Reds Designate Heath Hembree For Assignment
The Reds have designated right-hander Heath Hembree for assignment in order to open a spot on the roster for fellow right-hander Tony Santillan, who has been recalled from Triple-A Louisville, per a team announcement. Cincinnati also reinstated right-hander R.J. Alaniz from the injured list and optioned him to Triple-A. Meanwhile, the Reds announced earlier in the day that infielder Mike Freeman cleared waivers and has been assigned outright to Louisville.
Hembree’s DFA comes on the heels of a catastrophic outing in which he was tagged for five runs in just two-thirds of an inning. The Reds might’ve been able to look past that meltdown had he continued pitching as well as he did throughout the month of July, but the past several weeks have been a struggle for the veteran Hembree, to say the least. He’s yielded runs in seven of his past nine outings — a total of 13 in a span of just seven innings.
That dismal slump has ballooned Hembree’s ERA to a grisly 6.38 mark, but Hembree has previously been more solid out of the Cincinnati ‘pen and spent several weeks pitching quite well as their primary closer while top relievers Tejay Antone, Michael Lorenzen and Lucas Sims were on the injured list. (Antone is still on the IL.) Hembree logged seven saves and posted a 1.42 ERA with a 19-to-5 K/BB ratio from June 28 through July 24. He’d had some early struggles as well, but that strong stretch dropped his ERA into the low-4.00s and gave the impression he’d righted the ship.
Clearly, that wasn’t the case, but there’s still plenty of reason that another club might be intrigued by Hembree. Among the 321 pitchers who have thrown at least 40 innings this year, Hembree’s 38 percent strikeout rate is the game’s seventh-highest mark. He’s tied for 15th in that same set of pitchers with a 27.4 K-BB% and sits 18th with a 2.84 SIERA.
Hembree has been done in by a ghastly 51.3 percent strand rate that sits more than 20 percent worse than the league average. That’s in part due to a sky-high 2.13 HR/9 mark; he’s yielded 10 long balls in his 44 2/3 innings this season, although seven of them have come in his hitter-friendly home park. Another club with a more spacious home setting might take a look at Hembree’s K-BB profile and generally solid track record from 2015-19 and opt to place a claim on outright waivers. His contract comes with a very reasonable $800K base salary in the Majors, though he’s already unlocked another $225K of incentives on top of that base, I’m told. Hembree would be an affordable change-of-scenery candidate for a team in need of bullpen depth — be it on a waiver claim or on a new contract if goes unclaimed and reaches the market.
MLBTR Chat Transcript
Click here to read a transcript of Tuesday’s chat with MLBTR’s Steve Adams.
Padres Sign Jake Arrieta
The Padres are taking a flier on Jake Arrieta, announcing a deal with the veteran right-hander this afternoon. While San Diego technically inked Arrieta to a minor league contract, the club announced they plan to formally select him to the big league roster on Wednesday, when he’ll get make his team debut with a start against the Rockies. San Diego already has a vacancy on the 40-man roster, so they won’t need to make a corresponding move in that regard unless they add somebody to the roster in the intervening two days. Arrieta is repped by the Boras Corporation.
San Diego suddenly finds itself desperate for innings — a scenario few would’ve anticipated after an offseason in which the Friars acquired Yu Darvish, Blake Snell and Joe Musgrove to strengthen a rotation that already looked to have a fair bit of depth. However, Darvish was placed on the injured list yesterday owing to back issues, and the Padres are also currently without Chris Paddack (oblique strain), Dinelson Lamet (forearm inflammation, hip surgery) and Adrian Morejon (Tommy John surgery). Touted prospect MacKenzie Gore hasn’t pitched in a game since June 13, as he was sent back to the team’s Spring Training complex to work on mechanical issues not long after.
Arrieta will give the Padres a veteran option to soak up some innings, but the extent of his struggles with the Cubs underscore the dire nature of the need for arms in San Diego at the moment. While Arrieta got out to a nice start after signing a one-year, $6.5MM deal to return to the Cubs, his production cratered after a handful of solid outings to begin the season.
Arrieta pitched to a 2.57 ERA through his first five starts but has since been shellacked for 58 runs in 58 1/3 innings. He completed six innings just one time in those 15 outings and completed five frames in just six of them. And while a few poor outings can always skew a few months’ worth of numbers, that isn’t necessarily the case here; Arrieta allowed at least four runs in 10 of those 15 starts. This year’s 90.8 mph average fastball is the lowest of his career and represents a two mile-per-hour drop from last year’s levels.
Of course, Arrieta was once one of the game’s best arms. He followed up a strong first half in 2015 with a historically dominant second half, cruising to a National League Cy Young Award and a sixth-place finish in NL MVP voting. He went on to throw a shutout in his postseason debut in 2015. That was followed by All-Star campaign in 2016, which featured 197 1/3 innings of 3.10 ERA ball, and Arrieta posted a 3.63 ERA in 22 1/3 postseason frames as the Cubs marched to a World Series victory. Broadly speaking, he was one of the primary drivers behind the Cubs’ transformation into a perennial contender during his initial run there.
That all feels like a distant memory after three lackluster years in Philadelphia, an elbow surgery, and this year’s unsuccessful Wrigley reunion. The Padres will hope a change of scenery can lead to some late-season lightning in a bottle, but the mounting number of rotation injuries has left their grip on the second NL Wild Card spot feeling more tenuous than ever. What was a six-game lead over the Reds as recently as July 27 has been whittled away to a 2.5-game lead over their closest competitors in Cincinnati.
Ken Rosenthal of the Athletic first reported the sides were close to a deal. Bob Nightengale of USA Today was first to report the Padres were among the teams with interest in Arrieta. Jon Heyman of MLB Network reported the sides had an agreement and that Arrieta would get the start on Wednesday. Image courtesy of USA Today Sports.
Yankees Activate Gerrit Cole, Transfer Clint Frazier To 60-Day IL
The Yankees have reinstated Gerrit Cole from the injured list, per a club announcement. Right-hander Brooks Kriske, who’d been up as a replacement player, was returned to Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre in a corresponding move.
Meanwhile, the Yankees transferred outfielder Clint Frazier from the 10-day injured list to the 60-day injured list. That opens up a 40-man spot for Cole, who’d temporarily been removed while on the Covid list, but the Yankees also indicated that Frazier’s rehab stint in Triple-A has been halted. No further word has been provided on his status at this time. Frazier has already been out since July 1; the move to the 60-day IL means he can’t return until the end of August.
Cole tested positive for Covid-19 back on Aug. 2 and wound up missing two weeks of action. He’ll jump back into the mix at a time when the Yankees have won 12 of 16 games since the July 30 trade deadline to pull within five and a half games of the American League East lead and just two and a half games of the second American League Wild Card spot.
Cole, who signed the largest contract of any pitcher in MLB history two offseasons ago, has pitched to a 3.11 ERA with a 34.4 percent strikeout rate and 5.5 percent walk rate in 130 1/3 frames thus far for the Yankees in 2021. He was one of the focal points of Major League Baseball’s crackdown on the usage of foreign substances by pitchers. He’s had his share of slips along the way since the league implemented foreign-substance checks for pitchers, but Cole has also looked like every bit the ace that signed that record contract at times since the new enforcement of the policy; he punched out 12 hitters in a shutout of the Astros on July 10 and followed with 11 strikeouts in six innings of one-run ball against the Red Sox his next time out.
As for Frazier, it’s a concerning development in the outfielder’s health outlook. He was placed originally placed on the injured list with dizziness, vision problems and other symptoms perhaps consistent with vertigo. That was said to have been ruled out early in the process, however, and there’s been no firm indication as to what is at the root of the issue. He’d recently returned the field and gone 4-for-10 with a double in three games, but it now seems he’ll step back from playing in games as the team further evaluates his status.
Frazier, 26, had a big showing in 2020, hitting .267/.394/.511 with eight homers, six doubles and a triple through 39 games and 160 plate appearances. He looked poised to step up as an everyday option in left field for the Yanks, but in 218 plate appearances this year he’s batted just .186/.317/.317.
Rays Sign David Robertson
The Rays are adding some big-name bullpen depth for the final six weeks of the season, announcing on Monday that they’ve signed right-hander David Robertson to a Major League contract. Robertson, who just pitched for Team USA during the Summer Olympics, will head to Triple-A for a tune-up for the time being. Left-hander Jeffrey Springs, who’d been out with a knee sprain, has been transferred to the 60-day injured list.
Robertson, 36, will be aiming to return to a big league mound for the first time since early in the 2019 season. He reached free agency for the second time of his career on the heels of a strong season with the Yankees in 2018 and wound up inking a two-year, $23MM deal to serve as the Phillies’ closer. He was entering his age-34 season at the time and had been the game’s most durable reliever in the nine prior seasons — averaging 65 appearances and 65 innings per year without ever incurring a major arm injury.
As has so often been the case with relievers acquired by the Phillies in recent years, however, things simply didn’t go according to plan. The ultra-durable Robertson hit the injured list early in the 2019 campaign, and by season’s end it was clear that he’d require Tommy John surgery. He missed the entire 2020 campaign as well and ultimately only pitched 6 2/3 frames as a member of the Phils.
Robertson received some interest from clubs during Spring Training but opted not to sign prior to the season. Instead, he wound up as one of a handful of highly recognizable veterans who pitched for the United States during the Olympic Games this summer, eventually earning a Silver Medal. Robertson tossed three innings during tournament play and yielded a pair of runs — not ideal results, but the event also served to demonstrate his health for contenders in need of bullpen depth.
From 2010-18, Robertson was one of the game’s most consistent and most successful relievers. He racked up 583 innings between the Yankees and White Sox in that time, pitching to a 2.72 ERA with a brilliant 32.6 percent strikeout rate and a 9.3 percent walk rate. He served as a setup man for Mariano Rivera for much of that time but eventually stepped up as the Yankees’ closer in their first post-Rivera season before inking a four-year, $46MM deal to serve as the White Sox’ closer.
Time will tell what type of form Robertson is in at this juncture of his career, but for the Rays there’s no reason not to take a look and see if Robertson can recapture some of his old form. If he’s able to do so, he’d not only be a major boost to the team down the stretch but also in pivotal postseason games. Tampa Bay currently leads the American League East by three games.
As for Springs, it’s an unfortunate outcome for the 28-year-old southpaw, who’d had a career year in Tampa Bay. Acquired in a deal that sent former top catching prospect Ronaldo Hernandez to Boston, Springs worked to a 3.43 ERA in 44 2/3 frames with the Rays before going down with a knee sprain. While he said at the time of the injury that he hoped to be back in a matter of two to four weeks, it seems the damage was either worse than initially expected or perhaps worsened during Springs’ rehab efforts. He underwent surgery to repair an ACL tear today, which will end his season and call for a rehab process that could potentially linger into 2022.
Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times first reported the move (Twitter link).
White Sox Designate Zack Burdi For Assignment
The White Sox announced Monday that they have designated right-hander Zack Burdi for assignment to clear a spot for right-hander Mike Wright, whose contract has been selected from Triple-A Charlotte. Chicago also placed outfielder Adam Engel on the 10-day IL with inflammation in his left shoulder, recalled righty Ryan Burr from Charlotte and optioned righty Matt Foster to Charlotte.
Burdi, 26, was a first-round pick out of Louisville back in 2016. As was the case with his older brother, Nick, he was drafted as a flamethrowing righty with the potential to emerge as a dominant late-inning reliever. Unfortunately, both Burdi brothers have been repeatedly hindered by injuries. Both had Tommy John surgery — Zack’s back in 2018 — and Zack has also missed significant time due to a torn patellar tendon in his knee.
Those injuries, as one would expect, have limited Burdi’s time on the field. He’s pitched just 16 1/3 innings in the Majors, all coming since Opening Day 2020, and allowed 15 runs in that time. The damage has come largely on the strength of an alarmins seven home runs, which have been a problem for the younger Burdi throughout the upper minors (combined 1.40 HR/9 between Double-A and Triple-A).
Despite being drafted back in 2016, Burdi has thrown just 141 1/3 innings total innings between the big leagues and the minors. He’ll have one more minor league option remaining beyond the 2021 season, however, so a club that’s intrigued by the raw arm strength could potentially overlook the 7.30 ERA and eight home runs he’s logged in 24 2/3 innings of Triple-A this season in order to take a speculative look. With the trade deadline now passed, Burdi will be placed on outright waivers within the next week.
Wright, 31, has pitched 258 innings in the big leagues and had his own struggles, working to a combined 6.00 ERA between the Orioles and the Mariners. He spent the 2020 season with the NC Dinos of the Korea Baseball Organization and posted a 4.68 ERA in 157 2/3 innings before returning to the U.S. on a minor league deal with the ChiSox. He’s made 16 starts and compiled a 3.40 ERA in 95 1/3 frames with the Knights this year, striking out 23 percent of his opponents against a 7.4 percent walk rate with a 47.7 percent ground-ball rate.
The loss of the 29-year-old Engel for a yet-to-be-determined period of time stings a bit, given the outfielder’s breakout showing at the dish. Engel had a terrific 2020 season, albeit in just 93 plate appearances, and has largely backed that up with a similarly strong showing in 121 trips to the plate this year. He’s hitting .269/.336/.492 across the past two seasons, with 10 homers, 11 doubles, a triple and eight steals in his past 214 big league plate appearances.
Chicago recently welcomed stars Luis Robert and Eloy Jimenez back from the injured list, and the South Siders have also gotten fine work from Brian Goodwin and first baseman-turned-outfielder Andrew Vaughn. They’re certainly equipped to handle the loss, particularly with the AL Central already effectively wrapped up, but the hope is obviously that Engel will return in short order to give the club as much depth as possible for the forthcoming postseason run.
Pirates Designate Ka’ai Tom For Assignment
The Pirates have reinstated outfielder Ka’ai Tom from the 10-day injured list and designated him for assignment rather than adding him back to the active roster, per a club announcement. Pittsburgh claimed Tom off waivers from the A’s earlier this season. He was Oakland’s Rule 5 pick out of the Indians organization and must now be offered back to Cleveland if he goes unclaimed on outright waivers.
Tom, 26, hit the injured list earlier this month with a lower back strain that has now apparently healed sufficiently. He scarcely got a look in Oakland before being designated for assignment there, but the Bucs have given him a lengthier leash in Pittsburgh before making today’s decision. In 117 plate appearances since being claimed by the Pirates, Tom struggled to a .152/.308/.261 batting line.
It hasn’t been an auspicious MLB debut for the Hawaii native and 2015 fifth-rounder, but Tom has a strong track record in the upper minors with Cleveland, so it’s easy to see why multiple outfield-needy clubs have been intrigued. He’s a .296/.362/.558 hitter in 229 Triple-A plate appearances and has also posted a .261/.351/.444 slash in 827 plate appearances at the much more pitcher-friendly Double-A level.
Tom has walked at a robust 11.1 percent clip in his minor league career to date against a manageable 19.5 percent strikeout rate. He slugged a career-best 23 long balls between Double-A and Triple-A in his most recent full season, in 2019, and has five seasons with double-digit stolen base totals under his belt — including a career-best 23 swiped back in 2017. He obviously hasn’t produced much yet in the big league opportunities he’s gotten this season, but the Bucs claimed him earlier in the season with one of the top waiver priorities in the game.
Other teams will at least have the opportunity to add him and hang onto him for the final few weeks of the season. Should a team choose to do so, Tom has enough time on the active roster this year that his Rule 5 restrictions would be lifted in 2022. In other words, any team that claims him and hangs onto him for another six weeks would be able to freely option Tom in 2022 — though they’d also have to carry him on the 40-man roster all offseason.
Dodgers Claim Evan Phillips
The Dodgers have claimed right-hander Evan Phillips off waivers from the Rays, tweets Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic. Tampa Bay designated Phillips for assignment over the weekend. The Dodgers later formally announced the claim.
Phillips, 26, came up with a big three-inning save for Tampa Bay over the weekend, helping to spare the bullpen and give some of the rest of the relief corps some needed rest. Baseball is often a numbers game for players on the fringes of 40-man rosters, however, and Phillips was reminded of that when he was designated for assignment the very next day. He’ll now join the Dodgers, who’ll be his third organization of the season in addition to the Rays and the Orioles.
Phillips has shown considerable strikeout potential in past MLB stints with the O’s but has also given up far too many walks to remain effective. From 2019-20, Phillips pitched 42 1/3 frames with the O’s and fanned 28.7 percent of his opponents but also walked about 14.4 percent of them. Between that and a sky-high .398 average on balls in play, he was knocked around for a 5.95 ERA in that time.
This season in Triple-A, Phillips worked to a 5.04 ERA with the Orioles’ top affiliate, but he also whiffed 35 hitters in 25 frames. He was sharp in 3 1/3 Triple-A frames with the Rays and was clearly impressive in his lone MLB appearance of the season so far. He averaged 96 mph on his heater in that brief look with the Rays and has a track record of generating whiffs with a slider that possesses above-average spin rates, too.
Phillips is out of minor league options, so it could potentially be a quick run for him with the Dodgers, too, given their own penchant for frequent turnover on the fringes of the MLB roster, but he’ll first hope for a chance to make any such decisions more difficult for the organization.
Blue Jays Acquire Mallex Smith
The Blue Jays have acquired outfielder Mallex Smith from the Reds, per Baseball America’s Chris Hilburn-Trenkle. Presumably, as is the case with most post-deadline swaps, the Jays simply sent cash back to Cincinnati in return.
Smith was eligible to be traded by virtue of the fact that he’s playing the 2021 season on a minor league deal and had not been summoned to the Majors or previously outrighted by another club this season. The 28-year-old opened the season on a minor league deal with the Mets but didn’t appear in a game for them. He suffered a broken foot early in his tenure with the organization and was cut loose in mid-June. He signed with Cincinnati quickly thereafter and was soon ready to suit up for the Reds’ top affiliate in Louisville.
It hasn’t been an especially productive season so far for Smith in Triple-A, as he’s posted just a .231/.296/.292 batting line in 22 games and 71 plate appearances since healing up enough to take the field. He’s swiped four bases in six tries with Louisville, and his ability to continue piling up those steals is his primary asset.
From 2017-19, Smith batted .262/.332/.367 in 356 games with the Rays and Mariners, connecting on 10 home runs, 54 doubles, 23 triples and stealing 102 bags in 128 attempts (79.7 percent). He posted back-to-back 40-steal seasons in 2018-19 — including a ’19 season in which his 46 stolen bases led all of Major League Baseball.
Smith isn’t likely to be an immediate option for the Jays in the outfield. Toronto has Lourdes Gurriel Jr., George Springer, Teoscar Hernandez, Corey Dickerson and Randal Grichuk all on the Major League roster at the moment, so outfield isn’t exactly a position of need. That said, rosters will expand to 28 players in September, and Smith will not only provide some cover in the event of injuries but also a potential pinch-running and defensive specialist if the Jays see fit to use one of those extra roster spots in that manner.
Cardinals Activate Jack Flaherty
3:39 pm: St. Louis announced that Flaherty has been activated from the IL, as expected. LeBlanc landed on the 10-day IL to create an active roster spot. To create space on the 40-man roster, St. Louis placed minor league right-hander Johan Quezada on the 60-day injured list earlier this week, notes Jeff Jones of the Belleville News-Democrat (Twitter link).
10:50 am: After more than ten weeks on the injured list due to a severe oblique strain, Jack Flaherty is slated to make his return to the Cardinals tonight, as recently noted by multiple reports (including Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch). He’ll take the mound to open the Cards’ series against the Royals. The Cardinals will need to make 26-man and 40-man roster moves to accommodate Flaherty’s reinstatement.
Flaherty told reporters last week that he planned to pitch during the just-completed series against the Pirates, but he’ll instead take the mound a day later. His return gives the Cards their best starter after a couple months of patching the rotation in piecemeal fashion, together with journeyman pickups and a heavy reliance on some young arms that may need more development time (e.g. Johan Oviedo).
Prior to his injury, Flaherty was in the midst of a strong bounceback effort following a down year in 2020. He’d made 11 starts, tallied 62 frames and pitched to a 2.90 ERA with better-than-average strikeout and walk rates (26.3 percent and 7.8 percent, respectively). He’s made three rehab starts and built up to as many as 75 pitches in his most recent outing.
Since Flaherty went on the injured list, Cardinals starters rank 17th in the Majors with a 4.54 ERA and 21st with a 4.71 FIP. Those numbers have actually improved recently with excellent work from the seemingly ageless Adam Wainwright and June signee Wade LeBlanc. However, LeBlanc just exited yesterday’s start with left elbow pain and is headed back to St. Louis for imaging work to evaluate the injury, per Katie Woo of The Athletic (Twitter link). The Cards also recently lost Kwang Hyun Kim to another injured list stint — this one for inflammation in his left elbow. Kim has twice missed time this season due to back troubles.
Flaherty’s return should pair him with Wainwright and deadline pickups J.A. Happ and Jon Lester in the rotation while the team awaits word on LeBlanc’s elbow and hopes for a swift return for Kim. It’s also possible that right-hander Miles Mikolas, who has made just one appearance in 2020-21 thanks to a series of forearm injuries, could return within the next week. He’s been progressing through a minor league rehab assignment of his own.
While the Cardinals’ pitching injuries and the questionable depth they carried into the season look to have sunk their division hopes — St. Louis is 11 games back from the division-leading Brewers — they’re still at least on the periphery of the NL Wild Card scene. The Cards are six and a half games back from the second Wild Card and would need to leapfrog each of the Braves, Mets, Reds and Padres in order to seize that spot.
That’s obviously a tall order, but it’s not entirely out of the realm of possibility. The Cardinals play each of those clubs at least three times between now and season’s end, and they also have another seven games apiece against stripped-down Cubs and Pirates rosters. They’re a clear playoff long shot, but this is the healthiest their rotation has looked in months.