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Astros Request Release Waivers On Carlos Gomez

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The Astros have requested unconditional release waivers on outfielder Carlos Gomez, who had recently been designated for assignment, tweets MLB.com’s Brian McTaggart. Though Houston was said at one point to be likely to reach a deal to trade the former star, he’ll instead hit the open market in 48 hours, assuming no team claims the $2.21MM he is owed through season’s end.

Carlos Gomez

With the move, Gomez’s disappointing tenure with the Astros officially ends. Acquired to provide a major boost to the organization just over one year ago, he ultimately contributed a meager .221/.277/.342 batting line in 486 plate appearances.

That represented an unbelievable fall-off given the 30-year-old’s recent track record. Though his numbers were down a bit early in 2015, he was coming off of a two-year run in which he slashed .284/.347/.491 and launched 47 home runs with 74 steals in 1,234 plate appearances. That was all the more impressive given Gomez’s excellent defensive metrics in center.

All told, at the time of the deal, he seemed to be one of the better all-around players in all of baseball. With one more year of control (2016) then left on Gomez’s highly affordable contract at the time, Houston GM Jeff Luhnow elected to part with four quality prospects to add Gomez and righty Mike Fiers.

It remains to be seen what will come next for Gomez, who not long ago seemed set for a monster contract in free agency after the present season. Instead, he’ll hit the open market early. The Cardinals and Mets had been said to have interest in his services, but recent reports have downplayed the likelihood of those landing spots. However with Giancarlo Stanton out for the year, the Marlins have been said to have interest and do appear to make for a good match.

Teams eyeing Gomez will probably be able to hang their hat on his still-useful outfield glove, which has fallen in defense metrics but remains playable in center. A signing, though, would mean a roll of the dice on his fading bat. Of course, once he clears release waivers Gomez can be had for nothing but the pro-rated portion of the league minimum — which amounts to roughly $125K — as Houston will cover the remainder of his $9MM salary.

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.

Astros Unsure If Lance McCullers Jr. Will Return In 2016

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The Astros still don’t know whether they can expect top young righty Lance McCullers Jr. to return this season from his elbow woes, as MLB.com’s Brian McTaggart reports on Twitter. “We won’t know until he gets evaluated in a week,” said manager A.J. Hinch. “It’s all guess work at this point.” After climbing back from a rough start to the year, Houston now sits just one game over .500 and is in danger of falling out of contention. The 22-year-old McCullers owns a 3.22 ERA — matching his results from a season ago — and is sorely missed.

Cardinals Out On Carlos Gomez; Marlins Still Interested

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2:50pm: The Marlins are still interested in adding Gomez, reports Clark Spencer of the Miami Herald (Twitter link). It’s not entirely clear whether the Fish are willing to swing a trade for Gomez or are hoping to pounce if he is ultimately released.

1:33pm: While the Cardinals initially kicked the tires on Carlos Gomez after he was designated for assignment by the Astros, ESPN’s Mark Saxon now reports that there’s “nothing doing on the Carlos Gomez front” for St. Louis (Twitter link). The injury to Matt Holliday prompted the Cards to check in on Gomez, but Randal Grichuk is 7-for-21 since being recalled to fill Holliday’s roster spot and, somewhat incredibly, all seven of those knocks have gone for extra bases (two homers, four doubles, one triple).

The Cardinals and Mets, two teams that were originally reported to be in on Gomez following his DFA, have now both stepped out of the mix for him — ESPN’s Adam Rubin reported on Monday that the Mets aren’t interested in trading for him — leaving the Marlins as the team to which Gomez has been most strongly connected. It’s not clear yet how serious the Marlins’ interest in Gomez is, but they were said to be considering him as recently as Sunday.

At this point, it’s now been eight days since Gomez was designated for assignment, so the Astros’ window to find a trade partner is dwindling. That closing window makes a release of Gomez considerably more likely, after which any club would be free to sign him for the pro-rated portion of the league minimum through season’s end. While Gomez comes with plenty of red flags following a reported hip issue last summer, a rib cage injury sustained earlier this season and, of course, a dismal .221/.277/.342 batting line since being acquired by the Astros in July 2015, it’s rare to be able to roll the dice on a player of his upside for what would amount to about $120-125K for the final few weeks of the season. If a release is the ultimate outcome, I’d think even the teams that passed on trading for him could circle back as a potential depth option at the very least.

Astros Release Prospect Danry Vasquez After Domestic Violence Suspension

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The Astros have released prospect Danry Vasquez this evening, with the team’s announcement coming right on the heels of a league announcement that he has been suspended indefinitely. Vasquez was arrested after allegedly striking his girlfriend at the stadium of the Double-A Corpus Christi Hooks.

Vasquez, 22, signed with the Tigers as an international free agent, and ended up being dealt to Houston in the 2013 Jose Veras trade. The outfielder had been seen as a legitimate prospect, though he was left unprotected and went unclaimed in last December’s Rule 5 draft and was struggling in his first action in the upper minors this year.

The league was able to move much more quickly with regard to Vasquez than it has several major league players. Because he was not on the 40-man roster, Vasquez is not represented by the MLB Player’s Association and lacks many of the protections available to the other players suspended recently — all of whom agreed to accept punishment after at least some negotiation with the commissioner’s office.

Astros Notes: Vasquez, Gurriel

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Astros Double-A outfielder Danry Vasquez has been placed on administrative leave by Major League Baseball as the Corpus Christi Police Department and the MLB Commissioner’s Office investigate a domestic violence incident, according to a statement from the Astros. Fares Sabawi of the Corpus Christi Caller-Times has obtained an arrest affidavit, which reveals that video footage from the Double-A Corpus Christi Hooks’ stadium shows Vasquez striking his girlfriend on three separate occasions during an argument. A Hooks employee also claims to have been threatened by Vasquez on the day in question, and video does show a “heated conversation” between the two, per the affidavit. Said the Astros in a statement: ” The Houston Astros and all of our affiliates, including the Corpus Christi Hooks, are governed by and strongly support MLB’s domestic violence policy.  We take this allegation very seriously, and have taken swift response as we do not condone violence in our organization.”

  • The Astros promoted Yulieski Gurriel to Triple-A Fresno yesterday, as MLB.com’s Brian McTaggart writes. The previous expectation had been that Gurriel would make his big league debut this week, but after he struggled considerably at the Double-A level, the organization made the decision to give him some additional time to get up to speed and bumped him up another level. General manager Jeff Luhnow told McTaggart that there’s “no specific timeline” for Gurriel to be promoted to the Majors at this point but did add that the infielder “is getting close.” Gurriel collected just two hits in 19 plate appearances at the Double-A level, but he went 3-for-4 with a double and a home run in yesterday’s Triple-A debut.

Mets Not Showing Interest In Carlos Gomez Trade

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While Mets GM Sandy Alderson said last week that the Mets would keep an open mind regarding Carlos Gomez after Gomez was designated for assignment by the Astros, ESPN New York’s Adam Rubin now reports (via Twitter) that the team has yet to show interest in a Gomez trade. Furthermore, he suggests that their thinking may not change even if Gomez becomes a free agent. The Mets, he notes, will get Justin Ruggiano back from the disabled list at some point this week, giving manager Terry Collins a right-handed option in the outfield.

Since Gomez’s DFA, the Mets have been linked to him on a few occasions, but Rubin’s report would suggest that New York’s interest in its former top prospect has been somewhat overstated. The Mets did come close to acquiring Gomez shortly before the 2015 non-waiver trade deadline, of course, though that trade fell through, prompting Alderson and his lieutenants to pivot to Yoenis Cespedes.

On paper, Gomez does seem like a reasonable roll of the dice for the Mets, who currently have Ruggiano, Cespedes and Juan Lagares all on the disabled list. The latter of that trio is possibly out for the remainder of the season following thumb surgery to repair a torn ligament in late July, and neither Ruggiano nor Cespedes is considered a plus option in center field from a defensive standpoint. But, with Gomez’s lackluster .210/.272/.322 slash this season and the Mets’ reported concerns about his hip last summer (plus a rib cage injury that sidelined him for a month earlier this year), there’s no guarantee that he’d ultimately serve as an upgrade.

The Marlins and Cardinals have also been linked to Gomez since he was designated on Wednesday of last week, with injuries to Giancarlo Stanton and Matt Holliday creating a need in the respective outfields of those two teams.

Injury Notes: Harper, De La Rosa, Rasmus, Bour, Gray, Cishek, Zych

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A slumping Bryce Harper was out of the lineup again tonight for the Nationals owing to a seemingly minor neck issue, but the precise nature of his injury has been the subject of some debate. Chelsea Janes of the Washington Post breaks down all the back-and-forth on the topic. In essence, Nats GM Mike Rizzo strongly denied a report from SI.com’s Tom Verducci indicating that Harper may have been playing through a shoulder injury for some time. Rizzo insists that Harper simply has a stiff neck that has not yet required a DL placement.

Here’s more on some injury situations around the game:

  • Diamondbacks righty Rubby De La Rosa has suffered a setback in his efforts to come back from a forearm injury, Steve Gilbert of MLB.com tweets. He’s headed for an MRI to see where things stand. It seems as if there’s little reason to expect the 27-year-old to return to the majors this season. That’s a tough blow for the D-Backs, who surely would like to get a longer look at a pitcher who showed a fair bit of promise this year. Over 47 2/3 innings earlier in the season, De La Rosa worked to a 4.15 ERA with 9.3 K/9 against 2.8 BB/9.
  • The Astros will be without Colby Rasmus for a month or more after he underwent surgery to remove a cyst from his ear, Jake Kaplan of the Houston Chronicle tweets. Rasmus has been struggling for some time, and it’s fair to wonder whether the issue may have played a significant role. He’ll need to return in good form to provide a boost to the ’Stros — and to bolster his fading free agent position.
  • Marlins first baseman Justin Bour isn’t progressing in his attempt to return from an ankle injury, as Barry Jackson of the Miami Herald reports on Twitter. In fact, manager Don Mattingly says that Bour “went backwards” of late, with the team’s expectation now being that he won’t return until at least early September. That certainly seems to open some room for Miami to look into adding a bat to chip in down the stretch.
  • Athletics righty Sonny Gray only just began forearm exercises today, John Hickey of the Bay Area News Group reports. He won’t begin throwing again unless and until the inflammation subsides. At this point, it seems far from certain whether he’ll make it back to a major league hill this season.
  • The Mariners may soon send reliever Steve Cishek out on a rehab assignment, Bob Dutton of the Tacoma News Tribune reports. It appears that his hip labrum issue is indeed as minor as the team had suggested. Meanwhile, fellow pen righty Tony Zych is also finally making some progress and will begin a rehab assignment on Friday. Adding those two arms down the stretch would provide a significant boost to Seattle’s late-inning mix.

Cardinals, Mets Interested In Carlos Gomez

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8:56pm: The Mets aren’t giving off indications that they have serious interest in Gomez, Marc Carig of Newsday tweets. Though GM Sandy Alderson has “left [the] door open,” says Carig, his comments “sounded like diplomacy” rather than the prelude to a move on the veteran outfielder.

12:40pm: ESPN’s Mark Saxon tweets that the Cardinals are indeed looking into Gomez, and his ability to play center field is a big draw for them. However, he notes that St. Louis could be outbid by the Mets. Saxon adds in a second tweet that Gomez is expected to be traded rather than waived and released. Shortly after Gomez’s DFA earlier this week, the Mets were said to be “open” to reacquiring him. Gomez came up through the Mets’ farm system and was lauded as one of the game’s top prospects before he was traded to the Twins as part of the Johan Santana package.

11:00am: The Cardinals will explore the possibility of adding recently designated center fielder Carlos Gomez, per Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch (on Twitter). According to Goold, they’ll try to ascertain the reasons for his sudden decline and determine whether they believe he can rediscover his form and help the 2016 club. Adding onto that, Goold said in an appearance on the Ryan Kelley Morning Show on 105.7 FM / 920 AM in St. Louis that the Cards have “legitimate curiosity” in Gomez and were intrigued by him even before last night, when left fielder Matt Holliday suffered a fractured thumb that could cost him much of the remaining season.

Gomez was a big-name addition for the Astros last July, when Houston parted with four prospects to pry Gomez and right-hander Mike Fiers away from the Brewers. However, there were some medical concerns about Gomez at the time — a trade to the Mets was reportedly nixed in part due to concerns surrounding Gomez’s hip — and he performed dreadfully in the calendar year for which he donned an Astros uniform. The 30-year-old batted just .221/.277/.342 in 126 games for the Astros — a far cry from the terrific .278/.342/.475 batting line he compiled from Opening Day 2013 until the time of said trade. Gomez remains a base-stealing threat, but even defensive metrics have soured on his once-elite skill set in center field. Of course, he missed time in 2015 with a hamstring injury, played through alleged hip issues last season and spent more than a month on the DL in 2016 after injuring his rib cage while laying out to make a diving catch. Any and all of those issues could contribute to a decline in his defensive prowess in the outfield.

For the Cardinals, center field has been a revolving door for quite some time. Last year saw Jon Jay and Peter Bourjos deliver underwhelming performances before Randal Grichuk looked to seize the job, but Grichuk has taken a significant step back in 2016 and has been optioned to the minors on multiple occasions (though he’s back in the Majors now). Beyond Grichuk, the Cards have trotted out Tommy Pham, Jeremy Hazelbaker and even displaced second baseman Kolten Wong as they look to find a dependable everyday solution.

While Gomez is far from a certainty to fill that need, he could add an option with significant upside if he is ultimately released. That fate could very well be his outcome, as Gomez is owed $2.51MM through season’s end, and any claiming team would be on the hook for that sum. (And, while a trade is certainly another possibility, one can imagine that the recent data breach issues between the two teams in question here might create a reluctance to enter into such negotiations.)

Astros Designate Carlos Gomez For Assignment

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In a stunning move, the Astros have designated center fielder Carlos Gomez for assignment, the team announced. Right-hander Jandel Gustave will come up from Triple-A Fresno to take Gomez’s roster spot.

Gomez’s designation represents a shocking fall from grace for the 30-year-old, whom Houston acquired from Milwaukee last July in a blockbuster deadline deal that also saw right-hander Mike Fiers join the Astros in exchange for four prospects. Two of those prospects – righty Josh Hader (No. 22) and outfielder Brett Phillips (No. 58) – currently rank among Baseball America’s Top 100. The Astros swooped in to land Gomez after the collapse of a trade between the Brewers and Mets, who were set to send righty Zack Wheeler and infielder Wilmer Flores to Milwaukee for Gomez before backing out over concerns regarding Gomez’s hip.

[RELATED: Updated Astros Depth Chart]

Gomez was a sought-after commodity last summer because he had established himself as one of the sport’s most well-rounded outfielders in previous seasons, combining excellence at the plate, on the base paths and defensively. From 2012-14, the former highly touted prospect batted .277/.336/.483 with 66 home runs in 1,686 plate appearances, stole 111 bases and accounted for 16.1 fWAR. Gomez was less effective prior to last season’s trade, though he still slashed a respectable .262/.328/.423 with eight homers in his final 74 games with the Brewers.

Gomez’s career began going off the rails after the Astros acquired him, as he hit a meager .242/.288/.383 in 41 contests down the stretch in 2015. But that line looks appealing compared to the .210/.272/.322 Gomez has compiled this season in 323 trips to the plate. Further, he has swatted only five homers while striking out a career-worst 31 percent of the time (a marked increase over his lifetime 23.1 percent mark) and posting his lowest ISO (.112) since 2010. From an offensive production standpoint, Gomez’s ability to steal bases (he’s 23 of 28 in Houston) is the lone aspect of his game that has continued to be above average since the Astros picked him up.

“It’s not a secret that I’m not doing my job and I’m really disappointed in myself,” Gomez admitted to Brian McTaggart of MLB.com (Twitter link).

Continued Gomez, “I still have a long career. I wish the best to this organization, this team” (Twitter link via Mark Berman of FOX 26).

With Gomez now out of the picture, the Astros look primed to turn center field over to defensive whiz Jake Marisnick, though he has never hit particularly well in the majors and is carrying a .225/.265/.337 line across 191 PAs this season. Unless another team takes on Gomez’s salary via trade or claims him on waivers, the Astros will also be responsible for the remainder of the $9MM he’s owed. If he goes unclaimed and Houston releases him, another club could sign Gomez for the prorated league minimum. Of course, that would be an enormous drop for a player who entered the season as a candidate to sign a $100MM-plus deal as a free agent during the upcoming winter. In fact, in his preseason free agent power rankings for 2017, MLBTR’s Tim Dierkes forecast a potential $150MM payday for Gomez. His career has since cratered, though, making that type of deal a pipe dream for the Scott Boras client.

Brian McTaggart of MLB.com first reported Gomez’s designation.

Jeff Luhnow On Carlos Gomez's Designation

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Astros general manager Jeff Luhnow spoke about his decision to end the failed, short-lived Houston tenure of center fielder Carlos Gomez, whom the team designated for assignment Wednesday (via Brian McTaggart of MLB.com). “Carlos has put in 100 percent. We all see how much he enjoys playing the game and how much he cares about what happens,” said Luhnow, who traded a haul to Milwaukee for Gomez and right-hander Mike Fiers last July. “It’s one of those situations where for whatever reason it didn’t work out the way here he wanted to and we wanted to, and we felt it was the best interest of the organization and the team to move on and potentially get a fresh start somewhere else.”

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