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Rockies Promote Chase Dollander

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TODAY: The Rockies officially selected Dollander’s contract, and optioned Bradley Blalock to Triple-A in the corresponding move.

APRIL 4: The Rockies are going to promote their top pitching prospect, reports Patrick Lyons of Just Baseball. Right-hander Chase Dollander will make his major league debut when he starts for the club on Sunday. There’s already an opening on the 40-man roster, so the club will only need to make a corresponding active roster move.

Dollander, now 23, has been a hyped-up name for a while now. He put up big numbers for Tennessee and was ranked as one of the top players available in the 2023 draft. The Rockies selected him with the ninth overall pick and then signed him to a slot-value bonus of $5,716,900.

He made his professional debut last year in impressive fashion. He tossed 118 innings over 23 starts, going from High-A to Double-A in the process. He allowed just 2.59 earned runs per nine, striking out 33.9% of batters faced while giving out walks at a 9.4% clip.

Going into 2025, the industry consensus is that he’s one of the top prospects in the league. Baseball America currently lists him #7 overall and MLB Pipeline #24. FanGraphs had him at #12 to start the season, but with the now-graduated Dylan Crews as one of the guys ahead of him. ESPN had Dollander at #14, though also behind Crews. Keith Law of The Athletic was more bearish, putting Dollander down at #75, with concerns about some of his results in Tennessee.

The Rockies reportedly gave some consideration to having Dollander in the season-opening rotation. They sent him to Triple-A Albuquerque instead, where he made one start, allowing one earned run over four innings. The big league club started the season with just four games before their first off-day, having Kyle Freeland, Antonio Senzatela, Ryan Feltner and Germán Márquez start those.

Austin Gomber likely would have had a fifth spot but he started the season on the 15-day injured list with shoulder soreness. He made a rehab start for Albuquerque but was scratched from making a second due to inflammation in that shoulder, per Thomas Harding of MLB.com. Perhaps due to Gomber’s setback, Dollander will get an early-season call-up.

The big unknown will be how Dollander handles the challenges of pitching at Coors Field, the most hitter-friendly venue in the big leagues. Geoff Pontes of Baseball America believes Dollander is well-positioned to succeed, even though plenty of other talented arms have struggled there. Pontes points out that pitchers with low release heights, such as Dollander, have previously fared well at Coors. The piece also cites the spin efficiency of Dollander’s fastball, which sits between 96 and 98 miles per hour, as a factor that could work in his favor. In addition that fastball, he throws a  changeup, a curveball and another breaking ball that is characterized as either a slider or a cutter by various sources.

If Dollander can thrive at Coors, he could become the most important arm in the rotation for their next competitive window. The club has been losing for a long time now but have seen some young players come up and establish themselves as building blocks, such as Ezequiel Tovar at shortstop and Brenton Doyle in center field.

In the rotation, there’s little long-term certainty. Márquez and Gomber are impending free agents while the contracts for Senzatela and Freeland are only guaranteed through 2026, with options for 2027. It’s possible the Rockies sign new deals with those pitchers but they’re all in their 30s now regardless. At 23 years old, Dollander could potentially be the rock of the group for many years to come, if everything breaks right.

Though he wasn’t on the Opening Day roster, he is getting called up early enough to potentially earn a full service year in 2025. A baseball season is 187 days long but a player needs only 172 days on the active roster or injured list to get a full year. If he’s not optioned down to the minors at any point, he would be on track to qualify for free agency after the 2030 campaign, though a notable optional assignment would push that trajectory by one year.

If he does stay up, the Rockies would be eligible to potentially receive an extra draft pick. The current collective bargaining agreement introduced measures to combat service time manipulation. One such measure is that a team can earn an extra draft if they promote a top prospect early enough to earn a full service year. To qualify, a player must be on two of the three Top 100 lists of BA, ESPN and MLB Pipeline. The player must then win Rookie of the Year or place in the top three of MVP or Cy Young voting in their pre-arbitration seasons.

Those will perhaps be factors later in the year. For now, one of the best young pitchers in the game is coming up to the majors. Facing big league hitters for the first time is always a fascinating challenge for any pitching prospect but the interest level is arguably even higher in this case, given the unique circumstances of Coors Field and Dollander’s potential importance to the franchise.

Photo courtesy of Rick Scuteri and Steven Branscombe, Imagn Images

Brewers Place Nestor Cortes On 15-Day IL Due To Flexor Strain

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The Brewers announced that left-hander Nestor Cortes has been placed on the 15-day injured list due to a flexor strain in his throwing elbow.  Southpaw Grant Wolfram was called up from Triple-A to take Cortes’ spot on the active roster.

This is now the second time in eight months that a flexor strain has sent Cortes to the IL, as a similar injury sidelined him last September when Cortes was still pitching with the Yankees.  He was able to make it back for two appearances in the World Series, including his infamous relief outing in Game 1 that saw Cortes allow Freddie Freeman’s walkoff grand slam.

Brewers assistant GM Matt Kleine told reporters (including Curt Hogg of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel) that Cortes was feeling some elbow discomfort leading up to his last start, though Cortes still delivered six innings of shutout ball against the Reds on April 3.  Kleine doesn’t think the flexor strain is a “long-term issue,” and Cortes himself told Hogg and company that his concern level is “pretty low.”  A previous round of scans cleared Cortes to pitch three days ago, but Cortes said he’ll seek out a second opinion just out of due diligence.

Cortes is now the seventh starting pitcher on Milwaukee’s absurdly crowded injured list, as the Brewers have already just about reached critical mass for pitching health just over a week into the season.  Tobias Myers and Aaron Ashby both sustained oblique strains during Spring Training, Aaron Civale made one regular-season start before a hamstring strain sent him to the IL, and Brandon Woodruff started the season on the 15-day IL as he continues his lengthy recovery from a shoulder surgery.  In other longer-term absences, DL Hall is on the 60-day IL after suffering a lat strain this spring, and Robert Gasser is recovering from a Tommy John surgery last June.

Freddy Peralta now stands as the only healthy member of the Brewers’ projected rotation.  Tyler Alexander, Elvin Rodriguez, and Chad Patrick (all swingmen or multi-inning relief options in an ideal world) comprise the makeshift rotation behind Peralta, and Rule 5 Draft pick Connor Thomas might now be called upon to make a start or two in Cortes’ absence, with Wolfram taking Thomas’ spot as a left-handed bullpen arm.  The Brewers signed veteran Jose Quintana to provide more rotation depth at the start of March, but he is still building up his arm at Triple-A due to his late start to Spring Training.

Cortes was acquired as part of the biggest trade of the Brewers’ offseason, as Cortes, Caleb Durbin, and $2MM in cash considerations came from the Yankees for Devin Williams back in December.  Both Cortes and Williams are pending free agents, but Milwaukee was able to save a little cash in dealing its star closer while also getting a new long-term infield piece and (in theory) a veteran arm to stabilize the rotation.

This injury to Cortes now possibly throws that plan out of whack, and the southpaw and the Brewers can only hope that the strain is as relatively minor as it seems.  Between his last regular-season game in 2024 and Game 1 of the World Series, Cortes missed about five weeks, which would represent a pretty big chunk of the 2025 campaign if he needs a similar recovery period this time around.

Wolfram’s promotion is also worth noting, as the 28-year-old lefty is now on the verge of making his Major League debut.  An 18th-round pick for the Rangers in the 2018 draft, Wolfram spent his entire career in the Texas farm system before inking a guaranteed deal with Milwaukee last December, putting him onto a 40-man roster for the first time.  Wolfram had a 3.34 ERA, 25.6% strikeout rate, and 10.9% walk rate over 56 2/3 innings with Triple-A Round Rock in 2024, and his first two Triple-A outings for the Brewers have resulted in a 6.00 ERA over three innings.

Pirates Place Colin Holderman On 15-Day Injured List

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The Pirates announced that right-hander Colin Holderman has been placed on the 15-day injured list due to a right knee sprain.  Righty Chase Shugart has been called up from Triple-A in the corresponding move.

The nature or severity of Holderman’s knee issue isn’t known, but if he has been trying to pitch through discomfort, that might explain his unimpressive numbers to date this season.  After giving up a run in an inning of work in yesterday’s 10-4 Pirates loss to the Yankees, Holderman’s ERA stands at an ungainly 9.64 over 4 2/3 frames, and he also has a 16% walk rate.

Naturally, this is a pretty small sample size to gauge a pitcher who has been a reliable bullpen arm for the Bucs over the previous two seasons.  Holderman posted a 3.52 ERA, 24.6% strikeout rate, and 9.7% walk rate over 107 1/3 innings in 2023-24, though his walk and barrel rates spiked considerably from 2023 to 2024.  Holderman’s impressive 52.8% grounder rate in 2023 also dropped to 37.5% last year.

With Holderman on the IL and struggling closer David Bednar optioned to Triple-A, Pittsburgh is already without two key members of its late-inning mix.  Dennis Santana now looks like the prime candidate for saves or highest-leverage work of any kind, while Justin Lawrence and Caleb Ferguson will factor into the late-inning workload as well.  Shugart will also get his first MLB look with his new team, as the Pirates only just acquired Shugart in a trade with the Red Sox back in January.

Padres Select Logan Gillaspie, Designate Tom Cosgrove

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The Padres announced that they have selected the contract of right-hander Logan Gillaspie from Triple-A.  In corresponding moves, left-hander Omar Cruz was optioned to Triple-A, and left-hander Tom Cosgrove was designated for assignment.

Gillaspie first joined San Diego’s organization as a waiver claim off the Red Sox roster in November 2023, and he tossed 11 1/3 MLB innings (to a 7.15 ERA) last season.  The Padres didn’t tender him a contract after the season, but then re-signed Gillaspie to a minors deal in December, and the righty has 2 2/3 innings of 6.75 ERA ball under his belt at Triple-A El Paso so far in the young minor league season.

Gillaspie is out of minor league options, so he’ll have to be designated for assignment the next time the Padres want to send him back to the minors.  This could happen in relatively short order, as it would seem like Gillaspie has been promoted just to give San Diego a fresh arm in the bullpen.  Cruz tossed 68 pitches over three innings of relief in yesterday’s 6-4 loss to the Cubs, and the Padres don’t have another off-day until Thursday.  It wouldn’t be a shock to see Cruz recalled before the week is over, and once he’s had time to rest up from his extended outing.

Cosgrove is the other pitcher involved in today’s set of roster moves, and the 28-year-old heads to DFA limbo for the first time in his pro career.  A 12th-round pick for San Diego in the 2017 draft, Cosgrove had an excellent 1.75 ERA in 51 1/3 innings during his 2023 rookie season, though secondary metrics indicated that Cosgrove enjoyed a lot of good fortune in managing that stellar ERA.

The luck turned in the other direction last season, as Cosgrove had only an 11.66 ERA in 14 2/3 big league innings, and he also struggled at the Triple-A level.  In 2025, Cosgrove got off to another rough start, with a 7.36 ERA and four walks in his first 3 2/3 innings of work in El Paso.  It was enough to make him the odd man out on the Padres’ 40-man roster, and Cosgrove will have to accept an outright assignment if he clears waivers since he doesn’t the service time or the past outright on his resume that would allow him to reject the assignment in favor of free agency.

Jerry Reinsdorf Not Pursuing Sale Of White Sox

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Reports emerged last October that longtime White Sox majority owner Jerry Reinsdorf was considering selling his controlling interest in the team, and that Reinsdorf was in talks about a possible sale to an ownership group fronted by former big league pitcher and executive Dave Stewart.  There hasn’t been any news on that front in the intervening months, and USA Today’s Bob Nightengale wrote today that a sale isn’t happening whatsoever.  The 89-year-old Reinsdorf “has made it perfectly clear to friends that he has zero interest in selling as long as he remains in good health,” and “he has rebuffed all of minority investor Justin Ishbia’s requests to purchase controlling interest of the team.”

The latter point is particularly noteworthy, as Ishbia and his brother Mat were viewed as the lead candidates to buy the Twins until about six weeks ago, when the Ishbias reversed course and instead looked to increase their minority share in the White Sox.  Team VP of communications Scott Reifert made it clear at the time that this “has no impact on the leadership or operations of the Chicago White Sox and does not provide a path to control” for the Ishbias, and today’s report from Nightengale would seemingly further quiet the speculation that Reinsdorf is looking to move on from the team he has owned since 1981.

Reinsdorf’s long tenure is highlighted by the 2005 World Series, which marked the first Sox championship (and the first baseball title in Chicago as a whole) since 1917.  Beyond that signature achievement, however, the Pale Hose have only sporadically been contenders over Reinsdorf’s four-plus decades, and the club has topped the .500 mark only six times since that World Series year.  Most recently, of course, the Sox posted the worst record in modern baseball history, and one can only hope that last season’s 41-121 debacle is the low point of what looks like it’ll be another lengthy rebuild.

Reinsdorf’s ownership style has long faced criticism on many fronts, chiefly related to a relative unwillingness to spend despite playing in a large market.  As per Cot’s Baseball Contracts, the Sox payroll did rank seventh in baseball as recently as the 2022 season, but that marked Chicago’s only appearance within the top 10 spenders over the last 14 years.  Andrew Benintendi’s five-year, $75MM deal from the 2022-23 offseason is the largest contract the White Sox have ever given to a player, and Reinsdorf’s longstanding reputation as a hawk in labor talks has only added to the perception that the Sox aren’t willing to heavily invest in player salaries.

With both the White Sox and the NBA’s Chicago Bulls (Reinsdorf’s other team), the owner has been known to both take a heavy hand in front office business, while also employing longtime confidants in key executive roles.  While keeping trusted employees in place could naturally be viewed as a sign of loyalty, the flip side of Reinsdorf’s approach is that his teams are often accused of insularity, which keeps the clubs from fully embracing newer trends or perspectives.  For instance, when the White Sox were looking for a new GM in August 2023, then-assistant general manager Chris Getz was promoted into the top job after Reinsdorf seemingly had a brief or non-existent search for external candidates.

All of this to say, South Side fans may not be enthused by Nightengale’s report, given how Reinsdorf’s popularity in Chicago is probably at the lowest point of his ownership tenure.  There have also been some rumblings that Reinsdorf could even be open to moving the White Sox if he can’t get his desired new ballpark project in the South Loop area launched, as the team’s lease at Rate Field is up after the 2029 season.  Commissioner Rob Manfred downplayed the idea of the White Sox moving in an interview last October, but Chicago fans might not be totally comfortable until there is a firm plan in place for the team beyond 2029.

Red Sox Promote Hunter Dobbins

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10:18AM: The Red Sox have officially announced Dobbins’ call-up.  Manager Alex Cora indicated to reporters (including MassLive.com’s Christopher Smith) that Dobbins might be the starter in the second game of the doubleheader.

7:49AM: The Red Sox will be calling up right-hander Hunter Dobbins from Triple-A Worcester, according to Chris Henrique of the Boston Sports Journal.  Dobbins will be Boston’s 27th man for its doubleheader with the Cardinals today, and since he was already added to the 40-man roster last November, no corresponding transactions are required.

If Dobbins gets some action in either of the two games, it will mark the 25-year-old’s Major League debut.  The Red Sox selected Dobbins in the eighth round of the 2021 draft, even though he had undergone a Tommy John surgery that year while pitching for Texas Tech.  The surgery rehab delayed Dobbins’ pro debut until 2022, but the results have been solid since the righty has gotten back onto the mound.

Over 311 career innings in the minors, Dobbins has a 3.88 ERA, 23.8% strikeout rate, and 7.94% walk rate.  Only 24 1/3 of those innings have come at the Triple-A level, and he was expected to get more seasoning in Worcester as the 2025 season develops.  Dobbins has started 61 of his 63 career games, though he’ll likely work out of the pen today as a fresh arm for the Sox to utilize over the twin bill.

Baseball America ranks Dobbins as the 11th-best prospect in Boston’s farm system, and MLB Pipeline isn’t far behind with a #13 ranking.  Dobbins’ five-pitch arsenal includes a fastball that can touch 98mph and a splinker that he started using last season — as BA’s scouting report puts it, “he doesn’t have a single killer pitch to generate a ton of whiffs, but he steers clear of barrels.”  Dobbins allowed only two homers over his 125 2/3 combined innings of Double-A and Triple-A ball in 2024, though he has already surpassed that total in his lone Triple-A appearance this year, as he was tagged for three homers and five earned runs in a 3 2/3-inning relief outing on April 1.

White Sox Designate Travis Jankowski, Reinstate Mike Tauchman From 10-Day IL

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The White Sox announced that outfielder Travis Jankowski was designated for assignment.  The move was made to create a roster spot for Mike Tauchman, who has now been activated from the 10-day injured list.

Tauchman suffered a hamstring strain during Spring Training, which opened the door for Jankowski (who signed a minor league deal in March) to make the Opening Day roster as part of Chicago’s outfield mix.  Jankowski has appeared in seven of the team’s eight games, playing right and center field while hitting .214/.267/.214 in the small sample size of 15 plate appearances.

This brief stint made it 11 straight seasons of MLB action for Jankowski, who has spent most of his career in a part-time or platoon capacity with seven different teams.  Jankowski has been outrighted off a 40-man roster in the past, so if he clears DFA waivers in the next few days, he has the right to elect free agency rather than accept an outright assignment to Chicago’s Triple-A affiliate.

It isn’t out of the question that Jankowski could be claimed off waivers, or that a team in need of outfield help could arrange a trade with the White Sox during the DFA period.  Jankowski’s left-handed bat and his ability to play all three outfield positions makes him a useful depth piece, plus he is a well-known veteran presence who has made a lot of connections during his lengthy career.

As for Tauchman, he is now set to make his White Sox debut after signing a one-year, $1.95MM free agent deal with the team during the offseason.  Tauchman is coming off a pair of solid seasons with the Cubs, and the Peoria native will now look to continue that steady play on the other side of Chicago.  Since the Sox are firmly in rebuild mode, Tauchman is a prime candidate to be traded before the deadline, particularly if he replicates the 110 wRC+ he posted in 2023-24.

Royals Acquire Nick Gordon

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1:27PM: The Orioles will receive cash considerations in return, MLB.com’s Anne Rogers reports.

12:28PM: The Royals have acquired Nick Gordon from the Orioles, FanSided’s Robert Murray reports.  Baltimore’s end of the trade return isn’t yet known.  Gordon signed a minor league deal with the O’s last winter, and he’ll now join the team that his father Tom pitched with from 1988-95.

Drafted fifth overall by the Twins in 2014, Gordon is a known commodity to the Royals from his 243 games with Minnesota across the 2021-23 seasons.  It seemed like Gordon was breaking through when he hit .272/.316/.427 over 443 plate appearances for the Twins while playing all over the diamond in a super-sub role, but a fractured shin limited him to 34 MLB games in 2023.  Minnesota then dealt Gordon to the Marlins in February 2024, and Gordon hit only .227/.258/.369 over 95 games and 275 PA with Miami, playing mostly as a left fielder.

This tenure in South Beach ended when the Marlins outrighted Gordon off their 40-man roster last August, and he spent the rest of the season in Triple-A.  He elected minor league free agency in October and landed with Baltimore, though his chances of making the Opening Day roster always seemed rather slim, given the number of infield options the Orioles already had available.

Gordon will now get a fresh start in Kansas City, and perhaps be in a slightly better position for a big league call-up.  The Royals have other MLB-experienced players as Harold Castro and Jordan Groshans at Triple-A, though the likes of Nick Loftin, Joey Wiemer, or Drew Waters (who have also seen time in the majors) are already on the 40-man roster.  The fact that the Royals went out and got Gordon, however, indicates that the team wasn’t entirely satisfied with its roster depth, plus Gordon adds some more left-handed hitting to the mix.

NL West Notes: Ohtani, Gomber, Birdsong

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The Dodgers have been taking things slowly with superstar Shohei Ohtani as he prepares for his return to pitching. After just over a month off from regular bullpen sessions, Ohtani resumed throwing last weekend and threw another bullpen session earlier today. As noted by Bill Plunkett of the Orange County Register, Ohtani threw 26 pitches, and for the first time this year he included his splitter in the bullpen session. This came after what Plunkett described as a “light” bullpen session on Thursday. While that’s a noticeable ramp-up in activity, it shouldn’t be mistaken for the Dodgers accelerating Ohtani’s timeline back to the big league mound.

According to Plunkett, manager Dave Roberts indicated that the club hopes to replicate something akin to the schedule Ohtani will have when he returns to the big league mound as a starter by having him throw off the mound twice a week: once with a lighter bullpen session on Thursday followed by a full session on Saturday. Despite the superstar now getting back on the mound somewhat regularly, Plunkett notes that there’s still a long way to go before he’ll be ready to pitch in a big league game for the Dodgers. He relays that, per Roberts, the next step for Ohtani would be to incorporate his entire arsenal into his bullpen sessions rather than exclusively fastballs and an occasional splitter.

It won’t be until Ohtani is using his full arsenal that facing live hitters in simulated games, which the Dodgers plan to use in lieu of a rehab assignment to get Ohtani up to game speed while still allowing him to continue serving as their everyday DH in the lineup, is on the table. He’ll surely need several of those outings before he’s ready to get into games, and Plunkett suggests that at this point a realistic timeline for Ohtani’s pitching debut with the Dodgers would be sometime in June “at the earliest.” In the meantime, the Dodgers are utilizing a rotation of Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Blake Snell, Tyler Glasnow, Roki Sasaki, and Dustin May. Both Clayton Kershaw and Tony Gonsolin could also return from the injured list before Ohtani is ready to pitch, giving the Dodgers a host of potential options for the rotation.

More from around the NL West…

  • Rockies southpaw Austin Gomber began the season on the injured list due to soreness in his left shoulder, and while he was sent out for a rehab assignment just after Opening Day with an eye towards returning after just the first couple of weeks of the season, he was scratched from his next rehab start due to shoulder inflammation. That paved the way for Colorado to promote Chase Dollander to the big leagues, and Thomas Harding of MLB.com spoke to Gomber in more detail about the situation today. According to Harding, Gomber wasn’t able to pitch at maximum effectiveness during his rehab start even after receiving an anti-inflammatory injection in his shoulder. As a result, Gomber noted that the plan now is for him to have a slower and “more traditional” rehab process. He won’t throw for another week while the inflammation calms down, and will likely not return to the mound for another two or three weeks after that.
  • While the Giants initially planned to use young right-hander Hayden Birdsong as a long reliever and piggyback starter after he lost out on the fifth starter job to Landen Roupp, it appears that may no longer be in the cards. As noted by Justice delos Santos of Mercury News, manager Bob Melvin told reporters today that the club is now treating Birdsong as a “true reliever” after his limited usage to begin the season. Birdsong has appeared just once in the Giants’ first week of games, making a two-inning appearance that saw him throw just 27 pitches.  With Birdsong no longer stretched out as a starter for the time being, Melvin suggested that a one-inning appearance for the righty could be on the table. Birdsong pitched exclusively as a starter in the majors last year, with a 4.75 ERA in 16 starts, and hadn’t made a relief appearance in the major or minor leagues at the Double-A level or higher at any point in his career prior to his 2025 debut.

Braves Notes: Strider, Murphy, Allen

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It’s been a tough start to the season for the Braves, who only won their first game of the season last night. On top of their struggles in the standings, the lineup lost Jurickson Profar when he was hit with an 80-game suspension for a positive PED test while the rotation will be without right-hander Reynaldo Lopez for the foreseeable future as the hurler is scheduled to undergo shoulder surgery. Brutal as the start of the season has been for fans in Atlanta, however, there is light at the end of the tunnel. MLB.com notes not only that right-hander Spencer Strider is scheduled to make a rehab start at Triple-A this coming Thursday, but that it could be his final outing before he returns to the majors.

A healthy and effective return to the big league rotation would be a game changer for the Braves, particularly after Lopez’s recent injury. While reigning AL Cy Young award winner Chris Sale and young righty Spencer Schwellenbach are both excellent starters, beyond that duo the club is currently relying on converted reliever Grant Holmes and a pair of youngsters with hit-or-miss track records as big leaguers in AJ Smith-Shawver and Bryce Elder. A more established pitcher would be very welcome, and Strider is more than simply established after he finished as the runner-up in NL Rookie of the Year voting in 2022 before earning an All-Star appearance and a fourth-place finish in NL Cy Young award voting the following season.

Strider’s career 3.47 ERA is merely above-average (123 ERA+), but it belies his otherworldly 36.9% strikeout rate and 2.56 FIP, both of which place him among the very best pitchers in the entire sport. It would be unreasonable to assume that Strider will be able to provide that peak production this year given the number of players who have struggled while shaking off the rust of a long layoff. Nonetheless, even a somewhat diminished Strider is likely a front-of-the-rotation caliber, and the hurler’s 46.7% strikeout rate and 1.08 ERA through two rehab outings certainly don’t reveal any obvious signs of rust.

Strider isn’t the only notable player who could be returning to the roster soon for Atlanta. Catcher Sean Murphy is scheduled to make a nine-inning rehab appearance at Triple-A tomorrow. According to Bowman, that could be his final rehab outing if all goes well, with Murphy returning to the Atlanta lineup on Tuesday against the Phillies. It would be a huge boost to the Braves if Murphy were able to return so quickly after suffering a fractured rib last month. While his 2024 season was derailed by injury and saw him struggle when healthy enough to take the field, Murphy is not far removed from being considered the game’s best catcher and would be a huge boost to a struggling Atlanta lineup if he were to hit to even his career .233/.329/.429 slash line, to say nothing of the star-level offense he posted during the 2022 and ’23 seasons.

The return of Murphy to the lineup will likely spell the end of top catching prospect Drake Baldwin’s first stint in the big leagues, as he’s gone just 2-for-22 with three walks and five strikeouts through six games in the majors. While that’s not a sample size worth drawing any conclusions from, it would hardly be a shock if the club decided Baldwin was best served getting regular at-bats at Triple-A and opted to use Chadwick Tromp as their backup catcher going forward. With that being said, the club did recently add catcher Jason Delay to their 40-man roster in a trade with the Pirates and could therefore designate Tromp for assignment and still have a third catcher in the fold even if he were to depart via waivers or free agency. That could at least leave the door cracked open for Baldwin to backup Murphy in a larger role similar to the one Travis d’Arnaud held last year.

In other Braves news, The Athletic’s David O’Brien recently suggested that there could be a shakeup at shortstop coming down the pipeline for the club. Nick Allen was initially acquired to serve as a bench bat, but he’s hit a solid .333/.375/.400 so far while playing strong defense to this early point in the regular season. That strong early showing in conjunction with a lackluster spring from Orlando Arcia and his dreadful (2-for-13 with five strikeouts) start to the season could create an opening for Allen to seize a larger role with the club, particularly if the club’s early season struggles continue for longer than the season’s first week.

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