Matt Bowman Opts Out Of Yankees Deal
Right-hander Matt Bowman has opted out of his minor league deal with the Yankees, per MLB.com’s Mark Feinsand. If the Yankees don’t add Bowman to the club’s 40-man roster within the next 72 hours, Bowman will return to the open market.
A 13th round pick by the Mets in the 2012 draft, Bowman made his major league debut with the Cardinals in 2016. From 2016-19, Bowman posted a 4.02 ERA (105 ERA+) and 3.68 FIP across 181 innings of work between the St. Louis and Cincinnati bullpens. Bowman didn’t appear in an affiliated game from 2020-2022 due to the shortened 2020 campaign and the Tommy John surgery he underwent in September of that year.
After landing with the Yankees on a minor league deal, he returned to pro-ball at the Triple-A level with the club earlier this season. In 38 1/3 innings of work at Triple-A this season, Bowman has posted solid numbers. He sports a 3.29 ERA with a solid 22% strikeout rate and strong 59.6% groundball rate, albeit with a less impressive walk rate of 11%.
Despite Bowman’s solid performance at the Triple-A level, it’s unclear if the Yankees will make room for him on the 40-man or allow him to walk in free agency. New York sports MLB’s best bullpen ERA with a 3.16 figure, while Yankees relievers rank a solid 4th in the NL with 2.9 fWAR this season. Given the solid performances not only from back-end arms like Clay Holmes and Michael King but even relievers like Nick Ramirez and Ian Hamilton in the middle innings, the club may simply not have room in their bullpen for Bowman, though the right-hander does have a minor league option remaining.
If Bowman does reach the open market, he’s sure to garnet interest from relief-needy clubs thanks to the 32-year-old hurler’s combination of strong results at Triple-A this year and track record of success in the big leagues when healthy. With the trade deadline just two weeks away, plenty of clubs are likely to be shuffling their relief corps in the near future, whether to accommodate a newly-acquired arm or after dealing away an established reliever. That could create opportunity for Bowman to crack an MLB roster and return to a major league mound for the first time since 2019.
Yankees Sign Jake Lamb To Minor League Deal
The Yankees signed first baseman/corner outfielder Jake Lamb to a minor league deal this afternoon. He was assigned to Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre, where he’s making his organizational debut tonight.
Lamb was let go by the Angels a couple weeks ago. The veteran left-handed hitter had signed an offseason minor league contract and broke camp with Los Angeles. He struggled over 19 games, putting up a .216/.259/.353 line before being optioned. Lamb found his stride in Triple-A, putting together a .317/.453/.498 slash over 150 plate appearances. He walked at a huge 17.3% clip against a manageable 20% strikeout rate.
Despite the big upper minors numbers, the Halos designated him for assignment and released him last month. After a couple weeks on the open market, he finds a new landing spot and will try to play his way back to the big leagues.
Lamb has now appeared at the highest level in 10 consecutive seasons. An everyday player early in his career with the Diamondbacks, he has bounced around over the past few years. Going back to the start of the 2020 campaign, Lamb has a .203/.297/.368 batting line in 434 MLB plate appearances split between seven different clubs.
MLB Trade Rumors Podcast: Top Deadline Trade Candidates, Ohtani Trade Potential and the Slipping Rays
The latest episode of the MLB Trade Rumors Podcast is now live on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and wherever you get your podcasts! Make sure you subscribe as well! You can also use the player at this link to listen, if you don’t use Spotify or Apple for podcasts.
This week, host Darragh McDonald is joined by Anthony Franco of MLB Trade Rumors to discuss:
- MLBTR’s list of the Top 50 Deadline Trade Candidates: Early July Edition (2:00)
- Angels have been sliding and recent lost Mike Trout to the IL. Could a Shohei Ohtani trade become more likely? (17:25)
- AL East getting tight between Rays and Orioles (20:35)
Plus, we answer your questions, including:
- With the Cardinals being sellers for the first time in 20 years, who do you anticipate to be moved? And what is realistic return with an eye on 2024 contention? (23:30)
- Who trades for Joey Bart? (26:00)
- Are the Yankees buyers or sellers? And what, if anything, do you see them doing in either position? (28:40)
Check out our past episodes!
- Free Agent Power Rankings and Aroldis Chapman to the Rangers – listen here
- The Angels Trade for Infielders, Indecisive NL Central Teams and Aaron Judge’s Toe – listen here
- Exciting Youth Movements in Cincinnati and Pittsburgh, Bad Central Divisions and the Dodgers Want Pitching – listen here
Yankees Name Sean Casey Hitting Coach
4:25pm: The Yankees have officially announced Casey’s hiring.
11:37am: Heyman tweets that Casey has agreed to take on the role for the remainder of the 2023 season. Presumably, these next few months will serve as a trial run for a potentially longer stint in the position, but the short-term nature of Casey’s agreement also creates the possibility that there will be another search conducted in the offseason.
11:33am: The Yankees dismissed hitting coach Dillon Lawson over the weekend, and they’ve wasted little time in zeroing in on a replacement. Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic tweets that they’ll hire former All-Star first baseman and current MLB Network personality Sean Casey as Lawson’s successor. Jon Heyman and Joel Sherman of the New York Post first reported that Casey was under “strong” consideration for the position (Twitter links).
Casey, 49, is something of an outside-the-box hire, as he’s never worked as a coach at the minor league or major league level since ending his 12-year playing career in 2008. The three-time All-Star has been working as a broadcaster and analyst on the MLB Network for the past several years. In that sense, there are some parallels between his hiring and that of manager Aaron Boone — another former player who went straight from broadcasting back into a big league dugout. Boone and Casey were teammates with the Reds from 1998 through 2003, when Boone was traded to the Yankees. That familiarity surely plays a role in the decision to consider and ultimately hire Casey despite his lack of experience coaching.
While Casey is new to coaching, he certainly knows a thing or two about hitting. The former second-round pick retired as a .302/.367/.447 hitter and had just a 10.2% strikeout rate against an 8.5% walk rate in 5644 big league plate appearances. Casey made the NL All-Star team in 1999, 2001 and 2004, and he finished out his career with 130 home runs, 322 doubles and 12 triples.
Casey’s background couldn’t be much different from that of his predecessor. Lawson didn’t play baseball professionally, going directly from college ball to the college coaching ranks and eventually coaching in the Royals’ system before being hired away by the Yankees. After a couple years as the organization’s minor league hitting coordinator, Lawson was elevated to the major league hitting coach position following the ’21 campaign, though his time in that spot ultimately lasted just one and a half seasons.
In addition to his dozen years playing at the big league level, Casey has spent considerable time interacting with and building a rapport with current players through his work on MLB Network. “The Mayor” is known for a gregarious and jovial personality. At the very least, one can imagine he’ll have little trouble connecting with the Yankees’ players and fitting in from a clubhouse perspective. The rest of the season will be used to determine both his coaching acumen, his appetite for returning to the dugout on a long-term basis, and whether Yankees decision-makers feel he’s equipped to handle the position in 2024 and beyond.
Yankees Release Colten Brewer
The Yankees announced that right-hander Colten Brewer has been released so that he can sign with a team in Nippon Professional Baseball. The Hanshin Tigers will be Brewer’s next club, according to reports out of Japan (hat tip to Yakyu Cosmopolitan).
Brewer has appeared in five of the last six MLB seasons, though 80 1/3 of his 99 1/3 career innings came as a member of the Red Sox in 2019-20. The righty made a single appearance for Boston in 2021, he spent most of 2022 pitching in the Royals’ farm system, and he made it back to the Show for three games and 8 1/3 innings for New York this season. The Rays had signed Brewer to a minor league deal during the offseason, but he was traded to the Yankees on Opening Day.
This time in the big leagues has resulted in a 4.98 ERA for Brewer, who has had issues with both control and keeping the ball in the park. His minor league numbers have been a bit better, and with more strikeouts than his 19.7 K% at the MLB level. Rather than continue in the minors with the Yankees or another organization, Brewer will earn a higher guaranteed salary in Japan, and the 30-year-old might also be looking for a new spark in his career.
Yankees Fire Hitting Coach Dillon Lawson
5:55PM: Speaking to MLB.com’s Bryan Hoch (Twitter links) and other reporters, Cashman said that he hopes to have the new hitting coach in place when the Yankees begin their second-half schedule on Friday. Cashman also said that the new hitting coach will come from outside the organization. Dykes and Wilkerson will remain with the team in assistant hitting coach roles.
5:14PM: With the Yankees lineup continuing to struggle, the team has announced it has parted ways with hitting coach Dillson Lawson. The New York Post’s Jon Heyman (Twitter link) first reported the move, and the Yankees confirmed Lawson’s departure in a press release. Yankees GM Brian Cashman explained the reasoning behind the decision in the release:
“It has been well documented that I have been reluctant in the past to make changes to our coaching staff in the middle of a season. I am a big believer that successes and failures are collective efforts. However, I ultimately felt that a change was needed and that a new voice overseeing our hitting operations would give us the best chance to perform closer to our capabilities as we move forward into the second half of our season.
I want thank Dillon for all his efforts. He has a bright baseball mind that will continue to lead to a long and fruitful baseball career.”
As Cashman noted, in-season coaching changes aren’t his preference, and this indeed marks the first time since Cashman became GM in 1998 that the Yankees have fired a coach during a season. Since there was no word on the status of assistant hitting coaches Casey Dykes and Brad Wilkerson, it would appear that both men will remain with the team, and either could be a candidate to take over the lead hitting coach role on at least an interim basis. The Athletic’s Brendan Kuty reports that the Yankees have two finalists in mind for the job, and Lawson’s replacement could be known as early as tomorrow.
Though New York enters the break with a respectable 49-42 record, it is fair to say that the pitching (particularly a quietly outstanding bullpen) has carried the team. The Yankees are near the bottom of the league in average and OBP, and are around the middle of the pack in home runs, slugging percentage, and wRC+. While the club is still hitting lots of home runs, the one-dimensional approach isn’t leading to much offense overall, and the Yankees’ lack of hitting has become even more glaring in the month-plus that Aaron Judge has been on the injured list.
As Joel Sherman of the New York Post noted in a piece yesterday, the Yankees’ reliance on Judge extended back to 2022, when the AL MVP’s season for the ages helped mask the fact that the rest of New York’s lineup generally underperformed. Blaming these struggles entirely on Lawson isn’t fair, of course, as Sherman notes that several veteran bats aren’t producing, and questions can be asked about Cashman’s decision to rely on these veterans rather than further bolster the roster with other position players. As well, the Yankees’ offense was already showing some inconsistency even prior to Lawson’s hiring in the 2021-22 offseason.
With this in mind, a new hitting coach shouldn’t be expected to instantly revive the Yankees’ batters, especially with Judge’s recovery timeline still so uncertain. Still, the timing of Lawson’s firing and the fact that it was made at all clearly indicates some extra pressure in the Bronx to get the season back on track. The Yankees are currently outside the playoff picture, sitting a game behind the Blue Jays for the last AL wild card spot and eight games behind the Rays for first place in the AL East. The Rays’ recent struggles have slightly kept the Jays, Yankees, and last-place Red Sox within striking distance in this loaded division, though it might be hard for any of these teams to really catch up to Tampa or the second-place Orioles, making a wild card perhaps the likeliest route to the postseason.
Lawson worked as the Yankees’ minor league hitting coordinator from 2019-21 before his promotion to lead hitting coach. The 38-year-old previously worked as a hitting coach in the Astros’ farm system, and he has a long history of coaching in the collegiate ranks.
AL East Notes: Mountcastle, Yankees, Ryu
The Orioles welcomed first baseman Ryan Mountcastle back from the injured list this morning, per a team announcement. 2023 has been a difficult season for Mountcastle, as the slugger slashed just .227/.264/.421 in 261 plate appearances before heading to the injured list with vertigo in mid-June.
Mountcastle spoke to reporters, including Andy Kostka of The Baltimore Banner, about his struggles with vertigo and how it impacted his hitting. He explained that he dealt with waves of dizziness that made baseball appear to be the size of a pea while he was in the batters’ box prior to going onto the IL, and that while he’s felt better in recent days, there’s no way of knowing whether the issues with crop up again in the future. For now Mountcastle figures to join the club’s outfield and DH mix alongside the likes of Ryan O’Hearn, Aaron Hicks, and Anthony Santander.
More from around the AL East…
- The Yankees received a pair of positive injury updates today regarding their pitching staff. Right-hander Jonathan Loaisiga threw off a mound for the first time since going on the IL back in April, as manager Aaron Boone told reporters (including Max Goodman of NJ Advance Media). Meanwhile, left-hander Nestor Cortes threw a 20-pitch live bullpen session today, as relayed by MLB.com’s Bryan Hoch. Both Boone and Cortes indicated the session went well, with Cortes adding that his next bullpen session will take place this coming Thursday. While Loaisiga has thrown just 3 1/3 innings this season and Cortes has struggled with a 5.16 ERA across 11 starts this season, the return of both players before season’s end would surely provide a boost to the Yankees, given their past successes.
- Blue Jays left-hander Hyun-Jin Ryu is poised to take the mound for Toronto’s Single-A affiliate in Dunedin today, per an announcement by the minor league club. Ryu, 36, is rehabbing after undergoing Tommy John surgery last season and, per MLB.com, was sitting 87-88 with his fastball during his previous rehab outing in the Florida Complex League. That velocity isn’t far from where he’s expected to be at the big league level, and MLB.com indicates that Ryu could return “within the month” after building up to take on a starter’s workload. Ryu’s return could help shore up Toronto’s rotation depth down the stretch, an area that GM Ross Atkins highlighted as a focus ahead of the trade deadline on August 1.
Yankees Reinstate Carlos Rodon, Transfer Nestor Cortes To 60-Day Injured List
The Yankees made a series of roster moves today, reinstating left-hander Carlos Rodón from the 60-day injured list and recalling outfielder Franchy Cordero. To clear two active roster spots, righty Deivi García was optioned to Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre and outfielder Jake Bauers was placed on the 10-day injured list. Bauers’ placement is retroactive to July 6 and due to a left rotator cuff contusion. In order to open a spot on the 40-man roster for Rodón, lefty Nestor Cortes was transferred to the 60-day injured list.
Rodón will take the mound tonight against the Cubs. It’s his long-awaited Yankee debut. The two-time All-Star signed a six-year, $162MM free agent contract over the winter. He was expected to pair with Gerrit Cole as co-aces atop the starting staff. That’s taken longer than anticipated, as Rodón battled a forearm strain in Spring Training and dealt with back discomfort over the past couple months.
The star southpaw has made three minor league rehab starts, tossing 10 2/3 frames of one-run ball. He threw 58 pitches in his final rehab outing last Saturday. The Yankees will surely be cautious with his workload tonight and coming out of the All-Star Break, but they’ll get their first glimpse of he and Cole as a one-two punch.
Cortes was expected to be a key part of the rotation himself. The southpaw has struggled to a 5.16 ERA over 11 appearances after consecutive sub-3.00 seasons in 2021-22. Cortes then landed on the injured list, retroactive to June 5, after straining his left rotator cuff.
The 60-day minimum backdates to his original IL placement. Cortes is now officially out into the first week of August. It appears he could be back around when first eligible. Gary Phillips of the New York Daily News noted earlier this week (on Twitter) that Cortes got through a 25-pitch bullpen session without issue and is expected to throw live batting practice on Sunday.
As for Bauers, he’ll be out at least through next weekend. The left-handed hitter has filled in reasonably well since being called upon in late April. Over 154 plate appearances, he’s hitting .224/.312/.470 with seven home runs.
Yankees Claim Anthony Misiewicz From Tigers
The Yankees have claimed left-hander Anthony Misiewicz off waivers from the Tigers, according to announcements from both clubs. The Yankees had an open 40-man roster spot due to Jimmy Cordero‘s recent suspension. Misiewicz has been optioned to Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre.
Misiewicz, 28, has been collecting jerseys at a rapid rate over the past year. He spent the early parts of his career with the Mariners and was with them until he was designated for assignment at the end of July last year. Since then, he was acquired by and subsequently DFA’d by the Royals, the Cardinals and the Diamondbacks. The latter club lost him to the Tigers on waivers, who now have lost him to the Yankees on this latest waiver claim. All in all, that’s six different organizations in less than a year.
Amid all those transactions, he’s only been able to toss 8 1/3 innings in the big leagues this year with an 8.64 ERA in that small sample. He’s managed to log 16 1/3 innings in the minors with a 4.41 ERA. Prior to this season, he had 127 major league appearances with a 4.74 ERA, striking out 23% of batters faced while walking 7.1% of them.
For the Yankees, they unexpectedly opened a roster spot this week with the news of Cordero’s suspension and have used it to grab a lefty with some solid results in his track record. He has less than three years of service time and a couple of options seasons, including this one, meaning he can be utilized as an up-and-down reliever for the foreseeable future if he hangs onto his 40-man spot this time around.
Yankees’ Jimmy Cordero Suspended Remainder Of Season Under MLB’s Domestic Violence Policy
Yankees reliever Jimmy Cordero has accepted a suspension for the remainder of the regular season and the 2023 postseason under MLB’s domestic violence, sexual assault and child abuse policy, per a league announcement. He’s been placed on the restricted list. Cordero will not be paid and will not count against the team’s 40-man roster while on the restricted list.
“The Yankees are fully supportive of Major League Baseball’s investigative process and the disciplinary action applied to Jimmy Cordero,” the team stated in a press release shortly following MLB’s announcement. “There is no justification for domestic violence, and we stand with the objectives, standards and enforcement of MLB’s Joint Domestic Violence, Sexual Assault and Child Abuse Policy.”
Further details were not provided by the league, which stated that Cordero will “participate in a confidential and comprehensive evaluation and treatment program.”
The Yankees signed the now-31-year-old Cordero to a minor league deal in March 2022. He’s appeared in 31 games this season and posted 32 2/3 innings of 3.86 ERA ball, striking out 25.8% of his opponents against a 7.8% walk rate.
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