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Giants Option Joey Bart To Triple-A, Acquire Austin Wynns From Phillies

By Steve Adams | June 8, 2022 at 12:30pm CDT

12:30pm: Wynns is indeed being selected to the 40-man roster, MLBTR has learned.

11:40am: The Giants announced Wednesday that they’ve optioned catcher Joey Bart to Triple-A Sacramento. They’ve also acquired catcher Austin Wynns from the Phillies organization in exchange for lefty Michael Plassmeyer and cash, according to announcements from both teams.

Wynns wasn’t on the Phillies’ 40-man roster, and the Giants have yet to indicate that he’ll be selected to their own 40-man. Curt Casali is now the only catcher on San Francisco’s big league roster, so they’ll either need to make a move to formally select Wynns’ contract or else call up another catcher from their minor league system. Michael Papierski is the only other catcher on the Giants’ 40-man roster.

The decision to option Bart comes on the heels of some prolonged offensive struggles for the former No. 2 overall draft pick. The now-25-year-old Bart had a fast start to the season, going 6-for-18 with a pair of homers and four walks through his first six games, but he’s fallen into a dreadful slump. Over his past 30 games (24 of them starts), Bart is hitting just .111/.256/.194 with a staggering 45.3% strikeout rate.

Given the magnitude of those struggles, it’s not a huge surprise to see Bart sent down. The Giants will hope that a return trip to Sacramento can prove to be the catalyst for a turnaround. Bart has long ranked not only as one of the Giants’ best prospects but as one of the very best prospects in all of baseball, and president of baseball operations Farhan Zaidi has been quick to voice confidence in Bart’s long-term outlook. Zaidi tells Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle (Twitter link) that the Giants “still think Joey is an everyday catcher” but felt it prudent to give him “a little bit of a reset” following such a difficult stretch at the plate.

Bart entered the season with 112 days of Major League service time, meaning he needed another 60 days on the active roster or big league injured list to reach one full year of service and remain on his same arbitration (post-2024) and free agency (post-2027). He’s already accrued 62 days, so even if he were to stick in the minors for the remainder of the season, he’s still logged enough time to cross into that one-plus service bracket.

As for the 31-year-old Wynns, he’ll give the Giants an experienced backup option. Wynns, the Orioles’ 10th-round pick back in 2013, spent parts of three seasons in the big leagues with the O’s, batting a combined .216/.255/.326 in 331 plate appearances. He’s thrown out 32% of attempted base thieves in his big league career, and while his pitch-framing marks are below average, he’s been solid in terms of blocking balls in the dirt, per Baseball Prospectus.

Wynns inked a minor league contract with the Phillies over the winter and opened the season with their Triple-A affiliate in Lehigh Valley. Despite his lackluster big league numbers and a pedestrian Triple-A track record, he’s been one of the best hitters in the Triple-A International League so far, hitting at a ridiculous .365/.504/.500 clip. Wynns has hit three homers, five doubles and drawn a walk in just under 21% of his 134 plate appearances thus far. It’s not a huge sample of playing time, but it’s hard not to be impressed by any player reaching base at greater than a 50% clip in a span of 33 games.

Wynns obviously can’t be expected to sustain that pace, but there’s little else he can do to earn himself a big league promotion. That probably wasn’t going to happen in Philadelphia, where J.T. Realmuto is entrenched as the main catcher, but Wynns has a more clear path to playing time with the Giants, even if Casali is likely to function as the starter moving forward.

In exchange for Wynns, the Phillies will pick up the 25-year-old Plassmeyer — a 2018 fourth-rounder (Mariners) who went to the Rays as part of the Mike Zunino trade and has since gone to the Giants in return for righty Matt Wisler. Plassmeyer opened the 2022 season with the Giants’ Triple-A affiliate and has been hit hard, logging a 7.38 ERA in through 46 1/3 innings. He’s been extremely homer-prone this year in that hitter-friendly setting (2.91 HR/9) and has quite uncharacteristically walked 11.3% of his opponents.

Prior to the 2022 season, Plassmeyer looked the part of an upper-minors strike thrower who could be on the cusp of a look in the big leagues. Kevin Goldstein and Eric Longenhagen of FanGraphs listed him near the back of their Top 39 prospects in the Giants’ system this winter, noting that the 6’2″ southpaw has an average changeup and breaking ball to go along with outstanding command. The lack of a true plus offering and a pedestrian 89-91 mph fastball give Plassmeyer a back-of-the-rotation outlook, but if the Phils can get his once-plus command back on track, he could be a depth option in the near future.

Angels Fire Joe Maddon

By Anthony Franco | June 7, 2022 at 10:58pm CDT

Joe Maddon is out in Anaheim, as the Angels announced Tuesday afternoon he’d been relieved of his managerial duties. Third base coach Phil Nevin will take over on an interim basis. Maddon had been in the final guaranteed season of his contract, and Bob Nightengale of USA Today writes the club will owe him a $1MM buyout on a 2023 option.

Shortly after the news broke, Maddon spoke with Ken Rosenthal of the Athletic. He expressed “a lot” of surprise with the decision, conceding that the team’s recent play had been disappointing but opining there “wasn’t an issue of camaraderie or lack of leadership.” Asked point blank whether he wanted to continue managing, the 68-year-old replied “Of course I want to manage. I’m really good at it.”

The change comes as the Halos are mired in a disastrous stretch. Los Angeles is currently amidst a 12-game losing streak, one that has seen the club fall two games under .500. The Angels had started the season as one of the hottest teams in the major leagues, but their dreadful past couple of weeks has dropped them eight and a half games behind the Astros in the American League West. They enter play Tuesday tied with the White Sox for the AL’s eighth-best record overall.

A midseason dismissal is certainly not the result the Halos envisioned when they first hired Maddon during the 2019-20 offseason. Los Angeles signed him to a three-year, $12MM guarantee within days of the veteran manager’s departure from the Cubs. The Angels ousted former skipper Brad Ausmus after just one season, bringing Maddon aboard in hopes he’d be able to replicate the success he’d experienced in his previous stops.

That hiring was overseen by former general manager Billy Eppler, with owner Arte Moreno reportedly playing a significant role in the search process. The Angels dismissed Eppler just one year later, hiring Perry Minasian to oversee baseball operations. How notable it is that Minasian wasn’t involved in Maddon’s hiring isn’t clear, but the organization declined to discuss an extension last winter even as Maddon entered the final guaranteed year of his deal.

Maddon has been an MLB manager for 17 straight seasons, with his first permanent position coming at the helm of the 2006 Devil Rays. Tampa Bay scuffled through a pair of last-place finishes to start his tenure, but they reeled off six straight winning seasons between 2008-13. The Rays won the AL pennant in 2008, a season in which Maddon claimed the first of three Manager of the Year nods. After the 2014 season, Maddon and the Rays went their separate ways, and he took over an ascending team on the north side of Chicago.

Over five seasons with the Cubs, Maddon oversaw four playoff appearances. The highlight was a 103-win 2016 campaign that culminated in the franchise’s curse-snapping World Series title. While the team never reached the dynastic heights some had expected, they were consistently effective. Chicago played above .500 ball in all five of Maddon’s years at the helm, a stretch that coincided with four losing seasons for the Angels.

The Angels hoped he’d continue those winning ways in Southern California, but the team hasn’t managed to break through. Despite the presence of Mike Trout, Shohei Ohtani, Anthony Rendon and breakout position players like Jared Walsh and Taylor Ward, the Angels lost more games than they won with Maddon at the helm. Los Angeles went just 26-34 during the shortened 2020 season, then slumped to a 77-85 finish last year. While their strong April made it seem as if 2022 might be their long-awaited breakout, the past two weeks have instead brought Maddon’s tenure in Orange County to an unceremonious end.

One can’t simply attribute the entirety of any team’s underperformance to the manager, and Maddon’s Angels are no exception. The club was dealt a massive blow last season when Trout suffered a May calf strain that ultimately proved to be season-ending. They’ve had a top-heavy roster throughout Maddon’s tenure, with the back of the rotation and bottom of the order often struggling to such an extent that MVP-caliber play from Trout and Ohtani (and Ward thus far in 2022) hasn’t been enough to get the team back to the postseason.

To some extent, the Angels have addressed the rotation woes that have been one of the organization’s recent downfalls. Los Angeles ranks 12th in rotation ERA (3.77) despite an underwhelming 20.8% strikeout rate. That’s solid enough run prevention from the starting staff, but the Halo bullpen is tied for the MLB lead with 12 blown saves.

The lineup has been effective overall, but the Angels’ somewhat curious decision not to address the middle infield this past winter has proven problematic. Tyler Wade and Andrew Velazquez have offered next to nothing offensively, and they’ve been forced into larger than expected roles by a pair of David Fletcher injured list stints. Ward and Rendon are also on the IL, and the club’s depth options haven’t performed of late. Over the past two weeks, the team is hitting a woeful .228/.287/.334.

All that said, the season certainly isn’t lost for the Halos. Their strong early work served both to illustrate the roster’s capacity for better play — particularly with Ward and Rendon healthy — and bought them enough room in the standings that they’re still right in the thick of the Wild Card race. The Angels sit just a game and a half out of the final playoff spot, and there’s still plenty of time for the club to make a push if they can break out of their current swoon.

It’ll be Nevin who’s tasked with leading those efforts. The 51-year-old just joined the organization this past offseason, signing on as third base coach. That came on the heels of a four-year run serving as third base coach in the Bronx under Aaron Boone. After the Yankees declined to renew Nevin’s contract last winter, he made the jump to Anaheim and will now get his first shot in a major league manager’s chair.

Nevin is a household name in spite of his lack of managerial experience, as he spent more than a decade as a player in the major leagues. The first overall pick in the 1992 amateur draft, he suited up with seven teams over parts of 12 big league seasons between 1995-2006. Nevin earned an All-Star nod during a 2001 campaign with the Padres in which he hit 41 home runs, and he twice earned down-ballot MVP support during his time in San Diego. All told, he collected more than 1100 hits and 200 longballs during his MLB run.

Since hanging up his spikes, Nevin has bounced between a handful of organizations during a lengthy run as a coach and minor league skipper. He managed in the Tigers’ and Diamondbacks’ farm systems for a few seasons, reaching as high as Triple-A in that role. Heading into the 2017 season, Nevin made the jump to MLB coaching as Giants’ third base coach before his stints with the Yankees and Angels. He’s drawn consideration for various managerial posts in years past — most recently interviewing with the Tigers during the 2020-21 offseason for the position that ultimately went to A.J. Hinch — but his first position will come an interim basis.

Whether Nevin is in consideration for a permanent position presumably depends on how the team fares over the coming months. The Angels join the Phillies — who replaced Joe Girardi with Rob Thomson last week — as teams going with interim skippers for the 2022 campaign.

Buster Olney of ESPN reported shortly before the team announcement that a managerial change was under consideration.

Images courtesy of USA Today Sports.

Astros Sign Yordan Alvarez To Six-Year Extension

By Steve Adams | June 6, 2022 at 11:43am CDT

June 6: The Astros have formally announced Alvarez’s six-year deal. They’ll hold a press conference this afternoon at 2:30pm CT.

June 3, 12:48pm: Alvarez’s contract breaks down in the form of a $5MM signing bonus followed by annual salaries of $7MM (2023), $10MM (2024), $15MM (2025) and $26MM (2026-28), Mark Berman of Houston’s FOX 26 reports (Twitter link). He’s already passed a physical.

12:19pm: The Astros have agreed to terms on a six-year, $115MM contract extension with Yordan Alvarez, reports ESPN’s Jeff Passan (Twitter link). The contract begins next season and will cover the 2023-28 seasons. Alvarez is represented by the MVP Sports Group.

Alvarez, 25 later this month, was on pace to reach free agency following the 2025 season and would have hit the open market at at just 28 years of age. Instead, his new contract will buy out all three of his arbitration seasons and give the Astros control over what would have been Alvarez’s first three free-agent seasons. Alvarez technically won’t reach three years of Major League service time until tomorrow, but since the contract begins next year, it can effectively be viewed as the second-largest deal ever signed by a player in the three-plus service bracket, trailing only Freddie Freeman’s eight-year, $135MM extension with the Braves back in 2014.

Acquired in a flat-out heist that sent reliever Josh Fields to the Dodgers, Alvarez burst onto the Major League scene in 2019 when he mashed at a .313/.412/.655 pace and crushed 27 home runs in just 369 plate appearances. Despite barely spending half the season in the Majors (87 games), Alvarez was the unanimous American League Rookie of the Year. While he missed nearly the entire 2020 season due to arthroscopic surgery that was performed on both knees, he was back in full force a year later, hitting .277/.346/.531 with 33 home runs in 598 trips to the plate.

Since making his big league debut, Alvarez has quite simply been one of the best hitters on the planet. He’s a career .287/.370/.576 hitter, and the resulting 156 wRC+ (indicating he’s 56% better than the league-average hitter) sits just ahead of Juan Soto and trails only Mike Trout (177) among all qualified MLB hitters in that span.

Alvarez achieves his dominance at the plate through a keen eye (10.8% walk rate), improving bat-to-ball skills (his 17.6% strikeout rate is down from his rookie year’s 25.5% mark) and, most importantly, through hitting the ever-loving snot out of the ball. Since 2019, Alvarez ranks third in the Majors in both average exit velocity (93.3 mph) and overall hard-hit rate (54.2%), as well as eighth in barrel rate (16.1%) per Statcast. He’s taken that pristine Statcast profile to new heights in 2022, as he’s currently leading the Majors in hard-hit rate, expected slugging percentage and expected wOBA.

While Alvarez is primarily a designated hitter and figures to spend even less time in the field as he ages, he’s still seeing a decent chunk of time in left field. He’s logged 155 innings there this year and 540 innings through 278 big league games. He doesn’t rate as a strong outfielder but also hasn’t necessarily drawn butcher-esque reviews for his defense to this point (-2 Defensive Runs Saved, 0.3 Ultimate Zone Rating, and a more bearish -5 Outs Above Average). No one is going to mistake Alvarez for a potential Gold Glove candidate, but as an occasional option to give the Astros’ regular outfielders a breather, he’s a passable enough option who can be relied upon to make the routine plays.

Alvarez is now signed longer than any other Astros player, surpassing Lance McCullers Jr., whose contract runs through the 2026 season. His extension gives the ’Stros a hefty $107MM on next year’s books before the offseason even begins and with several key arbitration cases (e.g. Kyle Tucker, Framber Valdez, Cristian Javier) to address. Houston has more than $100MM committed as far out as the 2024 season, although for a team that flirted with the luxury tax in 2021 and took its actual 2021 payroll upwards of $190MM last year, that’s not an dire outlay.

The Alvarez extension ensures that he, Tucker, Alex Bregman and Jose Altuve will continue to anchor the Houston lineup through at least the 2024 season (when the contracts of Alruve and Bregman are set to expire). Young shortstop Jeremy Pena has given every reason to believe so far that he can be counted among that core group of hitters, and the Astros are hopeful that prospects like Pedro Leon, Colin Barber and Korey Lee could eventually do the same.

Phillies Fire Joe Girardi

By Steve Adams | June 3, 2022 at 10:50pm CDT

Joe Girardi is out as the Phillies manager, as the team announced today that he’s been “relieved of his duties.” Coaching assistant Bobby Meacham has also been dismissed. Bench coach Rob Thomson has been named interim manager and will hold that post for the remainder of the season, according to the team. To fill Thomson’s role, the Phillies have promoted Mike Calitri from quality assurance coach to bench coach.

“It has been a frustrating season for us up until this point, as we feel that our club has not played up to its capabilities,” said president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski in a statement within today’s press release. “While all of us share the responsibility for the shortcomings, I felt that a change was needed and that a new voice in the clubhouse would give us the best chance to turn things around. I believe we have a talented group that can get back on track, and I am confident that Rob, with his experience and familiarity with our club, is the right man to lead us going forward.”

Hired in advance of the 2020 season, the now-57-year-old Girardi came to the Phillies as an experienced dugout leader whom owner John Middleton hoped could pull the club out of what has now been more than a decade-long playoff drought. That hasn’t happened yet, and even on the heels of an aggressive offseason of spending to bolster the lineup, the Phils have fallen into a dismal swoon that has seen them plummet to seven games under .500 (22-29) and 12 games out of first place in the National League East.

Of course, the personnel acquired via that offseason spending falls on the front office and ownership — not Girardi. The Phils have routinely been one of the worst defensive teams in baseball over the past decade, but their offseason strategy was not to remedy that longstanding shortcoming but to instead double down by giving weighty long-term contracts to defensively challenged sluggers Nick Castellanos and Kyle Schwarber. Philadelphia, predictably, ranks as one of the game’s worst defensive teams (and the worst defensive team, by measure of Outs Above Average).

More concerning, however, has been the team’s ineffectiveness in other areas. The Phillies rank tenth in the Majors with 230 runs scored and are tied for ninth with 58 home runs — both solid showings but not exactly the juggernaut offense the team and pundits (myself included) had expected. Philadelphia hitters have posted a combined .245/.310/.403 batting line, and the resulting 99 wRC+ ranks 18th in MLB and effectively amounts to league-average offensive output on the whole.

The Phillies’ bullpen woes may not date back quite as far as their defensive ineptitude, but faulty relief pitching has nevertheless been an unfortunate hallmark of Phillies baseball for at least the past few seasons. They relief corps is improved to an extent in 2022, ranking 21st in the game with a 4.15 ERA — an improvement over bottom-of-the-barrel showings in recent seasons. However, no team’s relievers have walked hitters at a higher clip than the Phillies’ 11.7% mark so far in 2022, and the bullpen is a top-heavy unit that has had to rely on inexperienced bargain pickups. The trio of Nick Nelson, Andrew Bellatti and James Norwood, for instance, have accounted for nearly a third of the Phillies’ total innings of relief work.

Some of that, of course, falls on the manager’s usage of the relievers at his disposal. Bullpen management is a generally thankless job when executed well and also perhaps the most frequently cited flaw of any skipper when things are going poorly. Girardi faced plenty of criticism for his usage of the team’s bullpen at times, including some recent handling of closer Corey Knebel. Time will tell whether a managerial change will bring about better results from the relief corps, but it seems unlikely Thomson will be able to bring about significant change with the same group of personnel in the ’pen.

Just as it was expected that the Phils would struggle on defense, it was expected that their rotation would nonetheless be a strength — and that’s generally been true. Each of Zack Wheeler, Aaron Nola and Kyle Gibson are sporting ERAs comfortably south of 4.00, while Ranger Suarez and Zach Eflin have been at least serviceable in the mid-4.00s. Overall, the Phillies’ rotation ranks 14th with a 4.02 ERA, although their sixth-ranked 3.49 FIP (fielding-independent pitching) naturally suggests that the defense has let Philadelphia starters down.

Ultimately, it’ll have to come down to the Phillies’ lineup if they’re to turn things around. Schwarber is hitting for power and drawing walks but not doing much else, evidenced by his .192/.314/.429 batting line. Nick Castellanos, Alec Bohm and Rhys Hoskins have faded after hot starts, with Castellanos now rating as only a slightly above-average hitter and the others sitting south of league-average. J.T. Realmuto is still hitting better than the majority of big league catchers, but he’s well below his career rates and sitting close to league-average overall, himself. Second baseman Jean Segura, having a solid season at the plate, was recently lost for 10-12 weeks when he broke his finger attempting to bunt for a hit.

Bryce Harper continues to be a powerhouse presence in the middle of the lineup, carrying the batting order with a .303/.359/.534 output. But even he’s not operating neat 100%, as he’s dealing with a torn ligament in his elbow that has relegated him to designated hitter duties because he’s not able to throw from the outfield.

A team with Harper, Castellanos, Schwarber and Hoskins constituting the heart of the lineup is liable to go on an offensive tear at any moment, and as we saw with Schwarber during last year’s historic June power surge, hitters of that caliber can carry a team for lengthy stretches. There’s enough talent in the lineup and in the rotation for the Phillies to get hot and return to the fringes of the newly expanded 12-team playoff picture, but ownership seemingly no longer felt Girardi to be the best option to guide them there. The Phils will be a team worth monitoring closely over the next six weeks, because if Thomson’s unable to right the ship, the focus will turn to the possibility of trading some notable veterans in advance of this year’s Aug. 2 deadline.

Jim Salisbury of NBC Sports Philadelphia first reported that the Phillies were set to make a change at manager, and Jayson Stark of The Athletic first reported that Thomson would take over for Girardi.

Padres To Release Robinson Cano, Select Nomar Mazara

By Steve Adams | June 2, 2022 at 9:00am CDT

The Padres are set to select the contract of outfielder Nomar Mazara, tweets Robert Murray of FanSided. The former Rangers top prospect-turned-journeyman inked a minor league pact with San Diego over the winter. The move comes in conjunction with the “imminent” release of floundering second baseman/designated hitter Robinson Cano, per Dennis Lin of The Athletic (Twitter link). Murray and Jon Heyman of the New York Post reported last night that Cano was likely to opt for free agency after declining to be optioned to Triple-A (as any player with five-plus years of Major League service can do). Whether he’ll be formally released or elect free agency is largely a moot point; the outcome is the same.

Mazara, now 27 years old, never developed into the perennial power-hitting threat many anticipated when he was a consensus top-100 prospect in 2015-16. He showed plenty of promise when he swatted 20 home runs as a 21-year-old rookie with the Rangers in 2016, but Mazara was essentially a league-average hitter with below-average offense for the first four years of his career in Texas.

A trade to the White Sox produced dismal results, as he hit just .228/.295/.294 in 42 games with Chicago the following season. Mazara signed with the Tigers after being non-tendered by the Sox, but he hit just .212/.276/.321 in 50 games with Detroit last season.

All in all, Mazara has been about 12% worse than league-average with the bat in his big league career, by measure of wRC+, but he’s having a monster season in Triple-A. Through his first 152 plate appearances this season, Mazara is hitting .367/.454/.641 with seven homers, 14 doubles, a huge 13.8% walk rate and a lower-than-average 19.1% strikeout rate.

Cano’s time with the Padres will prove to be brief, as he only signed with San Diego on May 13. However, the Padres’ hopes that the eight-time All-Star could right the ship following a .195/.233/.268 showing with the Mets didn’t pan out. Quite the opposite, in fact, as Cano turned in a calamitous .091/.118/.091 output in 34 plate appearances. Overall, Cano has gone 3-for-33 (all singles) with one walk and 10 strikeouts in a Padres uniform.

The swan dive in Cano’s production comes on the heels of a season-long absence in 2021 due to the second positive PED test of his 17-year Major League career. Given that context and the fact that he’ll turn 40 in October, it’s perhaps not much of a surprise that Cano has struggled in 2022, although the extent of his woes at the plate are nonetheless jarring.

Once Cano becomes a free agent, he’ll be free to sign with any club that has interest, though it’s difficult to fathom another team putting him directly on the big league roster. Should Cano wish to continue playing, he’d likely have to ink a minor league deal, but his apparent refusal to accept an assignment to Triple-A El Paso with the Padres calls into question whether he’ll be willing to go that route. The Mets still owe Cano $21.25MM for the 2023 season, while the Mariners (who originally signed him a decade-long, $240MM contract prior to the 2014 season) are kicking in $3.75MM as part of the trade that shipped him from Seattle to Queens.

Robinson Cano Expected To Lose Roster Spot With Padres; Reportedly Likely To Elect Free Agency

By Anthony Franco | June 1, 2022 at 10:57pm CDT

The Padres are likely to request that second baseman Robinson Canó accept an optional assignment to Triple-A El Paso, reports Jon Heyman of the New York Post (Twitter link). Heyman suggests the eight-time All-Star would refuse to go to the minor leagues, as is his right as a player with five-plus years of MLB service time.

If San Diego follows through with removing Canó from the active roster, he’d have the right to elect free agency. That seems to be the likeliest outcome, which would end his time in San Diego after just 11 games. Robert Murray of FanSided first tweeted there was “growing chatter” that Canó’s time in the organization could be coming to a close.

The Friars just signed Canó to a big league deal last month, finalizing agreement on May 13. That came on the heels of the Mets designating the five-time Silver Slugger winner for assignment and releasing him, one year removed from a 162-game PED suspension. In so doing, New York ate the approximate $37.6MM remaining in guaranteed commitments on his contract through 2023. The Padres, pressed right against the base competitive balance tax threshold and looking for affordable offensive help, rolled the dice on Canó for just the prorated portion of the $700K league minimum salary.

Canó had started awfully with the Mets, hitting .195/.233/.268 through 12 games. That came with a massive spike in strikeouts and ground-balls relative to his earlier work, and he saw a significant drop in his free passes. San Diego chalked that up to the minuscule sample and hoped Canó would rediscover better form at the plate, but that hasn’t happened in the past couple weeks.

Through 33 plate appearances, the lefty-swinger is hitting just .094/.121/.094. He’s drawn one walk against ten strikeouts and has yet to tally an extra-base hit. The alarming strikeout, grounder and walk numbers have all gotten worse relative to his early-season numbers with the Mets. It seems the continuation of those struggles will lead the Padres to make a quick trigger in letting Canó go not long after bringing him aboard.

At 30-20, the Friars are 3 1/2 games behind the Dodgers in the NL West. They’re firmly in Wild Card position at the moment and surely have their sights set on taking the division, so they can ill afford to continue devoting Canó at-bats while he’s struggling to this extent. With no way to send him to the minors without his consent, they’re reportedly willing to watch him depart the organization entirely.

Canó has seen occasional starts at second base, freeing up Jake Cronenworth to bounce around the diamond a bit more. If the Friars indeed grant Canó his release, Cronenworth would likely head back to the keystone on a more or less everyday basis. Eric Hosmer, Ha-Seong Kim, and Manny Machado make up the remainder of the typical starting infield. The team is hoping star shortstop Fernando Tatís Jr. can make his return either later this month or in early July.

Meanwhile, the 39-year-old Canó would head back to the open market and explore other options. The Mets will continue to pay all of his salary (minus the league minimum for any time he spends on another MLB roster), so there’d be no financial risk for a team in adding him. The bigger question is whether he’s still capable of performing well enough to warrant an active roster spot.

Jean Segura To Undergo Finger Surgery, Expected To Miss 10-12 Weeks

By Anthony Franco | June 1, 2022 at 3:29pm CDT

Phillies second baseman Jean Segura will need to undergo surgery after fracturing his finger during last night’s loss to the Giants, manager Joe Girardi announced to reporters (including Alex Coffey of the Philadelphia Inquirer). The team expects him to be sidelined for 10-12 weeks.

The Phils just placed Segura on the 10-day injured list this afternoon, but it’s a virtual inevitability he’ll head to the 60-day version whenever the club needs a 40-man roster spot. It’s a brutal blow for the Phils, who are off to a disappointing 21-29 start. Philadelphia had another big offseason in an attempt to snap a decade-long playoff drought, but they’re already facing an uphill battle in the standings and will now have to play without a key regular for most of the year.

Segura has started 43 of the Phils’ 50 games this season. The contact-hitting second baseman had been having a solid year, carrying a .275/.324/.407 line through 179 trips to the plate. He has popped six home runs and swiped eight bases, making him one of the team’s more productive all-around position players. He’s in the final guaranteed year of his deal, and the club holds a $17MM option on his services for 2023 with a $1MM buyout.

With Segura out, second base seems likely to fall to a combination of rookie Bryson Stott and utilityman Johan Camargo for the time being. The former is one of the top young players in the Phillies’ system, but he’s struggled to a .123/.179/.151 line through his first 78 MLB plate appearances. Stott has hit very well in the minors and the Phils no doubt anticipate better results at the big league level, but he also only has 19 games of Triple-A experience under his belt.

Camargo has a much larger body of work in the majors. He’s a versatile infield defender with decent contact skills from both sides of the plate, but he’s not offered much in the way of offensive production since a strong 2018 season with the division-rival Braves. Camargo hit .212/.260/.361 in just shy of 400 trips to the plate between 2019-21, and the Braves cut him loose at the end of last season. He signed a one-year deal with Philly over the winter and has a .248/.318/.350 mark in 40 games.

The Phillies also have 25-year-old Nick Maton on the 40-man roster. The left-handed hitter posted a .256/.323/.385 line through his first 131 big league plate appearances last season. He’s yet to play in the majors this year, though he was recalled today from Triple-A Lehigh Valley after starting the season with a .241/.360/.462 line there. Prospect Luis Garcia, who has yet to reach Double-A, is the only other primary infielder on the 40-man roster aside from the presumptive starting group of Rhys Hoskins, Alec Bohm and Didi Gregorius.

With Segura facing an extended absence, it’s not of the question the Phils look to the trade market for some additional help. It’s rare to see trades of consequence this early in June, but president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski and his staff could look externally for a more proven solution.

Teams like the Nationals and Reds have virtually no chance of reaching the playoffs this season, and they’ve each got second basemen who are headed for free agency at the end of the year (old friend César Hernández and Brandon Drury, respectively). Seattle’s Adam Frazier could also find himself on the move as an impending free agent, but the M’s aren’t likely to make that kind of deal unless they’re still far out of contention closer to the trade deadline.

Nationals GM Mike Rizzo: “We Are Not Trading Juan Soto”

By Steve Adams | June 1, 2022 at 9:40am CDT

At 18-33, the Nationals possess the second-worst record in the National League. With a litany of injuries, the game’s worst starting rotation (by measure of ERA, FIP and fWAR), and a middle-of-the-pack offense, there’s little hope of a turnaround. Given their place in the standings and last summer’s trade-deadline fire sale, there’s been plenty of recent speculation over at ESPN about the possibility of a Juan Soto trade this summer. Soto rejected a 13-year extension offer in the offseason and is “only” controlled for two years beyond the current campaign.

Despite the lack of an extension and dwindling club control, a trade of Soto hasn’t stood out as particularly likely, and this morning, general manager Mike Rizzo made clear that he has no intention of moving Soto this season.

“We are not trading Juan Soto,” Rizzo plainly stated when asked in a radio appearance on the Sports Junkies show on 106.7 FM The Fan (Twitter link, with audio). “We’ve made it clear to his agent and to the player. … We have every intention of building this team around Juan Soto. We’ve spoken to his agent many, many times — recently sat with him when he was in Washington D.C., made it clear to him that we are not interested in trading him, and I guess the rest of the world just doesn’t believe it. But that’s our position.”

Skeptics will point to the fact that Rizzo (or any GM) would never broadcast an intention to trade Soto (or any star player) for fear of losing leverage in talks. That’s true, but it’s also true that Rizzo didn’t have to make a declarative statement at all. It’s common now, more than ever, for baseball executives to use generic front-office speak when fielding questions of this nature. Rizzo, however, did not give a boilerplate answer about how he loves the player but it’s his job to listen to all opportunities, unlikely as a deal may be. Making definitive, on-the-record statements that a player will not be traded is fairly rare.

Notably, Rizzo took this same tack with Bryce Harper at the 2018 deadline. Harper indeed stayed put, although The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal has since reported that the Astros nearly pulled off a blockbuster acquisition of Harper before Nationals ownership stepped in to nix the swap. In fairness to Rizzo, that report suggests the Harper agreement was axed on July 30; Rizzo’s comments on Harper staying in place were issued on the morning of July 31. We’ve also seen former Mets GM Brodie Van Wagenen declare that neither Noah Syndergaard nor Edwin Diaz would be traded and current Royals president of baseball ops Dayton Moore state on record that Whit Merrifield would not be moved. Not even three months ago, Cincinnati GM Nick Krall announced to reporters that even on the heels of a slew of cost-cutting moves, he had no expectation of trading either Luis Castillo or Tyler Mahle prior to the season. None of the players mentioned in those statements were traded.

Circumstances can always change, and that’s particularly true of a Nationals club that is reportedly up for a potential sale. It’s also possible that a team could simply bowl Rizzo and his staff over with a Godfather offer that he simply cannot in good conscience turn down. Still, it bears emphasizing that there’s no recent MLB example of a team’s top baseball operations official publicly proclaiming that a player will not be traded, only to then go back on that hardline stance and explain the about-face to the fanbase. The closest example is former Rockies GM Jeff Bridich saying in Jan. 2020 that Nolan Arenado would not be traded, but an Arenado deal didn’t come together until 13 months later, when circumstances had changed.

Fans of other clubs will surely hold out hope for a Soto blockbuster, and there will be no shortage of both speculation and hail-Mary attempts from other teams to pry the 23-year-old superstar from the Nationals’ grasp. Rizzo’s Wednesday comments, however, only make that long shot all the more unlikely.

Soto has yet to celebrate his 24th birthday but already has 107 big league home runs under his belt. He’s a lifetime .294/.426/.539 hitter and is already earning $17.1MM as a second-time arbitration-eligible player. (He’ll be arb-eligible four times rather than three, thanks to his Super Two status.) The Nationals’ reported 13-year offer this winter would’ve promised Soto $350MM in guaranteed money, but he opted to turn that down in favor of a year-to-year approach. Many fans were understandably aghast at the notion of rejecting $350MM in guaranteed money, but from Soto’s vantage point, he’s already earning $17MM this season and could reasonably project to earn upwards of $70-75MM over his final three arbitration seasons (2022-24). The extension, then, offered to buy out 10 free-agent seasons at somewhere in the vicinity of $27-28MM annually — an annual mark well shy of the current going rate for elite players and one he could likely trounce as a 26-year-old free agent.

Even if Soto is firmly off the market, the Nationals are shaping up to be sellers for a second straight deadline season. Veterans like Nelson Cruz, Josh Bell and Steve Cishek are among the names who could be reasonably expected to change hands, as all are free agents at season’s end.

Joe Ross To Undergo Tommy John Surgery

By Anthony Franco | May 31, 2022 at 4:57pm CDT

Nationals righty Joe Ross is slated to undergo Tommy John surgery, manager Dave Martinez informed reporters (including Jesse Dougherty of the Washington Post). He recently suffered a setback in his recovery from a UCL tear in his throwing elbow.

It’s the second career TJS for Ross, who also went under the knife in July 2017. The former first-round pick returned from that procedure at the tail end of the following campaign, but he’s unfortunately dealt with subsequent health issues. He stayed healthy in 2019, splitting the season between the big league bullpen and the Triple-A rotation, then opted out of the 2020 campaign due to COVID-19 concerns.

Ross came back last season and tied a career-high with 19 starts, but he was diagnosed with a partial UCL tear in his elbow last August. He was understandably reluctant to go back under the knife at the time, and he and the organization proceeded with a non-surgical rehab course. That still cost him the remainder of the season, and he underwent a cleanup procedure to remove some bone spurs from his elbow this spring. After opening the year on the 60-day injured list, Ross headed out on a minor league rehab assignment last week.

Unfortunately, he completed just three innings before dealing with renewed elbow tightness. A subsequent MRI revealed more ligament damage than initially expected, and Ross will no longer be able to avoid another Tommy John procedure. Martinez didn’t specify a timeline on his recovery, but given Ross’ prior injury history, he may be in for a lengthier absence than the typical 14-16 month rehab time for a UCL replacement.

The news will obviously end Ross’ 2022 season before it begins, and it’s likely to cost him most or all of 2023 as well. The disappointing series of events means he’ll have gone two-plus calendar years between appearances, aside from last week’s abbreviated rehab start. Last year’s 108 innings pitched marked a personal high, so it’s to be seen what kind of workload he’d be able to assume in 2024.

It’s also not clear for whom he’ll be playing at that point. Ross is in his final season of arbitration control, and he’ll reach free agency for the first time in his career at season’s end. He’s a candidate for a low-salary two-year contract, which would afford him the opportunity to rehab with team supervision and receive some pay next year while the signing club eyes his 2024 production. Ross could also rehab on his own and seek out a free agent deal by conducting a showcase whenever he’s healthy enough to again throw.

In the interim, Ross will spend this season on Washington’s 60-day IL. He’ll collect a $2.4MM salary, to which he and the club agreed over the winter to avoid an arbitration hearing. The Nationals will be without one of their most productive starters for the entire season, and the retooling club loses a potential midseason trade possibility. As an impending free agent on a last place team, Ross would’ve been a viable trade target for contenders in search of rotation depth were he healthy.

Mets Option Dominic Smith

By Steve Adams | May 31, 2022 at 2:06pm CDT

The Mets announced Tuesday that first baseman/outfielder Dominic Smith has been optioned to Triple-A Syracuse. Righty Adonis Medina has been recalled from Triple-A to take his spot on the active roster. Andrew Cohen of Sports Business Journal reported the news before the team announcement (Twitter link).

The demotion to Triple-A is the latest step in a pronounced downturn for Smith, who was one of the better hitters in the National League from 2019-20 when he slashed .299/.366/.571 through 396 trips to the plate. At that point, the former No. 11 overall pick and longtime top prospect looked to have finally solidified himself as a big league regular who could serve as a focal point in the Mets’ lineup for years to come.

The National League didn’t have the luxury of a designated hitter at that point, which complicated things from a playing time vantage point, given that the Mets also had Pete Alonso on the roster. Smith got a look in left field as the Mets hoped to keep both sluggers in the lineup, but through 1240 innings dating back to 2019, he’s posted dismal marks in the eyes of all defensive metrics (-7 Defensive Runs Saved, -8 Ultimate Zone Rating, -15 Outs Above Average).

Had Smith’s bat remained as productive as it was in 2019-20, perhaps the Mets might’ve lived with that poor glovework and given him a full slate of innings in left last year. However, Smith’s downturn at the plate began in 2021, when he slashed just .244/.304/.363 in 493 plate appearances. Smith told reporters this spring that he played through a small tear in his labrum last year (link via SI.com’s Pat Ragazzo), and he’s been been unable to rebound in 2022 while receiving sparse playing time alongside fellow defensively challenged slugger J.D. Davis. Smith has just 101 plate appearances on the year and has turned in a grisly .186/.287/.256 slash.

The Mets reportedly received trade interest on both Smith and Davis over the winter, but even after creating what looked to be an infield/outfield logjam they opted to hold on to both players. Between Alonso, Brandon Nimmo, Jeff McNeil and offseason signees Eduardo Escobar, Mark Canha and Starling Marte, it wasn’t clear just how Smith and/or Davis would fit into the infield/outfield rotation. So far, they really haven’t Smith’s 101 plate appearances speak to his limited use, and Davis has had even fewer plate appearances (90). Those plate appearance tallies haven’t been impacted by injury, either, as neither player has spent time on the IL in 2022.

Perhaps the Mets weren’t keen to sell low on Smith after he’d been such a productive hitter in 2019-20, but his stock has only dropped since the offseason. He’ll be able to get regular at-bats in Triple-A as he hopes to sort through his issues at the plate, and the hope is, of course, that more frequent reps at the plate will help him unlock his potential. Even if Smith rakes in Syracuse, though, he’ll still be looking up at the same crowded roster that led to such infrequent playing time to begin with.

Smith has been asked repeatedly about whether he’d prefer a trade to another team, and to his credit, he’s generally deflected those opportunities to speak out and stir the pot. Asked about the subject just two weeks ago, Smith reiterated his desire to play every day while continuing to speak positively about the Mets (link via Newsday’s Anthony Rieber). “I like where this team is going,” Smith said at the time. “I feel like I can impact this team in a number of ways, and that’s being [in the lineup] every day, in my opinion.” Smith did, however, acknowledge that the opportunity may not come with the Mets.

It’s a fine line for a player to walk, but it’d have been easy for Smith to clamor for a trade, either via interviews with the Mets beat or by more directly requesting a trade form the front office. To this point, neither has happened, though it’s feasible that being sent to Triple-A for the first time since 2018 (excluding a two-game rehab stint in ’19) could finally push him to do so. Then again, given his struggles since that huge showing in 2019-20 might make other teams wary to aggressively pursue a deal. A contending club, for example, isn’t likely to acquire Smith and plug him right into its everyday lineup, but it stands to reason that a rebuilding club might be more willing to do so.

Smith, after all, is controllable through the 2024 season, so he could be a multi-year piece should any team look to acquire him. Being sent to Triple-A won’t impact that timeline, as he entered the 2022 season with three years and 146 days of MLB service, meaning he needed only 26 days of service to reach four-plus years of service time. He’s already done that, so even in the unlikely event that he remained in Triple-A for the remainder of the season season, he’d still have the service time needed to qualify for free agency post-2024.

Optioning Smith to Triple-A should at least ostensibly appears to open some more playing time for the aforementioned Davis, who has top-of-the-scale exit velocity and hard-hit rates, even if the results aren’t there at this point. It could also mean some additional playing time for rookie Nick Plummer, who just surely turned some heads with a 4-for-8, two-homer showing in the Mets’ pair of games on May 29-30. With Canha, Marte and Nimmo all healthy, Plummer will be viewed more as a reserve option for now, but there’ll be some occasional outfield and DH at-bats available to him.

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