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Chaim Bloom To Take On Larger Role In Cardinals’ Front Office

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The Cardinals are set to hold a press conference early next week, and it’s already been reported that there will be some notable organizational changes announced at that time. Jeff Jones of the Belleville News-Democrat suggested as much earlier this week, and USA Today’s Bob Nightengale reported a couple weeks back that former Red Sox chief baseball officer Chaim Bloom, hired as an adviser last winter, could see his role expand. That’ll indeed be the case, and Katie Woo of The Athletic now further details that Bloom will be tasked with hiring a new director of player development and overhauling that department.

It’s not fully clear what title Bloom will hold, but Woo spoke with multiple Cardinals staffers about the manner in which their player development system — once the gold standard in the sport — has become antiquated and been neglected over time. Cardinals employees who spoke to Woo for a simultaneously fascinating and damning overview of the organization suggest the club is lacking in coordinators, minor league coaches, technology and other resources, leaving players unprepared to make the jump to the majors.

That’s created a vicious cycle, forcing president of baseball operations John Mozeliak to spend more in free agency to offset the lack of homegrown contributors. In doing so, he’s increasingly had to allocate his baseball operations budget to the big league roster at the expense of player development. It’s become a self-fulfilling prophecy in many ways. Readers (especially Cardinals fans) are encouraged to check out Woo’s piece in full for an exhaustive breakdown of how the Cardinals’ once unparalleled development practices have faltered and failed to position touted prospects like Jordan Walker, Nolan Gorman, Matthew Liberatore, Dylan Carlson and others for big league success.

From an even bigger-picture standpoint, the matter of Mozeliak’s future with the club has also been thrust into the spotlight. He’s signed through 2025 and has suggested previously that he’s likely to step down after that contract. MLB.com’s John Denton reports that it’s at least possible Mozeliak steps aside or transitions to a different role sooner than the end of his contract, however. Changes on the coaching front are expected too, as Jones reported earlier this week. Woo writes that manager Oli Marmol is expected to remain in place but points out that hitting coaches Turner Ward and Brandon Allen, game-planning coach Packy Elkins, first base coach Stubby Clapp and assistant pitching coach Julio Rangel are all signed only through the current season.

The full scope of the looming changes likely won’t be ascertainable until the Cardinals host their press conference Monday. What’s increasingly clear is that ownership and the majority of the baseball operations and player development staff recognize that changes are needed. Whether that results in a rebuilding effort of any magnitude isn’t yet clear. Woo reports that the Cardinals do not intend to go into a tanking-style rebuild but also plan to shift more focus on building up the player development staff and strengthening the minor league system.

Marmol, for his part, isn’t speaking like a manager who expects a pronounced step back. The recent focus on getting to 82 wins to avoid the first back-to-back losing seasons the Cardinals have endured in six decades hasn’t sat well with him, he tells Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. “It’s not a goal of mine when I go into a season to only finish above .500, if I’m being quite honest,” says Marmol. “I understand not wanting to have back-to-back losing seasons. We have aspirations for a lot more than that, and we have to build toward it, bottom line.”

Goold joins the rest of the Cards beat in reporting that large-scale changes are indeed expected Monday at a press conference where the team’s “next direction” will be among the topics. The Cardinals face several pivotal decisions, many of them on aging veterans. They hold $12MM club options over starters Kyle Gibson and Lance Lynn — both coming with a $1MM buyout. Paul Goldschmidt is a free agent, though there’s been talk of a potential reunion. Veteran reliever Andrew Kittredge is also a free agent, and the Cards have some interest in re-signing him. The 2025 season is closer Ryan Helsley’s final year of club control. Prospects like Walker and Gorman aren’t necessarily at a crossroads but have also failed to cement themselves in the team’s plans. Both were optioned to the minors this season, though both have at least one option year remaining beyond the current season (two, in Gorman’s case).

Monday’s press conference should shed light on how some of those vital organizational decisions will play out. The broad takeaway, for now, is that simply maintaining the status quo no longer feels tenable.

Grayson Rodriguez Will Not Return In 2024

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The Orioles are shutting down Grayson Rodriguez for the season, manager Brandon Hyde told reporters (X link via Jake Rill of MLB.com). While Rodriguez didn’t have any kind of setback, the team doesn’t feel there’s sufficient time for him to return from the injured list.

Losing the right-hander is a devastating blow for the Orioles rotation with the postseason set to begin next week. It would require a miracle for the Orioles to run down the Yankees for the AL East crown (and accompanying bye through the Wild Card Series) at this point, and failing that the club will have to determine whether to turn to right-hander Dean Kremer or journeyman Albert Suarez to round out the club’s rotation for the series behind Corbin Burnes and Zach Eflin, while likely using both in the ALDS and beyond should they manage to make a deeper run.

Both hurlers have been solid mid-to-back of the rotation starters for the Orioles this year but aren’t the sort of reliable arms teams prefer to lean on in a playoff series. Kremer has made 24 starts for Baltimore this year to slightly below average results, with a 4.10 ERA (92 ERA+) and 4.32 FIP in 129 2/3 innings of work, while Suarez sports a 3.74 ERA (100 ERA+) and 4.12 FIP in 127 2/3 innings of work split between the bullpen and rotation. Of the pair, Kremer is perhaps the more reliable choice given his stronger results of late (he’s pitched to a 3.95 ERA and 3.55 FIP since the start of August) that compare favorably to Suarez’s ugly 7.23 ERA in four September starts that have seen him surrender a whopping seven homers.

Baltimore’s front office attempted to shore up the rotation in response to injuries suffered by the pitching staff throughout the year at the trade deadline, and while the addition of Eflin to the mix has proved invaluable down the stretch the same cannot be said for their decision to add Trevor Rogers to their rotation mix. The Orioles surrendered well-regarded youngsters Connor Norby and Kyle Stowers in exchange for Rogers’s services back in July, but the lefty made four disastrous starts for the club (7.11 ERA, 5.01 FIP) before being optioned to the minors where he continued to struggle badly down the stretch.

Regardless of how Kremer, Suarez, and other rotation options like Rogers and Cade Povich (5.59 ERA in 15 starts) are deployed by Hyde during the postseason, none of those options seem likely to be as reliable as Rodriguez. In 116 2/3 innings of work before being sidelined by a lat injury back in August, Rodriguez pitched to a 3.86 ERA with a stronger 3.66 FIP across 20 starts while striking out a solid 26.5% of opponents in his second season as a member of the Orioles rotation this year. That strikeout rate is good for 23rd in the majors among starters with at least 100 innings of work this year, in line with likely playoff starters for other clubs such as Tanner Bibee of the Guardians and Carlos Rodon of the Yankees.

Fortunately, Hyde’s comments offer little reason to fear for Rodriguez’s ability to return healthy and effective next season. While Burnes is slated to hit free agency this November, Rodriguez figures to be joined by Eflin as the club’s top internal options next year, with ace Kyle Bradish and righty Tyler Wells both potentially in the mix to return to action in the second half of 2025 after undergoing UCL surgery back in June. Even with Rodriguez likely to be healthy entering next season, however, bolstering the rotation figures to be a priority for the Orioles this winter as they look to support their vaunted offensive core. That could mean pursuing a reunion with Burnes, or perhaps signing a second-tier arm expected to be available this winter such as Nathan Eovaldi or Sean Manaea.

Yankees Place Nestor Cortes On Injured List Due To Flexor Strain

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3:16pm: Cortes told reporters (including Greg Joyce of the New York Post) today that he’ll be shut down for seven to ten days and will likely get a platelet-rich plasma injection in his ailing elbow. Neither Cortes nor Boone ruled out the possibility of the lefty returning at some point in the playoffs if the Yankees can make a deep enough run, but Cortes noted that the results of his MRI are being sent to doctors Neal ElAttrache and Keith Meister for additional opinions.

Chris Kirschner of The Athletic was among those to relay that while Boone told reporters that the club wasn’t ruling out a return for Cortes during the postseason, he shied away from describing the club as “optimistic” about Cortes’s prospects of pitching in the playoffs this year until Cortes’s shutdown period has come to a close and they “really see what we’re dealing with.”

1:30pm: The Yankees announced that Cortes has been placed on the 15-day injured list due to a flexor strain in his left elbow. Stroman will start tonight’s game in his place, and Poteet has been recalled from Triple-A to take Cortes’ spot on the roster.

The injury will eliminate Cortes as a consideration for the beginning of the American League Division Series at the very least, though flexor strains are rarely short-term injuries. It’s fair to wonder whether Cortes will be an option for the Yankees at any point in the postseason. Manager Aaron Boone will likely provide more detail when he next meets with the media.

9:25am: The Yankees have punched their ticket to the postseason but are facing a potentially worrisome injury scenario, as lefty Nestor Cortes — who had been slated to start tonight’s game against the Orioles — is undergoing an MRI to evaluate his left elbow, as first reported by Jack Curry of the YES Network.

Assuming that takes him out of consideration to take the mound, the Yanks could go with Marcus Stroman (who recently moved to the ’pen) or call up an arm from Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre. Right-handers Cody Poteet, Yoendrys Gomez and Will Warren are all on the 40-man roster and all fresh. Poteet has pitched the most big league innings of that trio this season (21) and had the most success as well (2.14 ERA). Curry adds that Poteet is headed to the Bronx, suggesting he’ll get the nod, though there’s no official word from the team just yet.

Cortes, 29, has pitched a career-high 174 1/3 innings in the majors this season and been quite effective along the way. He’s started 30 games (also a career-high) and notched a 3.77 earned run average while fanning a solid 22.8% of his opponents against a terrific 5.5% walk rate. Though he’s a pronounced fly-ball pitcher (31.1% grounder rate), Cortes has scaled back on some of the home run troubles that have plagued him in his career; he entered the season having averaged 1.49 round-trippers per nine innings pitched but has scaled that back to a more palatable (but still higher than average) 1.24 mark in 2024.

It’s not clear that Cortes would be a part of the Yankees’ postseason rotation, but he’d certainly play a key role in the bullpen even if the team opted to go with Gerrit Cole, Carlos Rodon and one of Luis Gil or Clarke Schmidt in the top three spots. (Cole and Rodon are locks, health permitting.) Cortes is no stranger to working in relief. He’s primarily been a starter in recent seasons but has nevertheless seen 37% of his career appearances come in a relief setting.

The Yankees have a pair of veteran left-handed options in the ’pen regardless, with Tim Hill and Tim Mayza both on the roster, but neither can miss bats at the same level as Cortes. Mayza also carries alarming platoon splits, making him more ideal for strict left-on-left matchups. Cortes would also be an obvious option to give manager Aaron Boone some length out of the bullpen in the event of a short start during postseason play.

All of those scenarios are now on hold as the Yankees await word on Cortes’ apparently ailing elbow. Taking a step back to look at the bigger picture for Cortes himself, a serious injury would be about as poorly timed as possible (not that there’s ever a “good” time for a major health setback). He’s headed into his final offseason of arbitration eligibility and due a raise on this year’s $3.95MM salary. An injury that threatens a significant portion of his 2025 season could leave Cortes as a non-tender candidate, given that he’s slated to become a free agent following the 2025 season. And, if there is something at play that impacts his 2025 availability, that’d obviously cut short what should be his platform season in advance of free agency, where he’d stand as a clear candidate for a multi-year deal with good health.

Farhan Zaidi Discusses Job Security, Snell, Middle Infield

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Giants president of baseball operations Farhan Zaidi met with reporters this evening. San Francisco pulled back to .500 with a win over the Diamondbacks tonight, but they missed the playoffs for the fifth time in Zaidi’s six-season tenure. That has led to speculation about his job security — which only ratcheted up in recent weeks amidst conflicting reports about ownership’s role in handling negotiations on Matt Chapman’s $151MM extension.

Zaidi declined to speculate about his job status but acknowledged that ownership is considering its options. “Anytime you have a disappointing season, it’s my job to evaluate everything in my purview, and it’s their job to evaluate everything in my purview, plus me,” the baseball ops leader said (link via Andrew Baggarly of the Athletic). “And so I think that process is happening, and I understand it.”

The Giants and Zaidi agreed to an extension last winter that coincided with Bob Melvin’s hiring as manager. Both the manager and baseball operations leader are on guaranteed contracts for next year with options for the 2026 season. That certainly doesn’t ensure job security — teams regularly dismiss coaches or executives before the end of their deals — but it kept Zaidi from operating on a lame duck basis in 2024.

Any doubt about his status with the organization can’t stop Zaidi from planning the team’s approach to the upcoming offseason. That starts with Blake Snell, who has pitched at a Cy Young level for the better part of four months. The star left-hander is set to decline his $30MM player option and take another shot at a long-term contract.

Zaidi admitted the Giants expect Snell to opt out. He said the Giants will remain in the market but conceded they’ll face stiff competition. “I think it’s going to be a priority for everybody. He’s been the best pitcher in baseball the second half of the season,” Zaidi said of Snell’s market (relayed by Shayna Rubin of the San Francisco Chronicle). “And I think he’s going into free agency the same way he did last offseason. He wants to keep an open mind. We’re encouraged about what he said about how much he likes being here, how much he likes San Francisco and playing for Bob. We’ll be pretty high on his list, but we’re respecting the fact that he’s going to want to play out free agency.”

Snell turns 32 in December. He’ll probably take aim at a six-plus year deal that approaches $200MM. That kind of investment in starting pitching would be out of character for Zaidi. As shown on MLBTR’s Contract Tracker, the Giants haven’t gone beyond the $90MM Logan Webb extension for a starting pitcher. The $62MM guarantee they awarded Snell late last winter is their biggest free agent rotation investment.

The Giants have been much more comfortable with short-term upside plays for starting pitchers who want to retest the market than they are with lengthy commitments. That operating procedure made them a strong fit when Snell’s market didn’t materialize the way he’d envisioned last winter, but it’ll present a challenge to keeping him around. San Francisco was content to let Kevin Gausman and Carlos Rodón walk after striking gold on short-term plays for both pitchers.

If Snell were to depart, Webb would retake his spot as the unquestioned staff ace. He’ll be followed in the rotation by Kyle Harrison and Robbie Ray (who is unlikely to opt out of the $50MM remaining on his contract). The Giants could try to stretch Jordan Hicks back out as a starter while giving opportunities to younger arms like Hayden Birdsong, Landen Roupp and Keaton Winn. They’d surely add to that group in some capacity after dealing with a number of rotation injuries this season.

Zaidi also addressed the position player mix, specifically saying the Giants will “definitely be in the middle-infield market” (via Rubin). Tyler Fitzgerald has had a fantastic rookie season since taking over at shortstop. The Louisville product connected on his 15th homer tonight and is up to a .287/.338/.510 batting line through 325 plate appearances. His 31.1% strikeout rate is cause for some concern, but Fitzgerald’s power and defensive flexibility have earned him a role somewhere on the diamond.

That could come on the other side of the second base bag. The Giants waived Thairo Estrada last month after he hit .217/.247/.343 in 96 games. Estrada will be a minor league free agent at season’s end. Zaidi lauded Estrada’s professionalism and expressed some confidence that the infielder could rebound in another setting, but he indicated the Giants will go in a different direction.

Moving Fitzgerald to second base while bringing in an established shortstop is an option. Willy Adames and Ha-Seong Kim are the potential regulars in the free agent class. Zaidi expressed a desire to add “an established, plus defender in the middle infield” via free agency or trade. Adames and Kim would each fit the bill (although the former has had an uncharacteristic spike in errors this season). Both players are going to decline qualifying offers from their current teams and would require draft pick forfeiture. Adames might command a guarantee north of $150MM, while Kim’s deal could land in the $75-100MM range.

Bo Bichette has been the top speculative shortstop trade target. The Blue Jays didn’t seem inclined to move him even before he went on the injured list just before the deadline. Unless the Toronto front office reverses course, they probably won’t sell low during the winter.

There aren’t a ton of obvious middle infield trade candidates. The Reds may listen on Jonathan India, but he’s not the caliber of defender to which Zaidi alluded. That’s also the case with Tampa Bay second baseman Brandon Lowe. The Pirates would probably listen on Isiah Kiner-Falefa, whose offensive production has cratered since a deadline trade with Toronto. There’s a chance the Mariners could move on from J.P. Crawford as they try to reshape their offense.

A free agent pursuit of Adames or Kim, though, would be more straightforward. That’d allow the Giants to use Casey Schmitt in a utility capacity and potentially free them to play Marco Luciano in the outfield. Zaidi said tonight that they’re not closing the door on Luciano winning the second base job, but they’ll need to see improvement (especially defensively) next spring for that to happen.

One area where the Giants don’t seem inclined to make a long-term play: first base. Zaidi indicated the team was reluctant to make an investment that would impede the path for top prospect Bryce Eldridge, their 2023 first-round pick. Eldridge is still a month shy of his 20th birthday, but he mashed at a .335/.442/.619 clip in High-A. He has made cameos at the top two minor league levels, and while he’s unlikely to break camp next year, Zaidi suggested there’s a path for him to debut at some point in 2025.

“Once a guy is in Double-A, Triple-A, they’re in the picture,” Zaidi said (relayed by Baggarly). “I think it behooves us to have a roster that’s flexible enough that if he’s ready next year, even early in the year, there’s a spot for him. So that’s going to be really important for us. I don’t anticipate us really locking up the first base and DH spot.” There’s a solid group of free agent first basemen, headlined by Pete Alonso and Christian Walker, but that doesn’t appear to be a priority for San Francisco.

Of course, these preliminary plans could go in any number of directions if ownership decides to make a front office change. That should be determined within the next few weeks. Giants fans will want to check out both The Athletic and The Chronicle columns in full for more quotes from Zaidi about his vision for the winter.

Austin Riley Won’t Return In 2024

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The Braves announced that third baseman Austin Riley won’t return this year, neither in the regular season nor the postseason. A recent CT scan of his fractured hand showed that it hasn’t healed enough to take off his cast. At this point, there’s not enough time for him to heal and return to the club. David O’Brien of The Athletic was among those to relay word from manager Brian Snitker on X.

Riley suffered the injury August 18 when he was hit by a pitch on his hand. The following day, the club announced the fracture and that his timeline to return would be about six to eight weeks. There were only about six weeks left in the regular season at that moment, but there was still some hope of Riley being able to return for the postseason if the club played deep into October.

Unfortunately, his hand and the calendar have conspired against him and he won’t be able to help the club out this year, regardless of how long they stay alive without him. It’s an unfortunate development for Atlanta, as Riley has been one of their best players in recent years. From 2021 to the present, he’s hit 127 home runs and slashed .280/.348/.513 for a wRC+ 132. He scuffled at times in 2024 but still managed to hit 19 homers and slash .256/.322/.461 for a 116 wRC+ before suffering his injury.

This is just the latest in a string of injuries that have hamstrung the club all year. Spencer Strider required UCL surgery in April. Ronald Acuña Jr. suffered a torn ACL in June. Ozzie Albies and Michael Harris II missed significant time due to injuries as well, though both are back now.

Those injuries have played a key role in the club having a disappointing year. Coming into 2024, they were considered one of the top teams in the majors but they are currently fighting for their lives. At 85-71, they are 1.5 games back of the Diamondbacks for the final Wild Card spot in the National League, with the Mets also half a game ahead of the Snakes. Atlanta could still nab a spot, especially since they kick off a three-game set against the Mets tonight, but it’s not where they planned to be.

They will have to try to squeeze in to the playoffs without Riley and then proceed through the postseason without him as well. Gio Urshela was signed to cover for Riley at third and will presumably continue to do so. He has hit .270/.289/.423 for a wRC+ of 95 since joining the squad. Perhaps Whit Merrifield will factor in now that Albies is back at second, though Merrifield is playing through a left foot fracture.

Riley will still be a huge part of the club’s future, as he signed a ten-year, $212MM extension in August of 2022. That deal runs through 2032 and there’s a club option for 2033. Once his hand heals, he will presumably be in line for a fairly normal offseason in preparation for 2025.

Charlie Blackmon To Retire At Season’s End

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Charlie Blackmon is calling it a career. The four-time All-Star announced this evening (on X) that he is retiring at the end of the season.

“As a kid you play the game because you love it, like nothing else matters,” Blackmon wrote. “I still play the game that way, but I don’t feel like a kid anymore. My perspective has changed. I have been blessed to call the city of Denver and The Colorado Rockies my baseball home for the entirety of my career. I am grateful for the support of this organization, my teammates, and most of all Rockies fans. It is with a thankful heart and a career’s worth of memories that I choose a new path.” Blackmon went on to thank his family as part of a longer statement.

Blackmon spent parts of 14 seasons in the majors and played 17 years professionally. That entire run came with the Rockies. Colorado drafted the lefty-hitting outfielder out of Georgia Tech in the second round in 2008. Blackmon reached the big leagues three years later and broke out among the best outfielders in the National League in the middle of the decade.

Colorado traded Dexter Fowler to Houston over the 2013-14 offseason. That paved the way for Blackmon, who’d been a part-time player over the previous couple years, to take over in center field. Then-manager Walt Weiss penciled him into the Opening Day lineup in ’14. That kicked off a stretch of 11 straight years (including this season) in which Blackmon was part of Colorado’s season-opening lineup.

Blackmon ran with the opportunity, hitting .288 with 27 doubles and 19 home runs to earn his first All-Star nod. He had similar numbers the following year before really emerging as an offensive force in 2016. Blackmon hit .324/.381/.552 with 29 longballs to earn his first of consecutive Silver Slugger awards. He returned to the All-Star Game amidst a career year the following season.

During his age-30 campaign, Blackmon raked at a .331/.399/.601 clip while leading the majors with 725 plate appearances. He drilled 37 home runs, 35 doubles and an MLB-best 14 triples. Blackmon won the NL batting title while leading the majors with 213 hits and 137 runs scored. That’s incredible production even at Coors Field and deservedly earned him his second straight Silver Slugger award. Blackmon finished fifth in NL MVP balloting and helped the Rox to their first playoff berth in eight years.

Colorado was bounced by the Diamondbacks in the NL Wild Card game. They’d return to the postseason the following year, with Blackmon again playing a central role. He hit .291/.358/.502 with 29 homers and an NL-leading 119 runs. The Rox knocked off the Cubs in the Wild Card contest that time around, though they were swept by the Brewers in the Division Series (in which Blackmon went 1-12).

Early in that 2018 season, Blackmon and the Rockies agreed to a $94MM extension. The deal paid him $21MM annually in 2019-21 and came with player options covering the 2022 and ’23 campaigns. That locked Blackmon up through his 30s and more or less ensured he’d spend his entire career in Denver.

Blackmon had one more excellent season, connecting on 32 homers while hitting .314 to earn another All-Star nod. Yet the team dropped to 71-91 in 2019. They went 26-34 during the shortened schedule while Nolan Arenado’s relationship with the front office deteriorated. Colorado traded Arenado the following winter and have essentially been mired in a rebuild ever since — even though the front office has been reluctant to acknowledge it as such.

That has coincided with Blackmon’s decline as he’s gotten into his mid-30s. He continued to hit for solid averages until this season and remained one of the tougher players in MLB to strike out. Blackmon hasn’t hit for the same kind of power he did during his 2016-19 peak, though, and he had to move off center field at the end of the 2018 season. Blackmon has spent more time at designated hitter than in right field for the past three years.

Despite the drop in production, Blackmon’s status within the organization hasn’t wavered. The Rockies re-signed him last September on a $13MM deal for what’ll be his final season. Blackmon has unlocked another $1.5MM in incentives and could secure $500K more if he logs 25 plate appearances over the last week.

The 38-year-old announced his retirement with a career .292/.352/.479 slash to his name. He has played in more than 1600 games and tallied over 6800 plate appearances. Blackmon is three hits shy of 1800 and has 991 runs scored, 797 driven in, and 226 home runs. Both Baseball Reference and FanGraphs credited him with roughly 20 wins above replacement. It’s fair to wonder if that’s artificially driven down somewhat by his home park, as Blackmon never graded well by public defensive metrics with so much ground to cover in MLB’s largest outfield.

Blackmon has six more games to add to those totals. Whatever the precise numbers, he’ll walk away as one of the best players in franchise history. He’s second behind Hall of Famer Todd Helton in hits, runs scored and plate appearances with the Rockies. Blackmon is sixth in Colorado history in home runs and would tie longtime teammate Carlos González for fifth if he connects on one this week. He’s seventh among position players in franchise history by measure of Baseball Reference WAR.

The Rockies finish the season with a pair of home series. They’ll host the Cardinals for three before wrapping things with a weekend set against the Dodgers. That’ll afford the Colorado fanbase an opportunity for a proper farewell. MLBTR congratulates Blackmon on an excellent run and wishes him the best in retirement.

Image courtesy of USA Today Sports.

Tigers To Promote Jackson Jobe

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The Tigers announced that pitching prospect Jackson Jobe will be selected to the roster prior to tomorrow’s game. He will pitch out of the bullpen and right-hander Shelby Miller will be designated for assignment as the corresponding move, per Evan Petzold of the Detroit Free Press on X.

It’s been a wild season for the Tigers. They were a bit below .500 for a lot of the summer and ultimately acted as straightforward sellers at the deadline. They flipped out impending veteran free agents Jack Flaherty, Andrew Chafin, Mark Canha and Carson Kelly.

With two months left to go in the season, they gave playing time to their younger players, looking to see who would step forward and take on roles in 2025 and beyond. But the results have been so positive that the club has resurrected what looked like a lost season. They have gone 30-17 over August and September as other American League clubs have scuffled. As of today, the Tigers and Royals are tied for the final two Wild Card spots with the Twins one game back and the Mariners two games back.

With one week left and the Tigers looking to put the finishing touches on their improbable comeback, they are willing to consider all options for strengthening their club, which apparently includes calling up one of the top prospects in baseball.

Jobe, now 22, was selected third overall in the 2021 draft. Going into 2022, he hadn’t yet made his professional debut but was already considered one of the top prospects in the league, as Baseball America ranked him #79 overall at that time. He didn’t post amazing results immediately. He made 18 starts at Single-A to begin his career, logging 61 2/3 innings. He struck out 26.3% of batters faced and walked 9% but allowed 12 home runs, leading to a 4.52 ERA. He was promoted to High-A for three starts to finish the year with better results, posting a 1.15 ERA in those.

In 2023, inflammation in his lower back prevented him from getting into a game until the middle of June, but he performed well from there. He tossed 64 innings across multiple levels with a 2.81 ERA, 32.6% strikeout rate and miniscule walk rate of 2.3%. Here in 2024, he has thrown 91 2/3 innings, again across multiple levels. He has a 2.36 ERA in those 21 starts, striking out 25.6% of batters faced but walking 12%.

The strong results have boosted his prospect stock. Baseball America currently ranks him second overall, behind only Roman Anthony of the Red Sox. MLB Pipeline has him #6 and FanGraphs #15. ESPN ranked him #9 last month while Keith Law of The Athletic put him at #10 in July. He sits in the mid to high 90s with his fastball and has a slider/sweeper that is considered his best pitch, as well as featuring a changeup and cutter.

Jobe is considered a potential future ace but will join the club’s relief mix for now. That’s understandable since his workload this year is already a personal high and thrusting an inexperienced guy into a rotation role in the middle of a tight playoff race could lead to unknown results. However, it’s also worth noting that the Tigers haven’t been deploying a traditional pitching staff of late, using a lot of openers followed by bulk guys to strong results. Though Jobe will be working as a reliever, it’s entirely possible that manager A.J. Hinch could give him lots of innings if that seems to be the best course of action.

Exactly how and when the club lets Jobe loose remains to be seen, but it’s an intriguing development for the final week of the regular season and perhaps into the playoffs. If the Tigers hold on to play in October, Jobe should be eligible to participate. If a player is in an organization but not on a 40-man roster prior to September, they are often granted an exception by the commissioner to be postseason eligible.

Jobe won’t have enough time to exhaust his rookie status here in 2024, so the Tigers will be able to keep prospect promotion incentives on the table for 2025. Per the collective bargaining agreement, top prospects can earn their clubs extra draft picks if they are promoted for a full year of service and meet certain awards voting criteria. If Jobe is able to secure a rotation job out of the gate in 2025, that could be in play next year. He’ll be competing for a gig next to Tarik Skubal, Reese Olson, Casey Mize, Keider Montero, Brant Hurter, Kenta Maeda and others.

Miller, 33, signed with the Tigers in the offseason on a one-year deal with a $3MM guarantee, club option and incentives. That investment hasn’t paid off especially well for the club. He has tossed 55 2/3 innings this year with a 4.53 ERA, 21.8% strikeout rate and 5.8% walk rate. He seems to have fallen out of favor, only pitching twice since September 6 and not at all since September 17.

The Tigers will put him on waivers in the coming days but there will be little incentive for any club to claim him. He won’t be postseason eligible for any other team and the regular season is almost done. He’s an impending free agent so there’s no long-term benefit. If he clears waivers, he would have the right to elect free agency. He accept an outright assignment and hope for a postseason opportunity to open up, as Carlos Carrasco just did with the Guardians, or perhaps he will simply decide to get his offseason started ahead of schedule.

Reds Fire David Bell

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The Reds announced that they have parted ways with manager David Bell.  Bench coach Freddie Benavides will act as the club’s interim manager for the remainder of the season.

In a statement released to the media, president of baseball operations Nick Krall said that “David provided the kind of steadiness that we needed in our clubhouse over the last few seasons.  We felt a change was needed to move the Major League team forward.  We have not achieved the success we expected, and we need to begin focusing on 2025.”

Bell’s tenure ends just short of six full seasons as Cincinnati’s manager.  Three of Bell’s six seasons saw the Reds finish with a winning record — their 31-29 record in the shortened 2020 season that led to a playoff berth, an 83-win campaign in 2021, and an 82-win season in 2023.  That latter season hinted at bigger things ahead for the Reds, given how the team seemingly had an overload of young position-player talent all breaking out at the same time.  The organization even awarded Bell for his role in the Reds’ progress, as Bell was signed to a new contract extension in July 2023 that covered the 2024-26 seasons.

However, it perhaps shouldn’t be ignored that the Reds waited to give Bell a new deal until he was only about two months away from the expiration from his previous contract.  That might’ve been the first hint that the Reds’ ownership and front office was only willing to give Bell so much leeway in continuing as the club’s skipper, and the disappointing nature of the 2024 season sealed Bell’s fate.

The announcement of Noelvi Marte’s 80-game PED suspension in early March was the first sign of trouble for the Reds, and the bad news continued during Spring Training when Matt McLain had to undergo a shoulder surgery.  McLain ended up missing the entire season recovering from that surgery and then a stress reaction in his rib cage suffered during his rehab work.  Christian Encarnacion-Strand didn’t play after the first week of May due to a wrist injury that required surgery, thus leading to a lost year for yet another of the Reds’ promising young infielders.

Injuries continued to deplete the roster at other inopportune times, including a near rotation-wide slate of injuries that hit the pitching staff in August.  Beyond the injuries, other would-be cornerstones like Spencer Steer or Alexis Diaz provided only average levels of production, and offseason acquisitions like Jeimer Candelario and Frankie Montas also disappointed.

It all added up to an underwhelming season in Cincinnati, and while Bell is hardly the only culprit behind the Reds’ lack of success, the organization will now shake things up in the dugout.  USA Today’s Bob Nightengale (X link) has already reported that Marlins manager Skip Schumaker is under consideration to be the Reds’ next field general, and Schumaker has past ties to the club as a former Reds player in 2014-15.  Schumaker won NL Manager of the Year honors in leading Miami to the playoffs in his first year as skipper in 2023, but the Marlins’ decision to part ways with GM Kim Ng (who hired Schumaker) and then shift into rebuild mode has all but confirmed that Schumaker is leaving South Florida at season’s end.

Bell finishes with a 409-456 record over his time as the Reds’ manager.  That lone postseason appearance in 2020 ended in a two-game (and scoreless) sweep in the wild card series, and Cincinnati still hasn’t won a playoff round since the 1995 NLDS.  The pandemic’s impact on Bell’s managerial career can’t be understated, as the organizational loss of revenue over the 2020-21 seasons led ownership to suddenly change course after a payroll increase in the 2019-20 offseason, and the Reds started to heavily rebuild following their winning record in 2021.

Viewed through this lens, the Reds have done well to get back to playing competitive baseball so soon after the misery of a 100-loss season in 2022.  Krall has done well in reloading the organization with premium prospect talent, and Bell’s work in helping some of this young talent adjust to the majors shouldn’t be overlooked.  It wouldn’t be surprising to see the Reds take that expected next step in 2025 if the team enjoys better health and the younger players fare better with more experience under their belts, and indeed a new voice in the dugout might be a key piece in helping Cincinnati turn the corner.

Benavides is a longtime member of the Reds organization, dating back to when the club selected him in the second round of the 1987 draft.  The first two of Benavides’ four Major League seasons were played in a Reds uniform, and after retirement, he spent close to a decade working in Cincinnati’s farm system before joining the big league coaching staff in 2016.  Benavides has been acting in the bench coach role since Bell was initially hired following the 2018 campaign.

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images

Nationals Option CJ Abrams To Triple-A

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In a surprising move, the Nationals optioned shortstop CJ Abrams to Triple-A Rochester, the Athletic’s Britt Ghiroli reports (via X).  Infielder Trey Lipscomb is being called up in the corresponding move, as per The Washington Post’s Andrew Golden (X link).

Nationals manager Davey Martinez told reporters (including Golden and MASNsports.com’s Dan Kolko) that Abrams was optioned not for his play on the field, but rather “an internal issue” matter that Martinez didn’t discuss in further detail.  Abrams will report not to Rochester for the last two games of the Triple-A season but will instead go to the Nats’ spring camp in Florida to work out.  Martinez confirmed that Abrams wouldn’t appear in the majors again in 2024, but remains a big piece of the organization’s present and future.

It was just over two months ago that Abrams was representing the Nationals in the All-Star Game, as the 23-year-old was named to the NL squad as a reward for his outstanding first half.  Abrams hit .268/.343/.489 with 15 home runs in 398 plate appearances prior to the All-Star break, and looked all the world like a breakout player in his age-23 season.  As the sixth overall pick of the 2019 draft and the centerpiece of the trade package Washington received from the Padres in the Juan Soto trade, Abrams has long been seen as a future star, and the early returns of his 2024 season looked like a big step forward from his respectable performance in 2023, his first full MLB campaign.

Since the Midsummer Classic, however, Abrams’ production has tailed off.  The shortstop has hit only .203/.260/.326 in 204 PA during the second half, and gone yard only five times.  Abrams’ strikeout rate has risen from 20.1% in the first half to 23.53% in the second half, and his line drive rate plummeted from 23.6% to 7.8%.  This decline in hard contact indicates that Abrams’ .243 BABIP since the All-Star break is more than just bad batted-ball luck, and his .307 BABIP in the first half wasn’t too far above league average anyways.

This extended slump notwithstanding, it is clear that Abrams wouldn’t have been sent down if it wasn’t for this off-the-field issue.  Whatever the circumstances, the club deemed the situation serious enough to send this public message to Abrams as something of a wake-up call or a punishment.  There is bound to be some speculation that the Nats might now look to trade Abrams, yet Martinez’s comments about Abrams’ importance to Washington’s future seemed designed to end such speculation before it even got off the ground.  Going forward, Martinez feels Abrams “will be better” in the aftermath of the option.

Missing the last nine days of the 2024 season shouldn’t have any impact on Abrams’ Super Two eligibility.  As a reminder, “Super Two” players have less than three years of MLB service time, but sit in the top 22 percent of service time of all players between two and three years, and as such are awarded an extra year of arbitration eligibility.  Abrams entered the 2024 campaign with one year and 130 days of service time, and thus a full season on Washington’s active roster would’ve put him at the 2.130 mark — almost surely qualifying him for Super Two status based on the cutoff points over the last 15 years.

However, a player only needs to be on an active roster or the Major League injured list for 172 days of the 187-day season to qualify as having received one full year of official service time.  As such, since Abrams has already been with the Nationals beyond the 172-day threshold, he has achieved one full year of service time for 2024 and remains on track to be a Super Two player.

Braves Activate Ozzie Albies

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September 20: Atlanta has officially announced the reinstatement of Albies. Infielder Cavan Biggio was optioned to Triple-A Gwinnett in a corresponding move. Biggio has more than five years of major league service time and therefore can’t be optioned to the minors without his consent, so he presumably has agreed to be sent down.

September 19: The Braves will welcome Ozzie Albies back tomorrow. Manager Brian Snitker confirmed after today’s 15-3 drubbing of the Reds that Atlanta will activate Albies from the 10-day injured list (link via Justin Toscano of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution). They’ve been without their star second baseman for almost two months because of a left wrist fracture. The Braves will need to create an active roster spot tomorrow.

Albies still feels discomfort when he hits from the left side. He’ll limit himself to the right-handed batter’s box as a result. That’s his far stronger side in general. Albies is a career .339/.364/.568 hitter against left-handed pitching. He has a roughly average .247/.309/.437 slash versus righties. His task as a right-handed batter will be more difficult without always having the platoon advantage (to say nothing of the challenge of jumping back to action after an eight-week absence). Still, if Albies had to choose a side of the plate, he’d certainly pick this one.

It’s crunch time for Atlanta. The Braves are 1.5 games behind the Diamondbacks and Mets for the final playoff spot in the National League (pending Arizona’s and New York’s results tonight). Atlanta holds the tiebreaker over Arizona. They’ve split the season series with the Mets and will decide that tiebreaker with a three-game set at home early next week. That looks as if it’ll be the biggest regular season series of the year for any team.

Atlanta is headed to Miami for a three-game weekend set. They’re off on Monday before closing their season with the Mets and three games against the Royals (who might be fighting for their own playoff lives) at home. The Mets are hosting the Phillies for four this weekend before closing their season with road sets in Atlanta and Milwaukee. Arizona has a four-game series in Milwaukee and will play host to the Giants and Padres for three apiece next week.

The Braves have had a middle-of-the-pack offense for the past couple months. They’re 13th in scoring since the Albies injury, with similarly middling showings in on-base percentage (16th) and slugging (12th). Atlanta second basemen are hitting .220/.319/.296 across 216 plate appearances in that stretch. That’s weighed down by dreadful small-sample performances from Luke Williams and prospect Nacho Alvarez Jr. The Braves have given most of the second base reps to Whit Merrifield, who has reached base at a strong .344 clip but hasn’t provided any kind of power since signing with Atlanta.

Merrifield has plenty of experience bouncing around the diamond. If Snitker wanted to keep him in the lineup, he’d probably kick him to third base and bench Gio Urshela. The veteran corner infielder is hitting .234/.258/.340 over 26 games as a Brave. Urshela signed a big league deal in the wake of Austin Riley’s injury, not long after Urshela was released by the Tigers.

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