Rangers To Select Elier Hernandez
The Rangers are set to select the contract of outfielder Elier Hernandez from Triple-A Round Rock, as first reported by Hector Gomez of Z101 Sports (Twitter link). The 27-year-old will be making his Major League debut when he gets into a game for the first time.
Signed by the Royals for a $3.05MM bonus back in 2011, a then-16-year-old Hernandez was considered at the time to be one of the top prospects on that summer’s international class of amateur free agents — if not the top prospect. At the time of his signing, that $3.05MM bonus was the largest any team had ever given to an international amateur outfielder, but through parts of eight seasons in the Kansas City organization, Hernandez never developed as hoped.
Baseball America ranked Hernandez among the Royals’ top 30 prospects each season from 2012-18, topping out at No. 11 in 2014. It took Hernandez seven years to reach the Triple-A level, and the offensive numbers he posted along the way were generally below average. He continued to struggle with the Royals’ Triple-A affiliate in Omaha through the 2019 season, posting a combined OPS south of .700 in 152 games there over the course of two campaigns.
Hernandez, now in his second season with the Rangers organization, looks to finally be tapping into that dormant potential. Though his 2021 numbers between Double-A and Triple-A were a continuation of his pedestrian production in the Royals’ system, he’s broken out with a .295/.364/.546 slash through 234 plate appearances with Round Rock in 2022. He’s connected on 11 homers and doubles alike, adding in four triples, nine stolen bases (in 11 tries) and some of the best walk and strikeout rates of his career (8.7% and 19.5%, respectively).
As Evan Grant of the Dallas Morning News points out, the Rangers are set to face multiple left-handed starters in this weekend’s series against the Mariners, so Hernandez will give them a right-handed stick to play matchups. Texas already has an open spot on the 40-man roster after moving Mitch Garver to the 60-day injured list earlier in the week, and it seems Hernandez will be the yet-unannounced corresponding move accompanying that shift. As such, they’ll only need to make a corresponding 26-man roster move to accommodate Hernandez’s ascent to the Majors.
That said, Grant adds that righty reliever Jonathan Hernandez, who’s been out all season while rehabbing from Tommy John surgery, is expected to be activated at some point this weekend, so the Rangers will likely need to make an additional 40-man transaction in the coming days.
Yankees Unlikely To Continue Pursuit Of Andrew Benintendi
Royals outfielder Andrew Benintendi has reportedly been a target of both the Blue Jays and Yankees in the early stages of the summer trade market, but yesterday’s placement on the restricted list in advance of Kansas City’s trip to Toronto, due to vaccination status, is already having impact on his market. It seemed obvious at the time of that revelation that the Jays would be out of the mix for Benintendi, and Jon Heyman of the New York Post now reports that the Yankees are also unlikely to further pursue the outfielder. Presumably, the same is true of Benintendi’s teammate Michael A. Taylor, who joined him on the restricted list and has also reportedly been considered by the Yankees.
The Yankees are one of two teams (joining the Astros) who have taken a full roster on the road to Toronto this season. They still have three games in Toronto on the schedule in late September, and Blue Jays, currently in possession of the American League’s third Wild Card spot, represent a potential postseason opponent. Certainly, not all contending clubs are going to be dissuaded from pursuing unvaccinated players, but it’s also doubtful the Yankees and Jays will be the only ones taking this stance.
Outfield help is known to be a priority for a Yankees club that watched Aaron Hicks and, to a far greater extent, Joey Gallo struggle for much of the season. Hicks has righted the ship of late, hitting at a very strong .268/.376/.449 batting line over his past 149 trips to the plate, dating back to late May. He’s also gone 4-for-5 in stolen bases during that time, swatted five homers, and added four doubles and a couple triples. (Hicks was helped off the field during last night’s game after fouling a ball into his shin, but thankfully for both him and the team, imaging did not reveal a fracture.)
It’s been another story for Gallo, whom the Yankees would surely like to move over the next 19 days between now and the Aug. 2 trade deadline. Gallo’s .166/.287/.336 batting line is miles away from the .214/.340/.507 slash he posted with the Rangers from 2017 through July 27 of last year, when he was traded to the Bronx. The Yankees surely didn’t expect Gallo to begin hitting for a high average. However, a 50-point drop in his already perennially low mark, combined with an uptick in strikeout rate and decrease in walk rate and power output, has rendered Gallo one of the least-valuable hitters in baseball at the moment. For a 28-year-old hitter still in his prime, it’s a fairly remarkable decline.
Turning the focus back to Benintendi, Heyman further tweets that the Mets, who don’t have a Toronto series on their schedule and would thus only need to worry about a potential World Series matchup there, do have some interest in Benintendi. The Mets have cast a wide net in seeking upgrades, however, and Benintendi is surely just one of many players on their radar as they seek to bolster the roster.
Interest in Benintendi, Taylor and other players who are unable to travel to Toronto will vary from team to team. For the Yankees, it seems a clear and understandable roadblock. Other clubs will feel differently. There’s no denying the adverse effect it has on the Royals, however, due both to the fact that they’ll be without nearly 40% of their big league roster this weekend and to the fact that president of baseball operations Dayton Moore will have fewer interested parties to engage on the trade market.
Angels Trade Tyler Wade To Yankees
11:10am: The teams announced that Wade has been traded from the Angels to the Yankees in exchange for a PTBNL or cash.
10:10am: The Yankees are set to reacquire utilityman Tyler Wade from the Angels, reports ESPN’s Jeff Passan (Twitter link). The Yankees are sending a player to be named later back to the Angels, tweets Joel Sherman of the New York Post. Wade will head to Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre for the time being.
Wade, whom the Yankees traded to the Angels in the offseason, was designated for assignment by the Halos earlier this month and assigned to Triple-A Salt Lake after going unclaimed on outright waivers. As such, he’s not currently on the 40-man roster.
The 27-year-old Wade was New York’s fourth-round pick back in 2013 and spent nine years in the organization prior to being traded to Anaheim. That deal, like this one, was for a PTBNL or cash. No player was ever announced as going back to the Yankees, so it seems the two sides settled on a cash return instead.
Wade appeared in 67 games with the Angels in 2022, playing every position other than catcher, first base or pitcher and generally providing solid defense (particularly in the middle infield). He tallied what’s already a career-high 163 plate appearances with the big league club but managed only a tepid .218/.272/.272 batting line in that time. Wade’s 20.2% strikeout rate was the lowest of his career, but his 6.1% walk rate was also down nearly five percentage points from his 2019-21 levels. Wade also posted bottom-of-the-scale marks in average exit velocity (83.9 mph) and hard-hit rate (just 16%).
Of course, offense has never been Wade’s calling card. He spent as much time with the Yankees as he did from 2017-21 (264 games 491 plate appearances) due to his versatility with the glove and his above-average speed. Both were on display with the Halos, evidenced by his eight stolen bases (albeit in 13 tries) and the aforementioned appearances at six different defensive positions.
It’s a depth move for the Yankees, bringing back a player they know well who can provide them some insurance at various positions around the diamond. Wade is a career .286/.353/.414 hitter in 1132 plate appearances at the Triple-A level.
Tigers Sign Nick Vincent To Minor League Deal
The Tigers signed veteran righty Nick Vincent to a minor league deal late last week and assigned him to Triple-A Toledo. The move flew a bit under our radar, as the organization never formally announced it, but Vincent has already made a pair of scoreless appearances in his new environs.
Vincent, who turned 36 just two days ago, is a veteran of ten Major League seasons. The PSI Sports Management client opened the 2022 season with the Braves’ Triple-A affiliate, pitching to a lackluster 5.12 ERA but turning in a brilliant 27-to-4 K/BB ratio over his 19 1/3 innings there. Atlanta released him last month.
Perhaps due to the fact that he’s a soft-tossing righty who’s never averaged even 91 mph on his heater, Vincent has been a rather unheralded reliever throughout his career — at least relative to his overall success. The right-hander has been rocksteady throughout his big league tenure, posting a career 3.30 ERA, 24.1% strikeout rate and 6.2% walk rate through 411 2/3 frames dating back to his 2012 debut with the Padres. Vincent has posted a sub-4.00 ERA in eight of his ten seasons in the Majors, and the only two exceptions were consecutive 4.43 ERA campaigns in 2019-20. He’s never been a full-time closer, but Vincent does have seven big league saves in addition to 97 career holds.
The Tigers have disappointed in general this season but have one of the most effective bullpens in Major League Baseball. However, with the trade deadline under three weeks away and several relievers coming up on free agency either at this season’s end or after the 2023 campaign, that group figures to generate plenty of trade interest over the next 19 days. Detroit could use any newly created vacancies to take a look at some additional young arms, but Vincent will give them a veteran option to help stabilize things if there is indeed something of a bullpen exodus in advance of this season’s Aug. 2 trade deadline.
Blue Jays Fire Charlie Montoyo
The Blue Jays have fired manager Charlie Montoyo, reports Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic (via Twitter). The decision comes barely three months after Montoyo signed a one-year extension that ran through the end of the 2023 season.
The Blue Jays have announced the move via press release. Montoyo has been “relieved of his duties as manager” (i.e. fired) in favor of bench coach John Schneider, who’ll assume the position on an interim basis through the end of the 2022 season. Triple-A manager Casey Candaele is joining the Major League staff as an interim bench coach as well.
It’s rare to see a team that’s four games over .500 and in possession of a Wild Card spot oust its skipper, but Montoyo’s Jays are in the midst of a dreadful stretch that has seen them drop nine of their past 11 games. That includes a sweep at the hands of a red-hot Mariners club that used a series of four straight wins over Toronto to pull itself back to within a half game of the very Wild Card spot to which the recently floundering Blue Jays are clinging. ESPN’s Jeff Passan adds that “questions in the clubhouse about leadership” also contributed to Montoyo’s dismissal (Twitter link).
It’s been an unexpectedly mediocre season for the Blue Jays on the whole. While their lineup has been well above-average overall — Toronto hitters are batting .259/.321/.435, good for a fifth-ranked 111 wRC+ — that masks a dismal stretch in the middle of the season where the Jays were one of the lowest-scoring teams in the league for a few weeks. Even with those solid rate stats, Toronto sits just 11th in total runs scored (401), and their offense has not been the juggernaut unit that most expected.
Each of Bo Bichette, Teoscar Hernandez and Vladimir Guerrero Jr. have been better than the average hitter but shy of their recent levels of production (Bichette in particular). Offseason acquisition Matt Chapman has been better than he was in his past couple seasons with Oakland but has yet to rebound to the form he showed prior to 2020 hip surgery.
There have been similarly unexpected troubles on the pitching staff, with Jose Berrios‘ unexpected decline chief among them. The longtime Twins top starter and prized 2021 deadline acquisition for the Jays signed a seven-year contract extension in the offseason and has immediately followed up with far and away his worst performance since his rookie season.
Berrios was the picture of consistency for the Twins from 2017-21 and pitched like his typically strong self down the stretch with Toronto following last July’s trade. However, he’s stumbled through the 2022 season with a 5.38 ERA and career-low 20.7% strikeout rate through 95 1/3 frames. His rotationmate, offseason free-agent signing Yusei Kikuchi, has had similar struggles in the first season of a three-year deal. Hyun Jin Ryu was lost for the season due to Tommy John surgery. Injuries have prevented Nate Pearson from taking the mound.
Of course, those shortcomings certainly don’t fall squarely on Montoyo’s shoulders, but he’ll be the one to bear the blame for the struggles of those expected contributors and the team’s recent spate of often close losses. He becomes the third manager to be dismissed this season alone, as both Joe Girardi (Phillies) and Joe Maddon (Angels) were fired earlier in the year.
At least in terms of win-loss record, Montoyo will go down as one of the more successful managers fired in recent memory. Despite taking over in the late stages of a rebuild in 2019, he guided the Jays to an even 236-236 record in his three-plus seasons on the job. Prior to his time with the Jays, the bilingual Montoyo was one of the most successful minor league managers in Rays franchise history, and he also spent four seasons as bench coach in Tampa Bay. Given that history and track record, it stands to reason that he could find himself in the running for some offseason coaching and/or managerial searches — if his desire is to get right back into a dugout, of course.
Zaidi: Giants Have Not Yet Determined Deadline Approach
The Giants, mired in a slump over the past three-plus weeks, have fallen to 45-42 on the season and now sit a whopping 11 1/2 games behind the first-place Dodgers in the National League West. Even if their hopes for a repeat division title are largely dashed by this point, however, San Francisco remains just 1 1/2 games out of the newly created third National League Wild Card spot. With that proximity in mind, president of baseball operations Farhan Zaidi told reporters last night that his team has not yet considered selling and probably won’t make any large trade-related decisions until closer to the Aug. 2 deadline itself (links via John Shea of the San Francisco Chronicle and Alex Pavlovic of NBC Sports Bay Area).
“…I think until we get into the last week of July, it’s a little bit of wheel spinning because so much of it is the context and the situation at that point,” Zaidi said when discussing the possibility of selling. He also emphasized that if the Giants are either in possession of a playoff spot or in their current position just outside a potential Wild Card berth, the team is “definitely going to look to improve.”
Zaidi outwardly lamented the poor defensive performance of a team he feels has not played up to its true level of talent with the glove, and he pushed back against the idea of making an immediate trade to replace injured righty Anthony DeSclafani, who won’t pitch again this season after undergoing surgery to repair a tendon in his ankle. Righty Jakob Junis, the latest reclamation success story from the Giants’ pitching factory, is expected to take DeSclafani’s spot in the rotation when he returns from the injured list next week.
The majority of teams in today’s game wait until closer to the deadline before making a clear choice on how to approach the summer trade market, typically leading to a quiet few weeks followed by a frenetic few days of chaos and relentless transactions. In that sense, the Giants are hardly an exception; we could see several others — the Guardians, Rangers, Mariners, Phillies and even the Orioles — take a similar tack.
That doesn’t mean that San Francisco isn’t at least performing diligence on what the deadline might look like should they indeed look to improve. The Giants are among the teams interested in Reds utilityman Brandon Drury, and they’re surely pondering other means of bolstering their lineup, defense and likely their relief corps. Giants relievers rank 21st in the Majors with a collective 4.22 ERA, and their 19.9% strikeout rate is the second-lowest in all of baseball.
For a team that has had its share of defensive issues, that lack of strikeouts from the relief corps is particularly glaring. The Giants have the third-worst Defensive Runs Saved mark in baseball (-25), and they’re dead last with -34 Outs Above Average. Darin Ruf and Joc Pederson are among the most poorly rated outfielders in MLB this season, and Thairo Estrada’s glovework at second base has been similarly panned. Longtime defensive stalwart Brandon Crawford hasn’t fared well this year at shortstop, while Evan Longoria and Jason Vosler have mixed reviews at third base.
With the Giants just a year removed from leading the majors with 107 wins, Zaidi and his staff are certainly hoping to be in position to add to the roster. Along with possible bullpen and infield moves, San Francisco looks like an on-paper fit for star Cubs catcher Willson Contreras. They’d need to remain right in the thick of the playoff race to top the market for a player who’s headed for free agency after the season, but San Francisco has split time between Austin Wynns and Joey Bart of late given the latter’s lofty strikeout totals.
If San Francisco did fall far enough out they considered selling, they’d have some notable players to market. Carlos Rodon is soon to reach the 110-inning threshold that’ll vest his opt-out clause after this season. With how well he’s performing, he’s certain to test free agency barring a collapse or serious injury. The Giants would have to view Rodon as more or less an impending free agent, and he’d draw plenty of calls as the top “rental” arm who’d be available.
The southpaw would be the club’s primary trade chip, but San Francisco has a few other impending free agents who’d attract interest. Pederson had an All-Star first half at the dish and is a strong left-handed platoon bat. Wilmer Flores is a quality hitter from the right side, and he’s capable of covering the three infield spots besides shortstop. This summer’s market figures to be light on infield help, so Flores would certainly have some appeal. Brandon Belt has full no-trade protection but is a perennially productive hitter; Dominic Leone is a solid middle reliever.
Other teams will surely be monitoring the Giants’ progress over the next few weeks, but Zaidi made clear his club will have an opportunity to play themselves out of any possibility of a sell-off. Given the quality of the roster and their proximity to the postseason picture, the likelier scenario still seems they’ll hang around enough for the front office to add and make a push for 2022. Their next eight games are against the division-leading Brewers and Dodgers, but they’ll have softer series versus the Cubs and Diamondbacks to close out July.
The Tigers Will Be Getting Plenty Of Calls About Their Bullpen
Not much has gone right for the Tigers so far in 2022. They’re without the majority of their projected starting rotation. Former No. 1 overall pick Casey Mize underwent Tommy John surgery, while their other recent No. 1 overall pick, Spencer Torkelson, has looked overmatched in the big leagues so far. Javier Baez, who signed a $140MM contract over the winter, has had a roller coaster season en route to an overall .211/.248/.372 batting line. Their trio of productive veterans from the 2021 season — Jonathan Schoop, Jeimer Candelario and Robbie Grossman — are all struggling through arguably the worst seasons of their career.
The 2022 Tigers serve as a reminder that not all rebuilding efforts go as smoothly as the most famous success stories in Houston and Chicago, but for all the bleak outcomes thus far, they’ve had their share of successes. Tarik Skubal has struggled of late but looks like a bona fide mid-rotation starter or better through a half season of innings. Outfielder Riley Greene, the No. 5 overall pick in 2019, has ascended to the top of Baseball America’s Top 100 prospect rankings and held his own through his first 99 plate appearances. And perhaps most surprisingly, despite all the struggles in the rotation and the tax that typically takes on a team’s relief corps, the Tigers rank third in all of baseball with a collective 3.05 bullpen ERA.
Success from Detroit’s collection of relievers shouldn’t be a total surprise, though few would’ve expected quite this extent. Flamethrowing lefty Gregory Soto established himself as a quality ‘pen option last year, and former Rookie of the Year Michael Fulmer handled his early-2021 move to the bullpen fairly well. The Tigers brought in one of the more underrated free agents on the market this past offseason when they inked lefty Andrew Chafin to a two-year pact (the second season of which is a player option).
That said, the Tigers have gotten contributions from some fairly unexpected names. Joe Jimenez was once hailed as the closer of the future in Detroit, but he pitched his way out of a roster spot in 2021, when he was optioned to Triple-A on multiple occasions (for the first time since 2017). This year, he looks like the power arm he was always expected to be. Twenty-six-year-old righty Alex Lange, acquired in the 2019 trade that sent Nick Castellanos to the Cubs, has improved upon his 2021 rookie strikeout and walk rates, setting himself up as a potential long-term option in the late innings. Righty Will Vest, briefly lost to the Mariners via the Rule 5 Draft but thankfully (well, for the Tigers) returned midway through that season, has a 3.55 ERA in 33 frames (and a 2.25 mark if you set aside one fluky five-run meltdown). Starter-turned-reliever Tyler Alexander has a 1.06 ERA out of the ‘pen — albeit with less convincing secondary marks.
There have been other contributors, but the overarching point here is that the Tigers have received unexpectedly sound contributions from their relief corps — including the expected veterans and some more controllable, young options alike. Over the next three weeks, those more experienced arms figure to be among the more popular names on the trade market. Let’s run through some of the possible names available…
Michael Fulmer, RHP, 29 years old ($4.95MM salary, free agent at season’s end)
Fulmer, in particular, seems a likely candidate to be moved. After injuries decimated the former rotation stalwart’s mid-20s, he’s returned as a shutdown option in the late innings, serving as the primary bridge to the hard-throwing Soto. Through 33 1/3 innings so far in 2022, Fulmer owns a 1.89 ERA with a 24.2% strikeout rate against an 11.7% walk rate. Fulmer’s K-BB% could certainly stand to improve, but it’s hard to overlook the fact that he’s yielded just one earned run over his past 18 innings (0.50 ERA), punching out 30.1% of his opponents along the way.
Since moving to the ‘pen on a full-time basis on May 5 of last season, Fulmer boasts a superlative 2.10 ERA with 23 holds, 16 saves, an above-average strikeout rate and walk/ground-ball tendencies that are only slightly below par. He’s limiting hard contact and barrels, averaging 95.3 mph on his heater and has generally looked the part of a quality late-inning arm. Fulmer is a free agent at season’s end, and his $4.95MM salary is generally affordable. It’d frankly be a surprise if the Tigers didn’t trade him.
Andrew Chafin, LHP, 32 years old ($5.5MM salary, $6.5MM player option for 2023)
As with Fulmer, it’d be a surprise if Chafin lasted in Detroit beyond the deadline — although the circumstances surrounding him are slightly different. He’s technically signed through the 2023 season, but next year’s $6.5MM guarantee comes in the form of a player option. Based on Chafin’s 2.30 ERA, 30.3% strikeout rate, 7.3% walk rate and 50.8% ground-ball rate, it’d take a mammoth second-half collapse or a serious injury for him to opt into the second season of the contract.
At one point this winter it looked as though Chafin might’ve been a candidate to land a three-year deal, but the two-year pact and the player option likely mean he’ll come out ahead of where he’d have been with a straight three-year arrangement. Chafin just turned 32 last month, and this second straight dominant season proves two things: his shaky performance in 2020 was a small-sample fluke, and the huge gains he made in terms of his command appear to be sustainable.
Barring an unexpected collapse or the aforementioned injury scenario, Chafin seems like a lock to hit the market in search of either a three-year deal or a two-year pact with a higher annual value than his current $6.5MM level. Teams will view him as a likely rental, though the downside of being potentially “stuck” with him following an unforeseeable injury (due to that player option) could tamp down his value a slight bit.
Joe Jimenez, RHP, 27 years old ($1.785MM salary, arb-eligible through 2023)
Although he’s controllable beyond the current season and the Tigers are trying to put together a winning club, it’d be understandable if they were tempted to capitalize on the 27-year-old Jimenez’s bounceback from an awful 2020-21 stretch (6.35 ERA in 68 innings).
Jimenez looks every bit like the late-inning arm the Tigers foresaw earlier in his career. Last night’s pair of runs allowed did bump his ERA from 2.97 to 3.48, but Jimenez has punched out exactly one-third of his opponents and walked just 5.9% of them. This year’s 95.8 mph average fastball velocity is a career-best mark, and Jimenez is tied for 25th among 173 qualified relievers when it comes to inducing chases off the plate (37.2%). With top-of-the-scale four-seam spin rate and excellent percentile rankings in most key Statcast metrics, Jimenez looks like he’s finally arrived — it just happened several years later than hoped.
Detroit will have a decision to make: cash in now and try to get max value when Jimenez has more than a season of club control remaining, or hold onto him and risk a return to his prior struggles. A healthy Jimenez could play a key role on what the Tigers’ front office surely hopes will be a more competitive 2023 team, but it’s also possible that he could be used as a part of a trade to acquire a more controllable piece who could contribute to that same club.
Wily Peralta, RHP, 33 years old ($2.5MM salary, free agent at season’s end)
Peralta revived his career with the 2021 Tigers and has enjoyed solid results out of the bullpen despite shaky command this season. He’s sporting a 2.16 ERA but also has a below-average 19.6% strikeout rate and a lofty 14% walk rate. Still, Peralta throws hard (95.6 mph average fastball), keeps the ball on the ground (48.4%) and has yielded roughly average levels of hard contact. He’s also a former starter who’s no stranger to working multiple innings.
Peralta is currently out with a hamstring injury, which further clouds his trade possibilities. Still, the asking price won’t be high, and there’s little reason for the Tigers not to move him, unless they simply don’t find an interested party willing to give anything up in return. But with the number of teams needing bullpen help and rotation depth, one would imagine a pitcher with a 3.57 ERA over his past 201 1/3 big league innings and a near-96 mph average on his sinker would drum up modest interest, sub-par command or not.
Gregory Soto, LHP, 27 years old ($722K salary, arb-eligible through 2025)
The longest shot among Tigers bullpen arms to be traded due to that remaining club control and the team’s stated desire to compete sooner than later, Soto is also the most tantalizing raw talent in the group. Lefties who average 98.6 mph on their fastballs aren’t exactly common, after all, and Soto’s 11.3% walk rate in 2022, while still well north of the league average, is the best of his career.
Soto doesn’t miss as many bats as one would expect for a pitcher with his raw stuff, and this year’s 24.1% strikeout rate is a career-low — due in no small part to a decrease in the usage of a slider that hasn’t been nearly as effective in 2022 as it was in prior seasons. In that sense, moving Soto would almost be “selling low” at this point, which is a counterintuitive thing to say about someone recently named to the All-Star team.
In all likelihood, it’s a moot point. The Tigers are aiming to compete as soon as next season, and they control Soto all the way through the 2025 campaign. It’d take a massive return for them to move him, and he’s listed here more because teams will likely try to pry him loose than because he actually has a chance to be moved.
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By the time Aug. 3 rolls around, it seems likely that Detroit will have found deals to their liking for Fulmer and Chafin at the very least. Jimenez, with just one season of club control remaining and some shaky performances in his recent track record, would seem a decent candidate to go as well. Peralta should move if healthy. The Tigers will undoubtedly get ample interest in the likes of Soto, Lange and some of their more controllable arms, but that’s tougher to envision.
It’s not the type of busy deadline that GM Al Avila and assistant GMs Jay Sartori, David Chadd and Sam Menzin hoped to have, but it seems likely that they’ll still be plenty active over the next 20 days.
Brewers Select Connor Sadzeck, Option Keston Hiura
The Brewers announced Wednesday that they’ve selected the contract of righty Connor Sadzeck from Triple-A Nashville. Infielder Keston Hiura has been optioned to Nashville to open a spot on the active roster. Milwaukee already had an open 40-man spot after designating Chi Chi Gonzalez for assignment last night.
A promising prospect with the Rangers earlier in his career, the now-30-year-old Sadzeck hasn’t appeared in the big leagues since 2019. Injuries, including Tommy John surgery early in his minor league career and a flexor mass issue back in 2019, have slowed the right-hander and kept him off the mound for significant portions of his career.
When healthy, Sadzeck is a legitimately intriguing arm who boasts a triple-digit heater, impressive strikeout abilities and, as is often the case for flamethrowers like this, some problematic command issues. He’s pitched just 33 Major League innings and boasts a 2.18 ERA but a concerning 17.4% walk rate in that time. Sadzeck is currently sporting an outstanding 0.86 ERA and 30.7% strikeout rate in 28 Triple-A innings, however, and this year’s 10.5% walk rate is more manageable than several of his prior seasons.
Hiura, meanwhile, has gone from former first-round pick and potential building block to a defensively limited slugger who’s regularly optioned by the Brewers. He’s hitting .238/.354/.451 this season — solid overall production — but has also yet to rectify the alarming strikeout issues that have plagued him throughout his career. Hiura has fanned in a sky-high 43.8% of his plate appearances this season, making even that modest .238 average unsustainable. (He’s currently benefitting from a .412 BABIP.)
That said, the decision to option Hiura couldn’t have been an easy one. He’s been on a tear at the plate over his past 12 games, batting .324/.435/.595 with three long balls and a double in that time. For now, Hiura will return to Nashville and continue working to improve his bat-to-ball skills and overall plate discipline. In all likelihood, he’ll get another big league look (or multiple looks) between now and season’s end.
KBO’s Doosan Bears Sign Brandon Waddell, Release Ariel Miranda
The Doosan Bears of the Korea Baseball Organization announced this week that they’ve signed lefty Brandon Waddell for the remainder of the 2022 season (hat tip: Jee-ho Yoo of South Korea’s Yonhap News Agency). Waddell, a client of Ballplayers Agency, will earn $230K between now and season’s end. Waddell had been pitching with the Cardinals’ Triple-A affiliate, but the Cards announced this morning that his contract has been sold to the Bears. Waddell will take the spot of reigning KBO MVP and former big leaguer Ariel Miranda, who has been released due to ongoing health issues in his left shoulder.
Signings of this nature are generally favorable for all parties involved. Waddell will be guaranteed a notable six-figure sum that trounces what he’d have earned by finishing out the season in Triple-A. He’d have needed to spend close to two months on the big league roster to earn that type of cash with the Cardinals, and there was no guarantee he’d be given that opportunity. The Cards, meanwhile, lose a bit of depth but receive a buyout for a player they might not have called to the Majors at all, and the Bears of course gain the rights to a pitcher who clearly intrigues them.
The 28-year-old Waddell is a former fifth-rounder of the Pirates who’s spent parts of two seasons in the big leagues, splitting his time between Pittsburgh, Minnesota and Baltimore. He’s logged just 12 2/3 total big league innings, yielding eight earned runs on 16 hits and 11 walks with nine strikeouts in that time.
Those grisly MLB numbers aside, Waddell has posted solid or better Triple- A numbers in three of his four seasons at that level. An 8.70 ERA in the juiced-ball 2019 campaign skews his overall numbers, but Waddell pitched to a 3.59 ERA in 135 1/3 innings there in 2018 and, since moving to the bullpen last year, has a 2.91 ERA with a 45-to-14 K/BB ratio in 43 1/3 innings of relief work.
The jump to the KBO will provide Waddell with some immediate earning power and also get a foot in the door for a potential second season overseas if he shows well in the second half of the 2022 KBO campaign. We’ve seen plenty of players in this mold carve out lengthy and lucrative careers pitching in South Korea, Japan and Taiwan, and it’s always possible that improved production pitching in Asia will lead to an eventual big league return (as was the case with Miles Mikolas, Merrill Kelly, Chris Flexen and others in recent memory). The benefit is two-fold, as if Waddell can manage to pitch his way back into MLB consideration, he’d return as a free agent and thus be able to sign a Major League deal that is not beholden to the constraints of MLB’s arbitration system.
As for Miranda, the injuries are an obviously unfortunate development for a pitcher who, after 2022, looked like someone who could be on the cusp of an MLB return himself. The 33-year-old southpaw saw parts of Major League action in three seasons (2016-18) with the Orioles and Mariners, notching a 4.72 ERA in 223 innings along the way. He’s since had success in all three major Asian professional leagues — the KBO, Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball and Taiwan’s Chinese Professional Baseball League — with his 2021 season, in particular, generating intrigue.
Miranda racked up 173 2/3 innings of 2.33 ERA ball with the Bears last season, punching out a gaudy 31.7% of his opponents against a solid 8.8% walk rate. Last year’s 225 strikeouts were a KBO record, and Miranda parlayed that dominant showing into a $1.9MM payday that made him the second-highest paid foreign pitcher in the KBO, trailing only righty Drew Rucinski.
This year, however, Miranda made just three starts and totaled 7 2/3 innings with seven runs allowed and a staggering 18 walks, clearly demonstrating that he was never at full health. Now a free agent once again, Miranda will have options to consider, although it’s extraordinarily rare for a player to be released by a KBO club due to injury and then return to the KBO as a free agent, even with a different club. A return to NPB, the CPBL or perhaps a big league team (likely on a minor league deal) could still be options for Miranda this winter, health-permitting.
Rockies Unlikely To Be Major Deadline Sellers
At 39-49, the Rockies are tied with the D-backs for last place in the National League West, sitting 18 games back from the division-leading Dodgers. Only eight teams in baseball have a worse winning percentage than Colorado, and several of those eight came into the 2022 season with no intention of competing as they progressed through rebuilds. The Rockies, as has become par for the course, seem to feel their club is underperforming and don’t envision a major sell-off. General manager Bill Schmidt replied with a simple “no” when asked by Danielle Allentuck of the Denver Gazette if he expects to be a big seller at this year’s deadline.
It’s a familiar refrain for a Rockies club that has enjoyed just two winning seasons in the past decade and appears well on its way to a tenth sub-.500 finish in the past dozen seasons. The Rockies are 171-212 dating back to 2019 but have nevertheless generally eschewed even the trades of veterans on expiring contracts. They added Kevin Pillar and Mychal Givens at the 2020 deadline, for instance. The Rox eventually traded Givens last summer, but that was the sole deadline deal for a club that had Jon Gray, Trevor Story and C.J. Cron on expiring contracts — plus righty Daniel Bard, who is a free agent at the end of the current season.
On the one hand, it’s refreshing to see a team continue to try to turn its fortunes and win in the here-and-now without embarking on an arduous multi-year rebuild (which, in itself, is not the panacea it’s often framed to be). On the other, the Rox have continually expressed ardent belief that this core can be the nucleus of a winning club but have yet to see that faith manifest in the form of consistent wins on the field.
Zealous confidence in the core has been demonstrated through far more than just words. Colorado extended Cron, infielder Ryan McMahon, lefty Kyle Freeland, righty Antonio Senzatela and catcher Elias Diaz, traded for Randal Grichuk and signed Kris Bryant to an eye-popping seven-year deal in an effort to finally turn the corner this year. Smaller deals for Jose Iglesias, Alex Colome and Chad Kuhl were meant to further bolster the roster. But at with just 20 days until the trade deadline, they find themselves in a familiar spot, and the only names among those extensions and new acquisitions who’ve performed up to expectation are Cron, Kuhl, Colome and perhaps Iglesias.
Despite the lackluster results, Schmidt tells Allentuck that he “believe[s] in these guys,” adding confidence that the farm system will soon bring about some reinforcements. The Rox indeed have some nearly MLB-ready talent on the cusp of the Majors, but the system as a whole is ranked between 23rd and 25th among all 30 teams at each of Baseball America, MLB.com, The Athletic and ESPN. Schmidt, the scouting director-turned-GM, surely views his group more favorably, but as Allentuck explores in greater detail, nearly every one of the organization’s most promising pitching prospects has dealt with injuries of varying severity this winter.
Conventional wisdom would suggest that the Rockies should, at the very least, be open-minded about deals involving veterans who are set to be free agents at season’s end. That would include Bard, who’s been one of the better closers in the NL this season, as well as Kuhl, Colome, Iglesias and hard-throwing but mercurial righty Carlos Estevez.
However, USA Today’s Bob Nightengale reported over the weekend that the Rox hope to sign the 37-year-old Bard to an extension rather than trade him. Allentuck notes that a deal between the two parties isn’t close but similarly suggests that an extension is likelier than a trade. While Nightengale wrote the Rockies could listen to offers on Kuhl, the right-hander himself tells Allentuck that he’s also open to an extension and would prefer to stay in one place rather than bounce around the league. Schmidt seemingly hinted at this when noting that the most commonly speculated trade candidates in Colorado “are the guys that want to stay here.” Based on the team’s recent rash of extensions, it’s certainly possible Kuhl re-signs on a new multi-year deal rather than changing hands in the next three weeks.
There’d obviously be plenty of risk associated with extending Bard or Kuhl. Bard is already 37, and although he’s whiffed 29.5% of opponents, limited hard contact and notched a career-best 56.4% ground-ball rate en route to a 2.14 ERA, his 2021 campaign (5.21 ERA in 65 2/3 innings) is a reminder of the overall volatility of relief pitching. Add in Bard’s age and still-ugly 12.2% walk rate, and there’s definite downside, strong as his results to date have been.
Kuhl, meanwhile, has a 4.02 ERA through 87 1/3 innings — a total that’s already the second-highest mark of the oft-injured righty’s career. The 29-year-old’s 16.9% strikeout rate ranks 71st of the 79 pitchers in MLB with at least 80 innings so far, and his 29.4% opponents’ chase rate on pitches outside the strike zone ranks 73rd. His 41.7% hard-hit rate is the highest mark he’s ever yielded. Perhaps the return wouldn’t be enough to justify a trade, and it can’t be ignored that it’s rare for free-agent pitchers to voice a willingness (or in this case, even a preference) to call Coors Field home.
Still, keeping Kuhl would effectively lock the 2023 Rockies into relying on the same rotation that has produced a 28th-ranked 5.06 ERA in 2022 (plus a 24th-ranked 4.47 FIP and 28th-ranked 4.58 SIERA). In doing so, they’d be betting heavily on improvements from German Marquez, Freeland and Senzatela — although with all three now signed to lucrative multi-year deals, there’s little choice but for the organization to hope for just that.
Last year’s deadline was Schmidt’s first in the GM chair after more than 20 years in other front office roles with the Rockies, so there was no precedent for how he’d approach the trade market. Now, between what we saw last summer and the latest comments to Allentuck, it seems likely to expect a conservative approach that’ll leave the bulk of the roster intact.
That would ostensibly set the stage for another offseason of win-now transactions for the Rockies, but there are payroll considerations to keep in mind as well. Assuming Charlie Blackmon picks up next year’s $10MM player option, they’ll already have $120.5MM in guarantees on the books. That doesn’t include potential salaries for extension candidates Bard and Kuhl, nor does it include arbitration raises for Austin Gomber, Brendan Rodgers, Tyler Kinley, Garrett Hampson and Robert Stephenson. All of that will push the Rockies much closer to their franchise-record $145MM payroll, meaning it’ll be incumbent for the current group to right the ship if they’re to truly turn their fortunes in future seasons.