Cubs Option Addison Russell To Triple-A
The Cubs have optioned infielder Addison Russell to Triple-A Iowa and activated catcher Willson Contreras from the injured list, the team announced to reporters (Twitter link via ESPN Chicago’s Jesse Rogers).
Russell, 25, began the season on the restricted list while he served out a 40-game suspension under the league’s domestic abuse policy. His return to the lineup has been underwhelming — not surprising for a player who has never posted a league-average offensive season by measure of OPS+ or wRC+ — as he’s posted a .247/.329/.404 line in 158 plate appearances. Much of Russell’s career-high 10.7 percent walk rate has been a function of batting seventh or eighth in front of the pitcher.
In recent weeks, Russell has begun to cede time at second base and in the lineup to rookie Robel Garcia, who now stands to receive additional starts at the keystone. Russell’s demotion could also open up some time for David Bote at second base, although he’s been used exclusively at third base since late June. Still, he’ll be a depth option there and perhaps at shortstop as well, given that Russell had been the primary fallback option should Javier Baez ever need to come out of a game.
The Cubs have been tied to Eric Sogard on the rumor mill recently, and it stands to reason that they’re also exploring the possibility of adding another cost-efficient option at second base while waiting to see whether Ben Zobrist returns to the lineup in 2019. Speculatively, that could include players such as Jonathan Villar, Tim Beckham, Adeiny Hechavarria or Neil Walker, though a move isn’t a foregone conclusion.
Clearly, the demotion only further calls into question Russell’s future with the club. That’s been the case since the time of his suspension, although the Cubs chose to stand by Russell, with president of baseball operations Theo Epstein speaking of second chances and supporting Russell in “stabilizing his life” and “growing.” That said, Epstein was also candid that the club would be prepared to move on from Russell if need be. His lackluster performance at the plate, recent defensive miscues — he dropped a pair of pop-ups over the weekend — and recent, eye-opening acknowledgment that he “need[s] to become more familiar with the signs” (via Rogers) in the wake of a baserunning gaffe certainly don’t paint a favorable outlook.
Pirates Open To Trading Keone Kela
The Pirates are remaining tight-lipped on the contractual violation that resulted in a team-issued two-game suspension for right-hander Keone Kela, but Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic reports (subscription required) that Pittsburgh is “more than willing” to trade Kela. (Kela, according to Yahoo’s Tim Brown, got into an “altercation” with director of cultural initiatives Hector Morales.)
It’s been less than a year since the Pirates traded prospects Taylor Hearn and Sherten Apostel to the Rangers to acquire Kela in hopes of shoring up the bullpen not only for a possible 2018 run but also for the foreseeable future. The Pirates made that deal knowing that Kela had previously been demoted to the minors as a disciplinary measure back in Spring Training 2017, but the allure of a high-quality setup man with two and a half years of club control remaining was easy to see.
Kela, still just 26 years old, only elevated his stock down the stretch in 2018. He tossed 15 1/3 innings out of the Pittsburgh bullpen following the trade, holding opponents to five runs (2.93 ERA) on 10 hits and five walks with 22 strikeouts. The 2019 season has been another story. A shoulder issue has limited Kela to only 11 2/3 innings so far this season, during which he’s served up six runs on 11 hits (three homers) and four walks.
At this point, Kela hasn’t pitched in a big league game since May 4 due to said shoulder troubles. Coupled with a team-issued suspension, it’s safe to say that his value isn’t exactly at its apex. Even if that’s the case, though, Kela still has plenty of appealing qualities. He won’t turn 27 until early next season and is the owner of a solid 3.48 ERA with averages of 11.0 K/9, 3.4 BB/9 and 1.01 HR/9 in 196 2/3 innings of big league work in his career. He’s earning an eminently affordable $3.175MM in 2019 ($1.16MM still to be paid out) and is controlled through the 2020 season. It’s impossible to say how much the brief suspension will impact his trade value without knowing what transpired, but the appeal based on his contractual status and track record on the mound is clear.
From a bigger-picture standpoint, the openness to moving Kela doesn’t portend a full-scale teardown in Pittsburgh. General manager Neal Huntington has suggested on multiple occasions that he has no intention of trading closer Felipe Vazquez — one of baseball’s best relievers — and it stands to reason that he has a similar view of long-term assets. However, the Pirates are just 2-8 over their past 10 games and have fallen to 7.5 games back in the NL Central and seven back in the Wild Card hunt. Given their recent trajectory, it wouldn’t be at all surprising if shorter-term pieces like Kela, Jordan Lyles, Corey Dickerson and Melky Cabrera hit the block and found their way to other clubs.
Cardinals Eyeing Lefty Relievers
The Cardinals haven’t been as frequently mentioned on the rumor circuit as some of their NL Central counterparts, but that doesn’t mean they’ve been sitting idly by. In an appearance on Dan McLaughlin’s podcast (audio link), president of baseball operations John Mozeliak made clear that in an ideal world, he’d add at least one reliever — likely a southpaw — to his current bullpen blend.
“We’re pretty comfortable with [the bullpen],” said Mozeliak, “but as we enter the trading deadline, I think we would look to see if there’s an upgrade on the left side of the bullpen to complement [Andrew] Miller. It’s not something that we feel like if we don’t do, we have failed, it’s just something we’re exploring.”
While that isn’t exactly a declaration of aggressive buying, left-handed relief does indeed look to be an area of need in St. Louis, where Miller is the only stable option the Cards have had for much of season. Beyond Miller, who has rebounded from a slow start to the season, the only other southpaws to log innings in the Cardinals’ bullpen have been Tyler Webb, Genesis Cabrera and Chasen Shreve, who was designated for assignment earlier today.
There are plenty of lefties whose names have been bandied about the market, including Will Smith, Tony Watson, Jake Diekman and Roenis Elias. What’s not clear, though, is whether the Cardinals will be after that group. Beyond the fact that the surging Giants are no longer locks to sell off their rental assets, Mozeliak expressed an interest in perhaps pursuing some less-obvious trade candidates who offer greater flexibility over a longer term.
“…I think the key thing for us, when you’re looking at bullpen help right now, would be to try to acquire people also with options so you have some flexibility,” Mozeliak said. “We are getting to a point now where our hands are a bit tied in some areas, so to try to create a little flexibility would make sense.”
Those types aren’t generally headline-grabbers, but most rebuilding clubs have at least one reliever who could fit the bill. Speculatively speaking, Baltimore’s Paul Fry, Miami’s Jarlin Garcia and Toronto’s Tim Mayza are a few such arms who could be looked at more as flexible depth options than late-inning staples. That might sound uninspiring to onlookers, but it’s also true that with the elimination of this year’s August trade waiver period, having additional depth on hand is more important than ever. Clubs can no longer turn to the waiver market next month in order to add help as injuries arise, so having a stock of optionable arms in the upper minors is paramount.
It’s certainly not out of the question that the Cards could add a high-profile arm while still deepening the fringes of their 40-man roster with some optionable ‘pen pieces. The Cards could also trim from the edges of their own 40-man — say, by dealing impending free agent Michael Wacha to a team in need of a fifth starter — either adding a bullpen piece in that kind of deal or using the newly vacated spot to add someone who, unlike Wacha, can be shuttled back and forth between Memphis and St. Louis.
Dodgers Outright Rocky Gale
The Dodgers have outrighted catcher Rocky Gale off the 40-man roster, Ken Gurnick of MLB.com tweets. The move drops the club’s 40-man roster to a total of 38 players.
Gale, 31, went 2-for-15 in a brief stint with the Dodgers earlier this season but has spent the bulk of the season in Triple-A Oklahoma City, where he’s batted .250/.303/.370 in 109 plate appearances. He’s spent the season as the primary backup to top catching prospect Will Smith in Triple-A, but the recent promotion of fellow top catching prospect Keibert Ruiz to Oklahoma City has further reduced Gale’s role on the roster.
Gale has appeared in 22 big league games between the Padres and Dodgers, though he’s received just 37 plate appearances in that time (and hit .108/.108/.189). The former ninth-round pick is a lifetime .277/.315/.359 in parts of nine Triple-A seasons.
Mariners Place Dee Gordon On IL, Designate Parker Markel For Assignment
6:25pm: Manager Scott Servais told reporters that Gordon will be out at least a couple of weeks (Twitter link via Ryan Divish of the Seattle Times). An MRI revealed a strain that is worse than a typical Grade 1 strain but not quite a Grade 2 strain.
4:55pm: The Mariners announced on Tuesday that they’ve placed infielder Dee Gordon on the 10-day injured list due to a left quad strain and selected the contract of infielder Tim Lopes from Triple-A Tacoma. In a corresponding 40-man move, right-hander Parker Markel was designated for assignment.
The injury to Gordon makes the already-difficult task of trading him now all the more problematic. Gordon was already a tough sell, given a lackluster .280/.306/.367 batting line and a hefty $19.3MM still owed to him between now and the end of the 2020 season. Add in a quadriceps injury for a player whose entire game is built on speed, and it’s difficult to see much in the way of legitimate interest in Gordon formulating.
Perhaps a contending club would actually be intrigued by the possibility of carrying Gordon on the IL into September, when rosters expand to 28 players, but for that to even be realistic, the Mariners would need to include a substantial amount of cash to offset his remaining salary.
Lopes, 25, is in his second stint with the Seattle organization and will be making his MLB debut this time around. Seattle originally with its sixth-round pick back in 2012, but he was traded to the Blue Jays at the PTBNL in 2016’s Pat Venditte swap. Lopes landed back in Seattle as a minor league free agent this winter and is enjoying a career year in Triple-A. Through 403 trips to the plate, he’s hitting .302/.362/.480 with 10 homers, 30 doubles, two triples and 24 steals (in 33 tries). He’s not in the lineup tonight but should make his debut in the near future.
Markel, 28, made his own MLB debut earlier this season, but he didn’t find much success in his limited audition. The righty tossed 4 2/3 innings but yielded nine runs (eight earned) on 10 hits, four walks and a hit batter with three punchouts. Markel has vastly more intriguing numbers in the minors, where he’s posted a 2.04 ERA with 62 strikeouts in 35 1/3 innings between Double-A and Triple-A. He’s also issued 23 walks in that time (5.9 BB/9), hit two batters and tossed 11 wild pitches. Control is clearly an issue for Markel, but he’s missing bats at a level he’s never come close to previously approaching, which could prompt a different organization to take a look.
Cubs Select Tim Collins
The Cubs announced that they’ve selected the contract of lefty reliever Tim Collins from Triple-A Iowa. Right-hander Alec Mills was optioned down to make room on the active roster. Chicago had an open spot on its 40-man roster.
Collins, 29, was with the Cubs earlier this season and tossed 7 2/3 frames. He surrendered three runs on nine hits and three walks with four strikeouts in that time before being designated for assignment last month and returning to the team’s Triple-A upon clearing outright waivers. In 27 innings with Iowa this year, Collins has a 4.67 ERA with 37 strikeouts against 16 walks. Opposing lefties have batted just .167/.268/.333 against him in 2019, althought right-handers have tagged him for a .256/.347/.537 line.
The Cubs are known to be on the hunt for additional left-handed bullpen help, and if they’re able to find an upgrade on the trade market, Collins’ latest stay with the big league club could be similarly brief. For now, he’ll at the very least give manager Joe Maddon a matchup specialist to use late in games.
Rangers Option Ronald Guzman
First baseman Ronald Guzman has been optioned to Triple-A Nashville, the Rangers announced Tuesday. He’ll be replaced on the active roster by right-hander Pedro Payano, who’ll start tonight’s game for Texas. Logan Forsythe is getting the nod at first base for Texas tonight.
It’s undoubtedly a dejecting outcome not only for Guzman himself but also for the organization, as the team had hoped that Guzman would blossom into an everyday player after getting an extended MLB audition as a 23-year-old in 2018. Last season, Guzman’s bat was below average, but he held his own with a .235/.306/.416 batting line and 16 round-trippers in 428 plate appearances.
This year, however, Guzman’s production has gone backward, as he’s batted just .193/.282/.396 in 227 plate appearances. That said, there’s also some reason to be optimistic about a rebound. Guzman isn’t striking out at a higher clip than he did in ’18 — though his 28 percent clip is still a bit high — and his walk rate has actually improved from 7.7 percent to 11.0 percent.
Statcast indicates that his hard-hit rate has improved a bit, and Guzman has already nearly matched his 2018 total of “barreled” balls in just over half as many plate appearances as he received last year. He’s lugging around an ugly .285 weighted on-base average, but based on the quality of the contact he’s made, Statcast feels he’s been decidedly unlucky (.324 xwOBA). That, to be clear, doesn’t indicate that Guzman should be a force at the plate, but perhaps his struggles aren’t likely to continue at this great a rate.
The Rangers and Guzman will hope that a reset in a lower-pressure setting will restore his confidence and give him a needed mental break. He’s currently mired in an awful 2-for-30 slide in the month of July and hasn’t had a multi-hit game since June 25. Guzman still has a long way to go before he comes close to living up to the potential that prompted Baseball Prospectus to rank him as the game’s No 94 prospect prior to the 2018 season, but he’s yet to celebrate his 25th birthday, so there’s still plenty of time for him to turn things around.
Taking a step back, the Guzman dilemma isn’t an entirely unfamiliar problem for the Rangers. They’ve seen several young hitters — e.g. Rougned Odor, Nomar Mazara, Willie Calhoun — all struggle to varying extents, either immediately upon debuting or sputtering out after some early promise. It’s a particularly glaring issue, as one can’t help but wonder where the Rangers would be in the standings if that group of players had played up to their abilities thus far. Instead, the quartet of Guzman, Odor, Mazara and Calhoun have performed at sub-replacement level in 2019. And the Rangers, who’ve now dropped eight games in a row, look more like potential sellers than the likely buyers they appeared to be coming out of the All-Star break.
Hanley Ramirez Undergoes Shoulder Surgery, Hopes To Play In 2020
Three-time All-Star Hanley Ramirez underwent right shoulder surgery last week after “years of discomfort,” tweets MLB Network’s Jon Heyman. Ramirez has previously had surgery on his left (non-throwing) shoulder as well.
Ramirez, 36 in December, was the Indians’ Opening Day designated hitter in 2019, but his stay with the organization was brief. Signed to a minor league contract this past offseason, Ramirez was cut loose after hitting just .187/.298/.327 with a pair of homers and 17 strikeouts in 57 plate appearances with Cleveland. His 2018 season also ended with a release, as the Red Sox cut him loose in the final season of his four-year, $88MM deal after just 44 games (and a .254/.313/.395 batting line).
Over the winter, Ramirez revealed that he had offers to play with other teams following his release from the Red Sox, but he instead chose to “get [his] body healthy and come back next year.” That certainly lends credence to the notion that Ramirez’s shoulder troubles have been ongoing for quite some time, but it doesn’t appear that the prolonged period of rest did the trick as he’d hoped.
Another minor league pact will almost certainly be required for Ramirez as he embarks on another comeback bid. While he was one of the game’s most feared hitters during his prime, his peak years are well behind him. At this point, he’s been a below-average hitter in four of the past five seasons (2019 included), with the lone exception being a 2016 campaign that produced a .286/.361/.505 batting line and 30 home runs.
Tommy Hunter Undergoes Season-Ending Surgery
Phillies right-hander Tommy Hunter underwent surgery to repair a torn flexor tendon and will miss the remainder of the season, manager Gabe Kapler announced to reporters Tuesday (Twitter link via Scott Lauber of Philly.com). Hunter’s ulnar collateral ligament was examined but was cleared of any damage.
The operation will effectively close the book on Hunter’s two-year, $18MM deal with the Phillies. His results when healthy enough to take the mound were solid — a 3.50 ERA with a 56-to-15 K/BB ratio — but the organization surely hoped to receive more than 69 1/3 innings from Hunter. Unfortunately, Hunter missed about three and a half weeks due to a hamstring strain in 2018 and was limited to just 5 1/3 innings in 2019 by the forearm injury that will ultimately require surgical repair.
Hunter, who just recently turned 33, will have the final two-plus months of the 2019 campaign and the entire offseason to recover from the procedure, so he should be an option for clubs again in 2020. He may have to settle for a minor league pact coming off such an injury-ruined season, but his track record will be plenty appealing. In his past 350 big league appearances, Hunter has pitched to a 3.19 ERA (3.42 FIP) with 7.4 K/9, 1.9 BB/9, 0.9 HR/9 and at least average ground-ball rates in all but one full season (2013).
Rockies Designate Seunghwan Oh For Assignment, Select Yonder Alonso
The Rockies have selected the contract of veteran first baseman Yonder Alonso from Triple-A, per a club announcement. In order to clear roster space, Colorado optioned right-hander Yency Almonte to Triple-A and designated right-hander Seunghwan Oh for assignment.
Oh recently underwent season-ending elbow surgery, so his subtraction from the 40-man roster is a formality. He’s in the final season of his contract and, in all likelihood, will be released in the coming days. Whether he opts for another season in the U.S. is entirely his call, but Oh recently turned 37 and reportedly contemplated returning to South Korea this past offseason.
The 32-year-old Alonso was released by the White Sox after a miserable half season in Chicago but quickly latched on with the Rockies. He’s raked at a .419/.500/.774 clip with two homers, three doubles and a triple in 38 plate appearances down in Albuquerque and will look to bounce back in hopes of securing a big league deal in free agency this winter. Alonso may only have batted .178/.275/.301 in 251 trips to the plate with the ChiSox, but he hit a combined .257/.340/.458 with the A’s, Mariners and Indians across the 2017-18 seasons.