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Latest On Zach Plesac

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Didi Gregorius resumed his Triple-A rehab assignment tonight, after halting the assignment on June 10 after just two games.  Gregorius hasn’t played a big league game since May 12 due to a right elbow impingement and a condition known as pseudogout, which might have led to the setback in his rehab.  However, Gregorius now looks to be on track, and if all things go well, could be on pace to rejoin the Phillies before the end of June.  Now in his second season in Philadelphia, Gregorius was off to a slow start with a .229/.266/.364 slash line in his first 128 plate appearances.

More on other sidelined players from around the majors…

  • Indians right-hander Zach Plesac has been on the 10-day injured list for almost a month due to a non-displaced fracture in his right thumb, but he took another step forward in his recovery process today.  Paul Hoynes of the Cleveland Plain Dealer was among those to report that Plesac was set to throw a 40-pitch bullpen session today, with 20 pitches each on flat ground and off a mound.  This is Plesac’s second bullpen session in seven days’ time, so if he emerges in good condition, a rehab assignment might not be too far away.
  • Veteran reliever Joe Smith is also on tap for a bullpen session, with Smith telling reporters (including Chandler Rome of the Houston Chronicle) that he plans to run through his entire arsenal of pitches when throwing tomorrow.  Elbow soreness sent the Astros righty to the IL on June 9, and he could just need the one bullpen before beginning a minor league rehab assignment.
  • The Pirates shifted right-hander Miguel Yajure from the seven-day minor league IL to the 60-day IL.  Yajure was first sidelined with right elbow/forearm soreness on June 1, and today’s transaction is “just more of a paper move” that “has nothing to do with how he’s progressing or what he’s doing,” manager Derek Shelton told reporters (including Jason Mackey of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette).  Yajure only just began throwing, and it appears as though he wasn’t going to be back within 60 days from his initial IL placement anyway — as Mackey notes, the Bucs don’t gain a 40-man roster spot with the move, since Yajure was in the minor leagues when first placed on the injured list.  One of the four players acquired from the Yankees in the Jameson Taillon trade back in January, Yajure has a 2.76 ERA over 16 1/3 MLB innings over the last two seasons.
  • Twins right-handed pitching prospect Jhoan Duran was shut down three days ago due to an elbow strain, though the team announced (hat tip to MLB.com’s Do-Hyoung Park) that surgery wasn’t recommended.  The shutdown will continue for the next 5-6 weeks as Duran’s elbow will continue to be monitored, and there is hope that he can then rehab in time to pitch again before the 2021 season is cover.  Currently ranked as the 80th-best prospect in baseball by MLB Pipeline, Duran made his Triple-A debut this year but has struggled, posting a 5.06 ERA with 13 walks in 16 innings (though with a 29.33% strikeout rate).

Indians Make Four Roster Moves

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The Indians announced a quartet of roster moves today, including the news that right-hander Aaron Civale has been placed on the 10-day injured list (retroactive to June 22) with a sprained middle finger on his throwing hand.  Also, catcher Ryan Lavarnway has been designated for assignment.  The two open roster spots will be taken by catcher Austin Hedges and right-hander Justin Garza — Hedges has been activated off the concussion-related injury list, while Garza’s contract was selected from Triple-A.

Civale is expected to be out of action for 4-to-5 weeks, in the latest blow to Cleveland’s injury-plagued rotation.  With Shane Bieber, Zach Plesac, and now Civale on the IL, the Tribe are missing their top three starters, leaving a makeshift starting five of very inexperienced pitchers tasked with keeping the team afloat in the AL Central race.

With several pitchers moving from the bullpen to fill these holes in the rotation, Garza gets the opportunity to make his MLB debut.  An eighth-round pick for the Tribe in the 2015 draft, Garza isn’t ranked by Baseball America or MLB Pipeline as a top-30 prospect in Cleveland’s farm system, but the righty has an 0.42 ERA over 21 1/3 combined innings at Double-A and Triple-A this season.  This is Garza’s first season working exclusively as a reliever, and the result is an uptick in his strikeout rate (to an impressive 35.36%), though also a 15% walk rate.

Lavarnway signed a minor league deal with the Indians this past offseason, and his contract was selected from Triple-A last week when Hedges was placed on the concussion-IL.  Lavarnway played in four games, officially putting him in the books as appearing (if sparingly) in ten different Major League seasons.  The journeyman backstop has appeared in just 160 games total over those 10 seasons, suiting up for eight different teams at the big league level.

Aaron Civale Expected To Miss Four To Five Weeks With Finger Sprain

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JUNE 23: Civale has been diagnosed with a sprained right middle finger, Mandy Bell of MLB.com was among those to relay. He’ll be shut down from throwing for the next week or two and isn’t expected to return to the field for four-to-five weeks.

JUNE 22: Indians right-hander Aaron Civale left last night’s start with an injury to his right middle finger, and it seems it’ll keep him out of action for a while. Manager Terry Francona told reporters (including Zack Meisel of the Athletic) Civale will meet with a hand specialist tomorrow. The club will know more specifics about his condition then, but Francona added they’re “prepared that he’s going to miss some time.”

An extended absence for Civale is a tough blow to a Cleveland staff already without Shane Bieber and Zach Plesac. Civale has tossed an MLB-leading 97 2/3 innings this year and been quite effective. The 26-year-old has a 3.32 ERA/4.31 SIERA. Civale doesn’t miss many bats (19.8% strikeout rate) but he also rarely hands out free passes (6.0% walk percentage) and does a decent job of keeping the ball on the ground (45.3% grounder rate).

At 40-30, Cleveland has stayed in close contention in both the American League Central and Wild Card races. That’s largely been on the strength of that top half of the rotation, though. Bieber, Plesac and Civale have all been better than average at keeping runs off the board, but there’s been little in the way of reliability behind that now-injured trio. Cal Quantrill has been good when called upon but worked mostly out of the bullpen this year. The rest of Cleveland’s depth starters (Triston McKenzie, Sam Hentges, Logan Allen, Jean Mejia and Eli Morgan) have struggled.

It remains to be seen if the Indians can weather this series of injuries to their top pitchers and stay in contention. In addition to their now-exclusively unproven group of starters, the Cleveland lineup has been below-average all season. To their credit, Indians relievers have been quite good, helping them to a 12-7 record in one-run ballgames. They’ll need continued excellence from the bullpen (and perhaps some unexpected contributions from their young starters and/or the bottom of the order) to stick with the White Sox, who lead the division by two games.

AL Central Notes: Civale, Buxton, Duran, Burger

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The Indians’ rotation depth has been tested already, and they could now be facing another injury. Right-hander Aaron Civale exited tonight with two outs in the fifth inning with an injury to his right middle finger. The Score’s Travis Sawchik notes, via Twitter, that the medical staff was testing the mobility of Civale’s finger as opposed to looking at a potential blister. There’s no official diagnosis, but for a Cleveland club that already has Shane Bieber (shoulder strain) and Zach Plesac (fractured hand) on the injured list, any injury scare for the club’s most proven starter is particularly noteworthy.

Cleveland has cycled through myriad young options in hopes of churning out another quality starter, as they’ve seemingly been able to do at will in recent years. However, each of Triston McKenzie, Sam Hentges, Logan Allen, Eli Morgan and Jean Carlos Mejia has an ERA north of 6.00 after multiple starts. Swingman Cal Quantrill gave the Indians a much-needed five innings of shutout ball his last time out but hasn’t had much success overall in four starts. The Indians are still nine games over .500 despite those injuries and an offense that ranks among the worst in MLB (88 wRC+), but it’ll be increasingly difficult to maintain that standing if questions about the rotation continue to mount.

More news from the division…

  • Twins center fielder Byron Buxton just returned from the injured list, but he exited tonight’s game against the Reds after five innings. Buxton was hit by a pitch on the left hand in his prior at-bat and played a couple innings of defense before ultimately exiting the game. Minnesota has won four straight games and can ill afford to lose Buxton if the team wants to cling to any faint hope of clawing its way back into the race. It stands to reason that the club would likely have Buxton undergo x-rays, even if his removal were deemed precautionary. They’ll presumably have an update after the game on Buxton, who is 4-for-10 with a homer and a double since returning from the IL two days ago.
  • The Twins have shut down top pitching prospect Jhoan Duran due to an elbow strain, president of baseball operations Derek Falvey told reporters (Twitter link via Do-Hyoung Park of MLB.com). He’s undergoing imaging to determine the severity of the issue. Minnesota has been attempting to weather injury troubles for two of its top three starters (Kenta Maeda, Michael Pineda) while getting awful results from fourth and fifth starters J.A. Happ and Matt Shoemaker. The Twins’ miserable rotation performance is perhaps the primary reason for their surprisingly poor record, and an injury to Duran would rob the club of a high-profile prospect who entered the season as a candidate to make his MLB debut this summer. Duran ranked as the game’s No. 83 prospect at The Athletic and No. 86 at FanGraphs, but he’s been limited to just 16 innings this season. Duran allowed one run with a 14-to-3 K/BB ratio in his first seven innings but has since been tagged for eight runs on 11 hits and an alarming 10 walks in nine innings.
  • The White Sox are without Nick Madrigal for the remainder of the season, and while it appears they’re exploring the market for infield help, they’re also taking some looks at creative in-house options. Third base prospect Jake Burger is getting some work at second base in Triple-A, writes Vinnie Duber of NBC Sports Chicago. Burger, 25, is in the midst of his first season since 2017 after a pair of Achilles injuries wiped out his 2018 and 2019 campaigns. The 2017 first-rounder has left little doubt that he’s a talented hitter, batting .277/.320/.555 with eight homers, 12 doubles and a triple in 147 plate appearances in his first in-game action after a three-year layoff. The 6’2″, 230-pound Burger would be one of the larger players you’d see at second base, but manager Tony La Russa notes to Duber that with Yoan Moncada hitting so well at the hot corner, at-bats there won’t be easy to come by if Burger’s bat does force its way to the big leagues: “I think it’s really smart, and it’s smarter if you do it down there where it’s not such a microscope. … I like that they’re exposing him to second base down there.”

Jose Ramirez Misses Game Due To Foot Contusion

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A left quad strain sent Alex Bregman to the 10-day injured list on Thursday, but the Astros star isn’t yet sure exactly when he’ll be back on the field.  “Honestly there’s no timetable really….It’s unfortunate,” Bregman told reporters, including Chandler Rome of The Houston Chronicle.  “I’m just going to trust the rehab process.  I don’t really know.  It’s going to be based on how I progress and how I feel.  But there’s no real timetable yet.”

There still seems to be some uncertainty about the severity of Bregman’s injury, as he said that he didn’t know if it was a Grade 1 or Grade 2 strain.  Manager Dusty Baker has said that Bregman will be out of action “for a while,” which would seem to indicate that the third baseman will miss well beyond the 10-day minimum.  On the plus side for Houston, the team has just kept on winning even without Bregman, as the Astros have rolled a six-game win streak to move within a game of the Athletics for the AL West lead.

More on other injury situations from around the American League…

  • Jose Ramirez left Friday’s game with a left foot contusion after being hit by a pitch, and he wasn’t in the Indians’ lineup on Saturday.  Speaking to The Cleveland Plain Dealer’s Paul Hoynes and other reporters, manager Terry Francona said that Ramirez “was a little more sore, I think, than maybe he anticipated and maybe we did” when he woke up on Saturday morning.  “He got hit right on that arch.  He’s doing OK.  He’s gonna be fine.”  The Tribe are 38-30 this season despite an overall lack of offense, but their chances of remaining in contention would take a big hit if their top hitter had to miss any time.  Ramirez is having another impressive season, batting .270/.354/.539 with 16 home runs over his first 277 plate appearances.
  • Danny Duffy “felt really good” in the aftermath of a 40-pitch bullpen session on Friday, indicating that the Royals southpaw could be nearing a return from the flexor strain that sent him to the injured list back on May 17.  As Duffy told Lynn Worthy of The Kansas City Star, the initial tightness he felt in his forearm is now “gone, everything’s gone.  It’s one of those things, modern medicine is a miracle.  We’ve got the right people who get their hands on us in the training room….On the MRI, they said my ligament is completely intact, so we’re good.  I’m not nervous about it at all. I’m ready to go.”  No plans have yet been made about any possible rehab assignment, though manager Mike Matheny indicated that Duffy could return sometime during the Royals’ upcoming 10-game road trip from June 22-July 1.  Duffy was off to a great start prior to his injury, posting a 1.94 ERA and above-average strikeout (28.2%) and walk (7.1%) rates over 41 2/3 innings.
  • The Tigers placed Niko Goodrum on the 10-day injured list yesterday due to a tendon injury in his left finger.  Goodrum suffered the injury while diving for a ball on Friday.  Tigers manager A.J. Hinch told reporters (including Chris McCosky of The Detroit News) that Goodrum is “seeing some doctors and they are sending films to some hand doctors around the country.  But essentially, he’s got an issue with the tip of his left index finger.  No surgery is required, but we have to get the swelling out of his entire hand.”  Goodrum has played mostly shortstop over the last two seasons but he has been a valuable utility piece for Detroit, playing all over the field during his four seasons with the Tigers.  While Goodrum was a Gold Glove finalist at shortstop in 2020, his defensive metrics have been subpar this year, and he has struggled at the plate for the second consecutive year — Goodrum has hit .202/.281/.332 in 398 PA since the start of the 2020 campaign.  Willi Castro, Harold Castro, and call-up Isaac Paredes will all see time at shortstop while Goodrum is sidelined, Hinch said.

Indians Select Ryan Lavarnway

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The Indians announced they’ve placed catcher Austin Hedges on the seven-day concussion injured list. Veteran backstop Ryan Lavarnway has been selected to the roster to pair with René Rivera in Hedges’ absence. To create 40-man roster space for Lavarnway, Cleveland transferred outfielder Jordan Luplow from the 10-day to the 60-day injured list.

Lavarnway, who’ll get the start behind the plate this afternoon against the Orioles, will be making his first MLB appearance of 2021. It’ll mark his fifth consecutive year getting big league time (and his tenth overall), each of the last five with a different club. Lavarnway has suited up for the A’s, Pirates, Reds and Marlins over the last four years, totaling fewer than twenty plate appearances at each stop. A quintessential third catcher, the 33-year-old has appeared for seven teams in total (the Indians will be his eighth) and hit .215/.272/.344 across 456 MLB plate appearances. He’s hit .258/.313/.551 in 97 trips to the dish this year with Triple-A Columbus.

Hedges missed yesterday’s game with an illness that now appears to be related to a concussion. This is the second time in his MLB career he’s gone on the concussion IL. The defensive specialist has hit just .144/.205/.240 so far this season.

Luplow has been on the injured list since May 27. His transfer rules him out for sixty days from the date of that original placement, so he’ll now be ineligible to return to the majors until late July. Before the injury, the 27-year-old had posted an odd, but fairly productive, .173/.331/.439 line (113 wRC+) with seven homers across 121 plate appearances. Luplow’s on-base and slugging percentages exceed the respective major league averages of .317 and .405 despite the low batting average.

President of baseball operations Chris Antonetti provided reporters (including Mandy Bell of MLB.com and Zack Meisel of the Athletic) updates on a few other injured players this morning. Designated hitter Franmil Reyes and catcher Roberto Pérez could begin minor league rehab assignments within the next week. Starter Zach Plesac, meanwhile, is slated to throw a bullpen session tomorrow and could embark on a rehab assignment of his own in the next couple weeks.

Indians Place Shane Bieber On Injured List

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The Indians have placed ace Shane Bieber on the 10-day injured list due to a right shoulder subscapularis muscle strain, per a club announcement. Young lefty Kyle Nelson is up from Triple-A Columbus to take Bieber’s spot on the active roster. Manager Terry Francona tells reporters that Bieber won’t throw for the next two weeks (Twitter link via Camryn Justice of ABC News 5 in Cleveland).

Even a short-term absence for Bieber is a brutal blow for the Indians, who are six games over .500 but also five and a half games back of the White Sox for the division lead. The Indians are also currently without righty Zach Plesac due to a fractured thumb, leaving Aaron Civale as the most established option in their ailing rotation.

Cleveland has also given looks to youngsters Triston McKenzie, Cal Quantrill, Logan Allen, Sam Hentges and Jean Carlos Mejia so far in 2021. No one from that grouping has proven himself to be a reliable option just yet, but the Indians will nevertheless need to tap further into that depth with Bieber on the shelf.

It’s been another strong season for Bieber, albeit one that’s not quite on par with last year’s utter dominance in a Cy Young-winning effort. Bieber leads the Major Leagues with 90 2/3 innings pitched, and he’s worked to a 3.28 ERA with a 33.9 percent strikeout rate that ranks seventh in the Majors.

Indians Trade Jake Bauers To Mariners

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The Indians announced this morning that they’ve traded first baseman/outfielder Jake Bauers to the Mariners in exchange for a player to be named later. Cleveland designated Bauers for assignment over the weekend, clearing an avenue for Bobby Bradley to get an opportunity at first base. The Mariners designated infielder Jack Mayfield for assignment in order to open a roster spot for Bauers, according to a press release of their own.

Bauers, 25, has spent parts of three seasons at the MLB level but has yet to produce much in the big leagues. He was ranked as one of the game’s top 75 or so prospects prior to both the 2017 and 2018 seasons at Baseball America, FanGraphs and MLB.com, but the above-average raw power and hit tool that contributed to those rankings has yet to really manifest. He’s logged 924 plate appearances between the Indians and the Rays but managed only a tepid .211/.309/.365 slash. Bauers does walk at a hearty 12 percent clip and can be deployed at any of first base, left field or right field.

It probably feels to many like Bauers should be older than 25, given the fact that his MLB debut came at the age of 22. But he’s still a relatively youthful option for the Mariners to try to catch some lightning in a bottle. He’s out of minor league options, so he’ll need to stick on the Major League roster or else be once again designated for assignment. However, with the mounting injuries the Mariners are facing at first base and in the outfield, it’s not a surprise to see them bring in another option.

The Mariners are without center fielder Kyle Lewis indefinitely after the 2020 Rookie of the Year sustained another knee injury late last month. First baseman Evan White struggled again to begin the season and has now spent nearly a month on the IL with a strained hip flexor. Infield/outfield options Sam Haggerty (shoulder inflammation) and Dylan Moore (calf strain) are both on the shelf at the moment as well, with Haggerty in particular out of the picture after being shifted to the 60-day IL. Meanwhile, uber-prospect Jarred Kelenic fell into a nightmarish slump after cracking a couple of early homers to begin his MLB career. Seattle optioned him back to Triple-A Tacoma this week.

This is the third trade and fourth organization for Bauers, a 2013 seventh-round pick who has the distinction of having been involved in a pair of notable three-team swaps. He went from the Padres to the Rays in the 2014 Wil Myers/Trea Turner deal. After debuting in the Majors with the Rays in 2018, he was flipped to Cleveland in the trade in a trade that, coincidentally enough, also involved the Mariners. That deal sent Edwin Encarnacion and a Competitive Balance draft pick from Cleveland to Seattle, with the Indians netting Carlos Santana and trading Yandy Diaz and Cole Sulser to Tampa Bay.

As for the 30-year-old Mayfield, he’s now been designated for assignment by a trio of AL West teams in the past year. The Astros, who signed Mayfield as an undrafted free agent in 2013, placed him on waivers last November, and he’s since bounced to the Braves, then the Angels and then the Mariners.

Mayfield is the quintessential light-hitting utility infielder. He’s a more-than-capable defender at any of shortstop, second base or third base but has struggled considerably to handle big league pitching. He’s had 150 turns at the plate in the past three seasons combined but put together a dismal .168/.195/.259 output in that time. Mayfield does carry a much more impressive .269/.325/.475 batting line in parts of five Triple-A seasons, however, and he can be optioned both this year and next. The Mariners will have a week to trade him or attempt to pass him through outright waivers.

Indians Designate Jake Bauers, Promote Bobby Bradley, Select Blake Parker

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The Indians have designated first baseman Jake Bauers for assignment, the team announced.  Right-hander Eli Morgan has also been optioned to Triple-A, while first baseman Bobby Bradley has been called up to Cleveland’s roster and righty Blake Parker has had his contract selected.

Today’s news could mark the end of Bauers’ star-crossed tenure in Cleveland.  A top-100 prospect during his time in the Rays’ farm system, Bauers came to the Tribe as part of a major three-team swap involving the Rays and Mariners in December 2018.  The deal brought Carlos Santana back to Cleveland as veteran reinforcement for the Indians’ lineup, and Bauers was supposed to be a young building block, though he hasn’t delivered on that promise.

Over 160 games and 536 plate appearances with the Tribe, Bauers has hit only .218/.305/.352 with 14 home runs, delivering below replacement-level (-0.8 fWAR) production.  This playing time came during the 2019 and 2021 seasons, as Bauers was at Cleveland’s alternate training site in 2020 but never received a call-up to the big league club.  Bauers is out of options, so it’s possible another team might make a waiver claim on a player who is still only 25 and not that far removed from his prospect heyday.

With Bauers struggling so mightily, Tribe fans have spent pretty much all season wondering why Bradley wasn’t being given a shot on the MLB roster.  Bradley had a big Spring Training but has not hit overly well (aside from the power department) at Triple-A this season, with a .196/.266/.485 slash line and nine homers in 109 PA.

Bradley doesn’t bring much versatility as a first base-only player, but with the Indians in desperate need of some extra offense, the decision was finally made to part ways with Bauers and give Bradley another opportunity in the Show.  Bradley received some top-100 prospect attention himself prior to the 2016-17 seasons, and he has hit .251/.339/.503 with 156 homers in 2865 minor league plate appearances since being selected in the third round of the 2014 draft.  Bradley’s only MLB exposure came in 2019, when he posted a .600 OPS over 49 PA.

Parker signed a minor league deal with the Indians in the offseason, and with just one official appearance, Parker will make it seven different teams over parts of nine MLB seasons.  The right-hander (who turns 36 on June 19) most recently pitched for the Phillies in 2020, recording a 2.81 ERA and a huge 36.2% strikeout rate over 16 innings, albeit with an also-hefty 13% walk rate.  Parker has maintained a solid 27.7% strikeout rate over his career, though home runs have been a persistent issue for the veteran.

Indians Purchase Contract For Heath Fillmyer

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It’s Memorial Day, which means a full slate of day baseball. While we await the start of the action, let’s round up some news and notes from around the game…

  • The Indians have purchased the contract of Heath Fillmyer from the Lancaster Barnstormers, per the Atlantic League club. Fillmyer has been assigned to Triple-A. The 27-year-old right-hander last appeared in the Majors in 2019 withe the Royals. He owns a 5.07 ERA/5.31 FIP over 104 2/3 innings between 2018-19.
  • The Cardinals have called up Seth Elledge from Memphis, per MLB.com’s Jeff Jones (via Twitter). The move comes as a response to Kodi Whitley being placed on the 10-day injured list because of mild back spasms. St. Louis also signed southpaw Tyler Pike to a minor league contract, according to their transactions log on MLB.com.
  • Tigers catcher Grayson Greiner is putting his rehab assignment on hold for now after experiencing some hamstring discomfort, per Evan Woodbery of MLive Media Group (via Twitter). He’s been on the injured list since May 12th. The 28-year-old backstop owns a .237/.256/.342 line in 39 plate appearances on the year.
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