Headlines

Go To Pro Hockey Rumors
Go To Hoops Rumors

Giants Notes: Park Dimensions, Bart, Roster Shuffling

By | at

Giants leadership will consider some alterations to the dimensions of their spacious home park, Andrew Baggarly and Eno Sarris of The Athletic report in an exhaustive look at the matter (subscription required). Members of the ownership group posed the question of whether the right-field fences should be moved in and whether the bullpens should be moved to new president of baseball ops Farhan Zaidi in Spring Training; the first-year baseball ops leader agreed that it was at least worth exploring. Manager Bruce Bochy suggested to Baggarly that “Triples Alley” in right field would make an ideal spot for the bullpens to be relocated. “Personally, I feel if you hit a ball 400 feet, it should be a home run,” said the skipper. “So yeah, I think we should all be open minded to making a change.” Zaidi, meanwhile, stressed that the discussion is in its nascent stages. While he’s appreciative of the manner in which park-specific idiosyncrasies can impact roster construction, Zaidi also spoke of not “becoming so idiosyncratic that you become an outlier” that proves disadvantageous. Baggarly and Sarris explore just how much of an outlier the newly renamed stadium has become and also interview several players about the park’s dimensions.

More out of San Francisco…

  • Top prospect Joey Bart, the No. 2 overall pick in last year’s draft, will miss the next four to six weeks of action due to a fractured left hand, Bochy announced to reporters Tuesday (link via Alex Pavlovic of NBC Sports Bay Area). The injury occurred Monday when the highly touted young catcher was hit by a pitch. Broadcaster Joe Ritzo, who covers the Giants’ affiliate in San Jose where Bart was injured, tweets that farm director Kyle Haines suggested that the team could send Bart to the Arizona Fall League after the 2019 season as a means of making up for some of the plate appearances he’ll miss while he’s down with the injury. The 22-year-old Bart hit .298/.369/.613 in 203 plate appearances for the Giants’ Low-A affiliate in 2018 and was off to a .270/.341/.541 start through 10 games and 41 plate appearances in 2019.
  • Over the weekend, Kerry Crowley of the San Jose Mercury News took a look at Zaidi’s frequent shuffling on the fringes of the 40-man roster, noting that since being hired to his new post, the former Dodgers GM has made 11 trades, six waiver claims and designated 12 players for assignment. It’s old hat for fans who’ve followed the Dodgers tireless roster machinations over the years, but many Giants fans were taken aback by the deluge of roster moves — particularly with so many transactions involving unfamiliar names. “This was kind of the (roster) configuration we’ve been looking for for awhile so hopefully these guys can settle into their roles,” Zaidi told Crowley, referencing the recent additions of Kevin Pillar and Tyler Austin. Zaidi goes on to discuss that despite what some onlookers may think, the decision to cut ties with even fringe roster players is never made lightly and is never an easy one.

David Robertson Diagnosed With Flexor Strain

By | at

April 16: Robertson has been diagnosed with a Grade 1 flexor strain, manager Gabe Kapler said following tonight’s game (Twitter link via the Philadelphia Inquirer’s Matt Breen). He’ll be shut down from throwing for the next couple of days before being reevaluated.

April 15: The Phillies announced Monday that they’ve placed right-hander David Robertson on the 10-day injured list due to soreness in his right elbow. Fellow righty Drew Anderson was recalled from Triple-A Lehigh Valley in his place. Robertson tells reporters that he’s had some on-and-off forearm discomfort and is set to receive an MRI tomorrow, though he’s not overly concerned about the issue at the moment (Twitter link via Philly.com’s Scott Lauber).

Robertson, 34, signed a two-year contract worth a guaranteed $23MM this winter and has struggled through a slow start to the season. The veteran righty allowed runs in each of his first three appearances with his new club and, overall, has yielded a total of four runs on eight hits and six walks with six strikeouts in 6 2/3 innings of relief. Robertson has thrown just 58 percent of his pitches for strikes in that small sample of innings — a departure from recent seasons when his overall strike rate has sat at 63 percent or better.

Notably, this is the first trip time in his career that Robertson has ever missed time due to an arm injury. He spent about two weeks on the shelf due to a groin strain in 2014 and missed a bit more than three weeks due to an oblique injury in 2012, but he came to the Phillies with a pristine track record in terms of arm health.

With Robertson sidelined for the time being, Anderson will get a look for a third consecutive season. The 25-year-old hasn’t found much success in the big leagues yet but also hasn’t had much of an opportunity; in 15 Major League frames, he’s surrendered 13 runs on 23 hits with a more impressive 13-to-3 K/BB ratio. Anderson has spent the vast majority of his career as a starter and owns a 3.90 ERA with 7.3 K/9 against 2.6 BB/9 in 115 1/3 innings (21 starts) at the Triple-A level.

Cody Asche Signs With Atlantic League’s Sugar Land Skeeters

By | at

Former big league infielder/outfielder Cody Asche has agreed to a deal with the Sugar Land Skeeters of the independent Atlantic League, Mike Ashmore of the Trentonian reports (via Twitter).

Still just 28 years of age, Asche was once one of the more well-regarded prospects in the Phillies’ system and viewed as a possible long-term piece in the organization. Back in 2013, Asche clobbered Triple-A pitching at a .295/.352/.485 clip as a 23-year-old and found himself promoted to the big leagues for the season’s final two months. The 2011 fourth-round pick sandwiched a highly productive stretch (.299/.364/.504 over 33 games) between a pair of slumps during that debut campaign, creating some hope that he’d establish himself the following season.

Unfortunately, that never came to be. Asche’s OPS in each of his first three MLB seasons sat between .689 and .699, and by the time the Phillies eventually cut bait on the once-promising third baseman in 2016, he’d amassed a .240/.298/.385 line in nearly 1300 MLB plate appearances. Asche received a brief look with the White Sox in 2017 but couldn’t get his bat going in a new setting either. He split the 2018 campaign between the Triple-A affiliates for the Yankees and Mets but slumped to the worst minor league performance of his career.

Despite last year’s poor results in Triple-A, Asche is still a career .275/.352/.469 hitter in parts of six seasons at that level. He’ll be one of several former big leaguers on the Skeeters roster in 2019, as the Sugar Land club’s roster also includes James Loney, Alec Asher, Mark Lowe, Ryan Schimpf, Felipe Paulino and Jean Machi, among others.

Indians Select Mike Freeman

By | at

The Indians announced Tuesday that they’ve selected the contract of infielder Mike Freeman from Triple-A Columbus and optioned fellow infielder Eric Stamets to Triple-A Columbus in his place. A corresponding 40-man move wasn’t required, as Cleveland had only 39 players on its 40-man.

Freeman, 31, has seen sparse action in the Majors in each of the past three seasons (including one lone plate appearance with the Cubs in 2018), hitting a combined .134/.211/.207 across 91 plate appearances. Lackluster as that small-sample output may be, Freeman is an accomplished Triple-A hitter, as evidenced by a lifetime .305/.372/.418 slash through 2030 PAs at that level. While he’s light on power, Freeman has consistently managed to hit for average and get on base at the top minor league level. He’s walked in 9.2 percent of those 2030 PAs in Triple-A and kept his strikeout rate to a relatively low 16.8 percent.

Track record aside, Freeman needn’t do much to give the Indians at least a modest uptick in offensive production. The 27-year-old Stamets made his big league debut on Opening Day this season and has seen regular work in 15 games. However, he’s collected just two hits and five walks in 48 trips to the plate, resulting in a disheartening .049/.149/.073 slash in his first look at MLB pitching. As a glove-first player, there’s perhaps hope that Stamets could eventually fill a utility spot with the organization, but he looked decidedly overmatched in trying to step into some enormous shoes with Francisco Lindor on the shelf.

Thankfully for Cleveland fans, there’s hope on the horizon with regard to Lindor; the star shortstop embarked on a Triple-A rehab assignment tonight.

Dodgers To Activate Clayton Kershaw On Monday

By | at

APRIL 15: As expected, Kershaw is now back on the active roster. The club optioned righty Jaime Schultz to open roster space.

APRIL 11: Clayton Kershaw will come off the injured list to make his season debut on Monday when the Dodgers host the Reds, manager Dave Roberts revealed to reporters Thursday morning (Twitter link via Bill Plunkett of the Orange County Register).

Kershaw landed on the IL to begin the season due to a bout of shoulder inflammation that slowed his progress during Spring Training. He’s made a pair of minor league rehab starts since Opening Day — one with Triple-A Oklahoma City and a second with Double-A Tulsa — working six innings and tossing 81 pitches in the latter of the two. In total, Kershaw yielded four runs on nine hits and a pair of walks with a dozen strikeouts in 10 1/3 rehab innings.

Since it became apparent that Kershaw would require an IL stint to begin the season, the Dodgers have also lost both Rich Hill (knee strain) and Hyun-Jin Ryu (groin strain) to injuries. Those maladies pushed lauded southpaw Julio Urias into the rotation to begin the year after he’d been slated to open the 2019 campaign in the bullpen to manage his workload. He’s been limited to about 75 pitches in each of his two starts so far.

It’s not clear exactly how the Dodgers’ rotation will shake out in the coming weeks as both Hill and Ryu mend; Walker Buehler, Kenta Maeda and Ross Stripling figure to join Kershaw in the starting five for now, and it’s possible that Urias will make another start or two until one of Hill or Ryu is able to step back into the fray. At some point, Urias will have to shift to the ’pen, given that he only pitched a total of 22 innings between the Majors (postseason and regular season) and minors last year in his return campaign from major shoulder surgery in 2017.

Nationals, Dan Jennings Agree To Minor League Deal

By | at

The Nationals are in agreement with left-hander Dan Jennings on a minor league contract, MLBTR has confirmed. Roster Roundup first tweeted that the two sides were nearing a deal.

Jennings, a client of ISE Baseball, struggled through a poor spring with the Angels and was ultimately cut loose at the end of camp. The well-traveled lefty, however, has a history of quality results at the MLB level, most recently having tossed 64 1/3 innings of 3.22 ERA ball with the Brewers in 2018. He’ll turn 32 later this week.

Jennings has logged parts of seven seasons in the big leagues and never posted an ERA of 4.00 or higher. He doesn’t miss bats at a particularly high rate (7.1 K/9) or possess pristine control (3.9 BB/9), but he’s been a durable arm that can retire both left- and right-handed hitters throughout his MLB career (although righties gave him some trouble last season). It’s also difficult to elevate the ball against Jennings, as evidenced by his 58.5 percent ground-ball rate and 0.66 HR/9 mark in 244 innings dating back to 2015.

For the Nats, it’s only logical to tack on some veteran depth in the upper minors. No team in baseball has seen its bullpen post a worst ERA than the Nationals’ collective 7.75 mark in 2019, and while there’s been some degree of poor fortune attached to the extent of that eyesore, the bullpen’s 5.22 FIP, 5.34 xFIP and 4.55 SIERA all support the notion that the overall performance has been legitimately ugly. Beyond closer Sean Doolittle, the Nats’ other two lefties — Tony Sipp and Matt Grace — have each struggled so far.

Jennings isn’t the first veteran arm to pique the organization’s interest in recent days; Washignton reportedly had a near-agreement with Bud Norris fall through last week, and the team will surely continue to explore what’s left in free agency and monitor the waiver wire. At present, Doolittle and Kyle Barraclough are the only Nationals relievers who have an ERA under 5.68, and there’s particular concern surrounding Trevor Rosenthal, who has allowed 12 of the 15 men he’s faced to reach base (seven via walk plus a hit batsman) in his first season back from 2017 Tommy John surgery.

AL Notes: Indians, Miller, Forsythe, Gio

By | at

Veteran infielder Brad Miller was understandably frustrated by the news that the Indians had opted to designate him for assignment over the weekend, writes Paul Hoynes of the Cleveland Plain Dealer. The 29-year-old Miller hit .250/.325/.417 with a homer and three doubles in his short time with the organization but lost out on his roster spot with the impending return of fellow left-handed-hitting second baseman Jason Kipnis. “It’s a tough trend,” Miller said of his DFA. “They acknowledge that it wasn’t fair. … I really enjoyed playing for Tito (Terry Francona). That’s why I’m frustrated. I want to be here. I like this group. It’s a good team and I was hoping I’d be a part of it, but they have other plans.”

Per Hoynes, Miller’s $1MM salary with the Indians wasn’t fully guaranteed by virtue of the fact that he agreed to a 45-day advance consent clause. (Full details on those clauses are explored in this 2014 piece from Trade Rumors’ Zach Links, though in essence, they allow teams to cut players with five-plus years of service at any point within the season’s first 45 days for any reason other than injury.) Miller will still be paid for the time he spent with the Indians, but he’ll receive the pro-rated portion of that $1MM salary while losing out on the rest of it. Notably, Hoynes reports that designated hitter Hanley Ramirez also has such a clause in his contract.

Some more from the American League…

  • Infielder Logan Forsythe spoke with MLB.com’s T.R. Sullivan about his decision to sign with the Rangers, specifically how the opportunity to play on a near-everyday basis by rotating through a number of positions spoke to him. “Most teams that looked at me had a pretty set infield,” said Forsythe. “There weren’t too many everyday jobs out there, or there were, but not too many guys were signing them. More teams were going for the utility or the platooning matchup type players.” As Sullivan details, Forsythe starts at second base against lefties and first base against righties, and he’s also available as a backup to Asdrubal Cabrera and Elvis Andrus, should either left-side infielder need a day off.
  • Veteran lefty Gio Gonzalez is awaiting an opportunity in the Major Leagues with the Yankees as an opt-out clause in his minor league contract looms, Mark W. Sanchez of the New York Post writes. The Yankees, according to Gonzalez, were the only club to even make him an offer this winter and didn’t do so until midway through Spring Training after an injury to Luis Severino. The southpaw had a brutal first start in Triple-A but has bounced back with a pair of strong outings, yielding just two runs through 11 innings with an 18-to-3 K/BB ratio. Gonzalez didn’t shy away from voicing his displeasure with the manner in which the offseason unfolded but also said he doesn’t feel he needs to pitch as though he has a point to prove: “No. I have nothing left to prove to people. [I] throw 180 innings, do your thing, I’m durable, doing it for the last 10 years. If I still have to prove a point, that’s embarrassing in this sport.”

NL Notes: Vargas, Diamondbacks, Cardinals

By | at

The Mets plan to stick with Jason Vargas in the rotation despite his struggles, general manager Brodie Van Wagenen said Sunday (link via MLB.com’s Anthony DiComo). “We’re not going to be making drastic changes to our club after one bad inning of a start where he had a schedule that was derailed from the start of the season,” said Van Wagenen of Vargas, who recorded just one out against the Braves on Saturday. Of course, a move to yank Vargas from the rotation would be based on more than just his most recent outing; the 36-year-old has yielded 10 runs on 14 hits and four walks with three strikeouts in 6 1/3 frames this season. And while he did enjoy a solid second half in 2018, his overall results last year were dismal. As DiComo notes, however, the Mets are lacking in terms of internal depth alternatives, and a run at free-agent Dallas Keuchel still does not appear to be in the cards.

More from the NL to kick off the week…

  • Jason Mastrodonato of the Boston Herald chatted with D-backs GM Mike Hazen and assistant GM Amiel Sawdaye (both former Red Sox execs) about the team’s current standing and unwillingness to plunge into a full-fledged rebuild. “Teams do that to pick at the top of the draft, more for a monetary perspective,” said Sawdaye of the growing trend of aggressive tanking. However, the Diamondbacks knew they’d have a huge bonus pool this year by virtue of qualifying offers to Patrick Corbin and A.J. Pollock, and they were able to land a second Competitive Balance draft selection in the Paul Goldschmidt trade. Hazen acknowledged that it’s “cleaner and easier” to declare that a team is either rebuilding or “all-in” on winning, but the Arizona organization is trying to walk the line. Hazen cites the unexpected success of the Athletics and Rays in 2018 as a means of pointing out that even clubs tabbed by projection systems as middle-of-the-pack teams can make strong postseason pushes. Sawdaye voiced a belief that the D-backs inherited a team that had more talent than the Astros or Cubs at the time those teams opted for a full-scale teardown, while Hazen stressed the importance of fostering a “culture of winning” even in times of possible transition. Both execs offer insight and perspective that go against some of the game’s common trends right now, making for an interesting interview that’s well worth a read for fans of any club.
  • Cardinals center fielder Harrison Bader is currently dealing with what the team hopes is a minor hamstring injury, per Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Bader was out of the lineup Sunday and is expected to be further evaluated today. The initial prescription for Bader was merely to rest the injury for a full day, but if the pain in his leg lingers today, he could undergo an MRI as well. The 24-year-old Bader, one of the game’s premier defenders in center field, is off to a sluggish .179/.347/.359 start through 50 trips to the plate.
  • In a separate piece, Goold notes that righty Carlos Martinez threw a 20-pitch bullpen session — consisting entirely of fastballs — on Saturday and is expected to do so again today. From there, he’ll move to live batting practice (assuming today’s ’pen session goes well) before the Cardinals make a determination on not only the location of his rehab assignment but also the role in which he’ll pitch on that assignment. The organization is still mulling whether Martinez will pitch as a starter or as a reliever in 2019.

Tigers Outright Mikie Mahtook To Triple-A

By | at

TODAY: Mahtook cleared waivers and has been outrighted to Triple-A, the Tigers announced.

THURSDAY: The Tigers announced this morning that they’ve designated outfielder Mikie Mahtook for assignment. His spot on the 25-man roster will go to fellow outfielder JaCoby Jones, who has been reinstated after opening the season on the injured list due to a shoulder sprain.

Mahtook, 29, had a promising first year with the Tigers in 2017 after being acquired in a minor trade with the Rays in the preceding offseason. The 2011 first-round pick slashed .276/.330/.457 with a dozen homers in 379 plate appearances and gave the organization some hope that he could be a useful pieces for years to come, given the amount of club control he had remaining.

Unfortunately, Mahtook’s production cratered in 2018 as his strikeout rate soared north of 26 percent while the .324 BABIP he turned in a year prior cratered to a career-low .238. Mahtook saw his hard-contact and line-drive rates both decline, while he hit infield pop-ups at a career-worst clip as well.

Things haven’t gone better for Mahtook in the early stages of the 2019 campaign, either. He’s hitless through 25 plate appearances, including 11 strikeouts, and a recent misplay in center field turned a routine Eric Stamets single into a little league homer.

Detroit will have a week to either trade Mahtook or run him through outright waivers, at which point he’d remain under organizational control should the team wish to assign him to a minor league affiliate. Mahtook has never been previously outrighted and doesn’t have the requisite three years of big league service to reject an outright assignment, so electing free agency wouldn’t be an option for him.

Mahtook’s DFA means that Jones can be penciled in for everyday at-bats in center field, while former Padres and Braves prospect Dustin Peterson, whom Detroit claimed off waivers last September, will stick on the big league roster as the primary reserve outfielder for the time being. That’ll leave Detroit without a true backup center fielder; Peterson and utilityman Niko Goodrum are the only players on the big league roster with experience at the position, though that pair has combined for just 331 innings of work at the position (nearly all in the minor leagues). It’s possible that another move is coming to add a more natural backup, but for now Jones, who hit .207/.266/.364 in 467 PAs last season, appears ticketed for a heavy workload.

MLB Trade Rumors is not affiliated with Major League Baseball, MLB or MLB.com

Do not Sell or Share My Personal Information

hide arrows scroll to top