Dodgers Outright Adam Kolarek
Dodgers lefty Adam Kolarek cleared outright waivers and was assigned to Triple-A Oklahoma City following last week’s DFA, per the team’s transaction log at MLB.com. The veteran lefty had the right to reject the outright assignment in favor of free agency, but he’s currently listed as active on the OKC Dodgers’ roster.
Kolarek, 34, was selected to the Majors earlier this month and appeared in just one game, retiring four of the five batters he faced (two via strikeout) and finished out that appearance without letting a run score. He’s also pitched to a tidy 2.18 ERA in 20 2/3 Triple-A frames this year, though he’s done with an unsightly 12-to-11 K/BB ratio in that time.
With that appearance, Kolarek has now seen big league action in each of the past seven seasons, suiting up for the Rays, A’s and Dodgers along the way. He carries a lifetime 3.73 ERA in 144 2/3 innings of work, and while his 15.6% strikeout rate is considerably worse than that of a league-average reliever, his 6.8% walk rate and especially his 63.8% ground-ball rate are outstanding. Kolarek, however, comes with the type of glaring platoon splits that have been magnified by MLB’s implementation of a three-batter minimum; in 335 career plate appearances, right-handed batters have posted a .311/.383/.490 batting line against Kolarek, as opposed to a putrid .190/.242/.259 slash by opposing lefties.
The Dodgers currently have four lefties in the big league bullpen (Caleb Ferguson, Alex Vesia, Victor Gonzalez, Bryan Hudson) and a fifth on the 40-man roster but down in Triple-A (Justin Bruihl). That doesn’t exactly leave the veteran Kolarek with a smooth path back to the Majors, but he’ll remain on hand as a depth option should the need arise.
Orioles To Designate Spenser Watkins For Assignment
The Orioles have designated right-hander Spenser Watkins for assignment, Robert Murray of FanSided reports (via Twitter). Watkins has been pitching with their Triple-A Norfolk affiliate this season and has not yet pitched at the MLB level this season, though he was recalled to the big leagues over the weekend. The O’s have not yet formally announced the move, nor the corresponding 40-man and 26-man transactions that figure to accompany it.
The 30-year-old Watkins spent parts of the 2021-22 seasons on Baltimore’s big league staff, getting hit hard in his debut campaign before stepping in as a solid rotation member for much of the 2022 season. While a rough patch at the end of last season weighed down Watkins’ numbers and left him with a 4.70 ERA in 105 1/3 frames, he pitched to a 3.96 ERA through his first 17 big league starts of the 2022 campaign.
Even at his best, Watkins doesn’t miss bats or produce grounders in droves. His 13.7% strikeout rate was tied for the lowest among the 156 pitchers who tossed at least 150 innings from 2021-22. Watkins has above-average command, evidenced by a 6.9% walk rate in that stretch, and his career 38.7% grounder rate clocks in several percentage points south of league average.
It’s been an even tougher season for Watkins in Norfolk so far, where he’s pitched to a 7.27 ERA in 26 frames with nearly as many walks (17) as strikeouts (20). Murray notes that Watkins has been tinkering with a new splitter, which perhaps helps to explain the huge uptick in grounders he’s seen (55.3%), but Watkins’ 13.4% walk rate is a career-worst and his strikeout rate hasn’t seen any gains over his prior Triple-A levels.
The Orioles will have a week to trade Watkins, attempt to pass him through outright waivers, or simply release him. He’s been outrighted once in the past, so even if the O’s succeed at passing him through waivers, he’d have the right to reject the assignment in favor of free agency.
The Opener: Bader, Lugo, MLBTR Chat
As the 2023 regular season continues, here are three things we’ll be keeping an eye on around the baseball world throughout the day today:
1. Bader to return:
The Yankees figure to welcome center fielder Harrison Bader back from the injured list today against the Mariners, as previously reported. The club won’t need to make an active roster move to accommodate Bader, as the club optioned infielder Oswaldo Cabrera to Triple-A after Sunday’s game against the Red Sox, prior to yesterday’s off day.
The Yankees are hoping for a boost from Bader in the midst of a difficult June where they’ve gone 5-9 over 14 games, slipping to 39-33 and 10.5 games back in the AL East. Bader has played just 26 games due to injuries this season, but when he has been on the field he’s paired excellent defense in center with a .267/.295/.511 slash line, good for a wRC+ of 118. With both Bader on Aaron Judge on the shelf, the club has relied on Jake Bauers, Billy McKinney, Isiah Kiner-Falefa, and Willie Calhoun in the outfield in recent days.
2. Lugo to return:
Also returning from the injured list today is Padres right-hander Seth Lugo, who the club has announced as today’s starter against the Giants. The club will need to make an active roster move to accommodate Lugo before tonight’s game, which is set to start at 8:45pm CT this evening. Lugo has pitched fairly well for the club as a member of the rotation this season, posting a 4.10 ERA and 3.95 FIP in 41 2/3 innings of work across eight starts. While that ERA is roughly league average, it’s bogged down by a disastrous five-run, two-inning start immediately prior to Lugo’s placement on the IL, which caused the figure to balloon up from 3.18.
Lugo rejoins the rotation as the Padres struggle to stay competitive in the NL West, with a 35-37 record that puts them in fourth place. As San Diego looks to bounce back in its four-game set against the Giants after losing the first game last night, Lugo will be counted on for a solid return to the rotation, particularly given the uneven results from the typically-reliable Yu Darvish (6.89 ERA in his last six starts) and Joe Musgrove (4.22 ERA this season) at the front of the rotation.
3. MLBTR Chat today:
With just six weeks to go until MLB’s trade deadline, the paths forward for many teams remain murky, even as some organizations set themselves apart from the pack.. If the events of the season so far have spurred any questions in your mind about your favorite team or the league as a whole, MLBTR’s Steve Adams is holding a live chat with readers at 1pm CT today. You can click here to ask a question in advance, join in live once the chat begins, or read the transcript once the chat is complete.
Josh Donaldson Undecided About Playing Beyond 2023
Yankees third baseman Josh Donaldson hasn’t yet decided if he’ll continue his playing career beyond the current campaign. “I don’t know,” Donaldson tells Brendan Kuty The Athletic. “It kind of just depends on how I feel going through this year and this season and all of that and talking to my family.”
Donaldson, 37, is in the final guaranteed season of the four-year deal he signed with the Twins going into 2020. That deal originally contained a club option for 2024, but it would become a mutual option if Donaldson were traded at any point. He was flipped to the Yankees going into 2022 so it in indeed now a $16MM mutual option, with a $6MM buyout if the club declines.
Once one of the best players in baseball, Donaldson was named the Most Valuable Player in the American League in 2015. Playing for the Blue Jays that year, he hit 41 home runs and produced an overall batting line of .297/.371/.568 for a wRC+ of 154. When combined with his strong defense at the hot corner, he was worth 8.7 wins above replacement on the year, according to the calculations of FanGraphs. That was once of five straight seasons that he tallied at least 5.0 fWAR, between the Athletics and the Jays from 2013 to 2017.
His performance has naturally become less consistently elite as he’s moved into his mid- and late-30s. In 2018, he spent much of the season on the injured list and only got into 52 games. Those injury struggles were ill-timed, as he was just about to hit the open market for the first time. He had to settle for a one-year deal with Atlanta, but had an excellent bounceback campaign. He launched 37 home runs and hit .259.379/.521 for a 131 wRC+ and 5.2 fWAR.
He was able to parlay that into the aforementioned four-year deal with the Twins, securing himself a $92MM guarantee. He missed about half of the shortened 2020 season due to a calf strain, but still generally played well that year and in the season after. Between those two campaigns, he hit 32 home runs in 163 games, producing a line of .243/.355/.474 and a 127 wRC+.
But his production has tailed off since the 2022 trade that saw him, Isiah Kiner-Falefa and Ben Rortvedt flipped to the Yanks for Gary Sánchez and Gio Urshela. He struck out in 27.1% of his plate appearances last year, his worst such rate since his brief debut back in 2010. His power was also down, as he hit just 15 home runs last year. His .222/.308/.374 line translated to a 97 wRC+. This year, a hamstring strain has limited him to just 17 games. He has six home runs in that brief time but is hitting just .151/.233/.491 for a wRC+ of 91. He can surely expect his .065 batting average on balls in play to improve, but his strikeout rate is up again to 28.3% so far this year.
Donaldson still seems plenty capable of holding his own defensively. He produced seven Defensive Runs Saved and six Outs Above Average last year. His numbers this year are hovering around league average in the very small sample of 107 1/3 innings.
There’s reason to believe he could still have something left in the tank and provide some value for a club. Even with some offensive struggles last year, he still was worth 1.6 fWAR thanks to his glovework. His bat hasn’t fully bounced back this year but he could find himself in a better position soon with a bit more batted ball luck, something he’s aware of. “I’ve hit a lot of balls hard,” he said. “Unfortunately, some of them haven’t fallen at the moment.”
The Yankees will be facing a net $10MM decision at season’s end, opting between the $16MM mutual option and $6MM buyout. Even if Donaldson finishes in a better spot than he’s currently in, it seems likely they will turn that down, given his inconsistency and the fact that he’ll turn 38 in December. The interest he receives from other clubs at that point will naturally depend on how his health and performance hold up over the next few months.
It seems like he will take some time to see how things play out over the next few months before making any kind of decision. “It would be, ‘What would be best?’” he said. “If I feel like I want to play still, and I feel like with my family situation that’s what I want to do. … But I haven’t put more thought into it.”
Rays Re-Sign Chris Muller To Minor League Deal
The Rays announced last week they’ve re-signed reliever Chris Muller to a minor league contract. According to the transactions log at MLB.com, he was assigned to the team’s Florida complex.
Muller is back with the only organization for which he’s ever played. The Rays took him in the 17th round of the 2017 draft. He spent six years in the minor league system and earned his initial MLB call last month. Unfortunately, the club didn’t get him into a game before designating him for assignment a couple weeks later.
Tampa Bay released Muller after his DFA. While it’d seem counterintuitive to release a player just to re-sign him within a few weeks, Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times explained the decision earlier this month. According to Topkin, Muller had suffered an elbow injury before his DFA. MLB rules prohibit teams from placing an injured player on outright waivers. Once the Rays took Muller off the 40-man roster, they had to either trade him or release him.
That proves largely immaterial, since the 27-year-old agreed to return to the organization after hitting free agency. He’ll go to the complex to build back into game shape and presumably will head back to Triple-A Durham at some point. Muller had tossed 20 innings for the Bulls earlier this year, posting a 4.95 ERA with a solid 24.2% strikeout rate but a lofty 12.2% walk percentage.
Friedman: Dodgers Increasingly Likely To Target Pitching Help At Deadline
The Dodgers were off tonight, a chance for a reset after a disastrous series that saw them swept by their archrivals. The Giants pulled past Los Angeles in the process, knocking L.A. to third place in the NL West and to the final spot in the Wild Card picture.
That rather pedestrian place in the standings and a solid but not exceptional 39-33 record represents unfamiliar territory for the Dodgers. Los Angeles has won the division in nine of the past ten years and has placed in the top two every season since 2011. There’s obviously time to turn things around, but team executives acknowledged the pitching staff hasn’t been up to par.
The Dodgers have a 4.66 team ERA that ranked 25th in MLB entering play Monday. The rotation is middle-of-the-pack with a 4.38 mark, but the bullpen is one of only two in the majors (the A’s being the other) allowing more than five earned runs per nine innings.
“We have not pitched well. There’s really no sugar-coating it,” pitching coach Mark Prior told reporters (including Jack Harris of the Los Angeles Times). Both Prior and president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman expressed confidence in the staff to bounce back. Still, the front office leader acknowledged to Fabian Ardaya of the Athletic that the mounting struggles could impact the team’s trade deadline priorities.
“In spring training, I did not expect that in July we would aggressively be looking for pitching,” Friedman told Ardaya. “With the injuries and where we are, I think that focus has shifted. There’s no question that (pursuing pitching) is more likely than it was in March.”
Of course, there’s still plenty of time for teams’ focuses to change. Six weeks remain before the August 1 deadline. Notable trade activity tends not to take place until a few weeks into July. Friedman conceded the market isn’t likely to accelerate for a while yet.
By mid-July, the Dodgers should at least have a little more clarity on the status of the rotation. Julio Urías has been sidelined for a month with a hamstring strain. Skipper Dave Roberts said over the weekend he’s likely to be back around the beginning of July. Rookies Bobby Miller and Emmet Sheehan are each trying to cement themselves in the starting five. Miller has a 2.83 ERA with a 24.6% strikeout rate through five starts; Sheehan threw six no-hit innings in his MLB debut over the weekend. Those are impressive numbers but they’re each very early in their careers.
Noah Syndergaard signed a $13MM free agent deal to add veteran stability for a rotation that was likely to welcome young arms like Miller, Sheehan and Gavin Stone throughout the year. Syndergaard has instead been rocked for a 7.16 ERA in 12 starts and is on the IL with blister issues. Ryan Pepiot has yet to make his season debut after a Spring Training oblique strain.
The starting pitching trade market has yet to really come into focus. With the White Sox and Cardinals underwhelming, impending free agents Lucas Giolito, Jordan Montgomery and Jack Flaherty could become available. Neither Chicago nor St. Louis is ready to punt on the season at this point, however. That’s also true of the Cubs with Marcus Stroman, who has a $21MM player option for next year.
The Tigers could listen to offers on Eduardo Rodriguez, but his ability to opt out of the final three years and $49MM on his contract at season’s end makes him a complicated trade candidate. Apparent sellers like the Royals, A’s, Rockies and Nationals don’t have much in the way of productive veteran starters to market.
There are some clearer trade candidates on the bullpen front. Kansas City is all but assured to deal Aroldis Chapman and seems likely to entertain offers on Scott Barlow. Controllable relievers on the Tigers and Nationals (i.e. Hunter Harvey, Alex Lange, Jason Foley and Kyle Finnegan) have already drawn some attention. Colorado could deal veteran lefty Brad Hand amidst a resurgent season. The White Sox can market rentals Reynaldo López and Keynan Middleton.
Even with Daniel Hudson expected back at the end of the month, the Dodgers seem certain to eventually add late-inning help. Evan Phillips has been lights-out, while Brusdar Graterol is getting a ton of grounders to offset a middling strikeout rate. Caleb Ferguson has been a quietly strong option from the left side. The rest of the relief corps has generally struggled to prevent runs aside from Shelby Miller, whose 2.40 ERA will be hard to maintain unless he gets his 15% walk rate in check.
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Jose Iglesias Opts Out Of Contract With Padres
Veteran infielder José Iglesias has opted out of his minor league deal with the Padres, reports Mark Feinsand of MLB.com (Twitter link). Assuming San Diego doesn’t add him to the MLB roster, he’ll return to free agency.
It’s familiar territory for Iglesias. He followed a similar path with the Marlins a few months ago, opting out after signing a minor league pact in Spring Training. He caught on with the Padres, triggered an opt-out a month later, then re-signed on a new minor league deal with San Diego.
Iglesias is still searching for his first MLB call of the year. He got to the highest level in 11 of the 12 seasons between 2011-22. Iglesias carved out a lengthy career as a regular thanks to excellent shortstop defense and a high-contact bat that allowed him to run strong batting averages. His public defensive marks have dropped over the past two seasons, though, contributing to his struggles to find an MLB look thus far in 2023.
To his credit, the 33-year-old had a nice offensive showing in Triple-A. He appeared in 28 games for San Diego’s highest affiliate in El Paso and hit .317/.356/.537 with four home runs over 135 trips to the plate. The power is probably inflated by the hitter-friendly Pacific Coast League setting — Iglesias hit only three homers in 467 plate appearances for the Rockies last season — but he has continued to put the ball in play at a high rate. He went down on strikes in only 16.3% of his trips with El Paso.
Iglesias has played almost exclusively shortstop at the big league level, logging over 8000 career innings there. He spent most of his time there in Triple-A but logged a few starts at both second and third base as well. He’s no longer the defender he was at his peak, but he can cover any infield position and still hits for a high enough average he should at least find another minor league deal elsewhere.
George Frazier Passes Away
Former major league player and analyst George Frazier has passed away, according to an announcement from the Rockies. He was 68.
After playing at the University of Oklahoma, Frazier entered pro ball as a ninth-round pick of the Brewers in the 1976 draft. While still in the minor leagues, he was traded to the Cardinals in a swap that sent catcher Buck Martinez to Milwaukee. Frazier made his MLB debut with St. Louis in May 1978, eventually appearing in 14 games as a rookie. He bounced on and off the active roster for the next two seasons.
Midway through the ’81 campaign, the Cards dealt Frazier to the Yankees. He pitched 5 2/3 scoreless innings to help the Yanks past the A’s in that year’s AL Championship Series. He was charged with a trio of losses in their World Series defeat at the hands of the Dodgers, though, allowing seven runs in 3 2/3 frames over three outings.
Frazier put that rocky World Series showing behind him to establish himself as a key reliever by the following season. He surpassed 100 innings with a sub-3.50 ERA in each of the next two years. Over the 1983-84 offseason, New York dealt him to the Indians alongside outfielder Otis Nixon for All-Star infielder Toby Harrah. Frazier didn’t spend much time in Cleveland. Before the ’84 deadline, the Indians moved him to the Cubs with Rick Sutcliffe (who’d go on to win the NL Cy Young award that year) and Ron Hassey in a blockbuster that netted Cleveland Joe Carter and Mel Hall.
The right-handed Frazier tossed 63 2/3 innings for Chicago down the stretch to help them to the NLCS. He struggled over the next couple seasons but intrigued the Twins enough that they acquired him at the 1986 trade deadline. Frazier spent a season and a half in Minnesota to wrap up his MLB playing career. The ’87 Twins went on to win the World Series; Frazier’s last MLB outing was a two-inning scoreless appearance against the Cardinals in that year’s Fall Classic.
After his playing career came to a close, Frazier embarked on a lengthy run as a broadcaster. He worked as a color analyst for the Twins for a time before joining the Rockies’ booth for the 1998 season. He’d spend nearly two decades in Colorado, calling games there through 2015.
Frazier spent upwards of four decades in the game. As a player, he pitched in 415 big league contests. He posted a career 4.20 ERA through 675 2/3 innings, striking out 449 hitters. He was credited with 35 wins, finished 193 games and picked up 29 saves. He added six playoff games with three different franchises and won a World Series to close his career.
MLBTR joins others around the game in sending condolences to Frazier’s family, friends, former teammates and loved ones.
White Sox Recall Jose Rodriguez For MLB Debut
The White Sox announced a handful of transactions before tonight’s series opener with the Rangers. The most notable was the recall of infield prospect José Rodriguez for his initial MLB promotion. Chicago also recalled reliever Nick Padilla, placed Lance Lynn on the bereavement list, and put Romy González on the 10-day injured list because of right shoulder inflammation.
Rodriguez, 22, is among the better prospects in a thin Chicago farm system. Baseball America slots him ninth in the organization, crediting him with roughly average physical tools across the board but expressing some concern about a free-swinging offensive approach. BA suggests he’s likely to settle in as a utility type. Keith Law of the Athletic wrote over the offseason that Rodriguez’s bat-to-ball skills could make him an everyday player, likely at second base.
While the Dominican Republic native might be a long-term regular, he’s not likely to step into that role immediately. Rodriguez gets the call directly from Double-A, where he’d been having a middling offensive season. Over 201 plate appearances in the Southern League, he’s hitting .238/.274/.429. Rodriguez has connected on nine home runs but is walking just 5% of the time while striking out in over a quarter of his plate appearances — easily the highest rate of his professional career.
In all likelihood, Rodriguez will find himself back in the minors before too long. He could make his big league debut in the interim, though, offering some middle depth for skipper Pedro Grifol behind the starting duo of Tim Anderson and Elvis Andrus. Added to the 40-man roster last winter to keep him out of the Rule 5 draft, Rodriguez is in his first of three minor league option seasons.