Rays To Promote Jake Bauers
The Rays are set to promote top prospect Jake Bauers from Triple-A Durham, reports Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times (via Twitter). The first baseman/outfielder will join the team for his MLB debut on Thursday.
Bauers, 22, entered the season to quite a bit of Top 100 prospect fanfare, ranking 43rd at Fangraphs, 45th at Baseball America and 68th at MLB.com. (He’s since risen to 42 at BA and 55 at MLB.com.)
Bauers is not yet hitting for a great deal of power but is off to a fine start in Durham, slashing .279/.357/.426 with five homers, 14 doubles and 10 steals (in 16 attempts). He’s drawn a walk in 10.4 percent of his 222 trips to the dish and has whiffed at a 21.2 percent clip. Defensively, Bauers has spent the bulk of his time in the field at first base, his primary position in the minors, but has logged 47 innings in the outfield corners as well (35 in left field and a dozen in right field).
Originally a seventh-round pick of the Padres back in 2013, Bauers went from San Diego to Tampa Bay in the three-team blockbuster that saw Wil Myers land with the Padres, sent Trea Turner to the Nationals and landed the since-traded Steven Souza Jr. in a Rays uniform. While that three-team deal features plenty of name value now, the Nats look to have come out quite a bit ahead thanks to the success of Turner (and righty Joe Ross, who’s currently mending from Tommy John surgery). Bauers, though, will now look to help the Rays recoup some value in his first taste of the Major Leagues.
C.J. Cron has hit quite well as the Rays’ primary first baseman, but Tampa Bay has received modest production from its outfield. With Kevin Kiermaier on the shelf and Denard Span traded to the Mariners, the Rays have been utilizing Mallex Smith, Carlos Gomez, Johnny Field and Rob Refsnyder in the outfield of late.
It stands to reason that the left-handed hitting Bauers could join that mix. Scouting reports on him indicate that while he’s a better defensive first baseman than outfielder, he’s slimmed down in recent years and can handle the outfield grass (or turf, as it were) adequately while chipping in with an above-average hit tool and average or better power at the plate.
The timing of Bauers’ promotion is such that he won’t be eligible for free agency until at least the end of the 2024 season, though his early-June debut figures to leave him on the bubble for Super Two arbitration status down the line.
There’s no exact cutoff date for that nebulous distinction, as it’s dependent on the service time of the other players in Bauers’ service class, but it seems likely that he’ll fall just shy of qualifying. There are only 116 days remaining in the season from the point at which Bauers will be formally promoted, and the lowest that the Super Two cutoff has fallen in recent seasons has been two years, 122 days of MLB service time.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.
Giants Activate Madison Bumgarner From Disabled List
The Giants announced this afternoon that they’ve activated Madison Bumgarner from the 60-day disabled list for his season debut. The San Francisco ace missed the first two months of the season after suffering a fractured finger that required surgical repair late in Spring Training. Righty Pierce Johnson was optioned to Triple-A Sacramento to open a spot on the 25-man roster for Bumgarner, who’ll start tonight’s game against the Diamondbacks.
[Related: Updated San Francisco Giants depth chart]
Despite the fact that Bumgarner hasn’t made a single start at the MLB level this season, while Johnny Cueto and Jeff Samardzija have each been plagued by injuries, the Giants have remarkably remained afloat with a 30-30 record in surprisingly feeble NL West. The D-backs currently lead the pack with a 31-28 record, though they’ve largely been in a free-fall for the past several weeks (in no small part due to several key injuries of their own).
The return of Bumgarner will represent a seismic boost to a Giants rotation that has turned in a miserable 4.59 ERA that ranks 23rd among MLB clubs. With Cueto and Samardzija both on the shelf, the Giants currently have Chris Stratton, Andrew Suarez, Derek Holland and Dereck Rodriguez backing Bumgarner in the rotation mix, as lefty Ty Blach has already been dispatched to the bullpen after struggling to a 4.90 ERA as a starter.
Bumgarner made just two rehab appearances before returning to the Giants, though he could hardly have looked more impressive in that limited minor league assignment. The lefty tossed 8 1/3 innings between the Giants’ Class-A Advanced and Triple-A affiliates, posting a 15-to-1 K/BB ratio and allowing just two hits (one a solo homer) in addition to hitting one batter. He topped out at 4 2/3 innings on said rehab assignment, so it’s possible that manager Bruce Bochy exercises caution and keeps Bumgarner on a shorter leash than usual. But it seems he’s mostly ready to return to the top of the rotation for a surprisingly competitive club that, at present, sits just 1.5 games out of the lead in its division.
The 28-year-old Bumgarner is earning $12.5MM this season, and the Giants hold a no-brainer club option for the same amount for the 2019 season. That’ll be the final year of team control over Bumgarner, who’ll head into free agency at the age of 30 in the 2019-20 offseason.
Rangers Release Tim Lincecum
The Rangers have granted right-hander Tim Lincecum his release, as MLB.com’s T.R. Sullivan was among those to tweet. Jon Heyman of FanRag Sports first broke the news that the team had decided not to promote Lincecum to the big leagues, leaving him with the choice of accepting a Triple-A assignment or granting him his release (Twitter link).
Texas signed Lincecum to a one-year, Major League deal that came with a $1MM guarantee back in March, but blister issues slowed his path back to a mound. He’s been ramping up after missing much of the early portion of the season, but things haven’t gone especially well in Triple-A Round Rock. Lincecum has totaled 12 2/3 innings out of the bullpen, yielding eight earned runs on 14 hits and nine walks with 10 strikeouts in that time.
Now, the 33-year-old former Cy Young winner will have to explore other options as he seeks to return to the Majors for the first time since a brief, ill-fated tenure with the Angels in 2016. Lincecum endured a precipitous decline during which he saw his fastball velocity plummet before ultimately requiring a major hip surgery that has prevented him from since reestablishing himself at the big league level. He’d been working exclusively as a reliever with the Rangers organization, and it seems likely that he’ll continue on that path if he ultimately latches on with a new organization.
Rangers GM Jon Daniels had nothing but praise for the amount of effort Lincecum put into his comeback attempt, telling reporters (Twitter link via Sullivan): “Despite good intentions and a lot of hard work, we didn’t feel it was the right move to bring Tim up here.”
Tigers Select Casey Mize With First Overall Draft Pick
The Tigers have selected right-hander Casey Mize with the first overall pick of the 2018 Rule 4 amateur draft. The 21-year-old hurler just wrapped up his junior year at Auburn University.
Mize was not even drafted out of high school, so it has been a meteoric rise over his three years in college. Then again, he hasn’t exactly needed to streak up the draft boards over the months leading up to the draft. Instead, Mize planted himself at the top early on and has remained a clear consensus 1-1 option ever since.
Now a polished starter who’s said to possess three swing-and-miss offerings, Mize just turned in a massive season for Auburn. In 16 outings, he threw 109 2/3 innings of 2.95 ERA ball, racking up a whopping 151 strikeouts while issuing only a dozen walks.
The expectation is that Mize will move quickly through the Detroit farm. He’s certainly an interesting addition to a system that features several promising starters among its best-graded prospects. If all goes as hoped, perhaps the rebuilding organization won’t have to wait long for the arrival of a wave of pitching talent at the MLB level.
Anthony Banda To Undergo Tommy John Surgery
Rays lefty Anthony Banda will undergo Tommy John surgery, according to Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times (via Twitter). Given the typical year-plus recovery timeline for this procedure, Banda will likely miss the remainder of the current season and most or all of 2019.
Banda came to Tampa Bay over the offseason as a key part of the three-team swap that sent outfielder Steven Souza to the Diamondbacks. He had turned into a notable prospect in the Arizona system, which he joined along with Mitch Haniger following the 2014 deadline deal that sent Gerardo Parra to the Brewers.
With the news, Banda will join another recent top pitching prospect acquired in a significant, relatively recent trade — Jose De Leon — on the road to a return from a TJ procedure. De Leon will surely hope to be ready at some point relatively early in the 2019 season. It’s certainly not out of the realm of possibility that Banda will be able to join him late next year, though of course the Rays will surely exercise caution.
In weighing a timeline, it’s also worth bearing in mind that Banda is still not established at the game’s highest level. The 24-year-old southpaw struggled in his first taste of the majors last year, but gave the Rays 14 2/3 useful innings this year, over which he allowed six earned runs while compiling ten hits against three walks. Banda also showed a health (95.4 mph average) heater, up from his numbers in 2017.
In truth, Banda’s limited MLB showing isn’t yet sufficient to draw any conclusions about his future. He has pitched well this year at Triple-A, though, after putting up middling numbers there in 2017. Through 42 frames over eight starts, he owns a 3.64 ERA with 10.5 K/9, 3.9 BB/9, and a 38.4% groundball rate.
The move puts another dent in Tampa Bay’s rotation depth, both for the present season and beyond. More immediately, the organization has at least finally welcomed Nathan Eovaldi back. And Yonny Chirinos is also off of the DL, though he has been optioned to Triple-A despite a solid start in his season in the majors.
Red Sox Release Hanley Ramirez
June 1: The Red Sox formally announced that Ramirez cleared waivers and has been released. He is now a free agent.
May 30: The Red Sox have requested release waivers on first baseman/designated hitter Hanley Ramirez, whom they designated for assignment late last week, reports Rob Bradford of WEEI.com (via Twitter). He’ll likely clear those waivers in 48 hours and become a free agent who can sign with a new club for the pro-rated portion of the league minimum.
The move to release Ramirez comes as no surprise. While Boston surely explored trade possibilities for Ramirez, the slugger had more than $15MM remaining on his 2018 salary at the time of his DFA, and his contract also contains a $22MM vesting option that would trigger if he received another 302 plate appearances. Any team acquiring him via either trade or waivers would also be on the hook for that salary and the potential vesting option, both of which are highly unappealing for potential suitors.
However, once Ramirez is released by the Red Sox, those provisions will fade away. He’ll still be owed the balance of this season’s $22MM salary, but the Red Sox will be on the hook for that sum (minus the pro-rated league minimum he’d be paid by another club). The vesting option, meanwhile, is tied to the contract from which he is about to be released and will not apply when he signs a new contract with a new club.
Ramirez, 34, looked resurgent early in the season, raking at a .330/.400/.474 clip in the month of April as he distanced himself from last year’s shoulder troubles. However, Ramirez’s bat has gone ice cold in recent weeks; his Red Sox tenure ended in an 0-for-21 freefall, and he’s posted a putrid .163/.200/.300 batting line since May 1, which has more than offset his strong April showing. By measure of OPS+ (88) and wRC+ (90), his overall offensive output on the season rates worse than that of a league-average hitter.
All that said, a player with Ramirez’s raw ability and track record will surely attract interest from teams in need of help at first base/DH or a corner bat off the bench. He’ll soon have the chance to listen to offers from interested parties before ultimately selecting a new team. Speculatively speaking, it seems likely that a 34-year-old with postseason experience will prefer the opportunity to latch on with a contending club.
Clayton Kershaw To Undergo MRI On Back
Dodgers ace Clayton Kershaw threw five useful innings today in his return from the DL, but the outing did not end quite as hoped. He’s headed for an MRI after experiencing back tightness during the outing, skipper Dave Roberts tells reporters including Mike DiGiovanna of the Los Angeles Times (Twitter links).
Though the outlooks remains entirely unknown, it has already been decided that Kershaw will not accompany the team on its upcoming road trip to Denver. That’s not surprising given the nature of the problem, to be sure, but neither would it be a shock to see Kershaw end up going back on the DL if there’s any concern at all about his health.
This sort of uncertain, early injury news arises with some frequency, but the backdrop here is hardly common. Kershaw, who had been out with biceps tendinitis, has dealt with back problems in recent years. The health of his back was, entering the present season, perhaps the only real question facing the game’s greatest active pitcher.
The stakes are high for all involved. For the Dodgers, the presumption of a healthy Kershaw was a key factor in the team’s pre-season designation by many as a favorite to return to the World Series. With a middling start to the season, he’s all the more important. Meanwhile, baseball’s preeminent southpaw is pitching in advance of an anticipated first entry onto the free-agent market at season’s end. He has long been expected to opt out of the final two years and $65MM of the extension he signed back in 2014.
Clearly, the full picture is not yet known. But there are signs both concerning and somewhat promising. Kershaw had already shown reduced fastball velocity before hitting the DL, averaging 92.1 mph with his four-seamer to open the year. Though he mustered five innings of one-run ball this evening, he was topping out at just 90 mph — quite a notable drop-off. That said, the balky back offers something of an explanation. In his comment after the game, Kershaw suggested that the back issue is more comparable to the less-serious problems he dealt with last year than those that set him back for a longer stretch in the prior campaign, as DiGiovanna notes on Twitter.
For now, it’s enough to say that there are more questions facing Kershaw than anyone hoped for when the season got underway. Even before tonight’s outing, he was allowing more homers than usual (1.43 per nine) while his swinging-strike rate sat at 11.7%, well off the level he had worked (14.1% or better) over the prior four seasons. The results have still largely been there, as they were again tonight, but it is certainly concerning that he’s again headed in for an examination after only just making it back to the majors.
Dodgers Activate Clayton Kershaw
The Dodgers announced that they’ve reinstated left-hander Clayton Kershaw from the disabled list and created a roster spot by optioning switch-pitcher Pat Venditte to Triple-A Oklahoma City. Kershaw, who’s been out since May 1 due to biceps tendinitis in his left arm, will start tonight’s game against the visiting Phillies.
The three-time NL Cy Young winner and five-time NL ERA leader will return to the Dodgers’ rotation just one day after right-hander Kenta Maeda landed on the disabled list with a right hip strain. It’s been an ongoing struggle for the Dodgers to keep their starting staff healthy so far this season, as Maeda is joined on the disabled list by lefties Rich Hill and Hyun-Jin Ryu. Fortunately for the Dodgers, Kershaw’s absence proved to be shorter than his DL trips for back injuries in each of the past two seasons.
Kershaw will step back into the starting mix alongside Alex Wood, rookie sensation Walker Buehler and the breakout righty Ross Stripling. While that may not be a rotation mix the Dodgers anticipated having to lean upon in 2018, the quality of that group serves as a testament to the depth that the Dodgers seem to have a knack for cultivating on a yearly basis.
While the Dodgers’ early struggles garnered plenty of national media attention, they’ve quieted the narrative that their season was on the brink of being lost by rattling off 10 wins in their past 13 contests. Los Angeles is still three games south of the .500 mark, but the collapse of the former NL West-leading Diamondbacks has opened a door for the Dodgers, who now sit 3.5 games back from the Rockies, who suddenly find themselves in first place.
A healthy Kershaw will go a long way toward continuing their recent success, though there are clearly some longer-term implications here for both Kershaw and the team. Kershaw has the ability to opt out of the remaining two years of his contract at season’s end, and he’s all but certain to do so. While the Dodgers clearly possess the financial firepower to match or top virtually any offer another team can make to Kershaw, the price of a new contract with the Dodgers or another club will be impacted in no small part by his ability to put this injury behind him and return to his status as one of the game’s elite arms.
Cardinals Place Alex Reyes On DL With “Significant” Lat Strain
3:07pm: It’s a “significant” lat strain for Reyes, GM Mike Girsch tells reporters (Twitter link via Mark Saxon of The Athletic). There won’t be an exact timetable on his recovery until he receives a second opinion, per Saxon, though certainly that update from Girsch is far from promising. An MRI taken this morning revealed the injury, tweets Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
2:09pm: The Cardinals announced today that they’ve placed top prospect Alex Reyes back on the disabled list with a strained right lat muscle. St. Louis also optioned struggling outfielder Tyler O’Neill and right-hander John Gant to Triple-A Memphis. Filling those spots on the roster will be lefty Austin Gomber, righty Mike Mayers and first baseman Luke Voit, each of whom has been recalled from Memphis.
Reyes had Cardinals fans salivating as he tore through minor league batters in a rehab assignment, and he looked dominant in the first inning of yesterday’s return affair before slowly experiencing a dip in his velocity over the subsequent three innings. President of baseball ops John Mozeliak told The Athletic’s Jim Bowden last night that Reyes’ elbow was “fine,” and that appears to be the case, though the lat muscle presents a new issue for the vaunted young right-hander to overcome. While any injury to Reyes’ throwing arm is of course a cause for concern for the organization, it’s likely a silver lining that the issue is not specific to his surgically repaired right elbow.
With Reyes back on the shelf, the Cards will once again deploy a rotation consisting of Miles Mikolas, Luke Weaver, Michael Wacha and Jack Flaherty as they await the return of ace Carlos Martinez from a lat strain of his own. Martinez did go out on a minor league rehab assignment today, per the team’s transactions page, but while he’s nearing a return, it seems that fans will have to wait for the a highly anticipated 1-2 punch of Martinez and Reyes atop the staff.
[Related: St. Louis Cardinals depth chart]
As for O’Neill, he’ll head back to Triple-A and look to make continued strides on his approach at the plate and his bat-to-ball skills. While the 22-year-old flashed the power that has made him such an intriguing prospect, early proclamations of a new star’s arrival were proven premature. O’Neill struggled enormously to make consistent contact, whiffing in 43.9 percent of his trips to the plate and in 13 of his final 19 plate appearances before being optioned out.
None of that is to suggest that O’Neill doesn’t have the potential to develop into a regular middle-of-the-order threat for the Cards, of course. While contact issues had plagued him earlier in his minor league tenure, he whittled his strikeout rate down to a more respectable 23.3 percent in Memphis this season before being called to the Majors. His approach still needs some refinement, though, as was evidenced by a 2.5 percent walk rate in Triple-A and a near-identical mark in his brief MLB tenure this season. O’Neill has mashed 13 homers in 120 PAs with Memphis and three in the bigs, though, so there’s little doubting the legitimacy of his power.
With O’Neill in the minors, it’ll be Marcell Ozuna, Tommy Pham, Dexter Fowler and Harrison Bader splitting up the bulk of the outfield duties. Meanwhile, in the rotation, it’s possible that Gomber could step up and make a spot start as the team awaits the return of Martinez. If not, he’ll give the ‘pen a fresh lefty at a time when both Brett Cecil and Tyler Lyons have endured some considerable struggles. Gomber has made nine start in Memphis and logged a solid 3.60 ERA with a 63-to-17 K/BB ratio in 55 innings of work.
Mayers, meanwhile, will return for another stint to give the bullpen some depth. The 26-year-old has already been optioned to Memphis and incredible five times in the season’s first two months, and that seems likely to be the role he fills in St. Louis this season unless further injuries in the Majors carve out a more permanent spot for him.
The 27-year-old Voit is hitting just .243/.351/.348 in Triple-A so far in 2018, but he had a monster season there in 2017 and also hit .246/.306/.430 with four homers in 128 plate appearances at the Major League level. This’ll be his first appearance on the 2018 roster for the Cards.
Padres Acquire Phil Hughes
4:51pm: $7.25MM is the precise sum, Jon Heyman of FanRag hears.
1:54pm: The Padres will pick up approximately $7.5MM of Hughes’ contract, Mark Feinsand of MLB.com tweets.
1:05pm: The Padres have acquired right-hander Phil Hughes, cash and the 74th pick in June’s draft from the Twins for young catcher Janigson Villalobos, per announcements from both teams.
The Twins designated Hughes for assignment earlier this week, even though they still owed him the rest of his $13.2MM salary this year and another $13.2MM in 2019. Now, Minnesota will eat the remainder of Hughes’ salary this year, but San Diego will pay nearly half the tab next season, AJ Cassavell of MLB.com suggests.
In a best-case scenario for the rebuilding Padres, the 31-year-old Hughes would reemerge as a viable starter or reliever with the club. However, there doesn’t seem to be much hope on either front, given that Hughes has recently undergone two different surgeries to address thoracic outlet syndrome – which is often a death knell for pitchers. Those procedures ended each of Hughes’ previous two seasons prematurely, and have played a role in the bloated 5.99 ERA he has logged across 124 2/3 innings (33 appearances, 22 starts) since 2016.
While Hughes is certainly the eye-catching name in this trade, acquiring the pick in Competitive Balance Round B is the greater boon for San Diego. The Padres now have four of the draft’s top 85 choices, including Nos. 7 and 38, with which to add to an already deep farm system. The Friars’ newest selection carries a slot value of $812,200, and adding it will help make up for the pick they lost when they signed free-agent first baseman Eric Hosmer in the offseason.
Villalobos, a Venezuela native, immigrated to the United States when he signed a deal with the Padres in March 2016. He went on to post a .253/.408/.322 line in 233 plate appearances at the Rookie level from 2016-17, though the 21-year-old hasn’t played anywhere this season. He’ll suit up for the Rookie level Gulf Coast Twins when their season begins.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.