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Angels Designate Daniel Nava, Craig Gentry For Assignment

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The Angels announced today that they’ve designated outfielders Daniel Nava and Craig Gentry for assignment. Outfielder Shane Robinson has been reinstated from the DL in a corresponding move.

The news brings to end a left field platoon that was widely panned by Angels fans this offseason, as the Halos elected to pursue bargain options with rather than incur luxury tax penalization when addressing its left field vacancy. Nava and Gentry have both spent significant time on the DL this season, and neither was overly productive at the dish. Nava batted .235/.309/.303 in 136 plate appearances while Gentry slashed .147/.237/.176 in just 39 trips to the plate.

Teams With Interest In Joe Smith

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We’ve already heard about the Mets’ interest in Angels righty Joe Smith, but they aren’t alone in looking at the veteran reliever. The Indians, Mariners, and perhaps also the Cardinals all have some level of interest, Jon Heyman of Fan Rag tweets. These teams, of course, have also been tied to a variety of other pen pieces — as have most organizations looking for relief help. Remember to check out MLBTR’s list of the top relief candidates to run down some possibilities.

Latest On Jonathan Lucroy Sweepstakes

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10:54pm: The Rangers could view a strike for Lucroy as a way to improve their pitching, given his highly-regarded work behind the plate, per Evan Grant of the Dallas Morning News. With Texas finding high asking prices on the pitching market, the report suggests, the club could make a move for a group of Milwaukee pieces that might include Lucroy, a quality reliever, and possibly even a starter.

3:41pm: There’s a mystery team involved on Lucroy, tweets Jon Heyman of Fan Rag, and it isn’t the Red Sox or the Mariners. Those two clubs would certainly have been among the plausible suitors for the veteran.

2:49pm: The Braves have inquired on Lucroy, according to Rosenthal (via Twitter). At present, though, it doesn’t appear as if the sides are likely to strike a deal. Atlanta’s interest is limited, it seems, because it would need to extend the veteran receiver in order to justify trading him.

The teams is “wary of paying twice” — first in the swap, then in a hypothetical extension — though certainly that’s the price of poker when  just a fact of life for a club that would competing with teams that have a much higher present need for a top-quality backstop. It’s no sure thing, either, that Lucroy himself would agree to a new contract.

12:29pm: Yesterday, Milwaukee asked teams with interest to make offers of a certain “minimum standard,” Ken Rosenthal of FOX Sports reports (Twitter links). It’s not entirely clear whether the request was for best and final offers, but Rosenthal adds that discussions are still taking place.

Among several teams to put their chips on the table are the Mets, per the report. With the Brewers still evaluating their options, multiple teams remain in the hunt.

11:27am: Jonathan Lucroy is one of the most talked-about names on the trade market right now, and ESPN’s Jerry Crasnick adds some context to the complications in working out a deal, reporting the eight teams to which Lucroy can block a trade (Twitter link). Lucroy can block trades to the Twins, Angels, Athletics, Padres, Mariners, Nationals and, most interestingly, the Indians and Tigers. Both of the two latter teams have been connected to Lucroy in trade rumors this week, though both Crasnick and his colleague Jayson Stark were told this morning that the Tigers are no longer in the picture (links to Twitter).

Cleveland’s presence on Lucroy’s no-trade list certainly doesn’t preclude a deal from happening — Lucroy has candidly stated to the media that he wants to play for a contending team on multiple occasions in the past six months — but it does further complicate matters for the Indians. While Lucroy’s postseason aspirations could make him willing, to some extent, to waive his no-trade rights, he could also wield that clause as leverage in an attempt to coerce the Indians into an extension or, at the very least, restructuring his contract to give him a raise on next year’s wildly affordable $5.25MM salary.

The Indians are said to be discussing Lucroy and left-hander Will Smith with the Brewers, but they face competition even if the Tigers and Astros are out of the market, as has been reported recently. The Rangers, Red Sox and Mets — none of whom are on his no-trade list — have all still been linked to Lucroy, and a premium player of his value figures to draw widespread interest. (Indeed, FanRag’s Jon Heyman last night again mentioned a mystery team in the mix.) The Mets were said to offer a package centered around Travis d’Arnaud, which was quickly dismissed, but FOX’s Ken Rosenthal reported last night that the two side “re-engaged” on trade talks. ESPN New York’s Adam Rubin adds a bit more detail to that story this morning, reporting that the Brewers circled back with the Mets and proposed a counter-offer that “was not out-of-hand rejected.” The Mets, he notes, have no intention of dealing either shortstop prospect Amed Rosario or first base prospect Dominic Smith, though.

Mets, Angels Discussing Joe Smith

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The Mets and Angels are discussing trade scenarios centered around veteran righty Joe Smith, according to Marc Carig of Newsday (Twitter links). While Halos closer Huston Street is also in play, it doesn’t appear as if he’s drawing much interest from New York.

Smith, 32, is in the final season of his three-year pact with Los Angeles. He hasn’t pitched to his lofty former standards over the last two years, struggling especially early in 2016. On the season, he’s carrying a 3.96 ERA with just 5.9 K/9 against 3.2 BB/9 — well off his usual numbers. He also missed time with a hamstring injury.

The results have turned up of late, though, as Smith has run off seven straight scoreless appearances. Rather remarkably, he hasn’t registered a strikeout in any of the last six — or issued a free pass. Smith is, instead, generating a ton of groundballs, driving his season rate up to 54.5% with his typical sinker/slider mix.

New York has long been said to be looking for pen reinforcements, and Smith would fit the bill given his track record and history of pitching in high-leverage innings. Though he has only been used in a closing role in spot duty, Smith has long featured as a regular eighth-inning setup man.

Marlins Have Interest In Matt Shoemaker

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  • Even as the Marlins reportedly make their pitch for Andrew Cashner, the team is continuing to look far and wide for their rotation needs, per Barry Jackson of the Miami Herald. He adds three more names that the club has asked about: Edinson Volquez of the Royals, Matt Shoemaker of the Angels, and Julio Teheran of the division-rival Braves. Nothing in the Miami system is off limits, per the report, including first baseman Josh Naylor and righty Luis Castillo — each of whom have been asked about quite frequently by other clubs, per Jackson. Rival clubs get the sense that the Marlins are “desperate” to bolster their rotation, ESPN.com’s Jerry Crasnick tweets, but it’s still not entirely clear how the team will make that happen given its thin farm. Of course, as the examples of Naylor and Castillo show, the system isn’t devoid of talent, but it would certainly sting to part with the organization’s best pieces, and it’s not at all clear that those players would be enough to score a quality, controllable arm.

Angels Willing To Listen On Shoemaker, Santiago

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  • Angels GM Billy Eppler will at least listen to offers on both Hector Santiago and Matt Shoemaker, though each is controllable beyond this season (Shoemaker for another four years, Santiago through 2017), so there’s no definitive urge to move either. Yunel Escobar and Joe Smith are both trade candidates for the Halos as well, as has been noted frequently over the past couple of weeks.

    [SOURCE LINK]
  • Angels GM Billy Eppler will at least listen to offers on both Hector Santiago and Matt Shoemaker, though each is controllable beyond this season (Shoemaker for another four years, Santiago through 2017), so there’s no definitive urge to move either. Yunel Escobar and Joe Smith are both trade candidates for the Halos as well, as has been noted frequently over the past couple of weeks.
  • The Cubs and Rangers have both called the Mariners about Taijuan Walker and James Paxton, but Seattle hasn’t shown any inclination toward moving either pitcher. Wade Miley is more likely to be moved, and Heyman adds that the Mariners are still open to adding some pieces for 2016 and have checked into Angels righty Joe Smith, whom GM Jerry Dipoto signed while serving as GM in Anaheim.

Cardinals Seeking Late-Inning Reliever On Trade Market

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The rapid decline of Trevor Rosenthal, who has now been placed on the 15-day disabled list with a shoulder injury following his season-long struggles, has the Cardinals in the market for a late-inning arm to add to their relief corps, per Jon Heyman of FanRag Sports.

St. Louis has turned to right-hander Seung-hwan Oh, whose modest offseason signing has proven to be one of the savviest investments of the winter, to handle ninth-inning duties in Rosenthal’s stead. Oh has lived up to his “Final Boss” nickname in the Majors, pitching to a brilliant 1.72 ERA with 11.9 K/9, 2.4 BB/9 and a 41.4 percent ground-ball rate in 52 1/3 innings. Those are dominant numbers out of the rookie relief ace, but the absence of Rosenthal’s typically high-quality innings has stretched the Cardinals a bit thin at the back of the ’pen.

Behind Oh, the Cardinals have relied heavily on Seth Maness, Tyler Lyons, Kevin Siegrist, Jonathan Broxton and Matt Bowman in the bullpen this season. Maness, though, missed more than a month with inflammation in his right elbow and has seen his average fastball velocity dip from 89.5 mph to 87.9 mph this season. Siegrist and Lyons have been outstanding from the left side, though Siegrist recently missed a couple of weeks with a bout of mono. Broxton looks more like a middle reliever than the standout closer he once was, and Bowman doesn’t miss many bats, though he’s been a ground-ball machine and has a 2.98 ERA on the year.

That collection of relief arms has delivered mostly strong results, but Oh is the only truly dominant arm of the bunch, so it’s not a surprise to see the Cardinals tied to relief help. The exact quality of the arm they’re looking for, however, isn’t entirely certain based on Heyman’s report. Heyman writes that either Angels closer Huston Street or Royals closer Wade Davis “could make sense for St. Louis” if traded, though he stops short of saying that the Cardinals have actually inquired on either arm, and there’s obviously a wide gap overall talent and 2016 performance between those two arms. The Cardinals have looked into Halos right-hander Joe Smith, he writes, and have in fact been seeking help for the back of the bullpen for some time now, as their search predates Rosenthal’s placement on the disabled list.

Of course, many Cards fans feel that the best possible upgrade the team could make to its bullpen is already in the organization. Right-hander Alex Reyes has emerged as one of the very top pitching prospects in all of baseball and opened plenty of eyes with his 100+ mph fastball in this year’s Futures Game over the All-Star break. However, Reyes’ recent results haven’t been overly encouraging, as he’s posted a 6.52 ERA in his past 29 innings (six starts) with Triple-A Memphis. He has a 5.07 ERA overall on the season and has averaged 12.9 K/9 against 4.4 BB/9 in 55 innings out of the rotation since serving a 50-game suspension for a drug of abuse. Reyes’ overpowering stuff leads some to believe that he could thrive in the Majors right now in a short-relief role despite his rotation struggles in Memphis, but the Cardinals are reportedly being cautious with regards to their prized righty and may not wish to rush him to the Majors. (Reyes was pulled from his most recent start after three innings, prompting some speculation about a call-up, though Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported that Reyes’ quick hook from the game was “insurance” in the event that Lyons is unable to make a needed spot start for St. Louis on Saturday.)

If the Cardinals do ultimately feel that the trade market presents the best route to an upgrade, they’ll face plenty of competition, as the majority of contending clubs in the league are said to be eyeing upgrades for their relief corps. Within the past two or three days alone, we’ve heard the Giants, Nationals, Blue Jays, Red Sox, Indians, Rangers, Dodgers and Mets all tied to varying degrees of bullpen help, and other clubs figure to be more quietly on the lookout as well.

Angels Recall Tyler Skaggs, Designate Todd Cunningham

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The Angels have designated outfielder Todd Cunningham for assignment in order to clear a spot on the roster for left-hander Tyler Skaggs, who will return to a big league mound for the first time in nearly two years tonight, per Pedro Moura of the L.A. Times (Twitter link).

Skaggs, 25, looked to be establishing himself as a long-term cog in the Halos’ rotation back in 2014 before a torn UCL presented him with the dreaded Tommy John roadblock. He underwent the procedure late in the 2014 season and spent all of 2015 rehabbing. While the team clearly hoped that Skaggs would return sooner than late July, his rehabilitation was slowed by tendinitis in his biceps, among other minor maladies. He’s been dominant since rebooting his rehab assignment in Triple-A, though, logging a 1.19 ERA with an eye-popping 35-to-3 K/BB ratio across 22 2/3 innings that spanned four starts. In his final pair of rehab starts — a total of 12 2/3 innings — Skaggs punched out 26 batters. He’ll give the Angels a much-needed option in the rotation, as the club has lost three pitchers — Garrett Richards, Andrew Heaney and Nick Tropeano — to torn UCLs this season and also lost C.J. Wilson to shoulder surgery before ever he ever threw a pitch.

Cunningham, 27, received 29 plate appearances for the Halos this season and batted .148/.179/.259. The former Braves farmhand is a .207/.256/.264 hitter in 130 big league plate appearances and a .276/.348/.368 batter in nearly 1700 appearances at the Triple-A level. He’s capable of playing all three outfield positions and has spent a fair amount of time at each outfield slot in 2016 while playing in Triple-A.

Angels Listening To Offers On Hector Santiago; Marlins Have Expressed Interest

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5:38pm: Miami has reached out to the Halos on Santiago and other, unspecified starters, according to MLB.com’s Jon Morosi (via Twitter).

3:25pm: The Angels have received inquiries from a number of teams about left-hander Hector Santiago, and they’re willing to listen to offers for him, reports ESPN’s Jerry Crasnick (on Twitter). The team is also getting hits on Matt Shoemaker, perhaps unsurprisingly, per Jon Heyman of Fan Rag (via Twitter).

Los Angeles is said to be amenable at least to considering scenarios involving the two controllable starters, but only if it would improve the team’s roster right now or in the “near future.” That near-term focus is precisely why it’s hard to see a match coming together, particularly for Shoemaker.

Santiago, 28, is earning $5MM this season and is controlled through the 2017 campaign via arbitration, so he’s more appealing than a number of arms that are of similar quality but either hit free agency at season’s end or are making considerably more money. The lefty is in the midst of his weakest season at the Major League level but still owns a respectable 4.32 ERA with 7.8 K/9, 3.8 BB/9 and a career-best 38.7 percent ground-ball rate. His 91.8 mph average fastball is a notable step up over last season’s average of 90.3 mph and represents the highest mark he’s ever posted in a full season out of the rotation.

Metrics such as FIP, xFIP and SIERA feel that Santiago’s been fortunate to keep his ERA where it is this season, but Santiago has long outperformed those metrics. As a fly-ball pitcher that generates a large number of pop-ups, Santiago has been able to routinely post BABIP marks that are considerably lower than the league average (having Mike Trout and Kole Calhoun in the outfield doesn’t hurt), and he’s also proven to be adept at stranding runners; his 76.6 percent left-on-base percentage is 14th in the Majors over the past five years among starters with at least 500 innings pitched. Those factors have contributed heavily to the career 3.78 ERA Santiago has been able to post out of the rotation in spite of ERA estimators that project his earned run average to check in somewhere in the vicinity of a full run higher.

Crasnick lists the Orioles, Pirates and “possibly” the Astros and Mets as speculative fits for Santiago after speaking to a pair of big league executives (links to Twitter). Those two execs also listed Miami as a possible fit, but Crasnick adds that the Marlins, who are known to be looking for a stabilizing force near the back of the rotation, are currently “aiming their sights higher” than Santiago. Considering their desire for a large quantity of innings down the stretch, perhaps that’s not surprising; Santiago’s career-high in innings pitched was last year’s 180 2/3 frames, but he averaged a lesser 152 innings from 2013-15 due to some time spent in the bullpen in 2013 and 2014.

The Orioles have long been tied to a left-handed rotation upgrade, and Santiago would be an improvement over many of the names that Baltimore has trotted out to the mound this season. Santiago wouldn’t fit the Pirates’ mold of pursuing pitchers with high ground-ball rates, but he’d give them a capable arm for the back of the rotation that could take some of the pressure of their bounty of young starters that could be leaned upon heavily over the final months (e.g. Tyler Glasnow, Jameson Taillon, Chad Kuhl, Steven Brault). The Astros have a short porch in left field which could spell problems for a fly-ball prone lefty, while the Mets reportedly continue to prioritize bullpen help. However, given the uncertainty that currently exists in their starting ranks, it wouldn’t be a total shock to see them jump into the market for a starter over the next week as the non-waiver deadline approaches.

Giants Interested In Huston Street

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  • The Giants’ list of relief pitching targets includes Angels closer Huston Street, the San Francisco Chronicle’s Henry Schulman reports.  Street, who turns 33 in August, is enduring by far the worst season of his 12-year career — the veteran has as many walks (11) as strikeouts over his 19 2/3 innings pitched, and he missed a month due to an oblique strain.  His 5.03 K/9 would be a career low, while ERA indicators (5.69 FIP, 6.16 xFIP, 5.67 SIERA) show that Street is actually somewhat fortunate to “only” be posting a 5.03 ERA, though he also has a .358 BABIP.  With around $2.8MM still owed to Street this season and $9MM for 2017, the Angels would surely have to eat a big chunk of that contract to facilitate a deal given Street’s struggles.
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