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Rockies Sign Craig Gentry To Minors Deal

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Per mlb.com’s transaction page, the Rockies have signed OF Craig Gentry to a minor league deal. The 35-year-old outfielder was signed by the Giants in mid-February, but ostensibly had been released at some point near the end of Spring Training. Gentry’s already reported to Triple-A Albuquerque, where he went 2 for 5 in last night’s 10-3 defeat at the hands of Tacoma.

Gentry remains one of the few active players – along with perhaps Jarrod Dyson of the Diamondbacks and Alex Gordon of the Royals – to sustain elite outfield defense well into his mid-thirties. Never a full-time regular at a position with any of the four organizations with whom he’s been a part, Gentry’s still managed to post 54 defensive runs saved in just over 3,330 innings since his debut in 2009. Though he’s failed ever to show much power (a career .339 slugging percentage in 1402 big-league plate appearances), Gentry’s always been a solid on-base threat, with a .333 career OBP responsible for the bulk of his career 85 wRC+ line.

At the very least, he’ll be a solid late-inning option for a Colorado club that’s relied on aging and inexperienced veterans at the position over the last few seasons. Ian Desmond is the latest to try his hand, but the veteran former first baseman has plunged even further into an ever-widening abyss at the plate. The club apparently doesn’t trust the injury-prone David Dahl or the wiry Raimel Tapia at the position, and already punted incumbent Charlie Blackmon over to right, so Gentry seems a prime option to give MLB’s toughest center field a crack.

Braves Recall Touki Toussaint, Option Kyle Wright

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Per a team release, the Braves have recalled top prospect Touki Toussaint from Triple-A Gwinnett and optioned another, righty Kyle Wright, to the minors.

Toussaint, the 16th overall pick in the 2014 draft, was acquired from Arizona in a curious 2015 salary dump that also sent righty Bronson Arroyo to Atlanta. The 22-year-old broke out in a big way last season, striking out over 10 men per nine at both AA-Mississippi and AAA-Gwinnett en route to a late-season, five-start cameo in the bigs. Command has long been the question for the flamethrowing Toussaint, whose stuff – a double-plus fastball and knee-buckling curve – is said to be some of the minors’ best. Per David O’Brien of the Athletic, Toussaint will begin his 2019 MLB work out of the Braves’ bullpen.

Wright, a 23-year-old righty selected 5th overall in the 2017 draft, and even more highly-regarded than Toussaint in most circles, has struggled mightily in his initial MLB taste. In three starts this season, the former Vanderbilt product walked (10) nearly as many as he struck out (11), and allowed a staggering four homers in just 14 innings pitched. Last season’s cameo wasn’t much better, so it may indeed be time for the 6’4 righty to simmer longer below. Wright tore through the Atlanta system in just a year and a half, but has yet to post the dominant strikeout rates the club surely hoped to see against lesser competition.

Tigers Place Matt Moore On 10-Day IL

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SUNDAY: Moore may need surgery, Chris McCosky of the Detroit News tweets. For now, the team has activated right-hander Drew VerHagen from the IL to take Moore’s roster spot.

SATURDAY: Per a team release, the Tigers will place lefty Matt Moore on the 10-day IL after the lefty sprained his right knee in the middle of today’s outing against the Royals. A corresponding roster move will come tomorrow, per the team.

Moore, 29, signed a one-year, $2.5MM deal with Detroit in the offseason after successive brutal campaigns with the Giants and Rangers. The former #1 overall prospect in the league – whom Baseball Prospectus famously ranked over Mike Trout and Bryce Harper on their 2012 list – hasn’t much been the same after a 2014 Tommy John surgery. His velocity, which ranged in the 95-96 MPH area in his first two seasons, quickly fell to around 92, and the lefty’s never possessed the requisite command and/or secondary offerings to make up for it.

Still, he’d looked sharp in first two early-season outings before the knee sprain today, so it’s a tough blow for the Tiger reclamation project. Per manager Ron Gardenhire, lefty Daniel Norris will assume Moore’s rotation spot in the interim.

Rehab Notes: Polanco, Kershaw, Taylor

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A grueling seven-month rehab process is finally nearing its end for Gregory Polanco, reports MLB.com’s Adam Berry, as the Pirates outfielder is set to begin a rehab assignment tomorrow for High-A Bradenton. The initial rehab outlook for the torn labrum on Polanco’s left shoulder was seven to nine months, so even a full 20-day rehab stay will have him set to return on the short end of the timeframe. The 27-year-old’s imminent return will be manna from the proverbial heaven for the run-starved Pirates, who’ve already lost outfielders Corey Dickerson and Lonnie Chisenhall to injuries at the season’s outset. Polanco’s status as a perennial breakout candidate finally came to fruition last year, as the big lefty slashed a career-best .254/.340/.499 (123 wRC+) in 130 games before suffering the injury in early September. His hard-hit rate, which had dipped to a shockingly pedestrian 25.9% in 2017, jumped nearly nine percentage points, and the newfound plate discipline he exhibited reaped huge benefits.

In further rehab news from around the game…

  • Clayton Kershaw’s dominant rehab performance on minor-league Opening Night doesn’t mean he’s ready for the show, writes Bill Plunkett of the OC Register. The three-time Cy Young award winner will need at least another rehab outing – this one in the 75-80 pitch range – before rejoining the big club in the coming weeks. Dampening the much-needed flames throughout the outing were the stadium’s radar gun readouts, which reportedly had the seven-time all-star sitting at a frightening 88-91 MPH with the fastball. A career-low 90.9 MPH average fastball velocity in ’18 led to the lefty’s lowest strikeout rate since his rookie season of 2008, and the once-untouchable ace was again vulnerable to the longball. The club may not need a halcyon Kershaw to contend for the pennant, and may not need him at all to run through a sloppy NL West. Still, even a compromised version of the lefty should be quite effective, and the Dodgers, who doubled down on their substantial investment this offseason, will continue to hold out out hope for the ace of seasons past.
  • Per Brittany Ghiroli of The Athletic, Nationals outfielder Michael A. Taylor will play seven innings in a rehab game today. It’s good news for the Nationals, who expected the extra OF to miss “significant time” after he sprained his knee and hip mid-March. There seems to be precious little playing time in the Nats outfield for Taylor, who followed up a solid 2017 season with a .227/.287/.357 stinker last year. Strikeouts have long been an issue for the speedy centerfielder, who’s posted a K rate of 30% or higher in each of his four major-league seasons.

Yankees Select Giovanny Urshela, Option Thairo Estrada To Minors

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Per a team release, the Yankees have selected the contract of INF Giovanny Urshela from AAA Scranton/Wilkes-Barre and signed him to a major league contract. INF Thairo Estrada will head back to Scranton, while SS Didi Gregorius heads to the 60-day DL to make room for Urshela on the 40-man.

Long regarded as a premier hot-corner defender, Urshela will look to offer much-needed stability to a Yankee infield in shambles. With Gregorius, Miguel Andujar and the ever-fragile Troy Tulowitzki on the shelf, the club has been furiously plugging holes – Estrada and Tyler Wade were summoned from Triple-A, and Gold Glove second baseman DJ LeMahieu was uprooted from his natural habitat to help fill the void at third.

The 27-year-old Urshela has been an out-making specialist in the big leagues, slashing just .225/.274/.315 over 499 career MLB plate appearances. The 2018 late-season Yankee acquisition also spent time in the Blue Jays and Indians systems last year, where he slashed a combined .286/.326/.393 in 240 PA. Since 2014’s AAA breakout, where the Colombian clubbed 60 extra-base hits in a full-season’s worth of plate appearances, Urshela hasn’t found much success at the dish.

It was a brief big-league stay for Estrada (he didn’t once make it to the plate for the Bombers), who’s a well-regarded utility prospect in some circles. A gunshot wound and surgery-gone-wrong destroyed his 2018 campaign, so the 23-year-old will hope to patch things up in the season to come.

Padres Select Nick Margevicius

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Per a team release, the Padres have selected lefty Nick Margevicius to the 40-man roster and designated OF Socrates Brito for assignment.

Margevicius, 22, has yet to throw a pitch above the High-A level, but he’ll start tonight at home for the Padres against San Francisco. The 2017 7th rounder out of New Jersey’s Rider University stands 6’5 and, per ESPN’s Keith Law, features a plus curveball with “huge spin.” His fastball, graded as “fringe-average” per Law, worked at 88-91 MPH prior to ’17 draft according to Baseball America. Margevicius didn’t crack the deep system’s top 30 prospects at either MLB.com or BA despite outstanding K/BB ratios at both low-A Fort Wayne and high-A Lake Elsinore last season.

It’s a surprise move for San Diego, who’ll slip Margevicius into the rotation’s third slot for the time being, ahead of higher-profile, more-experienced young arms like Logan Allen, Cal Quantrill, and Michel Baez. Perhaps the brass feels as if the lefty has relatively little projection left, at least compared to the aforementioned names, or simply views the southpaw in a more favorable light than the industry consensus.

Brito, 26, was claimed Wednesday from Arizona after a solid (.318/.383/.540) line for AAA-Reno last season. He didn’t figure to have a place in a crowded Padre outfield mix, but the lefty has at times flashed an intriguing skillset.

Rays Acquire Aaron Slegers From Pirates

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Per Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times, the Rays have acquired righty Aaron Slegers from the Pirates for cash considerations. To make room on the 40-man, Tampa has transferred lefty Anthony Banda to the 60-day IL.

Slegers, 26, was designated for assignment Thursday by the Pirates after being claimed off waivers from Minnesota in January. At a towering 6 foot 10, Slegers stands as one of the tallest pitchers in MLB history; despite the relative enormity, though, he’s not a fireballer: the longtime Twin’s averaged just 90.3 MPH on the four-seam in his brief MLB career thus far.

Deployed mostly as a starter during his six-year minor-league career with Minnesota, the Indiana product consistently struggled to miss bats, cratering to a caeeer-low 6.01 K/9 in 15 starts with Triple-A Rochester last season. He didn’t crack the organization’s top 30 prospects, per Baseball America, at any point during his tenure with the club.

The Rays will assign Slegers to Triple-A Durham, the team announced immediately, where he’ll slot in with a host of capable others in offering starter (or post-opener) depth for the parent club.

AL Notes: Lindor, Zimmer, Indians, Orioles

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The latest from the Junior Circuit . . .

  • There’s no timetable on Indians shortstop Francisco Lindor’s return, writes Ryan Lewis of the Akron Beacon-Journal. The 25-year-old three-time all-star will reportedly get a second opinion on his “mild-to-moderate[ly]” sprained left ankle Monday in Green Bay, Wisconsin, as the Cleveland brass trips over itself to ensure the superstar’s IL stint doesn’t linger. Touted prospect Yu Chang had spent time on the spring shelf with a minor hand injury, so the club has turned for the interim to the uninspiring Max Moroff/Eric Stamets duo to fill the void. The 25-year-old Moroff, an offseason acquisition from Pittsburgh, may be a bit out of his element at the position, though the slick-fielding Stamets is most certainly not. Neither, of course, can hope to approximate Lindor’s 129 wRC+/6.9 WAR projected ZiPS output; the club, then, would figure to spend much of the long weekend with fingers crossed.
  • Tribe outfielder Bradley Zimmer suffered a setback in his months-long rehab from mid-summer shoulder surgery, reports MLB.com’s Mandy Bell. The former top prospect felt a side twinge as he attempted a throw to home, the next apparent step in an estimated eight-to-twelve month rehabilitation process. The already-nebulous timetable has been thrown further into the fog, with no concrete return date set for the 26-year-old. Zimmer’s MLB debut, after a banner minor-league career, was inauspicious at best: in 446 plate appearances the lefty boasts just a .237/.300/.370 (75 wRC+) line, with a particularly ugly 38.6% strikeout rate in limited action last season. The wide-open Indian outfield is still mostly up for grabs – per Bell, reports have thus far been positive on the recently-signed Carlos Gonzalez, who’ll soon make his way to Triple-A Columbus once their season begins.
  • Orioles Rule 5 pick Richie Martin is likely to see “extended” action at short for the club, writes Rich Dubroff of BaltimoreBaseball.com. The 24-year-old Martin was left unprotected by Oakland after uneven minor-league performances since 2015 debut, but the O’s have neither the talent nor the desire to usurp the former first-rounder in the near future. Drew Jackson, another Rule 5 pick who’s been long lauded for his glove, if not his bat, figures to fill the utility role for the club in the early season. Neither player had played an inning above the Double-A level before yesterday, though the club obviously has every incentive to see each premature rise through (both players would have to be returned to their previous organizations if removed from the 25-man roster at any point this season).

Giants Acquire Michael Reed From Twins

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Per Dan Hayes of the Athletic, the Giants have acquired OF Michael Reed from Minnesota for OF John Andreoli and cash. Per Kerry Crowley of the Mercury News, lefty Steven Okert was designated for assignment to make room on the 40-man.

Reed, 26, was in camp with the Twins after an outstanding AAA performance in the Atlanta system last year. A career .269/.382/.395 hitter in the minors, Reed took it up a notch last season, slashing a ridiculous .363/.459/.539 in 229 plate appearances for AAA-Gwinnett.  Scouts were never too bullish on the longtime Brewer – his highest ever rank in the Milwaukee system per Baseball America was 14th, following the 2014 season – but the recent performance has been too enticing to ignore.

Incredibly, Reed may slot in as the San Francisco’s top projected outfielder for the upcoming season – Steamer, at least, seems to agree. The Giants may not, but the righty-swinging Reed should see plenty of time at each outfield position in ’19, which he may well begin by serving as the weak-side platoon option in center field for lefty Steven Duggar.

Andreoli, 28, was brought in with a host of others to compete for a spot in the wide-open SF outfield, though his minor-league track record doesn’t glow nearly as brightly as Reed’s. The righty did put up an impressive .397 OBP at the AAA level last season, albeit in the much more hitter-friendly confines of the Pacific Coast League.

Okert, 27, has been decent in limited action for the Giants over the last three seasons, and had a banner (3.30 FIP, 12.22 K/9 vs. 2.27 BB/9) AAA season in 2018. Righties have always given the southpaw trouble, but he should have no issue latching on with a new franchise in the coming days.

Yankees Acquire Mike Tauchman From Rockies

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Per a team release, the Yankees have acquired OF Mike Tauchman from Colorado for lefty Phillip Diehl. Left-hander Jordan Montgomery was placed on the 60-day IL to make 40-man room for the outfielder.

Tauchman, 28, has just 69 MLB plate appearances under his belt despite a monster minor-league performance over the last two seasons. With AAA-Albuquerque in 2018, Tauchman slashed .323/.408/.571 with an outstanding 12.7% BB/14.9% K plate-discipline profile. ZiPS projects the lefty, who could see time at all three outfield spots for New York, to post a solid 96 wRC+/1.9 WAR season over 513 plate appearances in 2018.

Diehl, 24, moved to the bullpen full-time in the New York farm last season, to mostly excellent results. He didn’t crack the team’s top 30 prospects at either Baseball America or MLB.com, but if his 14.61 K/9 at high-A Tampa is any indication, the lefty’ll certainly be on the radar of the Rockies brass.

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