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Jasseel De La Cruz

Minor League Moves: Hartlieb, Koch, Motter

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The Marlins added pitcher Geoff Hartlieb to a minor league deal, per Baseball America’s minor league transactions page. Harltlieb, 29 next week, pitched for Boston’s Triple-A affiliate in 2022, tossing 61 innings of 5.16 ERA ball. He appeared in the big leagues for the Pirates and briefly the Mets, throwing 66 1/3 innings across three seasons with a 7.46 ERA. He had a slightly below average 20.5% strikeout rate against a 14.4% walk rate.

Here’s some other minor league signings from around the sport:

  • Matt Koch has landed a deal with the Rockies for 2023. The 32-year-old pitched a handful of innings for the Mariners in 2022, but spent most of the year at Triple-A, tossing 38 1/3 innings of 3.05 ERA ball. He spent four seasons in Arizona, throwing 129 2/3 innings of 5.00 ERA ball across 16 starts and 20 relief appearances. He doesn’t walk many batters, but doesn’t strikeout many either, averaging just five per nine innings across his big league career.
  • The Braves re-signed Brooks Wilson and Alan Rangel to minor league deals. Wilson, 26, largely worked as a reliever at Double-A, tossing 44 innings with a 2.45 ERA while striking out 14.9 batters per nine innings. He made a handful of appearances at Triple-A, and should start the year there in 2023. Rangel, 25, made 26 starts at Double-A, working to a 5.81 ERA across 114 2/3 innings.
  • The White Sox brought back 30-year-old outfielder Mark Payton. He appeared in just eight games in the big leagues this year, tallying three hits in 25 plate appearances. He had a strong season at Triple-A, hitting .293/.369/.539 with 25 home runs. He’s yet to translate that to the majors though, and has a lifetime .164/.261/.180 line in 40 games for the Reds and White Sox since his 2020 debut.
  • Daniel Duarte re-signed with the Reds for 2023. Celebrating his 26th birthday tomorrow, Duarte spent most of the season on the injured list, but appeared in three games for the Reds in 2022, giving up three runs in 2 2/3 innings. At Triple-A, he worked to a 9.39 ERA across 7 2/3 innings.
  • The Athletics added right-handed pitcher Jasseel De La Cruz to a minor league pact. The 25-year-old was signed out of the Dominican Republic by the Braves, and came up through their system as a solid pitching prospect. He struggled with injury in 2022, tossing just 26 1/3 innings in total, with 12 1/3 of those coming at Triple-A. There, he had an 8.03 ERA across seven appearances.
  • The Padres brought back Mexican pitcher Efrain Contreras on a minor league deal. The 22-year-old made 17 starts at High-A in 2022, working to a 5.74 ERA across 53 1/3 innings. While those numbers don’t look promising, he has averaged 10.2 strikeouts and 2.8 walks per nine innings across three seasons in the minor leagues.
  • Utilityman Taylor Motter has joined the Cardinals for the upcoming season. Motter, 32, has appeared in the big leagues for six different teams since 2016, hitting a combined .191/.262/.309 with ten home runs. He’s appeared at every defensive position outside of catcher and center field, but primarily handles the middle-infield spots. He made a handful of appearances for the Reds in 2022, but spent most of the year at Triple-A where he slashed .254/.357/.523 with 20 home runs for the Reds’ and Braves’ affiliates.
  • Puerto Rican shortstop Shawn Ross and the Pirates agreed to a minor league contract for the 2023 season. Ross, 22, played for Grand Junction in Independent ball in 2022, hitting 280/.408/.614 with 24 home runs.

Braves Non-Tender Richard Rodriguez

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The Braves have non-tendered right-handed pitcher Richard Rodriguez, reports MLB.com’s Mark Feinsand. Acquired in a mid-season deal with Pittsburgh, Rodriguez pitched to fine bottom-line results in Atlanta but carried worrying peripherals and faded down the stretch. MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz projected the former closer to make $3.1MM in his upcoming trip through arbitration.

A non-tender is an unceremonious end to the year for a player who was a mainstay out of the Pirates bullpen for years. Still, Rodriguez was long thought to be a risky investment owing to a 2-pitch arsenal that leaned on a 93mph fastball most of the time. This approach led to excellent control (4% walk-rate in 2021) and ample pop-ups, but also left Rodriguez with a rather volatile strikeout ability (36.6% strikeout rate in 2020; 16.7% rate in 2021) and at heightened risk for home runs. As a player who has found ample success with his skillset, it won’t be a surprise to see Rodriguez get swooped up by a team for a similar price tag the Braves passed on.

Also being non-tendered by the club are infielder Johan Camargo and right-handed pitcher Jasseel De La Cruz. The soon-to-be 28-year-old Camargo had a 3.2 bWAR showing for the Braves back in 2018 but has seen his offense and playing time slide in recent years. A hitless 15-game stint with the Braves this year coupled with the recent extension of Orlando Arcia gives Atlanta reason to move on, though other clubs will surely be intrigued by Camargo’s versatility and continued Triple-A dominance. De La Cruz meanwhile has scattered strong results as a starter throughout his minor league career but struggled to a 7.19 ERA in 56 Triple-A innings. His non-tender frees up a spot on the Atlanta 40-man roster, bringing it down to 38 players.

Braves Designate Carl Edwards Jr. For Assignment

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The Braves announced a number of roster moves today, recalling Jasseel De La Cruz and Victor Arano from Triple-A. To create the roster space, Sean Kazmar Jr. was optioned to Triple-A and Carl Edwards Jr. was designated for assignment.

Edwards Jr. didn’t much of an audition with the Braves. The former Cub, Padre, and Mariner made just one appearance in Atlanta, serving up three earned runs on three hits and a walk. The only out he recorded was a strikeout.  On the bright side, the String Bean Slinger struck out the side in his only appearance in Triple-A. Kazmar Jr. has been called up a couple of times now, but he has just two plate appearances in three games.

As for the newcomers, the 23-year-old De La Cruz has yet to make his Major League debut. The right-hander finished 2019 in Double-A. Arano, meanwhile, made 73 appearances out of the Phillies’ bullpen from 2017 to 2019. He owns a 2.65 ERA across 74 2/3 innings. The Braves claimed him off waivers in January.

Braves Promote Jasseel De La Cruz

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The Braves announced Tuesday that they’ve promoted right-hander Jasseel De La Cruz and optioned Touki Toussaint to their alternate training site. De La Cruz will make his MLB debut the first time he gets into a game.

Ranked as Atlanta’s No. 12 prospect at each of Baseball America, FanGraphs and MLB.com on their respective midseason updates, the 23-year-old De La Cruz will be the latest promising Braves arm to try to help patch an injury-decimated pitching staff. He split the 2019 season between Class-A, Class-A Advanced and Double-A, pitching to a collective 3.25 ERA with 8.2 K/9, 3.3 BB/9, 0.5 HR/9 and a healthy 47.6 percent ground-ball rate.

Scouting reports at BA, FanGraphs and MLB.com all credit De La Cruz with a mid-90s heater that can reach the upper 90s and, per BA, has occasionally scratched triple digits. He’s made strides with his slider and improved his changeup as well, but while he’s worked as a starter for most of his minor league career, his violent delivery leads many to believe that he’s eventually bullpen-bound. That would allow his heater to play up and perhaps allow De La Cruz to focus on the better of his two offspeed offerings, which is currently his slider.

It doesn’t appear as though De La Cruz will start a game anytime soon, so he could just be bullpen depth for the time being. David O’Brien of The Athletic tweeted last night that the Braves expect to start Huascar Ynoa today, with Cole Hamels coming off the injured list for his season debut tomorrow and Max Fried slated to return Friday. (The Braves are off Thursday.) As such, there’s no guarantee that De La Cruz will get into a game before he’s sent back out, but Atlanta fans could still get a glimpse of the future in the coming days if he’s called upon.

The impending activation of Hamels and Fried should be a welcome breath of fresh air for a Braves club that has continually struggled to piece together its starting staff in the wake of myriad injuries and unexpectedly poor performances. They’re still a lock to make the postseason, holding a 2.5-game lead in the NL East at present, but the type of starting pitching they’ve received recently wouldn’t instill much confidence in a playoff series. However, a group led by Fried, Ian Anderson and a hopefully healthy Hamels looks considerably more impressive.

Players Added To 40-Man Roster: National League

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We’re going to see a whole lot of players added to 40-man rosters in advance of tonight’s deadline to protect players from the Rule 5 draft. We will use this post to track those contract selections from National League teams that are not otherwise covered on the site.

NL West

  • The Dodgers announced that they’ve selected the contracts of right-hander Mitchell White, infielder/outfielder Zach McKinstry and outfielder DJ Peters. Both White and Peters are considered to be among the club’s top 15 prospects. McKinstry isn’t generally ranked inside L.A.’s top 30, but the 24-year-old had a big season between Double-A and Triple-A in 2019 while appearing at six defensive positions (shortstop, second base, third base and all three outfield slots).
  • The Diamondbacks announced that they’ve selected the contracts of right-handers Taylor Widener and Riley Smith as well as the contracts of infielders Andy Young and Wyatt Mathisen. Widener, 24, was one of the organization’s best pitching prospects coming into the season but was blown up for an eye-popping 8.10 ERA in 100 innings. He’s only a year removed from 137 1/3 innings of 2.75 ERA ball and an 11.5 K/9 mark in Double-A, however. Smith, 24, was sharp in Double-A before struggling in Triple-A — like many pitching prospects throughout the league (and with the D-backs in particular). Young, acquired in the Paul Goldschmidt trade last winter, hit 29 homers while playing three infield positions between Double-A and Triple-A. Mathisen, 26 in December, hit .283/.403/.601 in 345 Triple-A plate appearances.
  • The Giants, surprisingly, did not add anyone to their 40-man roster prior to tonight’s deadline.
  • The Rockies selected the contracts of infielder Tyler Nevin, left-hander Ben Bowden and right-handers Ashton Goudeau and Antonio Santos (Patrick Saunders of the Denver Post first reported the news on Twitter). Those four moves will fill the team’s 40-man roster. Of the four, Bowden and Nevin draw the most fanfare. Nevin, the No. 38 pick in the 2015 draft and son of former MLB slugger Phil Nevin, posted deceptively solid numbers in an extremely pitcher-friendly Double-A environment in 2019 (.251/.345/.399 — good for a 122 wRC+). Bowden, a second-round pick in ’16, posted gaudy strikeout numbers but struggled in Triple-A after dominating in Double-A in 2019.
  • The Padres selected outfielder Jorge Ona’s contract and designated outfielder Nick Martini for assignment, as outlined here.

NL Central

  • The Cardinals announced the additions of Jake Woodford, Elehuris Montero and Alvaro Seijas while designating righty Dominic Leone for assignment (as detailed here at greater length).
  • Outfielder Corey Ray and right-hander J.P. Feyereisen will head onto the Brewers 40-man, per Tom Haudricourt of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel (via Twitter). It’s not yet known if the team will make further roster additions, but it would have five additional spots to work with to do so. Ray was the fifth overall pick in the 2016 draft but is coming off of a rough season. Feyereisen, who was added in a quiet September swap, will have a chance to challenge for MLB relief opportunities. Milwaukee also added infielder Mark Mathias to the 40-man roster after acquiring him in a trade with the Indians tonight.
  • The Cubs announced that they’ve added catcher Miguel Amaya, infielder Zack Short and right-handers Tyson Miller and Manuel Rodriguez to the 40-man roster. Amaya is the most highly regarded of the bunch, ranking second among Chicago farmhands and drawing some top 100 consideration at MLB.com.
  • Four additions to the 40-man were announced by the Reds, who have selected the contracts of catcher Tyler Stephenson and right-handers Tony Santillan, Ryan Hendrix and Tejay Antone. All four rank within the club’s top 30 at MLB.com, headlined by Santillan at No. 4 and ranging all the way to Antone at No. 30. Santillan thrived in a brief Double-A debut in 2018 but struggled there in a larger 2019 sample (4.84 ERA, 8.1 K/9, 4.8 BB/9 in 102 1/3 innings). He’s still just 22, though, and is regarded as a potential big league starter. Stephenson is a former first-round pick who hit well in a highly pitcher-friendly Double-A setting (.285/.372/.410; 130 wRC+). Hendrix posted big strikeout numbers as a reliever in 2019, while Antone displayed sharp ground-ball skills as a starter and reached Triple-A for the first time.
  • The Pirates added prospects Ke’Bryan Hayes, Oneil Cruz, Will Craig, Blake Cederlind and Cody Ponce to the 40-man roster while also designating four pitchers for assignment (as explored in greater length here). Lefty Williams Jerez and right-handers Dario Agrazal, Montana DuRapau and Luis Escobar were cut loose.

NL East

Braves Add Five Players To 40-Man Roster

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The Braves announced Tuesday that they’ve selected the contracts of outfielder Cristian Pache, catcher William Contreras, right-hander Jasseel De La Cruz and lefties Tucker Davidson and Phil Pfeifer.

Each of Pache, Contreras, De La Cruz and Davidson rank inside the Braves’ top 15 prospects over at MLB.com, with Pache considered to be among the elite prospects in all of baseball. Pache, who turns 21 today, is an elite center field defender who is fresh off a .277/.340/.462 batting line put together against vastly older competition between Double-A and Triple-A this season. Contreras, also 21, is the younger brother of Cubs backstop Willson Contreras. He hit .255/.314/.354 in 416 plate appearances between Class-A Advanced and Double-A in 2019.

Both Davidson, 24, and Pfeifer, 27, reached Triple-A for the first time this season, though both pitchers’ time with Atlanta’s Gwinnett affiliate was brief late in the season. De La Cruz, meanwhile, topped out at Double-A. All three worked more as starters than relievers, giving the Braves another wave of near-MLB arms from which they could draw during the upcoming 2020 season.

The addition of all five prospects protects them from being selected in this year’s Rule 5 Draft. The deadline for all 30 MLB teams to protect players from the Rule 5 Draft is tomorrow evening. Atlanta’s 40-man roster is now up to a count of 38 players.

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