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East Notes: LeMahieu, Holt, Inciarte, Cano

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The Yankees announced today that an MRI showed inflammation in the right knee of infielder DJ LeMahieu. He suffered a contusion on Friday night and has been limited since. It’s a tough balance for the Yanks, who are already pressing numerous players into unexpectedly significant roles. While the preferred course might be to put LeMahieu on the shelf and bring in a replacement, the club is surely wary of keeping him out longer than needed and must also keep a close watch on 40-man roster pressures. It’s a tough spot — one that makes the club’s ongoing success all the more impressive (and frightening for the rest of the American League East).

Here’s more from the game’s eastern divisions:

  • Brock Holt’s path back to the majors has encountered another roadblock. The Red Sox utilityman is now dealing with a shoulder injury, as Chris Cotillo of MassLive.com was among those to report. Details aren’t yet known — he’s due for a medical exam tomorrow — but it seems Holt came down with the ailment recently. He has been working back after suffering a scratched cornea. Holt, 30, turned in a strong .277/.362/.411 slash in 367 plate appearances last year. His absence is amplified by the fact that both Dustin Pedroia and Eduardo Nunez are also on the injured list at the moment.
  • Braves outfielder Ender Inciarte left tonight’s game with a hamstring injury. Initial indications are that he is in good shape, skipper Brian Snitker told reporters including David O’Brien of The Athletic (Twitter link), but the true condition of the muscle will be more apparent tomorrow. It’s conceivable that a roster move will be needed. The club wouldn’t necessarily need to bring up an outfielder, though it’s already running out an eight-man bullpen. Adam Duvall surely wouldn’t mind an opportunity. He’s playing at Triple-A for the first time since 2015 and doesn’t seem to want to stay (.306/.388/.647 with seven home runs and 16:11 K/BB through 98 plate appearances).
  • It seems that Mets second baseman Robinson Cano has avoided a significant injury after being struck by a pitch on Sunday. X-rays on his hand were negative, so it seems the club needs only to wait for the swelling to subside before it’ll be able to slot him back in the lineup. Cano is off to a solid but hardly overwhelming start to his tenure with New York’s National League entrant. Through 108 plate appearances, he carries a .270/.324/.430 slash line with three home runs. UZR and DRS have soured on his glovework a bit in the early going, though it’s tough to put too much stock in a short-sample run of defensive metrics.

Latest On Boston's Injured Second Basemen

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  • Red Sox infielders Dustin Pedroia and Eduardo Nunez are set to embark on rehab assignments, manager Alex Cora said Sunday. Meanwhile, fellow banged-up infielder Brock Holt was scratched from his Triple-A rehab game Sunday because of right shoulder soreness (links via Chris Cotillo of MassLive.com). Pedroia landed on the IL on April 18 with yet another left knee injury, but he’s “a lot better” now, according to Cora, who announced he’s likely to play with Double-A Portland beginning May 2. Nunez, down since the 19th with a mid-back strain, will go to Triple-A Pawtucket on Monday and could be back in Boston by May 6, Cotillo writes. Holt has been on the IL since April 6 with a scratched right cornea, and there’s no word on how serious his shoulder problem is. When healthy, Pedroia, Nunez and Holt have posted pitiful production this year, which helps explain why Boston second basemen have recorded the AL’s worst fWAR (minus-0.9).

Red Sox Select Josh Smith

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The Red Sox have selected the contract of righty Josh Smith, per a club announcement. He’ll make a start today for the club if the scheduled contest isn’t rained out. Reliever Travis Lakins was optioned down to open active roster space.

Smith, 31, saw 127 1/3 innings of big-league action from 2015-17 but failed to make it back up last year. He owns a 5.30 ERA with 7.3 K/9 and 4.4 BB/9 at the game’s highest level. (Note: another hurler by the same name also pitched in the upper minors last year with the Red Sox. He’s now with the Indians.)

Though he has never posted dominating numbers in the upper minors, Smith has struck out better than a batter per nine at the Triple-A level since the start of the 2017 season. He has racked up 23 strikeouts against five walks in 16 2/3 innings in three starts for Pawtucket to open the present season.

Prospect Notes: Hernandez, Sheffield, Senzel, Bichette, Vlad Jr., Luzardo

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Here’s the latest on some prospects of note from around the game:

  • The Red Sox brought up top pitching prospect Darwinzon Hernandez for his first taste of the majors, with Alex Speier of the Boston Globe first reporting the move. Hernandez, a 22-year-old from Venezuela, still needs to iron out his command but has shown some impressive swing-and-miss capabilities. It was on display tonight, as he allowed five baserunners but also racked up four strikeouts in 2 1/3 innings in relief.
  • Left-handed pitching prospect Justus Sheffield will join the Mariners on Friday for his first action with his new club, Ryan Divish of the Seattle Times reports on Twitter. He’s expected to piggyback with Yusei Kikuchi for a start; it’s possible he’ll be dropped back to Triple-A thereafter, though that’s not yet clear. While he already has 13 days of MLB service on his odometer, Sheffield won’t be able to reach a full year of service even if he stakes a permanent claim to a big-league roster spot. Sheffield hasn’t been himself thus far at Triple-A, carrying an 11:14 K/BB ratio through 18 1/3 innings.
  • It’s possible the Reds will soon welcome top prospect Nick Senzel to the majors. As Fletcher Page of the Cincinnati Enquirer reports, Senzel is back in the lineup at Triple-A after recovering from a sprained ankle. There’s no guarantee that he’ll be promoted in the near-term, but the organization doesn’t have much cause to hesitate at this point. Senzel can no longer achieve a full year of MLB service in 2019; the club is sitting at five games under .500 and can’t wait long to make its move. Once Senzel gets his timing down and gets comfortable in the outfield — he’s lined up in center field tonight for Louisville — he’ll likely be called up.
  • The Blue Jays got some unwelcome news on exciting infield prospect Bo Bichette. Robert Murray and Ken Rosenthal of the Athletic first reported on Twitter that Bichette had suffered a broken hand. As Ben Nicholson-Smith of Sportsnet.ca tweets, the fracture was to the second metacarpal of his left hand. Widely considered one of the game’s very best prospects, Bichette will now need to get back to health before he can begin pressing for a major-league promotion. Meanwhile, anticipation grows that teammate Vladimir Guerrero Jr. will soon get the call; Eric Longenhagen of Fangraphs tweets that some around the game anticipate it’ll come this week.
  • Top Athletics prospect Jesus Luzardo is beginning to work back toward the hill, Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle reports (Twitter links). He’s moving from 75 feet to 90 feet tomorrow, so it’s still rather early in his progression back from shoulder soreness. Slusser estimates that it could take four to six weeks before the prized southpaw could be ready for game action. In all likelihood, he won’t be seen as a candidate for a MLB promotion until he has at least a few Triple-A starts under his belt and the club feels confident there aren’t any lingering issues with the joint.

Red Sox Will Stay Internal To Replace Eovaldi

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  • The Red Sox expect to stick with internal options in the rotation following Nathan Eovaldi’s injury, writes Chris Cotillo of MassLive.com. Hector Velazquez will be the leading candidate to step into the rotation, though Marcus Walden could also be an option. Manager Alex Cora downplayed the possibility of opting for a bullpen day in place of Eovaldi, voicing a clear preference for someone who can go out and pitch at least five innings. If the Sox want to go with a nonroster option, Cotillo notes that righty Erasmo Ramirez could again be selected (he’s already cleared waivers following last week’s DFA and accepted an outright assignment to Triple-A Pawtucket).

Red Sox Notes: Deadline, Swihart

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  • Also from Olney’s piece, he speculates that the Red Sox could become a popular deadline seller if the team continues to falter throughout the season.  It’s still very early, of course, and the Sox did just complete a three-game sweep of the AL East-leading Rays.  But if Boston did fall out of the pennant race, players who could be free agents in the offseason (i.e. Rick Porcello, Mitch Moreland, and opt-out candidate J.D. Martinez) could all potentially be moved for some needed prospects.  Perhaps more importantly, moving some salary could also allow the Sox to get under the maximum luxury tax penalty threshold of $246MM.  It would only be a one-year reload for the club, as the Red Sox would look to contend again in 2020 in their final year of team control over Mookie Betts.  It doesn’t seem too likely, by the way, that Boston would look to shop Betts, even though he has rebuffed the team’s overtures about a contract extension.
  • The Blake Swihart era in Boston came to an unceremonious end on Friday, as the Red Sox dealt Swihart and $500K of international bonus pool money to the Diamondbacks for minor league outfielder Marcus Wilson.  The Boston Herald’s Jason Mastrodonato looks back at Swihart’s rocky development through the Sox farm system, which included injuries, multiple position changes, and an inability to truly unlock his heralded hitting potential even in the minors.  As highly-touted a prospect as Swihart was, “the organization could never come to a clear consensus on his ability.  There was always a disconnect and it existed through multiple regimes in the front office and field staff,” Mastrodonato writes.  This manifested itself in a seeming lack of confidence in Swihart as a regular catcher, though Mastrodonato notes if the Sox were going to deploy Swihart at different positions, it was unusual that Swihart wasn’t considered to fill Boston’s third base void prior to the 2017 season.

Minor MLB Transactions: 4/21/19

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The latest minor moves from around baseball….

  • The Red Sox have outrighted Erasmo Ramirez to Triple-A, Pete Abraham of the Boston Globe reports (Twitter link).  Ramirez was designated for assignment on Friday and had the option of rejecting an outright assignment to become a free agent, so it appears as though the right-hander has decided to remain in the Sox organization after clearing waivers.  The 28-year-old signed a minors contract with Boston in the offseason and appeared in one Major League game, though that lone appearance was enough to guarantee Ramirez’s big league salary.  As Masslive.com’s Christopher Smith notes, Ramirez’s salary will still count against Boston’s luxury tax calculations for the season.  Terms of Ramirez’s guarantee aren’t known, and while it surely isn’t an exorbitant amount, every dollar counts for a Red Sox team that is trying to stay under the $246MM maximum tax penalty threshold.

Pedroia Discusses "Weird Freak Thing" Knee Injury

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  • Dustin Pedroia is also hopeful of a minimum IL stint as he recovers from his latest knee problem, telling media (including Jason Mastrodonato of the Boston Herald) that his injury was “just a weird freak thing” rather than a more serious setback.  The Red Sox second baseman explained that his cleat caught in the dirt while he was swinging during Wednesday’s game, leading to an ominous-sounding popping feeling in his knee when it failed to turn along with the rest of his body.  Given that knee injuries have limited to Pedroia to just nine games since the start of the 2018 season, he admitted that the pop “more kind of scared me than anything….We’re going to let it calm down for a few days and it should be all right. It just twisted the wrong way.”  Given Pedroia’s recent injury history, it wouldn’t be surprising if the Sox wait beyond the 10-day minimum to activate him from the IL.  In the opinion of Peter Abraham of the Boston Globe, the team should give Pedroia more minor league rehab time before his return, as Pedroia had only a four-day stay in the minors during his first rehab stint this season and looked shaky at the plate once he reached Boston’s MLB roster.

Nathan Eovaldi To Undergo Elbow Surgery

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MONDAY: Eovaldi will go under the knife tomorrow, Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic reports via Twitter. The club anticipates that the righty will be sidelined for four to six weeks, Rob Bradford of WEEI.com tweets.

SATURDAY, 4:27pm: Eovaldi is indeed “leaning” toward minor elbow surgery to clean up loose bodies, per Pete Abraham of the Boston Globe.

10:37am:Red Sox right-hander Nathan Eovaldi has been placed on the 10-day injured list due to a loose body in his elbow, per MassLive.com’s Chris Cotillo. Bobby Poyner will take Eovaldi’s roster spot (Twitter links). The move is retroactive to April 18th.

This is not a new injury for Eovaldi, as just last season he had arthroscopic surgery to remove a similar loose body, causing him to miss roughly two months of the season. Obviously, Eovaldi recovered just fine, but the injury is still a blow to the defending champs as they have yet to play up to the level of expectations thus far in 2019. There has been no indication as to whether or not this current IL stint will require surgery. NBC Sports Boston’s Evan Drellich posted this report from November which gave Eovaldi a clean bill of health, though of course, Eovaldi has put a few more miles on the elbow since then.

The injury hits after just four starts this season in which Eovaldi did not record a decision, totaling 21 innings with an even 6.00 ERA. It was certainly a rough start as his walk rate was up (4.71 BB/9), strikeout rate was down (6.86 K/9), and he  surrendered 2.57 home runs per game on a 25% HR/FB rate. Those numbers were bound to normalize at least somewhat over time, though obviously this new injury revelation might speak to his early season struggles as well.

Poyner, 26, will join the team as a left-handed option out of the bullpen for the time being. He went 1-0 with a 3.22 ERA across 20 appearances out of the Red Sox pen last season with an impressive 9.7 K/9 to 1.2 BB/9 in the admittedly small sample.

Diamondbacks Acquire Blake Swihart

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The Diamondbacks have acquired catcher Blake Swihart from the Red Sox, per a club announcement. International pool money is also going to Arizona in the deal — $500K in spending capacity, GM Mike Hazen tells reporters including Zach Buchanan of The Athletic (Twitter links) — with outfield prospect Marcus Wilson going to Boston in return.

Swihart had been designated for assignment recently. He’s now heading to an interesting situation with the Snakes. Hazen is among several top D-Backs executives that came over from the Red Sox; needless to say, the team is amply familiar with Swihart.

The Diamondbacks are the one organization in baseball that has been most dedicated to carrying three catcher-capable players on its active roster. That’s particularly relevant for Swihart, given that his questionable abilities behind the plate have thus far limited his chances in the majors. But the plan doesn’t appear to be for the out-of-options Swihart to displace a current D-Backs receiver (Carson Kelly, John Ryan Murphy, Caleb Joseph). Rather, Hazen indicates that the club intends to utilize him in some kind of utility capacity.

It’ll be interesting to see whether the Arizona organization is better able to draw value out of Swihart than were the Sox. Prior attempts at moving him around the field didn’t work out. And his well-regarded bat hasn’t yet done much damage in the majors, though to be fair opportunities have come in fits and starts to this point. In 626 career plate appearances at the game’s highest level, Swihart carries a .255/.314/.365 slash with nine home runs, ten steals, and a combination of a 25.7% strikeout rate and 7.7% walk rate.

The Red Sox won’t come away with what they hoped for out of Swihart, who was once considered quite a high-end prospect. But they were able to add an interesting player in Wilson, who was taken 69th overall in the 2014 draft. He has some swing and miss in his game but also has drawn his share of walks and has produced solid numbers at times in the low minors. An intriguing athlete, Wilson is off to a nice start this year at Double-A and is seen as possessing a relatively lofty ceiling.

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