Steve Adams | MLB Trade Rumors

Felix Hernandez Expected To Miss 4-6 Weeks Due To Lat Strain

By Steve Adams | May 14, 2019 at 6:48pm CDT

Mariners right-hander Felix Hernandez is expected to miss four to six weeks after an MRI revealed a Grade 1 lat strain, per Corey Brock of The Athletic (Twitter link).

The injury to Hernandez comes as the Mariners were on the verge of getting left-hander Wade LeBlanc back into the rotation after a stay in the injured list. Instead, they’ll continue to operate without one member of their season-opening rotation, meaning young righty Erik Swanson could get an extended look in the rotation alongside Yusei Kikuchi, Marco Gonzales and Mike Leake. LeBlanc pitched in a rehab game in Triple-A yesterday and is seemingly close to a return.

Hernandez, 33, is off to an ugly start for the second consecutive season, having pitched to a 6.52 ERA with 7.9 K/9, 1.9 BB/9, 2.09 HR/9 and a 50 percent ground-ball rate. While Hernandez has improved upon last season’s strikeout, walk and ground-ball rates, he’s also been exorbitantly homer-prone so far in 2019.

A full return to form shouldn’t be expected after the struggles he’s endured and the velocity he’s lost in recent seasons, but there’s still reason to believe that Hernandez could turn the tide a bit once he returns this summer. Hernandez’s velocity is up about half mile per hour over last year, and he’s also seen improvements in his swinging-strike and opponents’ chase rates. If he can manage to curtail the home run woes a bit, he could perhaps function as a back-of-the-rotation arm over the final few months of the five-year, $135.5MM contract extension he signed back in February 2013.

Andujar Again Weighing Options; Stanton Dealing With Shoulder Strain

By Steve Adams | May 14, 2019 at 4:36pm CDT

A followup MRI on the ailing right shoulder of Yankees third baseman Miguel Andujar revealed little to no changes in his shoulder from the April MRI that initially revealed a small labrum tear, manager Aaron Boone told reporters Tuesday afternoon (Twitter links via James Wagner of the New York Times and Bryan Hoch of MLB.com). Andujar, according to Boone, has been encouraged to discuss the situation with his family and will spend the next day or so mulling his options. Season-ending surgery is still on the table, it seems.

The update from Boone comes just a day after Andujar was placed back on the 10-day injured list following a brief return to the active roster. Andujar missed the entire month of April and a few games early in May before returning on May 4 to go 3-for-34 (all singles) with one walk and nine strikeouts. While both Andujar and the team had hoped that the small nature of the tear would allow him to play through the injury, that poor showing has cast further doubt on his ability to do so.

In place of Andujar, Gio Urshela seems likely to continue logging regular work at the hot corner. He’s acquitted himself nicely at the plate through 101 plate appearances thus far (.341/.396/.505), but the 27-year-old has never shown much offensive ability in the big leagues and is currently sporting a .392 average on balls in play that looks ripe for regression.

The outlook on another injured slugger, Giancarlo Stanton, is perhaps more optimistic but also quite vague (Twitter links via Wagner and Hoch). The initial biceps strain that landed Stanton on the injured list back on April 1 has healed, but Boone suggested that Stanton’s left shoulder is still bothering him. Stanton received a cortisone injection in that problematic shoulder a couple of weeks ago and is continuing to run and take at-bats in a simulated setting, but he is not on a rehab assignment just yet. Boone was extremely nebulous in his description of the injury but stated that there’s no tear in Stanton’s shoulder; the Yankees have since announced that Stanton is dealing with a left shoulder strain.

New York’s outlook in the outfield is a bit steadier with Aaron Hicks back on the active roster and set for his season debut. Hicks will of course be in line for regular center field duties, with Brett Gardner, Clint Frazier and hot-hitting Cameron Maybin cycling through the outfield corners and perhaps spending some time at DH here and there. At present, though, it’s not clear when Stanton or fellow injured slugger Aaron Judge will be able to step back into the fray.

A second straight rain delay will give all of those injured Yankees some time to mend, as tonight’s game against the Orioles has already been postponed. New York and Baltimore will play a doubleheader tomorrow to make up for yesterday’s rain-out, and tonight’s game will be made up as part of an August doubleheader.

Royals Designate Frank Schwindel For Assignment

By Steve Adams | May 14, 2019 at 3:38pm CDT

The Royals have designated first baseman Frank Schwindel for assignment in order to open a spot on the roster for infield prospect Nicky Lopez, whose previously announced promotion to the Major Leagues is now official (Twitter link via Lynn Worthy of the Kansas City Star).

Schwindel, 26, opened the 2019 season on the active roster with the Royal but appeared in only six games before returning to the minors. He’s had a rough go of it so far in Triple-A Omaha, hitting just .186/.237/.286 with a homer and four doubles through 76 trips to the plate. That said, Schwindel enjoyed a much more productive 2018 run in Omaha when he hit .286/.336/.506 with 24 homers and 38 doubles, and he’s generally been a productive bat since arriving on the scene in Triple-A back in 2017.

The move to designate Schwindel buys struggling veteran Chris Owings some additional time on the active roster. Kansas City signed the former D-backs utilityman to a one-year deal worth $3MM this past offseason, but Owings has mustered only a .143/.209/.244 output in 129 trips to the plate so far. For now, he’ll continue to try to sort things out at the MLB level, but Lopez’s arrival will further cut into his already dwindling playing time.

MLBTR Chat Transcript

By Steve Adams | May 14, 2019 at 2:16pm CDT

Click here to read a transcript of Tuesday’s chat with MLBTR’s Steve Adams.

Jonathan Loaisiga Shut Down For Four Weeks

By Steve Adams | May 13, 2019 at 3:21pm CDT

Even as the Yankees welcome injured players back to the roster — Aaron Hicks was activated for his season debut today — new injuries continue to pile up. The team announced today that right-hander Jonathan Loaisiga has been placed on the 10-day injured list due to a shoulder strain, and manager Aaron Boone announced to reporters that Loaisiga won’t throw a baseball for at least the next four weeks (Twitter link via MLB.com’s Bryan Hoch). The 24-year-old is dealing with a strain of his right rotator cuff.

Loaisiga had been slated to start tonight’s contest, but that start will now fall to right-hander Luis Cessa. Righty Chance Adams was recalled from Triple-A in place of Loaisiga, so he’ll be on hand as an option for some length in the middle of the game as well, should the need arise. Loaisiga joins James Paxton, Luis Severino and Jordan Montgomery (still recovering from 2018 Tommy John surgery) as rotation options on the injured list.

While Loaisiga has yet to establish himself at the MLB level, he’s nevertheless a well-regarded prospect. Baseball America currently ranks him as the No. 94 farmhand in all of baseball, and he owns a career 2.88 ERA with 8.2 K/9 against 1.7 BB/9 in his minor league career. Injuries, though, have been a persistent factor for Loaisiga, who has never thrown more than the 84 2/3 innings he tossed last year in any single professional season.

Following tonight’s spot start from Cessa, the Yankees’ rotation will include Masahiro Tanaka, J.A. Happ, Domingo German, CC Sabathia and a yet-to-be-determined fifth option. Presumably, Cessa and Adams will both be candidates for that spot, as will the recently optioned Nestor Cortes Jr. As for the team’s injured starters, Severino has yet to begin a throwing program following his latest shutdown, while Paxton has played catch but not embarked on a minor league rehab assignment. There’s hope that Paxton could return before month’s end but no indication that a return is imminent. Montgomery isn’t expected back until later midsummer.

Loaisiga’s injury is the latest in an ongoing series of physical ailments that have tested the Yankees’ depth at virtually every spot on the roster so far in 2019. Of course, the Yankees have largely passed any such test with flying colors; the team is eight games over .500 — just a half game out of the AL East lead — and carries a +36 run differential despite the interminable onslaught of health troubles they’ve faced.

Giants Designate Erik Kratz For Assignment

By Steve Adams | May 13, 2019 at 12:20pm CDT

The Giants announced Monday that they’ve designated veteran catcher Erik Kratz for assignment. The organization will have a week to trade Kratz, release him, or pass him through outright waivers if they still wish to attempt to keep him in the organization.

Kratz, 38, has hit just .125/.222/.281 in his 36 plate appearances as a backup to Buster Posey so far in 2019. The Giants picked up in a spring trade with the Brewers as part of a series of acquisitions aimed at bolstering the organization’s catching depth. However, while Posey is currently on the injured list, San Francisco has seen Stephen Vogt reemerge as an option at the MLB level in addition to the much younger Aramis Garcia.

Kratz become a beloved figure in Milwaukee during his late-season run there last season and has often drawn praise for his leadership and clubhouse presence. He’s never hit much at the big league level (.208/.256/.360), but he does have some pop in his bat, a 32 percent caught-stealing rate in his career and a strong track record a pitch framer (per Baseball Prospectus).

Athletics Designate Kendrys Morales For Assignment

By Steve Adams | May 13, 2019 at 12:00pm CDT

The Athletics have designate first baseman/designated hitter Kendrys Morales for assignment, manager Bob Melvin announced Monday in an appearance on MLB Network Radio on SiriusXM (Twitter link, with audio). His spot on the active roster will go to Mark Canha, who has been activated from the injured list.

“Unfortunately, we had to let him go,” Melvin said of the decision to designate Morales. “I’ll tell you what, this guy, maybe he didn’t put up great numbers, but this is a terrific teammate. Yesterday, he didn’t play, and there’s a lot of speculation about him going away, and all he’s doing is rooting for every guy we have on every pitch. … Unfortunately, we don’t have room for him right now, and somebody’s going to pick him up. I know that, but boy, we really enjoyed our time with him. He’s a real pro.”

It was indeed a struggle for Morales, 35, during his limited time with the A’s. Oakland acquired him in late March after losing Matt Olson to a hand injury, and Morales saw pretty regular playing time at first base and DH. However, in his 126 plate appearances with the organization, he hit just .204/.310/.259 with one home run.

Morales drew his share of walks and didn’t strike out at a high clip, but the veteran slugger wasn’t able to produce enough at the plate for the organization to consider retaining him as a bench bat now that Olson is back in the lineup. With Olson and Canha both healthy and Khris Davis entrenched at designated hitter, there’s not much of a role in Oakland for Morales at this point.

The Athletics will have a week to trade or release Morales. Though he played the field in Oakland, most clubs will look at him as a pure DH option, so he’s likeliest to land with an American League club. The Indians have been mixing at matching throughout their lineup all season and parted ways with Hanley Ramirez already, while the Twins are evaluating Nelson Cruz for a potential injury. Morales could also latch on with a non-contender who hopes to bring in a veteran leader that can mentor a younger, developing core of players.

Rays, Mets Complete Wilmer Font Trade

By Steve Adams | May 13, 2019 at 11:16am CDT

The Rays have acquired right-hander Neraldo Catalina from the Mets as the player to be named later in last week’s trade that sent righty Wilmer Font from Tampa Bay to New York.

Catalina, 18, has yet to pitch in a professional game and hasn’t even been in the Mets organization for one calendar year. He was signed out of the Dominican Republic last July 2 and received a $150K signing bonus at the time, as Baseball America’s Ben Badler recently noted in reviewing the team’s 2018-19 international free-agent class. Badler notes that Catalina is already a massive 6’6″ and 205 pounds with a fastball that reaches 95 mph and a power slider. Obviously, he’s years away from being any kind of factor in the Majors, but he seemingly makes a nice lottery-ticket arm to add to the minor league ranks in Tampa.

Font, 28, has made just one appearance for the Mets since the time of the trade. He tossed four innings in a spot start and allowed a pair of runs on three hits with no walks allowed and one strikeout. He had a tough start to the season with the Rays — nine runs on 15 hits and five walks in 14 innings — but he’s a fairly hard-throwing righty who has seen a substantial uptick in swinging-strike and strikeout rate so far in 2019. Font is out of minor league options, so he’ll have to stick on the Mets’ roster moving forward or else be passed through waivers before he can be sent to the minor leagues.

NL West Notes: Tatis Jr., Giants, Godley

By Steve Adams | May 13, 2019 at 9:15am CDT

Though Padres fans are anxiously awaiting the return of Fernando Tatis Jr., it seems he’ll be down for at least another week. Kevin Acee of the San Diego Union-Tribune reports that Tatis is not yet even running at full speed. Yesterday was an off-day in the budding superstar’s rehab work, and there’s no definite timeline on his activation. The 20-year-old Tatis posted an outstanding .300/.360/.550 slash with six homers, five doubles, a triple and six stolen bases through his first 27 games and 111 plate appearances and helped fuel a surprisingly strong April for the upstart Padres. Since Tatis went down with his hamstring injury, San Diego has gone 6-7, though they’ve had a tough schedule that included a four-game set in Atlanta, three games hosting the Dodgers and three games at Coors Field.

Angels Release Peter Bourjos

By Steve Adams | May 12, 2019 at 1:11pm CDT

May 12: The Angels announced that Bourjos has cleared waivers and has been unconditionally released.

May 10: The Angels announced today that they’ve requested unconditional release waivers on outfielder Peter Bourjos, whom they designated for assignment earlier in the week.

Bourjos, 32, had a homecoming of sorts when he signed a minor league pact with the Angels this offseason. The Halos selected him in the 10th round of the 2005 draft, and he made his big league debut with the club a half decade later when he emerged in 2010. Playing time in his second stint with his original organization was sparse, however, and Bourjos ultimately hit just .091/.109/.144 in 46 trips to the plate. A career .237/.296/.376 hitter (2334 plate appearances) who can handle all three outfield positions, Bourjos will head back to the open market in search of another opportunity with a club seeking some veteran depth.

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