White Sox Activate Luis Robert, Release Luis Gonzalez
The White Sox announced Monday that they’ve reinstated center fielder Luis Robert from the 60-day injured list. Outfielder/first baseman Gavin Sheets was optioned to Triple-A Charlotte in order to open a spot on the active roster. Minor league outfielder Luis Gonzalez was released in order to open a spot on the 40-man roster.
Gonzalez’s release may initially surprise some fans, given his standing as one of the organization’s 10 to 20 best prospects over the past few years, but he’s slated to undergo season-ending shoulder surgery, James Fegan of The Athletic tweets. Injured players can’t be placed on outright waivers, so the team’s only recourse was to either release Gonzalez or add him to the MLB roster and place him on the Major League 60-day injured list. The Sox will opt for the former path and presumably look to re-sign him to a new minor league contract, as is fairly common in these instances.
As for the dynamic Robert, he’ll return after missing more than three months due to a Grade 3 hip flexor sustained back in early May. The injury initially called for a rehab period of 12 to 16 weeks, and he’ll return on the shorter end of that timetable. Robert appeared in a dozen minor league rehab games — four in Class-A Advanced and eight in Triple-A — and notched a combined .268/.388/.390.
Robert, 24, won a Gold Glove and finished second to Kyle Lewis in American League Rookie of the Year voting. He’s played in 81 big league games to this point in his young career, batting .259/.320/.444 with 12 home runs, 17 doubles, a triple and 13 steals (in 16 attempts). Strikeouts have been an issue (30.6 percent), but Robert has been regarded as an elite prospect since he left Cuba and signed with the Sox for a $26MM bonus (that came with a $26MM overage penalty for Chicago, whose bonus pool was just north of $2.9MM at that point). He then inked a six-year, $50MM contract extension with a pair of club options before even suiting up for his first big league game.
The White Sox lost both Robert and Eloy Jimenez early in the 2021 season, but they’ve nevertheless been able to steamroll a feeble American League Central, building a 10.5-game lead over the second-place Indians as of this writing. With Robert and Jimenez now back from injury and Craig Kimbrel at the back of the bullpen, the South Siders are as strong as they’ve been at any point this season. The division title has long looked like a foregone conclusion, but the return of their promising young outfielders and a few key deadline pickups have better positioned the Sox as a postseason threat.
Edwin Jackson Open To MLB Comeback
Edwin Jackson will turn 38 in a month, but the well-traveled right-hander isn’t planning on retiring after his recent run with the United States Olympic roster and is open to signing with a big league club, tweets Jon Morosi of MLB.com.
Jackson a run in 3 2/3 innings between the qualifying rounds and the actual Olympic play as the U.S. eventually won a Silver Medal. He hasn’t pitched in the Majors since a rough 2019 campaign split between the Tigers and the Blue Jays. Jackson did sign with the D-backs in the 2019-20 offseason and also had an offer from the Mets that winter, but Arizona cut him loose rather than bringing him to its alternate site once play resumed last summer, and Jackson did not sign with another club.
That 2019 run between Detroit and Toronto saw Jackson yield 72 runs in 67 2/3 innings pitched, thanks largely to a whopping 23 homers allowed in that relatively short period of time. Home runs were a problem for pitchers throughout the league that season, as most believed the ball was juiced, but Jackson’s 3.06 HR/9 mark was nonetheless the second-highest of any pitcher in baseball (min. 50 innings pitched).
For as rough as Jackson’s 2019 season was, however, his 2018 work was every bit as solid. He tossed 92 innings with the A’s that year, working to a 3.33 ERA over the life of 17 starts. His 17.8 percent strikeout rate was below the league average, and his 9.7 percent walk rate was a bit high, but the results were obviously quite sound.
While it’s now been three years since Jackson’s last productive MLB run, it still wouldn’t be a surprise to see a club take a look on a minor league deal. The trade deadline has passed, and the elimination of revocable August trade waivers has left clubs with limited options to add depth. Jackson probably isn’t an option to step right into a big league rotation, but he could head to someone’s Triple-A club to stretch out or at least get some innings in the ‘pen before emerging as an option a few weeks down the line. September rosters can no longer expand to 40 players, but the standard roster size will still grow from 26 to 28 players on Sept. 1.
Jackson is one of few notable free agents on the Team USA roster who could conceivably sign with a big league team as a depth candidate. David Robertson and Todd Frazier are also current big league free agents. Veteran lefty Scott Kazmir was also on the roster, but he accepted an outright assignment to Triple-A with the Giants after he cleared waivers back in June, so he remains under Giants control.
If Jackson does ultimately sign with a team and return to the Majors, he could potentially add to one of the more oddball records around the league; Jackson has pitched for 14 Major League teams, the most in MLB history.
Orioles Notes: Rutschman, Severino, Mateo
The Orioles have promoted catcher Adley Rutschman from Double-A to Triple-A Norfolk, the team announced last night. (MASNsports.com’s Roch Kubtako first reported he’d be moving up a level.) Rutschman, who now ranks as the No. 1 prospect in all of baseball at Baseball America and MLB.com following Wander Franco‘s graduation from the list, opened the year at the Double-A level and posted a .271/.392/.508 batting line with 18 home runs, 16 doubles and nearly as many walks (15.4 percent) as strikeouts (15.9 percent). That slash was good for a whopping 144 wRC+ in the a very pitcher-friendly Double-A setting — the tenth-best mark of any qualified hitter in Double-A this season.
While he’s now technically just one step from the big leagues, it’s hard to imagine Rutschman would be summoned to the Majors before season’s end. The Orioles have just a 38-72 record on the season, and they’d gain another year of control over Rutschman by waiting until the third week of the 2022 season to promote him to the big leagues, barring any changes to service time structure in collective bargaining talks between MLB and the MLB Players Association. The current CBA expires on Dec. 1, and service time issues such as this are widely expected to be a talking point.
Some more notes out of Baltimore…
- While Rutschman is the hopeful future at catcher for the Orioles, it’s been Pedro Severino there more often than anyone else over the past couple of seasons. The 28-year-old has batted .245/.316/.400 over the past three seasons in Baltimore (94 wRC+), but his bat has dipped slightly in 2021. Kubatko suggests that Severino, who’ll be a due a raise on this year’s $1.825MM salary in arbitration over the winter, is likely to instead be non-tendered by the O’s. Severino has been a solid bat relative to other catchers around the league, but defensively, he’s had his share of struggles. He’s been roughly average in terms of caught-stealing rate over the past few years, but Severino draws poor pitch-blocking ratings at Baseball Prospectus, sub-par framing marks and checked in at -19 Defensive Runs Saved since coming to the O’s in 2019.
- The Orioles are open to eventually playing Jorge Mateo in the outfield, writes Nathan Ruiz of the Baltimore Sun, but manager Brandon Hyde also added that the team’s hope is to get the recently claimed speedster comfortable playing in the middle infield. Baltimore claimed the 26-year-old Mateo off waivers from the Padres just four days ago — a move that could finally give the former top prospect a path to regular playing time in the big leagues. Mateo originally signed with the Yankees but was traded to Oakland in the Sonny Gray swap and then to the Padres for a player to be named later. Mateo is 3-for-11 with a double, a triple and a pair of steals to begin his Orioles tenure. The Padres acquired Mateo on June 30, 2020, but on a win-now club with a crowded roster, he never had much of an avenue to playing time. He appeared in 79 games with San Diego from 2020-21 but only recorded a combined 121 plate appearances in that time.
Examining A Potential Ke’Bryan Hayes Extension
The Pirates made an extension offer to Ke’Bryan Hayes back in Spring Training, which obviously didn’t manifest in a deal, but Hayes himself confirmed to The Athletic’s Rob Biertempfel this week that it wasn’t the team’s first effort. As Hayes explains, the Bucs also came to him with an offer before he’d even played in a big league game, during Spring Training 2020.
While the two sides still haven’t worked out a deal, Hayes made clear that he’s open to a long-term pact, wants to step up as a leader of future Pirates clubs and hopes to “win a championship with the team that drafted me.” For now, his focus is on a strong finish to the 2021 season.
Pirates fans, in particular, will want to check out the column for full quotes from Hayes on his future with the club. But for the purposes of this post, let’s take a look at some historical context to see just where Hayes might slot in if he and the Bucs were to approach an extension in earnest. As always, service time is crucial to these explorations, and historical precedent is quite often relevant.
Hayes will finish the 2021 season with a year-plus of Major League service time. We haven’t seen a third baseman in that service class ink a long-term pact since Jedd Gyorko‘s five-year, $35MM agreement with the Padres back in 2014. That seven-year-old deal probably won’t hold much weight as a comp — particularly since even with his recent slump, Hayes has been more productive now than Gyorko was at the time. At the time of Gyorko’s extension, he carried a .242/.295/.433 line through 573 plate appearances — four percent better than league average, by measure of wRC+. He’d previously been regarded as a top-end prospect, but not to the same extent as Hayes.
Conversely, Hayes has slashed at a .282/.351/.463 pace through his first 319 Major League plate appearances. His 2020 performance vastly outweighs his 2021 performance, but his ’21 production has perhaps been sapped by a wrist injury that shelved him for two months early in the year. He’s been a better hitter than Gyorko, plays better defense, and that extension is rather dated by now.
Interestingly, however, there simply haven’t been many position players in this one-plus bracket of service time to use as a point of comparison. That’s been especially true in recent years, when touted young players have either signed before reaching a full year of service or waited to further establish themselves in the Majors. Ozzie Albies, who inked a seven-year, $35MM extension in 2019 is the most recent comparable, but that was one of the more widely panned extensions in recent memory. Hayes, presumably, would be looking to set some form of new bar for players in this general service bracket if he were to seriously entertain offers.
Of course, whether the Pirates would want any part of setting a new precedent in any service bracket remains questionable, at best. The largest contract the Pirates have ever given out was a six-year, $60MM one to catcher Jason Kendall way back in the year 2000. That pact ties them with Cleveland for the smallest franchise-record contract awarded to an individual player. Biertempfel speculates within his column that the Pirates may already have put forth a larger offer than that to Hayes. If that is indeed the case, it’d be a rather shocking effort from such a historically low-payroll club.
Rays Place Randy Arozarena On Covid List, Recall Jordan Luplow
The Rays announced Friday that they’ve placed outfielder Randy Arozarena on the Covid-19-related injured list and recalled fellow right-handed-hitting outfielder Jordan Luplow from Triple-A Durham. The league’s 2021 health-and-safety protocols stipulate a seven-day absence for close contacts.
Arozarena, 26, has been on a tear over his past 14 games, hitting at a .404/.443/.842 clip with six homers, five doubles and a triple in 61 trips to the plate. The 2020 postseason sensation has had a strong year all-around at the plate, turning in a .268/.344/.458 batting line that’s about 25 percent better than league average when weighted for his home park and league, by measure of wRC+.
With Arozarena away from the team for the immediate future, the Rays will turn to the recently acquired Luplow, who came over from Cleveland alongside righty reliever DJ Johnson in a trade that sent pitching prospect Peyton Battenfield back to the Indians. Luplow, 27, will be making his team debut the first time he steps into a game setting for Tampa Bay.
But while this’ll be Luplow’s first action with the Rays, it’s hardly his first exposure to the big leagues. He comes to the organization with more than three years of MLB service time, spread across parts of five seasons between Pittsburgh and Cleveland. Luplow is a lifetime .222/.327/.452 hitter in the Majors but offers a skill set the Rays have often maximized: platoon excellence and generally strong defensive ratings in the outfield corners (with the ability to play center in a pinch). Patrick Kinas of NBC Sports tweets that Luplow has been getting some workouts in at first base, as well.
Luplow has had some uncharacteristic struggles against left-handed pitching in a small sample of 65 plate appearances so far in 2021, but over the course of his career, he’s quietly been one of baseball’s most powerful hitters against southpaws. That’s not hyperbole, either. Despite this year’s struggles, Luplow is a career .251/.371/.556 hitter when holding the platoon advantage. Focusing in only on his 2017-20 production, Luplow is a .275/.379/.603 hitter against lefties (154 wRC+).
The average isn’t especially high, and his OBP against lefties is strong but not elite, but Luplow’s .328 ISO (slugging minus batting average) in that stretch ranked fourth among 282 hitters with at least 250 plate appearances against lefties. The only names ahead of him are J.D. Martinez, Giancarlo Stanton and Nolan Arenado — impressive company for a player who has been a largely anonymous part-time outfielder.
The Rays can control Luplow for three more seasons after the 2021 campaign, so if he’s able to rediscover that form against lefties and right the ship in the season’s final months, he could be a long-term bench option for the Rays. He’d be a cost-effective one, at that, as Luplow’s part-time role suppresses his counting stats and will limit his earning power in arbitration. This offseason will mark his first time going through that arbitration process.
Cubs Promote Greg Deichmann, Place Jason Heyward On Injured List
The Cubs have placed outfielder Jason Heyward on the 10-day IL due to a left hand injury and recalled outfield prospect Greg Deichmann for his Major League debut, per a club announcement.
Deichmann, 26, only recently joined the organization when he was traded over from the A’s in the deal that send lefty Andrew Chafin to Oakland. He’s had a slow start in seven Triple-A games with the Cubs, but his overall body of work this season has been quite strong; in 285 plate appearances, Deichmann is batting .291/.425/.439 with four homers, 16 doubles, three triples and eight steals (in ten tries). He’s walked at a gaudy 18.9 percent clip that’s more than double the current MLB average and punched out at a 22.8 percent rate that would sit below today’s MLB average.
That keen eye at the plate is one of Deichmann’s calling cards and one of the reasons he’s been a fairly well regarded prospect in the A’s system despite not yet tapping into his considerable raw power. Deichmann has drawn a free pass in 13.2 percent of his career minor league plate appearances since being selected out of Louisiana State University by the A’s in the second round of the 2017 draft.
While Deichmann has never topped 11 home runs in a minor league season, he did swat nine long balls in just 95 plate appearances in the 2019 Arizona Fall League. He ranks as the Cubs’ 20th prospect at MLB.com and at FanGraphs, where Eric Longenhagen puts a hefty 70 grade (on the 20-80 scale) on his raw power. Deichmann has been used exclusively in right field this year, though he saw very brief spells at first base and in center earlier in his career. He’s not a burner on the bases or in the outfield, but scouting reports peg him for an average or slightly better arm.
Moving forward, Deichmann has the makings of a left-handed-hitting corner outfielder with some pop and strong OBP skills, though given his sub-.600 OPS against lefties over the past three minor league seasons, he may benefit from a platoon partner. The Cubs can certainly afford to give him consistent at-bats for the rest of the season, particularly with Heyward on the injured list. At the moment, Deichmann joins Ian Happ and Rafael Ortega in a largely overhauled Cubs outfield scene.
There’s no indication as to how long Heyward is expected to miss, but there ought to be room for a two-month Deichmann audition even if it’s a minimal absence for the soon-to-be 32-year-old Heyward. In 284 plate appearances this season, he’s batted just .198/.271/.322. The Cubs still owe Heyward a $22MM salary in both 2022 and 2023.
Dodgers, Nick Tropeano Agree To Minor League Deal
The Dodgers have agreed to a deal with veteran right-hander Nick Tropeano, tweets MLB Network’s Jon Heyman. Tropeano, a client of the Bledsoe Agency, rejected an outright assignment from the Mets in favor of free agency earlier in the week. It’s a minor league deal between the two parties, MLBTR has learned.
Tropeano, 30, will give the Dodgers some depth both in the rotation and the bullpen. The right-hander is no stranger to Southern California, having spent parts of five seasons in the Angels organization earlier in his career. Tropeano tallied 195 2/3 frames for the Halos from 2015-19, missing a season-plus in the middle due to Tommy John surgery but generally faring well when healthy (4.51 ERA, 4.48 SIERA, 21.5 strikeout percentage, 9.3 percent walk rate).
Since leaving the Halos organization, Tropeano has bounced between several teams without a lengthy look at the MLB level, but he’s pitched quite well in limited action both in 2020 and 2021. In 23 2/3 innings split between the Pirates, Giants and Mets across the past two seasons, Tropeano has logged a 1.52 ERA with an even 21 percent strikeout rate and a seven percent walk rate. He’s also pitched to a 2.18 ERA in 20 2/3 Triple-A frames between the top affiliates for the Giants and Mets so far in 2021.
Tropeano has pitched exclusively out of the bullpen in his brief Pittsburgh, San Francisco and New York stints dating back to 2020, but he’s had several multi-inning outings along the way. His final big league appearance for the Mets was a two-inning effort that saw him tally 37 pitches, and he’s since had a pair of three-inning relief outings in Triple-A for the Mets, topping out at 54 pitches. Tropeano has made 39 big league starts to go along with 15 relief appearances, so he could certainly be stretched out as a fifth starter candidate or at least a long relief option for the Dodgers in short order.
The Dodgers aren’t expecting Clayton Kershaw back until September now, and their recent pickups of Cole Hamels (one-year deal) and Danny Duffy (trade) were both made knowing that neither would be an option in the short term. Hamels needs to build up arm strength after sitting out the season to date, while Duffy was acquired midway through a stint on the injured list due to a forearm strain. He’s expected back mid-month. Tropeano gives the Dodgers a more immediate option to plug into the staff at a time when Kershaw and Tony Gonsolin are on the injured list and Trevor Bauer is on administrative leave.
Clayton Kershaw Likely Out Until September
There’d been some recent hope that Dodgers lefty Clayton Kershaw could make it back to the mound in the near future. The three-time Cy Young winner is on the IL with forearm inflammation but had progressed to throwing a bullpen session and was slated to throw a 60-pitch simulated game. Manager Dave Roberts, however, said recently that Kershaw was dealing with “residual soreness” following his latest session, and the skipper now tells reporters that he expects Kershaw to return “sometime in September” (Twitter link via Bill Shaikin of the Los Angeles Times).
It’s been nearly a month since Kershaw initially landed on the injured list, and one can only imagine that the uncertainty surrounding his current status was a driving factor in the Dodgers’ decision to aggressively pursue rotation help over the past week. President of baseball ops Andrew Friedman and his staff have acquired Max Scherzer and Danny Duffy via trade, and they’ve also signed Cole Hamels to a Major League deal for the remainder of the season.
Duffy and Hamels, like Kershaw, are down-the-road additions. Duffy is on the injured list for a second time this season owing to a forearm strain and is likely out until the middle of this month. Hamels, meanwhile, needs to build up arm strength before returning to a Major League mound. He pitched just 3 1/3 innings for the Braves in 2020 due to shoulder and triceps injuries.
For the time being, they’ll lean on Scherzer, Walker Buehler and Julio Urias in the top three spots of the rotation. Former Cy Young winner David Price, who’d been in the bullpen, will start tonight for the fifth time since Kershaw went on the injured list. His most recent outing had been a one-inning relief stint on Aug. 1, but he tossed 64 pitches on July 29 and 74 pitches on July 23, so he’s still fairly well stretched out.
At 65-44, the Dodgers are tied with the Brewers for the second-best record in baseball. No club has a better run differential than L.A.’s mark of +164. Unfortunately for the Dodgers, the only team in the game with a better record is the first-place Giants, who lead the NL West by a margin of four games as of this writing. Slotting Scherzer in alongside Buehler and Urias gives the Dodgers an outstanding top three on which to rely, but Kershaw’s absence still looms large.
The 33-year-old Kershaw is in the midst of yet another excellent season, having pitched to a 3.39 ERA in 106 2/3 frames. That earned run average, incredibly, is his “worst” since his rookie season in 2008, but Kershaw is also sporting his best strikeout percentage (30.1) since 2016 and the fifth-lowest walk percentage (4.5) of any Major League pitcher with at least 100 innings this season. He’s in the final season of a three-year, $93MM contract and is scheduled to become a free agent at season’s end.
Indians Agree To Extend Lease At Progressive Field Through 2036
The Indians announced Thursday that they’ve reached an agreement with the city of Cleveland, Cuyahoga County and the State of Ohio on a “collaboration for the future preservation and enhancement of Progressive Field.” The agreement will include facility upgrades for the stadium itself and, most notably, extend the team’s lease at the ballpark for “at least 15 years to 2036.” The agreement also comes with “the potential for 10 additional years to 2046.” The city and county councils still need to approve the project within the coming months, but it doesn’t seem there’s much doubt they’ll both do so.
“Our organization is proud to continue our long-term commitment to Cleveland by ensuring we keep our ballpark competitive,” owner Paul Dolan said in this morning’s press release. “We want to give our fans, our community, and our players the best ballpark experience possible. We are excited and appreciate the collaborative effort displayed by leadership from the county, city, and state to help make this first step possible and look forward to the next stages in the legislative process to finalize the agreement.”
Tom Withers of the Associated Press reports that the collaboration calls for $435MM worth of renovations, funded by an undisclosed division of expenses among the city, county, state and team. The press release stresses that the government funding involves no new or increased taxes to residents.
Today’s announcement confirms the longstanding expectation the organization will stay in Cleveland for the foreseeable future. While the current lease is set to expire after the 2023 season, Zack Meisel, Jason Lloyd and Bill Shea of the Athletic wrote last month that a lease extension looked likely. The Indians have played at Progressive Field since 1994, making it the tenth-longest tenured active team-ballpark pairing in MLB.
The franchise has been in Cleveland since 1901. Only the Cubs, Reds, Cardinals, Pirates and Phillies have been in their current city for a longer time. Beginning in 2022, the organization is adopting the “Guardians” moniker in homage to the “Guardians of Traffic” statues on Cleveland’s Hope Memorial Bridge.
Rangers Select Yonny Hernandez
The Rangers announced Thursday that they’ve selected the contract of infielder Yonny Hernandez from Triple-A Round Rock. He’ll take the active roster spot of outfielder Eli White, who is headed to the 10-day injured list with a right elbow strain. The Rangers transferred outfielder/designated hitter Willie Calhoun from the 10-day IL to the 60-day IL in order to open a spot on the 40-man roster.
Hernandez, 23, will get his first big league opportunity after hitting .250/.424/.323 in 261 plate appearances at the Triple-A level. Hernandez has swiped 21 bases in 31 tries and seen action at each of shortstop (285 innings), third base (183) and second base (85) so far in 2021. That gaudy OBP is the result of a 20.3 percent walk rate, which exemplifies the plate discipline Hernandez has shown throughout his pro career to date. Since debuting as a 17-year-old back in 2015, Hernandez has drawn more walks (15.2 percent) than strikeouts (13.7 percent) in 1904 professional plate appearances.
Hernandez ranks 27th among Texas farmhands over at FanGraphs, where Eric Longenhagen tabs him as a versatile role player with a good glove and a keen eye but a fairly weak contact profile. He’s never ranked among the team’s top 30 farmhands at Baseball America, although BA credited him with the best strike zone discipline of any prospect in the Rangers system in each of the past two offseasons.