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The Opener: Mervis, Wainwright, Glasnow

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With about 20% of the 2023 regular season already in the books, here are three things we’ll be keeping an eye on around the baseball world throughout the day today:

1. Mervis to debut:

The Cubs are reportedly set to call up first base prospect Matt Mervis to the major league team ahead of this afternoon’s game against the Marlins. Mervis broke out in a big way in 2022, advancing from High-A all the way to Triple-A over the course of the season, with his strikeout and walk numbers improving as he advanced through the levels of the minors. In all, Mervis has slashed .293/.387/.573 in 367 plate appearances at the Triple-A level, with 21 home runs in just 85 games. While power is Mervis’s primary calling card, he’s also shown remarkable discipline at the plate, with a strikeout rate of 15.8% and a walk rate of 12% at the Triple-A level in his career so far.

Mervis figures to draw regular starts at first base, where veteran Eric Hosmer was signed over the offseason to act as a bridge to Mervis. Hosmer has struggled with the Cubs so far this season, slashing just .250/.294/.363, good for a wRC+ of 79. Hosmer is also striking out at a 24.7% rate that would be a career high for the 33-year-old veteran if it continued over the full season, while walking at just a 5.9% rate that would be his lowest in a full season, with only the shortened 2020 season clocking in lower at 5.8%. A 40-man roster move won’t be necessary to accommodate Mervis, as the club’s 40-man roster stands at 39 currently. Still, a move of some sort will be necessary to add Mervis to the active roster.

2. Wainwright to return:

The Cardinals are set to receive a boost to their pitching depth this weekend when veteran right-hander Adam Wainwright is activated to start Saturday afternoon’s game against the Tigers. Wainwright, who posted a decent 3.71 ERA (104 ERA+) with a 3.66 FIP last season, figures to help stabilize a Cardinals rotation that has been a major reason why the club’s 4.70 ERA is bottom ten in the majors this season. At 41 years old, age-related decline is always a possibility, but Wainwright has already battled back from a difficult stretch of seasons in his mid-thirties to produce a 3.57 ERA (112 ERA+) since the start of the 2019 season, giving reason for optimism that Wainwright can remain productive in this final season of his career. Wainwright’s return couldn’t come at a better time for the Cardinals, who have lost six straight games and 13 of their last 16.

3. Glasnow headed for rehab:

Oft-injured Rays ace Tyler Glasnow figures to begin a rehab assignment for the club’s Triple-A affiliate in Durham today, with a return later this month as a potential target. Glasnow has been on the injured list all season after suffering an oblique strain during Spring Training. Though injuries have limited Glasnow to just 212 2/3 innings of work since the beginning of the 2019 season, those innings have been phenomenal, with a 2.75 ERA (151 ERA+) and a 2.87 FIP with a fantastic 36% strikeout rate and a walk rate of just 7.8%.

Upon his return, Glasnow will join a rotation that last Jeffrey Springs to Tommy John surgery earlier this season alongside Shane McClanahan, Drew Rasmussen, and Zach Eflin. The likes of Josh Fleming, Yonny Chirinos, and the recently acquired Chase Anderson are among the club’s bulk options who have filled out the rotation so far this season, though McClanahan, Rasmussen, and Eflin are the only regular starters currently on the roster.

Kevin Quackenbush Signs With Long Island Ducks

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The Long Island Ducks of the independent Atlantic League have signed right-hander Kevin Quackenbush, per club president/general manager Michael Pfaff on Twitter.

Quackenbush, 34, had some solid seasons earlier in his career with the Padres. He tossed 54 innings or more in three straight seasons starting in 2014, posting a combined 3.50 ERA in that time along with a 21.7% strikeout rate, 8.4% walk rate and 38.6% ground ball rate.

Unfortunately, his ERA shot up to 7.86 in 2017 and he was outrighted off the roster that year, kicking off the journeyman era of his career. He signed with the Reds for 2018 but got just 10 appearances before he was outrighted off the roster. He signed minor league deals with the Dodgers and Nationals for 2019 and 2020, respectively, but didn’t make the majors in either of those campaigns. He returned to the Dodgers on a minor league deal for 2021 and was selected to the roster in August but designated for assignment after just one appearance of a third of an inning.

In his major league career, he has a 4.41 ERA in 204 career appearances with a strikeout rate of 21%, a 9.2% walk rate and a 39.3% ground ball rate. He spent last year with Toros de Tijuana of the Mexican League, posting a 2.70 ERA.

The Ducks have signed a few guys with major league experience recently, having inked Daniel Murphy and Rubén Tejada about a month ago, though Quackenbush surely is the most aptly-named of any former big leaguer they could have found.

Athletics Release Kevin Cron

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The Athletics have released first baseman Kevin Cron, per his transactions tracker at MLB.com.

Cron, 30, signed a minor league deal with the A’s in the offseason but hit just .133/.152/.156 through 46 plate appearances with the Triple-A Las Vegas Aviators. He walked in just 2.2% of those trips to the plate and was struck out in 39.1% of them. Given that rough showing, the club has moved on and freed him up to pursue his next opportunity.

He’s generally been considered a bat-first type of player throughout his career, so the offensive struggles really limit his value. He mashed all through the minor leagues with the Diamondbacks, including a .331/.449/.777 showing at Triple-A in 2019, and eventually got up to the majors. Unfortunately, he hit just .170/.245/.420 in 98 plate appearances over 2019 and 2020 and was released after the latter season.

He tried to take his skills overseas, signing with the Hiroshima Toyo Carp for 2021, eventually hitting a decent .231/.270/.431. He then joined the SSG Landers of the KBO League for 2022 but hit a meager .222/.255/.420 there before returning to North America this year.

Nationals Outright Anthony Banda

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The Nationals announced that left-hander Anthony Banda has cleared waivers and been outrighted to Triple-A Rochester. The lefty had been designated for assignment by the club on the weekend.

Banda, 29, signed a minor league deal with the Nats in the offseason and made the club’s Opening Day roster. He threw seven innings over 10 appearances but with a disappointing 6.43 ERA. He combined a 17.1% strikeout rate with a 14.3% walk rate and 40.9% ground ball rate, with all three of those being worse than league average.

It’s a small sample but most of the lines moved in the wrong direction compared to last year, when Banda struck out 22.2% of opponents while walking 9.6%. In his big league career, he’s spent time with the Diamondbacks, Rays, Mets, Pirates, Blue Jays and Yankees before joining the Nationals this year. He has an overall ERA of 5.69 in 118 2/3 innings dating back to the 2017 season.

Banda has the right to reject this assignment and elect free agency on account of having been previously outrighted in his career, though it’s not clear at this time if he’s chosen to do so.

Rockies Claim Austin Wynns From Dodgers

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The Rockies have claimed catcher Austin Wynns from the Dodgers, according to his transactions tracker at MLB.com. The backstop had been designated for assignment earlier this week. The Rockies had a couple of vacancies on their 40-man and won’t need to make a corresponding move in that respect, though Wynns is out of options and they will need to open an active roster spot for him whenever he reports to the team.

Wynns, 32, seems to be taking a tour of the National League West division. He began the year with the Giants on a minor league deal, getting selected to the big league club just over a week into the season. He was designated for assignment just a few days later and elected free agency, then signing with the Dodgers. He lasted about two weeks with the Dodgers while Will Smith was on the concussion-related injured list but was cut shortly after Smith returned.

He’s managed to get 14 plate appearances amid all of that, slashing just .154/.214/.231 but in an obviously small sample and unusual conditions. His career batting line of .229/.273/.334 is better but still amounts to a wRC+ of just 67. Despite that tepid offense, he’s shown some competent work on the other side of the ball. Both FanGraphs and Baseball Prospectus give him above-average grades for his framing this year and did in 2022 as well.

The Rockies have Elias Díaz as their clear number one catcher, having signed him to a three-year extension that runs through 2024. He’s also off to a great start this year, hitting .337/.390/.500 so far. Brian Serven has been serving as the backup this year and part of last year as well, but he’s hit a paltry .197/.250/.317 in his first 226 big league plate appearances. His defensive numbers are strong but he has a full slate of options, perhaps allowing the club to send him down for regular at-bats in Triple-A while installing Wynns as the backup.

Padres Re-Sign Julio Teheran To Minor League Deal

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The Padres have re-signed right-hander Julio Teheran to a new minor league deal and assigned him to Triple-A El Paso, per his transactions tracker at MLB.com.

Teheran, 32, had signed a minor league deal with the Padres over the winter but he opted out of that deal earlier this week and returned to free agency. It was reported at that time that the Friars hoped to re-sign him, which has now come to fruition.

So far this year, Teheran has made five starts for the Chihuahuas but with a bloated 6.84 ERA. He has a 24.8% strikeout rate and 7.7% walk rate but has surrendered six home runs over 25 innings in the hitter-friendly Pacific Coast League.

In spite of those results, the Padres clearly value him as a veteran depth option and have brought him back into the organization. The club isn’t exactly desperate for rotation depth at the moment, as they have Joe Musgrove, Yu Darvish, Blake Snell, Michael Wacha and Seth Lugo as their regulars at the moment. They have enough options that Nick Martinez has been pushed to the bullpen and Ryan Weathers has been optioned to Triple-A. But as the saying goes, you can never have too much pitching, and the Padres will retain an arm with plenty of experience.

Teheran has racked up 1396 1/3 major league innings over his career with an ERA of 3.80. He was once a mainstay of the rotation in Atlanta but has become a journeyman in recent years, bouncing to the Angels and Tigers recently before pitching in the Atlantic League and Mexican League last year.

Phillies Select Jeff Hoffman, Designate James McArthur

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The Phillies announced that they have selected the contract of right-hander Jeff Hoffman. To open a spot on the active roster, fellow right-hander Yunior Marté was optioned to Triple-A Lehigh Valley. To create room on the 40-man roster, righty James McArthur was designated for assignment. The club also announced that righty Nick Nelson, who was on the injured list with a hamstring strain, was reinstated from the IL and optioned to Double-A Reading.

It was reported earlier today that Hoffman had an opt-out in his minor league deal, which he had triggered on Monday. The club then had 48 hours to add him to the big league roster or release. More than 48 hours have elapsed since then, but it seems the two sides worked something out to get Hoffman his roster spot today.

The 30-year-old Hoffman signed a minor league deal with the Twins in the offseason but he had opt-outs in that deal, the first of which was at the end of March. He didn’t make the club out of camp and was granted his release, signing another minor league contract, but this time with the Phillies. The latter deal came with a $1.3MM base salary and opt-outs on May 1 and July 1.

The righty reported to Lehigh Valley and made nine appearances. His ERA of 7.00 in that time certainly isn’t pretty, nor is his 17.9% walk rate. However, he struck out 41% of batters faced and also had an unfortunate strand rate of 37.7%, leading to a much more palatable FIP of 3.71. Matt Gelb of The Athletic had reported earlier that Hoffman has been touching 99 mph in that short stint.

In a sense, that mixed bag is a sort of microcosm of Hoffman’s career. He’s long tantalized clubs with his power arm, getting selected ninth overall by the Blue Jays back in 2014. He’s since bounced around to the Rockies and Reds, logging 348 1/3 innings with a 5.68 ERA while walking 11.1% of batters faced. Last year was a bit more encouraging as he pitched for the Reds exclusively as a reliever, apart from one outing as an opener. He finished the year with a 3.83 ERA in 44 2/3 innings, striking out 22.8% of batters faced but with a high walk rate of 11.7%.

The Phils will give him a shot to see if he can harness his stuff at the big league level this year. If he’s able to succeed and hang onto his roster spot, they would have the ability to retain him via arbitration for another season as well. Hoffman currently has four years and 105 days of service time, meaning he would be between five and six years if he stayed up the rest of the way. But if the Phils want to remove him from the roster at any point, Hoffman is out of options and would have to be designated for assignment.

In order to prevent Hoffman from returning to the open market, the Phils have removed McArthur from their roster. A 12th round pick of the Phils in 2018, he was added to the 40-man roster in November of 2021 to prevent him from being selected in that year’s Rule 5 draft. At that time, he had just finished a season in which he tossed 78 1/3 innings between High-A and Double-A with a 4.25 ERA. Unfortunately, he’s hit a few speed bumps since then, making just 13 starts last year before suffering a stress reaction in his throwing elbow that prevented him from pitching after June. He reached Triple-A for the first time this year but has a 7.31 ERA through 16 innings.

The Phils will now have a week to trade McArthur or pass him through waivers. His rough showing this year notwithstanding, he’s a starter that can be optioned to the minors. Given that multiple clubs around the league are dealing with significant rotation injuries, it’s possible one of them could be interested in picking him up.

Jeff Hoffman Exercises Opt-Out Clause In Phillies Deal

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Right-hander Jeff Hoffman exercised the opt-out clause in his minor league contract with the Phillies on Monday, reports Matt Gelb of The Athletic. That gave the Phillies a 48-hour window to add him to the big league roster or release him. Forty-eight hours have since elapsed without an announcement from the team either way; it’s possible the two parties agreed that his contract would be selected in the coming days, but barring that Hoffman would become a free agent in short order.

The 30-year-old Hoffman spent spring training with the Twins but opted out of that deal upon being informed he had not made the roster. He signed with the Phillies shortly thereafter and has spent the first month of the season with their Triple-A affiliate in Lehigh Valley, where he’s yielded seven runs in nine innings of relief. Hoffman has only surrendered five hits, but he’s also issued a free pass to seven of his 39 opponents (17.9%). Those red flags notwithstanding, he’s also punched out a whopping 16 of those 39 hitters (41%), and Gelb notes that his fastball has touched 99 mph with the IronPigs.

Command issues aren’t exactly a new phenomenon for Hoffman, the No. 9 overall pick in the 2014 draft. He’s pitched 348 1/3 innings across parts of seven big league seasons with the Rockies and Reds, walking 11.1% of his opponents against a 20.3% strikeout rate en route to a lackluster 5.68 ERA. The increased velocity and uptick in missed bats, however, figure to pique the interest of other teams, just as they did for the Phillies and Twins. In addition to his gaudy strikeout numbers in Lehigh Valley, Hoffman whiffed eight of the 19 hitters he faced in spring training with Minnesota (42.1%).

Hoffman entered the 2023 season with four years, 105 days of Major League service time, so if he does land with another club and prove capable of sticking in the Majors, he’d reach five years of service this season (assuming 67 days in the bigs) and be controllable for another year via arbitration.

Guardians Option Zach Plesac

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The Guardians announced Thursday that they’ve optioned struggling right-hander Zach Plesac to Triple-A Columbus. It’s the first time he’s been optioned to the minors since the 2020 season.

Plesac’s 2023 campaign has been a disaster thus far. While he’s walking fewer hitters than ever (4.8%), he’s also sporting a career-low 13.3% strikeout rate. Opponents have posted a staggering .374/.404/.576 batting line against Plesac, and while a .410 average on balls in play surely points to at least some small-sample randomness that might even out over the course of a season, his struggles can’t be solely pinned on bad luck. Plesac has yielded a 91.7 mph average exit velocity, and 43% of the balls put in play against him have been hit at 95 mph or greater. His fastball has averaged a career-low 91.4 mph, and this season’s 9.6% swinging-strike rate is his lowest since debuting back in 2019.

Now 28 years old, Plesac had a strong debut effort in 2019-20, tossing 171 innings of 3.32 ERA ball with a 21.3% strikeout rate and 6.8% walk rate. That performance helped him earn a place in the team’s long-term rotation, but it’s been a steady downhill trajectory since. That early success was in no small part due to a tiny .246 average on balls in play and lofty 81.5% strand rate. Those numbers regressed toward the league averages in 2021-22 and did so in conjunction with velocity and strikeout rate both taking a step back. The result was 274 1/3 innings of 4.49 ERA ball — a passable but unexciting set of results that looked more commensurate with a fourth or fifth starter than what Plesac had displayed in his first two seasons.

Now, with Plesac optioned out, the Guards will seemingly go with a mostly young and inexperienced group in the rotation for the foreseeable future. Shane Bieber remains entrenched atop the starting staff, and righty Cal Quantrill is holding onto a spot despite some struggles of his own. Behind that pair, the Guardians currently have a trio of rookies: Tanner Bibee, Logan Allen and Peyton Battenfield. Bibee and Allen are both on Baseball America’s top 100 prospect list and have enjoyed excellent debut efforts. Battenfield impressed with strong Triple-A numbers to earn a look in the big league rotation, and while his results have been mixed, he’ll get a longer look to sort things out.

It’s at least possible that Plesac’s stint in the minors alters his trajectory to free agency, though it’d need to be a lengthy stay in Triple-A for that to happen. The right-hander entered the 2023 season with three years, 86 days of Major League service time, meaning he needed another 86 days to reach four years of service and remain on track to hit the open market following the 2025 campaign. He’s already picked up 35 of those 86 days, so as long as he returns for at least 51 days, he’ll hit the four-year mark. If Plesac is relegated to Triple-A work for longer than that, it might be a moot point anyhow, as if he can’t pitch his way back into the big league mix he’d become a non-tender candidate this winter.

Mariners Release Tommy La Stella

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The Mariners announced Thursday afternoon that infielder Tommy La Stella has cleared waivers and been released. He’s now a free agent.

Seattle designated the 34-year-old La Stella for assignment earlier in the week when selecting the contract of top pitching prospect Bryce Miller. He’d signed on with the team back in January after being released by the Giants ahead of the third and final season of a three-year contract, but a spring elbow injury had prevented La Stella from playing the field. He’s been limited to DH and pinch-hit duties so far, taking just 24 plate appearances in 12 games over the season’s first month. It was a curious use of a roster spot in the first place, and La Stella’s .190/.292/.238 slash in that span didn’t make the decision look any better.

La Stella was a high-end, contact-oriented utilityman with the Cubs, Angels and A’s from 2016-20, batting a combined .282/.358/.435 in 1061 plate appearances and walking at nearly as high a clip as he struck out (9.6% vs. 10.6%). That strong run helped him land a three-year, $18.75MM deal with the Giants, but things didn’t pan out for La Stella either in San Francisco. His .250/.308/.405 line in 242 plate appearances in 2021 was at least passable, but a hamstring tear limited him to just 76 games. The following season saw La Stella miss time with Achilles and neck injuries, batting just .239/.282/.350 in 195 plate appearances between stints on the injured list.

Health troubles have mounted for La Stella in recent years, but given his track record, contact skills and ability to play multiple positions, another club could still show some interest. He’ll likely need to settle for a minor league deal at this point, particularly since it’s not fully clear when he might again be an option to play defense on a regular basis.

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