Indians Trade Jake Bauers To Mariners
The Indians announced this morning that they’ve traded first baseman/outfielder Jake Bauers to the Mariners in exchange for a player to be named later. Cleveland designated Bauers for assignment over the weekend, clearing an avenue for Bobby Bradley to get an opportunity at first base. The Mariners designated infielder Jack Mayfield for assignment in order to open a roster spot for Bauers, according to a press release of their own.
Bauers, 25, has spent parts of three seasons at the MLB level but has yet to produce much in the big leagues. He was ranked as one of the game’s top 75 or so prospects prior to both the 2017 and 2018 seasons at Baseball America, FanGraphs and MLB.com, but the above-average raw power and hit tool that contributed to those rankings has yet to really manifest. He’s logged 924 plate appearances between the Indians and the Rays but managed only a tepid .211/.309/.365 slash. Bauers does walk at a hearty 12 percent clip and can be deployed at any of first base, left field or right field.
It probably feels to many like Bauers should be older than 25, given the fact that his MLB debut came at the age of 22. But he’s still a relatively youthful option for the Mariners to try to catch some lightning in a bottle. He’s out of minor league options, so he’ll need to stick on the Major League roster or else be once again designated for assignment. However, with the mounting injuries the Mariners are facing at first base and in the outfield, it’s not a surprise to see them bring in another option.
The Mariners are without center fielder Kyle Lewis indefinitely after the 2020 Rookie of the Year sustained another knee injury late last month. First baseman Evan White struggled again to begin the season and has now spent nearly a month on the IL with a strained hip flexor. Infield/outfield options Sam Haggerty (shoulder inflammation) and Dylan Moore (calf strain) are both on the shelf at the moment as well, with Haggerty in particular out of the picture after being shifted to the 60-day IL. Meanwhile, uber-prospect Jarred Kelenic fell into a nightmarish slump after cracking a couple of early homers to begin his MLB career. Seattle optioned him back to Triple-A Tacoma this week.
This is the third trade and fourth organization for Bauers, a 2013 seventh-round pick who has the distinction of having been involved in a pair of notable three-team swaps. He went from the Padres to the Rays in the 2014 Wil Myers/Trea Turner deal. After debuting in the Majors with the Rays in 2018, he was flipped to Cleveland in the trade in a trade that, coincidentally enough, also involved the Mariners. That deal sent Edwin Encarnacion and a Competitive Balance draft pick from Cleveland to Seattle, with the Indians netting Carlos Santana and trading Yandy Diaz and Cole Sulser to Tampa Bay.
As for the 30-year-old Mayfield, he’s now been designated for assignment by a trio of AL West teams in the past year. The Astros, who signed Mayfield as an undrafted free agent in 2013, placed him on waivers last November, and he’s since bounced to the Braves, then the Angels and then the Mariners.
Mayfield is the quintessential light-hitting utility infielder. He’s a more-than-capable defender at any of shortstop, second base or third base but has struggled considerably to handle big league pitching. He’s had 150 turns at the plate in the past three seasons combined but put together a dismal .168/.195/.259 output in that time. Mayfield does carry a much more impressive .269/.325/.475 batting line in parts of five Triple-A seasons, however, and he can be optioned both this year and next. The Mariners will have a week to trade him or attempt to pass him through outright waivers.
Matt Barnes Open To In-Season Extension Talks
Red Sox closer Matt Barnes is in the midst of a career year at the perfect time, with free agency looming just a few months down the road. However, while many free-agents-to-be set an Opening Day deadline for extension talks with their current club, Barnes made clear this week that he’s “absolutely” open to talking about a new contract during the season (link via Chris Cotillo of MassLive.com). Barnes added that while the two sides talked during Spring Training and even exchanged numbers, the Red Sox haven’t made an offer since.
Barnes, 31 next week, has the second-highest strikeout rate among all qualified relievers at a whopping 49.5 percent, trailing only division rival Aroldis Chapman for the MLB lead. He’s worked 26 1/3 innings for the Sox this season and notched a tidy 2.73 ERA but with an even better 1.36 FIP and 1.33 SIERA.
Barnes has long been a solid late-inning option with well above-average strikeouts, but he’s taken his game to new heights in 2021. The breakout isn’t accompanied by a major uptick in fastball velocity or spin rate — both are actually down a bit from 2019 — or by the implementation of a new pitch.
The biggest change for Barnes looks attributable to the best command the right-hander has ever had. His 7.4 percent walk rate is far and away the lowest of his career. Barnes walked 12.7 percent of his opponents from 2018-20, but he’s slashed that this season in large part by emphasizing strike one; he’d thrown a first-pitch strike at just a 58 percent clip in his career prior to 2021, but that number has skyrocketed to 72.6 percent this season — a mark that ranks fourth-best among 182 qualified relievers. He’s inducing chases on pitches out of the strike zone at a career-high 37.6 percent, and his opponents’ 46.5 percent contact rate on those chases is the second-best mark of his career (trailing his 44.4 percent mark in 2018).
This is the best version of Barnes that the Red Sox have seen, and his breakthrough has no doubt played a role in the Red Sox beating virtually all preseason expectations with a 37-25 record with nearly 40 percent of the season in the books. Barnes is tied for fifth in Major League Baseball with 14 saves, has only blown two opportunities this season, and has only been scored upon in five of his 26 appearances.
All of that positions Barnes quite nicely as the open market looms. There’s no established, dominant presence among this winter’s group, which leaves Barnes looking like a candidate to hit the market as the top name available. Fellow breakout right Kendall Graveman could give him some competition in that regard, but Barnes is undeniably well-positioned for the time being.
Barnes is earning every bit of a $4.5MM salary thus far in 2021, but he’d obviously be in line for a sizable raise on that rate over a multi-year deal in free agency. This past offseason wasn’t a great year for relievers as a whole. Only Liam Hendriks topped two years in length or $9MM in annual value (on a multi-year deal). His $54MM guarantee from the White Sox is one of the largest sums ever promised to a reliever, but Blake Treinen‘s two-year, $17.5MM deal was the next-largest contract for any bullpen arm.
A year prior, the top bullpen arms on the market were lefties Will Smith (three years, $40MM) and Drew Pomeranz (four years, $34MM). In 2018-19 we saw each of Joe Kelly, Adam Ottavino, Familia and Zack Britton score three-year pacts with average annual values ranging from $8-13MM.
If Barnes can sustain this output, history suggests he’d be able to target seeking a contract of at least three years in free agency. An annual salary approaching or even exceeding $10MM — perhaps by a decent margin — wouldn’t seem outlandish if he continues punching out nearly half of his opponents. Barnes’ track record of this level of dominance is relatively short, but that was also true of many of the relievers who cashed in over the past three offseasons (Hendriks and Pomeranz chief among them).
There’s no indication that the Red Sox are planning a run at extending Barnes just yet. Luxury-tax concerns have underscored nearly every move the team has made for the past couple years. That said, Sox are under the line this year and could structure any contract as a new deal beginning in 2022 so as not to impact their 2021 bottom line (as they did when extending Chris Sale a couple years back). The Red Sox have about $127MM in luxury-tax obligations on the 2022 ledger, per Jason Martinez of Roster Resource. Critically, we don’t know what the luxury barrier will be in 2022 or if the luxury-tax system will even exist in its current state. That, of course is dependent on the ongoing collective bargaining talks. Whatever happens, Barnes made clear the ball is in the team’s court.
“We haven’t had any discussions since spring training,” said Barnes. “If the Red Sox want to make an offer and they want to start those conversations… I’ve always been a firm believer that listening to information is always free.”
The Looming Crackdown On Foreign Substances
It’s been less than a week since Major League Baseball made known that it will begin to crack down on the use of foreign substances by pitchers, and it’s possible we’ve already seen some tangible results among some of the game’s most prominent arms. Jorge Castillo of the Los Angeles Times pointed out that the spin rate on Trevor Bauer‘s four-seamer in his most recent start for the Dodgers dropped by 223 rpm. Hitters around the league are monitoring such changes, as evidenced by Josh Donaldson wondering aloud when asked by Dan Hayes of The Athletic: “Is it a coincidence that Gerrit Cole’s spin rate numbers went down (Thursday) after four minor leaguers got suspended for 10 games?”
Yankee fans may bristle at seeing their ace called out, but Cole himself struggled to formulate an answer when plainly asked yesterday whether he’d used increasingly potent foreign substances — Spider Tack, in particular — to doctor the ball (Twitter link, with video, via Matthew Roberson of the New York Daily News).
“I don’t quite know how to answer that, to be honest,” Cole awkwardly replied after struggling for several seconds to formulate an answer for the yes-or-no prompt. “There are customs and practices that have been passed down from older players, from the last generation of players to this generation of players. I think there are some things that are certainly out of bounds in that regard, and I’ve stood pretty firm in terms of that, in terms of the communication between our peers and whatnot. Again, like I mentioned earlier, this is important to a lot of people that love the game, including the players in this room, including fans, including teams. So, if MLB wants to legislate more stuff, that’s a conversation that we can have, because ultimately we should all be pulling in the same direction on this.”
Cole didn’t directly address Donaldson’s implication, sidestepping the matter by stating that Donaldson is “entitled to his opinion and to voice his opinion” while attributing his drop in spin rate to poor mechanics in his most recent outing. Of note, the two will face each other in today’s game — a fact Donaldson was surely aware of when he made the comments in the first place. (Cole has struck Donaldson out in each of his first two plate appearances to this point).
Bauer similarly opted not to acknowledge whether he’d used such substances, via Castillo. The right-hander repeated multiple times that the only thing he’s sought since first seeking to bring the issue to light several years ago — before a pronounced uptick in his own spin rate — was for “everyone to compete on a fair playing field.”
“[I]f you’re going to enforce it, then enforce it,” Bauer said. “And if you’re not, then stop sweeping it under the rug, which is what [MLB has] done for four years now. … No one knows what the rules are right now, apparently, including MLB and the commissioner, so it’d be nice as players to know what rules we’re competing by and what rules are going to be enforced because, as everyone knows, a rule that’s written down that is never enforced is not a rule.”
It should be again pointed out that the substances in question track far beyond the historically accepted use of substances like rosin, sunscreen and even pine tar. Hitters generally haven’t minded pitchers using minor substances to improve their grip and gain better control of their pitches. Batters are regularly standing in against 95 to 102 mph fastballs in today’s game, after all; it stands to reason that they’d want pitchers to be able to grip the ball on humid days. But in the past couple weeks, we’ve seen several veteran hitters — Donaldson, Charlie Blackmon and Adam Duvall among them — express frustration with the level to which the use of foreign substances has progressed.
The spin-rate revolution has brought about much more potent substances as pitchers and, importantly, as MLB teams and front offices, have realized the manner in which greater spin creates greater efficacy on the mound. Readers who didn’t see last week’s exhaustive and excellent piece from Sports Illustrated’s Stephanie Apstein, wherein she writes that some teams have gone so far as to hire chemists whose responsibilities include (but are not limited to) developing proprietary substances for pitchers, should absolutely check out her column in its entirety. The Athletic’s Britt Ghiroli also penned a stellar exploration of the topic this week, writing within that some savvier teams have begun distributing tacky substances to pitchers at their lowest minor league levels, in order to avoid a sudden uptick in spin rate when they hit the Majors.
The vast spike in four-seam spin rate has undeniably been a contributing factor — albeit not the sole factor — in the leaguewide uptick in strikeouts and the general offensive malaise that has overtaken MLB so far in 2021. The league-average batting line in MLB right now is a historically feeble .237/.313/.396, and even when removing pitchers from the equation, that line only bumps up to .241/.317/.403. This year’s 23.5 percent strikeout rate among non-pitchers is an all-time record. Consider that even five years ago, the average MLB line was .259/.326/.425 with a 20.6 strikeout rate and that a decade ago, in 2011, the average hitter was contributing a .260/.331/.410 slash with a vastly smaller 18 percent punchout rate.
The lack of offense and the lack of in-game action has been an ongoing problem that commissioner Rob Manfred has repeatedly cited as an element of the game he’d like to improve. However, MLB has done essentially nothing to curb the increasing prevalence of foreign substances used by pitchers, instead focusing on other rule changes — e.g. batter minimums for relievers, runners on second in extra innings, limiting mound visits, etc. — while neglecting to enforce one that has long been in place but overlooked.
The advent of high-octane grip enhancers isn’t necessarily a new revelation. Eno Sarris has written several pieces on the matter over at The Athletic. Bauer famously conducted a single-inning “experiment” — hat tip to then-FanGraphs scribe Travis Sawchik — to boost his own spin rate for one frame back in 2018 after not-so-subtly calling out Cole, his former college teammate, for his huge spike in spin rate following a trade from Pittsburgh to Houston.
But there are quite likely other elements that have paired with the rising prevalence of Spider Tack, Pelican Grip and any number of other substances that have prompted hitters to begin speaking out. Major League Baseball ostensibly sought to correct the increasingly pitcher-friendly nature of the sport by changing the composition of the baseball itself in 2019. Manfred and league officials, of course, never admitted to such tactics, but myriad independent studies that were published at various outlets all revealed changes to the composition of the ball — at a time that just happened to coincide with MLB’s decision to take on oversight of the production from Rawlings.
Evidence of the 2019 changes to the ball were further felt at the Triple-A level, where an already explosive offensive environment, particularly in the Pacific Coast League, erupted to new heights when Triple-A games adopted the use of the same ball used at the MLB level. Home run records in 2019 were shattered; both the Twins and Yankees broke the all-time, single-season home run record for a team, with Minnesota’s “Bomba Squad” narrowly edging out the Bronx Bombers.
It was reported back in February that the league had informed teams it had now taken measures to swing the pendulum in the other direction, so to speak, altering the weight of the ball and the height of the seams in order to curb the rising number of home runs. Meanwhile, several clubs began storing baseballs in humidors prior to their games.
The extent to which those measures have impacted this year’s plague of offensive ineptitude can’t be known, but it’s hard to assume the dearth of offense is merely coincidental given those changes and the rising use of foreign substances. There have already been seven no-hitters this season — I’m choosing to count Madison Bumgarner‘s seven-inning no-no; he recorded the maximum number of outs possible, and it’s not his fault the game was shortened to seven frames — and no-hit bids lasting into the fifth, sixth and seventh innings seem to happen multiple times per week.
It’s only natural for hitters to reach a breaking point on this issue. Their salaries are determined by their ability to perform at the plate, and rampant sidestepping of an unenforced rule can only go so far without pushback from those most negatively impacted. That said, it’s also worth pointing out that while everyone has turned a blind eye to this issue, teams themselves could begin paying the price.
Cole and Bauer are going to be the two most talked-about examples, which is somewhat unfair to them given the widespread adoption of this practice, but they’re also prominent data points in this issue for a reason. The Yankees paid Cole the largest contract ever given to a pitcher: nine years and $324MM. The Dodgers gave Bauer the highest single-season salary of any player in MLB history not only in 2021 but also in 2022. Would those same commitments have been made had MLB been actually enforcing its foreign substance rules years ago, rather than further convoluting the issue by tinkering with the baseball itself (and perhaps overcorrecting in 2021)?
Other teams have made weighty financial commitments to pitchers they’ll now have to honor for years to come, perhaps at a time when one of the largest factors behind their success is now something the league suddenly purports to be taking seriously for the first time under the current commissioner. Dylan Hernandez of the L.A. Times recently opined that the Dodgers may not be getting the pitcher they thought they were paying for with Bauer, although Bauer himself rightly pointed back to 2018 — when his spin rate was markedly lower and he dominated for the Indians — as a point in his favor. (That, in and of itself, would seem another tacit admission of his own dabbling in foreign substance use.)
But Bauer and Cole are only two pitchers, and if there is indeed a widespread reckoning for tacky substances on the horizon, other names are inevitably going to be thrust into the spotlight even if they were merely going along with an issue the league had indirectly told them it didn’t consider serious enough to police. ESPN’s Jeff Passan points out that the average four-seam spin rate in MLB has jumped by 79 rpm since 2015, while the average rpm for sliders, curveballs and cutters have increased by a measure of between 200 and 350 per pitch.
That average can be misleading, as well; MLBTR’s Tim Dierkes notes that Bauer’s 2,438 rpm average spin rate in 2018 (prior to his spike) ranked 11th at the time but would only rank 27th in 2021. (Similarly, Bauer’s 2322 rpm average four-seam fastball spin in 2018 ranked 24th, but that mark would come in just 61st this season). The more aggressive adopters of foreign substances have benefited at an increasingly disproportionate level.
Time will tell just how heavily MLB will enact its newfound enforcement of a long-standing rule. Some pitchers will likely cut the act right now, and while a dip in their spin rate may prove telling, they’ll merely be viewed as participants in a trend that had become pervasive throughout the league. Others yet may try to seek more creative methods to cover their use of substances, particularly if MLB’s disciplinary measures prove to be timid. For the time being, there are going to be a whole lot of eyes on tonight’s Donaldson/Cole matchup and probably a big uptick in traffic at Baseball Savant as the focus on spin rate soars to new heights.
No Extension Talks Between Marlins, Starling Marte
5:30pm: Although he’d be one of the best outfielders available on the open market this winter, Marte tells Mish that his preference would be to forgo free agency entirely and sign an extension with the Marlins (Twitter link). Marte says he’d prefer to spend the remainder of his career with Miami and hopes the team will approach him about a long-term deal.
8:31am: With the trade deadline less than two months away and free agency looming just beyond that, the Marlins haven’t discussed a potential extension with center fielder Starling Marte, general manager Kim Ng told reporters yesterday (Twitter link via Craig Mish of the Miami Herald).
Between the lack of extension talks and a recent swan dive in the standings for Miami, the 32-year-old Marte looks increasingly like one of the game’s likelier trade candidates as that July 30 deadline approaches. Marte missed about a month with a broken rib earlier this season, but he’s enjoyed one of the most productive runs of an already terrific career so far in 2021 when he’s been healthy enough to take the field.
In 110 plate appearances, Marte has raked at a .337/.436/.554 clip with four homers, six doubles, a triple and six stolen bases. He’s also walked at a 12.7 percent clip that is far and away a career-best mark. His chase rate on pitches off the plate (33 percent) is tied for a career-low, and his contact rate on balls off the plate when he does swing is a career-best (64 percent). From a defensive standpoint, Marte has ranked anywhere from average to slightly above, at least from a statistical standpoint (0 Defensive Runs Saved, 0.5 Ultimate Zone Rating, two Outs Above Average).
As of this writing, Marte is still owed about $7.9MM of this season’s $12.5MM salary between now and the end of the year. That $12.5MM salary was a sizable sum for the perennially low-payroll Marlins to absorb when they acquired him at last year’s trade deadline, but it’s an eminently reasonable (if not bargain) price for a player of Marte’s caliber and one that could be more easily stomached by a club with even a mid-range payroll.
The low-spending Marlins may not want to risk a qualifying offer for Marte at season’s end. Even though he’d very likely reject such an offer, assuming good health, that number figures to check in around the $19MM range this winter — a number that represents 30 percent of this year’s roughly $63MM Marlins payroll. If Marte did reject, Miami would then receive a compensatory pick after the first round if (or when) he signed elsewhere. In order to trade Marte, the Fish would need to feel they were receiving more (or at least comparable) value than they’d net with a comp pick in the 2022 draft.
There are very few center-field options on the market but multiple clubs in need of an upgrade in center, which should bode well for the Marlins if they do ultimately put Marte on the market. A pair of those clubs, the Phillies and Mets, are in the Marlins’ own division, which could complicate matters a bit. Others, including the Yankees and Astros, are on the precipice of the luxury-tax barrier and have been unwilling to cross that threshold in 2021. Miami could, of course, offer to pay down some or even all of Marte’s remaining salary in order to eliminate that risk for a trade partner; by doing so, the Marlins would be able to justify a higher asking price in return for a rental of Marte’s services before he hits the open market.
It’s been less than a year since the Marlins acquired Marte from the D-backs in a trade that sent lefty Caleb Smith and minor league right-hander Humberto Mejia to Arizona. The Marlins registered as somewhat of a surprise landing spot, given Arizona’s financial motivations for trading Marte away and Miami’s annual payroll constraints. He’s batted .289/.362/.482 overall with the Marlins and was part of the team’s surprising playoff push last year, and the Marlins will now likely recoup either a nice prospect return in a trade or a notable pick in the 2022 draft.
Dodgers Activate Tony Gonsolin From 60-Day Injured List
The Dodgers have activated right-hander Tony Gonsolin from the 60-day injured list, per a club announcement. He’s in line to start tonight’s game against the Pirates after sitting out the entire year to date due shoulder inflammation. In a pair of corresponding moves, Los Angeles placed Yoshi Tsutsugo on the 10-day injured list due to a strained right calf and transferred lefty Scott Alexander from the 10-day IL to the 60-day IL. Alexander is on the injured list due to his own bout of shoulder inflammation.
Gonsolin, 27, is one of the game’s most overqualified fifth/sixth starters. He trails Walker Buehler, Clayton Kershaw, Trevor Bauer and Julio Urias on the team’s depth chart and may not have cracked the Opening Day rotation, had he been healthy, due to the presence of Dustin May (who has since undergone Tommy John surgery). On nearly any other club in Major League Baseball, Gonsolin would have had a more straightforward opportunity to establish himself as a rotation fixture — an opportunity he may now get in Los Angeles.
From 2019-20, Gonsolin tallied 86 2/3 innings for the Dodgers, pitching to a 2.60 ERA with a 24.5 percent strikeout rate, a 6.5 percent walk rate and a 37.7 percent ground-ball rate. He’s not an overpowering arm, sitting 94.4 mph with his heater, but he’s generated a strong 13 percent swinging-strike rate and induced chases on pitches off the plate at a 33.1 percent clip in his short MLB career to date. Only 14 of his 20 MLB appearances so far have been starts, but he’s been more effective out of the rotation than the bullpen in that short sample.
That level of depth is a clear luxury for the Dodgers, but with May out for the rest of the year — and for a portion of 2022 as well — Gonsolin may get the chance to take the ball every fifth day, assuming his own health holds up. He’s given every indication to this point that he’s more than capable of holding down a permanent rotation job at the MLB level.
Turning to today’s other moves, Tsutsugo will head to the shelf after struggling through his first 31 plate appearances since coming over in a small trade with the Rays. He’s out to a 3-for-25 start (all singles) with six walks and a dozen strikeouts in that time. The hope was likely that he could fill a similar role to Edwin Rios, who’s been lost for the season due to shoulder surgery, but to this point it hasn’t worked out.
Alexander, meanwhile, went on the injured list in early May and will now be out through at least early July as a result. (The 60-day term is retroactive to his original IL placement — not from today forth.) He’s been a solid but up-and-down member of the team’s bullpen since being acquired from the Royals four years ago, pitching to a 3.44 ERA in 107 1/3 innings dating back to 2018. He opened the 2021 season with 11 2/3 frames of 2.31 ERA ball, a 5-to-1 K/BB ratio and a whopping 63.2 percent ground-ball rate — a mark that is actually a fair bit shy of his career 70.4 percent rate.
Giants Designate Matt Wisler For Assignment
The Giants shuffled up their pitching staff Wednesday, per Alex Pavlovic of NBC Sports Bay Area (Twitter link), formally selecting the contracts of lefty Sam Long and right-hander James Sherfy (as previously reported, in the case of Long). Right-hander Matt Wisler was designated for assignment in one corresponding move, while outfielder Alex Dickerson was placed on the 10-day injured list due to an upper back strain with another.
Wisler, 28, was somewhat of a surprise non-tender by the Twins on the heels of a 1.07 ERA and a 32.7 percent strikeout rate in last summer’s shortened slate of games. Wisler has maintained that bat-missing prowess and actually made a dramatic improvement in the problematic 13.1 percent walk rate that likely contributed to his non-tender — he’s down to 7.3 percent in 2021 — but he’s once again become alarmingly homer-prone. In 19 1/3 frames, he’s been tagged for four long balls — a rate of 1.86 per nine innings pitched. The resulting 6.05 ERA prompted the Giants to move on.
San Francisco will now have a week to trade Wisler or attempt to pass him through outright waivers. He has enough service time to reject an outright assignment in favor of free agency, but doing so would require forfeiting the remainder of his $1.15MM salary, so he’s likely to accept an assignment if he passes through waivers unclaimed.
Sherfy, 29, has spent parts of three seasons in the division, appearing with the 2017-19 Diamondbacks and tallying a total of 45 1/3 innings pitched. He’s logged a combined 2.98 ERA in that time, punching out a quarter of his opponents against a 9.9 percent walk rate. So far in Triple-A Sacramento, he’s rattled off 7 2/3 shutout innings with an 11-to-1 K/BB ratio.
Dickerson, 31, was a revelation for the Giants from 2019-20 after coming over from the division-rival Padres in a trade, but he’s scuffled in 2021 and dealt with some all-too-familiar durability concerns. Dickerson topped a .900 OPS in his first two partial seasons with San Francisco, but he’s mustered only a .226/.295/.398 output so far this year. This will be the second IL stint of the season for him, as he previously spent 10 days on the injured list with a right shoulder impingement.
Rangers Place Ian Kennedy On Injured List, Select Spencer Patton
The Rangers announced Wednesday that they’ve placed right-hander Ian Kennedy on the 10-day injured list due to a “mild” hamstring strain and selected the contract of right-hander Spencer Patton from Triple-A Round Rock in his place. Texas already had an open spot on the 40-man roster, so an additional corresponding move is not necessary. Patton will be in the club’s bullpen for today’s game.
Kennedy, 36, has proven to be one of the best minor league signings in all of baseball this season. He inked a non-guaranteed pact with an invite to Spring Training and parlayed a strong showing there into a $2.15MM base salary. He’s not only justified that modest investment, he’s thrived as one of the game’s more effective late-inning relievers. Kennedy has pitched 21 1/3 innings and racked up 12 saves to go along with a 2.53 ERA, a hefty 29.8 percent strikeout rate and a tidy 8.3 percent walk rate.
That standout performance, coupled with a generally poor performance from the team as a whole, makes Kennedy one of the most obvious trade candidates on this summer’s market. Texas has dropped nine of its past ten games, falling to 16 games south of the .500 mark and 13 games back of the division-leading Athletics. As such, it’s good news for the Rangers that Kennedy is dealing with only a “mild” strain. While a timeline for his return wasn’t provided, the mild nature of the injury should allow him to return long before the July 30 trade deadline.
As for Patton, today’s promotion will mark the culmination of a nearly five-year journey back to the big leagues. A 24th-round pick of the Royals back in 2011, Patton made his MLB debut as a Ranger in 2014 and spent parts of the next three seasons as an up-and-down member of the bullpen for both the Rangers and Cubs.
From there, Patton went on to spend four seasons pitching with the Yokohama DeNA BayStars of Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball. The righty was one of NPB’s best relievers in 2017-18 before struggling, in part due to injury, in 2019-20. Even with the downturn in his final two years in Japan, however, Patton’s overall NPB track record was strong: 205 2/3 innings of 3.68 ERA ball with a 27.4 percent strikeout rate against a 9.5 percent walk rate.
Patton returned to the Rangers on a minor league deal of his own this winter, and he’s fired off 12 scoreless innings to begin his season in Round Rock. He’s walked six hitters, which clearly isn’t ideal, but has also yielded only six hits and whiffed a dozen of the 45 batters he’s faced. He’ll now get the chance to prove that the gains he appeared to make in NPB are sustainable here at the game’s top level in North America. Patton turned 33 back in February, so if he is indeed able to replicate his NPB success here in MLB, he could have several years remaining as a productive, late-inning reliever — be it with the Rangers or with another club.
MLBTR Chat Transcript
Click here to read a transcript of Tuesday’s chat with MLBTR’s Steve Adams.
Mariners Designate Jacob Nottingham For Assignment
The Mariners announced Tuesday that they have once again designated catcher Jacob Nottingham for assignment. His spot on the 40-man roster goes to outfielder Dillon Thomas, whose promotion to the big leagues was reported earlier this morning.
It’s the latest in a staggering series of transactions for Nottingham, who has spent the past several seasons with the Brewers organization and recently begun to be ping-ponged back and forth between Seattle and Milwaukee. A quick rundown of Nottingham’s bizarre timeline leading up to today’s DFA:
- April 22: Brewers designate Nottingham for assignment
- April 28: Mariners claim Nottingham of waivers
- May 1: Mariners designate Nottingham for assignment
- May 2: Brewers reacquire Nottingham in exchange for cash
- May 20: Mariners re-claim Nottingham off waivers
It remains to be seen if the Brewers will take another run at Nottingham, if he’ll land with another club or, perhaps, if he might finally clear waivers. The Mariners will have a week to gauge trade interest in the catcher or once again attempt to pass him through outright waivers. He’s out of minor league options, so any team that claims or acquires Nottingham will have to carry him on its MLB roster.
On the one hand, Nottingham is surely grateful to be in demand by at least these two teams. He gets Major League service time and Major League pay for any time spent in DFA limbo, so he’s at least being well compensated for the increasingly ridiculous tug-of-war the two teams are playing over him. On the other hand, it’s difficult for any player to bounce back and forth this much. Family considerations, housing, Covid protocols and myriad other factors come into play every time he changes teams.
Nottingham was once a catching prospect of some note, although he’s yet to receive any sort of regular playing time in the Majors. (Clearly, this year’s sequence isn’t helping.) He’s a career .250/.326/.421 hitter in 528 Triple-A plate appearances but has managed a more tepid .184/.277/.421 slash in a small sample of 130 plate appearances in the Majors. He homered twice in his 2021 debut with the Brewers and has also connected on a long ball in Seattle, but Nottingham’s 45 plate appearances in this strange season have resulted in a .150/.222/.400 output.
Rotation Injuries Could Push Cardinals To Trade Market
While the Cardinals haven’t provided much in the way of specifics beyond classifying ace Jack Flaherty‘s oblique strain as “significant,” MLB Network’s Jon Heyman reports (via Twitter) that the 25-year-old righty could be sidelined for the remainder of the first half of the season. Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch also weighs in on the lack of a concrete timeline for Flaherty, similarly implying that he could be many weeks away from returning to the Cards. Jeff Jones of the Belleville News pegs Flaherty’s likely return at some point in August.
It was clear at the time of the injury that Flaherty would miss more than the 10-day minimum associated with his placement on the injured list, but an IL stint spanning into the season’s second half would wipe out as much as quarter of Flaherty’s season. Losing Flaherty for even a couple starts is a blow for St. Louis, but seeing him shelved for six-plus weeks would be a gut punch for a team that has been beset by rotation injuries.
The Cardinals lost young righty Dakota Hudson to Tommy John surgery last September, and they’ve received just four innings from Miles Mikolas so far in 2021 after he experienced renewed forearm discomfort in his return from a flexor operation that wiped out his 2020 season. The plan for Mikolas is to be reevaluated either in late June or early July, but there’s no clear timeline on a potential return for him either. Meanwhile, lefty Kwang Hyun Kim is out with a lower back injury.
With the injuries piling up in rapid fashion, the Cardinals’ rotation has dwindled. Adam Wainwright remains a rock for their staff, but Carlos Martinez has been inconsistent and was just obliterated by the Dodgers for 10 runs in less than an inning of work in his most recent outing. Righty John Gant has an impressive 2.63 ERA, but he won’t be able to maintain that production unless he curbs a sky-high 15 percent walk rate. In 54 innings, he has nearly as many free passes issued (37) as strikeouts recorded (41), and he’s also plunked three batters. Young righty Johan Oviedo‘s control has been similarly worrisome in a smaller sample of 24 innings (five starts).
Meanwhile, as Goold notes in his column, top Cardinals pitching prospect Matthew Liberatore is slated to pitch for Team USA in the Olympics. He could be called back to the organization to help fill the need, but Goold writes that Mozeliak called this a “tough” decision while acknowledging that Liberatore’s Olympic aspirations could be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
All of that makes Flaherty’s injury even more problematic for the Cardinals, though given his general excellence, it’d be a notable blow even if the rest of the staff were healthy and effective. In 62 innings so far this season, Flaherty has logged a 2.90 ERA with a hearty 26.3 percent strikeout rate and a better-than-average 7.8 percent walk rate. Since being ambushed for six runs in an Opening Day start against the Reds, he’s pitched to a 2.18 ERA in 57 2/3 frames.
Despite the fact that their rotation is in shambles, the Cardinals are hanging in the NL Central race at 31-29. They’re two and a half games behind the division-leading Brewers and a half-game back from the Cubs, with a Wild Card spot sitting just 3.5 games out of reach. So long as they continue to tread water and keep themselves within striking distance of a postseason bid, it feels safe to presume that rotation upgrades will be a primary focus for president of baseball operations John Mozeliak, general manager Mike Girsch and the rest of the front office as the deadline draws nearer.
It’s worth wondering whether the glaring rotation issues would be enough to make the Cards jump the market a bit — there ought to be plenty of available names from which to choose — but notable trades are far more commonplace in July than in June, historically speaking.