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Ian Anderson To Miss 4-6 Weeks With Oblique Strain

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Braves starter Ian Anderson suffered a left oblique strain while pitching with Triple-A Gwinnett, reports David O’Brien of the Athletic (Twitter link). O’Brien indicates he’ll miss at least a month, while Justin Toscano of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution tweets he’s expected to be out four-to-six weeks.

Even if Anderson makes it back within a month, he won’t pitch again in the regular season. There’s exactly three weeks remaining on the schedule, with the season wrapping up on October 5. Anderson could theoretically be available at some time during the playoffs, but it’s hard to envision the Braves carrying him on a series roster at this point. Even if Atlanta advances deep enough in the postseason Anderson’s healthy enough to return, he won’t have much a chance to build back into game shape. High-A Rome is the Braves’ only full-season affiliate that’ll make the playoffs, and they’re already playing postseason games. Their season will wrap up well before Anderson has a chance of getting back on a mound.

It’s not a given the 24-year-old would’ve gotten a playoff opportunity even if he had been fully healthy. Anderson has spent the past month in Triple-A after getting squeezed out of the big league rotation. That came on the heels of an even 5.00 ERA with a career-worst 19.7% strikeout percentage and a lofty 11% walk rate through 22 MLB starts. He’d certainly not have been a part of a playoff rotation, and players like Jake Odorizzi, Mike Soroka, Bryce Elder and perhaps Freddy Tarnok are all multi-inning relief candidates behind the presumptive top four starters: Spencer Strider, Max Fried, Charlie Morton and Kyle Wright.

In all likelihood, this injury closes the books on a rough season for Anderson. The former 3rd overall pick looked to have cemented himself as a mid-rotation arm in Atlanta through his first two big league campaigns. The changeup specialist carried a career 3.25 ERA into the 2022 season, and he allowed only three runs in 15 innings across four starts during last year’s World Series run. This year’s downturn came as a surprise, but Anderson still averages around 94 MPH on his fastball and actually induced swinging strikes this season at a 12.3% rate that’s narrowly a career best. That offers some hope he can iron things out in 2023 and beyond.

Anderson will continue to count against Atlanta’s 40-man roster while he’s on the minor league injured list. He won’t be paid a big league salary or collect MLB service during that time, although he’s already surpassed the two-year service threshold in 2022. He’s on track to reach arbitration for the first time after next season and is controllable through 2026.

Diamondbacks To Promote Drey Jameson

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The Diamondbacks will promote pitching prospect Drey Jameson before tomorrow’s game against the Padres, reports Nick Piecoro of the Arizona Republic. They’ll need to formally select his contract to do so, but the club already has a 40-man roster vacancy after designating Wilmer Difo for assignment this week.

It’s the first MLB call for Jameson, who has been one of the organization’s more interesting pitching prospects the past few years. A supplemental first-round pick (34th overall) out of Ball State in 2019, Jameson signed for $1.4MM. Credited with a mid-upper 90’s fastball and a promising combination of secondary offerings, the right-hander looked like a potential impact arm if he could develop more consistent control. Jameson didn’t get much of an opportunity until last year, with the 2020 minor league season wiped out by the pandemic. He posted excellent strikeout numbers with solid walk rates between High-A and Double-A last year, solidifying his status as one of the better arms in the system.

FanGraphs and Keith Law of the Athletic each slotted Jameson at the back half of their Top 100 overall prospects entering the season. Baseball America and Kiley McDaniel of ESPN each had him just outside the Top 100 but placed him among the ten most talented players in a strong Arizona system. Jameson dominated through four starts at Double-A to start the year, but he’s struggled to acclimate to the minors top level.

Since being promoted to Triple-A Reno at the beginning of May, the 25-year-old has made 22 appearances (21 starts). He’s surrendered a 6.95 ERA across 114 innings, striking out a personal-low 21.2% of opponents. Jameson’s 8.2% walk rate is manageable, but he’s allowed 1.66 home runs per nine innings and been plagued by a .351 batting average on balls in play. Reno is one of the more hitter-friendly environments in affiliated ball, which has certainly been a factor, but BA’s scouting report on Jameson also notes that hitters are able to identify the ball early in his delivery, causing his fastball to play below its velocity.

That’s something Jameson and pitching coach Brent Strom will work on, but it’s also easy to see the appeal with the 6’0″ hurler. Prospect evaluators suggest his slider is a plus-plus offering (a 70 on the 20-80 scale) at its best, and Jameson also shows an average or better changeup and curveball. Adding him to the 40-man roster at the end of the season to keep him from being selected in the Rule 5 draft was a no-brainer for the D-Backs’ front office, and they’ll take the season’s final few weeks to get an early look as Jameson tries to carve out a role on the 2023 staff.

Arizona is likely to see Zach Davies hit free agency this winter, thinning out their rotation depth. Zac Gallen has cemented himself as a top-of-the-rotation arm, and Merrill Kelly is amidst the best season of his career. Madison Bumgarner has been a fixture in the starting staff since signing an $85MM free agent deal heading into 2020, but his ERA is again approaching 5.00. The veteran may not be in imminent danger of losing his rotation spot, but Arizona has begun to introduce some of their younger starting pitching options at the big league level. Jameson joins Tommy Henry and Ryne Nelson as prospects to make their MLB debuts this season. Henry has struggled but Nelson (who ironically also broke in against the Padres a couple weeks back) hasn’t allowed a run with a 13:2 strikeout-to-walk ratio through his first two starts.

The D-Backs’ Deadline Patience Paid Off

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The Diamondbacks have had a decent second half. Despite dropping five of their last six games, they carry a 26-23 record with a +31 run differential since the All-Star Break. It’s not enough to get them near the playoff picture, but they’ve shown some signs of life heading into the offseason.

An otherworldly stretch from ace Zac Gallen has played a key role in the team’s solid run, but they also rank fourth in the majors in runs scored in the second half. Young outfielders Daulton Varsho, Jake McCarthy and (in a more limited look) Corbin Carroll have been excellent, and they’ve gotten the continuation of what seems to be a late-career breakout season from first baseman Christian Walker.

Walker has popped 10 home runs and owns a .286/.348/.497 line since the All-Star Break, building off what was an already solid first half. While he only hit .204 through the year’s first few months, he connected on 22 longballs and walked at a robust 13.5% clip. His walks have come down lately, but he’s also trimmed his strikeouts and is now seeing much better results on balls in play. For the year, Walker owns a .235/.329/.474 line that’s a ways better than the .243/.312/.396 league average showing.

A former fourth-round pick of the Orioles, Walker developed into a fairly well-regarded prospect. He never got an extended look in Baltimore, and he eventually made his way around the waiver wire in Spring Training 2017. The South Carolina product wound up with the Diamondbacks after a nomadic few weeks, with Arizona finally succeeding in running him through outright waivers. After a year spent mostly in the minors, Walker made it back to the big leagues. He lost most of 2018 to injury but has played the past four seasons as the Snakes’ primary first baseman.

For much of that tenure, Walker has been a slightly above-average hitter. He connected on 29 longballs in 2019, but that came in the most homer-happy season in league history. His overall .259/.348/.476 line that year translated to a 111 wRC+ that indicates he was 11 points better than league average — solid, but not eye-popping production for a first baseman. Walker had similar results in the abbreviated 2020 season before stumbling to a subpar .244/.315/.382 showing through 445 plate appearances last year.

With rookie Seth Beer on the doorstep of the majors as a first base/DH option, it was fair to wonder whether the Diamondbacks would keep Walker around. Arizona’s front office maintained enough faith he’d right the ship to sign him to a $2.6MM arbitration contract, and he was back in the lineup as Torey Lovullo’s Opening Day first baseman. It was probably the 31-year-old’s last chance at everyday playing time, and he’s responded with the best season of his career.

Not only are Walker’s results better than ever when one accounts for the depressed offensive environment this year — his 121 wRC+ is a career high — he’s made some strides from a process perspective. He’s clearly set out to be more selective, swinging at only 43.7% of the pitches he’s seen after going after more than 48% of offerings in each of the past three seasons. That increased patience means bypassing some hittable pitches, of course, and Walker’s taking more called strikes than he ever has. Yet he’s also chasing pitcher’s pitches far less often, and it’s hard to argue with the results.

Walker is making contact on a career-best 77.6% of his swings, and he seems more comfortable working his way back into at-bats. He’s not expanding the strike zone as often as he had, even when pitchers are up in the count and/or working with two strikes. Walker’s making better swing decisions, and it’s manifesting both in a personal-low 18.4% strikeout rate and in the quality of contact he’s making when he does take the bat off his shoulders. After seeing his hard contact and barrel rates drop in the past two seasons, Walker is squaring the ball up with more consistency again, as he had back in 2019.

As a first baseman, Walker’s primary contributions are going to be in the batter’s box. Yet he’s also excelled on the other side of the ball, rating as MLB’s top defensive first baseman by a wide margin in terms of both Defensive Runs Saved and Statcast’s Outs Above Average. It’s hard to imagine he won’t secure his first Gold Glove Award a few weeks from now. He’s limited to the bottom of the defensive spectrum, but Walker has been one of the game’s better players at the position on both sides of the ball.

Whether Walker can sustain this kind of production over multiple seasons remains to be seen. There’s nothing in his underlying numbers to suggest he’s lucked his way towards the top of the first base leaderboards in 2022. If anything, batted ball estimators have been more bullish than his overall results, with Walker still sporting one of the league’s lowest batting averages on balls in play (.235). Nothing in this season’s production looks like a fluke, but he’ll need to prove he can maintain this kind of discerning approach every year. One can have “earned” excellent results for a few months and still not be able to continue playing at that level for multiple seasons. Walker probably needs another year like this before he cements himself among the five to ten best first basemen in the game.

Caveats aside, he’s performed as well as the Diamondbacks could have reasonably anticipated coming into the season. It’s now a no-brainer to tender him another arbitration contract, and the club can keep him around for two more years via that process. Arizona was open to trade offers on Walker at this past summer’s deadline, and they figure to receive a few more calls this winter after he’s doubled down with an excellent second half. General manager Mike Hazen and his staff presumably wouldn’t take him off the table entirely, but it’ll be harder for teams to pry Walker away now than it was just two months ago. Not only has the team taken some steps forward heading into 2023, their first baseman has cemented himself as an integral part of the lineup.

Image courtesy of USA Today Sports.

Cubs Select Jared Young

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The Cubs have selected the contract of infielder/outfielder Jared Young, per Meghan Montemurro of the Chicago Tribune. Outfielder Rafael Ortega is going on the 60-day IL in a corresponding move after fracturing his finger last night.

Young, 27, was a 15th-round selection of the Cubs in 2017 and has been working his way up the ranks of the minor leagues since then. After the pandemic wiped out the minors entirely in 2020, Young split his time between Double-A and Triple-A in 2021. That year, he hit .290/.361/.471 for a wRC+ of 128, walking in a solid 9.8% of his plate appearances and striking out in just 19.3% of them. This year, he’s taken a bit of a step back, hitting just .228/.310/.413 for the season, but the Cubs will give him a shot in the majors regardless.

Defensively, Young has mostly played first base and third base, though a little bit in the outfield corners as well. That will give the Cubs some flexibility in how they deploy their lineups down the stretch. With just three weeks left on the schedule and the Cubs well out of contention, they can use that time to audition youngsters and just generally give them reps at the game’s highest level.

For Ortega, the transfer is largely procedural at this point. When the news of his fracture came out last night, it was expected to end his season, which is now a certainty.

Giants Notes: Zaidi, Rodón, Pederson, Wood

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The Giants won 107 games last season, earning the NL West crown and ending an eight-year streak of division titles for the Dodgers. Expectations were high for another strong season here in 2022, though the club has fallen short. They are currently 68-74, placing them 30 1/2 games behind the Dodgers in the division and 10 games out of a Wild Card spot. Although some changes will surely be coming to the roster, it seems like there will be continuity elsewhere.

“We are fully behind Farhan and (manager) Gabe (Kapler) and the coaching staff,” chairman Greg Johnson said, per Andrew Baggarly of The Athletic. “We recognize that you have a team that did get older and that presents some challenges, and a farm system that I would say hasn’t progressed as quickly as we’d like to see. There’s been some injuries to key people and COVID has set back the timeline on development in some cases. But the general direction, the tone, the work ethic, the dedication that these guys put in every day, and the morale we see even in a tough year, we’re very much committed to Farhan and his team.” When Johnson was asked if he could see Zaidi sticking around beyond the end of his contract, which runs through 2023, he said that he could.

It would appear that Zaidi and his team will get at least 2023, but likely longer, to try and find better results. That will likely lead to an aggressive offseason, with Zaidi already expressing that “everything is on the table,” in comments earlier this month, “including going out and being aggressive at the top end of the free agent market.” Talking about it and doing it are different things, of course, though the club is reportedly considering Aaron Judge and some marquee shortstops this winter.

Those kinds of moves won’t come cheap, but the conditions are there for the Giants to pull the trigger. The club ran out an Opening Day payroll of $155MM this year, per Cot’s Baseball Contracts, though was in the $200MM range before Zaidi came aboard. When asked about whether the club would consider that of spending again, Johnson said, “If it was $175 (million) or $180 (million) or higher than that, we’re willing to do that. There’s going to be years when you have three or four (prospects) coming up ready to roll, and that may put some relief on payroll. Or you have years when you’ll have to fill some spots and pay extra. That’s the flexible approach that we’re taking. There’s no fixed line.”

The club currently has about $96MM committed to 2023, in the estimation of Jason Martinez of Roster Resource. That doesn’t include raises for arbitration-eligible players like Mike Yastrzemski and Logan Webb, but it does include the $22.5MM salary that Carlos Rodón is set to earn next year. However, he is almost certainly going to exercise the opt-out in his deal and return to free agency based on his excellent season. Through 162 2/3 innings, he has a 2.93 ERA, 32.5% strikeout rate, 7.4% walk rate and 35.1% ground ball rate (stats coming into today). Though there have been durability concerns around the southpaw, he’s stayed healthy this year and gone 30 innings longer than last year, when he seemingly ran out of gas.

With Rodón off the books, the Giants will have tremendous amounts of payroll space, though that will obviously make the team worse. It’s possible the club could look to bring him back with another contract, which is something that seems to be on the table. “I know he’s mentioned he’s been happy here and would have interest in coming back. That’s always a big part of the equation, whether players have an interest in coming back, and he does,” Zaidi told Alex Pavlovic of NBC Sports Bay Area. “He’s certainly a guy that we’d love to see back. He’s done a great job for us.”

A pitcher of Rodón’s caliber will likely require a nine-figure deal of some kind, just like signing Judge or one of the top available shortstops. While fans of the club are surely excited about the possibility of those bold strikes, the team will also have to consider other moves, such as retaining Joc Pederson. The club signed him to a one-year, $6MM deal that has turned into one of the bright spots this year in San Fran. Pederson has hit 22 home runs so far this year and slashed .268/.349/.521, leading to a career-high wRC+ of 141. Zaidi tells Pavlovic that it’s possible they will work out an extension in the next few weeks, before Pederson returns to free agency. “We’ve expressed interest and there’s still some time until the end of the season and free agency hits, so we’ll just continue to see if there’s a match out there,” Zaidi says.

One Giant who will be back next year is lefty Alex Wood, as he still has one year left on the two-year deal signed just under a year ago. That came on the heels of a one-year deal for 2021 that saw Wood throw 138 2/3 innings with an ERA of 3.83. He hasn’t been able to replicate that here in 2022, however, registering a 5.10 ERA through 130 2/3 innings. Wood could theoretically finish strong over the season’s final weeks and improve the final tally, though it’s possible he may not get the chance. He’s been on the IL since early September due to a left shoulder impingement and will decide this weekend whether he can return, per Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle. A return to form for Wood would be huge for the 2023 Giants, especially if they can’t convince Rodón to return.

MLBPA Representation Of Minor Leaguers Becomes Official

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The MLBPA’s efforts to represent minor leaguers have officially paid off, according to Evan Drellich of The Athletic and Jeff Passan of ESPN.

Just over two weeks ago, it was reported that the MLBPA had taken initial steps towards unionizing minor leaguers, with those players being asked to vote on designating the MLBPA as their collective bargaining representatives. About a week later, the MLBPA announced that a “significant” majority of minor leaguers have signed authorization cards in favor of the MLBPA creating a minor league bargaining unit, with the MLBPA requested that MLB recognize this effort. A few days later, MLB commissioner Rob Manfred announced that the league would indeed recognize as the bargaining representatives for minor leaguers. Today, an arbiter validated the card count with MLB then voluntarily recognizing the union.

MLBPA executive director Tony Clark released a statement on Twitter, which reads:

“I applaud this extraordinary group of young Players and welcome them to the MLBPA. This historic achievement required the right group of Players at the right moment to succeed. Minor leaguers have courageously seized that moment, and we look forward to improving their terms and conditions of employment through the process of good faith collective bargaining. I also want to acknowledge the tireless efforts of Harry Marino and the dedicated group he led at Advocates for Minor Leaguers, without whom this historic organizing campaign would not have been possible.”

Recent reporting revealed that every member of the Advocates for Minor Leaguers staff resigned and took on new jobs with the MLBPA. Membership in the union will now grow from 1200 to more than 5,000, though an MLBPA official told MLBTR last week the proposed unionization efforts would give minor leaguers their own separate bargaining unit under the MLBPA umbrella, adding that any minor league CBA would be negotiated independently of the Major League CBA that was completed earlier this year. Players in the rookie level Dominican Summer League will not automatically be included because it’s based outside the United States, but the MLBPA plans to bargain over DSL working conditions despite those players not officially joining the Association.

Congresspeople from both parties recently expressed an interest in reconsidering MLB’s antitrust exemption. Low rates of pay for minor leaguers has been one of many legislators’ critiques, but recognition of a union and signing a collective bargaining agreement with minor leaguers would take that issue outside the realm of antitrust law and into labor law territory.

Today’s news brings minor leaguers officially into a union for the first time in history, setting the stage for them to also negotiate the first ever CBA for minor leaguers. The various substandard working conditions of minor leaguers have become increasingly highlighted in recent years, with a focus on the low rates of pay and poor housing. There had been some small progress, with reporting in October of last year revealing that MLB was requiring teams to begin to provide housing for all MiLB players, something they were not previously required to do. In July, MLB paid $185MM to settle a lawsuit that began in 2014 related to low wages and minor league players not being paid for Spring Training. These issues, and any other issues minor leaguers may have, will now be addressed through collective bargaining between the union and the league. The MLBPA also recently joined the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO), which will likely impact minor leaguers more than their major league counterparts since the benefits of AFL-CIO programs are in areas such as mortgages and car purchases.

All told, it seems like significant changes for Minor League Baseball and its players could be coming over the horizon, though the exact nature of those changes won’t be known until the bargaining process begins in earnest.

Twins Place Randy Dobnak On Outright Waivers

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The Twins have placed right-hander Randy Dobnak on outright waivers, according to Darren Wolfson of Skor North and Brandon Warne of Access Twins.

Dobnak, 27, made his MLB debut in 2019 and showed enough promise over that season and the shortened 2020 campaign that Twins made a long-term investment in him. He and the club agreed to a five-year, $9.25MM deal in March of 2021 that also came with three team options and various escalators that could bring the total outlay to $29.75MM. At the time, the Twins were hoping that they had locked up some extra control over a promising young arm that they saw potential in, while Dobnak got to lock in some guaranteed money by giving up future earning power.

Unfortunately, Dobnak has endured a very frustrating pair of seasons since then. A finger strain sent him to the IL multiple times in 2021, limiting him to just 14 big league appearances on the season. He also had diminished results while able to take the mound, registering a 7.64 ERA over 50 2/3 innings.

It seems that the offseason didn’t allow him to heal up, as another right middle finger strain sent him to the 60-day injured list in March of 2022. He’s been on the IL all year, having yet to appear for the big league club. He did recently start a rehab assignment, however, making his first appearance August 16 in the Florida Complex League. Since rehab assignments come with a 30-day limit for pitchers, Dobnak was nearing the time where he needed to be reinstated. Activating him from the 60-day IL would have meant opening up a spot on the 40-man roster, but it seems the Twins preferred not to do that, instead sending Dobnak out to the waiver wire. He threw 13 2/3 innings as part of that rehab assignment with a 5.93 ERA.

By placing Dobnak on waivers, the Twins are taking a risk that they may lose him to another organization. However, after two mostly lost seasons, the interest from other clubs may be limited. There’s also the financial aspect of a claim to consider. He’s making $800K here in 2022, which is just barely over the league minimum. However, he’ll go up to $1.5MM next year, $2.25MM in 2024 and $3MM in 2025. Then there’s a $1MM buyout on a $6MM option for 2026 and $100K buyouts on 2027 and 2028 options valued at $7MM and $8.5MM, respectively. Any team that claims Dobnak would be on the hook for those guarantees and buyouts, which would be a sizeable commitment for a pitcher who has been often injured and has yet to show quality results over a meaningful stretch of big league action.

What seems most likely to transpire is that Dobnak clears waivers, thus staying in the Twins’ organization without taking up a spot on the 40-man roster. Even if some team were intrigued enough to put in a claim, the Twins might be content with having the contract of their books. If that does indeed come to pass, Dobnak would be able to reject an outright assignment and elect free agency by virtue of having over three years of MLB service time. However, he lacks the five years of service time necessary to do so without forfeiting any salary. In the event he clears waivers, he would most likely accept an assignment to the minors and try to work his way back onto the roster.

Athletics Outright Skye Bolt

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The Athletics announced that outfielder Skye Bolt has been reinstated from the injured list and outrighted to Triple-A Las Vegas.

The A’s also announced the outrights of outfielder Luis Barrera and right-hander Domingo Tapia, who were known to have been designated for assignment. In the case of Bolt, however, there had not been any previous indication he had lost his roster spot, though Oakland apparently quietly passed him through waivers in recent days.

The 28-year-old outfielder has had a challenging season, dealing with multiple injuries. He was first placed on the IL just a few days into the season due to an oblique strain. He began a rehab assignment in May but then suffered a strained hamstring and got transferred to the 60-day IL. He was activated in late June and lasted about a month before his next IL stint, this time for a right knee patella subluxation.

In between all of that time on the shelf, he got into 42 MLB games and hit .198/.259/.330 for a wRC+ of 73. He’s out of options, meaning the club wasn’t able to send him down to the minors without first exposing him to the waiver wire, though he’s apparently cleared and will head to Vegas. Since this is his first career outright and he has less than three years of MLB service time, he will have to accept the assignment. He will stick in the A’s organization without occupying a roster spot.

Phillies Claim Tayler Scott From Padres

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The Phillies announced that they have claimed right-hander Tayler Scott off waivers from the Padres and optioned him to Triple-A. To create room on their 40-man roster, the Phillies recalled left-hander Kent Emanuel from Lehigh Valley and placed him on the 60-day IL with a shoulder strain.

Scott, 30, spent 2020 and 2021 with the Hiroshima Carp of Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball. He came back to North America for 2022, signing a minor league deal with the Padres. He had his contract selected in July and has thrown 12 innings for the big league club, though with a disappointing 6.75 ERA. He’s been much better in Triple-A, however, with a 3.76 ERA through 40 2/3 innings. That’s come with strong strikeout and walk rates of 30.4% and 6.4%, respectively. He’ll provide the Phils with an optionable depth arm, though he won’t be eligible for the postseason since he wasn’t in the organization prior to September 1.

In order to clear a roster spot for Scott, the Phillies have officially ended the season of Emanuel, who hasn’t pitched since the end of August. By recalling him and placing him on the 60-day IL, the club opens up a roster spot for Scott, though they will now be paying Emanuel a major league salary for the final three weeks of the season. Emanuel will also collect service time during that stretch. Claimed from the Astros in November, the lefty was also placed on the 60-day IL to begin the year due to an elbow impingement. Though he eventually returned to the hill in the minors, he was only able to make 13 starts in between his ailments. He registered a 2.55 ERA in that time with a 19.1% strikeout rate and 5.9% walk rate.

Reds Acquire Nick Northcut From Red Sox

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The Reds announced Wednesday that they’ve acquired minor league infielder Nick Northcut from the Red Sox as the player to be named later in the deadline trade that sent Tommy Pham to Boston. Northcut hasn’t been on a Major League roster or injured list this season, so he’s eligible to be traded now even with the deadline having passed. That allows the Reds to get a late look at him in their system, rather than waiting until the offseason.

[Related: How to Acquire Players After the Trade Deadline]

It’s a homecoming for Northcut, a Cincinnati-area native and graduate of William Mason High School — which sits just 25 miles from Great American Ball Park. The 23-year-old Northcut was selected by Boston in the 11th round of the 2018 draft. However, he was considered a top-100 talent in that year’s draft and only lasted as long as he did because he was considered a tough sign who was likely to honor his commitment to Vanderbilt. Boston swayed him with a $565K bonus — roughly in line with late-third-round money. (Pick No. 99 that year, the 25th in the third round, carried a $564K slot value.)

The right-handed-hitting Northcut has appeared at the infield corners almost exclusively in his career, though he did log six innings at shortstop earlier this season (likely in something of emergency fashion). That’s been his lone appearance at any position other than either third base, where he has 1580 professional innings under his belt, or first base, where he’s played 605 frames.

Northcut has shown plenty of pop in the minors this season, swatting 30 home runs and 18 doubles in 428 plate appearances between High-A and Double-A. However, he’s also whiffed in 35% of his trips to the plate and turned in a combined .219/.276/.491 batting line. Northcut’s power is evident, but he’s drawn walks at only a 5.8% clip so far in 2022, which hasn’t been enough to offset the pronounced swing-and-miss in his game.

The struggles to make contact have increased in recent years and prompted Northcut to fall out of the top tiers of the Red Sox’ system; Northcut ranked 19th among Sox farmhands at Baseball America and 23rd at FanGraphs back in 2019 but has fallen off the radar on most prominent assessments of their system. He’ll add a project to Reds’ system, but one with local roots and power that draft-time scouting reports graded as high as 70 on the 20-80 scale.

The Pham swap has worked out reasonably well for the Red Sox, who’ve seen the veteran corner outfielder post a .262/.321/.416 batting line with five homers in 162 plate appearances to this point. That’s about six percent better than league-average, by measure of wRC+, but taking a broader look at the team’s deadline maneuverings as a whole, things simply haven’t panned out. Boston traded away catcher Christian Vazquez and veteran reliever Jake Diekman while bringing in Pham and Eric Hosmer and holding onto its most appealing trade candidates (e.g. Nathan Eovaldi). The Sox were 52-52 when the deadline hit but have played at just a 17-21 pace since that time, falling to 10.5 games out of the American League Wild Card chase.

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