MLB Nearing Completion Of Investigation Into Padres’ Medical Processes
Major League Baseball’s investigation into the Padres’ medical information practices is nearing its completion, reports ESPN’s Buster Olney, and the Friars could face penalty as a result of the findings. Olney reports that multiple sources have informed him that the Padres instructed their medical staff to compile two separate reports on each player — one for industry usage (i.e. medical reviews in trade talks) and one to be kept internal.
The difference between the two files, according to Olney, would be that the file for industry consumption would only contain information on injuries that required trips to the disabled list, whereas the in-house file would contain data on more minor injuries/maladies and preventative treatments that occur over the course of a given season. Three teams with which the Padres executed trades — the Red Sox (Drew Pomeranz), White Sox (James Shields) and Marlins (Andrew Cashner, Colin Rea, Fernando Rodney) were “enraged” and felt they were knowingly deceived by San Diego, Olney writes, adding that a fourth unspecified club filed a complaint with the Commissioner’s Office as well. Evan Drellich of the Boston Herald tweets that punishment for the Padres should be expected, adding that a common point he’s hearing in digging on this matter is that Red Sox president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski “is [the] wrong guy to cross.”
The Marlins’ case, of course, is the most well-publicized. Rea departed his first start as a Marlin in the fourth inning due to elbow discomfort, and a subsequent MRI revealed ligament damage that ultimately required a platelet-rich plasma injection and may eventually lead to Tommy John surgery. The Padres ultimately traded highly touted minor league right-hander Luis Castillo back to the Marlins in exchange for Rea, and Olney now reports that Rea revealed to the Marlins that he’d been receiving treatment on his elbow for weeks leading up to the trade. That information, according to Olney, was not contained within the Padres’ medical records on Rea, therefore giving the Marlins no opportunity to back away from the deal due to concerns surrounding the young right-hander’s elbow.
As Olney explains, virtually any form of treatment — everything from DL trips down to the use of aspirin and anti-inflammatory medications — is supposed to be logged in a player’s medical file, and those files are logged to MLB’s central database and are available for review in trade talks. One source told Olney that an average team will have filed somewhere in the vicinity of 60 submissions to the database by the All-Star break, but the Padres had filed fewer than 10 submissions this season.
Perhaps most damning, Olney cites multiple sources with direct knowledge of meetings held by the Padres in Spring Training in reporting that the team specifically told its training staff that keeping separate files on the players would ultimately prove beneficial in trading efforts. If proven to be true, this would be far from the first controversy surrounding general manager A.J. Preller’s career as a Major League executive. Preller was suspended for violating signing guidelines and practices while heading up the Rangers’ international department and, per Olney, has also been reprimanded by the league since joining the Padres for violating industry regulations while conducting a workout with an unsigned player.
Those interested in the story are highly encouraged to read Olney’s full column, which goes into considerably greater detail on the matter and contains quotes from multiple unnamed executives on the Padres scandal.
Yankees Sign Billy Butler
SEPT. 15: The Yankees have announced the signing of Butler to a Major League deal. Right-hander Nathan Eovaldi has been transferred to the 60-day disabled list to clear a spot on the 40-man roster.
SEPT. 14: The Yankees have reached an agreement to sign recently released Athletics designated hitter/first baseman Billy Butler, reports Jon Heyman of FanRag Sports (via Twitter). Heyman further specifies that Butler has signed a Major League contract with New York.
Specifics surrounding the deal aren’t known, but Butler can be had for nothing more than the pro-rated portion of the league minimum through season’s end following his release by Oakland. That means it’ll cost the Yanks about $50K to add Butler into the mix, presumably for the remainder of the 2016 campaign only.
Butler, 30, signed a three-year, $30MM contract with the A’s prior to the 2015 season – a move that paid very little in the way of dividends for Oakland. The longtime Royals DH struggled in both seasons he spent wearing green and gold, hitting a collective .258/.325/.394. While that production graded out as roughly average when factoring in the Athletics’ cavernous home park (99 OPS+), a league-average bat at the DH slot (and occasionally at first base) isn’t a positive outcome on a $10MM annual investment.
As Mike Axisa of River Avenue Blues points out (Twitter link), however, the Yankees started light-hitting backstop Austin Romine at designated hitter tonight against a left-handed pitcher. Butler could give the Yankees a solid, low-cost option against southpaws for the remainder of the season, and they’ll be facing no shortage of left-handed opponents; Ken Rosenthal of FOX Sports notes that the Yanks are slated to face lefties in seven of their next 11 games (Twitter link).
That said, it should be noted that a large reason for the decline in performance from “Country Breakfast” is the fact that his numbers against lefties have plummeted in the past two seasons. Butler crushed lefties at a .314/.393/.519 clip from 2007-14 despite playing his home games at the pitcher-friendly Kauffman Stadium, but he’s managed only a woeful .226/.329/.358 line against lefties since signing in Oakland.
Few would’ve thought that the Yankees would be in this position at the non-waiver trade deadline when they parted ways with Aroldis Chapman, Andrew Miller and Carlos Beltran in order to acquire prospects, but New York currently sits just two games back from an American League Wild Card spot. However, they just lost a right-handed option earlier today with the news that Aaron Judge has been placed on the disabled list due to an oblique strain, thinning out the club’s right-handed options at the plate. Of course, if the Yankees are able to close the two-game gap that currently faces them, Butler would be ineligible to join the postseason roster, having been added to the organization after the Aug. 31 postseason eligibility deadline.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.
Phillies Acquire Joey Curletta To Complete Carlos Ruiz Trade
The Phillies announced today that they’ve acquired outfield prospect Joey Curletta from the Dodgers to complete last month’s Carlos Ruiz trade. The trade, then, will officially go in the books as Ruiz to the Dodgers in exchange for A.J. Ellis, Curletta and right-hander Tommy Bergjans.
Curletta, 22, was a sixth-round pick by the Dodgers out of Mountain Point High School in Phoenix, Ariz. back in 2012. He’s split the season between Class-A Advanced and Double-A for the second straight year, though his numbers in 2016 are superior to the ones he logged as a 21-year-old at those same levels in 2015. Curletta has batted .251/.323/.463 with 17 homers, 17 doubles and five triples in 409 plate appearances this season, though his 30 percent strikeout rate is indicative of the fact that there’s still plenty of room for growth in the right-handed hitter’s approach at the plate.
Curletta didn’t rank among the Dodgers’ top 30 prospects, though Baseball America has previously written that his two best tools are his raw power and his throwing arm. The 6’4″, 245-pounder has been described by BA as a “physical monster” in the past and has been limited to the corner outfield (primarily right field), where his strong arm profiles rather well.
J.P. Hoornstra of the Southern California News Group was the first to report that Curletta was headed to the Phils to complete the trade (Twitter link).
Blue Jays Hire Ben Cherington As VP Of Baseball Ops
The Blue Jays have announced the hiring of Ben Cherington as vice president of baseball operations, as Shi Davidi of Sportsnet.ca first reported. Cherington was speaking with other organizations about other roles before deciding to head to Toronto, per the report.
Blue Jays president Mark Shapiro has been hard at work revamping his team’s front office, and he’s now set to hire a familiar face. Cherington is best known for his time as the Red Sox general manager, but got his start in baseball under Shapiro when the latter was in charge of the Indians.
Ross Atkins is already in place as the Toronto GM — he’s also an executive VP — and he won’t be supplanted. Instead, Cherington will “work closely” with player development director Gil Kim and report to Atkins, the team says. The “emphasis” will be on the player development side, Davidi writes.
There were both successes and failures for Cherington during his time at the helm of the powerful Boston organization. He helped deliver a World Series after taking over for Theo Epstein before the 2012 campaign, but also oversaw some disappointing seasons. Cherington decided to leave the organization after it hired Dave Dombrowski as president of baseball operations in the middle of 2015 and has not worked for another team since — instead serving as an “executive in residence” at Columbia University.
Cherington still commands broad respect around the game, making him an intriguing addition for the Jays. It doesn’t hurt that some of the seemingly poor moves he made with the Red Sox look better at this point than they have in the past. More important, though, are the deals he didn’t make. Players like Mookie Betts, Xander Bogaerts, and Jackie Bradley Jr. were often mentioned as trade candidates in years past, but they are now providing immense value to the Sox. Cherington’s ability to assess and develop young talent will no doubt provide an asset to his new club.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.
Puig-Braun Blockbuster Nearly Occurred, Likely To Be Revisited
We heard recently that the Dodgers and Brewers had worked on an August trade that would have sent Yasiel Puig to Milwaukee in exchange for fellow outfielder Ryan Braun. New reports provide interesting new details on the swap, which nearly took place and could well be a viable scenario for the coming winter.
One iteration of the talks would have packaged Puig with righty Brandon McCarthy and a pair of prospects, as MLB.com’s Adam McCalvy recently reported. Indeed, negotiations went right down to the wire before the August 31st deadline, with Braun camping out in the Miller Park clubhouse to await word. The sides “simply ran out of time,” per McCalvy, who adds that both the Giants and Braves have stated interest in the veteran slugger.
Whether or not other trade partners will be reconsidered remains to be seen, but Bob Nightengale of USA Today says that an offseason deal to send Braun to the Dodgers is actually “likely.” According to the report, Braun was advised by the Brewers to stick around and wait until the deadline because a deal seemed so promising at that juncture. Ultimately, the final prospect piece couldn’t be agreed upon.
Braun declined to address the matter, but did note that he grew up a Dodgers fan and spends his winters in the Los Angeles area. “When those conversations started, I think it was an interesting position for me to be in,” he said. Braun’s contract requires him to list up to six teams to which he can freely be traded, and the Dodgers were one club that had a green light this year. If he wanted to gain leverage, he could in theory switch the Dodgers out of that position when his next opportunity to re-name the teams arises, though it seems that Braun has compiled his list based primarily on geographic preference.
The above-noted trade parameters are obviously quite interesting, even before learning what type of prospects would’ve been included. McCarthy’s inclusion would help offset the $76MM in salary obligations owed to Braun after this year, as the veteran hurler will be paid $20MM over the next two seasons and has only just returned from Tommy John surgery. But he also might have filled some innings for Milwaukee while representing an interesting potential bounceback trade piece — especially if his 2019 conditional club option is available. (It has not been reported what type of injury would allow that option to be triggered, but it functions as a variation of the Lackey clause.)
Danny Salazar Out 3-4 Weeks With Mild Forearm Strain; No Ligament Damage Found
An MRI has revealed a mild strain of the flexor musculature in Danny Salazar‘s right forearm, the Indians announced today. Salazar will receive a platelet-rich plasma injection tomorrow and be shut down from all throwing for 10 days thereafter. Cleveland’s announcement indicates that his projected recovery time is three to four weeks, effectively ending Salazar’s regular season. On the plus side, if he’s able to recover in the allotted time frame, he could rejoin the team’s postseason rotation.
While the news is certainly worse than the initial report that Salazar would miss one start due to the forearm issue, there were certainly more frightening potential outcomes for Cleveland. Salazar had Tommy John surgery while working his way up through the minors, but the examination of his forearm and elbow showed that his reconstructed ulnar collateral ligament remains intact.
Salazar, 26, has delivered another strong campaign for the Indians, working to a 3.87 earned run average with 10.6 K/9, 4.1 BB/9 and a 47.8 percent ground-ball rate in 137 1/3 innings of work to his credit thus far. However, this isn’t the first brush with injury that he’s had in 2016, either; inflammation in Salazar’s right elbow cost him two weeks last month, and he’s now set to miss a wider slate of games than for his previous arm issue.
While Salazar’s injury calls into question whether he’d be able to take the ball in the ALDS — and with a seven-game lead over the Tigers in the AL Central, it seems safe to assume that Cleveland will indeed find itself in that series — Cleveland can rely on Corey Kluber and Carlos Carrasco to serve as its one-two punch in that first postseason round. While it’s been an up-and-down season for the other members of the rotation, Trevor Bauer has looked plenty sharp over his past seven appearances (3.30 ERA) and could take the ball in Game 3 if Salazar is unable to return by that point.
Astros To Sign Cuban Left-Hander Cionel Perez
The Astros have agreed to sign left-handed pitching prospect Cionel Perez for a $5.15MM signing bonus, reports MLB.com’s Jesse Sanchez (via Twitter). The 20-year-old Perez, a client of Octagon according to Sanchez, was declared a free agent by Major League Baseball just last week after having left Cuba back in May of 2015. Due to his age and limited professional experience, Perez qualifies as an international amateur, meaning he is subject to international bonus pools. The Astros are already over their $2.197MM pool allotment, so the signing of Perez will come with a 100 percent luxury tax, thus making this a $10.3MM expenditure for Houston.
Perez currently rates fourth on Sanchez’s list of top 30 international prospects at MLB.com. Perez currently has a fastball that sits 92-95 mph, per Sanchez, though there’s room to add to his growing frame still, so some scouts feel the velocity will tick up another couple of miles per hour. Baseball America’s Ben Badler wrote back in December that Perez had shown some improvements with his once-fringe breaking pitch, which at the time was flashing the potential to be an average or better offering. He’s also added a changeup that he’s still working on since leaving Cuba.
Per Sanchez’s report, the Astros were joined by the Orioles, Padres and Reds in their pursuit of Perez, but it’ll be Houston who adds the intriguing young arm to its farm system. The aforementioned report from Badler noted that Perez could be ready for Low-A ball, but it’s of course possible that he begins his pro career in the United States a level higher now that he’s a year older — especially if he puts in some work over the winter. Perez appeared in just two seasons in Cuba’s Serie Nacional, logging 139 innings with a 2.20 ERA, 6.5 K/9 and 3.9 BB/9 in his age-17 and age-18 seasons.
Athletics Release Billy Butler
The Athletics have released first/baseman designated hitter Billy Butler, according to Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle (Twitter link). Slusser reported Friday that Butler would not return to the A’s in 2017, so their decision to cut ties with him now isn’t a complete surprise.
[RELATED: Updated A’s Depth Chart]
In a move that looked questionable at best from the get-go, low-payroll Oakland signed Butler to a three-year, $30MM contract in free agency after the 2014 season. The longtime Royal was coming off his worst season since 2008, having hit .271/.323/.379 with nine home runs in 603 plate appearances, and he wasn’t any better during his nearly two-year stint with the A’s. Butler, 30, combined to bat an underwhelming .258/.325/.394 with 19 homers in 843 trips to the plate with Oakland. Thanks to the package of below-average offense, defense and base running he provided to the A’s, Butler accounted for minus-1.2 fWAR with the club, tying him for the majors’ 18th-worst mark among position players since last season.
In addition to his on-field difficulties with the A’s, Butler was involved in a clubhouse altercation with teammate Danny Valencia last month. The two engaged in a verbal dispute after Butler made comments that may have interfered with an endorsement deal for Valencia. It escalated to the point of physical contact before Valencia struck Butler with one or more punches. Butler reported being fine afterward, but he then began exhibiting nausea and vomiting. While the A’s fined the pair undisclosed amounts, general manager David Forst said Sunday that the confrontation didn’t factor into Butler’s release (Twitter link via Slusser).
All told, Butler’s tenure in Oakland was an unmitigated disaster for a player who enjoyed a five-year stretch of solidly above-average offense with Kansas City from 2009-13. During that period, the 2004 first-round pick slashed a terrific .302/.372/.469 with 99 homers in 3,370 PAs. That half-decade showing ultimately led to his deal with the A’s, who will now eat the $10MM-plus remaining on his contract.
Seung-hwan Oh’s 2017 Option Vests
Cardinals closer Seung-hwan Oh finished his 30th game of the year Friday, meaning his club option for 2017 has vested, reports Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch (on Twitter). Oh will make $2.75MM, a slight raise over his current salary of $2.5MM, next season.
Oh, 34, emigrated from the Japan Central League over the winter and has ended up as one of the biggest steals of the offseason this year. After dominating in both his homeland, Korea, and Japan, Oh has emerged as an elite-level bullpen option for playoff-contending St. Louis. The right-hander ranks fourth among relievers in innings (72 1/3), 12th in strikeouts per nine frames (12.07) and 13th in ERA (1.87). Oh has also done well limiting walks (2.24 per nine), which has contributed to his eighth-place ranking in K-BB percentage (27.9).
The brilliance of Oh has been especially timely for a Cardinals team whose previous closer, Trevor Rosenthal, has endured the worst season of his young career. Rosenthal was among the majors’ top late-game aces from 2012-15, but inflated walk and home run rates have led to a 5.13 ERA over 33 1/3 innings this year. Oh took over the ninth inning from Rosenthal at the outset of July and has since converted 17 of 19 save opportunities. Rosenthal, meanwhile, has been on the disabled list since late July with rotator cuff inflammation, but he could return as early as Monday, according to Rick Hummel of the Post-Dispatch.
Stephen Strasburg Diagnosed With Flexor Mass Strain; No Ligament Damage Found
SATURDAY: Strasburg says he can’t promise he’ll return for the postseason, Chelsea Janes of the Washington Post tweets. Via MLB.com’s Jamal Collier (also on Twitter), Strasburg received a PRP shot yesterday.
THURSDAY 5:03pm: Strasburg will visit noted orthopedic surgeon Neal ElAttrache for a second opinion, Barry Svrluga of the Washington Post reports (Twitter links). That’s team protocol for an injury of this kind, which was deemed to have been acute (caused by one pitch) rather than from accumulated wear and tear.
3:15pm: Nationals right-hander Stephen Strasburg, who had an MRI today after exiting last night’s start in the third inning, has been diagnosed with a flexor mass strain, head athletic trainer Paul Lessard told reporters, including MASNsports.com’s Dan Kolko (Twitter link). On the positive side, he does not have any damage to the ulnar collateral ligament in his elbow.
While that assessment rules out Tommy John surgery, the injury is still notable, and there’s no immediate timeline for his return to action. However, the Washington Post’s Chelsea Janes notes (Twitter links) that Lessard doesn’t feel the injury will end Strasburg’s season — though he also couldn’t definitely state that the key righty would be back.
The flexor mass strain is a fairly common pitching injury, but its outlook depends quite a bit on the situation. Andrew Miller, for instance, only missed about a month earlier this year — though he likely had a shorter road back as a reliever. But more severe forms of the injury can require surgery, as was the case previously for Homer Bailey. Flexor issues more or less ended Cliff Lee‘s career. And flexor mass problems can be a precursor to Tommy John surgery, as occurred this year with Carson Smith. Other pitchers who have recently had some kind of injury to the flexor tendon or muscle include Aaron Nola, Wade Davis, and George Kontos.
Clearly, the Nats will be relieved that another TJ procedure isn’t immediately on the horizon. That would have been a major blow given that the club struck earlier this year to keep Strasburg off of the market with a seven-year, $175MM extension. If Strasburg had required a second UCL replacement, odds are he’d have missed all of 2017 and possibly a bit of 2018 as well — assuming he was able to progress well.
That’s not to minimize the immediate loss. Washington obviously viewed Strasburg as a part of its postseason rotation. Though a pair of rough, recent outings inflated his ERA, the 28-year-old has been stellar for most of the season. There are plenty of candidates to take over — the D.C. depth chart shows a variety of intriguing arms — but none will hold the same promise as Strasburg. While it is still too soon to write off a return, it would be a tall order for Strasburg to heal entirely and ramp all the way back up to carry a major workload this fall.