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Nationals Sign Nick Goody To Minors Contract

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The Nationals signed right-hander Nick Goody to a minor league contract.  Goody was released from another minors deal with the Yankees earlier this week, but his stint in free agency didn’t last long, and he’ll now head to Triple-A Rochester.

A veteran of six MLB seasons, Goody has yet to see any big league action in 2021, tossing 22 innings for the Yankees’ Triple-A affiliate.  The righty has some very nice numbers (2.86 ERA, 36.5% strikeout rate, 8.23% walk rate) over those 22 frames, making him an intriguing signing for a Nationals team still missing several key relievers due to injury.

Goody is perhaps best known for his solid work in the Indians bullpen in 2017 and 2019, though he followed up those two seasons with injury-marred campaigns in 2018 and 2020.  Last season was spent in Texas, after the Rangers claimed Goody off Cleveland’s roster, but the right-hander battled back spasms and posted only a 9.00 ERA over 11 innings.

Rays Promote Vidal Brujan

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The Rays are expected to promote highly-regarded infield prospect Vidal Bruján before tomorrow’s doubleheader against the Indians, reports Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times (Twitter link). While Bruján’s first call will be as the “27th man” allotted for doubleheaders, Topin adds that he’s likely to stick around beyond Wednesday.

Bruján will become the latest arrival to a Rays infield that has already welcomed Taylor Walls and Wander Franco this season. Bruján isn’t quite the caliber of prospect Franco is (no one is, since Franco is the game’s consensus top rookie talent), but he’s an extremely promising player in his own right. Each of Baseball America, Eric Longenhagen of FanGraphs, and Keith Law of the Athletic slotted him among the game’s top 60 prospects entering the year, with Longenhagen placing him 24th.

All three outlets praise Bruján’s combination of athleticism, straight-line speed and bat control. Both Longenhagen and Law suggest he could eventually mature into an All-Star caliber player, with Longenhagen suggesting he bears some some similarities to Ozzie Albies and Ketel Marte at the same age. Bruján’s not a towering physical presence — he’s listed at 5’10”, 180 — but evaluators write that the switch-hitter’s athleticism enables surprising bat speed and power, particularly from the left-handed batters box.

Bruján’s minor league numbers support those visual evaluations. He’s been a better than average hitter at every stop, slashing .290/.374/.423 with 28 home runs and 166 stolen bases (in 217 attempts) across parts of six seasons. Bruján has spent this year with Triple-A Durham and hit a productive .259/.344/.471 over 216 plate appearances in his first crack at the minors’ highest level.

Just as importantly, Bruján has walked almost as often as he’s struck out throughout his time in the system. Over the course of his career, he’s drawn free passes at a strong 10.6% clip while punching out a minuscule 11.6% of the time. His strikeout percentage has jumped to a career-high 15.7% in Triple-A this year, but that’s still far better than the 23.2% major league average.

At 49-36, the Rays have fallen 4.5 games back of the Red Sox in the American League East, but they hold a four-game advantage over the Mariners in the Wild Card race. Bruján’s high minors performance seemed likely to get him an opportunity to contribute to Tampa Bay’s playoff push at some point regardless, but the immediate impetus for his promotion is an injury to center fielder Manuel Margot. Margot suffered a hamstring injury yesterday that seems likely to lead to an injured list stint, opening up active roster space for the 23-year-old Bruján. He was already added to the 40-man roster last offseason to keep him from selection in the Rule 5 draft.

The deadline has long since passed for Bruján to accrue a full year of major service, as has the expected window for Super Two qualification. Even if he sticks in the majors from here on out, he’ll be controllable through 2027 and won’t reach arbitration eligibility until the 2024-25 offseason.

Pirates Sign Tanner Anderson

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The Pirates have signed right-hander Tanner Anderson to a minor league deal, according to an announcement from their Triple-A affiliate in Indianapolis. The 28-year-old was recently released by the Athletics.

Anderson will be returning to his original organization, as his professional career began when Pittsburgh selected him out of Harvard in the 20th round of the 2015 draft. He performed well and moved quickly through the minor leagues, reaching the majors in July 2018. Anderson made six relief appearances for the Bucs that season, allowing ten runs over 11 1/3 innings. Pittsburgh traded Anderson to Oakland over the 2018-19 offseason. He made five starts for the A’s in 2019, tossing 22 1/3 frames of 6.04 ERA/4.68 SIERA ball. The A’s passed Anderson through outright waivers after that season.

He’d spent 2021 with the A’s Triple-A affiliate in Las Vegas, where he moved back to relief. Anderson tossed fifteen innings over twelve appearances, allowing only six runs but walking twelve while striking out just three hitters. He’s yet to find much success at the big league level, but Anderson has a history of throwing strikes and racking up tons of grounders in the minors.

Phillies Sign Tyler Heineman

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The Phillies have signed catcher Tyler Heineman to a minor league contract, according to his transactions log at MLB.com. He has been assigned to Triple-A Lehigh Valley.

Heineman was released from a minors pact with the Cardinals last week. The switch-hitting backstop managed just a .254/.325/.313 line over 77 plate appearances with their top affiliate in Memphis. Heineman has generally been quite productive at the minors’ top level, compiling a .284/.351/.422 mark over six seasons in Triple-A.

While Heineman hasn’t seen any big league action this season, he did get to the majors in both 2019 and 2020. The 30-year-old has suited up for the Marlins and Giants, garnering 62 MLB plate appearances. The Phils have three catchers — J.T. Realmuto, Andrew Knapp and Rafael Marchan — on the 40-man roster.

Blue Jays Activate Thomas Hatch From Injured List

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Before this evening’s game against the Orioles, the Blue Jays reinstated right-hander Thomas Hatch from the 60-day injured list. He was promptly optioned to Triple-A Buffalo. To create 40-man roster space, lefty Ryan Borucki was transferred from the 10-day to the 60-day IL.

Hatch hasn’t appeared in the majors this year. A right elbow impingement landed him on the IL to begin the season, and his eventual rehab assignment had to be briefly halted by side tightness. The 26-year-old has made six rehab starts with the Bisons, tossing 19 1/3 frames with a strong 2.79 ERA but less impressive strikeout and walk rates (20.2% and 10.7%, respectively). Hatch worked as a reliever for the big league club last season, pitching 26 1/3 innings with a 2.73 ERA/4.80 SIERA. Nevertheless, the Toronto front office has spoken of keeping him stretched out in Triple-A as potential rotation depth.

Borucki, on the other hand, broke in as a starter but has worked exclusively in relief over the past two years. He tossed 13 1/3 innings of 4.05 ERA/3.23 SIERA ball before landing on the IL on May 11 with a flexor strain in his forearm.

Today’s transfer rules Borucki out for 60 days from that original IL placement. It’s essentially a procedural move, as the left-hander will be eligible to return this weekend. Borucki has progressed to throwing live batting practice and could embark on a rehab assignment of his own this week, Arden Zwelling of Sportsnet recently noted.

Orioles’ Travis Lakins Undergoes Elbow Surgery

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Orioles right-hander Travis Lakins Sr. underwent surgery this morning to address a recurrent olecranon stress fracture in his throwing elbow, manager Brandon Hyde told reporters (including Roch Kubatko of MASNsports.com). The hope is that Lakins will be ready for Spring Training in 2022, although that doesn’t seem to be a foregone conclusion.

It’s not especially surprising to hear Lakins required surgery. He’d already been placed on the 60-day injured list after leaving an outing last week with an elbow issue the team called “significant.” That suggested a season-ending absence was a possibility, and that’ll indeed prove to be the case.

Lakins has pitched in the big leagues in each of the past three seasons. He broke in with the Red Sox in 2019 and was traded to Baltimore in 2020. The 27-year-old has made 46 appearances (45 in relief) with the O’s since then, working 53 2/3 innings of 4.36 ERA/4.65 FIP ball. He’ll remain on the 60-day IL for the rest of the season, but he’ll need to be reinstated from the injured list at the beginning of the offseason. If the O’s feel it’s worth devoting a 40-man roster spot to him over the winter, he’d be controllable through 2025 and wouldn’t reach arbitration eligibility until after 2022.

Angels Place Anthony Rendon On Injured List

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The Angels announced they’ve placed third baseman Anthony Rendon on the 10-day injured list, retroactive to July 5, with a left hamstring strain. Utilityman Jack Mayfield has been recalled to take his active roster spot. Los Angeles also announced that outfielder Scott Schebler, who had been designated for assignment, has cleared outright waivers and accepted an assignment to Triple-A Salt Lake.

This will mark the third IL stint of the season for Rendon, continuing what has been a disappointing campaign. When healthy, the 31-year-old has hit an average .240/.329/.382 with six home runs over 249 plate appearances. That’s a far cry from the star-level production Rendon had offered over the previous four years. Between 2017-20, he’d hit .307/.399/.550. That works out to a 146 wRC+ that tied for eighth among the 260 qualified hitters over that time frame.

Slow start notwithstanding, the Angels are surely hoping to get Rendon back onto the field rather quickly. Manager Joe Maddon suggested Rendon’s absence wouldn’t be too long (via Rhett Bollinger of MLB.com). That’s welcome news for the 42-42 club, which sits six games back in the AL Wild Card race. A return to health and peak form from Rendon could be critical to the team’s hopes of making a late-season run.

Schebler returns to Salt Lake, where he’s hit a solid .281/.355/.523 over 172 plate appearances this season. The left-handed hitter has twice been selected to the major league roster but only combined to make 34 trips to the dish at the highest level.

Giants Activate Tyler Beede, Designate Jimmie Sherfy

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The Giants announced they’ve reinstated right-hander Tyler Beede from the 60-day injured list. Reliever Jimmie Sherfy has been designated for assignment to open active and 40-man roster space. Additionally, San Francisco placed outfielder Jaylin Davis on the 10-day IL with a left hamstring strain and recalled infielder Jason Vosler.

Beede is in line to make his first major league appearance since 2019. The former first-round pick underwent an ill-timed Tommy John surgery in March 2020. That cost him all of last season and almost the entire first half of 2021. Beede was a regular member of San Francisco’s starting five during his last healthy run. He made 24 appearances (22 starts) in 2019, tossing 117 innings of 5.08 ERA ball with average strikeout and walk rates (21.6% and 8.8%, respectively). There could be room for Beede to step back into the rotation; Logan Webb has been on the IL since last month due to a shoulder strain, and Sammy Long just hit the IL himself due to a low back strain.

Sherfy signed a minor league deal with the Giants over the offseason and earned a spot on the big league roster in early June. The 29-year-old pitched respectably over 10 2/3 innings, allowing five runs on nine hits and four walks with nine strikeouts. Sherfy has pitched in the majors in each of the past four years, combining for 56 innings of 3.21 ERA/3.99 SIERA ball. That solid track record could attract the interest of another club, although any acquiring team would have to keep the out-of-options Sherfy on the active roster or designate him for assignment themselves. The Giants will have a week to trade the right-hander or place him on waivers.

Dee Strange-Gordon Opts Out Of Deal With Cubs

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Veteran infielder Dee Strange-Gordon has opted out of his minor league contract with the Cubs, reports Jeff Passan of ESPN (Twitter link). He’s now a free agent, but Passan adds he’s expected to sign elsewhere in the next few days.

It’s the third time this season Strange-Gordon has been let go from a minor league deal after he didn’t crack the 40-man roster. The speedster signed with the Reds over the winter, was released in Spring Training, and hooked on with the Brewers in April. Strange-Gordon was released by the Brew Crew in late May and signed with the Cubs a few days later.

While Strange-Gordon hit well in a ten-game stint with the Brewers’ Triple-A affiliate, his longer run with the Cubs’ top farm team didn’t go well. Between the two organizations, the 33-year-old has hit just .259/.299/.361 across 168 plate appearances in Triple-A West this season. It’s a continuation of Strange-Gordon’s offensive struggles throughout his 2018-20 tenure with the Mariners.

Nevertheless, it’s not surprising to hear there’s still interest in Strange-Gordon around the league. He’s a two-time All-Star and respected veteran who still has plenty of speed and has played both middle infield positions in the minors this year.

Brewers Acquire Rowdy Tellez

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The Brewers have been baseball’s most active team on the trade front so far, and they’ve now struck up another deal to bring in some infield depth. Milwaukee is trading reliever Trevor Richards and minor league righty Bowden Francis to the Blue Jays in exchange for first baseman Rowdy Tellez, the two teams announced Tuesday.

Rowdy Tellez | Nathan Ray Seebeck-USA TODAY Sports

Tellez, 26, brings another powerful left-handed bat to a Brewers club that recently lost first baseman Daniel Vogelbach to a hamstring injury. He’s shuffled between Triple-A and the big leagues with the Jays in recent seasons, at times looking like a possible long-term answer at first base/designated hitter for the Jays.

However, Vladimir Guerrero Jr.’s shift across the diamond from third base to first base cut into Tellez’s opportunities, and the team’s signing of George Springer created a four-man carousel between the outfield and DH when everyone is at full strength; Springer, Lourdes Gurriel Jr., Teoscar Hernandez and Randal Grichuk are all in line for regular at-bats when the lineup is healthy. That, coupled with the fact that Tellez hit just .209/.272/.338 in 151 plate appearances earlier in the year when Springer was on the injured list, likely prompted to the Jays’ willingness to move on from Tellez.

Those struggles notwithstanding, Tellez is an intriguing bat on which to buy low for Milwaukee. He mashed at a .283/.346/.540 clip with eight homers and five doubles in 127 plate appearances with the Jays in 2020 and belted 21 home runs for them in 2019. Entering the season, Tellez carried .250/.309/.488 batting line with 33 homers, 33 doubles, a 6.9 percent walk rate and a 25.7 percent strikeout rate in 609 trips to the plate.

Tellez struggled in his first exposure to Triple-A ball as a 22-year-old back in 2017, but his production at that level has steadily increased; he’s hitting .298/.400/.638 in 55 plate appearances there so far in 2021 and batted .366/.450/.688 in 26 games (109 plate appearances) there back in 2019 as well.

The hope for the Brewers is surely that Tellez can provide an immediate boost at a position that has been a point of frustration so far in 2021. Keston Hiura struggled with the move to first base and has twice been optioned to Triple-A Nashville, although to his credit, Hiura has been hitting quite well since his latest recall. Vogelbach was helping to solidify the position with a strong showing for the first few weeks of June, but the aforementioned hamstring injury came with a recovery timetable of at least six weeks.

It’s not clear just how the Brewers will divide the playing time up — particularly once Vogelbach is healthy — but Hiura and Tellez ostensibly form an intriguing platoon. Tellez can also be freely optioned for the remainder of the current season, so he could be an up-and-down piece in Milwaukee for now, just as he was with the Jays. Looking longer term, he’s under club control for three more years beyond the current campaign and will be eligible for arbitration for the first time this winter.

For the Blue Jays, this marks the second under-the-radar reliever they’ve picked up in the past week or so. They’re not even a week removed from acquiring Adam Cimber and injured outfielder Corey Dickerson (whose left-handed bat could potentially replace Tellez on the depth chart if he makes it back this season) in a trade that sent Joe Panik and minor league righty Andrew McInvale to the Marlins.

Trevor Richards

Richards, like Cimber, wasn’t an obvious trade candidate. He’d only just joined the Brewers in mid-May, coming over from the Rays as part of the Willy Adames trade, and is controllable through the 2024 campaign. So far in 2021, the 28-year-old has tallied 31 2/3 innings of 3.69 ERA ball while striking out 31.7 percent of his opponents against a 9.8 percent walk rate. He gives the Jays a pitcher with ample experience as both in the bullpen and in the rotation, having started 48 games between the Marlins and the Rays from 2018-19.

The 2020 season was a miserable one for Richards, who limped to a 5.91 ERA for Tampa Bay while posting career-worst strikeout and home-run rates. That came in a sample of just 32 innings, however, and he’s bounced back nicely through the season’s first three months. Overall, Richards owns a 4.34 ERA, 23.1 percent strikeout rate and 9.5 percent walk rate in 325 1/3 innings at the MLB level.

Francis, 25, was Milwaukee’s seventh-round pick in 2017 and has posted a solid season between Double-A and Triple-A thus far. He’s worked exclusively as a starter, tallying 59 2/3 innings with a 3.62 ERA, a 27.3 percent strikeout rate and a 7.1 percent walk rate. Francis is an extreme fly-ball pitcher who ranked 25th among Milwaukee farmhands on last week’s rankings from Eric Longenhagen of FanGraphs. Longenhagen notes that a newly added slider quickly became the best of Francis’ four pitches in 2021 and calls him a potential back-of-the-rotation arm with a excellent feel for pitching but mostly fringe stuff on the mound.

Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic first reported that Tellez was headed to the Brewers in exchange for Richards (Twitter link). Sportsnet’s Shi Davidi tweeted that Francis was also going to the Jays in the deal.

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