Luke Jackson Undergoes Tommy John Surgery
The Braves announced Wednesday that right-hander Luke Jackson underwent Tommy John surgery this morning. It was a widely expected move after Atlanta’s prior announcement that their longtime reliever had been diagnosed with a damaged ulnar collateral ligament in his pitching elbow. The Braves had already placed Jackson on the 60-day injured list, but today’s surgery formally closes the book on his 2022 season and, potentially, on his time with the organization. Jackson will be a free agent at season’s end.
Jackson’s loss is a notable one for the Braves, as the 30-year-old righty bounced back from a career-worst campaign in 2020 to post a career-best season in 2021. In 63 2/3 frames out of Brian Snitker’s bullpen last season, Jackson logged a a career-low 1.98 ERA with a 26.8% strikeout rate against an 11.1% walk rate. He yielded just six home runs on the season and racked up 31 holds on the year — second-most in all of Major League Baseball (behind Los Angeles’ Blake Treinen).
Notably, the Braves and Jackson haven’t even agreed on the right-hander’s salary for the 2022 season. A strange wrinkle from the 99-day lockout this offseason, there are still a handful of players throughout the league who exchanged figures with the team but have not yet settled on a deal. Jackson is among them, filing for a $4MM salary against the Braves’ filing of a $3.6MM sum. Arbitration salaries are based entirely on prior performance — they’re typically sorted in the offseason — and a potential arbitration hearing would only factor in Jackson’s prior performance rather than his current injury status.
Of course, one might wonder whether the Braves would try to now reengage on the possibility of a multi-year deal aimed at keeping Jackson at a lower price point in 2023 (and perhaps into 2024) than he’d have otherwise commanded. That’s purely speculative, but the Braves did put together a similarly structured deal for veteran reliever Kirby Yates this past winter.
If Jackson indeed simply reaches free agency as scheduled, he’d hit the open market at a time when teams know he could very well miss a month or two of the 2023 season. That doesn’t necessarily stop a Tommy John pitcher from securing a solid contract (as Yates and many others have proved), but it’d be an obvious dampener on what could’ve been some notable earning power for Jackson.
Even without Jackson, the Braves still ought to have a strong bullpen. Newcomers Kenley Jansen and Collin McHugh will join holdovers Will Smith, Tyler Matzek and A.J. Minter as experienced late-inning options. The aforementioned Yates is expected to rejoin the club at some point this summer, adding another All-Star-caliber arm to the mix. That’s not to diminish the importance Jackson held, but the Atlanta front office is surely glad to have bolstered the relief corps over the winter now that last year’s top setup option is done for the year.
Rays Select Dusten Knight, Transfer Luis Patino To 60-Day Injured List
The Rays announced Wednesday that they’ve selected the contract of right-hander Dusten Knight from Triple-A Durham and opened a spot on the 40-man roster for the by transferring righty Luis Patino from the 10-day injured list to the 60-day injured list. Patino is currently out with a strained left oblique, and he’ll now be ineligible to return until early or mid-June. Tampa Bay also optioned Ralph Garza Jr. to Durham to open a spot on the active roster for Knight.
The loss of Patino for upwards of two months is particularly notable for the Rays, who had hoped that the former top prospect could hold down a critical rotation job in 2022. Acquired in the trade that sent Blake Snell to San Diego, Patino worked to a 4.31 ERA in 77 1/3 frames. Still just 22 years of age, Patino ranked as highly as the game’s No. 18 prospect (per Baseball America) back in 2020, and it was hard to argue that based on his dominant minor league performance. Patino graduated to the Majors at just 20 years of age but nevertheless climbed as high as Double-A and, in 263 1/3 minor league frames, has a 2.43 ERA with a 29.9% strikeout rate.
With Patino sidelined, Shane Baz still recovering from arthroscopic elbow surgery, and Ryan Yarbrough on the shelf owing to a groin injury, the Rays’ rotation doesn’t look quite like they drew it up. Shane McClanahan, Corey Kluber and Drew Rasmussen are locked into spots, but the Rays could now lean on prospect Tommy Romero and lefty Josh Fleming more than anticipated — at least for the time being. Tampa Bay, of course, has a deep farm and a knack for developing out-of-the-blue success stories on the mound, so it shouldn’t come as a surprise if they’re able to weather the early storm of injuries.
Knight, 31, made his big league debut with the Orioles this past season after spending parts of eight seasons in the minors. A former 28th-round pick by the Giants (2013), Knight parlayed a strong Triple-A showing — 1.30 ERA, 27-to-12 K/BB ratio in 27 2/3 frames at the time of his promotion — into his first call to the big leagues. Things didn’t go as smoothly in Baltimore, however, as Knight yielded a pair of runs in one inning during his debut effort. He appeared in a total of seven games and was ultimately tagged for 10 runs (nine earned) on 11 hits and five walks with 11 strikeouts through 8 2/3 frames.
Rocky showing in his debut season notwithstanding, Knight has a solid track record in Triple-A, where he’s posted a 3.11 ERA with a 23% strikeout rate and 10.6% walk rate in parts of three seasons — a total of 104 1/3 innings. On the whole, in Knight’s eight minor league seasons, he’s surrendered just 32 home runs in 397 innings of work while whiffing more than 27% of his opponents against an 8.5% walk rate.
Tigers Acquire Jamie Westbrook From Brewers
The Tigers announced Wednesday morning that they’ve acquired minor league infielder/outfielder Jamie Westbrook from the Brewers in exchange for cash. Westbrook, who is not on the 40-man roster, will report to Triple-A Toledo.
It’s a straightforward minor league trade for a Tigers club that has lost some outfield depth early in the season with injuries to top prospect Riley Greene (broken foot) and Derek Hill (strained hamstring). Detroit is also facing a potential absence for Robbie Grossman, who exited last night’s game with a groin injury. Grossman tells reporters this morning that an MRI did not reveal a strain (Twitter link via Evan Woodbery of MLive.com), and while that’s certainly good news, it’s still possible that the ensuing tightness/discomfort will lead to a brief IL stint. Daz Cameron was added to the taxi squad, Woodbery notes, and could be called up if Grossman does require a 10-day absence to heal up.
Westbrook, 26, isn’t strictly an outfielder and has actually spent more time at second base than in the outfield, but he’s still no stranger to playing on the grass. He missed time last season to suit up for Team USA in the Olympics, but Westbrook split the rest of the season between Milwaukee’s Double-A and Triple-A affiliates, where he slashed a combined .281/.353/.456 with a dozen homers, 16 doubles, a pair of triples and three steals in 365 plate appearances.
It was a solid all-around year for Westbrook, who has consistently been an above-average hitter in the upper minors. Despite a generally solid performance throughout his minor league career, Westbrook has yet to get a call to the Majors either in Arizona or in Milwaukee. Listed at 5’9″, he’s been labeled as an “undersized” player and been questioned by scouts due to his diminutive nature. The fact that he’s been limited to left field and second base on the defensive spectrum hasn’t helped his prospect stock much.
That said, Westbrook is out to another good start in Triple-A — 5-for-10 with a double, a walk and no strikeouts — and he’ll bring a righty bat with a track record of performing in the upper minors to his new organization. In 446 Triple-A plate appearances, Westbrook is a .308/.380/.510 hitter. He’s also slashed .270/.324/.411 in a more pitcher-friendly Double-A setting (1786 plate appearances) and .319/.357/.510 in Class-A Advanced (527 plate appearances).
It’s primarily a depth acquisition for the Tigers, but if Westbrook continues to perform at an above-average offensive level, it’s possible he’ll finally break through to the big league level in his ninth professional season.
Reds Select Nick Lodolo, Designate Riley O’Brien For Assignment
The Reds formally announced top pitching prospect Nick Lodolo‘s widely expected promotion to the big leagues yesterday, and they’ve now officially added him to the Major League roster by selecting his contract from Triple-A Louisville. Right-hander Riley O’Brien was designated for assignment in a corresponding 40-man move, and Cincinnati optioned righty Daniel Duarte to Louisville to open a spot on the active 28-man roster.
The 27-year-old O’Brien will now be traded or placed on outright waivers within a week’s time. An eighth-round pick by the Rays back in 2017, O’Brien came to the Reds in a 2020 trade that sent southpaw Cody Reed to Tampa Bay. He made his big league debut in 2021 but pitched just 1 1/3 innings in his lone start before being sent back to Louisville, where he otherwise spent the entirety of his 2021 season.
In 112 2/3 innings with Louisville last season, O’Brien pitched to a 4.55 ERA with generally similar marks from fielding-independent pitching metrics. He fanned a solid 24.7% of his Triple-A opponents and induced grounders at a similarly sound 45% clip, but O’Brien walked 11.2% of his opponents and plunked 10 more. O’Brien also walked three of the nine big league hitters he faced last year and allowed a pair of homers, illustrating that he’ll need to refine his command if he’s to find success at the big league level.
That said, O’Brien only turned 27 a couple months ago and has a pair of minor league option years remaining (2022 included). He’s shown an ability to miss bats in the minors and, as Eric Longenhagen and Tess Taruskin wrote when ranking him 29th among Cincinnati prospects, he’s shown three pitches that have all, at times, looked like potential plus offerings: his fastball, curveball and changeup. A club with some 40-man flexibility and a need for pitching depth could certainly take him on as a project.
As covered in greater detail yesterday, Lodolo will join fellow top prospect Hunter Greene in a youthful and high-upside Cincinnati rotation. The No. 7 overall pick in the 2019 draft, Lodolo is widely considered to be among the sport’s 100 best prospects and will give Reds fans a pair of young hurlers on which to dream.
Lodolo, Greene, 2021 Rookie of the Year Jonathan India and promising young backstop Tyler Stephenson could well be integral parts of the Reds’ core moving forward, and the organization undoubtedly still has high hopes for former No. 2 overall draft pick Nick Senzel, whose career to date has been continually derailed by injuries. Cincinnati surely still hopes to contend in 2022, but in order to do so they’ll need big performances from several young players, as the club also subtracted a number of productive veterans over the winter while cutting payroll (e.g. Jesse Winker, Sonny Gray, Wade Miley).
White Sox Place Lucas Giolito, AJ Pollock On Injured List
1:25pm: It’ll be Lambert starting in place of Giolito this week, GM Rick Hahn tells reporters (Twitter links via Scott Merkin of MLB.com). Hahn added that the Sox are “not necessarily expecting him to go out there and get us deep into the game” but rather to open the game with a few quality innings before turning things over to the ‘pen.
10:40am: The White Sox announced Tuesday that right-hander Lucas Giolito and outfielder AJ Pollock have both been placed on the 10-day injured list. Giolito left his season debut with an abdominal strain, and the Sox had already revealed that he’s expected to miss at least two starts. Pollock, meanwhile is dealing with a hamstring strain that forced him from Saturday’s game. The ChiSox recalled right-hander Jimmy Lambert and lefty Anderson Severino from Triple-A Charlotte in a pair of corresponding moves.
Giolito hurled four shutout frames before exiting his debut tilt, and he’ll now be sidelined for at least his next two turns through the rotation. His placement on the 10-day IL is retroactive to April 9, so he’s eligible for return beginning on April 19. Giolito joins right-hander Lance Lynn on the shelf, though Lynn is expected to miss considerably more time than him after undergoing knee surgery.
With their top two starters out of action, the White Sox will likely look to Dylan Cease, Dallas Keuchel, Michael Kopech, Vince Velasquez and Reynaldo Lopez to shoulder the workload in the rotation for the time being. Lambert worked three innings in his lone Triple-A appearance thus far, so he could be an option to provide some length along with Velasquez and Lopez at the back of the rotation. Chicago also inked veteran Johnny Cueto to a minor league deal earlier in the month, but he’s still building up toward game readiness after lingering as a free agent throughout the majority of Spring Training.
It’s not yet clear how much time Pollock will be expected to miss, though it’s certainly worth noting that his placement on the IL is retroactive to April 10. Acquired in a straight-up swap that sent Craig Kimbrel to the Dodgers, the 34-year-old Pollock has gotten out to a 4-for-7 start in his brief White Sox tenure so far. His absence will open the door for some additional at-bats in the outfield for Gavin Sheets, Andrew Vaughn and Adam Engel. Both Sheets and Vaughn were getting some early outfield work in just minutes after the announcement, tweets James Fegan of The Athletic.
MLBTR Chat Transcript
Click here to read a transcript of Tuesday’s chat with MLBTR’s Steve Adams.
Phillies Select Jeff Singer
The Phillies announced Tuesday that they’ve selected the contract of lefty Jeff Singer from Triple-A Lehigh Valley. Righty Corey Knebel has been placed on the Covid-related injured list in a corresponding move. The Phils also sent outfielder Odubel Herrera on a rehab assignment with High-A Clearwater.
Singer, 28, has tossed four shutout innings so far for the IronPigs in 2022, though he’s also yielded four walks against just a pair of strikeouts. The Philadelphia native spent the 2021 season in Triple-A as well, pitching to a 4.75 ERA with a 28.2% strikeout rate against a 10.9% walk rate. He’s kept his strikeout rate in the 27-29% range over the past several minor league seasons, albeit without particularly strong walk rates. The Phillies already have five lefties in the bullpen — Jose Alvarado, Brad Hand, Damon Jones, Bailey Falter and Cristopher Sanchez — but Singer will give manager Joe Girardi another option while Knebel is sidelined.
The Phils didn’t specify whether Knebel tested positive for Covid-19, although he did have flu-like symptoms yesterday (Twitter link via Alex Coffey of the Philadelphia Inquirer). Still, players can be placed on the Covid-related IL (and thus temporarily removed from the 40-man roster) in the event that they display symptoms or are deemed a close contact of someone known to have tested positive. It’s not clear at this time how long Knebel will be away from the club.
Braves Select Bryce Elder, Designate Chadwick Tromp For Assignment
The Braves have selected the contract of right-handed pitching prospect Bryce Elder in advance of tonight’s game, per a club announcement. Elder will start for the Braves and make his Major League debut. In a corresponding 40-man roster move, catcher Chadwick Tromp was designated for assignment. Atlanta also optioned lefty Tucker Davidson and catcher William Contreras to Triple-A Gwinnett.
Elder, 22, somewhat incredibly becomes the second Braves draftee from the shortened, five-round 2020 amateur draft to reach the Majors. He and teammate Spencer Strider have both had meteoric rises through the minors and now represent two of the just five players from the 2020 draft already in the Majors. Elder (fifth round) and Strider (fourth) are the only non-first-rounders from that draft already in the Majors.
Looking at last year’s numbers, it’s perhaps not a shock that Elder was such a quick riser. He opened the 2021 season with 45 innings of 2.60 ERA ball against older competition in Class-A Advanced before tossing 56 frames of 3.21 ERA ball upon promotion to the Double-A level. Elder was then bumped to Triple-A Gwinnett, where he logged a 2.21 ERA in 36 2/3 frames despite being one of the youngest pitchers in the league.
Elder kept his strikeout rate above 27% the entire time and also posted ground-ball rates of at least 53.6% at each level, although command was more of a concern. Elder walked 57 of the 559 batters he faced (10.2%) and was particularly spotty in that regard against more advanced hitters at the Triple-A level (13.6%).
Baseball America ranks Elder sixth among Braves farmhands, noting that while the system has more powerful arms, Elder is the prototypical “pitchability” starter who’s a good bet to hold a spot in a rotation due to a five-pitch mix headlined by a sinker, plus slider and above-average changeup. Improving on his command will be key to further development for Elder, but he’ll have the opportunity to do so at the MLB level given the lack of proven starters for the Braves at the moment. Max Fried, Charlie Morton and Ian Anderson are all secure in their rotation spots, but Kyle Wright, Huascar Ynoa and Tucker Davidson have not yet solidified themself as long-term options. Mike Soroka, meanwhile, is on the shelf until this summer as he rehabs an Achilles injury.
As for the 27-year-old Tromp, he’ll lose his roster spot after four productive games in Gwinnett, where he’s gone 5-for-14 with a home run and a double. Tromp spent the bulk of the past two seasons in the Giants organization, batting .215/.220/.418 in a tiny sample of 82 Major League plate appearances. Atlanta claimed him off waivers from San Francisco last September. Tromp didn’t have a productive 2021 season in Triple-A, where he’s a career .254/.314/.412 hitter in parts of five seasons.
The Braves will have a week to trade Tromp, place him on outright waivers or release him. Teams are always on the lookout for catching depth, so there’s always a chance that a 27-year-old catcher with a pair of minor league options remaining will find a new home on the waiver wire.
Reds To Promote Nick Lodolo
Top Reds pitching prospect Nick Lodolo will make his Major League debut tomorrow, the team announced. Lodolo, the No. 7 overall pick in 2019, will start tomorrow’s game against the Guardians and join fellow top prospect Hunter Greene in the rotation. Greene impressed with seven punchouts and a barrage of triple-digit heaters in his own MLB debut this past weekend. Lodolo has not yet been selected to the 40-man roster, so Cincinnati will need to make a corresponding move before he is formally promoted to the big leagues.
It’s been expected since the season opened that Lodolo would take the mound this week and make his big league debut, but it’s nevertheless notable that Cincinnati has now made it official and set the stage for a forthcoming 40-man move to add the prized young lefty to the roster. Lodolo split the 2021 season between Double-A Chattanooga and Triple-A Louisville, pitching to a combined 2.31 ERA with an eye-popping 38.8% strikeout rate, just a 5.5% walk rate and a 54.3% ground-ball rate.
Impressive as those numbers were, Lodolo also missed time last year with blister troubles and, far more troublingly, with a shoulder strain that ended his season in August. He looked plenty sharp this spring, tossing 11 1/3 innings of 2.38 ERA ball with a 12-to-2 K/BB ratio, so it certainly looks as though he’s put the shoulder troubles behind him for now. Still, those injuries limited Lodolo to just 50 2/3 innings in 2021, and he of course didn’t pitch at all in 2020, when there was no minor league season.
The largest workload Lodolo has ever recorded is the combined 121 1/3 innings he pitched between his junior season at Texas Christian University and the Reds’ lower minor league levels in 2019, when he was drafted. It stands to reason that Cincinnati will be relatively careful when it comes to managing his innings.
Even if the Reds limit his innings on the season as a whole or on a start-by-start basis, there’s good reason to be excited about the lefty’s arrival on the scene. As one would expect for a pitcher with that lofty draft stock and those scintillating 2021 numbers, Lodolo is widely regarded as one of baseball’s most promising young pitchers. He ranked as a top-100 prospect at Baseball America (No. 32), MLB.com (No. 42), Baseball Prospectus (No. 42), FanGraphs (No. 52) and ESPN (No. 79).
There’s a fairly wide split as to just how highly Lodolo ought to be regarded, though most scouting reports on him will characterize him as a likely mid-rotation arm. Still, FanGraphs’ Eric Longenhagen and Tess Taruskin wrote that Lodolo was one of the “more divisive” players discussed with evaluators when writing their top prospect rankings, noting that while analytics-driven evaluations love his changeup, scouts question it and wonder why he threw it so little (9%) if it’s truly one of his best offerings.
FanGraphs touts Lodolo for having three plus pitches, whereas Baseball America opines that the slider is Lodolo’s only plus offering. The Athletic’s Keith Law omitted Lodolo from his Top 100 altogether, but ranked him fifth in the Cincinnati system while opining on the lack of a third plus pitch and likening Lodolo’s slider and arm slot to that of Andrew Miller.
Split camps are nothing new when it comes to prospect evaluation, and there’s certainly still consensus that Lodolo is a big league talent who’ll play a role with the Reds for years to come. Data-driven models and traditional scouting may not agree on the lefty’s ceiling, but Lodolo will have the opportunity to start proving skeptics wrong beginning tomorrow. He’ll bring a mid-90s heater, a quality sweeping slider and that divisive changeup with him to Great American Ball Park, and there’s a clear long-term opportunity in the rotation now that Cincinnati has traded Sonny Gray and dropped Wade Miley via waivers.
If Lodolo is in the big leagues for good, there’s still enough time on the calendar for him to log a full year of service time — regardless of his finish in end-of-year awards voting. He’d be eligible for arbitration after the 2024 season and would be controlled through the 2027 campaign via arbitration. Of course, future optional assignments could impact that timeline, but Lodolo’s fate is largely in his own hands now that he’s getting his first big league look at a time when the rotation has such ample opportunity.
Mets Outright Yennsy Diaz
Mets right-hander Yennsy Diaz went unclaimed on waivers and has been assigned outright to Triple-A Syracuse, per the team’s transactions page. He’ll remain with the organization but will no longer occupy a place on the 40-man roster.
Diaz was one of three pitchers acquired from the Blue Jays in exchange for Steven Matz during the 2020-21 offseason, coming to the organization alongside righties Sean Reid-Foley and Josh Wincowski — the latter of whom has since been traded to the Red Sox as part of the three-team deal that netted outfielder Khalil Lee. The Mets designated the 25-year-old Diaz for assignment last week after acquiring righty Adonis Medina from the Pirates.
Diaz appeared in 20 games with the Mets last season, pitching to a 5.40 ERA with lackluster 18.8% strikeout and 10.7% walk rates. Diaz did average a robust 95.5 mph on his heater during that time, but his four-seamer also had bottom-of-the-scale spin rate and was hit hard by opposing batters. The 6’1″, 210-pound righty was also hit hard in a small sample of 17 Triple-A frames last year, but prior to 2021 he’d posted solid results as a starter up through the Double-A level in the Blue Jays’ system.
Baseball America regularly ranked him near the back end of Toronto’s top 30 prospects, praising his fastball velocity but noting that a lack of plus secondary pitch limits him. Diaz leaned on a changeup in the minors and in last year’s 20 big league frames, and he’ll now be able to work to refine that offering or perhaps experiment with some new offspeed options as he works back toward the Majors. He’s the second righty to clear waivers and stick around as depth in as many days; the Mets outrighted Jordan Yamamoto to Syracuse yesterday.