Marcus Stroman Opts Out Of 2020 Season
The Mets announced Monday that right-hander Marcus Stroman has opted out of the remainder of the 2020 season. The right-hander, who is a free agent at season’s end, called the move a family decision and cited the many “uncertainties” and “unknowns” of playing in the current health-and-safety atmosphere.
This obviously represents a major blow to the Mets’ hopes in 2020. While Stroman will forgo the remainder of his $12MM salary, it isn’t as if there’s an obvious way for the team to reinvest it for a player of similar quality — at least, not without giving up substantial prospect value via trade.
The decision puts a bow on the Mets’ end of last summer’s trade that brought Stroman to Queens. Adding him cost two promising young starters: Anthony Kay and Simeon Woods Richardson. The club remained competitive late in 2019 but was already in too deep a hole to make a postseason run. And now Stroman won’t throw a pitch in the 2020 campaign.
It all sets up several intriguing contract situations in the future. Stroman, who had been on the injured list, did not opt out until after he had reached six full years of MLB service. That means he’ll still qualify for free agency. Whether the Mets will extend Stroman a qualifying offer, as once seemed sure, remains to be seen. And it’ll be interesting to see how the open market treats the high-quality 29-year-old.
Stroman is now listed among the players around the game that have opted out of the 2020 season.
Twins Sign Casey Lawrence, Outright Aaron Whitefield
The Twins have inked right-hander Casey Lawrence to a minor league deal and assigned him to their alternate training site in St. Paul, per The Athletic’s Dan Hayes (Twitter link). Meanwhile, outfielder Aaron Whitefield has cleared waivers and been assigned outright to the minor leagues. Being outrighted to the minors versus the alternate training site is a notable distinction, as it indicates that Whitefield is no longer in the team’s 60-player pool. He won’t be eligible to return to Minnesota’s pool in 2020 (though he could still technically be traded elsewhere). The Twins had 59 players in their pool.
Lawrence, 32, has seen action in a pair of big league seasons without much success. In 78 2/3 innings between the Blue Jays and Mariners, he was knocked around for a 6.64 ERA with a 66-to-35 K/BB ratio (five of the walks were intentional) and a 48.6 percent grounder rate. However, he also has a career 3.73 ERA with 7.0 K/9 against 1.7 BB/9 in parts of five Triple-A seasons.
Lawrence actually signed a minor league deal with Minnesota back in January, although he wasn’t ever included in the team’s player pool and was seemingly cut loose at some point between the conclusion of Spring Training and today’s re-signing. The Twins currently have Zack Littell, Homer Bailey and Rich Hill on the injured list, which prompted the team to select Cory Gearrin‘s contract yesterday. Bringing Lawrence into the mix gives them another experienced arm to stash in St. Paul should they need a long reliever at some point.
As for Whitefield, he made just one plate appearance and appeared in three games with the Twins this year. That marked the 23-year-old Aussie’s MLB debut, but he was destined for a limited role from the moment the Twins put him on the Opening Day roster. Whitefield was a late add to Minnesota’s player pool and was carried primarily for pinch-running and late-inning defensive purposes. He’s a career .238/.299/.338 hitter in the minors but has gone 115-for-148 (77.7 percent) in stolen base attempts through just 357 games in the Twins’ system.
Dodgers Place Joe Kelly On Injured List
The Dodgers announced that right-handed reliever Joe Kelly has been placed on the 10-day injured list due to inflammation in his right shoulder. No timeline for his return was provided. The Dodgers have recalled lefty Adam Kolarek in his place.
Kelly is still facing an eight-game suspension after throwing a fastball near Alex Bregman‘s head and swapping verbal jabs with Carlos Correa, all of which eventually led to bench-clearing confrontation. He’s in the process of appealing the punishment, and a hearing on that front is set for today, tweets Bill Shaikin of the L.A. Times.
The 32-year-old Kelly had a rough first season in L.A., pitching to a 4.56 ERA in 51 1/3 frames after inking a three-year, $25MM deal in the preceding offseason. He was hit hard in the playoffs as well. This year, he’s rattled off 6 1/3 shutout innings to begin the shortened campaign, although the five walks he’s yielded in that time are still a red flag. Kelly’s 97.1 mph average fastball in 2020 is still well above the league average, but it’s down about two miles per hour from its 2017 peak and down nearly a mile per hour off last year’s mark.
With Kelly out until at least next week, the Dodgers will lean move heavily on fellow righties Blake Treinen, Pedro Baez and Brusdar Graterol to set up for closer Kenley Jansen. Kolarek will give the club a fourth southpaw option to match up with opposing lineups, joining Caleb Ferguson, Scott Alexander and Jake McGee.
Rangers Sign Derek Dietrich
The Rangers have signed infielder Derek Dietrich to a minor league contract and assigned him to their alternate training site, per a club announcement. Texas will be the third organization for Dietrich already in 2020. He signed a minor league deal with the Reds (with whom he spent the 2019 season) over the winter and latched on with the Cubs late last month after Cincinnati cut him loose. The Cubs released Dietrich just 24 hours ago.
Early last summer, Dietrich looked to be one of the best minor league pickups in all of MLB. Through his first 157 trips to the plate, he raked at a .263/.369/.684 clip and had already set a new career-high in home runs. He was thriving both at the hitter-friendly Great American Ball Park and on the road, but his offensive output cratered in the season’s final few months. Over his final 149 plate appearances, he hit just .102/.284/.212.
In all, Dietrich is a career .246/.334/.427 hitter with 79 home runs, 106 doubles and 21 triples in 2438 plate appearances between the Marlins and Reds. He has experience playing second base, first base, third base and the outfield corners. He’ll give the club some lefty-hitting bench depth and perhaps an alternative to the struggling Rougned Odor, who has opened the season with a disastrous .114/.205/.229 slash and 16 strikeouts in 39 plate appearances.
Orioles Release Ty Blach
The Orioles announced this morning that they have released left-hander Ty Blach. He underwent Tommy John surgery last month. Blach wasn’t on the team’s 40-man roster but had been in their 60-man player pool, which dropped to a total of 59 players with his release.
Blach, 29, struggled in 20 2/3 frames with the Orioles in 2019 after being claimed off waivers out of the Giants organization. Between those two clubs, he was tagged for 36 runs on 46 hits and 17 walks with 20 strikeouts in 27 innings of work.
While that was a season Blach would surely like to forget, his prior work in San Francisco was solid. From 2016-18, Blach logged 299 1/3 innings with a 4.36 ERA, 4.14 FIP, 4.8 K/9, 2.7 BB/9 and a 50.1 percent ground-ball rate. The lack of strikeouts is obviously glaring, but Blach generally avoided too much hard contact on his sinker, which helped him to limit the damage.
Cardinals-Cubs Series Postponed Due To Additional Covid-19 Positive(s)
7:27pm: Outfielder Austin Dean, righty Ryan Helsley and a staff member tested positive, Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch writes.
5:04pm: MLB will postpone this weekend’s Cards-Cubs series, Joel Sherman of the New York Post reports.
12:25pm: Major League Baseball has officially announced that tonight’s game is postponed due to one additional positive test. However, USA Today’s Bob Nightengale tweets that there’s “concern” of a second positive test beyond the one the league has confirmed. That could point to some yet-inconclusive results and also explain the discrepancy between the earlier reporting on the number of positive tests. Clarity on the matter should come later today.
12:10pm: MLB Network’s Jon Heyman tweets that there was only one new positive test. Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch (Twitter link) and a few others have heard the same, though SportsGrid’s Craig Mish tweets that there were two new positives. Whatever the exact number is determined to be, there figures to be additional testing and contact tracing performed before the league decides on the remainder of the Cubs/Cards series. The Cardinals had already been aiming to play 55 games in a span of 52 days, so the postponement of tonight’s game further adds to a notable scheduling challenge.
12:02pm: Tonight’s Cardinals game against the Cubs has been postponed due to new positive Covid-19 test(s) within the Cardinals organization, The Athletic’s Mark Saxon reports (via Twitter). The new positives dash the Cardinals’ hopes of getting back to the field for the first time since July 29. The St. Louis organization had seven players and several staff members test positive over the course of several days beginning last Friday.
This will be the first schedule interruption for the first-place Cubs, and as has continually been the case, there are potential broad-reaching implications beyond the current series. Future opponents could be impacted — the Cards are set to begin a series against the Pirates on Monday — and depending on the outcome of the remainder of this series, the Cubs could now find themselves with multiple doubleheaders added to the schedule.
The Cardinals announced this week that catcher Yadier Molina, pitchers Junior Fernandez and Kodi Whitley, and infielders Paul DeJong, Edmundo Sosa and Rangel Ravelo had all tested positive for Covid-19. All but Ravelo were placed on the injured list the following day, as was right-hander Carlos Martinez.
Rays Select Sean Gilmartin
The Rays announced Friday that they’ve placed lefty Jose Alvarado on the paternity list and selected the contract of fellow left-hander Sean Gilmartin from their alternate training site. A 40-man roster spot was opened by reinstating outfielder Manuel Margot from the bereavement list and placing him on the Covid-19-related injured list so that he can undergo mandatory intake testing. It should be noted that there’s no indication of a positive test or any symptoms for Margot; this is merely standard protocol after Margot left the team earlier this week following the death of his father.
Gilmartin, 30, has pitched in the big leagues in each of the past five seasons — albeit just 2 1/3 frames with the Orioles in 2019. The Braves selected him with the No. 28 pick back in 2011, and he’s since bounced around the league in a series of trades, a Rule 5 pick and waiver claims.
Back in 2015, the Mets looked wise to have plucked Gilmartin out of the Twins organization in the 2014 Rule 5 Draft. He stuck with the club all season and gave the Mets 57 2/3 innings of 2.67 ERA ball with a strong 54-to-18 K/BB ratio and just two home runs allowed. Outside of that rookie season, however, success in the Majors has been hard to come by.
In the four years since that time, Gilmartin has pitched to a combined 5.90 ERA and 6.46 FIP, averaging just 5.5 strikeouts and 3.8 walks per nine innings pitched. Gilmartin’s home-run and walk rates have ballooned as his strikeout rate has dipped. He’ll hope to reverse those trends with the Rays, but it’s also possible that his stay with the club will be rather abbreviated, as Alvarado should return to the Rays in just a few days.
Royals Designate Jorge Lopez For Assignment
The Royals announced Friday that right-hander Jorge Lopez has been designated for assignment. He’d been on the bereavement list, and because he’s out of minor league options, had to either be added back to the 28-man roster or designated for assignment. The Kansas City front office clearly didn’t feel that Lopez was among the team’s 28 best options, so he’ll now await the resolution of his DFA status. The Royals have a week to trade Lopez, release him or run him through outright waivers.
Lopez, 27, ranked among baseball’s 100 best prospects prior to the 2016 season but has never pieced things together at the game’s top level. The former second-rounder went from Milwaukee to K.C. alongside outfielder Brett Phillips in the trade that initially brought Mike Moustakas to the Brewers. Lopez, however, has logged 190 innings in the Majors between the two teams and stumbled to a 5.97 ERA with a pedestrian 157-to-70 K/BB ratio. He’s struggled quite a bit in Triple-A as well, and while the Pacific Coast League is notoriously hitter-friendly, a 6.31 ERA and 11 hits per nine innings pitched still doesn’t reflect well.
Lopez does average 94 mph on his sinker and generate grounders at an above-average rate, but his lack of minor league options might make it tough for another club to claim him.
Red Sox Release John Andreoli, Add Seth Blair To Player Pool
The Red Sox have released outfielder John Andreoli in order to open a spot in their 60-man player pool for right-hander Seth Blair, per a team announcement. Blair will join the club’s alternate training site.
Andreoli, 30, is a Worcester native with 26 games and 67 plate appearance of big league experience under his belt. That all came back in 2018, when he hit .230/.284/.262 in a small sample with the Mariners and Orioles. Lack of big league experience aside, Andreoli is a solid depth piece for big league clubs given a career .262/.375/.416 slash in nearly 2500 Triple-A plate appearances. He’s also logged more than 2000 minor league innings at all three outfield positions and racked up 259 minor league stolen bases. It wouldn’t be a surprise to see him latch on with a club hurting for outfield depth.
Blair, meanwhile, is something of a remarkable story. The 31-year-old was selected by the Cardinals with the No. 46 overall pick of the 2010 draft and looked to have washed out of baseball after an ugly season in 2014. Blair didn’t throw a professional pitch from 2015-18 but was given a chance at a comeback by the Padres organization in 2019. He spent the year with San Diego’s Class-A Advanced affiliate, and while his 4.11 ERA doesn’t stand out as a particularly impressive mark, Blair also notched an impressive 47-to-14 K/BB ratio in 35 frames. Now that he’s in Boston’s player pool, he’s closer to an improbable big league debut than he was at any point in 2019.
Orioles Add Two To 60-Man Player Pool
The Orioles announced Friday that they’ve added lefty Brian Gonzalez and infielder Gunnar Henderson to their 60-man player pool. Both have been assigned to the club’s alternate training site in Bowie. Baltimore’s pool is up to 59 players.
Gonzalez, 24, doesn’t rank among Baltimore’s best prospects but has had success up through the Double-A level, so he could emerge as an eventual bullpen option in 2020. The 2014 third-rounder struggled as a starter in Class-A Advanced and Double-A, but he was moved to a full-time relief role in 2019 and enjoyed his best year since 2016. Gonzalez tallied 53 1/3 innings last season, pitching to a 3.38 ERA with 8.9 K/9, 2.5 BB/9 and an admittedly bloated 1.5 HR/9 mark. The O’s recently traded southpaw Richard Bleier to the Marlins, so Gonzalez replenishes some of that depth.
Henderson, meanwhile, won’t see any MLB time in 2020. The 19-year-old was Baltimore’s second-round pick in the 2019 draft and hasn’t even reached A-ball yet, so there’s no way the club will put him on the 40-man roster and bring him to the big leagues. That said, he’s widely regarded as one of the rebuilding club’s ten best prospects, so he’ll head to Bowie to get some work with the coaching staff there and see some simulated reps along with the club’s other top minor leaguers. As The Athletic’s Dan Connolly points out on Twitter, the O’s now have all of their Top 11 prospects (per Baseball America’s rankings) either on their MLB roster or at their Bowie site.