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Yankees Activate Giancarlo Stanton

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Giancarlo Stanton has officially been activated from the 60-day injured list, the Yankees announced Wednesday. In order to open a spot on the 40-man roster, the Yankees placed Dellin Betances on the 60-day IL. Betances suffered a partial tear of his Achilles tendon in his first appearance of the 2019 season.

Stanton’s return to the lineup — he’s batting fifth and playing left field tonight — is a more-than-welcome sight for the injury-plagued Yankees. However, Stanton won’t play a full game tonight and will seemingly be eased back into the mix. Manager Aaron Boone told reporters that the slugger will play only four to five innings to get some at-bats under his belt (Twitter link via Bryan Hoch of MLB.com). Stanton could play a full game as a DH on Thursday, though.

While Stanton’s first year in the Bronx didn’t quite live up to the MVP standard he set in 2017, he nevertheless proved to be a force in the middle of a potent Yankees lineup. In 705 plate appearances (158 games) last season, Stanton hit .266/.343/.509 with 38 home runs, 34 doubles and a triple. He’s been limited to just nine games in 2019 thanks to a biceps strain and a knee strain, but he’ll now have a couple of weeks to ramp back up to game speed as the Yankees prepare for the American League Division Series. New York has lost Mike Tauchman for the season and isn’t likely to get Aaron Hicks back, either, so Stanton will be in line for regular work in left field with Brett Gardner lining up in center and Aaron Judge manning right field.

Blue Jays Claim Ryan Dull

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The Blue Jays have claimed right-handed reliever Ryan Dull off waivers from the Yankees, per announcements from both teams. Lefty Tim Mayza, who suffered a torn ulnar collateral ligament over the weekend, was transferred to the 60-day injured list in a corresponding roster move.

Dull, 29, has bounced from the A’s, to the Giants, to the Yankees and now to the Blue Jays via waivers in the past six weeks alone. The righty hasn’t had success in the Majors or in Triple-A this season, but he’s only a few seasons removed from looking like a quality bullpen piece in Oakland. While Dull has been tagged for 17 earned runs through just 11 1/3 innings in the big leagues this year and also has a 5.29 ERA across three Triple-A affiliates, he was one of Oakland’s best relievers back in 2016. That year, he tossed 74 1/3 innings of 2.42 ERA ball with nearly a strikeout per frame and just 1.8 BB/9.

Injuries have hit Dull rather hard since that breakout campaign. A knee injury limited him to a total of 45 2/3 innings in 2017, and shoulder trouble hindered him in 2018. Multiple clubs have been willing to dedicate a roster spot to taking a shot at getting Dull back into form, though, and the Jays will now try their hand. Dull does have a minor league option remaining beyond the current season, so the Jays could certainly carry that experiment over to the 2020 campaign if they’re willing to carry Dull on the roster all winter. He’ll be arbitration-eligible this offseason but played the 2019 season on just an $860K salary, so his price tag wouldn’t be prohibitive.

Giancarlo Stanton Nearing Return

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Outfielder Giancarlo Stanton is one of several high-profile Yankees whom injuries have stunted this year, but with the playoffs around the corner, the former MVP’s on his way back. The Yankees will activate Stanton from the injured list Wednesday or Thursday, manager Aaron Boone told Bryan Hoch of MLB.com and other reporters. The team doesn’t expect Stanton to be limited at all when he comes back, according to Boone.

Despite almost no contributions this year from Stanton, a four-time All-Star who was the Yankees’ signature acquisition going into the 2018 campaign, the club has thrived this season. Even though multiple injuries have held Stanton to 38 plate appearances in 2019, the Yankees (98-53) are in a tie with the Astros for the majors’ best record, and they’re shoo-ins to win their first American League East title since 2012. Stanton hasn’t played since he suffered a strained PCL in his right knee June 25. Before that, biceps, shoulder and calf problems shelved him for roughly two and a half months.

The Stanton-less Yankees have unexpectedly gotten terrific production from once-unheralded pickups Mike Tauchman and Cameron Maybin in the outfield, while holdovers Aaron Judge, Brett Gardner and Aaron Hicks have done good work yet again. However, both Tauchman and Hicks are likely done for the season with injuries of their own, which should make Stanton’s return all the more important for New York as it chases its first World Series title since 2009.

Yankees Activate Luis Severino, Designate Breyvic Valera

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The Yankees announced Tuesday that they’ve reinstated Luis Severino from the 60-day injured list. In order to open a spot on the 40-man roster, New York has designated infielder Breyvic Valera for assignment.

Severino’s return to the rotation tonight will be a boon for a Yankees club that has seen its starters struggle immensely in the season’s second half. If Severino is able to quickly round back into form, he’ll surely play a prominent role in the team’s postseason pitching plans. The 25-year-old righty, who signed a four-year, $40MM contract extension in the offseason, has yet to pitch this season due to shoulder and lat injuries but gave the Yankees 384 2/3 innings of 3.18 ERA ball (3.01 FIP) with 10.5 K/9 against 2.3 BB/9 from 2017-18.

The 27-year-old Valera, claimed off waivers from the Giants earlier this season, appeared in a dozen games for the Yankees and hit .219/.324/.313 in 37 plate appearances. He’s appeared with four different big league teams in the past three seasons, having also spent time with the Orioles, Dodgers and Cardinals. (Valera never played in the Majors with the Giants.) Los Angeles sent him to Baltimore in last summer’s Manny Machado swap, though it was clear at the time of the deal that he wasn’t as well regarded as the younger players sent to the O’s in that trade.

In parts of four Triple-A seasons, Valera has a .302/.374/.442 batting line. He’s spent the bulk of his career in the minors at second base but also has 1434 innings at shortstop, 823 innings at third base, 932 innings in left field, 303 innings in right field and 68 innings in center under his belt. Valera will be out of minor league options next season, so any club that claims him would either have to include him on 2020’s Opening Day roster or attempt to pass him through waivers themselves.

Edwin Encarnacion Expects To Return Before End Of Regular Season

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Alarm bells were raised when Yankees slugger Edwin Encarnacion turned up with an oblique strain recently, as a significant version of that injury could easily spell a lengthy absence. But the progress has been so promising that the veteran says he believes he’ll return to the field of play in the next two weeks, as MLB.com’s Bryan Hoch covers on Twitter.

Encarnacion, 36, says that he’s “feeling better every day.” So long as he continues to ramp up, he ought to have a chance to pick up some plate appearances before the club wraps up play on the 29th. It doesn’t matter much to the Yanks whether they have Encarnacion’s bat in the lineup down the stretch, but the club will certainly hope to have him at full speed in the postseason.

The Yanks still have quite a few interesting potential roster questions to resolve before playoff action gets underway. Giancarlo Stanton joins Encarnacion as a rehabbing righty power bat, with a bevy of other possibilities for roster spots. And the team has a variety of hurlers — Luis Severino, Dellin Betances, Jordan Montgomery — trying to show they’re ready to roll, with other pitchers waiting in the wings.

One of those other key players, Betances, just had his first outing. As Hoch tweets, the power righty was not only happy with the outing — he struck out the two batters he faced — but how he feels the day after. Montgomery’s own season debut wasn’t quite so promising, as he gave up three earned in two innings. Both pitchers worked well below their previously established levels of fastball velocity. Severino will take the ball in the majors tomorrow for the first time this year.

Yankees Designate Ryan Dull; Activate Betances, Montgomery

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The Yankees announced they have designated right-handed reliever Ryan Dull for assignment. That, coupled with the transfer of Jonathan Holder to the 60-day injured list, clears roster space for the previously-reported activations of Dellin Betances and Jordan Mongtomery from the IL.

Betances is the most notable name in today’s series of transactions. The fireballer has missed the entire season to date with a shoulder injury. Notably, he tells Erik Boland of Newsday (via Twitter) that he’s still not up to full strength, although he expressed optimism he’ll be 100% by the end of the regular season. Betances’ progress will be one of the stretch run’s biggest health situations to monitor, as the hulking righty will be elligible for free agency at season’s end, which both player and team surely hope won’t come until after a lengthy postseason run for the soon-to-be AL East champs.

It has been an even longer absence for Montgomery, who hasn’t toed an MLB mound since undergoing Tommy John surgery last June. As a rookie in 2017, Montgomery started 29 games and pitched to a better-than-average 3.88 ERA with solid peripherals. It’ll be interesting to see how the Bombers build him up down the stretch and what role, if any, he’ll play in the postseason.

Those returns to health come at the expense of Dull, a 29 year-old righty. He was blasted in three games as a Yankee, continuing a disappointing season. Dull has never followed up on a 2016 season in which he pitched to a 2.42 ERA in 74.1 innings in Oakland. He does come with one more option year and throws the same 91 MPH fastball he had in his breakthrough effort in the Bay Area, so Dull should still hold some appeal as a depth piece this offseason.

Holder was initially shelved in August with right shoulder inflammation. A longshot to make the Yankees’ postseason roster even when healthy, this almost certainly concludes a trying season for the 26 year-old, who pitched to a 6.31 ERA despite serviceable strikeout (25.4%) and walk (6.1%) rates.

Yankees To Activate Dellin Betances

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Dellin Betances is on his way to Toronto. The Yankees plan to activate the right-hander tomorrow, per James Wagner of the New York Times (via Twitter), and he should be available out of the pen for the series finale versus the Blue Jays.

Betances was a key piece of the Yankees’ bullpen from 2014 to 2018, appearing in no less than 66 games in each of the five seasons prior to 2019. He was diagnosed with a bone spur in his shoulder way back in April, an injury that at the time was expected to keep him out until June.

If Betances finds his stride in relative short order, he represents a significant weapon for Aaron Boone’s bullpen. The 31-year-old right-hander clocked 11.6 fWAR while appearing in 357 games in his Yankee career. Since establishing himself as a mainstay in 2014, Betances has a 2.22 ERA/2.26 FIP with 14.6 K/9 versus 3.9 BB/9.

In his latest rehab outing, Betances was hitting 92-94 mph on the gun, per Wagner. The Yankees hope to get him back up to speed over the final two weeks of the season.

AL East Notes: Rays, Yanks, Red Sox, Hazen, Mayza

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The latest on four of the American League East’s five teams…

  • As of three weeks ago, the Rays expected injured infielder Brandon Lowe to miss the rest of the regular season. That might not happen, though, as manager Kevin Cash suggested Friday that Lowe and right-hander Yonny Chirinos could return, Juan Toribio of MLB.com tweets. Lowe was amid one of the league’s best rookie seasons when he went down July 3 with a shin injury, while Chirinos was among the Rays’ top starters before landing on the shelf Aug. 5 with a finger injury. Despite their ongoing absences, Tampa Bay continues to hold an American League wild-card spot, albeit by the thinnest of margins. The Rays are a half-game up on the Indians for the league’s No. 5 seed.
  • It’s in question how much more the injury-plagued Yankees will get from catcher Gary Sanchez and designated hitter/first baseman Edwin Encarnacion this season. Sanchez suffered a strained groin Thursday, per Kristie Ackert of the New York Daily News. The Yankees are “hopeful” he’ll come back this year, Ackert writes. Meanwhile, Encarnacion incurred a mild internal oblique strain Thursday, though it’s not yet clear how much time Encarnacion will miss. The 36-year-old already sat out almost all of August because of a fractured right wrist.
  • Diamondbacks general manager Mike Hazen was a speculative target for the Red Sox after they fired president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski on Sunday. But Hazen, who worked under Dombrowski in Boston before going to Arizona in 2016, is officially out of the picture after signing an extension Friday. Even before Hazen agreed to that deal, the Red Sox didn’t reach out to the Diamondbacks to request an interview, Alex Speier of the Boston Globe reports. Extension or not, Hazen was already under contract with the D-backs, so they could have shot down the Red Sox had they approached the Snakes with interest in talking to him.
  • Reliever Tim Mayza left the Blue Jays’ win over the Yankees on Friday with a left elbow injury, the team announced. It was an ugly scene: Mayza threw a pitch way behind New York shortstop Didi Gregorius, went to the ground clutching his forearm and looked to be in tears (video via Keegan Matheson of MLB.com). Mayza will undergo an MRI to determine the severity of the injury, Shi Davidi of Sportsnet relays, but it won’t be a surprise if his wayward pitch to Gregorius goes down as his last of 2019. At this point, Mayza and the Jays are surely hoping the issue doesn’t prove severe enough to shelve him for any portion of next season.

Jordan Montgomery To Make Season Debut This Weekend

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Yankees left-hander Jordan Montgomery hasn’t taken a major league mound since May 1, 2018, but he’s on the verge of making a long-awaited return. Montgomery is expected to make his season debut “in some capacity” this Sunday, James Wagner of the New York Times reports. Meanwhile, fellow lefty J.A. Happ just had a cortisone shot in his biceps, but manager Aaron Boone said he should make a start next week.

Considering he hasn’t pitched in the majors in almost two full seasons, Montgomery has become somewhat of a forgotten Yankee. But before Montgomery underwent Tommy John surgery in June 2018, he looked like a quality homegrown arm for New York. Montgomery, a fourth-round pick of the Yankees in 2014, debuted in 2017 and proceeded to amass 182 2/3 innings and 35 starts of 3.84 ERA/4.09 FIP ball with 8.23 K/9 and 3.1 BB/9 through last season.

Now, with the playoffs just a couple weeks away, it’s unclear whether Montgomery will factor into the Yankees’ plans when they try to charge toward a World Series in October. On the other hand, a healthy Happ will definitely be someone the team counts on during the fall. Happ exited his start Thursday with a biceps issue, but it seems the Yankees – whom injuries have haunted all season – dodged a serious problem in his case.

Yankees Outright Adonis Rosa

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The Yankees announced today that they have outrighted right-hander Adonis Rosa. He cleared waivers after recently being designated for assignment.

Rosa, 24, was one of several hurlers cycled into the Yanks’ pen this year before being dropped from the 40-man roster. It’d be hard to glean much of anything from his lone appearance, in which he averaged a marginal 90 mph on his fastball but did manage some swings and misses (15.6%) in a two-inning sample.

More broadly, Rosa has shown more in his 93 career Triple-A innings. He’s a 3.58 ERA pitcher at the highest level of the minors, albeit with an unremarkable combination of 7.0 K/9 against 2.1 BB/9

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