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Royals Designate Amir Garrett For Assignment

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The Royals announced a series of roster moves this morning. The club has reinstated left-hander Ryan Yarbrough from the 60-day injured list and recalled infielder Samad Taylor from Triple-A Omaha. Yarbrough is slated to start this afternoon’s game against the Guardians. In corresponding moves, left-hander Amir Garrett has been designated for assignment while outfielder Edward Olivares was placed on the 10-day IL (retroactive to July 8) with a mild left oblique strain.

It will be Yarbrough’s first start since he was struck in the face by a line drive off the bat of A’s first baseman Ryan Noda back in May. In all, Yarbrough missed just over two months with the resulting injuries. It had been a difficult start to the season for Yarbrough even before he suffered the injury. The 31-year-old lefty owns a 6.15 ERA, 28% worse than league average, with a 5.19 FIP in 26 1/3 innings of work for the Royals this season across ten appearances (three starts). For now, Yarbrough is ticketed for a return to the rotation, but the lefty has swung between the rotation and the bullpen all throughout his career, with 75 of his 137 career appearances in the big league coming in relief.

Taylor, meanwhile, made his big league debut with the Royals earlier this season. Across 38 plate appearances in the majors, Taylor owns a .133/.270/.133 slash line. His performance has been much better across 308 plate appearances with Omaha as he’s slashed .306/.412/.460. Taylor figures to join a bench mix in Kansas City that currently includes infielder Matt Duffy and outfielder Dairon Blanco. He’ll replace Olivares on the roster, who has slashed .242/.296/.410 in the club while mostly playing left field for the club.

Garrett’s Royals tenure comes to an end a season and a half after the club acquired him from the Reds in a deal that sent left-hander Mike Minor to Cincinnati. Garrett’s time in Kansas City was fraught with struggles. In 2022, the lefty posted a 4.96 ERA that was 18% worse than league average. While his 3.40 FIP was solid, Garrett saw his strikeout rate dip from 28.4% the previous year down to 25% while his walk rate crept up from 13.5% to a more untenable 16.3% during the 2022 campaign. The results have been better in 2023, with a 3.33 ERA in 24 1/3 innings, but Garrett’s issues with the free pass have gotten even worse as his walk rate has reached a whopping 17.9% this season.

Going forward, the Royals will have a week to trade, waive, or release Garrett. While it’s doubtful Garrett would bring back much in trade, it’s possible some clubs would have sufficient interest in acquiring the 31-year-old lefty and seeing if they can iron out his control problems that they would be willing to take on the remaining half of Garrett’s $2.65MM salary this season.

MLB Trade Rumors Podcast: Free Agent Power Rankings and Aroldis Chapman to the Rangers

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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 Anthony Franco of MLB Trade Rumors to discuss:

Check out our past episodes!

  • The Angels Trade for Infielders, Indecisive NL Central Teams and Aaron Judge’s Toe – listen here
  • Exciting Youth Movements in Cincinnati and Pittsburgh, Bad Central Divisions and the Dodgers Want Pitching – listen here
  • Marcus Stroman Lobbies for Extension, Mets’ Woes and Astros Seeking Bats – listen here

Royals Place Zack Greinke On Injured List

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The Royals placed Zack Greinke on the 15-day injured list this afternoon, recalling reliever Dylan Coleman to take the vacated roster spot. Greinke is dealing with shoulder tendinitis.

It doesn’t seem to be a particularly serious issue. Anne Rogers of MLB.com relays (0n Twitter) that the Royals are hopeful Greinke may only have to skip one turn through the rotation thanks to the upcoming All-Star Break. That suggests a minimal IL stint is a possibility, though he’ll meet with a doctor tomorrow to determine the next steps in his recovery.

Greinke’s absence is unlikely to change the Royals’ fortunes much. At 25-61, Kansas City looks ticketed for a last-place finish in the AL Central and a bottom three showing in MLB. It could have some implications for the trade market if he’s not able to return around the time he’s first eligible. Greinke is respected enough to draw some attention from other clubs this summer, even as he carries a 5.44 ERA thanks to a pair of clunkers in his last three starts.

Players on the injured list can still be traded, so Greinke would be able to move even if he’s not back on the mound by August 1. That seems unlikely, though, especially since K.C. would probably only move him if the six-time All-Star seeks a trade. Greinke has signed with the Royals on successive one-year contracts the past two seasons, preferring to return to the place where he began his career over two decades ago. He is playing this season on an $8.5MM salary and could almost double that mark via an innings-based incentive package.

Royals Transfer Josh Taylor To 60-Day Injured List

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The Royals today announced that outfielder Diego Hernandez was reinstated from the 60-day injured list and optioned to High-A Quad Cities. Left-hander Josh Taylor goes the other way, transferred to the 60-day IL in a corresponding move.

It’s not a shock to see Taylor wind up on the 60-day IL. He was placed on the 15-day IL in late May due to a shoulder impingement and it was reported last week that he would require lower back surgery to address a herniated disk. He’ll now be officially ineligible to return until late July, which didn’t seem especially likely anyhow. He’ll need to recover from that surgery and then will likely need a rehab assignment to get back into a game shape.

He came over to the Royals from in the January trade that saw the Red Sox acquire Adalberto Mondesí and a player to be named later, who was later named as Angel Pierre. Taylor made 17 appearances this year with an 8.15 ERA, though that number was inflated by a .409 batting average on balls in play and 55.1% strand rate. He struck out 31.3% of batters faced while walking 10.8% and advanced metrics liked him more than his ERA, such as a 4.81 FIP and 3.32 SIERA. Those figures align more closely with his 2022 performance, where he posted a 3.40 ERA in 61 appearances.

As for Hernandez, 22, he has yet to play in the majors or even at the Triple-A level. He was added to the club’s roster in November to protect him from being selected in the Rule 5 draft. He dislocated his shoulder in February and was placed on the 60-day IL on Opening Day as the club selected the contracts of veterans Matt Duffy, Franmil Reyes and Jackie Bradley Jr. Hernandez was able to earn big league pay and service time for the past three months while on the major league IL, though that will now come to an end. He’ll head to High-A and try to work his way up to his major league debut. He hit .284/.347/.407 between High-A and Double-A last year, stealing 40 bases in 115 games.

Rangers Acquire Aroldis Chapman

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The Rangers made a significant bullpen addition Friday evening, announcing the acquisition of Aroldis Chapman from the Royals. Left-hander Cole Ragans and rookie ball outfielder Roni Cabrera are going to Kansas City.

Chapman had a strong few months in Royal blue. Kansas City signed the seven-time All-Star to a $3.75MM free agent guarantee, buying low after a rough final season in the Bronx. Chapman had posted a 4.46 ERA in his final year with the Yankees and was left off their playoff roster after missing a team workout. He returned to quality high-leverage work after the change of scenery.

The hard-throwing southpaw owns a 2.45 ERA over 29 1/3 innings in 31 appearances. He’s striking out an eye-popping 43.4% of opponents, his highest rate since 2020. Among relievers with 20+ frames, only Orioles closer Félix Bautista is fanning hitters at a better clip. Chapman ranks eighth among that group in whiffs, picking up swinging strikes on 17.8% of his offerings.

Chapman doesn’t throw quite as hard as he had during his days with the Reds, but he’s still the hardest-throwing southpaw in the sport. He’s averaging 99.4 MPH on his four-seam fastball and throwing his slider at an 88.2 MPH clip. Both are up a couple ticks relative to last season’s level, explaining his bounceback in whiffs. Chapman has overpowered hitters from both sides of the plate, holding lefties to a .211 batting average without an extra-base hit and right-handers to a .146 average and .183 slugging mark.

The sole concern with Chapman’s production this season is inconsistent strike-throwing. He has walked 16.4% of opponents, a rate topped by only five relievers with at least 20 innings. It has been a boom-or-bust profile, with nearly three-fifths of hitters going down on strikes or taking a free pass.

Texas rolls the dice on the scattershot control to inject some needed swing-and-miss to the relief corps. Rangers relievers enter play Friday ranked 19th in MLB with a 23.1% strikeout percentage. They’re 24th with a 4.37 ERA. Texas ranks second in rotation ERA and leads the majors in run-scoring. The bullpen stood out as the obvious priority for GM Chris Young and his staff entering trade season, and they’ve started by landing one of the best relievers available.

Chapman joins Will Smith, Josh Sborz and Brock Burke in the high-leverage mix. Sborz and Smith have been excellent, while rookie Grant Anderson is off to a nice start to his MLB career. There’s still room for another addition at the back end, particularly a right-hander.

Texas will certainly further add to the roster over the coming weeks. As an impending free agent reliever, Chapman was never going to require them to dip deep into the farm system. He’s also an affordable pickup; the Rangers assume just under $2MM in remaining salary.

They’ll add a little more in incentives, as Chapman will receive $312,500 for every fifth appearance between 35 and 55 outings. Triggering all those bonuses, as he’s on pace to do, would tack on another $1.563MM. He’d land a matching $312,500 for every fourth game finished between 12 and 40; he has finished nine games thus far.

Those are relatively small margins for an aggressive Texas club. The Rangers are spending just under $201MM on player payroll, as calculated by Roster Resource. They’re up to around $224MM in luxury tax obligations, placing them roughly $9MM south of the $233MM base threshold. The Rangers have never paid the competitive balance tax, but owner Ray Davis has signed off on aggressive spending sprees in each of the past two winters to quickly push the club to the top of the AL West.

The Royals are at the opposite end of the spectrum, one of a handful of teams that are certain to miss the postseason. Kansas City has shown a willingness to sell off pieces early if they’re out of contention. They dealt Carlos Santana to the Mariners around this time last season. Chapman was rumored to be available by early June.

In Ragans, Kansas City got a pitcher they like enough to jump on a Chapman deal a few weeks early. The 25-year-old is an upper level arm who could factor into the rotation this year. The 30th overall pick in the 2016 draft, he has appeared in the big leagues in each of the past two seasons.

Ragans made nine starts last year, working to a 4.95 ERA in 40 innings. He has pitched in relief this season, tallying 24 1/3 frames of 5.92 ERA ball out of the bullpen. Anne Rogers of MLB.com tweets that K.C. will send Ragans to Triple-A to build back up as a starter with an eye towards a second-half return to the big leagues.

The 6’4″ southpaw has yet to find MLB success. Alongside the mediocre ERA, he has a below-average 18.2% strikeout rate and slightly elevated 10.7% walk percentage. He owns a solid 3.64 ERA in five minor league seasons, though, striking out 29.6% of opponents along the way. His fastball has averaged a little north of 96 MPH in short stints — well above last year’s 92.1 MPH average speed out of the rotation — and prospect evaluators have long credited him with a potential plus changeup.

Whether Ragans will stick as a starter remains to be seen. Kansas City can give him some runway. The Royals’ rotation ranks 27th with a 5.43 ERA. Ragans is in his first of three minor league option seasons and won’t be eligible for arbitration until the 2025-26 offseason at the earliest. If he develops as hoped, he could work as an affordable back-end starter at Kauffman Stadium in the near future.

Cabrera is much further off. A native of the Dominican Republic, he’s a right-handed hitting outfielder who has spent the past two seasons in the Dominican Summer League. He turns 18 next month and won’t be eligible for the Rule 5 draft until after the 2026 season. Keith Law of the Athletic writes that Cabrera has some power potential and projects as a corner outfielder.

This evening’s swap is the start of what’ll likely be multiple moves of this ilk from both teams. Texas could add more bullpen help and perhaps augment the corner outfield or rotation depth. Kansas City figures to listen to offers on closer Scott Barlow and could take calls on rentals like Zack Greinke and Matt Duffy.

Images courtesy of USA Today Sports.

Royals Expected To Recall Alec Marsh For MLB Debut

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The Royals plan to promote right-hander Alec Marsh to start tomorrow’s series opener against the Dodgers, tweets Anne Rogers of MLB.com. He draws in for Jordan Lyles, who is under the weather.

It’s the first MLB call for Marsh. Kansas City selected the 6’2″ hurler 70th overall in the 2019 draft out of Arizona State. Marsh has ranked around the middle tier of a generally thin K.C. farm system. Baseball America recently slotted him 11th among organizational prospects, while Keith Law of the Athletic placed him 20th coming into the year.

Marsh was coming off a brutal 2022 showing in Double-A, when huge home run issues led to a 7.32 ERA over 25 starts. Prospect evaluators still credited him with swing-and-miss potential on a low-mid 90s fastball and an above-average to plus slider. The Royals added him to the 40-man roster last offseason to keep him out of the Rule 5 draft despite the poor numbers.

The 25-year-old has found a little better results this time around. Over 11 starts with Double-A Northwest Arkansas, he posted a 5.32 ERA. Marsh got the homers in check and struck out a solid 26.4% of opponents but walked more than 11% of batters faced. He has similar strikeout and walk marks in three starts since being bumped up to Triple-A Omaha, where he’s allowed just four runs in 15 innings.

It’s possible this is just a spot start necessitated by Lyles’ illness. Kansas City hasn’t gotten much production out of its rotation overall, though, so there should be other opportunities for Marsh to work his way back in the relatively near future if he shows well in Omaha.

Royals’ Owner: “Total Confidence” In GM J.J. Picollo, Manager Matt Quatraro

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Entering play Thursday at just 22-58, the Royals have the second-worst record in Major League Baseball, narrowly leading an Athletics team that has aggressively torn down its roster amid payroll cuts and efforts to restock the farm system. Unlike their floundering AL West counterparts, Kansas City did not enter the season in the early stages of a rebuild and with such minimal expectations. The Royals did recently push for a somewhat accelerated retooling period, but they added several veterans for a second straight offseason and at least hoped to keep afloat in a weak division. No one viewed the Royals as contenders heading into the year, but this level of struggle was not expected either.

Brutal as the Royals’ season has been, owner John Sherman today voiced “total confidence” in first-year general manager J.J. Picollo and rookie manager Matt Quatraro, per Anne Rogers of MLB.com (Twitter links). Of course, that doesn’t mean Sherman considers the 2023 season acceptable — far from it. Said the Royals’ CEO: “I feel accountable for where we are right now with our baseball team. We are committed to do what it takes to return to form. … This is a real year of evaluation, and that evaluation right now is painful.”

Picollo is still new to the top spot in the baseball operations hierarchy but has been with the Royals organization since 2006, when he was hired as the team’s director of player development. Quatraro, meanwhile, is in his first year with the club after previously serving as an assistant hitting coach in Cleveland and as a third base coach and bench coach with Tampa Bay.

The Royals fired president of baseball operations Dayton Moore back in September and elevated Picollo in his place. Moore had been one of the longest-tenured baseball operations leaders in the sport, originally ascending to the position of general manager in 2006. The Royals gave him a title bump to president of baseball ops in 2021, simultaneously promoting Picollo from assistant general manager to GM.

Picollo has had baseball operations autonomy for less than a year, but the moves made this past offseason generally haven’t panned out. A two-year deal for Jordan Lyles has thus far produced disastrous results (6.68 ERA in 91 2/3 innings). Zack Greinke again returned to Kansas City on a one-year deal and had been pitching as a capable innings eater, though a recent trio of rough starts has pushed his ERA north of 5.00. The signing of lefty Ryan Yarbrough is tougher to judge, as he’s been out nearly two months after being struck in the head by a comebacker.

To Picollo’s credit, the Royals’ low-cost investment in former Yankees stopper Aroldis Chapman has worked out as well as one could’ve hoped. The 35-year-old’s fastball velocity has rebounded to its highest level since 2017, and his 42.9% strikeout rate is his highest mark in a 162-game season since 2018. The southpaw’s 16.8% walk rate is still far too high, but command issues have long been an part of the Chapman experience. As it stands, he’s a slam-dunk trade candidate and could net Kansas City some minor league talent of note between now and the Aug. 1 trade deadline.

Lackluster performance from the Royals’ offseason additions are only a small part of the team’s 2023 woes, of course. Much of their recent rebuilding effort staked its hopes on developing polished college pitchers —  with a heavy emphasis on that in the 2018 draft — but those efforts have yet to bear fruit.

Brady Singer looked like he’d broken out with an outstanding 2022 season, but he’s regressed in alarming fashion this year, pitching to a 5.88 ERA with worrying negative trends in his strikeout rate, walk rate and velocity. Fellow college arms Daniel Lynch, Jackson Kowar, Kris Bubic, Jonathan Heasley and Asa Lacy haven’t developed as hoped. On the position-player side of things, youngsters like MJ Melendez, Michael Massey, Nate Eaton, Samad Taylor and Kyle Isbel have all struggled at the big league level in 2023.

As for Quatraro, while Royals fans surely can’t be pleased with the on-field results in his first year on the job, the roster composition is such that no skipper could be reasonably expected to have coaxed passable results from this group. Managers are evaluated based on far more than sheer wins and losses anyhow — arguably more so than ever in today’s game.

Based on recent history, Sherman’s comments are wholly unsurprising. There’s little to no recent precedent for a general manager or first-year manager being on the hot seat just three months into his first season on the job. Details of Picollo’s contract remain unclear, but the organization signed him to a multi-year extension late in the 2021 season. Granted, Moore was also extended and promoted at that point, but he’d had a 16-year runway as baseball ops leader by the time he was dismissed; Picollo has been in his current role for just nine months. Quatraro, meanwhile, signed a three-year deal that runs through the 2025 season and has a club option for the 2026 campaign.

If the Royals are to turn things around in the near future, they’ll need a lot of help from a farm system that entered the year ranked in the bottom half of the league — as low as 29th at both Baseball America and MLB.com. Picollo will have the opportunity to add to that system over the next month when he markets Chapman and presumably closer Scott Barlow, but the underwhelming performances from many of Kansas City’s veteran players leaves the Royals without many trade chips to dangle to contending clubs.

Royals’ Josh Taylor To Undergo Lower Back Surgery

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Royals reliever Josh Taylor will undergo surgery to repair a herniated disc in his lower back, tweets Anne Rogers of MLB.com. The team hasn’t provided a recovery timetable.

Taylor has been on the injured list for a month while battling a shoulder impingement. The back issue apparently arose during his rehab process. Taylor missed the entire 2022 campaign as he battled a lower back strain.

It’s obviously an unfortunate setback that makes it seem likely he’ll find himself on the 60-day injured list once the club needs a 40-man roster spot. A 60-day IL transfer could be backdated to the time of his initial placement even though he’s now dealing with a separate injury.

Kansas City acquired the southpaw over the offseason in a swap that sent Adalberto Mondesí to the Red Sox. The deal hasn’t worked for either team, as both players have battled injuries. Mondesí still hasn’t played for Boston as he works back from last year’s ACL tear. Taylor has made 17 appearances for K.C. but been tagged for 16 earned runs in 17 2/3 innings. He has struck out just under 32% of opposing hitters, an excellent clip, but nine walks and four homers contributed to the inflated ERA.

This is Taylor’s second season of arbitration eligibility. He’s making $1.025MM this year and eligible for the process twice more. An extended absence would increase the odds of Kansas City non-tendering him next offseason, though it’s unclear precisely how long he’ll be out.

Red Sox Acquire Andres Nunez From Royals

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The Red Sox have acquired right-hander Andres Núñez from the Royals, according to his transactions tracker at MLB.com. The return for the Royals isn’t listed, suggesting it’s likely a cash deal. Núñez wasn’t on a 40-man roster, so no corresponding moves will be necessary. He’s been assigned to Triple-A Worcester.

Núñez, 27, was selected by the Royals in the 29th round of the 2018 draft. The reliever has been quite effective in the minors but has seen his results take a step back this year. In 2018 and 2019, he posted a combined 2.43 ERA in 77 2/3 innings, pitching in Rookie ball and Single-A. The minor leagues were canceled by the pandemic in 2020 and Nunez has been in the upper levels since. He split 2021 between Double-A and Triple-A with a combined 3.98 ERA that year, then had a solid 3.61 ERA mark in Triple-A last year.

Here in 2023, however, things have generally gone in an unfavorable direction with a 6.66 ERA through 24 1/3 innings. He’s allowed a .355 batting average on balls in play and has a 59.6% strand rate, which could point to some bad luck. On the other hand, he generally ran strikeout rates of 25-30% in previous seasons but is down to 17.5% this year. Similarly, his walk rate has jumped to 12.3% after being much lower in previous seasons.

Those poor results have apparently prompted the Royals to accept some cash and move on, while the Sox clearly believe they can get him back on track. He’ll head to Worcester and give the club some extra bullpen depth in Triple-A. He’s yet to crack a 40-man roster but will be eligible for the upcoming Rule 5 draft if not added ahead of time.

Mike Mayers Accepts Outright Assignment With Royals

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Right-hander Mike Mayers has accepted an outright assignment to Triple-A Omaha, the Royals announced. He went unclaimed on waivers after being designated for assignment over the weekend.

Mayers will stick in the Kansas City organization. He signed a minor league deal with K.C. last December. They selected him onto the big league club in mid-May. The 31-year-old carried only a 6.88 ERA over eight Triple-A starts at the time, but the Royals needed another multi-inning arm for the MLB staff.

He pitched well over his first few appearances following the promotion. Mayers allowed just two runs in 13 1/3 innings over a trio of games. He surrendered four-plus runs in five or fewer innings in his next three outings, though. That saddled him with a 6.15 ERA over 26 1/3 frames. Mayers had a below-average 14.3% strikeout rate and a modest 8.4% swinging strike percentage before Kansas City took him off the roster.

It’s a second straight down season for the former third-round pick. Mayers posted a 5.68 ERA in 50 2/3 frames with the Angels last year. He’s now a couple years removed from an excellent 2020-21 run with the Halos, when he combined for a 3.34 ERA while fanning more than 30% of opponents in 105 innings out of the bullpen.

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