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Christian Yelich Fractures Kneecap, Out For Season

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Sept. 12: Milwaukee general manager David Stearns confirmed that Yelich won’t need surgery but placed a timeline of eight to ten weeks on his recovery (Twitter links via Todd Rosiak of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel). Stearns described the injury as a “small” fracture and added that it’s not expected to impact Yelich in the long run.

Sept. 11: The Brewers can breathe a small sigh of relief. Yelich won’t need surgery, and he’ll be out just six weeks, according to Jim Bowden of SiriusXM.

Sept. 10: The Brewers announced devastating news Tuesday: Superstar outfielder Christian Yelich suffered a fractured right kneecap in their win over the Marlins and will miss the rest of the season. He incurred the injury after fouling a ball off his knee in the first inning.

This will cut short a phenomenal season for Yelich, who may have been on his way to Most Valuable Player honors in the National League for the second straight year (and could still win the award). Yelich’s campaign will conclude with a .329/.429/.671 line, 44 home runs, 30 stolen bases and 7.7 fWAR/7.1 rWAR in 580 plate appearances. The 27-year-old currently leads all of baseball in OPS (1.100), paces the NL in wRC+ (172), and stood a legitimate chance to post the first 50-30 season in the history of the sport.

The fact that the Brewers are firmly in the NL postseason race makes the loss of Yelich all the more horrific. After its latest victory, Milwaukee sits 76-68, just 1 1/2 games back of the division-rival Cubs for the league’s second wild-card spot. Now, with Yelich joining fellow offensive linchpin Keston Hiura on the shelf, it’s especially difficult to imagine the Brewers rallying to clinch a playoff spot for the second consecutive year.

At this point, it’s safe to say one of the main concerns for the Brew Crew is whether this injury will affect Yelich going forward. President of baseball operations David Stearns said Tuesday (via Todd Rosiak of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel) that there’s not yet “a definitive time frame” for Yelich’s recovery, nor is it clear whether he’ll need surgery. The Brewers will reevaluate Yelich on Wednesday, per Stearns, who called the injury “a gut punch” but expressed hope the club will overcome what could realistically amount to a death blow for its 2019 hopes.

Byron Buxton To Undergo Labrum Surgery

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Twins center fielder Byron Buxton is undergoing surgery to fix his left (non-throwing) shoulder labrum, skipper Rocco Baldelli told reporters including Betsy Helfand of the St. Paul Pioneer-Press (via Twitter). That’ll obviously end his 2019 season.

It had emerged earlier today that some kind of surgical outcome was likely. But this still represents a major development in the situation. Precise details of Buxton’s procedure remain unknown — and will depend upon what’s found by surgeons — but the baseline expectation is of a five-to-six-month recovery process. (Via Do-Hyoung Park of MLB.com, on Twitter.)

Spring Training will begin in mid-February of 2020. That’ll be right at the six-month mark from today’s procedure. Depending upon the severity of the damage, extent of the work, and course of rehab, it seems Buxton’s full availability at the outset of camp is possible but hardly assured.

The Twins will be gathering information on Buxton’s progress and outlook throughout the rehab process. But the club is going to have to account for the uncertainty in some manner. Just how it might impact the offseason decisionmaking remains to be seen.

As we examined further in the above-linked story, this news will force the Twins into a sub-optimal outfield alignment down the stretch and into the postseason. It takes a player out of the mix who had been playing at a 5 to 6 WAR full-season pace. Looking forward, Buxton’s limited playing time will limit his ability to secure a big raise on top of his current salary of $1.75MM, though his strong offensive numbers will certainly support a bump. A Super Two qualifier this year, Buxton remains eligible to go through the arb process three more times.

Athletics Promote Jesus Luzardo

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Sept. 9: The Athletics have formally announced Luzardo’s promotion, adding that they’ve also recalled right-hander Daniel Mengden from Las Vegas. In order to open a spot on the 40-man roster for Luzardo, outfielder Luis Barrera was recalled to the Majors and immediately placed on the 60-day injured list. The 23-year-old Barrera has been out since late June due to a right shoulder issue. He’s yet to play in the Majors but will receive MLB service time for the time he spends on the injured list between now and season’s end.

Sept. 8: The A’s are calling up top prospect Jesus Luzardo, MLB.com’s Martin Gallegos reports (Twitter link).  The star left-hander is expected to join the team on Monday when they begin a series against the Astros.  Another transaction will have to be made before Monday’s game to create space for Luzardo on the 40-man roster.

"<strongIt had been widely expected that Oakland would call on the prized 21-year-old southpaw at some point during the playoff stretch, though had it not been for injuries, Luzardo would almost certainly have made his MLB debut months ago.  Luzardo was sidelined by both a shoulder strain and then a lat strain in the early part of the season, and has only 43 total innings pitched in the minors in 2019.  After a clean bill of health over the last few weeks of Triple-A action, however, Luzardo is finally ready for the Show.

His solid numbers in those four Triple-A outings (3.19 ERA, 4.25 K/BB rate, 9.9 K/9) have done little to quell expectations that Luzardo can provide an immediate help to the Athletics’ pitching mix.  All of Luzardo’s Triple-A appearances came as a starting pitcher, though since the A’s are already using a six-man rotation, it’s more likely that the club will deploy the lefty as a multi-inning weapon out of the bullpen.

Oakland has taking something of a patchwork approach to its pitching situation all season, yet the results have spoken for themselves — both the Athletics’ starters and relievers rank within the top ten in several major statistical categories among all teams.  As the A’s continue to fight for a wild card spot, however, the club wants as many arms as possible on hand given the lack of proven and reliable talent on hand.  For much of the year, the A’s have been playing the waiting game until Sean Manaea, A.J. Puk, and Luzardo have been healthy and ready to contribute.

Though Luzardo hasn’t clocked many innings this season, it has done little to dim his status as one of the sport’s top minor leaguers, as midseason prospect rankings from Baseball America (9th), MLB.com (18th), and Fangraphs (24th) still placed Luzardo very highly on their boards.  Originally a third-round pick for the Nationals in the 2016 draft, Luzardo came to the A’s — along with Blake Treinen and Sheldon Neuse — in the trade that sent Sean Doolittle and Ryan Madson to Washington July 2017.  Over 195 2/3 frames in the minors, Luzardo has a 2.53 ERA, 5.44 K/BB rate, and 10.8 K/9, while also showing an ability to keep the ball in the park with only an 0.6 HR/9.

It seems likely that Luzardo would have been more than a third-rounder had he not undergone Tommy John surgery during his senior year of high school.  Despite that early surgery, however, Luzardo still generate a lot of heat on his fastball, hitting the 97mph mark during Spring Training and routinely reaching the mid-90’s.  Despite that plus fastball, Baseball America ranks it as only his second-best pitch on the 20-80 scouting scale, as BA’s 60-grade for Luzardo’s heater was topped by a 70-grade changeup.  MLB.com’s scouting report also praises Luzardo’s curveball, which “has improved and is at least above-average, a pitch he adds to and subtracts from at will.”

Assuming good health and a good showing in September (and, the A’s hope, in the playoffs), Luzardo projects to join Oakland’s rotation in 2020.  Veterans Tanner Roark, Homer Bailey, and Brett Anderson are all free agents, paving the way for Manaea, Puk, Mike Fiers, Frankie Montas, Chris Bassitt, and Luzardo to all factor into the starting picture for next season.  It’s a relatively inexperienced group with a lot of injury history, though starting pitching certainly looks like it could be a strength for the Athletics going forward, notwithstanding how the team has succeeded despite an uncertain rotation mix over the last two years.

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images

Red Sox Part Ways With Dave Dombrowski

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Sept. 9: The Red Sox have issued a press release on the shakeup, announcing that a search for a new baseball operations leader will commence “immediately.”

“Four years ago, we were faced with a critical decision about the direction of the franchise,” principal owner John Henry stated within the release. “We were extraordinarily fortunate to be able to bring Dave in to lead baseball operations. With a World Series Championship and three consecutive American League East titles, he has cemented what was already a Hall of Fame career.”

Sept. 8: In a shocking development, the Red Sox announced that they have parted ways with president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski.  Assistant GMs Eddie Romero, Zack Scott, and Brian O’Halloran, and senior VP of Major League and minor league operations Raquel Ferreira will take over as the heads of the baseball ops department for the remainder of the season (MLB.com’s Ian Browne was among those to report the news of the assistant GMs in the interim roles, while Alex Speier of the Boston Globe reported Ferreira’s involvement.)

It was just last fall that the Red Sox captured a World Series championship with one of the best teams in recent baseball history, winning 108 regular-season games and then rolling through the playoffs with an 11-3 record.  It marked the club’s first title since Dombrowski took over the job in August 2015, and his second World Series in over three decades as one of the game’s most respected front office bosses.  Dombrowski also put together the Marlins team that won the 1997 Series, and his resume also includes two American League pennants with the Tigers in 2006 and 2012.

With such a track record of both past and recent success, it’s hard to believe that Dombrowski is so suddenly out of a job, though there had been some whispers that ownership took a dim view of Boston’s underachievement in 2019.  Tonight’s loss to the Yankees dropped the Sox 17.5 games out of first place in the AL East, and eight games behind the Athletics for the last AL wild card slot, making a postseason return all but impossible.

Multiple issues surrounded the 2019 Red Sox, which were seemingly enough for upper management to decide that a change was needed.  For one, the team exceeded the upper level of the luxury tax ($237MM) in 2018, and are again in position to exceed the new upper threshold of $246MM this season.  As per Roster Resource, the Red Sox have a projected luxury tax number of over $257.7MM, putting them in line to face another maximum penalty — a 75 percent tax on the overage, as well as a drop of ten spots for their highest pick of the 2020 draft.  (MLBTR’s Jeff Todd explored some of the financial ramifications for the Red Sox and the Competitive Balance Tax back in February.)

This cash crunch left the team unable to truly add new pieces to the roster, particularly a bullpen that seemed thin after Craig Kimbrel and Joe Kelly departed in free agency.  Still, Boston’s offseason focus largely centered around re-signing key members of their 2018 roster (Nathan Eovaldi and Steve Pearce), while also extending Chris Sale and Xander Bogaerts, both of whom would have been free agents after the 2019 campaign.

Unfortunately for the Sox, a large chunk of their 2019 expenditures went for naught.  Eovaldi (signed to a four-year, $68MM deal) and Pearce (one-year, $6.25MM) have both been ineffective or injured for much of the year, with Eovaldi shifted into bullpen work rather than his expected role in the starting rotation.  Sale has endured a career-worst season after signing a five-year, $145MM extension that runs through the 2024 season (unless Sale opts out after 2022, which seems unlikely at this point).

Past Dombrowski acquisitions have also started to show their age this year.  Eduardo Nunez and Mitch Moreland have combined for -0.4 fWAR at a combined cost of $11.5MM.  David Price has put up generally good numbers since signing his seven-year, $217MM contract in the 2015-16 offseason, but his production hasn’t matched the big expectations that came with what is still the biggest deal ever handed to a pitcher in terms of total dollars.

If this analysis of Dombrowski’s misfires seems too centered around the results of the 2019 season, there’s really no other way to explain his firing, since at this time last year the baseball world was praising Dombrowski’s creation of a super-team.  (Beyond the 2018 Series, Boston also won AL East titles in both 2016 and 2017.)  Known for bold trades of prospects for star talent, it was Dombrowski who brought Sale and Kimbrel to Boston in major deals with the White Sox and Padres, respectively.  The extensions for Bogaerts and Christian Vazquez both look like big pluses, and the J.D. Martinez signing was a major win.

It should also be noted that if the luxury tax overage was such a big strike against Dombrowski, that wasn’t entirely his doing.  The Red Sox could have made just a minimal CBT payment if it wasn’t for the roughly $46MM in salaries paid out to Pablo Sandoval, Rusney Castillo, and Dustin Pedroia, all on contracts inked during the regime of previous general manager Ben Cherington.  Pedroia’s career is in jeopardy due to chronic knee problems, Sandoval hasn’t played for Boston in over two years, and Castillo is stuck in minor league limbo until his deal is up.

In fairness to Cherington, he was also not far removed from a World Series title (less than two seasons) when he himself was replaced by Dombrowski midway through the 2015 season.  The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal recently explored the possibility of a Dombrowski firing, and pointed out the extraordinarily high standard that seemingly any Red Sox general manager will have to meet, given that not even recent championships were enough to spare Cherington or Dombrowski.  As Rosenthal rhetorically asked, if Sox ownership is “frustrated with Dombrowski’s spending and his use of prospects as trade fodder, well, what exactly did they think they were getting? Dombrowski hasn’t broken from character in Boston, has never disguised his M.O.”

Boston’s farm system has been thinned by both Dombrowski’s trades, but perhaps moreso by the graduation of several of the top young prospects to the big leagues, so it isn’t as if the Red Sox are drastically short on premium young talent.  Rafael Devers is still a pre-arbitration player, after all, while Andrew Benintendi is only arb-eligible this winter and Eduardo Rodriguez has two arb years remaining.

Even Mookie Betts has one final year of arbitration eligibility, and while his future in Boston was already a big question, it has become of even greater import in the wake of Dombrowski’s firing.  Betts told reporters (including Jason Mastrodonato of the Boston Herald) tonight that the front office change “is proof that it’s still a business.”  While reiterating that “I love it here [in Boston],” Betts also said “it’s going to be the same answer” in regards to his plan to test the free agent market following the 2020 season.

It will be fascinating to see what direction Red Sox ownership takes in their search for a new baseball operations head.  Since John Henry’s ownership group bought the franchise, they famously promoted young executives from within (Theo Epstein and Cherington) before going in the opposite direction with Dombrowski, a veteran baseball man from outside the organization.  As Rosenthal noted in his piece, rebuilding doesn’t appear to be an option in Boston, so a new front office boss will have to creatively replenish the minor league system while still keeping the Sox in contention for another championship.

The next GM will inherit, after all, a team that is still talented — the Red Sox have a 76-67 record, and their offensive core of Betts, Bogaerts, Devers, and Martinez is as good as any in the sport.  But with Martinez potentially opting out of his deal and some major work needed for the rotation and bullpen, offseason business could explore trades of players a year removed from free agency (such as Betts or Jackie Bradley Jr.) in order to refurbish the roster.  Quite a bit of salary will also be coming off the books, so there’s a possibility the Sox could duck under the $208MM luxury tax threshold altogether and reset their penalty status.

Dombrowski was under contract though the 2020 season, and turned 63 in July.  The exec hadn’t had many public ruminations on his future, though he wishes to continue working, one would imagine several front offices would be interested in bringing him on, at least in an advisory capacity.  Or, it’s also not hard to imagine a team perhaps deciding to make a front office change now that Dombrowski is available.

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images

Cubs To Promote Danny Hultzen, Designate Taylor Davis

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Sept. 7: Hultzen’s contract has officially been selected. In order to clear a spot on the 40-man roster, the Cubs have designated Taylor Davis for assignment.

Sept. 6: It has been a long and winding road for former first-round draft pick Danny Hultzen, but the path will finally pass through the majors. The Cubs southpaw has received his first MLB promotion, according to Brett Taylor of Bleacher Nation (via Twitter).

Hultzen, 29, was the second overall pick of the 2011 draft after excelling at the University of Virginia. He was seemingly breezing through the Mariners farm system when a spiraling series of injuries completely derailed his career.

It seemed like a longshot that Hultzen would be able to get back to functioning on the mound, let alone thriving. But he has opened eyes in 14 1/3 innings this year at Triple-A, allowing just two earned runs on a paltry four hits while racking up 23 strikeouts against nine walks.

Calling up Hultzen will require the Cubs to clear a place on the 40-man roster. The corresponding move isn’t yet known.

Mets Activate Jed Lowrie

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The Mets are set to welcome one of their offseason additions, as infielder Jed Lowrie has been activated from the injured list, according to Tim Healey of Newsday. In addition, Dominic Smith has been transferred to the 60-day injured list and right-hander Drew Gagnon has been recalled from Triple-A.

Lowrie, one of the Mets’ significant signings of the offseason, has yet to play a game in his new uniform due to a series of left leg injuries affecting the knee, hamstring, and calf. Lowrie, 35, inked a 2-year, $20MM contract with the Mets but began the season on the injured list with a left knee capsule strain that emerged in Spring Training. However, a hamstring strain in May delayed the timetable for his recovery, and it seems that rehab subsequently snowballed into a complicated mess of recovery and re-injury.

With Robinson Cano and Todd Frazier installed at second and third base, respectively, it’s unclear just how much playing time Lowrie will receive. In that regard, not much has changed since Lowrie was signed, when the fit appeared questionable, given the team’s invested in Cano and the presence of promising youngster Jeff McNeil. At the very least, he’ll be able to offer some return on the first year of the Mets’ investment. He’s coming off a pair of productive seasons in Oakland, posting a cumulative OPS of .804, including a career-best 23 home runs last season. While he likely isn’t at full health yet, the Mets will hope for signs that Lowrie isn’t far off those numbers—not only for this season, but with an eye on 2020 as well.

Meanwhile, Smith may very well have played his last game this season; now on the 60-day IL, the earliest he could return would come in the final week of the regular season. If indeed his season is over, he’ll close the book on a breakthrough age-24 season in which he has slashed .278/.352/.506 in a part-time role. However, Anthony DiComo of MLB.com reports that there’s a chance he could be cleared to make another appearance or two, as he’ll be reevaluated in his recovery from a stress fracture in his left foot.

Michael Pineda Receives 60-Game PED Suspension

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Minnesota Twins right-handed pitcher Michael Pineda has been suspended for 60 games for violating MLB’s drug policy, reports Jon Heyman of MLB Network. He’ll miss the remainder of the season and is not eligible for postseason play.

Per Do-Hyoung Park of MLB.com, the 30-year-old Pineda tested positive for hydrochlorothiazide, a diuretic on MLB’s list of banned substances. Though that diuretic itself is not a performance-enhancing drug, it is often used in conjunction with PEDs for a masking effect. ESPN’s Jeff Passan adds that Pineda was initially tagged with an 80-game ban—standard procedure for first-time offenders—but an appeal brought that number down to 60 after providing evidence that the substance in Pineda’s system was not used as a masking agent for PEDs.

After undergoing Tommy John surgery in July 2017, Pineda caught on with the Twins on a two-year deal worth $10MM. Forced to sit out the entire 2018 season, Minnesota knew that it was only paying for one healthy season of Pineda, and his rebound has certainly been a respectable one. Though by no means a top-tier starter, he’s added depth to a Twins rotation that desperately needed it. He’s slotted in as the Twins third-best starter, posting a 4.01 ERA while racking up 146 innings for a playoff team. This year, he’s struck out 140 batters compared to just 28 walks, good for a clean 5.00 K:BB ratio.

His numbers have been even better over the last three-plus months, though, as it presumably took some time for the ex-Yankee to regain his feel for pitching after a lost season. Since the calendar turned to June, Pineda is sporting a sterling 3.10 ERA while striking out more than a batter per inning. During that stretch, he has indeed been the most reliable Minnesota starter.

However, that production will now be absent from any October games, with the suspension rendering Pineda ineligible for postseason play. That represents a considerable blow for the Twins, whose rotation has greatly benefited from the solid second-half presence of Pineda. Jose Berrios and Jake Odorizzi are an All-Star pairing, and Pineda would have given the Twins the makings of a respectable playoff rotation.

Instead, Kyle Gibson and Martin Perez will be relied upon to comprise half of that unit. Though Gibson and Perez have been valuable to the Twins in their own right, both have graded out a notch below Pineda, a disparity that could be magnified in a short series where pitching is often king. Gibson, currently on the injured list, is the more reliable of that duo: his 4.04 FIP compares favorably to Pineda’s and he owns a better track record of solid production. Perez, meanwhile, has made considerable adjustments to increase his staying power, though he still struggles with command and inconsistency. He is sporting just a 1.98 K:BB ratio to go with a 4.75 ERA.

Pineda issued a statement regarding his suspension through the MLB Players Association.

NHL’s San Jose Sharks Hire Former Dodgers GM Ned Colletti

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In case last night’s report that Carlos Correa has hired Bobby Flay’s agent wasn’t strange enough for you — fear not, cravers of odd baseball news! The NHL’s San Jose Sharks announced today that they’ve hired former Dodgers general manager Ned Colletti as a professional scout. Sharks general manager Doug Wilson offered the following statement on the matter:

Ned has an extensive background working in professional sports and talent evaluation and he will bring a fresh perspective to our organization’s evaluation process. This was a unique opportunity to add someone of Ned’s experience to our staff.

Colletti has never worked in hockey before but does join the Sharks with more than three decades of experience working in a Major League front office — including 18 seasons as an assistant general manager or general manager of a Major League team. Clearly, the Sharks are convinced enough of Colletti’s hockey acumen to make a decidedly outside-the-box hire.

[Related: Pro Hockey Rumors’ coverage of the Sharks hiring Ned Colletti]

Colletti isn’t the only notable executive to completely change sports in recent years, but it seems he’ll have a more direct say in player evaluation than Paul DePodesta took on when joining the NFL’s Cleveland Browns as their Chief Strategy Officer in early 2016. (DePodesta, per the Browns, is “tasked with implementing systems and processes to strengthen the Browns organization and decision making” in his role with the team.)

Since being replaced by the Dodgers following the 2014 season, Colletti has been rumored to be a part of the GM searches for both the Diamondbacks and the Orioles, but he’s never signed on as an executive with another MLB organization. Colletti served as an adviser to Dodgers president Stan Kasten after being removed as GM and has also served as a television analyst with Sportsnet Los Angeles.

Aaron Sanchez To Undergo Season-Ending Shoulder Surgery

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Aaron Sanchez won’t pitch again this season, as Astros GM Jeff Luhnow told reporters (including Mark Berman of KRIV Fox 26) that the right-hander is set to undergo shoulder surgery next week.  The nature of the procedure or Sanchez’s recovery timeline isn’t yet known, as Luhnow said more details will be forthcoming after the surgery takes place.

Sanchez was already on the injured list (dating back to August 21) due to a sore right pectoral muscle, and though the severity of his shoulder problem isn’t yet established, it represents yet another troubling injury absence for the 27-year-old.  Sanchez was plagued with a variety of blister, nail, and finger problems in 2017-18, and also missed over two months due to finger surgery in 2018.

These injuries derailed what was looking like a career on the rise, as Sanchez posted a league-best 3.00 ERA in 2016 for a Blue Jays team that reached the American League Championship Series.  Since the end of that season, however, Sanchez has a 5.29 ERA, 7.4 K/9, and 1.54 K/BB rate over 272 1/3 innings for Toronto and Houston, as he has been unable to regain his past form even when healthy.

The Jays dealt Sanchez to the Astros as part of a four-player deal at the trade deadline, and the prevailing thought was that Sanchez could blossom with a change of scenery, particularly given how the Astros had proven to be adept at reviving pitchers’ careers or taking them to another level in recent years.  This seemed like the case almost immediately, as Sanchez’s first start as an Astro saw him toss six hitless innings as part of a combined no-hitter.

After following that start up with another strong outing, however, Sanchez struggled over his next two starts, and his first season for Houston will finish with a 4.82 ERA, 7.7 K/9, and 1.78 K/BB rate over 18 2/3 innings.  While it’s a small sample size, Sanchez’s home run problems (already an issue in Toronto) worsened, as he surrendered five homers over those 18 2/3 frames.

Sanchez as seen as a potential relief weapon out of the Astros’ pen in October (he excelled in a similar role during the 2015 Blue Jays’ postseason run).  Since Sanchez is no longer an option, it adds another question mark to an increasingly troubled Astros relief corps as the club approaches the playoffs.  Ryan Pressly, Collin McHugh, and Brad Peacock are all on the IL, while closer Roberto Osuna has been rather homer-prone himself.  It remains to be seen how healthy and effective the relievers will be to back up the all-world starting quartet of Justin Verlander, Gerrit Cole, Zack Greinke, and Wade Miley.

Looking long-term, if the surgery require a long recovery period, Sanchez could even be in danger of being non-tendered by Houston in the offseason.  He will be arbitration-eligible for a third and final time this winter, though he won’t carry a big price tag, after Sanchez made just under $1.271MM in 2019.  With only a modest raise forthcoming, the Astros could decide to tender Sanchez a contract just to see what they can get from him next year, or perhaps work out a two-year extension to keep him into the fold for 2021 should Sanchez miss a large portion of the 2020 season.

Brewers Release Jeremy Jeffress

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Sept. 3: The Brewers announced that Jeffress has been released. He’s eligible to sign with any other club at this point but would not be postseason eligible in 2019. The previous 2020 option on his contract was rendered moot when he was released, so any club signing Jeffress to a new deal would control him only through the end of the current season (unless a new club option were to be tacked on).

Sept. 1: The Brewers are set to release right-hander Jeremy Jeffress, tweets Ken Rosenthal of the Athletic. As Rosenthal notes, the veteran reliever is currently on the 10-day injured list with a strained left hip.

It’s the culmination of a shocking turn of events for the 31 year-old, whose 1.29 ERA last season was a key reason Milwaukee advanced within a game of the World Series. The 2019 season has been nowhere near as effective for Jeffress (or the team), who has seen his strikeout rate drop from 29.8 percent to 20.4 percent. Despite strong walk and ground-ball numbers, Jeffress simply hasn’t been overpowering enough to get an adequate number of outs this year.

Jeffress had a club option covering his 2020 services, so evidently Milwaukee wasn’t interested in bringing him back at that rate and valued the 40-man roster spot over whatever they felt he could offer were he to get healthy. It’s possible to see Jeffress latch on elsewhere if an interested team feels comfortable with his medicals, but he’ll be ineligible for anyone’s postseason roster as a post-September 1 addition. It’s certainly arguable that Jeffress would be best suited sitting out the remainder of the season and turning his attention to the offseason, where his track record still seems likely to find him a major-league contract.

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