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Injury Notes: Sawamura, Tigers, Chirinos

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In pregame scrum before tonight’s ALCS game six, Red Sox manager Alex Cora told reporters that reliever Hirokazu Sawamura is dealing with a hamstring injury was potentially going to be removed from the roster. (Twitter links from Chris Cotillo of MassLive and Alex Speier of the Boston Globe.) However, Ian Browne of MLB.com later relayed word from Cora that Sawamura will be sticking around.

The Red Sox have their backs against the wall, as they are down 3-2 in the ALCS and will have to win in Houston tonight and tomorrow in order to survive. The health and effectiveness of every pitcher on the staff will be integral to their success in that regard. News of this hamstring issue is certainly concerning, though the fact that Sawamura has held his roster spot implies that the club still feels he’s a better option than bringing in a fresh arm, such as Matt Barnes. Sawamura has been a solid contributor out of the pen this year, as he had an ERA of 3.06 over 53 innings in the regular season, with a strikeout rate of 26.2% and 13.7% walk rate. He wasn’t on the team roster for the ALDS but has appeared three times in the ALCS so far, logging two innings in total.

Other injury notes…

  • Chris McCosky of The Detroit News relays some updates on a few Tigers prospects from the Arizona Fall League. Infielders Spencer Torkelson and Ryan Kreidler will both miss the remainder of the league due to an ankle injury and calf injury, respectively. Meanwhile, outfielder Riley Greene has completed his concussion protocol. It had already been announced last week that Greene would miss the AFL because of a concussion sustained at the end of the Triple-A season. For a Tigers club that has been rebuilding in recent seasons, their prospects are incredibly important to turning the corner into being competitive, and that includes these three. MLB Pipeline has Torkelson, Greene and Kreidler as the club’s first-, second- and tenth-best prospects. Baseball America has the same 1-2 punch at the top but has Kreidler at 12th. FanGraphs also starts out with Torkelson and Greene at the top but has Kreidler at 25th. All three players reached Triple-A this season for at least 40 games, meaning they are right on the doorstep and knocking on the door of the majors.
  • Rays’ righty Yonny Chirinos won’t be ready for next year’s opening day, according to Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times. Chirinos has been out of action for more than year after undergoing Tommy John surgery in August of 2020, but has suffered a setback that will keep him out even longer. Topkin’s report says that the hurler fractured his elbow last month and that the best case scenario for his recovery would be for him to be on a rehab assignment in April or May. Before this extended absence, Chirinos was looking like he could be a foundational piece for the Rays. From 2018 to 2020, he threw 234 1/3 innings with an ERA of 3.65. Even without Chirinos, the rotation should be in decent shape, with the presence of arms such as Shane McClanahan, Drew Rasmussen, Ryan Yarbrough, Luis Patino, Shane Baz, Josh Fleming, Brendan McKay and Dietrich Enns. The Rays have never had an opening day payroll higher than $77MM, per Cot’s Baseball Contracts, and Jason Martinez of Roster Resource estimates their payroll for next year to already be above $70MM. That doesn’t leave a lot of room for reinforcements, though they will surely non-tender a few of their arbitration-eligible players and bring that down a tad. The Rays are also always a candidate to figure out a way to move some money around, such as the contract of Kevin Kiermaier, whose name has been floated in trade talks for years and is entering the final guaranteed year of his contract, valued just over $12MM.

AL East Notes: Yankees, Barnes, Harvey

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If the Yankees pushed for one of the big shortstops in the free agent market, Joel Sherman of The New York Post believes Corey Seager would be the best fit, as his left-handed bat and contact skills would help a mostly right-handed Yankees lineup that contained plenty of swing-and-miss in 2021.  Marcus Semien is also a candidate, but Sherman isn’t as bullish on the chances of Carlos Correa, Trevor Story, or Javier Baez ending up in the Bronx.  “There seems to have been a steady falling out of love with Story” on the Yankees’ part, Sherman writes, while Baez drew some interest at the trade deadline but perhaps only as a short-term fix.  As for Correa, there might still be so much bad blood over the sign-stealing scandal that the Yankees might not want anything to do with a player who was such a prominent member of the 2017 Astros.

This assumes, of course, that New York will actually aim for one of the big names, rather than wait for highly-touted shortstop prospects Anthony Volpe and Oswald Peraza to reach the majors.  Seager may also be a good fit in this regard, Sherman opines, as Seager could eventually be moved over to third base.  Or, depending on how the new collective bargaining agreement alters business, the Yankees could just opt for a stopgap shortstop as a bridge to Volpe/Peraza and spend resources elsewhere.

More from around the AL East…

  • “The first four months, five months, everything was perfect.  The last six weeks anything that could have gone wrong has gone wrong,” Matt Barnes told Alex Speier of The Boston Globe, discussing the rough end to the season that turned the former Red Sox closer into a postseason question mark.  Barnes was enjoying a tremendous season until August, when he ran into some struggles on the mound and was then sidelined with a case of COVID-19.  If that wasn’t enough, Barnes revealed that he also suffered a self-inflicted left thumb injury in late September, as he sliced off the tip of his thumb while chopping peppers to make an omelet.  Barnes was able to keep playing, albeit with a bandage on his thumb and what Speier describes as “a hard plastic casing inside his glove so he can catch the ball without pain.”  Though Barnes was part of the roster for Boston’s wild card game victory over the Yankees, he wasn’t included on the ALCS roster and wasn’t originally on the ALDS roster until rejoining the team as an injury replacement.  Given the circumstances, it is difficult to see Barnes figuring into a potential World Series roster unless there’s another injury absence.
  • Between an oblique strain, a lat strain, and then a triceps strain that occurred while rehabbing the lat injury, Hunter Harvey pitched only 8 2/3 innings in 2021.  The 22nd overall pick of the 2013 draft, Harvey has been ravaged by a variety of injuries over his pro career, resulting in only 23 2/3 total MLB innings on his career resume.  “We’ll keep trying it until no teams want to try it anymore or until I figure out how to stay healthy. That’s my two options,” Harvey told MASNsports.com’s Roch Kubatko, and Harvey has confidence that he can prove himself as a reliable reliever for the Orioles if he can avoid the injured list.  Harvey admitted “there have been times I wanted to hang it up and not keep doing it anymore,” but he credited his father (former Angels and Marlins closer Bryan Harvey) with helping him stay motivated.  “He’s kind of talked me off that ledge a couple times, and he’s put that mindset in my head that it could be worse,” Harvey said.  “It just gets to the point now, it’s like, we’ll get through this and start back over and try it again.”

Red Sox Announce ALCS Roster

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The Red Sox on Friday announced their roster for their forthcoming ALCS date with the Astros. It’s largely the same collection of names, although Boston has shuffled up its bullpen mix. Right-hander Hirokazu Sawamura and lefty Darwinzon Hernandez have both been added, while righty Matt Barnes and lefty Austin Davis have been removed. Barnes was initially omitted from Boston’s ALDS roster, but he was added as an injury replacement when fellow righty Garrett Richards sustained a hamstring strain. Because he was removed from the ALDS roster due to injury, Richards was ineligible for the ALCS roster, but he could potentially be added back to the World Series roster — if the Red Sox advance and if he is deemed healthy enough.

Here’s how Boston’s ALCS roster breaks down…

Right-Handed Pitchers

Left-Handed Pitchers

Catchers

Infielders

Outfielders

Infielders/Outfielders

The 33-year-old Sawamura signed a two-year deal with the Sox last winter on the heels of an excellent career with the Yomiuri Giants and (more briefly) the Chiba Lotte Marines of Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball. His rookie campaign in Major League Baseball was a strong one, as he pitched to a 3.06 ERA with a solid 26.2 percent strikeout rate and a hefty 51.8 percent ground-ball rate in 53 innings of relief. The primary knock on Sawamura is an untenable 13.7 percent walk rate. He’ll hope to curb that problematic lack of command in any ALCS matchups for which he’s called upon, but Sawamura’s 15.5 percent swinging-strike rate and 33.7 percent opponents’ chase rate both underline his ability to get a punchout in late-game settings when he’s at his best.

As for Hernandez, he’ll bring a power fastball to Boston’s arsenal of lefties. Like Sawamura, Hernandez has no problem when it comes to racking up punchouts (29.7 percent) but has been far too charitable in terms of free passes (17 percent). Walks aside, however, Hernandez has been extremely difficult for both lefties (.204 batting average, .370 slugging) and righties (.202 average, .326 slugging). It’d certainly be ideal if he had better command of his pitches, but his stinginess in yielding hits, regardless of platoon situation, could prove critical against a balanced Houston lineup that is deep in impact lefties (Yordan Alvarez, Kyle Tucker, Michael Brantley) and righties (Carlos Correa, Jose Altuve, Yuli Gurriel, Alex Bregman).

Barnes’ omission is surely a disappointment to the embattled closer but can’t come as a surprise after he was also omitted from the Division Series roster. The 31-year-old Barnes had a Jekyll-and-Hyde season, pitching to a 2.25 ERA with a 42 percent strikeout rate through 44 innings before crumbling with a 10.13 ERA in his final 10 2/3 frames. Those 10 2/3 innings were spread across 16 ugly appearances, with Barnes regularly being unable to complete a full inning of work. His strikeout rate plummeted to 26.7 percent in that time, while his walk rate spiked to 15 percent. Barnes also yielded four long balls in those 10 2/3 innings — matching his total through his season’s first 44 innings. A sudden decline of this nature and an omission from the postseason roster seemed unimaginable in July, when he signed a two-year, $18.75MM extension.

Poll: Who Will Advance To The World Series?

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Both League Championship Series are now set, following the Dodgers’ 2-1 victory over the Giants in Game 5 of the National League Division Series. Over the next week-plus, we’ll see the Astros (home field advantage) battle the Red Sox for the AL pennant while the Braves (home field advantage) take on the Dodgers for the NL crown.

All four teams are dealing with either uncertainty surrounding a key player. It’s still not clear whether the Astros will have Lance McCullers Jr. for the ALCS after he exited his last start against the White Sox due to forearm discomfort and underwent an MRI. On the other side of this matchup, Red Sox star third baseman Rafael Devers has been playing through a forearm injury that has impacted his swing but has yet to detract from his production.

The Braves, meanwhile, don’t know when or whether they’ll get slugger Jorge Soler back into the mix after he tested positive for Covid-19 just hours before their own Game 5 showdown against Milwaukee. The Dodgers have been without Max Muncy throughout the postseason, and both manager Dave Roberts and president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman were deliberately vague when asked about him following last night’s win (Twitter links via Jorge Castillo of the L.A. Times and Bill Plunkett of the Orange County Register).

With just four teams remaining in the field and a fresh pair of best-of-seven series set to kick off over the next two days, it seems like a good time to give MLBTR readers a chance to weigh in on who they’re taking in the ALCS and the NLCS (and perhaps an avenue to voice their thoughts on any, um… questionable… calls from last night’s game).

(link to poll for Trade Rumors iOS/Android app users)

Looking Ahead To The ALCS Rotations

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The Red Sox will go with Chris Sale and Nathan Eovaldi in the first two games of the ALCS against the Astros, but it’s anyone’s guess as to who might be available for game three.

The uncertainty stems not from an uneven rotation, but from an uncertain group of relievers. Manager Alex Cora’s other available starters – Eduardo Rodriguez, Tanner Houck, and Nick Pivetta – will be available out in the bullpen for the start of the series, writes MLB.com’s Daniel Kramer. That’s a strategy that worked for Cora in the ALDS. Pivetta proved crucial out of the pen against the Rays, a performance redolent of Eovaldi’s own in the 2018 World Series. Houck tossed seven innings of relief in the series as well, yielding just a pair of runs.

Whereas the Red Sox were able to patchwork their bullpen for a four-game series win against the Rays, they will likely need an even more dynamic approach to survive a seven-game tilt against the Astros’ potent offense. There is definite potential for this series to turn into a slugfest, not only because these two clubs boast the first and fifth ranked offenses in the game by runs scored in the regular season, but because the Astros are likely to be without Lance McCullers Jr. Results of the MRI on his sore forearm have yet to be revealed.

McCullers may not be viewed nationally as an ace, he’s been nothing short of stellar in the postseason. He owns a 2.83 ERA in 57 1/3 career postseason innings.

And while McCullers can boast the distinction of having started a game seven of the World Series back in 2017 (a win), he could be replaced by another righty who’s held that honor. Zack Greinke started game seven of the World Series in 2019 for Houston (a loss), and though he’s not likely to put up a full starter’s load, he could be used as an opener in McCullers’ stead, writes The Athletic’s Jack Kaplan. Jose Urquidy, Cristian Javier, and Jake Odorizzi are also candidates to pick up bulk innings if McCullers is unavailable.

What we do know is that Framber Valdez will take on Sale in game one, while Luis Garcia will go head-to-head with Eovaldi in game two, per Chandler Rome of the Houston Chronicle. The Red Sox have the experience edge, but Valdez is no stranger to postseason success. Garcia, meanwhile, has at least gotten his feet wet in the playoffs: he had a scoreless two-inning outing in 2020 and 2 2/3 innings as the starter in game three versus the White Sox.

Alex Verdugo Expresses Desire To Become Two-Way Player

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Alex Verdugo has worked exclusively as an outfielder to this point in his professional career, but the 25-year-old is hoping for an expanded role at some point in the future. Verdugo told reporters (including Jason Mastrodonato of the Boston Herald) he’s hoping to serve as a two-way player by the 2023 season.

The Red Sox outfielder plans to begin a throwing program this offseason to kick off that process. While Verdugo cautioned that he didn’t want to take on a rotation role, he expressed an earnest desire to work out of the bullpen. “I don’t know if I’ll pitch next year, but definitely by 2023 I want to try to just be a two-way player,” Verdugo said “Not a (Shohei Ohtani), where he is starting and all that. I just want to be a reliever. Come in, help the boys out, something like that.”

Two-way players obviously remain quite infrequent, but they’re not without recent precedent. Ohtani is the AL MVP favorite for his stellar contributions on both sides of the ball. A two-way star of Ohtani’s caliber is unlike anything in recent memory, but a limited outfield/relief role seems more plausible. The Reds dabbled in that kind of experiment with Michael Lorenzen, giving him 83 1/3 innings of relief and six starts in center field in 2019. Anthony Gose hasn’t worked as a two-way player concurrently, but he played in the big leagues as an outfielder from 2012-16 before returning as a reliever with the Indians this season.

Verdugo certainly has the arm strength to at least make the notion of him working in relief potentially realistic. The left-handed hitter and thrower was a two-way star in high school, and he flashed intriguing upside on the mound. Baseball America named Verdugo the #55 prospect in the 2014 draft class, writing at the time that he worked his fastball into the 90s with a promising slider and changeup. BA noted that most amateur scouts actually favored Verdugo as a pitcher, with the broad consensus that his “professional future is definitely on the mound.”

The concept of Verdugo as a two-way weapon is certainly intriguing, although it sounds he’ll first have to convince his own manager to give him the opportunity. Alex Cora seemed less enthused about the prospect, telling reporters “(Verdugo) feels he can throw 97, 98 mph. I guess he used to do that. We’re like, ‘No, you’re not doing that. You’re actually going to get better physically and you have to take care of yourself.”

It’s easy to understand Cora’s seeming trepidation, since Verdugo’s plenty valuable working solely as an outfielder. He hit .289/.351/.426 (107 wRC+) over 604 plate appearances while splitting his time between all three spots on the grass this season. It remains to be seen if the Sox would allow Verdugo to take on additional work on the mound — or, of course, whether Verdugo progresses enough as a pitcher to even make that a viable question — but it’ll be an intriguing storyline to follow over the offseason and through next year. For his part, Boston chief baseball officer Chaim Bloom didn’t dismiss the idea out of hand, saying that while the Sox hadn’t discussed the matter too deeply, he wouldn’t past it past Verdugo developing into a useful pitcher based on his high school form (via Mastrodonato).

Matt Barnes Replaces Garrett Richards On Red Sox’s ALDS Roster

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The Red Sox announced that right-hander Garrett Richards has suffered a left hamstring strain and been removed from the Division Series roster. Matt Barnes was added in his place.

Teams must request approval from the commissioner’s office to replace injured players on a playoff roster. Injury removal renders that player ineligible both for the remainder of the current series and the next series, should the team advance. Were the Red Sox to erase their 1-0 deficit and take down the Rays, Richards would not be eligible to return until the World Series.

While Richards’ season-long numbers are underwhelming, they’re also a bit misleading. The 33-year-old began the season as a member of the rotation but struggled, leading to his transfer to a bullpen role in mid-August. Since moving into shorter stints, Richards has been far better than he was a starter, as MLBTR’s Steve Adams recently explored. Over 26 1/3 frames of relief to close out the regular season, he pitched to a 3.42 ERA/2.90 FIP.

Richards’ strikeout (24.8%) and walk (10.6%) rates were right around the league average, but he’s racked up grounders on nearly half the balls in play against him. He garnered increased trust of manager Alex Cora along the way, seeing increasingly higher-leverage work as the season progressed. His contract contains a $10MM club option (or a $1.5MM buyout) for the 2022 season.

Barnes’ year has gone in the opposite direction. The 31-year-old was among the game’s best relievers through the season’s first couple months, earning an All-Star nod and a two-year, $18.75MM contract extension in the process. He’s had a stunningly poor second half, posting a 6.48 ERA over 16 2/3 frames since the Break. He’s still fanned a solid 26.6% of opposing hitters in that time, but Barnes’ walk and home run rates have spiked dramatically over the past couple months. Those recent struggles led the Red Sox to leave him off the initial Division Series roster, but he’ll get another opportunity to step up after Richards’ injury.

J.D. Martinez Returns To Red Sox’ ALDS Roster; Matt Barnes Left Off

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The Red Sox announced their roster for their American League Division Series showdown against the Rays this morning, revealing that they’ll have slugger J.D. Martinez available to them for the best-of-five set. Martinez was omitted from Boston’s Wild Card roster after he tripped over second base and sprained his ankle in the final game of the regular season, but he’s apparently healthy enough to return to DH duties after a few days of downtime.

Of greater surprise, however, is that the Red Sox opted to leave right-hander Matt Barnes off the roster for this particular series. Barnes, who signed a two-year extension in July after a dominant three-month start to the season, wilted down the stretch and lost his grip on the team’s closer role.

It was a true tale of two seasons for the 31-year-old Barnes, who posted a 2.25 ERA and a massive 42 percent strikeout rate through his first 44 innings this season before collapsing with a 10.13 ERA in his final 10 2/3 innings (over a span of 16 appearances). Barnes saw his strikeout rate plummet to 26.7 percent as his 6.8 walk rate jumped to 15 percent in that time. After allowing only four homers through his first 44 innings, he yielded four more in those final 10 2/3 innings. Given that context, it’s understandable that Barnes would miss the cut, but such a scenario never would’ve seemed fathomable less than two months ago, when he put pen to paper on a two-year, $18.75MM extension.

Here’s how Boston’s roster breaks down…

Right-Handed Pitchers

Left-Handed Pitchers

Catchers

Infielders

Outfielders

Infielder/Outfielder

It’s also of note that Santana has been added to the roster. The switch-hitting speedster has been on the Covid-related injured list since Sept. 10, but the Red Sox opened a roster spot for him yesterday by outrighting shortstop Jose Iglesias (who wasn’t postseason-eligible because he signed mid-September). Santana will give the Sox some speed, a bit of pop and plenty of defensive versatility — but it wasn’t a productive 2021 season for him overall. In 127 plate appearances, Santana batted just .181/.252/.345 with five homers and four stolen bases.

Also dropped from the roster for this round were center fielder Jarren Duran, catcher Connor Wong and infielder Jonathan Arauz. Those subtractions help to pave the way for the addition of Chris Sale and Martin Perez, who weren’t on the Wild Card roster. Sale pitched in the season finale and wouldn’t have been an option in the Wild Card game, but he’ll be expected to start during the Division Series. That said, it’ll be Eduardo Rodriguez getting the ball for Game 1 against the Rays and lefty Shane McClanahan.

Red Sox Outright Jose Iglesias, Yairo Munoz

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The Red Sox have outrighted infielders Jose Iglesias and Yairo Munoz, according to a team announcement. This now leaves their 40-man roster at 39, giving them the opportunity to potentially make an addition before tomorrow’s ALDS kick-off. (Munoz had been on the COVID-19 related injured list since September 1st and thus wasn’t taking up a roster spot.)

Subtracting Iglesias from the roster isn’t terribly surprising, since he is unable to play for the club again this season anyhow on account of being signed after the August 31st deadline. Players joining an organization after that date are ineligible for postseason play with their new club. Iglesias was released by the Angels September 3rd and signed with the Red Sox September 6th. He is also heading into free agency after the postseason, making it a formality to cut him loose a bit early.

The club could now potentially add a player from their minor league system to the 40-man roster for postseason eligibility. Players in the organization but not on the 40-man roster before September 1 can still participate in the playoffs via a petition to the Commissioner’s Office, a fairly common maneuver throughout the league.

Another roster question hanging over the club is whether or not J.D. Martinez will be on it. The slugger hurt his ankle recently and was left off the roster for the Wild Card game. As noted by Jon Morosi of MLB Network, Martinez took the field today and “tested his ankle at low intensity.” When Martinez was asked if he would play tomorrow, he gave the noncommittal answer, “You’ll find out.” Of course, any player that the Red Sox could potentially call up would pale in comparison to a healthy Martinez, who had yet another excellent season at the plate, hitting .286/.349/.518, for a wRC+ of 128.

J.D. Martinez Not On Red Sox’ Wild Card Roster

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The Red Sox have announced their roster for tonight’s Wild Card showdown with their archrival New York Yankees. Perhaps most notably, slugging outfielder J.D. Martinez has been left off it after injuring his ankle in one of the more unusual on-field injuries you’re likely to see.  Nathan Eovaldi will start on the hill for the Sox. Here’s how the roster breaks down:

Right-handed-pitchers

Left-handed-pitchers

Catchers

Infielders

Outfielders

Infielder/Outfielder

Having to play a win-or-go-home playoff contest against the Yanks without Martinez is, to say the least, less than ideal for the Sox.  Moreover, the way in which Martinez injured himself surely falls under the category of “The Baseball Gods Must Hate Us.”  Jogging out to right field in the middle of the fifth inning in Sunday’s must-win contest against the Nationals, Martinez tripped over second base, spraining his left ankle.  Clearly one of the Beantowners’ three best hitters, Martinez put up a 128 wRC+, bettered only by Rafael Devers (134) and Xander Bogaerts (130).  Unfortunately for Red Sox Nation, he’ll be no more than a cheerleader tonight.

On the bright side, the Sox are starting Eovaldi, who has been the club’s best and most reliable pitcher in 2021.  Eovaldi took a huge step forward this year, which by many measures has been the best of his career.  Among starters with at least 140 innings pitched, Eovaldi led the American League in fWAR (5.6) and FIP (2.79) while finishing a close second to John Means in walk rate (4.6%).  He was able to keep the ball in the yard better than he has since 2015, with a HR/9 of just 0.74, no small feat while calling cozy Fenway Park your home.

Also of note, the Sox left Chris Sale off the roster, at least for tonight’s game.  That’s not surprising, given that he started Sunday and is coming back from Tommy John surgery he underwent in March of last year.  While Sale has been effective since returning to action on August 14, posting a 3.69 FIP, he’s also averaged just over 4.2 IP over his nine starts, and he certainly wasn’t going to pitch tonight. If Boston dispenses with the Bombers, they’ll be able to add Sale and (if healthy) Martinez to the roster for the ALDS.

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