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Phillies Acquire José Rodríguez From White Sox

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The Phillies announced that they have acquired infielder José Rodríguez from the White Sox in exchange for cash considerations and optioned him to Double-A Reading. The infielder was designated for assignment by the Sox yesterday. The Phils have had an open spot on their 40-man roster since trading outfielder Jake Cave to the Rockies about two weeks ago, so they won’t need to make a corresponding move.

Rodríguez, 23 next month, got the briefest of major league debuts last year. He entered as a pinch runner and scored a run but has not yet made his first major league plate appearance. He split most of last year between Double-A and Triple-A, walking in just 4.1% of his plate appearances while striking out at a 21.9% rate. But he did hit 21 home runs and produced a batting line of .262/.292/.437, which led to a wRC+ of 87.

He also stole 31 bases on the year and bounced around the infield, playing the three positions on the dirt to the left of first base. The offense was subpar overall thanks to the lack of on-base ability but the power is obviously a nice attribute.

He was bumped off Chicago’s roster this week when that club make their signing of Mike Clevinger official but the Phils were clearly intrigued enough to use their open roster spot and some cash to get him into their organization. Rodríguez still has a couple of options and can be kept in the minors until the Phils decide he’s ready for another call-up.

The Phils have an infield consisting of Bryce Harper, Bryson Stott, Trea Turner and Alec Bohm, with Whit Merrifield and Edmundo Sosa also on the active roster. Rodríguez will jump into a group of depth infielders on the 40-man that includes Kody Clemens, Darick Hall, Rodolfo Castro and Weston Wilson.

White Sox Select Robbie Grossman, Designate Alex Speas

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The White Sox on Friday announced that they’ve placed Eloy Jimenez on the 10-day injured list with an adductor strain, selected the contract of veteran outfielder Robbie Grossman, and designated right-hander Alex Speas for assignment in order to open a roster spot for Grossman. Jimenez’s IL placement is retroactive to April 2.

Sox GM Chris Getz suggested earlier this week that Grossman, 34, could soon be added to the big league roster. The veteran switch-hitter spent the 2023 season with the World Series champion Rangers and batted .238/.340/.394. He’s been an average or better hitter in six of the past eight seasons, collecting 3552 plate appearances and delivering a combined .245/.350/.387 batting line. Grossman is a career .282/.381/.426 slash against left-handed pitching (126 wRC+). He’s been below-average, albeit not egregiously so, against right-handed pitching.

Grossman has played a bit of center field in his career, but the vast majority of that experience came back in 2013. He’s primarily a corner outfielder and designated hitter, with the bulk of his outfield work coming in left field. He played 553 innings on the grass for Texas last season but turned in well below-average defensive marks. He can offer the Sox a veteran bat to step in for the injured Jimenez at designated hitter and could also spell left-handed-hitting corner outfielders Andrew Benintendi and Dominic Fletcher against left-handed starting pitchers on occasion.

Speas, 26, joined the White Sox via waiver claim last October. The flamethrowing righty sits 99-100 mph with his heater and can climb higher than that. As one would expect, that’s led to some prodigious strikeout totals in the minors, but Speas struggles to command his power arsenal and has alarming walk rates in the upper minors. He pitched two big league innings for the Rangers last year but split the bulk of the season between Double-A and Triple-A. Speas fanned a ridiculous 41% of his Double-A opponents and nearly 35% of his Triple-A opponents, but he also walked a combined 15.5% of his opponents.

Speas was with the Sox during spring training and walked six of his 26 opponents. He’s begun the season in Triple-A Charlotte, where he was tagged for four runs in two innings as he walked another two of the 11 batters he’s faced there. The 2016 second-round pick has electric stuff but has walked more than 18% of the opponents he’s faced in pro ball. The White Sox will have a week to trade Speas, attempt to pass him through outright waivers or release him.

Jimenez exited the White Sox’ game back on Sunday due to soreness in his adductor muscle and hasn’t played in a game since. He’s out to a 2-for-11 start on the season, with both hits being singles. The 27-year-old slugger has shown at times that he has the upside to be one of the game’s most dangerous hitters. Jimenez belted 31 homers as a rookie in 2019 and as recently as 2021, he slashed .295/.358/.500 with 16 homers in just 84 games.

Injuries have been far too frequent for the Dominican-born slugger, however. He’s been on the injured list due to ankle, elbow/forearm, and hamstring injuries (twice), in addition to the current adductor strain and a 2023 appendectomy that kept him out for about three weeks. Jimenez has never topped the 122 games he played as a rookie, and that 2019 season is the only one of his career in which he’s reached 500 big league plate appearances.

White Sox Re-Sign Mike Clevinger

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April 4: The White Sox have formally announced Clevinger’s new contract and confirmed the $3MM base salary. The team also confirmed the previously reported DFA of infielder Jose Rodriguez, which opens a spot on the 40-man roster. Clevinger has agreed to be optioned to the team’s Arizona Complex League affiliate to build up.

April 1, 9:50pm: Clevinger’s deal with the White Sox will pay him $3MM in 2024, with an additional $3MM available in incentives (per Robert Murray of FanSided).

4:55pm: The White Sox and right-hander Mike Clevinger are in agreement on a deal, pending a physical, reports Robert Murray of FanSided. The full details of the pact for the ACES client are not yet known, though Jon Heyman of The New York Post relays that it’s a one-year deal.

Clevinger, 33, was one of many free agents to linger on the open market for a very long time, as the offseason turned out to be far slower than anyone had anticipated. He had signed with the White Sox last winter, a one-year deal with a $12MM guarantee. It was later reported that Clevinger was under investigation for domestic violence allegations, though that investigation concluded without the pitcher receiving any discipline.

He went on to have a decent season for the Sox, throwing 131 1/3 innings with a 3.77 earned run average. He went on the injured list twice, the first due to right wrist inflammation and the second due to right biceps inflammation, but still managed to take the ball 24 times.

Though the ERA was nice, there were other numbers that were less impressive. His 20% strikeout rate was below league average and well below the 28% rate Clevinger posted from 2017 to 2020. He underwent Tommy John surgery in November of 2020, missing the entire 2021 season, and hasn’t been quite the same since his return. His velo hasn’t quite come all the way back to pre-surgery levels and he only struck out 18.8% of batters faced in 2022.

In 2023, luck may have helped him keep his ERA low, as his .281 batting average on balls in play and 77.2% strand rate were both on the fortunate side. His 4.28 FIP and 4.81 SIERA suggest he may not have been as effective as the ERA make him look.

Perhaps it was those underlying metrics or maybe it was just a side effect of the generally weak offseason, but Clevinger didn’t find a deal to his liking during the winter and will now be signing after the 2024 campaign has already begun.

The Sox don’t need Clevinger to be an ace, as simply having him eat some innings should be useful to them. They traded away Lucas Giolito and Lance Lynn last year as they kicked off a rebuild, then flipped Dylan Cease this winter and moved Michael Kopech into a relief role. Touki Toussaint was outrighted off the roster and Jesse Scholtens required Tommy John surgery. With José Ureña having signed with the Rangers, the Sox came into the 2024 season with every pitcher that made more than three starts for them in 2023 either gone, injured or in the bullpen, prior to Clevinger’s return.

The rotation currently consists of new arrivals. Reliever Garrett Crochet is going in the opposite direction of Kopech, while Michael Soroka was acquired in a trade and Erick Fedde and Chris Flexen were signed as free agents. The club also brought in Jared Shuster, Jake Eder and Jairo Iriarte via trades in the past year, but each has been optioned for work in Triple-A.

That leaves one spot open, which Clevinger will fill at some point. Since he missed all of Spring Training, he will presumably need a bit of tune-up time to get into game shape, even if he’s been building up a pitch count in some unofficial capacity.

Any of their current starters could find themselves available at the trade deadline, which could further open up the need for innings. Soroka and Flexen are both impending free agents while Fedde is controlled through 2025 and Crochet through 2026. With the club’s timeline for a return to contention unclear, there would be an argument for making any of those guys available.

If those players end up getting moved, some of the aforementioned younger pitchers could get an audition but the likelihood of needing someone to take the ball is high, with injuries sure to crop up throughout the year. If Clevinger can find a way to get his strikeouts back, he could pitch himself into a trade scenario as well.

White Sox Designate Jose Rodriguez For Assignment

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The White Sox have designated infielder Jose Rodriguez for assignment, as first reported by Francys Romero. Romero suggests that Rodriguez will be put on waivers, though Sox Machine’s James Fegan indicates that the organization will first seek a potential trade partner. Presumably, Rodriguez’s DFA will clear the way for right-hander Mike Clevinger to return to the Sox. Clevinger agreed to a one-year deal to return to Chicago earlier in the week.

Rodriguez, 22, appeared in one game with the White Sox in 2023 — his lone MLB appearance. He entered that game as a pinch-runner and came around to score, but he’s still awaiting his first major league plate appearance. He split the 2023 season between Double-A Birmingham and Triple-A Charlotte, batting a combined .262/.292/.437 with 21 home runs, 19 doubles, 31 steals (in 40 tries), a 21.9% strikeout rate and just a 4.1% walk rate.

Baseball America ranked Rodriguez ninth among White Sox farmhands heading into the 2023 season — a solid review on the back of a 2022 campaign in which he hit .280/.340/.430 in a full season of Double-A ball. His stock has dropped off considerably since that time, due in no small part to last year’s pedestrian offensive output and anemic walk rate. He’s regarded as a capable defender up the middle, though BA notes that he can at times be “too nonchalant” on defense, leading to some avoidable miscues.

Rodriguez is in the second of his three minor league option years. He’s played primarily in the middle infield but also has 184 innings of experience at third base. He’s a right-handed hitter with above-average speed, at least average power and some defensive versatility. All of that could hold appeal to another club seeking infield depth, even if there are still some refinements that need to be made in his free-swinging approach. The Sox will have a week to trade Rodriguez or attempt to pass him through outright waivers.

MLBTR Podcast: Baseball Is Back, Will Smith’s Extension, Mike Clevinger And Jon Berti

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The latest episode of the MLB Trade Rumors Podcast is now live on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and wherever you get your podcasts! Make sure you subscribe as well! You can also use the player at this link to listen, if you don’t use Spotify or Apple for podcasts.

This week, host Darragh McDonald is joined by Steve Adams of MLB Trade Rumors to discuss…

Plus, we answer your questions, including…

  • Let’s say it’s trade deadline time and the Diamondbacks are basically a longshot to make the playoffs and want to dump payroll. Do you think there could be a reunion for Jordan Montgomery to be traded to the Rangers? The contract is right with the option or does he have a no-trade clause? (31:40)
  • Are international free agents eligible for extensions right away or is there a certain waiting period? I ask this because of the impending Roki Sasaki situation. Could he sign with an MLB team next year and play that first year for peanuts knowing that he has a handshake mega deal agreement in place that kicks in the following year? (34:10)
  • Is there a particular reason that you can’t trade a draft pick in the MLB the same way you can in leagues like the NFL? I know you there is a system in place for trading competitive balance picks, but I mean for just normal picks. I ask because I am a Mets fan and a Gators fan and it hurts that Jac Caglianone probably isn’t going to fall to 18. (41:55)

Check out our past episodes!

The podcast intro and outro song “So Long” is provided courtesy of the band Showoff.  Check out their Facebook page here!

Mariners Claim Sammy Peralta From White Sox

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The White Sox announced that left-hander Sammy Peralta has been claimed off waivers by the Mariners. The southpaw was designated for assignment on Opening Day and has now been assigned to Triple-A Tacoma. The Mariners had two open spots on their 40-man roster, which is now at 39.

Peralta, 26, just made his major league debut with the Sox last year, frequently being shuttled between Triple-A and the big leagues. He ultimately tossed 20 innings in the majors with a 4.05 earned run average, striking out 20% of batters faced while walking 12.2%. He seemed to do a decent job of limiting damage, as his average exit velocity, barrel rate and hard hit rate were all better than average in that small sample.

He also tossed 69 innings over 29 appearances in Triple-A with a 5.09 ERA, though he likely deserved better. His 23.1% strikeout rate and 6.4% walk rate were both strong but a 59.2% strand rate seems to have hampered him, which is why his 4.21 FIP was almost a full run better.

The Mariners are currently a little bit snakebit in the bullpen, with Gregory Santos and Matt Brash trying to come back from injuries while Jackson Kowar is out for the year due to Tommy John surgery. They have two lefties on the big league roster in Gabe Speier and Tayler Saucedo but Peralta will give them a third option on their 40-man for when a need arises.

He still has two option years and less than a year of service time, so he can be a long-term depth piece for the club if he continues to hang onto that 40-man spot. The M’s have done a good job in recent years with unearthing hidden gems by grabbing fairly unheralded relievers and polishing them until they shine, so the club and Peralta will be hoping he is the latest point on that trendline.

White Sox Release Lucius Fox, Yoelqui Cespedes

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The White Sox parted ways with two notable names, as shortstop Lucius Fox and outfielder Yoelqui Cespedes have each been released within the last few days.  Fox’s release was reported on his official MLB.com profile page, while James Fegan of the Sox Machine blog was first to note Cespedes’ release.

Fox inked a minor league deal with Chicago in February but didn’t receive any action during Spring Training, and so the 26-year-old will again hit the open market.  Fox was a highly-regarded international prospect who signed for a whopping $6MM bonus from the Giants in 2015, though San Francisco dealt Fox (and Matt Duffy) to the Rays just over a year later in order to acquire Matt Moore at the trade deadline.  The shortstop has since bounced around to four other organizations, counting his brief stint with the White Sox.

The Nationals claimed Fox off waivers from the Orioles in the 2021-22 offseason, and Fox’s only career Major League games to date came in the form of 10 games (and two hits in 28 plate appearances) with Washington in 2022.  This cup of coffee in the Show at least made Fox the ninth big leaguer in history to hail from the Bahamas.  Fox played in the Nats’ farm system in 2023 but didn’t hit much, continuing the theme of his pro career.  Over 2476 career PA in the minors, Fox has a .243/.335/.333 slash line and 156 steals out of 202 chances.

Cespedes has something of a similar story, as he signed a $2.05MM deal with the White Sox out of Cuba in January 2021 (the opening of the 2020-21 international signing window was delayed by the pandemic).  There was some extra hype attached given how older brother Yoenis was already a former All-Star, but the younger Cespedes hit .230/.319/.350 over 503 combined PA at the Double-A and Triple-A levels in 2023.  Though the 26-year-old Cespedes hit pretty well in his previous two pro seasons, it appears that newly-hired Sox farm director Paul Janish is ready to move on following Cespedes’ down year.

White Sox Select Bryan Shaw, Dominic Leone; Designate Sammy Peralta

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The White Sox announced a series of Opening Day transactions, selecting the contracts of right-hander Jordan Leasure, Bryan Shaw and Dominic Leone. The news on Leasure was previously reported. In corresponding moves, they placed left-hander Shane Drohan and right-hander Jimmy Lambert on the 60-day injured list and also designated left-hander Sammy Peralta for assignment.

The White Sox have undergone a huge amount of roster churn since last year, as they kicked off a rebuild last summer and continued it this offseason. As pointed out by Jesse Rogers of ESPN, Michael Kopech is the only pitcher or catcher that remains from last year’s Opening Day roster. The additions of Shaw and Leone will give them some veteran arms to soak up some innings and serve as veteran mentors for some of the younger guys looking to get established.

Shaw, 36, has made 791 major league appearances with a 3.93 earned run average in a career that dates back to 2011. He was also with the Sox last year, tossing 45 2/3 innings with 4.14 ERA, 21.1% strikeout rate and 8.9% walk rate. He returned on a minor league deal and is now back on the roster.

Leone, 32, is barely halfway to Shaw in terms of major league appearances with 404, having posted an ERA of 3.82 in that time. He pitched for the Mets, Angels and Mariners last year with a 4.67 ERA, 23% strikeout rate and 11.9% walk rate. He had to settle for a minor league deal this offseason but is now back in the bigs.

Drohan underwent a nerve decompression procedure in his left shoulder about a month ago. It’s unclear when he’ll be able to return from a health perspective, but this transaction means he’s ineligible to be activated before late May. Lambert has been experiencing some shoulder soreness in recent weeks, per Scott Merkin of MLB.com. His situation isn’t clear either but it seems the Sox expect him to miss at least a couple of months.

Peralta, 26 in May, made his major league debut last year and tossed 20 innings with a 4.05 ERA, 20% strikeout rate and 12.2% walk rate. He also tossed 69 innings at Triple-A with a 5.09 ERA, 23.1% strikeout rate and 6.4% walk rate. The Sox will have one week to trade him or pass him through waivers. He still has a couple of option years remaining.

White Sox Outright Touki Toussaint

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The White Sox announced that right-hander Touki Toussaint cleared waivers and has been assigned outright to Triple-A Charlotte. The righty had been designated for assignment on the weekend when the club signed outfielder Kevin Pillar.

Toussaint, 28 in June, was claimed off waivers from the Guardians in June of last year. The Sox traded away many of their best pitchers last summer, with the trades of Lance Lynn and Lucas Giolito creating two holes in the rotation. Toussaint helped fill in those gaps, tossing 83 1/3 innings for the Sox last year with a 4.97 earned run average.

Even though that was a fairly competent performance, Toussaint’s lack of control was a red flag, as it has been throughout his career. He was once a first-round draft pick, getting selected 16th overall by the Diamondbacks in 2014, and also a top 100 prospect as a minor leaguer. But his consistently high walk rates have prevented him from truly securing a big league job for any meaningful stretch of time.

With the Sox last year, his 22.7% strikeout rate and 49.5% ground ball rate were both pretty close to league average, but he gave free passes to 14.2% of batters that came to the plate. The average walk rate for major league starters was 7.9% last year, so Toussaint was almost double that. He’s walked 14% of batters faced in his career overall, which has played a large part in him not establishing himself in the bigs. He had never previously logged more than 50 innings in a season until he got to 87 last year.

He came into camp with a White Sox club that had a lot of question marks on its pitching staff, but he didn’t do much to take a step forward and answer those questions. He tossed 7 2/3 innings over six appearances, issuing an eye-popping 11 walks while striking out just two batters and getting charged with 11 earned runs.

Since he’s out of options, the Sox had to either keep him on the active roster or remove him from the 40-man entirely. They decided for the latter and no other club was willing to give him a roster spot either.

Toussaint can technically reject this outright assignment but it’s unlikely he will. A player with at least three years of major league service time can reject an outright assignment in favor of free agency but requires five years of service to both elect free agency and retain their salary. Toussaint is at three years and 71 days, meaning he would have to walk away from his salary in order to hit the open market.

He and the club avoided arbitration by agreeing to a $1.3MM salary for this year, so he’ll likely want to hang onto that. Assuming he accepts his assignment, he’ll report to the Knights and look to work his way back to the majors.

Max Stassi To Open Season On IL Due To Hip Inflammation

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The White Sox placed catcher Max Stassi on the 10-day injured list this afternoon due to hip inflammation, per a club announcement. The club also recalled catcher Korey Lee from Triple-A Charlotte. Lee had previously been optioned to the minor leagues last week as Chicago settled on Stassi and Martin Maldonado as their catching tandem to open the season, but Stassi’s injury will instead create an opportunity for Lee to break camp with the club.

That Stassi is dealing with a hip issue is particularly concerning given the fact that he missed considerable time last season due to a hip strain that prevented him from taking the field with the Angels to open the year. While Stassi missed the entire 2023 campaign, only the first half of that absence was due to his hip injury; Stassi recovered from that issue midseason, but he and his wife revealed back in November that the three-months premature birth of their son necessitated Stassi to step away from the game and attend to his family for the remainder of the 2023 campaign. While it’s concerning to see him once again hit the IL due to hip problems, White Sox manager Pedro Grifol told reporters (as relayed by ESPN) today that Stassi is just “a little sore” after the long layoff from major league play and is still “getting his work done” despite the fact that he’ll open the season on the shelf.

Stassi, 33, was a fourth-round pick by the A’s in the 2009 draft. Upon making his big league debut with the Astros back in 2013, he spent several years as a reserve catcher shuttling between Triple-A and the majors; he appeared in just 44 games in the big leagues across his first five major league seasons. He took on a larger role with Houston in 2018, however, and made the most of the opportunity by hitting a respectable .226/.316/.394 (100 wRC+) in 88 games with the club that year while posting elite defensive numbers behind the plate.

Despite that solid performance, Stassi’s playing time with the Astros was once again limited by the arrival of Robinson Chirinos, and the club ended up dealing Stassi to their division rival in Anaheim. He took his game to another level with the Angels during the 2020 and 2021 seasons, maintaining that strong defense while slashing .250/.333/.452 with a 113 wRC+. Unfortunately, Stassi took a major step back in 2022, posting just a .180/.267/.303 (63 wRC+) slash line while his defensive metrics slipped from excellent to merely average behind the plate.

Between Stassi’s struggles in 2022 and his lost season last year, it’s hard to say what can be expected from the veteran in 2024. That uncertainty may have played a role in Stassi being dealt twice this offseason; once to the Braves alongside longtime Angels utilityman David Fletcher, an again to the White Sox the very next day. That said, Stassi has clearly shown himself to have the potential to be an average-or-better catcher both at the plate and behind it throughout his time in the majors, and it’s easy to imagine him contributing significantly to the club’s catching corps alongside Maldonado and Lee if he can get healthy.

As for Lee, the 25-year-old once received top-100 prospect buzz as a member of the Astros farm system, but has struggled badly in his first 36 games of big league action with a slash line of just .100/.156/.167 in 96 trips to the plate across the past two seasons. He was acquired by the White Sox at the trade deadline last year in exchange for veteran right-hander Kendall Graveman. Upon the club’s acquisitions of Stassi and Maldonado this winter it appeared that Lee was ticked for additional reps at the Triple-A level, where he’s a career .255/.313/.435 hitter in 841 plate appearances. He’ll instead return to the majors for at least the beginning of the 2024 season, where he’ll likely serve as the backup to Maldonado.

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