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Jose De Leon

Rays, Reds Finalize Trades For Jose De Leon, Brian O’Grady

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The Rays and Reds have worked out the final details of a pair of offseason trades between the two clubs, as per multiple reporters (including MLB.com’s Juan Toribio).  Back in November, the two clubs engaged in two trades, one that sent right-hander Jose De Leon to Cincinnati and (a week later) another that sent first baseman/outfielder Brian O’Grady to Tampa Bay.  Both trades saw the players exchanged for either cash considerations or a player to be named later, and today’s news confirms that the two teams have agreed to accept money to complete the transactions.

Cincinnati optioned De Leon to the minors two weeks ago, after the righty posted a 6.75 ERA over 2 2/3 Spring Training innings.  When and if the season gets underway, the 27-year-old De Leon will continue to work to get back to the form that made him a highly-touted top-40 prospect prior to the 2016 and 2017 seasons.  De Leon’s progress was halted, however, by Tommy John surgery in March 2018.  He returned to throw 56 minor league and four Major League innings in 2019.

O’Grady was also optioned to Triple-A just earlier today, which was expected given that the Rays already have a number of left-handed hitting first base options.  O’Grady’s ability to handle all three outfield positions could end up being his clearer path to playing time in Tampa Bay, as the Rays are forever looking for players with defensive versatility.  An eighth-round pick for the Reds in the 2014 draft, O’Grady made his MLB debut in 2019, making 48 plate appearances (and hitting .190/.292/.429) over 28 games.  The 27-year-old O’Grady has a .252/.354/.453 slash line over 2276 career PA in the minor leagues.

Reds Acquire Jose De Leon

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The Reds have acquired right-hander Jose De Leon from the Rays for cash and a player to be named later, Cincinnati announced. The move leaves the Reds with a full 40-man roster.

Now 27, De Leon was once one of the top pitching prospects in baseball. He joined the Rays in January 2017 in a straight-up swap with the Dodgers for second baseman Logan Forsythe, though De Leon’s stock has dropped since then. He underwent Tommy John surgery in March 2018, causing him to miss that entire year, and only threw four innings at the major league level this past season. However, De Leon did toss 51 1/3 frames (17 starts, 13 appearances) of 3.51 ERA/3.72 FIP ball with 12.8 K/9 and 4.73 BB/9 with Triple-A Durham.

Rays Select Contract Of Ricardo Pinto

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The Rays have selected the contract of righty Ricardo Pinto, as MLB.com’s Juan Toribio was among those to tweet. Righty Jose De Leon was optioned. To create 40-man space, infielder Yandy Diaz was placed on the 60-day injured list.

Pinto, 25, will get his second crack at the big leagues after previously appearing with the Phillies back in 2017. His 25-appearance debut didn’t go well, as he was tagged for 26 earned runs in 29 2/3 innings.

Since joining the Rays organization over the offseason, Pinto has worked as a bulk guy. He has spent most of the year at Triple-A, where he carries a 4.13 ERA with 8.3 K/9 and 4.0 BB/9 over 104 2/3 innings. It remains to be seen how extensively the Rays will utilize Pinto. He could hold a job for the month of September or be designated in a few days if the club has other ideas for his roster spot.

Rays Place Avisail Garcia On 10-Day IL, Recall Jose De Leon

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The Rays announced today that they have placed outfielder Avisail Garcia on the 10-day injured list with an oblique strain. To take his place on the active roster, the club has promoted righty Jose De Leon.

There had been hope that the oblique injury would not prove serious enough to require an IL stint at all. But it seems the club found reason to believe today that Garcia would need a substantial rest.

The opening of active roster space will facilitate the return of De Leon to the majors after a long time away. Once a top prospect, the 27-year-old made just one appearance in Tampa Bay following his acquisition in the 2016-17 offseason.

De Leon ultimately missed all of the 2018 season owing to Tommy John surgery. He has worked back to health this year. In 14 appearances at Triple-A, he carries a 3.65 ERA with 13.0 K/9 and 4.9 BB/9 — quite a nice showing in the high run-scoring environment of the International League.

Rays Activate, Option Jose De Leon

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Rays righty Jose De Leon has at long last returned to active duty, the club announced. But he’ll return to Triple-A on optional assignment as he looks to get his injury-addled career back on track.

De Leon, once a top prospect who is now almost 27 years of age, underwent Tommy John surgery last March. His rehab assignment was twice extended, as is permissible for hurlers working back from TJ procedures, extending it to a total of ninety days. With that time up, the club swung a deal earlier today to clear a 40-man spot for De Leon’s activation from the 60-day injured list.

During his lengthy rehab stint, De Leon threw 34 innings over 11 outings. He worked to a 3.97 ERA with 11.4 K/9 and 5.0 BB/9. That’s not a perfect showing, by any stretch, but it seems promising that he was able to generate swings and misses from top-level minor-leaguers.

It’s certainly possible that De Leon will be seen as a MLB option in the near future. Odds are he’d be utilized as less than a full-fledged starter, much like most of the rest of the Tampa Bay staff. In De Leon’s case, he has only once topped one hundred innings in a given professional season (2015).

Latest On Rays’ Pitching Staff

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Traditionalists may never fully embrace the approach, but it’s hard to argue with the results: through a quarter of the season, the Rays’ pitching staff has been lights out. By design, it’s a fluid and ever-evolving mix of hurlers. Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times provides an update on some particularly important arms for the AL East-leading team.

Most notably, prospect Brent Honeywell has encountered another hurdle in his effort to return from Tommy John surgery. He’s only slated for a week-long shutdown for nerve irritation in his right elbow, but this isn’t the first setback. The fact that Honeywell’s road back hasn’t been perfectly smooth doesn’t mean he won’t make it, but it does add to the uncertainty and bump back his timeline.

In Topkin’s assessment, the Tampa Bay front office won’t be able to consider Honeywell as a MLB option until July or August. He’s obviously going to be handled with plenty of caution given his high-ceiling billing and hiccups to this point. Honeywell is going to need a full arm build-up and even then will need to show he’s fully ready for the majors, having never yet pitched in the bigs. No doubt the Rays will keep a close eye on his workload even when he is ready for game action. Honeywell hasn’t yet topped 140 innings in a professional season and already missed all of 2018.

Clearly, then, Honeywell won’t be stepping into the opening in the rotation created when Tyler Glasnow hit the injured list recently. Nobody will, in fact. Skipper Kevin Cash tells Topkin that the club won’t tap a third starter, even on an interim basis. Rather, the club will continue to piece things together on a day-to-day basis behind rotation pieces Blake Snell and Charlie Morton.

Topkin warns not to expect any major acquisitions to plug the openings. Fortunately, Glasnow is said to be looking at an absence of only four to six weeks. That’s about as good an outlook as might have been hoped for when he left with forearm tightness. The injury might knock the 25-year-old out of surprise Cy Young contention, but hopefully won’t spoil his breakout season.

Plus, there are some other hurlers working back. Reliever Hunter Wood is close to being an option again for the MLB roster after hitting the IL with a shoulder issue, though he may take at least one more rehab outing. Wood showed an intriguing 18.0% swinging-strike rate in 6 1/3 innings to open the year. Former top prospect Jose De Leon is ready to move his rehab work to the highest level of the minors after a pair of High-A outings. Given his long and arduous rehab process, the odds are he’ll be given some time to work at Triple-A even when his assignment is up (which must occur on or before June 2nd). There’s no word yet on when Anthony Banda will be ready to begin his own rehab assignment after undergoing Tommy John surgery last June, but he was reportedly throwing from a mound late last month.

Rays Notes: Kimbrel, Honeywell/De Leon, Kiermaier

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The Rays will need to squeeze every last ounce of value out of their existing roster and payroll if they are to make a real bid for the postseason in an incredibly stratified American League. Here’s the latest, with all links to the reporting of Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times:

  • With some payroll space evidently still available, the Rays have “maintained regular contact” with legendary reliever Craig Kimbrel, Topkin tweets. A successful pursuit remains “unlikely,” per the report. Surely the Rays would only consider Kimbrel on a short-term deal, as the organization has always been careful not to tie up too much future payroll. Whether Kimbrel will ultimately settle for a one or two-year pact — and, if so, what will drive his decisionmaking — isn’t yet evident.
  • Two important young Tampa Bay hurlers are making progress in their efforts to return from Tommy John procedures, Topkin further reports (Twitter links). Brent Honeywell and Jose De Leon each threw against live hitters for the first time. It was only 15 pitches apiece, but that’s still a good sign that both of these well-regarded young hurlers are coming along. The Rays will likely continue to take things slow, but surely also entertain visions of either or both making an impact as a mid-season call-up.
  • Topkin also looks in at Rays center fielder Kevin Kiermaier, whom the team badly needs to turn in a healthy and productive campaign. Soon to turn 29, the rangy outfielder is coming off of a disappointing season at the plate in which he slashed just .217/.282/.370. Kiermaier has averaged barely more than 400 plate appearances annually over the past three years due to a variety of injuries. The maladies have tended to come about in the course of Kiermaier’s hard-charging play, though it doesn’t seem as if the team thinks there’s much to be gained from trying to rein him in. “It’s probably best for us to stay out of the way and keep our fingers crossed that none of the freak things happen,” says skipper Kevin Cash.

Rays Acquire Jeremy Hazelbaker From Diamondbacks

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The Rays have acquired outfielder Jeremy Hazelbaker from the Diamondbacks in exchange for cash, the teams announced. To clear a spot on the 40-man roster, Tampa Bay has transferred right-hander Jose De Leon to the 60-day disabled list.

Hazelbaker, whom the D-backs designated for assignment late last week, will head to Triple-A Durham. De Leon underwent Tommy John surgery during Spring Training, so he’ll be out for the entirety of the 2018 season.

The 30-year-old Hazelbaker will give the Rays some depth across the board in the outfield, as he’s plenty experienced in center and in both outfield corners. The left-handed-hitting Hazelbaker was the talk of MLB two years ago when he broke camp with the Cardinals and posted an absurd .317/.357/.683 slash in the month of April. However, he cooled off considerably over the remainder of the season and was ultimately waived by St. Louis and claimed by Arizona.

Last year with the D-backs, Hazelbaker logged 61 plate appearances and again posted some eye-popping numbers, hitting .346/.443/.577 with two doubles, two homers and two triples. In all, Hazelbaker is a .258/.327/.500 hitter in in 285 MLB plate appearances, and he owns a .277/.336/.452 slash in parts of seven Triple-A seasons.

Jose De Leon To Undergo Tommy John Surgery

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The Rays have lost a second highly touted pitching prospect to a torn ulnar collateral ligament, as Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times reports that right-hander Jose De Leon is headed for Tommy John surgery (Twitter link). Fellow right-hander Brent Honeywell, widely regarded as Tampa Bay’s best all-around prospect, underwent Tommy John earlier this spring.

Acquired last offseason in a straight-up swap for infielder Logan Forsythe, De Leon was thought to be a near-MLB-ready asset at the time of the trade. However, De Leon battled a flexor strain and tendinitis in his elbow for much of the 2017 season and was ultimately limited to just 41 innings on the season as a whole — 38 1/3 frames in Triple-A plus another 2 2/3 innings at the big league level. Now, with today’s news, the Rays won’t have the opportunity to reap much benefit from that trade until 2019, at the earliest.

While the Rays have an enviable stock of MLB-caliber arms on the precipice of breaking into the Majors, there’s no question that the team’s pitching depth has taken a massive hit in recent weeks. The Rays felt comfortable enough with their depth to trade righty Jake Odorizzi to the Twins in a move that looks to have been largely motivated by finances, and in the three brief weeks since that trade they’ve lost both Honeywell and De Leon — effectively removing three rotation candidates from their roster in under a month’s time.

Tampa Bay will open the season with Chris Archer, Nathan Eovaldi, Blake Snell and Jake Faria in a four-man rotation, with Matt Andriese reportedly likely to jump in as a fifth starter after a few weeks. (The early schedule affords enough off days that Andriese can be used as a multi-inning reliever in the interim.) If Faria can build off an impressive rookie season (3.43 ERA, 8.7 K/9, 3.2 BB/9 in 86 2/3 innings) and Snell can continue at the pace he showed in a very strong second half of the 2017 season (3.49 ERA, 8.6 K/9, 2.9 BB/9), then the Rays still boast a solid mix of starters even with the recent rash of injuries.

Beyond that quintet, the Rays still have lefties Anthony Banda and Ryan Yarbrough in addition to righty Yonny Chirinos waiting in the wings at Triple-A. Nonetheless, Tampa Bay is considerably less equipped to handle a major injury (or injuries) in the rotation now than it was at the onset of Spring Training. The organization no doubt has Double-A arms that can move up to step into the Triple-A vacancies, though it certainly wouldn’t be a surprise to see them pursue some additional veteran depth from outside the organization after losing both De Leon and Honeywell for the year.

East Notes: Yankees, Mets, Nava, Orioles, De Leon

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Both the Yankees and Mets acted rationally with their approaches in trades this summer, opines Joel Sherman of the New York Post. The Yankees showed a willingness to deal from the middle range of their considerable prospect depth to avoid luxury taxation, as they did with the Jaime Garcia trade and reportedly tried to do in their pursuits of Jay Bruce and Neil Walker. Sherman writes that the Yankees asked the Mets to eat $2.7MM of the remaining $3.7MM on Bruce’s contract in exchange for two prospects. The Mets clearly didn’t deem the difference between that pair and Ryder Ryan (whom they acquired from the Indians for Bruce) to be sizable enough to eat that cash. While many Mets fans chastise the organization for not spending, Sherman points out that the Mets have taken on salary (Bruce, Addison Reed, Yoenis Cespedes) in recent years. They’ve also already begun spending for 2018, Sherman adds, pointing to the acquisition of AJ Ramos. In that sense, saving money in trades to better stock the team’s offseason war chest could have relatively immediate impact on the team’s fortunes. Of course, it remains to be seen how their offseason plays out.

A bit more from the game’s Eastern divisions…

  • The Phillies announced tonight that outfielder Daniel Nava has been placed on the 10-day disabled list due to a lower back strain. The veteran Nava’s injury is especially noteworthy given the fact that he seemed a logical August trade candidate for the Phils. The 33-year-old switch-hitter hasn’t done much against left-handed pitching this year — he’s always been weaker as a right-handed bat — but he’s clubbed righty pitching at a .347/.427.492 clip through 143 PAs and could’ve been a solid bench addition for a contender. There’s still time for Nava to get back and demonstrate his health to interested parties, but his back injury clearly diminishes the chances of a trade.
  • Dan Connolly of BaltimoreBaseball.com writes that Orioles GM Dan Duquette has a long history of making August deals — six in the past five years — but opines that there’s not much worth pursuing for the O’s this summer. Baltimore’s greatest need is starting pitching, but the remaining available arms are mostly fringe fifth starters that don’t represent a clear upgrade over the Orioles’ current options. Nonetheless, Connolly states that he does find it likely that Duquette and his staff make some kind of move, noting that the Orioles have “always had a little interest in” Derek Holland and are quite familiar with Miguel Gonzalez — both currently pitching for the rebuilding White Sox. I’d agree with Connolly that neither seems to represent an upgrade, though the O’s could probably acquire either pitcher primarily in exchange for salary relief.
  • Rays right-hander Jose De Leon is on the minor league disabled list for the third time this season, tweets Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times. De Leon, who has previously dealt with forearm/flexor issues, now has tendinitis in his right elbow, per Topkin. It’s been a frustrating first season with the Rays organization for De Leon — a highly touted pitching prospect that was acquired in a straight-up swap that sent Logan Forsythe to the Dodgers. De Leon has appeared in just one big league game with the Rays and has only 38 1/3 minor league innings under his belt, though he’s logged a 3.05 ERA with 44-to-16 K/BB ratio in the minors when healthy.
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