Headlines

Go To Pro Hockey Rumors
Go To Hoops Rumors

Phillies Searching For Outfielders

By | at

In reigning National League MVP Bryce Harper – a two-time winner of the award – the Phillies have a solid base for putting together a top-shelf outfield. Of course, they still need two more bodies (or more) to help Mr. Harper patrol the grass, and the list of available names is about to start dwindling quickly. Already, in fact, they’re dealing with a depleted free-agent pool.

But it’s not barren, and there’s time yet for the Phillies to construct a competent trio in the outfield of Citizens Bank Park. By all accounts, they’re on the hunt for Harper’s next running mates. Nick Castellanos is the top pure outfielder remaining, and the Phillies have indeed checked in on him, per Jon Morosi of MLB Network (via Twitter). Morosi notes that Phillies president of baseball ops Dave Dombrowski ran the show in Detroit when Castellanos was drafted, so there’s certainly some history there.

Castellanos – a first-time All-Star with the Reds last season – would certainly bring much-needed thunder to a lineup that ranked 13th in MLB by the measure of runs scored in 2021. The former Tiger, Cub, and Red hit .309/.362/.576 with 34 home runs and a clean 100 RBIs last year, good for a robust 140 wRC+.

Of course, defense was a bit of a bugaboo for Joe Girardi’s club,  and Castellanos isn’t traditionally known for his merits in that department. The DH would be an option, though Rhys Hoskins is already a candidate for that role. Furthermore, Girardo will almost certainly want to earmark some of those ABs as a means for keeping Harper and J.T. Realmuto fresh.

In addition, the Phillies have been in recent contact with their on-again-off-again centerfielder Odubel Herrera, per Jim Salisbury of NBCSPhilly (via Twitter). Herrera posted 1.8 rWAR/1.1 fWAR last year as a regular in center, logging 492 trips to the dish across 124 games.

Herrera doesn’t walk a ton (5.9 percent walk rate), and his power clocks in below-average (.156 ISO), but he put the ball in play at a career-best rate last year, striking out in just 15.7 percent of his plate appearances. All in all, his bat was seven percent below average, which is absolutely palatable for a decent gloveman in center – and Herrera was that in 2021.

The Fielding Bible credited him with 2 total runs saved, while he rated decently in other systems as well (2 DRS, -1.2 UZR). Even if Herrera just holds the line in center, that might be enough for the Phils to seek a reunion. There are very few options on the free-agent market, and leaguewide, centerfield has become one of the more difficult positions to fill.

Without Herrera and Castellanos (or other additions), the Phillies have just unproven youngsters like Mickey Moniak and Adam Haseley on the roster. Roman Quinn has departed, while other members of Philly’s 2021 offense Andrew McCutchen and Brad Miller are still free agents. Utility players Johan Camargo and Luke Williams are internal options, but not realistically for regular playing time.

Elsewhere in the organization, 25-year-old Matt Vierling might be a game-by-game option in the grass, while the top prospective minor leaguers on the depth chart are non-roster invitee Justin Williams and 23-year-old prospect Simon Muzziotti, who has just 50 plate appearances above High-A.

Establishing A Nationals Way

By | at

The Nationals have been a team in transition since winning the 2019 World Series. Their on-field talent has shifted the team into a new strata of contention (which is to say, non-contention), the front office has had to retool itself under GM Mike Rizzo after numerous departures, and most of the stars that represented the Nationals for the last half decade have departed. With all those changes, the Nationals are working to remake their identity.

Externally, Juan Soto will be the face of this club for the next three years, but internally, the organization needs processes, ethos, and a shared vision to return to their status as a perennial contender. That starts with establishing a “Nationals Way,” writes Mark Zuckerman of MASNsports.com. While awaiting participation from the Major League contingent of players, the Nationals are wasting no time in putting their minor league campers to work in building that culture.

In St. Louis, organization wide adherence to the “Cardinal Way” has long been the call-to-arms for the most stable franchise in the the National League. It’s not a bad model to follow. But it’s not easy to duplicate.

The Cardinal Way is more than strategy, more than brand. People, baseball teams, businesses, any complex organization needs a ground truth, to know “true north,” and the Cardinal Way is the religion that keeps St. Louis baseball on task. It’s not an accident that two teams with the strongest organizational identities – the Yankees and Cardinals – have been the most stable contenders over the years. Out of 22 baseball seasons this century, the Cardinals made the postseason 15 times. They put a winning ballclub on the field in 21 of those 22 years, only failing to do so in 2007 when they posted a hardly-disastrous 78-84 record. The Cardinal Way works.

Of course, other franchises have talked the talk about building organizational continuity, but it’s harder than it looks. If there’s hope in the Nationals Way succeeding, it’s in their short history. The Nationals posted a winning record in eight consecutive seasons from 2012 to 2019. They were not, at the time, viewed as a behemoth of contention because it wasn’t until the eighth season – their championship season – that they even won a playoff round. But they had created an engine that routinely churned out winners.

That said, while competence became boilerplate for those Nationals, true contention was balanced on a razor’s edge. Only once did they make the playoffs in back-to-back seasons, despite four division titles in the six-year span from 2012 to 2017. From where we sit today, the fact that their run coalesced into a World Series win seems more magical than engineered. But of course, that doesn’t give the Nats’ organization enough credit.

With Major Leaguers locked out, Ryan Zimmerman retired, and a host of new instructors leading the way in Nats camp, whatever system was in place before needs a system reboot in order to get up and running again. De Jon Watson, in his first season as the Nats’ Director of Player Development, is the man tasked with establishing the Nationals Way. De Watson talked to reporters, including Zuckerman, who provides some details about the system they’re trying to implement.  Zuckerman passes along De Watson’s plan, but with axioms like “attacking the strike zone” and “doing damage when we have the opportunity to do damage,” the Nationals Way, publicly, is more esoteric than proper outline. In that way, it’s identical to the Cardinal Way. It’ll take time to know if they’re similar in any of the ways that matter most.

Despite Report, No Deal Close Between MLB, MLBPA

By | at

11:15 AM: At least one player has decided to chime on the conversation. Zack Britton responded (via Twitter) to Heyman’s earlier tweet with a very simple and straightforward, “This is not accurate.”

10:28 AM: The prospects of owners and players being close to an agreement has been characterized as “beyond absurd” by someone close to the players, per Ben Nicholson-Smith of Sportsnet.ca (via Twitter). Nicholson-Smith adds that the players will need to see more than just the incremental changes to the Collective Bargaining Tax that owners were offering yesterday.

9:34 AM: Amid all the doom-and-gloom surrounding the CBA negotiation, there is at least one voice suggesting a deal could be in the offing. MLB Network’s Jon Heyman reports this morning that the two sides are “within striking distance” of a deal, and the two sides could reach a suitable compromise by tomorrow night. MLBTR’s sources disagree vehemently with Heyman’s report, however, and continue to say that a deal is not close.

Most of the other scuttlebutt, including from Heyman, suggests that the players left yesterday’s session upset and unconvinced of the owners willingness to negotiate in earnest. At the same time, despite the hostility, players have not walked away yet, with another meeting scheduled between the two sides for today at noon.

Heyman suggests the difference could be a settling of the luxury tax threshold around the $230MM mark. That would more-or-less evenly split the divide between the two sides, but that’s not the way negotiations have leaned thus far. That’s to say nothing of the many other issues on which the two sides are at odds.  At last reporting, the gap between the two was still at $31MM for 2022, with the players offering a $245MM luxury tax line, and the owners countering at $214MM.

Multiple Teams Closing Spring Complexes To Opposing Scouts

By | at

Some MLB teams are closing their spring complexes to scouts from other teams until either Major League spring play commences or until after the Rule 5 draft, per ESPN’s Kiley McDaniel (via Twitter).

McDaniel also suggests the Rule 5 draft could be cancelled outright, at which point teams would likely be more lenient. Canceling the Rule 5 draft would be unfortunate, as it offers at least an opportunity to blocked minor league players to get opportunities for promotion elsewhere. While it may pale in comparison to the other issues currently on the table, canceling the Rule 5 draft would close off at least one avenue that struggling teams have utilized to find and audition controllable players.

The implications here are fairly clear. Currently the only players allowed in camp are those that are not on the 40-man roster. Those are also the players who will be available for plucking during the Rule 5 draft. By locking opposing scouts out of camp, teams are strategically denying valuable information to clubs about the progress of certain players. Without current scouting, teams picking in the Rule 5 draft will have to rely on old information, which is difficult when specifically looking for players who might have jumped a rung in terms of their development.

Last year’s Rule 5 draft proved a (relatively) fertile area of player acquisition for Major League clubs. Akil Baddoo (Tigers), Garrett Whitlock (Red Sox), Jordan Sheffield (Rockies), Trevor Stephan (Guardians), and Zach Pop (Marlins) being among the players who stuck with new clubs after being taken in the draft. Tyler Gilbert (Diamondbacks) put up 1.1 rWAR for Arizona after being selected in the Triple-A phase of the draft. He improbably tosses a No-Hitter in his first start for the Diamondbacks, finishing the year with a 3.15 ERA/4.27 FIP over 40 innings in the Majors. These players provided some of the more memorable success stories from the 2021 campaign.

Whitlock, for example, was one of the most important players on a playoff team. Working out of the bullpen, Whitlock became the Red Sox most reliable reliever down the stretch. He finished the year with a 1.96 ERA/2.84 FIP across 46 outings totaling 73 1/3 innings, good for 3.0 rWAR. Finding a ready contributor like Whitlock in another team’s complex will be much more difficult if scouts don’t have access to those playing fields.

Quick Hits: Cubs, Giants

By | at

While the lockout rages on, so, too, does front office churn. Here’s the latest from front offices around the game…

  • Cubs assistant GM Jeff Greenberg is one of three finalists to be then next GM of the Chicago Blackhawks, writes The Athletic’s Scott Powers and Mark Lazerus. Greenberg’s candidacy is definitely a bit of a surprise, and he’s not the odds-on frontrunner of the final three. The once-proud Blackhawks are staring down another season outside the playoff field, and with the championship stalwarts of Patrick Kane and Jonathan Toews in their age-33 seasons, they’re eager to get the franchise back on track. With Captain Serious largely out of action because of injuries, Kane is only only palpable link to Chicago’s Stanley Cup winners in 2010, 2013, and 2015. The closest baseball corollary to these Blackhawks might be the pre-2020 Giants, and the Hawks would love a similarly quick turnaround. If they miss the playoffs this season, as expected, it will be the fifth time in the last six years that Chicago sits out postseason play. Greenberg has no formal experience in hockey, but he wouldn’t be the first executive to switch playing fields. Paul DePodesta is the hallmark example, having jumped from baseball to the NFL to run the Browns. To see how this saga ends, stay plugged into the latest Blackhawks news over at Pro Hockey Rumors.
  • The Giants have hired Josh Herzenberg as the Assistant Director of Player Development, per Herzenberg himself on Twitter. Herzenberg has spent the past two years working with the Lotte Giants of the Korean Baseball Organization. He started in the KBO as a pitching coordinator, but rose to the level of Director of Research and Development and International Scouting. Prior to his time overseas, Herzenberg spent time in the scouting departments of both the Diamondbacks and the Dodgers. Congrats to Herzenberg on his new position in San Francisco.

Player Valuation Trends Remain At Issue In CBA Negotiations

By | at

As the lockout draws on, time has proved insufficient in healing the conflicts surrounding the current collective bargaining agreement negotiations. The latest reports suggest that the league owners and MLBPA are no closer to finding middle ground on most issues. The most recent concessions were catalogued here by MLBTR’s Darragh McDonald. Today’s analysis, however, comes from thescore.com’s Travis Sawchik, who provides valuable context for a number of trends that have been at issue during these negotiations.

Sawchik tackles the current imbalance between production and pay, the changing demographics of the player populous, and the role that analytics has played in shaping the game’s financial landscape. I urge you to read Sawchik’s full analysis, but below are a couple of passages from Sawchik’s article that frame the current debate.

For starters, player careers have declined. Sawchik writes, “The average service time of MLB players was 4.79 years in 2003 and fell to 3.71 years in 2019, according to MLBPA data from last year.” It’s no coincidence that players become eligible for their first arbitration raise after three years of service time.

Careers are closing in on players from both sides. Sawchik provides the following data: “…the share of position players aged 30-plus declined from 40.4% of all hitters in 2004 to 29.9% this past season. Of all players to step on an MLB field in 2019, 63.2% had less than three years of service time. Careers are also starting later. The average debut age of 25.6 years this season was up from 2011 (24.6 years) and 2001 (24.5), according to Baseball Reference.”

Not only are there less players in their thirties than in the past, but younger players are debuting at older ages than usual. What this amounts to is owners taking advantages of players’ few prime years between the ages 25 and 30, thereby avoiding the growing pains of youth and at the same time forestalling free agency until players are on the tail end of their athletic peaks. Excepting where those superstar players are concerned, teams can then feel comfortable replacing those players with the next wave of cheap, young players entering their primes.

Advanced analytics has made it so that teams have a better understanding of the advantages that this system provides them. Meanwhile, player care has improved and the field of biomechanics has taken on an increased role, only deepening the information available to owners and front offices.

What makes this situation so very complex is that as individual players use these advancements for the benefit of their own careers, the aggregate only pushes the balance of power further in the direction of ownership. The MLBPA knows not to expect owners to yield their high ground willingly, which is why we are where we are in terms of the lockout.

The entire revaluation of an economic ecosystem as complex as Major League Baseball is hardly a simple matter. There is no reset button, especially when only one side of the conflict sees the current system as broken. Still, for the sport to resume, both sides will have to engage in persistent and significant compromise. In the meantime, we all get a little older.

This Date In Transaction History: Cubs Sign Yu Darvish

By | at

On February 13th, 2018 the Cubs officially announced a six-year, $126MM agreement with free agent Yu Darvish. After splitting the 2017 season between the Rangers and Dodgers, Darvish was the top free agent on MLBTR’s list of available players that winter. Little did we know at the time that Darvish would spent only half the length of that contract in a Cubs uniform.

At the time, Darvish seemed like a much-needed injection of frontline rotation talent for the Cubs. After falling to the Dodgers in the NLCS in their title defense season, swiping Darvish from the Dodgers had the potential to swing a potential rematch in seasons to come.

That rematch wouldn’t come to pass, however. Darvish would make just nine starts for the Cubs in the 2018 season. Though they won 95 games, Joe Maddon’s club stumbled into a wild card spot before losing the wild card game to the Rockies on a Tony Wolters RBI single in the 13th inning.

The timing was never quite right for Darvish and the Cubs. He was better in his second season in Chicago, but not good enough to change the fortunes of their fledgling contender. Darvish finished second for the NL Cy Young during the pandemic-shortened 2020 season, but they fell in the first round of the playoffs to the Marlins.

Though Darvish was incredible during that 2020 season (2.01 ERA/2.23 FIP over 76 innings), the Cubs chose to sell high on their one-time free agent prize, sending him to the Padres for a quartet of teenagers. The Cubs were largely criticized at the time of the deal, though the full impact of the move won’t be known for many years yet. There’s no doubt that Chicago needed an injection of youth for a system that had largely stagnated during their years of contention. Further, in terms of maximizing their assets, Darvish was their most valuable trade piece at the time.

And though Darvish’s arsenal is robust, and he’s among the strikeout leaders on a per batter basis year-by-year, his bottom line run prevention numbers don’t necessarily paint him as one of the best pitchers in the league.

He was certainly a touch disappointing in his first season with the Padres, posting just 1.4 rWAR/2.9 fWAR despite making 30 starts and tossing 166 1/3 innings. The 34-year-old wasn’t bad in 2021, but with a 4.22 ERA/3.90 FIP, Darvish looks more like a solid mid-rotation arm than a true frontline ace, even with an impressive 29.2 percent strikeout rate and 6.5 percent walk rate.

The fact is, outside of his tremendous 2020 season, Darvish has been closer to this 2021 self for most of his Major League career – at least since missing the 2015 season. Still, that makes for a valuable rotation arm that ought to play a valuable role for the Padres over the next two seasons, even in his age-35 and age-36 seasons.

At the same time, it’s hard to fault the Cubs now for selling when they did. MLBTR readers did not like the deal, with the most popular grades being a C and D at the time. But in retrospect, the Cubs were clearly more than a Darvish away from competing last season.

On the whole, even though they traded him halfway through the deal, the Cubs probably still feel pretty good about their decision to sign Darvish. On the field, he gave them 294 2/3 innings over three seasons with a 3.60 ERA/3.77 FIP, totaling 5.8 fWAR. Those aggregate numbers are solid, though they came in the shape of one subpar season, one stellar season, and one middle-of-the-road year in 2019.

Taking a more holistic approach, you can give Darvish credit for also netting the organization four prospects who may still provide a boost to Cubs teams down the road. As of right now, Fangraphs has the four prospects the Cubs got for Darvish ranked as their #3, #5, #37, and #48 ranked prospects in their system. Will those four prospects end up being more valuable than the final three years of Darvish’s free agent deal? That’s a question for a future date. In terms of the free agent deal that was signed four years ago today, the move didn’t turn out exactly the way the Cubs perhaps wanted, but they should count it as a win nonetheless.

Nationals Add Pair Of Analysts To Front Office

By | at

The Nationals have added a pair of analysts to their front office. Washington needs the influx of talent, as their analyst group has been greatly diminished since their championship run in 2019. Carmen Ciardiello and Lee Przybylski are the latest new hires to join research and development, per Jesse Dougherty of the Washington Post (via Twitter).

Earlier this winter, the Nats added former players Bill Mueller and Coco Crisp to their on-field player development teams. They also added Jon Weil as a special assistant to help in the scouting department.

The Nationals have typically been content with a smaller-than-normal front office group. These additions, however, amount to a refilling of the coffers more than an expansion. Dougherty covered the Nats’ front office situation in a full piece last December.

Recalibrating Expectations For Luis Urias

By | at

Luis Urias was a top prospect coming up in the Padres’ system at a time when San Diego had one of the best farm systems in baseball. The Padres avoided overtures to deal Urias for more established talent year after year. After intermittent opportunities in 2018 and 2019, Urias was shipped to Milwaukee in one of the more interesting challenge trades in recent memory: the Padres sent Urias and southpaw Eric Lauer to the Brewers for outfielder Trent Grisham and righty Zach Davies.

At the time – late November of 2019 – Grisham was at a low point, fresh off ending the Brewers season with an unfortunate bounce on a Juan Soto single that knocked Milwaukee out of the wild card game. Grisham had played admirably in a 51-game stint mostly standing in for the injured Christian Yelich – not at all an easy task, given his legendary status at the time. But the way the season ended definitely left a poor impression about Grisham’s future. Of course, Grisham would go on to win a Gold Glove Award as a centerfielder the next season, reminding us that a single moment in time cannot define a player’s career. The now-25-year-old has grown his well-rounded game enough to place him among the most promising centerfielders in the sport.

A similar lesson might be taken from the first few seasons of Urias’ career. His first season with the Brewers looked a lot like his first few years in San Diego. Following the 2020 season, Urias’ career triple-slash line was a punchless .226/.315/.320, a performance 24 percent below-average. The lack of pop wasn’t shocking, as power was never his calling card. His offensive potential was built on a keen eye at the plate and bat-to-ball skills that routinely produced batting averages of .290+ while in the minor leagues.

Urias, who’s still just 24, turned it around in the 2021 campaign, posting a 111 wRC+ while slashing .249/.345/.445 with 23 home runs. Oddly, it was his power that drove the improvement as his isolated power jumped to .196, an above-average mark that helped sustain a move to the more power-expectant position of third base. If last season’s output represents a new baseline for Urias, our typical understanding of the aging curve suggests that Urias ought to have at least another 5-6 seasons of being a very good baseball player.

If the high-average, high-on-base-percentage player that Urias had been throughout his minors career re-animates for the Brewers in 2022, the Brewers might really have a star player on their hands. They might need one, too, because, somewhat ironically, where once Grisham stood in for an injured Yelich, an improved Urias helped pick up the slack for a lessened Yelich in 2021. With Yelich no longer performing at the superhuman levels of his MVP seasons, and Lorenzo Cain beginning to show his age, the Brewers had to rely on a more egalitarian approach at the plate in 2021. Urias was a big reason why the Brewers were able to weather Yelich’s decline from a 170 wRC+ superhero in 2018-19 to an all-too-mortal 105 wRC+ in 2020-21. Willy Adames carried much of the load after his arrival from Tampa, but even his transformation into a middle-of-the-order bat (135 wRC+) didn’t come close to matching the firepower of Yelich in his heyday.

Manager Craig Counsell mixes-and-matches to maximize the production of an imperfect offensive roster, and he’s done so dating back to Yelich’s MVP years. The Brewers scored 754 runs in 2018 when Yelich won the MVP, 12th-most in the Majors, then 769 runs in 2019 when Yelich finished second, 15th-most in MLB. They scored just 247 runs in the truncated 2020 season when Yelich’s production first dipped, a mark that fell to 26th overall and resulted in a 29-31 season that barely qualified them for an expanded playoffs. Last season, they made the playoffs for the fourth consecutive season while scoring 738 runs, which landed them back at 12th overall in the Majors. In other words, the Brewers offense was about as good as it’s ever been with Yelich on the roster, despite Yelich himself producing barely better than average.

The Brewers under Counsell and GM David Stearns have always been a pitching-first organization, and that’s likely to continue in 2022 behind a rotation that’s among the most well-rounded in all of baseball. Brandon Woodruff, Corbin Burnes, and Freddy Peralta boast mind-bending pure stuff, but they’re buttressed by a pair of steady-eddies in Adrian Houser and Lauer, Urias’ traveling mate from San Diego. When healthy, Josh Hader, Devin Williams, and Brent Suter make up the core of a formidable bullpen, not to mention Aaron Ashby, the hard-throwing, bespectacled southpaw who appears to be the next big arm to establish himself on Counsell’s staff.

Pitching dominance, however, now more than ever, is prone to whims of injury and year-to-year variance. Less length from starters means spreading the innings load to more pitchers than in days’ past, and that means spreading the potential for variance around as well. There are plusses and minuses to meting out that responsibility to so many arms. The Brewers pitching staff has ranked among the game’s best by fWAR the past two seasons, but nothing is guaranteed on the hill. The offense will need to carry their own water.

There are paths to Milwaukee scoring enough runs to cover even an unforeseen letdown from the pitching staff, but as of right now, they’re gambles. Obviously, a bounceback season from Yelich would do wonders. A rejuvenated Cain in his age-36 season would be amazing, however unlikely. Even another season from Adames at his Milwaukee potency would register as a pleasant surprise.

The list goes on. They need Keston Hiura to find the form that made him a top prospect bat. They need Hunter Renfroe and Tyrone Taylor to make up the production left behind by the departed Avisail Garcia. They need Rowdy Tellez to maintain his role as a power force, though year-to-year consistency has eluded the southpaw slugger in the past.

Urias, now stationed at the hot corner, might be the safest best of them all. Heading into last season, the sheen had worn off of Urias, and the prospect of his realizing the potential that was once heaped upon his 5’9″ frame was as unlikely as any of Milwaukee’s annual offensive gambits, and yet here we are. The Brewers not only need Urias to be a star, but it’s not wholly unfair to expect it.

Padres Top Prospect Healthy Enough For Baseball Activities

By | at

Padres top prospect CJ Abrams is healthy enough to return to full baseball activities, per Jeff Sanders of the San Diego Union-Tribune (via Twitter). Abrams had been dealing with a shoulder issue, but it does not appear as if the injury will be the cause of a delayed season start for Abrams. The Padres’ top-ranked prospect fractured his tibia and tore his mcl in a collision at second base that ended his 2021 season after just 42 games in Double-A. Despite the injury, Abrams remains one of MiLB’s most intriguing young talents, landing as the ninth-ranked prospect in the game per Baseball America, 11th-ranked overall by Baseball Prospectus, and currently sixth-ranked by MLB.com.

Before the injury, Abrams was impressive as a 20-year-old playing above his station in a league where players were roughly four years his elder on average. Regardless, he slashed .296/.363/.420 over 183 plate appearances prior to the injury, good for a 112 wRC+. At the dish, Abrams put forth a fairly well-rounded game with an 8.2 percent walk rate, 19.7 percent strikeout rate, and .123 ISO while also stealing 13 bases in 15 opportunities. Power isn’t his primary skillset, but Abrams showed enough pop at his age to suggest there’s more growth to come in that department.

The question for Abrams right now, beyond his return to health, is where the Padres hope to station him in the field. He has remained a shortstop, but a certain Fernando Tatis Jr. has aims on holding that spot long-term. Of course, the Padres experimented moving Tatis around the diamond in 2021, driven at least publicly by a desire to keep him from re-injuring his shoulder. Abrams played a little second base in Double-A, and maybe that’s where he ultimately ends up in order to secure a spot on the Major League roster. The first hurdle will be proving himself healthy, and if the season eventually gets underway, he’ll either be back in Double-A for a time or jumped ahead to Triple-A. Either way, the Padres will hope to see Abrams somewhere on the diamond in Petco Park before the end of the 2023 season, if not sooner.

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