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Yankees Sign Chi Chi Gonzalez, Jacob Barnes To Minor League Deals

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The Yankees have signed a trio of pitchers — Chi Chi González, Jacob Barnes and Wilking Rodríguez — to minor league contracts, tweets Conor Foley of the Scranton Times-Tribune. All three have been assigned to Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre.

González and Barnes were recently together in the Tigers system, but both were each granted their release from non-roster pacts with Detroit. González has now joined four organizations this year. He began the season with the Twins, bouncing on and off the major league roster twice. Claimed off waivers by the Brewers, he combined to work 18 1/3 innings over six appearances (four starts). González posted a 6.87 ERA — his third consecutive season with an ERA north of 6.00 — between the two clubs, and he was eventually outrighted off Milwaukee’s roster.

The 30-year-old righty signed a minor league deal with Detroit in late July. He spent a month in the system but didn’t get a big league call, and he triggered an opt-out clause last week. Between the Twins and Tigers top minor league affiliates, González has worked to a 4.19 ERA through 58 Triple-A innings this season. He has plenty of starting experience in both the majors and upper minors, giving the Yankees a multi-inning depth arm.

Barnes is on his third organization of the season. The right-hander broke camp with Detroit after signing an offseason minor league deal. He appeared in 22 games but was tagged for a 6.10 ERA over 20 2/3 innings. He racked up grounders on over half the batted balls against him, but he only struck out 11.2% of batters faced. The lack of swing-and-miss was bizarre, as Barnes posted above-average strikeout rates in 2020 and ’21 and was still averaging a robust 95.5 MPH on his fastball.

Detroit took Barnes off their big league roster in mid-June. The 32-year-old signed a minor league deal with the Mariners and was briefly called up, but he didn’t appear in an MLB game with Seattle before being designated for assignment. Barnes again cleared waivers, elected free agency, and returned to Detroit on a minor league deal in late July. He spent a month in Triple-A before being granted his release. While his MLB production this year has been lackluster, Barnes has an excellent 17:3 strikeout-to-walk ratio while allowing just two runs in ten Triple-A innings.

Rodríguez, 32, makes a long-awaited return to the affiliated ranks. The right-hander has the briefest of major league experience, having come out of the bullpen twice for the 2014 Royals. He hasn’t played for an MLB organization since a seven-game Triple-A stint with the Yankees in 2015, as he’d primarily played winter ball over the past six years. Rodríguez has spent 2022 in the Mexican League, posting a 2.01 ERA over 44 2/3 innings and apparently impressing Yankees evaluators with his arsenal.

All three pitchers would be eligible for New York’s postseason roster if they impress enough to warrant a spot in October. Players need to be within an organization by September 1 to suit up for that club in the playoffs. Any player on a 40-man roster or MLB injured list by the end of August is automatically postseason-eligible (unless they’d been suspended for a performance-enchancing drug violation that season). Those within the organization but not on the 40-man at the start of September can still be added to the postseason roster to replace a player on the injured list via petition to the commissioner’s office.

Jon Heyman of the New York Post first reported González was signing with the Yankees.

Red Sox Acquire Taylor Broadway From White Sox

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The Red Sox announced they’ve acquired minor league reliever Taylor Broadway from the White Sox. He’s the player to be named later in this month’s trade that sent reliever Jake Diekman to Chicago for catcher Reese McGuire.

A closer at Ole Miss, Broadway was selected by the White Sox in the sixth round of the 2021 amateur draft. A college senior, he signed for $30K but has quickly progressed to the upper minors. The right-hander made just 15 appearances in A-ball before getting a bump to Double-A Birmingham. He’s spent most of this season there, pitching to a 4.74 ERA across 49 1/3 innings. While it’s not an especially impressive ERA, the 25-year-old has struck out a strong 33.9% of opposing hitters while issuing walks at only a 6.4% clip.

Broadway was eligible to be traded even after the August 2 deadline, as he’s never occupied a spot on a 40-man roster. As MLBTR’s Steve Adams explored this month, players who have spent the entire season in the minor leagues and haven’t been added to an MLB 40-man or injured list at any point this year are still eligible to be traded. Broadway will report to Double-A Portland and adds an upper level bullpen arm to the system.

As for the big leaguers involved in that swap, the Red Sox have gotten the better results through the first month. McGuire is hitting .396/.412/.500 through 16 games while taking the strong side of a catching platoon with Kevin Plawecki. Diekman has allowed six runs (five earned) with 13 strikeouts but eight walks in 8 1/3 frames with the South Siders. McGuire will be arbitration-eligible for the first time this offseason; Diekman is under contract for $3.5MM next season and has a $4MM club option or a $1MM buyout for 2024.

Shane McClanahan Scratched From Start With Shoulder Impingement

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9:18pm: Both Cash and McClanahan expressed some amount of optimism postgame McClanahan wouldn’t need to miss much time (Topkin links). That won’t officially be determined until tomorrow’s imaging results come back, of course.

6:52pm: Rays ace Shane McClanahan was scratched from tonight’s start against the Marlins shortly before game-time. The star southpaw felt discomfort while warming up in the bullpen and was visibly upset (video link provided by Rob Friedman). The club later announced his preliminary diagnosis as a shoulder impingement (h/t to Tricia Whitaker of Bally Sports Florida). He’s set to undergo additional imaging tomorrow, tweets Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times.

The team will provide more information in the coming days, but it’s obviously a worrisome development. Shoulder issues are a concern for any pitcher, and it wouldn’t be a surprise if McClanahan winds up on the 15-day injured list. Even a brief absence would be a notable blow for a Tampa Bay club that currently occupies the top Wild Card spot in the American League. The Rays are just a half-game up on the Mariners and a game clear of the Blue Jays, with a three-game gap between themselves and the nearest current non-playoff team (the Orioles).

Their place in the standings makes the final five weeks crucial as the Rays look to lock down a fourth straight playoff appearance. One could argue there’s no player more pivotal to those efforts than McClanahan, the American League’s All-Star Game starter and one of the top pitchers in the sport. After a productive rookie season in which he posted a 3.43 ERA through his first 25 big league starts, McClanahan has placed himself among the game’s elite arms this year. He’s worked to a sparkling 2.20 ERA across 24 outings and 147 1/3 frames. The former first-rounder has struck out an elite 32.5% of batters faced and induced ground-balls at a huge 52.3% clip while only walking 5.4% of opponents.

McClanahan has made a strong case for AL Cy Young award consideration, jointing the likes of Justin Verlander (who landed on the IL this afternoon), Dylan Cease and Framber Valdez among the Junior Circuit’s top starters. If healthy, McClanahan would be skipper Kevin Cash’s obvious choice for Game 1 of a possible playoff series.

The Rays have dealt with myriad pitching injuries this season. The bulk of those have come in the bullpen, but they’ve been without Tyler Glasnow all season as he rehabs from last year’s Tommy John procedure and have lost high-end prospect Shane Baz for two extended stretches. It’s possible both Glasnow and Baz could factor into the mix down the stretch, giving Tampa Bay a potentially enviable stockpile of arms if they’re at full strength.

Chris Flexen Triggers 2023 Vesting Option

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During tonight’s relief appearance against the Tigers, Mariners hurler Chris Flexen reached the innings threshold to vest an $8MM option for 2023. He’s officially under contract for next season.

Flexen initially signed with the Mariners over the 2020-21 offseason. Previously an up-and-down swingman with the Mets, the right-hander made the jump to South Korea in 2020. He spent a year with the Doosan Bears, working to a 3.01 ERA across 116 2/3 innings, before fielding major league interest that offseason. Flexen inked a two-year guarantee with a 2023 team option valued at $4MM.

The sides agreed to a vesting provision that would guarantee that option while doubling its price if Flexen hit either of two conditions: 150 innings pitched in 2022, or 300 combined innings between 2021-22. Last season, Flexen took 31 turns through the rotation and tossed 179 2/3 innings. That left him needing only 120 1/3 frames this year to hit the marker, and he surpassed that tonight. It has long been apparent Flexen would eventually hit the threshold, although he’d had to wait nearly two weeks between his most recent appearance on August 19 and tonight’s contest before recording the final out necessary to push it over the edge.

It’ll be a nice raise for Flexen, whose first two seasons in Seattle paid him an average of $2.375MM. That he’s now in line for easily the best payday of his career is a testament to his durability and typically solid work over his time in the Pacific Northwest. Flexen pitched to a 3.61 ERA last year, compensating for a modest 16.9% strikeout rate with stellar control and a decent 42.4% ground-ball percentage. He’d posted a 3.92 ERA over 21 turns through the rotation this season, putting up a nearly identical strikeout rate but seeing his walks and grounders each trend in the wrong direction. There’s nevertheless value in the stability Flexen brought taking the ball every fifth day, and his pitch-to-contact approach can be effective in a spacious home ballpark and in front of a Seattle defense that has been MLB’s 7th-best at turning balls in play into outs.

In the wake of their acquisition of Luis Castillo in a deadline blockbuster, the Mariners found themselves with a surplus in the rotation. Seattle already featured reigning AL Cy Young winner Robbie Ray and top young hurlers George Kirby and Logan Gilbert. The M’s decided to keep Marco Gonzales in the rotation’s fifth spot while kicking Flexen to the bullpen. He’s made just three appearances, all in low-leverage work, in three weeks since the move to relief.

Each of Castillo, Ray, Gilbert, Kirby and Gonzales will return next season, and Flexen’s bump to long relief suggests he’s sixth on the rotation depth chart. Clubs go through more than five starting pitchers every year, but one could argue an $8MM salary is pricy for a sixth starter/swingman. Given Flexen’s solid results as a starter, there should be interest in Flexen from other teams with less rotation depth than Seattle has, making him a speculative offseason trade candidate. If Seattle were to keep him around, his salary would add to a 2023 payroll that’s grown with the Castillo trade and signing of Julio Rodríguez to a massive extension. Still, the M’s should have a fair bit of flexibility to bolster the roster.

Including Flexen’s salary, the Mariners have a bit more than $85MM in guaranteed commitments for 2023, in the estimation of Jason Martinez of Roster Resource. Castillo headlines an arbitration class that also includes Paul Sewald, Diego Castillo and Ty France (among others), which is likely to push their in-house commitments above nine figures before determining whether they want to make a run at re-signing Mitch Haniger. That’s not far off the approximate $104MM Opening Day player payroll this season. The franchise has spent north of $150MM in years past, though, and it seems likely they’ll continue to push payroll forward. The recent rebuild is firmly in the past, and the M’s have a good chance to snap their two-decade playoff drought this October (although they’d only host a first round playoff game if they finish as the highest-seeded Wild Card). Seattle is currently a half-game back of the Rays for the American League’s top Wild Card position.

How to proceed with Flexen (and how to manage the payroll more broadly) is a decision for president of baseball operations Jerry Dipoto and his staff to make this winter. With the trade deadline in the rearview mirror this summer, there’s no question Flexen will finish out this season in Seattle. He’ll remain on hand as a multi-inning relief option for manager Scott Servais with the ability to bounce back into the rotation if one of the club’s top five starters gets injured.

The Guardians’ Other Star Infielder

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At this point, it’s not much of a surprise to write that Jose Ramirez is having an MVP-quality season. He’s not a frontrunner in 2022 — not with the season Aaron Judge is having — but Ramirez is hitting .283/.353/.548 with 26 home runs, 14 steals, 38 doubles, four triples, 106 runs knocked in and anywhere from average to plus defense at the hot corner, depending of your metric of choice. He ranks 11th among Major League position players in wins above replacement, per Baseball Reference, and seventh, per FanGraphs. It’s a Jose Ramirez season that’s so typical we’ve almost become numb to it.

It’s also, arguably, only the second-best season being enjoyed by a Guardians infielder.Andres Gimenez | Ken Blaze-USA TODAY Sports

Andres Gimenez can’t go to-to-toe with Ramirez’s power or his run-production numbers — particularly since he’s had 107 fewer plate appearances. I will freely admit that, in my view, Ramirez is having the better season, but there are arguments to the counter. Gimenez leads Ramirez in batting average and on-base percentage, has hit with surprising power, has surpassed him in steals and baserunning value (despite the lower total of plate appearances) and has graded out as one of baseball’s best defensive players, regardless of position. Baseball-Reference credits Gimenez with 5.4 wins above replacement — tied for the fifth-highest mark in the Majors among position players. FanGraphs “only” has him tied for 14th, at 4.7.

Whether Gimenez can sustain this output in future seasons is a far more pertinent debate for the Guardians than whether Gimenez or Ramirez has had the better season. Gimenez is, after all, just a season removed from hitting only .218/.282/.351 through 210 big league plate appearances. Entering the 2022 campaign, Gimenez had slashed just .235/.302/.369 in 117 career games — not exactly a resounding declaration he could be an impact big leaguer.

Those struggles came in Gimenez’s age-21 and age-22 seasons, however. It’s hardly uncommon for players that young to struggle with the transition to the majors, even if they’re former top prospects, which was very much the case with Gimenez. Originally signed by the Mets as an amateur out of Venezuela, Gimenez thrice ranked among the game’s top 100 prospects at Baseball America and at Baseball Prospectus, also making multiple top-100 lists at MLB.com and FanGraphs. Gimenez’s defense and speed always garnered more praise than his bat, but he was projected as a potential everyday middle infielder. He was regarded highly enough to be one of the key pieces sent from New York to Cleveland in the trade that made Francisco Lindor a Met.

So, what’s changed for Gimenez in 2022? For starters, he’s simply making more contact. After punching out at a 24% clip in 2020-21, he’s down to 20.2% this season. His overall 73.3% contact rate from 2020-21 is up to 75% this season. Looking a bit deeper, he’s both slightly cut back on the rate at which he chases pitches off the plate and greatly increased his contact rate when he does chase. Gimenez struggled against lefties in 2021 but is hitting them at a .289/.352/.458 clip in 2022. It’s only 94 plate appearances, but it’s encouraging that Gimenez has actually fanned less often (17%) against lefties than against right-handers (21.2%).

The quality of contact made by Gimenez has markedly improved, too; he’s seen his line-drive rate rise nearly 10 percentage points, from 12.6% in 2021 to 22.3% in 2022. Gimenez also boasts a better than two mile-per-hour increase in his average exit velocity (88.4 mph, up from 86.3 mph in ’21) and a jump of nearly nine percentage points in his hard-hit rate (39.2%, up from 30.4%) this year. He’s more than doubled his rate of barreled balls, sitting at 7.4% after checking in at 3.6% a year ago.

Granted, those Statcast batted-ball ratings are still below the league average, and even Gimenez’s slightly improved 40.2% chase rate on pitches off the plate ranks among the highest levels in the league. There’s some clear work to be done for him to improve his overall approach, and his 2022 batting line wouldn’t look so rosy were it not for a .354 batting average on balls in play that he’s unlikely to sustain.

Even if his current production looks ripe for some regression, however, it’s hard not to be encouraged by all the positive strides in Gimenez’s game — both on a year-over-year basis and within the confines of the current season. Gimenez’s walk and strikeout rates were fairly dismal early in the season, for instance, sitting at 2% and 24.5%, respectively, through the end of April. Since Memorial Day weekend, he’s walked at a more passable 6.8% clip and logged an 18.6% strikeout rate. Ramirez’s hack-happy approach might always render him with a below-average walk rate, but if he can keep it around seven percent and also continue to put the ball in play at his current rate and with his current level of authority, he’ll be productive even as that aforementioned BABIP normalizes.

Barring the adoption of a more patient approach and/or further gains in terms of raw power, the 2022 campaign could very well represent something of a ceiling for Gimenez. Even if that’s the case, though, it’s quite the ceiling. He’s on pace to finish the year with six to seven wins above replacement, vastly above-average offense, plus baserunning marks and Gold Glove-caliber defense. Gimenez isn’t going to be considered a favorite or finalist in American League MVP voting, but he ought to get some down-ballot votes given just how strong his all-around performance has been.

It’s also possible that Gimenez will see his value to the team increase even further in future seasons, though not necessarily through his own doing. Scouting reports long touted him as a plus defender at either middle-infield spot, but he’s been limited to second base for most of his time in Cleveland thanks to the presence of Amed Rosario. While Rosario has improved his glovework at shortstop this year, he’s still received a mixed bag of defensive grades. Gimenez, meanwhile, has shined at shortstop, turning in marks of 7 Defensive Runs Saved, a 3.0 Ultimate Zone Rating and 8 Outs Above Average in just 634 career innings.

Rosario is due for his final arbitration raise this winter, and it’s feasible that the Guardians, with a bevy of middle-infield prospects and perennial payroll constraints, could look to trade Rosario rather than pay him a raise on this year’s $4.95MM salary. Doing so could open up shortstop for Gimenez, whose offense would be even more valuable at a position higher on the defensive spectrum, while subsequently opening second base for Tyler Freeman or another prospect.

Wherever his defensive home ultimately lies, Gimenez has used the 2022 season to cement himself as a viable big league contributor — not just a regular but an All-Star-caliber player who, at his best, could get some stray MVP votes. He’s controlled for another four seasons beyond the current year, won’t even reach arbitration eligibility until the 2023-24 offseason, and has yet to celebrate his 24th birthday. Ramirez is going to draw all the headlines in the Cleveland infield, but Gimenez has likely earned himself a long-term spot to draw some fanfare alongside his teammate.

Brandon Belt Considering Undergoing Knee Surgery

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Giants first baseman Brandon Belt has been bothered by a right knee issue of late, and doctors have recommended he undergo surgery (relayed by Andrew Baggarly of the Athletic and Alex Pavlovic of NBC Sports Bay Area). Belt and the Giants are expected to take 24 hours to determine how they plan to proceed.

Belt has been on the injured list a couple times this season due to inflammation in that knee. This is far from the first year in which the joint has proven bothersome, as Belt has twice previously undergone surgery and had it drained on multiple occasions. In a forthright chat with Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle last week, the 12-year MLB veteran acknowledged the knee could be problematic for the rest of his career.

The 34-year-old conceded in his discussion with Slusser that he could undergone another surgical procedure. At the time, he expressed a belief he could delay any surgery until the offseason. It now seems that may not be the case, and if he indeed elects to go under the knife, his 2022 campaign will be cut short. The Giants have fallen five games under .500 and are virtually certain to miss the playoffs at this point, so shutting things down and turning his attention to next season may be prudent regardless.

Belt’s production has taken a huge hit this season, one of the reasons for the Giants inability to replicate last year’s 107-win campaign. Through 298 plate appearances, he’s hitting only .213/.326/.350 with eight home runs. Belt’s just a season removed from blasting 29 longballs, but his hard contact rate has fallen more than six percentage points from last year’s 44.8% mark. It’s hard to imagine the persistent knee issues weren’t playing some role in those struggles, considering he mashed at a .285/.393/.595 clip between 2020-21.

It’s nevertheless tough to know what one can expect from Belt moving forward given his age and injury history. The career-long Giant is headed for free agency this offseason. Belt is making $18.4MM this year after accepting a qualifying offer last November, but he’ll certainly be facing a paycut during this trip to the open market.

Diamondbacks Exercise 2023 Club Option On Torey Lovullo

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The Diamondbacks announced that they have exercised a club option for the 2023 season for manager Torey Lovullo. He will return for a seventh season as Arizona’s manager.

Signed prior to the 2017 season, Lovullo’s first year as bench boss in Arizona was a rousing success. The club went 93-69, defeating the Rockies in the National League Wild Card game, before falling to the Dodgers in the NLDS. That was the club’s first season finishing above the .500 mark since 2011. For that performance, Lovullo was awarded the Manager of the Year for the National League.

The sailing hasn’t been as smooth since, with the club slipping to 82-80 and 85-77 in the next two seasons. The pandemic-shortened 2020 campaign didn’t go very well, with the D-Backs going 25-35 in that small sample. Last year, however, just about everything went wrong and club fell to a dismal 52-110 record.

Despite that awful season, the club evidently didn’t believe Lovullo was to blame. They agreed to an extension with him in September of that year, just as his contract was about to expire. It wasn’t a tremendous show of faith, as it only covered the 2022 season with an option for 2023. However, 2022 has evidently gone well enough that the club will keep him around for at least one more campaign. Arizona’s 60-67 mark here in 2022 obviously isn’t amazing, but it’s still a huge turnaround compared to last year’s nightmare. There’s still over a month remaining on the schedule and they’ve already surpassed last year’s win total.

Although the club still believes enough in Lovullo to keep him around, it’s noteworthy that they merely picked up this option as opposed to announcing an extension. Most baseball teams generally prefer to not have a manager in “lame-duck” status, wherein they are in the final year of a contract with nothing in place for the future. There would still be time to come to another agreement about his contract in the offseason, though he is only in place through 2023 for now.

Next year, the club will surely be hoping to take yet another step forward after the improved results of this season. Arizona has debuted a handful of intriguing rookies this year, including Alek Thomas, Stone Garrett, Tommy Henry and Corbin Carroll, with Carroll being considered by some to be the best prospect in all of baseball. That bubbling up of young talent has an air of optimism floating around the club, despite lackluster results at the big league level recently. Those youngsters will join key team members like Christian Walker, Daulton Varsho, Ketel Marte, Josh Rojas, Zac Gallen, Merrill Kelly and Madison Bumgarner. The Arizona brass will be hopeful that Lovullo can steer that crew back into contention for the first time in years.

Nick Piecoro of the Arizona Republic tweeted the news before the official announcement.

Dodgers Select Heath Hembree, Designate Eddy Alvarez

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The Dodgers announced a series of roster moves today, with right-hander Heath Hembree having his contract selected. Fellow right-hander Jake Reed was recalled to join the active roster as well. Another pair of right-handers, Michael Grove and Phil Bickford, were optioned in corresponding moves. To create space for Hembree on the 40-man roster, infielder Eddy Alvarez was designated for assignment.

Hembree, 33, is in his 10th season of MLB action, having previously pitched for the Giants, Red Sox, Phillies, Mets and Reds, before signing with the Pirates this year. Through 20 games with the Bucs, he had a 7.16 ERA, 15.4% strikeout rate, 17.9% walk rate and 25% ground ball rate, with all of those marks being worse than league average. He was designated for assignment in June and cleared waivers, hardly surprising given his poor results on the year and $2.125MM salary.

After returning to free agency, Hembree joined the Dodgers on a minor league pact. He has since thrown 9 1/3 innings for their Triple-A team, registering a 4.82 ERA, through striking out 35.9% of batters faced in that small sample and walking just 5.1% of them. Based on those improved results, he’ll get another crack at the big leagues. The Dodgers will only have to pay him the prorated league minimum for any time he’s on the roster, with the Pirates on the hook for the remainder of his salary.

As for Alvarez, he is arguably most famous for having won a medal in both the Winter and Summer Olympics. He won a silver medal at the Sochi games in 2014 as a speed skater, before adding another silver as part of the US men’s baseball team at the 2020 Tokyo Games (which were delayed until 2021 by the pandemic). He signed a minor league deal with the Dodgers in the winter, getting selected to the big league club in June. He spent a month in the majors, getting 27 plate appearances in 14 games. He hit .160/.154/.160 in that time before getting optioned. He’s fared much better in Triple-A, hitting .322/.439/.554 in 47 games. He’s also played second base, third base, shortstop and the outfield corners this year. He still has a full slate of options, meaning a team intrigued by his strong Triple-A batting line and defensive versatility could stash him in the minors. The Dodgers will have no choice but to put him on outright waivers or release waivers in the coming days, since the trade deadline has passed.

Cade Cavalli Shut Down For Two Weeks Due To Shoulder Inflammation

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The Nationals are shutting down right-hander Cade Cavalli for the next two weeks due to shoulder inflammation, tweets Jesse Dougherty of The Washington Post. Cavalli will be placed on the 15-day injured list.

At this point, the issue doesn’t seem to be terribly severe. Dougherty relays that Cavalli felt some discomfort in the day after his start and went for an MRI, which showed inflammation but no structural damage. “Everything looks good, except for he has a little bit of inflammation around the capsule,” manager Dave Martinez tells Jessica Camerato of MLB.com. “But the labrum, tendons, the rotator cuff, everything is very, very clean.” Mark Zuckerman of MASNsports.com relays word from Martinez, who says that they’re not shutting him down for the season because they want him to try to work back to health in the short-term, rather than just focussing on next year’s Spring Training.

The fact that the issue isn’t terribly serious is surely comforting for fans of the club, though the news also has to be at least somewhat deflating. It was just over a year ago that the club kicked off a rebuild by trading away many of their best players, including Max Scherzer and Trea Turner. This year, the club dug themselves even deeper in that hole by trading Juan Soto and Josh Bell. Amid all of that subtraction from the big league roster, one thing for fans to look forward to was the emergence of youngsters, with Cavalli being among the most exciting. Now he’s heading to the IL after just a single big league start and might not even appear again this season. In the long run, Cavalli can hopefully recover and make this minor setback a non-issue.

In the short-term, the club will have to patch over a hole in the rotation. Cory Abbott was optioned when Cavalli was called up and could be a candidate to return. Optioned players normally have to spend at least ten days off the roster before being added back on, though an exception is made when someone is going on the IL. Dougherty reports that Abbott was supposed to throw in Rochester today, the home of Washington’s Triple-A club, but was pulled off.

Athletics To Promote Ken Waldichuk

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4:05pm: Martín Gallegos of MLB.com relays word from manager Mark Kotsay that Waldichuk will be starting Thursday’s game, making his major league debut.

1:10pm: The Athletics are planning on adding left-hander Ken Waldichuk to the team when rosters expand on September 1, tweets Matt Kawahara of the San Francisco Chronicle. The southpaw is not currently on the club’s 40-man roster, meaning they will have to make a corresponding move of some kind.

Waldichuk, 24, was a fifth-round draft pick of the Yankees in 2019 who came over to the A’s a month ago in the Frankie Montas trade. He pitched in ten rookie ball games after his draft selection, but then the pandemic canceled the minor leagues in 2020. Returning in 2021, he began the year in High-A and utterly dominated, throwing 30 2/3 scoreless innings over seven starts. He did walk 11.5% of batters faced, though was able to avoid damage by striking out an incredible 48.7% of those who stepped to the plate against him. Based on that showing, he was promoted to Double-A. Of course, he couldn’t possibly maintain that kind of performance but still fared well after jumping levels. He registered a 4.20 ERA in 16 appearances, with a 31.8% strikeout rate and 11.2% walk rate.

After that strong campaign, Waldichuk landed on Baseball America’s list of top 30 Yankee farmhands for the first time, coming in at #10 on the 2022 version. FanGraphs had placed Waldichuk at #53 in 2020 and #45 in 2021, but jumped him all the way up to #15 going into this season.

Here in 2022, the lefty’s stock has been rocketing even higher. He began the year back at Double-A and made six starts, putting up a stingy 1.26 ERA along with a 41.1% strikeout rate and 8.9% walk rate. He was bumped up to Triple-A and kept on rolling, registering a 3.59 ERA with a 34% strikeout rate and 11.2% walk rate. Since switching organizations in the trade, he’s made four more Triple-A starts with a 3.38 ERA, getting his walk rate all the way down to 3.8% while still striking out 26.6% of batters faced.

Based on another excellent season, he has been shooting up prospect lists. BA recently placed him #5 on their most recent update of Oakland prospects, while FanGraphs is even more bullish, placing him #1 in the organization and the 35th best prospect in the entire sport.

For the A’s, they have clearly been future-focused for almost a year now. Their offseason primarily revolved around trading away their best and most expensive players for prospects. That continued up to this year’s deadline, including the Montas deal that brought Waldichuk over. Tearing down the roster has unsurprisingly resulted in poor on-field results, with the club’s 48-81 record the worst in the American League. They have already been using their season to audition young players, with Waldichuk the latest to step onto the stage.

The club’s rotation mix is fairly wide open at the moment, especially with Paul Blackburn and Daulton Jefferies both done for the year due to injuries. 28-year-olds Cole Irvin and James Kaprielian are the most veteran of the bunch and should hold down two spots the rest of the way. The other starting options on hand are all rookies: JP Sears, Adam Oller, Adrian Martinez and Zach Logue. No one in that group has made more than 12 starts while Sears, who has made six starts, is the only one with an ERA under 5.00 so far. If Waldichuk can get results resembling his work in the minors, there’s little standing in the way of him earning a spot in next year’s rotation.

Image courtesy of USA Today Sports.

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