Athletics Designate Parker Markel For Assignment, Select Matt Davidson
The A’s announced Tuesday that they’ve reinstated Stephen Vogt from the injured list, selected the contract of infielder Matt Davidson from Triple-A Las Vegas and designated right-handed reliever Parker Markel for assignment. Oakland also optioned infielder Sheldon Neuse to Las Vegas.
Davidson, 31, saw some big league time with the D-backs earlier this season but rejected an outright assignment following a DFA and inked a minor league pact with the A’s. He’s appeared in just 21 Triple-A games and tallied 88 plate appearances but already has seven home runs in Las Vegas. Davidson was mashing with the D-backs’ Triple-A affiliate in Reno, too, and he’s posted an overall .306/.389/.711 batting line with 15 long balls in only 139 Triple-A plate appearances so far this season.
Some caveats to that production apply, of course. The Pacific Coast League is a notoriously hitter-friendly setting, with Vegas in particular tending to inflate offense. Davidson has had his share of Triple-A success in the past as well — albeit not to this extent — with 146 home runs logged through 703 games at that level. He’s a .248/.320/.470 hitter in Triple-A but hasn’t quite carried that over in parts of six seasons in the Majors, where he’s a .222/.292/.433 hitter. He could still give the A’s more offense than they’ve gotten out of Neuse, a fellow right-handed-hitting infielder who has managed a tepid .228/.291/.305 output in a career-high 182 Major League plate appearances so far.
Markel, also 31, inked a minor league deal with the A’s over the winter and parlayed a 1.89 ERA in 19 Triple-A frames into his first big league action since 2019. The former Mariners and Pirates righty has a long track record of missing bats at a high level but also battling command issues, and both of those have been true in the Majors and in Triple-A this season. Markel fanned 35.4% of his opponents while pitching for Las Vegas but also walked hitters at a 12.7% clip. He fired three scoreless innings in the Majors with the A’s and picked up three strikeouts … but he also issued a walk to five of the 13 hitters he faced.
Even though he averages better than 95 mph on his heater and has a 3.09 ERA and 30% strikeout rate in 177 2/3 innings at the Triple-A level, Markel has only ever logged 25 innings in the Majors. There’s no sugarcoating his ugly 14.1% walk rate in Triple-A, but the bat-missing ability and velocity are somewhat intriguing all the same.
Oakland will have a week to trade Markel, attempt to pass him through outright waivers or release him. He’s been outrighted once before — by the Angels in 2020 — so even if he goes unclaimed on waivers, he’d have the option of rejecting an outright assignment in favor of free agency.
Zack Godley, Jairo Diaz, Nick Goody Sign With Atlantic League Teams
Right-handers Zack Godley and Jairo Diaz have signed with the Gastonia Honey Hunters of the Atlantic League, per the league’s transactions log. That log also indicates that right-hander Nick Goody latched on with the Long Island Ducks yesterday. All three veteran righties have extensive Major League experience.
Godley, 32, has logged big league time in each of the past seven seasons — albeit just 3 1/3 frames with Milwaukee this past season. A solid mid-rotation arm for the D-backs in 2017-18 (4.10 ERA in 333 1/3 innings), Godley has struggled and dealt with injuries in recent years, most notably a flexor strain that ruined his 2020 season.
Since losing his grip on a rotation spot in Arizona, he’s pitched to a 6.75 ERA in 124 big league innings (2019-21). He posted solid minor league numbers with the Brewers’ top affiliate last year but was rocked for 20 earned runs with a 29-to-19 K/BB ratio in 22 1/3 innings with the Reds’ Triple-A club to begin the current season.
Diaz, 31, has three-plus years of big league service and 107 1/3 frames at the MLB level. He worked in some high-leverage roles as recently as 2019 with the Rockies, but Diaz had a notable velocity drop (97.2 mph to 95.3 mph) in 2020 and limped to a 7.65 ERA in 20 frames with Colorado. He remained with the club in 2021 but pitched only 9 1/3 minor league innings due to injury. Diaz briefly inked a minor league deal with the Mariners earlier this year, as reported by the New York Post’s Jon Heyman at the time, but he didn’t end up throwing a pitch with a Mariners affiliate.
The 30-year-old Goody totaled 152 2/3 innings of work from 2015-20, enjoying his best years in Cleveland (2017, 2019). At his best, Goody was punching out about 30% of his opponents with a walk rate that was only slightly higher than the league average, but an elbow strain and a back injury slowed him in 2018-19. Goody was claimed off waivers by the 2020 Rangers but served up 11 runs in 11 innings with Texas that summer before being cut loose.
Goody split the 2021 season between the Triple-A affiliates for the Yankees — the organization that originally drafted him — and Nationals. He missed plenty of bats (29.6% strikeout rate) and posted a decent 9.0% walk rate, but Goody surrendered too many home runs (1.5 HR/9) and posted a pedestrian 4.53 ERA between those two stops. He’s spent the early postion of the 2022 season with los Acereros de Monclava of the Mexican League.
All three of Godley, Goody and Diaz have enough recent MLB experience that with some success on the indie circuit, they could jump back into affiliated ball as depth options in the season’s second half.
Trevor Rosenthal Hosting Showcase Today
12:05pm: The Blue Jays, Mets and Marlins will be among the teams in attendance, per respective reports from MLB Network’s Jon Morosi, SNY’s Andy Martino and SportsGrid’s Craig Mish.
8:45am: Free-agent right-hander Trevor Rosenthal is holding a showcase for Major League clubs at St. Thomas University in Miami Gardens today, tweets Jon Heyman of the New York Post. It stands to reason that scouts from the majority of teams will be in attendance to gauge the former All-Star’s readiness to return to a big league mound.
A healthy Rosenthal can be one of the game’s most effective relievers, as he’s shown at multiple times in the past. Unfortunately, good health has eluded him in recent years. Rosenthal underwent Tommy John surgery partway through the 2017 season, which wiped out the entirety of his 2018 campaign. He returned with the Nats and Tigers in 2019 and had lost all semblance of control over the strike zone, walking 26 of the 85 hitters he faced that season (30.6%) and plunking another four.
On the heels of that alarming season, Rosenthal settled for a minor league deal with the Royals heading into the 2020 season and quickly reestablished himself as a dominant late-inning powerhouse. He pitched just 23 2/3 innings due to the shortened 60-game schedule, but Rosenthal overwhelmed opponents with a 1.90 ERA, an elite 41.8% strikeout rate and a strong 8.3% walk rate — all while averaging 98.1 mph on his heater.
Despite that dominant showing, Rosenthal didn’t find the weighty multi-year deal he sought early in free agency, and he eventually took a one-year, $11MM from a surprise suitor: the A’s. Unfortunately for Oakland and for Rosenthal, injuries again derailed his 2021 season. A groin strain slowed Rosenthal early in Spring Training, and shoulder troubles shelved him to begin the season. Eventually, it was revealed that Rosenthal required surgery to alleviate thoracic outlet syndrome. Over the summer, while working toward what he hoped would be a late-season return, a torn labrum in his hip required yet another surgery.
Rosenthal’s career numbers — 3.36 ERA, 132 saves, 31.2% strikeout rate, 11.3% walk rate, 44.3% grounder rate, 98.1 mph average fastball — all speak to the sheer talent in his right arm. (It’s a 2.91 ERA and 10.1% walk rate if you toss out the anomalous 2019 season.) However, he’s now pitched just 39 innings since undergoing Tommy John surgery way back in Aug. 2017.
Bullpen help is always in demand, and virtually every contending team (and likely several non-contenders) will want to get a look at Rosenthal in hopes of bolstering their relief corps for the season’s second half. Given the lengthy injury layoff, he’s unlikely to command a multi-year pact, so signing Rosenthal figures to be — at worst — a short-term risk with plenty of upside. It’s not clear just yet when Rosenthal would be ready to step onto a big league mound. He’ll presumably require a minor league tune-up to reacclimate to game settings and build additional arm strength, but if he’s ready to audition for MLB clubs, he and agent Scott Boras can’t feel he’s too far off.
Have The Brewers Developed Another Ace?
The Brewers’ rotation has been its primary strength for the past several seasons. Entering the year the club looked like the favorite in the NL Central (or at least a co-favorite) on the strength of the three-headed monster of Brandon Woodruff, Freddy Peralta and 2021 National League Cy Young winner Corbin Burnes. Brewers starters have indeed been excellent both in the eyes of traditional and newer metrics, ranking fifth in the Majors with a collective 3.36 ERA, fourth with a 3.43 FIP and third with a 3.44 SIERA.
The route the Brewers have taken to get there, however, isn’t the one any would’ve forecast heading into the season. Burnes has been predictably excellent, working to a 2.50 ERA on the back of a dominant K-BB% and thus far making a strong bid for a repeat win in the Cy Young balloting. Woodruff, however, is struggling through his worst full season as a starter thanks to an alarming spike in home-run rate, and he recently hit the IL with a high ankle sprain. Peralta, meanwhile, pitched just 38 2/3 innings of 4.42 ERA ball before a lat strain sent him to the injured list. He’s not expected back anytime soon.
So, how have the Brewers continued on as one of the game’s best starting staffs? They’ve received solid if unspectacular work from fifth starter Adrian Houser and some intriguing work from rookie Aaron Ashby, but the biggest driving factor that’s allowed them to weather the Woodruff struggles and Peralta injury has been Eric Lauer‘s transformation from back-of-the-rotation arm to what looks like the next great Brewers starter.
Acquired from the Padres alongside Luis Urias in a deal that sent outfielder Trent Grisham and righty Zach Davies to San Diego, Lauer was seen as a back-of-the-rotation option for the Brewers at the time of the swap. That’s understandable, as from 2018-19, he’d been just that with the Padres. Between those two seasons, Lauer tallied 261 2/3 innings of 4.40 ERA ball with a below-average strikeout rate (20.6%), a solid walk rate (8.4%) and below-average ground-ball tendencies (38.9%). Generally speaking, he fit the soft-tossing-lefty mold with which most baseball fans are familiar: strike-thrower who doesn’t overpower opponents but has good command of the zone and keeps his team in the game more often than not.
As recently as the 2020-21 offseason, the trade to acquire Lauer and Urias looked quite lopsided in San Diego’s favor. Lauer tossed just 11 innings for the Brewers in 2020, while Urias provided no real offensive value through 120 plate appearances that season. Grisham, meanwhile, was excellent while playing 59 of 60 games for the Padres that summer, and Davies had the best year of his career by a wide margin (which helped the Padres subsequently include him in the trade to acquire Yu Darvish from the Cubs). Recent play from Urias and especially Lauer has flipped the narrative, though.
Lauer opened the 2021 season with the Brewers’ Triple-A club and spent the first month of the year there before being recalled to the Majors on April 29. Over his first nine appearances (seven starts, two from the bullpen), he posted a nondescript 4.50 ERA/5.08 FIP and garnered little attention. At that point, few would’ve pegged Lauer as a critical cog to the Brewers’ immediate rotation plans.
On July 3 of last season, however, something changed. Lauer threw a slider. It wasn’t the first of his career, but it was his first of the season. He wound up throwing the pitch just under 20% of the time that day, taking his retooled breaking ball for a test drive against a hapless Pirates lineup with good success. Lauer has featured the pitch regularly since, and it’s difficult to overstate just how important it has been to his arsenal.
Since re-debuting the pitch on July 3 last season, FanGraphs ranks Lauer sixth among all Major League starting pitchers in slider runs above average. His slider trails only Dylan Cease, Shohei Ohtani, Max Scherzer, Tarik Skubal and, ever-so-slightly, Brad Keller. That’s a bit misleading, though, as all of those pitchers other than Scherzer throw their slider more often than Lauer. Keller has thrown his slider at a 38.7% clip in that time, while Cease has used his exactly a third of the time. Ohtani is at 28.8% and Skubal at 26.8%. Lauer’s 19.9% usage rate from 2021-22 comes in at exactly half that of Keller. In other words, on a per-pitch basis, Lauer’s slider has been substantially move valuable than all of Cease, Ohtani, Skubal and Keller.
In fact, when shifting to look at slider value per 100 pitches thrown, Scherzer is the only starter in baseball (min. 50 innings) whose slider has generated more value. (Notably, had the beginning of Lauer’s slider usage not coincided almost perfectly with Jacob deGrom‘s 2021 season-ending injury, he’d have ranked above Lauer as well, given that deGrom unsurprisingly had the best per-pitch slider in MLB last year.)
Lauer wound up throwing 224 sliders from July 3 onward last season, and in the 73 plate appearances that culminated with that pitch, his opponents batted just .123/.219/.215. He’s thrown 201 sliders this season, finished off 61 plate appearances with the pitch, and yielded just a .140/.180/.193 output to opponents. This season, Statcast ranks Lauer sixth among big league pitchers (min. 50 PAs) with a .221 expected wOBA against his slider. Given the pitch’s success, it’s little surprise that Lauer is throwing it at a career-high 21.9% clip so far in 2022, and you could argue he ought to feature it even more heavily.
All told, since Lauer reincorporated the slider into his arsenal, he’s made 23 starts and pitched to a 2.40 ERA with a 25.2% strikeout rate and a 7.9% walk rate. He’s had some good fortune, evidenced by a .247 average on balls in play and an 83.6% strand rate, but even accounting for some likely regression in those areas, Lauer looks like a completely different pitcher. That’s especially true because the addition of a slider doesn’t appear to be the only meaningful change that’s led to his breakout.
Entering the 2022 season, Lauer had averaged 91.9 mph on his four-seam fastball. He saw a slight uptick from 91.7 mph (2018-20) to 92.5 mph in 2021, however, and he’s sitting at a career-high 93.7 mph so far in 2022. The left-hander told Curt Hogg of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel near the end of Spring Training (where he’d also shown a noticeable jump in velocity readings) that his strong finish in 2021 allowed him to shift his offseason focus from searching for flaws in his delivery and refining his mechanics to building strength. Said Lauer at the time:
“It was more a focus on strength training and finally getting used to my body being synched up like it is now. I spent a lot of time this offseason focusing on upper body movement and strength so I think we’re finally seeing everything line up.”
Lauer’s fastball hasn’t morphed into a dominant offering with the newfound velocity, but it’s performed much better — as one would expect upon jumping nearly two miles per hour in a two-year span. The 2020-21 version of Lauer’s heater was a decidedly below-average offering, according to run values from both FanGraphs and Statcast. Both now rate it as a roughly average pitch. Lauer has posted a career-best 12.9% swinging-strike rate (swings-and-misses per total pitches thrown) on his four-seamer in 2022. His 33.3% whiff rate (swings-and-misses per swing) on the four-seamer is up from 26.5% in 2021 and way up from the 21.5% he posted in 2018-19 with San Diego.
Lauer is far from a two-pitch starter, as he’ll also work in a cutter, curveball and more occasional changeup (which also rates excellently on a per-pitch basis). But the improvements he’s made to his four-seamer and especially to his slider have vaulted him from a fairly run-of-the-mill back-end starter to a legitimate weapon who’s helped the Brewers offset downturns in production from Woodruff and Peralta.
Barring an extension, the Brewers control Lauer for two years beyond the current campaign. That timeframe lines up directly with all three of Burnes, Woodruff and Houser. Peralta is signed through 2024, and his contract contains affordable 2025 and 2026 club options for Milwaukee. The aforementioned Ashby, who perhaps merits a deep dive of his own, is controllable all the way through 2027.
Suffice it to say, the long-term outlook for the Brewers’ staff is quite bright. And, if Milwaukee can get Woodruff and Peralta healthy and closer to 2021 form by the season’s final month, their top four starters — paired with Josh Hader and Devin Williams — will again give them the type of formidable staff that can carry a deep postseason run, provided the Brewers’ bats speak louder than they did last October (six total runs in four NLDS games against the Braves).
Read The Transcript Of Today’s Fantasy Baseball Chat With Brad Johnson
Brad Johnson has been writing about fantasy baseball for more than a decade and has considerable experience in Roto, H2H, dynasty, DFS, and experimental formats. As an expert in the field, Brad participates in the Tout Wars Draft and Hold format and was crowned the league’s winner in 2020. Brad’s writing experience includes RotoGraphs, NBC SportsEDGE, and right here at MLB Trade Rumors. He’s also presented at the First Pitch Arizona fantasy baseball conference.
We’ll be hosting fantasy baseball-focused chats with Brad regularly, and feel free to drop him some questions on Twitter @BaseballATeam as well.
Click here to read a transcript of today’s chat with Brad!
Astros Sign Yordan Alvarez To Six-Year Extension
June 6: The Astros have formally announced Alvarez’s six-year deal. They’ll hold a press conference this afternoon at 2:30pm CT.
June 3, 12:48pm: Alvarez’s contract breaks down in the form of a $5MM signing bonus followed by annual salaries of $7MM (2023), $10MM (2024), $15MM (2025) and $26MM (2026-28), Mark Berman of Houston’s FOX 26 reports (Twitter link). He’s already passed a physical.
12:19pm: The Astros have agreed to terms on a six-year, $115MM contract extension with Yordan Alvarez, reports ESPN’s Jeff Passan (Twitter link). The contract begins next season and will cover the 2023-28 seasons. Alvarez is represented by the MVP Sports Group.
Alvarez, 25 later this month, was on pace to reach free agency following the 2025 season and would have hit the open market at at just 28 years of age. Instead, his new contract will buy out all three of his arbitration seasons and give the Astros control over what would have been Alvarez’s first three free-agent seasons. Alvarez technically won’t reach three years of Major League service time until tomorrow, but since the contract begins next year, it can effectively be viewed as the second-largest deal ever signed by a player in the three-plus service bracket, trailing only Freddie Freeman‘s eight-year, $135MM extension with the Braves back in 2014.
Acquired in a flat-out heist that sent reliever Josh Fields to the Dodgers, Alvarez burst onto the Major League scene in 2019 when he mashed at a .313/.412/.655 pace and crushed 27 home runs in just 369 plate appearances. Despite barely spending half the season in the Majors (87 games), Alvarez was the unanimous American League Rookie of the Year. While he missed nearly the entire 2020 season due to arthroscopic surgery that was performed on both knees, he was back in full force a year later, hitting .277/.346/.531 with 33 home runs in 598 trips to the plate.
Since making his big league debut, Alvarez has quite simply been one of the best hitters on the planet. He’s a career .287/.370/.576 hitter, and the resulting 156 wRC+ (indicating he’s 56% better than the league-average hitter) sits just ahead of Juan Soto and trails only Mike Trout (177) among all qualified MLB hitters in that span.
Alvarez achieves his dominance at the plate through a keen eye (10.8% walk rate), improving bat-to-ball skills (his 17.6% strikeout rate is down from his rookie year’s 25.5% mark) and, most importantly, through hitting the ever-loving snot out of the ball. Since 2019, Alvarez ranks third in the Majors in both average exit velocity (93.3 mph) and overall hard-hit rate (54.2%), as well as eighth in barrel rate (16.1%) per Statcast. He’s taken that pristine Statcast profile to new heights in 2022, as he’s currently leading the Majors in hard-hit rate, expected slugging percentage and expected wOBA.
While Alvarez is primarily a designated hitter and figures to spend even less time in the field as he ages, he’s still seeing a decent chunk of time in left field. He’s logged 155 innings there this year and 540 innings through 278 big league games. He doesn’t rate as a strong outfielder but also hasn’t necessarily drawn butcher-esque reviews for his defense to this point (-2 Defensive Runs Saved, 0.3 Ultimate Zone Rating, and a more bearish -5 Outs Above Average). No one is going to mistake Alvarez for a potential Gold Glove candidate, but as an occasional option to give the Astros’ regular outfielders a breather, he’s a passable enough option who can be relied upon to make the routine plays.
Alvarez is now signed longer than any other Astros player, surpassing Lance McCullers Jr., whose contract runs through the 2026 season. His extension gives the ‘Stros a hefty $107MM on next year’s books before the offseason even begins and with several key arbitration cases (e.g. Kyle Tucker, Framber Valdez, Cristian Javier) to address. Houston has more than $100MM committed as far out as the 2024 season, although for a team that flirted with the luxury tax in 2021 and took its actual 2021 payroll upwards of $190MM last year, that’s not an dire outlay.
The Alvarez extension ensures that he, Tucker, Alex Bregman and Jose Altuve will continue to anchor the Houston lineup through at least the 2024 season (when the contracts of Alruve and Bregman are set to expire). Young shortstop Jeremy Pena has given every reason to believe so far that he can be counted among that core group of hitters, and the Astros are hopeful that prospects like Pedro Leon, Colin Barber and Korey Lee could eventually do the same.
White Sox Sign Mike Wright To Minor League Deal
The White Sox signed right-hander Mike Wright Jr. to a minor league contract, per an announcement from the team’s Triple-A affiliate, the Charlotte Knights. Wright actually started yesterday’s game for the Knights, tossing six innings of three-run ball while allowing three hits and two walks with one strikeout.
It’s the second ChiSox stint for Wright, who was with the South Siders in 2021 as well. He had a nice run with the Knights in 2021 when he pitched to a 3.40 ERA over the life of 95 1/3 innings, but Wright was tagged for 11 earned runs in 18 big league frames (5.50 ERA) with as many walks issued as strikeouts recorded (11 apiece).
Wright — who has also spent parts of five seasons with the Orioles, one with the Mariners and one with the Korea Baseball Organization’s NC Dinos — opened the 2022 season with the Dodgers’ Triple-A club after signing a minor league deal in Spring Training. He worked to a 4.46 ERA in 34 1/3 frames with their affiliate in Oklahoma City but posted a more concerning 13% walk rate against just a 16.9% strikeout rate. Overall, he’s pitched 276 big league innings but has just a 5.97 earned run average to his credit thus far.
Wright will give the Sox some needed depth after a series of injuries and some pronounced struggles from Dallas Keuchel have thinned out their starting depth in 2022. Lance Lynn has yet to pitch this season after undergoing spring knee surgery, though he’s on a rehab assignment and finally nearing his season debut. Vince Velasquez has struggled quite a bit himself and recently landed on the injured list owing to a groin strain. Keuchel, meanwhile, pitched himself off the roster entirely by logging a 7.88 ERA in 32 innings (eight starts). The Sox designated him for assignment and released him last week.
Lucas Giolito recently returned from the injured list, and the Sox have gotten a better-than-expected performance from former All-Star Johnny Cueto, who inked a minor league deal himself back in early April. Cueto blanked the Royals and the Yankees over six frames apiece in a pair of road outings to begin his White Sox tenure. He was tagged by the Cubs for five runs in his debut at Guaranteed Rate Field and has since tossed a quality start on the road against the Jays as well. Overall, he’s sporting a 2.92 ERA in 24 2/3 frames, cementing his place on the starting staff alongside Giolito, Dylan Cease, Michael Kopech and (barring any late setbacks) the soon-to-return Lynn.
Wright, then, will join rookie Davis Martin and fellow righty Jimmy Lambert as Triple-A depth. He’ll likely be behind that pair on the depth chart given that they’re already on the 40-man roster, but health issues and a slightly condensed 2022 schedule — thanks to the season’s late start — could create some opportunities for Wright down the line if he throws well in Charlotte.
Cubs Outright Robert Gsellman
Right-hander Robert Gsellman, whom the Cubs designated for assignment back on May 30, went unclaimed on outright waivers, as first indicated on the team’s transactions log at MLB.com. The longtime Mets right-hander has enough service time to reject an outright assignment in favor of free agency, but Tommy Birch of the Des Moines Register tweeted this weekend that Gsellman has rejoined the Triple-A Iowa Cubs.
Non-tendered by the Mets last winter, Gsellman signed a minor league deal with Chicago and had has contract selected in early May after posting a tidy 1.17 ERA through 15 1/3 innings with the Cubs’ Iowa affiliate. Gsellman worked an identical number of innings in the Majors following that initial call to the big league roster, but he was tagged for 10 runs (eight earned) on 17 hits and three walks with nine punchouts prior to his DFA.
The 28-year-old Gsellman has battled his share of injuries but has at times been a solid middle relief/setup option for the Mets. Over the past five years in Queens, Gsellman has dealt with a hamstring strain, a ribcage fracture, a pair triceps injuries and, most recently in 2021, a lat strain that limited him to just 17 appearances. Gsellman sustained that lat strain in a June 19 appearance for the Mets last summer and didn’t return to the mound until the final weekend of the season, on Oct. 2.
Gsellman’s 93.5 mph average heater in 2022 was down from its 95.5 mph peak (2019), and his 41.2% grounder rate through those 15 1/3 frames was considerably south of the career 48.6% mark he carried into the 2022 season. He also allowed far too much hard contact, with exactly half the balls put in play against him clocking it at 95 mph or more. Given the inexperienced state of the Cubs’ bullpen — plus the looming likelihood of trades involving veteran arms like David Robertson, Mychal Givens and Daniel Norris — there ought to be future opportunities for Gsellman to work his way back into the big league mix if he continues performing well in Triple-A.
Roman Quinn Elects Free Agency
TODAY: Quinn cleared DFA waivers, and the Phillies announced that Quinn has elected to become a free agent rather accept an outright assignment to Triple-A.
JUNE 1: The Phillies announced a series of roster moves Wednesday, placing second baseman Jean Segura on the 10-day injured list due to a fractured right index finger, recalling lefty Cristopher Sanchez and infielder Nick Maton from Triple-A Lehigh Valley, and designating outfielder Roman Quinn for assignment. The team announced after last night’s game that Segura had fractured his finger.
Quinn, 29, scored the walk-off run from second base on a cringeworthy Dodgers error earlier this season, but his blistering speed hasn’t been enough to offset his general lack of production at the dish. In 40 plate appearances, he’s hitting just .162/.225/.289 with 15 punchouts (37.5%). He’s had similar struggles dating back to the 2019 season, batting a combined .200/.278/.315 through 340 plate appearances with the Phillies, who’ll now have a week to trade the former second-rounder, pass him through outright waivers or release him.
The loss of Segura is a tough one for a Phillies club that is floundering through another disappointing season. The 32-year-old veteran has been solid at the plate, hitting .275/.324/.407 with six home runs and eight stolen bases, and he’s been one of the team’s only average-or-better defenders (by measure of Defensive Runs Saved and Outs Above Average).
In Segura’s absence, the Phils can turn to Maton or utilityman Johan Camargo, with struggling prospect Bryson Stott taking increased reps at shortstop. Maton had a hot start in his MLB debut last year but saw his bat wilt en route to a .256/.323/.385 output over 131 big league plate appearances. He’s hitting .241/.360/.462 so far in Triple-A this year. Camargo similarly had a strong start in 2022 but has faded of late; he’s now hitting .248/.318/.350 on the season.
Phillies Fire Joe Girardi
Joe Girardi is out as the Phillies manager, as the team announced today that he’s been “relieved of his duties.” Coaching assistant Bobby Meacham has also been dismissed. Bench coach Rob Thomson has been named interim manager and will hold that post for the remainder of the season, according to the team. To fill Thomson’s role, the Phillies have promoted Mike Calitri from quality assurance coach to bench coach.
“It has been a frustrating season for us up until this point, as we feel that our club has not played up to its capabilities,” said president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski in a statement within today’s press release. “While all of us share the responsibility for the shortcomings, I felt that a change was needed and that a new voice in the clubhouse would give us the best chance to turn things around. I believe we have a talented group that can get back on track, and I am confident that Rob, with his experience and familiarity with our club, is the right man to lead us going forward.”
Hired in advance of the 2020 season, the now-57-year-old Girardi came to the Phillies as an experienced dugout leader whom owner John Middleton hoped could pull the club out of what has now been more than a decade-long playoff drought. That hasn’t happened yet, and even on the heels of an aggressive offseason of spending to bolster the lineup, the Phils have fallen into a dismal swoon that has seen them plummet to seven games under .500 (22-29) and 12 games out of first place in the National League East.
Of course, the personnel acquired via that offseason spending falls on the front office and ownership — not Girardi. The Phils have routinely been one of the worst defensive teams in baseball over the past decade, but their offseason strategy was not to remedy that longstanding shortcoming but to instead double down by giving weighty long-term contracts to defensively challenged sluggers Nick Castellanos and Kyle Schwarber. Philadelphia, predictably, ranks as one of the game’s worst defensive teams (and the worst defensive team, by measure of Outs Above Average).
More concerning, however, has been the team’s ineffectiveness in other areas. The Phillies rank tenth in the Majors with 230 runs scored and are tied for ninth with 58 home runs — both solid showings but not exactly the juggernaut offense the team and pundits (myself included) had expected. Philadelphia hitters have posted a combined .245/.310/.403 batting line, and the resulting 99 wRC+ ranks 18th in MLB and effectively amounts to league-average offensive output on the whole.
The Phillies’ bullpen woes may not date back quite as far as their defensive ineptitude, but faulty relief pitching has nevertheless been an unfortunate hallmark of Phillies baseball for at least the past few seasons. They relief corps is improved to an extent in 2022, ranking 21st in the game with a 4.15 ERA — an improvement over bottom-of-the-barrel showings in recent seasons. However, no team’s relievers have walked hitters at a higher clip than the Phillies’ 11.7% mark so far in 2022, and the bullpen is a top-heavy unit that has had to rely on inexperienced bargain pickups. The trio of Nick Nelson, Andrew Bellatti and James Norwood, for instance, have accounted for nearly a third of the Phillies’ total innings of relief work.
Some of that, of course, falls on the manager’s usage of the relievers at his disposal. Bullpen management is a generally thankless job when executed well and also perhaps the most frequently cited flaw of any skipper when things are going poorly. Girardi faced plenty of criticism for his usage of the team’s bullpen at times, including some recent handling of closer Corey Knebel. Time will tell whether a managerial change will bring about better results from the relief corps, but it seems unlikely Thomson will be able to bring about significant change with the same group of personnel in the ‘pen.
Just as it was expected that the Phils would struggle on defense, it was expected that their rotation would nonetheless be a strength — and that’s generally been true. Each of Zack Wheeler, Aaron Nola and Kyle Gibson are sporting ERAs comfortably south of 4.00, while Ranger Suarez and Zach Eflin have been at least serviceable in the mid-4.00s. Overall, the Phillies’ rotation ranks 14th with a 4.02 ERA, although their sixth-ranked 3.49 FIP (fielding-independent pitching) naturally suggests that the defense has let Philadelphia starters down.
Ultimately, it’ll have to come down to the Phillies’ lineup if they’re to turn things around. Schwarber is hitting for power and drawing walks but not doing much else, evidenced by his .192/.314/.429 batting line. Nick Castellanos, Alec Bohm and Rhys Hoskins have faded after hot starts, with Castellanos now rating as only a slightly above-average hitter and the others sitting south of league-average. J.T. Realmuto is still hitting better than the majority of big league catchers, but he’s well below his career rates and sitting close to league-average overall, himself. Second baseman Jean Segura, having a solid season at the plate, was recently lost for 10-12 weeks when he broke his finger attempting to bunt for a hit.
Bryce Harper continues to be a powerhouse presence in the middle of the lineup, carrying the batting order with a .303/.359/.534 output. But even he’s not operating neat 100%, as he’s dealing with a torn ligament in his elbow that has relegated him to designated hitter duties because he’s not able to throw from the outfield.
A team with Harper, Castellanos, Schwarber and Hoskins constituting the heart of the lineup is liable to go on an offensive tear at any moment, and as we saw with Schwarber during last year’s historic June power surge, hitters of that caliber can carry a team for lengthy stretches. There’s enough talent in the lineup and in the rotation for the Phillies to get hot and return to the fringes of the newly expanded 12-team playoff picture, but ownership seemingly no longer felt Girardi to be the best option to guide them there. The Phils will be a team worth monitoring closely over the next six weeks, because if Thomson’s unable to right the ship, the focus will turn to the possibility of trading some notable veterans in advance of this year’s Aug. 2 deadline.
Jim Salisbury of NBC Sports Philadelphia first reported that the Phillies were set to make a change at manager, and Jayson Stark of The Athletic first reported that Thomson would take over for Girardi.