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MLB Daily Roster Roundup: Matz, Miller, Pham, Pillar

By | at August 3, 2018 11:33pm CDT

ROSTER MOVES BY TEAM
(August 3rd)

NATIONAL LEAGUE

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AMERICAN LEAGUE

  • CLEVELAND INDIANS | Depth Chart
    • Activated from 60-Day DL: RP Andrew Miller
    • Designated for assignment: RP Zach McAllister
    • Injury news: OF Tyler Naquin is likely out for the remainder of the season after undergoing hip surgery. He is currently on the 10-Day DL.

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FUTURE EXPECTED MOVES

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MLB Daily Roster Roundup: Frazier, Happ, LeMahieu, Turner, Syndergaard

By | at August 2, 2018 10:43pm CDT

ROSTER MOVES BY TEAM
(August 1st-August 2nd)

NATIONAL LEAGUE

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AMERICAN LEAGUE

  • MINNESOTA TWINS | Depth Chart
    • Added to 25-man roster: INF Logan Forsythe
      • Forsythe grounded out as a pinch-hitter in his Twins debut on Wednesday.

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FUTURE EXPECTED MOVES

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How Might Things Play Out For Josh Donaldson?

By | at August 2, 2018 8:44am CDT

The thought long was that Blue Jays third baseman Josh Donaldson would be a major trade chip for the team if things went awry in 2018. While the Toronto organization is well into a sell-off, however, Donaldson remains. That’s due largely to the fact that he hasn’t played since the end of May, with a setback in his rehab from a calf injury keeping him on the shelf through the non-waiver trade deadline.

Donaldson has “made a ton of progress” of late, per GM Ross Atkins (via Sportsnet’s Ben Nicholson-Smith, on Twitter), so he seems likely to feature heavily in August trade talks. Indeed, the Jays have already had plenty of talks involving the star third baseman, Atkins also noted (via Sportsnet’s Shi Davidi, on Twitter). Of course, we’re still talking about a player who was perhaps the best in all of baseball (non-Trout division) over the prior three seasons. If he can get back to full health, Donaldson could be a difference-maker down the stretch and into the postseason for the right organization.

Given the complications of dealmaking in August, though, how might all this play out?

[RELATED: How August Trades Work]

There are innumerable variables at play here. Donaldson will need not only to get healthy — he also dealt with significant shoulder problems earlier in the year — but restore his performance in order to bring back real value. Through 159 plate appearances on the season, he was hitting a respectable .234/.333/.423 while playing average defense, levels at which he’s a quality but hardly world-beating performer.

Before organizations considering Donaldson can get a look, though, they may first face a decision on whether to roll the dice on claiming him. This is perhaps the most interesting aspect of the entire situation for the former AL MVP.

Since he has already been on the disabled list for sixty days, Donaldson can be placed on waivers once he’s ready to play on a rehab assignment. At that point, which may come sooner than later, the pending free agent will be expensive (around $7MM of his $23MM salary remains to be paid as of this writing) and plenty risky. Rival teams will know that he’s at least healthy enough to get back on the field, but won’t be sure he’s over the injury and up to full speed (let alone that he’s in top form).

At first glance, the presumption would be that non-contenders wouldn’t have any reason to place a claim on such a player. Then again, as the Phillies showed last year, it may be unwise to assume that a creative front office won’t see an angle here.

It’s important to note that Donaldson will be available first to American League teams, in reverse order of record at the time the request for waivers is submitted. If none of the non-contenders intercede, the Indians are quite likely to have the first crack at him. The Cleveland organization presently sits 3.5 games behind the Mariners and A’s (the club that memorably dealt Donaldson to Toronto). As it turns out, the Indians could certainly still stand to add a major piece to their lineup and could easily slot Donaldson in at third base while bumping star Jose Ramirez to second and pushing Jason Kipnis into a utility role.

Of course, the remaining salary is a hefty sum — particularly for the Indians — in light of the multiple elements of uncertainty here. If the Cleveland org passes, then the rest of the American League contenders could win the claim instead, or Donaldson could be claimed by an organization on the NL side (who’ll also be ordered from worst to best in priority).

Winning a revocable August claim, of course, doesn’t mean that a team gets the player. Rather, it only gives the claiming organization a chance to work out a deal with the team that sought waivers, which has the election of pulling the player back (after which point only irrevocable waivers may be sought), working out a trade, or simply letting him go for free.

In this case, despite Donaldson’s struggles and injury questions, the Jays could well hold out for a real return. The organization won’t likely be desperate to dump the salary. And it may view a qualifying offer at season’s end as a reasonable alternative to a deal. After all, Donaldson would represent a nice risk even at the hefty single-season QO rate (likely in the $18MM range this offseason). And if he declines the Jays would stand to pick up some draft compensation in a year in which they’ll have some decent draft capital to work with.

[RELATED: The New Qualifying Offer Rules]

Supposing that Donaldson does end up passing through waivers unclaimed, we’ll end up watching his rehab and eventual return quite closely. If that occurs, the Jays will be able to auction the star third bagger off to the highest bidder at the end of the month. While it was quite a different situation in many respects, the Justin Verlander trade last August shows that it’s still possible to get notable returns in August. Donaldson would be a pure rental asset who lacks no-trade protection, so he’d be much simpler to market than was Verlander.

The optimal outcome from the Blue Jays’ perspective is for Donaldson to clear waivers, return to action, put up vintage JD output for a few weeks, and then draw huge interest from a variety of contenders at the end of the month. That’s plausible, though by no means guaranteed.

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MLBTR Originals Toronto Blue Jays

How August Trades Work

By | at August 1, 2018 10:49am CDT

Now that the July 31st non-waiver trade deadline has passed, teams can still make trades, only with more restrictions than before.  The full list of rules surrounding post-deadline trades have, of course, been shared elsewhere, most notably in an article by Jayson Stark (then with ESPN.com) from all the way back in 2004, and in greater detail at Cub Reporter. Since the rules surrounding August deals are confusing, though, they’re worth reviewing here.

  • After the trade deadline, a big-league player must pass through revocable waivers before his team can trade him without restriction. These waivers last 47 hours. If no one claims him in that period, his team can trade him anywhere.
  • If a player is claimed, his team can do one of three things. It can trade the player to the claiming team, revoke the waiver request (in which case the player will remain with his original team), or simply allow the claiming team to take the player and his salary (although a player with no-trade rights can block this from happening).
  • A recent example of an August trade that developed from a waiver claim was the Mariners’ acquisition of Arquimedes Caminero from the Pirates in 2016.  The Mariners claimed Caminero and then worked out a deal with the Bucs to bring the right-hander to Seattle for two players to be named later. An example of a claim that didn’t result in a trade occurred in 2015, when an unknown team claimed Brewers reliever Francisco Rodriguez. The two sides couldn’t strike a deal, so the Brewers revoked their waiver request, and K-Rod remained in Milwaukee. Examples of teams simply letting players go via revocable waivers are more rare, particularly with big-contract players. That being said, it is always possible; in 2009, the White Sox claimed Alex Rios from the Blue Jays, who simply let him go to Chicago without a trade. The White Sox were thus responsible for all of the approximately $62MM remaining on Rios’ contract.
  • A team has 48.5 hours to trade a claimed player, and can only negotiate with the team awarded the claim on him.
  • It’s common for teams to place players on revocable waivers, and their having done so does not necessarily mean they have serious plans to trade them. As Stark points out, teams commonly use waivers of certain players purely as smokescreens to disguise which players they really are interested in trading. In fact, sometimes teams place their entire rosters on waivers.
  • If more than one team claims a player, priority is determined by worst record to best record in the league of the waiving team, followed by worst record to best record in the other league. For example, if an NL team places a player on revocable waivers, the team with the NL’s worst record will get first priority on claims, followed by every other team in the NL from worst to best, followed by AL teams from worst to best.
  • If a team pulls a player back from waivers once, it cannot do so again in August. So if a team places a player on waivers for a second time, those waivers will be non-revocable.
  • Players not on 40-man rosters are eligible to be traded at any time without passing through waivers.
  • A player on the disabled list can only pass through waivers if his minimum period of inactivity has passed and he is healthy and able to play at his accustomed level.
  • Teams can still make trades in September, but players acquired after August 31st can’t play in the postseason.

Due to the number of restrictions in place, it has long been relatively rare to see trades of real significance go down in August. But that all changed last year in a wild month of action. A variety of notable players were moved during August of 2017, most famously including Justin Verlander, who ultimately helped lead the Astros to a World Series victory. Justin Upton, Mike Leake, Neil Walker, Jay Bruce, Yonder Alonso, Brandon Phillips, Rajai Davis, Curtis Granderson, Tyler Clippard, and Sean Rodriguez were among the others that were swapped.

While that easily represented the most notable August trade season we’ve yet encountered at MLBTR, in terms of both quality and quantity of action, it didn’t contain the single most monumental transaction in the run-up to a waiver deadline. Rather, the biggest August trade in recent memory remains the nine-player swap between the Dodgers and Red Sox in 2012 that saw Adrian Gonzalez, Carl Crawford and Josh Beckett head to L.A.  That ground-shifting deal not only launched a Dodgers resurgence, but also allowed the Red Sox to clear tens of millions in salary commitments off their books, paving the way for the team to reload in the offseason and go on to win the 2013 World Series.

This post is adapted from a prior series of posts.

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MLBTR Originals

MLB Daily Roster Roundup: Martinez, Paxton, Rendon, Sale, Trade Acquisitions

By | at July 31, 2018 10:22pm CDT

ROSTER MOVES BY TEAM
(July 30th-July 31st)

NATIONAL LEAGUE

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AMERICAN LEAGUE

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FUTURE EXPECTED MOVES

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Daily Roster Roundup MLBTR Originals

MLB Weekend Roster Roundup: Altuve, Devers, Dickerson, Puig

By | at July 29, 2018 9:47pm CDT

ROSTER MOVES BY TEAM
(July 28th-July 29th)

NATIONAL LEAGUE

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AMERICAN LEAGUE

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FUTURE EXPECTED MOVES

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Daily Roster Roundup MLBTR Originals

MLB Daily Roster Roundup: Escobar, Hamels, Judge, Lamb

By | at July 27, 2018 9:35pm CDT

ROSTER MOVES BY TEAM
(July 27th)

NATIONAL LEAGUE

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AMERICAN LEAGUE

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FUTURE EXPECTED MOVES

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Daily Roster Roundup MLBTR Originals

MLB Daily Roster Roundup: Belt, Bryant, Eovaldi, Longoria, Strasburg

By | at July 27, 2018 12:18am CDT

ROSTER MOVES BY TEAM
(July 25th-26th)

NATIONAL LEAGUE

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AMERICAN LEAGUE

  • LOS ANGELES ANGELS | Depth Chart
    • Promoted: C Francisco Arcia (contract purchased)
      • Arcia was the catcher and batted 8th in his MLB debut on Thursday.
    • Reinstated from Restricted List: RP Dayan Diaz
      • Diaz was optioned to High-A.

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FUTURE EXPECTED MOVES

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Daily Roster Roundup MLBTR Originals Uncategorized

MLB Daily Roster Roundup: Cespedes, Guerra, Pomeranz, Sanchez

By | at July 24, 2018 11:56pm CDT

ROSTER MOVES BY TEAM
(July 24th)

NATIONAL LEAGUE

  • ST. LOUIS CARDINALS | Depth Chart
    • Promoted: SP Austin Gomber
      • Gomber made his 1st MLB start on Tuesday.
    • Optioned: SP Daniel Poncedeleon
      • Poncedeleon pitched 7 no-hit innings in his MLB debut on Monday (3 K, 3 BB).

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AMERICAN LEAGUE

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FUTURE EXPECTED MOVES

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Daily Roster Roundup MLBTR Originals

MLB Daily Roster Roundup: Pujols, Snell, Syndergaard, Turner

By | at July 23, 2018 10:03pm CDT

ROSTER MOVES BY TEAM
(July 23rd)

NATIONAL LEAGUE

  • ST. LOUIS CARDINALS | Depth Chart
    • Placed on 10-Day DL: 2B Kolten Wong (knee inflammation)
    • Promoted: SP Daniel Poncedeleon
      • Poncedeleon pitched 7 no-hit innings in his MLB debut on Monday (3 K, 3 BB).

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AMERICAN LEAGUE

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FUTURE EXPECTED MOVES

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Daily Roster Roundup MLBTR Originals
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