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Orioles To Select Chayce McDermott

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The Orioles are calling up pitching prospect Chayce McDermott to start tomorrow’s game in Miami, manager Brandon Hyde informed the team’s beat (X link via Andy Kostka of the Baltimore Banner). The O’s need to add him to the 40-man roster.

It’s the first MLB call for McDermott, who turns 26 next month. The Astros took him in the fourth round of the 2021 draft out of Ball State. Houston shipped him to Baltimore as part of the three-team Trey Mancini deal the following summer. The 6’3″ righty has since developed into one of the O’s more talented minor league arms. Baseball America ranked him as the #6 prospect in the Baltimore system coming into this season.

McDermott had combined for a 3.10 ERA while striking out nearly 31% of batters faced at the top two minor league levels a year ago. He has spent all of this season with Triple-A Norfolk, working to a 3.96 earned run average across 20 outings. He easily leads all Triple-A pitchers with 129 strikeouts, fanning nearly a third of opponents.

BA credits McDermott with a mid-90s fastball that plays especially well at the top of the strike zone. That’s the best offering in a five-pitch mix. Whether McDermott sticks as a starter will be largely dependent on his command. He has had a hard time finding the strike zone this year, walking more than 13% of opponents. Free passes have been an issue throughout his minor league career and could point to an eventual bullpen role.

McDermott’s first look comes from the rotation, though it might not be more than a spot start. Baltimore could add a starter to slot in behind Corbin Burnes and Grayson Rodriguez before next Tuesday’s deadline. The O’s could then option McDermott back to Norfolk or give him an opportunity to carve out a bullpen role for the stretch run. They had needed to add him to the 40-man roster by next offseason to keep him out of the Rule 5 draft. Their 40-man is at capacity and they don’t have any candidates for a move to the 60-day injured list, so they’re likely to designate someone for assignment tomorrow.

Krall: Reds Have Not Declared Themselves Sellers

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July 23: Reds president of baseball operations Nick Krall pushed back on Morosi’s report, telling Gordon Wittenmyer of the Cincinnati Enquirer that he’s had conversations with the majority of the league but has “not gone down one road that specific.”

Krall’s comments came on the heels of a Cincinnati victory over Atlanta last night. That win kept the Reds within four games of a Wild Card spot in the National League, albeit in an extraordinarily tightly bunched race. Though they’re only four games back, the Reds would need to vault past the Giants, Cubs, D-backs, Padres, Pirates and one of the Mets or Cardinals in order to move into Wild Card position. The Cubs are actually a half-game up on the Reds in the standings, and their own president of baseball operations, Jed Hoyer, publicly conceded just last night that his focus will be on 2025 and beyond.

The next few days will likely be pivotal for the Reds as they chart their course for the remainder of the season. They have two games left against the Braves, followed by three road games against the Rays. They’ll host the Cubs on the evening of July 29 — their final game before the July 30 deadline.

July 21: Back in early July, when the Reds were 41-45 and just a few games out of the NL Wild Card race, club GM Brad Meador suggested that the club was not yet ready to commit to a strategy for this year’s trade deadline. Flash forward to today, and fallen to a record of 47-53 after getting swept by the Nationals coming out of the All-Star break. It appears that recent performance may have been enough for the club to officially set course, as Jon Morosi of MLB Network reports that the club has begun to inform rival clubs that they are willing to part with players on expiring contracts.

It’s hardly a surprise that Cincinnati would limit any sell-off to rental pieces. After all, the club has an exciting core of young talent led by star shortstop Elly De La Cruz and right-hander Hunter Greene that figures to keep the Reds in the playoff conversation in the coming years, and this season has been complicated by injuries to key pieces such as Matt McLain, Christian Encarnacion-Strand, TJ Friedl, Brandon Williamson, and Graham Ashcraft. By maintaining that core of players as well as veteran pieces under longer-term control such as Jonathan India and Jeimer Candelario, the Reds can remain fairly well positioned to load back up for the 2025 campaign this winter and make another attempt at returning to contention.

The Reds’ list of pending free agents is a relatively short one, but it nonetheless has some interesting names. Right-hander Frankie Montas, whose $20MM mutual option for 2025 is all but certain to be declined, is perhaps the player with the most name recognition that the club could look to move. Righty Nick Martinez has a $12MM player option for 2025 and could also be made available, while outfielder Austin Slater (who the Reds acquired from San Francisco just two weeks ago), lefty Justin Wilson, and right-handers Buck Farmer and Lucas Sims will each see their contracts run out at season’s end.

According to Morosi, the Orioles are among the clubs to have interest in Cincinnati’s rental pitchers, including Montas and Martinez. The fit between Baltimore and either of those two pieces is somewhat obvious, as the Orioles have lost starters Kyle Bradish, John Means, and Tyler Wells to season-ending surgery this year. That’s left them to put together a patchwork rotation filled out by Dean Kremer and Albert Suarez behind front-end duo Corbin Burnes and Grayson Rodriguez. At least one more playoff-caliber starter would make plenty of sense for the Orioles, and they would likely benefit from adding additional depth beyond that as well.

Whether Montas, 31, constitutes a playoff-caliber starter at this point in his career is up for debate. The righty has struggled badly with the Reds in 89 innings (18 starts) this year, posting a 4.85 ERA and 5.04 FIP which are both roughly 15% worse than league average. While Montas has allowed three runs or fewer in 12 of his 18 starts this year, blow-up starts have been a fairly frequent occurrence for the righty, including a combined 12 runs allowed in 11 2/3 innings in his last two starts against the Nationals and Rockies.

Bleak as his recent performance has been, Montas isn’t far removed from a stretch of mid-rotation success with the A’s from 2018 to 2022 where he posted 3.70 ERA and 3.61 FIP in 99 appearances. With that being said, it can’t be ignored that Montas underwent shoulder surgery back in February of last year. Since his return from going under the knife, his peripherals are those of a completely different pitcher. He’s struck out just 18.7% of batters faced after entering 2023 with a career 24.3% strikeout rate, and after allowing free passes to just 7.8% of opponents through the end of the 2022 season he’s watched his walk rate balloon to 10% since undergoing surgery. Even with those flaws, however, Montas’s track record as a quality mid-rotation arm could still certainly attract interest from pitching-hungry suitors.

Martinez, however, could prove to be the better fit for the Orioles’ needs. The right-hander has found a niche as one of the best swingmen in the game over the past three seasons with San Diego and Cincinnati, and this season the 33-year-old boasts a solid 3.88 ERA with an even stronger 3.15 FIP. While his 18.9% walk rate isn’t anything to write home about, he’s limited walks to a clip of just 3% this year while surrendering just six home runs in 72 innings of work. Martinez has been used primarily in relief this year, although he made five starts for the Reds early in the season and demonstrated the ability to move between the rotation and bullpen with relative ease during his time in San Diego. The veteran righty would offer the Orioles pitching depth for both the bullpen and rotation down the stretch, possibly working out of the rotation for the remainder of the regular season before moving into the bullpen during the playoffs.

Of course, Baltimore is far from the only club that could be interesting in the Reds’ available rentals. The Dodgers, Astros, Red Sox, and Padres are among the other teams known to be in the market for starting pitching, while virtually every contender is typically on the prowl for rental bullpen help this time of year and could have interest in either Martinez in a relief role or a rental bullpen arm like Wilson, Farmer, or Sims.

The Orioles’ Oft-Overlooked Outfielder

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The Orioles are as deep as any team in baseball when it comes to young position players. As the trade deadline approaches, that’s led to interminable speculation on top prospects like Heston Kjerstad, Connor Norby, Coby Mayo and Samuel Basallo — highly touted prospects who’ve yet to solidify themselves as one of Baltimore’s long-term pillars. But for all the understandable focus on that slate of top-100 talents, the O’s have more to offer. Perhaps chief among the team’s controllable change-of-scenery candidates is outfielder Kyle Stowers. Manager Brandon Hyde alluded to the possibility in chatting with the Baltimore beat this weekend (link via Jacob Calvin Meyer of the Baltimore Sun).

“Kyle’s going to get a chance to be an everyday Major League player here at some point, either with us or with somebody else. Who knows?” Hyde said when discussing the 26-year-old outfielder and the positive impression he’s made on his manager this season. “You never know what this game is gonna bring, but he’s putting himself in great position.”

Stowers has indeed put himself in a position to be either quite useful to the Orioles or another club before long. There’s plenty of smoke and mirrors at play with his current .306 batting average and .500 slugging percentage, as those gaudy numbers have come in a sample of just 37 plate appearances and are propped up by an unsustainable .435 average on balls in play. Meanwhile, Stowers has fanned 13 times (35.1%) without taking a walk. In parts of three MLB seasons (2022-24), he’s taken 168 plate appearances and batted .229/.274/.369. He’s fanned at a 32.1% clip and walked in 4.8% of those plate appearances.

It’s not a particularly appealing batting line on the whole, but it’s come across five separate stints (dating back to his Aug. 2022 MLB debut) and with no consistent playing time. When Stowers, a 2019 second-round pick, has received steady playing time at the Triple-A level, he’s generally been a productive hitter. The lefty-swinging slugger carries a career .252/.350/.518 batting line with 56 homers, 55 doubles, five triples and seven steals in 1029 plate appearances with Baltimore’s top affiliate in Norfolk. Stowers has been between 12% and 30% better than average at the plate in each of his four seasons with the Tides, by measure of wRC+.

Defensively, he’s seen time at all three positions but logged most of his time in right field. Baseball America ranked him ninth among O’s prospects last year (and seventh the year prior), touting his above-average speed, plus power and plus arm. Stowers has long had some strikeout issues and an aggressive approach at the plate, but he’s also walked in a hearty 11.8% of his Triple-A plate appearances. He hits right-handed pitching better than lefties, as one would expect from a slugging lefty bat, but Stowers has posted an OPS between .781 and 1.018 versus lefties in each of the past four seasons (minors and majors combined). He might never be a star, but to this point in his career, the Stanford product has looked like he could be more than the prototypical platoon slugger with minimal defensive value.

With another 51 days of service this year, Stowers would reach a full season of MLB service time, thus putting him on pace for arbitration in the 2026-27 offseason and free agency in the 2029-30 offseason. If he spends fewer than 51 days on a big league roster or injured list, that timeline to free agency would be pushed back a year. However, he’d be a very likely Super Two candidate at that point, so his arbitration timeline would remain the same — he’d just be eligible four times rather than three before free agency.

Stowers is the type of interesting trade candidate who could appeal to both contending and non-contending teams alike. He’s had a decent amount of success in Triple-A, has at least a half decade of control remaining (plus a minor league option beyond the current season), and has a limited path to an everyday role with his current club. He’d appeal to a rebuilding club as a possible return for a trade chip or perhaps to a win-now club looking for an affordable upside play in the outfield corners. Both Meyer and MASNsports.com’s Roch Kubatko have suggested recently that Stowers could be moved (likely for pitching).

It’s of course possible that he could be a factor for the Orioles themselves in future seasons, as Anthony Santander is a free agent this winter, while Austin Hays and Cedric Mullins could end up as trade or non-tender candidates themselves. However, even if the O’s move on from the veteran trio of Santander, Hays and Mullins before Opening Day 2025, they’ll still have Colton Cowser, Kjerstad, Mayo and Norby in the outfield mix. Both Norby and Mayo have primarily been infielders, but Baltimore’s infield is quite crowded — particularly if Jackson Holliday eventually seizes a spot — which could push Norby to left field and/or push Mayo to right field.

It’s all a “good problem to have,” but Stowers is 26 (27 in January) and down to one option year beyond the current campaign. As Hyde said, it shouldn’t come as a surprise one way or another if he’s getting a full look sooner than later. Just for fun, let’s see what MLBTR readers think about Stowers’ future with a poll:

Orioles, Dodgers Have Discussed Tarik Skubal With Tigers

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The Orioles and Dodgers are “engaged in talks” with the Tigers regarding a trade for All-Star left-hander Tarik Skubal, according to Bob Nightengale of USA Today. This comes after a previous report from Tom Verducci of Sports Illustrated, which suggested that Baltimore and L.A. were interested in Skubal but did not confirm the Tigers were entertaining offers for the Cy Young contender.

Both the Orioles and Dodgers have already made it crystal clear they are seeking to add starting pitching ahead of the July 30 trade deadline. Before the All-Star break, Orioles GM Mike Elias expressed interest in adding a starter with multiple years of club control. Meanwhile, the Dodgers have reportedly already made an offer to the White Sox for Garrett Crochet, and Alden Gonzalez of ESPN suggests that adding “a front-of-the-rotation starter” remains their top priority. Crochet is still their number one target, per Gonzalez, though Skubal would be far more than just a consolation prize.

Baltimore and L.A. have been two of the top teams in the league this season, but both clubs have been hit hard by injuries to their starting rotations. The Orioles have lost Kyle Bradish, Tyler Wells, and John Means for the season. Thus, their rotation has its fair share of question marks after Corbin Burnes and Grayson Rodriguez. Meanwhile, the Dodgers currently have names like Tyler Glasnow, Clayton Kershaw, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Walker Buehler, and Dustin May on the IL. Glasnow and Kershaw are set to return this week, but given their injury histories, L.A. could use another top-of-the-rotation arm for the playoffs. Skubal certainly fits the description.

While it is noteworthy that the Tigers are engaged in discussions about trading Skubal, president of baseball operations Scott Harris might just be doing his due diligence. In other words, the fact that these teams are talking does not mean Harris is seriously considering any offers. Indeed, several sources seem to think it is still highly doubtful Detroit will trade Skubal this season. According to Nightengale, Detroit will only move Skubal if the front office is “overwhelmed” by an offer. Gonzalez reports that sources familiar with the Tigers’ thinking believe a trade is unlikely. Verducci’s source offered similar information, though added that “everything has a price.” Evidently, the Dodgers and Orioles are trying to find the price that will convince Scott Harris to trade away his best player.

The Yankees might also be trying to find that price, as Nightengale reports they would be willing to part with top prospect Spencer Jones to land a young ace like Skubal or Crochet. Previously, Jones was thought to be all but untouchable, but the Yankees might be getting more desperate for upgrades. They have gone 10-20 over their last 30 games, falling out of first place in the AL East. Their starting rotation has a league-worst 6.02 ERA in that time.

Jones, a towering, power-hitting outfielder, is widely considered a top-100 prospect in the game. It’s easy to understand why the Yankees would be hesitant to trade him, but it’s equally clear why the Tigers would command a prospect of that caliber in a package for a 27-year-old ace with two and a half years of club control remaining.

Skubal claimed the final spot on MLBTR’s ranking of the top 50 trade candidates for the deadline. His low ranking has nothing to do with his talent but rather reflects how unlikely he is to be dealt. Still, there is a good reason he was included on the list at all. Several contenders are sure to make a push to acquire Skubal, and if he is dealt, it could be the biggest blockbuster of the summer.

Notable Draft Signings: 7/19/24

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Friday saw a handful of top 10 picks put pen to paper, including #1 overall selection Travis Bazzana. We’ve already covered significant deals for Bazzana, Charlie Condon, Christian Moore and Seaver King this afternoon. A few more notable draft signings of the past 24 hours:

  • The Marlins agreed to a $3.4MM deal with first-round pick PJ Morlando, reports Craig Mish of SportsGrid (X link). That’s well shy of the approximate $4.7MM slot value of the 16th overall selection. While it’s somewhat rare to see a high school player sign for well below slot, the deal allowed Morlando to push into the middle of the first round. FanGraphs, ESPN’s Kiley McDaniel, Baseball America and The Athletic’s Keith Law each ranked the South Carolina commit between 33rd and 52nd in their pre-draft rankings. Evaluators credit the left-handed hitter with advanced contact skills and huge raw power that he shows mostly in batting practice. BA writes that Morlando entered the year as a potential top 10 pick but had a disappointing spring. Law suggests he’s likely to require a mechanical change in pro ball to better integrate his lower body into his swing. Morlando projects to left field or first base, putting a lot of pressure on him to maximize his offensive potential. The $3.4MM bonus falls between the slot values of the 25th and 26th picks, valuing Morlando as a late first-round talent.
  • The Braves are in agreement with 24th overall pick Cam Caminiti on a $3.5563MM bonus, reports Jim Callis of MLB Pipeline (X link). It’s full slot value for the Arizona prep left-hander. An LSU commit, Caminiti was the first high school pitcher off the board. Evaluators credit him with mid-90s fastball velocity and an advanced changeup. Law writes that the 6’2″ southpaw developed his curveball into an average or better offering this spring. There’s plenty of risk with the high school pitching demographic, but Caminiti has a chance to be a mid-rotation starter.
  • Supplemental first-round pick Griff O’Ferrall is in agreement with the Orioles on a $2.7MM bonus, Callis reports (on X). That’s just shy of the $2.84MM slot value for the 32nd pick. A shortstop from the University of Virginia, O’Ferrall was a divisive pre-draft prospect. McDaniel and Law each had the right-handed hitter among the 35 best players in the class. He ranked 49th at FanGraphs and 115th on Baseball America’s draft board. O’Ferrall makes a ton of contact, striking out just 24 times in 323 plate appearances (a 7.4% rate) in his draft year. He hit .324/.367/.454 with five homers over 63 contests as a junior. The more optimistic reports suggest O’Ferrall could be a regular at shortstop based on his bat-to-ball skills and an above-average glove. BA suggests his arm strength might push him to second base, where his minimal power upside could be more of a concern.

Latest On Mason Miller’s Trade Market

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There’s no bigger target on the relief market than A’s breakout closer Mason Miller. The All-Star righty begins the second half with a 2.27 earned run average through 39 2/3 innings. He has punched out 70 of 150 opponents (an absurd 46.7% rate) while locking down 15 of 17 save chances. Miller might be the most dominant relief force in the league at the moment.

Oakland general manager David Forst will receive no shortage of trade calls over the next week and a half. Jon Heyman of the New York Post wrote last night that the Orioles are among the teams with interest in Miller. Heyman adds that Baltimore also remains connected to old friend Tanner Scott, to whom they’ve been linked for the better part of two months. The O’s are generally expected to land a high-leverage reliever who can either supplant Craig Kimbrel as closer or bridge the gap to the ninth inning.

The Marlins will almost certainly deal Scott, an impending free agent, by July 30. It’d be significantly harder to pry Miller from the A’s. He’s under club control for five seasons after this one. Even a rebuilding team is under no pressure to move him. Robert Murray of FanSided wrote this evening that executives outside of Oakland remain skeptical that the A’s will deal Miller. They’ll have an exorbitant asking price, at the very least.

Miller’s injury history is the main argument for the A’s to move him this summer. The 25-year-old missed most of the 2022 season battling shoulder problems. He lost the bulk of the ’23 campaign to a UCL sprain in his elbow. Miller throws as hard as anyone in baseball and has had a pair of extended arm-related absences within the last three years. There’s clearly some level of risk that he suffers another injury. The A’s are unlikely to be competitive before the 2026 season at the earliest, so Miller could make more of an immediate impact on a team with nearer playoff aspirations.

Yet as appealing as Miller already is as an elite closer, there’s a chance he improves his value even more in the next year or two. Miller was a starting pitcher in the minors and for his first few weeks in the big leagues. Oakland moved him to the bullpen this year as a means of keeping his innings in check. Forst said at the time of the bullpen transfer that the A’s might stretch Miller back out as a starter in 2025. It’d be tempting to keep him in the bullpen now that the team has seen how dominant he is in that role, but no one has ruled out a return to starting. Miller told USA Today’s Bob Nightengale last week that he’s not closing off the possibility of moving back to the rotation in ’25 or beyond.

Garrett Crochet has dramatically elevated his trade value with three months of ace production. There’s no guarantee Miller would take to a rotation move the way that Crochet has, of course, but it’s not hard to see the potential for him to be an impact starter. If he ran with a rotation opportunity next season, he’d further elevate his stock both within the organization and on the trade market.

Jerry Walker Passes Away

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The Orioles announced this morning that former All-Star pitcher Jerry Walker passed away over the weekend. He was 85.

Walker, a 6’1″ right-hander, signed with Baltimore out of East Central University in Oklahoma. Even though he was just 18 years old at the time, the O’s sent Walker straight to the big leagues. He remarkably managed a 2.93 ERA over 13 appearances (three starts) down the stretch in 1957. The O’s sent him down the following season and gave him nearly a full year in the minors to build up as a starting pitcher. In 1959, Walker got a shot at Baltimore’s rotation.

During his age-20 season, Walker turned in the best year of his career. He fired 182 innings of 2.92 ERA ball while recording 100 strikeouts. Between 1959-62, MLB hosted two All-Star Games per season. The American League tabbed Walker to open the second All-Star contest in 1959.

At 20 years and 172 days, he remains the youngest starting pitcher in All-Star Game history. (Just behind him on that list are Fernando Valenzuela, Dwight Gooden, Mark Fidrych, Vida Blue, yesterday’s NL starter Paul Skenes, and Denny McLain.) Walker started opposite Don Drysdale and got the win against a National League lineup that included Henry Aaron, Willie Mays, Ernie Banks and Stan Musial.

Walker pitched one more season in Baltimore, working to a 3.74 ERA across 118 innings. The O’s traded him to the then-Kansas City A’s going into the 1961 campaign in a deal that netted them outfielder Dick Williams and reliever Dick Hall. Walker struggled over two seasons in the Kansas City rotation. The A’s eventually swapped him to the Indians for Chuck Essegian (who’d coincidentally gone to K.C. alongside Walker in the 1961 trade before being quickly sold to Cleveland). Walker worked out of the Cleveland bullpen for two seasons. He finished his playing career in the upper minors in 1967.

That preceded a much lengthier second act in various off-field roles. Walker worked as a scout, minor league manager and MLB pitching coach well into the 1980s. He worked his way up to general manager of the Tigers in 1993, leading the front office for one season in which the team went 85-77. Walker held roles in the Cardinals and Reds front offices into the 2010s.

Over parts of eight MLB campaigns, Walker turned in a 4.36 earned run average. He compiled a 37-44 record with 326 strikeouts across 747 innings. Walker tossed 16 complete games, seven of which came during the ’59 season in which he made All-Star history. MLBTR sends our condolences to Walker’s family, loved ones, and various former teammates and colleagues throughout the industry.

Corbin Burnes Named Starting Pitcher For American League All-Star Team

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Orioles right-hander Corbin Burnes has been named the starting pitching for the American League side in this year’s All-Star game, per announcements from Major League Baseball and the O’s. This will be his fourth All-Star selection but his first time starting.

Burnes, 29, has been one of the best pitchers in the majors in recent years. He spent most of his career with the Brewers but came to the O’s via an offseason trade. From 2020 to 2023, Burnes logged over 600 innings with Milwaukee, posting a 2.86 ERA in that time. He struck out 30.9% of batters faced, limited walks to a 7.1% clip and kept balls in play on the ground at a rate of 46.4%. He made the All-Star team in three straight years from 2021 to 2023 and won the National League Cy Young in the first season of that stretch.

Since coming over to the American League, he has largely continued in the same manner. Through 19 starts as an Oriole, he has a 2.43 ERA in 118 2/3 innings. His 23.3% strikeout rate is down relative to his past work but he’s also lowered his walk rate to 5.3% and increased his ground ball rate to 49.4%.

It was a bit questionable as to whether Burnes would be able to participate in the game as his wife recently gave birth to twins, but she apparently signed off on him appearing in the game, per Britt Ghiroli of The Athletic on X. Rangers manager Bruce Bochy is the skipper for the American League and mentioned the success of the O’s as well as the track record of Burnes as factors leading to his decision, per Jake Rill of MLB.com on X.

Burnes is in his final season of arbitration and will be a free agent at season’s end. He placed second on the most recent edition of the MLBTR Free Agent Power Rankings, trailing only Juan Soto of the Yankees.

Poll: Who Will Win The 2024 Home Run Derby?

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The 2024 All-Star break festivities are already well underway, with the Futures Game in the books and the second of three draft days currently taking place. Tonight, the Home Run Derby will take center stage at 7pm Central time, with these participants:

The winner will get $1MM, with $500K for the runner-up and $150K for everyone else in the field. There’s also a $100K bonus for the player who hits the longest home run. Vladimir Guerrero Jr. won last year but opted not to defend his title, so there will be a new champion, though Alonso has two previous titles from 2019 and 2021 and will be looking for a third.

This year’s format will be different from previous versions, with Cole Jacobson of MLB.com providing a rundown. The primary change is that there will be no head-to-head matchups in the first round, as the four players with the most home runs will advance. If two players tie, the longest home run will be a tiebreaker. Previously, the knockout-style bracket system started right away but this year’s version won’t see that until the field has been narrowed to four. Once the knockout stage begins, ties will be settled by 60 seconds of extra time. If the players are still tied, they will engage in three-swing showdowns until they are no longer tied.

In the first two rounds, players with have three minutes, which drops to two minutes in the final round. The three-minute rounds will now have a 40-pitch maximum while the two-minute round will feature a 27-pitch maximum.

The bonus time is also different. Previous versions featured 30 seconds of automatic extra time, which jumped to 60 seconds if the player hit two or more home runs 440 feet or longer. This year, the bonus time will continue until a player record three “outs,” which is a swing that doesn’t result in a home run. If a player hits a home run 425 feet or longer in the bonus period, he will get a fourth out.

Of the eight players competing this year, Henderson has the most homers this year with 28. He is followed by Ozuna at 26, Ramírez at 23, Alonso and Hernández at 19, García at 17, Witt at 16 and Bohm at 11.

Who do you want to win and who do you think will win? Have you say in the polls below!

Orioles Place Heston Kjerstad On Seven-Day Concussion IL

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The Orioles announced that outfielder Heston Kjerstad has been placed on the seven-day injured list for concussion-related injuries.  Outfielder Kyle Stowers was called up from Triple-A Norfolk to take Kjerstad’s place on the active roster.

The injury stems from a scary incident in last night’s 4-1 Orioles loss to the Yankees, as Kjerstad was hit in the head by a Clay Holmes fastball in the bottom of the ninth.  Both benches cleared in the aftermath of the HBP, only adding to the tension between the two AL East rivals in this important series.  Kjerstad naturally left the game after being hit, and though he was initially included in today’s lineup, he was a late scratch following the pregame workouts.

Since there was some idea that Kjerstad could’ve returned to the field today, it might imply that the IL placement is precautionary in nature.  Due to the upcoming All-Star break, Kjerstad would miss only three games if is able to return after the seven-day minimum, plus Baltimore also has an off-day on July 22 if the club wanted to give him a bit of extra recovery time.  Given the fluid nature of head-related injuries, it is also possible Kjerstad could miss far beyond seven days if he has indeed suffered a concussion.

Kjerstad made his MLB debut with 13 games in 2023, and the top prospect began this season in Triple-A before being recalled to the Orioles’ roster for about a three-week stretch bridging late April to mid-May.  He received only 17 plate appearances over seven games in that first stint, but has gotten much more playing time since his last recall on June 24, and has forced his way into regular action in the O’s lineup.  Kjerstad has hit .378/.465/.676 with three homers in 43 plate appearances since June 24, seeing action as a DH and in both corner outfield slots and almost exclusively facing right-handed pitching.

The left-handed hitting Stowers could essentially fit right into Kjerstad’s role on paper, and also like Kjerstad, Stowers is another former top prospect looking for playing time within the crowded Baltimore roster.  Appearing in each of the last three MLB seasons, Stowers has hit .222/.269/.365 over 167 career PA, though those numbers are weighed down by a dismal 33-PA performance in 2023.  This year, Stowers has a more respectable .286/.278/.486 slash line in 36 PA, and he has continued to mash at Triple-A.  Strikeouts remain a flaw in Stowers’ game, but he can provide the O’s with some power potential at least until Kjerstad is back.

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