MLBTR Podcast: Luis Arráez To San Diego, Other Marlins Trade Candidates And Discussing A Potential Automated Strike Zone
The latest episode of the MLB Trade Rumors Podcast is now live on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and wherever you get your podcasts! Make sure you subscribe as well! You can also use the player at this link to listen, if you don’t use Spotify or Apple for podcasts.
This week, host Darragh McDonald is joined by Anthony Franco of MLB Trade Rumors to discuss…
- The Padres acquiring Luis Arráez from the Marlins (0:40)
- Who else the Marlins might trade this summer (7:05)
- What’s next for the Padres? (12:55)
Plus, we answer your questions, including…
- When can we expect to see Paul Skenes called up by the Pirates and when do you think Jackson Holliday will be brought up again by the Orioles? (17:10)
- I’m looking ahead at robo umps calling balls/strikes. Do you think it will dramatically affect counting stats for hitters while affecting pitchers stats negatively in the other direction? (20:55)
- What measures can be implemented to stop teams like the Tigers from continually rebuilding and why do the Tigers hesitate to send struggling players to the minors? (31:50)
Check out our past episodes!
- Mailbag: José Abreu Demoted, The Positional Surplus Myth, Erick Fedde’s Trade Value And More – listen here
- Mailbag: Cardinals’ Troubles, Jazz Chisholm Jr., Bad Umpiring And More – listen here
- Free Agent Power Rankings, Shohei Ohtani’s Stolen Money And The A’s Moving To Sacramento – listen here
The podcast intro and outro song “So Long” is provided courtesy of the band Showoff. Check out their Facebook page here!
Pirates To Promote Paul Skenes
The No. 1 overall pick in the 2023 draft is on his way to the majors. Pirates right-hander Paul Skenes will make his highly anticipated MLB debut this Saturday in a home outing against the visiting Cubs, the the team announced.
The 6’6″, 235-pound Skenes is the embodiment of a prototypical, power-armed ace. He’s widely regarded as one of the top pitching prospects in the sport — if not the top pitching prospect. Pittsburgh selected him with the top pick in last year’s draft after Skenes posted a 2.18 ERA and fanned more than 36% of his opponents in a three-year college career that included two seasons with the Air Force Academy and a third with the eventual national champion Louisiana State University Tigers. Skenes posted a comical 1.69 ERA over the course of 122 innings, striking out a hair over 45% of his opponents.
You won’t find a scouting report on Skenes that doesn’t laud him as a potential perennial All-Star and front-of-the-rotation pitcher with Cy Young upside. His fastball sits in the upper 90s and can reach 102 mph. Baseball America, MLB.com and FanGraphs all give him credit for a plus-plus (70-grade) fastball on the 20-80 scale, with MLB.com even pegging as an 80-grade pitch. His slider draws similar praise.
The Athletic’s Keith Law notes that Skenes’ four-seam/slider combo was so dominant in college that he needed to work on his seldom-used changeup and a two-seamer in order to reach his ace-level ceiling. He’s worked to incorporate both into his repertoire more regularly in Triple-A this year. ESPN’s Kiley McDaniel lists Skenes alongside David Price, Gerrit Cole and Stephen Strasburg as one of the four best pitching prospects in the past 20 years of the MLB draft.
To this point in his young career, Skenes has done nothing to suggest the hype is unwarranted. He’s made seven starts in Triple-A — the Pirates have limited his per-outing workload, leaving him at 27 1/3 innings on the season — and posted a 0.99 ERA with an over-the-moon 42.9% strikeout rate against a 7.6% walk rate. Skenes has kept the ball on the ground at a 51% clip and yielded just one homer all season. Though Pittsburgh has ramped him up in quite cautious fashion, he’s now been up to six innings in a start, so he should be able to work relatively deep into his debut effort if his performance dictates.
Skenes’ ascension to the Pirates’ rotation comes at a time when fellow rookie Jared Jones looks well on his way to becoming a high-end rotation arm himself. The 22-year-old Jones entered the season as a top-100 prospect himself and has raced out to a brilliant start: 2.63 ERA, 33.8% strikeout rate, 3.2% walk rate in 41 innings.
In an ideal setting, that electric young duo will join stalwart righty Mitch Keller, who signed a five-year extension during spring training, in forming the core of the Bucs’ rotation for years to come. Veteran Martin Perez is holding down one of the rotation spots behind that trio for now, but he’s only on a one-year contract. Fellow southpaw Marco Gonzales entered the season in the rotation as well, but he’s since gone down with a forearm strain. The Pirates are surely hopeful that some combination of Quinn Priester, Luis Ortiz, Anthony Solometo, Bubba Chandler and Tom Harrington can break through in the majors and form a homegrown rotation that can thrust the team into perennial contention.
The timing of Skenes’ promotion comes at a point when enough time has elapsed that he can’t accrue a full year of big league service time — at least not by conventional means. There will only be 143 days remaining in the season by the time he debuts, leaving him well shy of the requisite 172 for a year of service. However, under the prospect promotion incentives in the 2022-26 collective bargaining agreement, Skenes could still gain a full year of service if he finishes in the top two of National League Rookie of the Year voting.
In the event that Skenes achieves that feat, he’d have five additional years of club control, meaning he wouldn’t be eligible for free agency until the 2029-30 offseason and wouldn’t reach arbitration eligibility until the 2026-27 offseason. If Skenes sticks in the big leagues but does not gain a year of service based on Rookie of the Year voting, he’d be under club control through the 2030 season. However, the timing of his promotion also leaves him as a surefire Super Two player in that scenario, meaning he’d still be arb-eligible following the 2026 campaign and would go through the arbitration process four times rather than the standard three.
Mets Notes: Bader, Megill, Gilbert, Williams
Harrison Bader has been out of the starting lineup for three of the Mets’ last five contests. He was penciled back into center field today before their game against the Cardinals was postponed.
On Tuesday, Bader expressed some frustration with his somewhat sporadic playing time in a chat with Mike Puma of the New York Post. “I don’t handle it well, I can tell you that,” the outfielder said about a reduced role. “But I certainly don’t let it affect the way I prepare, the way I keep focused when I do get an opportunity to go in there and play, even if it’s later in the game. If anything, it lights more of a fire under my ass. I’m bothered by it for sure. But I respect what they view as giving us an opportunity to win. And at the same time whether my name is in there or not I prepare to play every single day of the season.”
Bader stopped short of outwardly criticizing the coaching staff. However, he acknowledged that playing less “has been a challenge, not what (he) expected” when he signed a one-year, $10.5MM free agent deal. “I want to win, but I want to play,” he added. “We all want to play, but it’s hard. We have got a lot of guys and I respect the position that everyone is in. … I don’t know who makes the lineup, but whatever we have got going on I respect that position.”
The Gold Glove outfielder has started 26 of New York’s 36 games on the season. Manager Carlos Mendoza has turned to more of an outfield rotation recently. That’s largely a credit to DJ Stewart and Tyrone Taylor, both of whom are hitting well. Stewart, who has been limited to facing right-handed pitching, has made up for a lowly .185 average by drawing 17 walks and hitting four homers over 85 plate appearances. Taylor has a more conventional .288/.312/.425 batting line in 78 trips.
Stewart worked as the designated hitter for the season’s first couple weeks. J.D. Martinez has stepped into that role. The Mets have Starling Marte locked in as the primary right fielder. If Mendoza wants to get either Stewart or Taylor into the lineup, that generally necessitates pushing Brandon Nimmo to center and sitting Bader.
Bader is hitting .280/.314/.340 with one homer through 105 plate appearances. That has made him the least productive of the Mets’ outfielders offensively, at least by measure of wRC+, yet it’s solid work overall. Considering that Bader is also the team’s best defensive outfielder, he certainly hasn’t played his way out of the lineup. As Mendoza pointed out to Puma, it’s more so that Stewart and Taylor have so far outperformed their anticipated roles.
That all falls under the category of good problem to have, as the solid contributions from five outfielders gives the Mets cover if anyone struggles or suffers an injury. Aside from Nimmo, there were questions about everyone in that group heading into the season. Marte and Bader had career-worst offensive showings in 2023. Stewart is a 30-year-old who has never played more than 100 games in an MLB season. Taylor has primarily been a depth outfielder whom the Brewers flipped to New York for a minimal return over the winter.
The Mets also brought in Adrian Houser in that deal, though his tenure in Queens has gotten off to a much rockier start. Houser was at least temporarily pushed to the bullpen after struggling to an 8.16 ERA over his first six starts. The Mets called up top prospect Christian Scott last week to join Luis Severino, Jose Quintana, José Buttó and Sean Manaea in the rotation. Mendoza indicated they could go to a six-man rotation with a challenging section of the schedule coming up, but they’re also not far from having to make another decision with the pitching staff.
Tylor Megill has been on the injured list since departing his first start with a shoulder strain. The right-hander has made a trio of rehab outings, including four hitless innings with seven strikeouts at Triple-A Syracuse on Tuesday. Mendoza said Megill will make another start for Syracuse on Sunday before the team reinstates him (X link via Puma). It remains to be seen if he’ll reclaim a spot on the MLB staff. Megill still has a pair of minor league options, so the Mets could keep him in Triple-A even when he’s fully healthy.
In other injury news, prospects Jett Williams and Drew Gilbert are seeking a return to game action by the end of the month or early in June, according to MLB.com’s Anthony DiComo. Williams has been delayed by a right wrist injury, while Gilbert suffered a right hamstring strain. Williams, the 14th overall pick in the 2022 draft, started the season at Double-A Binghamton. Gilbert, acquired in last summer’s Justin Verlander trade, opened the year in Syracuse after a huge finish in Double-A last season.
Guardians Outright Tyler Beede
The Guardians sent right-hander Tyler Beede outright to Triple-A Columbus, according to his transactions tracker at MLB.com. That indicates he cleared waivers after being designated for assignment last week. He has the right to elect free agency but it’s not yet clear if he’s chosen to do so.
Beede, 31 this month, made it back to the big leagues after spending 2023 in Japan. He signed a minor league deal with the Guardians and cracked the Opening Day roster by throwing 13 innings in Spring Training with a 4.15 earned run average.
Unfortunately, the regular season results weren’t there for him, despite a strong 26.5% strikeout rate. He allowed 13 earned runs in 14 innings, leading to an ERA of 8.36. There was a bit of bad luck in there, as he wouldn’t sustain a .389 batting average on balls in play nor a 55.6% strand rate over a larger sample. But he also didn’t do himself any favors with a 13.2% walk rate. His 5.00 FIP was better than his ERA but still not great, though his 3.78 SIERA was quite optimistic.
Once a top prospect with the Giants, Beede struggled to cement himself in the big leagues from 2018 to 2022, exhausting his option years in the process. That means he is now out of options and can’t be easily sent down to the minors. He was bumped off the Guardians’ 40-man recently and the other 29 clubs all passed on the chance to grab him off waivers.
All players with at least three years of service time or a previous career outright have the right to reject outright assignments, electing free agency instead. Beede qualifies on both counts and could head to the open market if he so chooses.
Rangers Sign Kyle Barraclough To Minor League Deal
The Rangers have signed right-hander Kyle Barraclough to a minor league contract, tweets Jeff Wilson of Rangers Today. He will head to Triple-A Round Rock, according to the MLB.com transaction log. Texas also granted veteran left-hander Danny Duffy his release from a minor league deal, Wilson adds.
Barraclough, who turns 34 later this month, has pitched in parts of nine major league seasons. He was a quality high-leverage reliever for a couple years at the beginning of his career with the Marlins. Barraclough has bounced around the league of late, though he has earned brief MLB looks in each of the last three years.
That included a three-game stint with the Red Sox in 2023. Barraclough gave out far too many free passes, walking six and hitting four batters in 7 2/3 innings. He allowed 11 earned runs along the way. Barraclough had more success with the Sox’s Triple-A team in Worcester, where he turned in a 3.65 ERA across 75 innings. Control was still an issue, as he walked more than 14% of opponents against a slightly below-average 20.4% strikeout rate.
Barraclough started 13 of his 14 Triple-A appearances last year. He has come out of the bullpen for all 291 outings of his big league career. Texas has taken some blows to its rotation depth — the latest came this afternoon when Dane Dunning hit the injured list — but Barraclough’s command suggests he’s better suited as a reliever.
Duffy, 35, returns to the open market. The former World Series winner never got to the majors with Texas and hasn’t pitched in the big leagues since June 2021 when he was a member of the Royals. Duffy has spent the past couple seasons on minor league contracts with the Rangers. He had been working in relief at Round Rock, tossing 18 innings over 10 appearances. Duffy walked 17 of 82 batters faced en route to a 5.50 ERA.
Paul Goldschmidt’s Toughest Stretch As A Cardinal
The Cardinals are back at the bottom of the NL Central through six weeks. At 15-21, they're ahead of only the Marlins and Rockies in the National League. St. Louis viewed their 2023 last-place finish as an anomaly. They invested in their rotation to try for a quick turnaround, but their current 68-win pace is below where they ended last season.
Their problems aren't quite the same as they were in 2023. Last year, the biggest issues were a starting rotation that couldn't miss bats and a defense that was surprisingly the worst in MLB at turning batted balls into outs. The Cards haven't been great in either area thus far in 2024, but the slight improvements they've made in those facets have been negated by a lifeless offense. At the center of those struggles: Paul Goldschmidt, who is amidst what is by far the worst stretch of his time in St. Louis.
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Giants Place Jorge Soler On Injured List
The Giants put designated hitter Jorge Soler on the 10-day injured list, retroactive to May 5, due to a shoulder strain. San Francisco recalled Heliot Ramos from Triple-A Sacramento to take the open roster spot. Ramos is in tonight’s lineup as the DH against Colorado righty Peter Lambert.
Soler inked a three-year, $42MM free agent deal in the middle of February. San Francisco hoped he’d add a needed power presence to the middle of the lineup after hitting 36 homers for the Marlins last season. That isn’t how things have played out thus far. While Soler is tied for the team lead with five home runs, he’s hitting .202/.294/.361 through 136 plate appearances overall. He fell into a particularly poor stretch in the week and a half leading up to the injury. Soler has just three hits in his last 10 games.
It’s not clear how long he’ll be out of action. The Giants could rotate a few players through the DH spot in his absence. Wilmer Flores got a couple starts there while Soler was day-to-day. Ramos, 24, should also get some run now that he’s back in the majors. The former first-round pick has seen his stock fall in recent years because of continued strikeout issues in the upper minors. He’s out to a strong start in Sacramento, though, hitting eight homers with a .296/.388/.565 slash over 134 trips. He’s still striking out at an elevated 27.6% clip, but he’s drawing walks and hitting for power.
While the Giants lose one of their biggest offseason pickups, they could welcome back another in the near future. Blake Snell has been out since April 23 with an adductor strain. The defending NL Cy Young winner will throw a bullpen session tomorrow and is scheduled for a rehab start at Low-A San Jose this weekend, tweets Shayna Rubin of the San Francisco Chronicle.
Snell has struggled over his first three starts with the Giants. The left-hander has surrendered 15 runs through 11 2/3 innings. He has fanned 12 but allowed 18 hits and issued five walks.
Angels Release Zac Kristofak
The Angels have released right-hander Zac Kristofak, per the team’s transaction log at MLB.com. He was designated for assignment last week when the Angels selected Willie Calhoun‘s contract.
There’s no clear indication as to why Kristofak was released rather than passed through outright waivers, although speculatively speaking, it’s possible there’s an injury at play. Injured players can’t be placed on outright waivers and thus must be traded or released if removed from the 40-man roster by way of a DFA.
The 26-year-old Kristofak made his big league debut earlier this season, pitching two innings and yielding three unearned runs on three hits and two walks with two strikeouts. A 14th-round pick back in 2019, Kristofak struggled early in his pro career, posting ERAs north of 6.00 in the low minors in his first two seasons (2019 and 2021). He’s since posted a combined sub-4.00 mark while climbing to the upper tiers of the minor leagues and, earlier this season, to the majors. In 18 2/3 frames of Triple-A work this year, he’d turned in a 3.38 earned run average — albeit with a shaky 10-to-5 K/BB ratio (13% strikeout rate, 6.5% walk rate).
If Kristofak indeed has encountered an injury that prevented him from being placed on outright waivers, it’s quite possible he’ll simply re-sign with the Halos on a minor league contract. That’s a common outcome for injured players who are released on the heels of a DFA, though certainly not a universal one. Kristofak will have the opportunity to hear from other clubs upon clearing release waivers.
Mariners Select Kirby Snead
The Mariners announced a series of roster moves today, selecting the contract of left-hander Kirby Snead and reinstated right-hander Eduard Bazardo from the injured list. In corresponding moves, left-hander Tayler Saucedo was placed on the 15-day IL due to right knee hyperextension and right-hander Emerson Hancock was optioned to Triple-A Tacoma. To open a 40-man spot for Snead, righty Matt Brash was transferred to the 60-day IL.
Snead, 29, signed a minor league deal with the Mariners in the winter. He reported to Triple-A and has made 12 appearances at that level so far this year with a 2.92 earned run average. That’s supported by a 27.7% strikeout rate, 4.3% walk rate and a huge 63.3% ground ball rate.
The southpaw has had some encouraging results in the minors before, but has struggled in the majors. He currently has a career ERA of 5.20 in the big leagues, tossing 64 innings over the previous three seasons between the Blue Jays and Athletics. He was outrighted by Oakland in October, which led to his deal with the Mariners.
With Saucedo going on the IL, Snead will step in as the club’s second lefty reliever alongside Gabe Speier. Snead is out of options and can’t be easily sent back down to the minors down the line. However, he has less than two years of service time and could therefore be cheaply retained into the future if he holds onto his roster spot all year.
Hancock, 25 this month, came into the year as the club’s sixth starter behind Luis Castillo, George Kirby, Logan Gilbert, Bryce Miller and Bryan Woo. But Woo began the year on the injured list due to right medial elbow inflammation, which opened a rotation spot for Hancock.
Through seven starts, Hancock has a 5.24 ERA with a tepid 15.4% strikeout rate. Woo has been on a rehab assignment of late, having already made three starts with the most recent one being a five-inning outing on Saturday. Hancock’s option appears to pave the way for Woo to be reinstated at some point in the near future.
As for Brash, he’s been on the 15-day IL all year due to right elbow inflammation. This transfer is backdated to his initial IL placement, meaning he can’t be reinstated until late May. That doesn’t seem to be a possibility anyway, as he was shut down at the end of April and there haven’t been any substantive updates on his condition since then.
Shohei Ohtani’s Former Interpreter Pleading Guilty To Multiple Charges
Ippei Mizuhara, the former interpreter of Shohei Ohtani, is pleading guilty multiple charges relating to the allegations he stole money from Ohtani to fund his gambling habit. Meghann Cuniff of The Washington Post relays on X (link one and link two) that Mizuhara is pleading guilty to bank fraud and subscribing to a false tax return. Further details are also provided by the Associated Press and Paula Lavigne of ESPN while Cuniff links to the full 33-page plea agreement.
The AP relays that the bank fraud charge carries a maximum of 30 years in federal prison and the false tax return charge carries a sentence of up to three years in federal prison. Cuniff reports that Mizuhara will likely be facing 87 to 108 months in federal prison as part of the plea, though “acceptance of responsibility“could drop that to the range of 78 to 97 months. She adds the prosecutors could “recommend a departure from the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines that puts Mizuhara’s prison time below the 87-108 month range,” with the sentence ultimately to be determined by the judge. Mizuhara will be arraigned on May 14, per the AP. The plea agreement states that Mizuhara will almost certainly be deported to Japan, per Fabian Ardaya and Sam Blum of The Athletic.
“The extent of this defendant’s deception and theft is massive,” United States Attorney Martin Estrada said in a statement, per the AP. “He took advantage of his position of trust to take advantage of Mr. Ohtani and fuel a dangerous gambling habit.”
Last month, Mizuhara was charged with bank fraud relating to allegations that he transferred more than $16MM from Ohtani’s bank account to an illegal sports book. Cuniff also relayed the full 37-page complaint against Mizuhara at that time.
That document laid out a series of events wherein Mizuhara helped Ohtani set up a bank account when the player first came over from Japan in 2018, to deposit his pay from the Angels. Mizuhara began betting on sports with an illegal bookmaker in 2021, as betting on sports is not legal in California. Over the next few years, Mizuhara wired more than $16MM from Ohtani’s bank account to pay his debts.
Per the allegations of those charges, Mizuhara called Ohtani’s bank and pretended to be the player in order to gain access. As relayed by Lavigne, today’s plea agreement says Mizuhara impersonated Ohtani during phone calls to the bank “at least 24 times.” Ohtani’s agent repeatedly tried to view the account but Mizuhara told him it was “private” and that Ohtani didn’t want them to access it. Ohtani, meanwhile, believed that his accountants and financial advisors were monitoring the accounts. Since Mizuhara handled all translation between Ohtani and his team, each side remained unaware of what was going on.
The complaint against Mizuhara also contained various text messages between him and the bookmakers, as well as between him and Ohtani. The investigators found no evidence that Ohtani knew about Mizuhara’s gambling habits and Ohtani is considered to be a victim in the case. Nor did they find any evidence that Mizuhara bet on baseball. When the story of Mizuhara’s gambling broke in March, he told reporters that the debts were his but that Ohtani agreed to wire the money as his friend. He later retracted that story and said Ohtani knew nothing about either the gambling or the transfers. Ohtani later addressed the media and accused Mizuhara of stealing from him and lying about, saying he knew nothing of what was going on until after the accusations surfaced in the media. Ohtani has been cooperating with the investigation. The complaint against Mizuhara contains a text message where he admits to one of the bookmakers that he stole from Ohtani. Mizuhara was fired by the Dodgers last month with Will Ireton taking over as Ohtani’s interpreter since then.
MLB’s Department of Investigations had opened an investigation into the matter in March but released the following statement when Mizuhara was charged in April: “We are aware of the charges filed by the U.S. Attorney’s Office against Mr. Mizuhara for bank fraud after a thorough federal investigation. According to that investigation, Shohei Ohtani is considered a victim of fraud and there is no evidence that he authorized betting with an illegal bookmaker. Further, the investigation did not find any betting on baseball by Mr. Mizuhara. Given the information disclosed today, and other information we have already collected, we will wait until resolution of the criminal proceeding to determine whether further investigation is warranted.”