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Latest On Anibal Sanchez

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April 29: Sanchez is still evaluating his options and will throw a four-inning bullpen on Friday, Rosenthal tweets. He wants to build up to the 100-pitch mark before he signs anywhere.

April 28: Sanchez is planning to sign this week and could settle on a team as early as tomorrow, reports Joel Sherman of the New York Post (Twitter link).

April 23: The Yankees, Phillies, Marlins, Tigers, Diamondbacks and Blue Jays were among the teams at Sanchez’s showcase this morning, Heyman tweets.

April 21: Sanchez will throw yet another bullpen session for teams this Friday, tweets MLB Network’s Jon Heyman. He worked out for clubs in the offseason and reportedly turned down a couple offers, opting instead to see how health-and-safety protocols played out. He then worked out for teams early in the season but suffered the aforementioned finger laceration midway through his bullpen.

April 20: Free-agent righty Anibal Sanchez has been working out for clubs around the league and is drawing interest from several of his former employers, per The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal. The Braves, Nationals and Marlins have all looked into Sanchez, whose last bullpen session was truncated by a laceration on his middle finger that ought to have healed up by now. There’s interest from a couple of AL clubs as well, per Rosenthal.

Interest from any of the clubs linked to Sanchez this morning makes plenty of sense, given the pitching situations on each of the three. The Braves have recently placed Max Fried and Drew Smyly on the injured list, where they’ve joined Mike Soroka, whose recovery timeline recently hit a setback. None of the injuries is thought to be especially long-term, but the team’s depth has been tested early on.

The Nationals placed Stephen Strasburg on the injured list this week and have watched as left Patrick Corbin has been crushed by opposing lineups (15 earned runs in 6 1/3 innings). Last night’s rough start from Joe Ross only added fuel to the fire, sending the team’s collective rotation ERA to a disastrous 6.24 that ranks last among all big league teams. Currently, Max Scherzer is the only Nats pitcher who has started more than one game and has an ERA south of 5.00.

Meanwhile, Marlins righties Sixto Sanchez and Elieser Hernandez have dealt with injuries early in the 2021 season. They’re also carrying a pair of Rule 5 right-handers, Zach Pop and Paul Campbell, who have been hit hard in their first exposure to big league pitching.

Sanchez, 37, didn’t sign over the winter and is coming off a rough 2020 showing. The veteran right-hander was tagged for a 6.62 ERA in 53 innings with the Nationals last summer, although he’s only a season removed from 166 innings of 3.85 ERA ball during his first season with Washington.

Cubs Designate Brandon Workman For Assignment

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The Cubs have designated right-handed reliever Brandon Workman for assignment, per a team announcement. Left-hander Justin Steele has been recalled from the alternate training site in his place.

Workman, 32, signed a one-year, $1MM contract with the Cubs late in the offseason. The contract came with an additional $2MM of available incentives for the former Red Sox closer, but his stint with the Cubs looks to be coming to a close after just eight innings.

Workman was hit hard in that brief time, surrendering six runs on a dozen hits (two homers) and seven walks with 11 strikeouts. It’s the second consecutive rough year for the hard-throwing righty, who was clobbered for a 5.95 ERA in 19 2/3 frames between the Red Sox and Phillies last summer.

Setting aside his disappointing work in 2020-21, Workman was a solid late-inning option for Boston from 2017-19. During that time he gave the BoSox 152 2/3 innings of 2.59 ERA ball while striking out just under 29 percent of the hitters he faced. Workman led the Red Sox with 16 saves in 2019 and finished second among Boston relievers with 71 2/3 innings — all while striking out more than 36 percent of his opponents.

Workman’s average fastball has dipped by more than a mile per hour since that brilliant 2019 campaign, dropping from 93.1 mph to 91.8 mph. He’s still registered a respectable swinging-strike rate since 2020 (10.7 percent), but Workman has yielded far too much hard contact and seen his already pedestrian walk rate spike to egregious levels in recent years.

The Cubs will have a week to trade Workman, try to pass him through waivers or simply release him. Based on his track record, he should land with another club if he does hit the market, but that may well have to come on a non-guaranteed pact. Offseason interest in the righty was tepid enough, after all, that he inked the aforementioned one-year, $1MM guarantee. It’s hard to imagine that a lackluster showing with the Cubs has done any favors for his stock. Still, Workman’s dominant 2019 season is a testament to his raw ability, and other clubs around the league surely have their own ideas about how to once again coax that type of performance from him.

As for the 25-year-old Steele, he made his big league debut earlier this year and rattled off 3 1/3 innings of shutout ball. Baseball America tabs him as the organization’s No. 22 prospect, characterizing him as a potential hard-throwing reliever with some command issues. Steele was a starter throughout his minor league career, but the Cubs are looking at him in the ’pen after he was rocked for a 5.59 ERA through 11 starts in a pitcher-friendly setting at Double-A in 2019.

Wade LeBlanc Elects Free Agency

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Veteran left-hander Wade LeBlanc went unclaimed on outright waivers after being designated for assignment by the Orioles and has elected to become a free agent, MLB.com’s Jon Morosi reports (via Twitter). He’s free to sign with any club for the prorated league minimum.

LeBlanc, 36, was with the Orioles in 2020 and to begin the 2021 season, but his results with Baltimore weren’t pretty. Through 29 innings of work, the veteran was tagged for 27 runs on the strength of 38 hits (seven homers) and nine walks with just 19 strikeouts.

It’s been a few years now since LeBlanc’s quietly solid 2014-18 run, during which he racked up 321 2/3 innings of 3.92 ERA ball between the Angels, Yankees, Pirates and Mariners. Much of that production came during a 2018 season in Seattle where LeBlanc threw a career-high 162 innings over 32 appearances (27 starts) and notched a tidy 3.72 ERA.

The lack of recent success if of course glaring, but LeBlanc carries a lifetime 4.11 ERA in parts of nine Triple-A seasons and a 4.59 ERA in 889 innings at the MLB level. Given the number of pitching injuries around the league early in the 2021 season, he could latch on somewhere as an experienced and cost-efficient depth signing.

White Sox Place Garrett Crochet On IL, Activate Luis Robert

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The White Sox announced that lefty Garrett Crochet has been placed on the 10-day IL (retroactive to April 26) with an upper back strain. The South Siders also reinstated center fielder Luis Robert from the injured list and called up infielder Danny Mendick to serve as the 27th man for today’s twin bill against the Tigers.

Crochet’s ascension to and dominance in the Majors has been rather remarkable. The 21-year-old was the No. 11 overall pick out of Tennessee last year but was in the big leagues just months later and even made Chicago’s postseason roster. Counting that lone appearance in the AL Wild Card Series, which saw him depart early due to a left forearm strain, he’s pitched 15 2/3 innings and held opponents to one earned run (plus three unearned) on 12 hits and five walks with 18 strikeouts. Crochet averaged 100.2 mph on his heater in 2020, though that average velo is down to “only” 96.6 mph early in 2021.

The Sox have yet to give any indication as to how long Crochet might be sidelined. His absence leaves Aaron Bummer as the only southpaw option in the bullpen, and the Sox don’t have another lefty option on the 40-man roster to call up as a replacement. They do have a trio of non-roster lefties slated to open the year in Triple-A, however: Jacob Lindgren, Kodi Medeiros and Nik Turley.

Robert returns after just a couple days away from the roster. He’d been on the Covid list after reporting symptoms but looks to have been quickly tested negative and been cleared to play. Mendick will return for a brief look after going 6-for-16 with five walks and five strikeouts in 21 plate appearances earlier this season. He’s a .272/.320/.401 hitter in 175 plate appearances and can play all over the infield.

Mariners Place Marco Gonzales On Injured List

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The Mariners are placing left-hander Marco Gonzales on the 10-day injured list after a Wednesday MRI revealed a left forearm strain, tweets Corey Brock of The Athletic. Manager Scott Servais tells reporters that Gonzales will miss at least “a couple starts.” He’s already begun treatment. Righty Domingo Tapia is being called up from the taxi squad to take Gonzales’ spot on the roster, tweets Ryan Divish of the Seattle Times.

It’s been a rough start to the season for the typically steady Gonzales. The 29-year-old has been the Mariners’ best pitcher in recent years and quietly been one of the league’s more effective lefties overall. From 2018-20, the former Cardinals first-rounder pitched to a 3.85 ERA with a 19.5 percent strikeout rate, a 5.2 percent walk rate and a 41.8 percent grounder rate. Along the way, Seattle inked Gonzales to a four-year, $30MM contract extension that includes a club option for the 2025 season as well.

Gonzales hasn’t looked much like himself this season, logging an ugly 5.40 ERA (4.80 SIERA) through his first five starts, which have lasted just 28 1/3 frames. Gonzales’ 19 percent strikeout rate is down from last year’s 23.1 percent (although close to his combined 2018-20 rate), but his 9.1 percent walk rate is his worst since his 2014 rookie campaign in St. Louis. His 88.1 mph average fastball velocity is also 1.8 mph south of his career mark.

However, it doesn’t appear that the forearm strain is at the root of those issues — or at least, Gonzales isn’t using it as any kind of excuse. Divish tweets that Gonzales says he only felt the discomfort crop up after his last outing. And to be fair to Gonzales, he’s fared quite a bit better in his three most recent starts than he did in his first two outings of the year. The lefty held the Dodgers to a run on six hits and a walk last week before limiting Houston to a pair of runs in six frames as recently as Monday.

Gonzales joins James Paxton (season-ending surgery) and Nick Margevicius (shoulder inflammation) as rotation arms on the injured list for Seattle. With that group sidelined, the M’s will look to Justus Sheffield, Chris Flexen, Yusei Kikuchi and Justin Dunn in the rotation. Their starter for Saturday’s game is still listed as TBD, though long relievers Ljay Newsome and/or Robert Dugger could perhaps step into that spot to head up a bullpen game.

Seattle also has some notable top pitching prospects thought to be on the cusp of big league readiness — 2018 first-rounder Logan Gilbert chief among them. Gilbert, the game’s No. 35 overall prospect at Baseball America, breezed through three minor league levels in his lone season of minor league ball in 2019. Through 135 levels spread across Class-A, Class-A Advanced and Double-A, he worked to a 2.13 ERA with 165 strikeouts (31.7 percent) against just 33 walks (6.3 percent).

Mike Soroka Cleared To Begin Throwing

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April 29: Soroka has been cleared to begin “simple” throwing exercises, reports Mark Bowman of MLB.com, adding that the Braves indeed feel the righty is more than a month away from returning. Manager Brian Snitker indicates that Soroka effectively has to “start over” with his buildup to the season. “We’ve just got to be patient with him,” said Snitker.

April 27: Braves righty Mike Soroka has yet to pitch in 2021 thanks not only to last year’s season-ending Achilles tear but also due to some inflammation that’s popped up in his shoulder. While Soroka’s most recent MRI did not reveal any structural damage, MLB Network’s Jon Morosi reported today (video link) that it did show some lingering inflammation. Soroka won’t begin throwing until that’s cleared out, and at that point, he’ll effectively need a full, Spring Training-esque buildup before he returns to the big leagues. Morosi suggests he isn’t likely to return until sometime in June, at the earliest.

That’s a tough blow for Braves fans and for a team that was originally hoping to have Soroka back around late April. The Braves are likely proceeding with some extra caution, however, as Soroka was twice placed on the injured list during his rookie season due to shoulder troubles — the second stint proving to be a season-ender

Soroka returned with a flourish in 2019, rattling off 174 2/3 innings of 2.68 ERA ball, a 20.3 percent strikeout rate, a 5.8 percent walk rate and a league-best 0.7 homers per nine innings pitched. He appeared in just three games last season, however, before suffering a torn Achilles tendon when coming off the mound to cover first base on a grounder to the right side of the infield.

It’s been another rocky season for the Atlanta rotation, which added veterans Charlie Morton ($15MM) and Drew Smyly ($11MM) on a pair of relatively high-priced one-year deals this winter. Braves starters have combined for a 5.29 ERA that ranks 29th of 30 teams.

Morton leads the club with five starts and 28 1/3 innings pitched, but he’s struggled to strand runners and is has a 4.76 ERA in the earlygoing (albeit with much better secondary marks). Max Fried has struggled through three starts and is currently alongside on Soroka on the injured list due to a hamstring strain. Smyly has also had an early IL stint, while Ian Anderson hasn’t quite replicated last year’s brilliant rookie showing.

Among the team’s fill-in starters, Huascar Ynoa has impressed, piling up strikeouts in bunches while yielding just six runs through 21 frames. The results haven’t been as sharp for either Bryse Wilson or Kyle Wright, though Wilson has made just two appearances and Wright only one.

For the time being, the Braves will roll with Morton, Anderson, Smyly, Ynoa and Wilson starting games. It’s a solid bunch, but the absence of the 2019 NL Rookie of the Year runner-up (Soroka) and the 2020 fifth-place Cy Young finisher (Fried) is rather glaring. A healthy group of Soroka, Fried, Morton, Anderson and Smyly could be one of the most imposing rotations in the Majors, but it doesn’t seem like we’ll see that quintet together in the near future.

Rays’ Wander Franco To Open Minor League Season In Triple-A

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Rays shortstop Wander Franco, the consensus top prospect in all of baseball, will head to Triple-A Durham when the minor league season begins next week, reports Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times (Twitter link).

The initial assignment doesn’t provide a concrete timeline for when Franco might be called to the big leagues, but it’s a fairly aggressive placement and one that’s worth noting, given Franco’s status within the game. He only turned 20 years old last month, and an assignment to Durham means he’ll skip the Double-A level entirely. Franco split the 2019 season between Class-A and Class-A Advanced, slashing a combined .327/.398/.487 with nine homers, 27 doubles, seven triples and 18 stolen bases in 495 plate appearances as one of the youngest players in both leagues.

From a service time standpoint, Franco is already well past the point where he could accrue a full year in 2021, meaning the Rays would control him all the way through 2027 regardless of when he’s brought to the Majors. Were he to remain in the minor leagues through late April 2022, they’d gain an extra year of control — through the 2028 campaign — but the general expectation has been that Franco could be in the big leagues this summer. Depending on when he’s called up, he could be in Super Two territory and thus be arbitration-eligible four times. Waiting until late mid or late June would likely keep him from reaching that designation.

There will inevitably be a spotlight placed on Franco and his performance in Durham, just as there will likely be vocal calls for his promotion to the Major Leagues right out of the gate. The early struggles from Tampa Bay shortstop Willy Adames, who has batted just .173/.215/.320 through his first 79 plate appearances, will only further fuel that scenario if the 25-year-old Adames is unable to right the ship.

At the same time, it’s worth remembering that Franco was only 18 years old when the 2019 season ended and that outside of 11 games in the Dominican Winter League, he hasn’t played in a professional game since. The Rays are surely hopeful that when Franco is called to the Majors, he’s ready for the challenge and needn’t ever be sent back to the minors for further development. The fact that he’s bypassing Double-A and going straight to the club’s top affiliate seems like a vote of confidence that he’s on the cusp of such readiness, but he’ll get some vital development time against the most advanced pitching he’s ever faced for the time being.

Pioneer League Testing Home Run Derby In Place Of Extra Innings

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April 29: The Athletic’s Zach Buchanan spoke with PBL president Michael Shapiro about the league’s new rules for the 2021 season. It’s an interesting look at the reasoning behind the radical adoption of the “Knock Out” tactic, which was engineered without running the idea by Major League Baseball. “We didn’t get MLB approval, nor did we ask for it,” Shapiro tells Buchanan.

Shapiro details some of the challenges that lengthy extra-innings affairs present to an independent league: the cost of keeping a park staffed and lit late into the night, the difficulty of teams finding professional quality players able to report to Montana, Idaho and other less-populated areas on short notice to lessen the toll on an overtaxed bullpen, etc.

Buchanan and other Athletic writers surveyed players and staffers around MLB for their own reaction to the changes. Hunter Pence, Willie Calhoun, David Bell, Paul Goldschmidt and Terry Francona all weighed in. The column is a terrific read and well worth a look for those who are interested in the motivation behind the changes and some reaction from those within the sport.

April 27: The Pioneer Baseball League, one of several independent leagues designated this past offseason as an official “Partner League” of Major League Baseball, announced this morning that it will install a series of rule changes for the upcoming 2021 season. The PBL will test out the usage of designated pinch-hitters and pinch-runners, and on a larger scale, the use of a sudden-death “Knock Out” format to resolve games that end in nine-inning ties (i.e., a home run derby format supplanting the traditional extra-inning format). They’ll also change the appeal process on check swings.

Per the PBL’s release, the “Knock Out” format is being implemented “to avoid excessive strain” on pitching staffs. In this new format, each team would designate one player to receive five pitches in a “sudden death home run duel.” (The release does not specify who would be throwing the pitches.) If the initial “Knock Out” round ends in a tie, each team would then designate a second hitter to compete in a five-pitch showdown. This will continue until a winner can be declared.

The designated pinch-hitter and pinch-runner function in identical fashion to one another. A bench player who has not previously entered the game can either pinch-hit or pinch-run for “an eligible roster player who may then return to his defensive position for the remainder of the game, until otherwise substituted for.” Any player used as a designated pinch-hitter or pinch-runner is “thereafter ineligible to return to the game.” Both measures can be utilized only once per game, per team.

The PBL is also implementing a new “Check Swing” rule which allows the hitter to appeal to a base umpire on a check-swing decision made by the home plate umpire. Previously, that right has only been granted to the home plate ump or the catcher.

As with all experimental rule changes, be they in the minor leagues or in one of MLB’s newly designated “Partner Leagues,” the fact that such measures are being tested out does not make it a foregone conclusion that we’ll see them in Major League Baseball anytime soon — or ever at all. The current runner-on-second rule for extra-inning play is still a polarizing one, at best, and it’s not yet clear whether it’ll be implemented for the long haul or go down as a short-lived relic of the seasons which were directly impacted by the pandemic.

The Atlantic League, another new Partner League of MLB, is also planning to experiment with some changes during the 2021 season, including a “double hook” designated hitter rule and a move of the pitching rubber to a distance of 61 feet, six inches. (You can read more about those experiments and see how MLBTR readers voted in a poll on their merits here.) Those changes, unlike today’s PBL changes, were formally announced by Major League Baseball, indicating that they’re under more immediate consideration. MLB will surely keep a close eye on how things play out in the PBL, of course, but the distinction between the manner in which the two announcements came out ought to be noted.

As with the Atlantic League experiments, I’ll include a poll for each of the new rules so readers and commenters can weigh in on whether they’re in favor of the new formats.

(Link to Knock Out poll for iOS/Android app users)

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Pirates Outright Dustin Fowler

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Center fielder Dustin Fowler cleared outright waivers after being designated for assignment last week and has been assigned to the Pirates’ alternate training site, tweets Kevin Gorman of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. He’ll remain with the organization but is no longer on the team’s 40-man roster.

The Pirates acquired Fowler, from the A’s in exchange for cash back in late February. An 18th-round pick of the Yankees back in 2013, Fowler emerged as one of the game’s more highly regarded outfield prospects and was a key piece sent from New York to Oakland in 2017’s Sonny Gray trade. Fowler was injured at the time, having incurred a ruptured patellar tendon when crashing into the wall in foul ground at Chicago’s Guaranteed Rate Field in his MLB debut.

Fowler never managed to right the ship in the big leagues following that injury. He made his A’s debut in 2018 but managed only a .224/.256/.354 batting line in 203 trips to the plate. His work in Triple-A remained solid but not spectacular, and the A’s opted to move on in order to open a roster spot for their surprise signing of Trevor Rosenthal.

Fowler was a sensible roll of the dice for a Pirates club with little in the way of proven options in center field. He opened the year sharing time with fellow former top prospect Anthony Alford, but neither produced whatsoever in the first few weeks of the season. Fowler hit .171/.239/.195 with 20 strikeouts in 46 plate appearances before the Bucs designated him for assignment and turned center field over to Bryan Reynolds. Recent waiver claim and Rule 5 pick Ka’ai Tom figures to see some time out there as well now that he’s cleared intake testing and joined the club.

Fowler and Alford, who were designated for assignment one day apart, will get in some work with the Pirates’ Triple-A affiliate when the season gets underway next week and hope to work their way back into the mix for big league playing time. The Bucs seem to prefer Reynolds in left field and don’t have a clear center fielder ready to take over the reins, so it’s certainly possible that either could impress to the point that they receive another look.

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