie of the Year voting. The aforementioned Strider and his teammate Michael Harris were always the runaway favorites, but given the absolute tear on which Lodolo finished out the season, a larger number of innings might’ve had him in the running.
While Lodolo was hit hard in two of his first three starts off the injured list last season, he found his stride over his final 13 trips to the hill. In that time, he pitched 77 innings of 2.92 ERA ball with a 30% strikeout rate — including a 2.48 ERA and 35% strikeout rate in the season’s final month. At the very least, with better health, he might’ve wound up in third on the ballot rather than his eventual sixth-place finish.
In 2023, Lodolo was sharp through three turns, with a scoreless, seven-inning, 12-strikeout gem in Philadelphia standing out as the headliner. The Rays trounced him for eight runs earlier this week, ballooning his season ERA to 4.98 overall. However, Lodolo’s strikeout and ground-ball rates are near mirror images of his 2022 marks, and his walk rate is actually down two percentage points in 2023. The 25-year-old southpaw’s young career has produced an overall 3.89 ERA, 29.7% strikeout rate, 8.4% walk rate and 46.2% ground-ball rate in 125 innings, giving the Reds’ front office plenty of reason to believe he can join Greene and righty Graham Ashcraft as cornerstones of the current rebuild.
As it stands, the Reds control Lodolo through the end of the 2027 season, and he’d be eligible for arbitration following the 2025 season. He still has all three minor league option years remaining, so it’s technically possible that those trajectories could be impacted if he struggles for an extended period and is optioned to Triple-A. Aside from a couple of hiccups (e.g. that clunker against the Rays), however, there’s not much in Lodolo’s first 23 big league starts that suggests he needs any additional seasoning in the upper minors.
Dodgers Select Jake Reed, Place Michael Grove On Injured List
The Dodgers announced Friday that they’ve placed right-hander Michael Grove on the 15-day injured list due to a groin strain and selected the contract of fellow righty Jake Reed from Triple-A Oklahoma City in his place. Los Angeles transferred righty Ryan Pepiot from the 15-day IL to the 60-day IL to open a spot on the 40-man roster for Reed. Pepiot has been out all season thus far due to an oblique strain and will now be sidelined until the end of May, at the earliest.
Grove, 26, opened the season as the Dodgers’ fifth starter — a role that had initially been won by Pepiot before he suffered that oblique strain. While Grove is sporting a grisly 8.44 ERA, that number is particularly skewed by one disastrous outing in which the D-backs ambushed him for nine runs in three innings of work. He hasn’t exactly dominated in his other three outings but has kept the club generally competitive, with a 4.26 ERA in those three outings. The new injury will derail his ability to continue whittling away at that unsightly ERA for at least the next couple weeks.
This is the second big league season for Grove, who also pitched 29 1/3 frames of 4.60 ERA ball for the Dodgers late in the 2022 campaign. While he’s never been regarded as a premier prospect, he’s consistently ranked among the organization’s 20 to 25 best prospects since being selected in the second round of the 2018 draft. His 2022 campaign in the minors was particularly solid, as Grove logged a combined 3.79 ERA with a 28% strikeout rate and 8.1% walk rate in 76 innings between Double-A and Triple-A.
The 30-year-old Reed has spent time with the Dodgers in each of the past two seasons, though he’s pitched just ten innings for them at the big league level. He’s allowed just three runs on 11 hits and three walks with seven punchouts during his time as a Dodger, but Reed has a 5.74 ERA in 26 1/3 innings as a big leaguer overall.
A fifth-round pick of the Twins back in 2014, Reed was once a promising bullpen prospect in Minnesota’s system but has yet to consistently produce in limited big league opportunities. Over the past three seasons, he’s bounced between the Dodgers, Rays, Mets, Orioles and Red Sox via waivers, with multiple stops in L.A. along that circuitous journey.
With Grove joining Pepiot and Tony Gonsolin on the injured list, the Dodgers are down to four healthy starters: Clayton Kershaw, Julio Urias, Dustin May and Noah Syndergaard. That said, the team has a scheduled off-day next Monday, which will allow them to skip the fifth spot in the rotation. As such, they won’t need a fifth starter until April 30, at the earliest.
The Dodgers could opt for a bullpen game that day, as they don’t have any ready-made options on the 40-man roster outside of long reliever Andre Jackson. Alternatively, if the team wants to open some space on the 40-man roster, the Dodgers have top prospects Bobby Miller and Gavin Stone in Triple-A, as well as non-roster veterans Robbie Erlin, Dylan Covey and Matt Andriese. Grove will be eligible to return in early May, and the Dodgers are also expecting to get Gonsolin back sometime in the middle of next month.
Twins Extend Pablo Lopez
April 21: The Twins formally announced this morning that they’ve signed Lopez to a four-year extension, covering the 2024-27 seasons. FanSided’s Robert Murray reports that the contract breaks down in the form of a $1MM signing bonus, an $8MM salary in 2024 and annual salaries of $21.5MM from 2025-27.
April 17: The Twins are keeping their big offseason trade acquisition for the long haul. Minnesota is reportedly in agreement with right-hander Pablo Lopez on a four-year, $73.5MM contract extension. The deal is pending a physical. Lopez is represented by Excel Sports Management.
Lopez, 27, came to the Twins alongside top shortstop prospect Jose Salas and minor league outfielder Byron Chourio in the January trade that sent infielder Luis Arraez to the Marlins. He’s already locked into a $5.45MM salary for the ongoing 2023 season, which is his second of three scheduled arbitration seasons. The new contract with the Twins will buy out Lopez’s final arbitration season and what would’ve been his first three free-agent seasons; once completed, the Twins will have Lopez signed through his age-31 season.
Assuming Lopez would’ve landed somewhere in the $10MM range for his final arbitration season, the contract effectively buys out his first three free-agent years for a combined $63MM, give or take a bit. The deal values Lopez at somewhere around $20-21MM per free-agent season. That annual range takes him past the AAVs that mid-rotation arms like Taijuan Walker ($18MM) and Jameson Taillon ($17MM) agreed to this past offseason.
From a structural standpoint, there are some similarities to the recent extension between the Giants and their own top starter, Logan Webb. That $90MM deal, a record for the three-plus service class, also bought out three free-agent seasons. However, Webb’s deal bought out two arbitration seasons, and his first arbitration salary ($4.6MM) topped that of Lopez ($2.425MM), which helps to explain the gap between the final guarantees on the two deals.
Lopez could certainly have gone the year-to-year route, reaching free agency in advance of his age-29 season and perhaps setting himself up for a five- or even six-year deal in the process. Of course, that’d have been a gamble to some extent, given the ever-present risk of injury that’s inherent to all pitchers. That’s particularly notable for Lopez, who has thrice been on the injured list due to right shoulder troubles to this point in his career.
Through his first four starts with the Twins, Lopez has looked like a star. After pitching to a 3.75 ERA in a career-high 32 starts and 180 innings in 2022, he’s surged out to a 1.73 ERA through four starts and 26 innings with the Twins. Lopez’s 95.4 mph average fastball is a career-best mark, and his 33.7% strikeout rate trounces the 23.2% mark he posted in parts of five seasons in Miami. He’s managed to up his velocity and strikeout rate without sacrificing his pinpoint command; this year’s 6.1% walk rate tops the 6.7% mark he posted in his Marlins career.
Much of Lopez’s success to date can be attributed to a newly unveiled sweeper that has thus far befuddled opposing batters. Opponents are batting just .111 against the pitch with a massive 50% whiff rate, per Statcast. Between that and the gains on his fastball, Lopez is unsurprisingly boasting career-best marks in swinging-strike rate and opponents’ chase rate. It’s only a sample of four starts, of course, but the results have generally exceeded even the most optimistic expectations for the righty. Time will tell whether he can sustain it all over a larger sample — a .236 BABIP and 89.1% strand rate both seem ripe for regression — but the Twins can only be thrilled with their end of that offseason trade.
With Lopez now locked in through at least the 2027 season, he joins Carlos Correa and Byron Buxton among the focal points of the Twins’ core. The Twins control catcher Christian Vazquez, second baseman Jorge Polanco and righty Chris Paddack through the 2025 season, but Correa, Buxton and now Lopez are the only players on guaranteed deals beyond that ’25 campaign. Of course, the Twins will have plenty of core players in arbitration at that point: closer Jhoan Duran, starter Joe Ryan and corner infielder Jose Miranda among them. Further cost certainty through extensions among that group or touted youngsters like Edouard Julien remain possible.
Looking to strictly the rotation, both Lopez and Ryan are now under club control through the 2027 season — which is slated to be Ryan’s final year of arbitration eligibility. Each of Sonny Gray, Tyler Mahle and Kenta Maeda will be up for free agency at the end of the current season, so it’s understandable that the Twins had extra incentive to lock up their top starter and lock in some additional continuity.
Minnesota also has towering 6’9″ righty Bailey Ober under club control through at least that same 2027 season, and while he opened the season in Triple-A St. Paul, his performance in the big leagues to date suggests he can be a part of that long-term starting staff (3.82 ERA, 24.3% strikeout rate, 5% walk rate in 148 1/3 innings). The aforementioned Paddack is signed through 2025 under the three-year, $12MM deal he signed while rehabbing from 2022 Tommy John surgery. Other in-house rotation options beyond the current campaign who’ve already had some big league seasoning include prospects Louie Varland, Simeon Woods Richardson and Josh Winder, though Winder’s frequent shoulder issues could eventually push him more toward to the bullpen.
Generally speaking, the Twins have shown increased willingness to spend in recent seasons, pushing their payroll up into the $150-160MM range in both 2022 and 2023. Assuming that’ll continue to be the norm in years to come, there’ll be plenty of room to supplement the core down the line. Lopez’s deal will likely land the Twins between $75-80MM in guaranteed money on the 2024 books, followed by something in the vicinity of $90-95MM in 2025 and around $70MM in both 2026-27 (depending on the extension’s exact year-to-year breakdown). The Twins aren’t and never have been at risk of paying the luxury tax, but they’ve also come quite a ways from their days as a perennial bottom-of-the-scale payroll club.
The trade bringing Lopez to Minnesota originally gave the Twins only two years of club control over Lopez, while Miami picked up three years of control over Arraez. The extension with Lopez more than balances out that disparity in club control, and it comes less than two years after the Twins begrudgingly made the decision to trade rotation stalwart Jose Berrios to Toronto after being unable to come to terms on an extension. Hindsight is always 20/20, but the seven-year extension Berrios inked with the Jays hasn’t panned out at all, and the Twins ultimately found their way to a prime-aged starter who was willing to commit to an extension on more favorable terms.
This surely isn’t exactly how they drew it up dating back to that pivotal trade deadline, but the Twins have added some long-term stability both in the lineup and in the rotation and done so without completely clogging the long-term payroll.
Craig Mish of SportsGrid and the Miami Herald first reported the sides were nearing agreement on a four-year, $73.5MM agreement. Dan Hayes of the Athletic reported the sides had agreed to terms.
Diamondbacks Designate Madison Bumgarner For Assignment
The Diamondbacks have designated left-hander Madison Bumgarner for assignment, reports Nick Piecoro of the Arizona Republic. The D-backs have formally announced the move. Left-hander Anthony Misiewicz has been recalled from Triple-A Reno to take Bumgarner’s spot on the 40-man roster.
The Bumgarner DFA comes on the heels of three-plus sub-par seasons for Bumgarner in Arizona, where he signed a five-year, $85MM contract prior to the 2020 season. The 33-year-old left-hander has been generally durable but ineffective for the Snakes, pitching to a lowly 5.23 ERA in 363 1/3 innings and 69 starts under that contract.
Things have taken a particularly pronounced downswing in 2023, however, as Bumgarner has been torched for 20 runs (19 earned) on 25 hits and 15 walks with just 10 strikeouts in 16 2/3 innings. The D-backs have lost three of Bumgarner’s four starts this season, including a seven-run three-inning clunker against the Cardinals yesterday, wherein Bumgarner got into a verbal altercation with St. Louis catcher Willson Contreras after apparently taking objection to Contreras’ reaction to a swing and reaction on a pitch he fouled straight back. The team’s lone victory of the season with Bumgarner on the mound came when he was pulled after 4 2/3 innings, three runs and six walks.
Bumgarner’s current 89.6 mph fastball average is down more than three miles per hour from its 92.9 peak. His 11.1% strikeout rate and 16.7% walk rate are both career-worsts by wide margins, and he’s seen his ability to induce swinging strikes (just 6.3%) and chases off the plate (21.1%) evaporate in this season’s four starts.
In seasons past, the Diamondbacks could perhaps sell themselves on occasional glimmers of hope and at least accept that if nothing else, Bumgarner was a durable innings eater who could somewhat narrowly keep his ERA south of 5.00. The Diamondbacks didn’t enter 2021 or 2022 as hopeful contenders anyhow, after all, and Bumgarner gave them a bridge to some of their starting pitching prospects while those promising young arms continued to develop in the upper minors.
That’s no longer the case in 2023, as MLBTR’s Anthony Franco outlined earlier this week in a piece for MLBTR Front Office subscribers, arguing within that the D-backs needed to move on as soon as possible. The D-backs entered the ’23 campaign with an emerging, exciting young core headlined by outfielder Corbin Carroll, and they have one of MLB’s top farm systems to further bolster that group in the near future. Zac Gallen and Merrill Kelly are strong rotation arms, and with a talented collection of youth complementing them (e.g. Ryne Nelson, Drey Jameson and, sooner than later, Brandon Pfaadt), the starting pitching outlook is bright.
Arizona is out to an 11-8 start, and while the season is still quite young, expectations have shifted. Bumgarner simply hasn’t been a competitive pitcher for them in any capacity this season, and his body of work in three seasons prior gives little reason to hope for a turnaround. With the division looking more vulnerable than it has in years and the D-backs potentially on the rise, it’s just not feasible to continue on with what increasingly looks like a sunk cost.
Exactly how the rotation shakes out from this point forward remains to be seen. Piecoro tweets that 25-year-old left-hander Tommy Henry is expected to start in Bumgarner’s place next time around, though one would imagine that Pfaadt — one of the sport’s top pitching prospects — will get a look in the near future after opening the season in Triple-A. Veteran Zach Davies is also a factor, though he’s currently out with a strained oblique and figures to be sidelined into next month.
What’s clear is that Bumgarner’s time with the D-backs is virtually over. Given the left-hander’s woeful performance not only in 2023 but throughout his D-backs tenure as a whole, there’s no chance another team will roll the dice on the remaining $34.3MM on his contract. Bumgarner is being paid $23MM in 2023 and is still owed a $14MM salary for the 2024 campaign.
The Diamondbacks could technically place him on outright waivers, but he has more than enough service time to reject an outright assignment while retaining his salary, and no team would claim the contract anyhow. As such, he’ll likely be placed on release waivers in the coming days and, upon clearing, become a free agent who’s eligible to sign with any other club. Any team that signs Bumgarner would only need to pay him the prorated league minimum for any time spent on the MLB roster. That sum would be subtracted from what the D-backs owe the lefty, but Arizona is effectively committing to eating close to $34MM in dead money by parting ways with Bumgarner at this juncture of his contract.