- The Yankees have announced that closer Aroldis Chapman has been activated from the 10-day DL, with catcher Kyle Higashioka going down to Triple-A in a corresponding move. Chapman spent over a month on the DL due to inflammation his left rotator cuff,
Yankees Rumors
Yankees Notes: Cashman, Girardi, Machado, Luxury Tax
- Yankees GM Brian Cashman is in his last year under contract but the team will give him an extension if he wishes. The same is also true of manager Joe Girardi. The Yankees generally wait until after the season to explore new deals for management, though with the team performing so well, Cashman and Girardi both seem very likely to remain in their current positions.
- One Nationals source says the team thinks the Dodgers could be Washington’s biggest competition for Bryce Harper when the star outfielder reaches free agency after the 2018 season. Harper has seemingly been linked to the Yankees for years, though as Heyman notes, Aaron Judge’s emergence in right field could mean that New York instead pursues Manny Machado first among the star-studded 2018-19 free agent class before looking into Harper. Then again, if the Yankees are able to “get below the [luxury tax] threshold, there’s no telling what they may try to do” that winter, given how their tax penalty clock will be reset just as multiple superstar players will hit the open market.
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Yankees Rumors: Quintana, Torres
Although the Yankees are currently mired in a five-game losing streak, they’re still atop the AL East at 38-28. The likelihood is that the Bombers will end up as buyers before the trade deadline, then, and Joel Sherman of the New York Post writes that they could pursue a left-handed reliever, a starter and a first baseman in the coming weeks. With regards to the rotation, the Yankees might make a big splash by acquiring White Sox left-hander Jose Quintana, which is “a real possibility” based on long-tenured general manager Brian Cashman’s trade history, according to Sherman. Quintana is affordable, meaning landing the 28-year-old wouldn’t hinder the Yankees’ goal of getting under the luxury tax next season, and surrendering multiple prospects for him would lessen the 40-man roster crunch the team is in danger of facing in the offseason.
- Highly regarded Yankees infield prospect Gleyber Torres departed Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre’s game Saturday with a hyperextended left elbow, per an announcement for New York. X-rays were negative, but Torres will undergo further evaluation Monday. If he dodges a serious injury, it’s possible Torres will become an everyday player for the Yankees prior to the trade deadline, per Andrew Marchand of ESPN.com. There are officials within the organization who like the idea of adding even more youth to the team’s roster for the stretch run, reports Marchand, and the 20-year-old Torres would certainly provide that. In his first taste of Triple-A, Torres has slashed an impressive .304/.404/.443 in 90 plate appearances. At the same time, he’s making progress at a new position – third base – where the Yankees could stand to upgrade over Chase Headley. “I think he is taking longer at third than second,” Triple-A manager Al Pedrique told Marchand. “You can tell he is starting to figure some things out at third base.”
Yankees Could Have Interest In Howie Kendrick As 3B Option
- Phillies left fielder Howie Kendrick will intrigue both the Red Sox and Yankees if he’s able to play third, writes Cafardo. Kendrick has a bit of experience there (18 games), but the 33-year-old primarily lined up at second base before switching to the outfield. Regardless of whether a move to third is on the horizon, the righty-swinging Kendrick has emerged as a likely trade chip for rebuilding Philadelphia, suggests Cafardo (and as MLBTR’s Mark Polishuk and Jeff Todd have recently noted). Kendrick isn’t cheap ($10MM), but the impending free agent has helped his stock with a .324/.383/.467 line in 115 PAs.
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Yankees Halt Greg Bird’s Rehab Assignment, Place CC Sabathia On DL
The Yankees have “pulled the plug” on the rehabilitation efforts of first baseman Greg Bird, GM Brian Cashman tells Erik Boland of Newsday. New York has now announced that move, while also placing lefty CC Sabathia on the 10-day DL — as had been expected — and optioning righty Ronald Herrera.
Heading up to the active roster are righties Luis Cessa and Domingo German. The former will enter the rotation for at least one start, Boland tweets.
Bird, 24, raised expectations with a thrilling debut in 2015, then missed all of last year after shoulder surgery. Hopes were high that he’d lock down the first base job in the Bronx, but he struggled before hitting the DL with a bone bruise in his right ankle.
Now, a setback has Bird heading to visit with team doctor Christopher Ahmad tomorrow. Per Cashman, Bird reports that his “leg isn’t feeling right and not functioning right.” That has been reflected in his numbers; through six games at Triple-A, he’s slashing just .143/.357/.238 — with seven walks against just three strikeouts but also only three hits in 28 plate appearances.
With Bird’s outlook in question and Chris Carter struggling in his stead, New York is facing some questions at first base. But Carter has hit much better of late — .263/.333/.447 since the calendar flipped to June — and it stands to reason that the organization will have a variety of options at the trade deadline. Finding a left-handed bat would seem to make the most sense.
Draft Notes: Lewis, McKay, Day 2, Gore, Greene, Wright, Beck
No. 1 overall draft pick Royce Lewis will take his physical with the Twins soon, tweets Mike Berardino of the St. Paul Pioneer Press. There aren’t expected to be any hangups in negotiations, per Berardino, who notes that the industry expectation is for Lewis to receive a bonus north of Dansby Swanson’s $6.5MM bonus from the 2015 draft. The top pick in the draft came with a slot value of $7.7MM, and MLB.com’s Rhett Bollinger wrote this week that Lewis could sign for around $1MM less than that sum. That’d put his bonus in the $6.5MM to $6.7MM range, saving the Twins anywhere from $1MM to $1.2MM from the slot value. FanRag’s Jon Heyman pegs the expected value at “just a tick over” $6.7MM. Rays top pick Brendan McKay, meanwhile, is expected to sign for somewhere between $7MM and $7.2MM, according to Berardino. That’d be the largest bonus ever given to a college player under the current draft structure, surpassing Kris Bryant’s $6.7MM sum.
More notes on the draft…
- The Twins “crushed” Day 2 of the draft, MLB.com’s Jim Callis opines. Adding high school right-hander Blayne Enlow, a potential first-round talent that dropped due to a strong commitment to LSU, kicked off a day in which Minnesota selected five players that ranked inside MLB.com’s top 200 draft prospects. Enlow, Callis writes, has the best curveball in the draft as well as a fastball that has touched 94 mph and has room to grow as his projectable frame grows. Callis also lauds the White Sox, Dodgers, Red Sox and Brewers for the talent they secured in rounds three through 10. ESPN’s Keith Law agrees that the Twins did quite well to land Enlow with the No. 76 pick and also gives quite a bit of praise to the Athletics, who landed a first-round talent (in his estimation) with the 81st pick by taking shortstop Nick Allen. Law opines that the undersized Allen, who is listed at 5’8″, would’ve been a top 10 pick if he were three inches taller.
- FanRag’s Jon Heyman provides some insight into the progress being made with the top five picks in the draft. The Padres, according to Heyman, are expected to sign No. 3 overall pick MacKenzie Gore, a high school left-hander, for the full slot value of $6,668,100. Reds top pick Hunter Greene, meanwhile, is expected to sign for a deal “close” to the $7,193,200 slot value of his No. 2 overall selection, per Heyman. (Also of note for Reds fans: Heyman spoke to a rival exec who heaped praise on the Reds’ draft, opining that they “won the draft by far.”) And the Braves look to be going well over slot to sign Vanderbilt right-hander Kyle Wright, as Heyman reports that they’re discussing a deal worth close to $7MM, while the No. 5 slot carries a value of $5,707,300. Of course, Wright was long rumored to be a potential No. 1 overall pick, so it stands to reason that he’d come with a fairly sizable price tag.
- Baseball America’s John Manuel reported yesterday that Stanford right-hander Tristan Beck, a potential first-round talent that missed the 2017 season due to a stress fracture in his lower back, will not sign and plans to head back to Stanford (Twitter link). That didn’t stop the Yankees from drafting him late (29th round), though New York would obviously need to give him a massive bonus in order to convince him to forgo a return to college, as a healthy Beck would do quite well in next year’s draft. The Yankees may not have the leftover money even to make a legitimate effort to sign Beck, though he makes for a nice contingency plan if the team unexpectedly finds itself with some extra pool money to play with.
CC Sabathia Diagnosed With Grade 2 Hamstring Strain
The Yankees have announced that lefty CC Sabathia has been diagnosed with a grade 2 strain of his hamstring after undergoing an MRI, as WFAN’s Sweeny Murti tweets. While no official move has been made, it seems clear that Sabathia will require a DL stint.
An expected timetable isn’t yet known, but in all likelihood the Yankees will need to cover at least a handful of starts. As you might expect, a grade 2 strain falls in the middle of the severity chart, representing a partial tear of the muscle. Many other details of the injury, along with the individual’s actual progress, will obviously bear on the amount of rest that’s required.
It’s obviously unfortunate news for Sabathia, who was off to a rather impressive start to the year even as he closes in on his 37th birthday. Through 75 1/3 innings, he owns a 3.46 ERA with 7.4 K/9 and 2.9 BB/9, including a stellar 0.99 ERA over his past six trips to the hill. While he’s obviously not likely to return to his former dominance, the veteran has shown himself more than capable of being a productive rotation member while preparing to re-enter the open market at season’s end.
The injury comes at an interesting time for the Yankees, who currently pace the AL East by three games. While the organization has emphasized its desire to build for the long run, it’d be hard to pass up entirely on a chance to capitalize on that kind of position. Generally, then, the Yanks are lining up as deadline buyers, even if they shouldn’t be expected to push in significant chips for rental players.
Though the staff has been a rather pleasant surprise, the depth has always been somewhat in question. The club has used just five pitchers for all but one start thus far, but that’ll soon change. With questions also hanging over the struggling Masahiro Tanaka, and long-term rotation openings also factoring into the equation, it’ll be interesting to see whether New York ends up wading into the starting pitching market this summer.
It’s not yet clear who’ll take over for Sabathia in the meantime, though at least that’ll give the club a chance to take a closer look at another arm. Chad Green has already made one start this year and could move over from the bullpen. Luis Cessa and Domingo German are other 40-man members with MLB experience.
Yankees Acquire Matt Frawley From Pirates
The Yankees announced that they’ve acquired minor league right-hander Matt Frawley from the Pirates to complete the April 17 trade that sent right-hander Johnny Barbato to Pittsburgh in exchange for a player to be named later. Frawley, 21, will be assigned to the Yankees’ Class-A affiliate in Charleston.
Frawley was Pittsburgh’s 17th-round selection in last year’s draft and has gotten off to a fine start in his pro career. After posting a 4.18 ERA though 28 innings with Pittsburgh’s short-season Class-A affiliate in 2016, he’s tossed 33 1/3 innings of 1.62 ERA ball with 8.6 K/9 against 1.1 BB/9 in with Class-A West Virginia in the South Atlantic League thus far in 2017. The Purdue product isn’t especially young for that level, however, so it’ll be more telling to see how he performs against higher levels of competition. Baseball Amercia wrote at the time of the draft that he sits in the low 90s with his fastball and has a fringy curveball as well.
The 24-year-old Barbato has logged 22 1/3 innings with the Pirates this year, resulting in an uninspiring 4.84 ERA with 6.9 K/9, 5.2 BB/9 and a 35.2 percent ground-ball rate. Barbato has averaged better than 94 mph on his fastball and does come with a strong Triple-A track record, though, so the Pirates have plenty of time to turn him around into a more serviceable member of the big league bullpen.
Yankees Outright Tommy Layne
- The Yankees announced that they’ve outrighted southpaw Tommy Layne to Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre. Layne, 32, thrived in the Bronx following a midseason pickup in 2016, but he’s had a rough go of it in 2017. Thus far, he’s totaled 13 innings and been tagged for 11 runs on 16 hits and eight walks with nine strikeouts. Layne has been hit hard by lefties and righties alike, but he’s held same-handed opponents to a .187/.286/.230 line through 346 big league plate appearances.
Yankees Designate Tommy Layne For Assignment
The Yankees have designated left-handed reliever Tommy Layne for assignment, reports Bryan Hoch of MLB.com (on Twitter). In a corresponding move, the team has recalled Triple-A right-hander Domingo German.
The 32-year-old Layne joined the Yankees last August after the division-rival Red Sox designated him, and his first taste of action with the Bombers went well. Layne tossed 16 innings of 3.38 ERA ball, generated ground balls at a 46.5 percent clip and posted 7.31 K/9 against 3.94 BB/9. Most impressively, Layne held the 38 lefty-swingers he faced to a .147/.237/.147 line.
Layne’s initial work with the Yankees earned him a roster spot this season, but he has been among the few weak links in one of the majors’ top bullpens. Prior to his designation, Layne logged a 7.62 ERA, 6.23 K/9 and 5.54 BB/9 over 13 frames. He also experienced a dip in velocity, saw his swinging-strike rate drop from 8.9 percent last year to 6.6 percent this season and was subpar against the 26 same-handed hitters he faced (.318/.423/.409).
