Marlins Designate Bryan Mitchell For Assignment
The Marlins are designating right-hander Bryan Mitchell for assignment, Jordan McPherson of the Miami Herald was among those to relay. The move creates an active roster spot for top pitching prospect Edward Cabrera, who has officially been recalled to make his major league debut tonight against the Nationals. Mitchell’s designation also creates a vacancy on the 40-man roster, which now sits at 39.
Miami selected Mitchell to the big league club last week. He’s since made two appearances, tossing four innings of two-run ball out of the bullpen. He struck out four batters while issuing one unintentional walk in that time. That brief showing marked Mitchell’s first big league work in three years, as he hadn’t made it back to the majors after struggling to a 5.42 ERA over 73 innings with the 2018 Padres.
In the intervening seasons, Mitchell has bounced around between a few organizations. He’s spent most of the past couple years at Triple-A, and that’s been true in 2021 as well. Mitchell signed with the Phillies and began the year with their top affiliate in Lehigh Valley. He was released with a 6.04 ERA and a mediocre 20:16 strikeout-to-walk ratio over 28 1/3 frames with the IronPigs. But Mitchell has looked better after landing with the Marlins on a minors pact. He tossed twelve innings of four-run ball with fourteen strikeouts and six walks for Triple-A Jacksonville to earn the long-awaited call back to the majors last week.
Mitchell will now find himself on waivers over the coming days. If he passes through unclaimed, he’d have the right to reject an outright assignment in favor of free agency because he has previously been outrighted in his career.
Marlins To Promote Edward Cabrera
The Marlins are promoting top pitching prospect Edward Cabrera to make his Major League debut Wednesday against the Nationals, per a club announcement (Twitter link, with video of Cabrera being informed he’s being called up to the Majors). Cabrera is already on the 40-man roster, so Miami will only need to make a corresponding 26-man roster move.
It’s been a monster season between Class-A Advanced, Double-A and Triple-A for the highly touted Cabrera, as evidenced by a combined 2.93 ERA and 36.9 percent strikeout rate in 61 1/3 innings. Cabrera was out earlier in the season due to an inflamed nerve in his right biceps — an injury that cost him the first two months of the season. He looks quite healthy now, having punched out 11 or more batters in three of his past four starts at the Triple-A level.
Cabrera, 23, is featured on virtually any ranking of the game’s top prospects one could find. He’s No. 30 on the midseason Top 100 over at MLB.com, No. 36 at The Athletic, No. 43 at FanGraphs and No. 74 at Baseball America. ESPN’s Kiley McDaniel didn’t rank Cabrera in his Top 50 but listed him as one of “20 others who were considered.” Specific rankings aside, the broad-reaching consensus is that Cabrera is one of the most promising young arms in the sport.
Cabrera draws praise for a heater that sits in the 93-97 mph range but has scraped triple digits as well. He generates more grounders than whiffs with the fastball but complements it with a potentially plus slider and an improving changeup. Listed at 6’5″ and 217 pounds, he has the prototypical size and frame that many look for in ideal pitching prospects.
Based on the timing of his promotion, Cabrera will be controlled by the Marlins through at least the 2027 season. He’s being promoted late enough in the year that Super Two status is long since a consideration, although with any prospect promotion, it’s also key to note that future optional assignments could alter one or both of those trajectories. If Cabrera is in the Majors for the rest of the season, he’d accumulate 40 days of MLB service time, meaning he’d need just 132 days in the Majors in 2022 to reach a full year of service and remain on that post-2027 course for free agency.
Cabrera is the latest in a growing line of promising young Marlins starters to reach the Majors. While Miami is dealing with a handful of injuries at present, it’s hard for other clubs not to envy their collection of formidable arms. Cabrera joins Sandy Alcantara, Pablo Lopez, 2021 Rookie of the Year candidate Trevor Rogers, deadline acquisition Jesus Luzardo, Elieser Hernandez and currently injured top prospect Sixto Sanchez among the team’s current core of rotation options, and there are several others behind them. Most notably, last year’s No. 3 overall pick, right-hander Max Meyer, has been nothing short of dominant in Double-A this season.
The Marlins’ system is deeper in arms than in high-end bats, so it remains possible that GM Kim Ng and her staff will look to capitalize on that group of arms and turn some of it into controllable young bats via the offseason trade market. Catcher and center field, in particular, are areas where the Marlins find themselves with a long-term need.
David Hess To Rejoin Rays
The Rays are bringing David Hess back into the fold, per Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times (via Cathy Peek McEwen). In a corresponding move, Chris Mazza has been optioned to Triple-A, per Rays’ host Neil Solondz (via Twitter).
Hess was traded from the Rays to the Marlins earlier this season. After 14 appearances covering 18 innings with a 8.00 ERA, the Marlins designated him for assignment and he elected free agency. Hess will presumably join the Rays bullpen in the near future.
The 28-year-old Hess spent seven seasons in the Orioles organization after being selected in the fifth round of the 2014 draft. He debuted with Baltimore in 2018 and was an up-and-down member of their staff over the next three seasons, pitching to a 5.86 ERA through 190 1/3 innings.
Marlins Select Austin Pruitt
The Marlins are selecting Austin Pruitt back to the big league roster, relays Jordan McPherson of the Miami Herald (Twitter link). Pruitt had been designated for assignment and passed through outright waivers earlier this month. Righty Nick Neidert was optioned to Triple-A Jacksonville to clear an active roster spot, while the club transferred starter Cody Poteet from the 10-day to the 60-day injured list to open room on the 40-man roster.
Miami acquired Pruitt alongside Bryan de la Cruz in the trade that sent Yimi García to the Astros just before the trade deadline. Pruitt made just one appearance for the Fish before being waived, but he’s now back in the majors after a couple weeks in Jacksonville, where he made three scoreless relief appearances. If he sticks on the Marlins’ 40-man roster this time around, Pruitt can be controlled for the next few seasons via arbitration.
Pruitt worked as a swingman with the Rays between 2017-19, and Houston acquired him heading into the 2020 season as a potential option for the back of the rotation. Unfortunately, he missed all of 2020 and the first half of this season because of an elbow injury that eventually required surgery. His time as an Astro consisted of just 2 2/3 innings of relief, during which he allowed a pair of home runs. Houston designated him for assignment thereafter before including him in the García deal.
Poteet has been out since June 28 due to a right knee sprain. Today’s transfer only rules him out for sixty days from that date, so he could theoretically return by next week. The right-hander was recently shut down from his rehab assignment due to recurring inflammation in the joint, though, so it’s not clear when he’ll be healthy enough to make it back to the mound.
Examining A Potential Sandy Alcantara Extension
Last month, reports emerged that the Marlins had exchanged offers on a potential contract extension with Sandy Alcantara’s representatives at CAA Baseball. Alcantara recently reiterated his desire to work out a long-term deal with the Fish, but Barry Jackson and Craig Mish of the Miami Herald now report that Alcantara’s reps never presented him with specific terms. That seems to indicate the Marlins’ initial proposal wasn’t especially close to what Alcantara’s agents would consider a sufficient price.
It certainly wouldn’t be a surprise if the sides reengage in talks over the upcoming offseason given Alcantara’s seeming amenability to doing so. With that in mind, we’ll take a look at his situation in an attempt to gauge a potential mutually-agreeable price point.
The biggest difficulty in finding that number might be the lack of recent comparable deals. Over the past five years, only two starting pitchers with between three and four years of MLB service (as Alcantara will have this offseason) have signed extensions. In February 2017, the Cardinals and Carlos Martínez reached agreement on a five-year, $51MM guarantee with a pair of club options (valued at $17MM and $18MM, respectively) thereafter. That deal extended St. Louis’ window of control over Martínez an additional four seasons, but the Phillies only picked up an extra two seasons of control over Aaron Nola in their February 2019 extension. Nola was guaranteed $45MM for that briefer term, with his option year valued at $16MM.
Of those two hurlers, Martínez seems a more appropriate reference point for Alcantara. Both pitchers are hard-throwing sinkerballers who specialize in keeping the ball on the ground while generating whiffs at a rate closer to league average. While it might be easy to forget given his struggles in recent years, Martínez was one of the best young arms in the majors at the time he signed his deal. Between 2014-16, the Cardinals righty worked to a 3.22 ERA over 464 1/3 innings with a 22.7% strikeout rate and a massive 54.7% grounder rate. Opposing hitters batted .246/.320/.353 against Martínez during that three-year stretch.
Since the start of the 2019 campaign, Alcantara has posted a 3.59 ERA over 390 2/3 frames. He’s punched out hitters at a 19.9% clip with a 48.2% groundball percentage and a .233/.307/.378 slash line allowed. Alcantara’s platform season (3.39 ERA, 21.7% strikeout rate, 53% groundball percentage) is similar to Martínez’s 2016 campaign, albeit a tad less impressive (3.04 ERA, 21.5% strikeout rate, 56.4% grounder rate). Martínez, who was also a year younger at the time than Alcantara is now, arguably had a slightly more impressive body of work but looks like a fairly straightforward reference point.
It’s at least worth examining Nola’s pre-extension performance, but it’s clear he’s a less obvious precedent. The Phillies righty had a 3.32 ERA over his three prior seasons — right in line with those of Martínez and Alcantara — but the comparison becomes less apt from there. Nola was a far better strikeout pitcher (26.4%) and had held opposing hitters to a stifling .228/.286/.356 line between 2016-18.
More importantly, Nola’s extension came on the heels of a platform season in which he posted a 2.37 ERA over 212 1/3 frames, earning a third-place finish in NL Cy Young Award voting. Nola’s performance over his first three-plus seasons quite clearly surpasses that of Alcantara — who has been very good but hasn’t had an elite, Cy Young-caliber campaign to this point.
Martínez’s deal paid him $4.5MM for the first of his would-be arbitration seasons, followed by successive $11.5MM salaries for the remaining four years of the guarantee (plus $500K buyouts on the aforementioned pair of options). It’s possible the Marlins would prefer a more gradual escalation of salaries in any Alcantara deal, but the $10.2MM average annual value of the guaranteed years in Martínez’s contract seems a worthwhile goal for Alcantara’s reps.
Since Alcantara’s a year older than Martínez was, he may be more reluctant to sign away a fourth potential free agent year. That said, he probably doesn’t have the track record to sway the Marlins to guarantee him over $10MM per season for the right to buy out only two free agent years — as Nola did with Philadelphia. Splitting the difference, a deal that buys out three free agent seasons seems like the best fit for both parties.
Because Alcantara already has three years of team control via arbitration remaining, buying out three free agent seasons would mean a deal that extends the Marlins’ window through 2027. Miami would likely require the final two seasons to be club option years in such a scenario, given that they’re guaranteeing Alcantara more money up front than they would if they proceeded year-by-year through arbitration.
In that case, we’d wind up with four guaranteed seasons. Using the $10.2MM AAV of Martínez’s deal, that comes out to a guarantee in the $41MM range between 2022-25 with a pair of club options (likely valued around $15-18MM, as those in Martínez’s and Nola’s deals were) covering the 2026 and 2027 campaigns. That’d set Alcantara’s earning potential around $70-75MM over six seasons while positioning him to reach free agency entering his age-32 season if Miami were to exercise the options.
This is, of course, an entirely theoretical exercise. Perhaps Alcantara’s more amenable to signing away additional free agent years for immediate financial certainty. On the other hand, the Martínez extension is almost five years old, so there’s an argument Alcantara’s reps should set their sights higher in an attempt to push the market forward.
It’s also possible the team’s efforts to broker an Alcantara extension would be contingent on him signing for less than that precedent might suggest, both in light of Miami’s generally low payrolls and their enviable stockpile of other controllable starting pitchers. That said, given the seeming probability the two sides will reengage at some point, it’s worth considering a speculative framework of a potential deal to keep one of the Marlins’ All-Star starters in South Florida for the long haul.
David Hess Elects Free Agency
Marlins right-hander David Hess has rejected an outright assignment following his recent DFA and elected free agency, as first reported by Jordan McPherson of the Miami Herald (Twitter link).
Hess, 28, spent seven seasons in the Orioles organization after being selected in the fifth round of the 2014 draft. He debuted with Baltimore in 2018 and was an up-and-down member of their staff over the next three seasons, pitching to a 5.86 ERA through 190 1/3 innings.
The Orioles removed Hess from the 40-man roster after those struggles, and he quickly signed with the Rays as a minor league free agent last winter. A strong minor league start with Tampa Bay’s top affiliate this season — 32 innings, 2.81 ERA, 28.9 percent strikeout rate, 3.9 percent walk rate — led the Marlins to acquire Hess in a trade that sent minor league righty Justin Sterner to the Rays. Hess was immediately selected to the MLB roster and started out well in Miami, pitching to a 3.94 ERA with a 15-to-8 K/BB ratio through his first 16 innings. However, Hess yielded seven runs in one inning during a disastrous outing at Coors Field and ultimately finished his time with the Marlins with an 8.00 ERA through 18 frames, owing largely to that rough evening in Colorado.
While Hess has yet to find consistent big league success, he has a solid track record in the upper minors, having pitched to a 3.55 ERA with a 26 percent strikeout rate and a similarly strong 7.3 percent walk rate. He’s worked primarily out of the bullpen in recent years, although he did make a four-inning appearance with Miami earlier this year. With a solid Triple-A track record and virtually every club on the hunt for pitching depth, Hess ought to find another opportunity on a minor league deal before too long.
Outrighted: Hurst, Paulino, Morimando
A trio of players have been passed through outright waivers:
- Cardinals outfielder Scott Hurst will remain at Triple-A Memphis after he cleared waivers. Hurst made his first five big league plate appearances in April but he’s spent the past few months with Memphis. It’s been a difficult season for the lefty-hitting Hurst, who has just a .186/.289/.270 line over 251 plate appearances with the Redbirds.
- The Phillies have sent right-hander David Paulino to Triple-A Lehigh Valley. The former Astro and Blue Jay was selected to Philadelphia’s big league club last week. He got into a major league game for the first time since 2018, allowing two runs in as many innings during a loss to the Reds before being designated for assignment. The 27-year-old Paulino has spent the bulk of the year with the IronPigs, working to a 4.35 ERA over 51 2/3 innings.
- Marlins left-hander Shawn Morimando has been outrighted to Triple-A Jacksonville, according to the MLB.com transactions tracker. He has the right to elect free agency but has seemingly accepted the assignment, as he’s listed on the Jumbo Shrimp active roster. That’s not especially surprising, as Morimando had twice previously accepted outright assignments after being waived earlier in the year. The 28-year-old southpaw has a 9.58 ERA over 10 1/3 innings with the Fish this season.
Marlins Designate Deven Marrero For Assignment
The Marlins announced they’ve designated infielder Deven Marrero for assignment. Outfielder Jesús Sánchez is being reinstated from a stint on the COVID-19 injured list in a corresponding move. Miami already had a vacancy on the 40-man roster, but Marrero is out of minor league options, meaning he had to be placed on waivers in order to be bumped from the big league club.
It wouldn’t be surprising to see Marrero pass through waivers unclaimed, seeing as he’s already done so three times this season. Despite having only eleven MLB plate appearances in 2021, the 30-year-old has rather remarkably been selected and designated for assignment on four separate occasions. Each time before, he’s accepted an outright assignment to Triple-A Jacksonville in lieu of free agency.
Marrero, who’s also seen big league time with the Red Sox and Diamondbacks, has gotten more extensive playing time with Jacksonville this year. The right-handed hitter has compiled a .252/.327/.397 line across 150 plate appearances with the Jumbo Shrimp.
Marlins Activate Elieser Hernandez, Designate David Hess For Assignment
Elieser Hernandez has been reinstated off the 60-day IL and is starting today’s game for the Marlins, per Jordan McPherson of the Miami Herald. In a corresponding move, David Hess was designated for assignment, also per McPherson.
Hernandez is one of a stable of interesting young hurlers in the Miami rotation but has only been able to make a couple of starts this year because of biceps inflammation and a quad strain. Those setbacks came after the righty seemed on the verge of a breakout in 2020. In 25 2/3 innings over six starts last year, he had an ERA of 3.16, strikeout rate of 32.1% and walk rate of 4.7%. He’ll now look to get back on track over the final weeks of the season before heading to arbitration for the first time this winter.
As for Hess, he was acquired from the Rays on July 3rd and logged 18 innings in 14 games with the Marlins, primarily out of the bullpen. Unfortunately, the results haven’t been there for him. He has an unsightly ERA of 8.00, with a strikeout rate of 18.4% and walk rate of 11.5%, both of which are worse than league average. But he had much better numbers in Triple-A before the trade, throwing 32 innings with an ERA of 2.81. The strikeout and walk rates were also excellent, at 28.9% and 3.9%, respectively. Some other club could claim him and give him a shot at transferring that kind of performance to the big leagues. If he goes unclaimed, he will be able to refuse an outright assignment since he has previously been outrighted in the past.
Marlins Designate Shawn Morimando, Place Zach Pop On 10-Day Injured List
The Marlins have designated left-hander Shawn Morimando for assignment and placed righty Zach Pop on the 10-day injured list. Right-hander Jorge Guzman and left-hander Sean Guenther were called up from Triple-A to take the two spots on the active roster. (MLB.com’s Christina De Nicola was among those to report the moves.)
Pop has been sidelined with soreness in the middle finger of his throwing hand, interrupting a very respectable rookie season for the 24-year-old. Over his first 43 1/3 innings in the majors, Pop has a 4.36 ERA/4.05 SIERA, plus a 58.1% grounder rate that has continued his reputation from the minors as a groundball specialist. The Marlins landed Pop via the Rule 5 Draft (acquiring the right-hander from the Diamondbacks after Arizona drafted him out of the Orioles’ organization), and Pop has certainly pitched well enough to remain on the MLB roster for the entire season, so Miami will retain his rights going forward.
This is the second time the Marlins have DFA’ed Morimando this season, with the first designation resulting in an outright assignment to Triple-A for the southpaw. After making his big league debut with Cleveland in 2016, Morimando didn’t receive another MLB opportunity until this season, when he posted a 9.58 ERA over 10 1/3 innings for the Marlins.