A’s Designate Burch Smith For Assignment
The Athletics announced Tuesday that they’ve designated right-hander Burch Smith for assignment to open space on the roster for righty Domingo Acevedo, whose contract has been selected from Triple-A Las Vegas.
Smith has spent the past two seasons in Oakland after being acquired from the crosstown Giants in February 2020. He missed a good chunk of last season with a forearm strain but performed well in his brief look when healthy, tossing twelve innings of three-run ball out of the bullpen. Oakland brought Smith back on a low-cost deal to avoid arbitration, but his 2021 season hasn’t been as promising.
After missing a month early in the season, Smith returned to the active roster in early May. He’s worked mostly low-leverage relief innings over the past few months and hasn’t found much success. Over 43 1/3 innings, the 31-year-old has a 5.40 ERA with a 14.9% strikeout rate that’s nearly ten percentage points below the league average for relievers. That’s come with a correspondingly low 7.5% swinging strike rate — a career-worst mark — while his fastball velocity and spin rate have ticked down a bit relative to last season.
The A’s will now place Smith on waivers in the coming days. Any claiming team would assume the approximately $76K remaining on his arbitration contract. Should he pass through waivers unclaimed, Smith would have the right to elect free agency as a player who has previously been outrighted in his career.
Acevedo is up for his second stint on the 40-man roster. A longtime Yankees’ farmhand, the 27-year-old signed a minor league deal with Oakland last offseason and was selected to make his major league debut in June. He ultimately made three appearances, tossing as many innings of three-run ball before being designated for assignment and released. (Acevedo was seemingly injured in the minor leagues at the time of his designation, and injured players cannot be placed on outright waivers). He quickly re-upped with the A’s on a new minors pact.
Spending much of the season with the A’s top affiliate, Acevedo has been highly impressive. He’s worked 32 2/3 frames of 2.48 ERA ball, striking out a massive 42.1% of batters faced while walking just 4.8% of opponents. That success has come in spite of the extremely hitter-friendly nature of that Las Vegas affiliate, earning Acevedo another MLB look down the stretch. The Athletics enter play tonight two and a half games back of the Yankees and Red Sox, who are tied for the American League’s final postseason spot (with the Mariners also ahead of Oakland in the standings).
MLBTR Chat Transcript
Click here to read a transcript of Tuesday’s chat with MLBTR’s Steve Adams.
Royals To Promote Dayton Moore, JJ Piccolo
The Royals called a press conference for 2pm CT this afternoon, and while they did not disclose the reason for the presser in that announcement, MLB Network’s Jon Heyman reports that the organization will announce a pair of key front-office promotions: Dayton Moore will be bumped from general manager to president of baseball operations, while assistant general manager JJ Piccolo will be promoted to the title of general manager.
Moore becomes the third general manager in as many weeks to be promoted to the title of president of baseball operations, following Tampa Bay’s Erik Neander and Seattle’s Jerry Dipoto in that regard. As with prior front-office promotions of this nature, the timing likely isn’t a coincidence. The Mets will be looking for new front-office leadership this offseason, and it’s possible at the end of any season that additional front-office openings will arise. Teams generally only allow their baseball ops executives to interview with other clubs if the new opportunity represents a promotion, so it’s relatively common this time of year to see some clubs promote baseball ops personnel they have a strong interest in retaining.
Moore, 54, was retained as general manager after former owner David Glass sold the franchise to current owner John Sherman last year, and reports at the time of the sale indicated the expectation was that new ownership had no plans to make sweeping changes. Today’s forthcoming press conference further cements that, as a promotion to president of baseball operations figures to be accompanied by a contract extension.
Initially named the Royals’ general manager back in 2006, Moore has the fourth-longest tenure of any baseball operations leader in MLB, trailing only Oakland’s Billy Beane (1997), the Yankees’ Brian Cashman (1998) and the Rangers’ Jon Daniels (2005). He’s overseen the franchise through multiple cycles of rebuilding and contending, highlighted by consecutive World Series appearances in 2014-15 — including a World Series championship with that 2015 squad.
Moore never fully tore down the team after that World Series core departed, even as the club took a step back. He resisted temptation to trade away the likes of Whit Merrifield, Salvador Perez and (until this summer when he was a free-agent-to-be in a non-contending season) Danny Duffy. Throughout the current rebuilding effort, the Royals have sought to build through the draft and international free agency while still fielding some key stars with whom the fans connect. It’s not the typical rebuild blueprint, but it’s hard to suggest that the Royals aren’t well-positioned moving forward.
Despite this year’s 65-78 record, Kansas City appears on the cusp of taking a pronounced step forward. Bobby Witt Jr., the No. 2 overall pick in the 2019 draft, has emerged as one of the game’s elite prospects. Meanwhile, 2017 first-rounder Nick Pratto has exploded with a breakout showing in Double-A and Triple-A this season, landing himself in the middle of Baseball America’s latest top 100 ranking. Both figure to make their debuts early in 2022, and they’ll be joined by a growing crop of young arms that has not necessarily broken out in unison but carries a good amount of promise.
Each of Brady Singer, Jackson Kowar, Kris Bubic and Daniel Lynch have at times ranked among the game’s top 100 prospects according to multiple publications, and each has had at least a cup of coffee in the Majors. Right-hander Carlos Hernandez wasn’t as highly touted but certainly has the look of a potential big league starter based on his strong rookie showing in 2021. Asa Lacy, the No. 4 overall pick in 2020, has had a rough debut in Double-A but might have the highest ceiling of the entire bunch. In the bullpen, right-handers Scott Barlow and Josh Staumont have been excellent, while lefty Richard Lovelady looks impressive in his own right (albeit in a bit smaller sample of 20 2/3 innings).
Piccolo and Moore have been working together since their days with the Braves in the early 2000s. Piccolo broke in as a scout with the Braves before moving up to director of minor league operations. With the Royals, he served as the team’s director of player development before being promoted to assistant general manager and vice president, a role in which he oversaw both the player development and player personnel departments.
For the past several offseasons, Piccolo has been an oft-cited candidate for positions with other organizations. He’s reportedly been of interest to the Phillies, Marlins and D-backs, among others, but ultimately stayed in Kansas City and now will get a significant bump in title.
From a big-picture standpoint, today’s pair of promotions doesn’t necessarily shake things up in dramatic fashion. Moore will still have the final say on baseball operations decisions, but the elevated titles (in addition to presumably coming with some notable pay increases) will keep both Moore and Piccolo in high-ranking positions as they see the latest rebuild through. They’ll continue to work with assistant general managers Scott Sharp and Rene Francisco — the former an oft-cited GM candidate with other clubs himself — as they look to transition the Royals to yet another run of prominence in an AL Central that looks weak behind the inevitable division-winning White Sox.
Carpenter: “I Definitely Want To Play” In 2022
Cardinals infielder Matt Carpenter is in the midst of the worst season of his career at the plate and will turn 36 in November, but the three-time All-Star made clear this week that he’s hoping for a chance to right the ship in 2022. The Cardinals are a lock to buy out his $18.5MM club option, but Carpenter tells Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch he’s not currently thinking about calling it quits. “I don’t know what the future holds for me as far as what [the Cardinals’] plans are, what the plans for me are,” says Carpenter. “I definitely want to play.”
The question then becomes one of whether Carpenter will be able return to the Cards at a (much) lower price or find an opportunity with another club. Carpenter has just 63 plate appearances since the All-Star break, and 33 of those have come as a pinch-hitter. He’s hitless since Aug. 7 — a span of 35 plate appearances — with five walks and 13 strikeouts mixed in along the way. His season batting line checks in at .169/.304/.275, and his 32.6 percent strikeout rate is a career-high.
The downturn at the plate has been pronounced but also isn’t entirely out of the blue. Rather, Carpenter has been in a steady decline since a 36-homer campaign in 2018 that netted him some stray MVP votes down the ballot and a ninth-place finish overall. He followed that with a down year in 2019 but was at least roughly average at the plate. He then hit .186/.325/.314 with 28.4 percent strikeout rate in 169 trips to the plate last season.
Over the past two seasons, Carpenter has batted just .176/.313/.292 in 396 plate appearances. His role with the Cardinals has diminished both due to his struggles and due to the presence of Paul Goldschmidt, Nolan Arenado and Tommy Edman around the St. Louis infield. All three players will be back with St. Louis in 2022, and even a bench role might not be much of a consideration for the Cards. Edmundo Sosa has outplayed Carpenter across the board and offers more versatility in the infield. Carpenter hasn’t logged a single inning in the outfield since 2014. If a universal designated hitter is implemented, there’ll surely be calls — at least from fans — for an Albert Pujols farewell tour at that position.
It’s not out of the question that Carpenter could find another role with a new organization, however, particularly if the National League designated hitter does come into play. His 13.7 percent walk rate remains outstanding — tied for 20th-best among the 330 big league hitters with at least 200 plate appearances. Carpenter is still hitting the ball hard, too. Of the 386 hitters with at least 100 batted ball events in 2021, Carpenter is tied for 71st in average exit velocity, ranks 59th in barrel rate and sits 135th in hard-hit rate (i.e. batted balls at 95 mph or higher). It’s not a dominant profile, but it’s one that certainly looks like it should produce more than a .169 batting average and .275 slugging percentage.
Of course, Carpenter is done in both by the infrequency of his contact and by the pull-happy nature of the balls he does put into play. He’s highly susceptible to the shift, which makes his nearly 77 percent pull rate on grounders immensely problematic. Carpenter has tried to counteract that by focusing on elevating the ball, but he isn’t pulling the ball in the air like he did during his big 2018 season. In terms of exit velocity, launch angle and hard-hit percentage, Carpenter’s 2018 and 2021 seasons are strikingly similar. However, just 16 percent of Carpenter’s fly-balls have been pulled this season — down from 29 percent in 2018. Nearly 54 percent of Carpenter’s flies are going up the middle, which at least partially explains the drop from a 19.1 percent homer-to-flyball rate in 2018 to this year’s 5.4 percent mark.
Other teams will surely draw their own theories about Carpenter’s decline and drum up some plans of attack to remedy the problems. He’s unlikely to rediscover his 2018 form thanks to the huge uptick in strikeouts, but Carpenter’s walk rate, hard-contact profile and overall track record could still seemingly generate some interest elsewhere around the league.
That’s particularly possible if, as Carpenter himself puts it to Goold, he’s willing to “do whatever I have to do to continue playing.” It’s possible that with his recent struggles, Carpenter won’t find much in the way of guaranteed big league offers. But, if he’s willing to head to Spring Training on a minor league pact, a team seeking some corner infield depth and/or a veteran left-handed bench bat might be willing to take a speculative look.
Yankees Move Gleyber Torres To Second Base
The Yankees will move Gleyber Torres from shortstop to second base, manager Aaron Boone announced to reporters Monday (Twitter links via Bryan Hoch of MLB.com). The move is designed “to take some pressure off” Torres. Gio Urshela has the day off Monday but will get reps at shortstop down the stretch, beginning tomorrow, with DJ LeMahieu playing third base. Tyler Wade is at short today, with Torres at second.
The Torres decision comes a day after he made his 18th error of the season and his fourth in the past week at shortstop. Defensive metrics are down on Torres’ work as well. Defensive Runs Saved has him at minus-12 on the season, while Statcast’s Outs Above Average pegs him at minus-8.
There’s been talk of moving Torres off shortstop for some time now, but that chatter has picked up considerably since the beginning of the 2020 campaign. Torres made nine errors in just 320 innings at shortstop last season with poor defensive ratings as well. However, the Yankees stuck with him at the position and instead focused their offseason efforts on retaining LeMahieu and finding affordable arms to round out the pitching staff without exceeding the luxury tax.
Torres’ defensive struggles this season had already fueled speculation that the Yankees will be players in the offseason market for shortstop help. Today’s announcement from Boone would seem to cement that likelihood, as the Yankees don’t have an immediate heir-apparent who is knocking down the door to the big leagues. Anthony Volpe has broken out with an enormous season in the minors, but he’s still just 20 years old and has yet to reach Double-A. He could be an option by 2023 or 2024, assuming good health and continued production.
Urshela has limited experience at shortstop and is regarded as a solid defender at third base, but he’s not likely to step up as a long-term option there. He’ll turn 30 next month, making him older than a number of the free-agent shortstops set to hit the market this winter, and his offense has taken a step back in 2021 as well.
Corey Seager, Marcus Semien, Carlos Correa, Trevor Story and Javier Baez are all slated to reach free agency this winter, and it’s certainly feasible that some names will pop up on the trade market as well. The Yankees have about $130MM committed to next year’s payroll, per Roster Resource’s Jason Martinez, and an absolutely enormous arbitration class — headlined by Aaron Judge. Each of Gary Sanchez, Jameson Taillon, Joey Gallo, Chad Green, Urshela, Jordan Montgomery, Wandy Peralta, Luke Voit, Torres, Clint Frazier, Domingo German, Miguel Andujar, Clay Holmes, Jonathan Loaisiga, Lucas Luetge and Wade will be arb-eligible as well.
There will be some non-tenders and trades of players in that group, inevitably, which will lower the cost of that sizable class. The Yankees also managed to duck under the luxury tax in 2021, so they won’t be facing any penalties in 2022 — although with the CBA expiring, we can’t know precisely what the next iteration of the competitive balance tax will even look like. Regardless, it’s hard to envision a scenario where they slide Torres back to shortstop in 2022. It seems quite likely the Yankees will factor prominently into the offseason shortstop market, exploring high-end free agent options, short-term stopgaps for Volpe and creative alternatives on the trade market.
For the time being, the Yanks will hope that the new defensive alignment helps to turn the tides after a dismal 2-8 showing in their past 10 games. They’re currently one game back of the Red Sox and the scorching-hot Blue Jays, who are in a tie in the Wild Card standings. Both the Mariners and the A’s are just two games behind the Yankees.
Pirates Claim Enyel De Los Santos
The Pirates have claimed right-hander Enyel De Los Santos off waivers from the Phillies, per a team announcement. Lefty Steven Brault was placed on the 60-day injured list in order to open a spot on the 40-man roster. Brault left his most recent appearance with tightness in his arm and was placed on the 10-day IL with a lat strain. The Pirates did not provide any update beyond the 60-day IL transfer, which will formally end Brault’s season.
De Los Santos, 25, was once a well-regarded prospect in both the Padres’ and the Phillies’ farm systems. San Diego sent him to Philadelphia in the Dec. 2017 trade that brought Freddy Galvis to the Padres. He appeared in the Futures Game for the Phillies the following season and made his big league debut that summer. Santos appeared in seven games that year, starting two of them, and pitched well outside of one poor outing. Overall, he notched a 4.74 ERA that season through his first 19 MLB frames — plenty respectable for a 22-year-old rookie.
Things haven’t gone as hoped for De Los Santos since that time, however, He’s pitched to a 6.92 ERA in 39 subsequent MLB frames, and while he’d been borderline dominant with Triple-A Lehigh Valley in 2018,he served up a 4.40 ERA at that same level the following year. De Los Santos has previously been designated for assignment and gone unclaimed on waivers, but the Pirates scooped him up with the No. 3 waiver priority this time around. The Orioles and D-backs passed on claiming De Los Santos.
Part of the reason for the newfound interest could simply be one of having a straightforward path to making room for De Los Santos, but his work on the field this season is also somewhat intriguing. Granted, a 6.75 ERA in 28 frames isn’t much to look at, but De Los Santos’ 95 mph average heater is a career-best mark in the Majors. He’s also punched out 30.7 percent of his opponents, logged a very strong 14.9 percent swinging-strike rate and induced chases on pitches outside the strike zone at a 33.9 percent clip — all career-highs. Opponents have swung at De Los Santos’ pitches a career-high 54.2 percent of the time and made contact a career-low 72.2 percent of the time.
If he survives the offseason and Spring Training on the Pirates’ roster, De Los Santos will need to break camp with the club or else once again be designated for assignment (or traded). He’ll be out of minor league options in 2022, so he won’t be able to be sent down without first clearing waivers. And at that point, even if he were to go unclaimed, he’d have the option of electing free agency by virtue of the fact that he’s previously been outrighted once in the past.
As for Brault, he’ll look to get back to good health and put behind him what has been a largely nightmarish season. Brault missed most of the season with a strained lat and made just seven appearances before going back on the injured list with a recurrence. He posted a 5.86 ERA in 27 2/3 innings while battling that pair of injuries.
That said, Brault has been a largely serviceable long reliever/fifth starter for the Buccos over the past several seasons, including a strong showing in 2020 when he posted 42 2/3 innings of 3.38 ERA ball. The 29-year-old carries a 4.68 ERA in 315 2/3 innings and will be arbitration-eligible for the second time this winter. Brault’s strong 2020 resulted in a $2.05MM salary on his first trip through the arbitration process, and he’s unlikely to see much of a raise this winter thanks to the limited workload he compiled. Pittsburgh controls him through the 2023 season.
Minor MLB Transactions: 9/13/21
Some minor moves from around the league that were announced Monday…
- The Royals announced this morning that they’ve reinstated right-hander Ronald Bolanos from the 60-day injured list and optioned him to Triple-A Omaha. Kansas City had a pair of open spots on the 40-man roster already, so a corresponding transaction was not required. A forearm strain has limited Bolanos, who turned 25 last month, to just 40 1/3 innings between the big leagues and the minors combined in 2021. He came to the Royals alongside Franchy Cordero in the 2020 trade that sent left-hander Tim Hill to the Padres but hasn’t yet gotten much of a look. Bolanos served up 17 earned runs in 16 1/3 innings on a minor league rehab assignment, so it’s not too surprising that the Royals want him to get some more work in the minors. Bolanos still has a minor league option remaining beyond the current season.
- Right-hander Sal Romano went unclaimed on waivers after he was designated for assignment, the Yankees announced Monday. He’s been sent outright to Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre and is no longer on the 40-man roster. The 27-year-old signed a minor league deal with the Yanks back in May and has been added to the big league roster and removed thrice now. He’s pitched in three games and totaled three innings with one run allowed on five hits, a walk and four strikeouts. Romano has logged a 3.56 ERA in 30 1/3 innings with the team’s Triple-A affiliate as well. He hasn’t had much big league success since his rookie season back in 2017 (4.45 ERA in 87 innings/16 starts with Cincinnati), but he’s been a solid depth add for the Yankees thus far.
Reds Designate Brad Brach For Assignment
The Reds announced Monday that they’ve designated veteran right-handed reliever Brad Brach for assignment in order to open a spot on the roster for infielder Kyle Farmer, who has been reinstated from the paternity list.
Brach, 35, joined the Reds earlier this year on a minor league pact and got out to a brilliant start with his new club. Through his first 20 innings in Cincinnati, Brach pitched to a 2.25 ERA with a strong 28.6 percent strikeout rate and a hefty 54.9 percent ground-ball rate. His 10.7 percent walk rate was a bit worse than league average but far from egregious.
It’s been a swift decline for Brach since that time, however. Over his past 15 appearances he’s managed only 10 innings and yielded 16 earned runs on 17 hits and nine walks with nine strikeouts (16.4 percent strikeout and walk rate alike). Brach missed nearly a month with a shoulder impingement along the way, which surely played no small part in his downfall after that hot start.
Brach was one of the game’s steadier setup men during his 2012-18 peak with the Padres and the Orioles. In 449 innings during that time, he logged a 3.05 ERA, fanned more than a quarter of the batters he faced (at a time when the league-wide strikeout rate was lower than it presently is) and averaged fewer than a homer allowed per nine innings pitched (0.92 HR/9) — no small feat given that five of those seasons were spent calling Oriole Park at Camden Yards his home stadium.
Brach has since spent time with the Cubs, Mets and Reds — in addition to a minor league deal with the Royals this past spring. He pitched quite well down the stretch for the ’19 Mets and parlayed that into a 2020 return to Queens, but he was hit hard in 12 1/3 innings last year. The consistency he once enjoyed has begun to elude him, but Brach’s work prior to the shoulder injury this season suggests he’s still a capable reliever when he’s right.
The Reds will place Brach on outright waivers or release waivers in the coming days, and any club will be able to claim him for the final few weeks of the regular season. He’s a free agent at the end of the year.
Clint Frazier Won’t Return In 2021
Clint Frazier has been on the injured list since the end of June, and Yankees skipper Aaron Boone revealed to reporters last night that the 27-year-old outfielder won’t make it back to the team this season (Twitter link via Sports Illustrated’s Max Goodman).
It’s been a brutal season for Frazier, who looked like a breakout candidate from 2019-20 when he posted a combined .267/.347/.497 batting line with 20 homers, 20 doubles and a triple in 465 plate appearances. He appeared in just 66 games this season and tallied 218 plate appearances with a woeful .186/.317/.317 output in that time.
More concerning than his bottom-line performance, however, have been the health issues that have plagued him. Frazier has been on the injured list with blurred vision, dizziness and other vertigo-like symptoms that remain unresolved. Those are troubling on their own but particularly alarming for a player who missed significant time in 2018 with a concussion. Frazier looked to be on the upswing in mid-August when he set out on a minor league rehab assignment and went 4-for-10 in his first three games. However, he pulled himself from that assignment prior to the fourth game, Boone noted at the time, because he was “not quite feeling where he needed to.” He hasn’t played at any level since.
“He’s seen so many specialists, trying to get answers,” Boone said of Frazier last night. “…Right now we just want him to get to a point where he’s well and able to get back to playing full bore.”
The player’s health and general well-being are clearly the primary concerns in an injury situation with this much uncertainty. The Yankees will face some kind of decision on Frazier this offseason, as he’ll be arbitration-eligible for the second time as a Super Two player after taking home a $2.1MM salary in 2021.
Any decisions of that nature will be informed by whatever doctors are able to glean regarding his health over the next couple of months. The Yankees control Frazier for three more years beyond the current season, and he even has a minor league option year remaining, so if he is indeed able to get back on track, he could yet have a role with the club in the future. For now, the focus remains on determining the source of the ongoing issues and then, hopefully, getting Frazier to the point where he’s able to take the field again.
Dodgers Outright Neftali Feliz
TODAY: Feliz cleared waivers and has been outrighted to Triple-A, according to Oklahoma City Dodgers communications director Alex Freeman (Twitter link).
SEPT. 9: The Dodgers have designated right-hander Neftali Feliz for assignment and reinstated fellow righty Tony Gonsolin from the 10-day injured list, per a team announcement. They’ve also optioned Mitch White to Triple-A and recalled right-hander Andre Jackson.
Feliz, 33, appeared in three games with the Dodgers and tossed three shutout innings, yielding just one hit without a walk and with one strikeout. His initial stay with the Dodgers will prove to be short, however, as is often the case with depth options the Dodgers summon from Triple-A. He’ll be placed on outright waivers or released in the next couple of days, though it stands to reason that the Dodgers would hope to retain him and at least attempt the outright route.
It’s been a dominant season for Feliz in the minors, as the 2010 American League Rookie of the Year has turned in a combined 2.13 ERA with a 40.1 percent strikeout rate and a 9.2 percent walk rate in 38 innings between the top affiliates for the Dodgers and the Phillies. Feliz was hit hard in a pair of appearances with the Phillies and quickly cut loose, at which point he latched on with the Dodgers. It’s possible that another club could claim Feliz, based on those dominant minor league numbers, but he’s a free agent at season’s end and would be ineligible for a new club’s postseason roster. Both of those factors should help the Dodgers’ chances of passing him through waivers.