Freddie Freeman Reportedly Changing Agencies
In the wake of a still-stunning departure from the Braves in free agency, former NL MVP Freddie Freeman has dismissed his longtime agents at Excel Sports Management, reports ESPN’s Buster Olney. Freeman is currently listed as self-represented within MLB’s central database, and, according to the New York Post’s Jon Heyman (Twitter link), the MLBPA sent an email to agents requesting that they not contact Freeman — a common occurrence when a player is in the process of changing representation.
Freeman, however, isn’t characterizing things quite so definitively. The Dodger slugger issued a statement to Mark Bowman of MLB.com suggesting that he has not yet fully committed to parting ways with his reps (Twitter link):
Last weekend in Atlanta was a very emotional time for me and my family. I am working through some issues with my longtime agents at Excel. My representation remains a fluid situation and I will update if needed.
That’s hardly a firm denial of the report but at least leaves open the window for the relationship to be repaired and remain in place. Freeman largely deferred to his statement when addressing the topic with L.A. beat reporters (including Bill Plunkett of the Orange County Register and Jack Harris of the Los Angeles Times). The five-time All-Star said he “learned a lot” about the free agent process after speaking with “the other side” — presumably a reference to his post-signing chat with Atlanta president of baseball operations Alex Anthopoulos — but called it “time to move on and focus on winning championships with the Dodgers.”
Olney reports that the timing of negotiations coming out of the league’s lockout were particularly frustrating for Freeman, who had a standing offer of five years and $135MM from the Braves once the transaction freeze was listed. Multiple counteroffers from Freeman’s camp failed to produce a deal, and the Braves pivoted to acquire/extend Matt Olson — a sequence that is said to have shocked Freeman. Olney’s piece goes into more detail on the purported sequence of negotiations for those curious about the ostensible specifics.
The reports and Freeman’s statement come on the heels of an emotional weekend series that saw Freeman return to Atlanta for the first time since signing a deferral-laden six-year, $162MM contract with the Dodgers. Freeman was set to address the media at a press conference there but, upon entering the room, had to step out and attempt to collect himself. An outwardly emotional Freeman fought back tears while professing a lifelong love for the Braves organization despite signing elsewhere in free agency. He was emotional upon receiving his World Series ring from manager Brian Snitker as well, and was understandably choked up when the Atlanta faithful showered him with a standing ovation as he stepped to the plate in his first at-bat of the series.
Whether Freeman remains with Excel or indeed hires new representation has little bearing for most fans moving forward — though it’s obviously of keen interest to those working within the industry. Excel has represented Freeman throughout his career, negotiating an eight-year, $135MM contract extension that still stands as the largest contract ever signed by a player with between three and four years of Major League service time despite being signed back in 2014.
Excel represents dozens of big leaguers, including Freeman’s now-former teammate and free-agent-to-be, Dansby Swanson. Asked by Justin Toscano of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution whether the Freeman saga might make him think twice about his agency, Swanson replied that he would never leave Excel nor let any decision made by Freeman impact his own representation choices (Twitter link).
Archie Bradley Shut Down For At Least Four Weeks With Elbow Fracture
Angels reliever Archie Bradley was placed on the 15-day injured list with a fracture in his throwing elbow this evening. Trainer Mike Frostad tells reporters (including Sam Blum of the Athletic and Sarah Valenzuela of the Los Angeles Times) that he’ll be shut down from throwing entirely for at least four weeks. Frostad estimated it’ll be multiple months before he’s able to return to the majors. Bradley suffered the injury during Sunday’s brawl between the Halos and Mariners, when he slipped trying to climb over the dugout railing.
Signed to a $3.75MM guarantee over the offseason, Bradley has made 21 appearances on the year. He owns a 4.82 ERA across 18 2/3 innings, striking out just 19.2% of batters faced. It’s the second consecutive season in which he’s not missed many bats, but Bradley has continued to shoulder high-leverage innings late in games. To his credit, the right-hander has induced grounders on almost three-fifths of batted balls against him, an excellent rate that has contributed to his allowing just one home run all season.
Unfortunately, the Halos will now be without one their more trusted late-game arms for the foreseeable future. An eventual transfer to the 60-day injured list seems all but inevitable, as the 29-year-old is seemingly looking at a September return at the earliest. That obviously won’t afford him much time to demonstrate his health before he again hits the open market next winter.
The fracture also all but eliminates the possibility of the Angels moving Bradley midseason. Entering play Tuesday with a 36-40 record, the Halos could find themselves dealing away short-term players in advance of the August 2 trade deadline. Flipping Bradley wouldn’t have brought back a massive return, but there’d likely have been some interest from other clubs given his high-leverage experience and lofty ground-ball numbers.
Players on the injured list can still be traded, but it’s hard to envision another team dealing for Bradley at this point. He seems unlikely to be available for more than the final month of the regular season, at best, and his status as an impending free agent means there isn’t any long-term upside in acquiring him for a contending club.
Dodgers To Select Jake Lamb
The Dodgers are planning to select Jake Lamb onto the major league roster, manager Dave Roberts announced (via Fabian Ardaya of the Athletic). The veteran infielder would’ve soon been able to opt out of his minor league contract had he not been added to the 40-man roster. Utilityman Zach McKinstry is headed to the 10-day injured list with neck soreness in a corresponding move. Los Angeles had a 40-man roster vacancy after designating Stefen Romero for assignment last week.
Whenever he gets into a game, it’ll be the ninth consecutive year of big league action for Lamb. A longtime division rival as a member of the Diamondbacks, he’s also suited up with the A’s, White Sox and Blue Jays over the past few seasons. Lamb had a couple nice seasons early in his Arizona tenure, including a 2017 campaign that earned him an All-Star nod. Since suffering a shoulder injury that eventually necessitated surgery, the University of Washington product has been up-and-down offensively.
Lamb owns a .203/.308/.355 line in a bit more than 700 MLB plate appearances dating back to the start of the 2018 season. He’s walked at an excellent 12% rate over that stretch, but he’s punched out in almost 27% of his trips to the plate and not maintained the same kind of power he showed at his peak. It was a similar story last year, as Lamb hit .194/.306/.368 in 55 games between Chicago and Toronto.
The Dodgers signed Lamb to a minor league contract over the offseason. The 31-year-old has spent the season with Triple-A Oklahoma City, earning his way back to the big leagues with a strong performance. Lamb has a .290/.395/.537 mark with 15 home runs over 276 plate appearances for OKC. He’s continued to demonstrate the high-walk, high-strikeout form he’s shown in the majors of late, but Lamb has had a power resurgence in the minors. In addition to the 15 round-trippers, he’s collected 12 doubles and posted a whopping .247 ISO (slugging percentage minus batting average).
Injury Notes: Eflin, Brantley, Woodruff, Polanco
The Phillies placed starter Zach Eflin on the 15-day injured list, retroactive to June 26, with a bruised right knee. Outfielder Oscar Mercado, claimed off waivers from the Guardians yesterday, has been added to the active roster in a corresponding move. Eflin told reporters he’s hopeful he could return after a minimal IL stay, which would only cost him two starts (via Todd Zolecki of MLB.com). The 28-year-old underwent surgery on both knees back in 2016, and he underwent another procedure to correct patellar issues in his right knee last September. His current injury doesn’t seem to be anywhere near as concerning, but the Phillies figure to be particularly cautious in bringing him back given that history.
An impending free agent, Eflin has made 13 starts this season. He owns a 4.37 ERA over 68 innings, striking out 19.6% of opposing hitters against a minuscule 5.3% walk rate. That kind of strike-throwing stability has made the former Padres farmhand a reliable member of the Philadelphia rotation for the past six-plus years. The Phils plan to recall left-hander Bailey Falter to start Friday night’s game in Eflin’s place, tweets Matt Gelb of the Athletic.
Some other injured list moves from around the game:
- The Astros placed left fielder Michael Brantley on the 10-day injured list, retroactive to June 27, due to right shoulder discomfort. Chas McCormick, who’d been optioned over the weekend, has been recalled to take his place on the active roster. (Position players typically need to spend a minimum of ten days in the minors after being optioned, but they can be recalled earlier if replacing an injured player). Brantley downplayed any long-term concerns, telling reporters (including Brian McTaggart of MLB.com) he was hopeful he could make it back after a brief stint. The 35-year-old continues to perform very well at the plate, carrying a .288/.370/.416 line through 277 plate appearances this season.
- The Brewers welcomed a pair of key contributors back from the injured list this evening. Righty Brandon Woodruff and second baseman Kolten Wong have each been reinstated, with Trevor Kelley and Pablo Reyes optioned out in corresponding moves. Woodruff will get the start during today’s game with the Rays, while Wong steps back in at the keystone. It’s the first MLB start in a month for Woodruff, who’s been out while dealing with a high ankle sprain and some hand numbness stemming from Raynaud’s syndrome. Wong has been out for three weeks on account of a calf strain.
- Between games of today’s doubleheader with the Guardians, the Twins brought back second baseman Jorge Polanco from the injured list. Outfielder Mark Contreras was optioned to Triple-A St. Paul to open active roster space. The switch-hitting Polanco is hitting fifth for the nightcap against Cleveland. He missed a little less than two weeks with some lower back tightness. Through 250 plate appearances, Polanco is hitting .245/.340/.389 with seven home runs. His return figures to push Luis Arraez back to first base and designated hitter, perhaps freeing Alex Kirilloff to see more time in left field. Minnesota lost primary left fielder Trevor Larnach to a core muscle injury over the weekend; he’s undergoing surgery and expected to miss six weeks.
Mets Select Ender Inciarte
The Mets announced they’ve selected outfielder Ender Inciarte onto the major league roster before this evening’s matchup with the Astros. Fellow outfielder Nick Plummer has been optioned to Triple-A Syracuse to clear an active roster spot, while the club designated left-hander Locke St. John for assignment to free space on the 40-man roster.
Inciarte earns his way to the majors for the first time this season. The 31-year-old signed a minor league deal with the Yankees during Spring Training, but he was released a couple weeks back. He latched on via non-roster deal with the crosstown Mets fairly quickly, and he gets an MLB nod after just four games with Syracuse. Inciarte hasn’t hit over that limited showing, but he had a capable .252/.336/.408 line in 34 contests with the Yankees’ top affiliate earlier in the season.
Those aren’t eye-popping offensive numbers, but roughly league average hitting like that would be more than serviceable given Inciarte’s defensive acumen. He’s claimed a trio of Gold Glove awards during his time in the majors, receiving the nod each season from 2016-18 while playing for the Braves. His public defensive metrics haven’t been as great over the past couple years, but he’s still capable of playing all three spots on the outfield. New York’s starting group of Mark Canha, Brandon Nimmo and Starling Marte is one of the league’s best, but Inciarte adds a glove-first option to the bench for manager Buck Showalter.
St. John loses his roster spot six weeks after being claimed off waivers from the Cubs. He hasn’t appeared in a big league game in Queens, spending the entirety of his Mets’ tenure on optional assignment to Syracuse. Over 10 Triple-A appearances, the 29-year-old has worked 15 2/3 innings of nine-run ball, striking out 18 while walking seven. He’d allowed four runs in seven innings with Chicago’s top affiliate earlier in the season.
A former Tigers’ draftee, St. John has eight MLB appearances under his belt. The first seven came with the Rangers three years ago, and he got into a game with the Cubs this April. The South Alabama product owns a 4.25 ERA in parts of three Triple-A seasons. He’s likely to hit the waiver wire over the coming days and would have the right to refuse an outright assignment in favor of free agency if he goes unclaimed.
Andy Martino of SNY reported St. John’s designation shortly before the team announcement.
Red Sox Select Silvino Bracho
The Red Sox announced they’ve selected reliever Silvino Bracho onto the major league roster. Righty Connor Seabold was optioned to Triple-A Worcester in a corresponding move. Boston had a vacancy on the 40-man roster after placing Jarren Duran and Tanner Houck on the restricted list yesterday.
Bracho is headed to the big leagues for the first time in two years. The right-hander made a lone appearance for the Diamondbacks during the abbreviated 2020 campaign, then spent all of last season in the upper minors of the Giants’ system. Bracho had missed the entire 2019 campaign rehabbing from Tommy John surgery, so he hasn’t logged meaningful MLB time since 2018.
A Venezuela native, Bracho debuted with Arizona back in 2015. He tossed 12 1/3 innings of two-run ball during his first season, but he followed that up with a pair of rough years. Bracho rebounded to post a 3.19 ERA with a solid 26.4% strikeout rate across 31 innings in 2018, but the subsequent Tommy John procedure threw his career off track. His velocity was down during his only MLB outing in 2020, and the D-Backs outrighted him off their roster at the end of that season.
After his year in the San Francisco organization didn’t result in a big league call, Bracho hooked on with Boston on a minor league deal in February. He’s spent the season with Worcester, working to a 3.16 ERA across 31 1/3 frames. That’s solid enough run prevention, but Bracho’s strikeout and walk rates (29.3% and 3.3%, respectively) have been downright excellent. His impressive showing against upper minors hitters earns him an MLB call, although it remains to be seen for how long he’ll stick on the roster.
As was the case with yesterday’s call-up of infielder Yolmer Sánchez, the Sox didn’t indicate whether Bracho was being selected as a designated COVID-19 substitute. Players with that designation — which can only be granted by the commissioner’s office — occupy temporary spots on the roster and can be sent back to the minor leagues without being exposed to waivers or optioned.
If Bracho is a temporary substitute, he’ll presumably head back to Worcester at the end of the Sox’s current series in Toronto, when Duran and Houck will rejoin the team. If not, he’d have to stick on the active roster or be designated for assignment and exposed to trade or waivers, since he’s out of minor league option years.
Nate Pearson Shut Down From Throwing For 3-4 Weeks Due To Lat Strain
JUNE 28: Pearson will be shut down from throwing for 3-4 weeks before being reevaluated, the team informed reporters (including Kaitlyn McGrath of the Athletic).
JUNE 24: Blue Jays righty Nate Pearson, who’s been on a minor league rehab assignment after a lengthy bout with mononucleosis, exited his most recent rehab appearance due to an injury and has now been diagnosed with a lat strain, tweets Sportsnet’s Arash Madani. The Jays don’t have a timeline yet for when Pearson might be able to return.
It’s the latest setback in a career that has, to this point, been full of unfortunate injuries and health troubles for the ultra-talented Pearson. A former first-round pick who ranked as the sport’s top overall pitching prospect just a couple years ago, Pearson has dealt with elbow, groin and shoulder injuries since making his MLB debut in 2020.
Pearson enjoyed a scintillating MLB first start that year, firing five scoreless frames against the Nationals and regularly hitting triple digits with his vaunted heater. Unfortunately, he hasn’t been healthy enough to follow up with more outings along those lines. Pearson did have an impressive run with the Toronto bullpen down the stretch in 2021, pitching 12 2/3 innings of 2.84 ERA ball with a 20-to-7 K/BB ratio with a fastball that was averaging 98.5 mph in short relief.
If Pearson can get healthy in 2022 or at any point down the line, the 25-year-old clearly has the ability to serve as a key piece of the Toronto pitching staff, be it in the rotation or out of the bullpen. The timing of his current setback is unfortunate, as it comes just a week after the Blue Jays learned that they’ll be without Hyun Jin Ryu for the rest of the year (and much of next year) following Tommy John surgery. Pearson probably wouldn’t have been built up as a rotation option right off the bat, but he’d likely have returned as a multi-inning option out of the ‘pen that could help to absorb some of Ryu’s lost innings — perhaps in a role similar to the one Ross Stripling had before stepping into Ryu’s rotation spot.
The other unfortunate aspect of Pearson’s injuries, at least from the team vantage point, is that he’s still racking up service time and working through his six years of club control, because the majority of the injuries he’s incurred have happened while he’s been on the big league roster. Pearson is currently on the Major League 60-day IL, and despite having appeared in just 17 big league games, he’s all but certain to finish out the 2022 season with more than two years of service time. The Blue Jays still control him for four years beyond the current campaign, but needless to say, this isn’t how they hoped the promising young righty’s first two years of service would play out.
In the short term, what figures to be another absence of some note figures to only further the Toronto front office’s search for pitching on the summer trade market. The Blue Jays’ bullpen currently ranks 24th in the Majors with a collective 4.38 ERA, and while the rotation is sound with Alek Manoah, Kevin Gausman, Jose Berrios, Stripling and Yusei Kikuchi, the loss of Ryu has already thinned out the depth a bit.
Yankees Designate Manny Banuelos For Assignment
The Yankees announced Tuesday that they’ve designated left-hander Manny Banuelos for assignment and recalled fellow lefty JP Sears from Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre.
Now 31 years old, Banuelos inked a minor league deal with the Yankees back in March and finally made it to the Majors for the team for whom he was considered a top prospect for so many years. He’s pitched rather well in Pinstripes, too, notching a 2.16 ERA, a 22.9% strikeout rate, an 8.6% walk rate and a huge 62.5% ground-ball rate in a small sample of 8 1/3 innings out of the bullpen.
Despite that solid showing, the Yankees will turn that roster spot over to the younger Sears, who has been excellent both in the Majors (seven shutout innings) and in Triple-A so far this season (1.83 ERA, 50-to-6 K/BB ratio in 39 1/3 innings). At this point, there’s little denying that Sears has earned himself a more prominent look in the Majors, but it’s still at least a mild surprise that it came at the expense of Banuelos, given his solid showing thus far.
With Banuelos now off the 40-man roster, the Yankees will have a week to trade him or attempt to pass him through outright waivers. Banuelos is out of minor league options and can’t be sent down without first clearing waivers — which surely played a role in today’s DFA — so any club who claims him or acquires him in a trade will need keep him on the active roster.
MLBTR Chat Transcript
Click here to read a transcript of Tuesday’s chat with MLBTR’s Steve Adams.
Braves Place Kenley Jansen On Injured List Due To Irregular Heartbeat
The Braves announced Tuesday that closer Kenley Jansen has been placed on the 15-day injured list due to an irregular heartbeat. The move is retroactive to June 27. Right-hander Jesus Cruz has been recalled from Triple-A Gwinnett to take his spot on the active roster.
It’s a worrisome ailment for Jansen, though this is far from the first time the 34-year-old has dealt with the issue. Jansen has thrice been placed on the injured list due to irregular heartbeats — once in 2011 and again in both 2017 and 2018. He’s had a pair of cardiac ablation procedures during his big league career in hopes of corralling the issue, though it seems he’s not yet entirely out of the woods in that regard.
The Braves’ announcement didn’t include a timetable for Jansen’s return, although his most recent IL placement for this issue, back in 2018, resulted in a minimal 10-day absence. The Braves are surely hopeful for a similarly quick return this time around, although the obvious broader hope is that, regardless of Jansen’s availability on the baseball field, he can remain in overall good health and eventually move beyond episodes of this nature entirely.
Jansen, in his first year with any organization other than the Dodgers, has been quite good. The three-time All-Star carries a 3.58 ERA through 32 2/3 innings, and secondary metrics like FIP (2.18), SIERA (2.07) and xERA (2.12) feel he’s been considerably better than that earned run average would indicate. That’s due largely to Jansen’s brilliant 36.4% strikeout rate, his strong 6.2% walk rate and his continued ability to limit hard contact better than nearly any pitcher in the league (86.5 mph average exit velocity, 28.4% hard-hit rate).
Taking Jansen’s place on the roster in the short term will be the 27-year-old Cruz, who pitched six innings of one-run ball for the Braves earlier this season. The former Cardinals minor leaguer has been similarly sharp in Gwinnett, where he’s notched a tidy 2.45 ERA with a sensational 24-to-1 K/BB ratio through 14 2/3 innings of relief.