MLBTR Chat Transcript
Click here to read a transcript of Tuesday’s chat with MLBTR’s Steve Adams.
Braves Place Kenley Jansen On Injured List Due To Irregular Heartbeat
The Braves announced Tuesday that closer Kenley Jansen has been placed on the 15-day injured list due to an irregular heartbeat. The move is retroactive to June 27. Right-hander Jesus Cruz has been recalled from Triple-A Gwinnett to take his spot on the active roster.
It’s a worrisome ailment for Jansen, though this is far from the first time the 34-year-old has dealt with the issue. Jansen has thrice been placed on the injured list due to irregular heartbeats — once in 2011 and again in both 2017 and 2018. He’s had a pair of cardiac ablation procedures during his big league career in hopes of corralling the issue, though it seems he’s not yet entirely out of the woods in that regard.
The Braves’ announcement didn’t include a timetable for Jansen’s return, although his most recent IL placement for this issue, back in 2018, resulted in a minimal 10-day absence. The Braves are surely hopeful for a similarly quick return this time around, although the obvious broader hope is that, regardless of Jansen’s availability on the baseball field, he can remain in overall good health and eventually move beyond episodes of this nature entirely.
Jansen, in his first year with any organization other than the Dodgers, has been quite good. The three-time All-Star carries a 3.58 ERA through 32 2/3 innings, and secondary metrics like FIP (2.18), SIERA (2.07) and xERA (2.12) feel he’s been considerably better than that earned run average would indicate. That’s due largely to Jansen’s brilliant 36.4% strikeout rate, his strong 6.2% walk rate and his continued ability to limit hard contact better than nearly any pitcher in the league (86.5 mph average exit velocity, 28.4% hard-hit rate).
Taking Jansen’s place on the roster in the short term will be the 27-year-old Cruz, who pitched six innings of one-run ball for the Braves earlier this season. The former Cardinals minor leaguer has been similarly sharp in Gwinnett, where he’s notched a tidy 2.45 ERA with a sensational 24-to-1 K/BB ratio through 14 2/3 innings of relief.
Guardians Acquire Sandy Leon, Designate Ian Gibaut For Assignment
The Guardians announced this morning that they’ve acquired veteran catcher Sandy Leon from the Reds in exchange for cash. He’s being added directly to the Major League roster, and right-hander Ian Gibaut has been designated for assignment in order to open a spot on the 40-man roster. Leon’s acquisition comes in conjunction with catcher Austin Hedges being placed on the 7-day concussion list. Meanwhile, righty Anthony Castro has been recalled from Triple-A Columbus to join the bullpen, and lefty Konnor Pilkington has been tabbed as the 27th man for today’s doubleheader against the division-leading Twins. He’ll start the second game today for Cleveland.
Leon, 33, was with Cleveland for the 2020 season and also spent the bulk of Spring Training with the Guardians this season before being granted his release. He signed a minor league deal with the Reds in mid-April and has spent the bulk of the season in Triple-A Louisville, where he’s batted .222/.321/.306 in 84 plate appearances.
A career .212/.277/.319 hitter who’s never hit much outside of a magical 2016 campaign in Boston, when he slashed .310/.369/.476 in 283 plate appearances, Leon is a respected veteran who is generally lauded for his game-calling and defensive prowess. He’s thwarted one-third of the stolen-base attempts against him in his big league career and regularly drawn positive marks for his framing and pitch blocking. In 3621 innings behind the dish, Leon has totaled 36 Defensive Runs Saved.
Cleveland clearly places a premium on defense behind the plate, which is obvious when looking at the glove-first nature of their catching corps in recent years. Beyond Leon, they’ve relied primarily on Hedges, Roberto Perez and Yan Gomes for the better part of a decade — all of whom are considered premium defenders even though they’ve rarely contributed much with the bat. (Perez and Gomes each had a brief run of plus offense but graded out below-average over their Cleveland tenures as a whole.)
Given the nature of his acquisition, Leon could be in for a brief stay with the Guardians. Then again, Luke Maile has batted just .180/.268/.279 through 71 plate appearances this season, so even if Hedges returns in short order, it’s perhaps possible that Leon could supplant Maile as the backup to Hedges.
Leon’s return to the big leagues comes at the expense of Gibaut, who’d only just returned to the Majors himself yesterday. He pitched 1 1/3 scoreless innings in last night’s blowout at the hands of his 2021 Twins teammates but will now be traded or placed on outright waivers within a week’s time.
Gibaut, 28, has pitched in parts of four Major League seasons, totaling 34 2/3 innings of 5.19 ERA ball between the Rangers, Rays, Twins and Guardians. He’s notched a 3.20 ERA in 19 2/3 innings with Triple-A Columbus this season and carries a career 4.15 ERA, 29% strikeout rate and 10.9% walk rate in 136 2/3 frames at that level.
Between that solid track record and the fact that Gibaut sat at 97.1 mph with his heater last night — a huge jump from the 95.3 mph he averaged from 2019-21 — it’s possible a bullpen-needy club will look to claim him or strike up a small trade with Cleveland. If not, he’ll be able to reject an outright assignment in favor of free agency, should he choose, by virtue of the fact that he’s previously been outrighted in his career.
Thomas Pannone Signs With KBO’s Kia Tigers
Lefty Thomas Pannone, who was granted his released by the Red Sox last night, has signed on with the Kia Tigers of the Korea Baseball Organization for the remainder of the season, the Tigers announced (via Jee-ho Yoo of the Yonhap News Agency). Pannone will earn $300K for the remainder of the season.
Pannone, a 28-year-old lefty, appeared in the Majors with the Blue Jays in 2018-19, combining for a 5.43 ERA in 116 innings (13 starts, 36 relief appearances). The former ninth-round pick struggled out of the rotation (7.31 ERA) but showed promise in those 36 bullpen outings (3.40 ERA, 23.6% strikeout rate). He never got another look with the Jays during the shortened 2020 season, however, and after being removed from their 40-man roster that summer, he became a minor league free agent and signed with the Angels for the 2021 campaign.
Although he arrived at Angels camp with a solid Triple-A track record, Pannone’s return from that 2020 layoff was a disaster. He totaled 118 1/3 innings with the Halos’ top affiliate in Salt Lake but was rocked for a 7.07 ERA in that time. The 2022 season with Boston’s Triple-A club in Worcester has been a much better one. Pannone has an improved, albeit unexciting 4.57 ERA in 63 innings with the WooSox, but he’s also posted a sensational 70-to-7 K/BB ratio (26.7 K%, 3.1 BB%).
That pristine K-BB% surely piqued the interest of the KBO’s Tigers, who are in the market for a new starting pitcher after waiving former Cardinals and Giants minor leaguer Ronnie Williams. The 26-year-old Williams was in his first KBO season this year but scuffled to a 5.68 ERA with nearly as many walks (28) as strikeouts (32) through 44 1/3 innings.
Pannone’s KBO signing may be something of a footnote for many MLB fans now, but it’s always worth keeping an eye on former major league and minor league pitchers as they venture to the KBO or Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball. It’s become increasingly common to see pitchers return from the KBO or NPB to make an impact in the Majors. Merrill Kelly, Miles Mikolas, Chris Flexen, Robert Suarez and Joely Rodriguez are among the recent examples of pitchers who’ve followed that trajectory.
Royals Trade Carlos Santana To Mariners, Promote Vinnie Pasquantino
The Mariners have acquired first baseman/designated hitter Carlos Santana and cash from the Royals in exchange for right-handers Wyatt Mills and William Fleming, per a team announcement. The trade paves the road for the Royals to take an overdue look at top prospect Vinnie Pasquantino, whose contract has been formally selected from Triple-A Omaha, according to the team. Right-hander Ronald Bolanos has been designated for assignment in order to open a spot on Kansas City’s 40-man roster.
Monday’s trade closes the book on a generally underwhelming Kansas City tenure for Santana, who inked a two-year, $17.5MM contract in advance of the 2021 season but has yet to round into the form that made him such a valuable contributor for years in Cleveland. The switch-hitting 36-year-old tallied 871 plate appearances with the Royals and posted just a .215/.326/.341 batting line — about 12% worse than league-average after weighting for park and league, by measure of wRC+.
Santana managed to turn things around in recent weeks, however, and has shown enough this month for the Mariners to take a low-cost look now that they suddenly find themselves in need of a first baseman. Ty France, Seattle’s most consistent hitter this season, recently landed on the injured list and figures to be out for a good bit longer than that 10-day minimum, given the diagnosis of a Grade 2 flexor strain. Santana shouldn’t be expected to fully replace France’s brilliant .316/.390/.476 batting line, but he’s managed a .298/.405/.468 output himself over his past 27 games and 111 plate appearances.
In all likelihood, the Royals are paying the vast majority of what remains on Santana’s contract. He’s still owed the balance of this year’s $10.5MM salary (about $5.8MM), and that number will increase based on plate appearances. Santana, who already has 212 plate appearances this season, will earn an additional $75K for every 25th plate appearance from 300 to 525.
It’s not the first time the Mariners have acquired Santana, though whenever he takes the field in a Mariners jersey, it’ll be his first actual game with the team. Seattle actually acquired Santana alongside J.P. Crawford in the deal that sent Jean Segura, Juan Nicasio and James Pazos to the Phillies back in Dec. 2018. However, not two weeks later, Santana was traded to Cleveland in the three-team swap that brought Edwin Encarnacion to Seattle. Encarnacion spent a half season slugging as the Mariners’ designated hitter before being flipped to the Yankees for righty Juan Then.
This time around, it’ll be a pair of right-handers going to Kansas City in exchange for the final three-plus months of control over Santana. Of the two righties in question, only Mills has big league experience thus far. The 27-year-old has pitched a total of 21 1/3 frames over the past two seasons but struggled to a 7.59 ERA with worse-than-average strikeout and walk rates in that time (17.3% and 10.2%, respectively).
Mills, the No. 93 overall pick in 2017, has more interesting but also inconsistent numbers in the upper minors. The sidearming righty fanned a whopping 44.7% of his opponents through 28 2/3 innings of Triple-A ball last year, for instance, but that rate has been halved so far in 2022 over the course of 19 2/3 innings. There’s no velocity change between his ’21 and ’22 campaigns, though Mills did throw more fastballs at the expense of some slider usage during this year’s small sample of 8 2/3 big league innings. The 6’4″ righty has never ranked as one of the Mariners’ very best prospects, but Baseball America has listed him among Seattle’s top 25 farmhands dating back to the time he was drafted.
Fleming, meanwhile, is a 23-year-old righty whom the Mariners selected in the 11th round just one year ago. He generally hasn’t been considered among the Mariners’ best prospects either — though FanGraphs’ Eric Longenhagen did tab him 28th earlier this year — and has posted fairly pedestrian numbers in Class-A Modesto despite being a former college arm who’s older than his average opponent at that level. So far, Fleming has tossed 67 2/3 innings over 14 starts and logged a 4.92 ERA with a 20.7% strikeout rate against an 8.4% walk rate.
For the Royals, the arms received in exchange for Santana are secondary when it comes to this trade. The greater purpose of the swap was to at last open playing time for the 6’4″, 245-pound Pasquantino, who has mashed his way into top prospect status by dominating at every minor league stop, including Triple-A this season. So far, Pasquantino has taken 296 turns at the plate for the Storm Chasers and posted a huge .280/.372/.576 batting line with 18 home runs, 16 doubles two triples and more walks (37) than strikeouts (36).
Given his size and lack of speed, Pasquantino is locked into a first base-only (or designated hitter) profile, but there’s every indication so far that his bat will play in the Majors. Scouting reports at Baseball America and FanGraphs indicate that he’s improved enough with the glove to be average or slightly better, and Pasquantino has never posted an OBP lower than .371 or a slugging percentage lower than .560 at any minor league level. And, given the dearth of strikeouts in his game, he’s been able to maintain a .293 average throughout his minor league tenure to date.
Even without much defensive value to prop up his value, Pasquantino ranks as the game’s No. 57 prospect over at Baseball America. He checks in 95th at FanGraphs and 98th at MLB.com, with all three scouting reports praising his plus (or better) hit tool and above-average power.
The organizational hope is that between Pasquantino and fellow slugger Nick Pratto — also a first base-only, top-100 prospect — they’ll have their first base and DH slots covered for years to come. Pasquantino’s promotion to the Majors is late enough that he should avoid Super Two status, and he’ll be controllable for at least six full seasons beyond the current campaign.
As for the 25-year-old Bolanos, he’s seen action with Kansas City in each of the past three seasons but has posted pedestrian numbers on the whole. Once a notable Padres signing out of Cuba, he was traded to the Royals alongside Franchy Cordero in the 2020 trade that sent Tim Hill to San Diego. He’s since combined for 28 1/3 innings of 4.76 ERA ball with a lackluster 24-to-17 K/BB ratio.
Bolanos does have a respectable 4.42 ERA in 18 1/3 innings this year, but his average fastball of 93.6 mph is down about two miles per hour from its peak and that ERA comes in spite of an even number of walks to strikeouts. Add in that he’s limped to a 5.49 ERA in 19 2/3 Triple-A frames this season, and it was enough for the Royals to decide they’re willing to move on. Of course, the DFA doesn’t necessarily spell the end of his time in the organization. Kansas City will have a week to trade Bolanos if there’s interest, but the Royals can also attempt to pass him through outright waivers at some point in the next week. If he goes unclaimed, he’d remain with the organization but no longer occupy a spot on the 40-man roster.
Pirates Designate Anthony Banda For Assignment, Release Heath Hembree
The Pirates announced a series of roster moves Monday, reinstating utilityman Josh VanMeter from the injured list, recalling righty Miguel Yajure from Triple-A Indianapolis, optioning outfielder Cal Mitchell to Triple-A and designating lefty Anthony Banda for assignment. Pittsburgh also released righty Heath Hembree after he cleared waivers, per Jason Mackey of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (Twitter link) and assigned righty Jerad Eickhoff to Indianapolis after he cleared outright waivers.
Banda has been in Pittsburgh for a bit shy of a year, having been claimed off waivers from the Mets last August. He made 25 appearances down the stretch, tossing 26 1/3 frames of 3.42 ERA ball. That came with middle-of-the-road strikeout and walk numbers, but Banda was successful enough to hold his roster spot over the winter. He broke camp this season and went on to make 23 more appearances, but the 28-year-old didn’t have nearly as much success keeping runs off the board.
Through 19 2/3 innings, Banda owns a 6.41 ERA. He’s posted slightly below-average marks in both strikeout rate (22.4%) and swinging strike percentage (9.4%), although that’s come with career-best control. Banda has walked only around 5% of opponents, and he’s averaging a personal-high 95.3 MPH on his fastball. Opposing hitters have an unsustainably high .463 batting average on balls in play against him in spite of a general lack of hard contact.
Those better underlying traits could entice another club to roll the dice on Banda over the coming days. The Bucs will have a week to trade him or try to run him through waivers. He’s out of minor league option years, so any team that acquires him would have to keep him on the active roster or DFA him themselves.
Hembree heads to free agency after being designated for assignment himself last week (ironically to accommodate Eickhoff’s selection to the 40-man roster). That’s little surprise, as the veteran reliever is playing this season on a $2.125MM salary and is amidst a down year. He posted a 7.16 ERA with more walks than strikeouts in 20 appearances for the Bucs, but he’s only a season removed from punching out 34.2% of batters faced. That’ll at least generate some minor league interest now that Hembree’s back on the open market; a signing team would only owe him the prorated portion of the $700K minimum salary for any time he spends in the majors, with the Pirates on the hook for the rest of the money owed.
Eickhoff has the right to join Hembree in free agency, having been outrighted on multiple occasions in his career. He made just one MLB appearance, serving up ten runs in 4 1/3 innings against the Cubs. The veteran righty has otherwise spent the season in Indianapolis, tossing 48 1/3 frames of 4.84 ERA ball.
Angels Claim Dillon Thomas, Designate Kyle Barraclough For Assignment
The Angels announced Monday that they’ve claimed corner outfielder Dillon Thomas off waivers from the Astros and assigned him to Triple-A Salt Lake. Righty Kyle Barraclough was designated for assignment in order to open a spot on the 40-man roster.
Thomas makes his return to the Halos, with which he signed a minor league contract over the winter. He spent much of the season in Salt Lake, hitting .295/.398/.489 with eight home runs through 211 trips to the plate. That earned him a big league call a few weeks back, but he was designated for assignment after a lone appearance.
The 29-year-old landed with his hometown Astros via waivers, but his stint in the Houston organization didn’t last much longer than his initial stay on the Halos’ 40-man roster. He was immediately optioned to Triple-A by the Astros and designated for assignment after just five outings there. Thomas didn’t appear in an MLB game with Houston and now heads back to the organization with which he began the 2021 season.
An 11-year minor league veteran, Thomas only has five games of big league experience (four with last year’s Mariners, one with Anaheim). He owns an impressive upper minors track record and is only in his second option year, though, making him an interesting upper level depth player for clubs. Thomas will hope for a more lasting stay on the Angels’ roster this time around.
Barraclough was also an offseason minor league signee. The reliever was an excellent late-game weapon for the Marlins early in his career, but he’s struggled with his control and home runs in recent years. He’s bounced around the league in journeyman fashion going back to 2019. That included a ten-game stint with the Twins last season, and he appeared in eight games with Anaheim this year after getting called up in early May.
The 32-year-old tossed nine innings of three-run ball, punching out nine while walking four. He averaged just north of 93 MPH on his fastball, right in line with his recent seasons’ work but down about three ticks from his peak days in Miami. The Angels will have a week to trade Barraclough or place him on waivers. He’d have the right to refuse a minor league assignment in favor of free agency if he passes through waivers unclaimed.
Phillies Claim Oscar Mercado
The Phillies have claimed outfielder Oscar Mercado off waivers from the Guardians, per a team announcement. They opened a spot on the 40-man roster by recalling lefty Damon Jones from Triple-A Lehigh Valley and placing him on the Major League 60-day injured list due to a shoulder impingement.
Mercado, 27, will be the Phillies’ latest attempt to patch their longstanding hole in center field. He was a Rookie of the Year candidate with Cleveland back in 2019 and looked like he might become a foundational piece in the outfield, hitting .269/.318/.443 with 15 home runs, 25 doubles, three triples, 15 steals and strong defensive ratings over the course of his 115-game debut. The notion of Mercado hitting waivers at any point in the near future following that season would’ve seemed outlandish, but in two and a half seasons since that showing, virtually every element of his game has trended in the wrong direction.
During the shortened 2020 season, Mercado fell into a disastrous slump at the plate and was never able to pull himself out of it, finishing the season with 93 plate appearances and a .128/.174/.174 batting line. His strikeout rate nearly doubled from that strong rookie showing, as did his rate of infield pop-ups. The 2021 season was a step back in the right direction, but Mercado was still a well below-average hitter. That’s again been the case so far in 2022, and his overall batting line dating back to Opening Day 2020 checks in at just .198/.254/.331. He’s still posted above-average marks in both Defensive Runs Saved and Outs Above Average over that time, but the abrupt disappearance of his offense was too much for the Guardians to overlook and led to a DFA last week.
The Phillies entered the 2021-22 offseason with a glaring hole in center field but instead doubled down on their longstanding defensive woes by signing corner sluggers/designated hitters Nick Castellanos and Kyle Schwarber. The primary solution in center wound up being a low-cost reunion with Odubel Herrera, whom they signed with visions of a platoon alongside Matt Vierling. (The Phils also thinned out their center field depth by trading Adam Haseley to the ChiSox prior to the season.)
While the team’s defensive struggles certainly aren’t the only reason (and arguably not even the main one) for this year’s generally disappointing season, there’s little denying that the club’s woeful defense has again been a substantial detriment. The Phillies, who neglected shortstop and center field upgrades in favor of the aforementioned duo of lumbering sluggers, are tied with the rebuilding Nationals for the worst Defensive Runs Saved mark in the Majors (-30). They’re also 29th in Outs Above Average (-27).
Bringing Mercado into the fold should help by giving them at least one solid defensive player to install into the lineup, but his feeble production at the plate is a questionable fit with what has been a surprisingly middle-of-the pack offense. The Phils are batting .247/.316/.413 as a collective unit — about three percent better than league average after adjusting for park and league (103 wRC+). That production, however, includes Bryce Harper’s absolute powerhouse .318/.385/.599 batting line, and Harper will be absent for the foreseeable future after sustaining a fractured thumb over the weekend.
If Mercado is indeed able to turn things around following a change of scenery, he could be a multi-year option in the Philadelphia outfield. He’s yet to reach arbitration eligibility and still has three seasons of club control remaining beyond the current campaign.
Phillies Sign Jace Fry To Minor League Deal
The Phillies have signed left-hander Jace Fry to a minor league contract, as first indicated on the transaction log at MLB.com. The Northwest Sports Management client will head for Triple-A Lehigh Valley. Fry opened the season with the Nationals, but I’m told he recently opted out of that contract. (The opt-out date in his Nationals deal had been set for May, but Fry was on the Covid-related IL at the time, and the Nats agreed to honor the opt-out clause at a later time.)
The 28-year-old Fry has accrued nearly four years of Major League service time across parts of the past five seasons — all coming as a member of the White Sox. Chicago’s third-round selection in the 2014 draft, Fry reached the Majors in 2017 and became a consistent presence in the South Siders’ Major League bullpen beginning in 2018. From 2018-20, he pitched to a combined 4.43 ERA with strong strikeout and ground-ball rates (29.6% and 51.2%, respectively) across 126 innings — albeit against a 13.7% walk rate that he’d surely like to scale down a ways.
Fry landed on the injured list late in 2020 due to back spasms and eventually underwent a microdiscectomy procedure. The lefty spent the first three months of the 2021 season on the injured list and pitched well in Triple-A upon activation (2.93 ERA in 40 innings). However, Fry was tagged for eight runs over 6 2/3 innings with the big league team (mostly in September) and was sent outright off the roster following the season. He signed a minor league deal with Washington back on March 21.
So far in 2022, Fry has tallied 14 1/3 innings with Triple-A Rochester, during which time he’s yielded six runs on 14 hits and eight walks with 20 punchouts — good for a 3.77 ERA. He’s sporting a huge 57.6% ground-ball rate there and has fanned 31.7% of his opponents, but he’s also continued to walk too many hitters (12.7%).
Phillies relievers rank 19th in the Majors with a 4.05 ERA, and the team is generally thin on left-handed bullpen depth beyond offseason addition Brad Hand. Fellow southpaw Jose Alvarado has struggled to a 5.95 ERA through 19 2/3 innings this season, while waiver pickup Ryan Sherriff hasn’t pitched so far due to a shoulder strain.
Down in Triple-A, Damon Jones is on the 40-man roster but is also the injured list in Triple-A and hasn’t pitched since May 19. Southpaws Bailey Falter and Cristopher Sanchez are pitching well there and, like Jones, are on the 40-man roster. However, they’re stretched out and pitching out of the IronPigs’ rotation at the moment. Fry will join that group and give the Phils an experienced lefty to consider for the big league ‘pen if he continues throwing well in his new environs.
Tigers Re-Sign Drew Hutchison
The Tigers have re-signed righty Drew Hutchison to a new minor league contract, MLBTR has confirmed. Chris McCosky of the Detroit News tweeted yesterday that a new deal between the Tigers and the ACES client was expected to come together at some point this week.
That’s now three minor league deals with Detroit in the past three months for Hutchison. Originally signed in mid-March, Hutchison cracked Detroit’s Opening Day roster and pitched out of their bullpen for the first month of the season before being designated for assignment and electing free agency mid-May. He returned a couple weeks later, was selected back to the big league roster in mid-June, and was again designated for assignment last week. Hutchison elected free agency at that point but will return for another stint with the Tigers organization.
The 31-year-old Hutchison has pitched well in Triple-A this season and has been a serviceable source of big league innings both in the rotation and bullpen for an injury-depleted Tigers pitching staff. In 24 1/3 Major League frames, he has a 4.81 ERA, though his 17-to-16 K/BB ratio is rather ominous. Hutchison recently made a pair of starts for the Tigers, who have four starting pitchers on the injured list, and allowed five runs over a total of 8 2/3 frames.
The 2022 campaign is the seventh in which Hutchison has logged big league time. He’s tallied 506 Major League innings between the Blue Jays, Pirates, Phillies, Rangers and Tigers, pitching to a combined 4.96 ERA with a 20% strikeout rate, an 8.3% walk rate and a 39.3% ground-ball rate in that time.