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Cafardo: Astros Interested In Zach Britton

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If Orioles shortstop Manny Machado becomes a free agent in the offseason, “the Cubs would be high on his list because of his friendship with Albert Almora,” Nick Cafardo of the Boston Globe hears. Machado and Almora, the Cubs’ center fielder, have been close friends since childhood – something David Haugh of the Chicago Tribune detailed back in 2016. The two may end up on the same team as early as this summer, given the high likelihood the Orioles will trade Machado and the speculation linking him to the Cubs. Although, team president Theo Epstein threw cold water on Machado-to-Chicago rumors last month.

  • The Astros are maintaining interest in Orioles reliever Zach Britton, according to Cafardo. Houston agreed to acquire Britton prior to last year’s trade deadline, but the swap fell apart thanks to medical concerns the Orioles had regarding other players in the deal. The Astros went on to win a World Series without Britton, whose value took a hit over the winter when he suffered a ruptured Achilles. The impending free agent just came off the disabled list earlier this week and, with the Orioles well out of contention, is now auditioning for other teams as the July 31 non-waiver deadline nears. With a righty-heavy bullpen, the Astros may make sense for Britton, though southpaw Tony Sipp has enjoyed a bounce-back season and their relief corps has been elite versus left-handed hitters.

Dan Duquette On Ned Colletti Report: "My Understanding Is It's Not True"

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  • A report Friday indicated the Orioles have interviewed former Dodgers general manager Ned Colletti for a front office position, but O’s executive vice president of baseball operations Dan Duquette shot that down Saturday. “My understanding is it’s not true,” Duquette told Dan Connolly of BaltimoreBaseball.com. “That’s all I can tell you.” If hired, Colletti would perhaps help replace Duquette, who’s in the last year of his contract and has reportedly lost power in the team’s front office. However, Duquette informed Connolly that he’d like to continue with the Orioles, who hired him back in 2011.

Orioles Outright D.J. Snelten

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Orioles lefty D.J. Snelten has cleared waivers and been outrighted to Triple-A Norfolk, the club’s PR department has announced.

It was a short stay on the team’s 40-man roster for the 26-year-old Snelten, as they claimed him off waivers from the Giants just under two weeks ago. He had thrown 4 1/3 innings for the Giants, allowing five earned runs on nine hits and three walks. He’d spent his entire career in the Giants organization prior June 4th.

Snelten made the transition from starter to reliever in High-A ball during the 2016 season, and subsequently rocketed up the Giants’ minor league ladder. However, his 11.63 K/9 in 21 2/3 Double-A innings didn’t translate to the upper levels of the minors, and recently his control has gotten away from him a bit as well (nine walks in just 20 2/3  innings at Triple-A in 2018).

Orioles Place Richard Bleier On DL, Select Corban Joseph, Designate D.J. Snelten

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SATURDAY: Bleier will indeed have season-ending surgery on Tuesday to repair a Grade 3 lat strain, as Eduardo A. Encina of the Baltimore Sun was among those to tweet.

FRIDAY, 3:33pm: Bleier may need surgery and is likely to miss the remainder of the season, MLB.com’s Britt Ghiroli is among those to report on Twitter.

2:19pm: The Orioles have announced a host of roster moves today. Southpaw Richard Bleier is heading to the DL with what has been diagnosed as a lat strain. He’ll be replaced in the pen by southpaw Tanner Scott.

Infielder Corban Joseph has been selected and added to the active roster as well. To create the needed roster space, righty Yefry Ramirez was optioned and lefty D.J. Snelten was designated for assignment.

The news on Bleier was fully expected at this point, as Roch Kubatko of MASNsports.com wrote earlier today. Bleier is said to be seeking a second opinion after already undergoing an MRI. It’s still unclear just how bleak the outlook is, but Kubatko suggests the internal belief is it’s a serious injury.

While Bleier, 31, is hardly a household name, perhaps he should be. The former Yankees southpaw is in his third big league season and currently is sporting the third sub-2.00 ERA of his career. Bleier has a 1.97 ERA in 119 innings, which is the sixth-lowest mark (min. 100 innings) in MLB history. He’s tied with Craig Kimbrel for the best ERA- (46) in MLB history (again, min. 100 innings; and a tip of the cap to ESPN’s Sam Miller for shining a light on Bleier’s curious dominance earlier this season).

Bleier has averaged just 4.1 K/9 in his career, but his 21.2 percent hard-contact rate in 2018 is outstanding. He’s allowed only two barreled balls this season (as defined by Statcast), and he leads the Majors in barrels per batted ball (1.8 percent of balls in play against him). Bleier may be an anomaly, but he’s been an important piece to the Baltimore bullpen who now looks headed for an absence of potential significance.

Orioles Interview Ned Colletti

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The Orioles have brought in former Dodgers general manager Ned Colletti for an interview, according to a report from Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic (Twitter links). It’s not known if Colletti is a serious candidate to join the organization, and if so in what capacity. The report also indicates that other, as-yet-unreported names could also be under consideration.

Now a broadcast analyst, the 64-year-old Colletti served as the GM in Los Angeles for a decade before Andrew Friedman was hired just after the 2014 season. Colletti continued on as a senior advisor to president/CEO Stan Kasten, but certainly no longer carried the status as the top baseball decisionmaker in the Dodgers organization.

We haven’t heard Colletti mentioned often as an executive candidate elsewhere, but he did pop up in some rumors for the Diamondbacks job when it was open in 2016. There was never any indication that Colletti was a serious candidate for that gig, which ultimately went to Mike Hazen. But it did provide an opportunity for MLBTR’s Steve Adams to run through Colletti’s transactional track record.

This news takes place against a backdrop of ample uncertainty in Baltimore. Some change is evidently afoot at the ownership level, with Peter Angelos’s sons said to be increasingly grasping the reins. Both executive VP of baseball operations Dan Duquette and manager Buck Showalter are operating on expiring contracts, with VP of baseball ops Brady Anderson widely viewed as an increasingly important voice.

The future is just as murky from a roster perspective. Despite making a few veteran additions and deciding against any significant sell-side trades over the winter, the team has stumbled to a horrific start and is completely buried from a competitive perspective this year. Meanwhile, key players including Manny Machado, Adam Jones, and Zach Britton are now months away from free agency.

With a mid-season sell-off of some kind all but certain, and the future baseball ops leadership in question, it could be that the O’s are considering a move to bring in a veteran hand before making tough calls. Whether such an executive would supplement or displace Duquette is unclear, though it’s tough to imagine that he’d be particularly amenable to a power-sharing arrangement.

As far as other potential candidates go, it’d be foolish to guess at the possibilities, but one imagines that the Baltimore organization is considering other people who come with experience at the highest levels of baseball ops departments. Rosenthal does note that the Orioles haven’t yet sought to speak with anyone who’s currently employed by a rival team.

Bleier Headed For MRI To Evaluate Lat Injury

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  • Orioles lefty Richard Bleier suffered an arm injury in Wednesday night’s game, which manager Buck Showalter suggested could be related to his left lat muscle (link via MASNsports.com’s Roch Kubatko). The injury was immediately apparent, as Bleier winced on his follow-through, dropped his glove and immediately began clutching at his shoulder (video link). Bleier already had an x-ray taken Wednesday night, and he’s headed for an MRI on Thursday. While there won’t be an update until that test is complete and the results have been viewed by doctors, but Bleier said that there was “no question” that he was unable to make another pitch, calling the pain “severe” and adding that he’s never experienced that type of injury. While the 31-year-old lefty is hardly a household name, he has a superlative 1.93 ERA on the season and, in fact, has a sub-2.00 ERA for his entire career — a span of 119 innings dating back to his 2016 debut with the Yankees.

Orioles Place Andrew Cashner On Disabled List

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  • Orioles righty Andrew Cashner landed on the 10-day disabled list due to a lower back strain, per a club announcement. Left-hander Donnie Hart is up from Triple-A Norfolk to take his roster spot for now. Cashner, 31, signed a two-year deal worth $16MM this offseason but has struggled through his first 13 starts in Baltimore. The well-traveled righty has a 4.98 ERA with 7.7 K/9 against 4.2 BB/9 and a 38.9 percent ground-ball rate in 72 1/3 innings. While Cashner’s strikeout rate is up noticeably from 2017, he’s also seen his walk rate rise substantially and has also been plagued by a 1.62 HR/9 mark. Dylan Bundy, Kevin Gausman, Alex Cobb and David Hess remain active in the Baltimore rotation, and there’s been no announcement as to who’ll start tomorrow in Cashner’s place.

Orioles Activate Zach Britton

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The Orioles have activated lefty Zach Britton from the 60-day DL, the club announced. To create space on the active roster, the club placed struggling righty Pedro Araujo on the 10-day DL with a sprained elbow.

Outfielder Colby Rasmus was moved to the 60-day DL to make way on the 40-man. He has already been out for more than two months, so that’s a purely procedural maneuver.

Britton will make his long-awaited season debut as soon as this evening. The southpaw reliever was sidelined to open the year after suffering an Achilles tear in offseason workouts. He’s playing on a $12MM salary in his final season of arbitration eligibility.

With the O’s limping out to the worst record in baseball to this point of the season, the hope will be that Britton can pitch his way into a useful trade chip this summer. Certainly, he has established a ceiling that few others have ever touched out of the pen.

In 2015 and 2016, Britton was among the game’s very best relievers. He worked to a composite 1.22 ERA over 132 2/3 innings, with 10.4 K/9 and 2.2 BB/9. Even more remarkably, Britton maintained those excellent K/BB numbers while generating grounders on over 75% of the balls put in play against him.

Though he managed a strong 2.89 ERA last year, things just weren’t the same. Britton dealt with forearm/elbow concerns that limited him to 37 1/3 innings. He still posted a massive 72.6% groundball rate, but stepped back in K/9 (7.0) and BB/9 (4.3) as his swinging-strike percentage dove from 17.2% to 11.5% year over year.

It’s too soon to know what version of Britton will show up in Baltimore, but he hasn’t had any trouble generating swings and misses or worm burners on his rehab assignment. If there’s a positive from the layoff, perhaps it’s the fact that his arm has now enjoyed a lengthy respite.

Despite the questions that crept in, Britton was nearly dealt last summer. His potential value is much lower now, as a pure rental asset, though he can surely boost his stock quite a bit with over six weeks left to go before the trade deadline. Since he was on the shelf, Britton did not make the initial version of MLBTR’s top trade deadline candidates list, but he’s sure to feature on future iterations. And as the current list shows, Britton won’t have a lofty bar to clear to establish himself as the best late-inning rental lefty available.

Araujo's Roster Spot Could Be In Jeopardy

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  • The Orioles’ attempt to bring right-hander Pedro Araujo along at the Majors could be on its last legs, writes Eduardo A. Encina of the Baltimore Sun. Araujo broke camp with the club as a Rule 5 player, but he quickly proved unready for high-leverage spots and has since struggled to even keep the O’s in the game when the team is trailing. Araujo is being asked to make the jump from Class-A Advanced to the Majors, and the results haven’t been pretty; after surrendering four runs in an inning yesterday, he’s sitting on a 7.71 ERA with a 29-to-18 K/BB ratio, two hit batters and a wild pitch through 28 innings of relief. The Orioles, Encina notes, need to open a spot on the active roster for the return of Zach Britton, and cutting bait on the Araujo experiment could be one such way of facilitating the longtime closer’s return.

2017-18 Rule 5 Draft Update

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When we last checked in on this year’s crop of Rule 5 players, there were a combined 11 players — six on active rosters and five on the Major League disabled list — still with their new organizations. That number has fallen to nine, with six players (albeit a different mix) still active in the Majors, plus another three hanging around on the DL. The number could shrink again in the near future, as several of the remaining Rule 5-ers are seldom used pieces, and at least two teams will soon likely have to make a call.

Active Big Leaguers

  • Victor Reyes, OF, Tigers (from D-backs): Reyes has received only 38 plate appearances since our last Rule 5 roundup, hitting .211/.211/.342 in that span. He’s picked up a pair of triples and a double, his first extra-base hits in the Majors, but is hitting just .196/.196/.304 on the season as a whole. The Tigers barely use Reyes, outside of pinch-running and late-game defensive switches, but the longer they commit to hanging onto him, the less likely it becomes that they return him to Arizona. At this point, they’ve played more than a third of the season with an effective 24-man roster, so they seem likely to see this through.
  • Brad Keller, RHP, Royals (from D-backs, via trade w/ Reds): The 22-year-old Keller hasn’t picked up many strikeouts (5.9 K/9) and hasn’t displayed elite control (3.3 BB/9), but he’s sporting a 57.9 percent ground-ball rate in 35 innings for Kansas City — including three starts. He boasts a 2.31 ERA thus far in 2018, though his 0.26 HR/9 mark and 82.2 percent strand rate seem poised to regress. Nonetheless, he’s performed well enough to date that there’s no reason for the Royals to consider cutting ties.
  • Burch Smith, RHP, Royals (from Rays, via trade w/ Mets): Smith, on the other hand, is a more complicated case for GM Dayton Moore and his staff. The 28-year-old is currently lugging a 6.49 ERA to the mound with him after surrendering 10 runs in his past 7 1/3 innings. Smith has racked up 28 strikeouts in 26 1/3 innings, but he’s also issued 18 walks and hit two batters. Beyond that, seven of the 26 hits he’s allowed with Kansas City have cleared the fence.
  • Pedro Araujo, RHP, Orioles (from Cubs): Araujo was one of four players in Spring Training with the Orioles who came with Rule 5 status, but he’s the last to remain on their MLB roster. (Anthony Santander, who missed much of last season due to injury, fulfilled his Rule 5 requirements last monthM and was optioned to Triple-A.) Araujo was torched for four runs last night, including a pair of homers, and he now has a 7.71 ERA in 28 innings with the O’s. That’s not exactly a surprise considering the fact that he skipped both Double-A and Triple-A, and to his credit, Araujo has punched out 29 hitters in his 28 frames (albeit against 18 walks and two hit batters). Eduardo A. Encina of the Baltimore Sun wrote this morning that Araujo’s roster spot could be in jeopardy with Zach Britton coming off the disabled list.
  • Carlos Tocci, OF, Rangers (from Phillies, via trade w/ White Sox): Texas stashed Tocci, 22, on the disabled list with a hip contusion for more than a month and rode his rehabilitation window as long as possible. Since being activated on June 2, Tocci hasn’t logged a single plate appearance. The Rangers’ season looks to be lost, so they may as well hang onto Tocci if they believe he has any shot at a future in the organization. He’s just 2-for-25 in 14 games this season and has struggled in Triple-A, but Tocci was productive for the Phillies’ Double-A club last season and hit well in Double-A during last month’s rehab assignment, too.
  • Elieser Hernandez, RHP, Marlins (from Astros): Hernandez has allowed just 10 earned runs through 23 innings for a 3.91 ERA, but he’s also picked up just 10 strikeouts and yielded five homers. Hernandez, 23, has shown strong control (four walks), but he looks quite hittable through his brief run with Miami so far. As with each team listed in this section, though, they can certainly afford to hang onto him.

On the Disabled List

  • Julian Fernandez, RHP, Giants (from Rockies): Fernandez underwent Tommy John surgery back in April. He’ll accrue MLB service time while spending the season on the 60-day disabled list and will retain his Rule 5 status heading into 2019, if the Giants wish to hang onto him all offseason.
  • Nick Burdi, RHP, Pirates (from Twins via trade w/ Phillies): The Pirates picked up Burdi knowing he’d miss much of the 2018 season while recovering from Tommy John surgery, and he’s yet to throw in the minors. That said, Burdi is a former supplemental-round pick who was selected toward the top of the draft thanks to an 80-grade heater that regularly touches triple digits. If he can get healthy enough to pitch this season, the Bucs will have a free look at a tantalizing power arm.
  • Brett Graves, RHP, Marlins (from Athletics): The Marlins placed Graves on the 60-day disabled list with an oblique strain back on Opening Day, so he’s yet to pitch in the Majors. He has, however, recovered to the point where he’s begun pitching on a minor league rehab assignment. The results haven’t been pretty. Graves has a 6.23 ERA with a 16-to-7 K/BB ratio and four hit batters in 17 1/3 innings between Class-A Advanced and Double-A. He’s also nearing the end of his 30-day rehab window. His first rehab appearance came back on May 17, so the Marlins have less than a week to determine whether to bring Graves up to the Majors or run him through waivers and offer him back to Oakland.

Returned to Original Organization

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