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Aaron Hicks To Undergo Wrist Surgery

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Yankees outfielder Aaron Hicks will undergo surgery to repair a torn tendon sheath in his left wrist, manager Aaron Boone announced to reporters Friday (Twitter link via Pete Caldera of the Bergen Record). There’s no exact timeline for his recovery, but Boone indicates that it’ll be a “months-long” process, which puts the remainder of the season in question for Hicks.

It’s yet another setback for the talented-but-oft-injured Hicks, who hasn’t looked right at the plate all season. Hicks batted just .194/.294/.333 before the discomfort in his wrist became too great and he went on the injured list last week. He underwent an MRI to determine the source of the pain, which led to the diagnosis of the tear. Given that he’s likely been playing through the issue for some time, the poor showing at the plate isn’t surprising.

Hicks appeared in 54 of the Yankees’ 60 games last summer, batting .225/.379/.414 with six homers, 10 doubles and a pair of triples. He tacked on a .308/.424/.423 showing in the team’s seven postseason games. From 2017-19, the switch-hitting Hicks gave the Yankees a .247/.362/.452 performance, but he tallied just over 1400 plate appearances during that time due to various injuries.

Hicks missed time with a hamstring strain in 2016, a pair of oblique strains in 2017 (one on his right side, one on his left) and an intercostal strain in 2018. He had a brief IL stint for back troubles in 2019 before a flexor strain put an end to his season. It was eventually revealed that Hicks would require Tommy John surgery to address the issue.

The mounting durability concerns are particularly problematic, given that in 2019, Hicks signed a seven-year, $70MM extension that runs through the 2025 campaign. He’d have been a free agent at season’s end were it not for that deal, but the Yankees are now on the hook for a $10.5MM salary from 2021-23, a $9.5MM salary in 2024-25 and a $1MM buyout on an option for the 2026 season.

Hicks’ prolonged absence now puts the struggling Brett Gardner in line to serve as the everyday center fielder. The Yankees traded Mike Tauchman to the Giants in exchange for reliever Wandy Peralta last month, and neither Aaron Judge nor Clint Frazier can be expected to handle center field on a regular basis. The Yankees have former top prospect Estevan Florial on the 40-man roster and in Triple-A, but he’s only just now getting his first experience above A-ball. It’s certainly possible they’ll still give him a look before long, but they could also be on the lookout for some outfield options outside the organization.

Diamondbacks Select Josh Reddick, Designate Yoan Lopez

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The Diamondbacks announced they’ve selected the contract of outfielder Josh Reddick. To create active and 40-man roster space, the team designated reliever Yoan López for assignment.

Reddick, 34, will now appear in the majors for the thirteenth consecutive season. Signed by the Astros to a four-year, $52MM free agent contract during the 2016-17 offseason, Reddick made an immediate impact on Houston’s 2017 World Series club. The veteran hit a very strong .314/.363/.484 across 540 plate appearances that year. He remained the Astros primary right fielder over the next three seasons, although he never again found the same level of productivity. Between 2018-20, the left-handed hitter slashed .258/.318/.400.

Once an elite corner outfielder, Reddick saw his defensive metrics go in the wrong direction in 2020. Each of Defensive Runs Saved (DRS), Ultimate Zone Rating (UZR) and Statcast’s Outs Above Average (OAA) agreed he had a difficult time tracking down fly balls last season. DRS rated Reddick as three runs worse than the average right fielder, while UZR pegged him at eight runs below average. Statcast, meanwhile, estimated Reddick got to five fewer plays than expected, placing him in the second percentile among outfielders league wide.

Advanced defensive metrics are shaky in small samples and Reddick rated highly as a defender as recently as 2019, so it’s possible the former Gold Glover can rebound somewhat in the grass. Still, Reddick’s sprint speeds have dropped as he’s gotten into his mid-30’s, so his peak is almost certainly behind him. Arizona is without expected starting right fielder Kole Calhoun due to hamstring surgery, though, so Reddick should add a capable bat to the corner outfield mix. He hit .245/.316/.378 with the Astros last year, albeit with a concerning uptick in strikeouts.

Reddick signed a minors deal with Arizona last month and got off to a solid start with Triple-A Reno, slashing .304/.365/.478 in 52 plate appearances. By making the MLB roster, he’ll lock in a prorated portion of a $750K salary.

López’s designation could close the book on an up-and-down tenure in Phoenix. A high-profile international amateur signee, he struggled as a starter in the minors but showed some promise after a bullpen transfer. The hard-throwing righty tossed 60 2/3 innings of 3.41 ERA ball in 2019, albeit with less inspiring peripherals. López has been rather home run and walk prone over the last two seasons, resulting in a ghastly 6.19 ERA in 32 combined frames.

To his credit, López is actually generating strikeouts and whiffs at a career-best mark so far this season. He still averages a strong 95.9 MPH on his heater. The 28-year-old also has all three minor league option years remaining, meaning any club that acquires could shuttle him back and forth between the majors and Triple-A over the next few years. Given López’s prospect pedigree, arm strength and roster flexibility, it wouldn’t be a surprise to see another club take a flyer on him in the coming days. The D-Backs will have a week to trade him or expose him to the waiver wire.

Chris Davis Out For Season

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Orioles first baseman and designated hitter Chris Davis will miss the rest of the season after undergoing arthroscopic surgery on his left hip, per Roch Kubatko of MASNsports.com (via Twitter). Recovery time is projected to be four to five months.

Shortstop Richie Martin is also out for the time being with a non-displaced fracture in the radius bone of his left wrist, per Kubatko. The Orioles expect him to return after somewhere between eight and twelve weeks.

The Orioles had already gone the first month and a half of the season without Davis because of a lower back strain. Now, in light of this news, it will go down as another lost season for the former star. Baltimore re-signed Davis to a seven-year, $161MM contract prior to the 2016 season, but the move has blown up in the club’s face. Now 35 years old, Davis hit an atrocious .196/.291/.379 with 92 home runs over 2,118 plate appearances from 2016-20. The Orioles owe him annual salaries of $23MM through 2022.

This will also count as a year to forget for Martin, whom the Orioles took from the Athletics in the 2018 Rule 5 Draft. Martin totaled 309 PA as an Oriole in 2019 and hit .208/.260/.322 with six home runs and 10 stolen bases. He hasn’t played in the bigs since then.

Keone Kela Undergoes Tommy John Surgery

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Padres right-handed reliever Keone Kela underwent Tommy John surgery on Wednesday, AJ Cassavell of MLB.com tweets. Kela will miss the rest of this season and a sizable portion of 2022 as a result. However, because he underwent a TJ procedure, Kela will have an $800K club option for next year kick in.

Formerly with the Rangers and Pirates, the 28-year-old Kela joined the Padres on a one-year, $1.2MM guarantee in the offseason. Kela wound up throwing 10 2/3 innings of eight-run (six earned) ball with 13 strikeouts against three walks before the Padres placed him on the injured list on May 8 with a right forearm strain.

This will go down as another injury-shortened season for Kela, who hasn’t thrown more than 29 2/3 frames in a campaign since 2019. Kela has recorded a rather impressive 3.33 ERA in 227 1/3 innings, but it will unfortunately take quite some time for the 28-year-old to return to a major league mound.

Mike Trout To Miss 6-8 Weeks With Calf Strain

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In devastating news for the Angels, superstar center fielder Mike Trout will miss six to eight weeks as a result of the right calf strain he suffered Monday, Bill Shaikin of the Los Angeles Times reports. The Angels have placed Trout on the 10-day injured list and recalled lefty Jose Quijada to take his spot on the roster for the time being.

It couldn’t get much worse than this for the Angels, who again haven’t been able to capitalize on Trout’s excellence this year. Already mired in a six-year playoff drought, the Angels are off to a subpar 18-22 start despite Trout’s best efforts. The 29-year-old future Hall of Famer has slashed .333./.466/.624 with eight home runs over 146 plate appearances, and he leads all qualified position players in wRC+ (199) and fWAR (2.5).

Unfortunately, this will go down as another injury-shortened year for Trout, who after averaging 158 games per season from 2013-16 averaged just 129 games from 2017-19. Trout also missed seven games in the shortened 2020 season, which amounts to roughly 12 percent of the season.

As a result of this news, baseball fans won’t have the privilege of watching Trout again until July or later, and his absence will obviously weaken the Angels’ lineup to a significant extent. There’s simply no realistic way to suitably replace Trout, the game’s preeminent player for several years. The Halos have used Scott Schebler and Juan Lagares in center when Trout hasn’t played this year, but they pale in comparison to the eight-time All-Star and three-time MVP.

The Angels do a pair of touted outfield prospects in Jo Adell and Brandon Marsh, either of whom could come up with Trout unavailable, though that’s unlikely to happen in the immediate future, Jeff Fletcher of the Orange County Register tweets. Adell has fanned 21 times in 57 Triple-A plate appearances (36.8 percent), while Marsh has still only logged six total games in Triple-A to this point in his career. While he’s 6-for-22 with a trio of extra-base hits in that time, Marsh has punched out nine times in 29 plate appearances (31 percent), and it seems the Angels feel he could yet benefit from additional development time.

Yankees Place Giancarlo Stanton On 10-Day Injured List

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The Yankees announced that slugger Giancarlo Stanton has been placed on the 10-day injured list due to a left quad strain.  Stanton’s placement is retroactive to May 14.  Right-hander Albert Abreu has been called up to take Stanton’s spot on the active roster.

The specter of Stanton hitting the IL is an ominous one for the Yankees and their fans, given how the 31-year-old has so often been sidelined by injuries throughout his career as a whole, and particularly his tenure in the Bronx.  A variety of leg injuries (and a biceps strain) limited Stanton to only 18 games in 2019 and 23 games in 2020, which led the Yankees to make Stanton into a full-time designated hitter prior to last season.

While New York’s lineup as a whole hasn’t lived up to its usual standard, Stanton has been a major bright spot, hitting .282/.347/.534 with nine home runs over 144 plate appearances.  Despite all the injuries, Stanton has always been a very dangerous bat when he has been able to play, which naturally only adds to the concern over this MVP-level hitter seemingly being unable to stay on the field.

The severity of Stanton’s quad strain isn’t yet known.  Given his track record, it’s probably safe to predict that the Yankees will hold Stanton out beyond the 10-day minimum just to be completely sure that this injury won’t linger (and result in another extended absence).

There is no way to really replace Stanton’s offensive contributions, of course, but the Yankees could now rotate a few players through the DH spot.  Rougned Odor is expected back from the injured list relatively soon, to add to the position player mix.  Speculatively, the absence of Stanton (not to mention Aaron Hicks and Gleyber Torres) could open up some playing time for Miguel Andujar, as the former Rookie Of The Year candidate has been lacking in consistent playing time since his own injury-ruined season in 2019.

Dodgers Sign Albert Pujols

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TODAY: The Dodgers have officially announced Pujols’ deal.  Right-hander Tony Gonsolin was shifted to the 60-day injured list in a corresponding roster move.

Pujols issued a statement on the signing via his personal Twitter feed, saying “First, I would like to thank God for the opportunity he has given me to play this game.  While this is not how I thought my time in Anaheim would end, I am truly grateful for the memories and friendships that have been created over the past 10 years.  Thank you to my teammates and Angels fans everywhere for your support.  You will always hold a special place in my heart.”

“While everyone in the big leagues wants to compete every day, I understand roles do change and that is something I’ve accepted for the past couple of years.  The role that Andrew Friedman and Dave Roberts have presented to me is one that I embrace.  I am excited to be part of the Dodger family and want to thank Andrew, Dave and the rest of the Dodger organization for this opportunity.  My goal is the same as it’s always been – to help the ballclub win a championship in 2021.  I’ve seen up close just how talented this team is and I look forward to contributing.”

MAY 15: Albert Pujols is staying in Los Angeles: He and the Dodgers have agreed to a major league contract for the rest of the season, Jorge Castillo of the LA Times reports.

The Pujols signing comes just over a week after the Angels let the future Hall of Famer go. Pujols then reportedly garnered interest from a few teams, including the Cardinals – with whom he had his greatest success – but the first baseman will join a Dodgers team aiming for its second consecutive World Series championship. He’ll presumably serve as a bench bat for the Dodgers, who have relied on Max Muncy at first base for most of 2021.

Pujols is far from the superstar he once was, but the Dodgers obviously believe the 10-time All-Star and three-time MVP will give them a credible bat in a part-time role. The 41-year-old hasn’t produced much since his stark decline began in 2017, having batted .240/.289/.405 (84 wRC+) with 76 home runs in 1,934 plate appearances over the past four-plus seasons.

Pujols also got off to an ugly .198/.250/.372 start with five home runs in 92 PA this year before the Angels parted with him, but there were some positives during that span. He was the victim of a ridiculously low .176 batting average on balls in play, .110 points below his career mark, and at least a few Statcast numbers suggest he deserved better during his final month-plus with the Angels. For instance, Pujols’ .347 expected weighted on-base average far outdoes his .270 wOBA.

Considering Pujols’ weak bottom-line production over the past few seasons, this signing may not amount to much for the Dodgers. But it’s a low-risk move for the Dodgers, who will pay him the prorated minimum salary, and it gives Pujols an opportunity to chase his third World Series ring as he nears the end of his marvelous career.

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.

Corey Seager Out At Least Four Weeks, Will Not Require Surgery On Broken Hand

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MAY 16, 2:07 pm: Fortunately, Seager will not require surgery, Roberts announced this afternoon (via Fabian Ardaya of the Athletic). His specific timetable for a potential return remains unclear, although he will miss at least a month, per Jorge Castillo of the Los Angeles Times. In the interim, Gavin Lux will be Los Angeles’ primary shortstop. Seager fractured the fifth metacarpal in his right hand, Roberts said (via Bill Plunkett of the Orange County Register). The Dodgers are recalling catcher Keibert Ruiz to take his place on the active roster.

MAY 16, 1:21 am: X-rays revealed a fractured right hand for Seager, manager Dave Roberts told MLB.com’s Juan Toribio and other reporters post-game.  Seager will be placed on the 10-day IL prior to Sunday’s game, and the timetable for his return isn’t yet clear.

MAY 15: Dodgers shortstop Corey Seager left tonight’s game in the fifth inning after being hit in the right hand/wrist area by a pitch from Marlins southpaw Ross Detwiler.  Seager was immediately removed and didn’t take first base, as Sheldon Neuse replaced Seager as a pinch-runner.

There isn’t yet any word on the severity of Seager’s injury, though even a day-to-day type of absence wouldn’t be good news for a Dodger team that already has plenty of key personnel on the injured list.  Just today, AJ Pollock joined such names as Cody Bellinger, Tony Gonsolin, David Price, Brusdar Graterol, Scott Alexander, and Zach McKinstry on the short-term IL, while Dustin May and Edwin Rios have suffered season-ending injuries.  Losing Seager would be a particularly tough blow considering both his status as one of the game’s best shortstops, and because the Dodgers’ depth at the position is already thinned by the absence of utilityman McKinstry.

In the event of a lengthy absence for Seager, Chris Taylor or Gavin Lux would likely take the reins at shortstop, though moving Taylor out of center field could require Mookie Betts to shift over to center and thus open up a space in right field.  A cleaner move would be Lux to shortstop, Max Muncy to second base and an Albert Pujols/Yoshi Tsutsugo combination at first base, though Lux has struggled badly at the plate this season.  Fortunately for Los Angeles, Bellinger and McKinstry are both close to beginning rehab assignments, though that wouldn’t help in the short term if Seager is out.

Seager is hitting .265/.361/.422 with four home runs over his first 169 plate appearances of the season.  Though his 121 wRC+ is down from the 152 wRC+ posted over 232 PA in 2020, a Seager who stays healthy and productive throughout the season will be well-positioned to be one of the top free agents of the 2021-22 offseason.

Athletics To Begin Exploring Relocation

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TODAY: Oakland vice-mayor Rebecca Kaplan has requested that the Oakland City Council vote on the Athletics’ ballpark term sheet on July 20, according to Matt Kawahara and Sarah Ravani of The San Francisco Chronicle.  The City Council also sent a letter to Major League Baseball on Friday stating that “The Oakland City Council is committed to negotiating in good faith for a strong future for the A’s in Oakland, and we invite the A’s and MLB to do the same by agreeing not to seek relocation while the A’s complete the project process as the Council moves forward.”

The letter also feels there was some “incorrect information” within MLB’s statement, noting that the Council has not been “delaying or refusing to consider the A’s project proposal.”  The letter also questioned MLB’s designation of the Coliseum as “not a viable option,” referring to that statement as an “unsupported conclusion.”

“In any case, we hope you will understand that the shifting ‘demands’ on what Oakland must do, combined with your public threat to allow the team to leave, even while the City is undertaking the items that you and the A’s have urged, might leave the impression that there never has been any good faith intent on your part to work on a future ballpark in Oakland.  However, we remain open to working together.  It is possible that you didn’t intend to threaten relocation from a city, in the absence of that city’s leadership even being given an opportunity to consider a proposal from the team.”

MAY 11: As the Athletics await a decision from the city of Oakland regarding their proposed $12 billion mixed-use development, which includes a new waterfront stadium at Oakland’s Howard Terminal, Major League Baseball has encouraged them to look into the possibility of relocation, ESPN’s Jeff Passan reports. The team’s preference is and has been to remain in Oakland, but Passan’s report suggests that at the behest of the league, they’ll at least look into alternatives, with Las Vegas the “likeliest possibility” if relocation is the ultimate outcome.

It’s hardly the first time that we’ve seen a major sports franchise threaten relocation as a means of ratcheting up pressure on local government to approve a new stadium deal. Major League Baseball’s statement on the matter suggests that the current Oakland Coliseum site “is not a viable option for the future vision of baseball” and suggests that the A’s “need a new ballpark to remain competitive.”

Indeed, recent issues with the lighting, 2016’s sewage fiasco, and myriad other issues with the facility have underscored the park’s dilapidated inadequacies. But the viability of a new park at the current site and the Athletics’ purported “need” for a new park at a new site (and the associated real estate benefits) in order to compete are more debatable. Athletics owner John Fisher echoed the league’s statement, claiming that the “future success of the A’s depends on a new ballpark.” President Dave Kaval made a similar statement.

It’s perhaps not a coincidence that the “likeliest possibility” is said to be Las Vegas — the same city to which Oakland and its fans already lost the NFL’s Raiders and one of commissioner Rob Manfred’s oft-cited locations for potential expansion. It is, in fact, the second time in the past three years that the league has threatened to move the team away from Oakland and into Vegas; Manfred himself directly raised the possibility with the city of Oakland back in October 2019. Whether the threat of a move is actually real remains to be seen. As many have rightly pointed out, relocating a team or creating an expansion club in Vegas (or Charlotte, Nashville, or any other regularly mentioned site) would lessen the leverage for current clubs when haggling over new stadiums.

The Athletics’ lease at their current stadium runs through the 2024 season. They’ve spent several years exploring potential sites in Oakland and around the Bay Area but incurred various roadblocks that have torpedoed those efforts. The current proposal includes $1 billion of private funding for construction of the park itself, but Passan quotes a spokesperson from the Oakland mayor’s office indicating that the team’s request for public funding elsewhere in the proposal is “at the high end of projects of this type nationwide.”

MLBPA Files Grievance Against MLB

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The Major League Baseball Players Association has filed a grievance against the league, claiming that MLB did not negotiate in good faith to play as many games as possible in the shortened 2020 season, Joel Sherman of the New York Post reports. The MLBPA grievance seeks as much as $500MM, which Sherman suggests is the equivalent of roughly 20 games of additional pay.

At this point, the timeline for a potential resolution isn’t fully clear. Evan Drellich and Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic report that the grievance was actually filed two weeks ago, adding that the league has argued in response that 60 games was the maximum possible due to health and safety reasons. Of course, the league itself submitted proposals for larger numbers of games, although it did so with additional salary cuts which MLB knew to be a nonstarter in talks with the union.

Both the Post and the Athletic note that the league has asked the union to fast-track this grievance so that a resolution may be reached in advance of the looming expiration of the collective bargaining agreement on Dec. 1, 2021. However, it also seems viable that the union could drag out the process so that an eventual concession to drop the grievance can be used as a negotiating ploy in those CBA talks.

The crux of the grievance seems to stem from the language in the March 26 agreement reached between MLB and the MLBPA last year. That agreement stipulated that the league would make its “best efforts to play as many games as possible.” Less than a month after striking that accord, the two sides were embroiled in a new debate, once it had become clear that it would not be possible to have fans in attendance. The union left open a window for owners to pull back on their commitment to prorated salaries, as language within the March agreement stated that the two sides would “discuss in good faith the economic feasibility of playing games in the absence of spectators.”

The result was an ugly, months-long debate that played out in the public eye. A new agreement was never reached, and commissioner Rob Manfred eventually implemented a 60-game schedule under the terms of that March agreement. Players were paid the prorated version of their salaries — roughly 37 percent of what they initially stood to earn with a full, 162-game slate. Service time was also prorated, such that one day on the MLB roster in the shortened schedule amounted to roughly 2.77 days of service time. Incentive clauses and the conditions to trigger vesting options in player contracts were prorated as well.

Now, it seems the two sides are set to spar once again over the vague and nebulous language in that March agreement — this time against a more immediate backdrop of collective bargaining negotiations. If the two sides can’t agree on some form of settlement, the grievance will eventually be heard by a three-person arbitration panel. Because one member of that panel represents the union and another represents the league, the outcome will effectively boil down to the ruling of the lone, mutually agreed-upon third party.

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