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Marlins Claim Josh Smith

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The Miami Marlins have claimed left-handed pitcher Josh Smith off waivers from the Indians., per an official team announcement. The 29-year-old Smith, who made eight appearances for the Indians this year, will join his new team on Monday, while infielder JT Riddle has been transferred to the 60-day injured list. Smith had been designated for assignment yesterday.

While a 29-year-old rookie is certainly not a headline-grabbing acquisition, Smith does offer some intrigue beneath the surface. And for a Marlins team that needs talent from wherever it can be had, this has the potential to be an interesting addition. It’s a low-cost tryout for player that could turn into a fine reliever.

In his eighth year as a professional, Smith is enjoying arguably his best minor-league season since the Pirates made him their 25th-round draft choice in 2012. This year, he’s shredding Triple-A hitters, striking out an average of 12.6 batters per nine innings, en route to a 2.43 ERA.

He’s yet to translate those results into success at the big-league level, as he has surrendered five runs in his first 8 1/3 innings of work. However, it’s been just a handful of games, and he’s managed to strike out 12 batters in that same span. Smith’s flyball tendencies and a high LOB% in the minors might lead to some early struggles in the Majors, but the Marlins will look to mitigate those concerns and tap into an attractive high-strikeout profile that has produced a 22.7 K-BB% in the minors.

Twins DFA Marcos Diplan, Select Jorge Alcala

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The Minnesota Twins designated Marcos Diplan for assignment, per MLB.com’s Do-Hyoung Park (via Twitter). Diplan’s designation paves the way for Jorge Alcala to join the big league club at Progressive Field for today’s doubleheader against the Indians. Alcala was not on the 40-man roster prior to today’s call-up.

Alcala, 24, came to the Twins from Houston as part of the Ryan Pressly trade. He is their 23rd ranked prospect, per MLB.com. Baseball America put him at #19 in their midseason report, while Fangraphs was less bullish, ranking him 26th at the outset of the season with a future value score of 40. The 6’3″ right-hander began the year in Double-A, where he made 16 starts and 26 total appearances for a 5.87 ERA and 2.84 K:BB. While those numbers won’t make you jump out of your seat, he did throw 7 2/3 scoreless innings in relief since a promotion to Triple-A.

Diplan, 22, was acquired from the Brewers at the trade deadline. He made 8 appearances for Double-A Pensacola since his acquisition with a 4.09 ERA in 11 innings.

The team also announced Devin Smeltzer as the starter for game one of today’s twin bill. Smeltzer is 1-2 with a 4.05 ERA/4.96 FIP across 40 innings (4 starts) on the year. The Twins acquired Smeltzer from the Dodgers at last year’s deadline as part of the Brian Dozier deal.

Indians Notes: Kluber, Ramirez, Hand, Naquin

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Cleveland’s crucial matchup against division-rival Minnesota was postponed Friday due to weather, so the Indians are still 3 1/2 games out in the American League Central race. The notable injuries the Indians have faced this season could help keep them out of the playoffs, though they’re just a half-game back of the AL’s second wild-card spot. Let’s check in on a few of the club’s banged up players…

  • Right-hander Corey Kluber has “a pretty long way to go in his rehab,” according to Zack Meisel of The Athletic. That jibes with a report last week which indicated Kluber probably wouldn’t return this season. The Indians have been without the two-time American League Cy Young winner since he suffered a fractured forearm May 1 – a start in which Kluber’s uncharacteristic early season struggles continued. The 33-year-old yielded a whopping 23 earned runs in 35 2/3 innings prior to his injury. Regardless of whether Kluber pitches again in 2019, the Indians will have to decide when the year ends whether to exercise his option for $17.5MM option or buy him out for $1MM after the season. As horribly as this season has gone for Kluber, it’s hard to believe the Indians will cut him loose without getting something in return.
  • Third baseman Jose Ramirez, another integral member of the club on the injured list, is now playing catch without a wrap on his wrist, per Meisel. However, whether he plays again this season will come down to an ability (or lack thereof) to swing a bat. Ramirez underwent surgery on a fractured right hamate bone Aug. 27, when it was reported he’d need five to seven weeks to come back. The former MVP candidate hasn’t come close to his previous production this year, but he began revisiting his prior form over the previous couple months. The Ramirez-less Indians have mostly turned to rookie Yu Chang at third, though the 24-year-old’s offensive numbers have paled in comparison to the work Ramirez did after he bounced back from his sluggish start.
  • Closer Brad Hand, who has been down with a tired arm since last weekend, won’t pick up a ball again until Sunday, Mandy Bell of MLB.com reports. It’s unclear how much more time Hand will miss after that, but this clearly isn’t overly promising news considering the importance of every game left on the Indians’ schedule. The 29-year-old has arguably been Cleveland’s best reliever this season, having recorded a 3.36 ERA/2.89 FIP with 12.94 K/9, 2.88 BB/9 and 34 saves on 39 attempts in 56 1/3 innings.
  • Outfielder Tyler Naquin, who tore his right ACL last month, underwent surgery Thursday, Meisel tweets. It’ll take Naquin seven to nine months to return to the majors, which means he’ll miss at least some portion of next season. In the meantime, Naquin will make his first trip through arbitration during the winter. The 28-year-old wrapped up his 2019 as one of the Indians’ top outfielders, as he batted .288/.325/.467 with 10 home runs and 1.5 fWAR in 294 plate appearances.

Indians Designate Josh Smith

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The Indians have designated lefty Josh Smith for assignment, per MLB.com’s Mandy Bell (via Twitter). That’s the corresponding move for the club’s already announced promotion of James Karinchak.

Smith seemingly found another gear at 29 years of age. The long-time minor-leaguer earned his first MLB call-up after racking up a 74:24 K/BB ratio in 52 2/3 innings at Triple-A.

Unfortunately, the walks also piled up in Smith’s brief big-league showing. Over 8 1/3 frames, he struck out a dozen batters but also doled out eight free passes and recorded a lowly 7.5% swinging-strike rate.

Indians Recall Bradley Zimmer

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2:11pm: This move is now official.

12:16pm: The Indians are “expected” to recall outfielder Bradley Zimmer from Triple-A Columbus, tweets Zack Meisel of The Athletic. He’ll join righty James Karinchak as a late September call-up for an Indians club that is hosting the division-leading Twins for a pivotal three-game series this weekend. Cleveland currently trails Minnesota by 3.5 games.

It’ll be the first time that Zimmer, 26, has been on the active Major League roster since last June, when he incurred a shoulder injury that eventually required surgery and an eight- to 12-month recovery timetable. The 2014 first-round pick has played in 15 minor league games, including an impressive .364/.440/.636 run in six games with Columbus.

Zimmer debuted to great fanfare with the 2017 Indians. Heralded as a top prospect for most of the interim between that 2014 draft and his MLB debut, he announced his presence with a .308/.388/.518 slash through his first 100 plate appearances before fading badly with greater exposure to MLB pitching. Over his final 229 plate appearances that season, Zimmer hit .212/.271/.327 and struck out at a 30.5 percent clip. He couldn’t snap out of that funk in 2018, either, hitting .226/.281/.330 through 114 plate appearances prior to injuring his shoulder.

Zimmer returns to a vastly different outfield mix than the one he left. At the time of his injury, none of Oscar Mercado, Franmil Reyes, Yasiel Puig, Jake Bauers or Jordan Luplow were even in the organization. And while Puig is a free agent at season’s end, the rest of that group is controllable for the foreseeable future. That’s also true of speedster Greg Allen and the currently injured Tyler Naquin, which further complicates Zimmer’s path back to a prominent role with the team. He’s likely to be utilized in a limited capacity down the stretch, given that glut of outfield options, so he may have a difficult time making an impression on the club’s decision-makers this month. Zimmer does have a minor league option remaining beyond the 2019 season, so the club can send him to Triple-A next spring if that’s determined to be the best course of action.

Indians To Promote James Karinchak

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The Indians are calling up right-hander James Karinchak, ESPN.com’s Jeff Passan reports (Twitter link).  Cleveland has a full 40-man roster, so a move will have to be made to accommodate Karinchak prior to tomorrow’s game.

A ninth-round pick for the Tribe in the 2017 draft, Karinchak made his Triple-A debut in 2019 and posted a 4.67 ERA over 17 1/3 relief innings.  Beyond that fairly unimpressive mark, however, stands an eyebrow-raising strikeout total — Karinchak struck out 42 batters in his brief time at Triple-A Columbus, continuing an incredible season of missing bats for the 23-year-old.  Over 30 1/3 total minor league innings in a year shortened by hamstring injuries, Karinchak has 74 strikeouts.

MLB.com ranks Karinchak as the 21st-best prospect in Cleveland’s farm system, giving high grades on the 20-80 scouting scale to his 95-98mph fastball (a 70 grade) and a “12-to-6 curveball that he can get them to chase out of the bottom of the zone” (60 grade).  Between a high arm slot and a tendency to overthrow, however, Karinchak has also had problems limiting free passes.  He has a 5.5 BB/9 over his 102 1/3 career minor league innings, and a 6.8 BB/9 at Columbus this season.

The Tribe will hope that Karinchak’s live arm can help reinforce a bullpen that has fallen on hard times recently.  Closer Brad Hand’s recent struggles are the largest concern, though Cleveland relievers as a whole have a cumulative 5.20 ERA over the last 30 days, the fifth-highest mark of any team’s relief corps over that span.  While Indians relievers have been pretty good as a whole all season, they rank near the middle of the pack in K/9, so Karinchak promises a particular boost in that department.

Brad Hand Undergoes MRI

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  • Indians closer Brad Hand underwent an MRI on his left arm Wednesday, but results came back clean, manager Terry Francona revealed (via Always The Jake and James Rapien of 92.3 The Fan). Hand’s dealing with “kind of a tired arm” and will get the next couple days off, according to Francona. That’s a less-than-ideal development for a Cleveland team that’s in a three-way battle for a wild-card spot. The Indians have been without the 29-year-old Hand since Sunday, and though that was an effective performance, he yielded two earned runs on four hits in a third of an inning in the appearance preceding that one. The normally lights-out Hand has surrendered at least a pair of ER four times since the beginning of August.

Latest On Corey Kluber

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The Indians don’t seem to have much hope of getting veteran starter Corey Kluber back at any point in the 2019 season. As Ryan Lewis of the Beacon Journal recently reported, Kluber is still limited to doing aquatic exercises as he works to recover from an oblique injury.

That status hasn’t changed in the past few days, leading MLB.com’s Jordan Bastian to tweet that it’d be a surprise to see Kluber back in the regular season. Perhaps a postseason return can’t be ruled out entirely — remember Kyle Schwarber? — but it feels quite unlikely.

Trouble is, there just isn’t much time for Kluber to rebuild his arm strength even if he can get past the oblique issue. As skipper Terry Francona put it, “He’s got a ways to go.” Given that Kluber was already working back from a forearm fracture when he suffered the new injury, it’d be difficult to justify an aggressive build-up.

If indeed Kluber is done pitching for the year, it would mean the Indians won’t have a chance to glean further information before deciding on his club option. On the one hand, given Kluber’s still-recent history of dominance, it’s hard to imagine the team passing on the $13.5MM price tag in favor of $2MM in total buyouts. That’s particularly true with another option year still to come for 2021. On the other, the 33-year-old struggled even before he went down and will now be working back from a completely lost campaign. And the cost is far from insignificant to the budget-watching Cleveland organization.

Indians Activate Jefry Rodriguez, Transfer Danny Salazar To 60-Day IL

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The Indians announced Friday that they’ve reinstated right-hander Jefry Rodriguez from the 60-day injured list. In order to open a spot on the 40-man roster, Cleveland has transferred fellow right-hander Danny Salazar from the 10-day IL to the 60-day IL.

The move puts an end to Salazar’s 2019 regular season after just one appearance, although that already looked to be the case after Salazar asked the club for some time away from the organization after exiting his latest rehab appearance early (link via MLB.com’s Mandy Bell). Salazar, who has been sidelined since Aug. 2 due to a groin strain, missed the 2018 season and much of the 2019 campaign following shoulder surgery. His future with the organization is clearly up in the air following the latest sequence of events.

Salazar, 29, always looked to have front-of-the-rotation potential based on an electric arsenal and his typically gaudy strikeout rates, but he’s only been healthy enough to make 30 starts once in the past six seasons. The 2016 All-Star posted a 3.82 ERA with 10.5 K/9 against 3.2 BB/9 in 587 1/3 innings from 2013-17 but has been rendered an afterthought in the wake of his recent shoulder woes. The Indians paid Salazar a $5MM salary in 2018 and tendered him a contract at $4.5MM for the 2019 season due to the upside he possesses, but the organization will ultimately receive just four innings of work in return for that $9.5MM investment. Salazar is arbitration-eligible again this offseason, but he’s a surefire non-tender candidate at this point.

Meanwhile, the 26-year-old Rodriguez will return to the Indians after some shoulder troubles of his own. Acquired in the offseason swap that sent catcher Yan Gomes to Washington, Rodriguez started eight games for Cleveland earlier this season and worked to a 4.74 ERA with 6.6 K/9, 3.9 BB/9, 1.03 HR/9 and a 49.3 percent ground-ball rate.

Rodriguez topped out at 3 2/3 innings in his minor league rehab stint, so he’s not fully stretched back out just yet. He could function as a long reliever or perhaps make a start with the understanding that his workload would be limited, should the need arise. Cleveland has club control over the righty through the 2024 season.

Outrighted: Edwards, Stephens, Payano, St. John

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As is common early each September, Major League clubs designated a slew of players for assignment over the past few days in order to create roster space for various September call-ups. Several players have already been claimed off waivers today, but we’ll track those who’ve cleared waivers and been outrighted to a minor league affiliate here…

  • The Indians announced that right-handers Jon Edwards and Jordan Stephens went unclaimed on waivers and were both sent outright to Triple-A Columbus. The 31-year-old Edwards pitched to a strong 2.70 ERA through 16 2/3 innings with Cleveland’s big league club over the past two seasons, but he did so with a less-encouraging 15-to-10 K/BB ratio. Edwards averaged better than 11 punchouts per nine innings with the Indians’ top affiliate in Columbus this season but also issued 4.8 walks per nine frames and logged a 4.22 ERA there. The Indians claimed Stephens from the White Sox back on June 15, but he allowed 33 runs, served up nine homers and issued 14 walks in 28 2/3 innings in Columbus.
  • Rangers right-hander Pedro Payano and left-hander Locke St. John cleared waivers and were outrighted to Triple-A Nashville, per a team announcement. Payano, 24, narrowly kept his ERA south of 5.00 in 84 innings between Double-A and Triple-A this year, but the pitching-needy Rangers called upon him for a handful of appearances in spite of those struggles. He logged 22 innings in the big leagues but limped to a 5.73 ERA with nearly as many walks (15) as strikeouts (17). The 26-year-old St. John dominated through 29 2/3 innings in Double-A (1.52 ERA, 42-to-13 K/BB ratio), but he surrendered 19 runs in 19 2/3 innings in Triple-A in addition to struggling through seven MLB appearances.

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