Headlines

Go To Pro Hockey Rumors
Go To Hoops Rumors

Red Sox Place Walker Buehler On Injured List

By | at

5:40pm: The Red Sox have now made it official. Buehler goes on the IL with right shoulder bursitis, while Dobbins has been recalled.

4:35pm: The Red Sox are placing right-hander Walker Buehler on the 15-day injured list due to inflammation in his right shoulder, manager Alex Cora announced (link via MLB.com’s Ian Browne). The club is hopeful that it’ll only be a minimum stint for the right-hander, who’d been slated to start tomorrow. MassLive.com’s Chris Cotillo reported earlier in the day that righty Hunter Dobbins is expected to get tomorrow’s start. He made his big league debut last month and has looked sharp through two MLB starts.

Buehler signed a one-year, $21.05MM deal with the Red Sox in the offseason, matching the value of the qualifying offer which the Dodgers neglected to put forth when he reached the open market. It was a relatively sizable bet on a pitcher who looked lost for much of the 2024 season — his first full year back from Tommy John surgery — before some short but memorable postseason heroics for Los Angeles.

So far, Buehler’s tenure with the Red Sox has produced pedestrian results. He’s sitting on a 4.28 ERA with better strikeout and walk rates than he had in 2024 but also a career-low 93.5 mph average fastball. And while his 20.7% strikeout rate and 6.4% walk rate are indeed improvements on last year’s marks (18.6 K%, 8.1 BB%), that strikeout rate is a far cry from his peak 29.2% when he was pitching like a bona fide ace and Cy Young contender.

Buehler heads to the injured list just days after Boston finally got right-hander Lucas Giolito healthy and into a regular season game. Giolito required UCL surgery last spring and missed all of the 2024 season and the first month of 2025 as a result. The Sox have also been without Kutter Crawford (knee) all year and have only received two starts from Brayan Bello.

Even with all the injuries, Red Sox starters rank 14th in the majors with a solid 3.91 ERA. Ideally, Buehler will rejoin the starting staff in a couple weeks, but if he requires a bit of a lengthier stay, Dobbins has looked up to the task of filling in. The 2021 eighth-rounder pitched 125 2/3 innings of 2.61 ERA ball between Double-A and Triple-A last year. In 11 major league frames this season, he’s held opponents to three earned runs (2.45 ERA) on 11 hits and a pair of walks with 11 strikeouts. In Dobbins’ most recent Triple-A start, he held the Mets’ top affiliate to a run four hits and two walks with three punchouts across six innings.

Poll: Anthony Santander’s Slow Start

By | at

After missing out on the top available free agent for the second consecutive offseason when they fell short in the Juan Soto sweepstakes, the Blue Jays remained in the hunt to find a slugger who could complement Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and a hopefully resurgent Bo Bichette. Toronto had already brought Andres Gimenez into the fold as a glove-first regular, but his defensive-minded profile was never expected to be a huge boost to the lineup. After being connected to slugger Pete Alonso, third baseman Alex Bregman, and even a possible reunion with Teoscar Hernandez, the Blue Jays finally landed Anthony Santander on a five-year, $92.5MM contract that comes with enough deferred money to lower the net present value of the deal to around $70MM.

The switch-hitting Santander swatted 44 home runs for Baltimore last year while hitting .235/.308/.506 with a 129 wRC+. That power-driven profile had proven to be fairly consistent for the slugger in recent years despite his generally low on-base numbers; Santander slashed .244/.317/.478 with a wRC+ of 124 since the start of the 2022 season. That was a long enough track record to give the Jays reasonable confidence in his ability to perform as a middle-of-the-order bat for them entering his age-30 season.

It’s a bet that hasn’t paid off so far. In Santander’s first 132 trips to the plate as a Blue Jay, he’s hit just .178/.258/.314 with a wRC+ of just 65. That’s 35% worse than league average and, in conjunction with his lackluster defense, has left him tied for the eighth-lowest fWAR total among qualified major leaguers. His overall production has been similar to that of another low on-base, defensively limited corner bat in Jake Burger, whom the Rangers just optioned to Triple-A last night due to his own struggles.

A look under the hood does suggest that Santander shouldn’t be expected to be quite this bad. While his strikeout rate has jumped four percentage points from last year, that 23.5% figure is not very different than the 23.2% he posted in 2023, when he turned in a perfectly respectable 119 wRC+. What’s more, Santander is actually walking more than ever this year. He’s garnered free passes at a solid 9.8% clip, more than two percentage points higher than his career norm. While his swinging-strike rate and contact rate are both down relative to last year, both numbers are more or less in line with his 2023 season. Between a strikeout rate within his ordinary range and the highest walk rate of his career, that .258 on-base mark seems likely to improve alongside his BABIP, which sits at an extremely low .202.

Where there is a more significant negative change in Santander’s numbers is the power department. A look at Santander’s batted-ball metrics reveals some troubling signs. His 5.7% barrel rate so far this year is his lowest since 2018, and his 39.8% hard-hit rate is also the lowest he’s posted since the shortened 2020 season. His exit velocities appear to still be more or less in line with where they have been in recent years, but Santander’s launch angle is down several points. That’s resulted in a ten-point drop in Santander’s fly ball rate and a seven-point jump in his ground-ball rate. Hitting the ball into the dirt is hardly a recipe for success for a power hitter like Santander, whose sprint speed is in the 23rd percentile of big league position players, per Statcast.

Even if Santander will need to make some changes in order to get back to being that consistent 30-to-40 homer threat he was over the past two years, the deflated BABIP and strong walk rate do suggest that he should see at least some improvements, leaving him with an xwOBA 35 points higher than his actual wOBA. Even that .293 expected figure would be Santander’s worst in a full season of plate appearances, however. It’s a troubling trend and one that the Blue Jays and Santander will need to work to correct in the coming weeks in order to get his season back on track.

How do MLBTR readers think the rest of Santander’s first season as a Blue Jay will shake out? Will he manage to get things back on track well enough to post numbers similar to the expectations he’s created in recent years, or will he fall short? Have your say in the poll below:

Angels Place Mike Trout On 10-Day Injured List

By | at

May 2: The Angels formally announced that Trout has been placed on the 10-day IL, retroactive to May 1. First baseman Niko Kavadas has been recalled from Triple-A Salt Lake in a corresponding move.

May 1: The Angels are placing veteran star Mike Trout on the injured list, Ron Washington told reporters (including Sam Blum of The Athletic) after tonight’s game against the Tigers. Trout is dealing with a bone bruise on his left knee, though Washington emphasized that the injury is not considered “too serious” and that there’s been no structural damage to the 33-year-old’s knee. As noted by ESPN’s Alden Gonzalez, Trout suffered multiple meniscus tears in different parts of his left knee last year that required two separate surgical procedures. That’s the knee which he’s currently suffering from a bone bruise on.

While the fact that Trout’s ailment isn’t considered serious by Angels brass is at least somewhat encouraging, it’s hard to expect fans to take much solace in that given Trout’s lengthy injury history. Trout played just 29 games last year due to those aforementioned meniscus surgeries, and missed all but 36 games of the 2021 season due to a calf strain. He played in just 82 games in 2023 due to a hamate fracture, and the closest thing to a healthy season Trout has put together in this decade was his 2022 campaign where he played 119 games. Even that year, however, he was still sidelined for significant time due to back issues.

It’s a run of various injuries that now spans half a decade, and that lack of time on the field has knocked Trout off his pedestal as the game’s consensus top talent after holding that position virtually unchallenged for a decade. The 11-time All-Star and 3-time AL MVP’s numbers speak for themselves, as he’s a career .297/.408/.579 hitter with 387 homers, 214 stolen bases, 85.8 bWAR and 85.7 fWAR over the course of his 15-year major league career. This year, the Angels made the decision to move Trout off of his native center field and into right field in order to hopefully help him stay fresher and avoid injuries. Despite that change, Trout’s first trip to the injured list of the year comes with just 29 games under his belt, the exact same number he finished the 2024 season with.

In previous years, Trout has maintained superstar-level production even in seasons abbreviated by injury. While he was on the field for just 266 of Anaheim’s 648 games from 2021 to 2024, he did slash an incredible .276/.376/.575 (160 wRC+) and accumulate 12 fWAR across those 266 games. That’s not been the case this year, however. In 121 trips to the plate, Trout has actually been slightly below league average with a 96 wRC+. While he’s clobbered nine homers and walked at a healthy (if diminished) 9.9% clip, Trout’s elevated 29.8% strikeout rate and shockingly low .159 BABIP have left him hitting just .187 with a .264 on-base percentage. If he were to play a full season, Trout surely wouldn’t maintain that unbelievably low BABIP and would enjoy enough positive regression to be an above-average overall hitter, but the elevated strikeouts and decreased walks are a legitimate cause for concern about his ability to remain a superstar even if he were to stay on the field for a full campaign.

Of course, all of that will remain largely speculative until Trout gets back on the field for a significant period of time. While the club terming the issue a bone bruise seems to suggest that he’ll be able to come back relatively quickly, it’s a diagnosis that comes with a lot of variability in terms of timetable. On the more optimistic side of things, Cody Bellinger missed about a month when he suffered a bone bruise with the Cubs back in 2023. More concerning are the cases of Anthony Rendon in 2023 and Kyle Tucker last season.

Rendon fouled a ball off his left leg on July 4 two years ago and missed the remainder of the season with what the Angels termed a bone bruise despite the fact that Rendon himself told reporters he had actually been diagnosed with a fractured tibia. A similar situation played out elsewhere in the AL West between Tucker and the Astros last year, where Tucker missed just over three months due to what Houston initially termed a bone bruise but was later revealed to be a small shin fracture. It should be noted that smaller fractures like the ones Rendon and Tucker faced are no different from bone bruises in terms of the treatment prescribed, making the distinction immaterial in some ways.

Even so, that some players can come back from bone bruises after just a month while others could miss half a season or more due to a similar issue highlights the uncertainty that now faces Trout and the Angels. While it seems unrealistic to expect a firm timetable for Trout’s return given both that uncertainty and the veteran’s lengthy injury history, it’s fair to expect a significant absence at this point. Ryan Noda, Scott Kingery, and prospect Matthew Lugo are among the possible options who could be called upon to join Jo Adell and Taylor Ward in the Angels’ outfield mix while Trout is on the shelf, and switch-hitter Gustavo Campero could see more playing time after serving as the club’s fourth outfielder prior to Trout’s injury.

Royals Select Luke Maile

By | at

The Royals announced that they have selected the contract of catcher Luke Maile. Infielder Tyler Tolbert was optioned to Triple-A Omaha to open an active roster spot. To get Maile onto the 40-man, right-hander Alec Marsh was transferred to the 60-day injured list.

The Royals already have Salvador Perez and Freddy Fermin on the roster, so this move gives them three catchers. However, Perez was removed from last night’s game due to left hip soreness, per Anne Rogers of MLB.com. Perez hasn’t been placed on the injured list but he’s not in the lineup today.

Perhaps he’ll be unavailable for a few days, which would explain why Maile is now up with the club. The 34-year-old veteran signed a minor league deal with the Royals in the offseason. He opted out when he didn’t make the Opening Day roster but returned on a fresh deal shortly thereafter.

He is out to a strong start in Triple-A, hitting .286/.434/.381, though a .379 batting average on balls in play is helping him out somewhat in a small sample. For his big league career, he’s generally been a glove-first guy. He has a .208/.274/.319 batting line in 1,250 plate appearances but comes with a strong reputation for his throwing, blocking and work with a pitching staff. He should back up Fermin while Perez gets a breather.

As for Marsh, it’s not surprising to see him hit the 60-day IL. He has been battling shoulder soreness since the offseason and has spent the entire season on the 15-day IL so far. As of about a week ago, he was slated to restart his throwing program after a setback. The 60-day clock is retroactive to the start of the season, so he is eligible for reinstatement later this month. But given his current status, he’ll need far longer than that to get in game shape.

Photo courtesy of Jayne Kamin-Oncea, Imagn Images

Rangers Option Jake Burger

By | at

May 2: The moves have now been officially announced by the Rangers. As reported, Crim has been selected and Ornelas recalled, with Ahmed designated for assignment and Burger optioned.

May 1: The Rangers are demoting Jake Burger to Triple-A, according to a report from Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic. First baseman Blaine Crim will be promoted to the majors in his place, according to Rosenthal. Burger has one minor league option remaining, so the Rangers will not need to pass him through waivers in order to send him to Triple-A. Crim is not yet on the 40-man roster and will need to have his contract selected. Evan Grant of the Dallas Morning News reports that the swap from Burger to Crim will be paired with the club designating shortstop Nick Ahmed for assignment to open up a 40-man roster spot for Crim. That will create a new vacancy on the roster’s bench, which Grant suggests could go to utility infielder Jonathan Ornelas.

According to Rosenthal, Burger’s demotion to the minor leagues could be a fairly short one. He reports that the Rangers’ plan is to allow Burger an opportunity to “reset” in the minor leagues before bringing him back up to the majors in the near future. At the very least, the 29-year-old will report to Round Rock for the next ten days before he can be considered for a return to the majors. That’s the minimum stay for a player optioned to the minor leagues before they can be promoted back to MLB.

Even a short stay in the minors demonstrates how difficult Burger’s start to his Rangers career has been. Acquired from the Marlins back in December in exchange for infield prospects Maximo Acosta and Echedry Vargas as well as pitching prospect Brayan Mendoza, Burger was brought in to replace Nathaniel Lowe at first base on the heels of a year-and-a-half stint with the Marlins where he slashed .265/.315/.472 with a 112 wRC+ across 190 games. Last year’s production was less impressive, however, as he posted a 106 wRC+ overall. While he slugged 29 homers in 137 games, he struck out in 25.9% of his plate appearances and got on base at a lackluster .301 clip. Still, it was an above-average profile overall and the power intrigued the Rangers enough to invest in the slugger, who will remain under team control for three more seasons after this one.

Burger is only 29 games into his career with the Rangers, but the early returns on that investment have not exactly impressed. In 105 plate appearances this year, Burger has hit just .186/.229/.330 with a well below-average wRC+ of just 55. He’s struck out at a worrisome 30.5% clip, walked in just 2.9% of his plate appearances, and has so far failed to generate the trademark power that has become his carrying tool over the years. That all came together to leave Burger with the fifth-worst season among qualified first basemen this year by wRC+ and the sixth-worst by fWAR. Perhaps a more successful team would be more willing to display patience with a newly-acquired player, but the Rangers are currently 16-16 and have fallen to fourth place in the AL West behind the Mariners, Astros, and Athletics.

Those woes can largely be attributed to a lackluster offense. There have been some major bright spots; Wyatt Langford is looking like a potential superstar, Jonah Heim, Josh Jung, and Josh Smith have all been impressive, and Corey Seager looks like his typical star-level self when healthy. Unfortunately, Seager is currently on the injured list and other key pieces of the offense expected to help carry the load in his absence like Marcus Semien, Joc Pederson, and Burger have been disappointing in the early going. Given the veteran statuses of Semien and Pederson, Burger was the only one of that struggling trio who could be optioned to the minors and therefore by far the easiest to remove from the lineup for a temporary reset.

That makes Burger’s demotion in some ways about circumstances as much as it’s about performance. After all, while Burger’s plate discipline numbers early in the season have been worrying as he’s made worse swing decisions while whiffing inside the strike zone more often as compared to last year, underlying metrics actually paint quite a rosy picture about his expected power production. The slugger’s 13.4% barrel rate is higher than last year, and the same can be said for a 49.3% hard-hit rate that actually matches his breakout 2023 season with the Marlins and White Sox. Combine Burger’s expected slugging percentage of .411 (more than 80 points higher than his actual production) and his artificially low .234 BABIP, and it’s easy to see how Burger could turn things around in relatively short order.

He’ll need to fight his way back up to the majors in order to do that, however. In the meantime, the Rangers will turn to well-regarded prospect Blaine Crim to handle first base. Crim is nearly 28 years old, making him older for a prospect, and he was drafted by the Rangers all the way back in 2019 during the 19th round of that year’s draft. Despite that age and lack of pedigree, Crim is now in his third consecutive season with impressive results at the Triple-A level, where he has a career .286/.373/.486 slash line across 308 games. Crim’s been even more impressive so far this year, with a .313/.365/.565 slash line across 126 plate appearances. If he can come up to the majors and prove he can hit at the highest level, it would hardly be a surprise to see Crim remain in the mix even after Burger returns to action. After all, Pederson typically sits against left-handed pitching, and a right-handed bat like Crim could offer the Rangers a solid platoon partner for their struggling slugger going forward.

As for Ahmed, the 35-year-old is now in his 12th season in the majors and has appeared in just four games for the Rangers this year. He’s yet to record a hit in eight trips to the plate this year but does have a walk and a run scored to go with three strikeouts. Assuming he does get designated for assignment to make room for Crim, the Rangers will have one week to either attempt to pass Ahmed through waivers or work out a trade sending him elsewhere. Should Ahmed clear waivers, he would then have the opportunity to either accept an outright assignment to the minor leagues or elect free agency instead.

Yankees Place Jazz Chisholm Jr. On Injured List

By | at

3:05pm: Boone says Chisholm’s strain is of the high-grade variety and he might miss four to six weeks, per Bryan Hoch of MLB.com.

8:51am: The Yankees announced this morning that infielder Jazz Chisholm Jr. is headed to the 10-day injured list due to a right oblique strain. The move is retroactive to April 30. Fellow infielder Jorbit Vivas has been recalled from Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre to take Chisholm’s spot on the active roster.

Chisholm exited Tuesday’s game with discomfort in his side and sat out Wednesday’s contest. Manager Aaron Boone revealed earlier this week that Chisholm would undergo an MRI on Thursday’s off-day. That imaging clearly revealed enough for the Yankees to sit Chisholm down for the next week-plus. The team hasn’t formally provided a timetable for Chisholm’s return yet, though even Grade 1 oblique strains can sideline players for upwards of a month. There are instances of players making it back from very mild strains sooner than that, of course. Boone will surely provide more information on Chisholm’s injury outlook prior to tonight’s game.

The 27-year-old Chisholm has hit for plenty of power this season but has been far more strikeout-prone than he was in 2024. He’s slashing .181/.304/.410 with seven homers, three doubles, six steals (in seven attempts) and a career-best 12% walk rate. He’s also fanned in what would be a career-high 31.2% of his plate appearances and been dinged by a .200 average on balls in play — hence the low batting average.

Even with the basement-level batting average, Chisholm’s approach at the plate doesn’t look as alarming as one might expect. He’s actually chasing pitches out of the strike zone at the lowest clip of his career. His 21.1% chase rate sits nearly seven percentage points lower than league-average. In general, Chisholm is seeing more pitches than ever before. He’s swinging at a career-low 41.1% of the pitches he sees, and his 4.27 pitches per plate appearance is both a career-high mark and the 24th-highest among 168 qualified hitters.

The driving factor behind his strikeouts is easier to explain than to fix: Chisholm’s contact rate on pitches within the zone has cratered from 80.7% last year to 72.5% this season. (League average is just over 85%.) Chisholm’s strikeout rate had actually begun to come down in recent weeks; he’s fanned in one-quarter of his plate appearances over his past 80 trips to the plate — right in line with his 2024 levels — so perhaps the spike in punchouts can be chalked up to some early-season white noise. Time will tell.

In the meantime, Vivas will get his third recall to the majors and hope to finally be plugged into to the lineup this time. He’s been summoned to MLB two times in the past, but Boone has yet to write the 24-year-old’s name on the lineup card or even send him into a game as a pinch-hitter, pinch-runner or defensive replacement.

Vivas is doing his best to force the issue in Triple-A. He’s had a superb start to his 2025 season, batting .319/.426/.436 (139 wRC+) with a pair of home runs, five doubles, six steals (in 10 attempts) and more walks (12.9%) than strikeouts (6.9%). The lefty-swinging Vivas, acquired from the Dodgers in the 2023-24 offseason, can play both second and third base.

Fantasy Baseball: Will April Power Bring More Fantasy Showers?

By | at

Hello, friends.

It's a wonderful time of year, with buckets of April showers now forcing a bevy of flowers to bloom at our house, whilst tricking any passerby into thinking master gardeners must live there. In reality, we just bought our house from an old woman who really (really!) liked to garden and had virtually everything automated/dummy-proofed. I'm not even kidding - only a bare minimum of maintenance is required and we spend a couple of months drowning in flowers -- but those silly, passersby don't need to know that, do they? Ruse!

April also brought us new showers of power for fantasy baseball; some old faces, some new. I bet you can't guess who is currently leading the league in home-run rate? Psst...It rhymes with "Jorge Polanco". With every flip of the calendar, our sample sizes to separate the useful wheat from the confusing chaff of statistical noise grow ever larger. Particularly in the land of power, as many batted-ball statistics don't require monster pools of data before we can start naming them possibly significant.

Unlock Subscriber-Exclusive Articles Like This One With a Trade Rumors Front Office Subscription

BENEFITS
  • Access weekly subscriber-only articles by Tim Dierkes, Steve Adams, and Anthony Franco.
  • Join exclusive weekly live chats with Anthony.
  • Remove ads and support our writers.
  • Access GM-caliber tools like our MLB Contract Tracker

Guardians Designate Vince Velasquez For Assignment

By | at

The Guardians announced that they have selected the contract of right-hander Matt Festa from Triple-A Columbus. Fellow righty Vince Velasquez has been designated for assignment as the corresponding move.

It was reported earlier this week that the Guardians had acquired Festa from the Rangers. He had signed a minor league deal with Texas but recently had the ability to opt out of that deal if not in the major leagues. Based on the trade, it seemed like the Guards were willing to give him the roster spot that the Rangers would not, and that has come to pass today.

He certainly did his best to earn the opportunity. He tossed 14 2/3 scoreless innings for Triple-A Round Rock to start this year. His 11.3% walk rate was a bit high but he punched out 32.2% of batters faced and kept 47.1% of balls in play on the ground. His big league track record is more middling, with a 4.60 ERA, 25% strikeout rate, 10.3% walk rate and 34.9% ground ball rate in 117 1/3 innings, but the Guards will see if his hot start this year can be carried over.

That will unfortunately lead to Velasquez losing his roster spot without pitching in a game. His last major league appearance was almost two years ago now, occurring with the Pirates on May 27th of 2023. UCL surgery wiped out the rest of that season and his entire 2024.

He signed a minor league deal with the Guards coming into 2025 and started this year in Triple-A. He tossed 15 innings over four starts with an ERA of 6.00, a 14.7% strikeout rate and 21.3% walk rate. Those are awful numbers in a small sample but the club wanted a fresh arm earlier this week. Last Friday’s game was rained out, which led to a Saturday doubleheader, meaning Cleveland was to play 13 games in 12 days. They added Kolby Allard on Saturday and Velasquez on Tuesday, two arms capable of pitching multiple innings, but didn’t use Velasquez in any of the past three games.

Velasquez will likely be placed on waivers shortly. Based on his rough early-season numbers and recent injury absence, he will likely clear. He has enough service time to reject an outright assignment and elect free agency instead.

If he ends up on the open market, he could perhaps re-sign with the Guardians or look for opportunities elsewhere. He has 763 2/3 career innings in the big leagues with a 4.88 ERA, 24.9% strikeout rate and 9.3% walk rate.

Photo courtesy of Nathan Ray Seebeck, Imagn Images

Mariners Outright Sauryn Lao

By | at

Mariners right-hander Sauryn Lao went unclaimed on outright waivers after his recent DFA, the team announced. He’s been assigned outright to Triple-A Tacoma. Lao has neither three years of MLB service nor a prior outright assignment, so he does not have the ability to elect free agency. He’ll remain with the M’s as a depth arm.

Lao, 25, is a former Dodgers infield prospect who converted to the mound in 2023. He’s posted a 3.61 ERA in 122 minor league innings since making that switch, including a 2.25 earned run average in 12 innings with the Mariners’ Triple-A affiliate in Tacoma this year. He’s punched out 26.6% of his opponents with the Rainiers and limited walks to a 6.5% clip. Lao made one big league appearance — his MLB debut — with Seattle prior to his DFA, during which he pitched 1 2/3 innings with no earned runs and three strikeouts.

The Seattle bullpen has been solid, with a 3.70 earned run average, but not quite as effective as many predicted heading into the season. Andres Munoz, Collin Snider, Carlos Vargas, Gabe Speier and Casey Lawrence have all provided quality results, but the M’s have received shakier performances from Eduard Bazardo, Trent Thornton, Tayler Saucedo and the now-injured Gregory Santos. They’ll get a huge arm back soon if Matt Brash can finish off his minor league rehab stint without issue, but there’s enough uncertainty in Seattle’s middle relief group that Lao could work his way back to the big leagues with continued production in Tacoma.

Reds Activate Tyler Stephenson For 2025 Debut, Place Austin Hays On Injured List

By | at

The Reds announced Friday that they’ve reinstated catcher Tyler Stephenson from the injured list. He’s missed the entire season so far due to an oblique strain he suffered in spring training. It’s not all good news for the Reds, however, as the corresponding move for Stephenson’s return is 10-day IL stint for hot-hitting outfielder Austin Hays. He’s dealing with a left hamstring strain, per the team. His IL placement is retroactive to April 29.

With Stephenson returning and backups Jose Trevino and Austin Wynns hitting well, Cincinnati will carry three catchers on the roster for the time being. Stephenson has plenty of experience at first base, if the Reds want to plug him into that mix, and he has more than enough bat to justify being deployed as a designated hitter. The 28-year-old bounced back from a down showing in 2023 to hit .258/.338/.444 (112 wRC+) with 19 home runs in 515 plate appearances last year. Since breaking into the majors in 2020, Stephenson is a career .267/.343/.427 hitter (106 wRC+).

This will be the second IL stint of the season for the 29-year-old Hays, who’s been on an otherworldly tear when healthy enough to take the field. He started the season on the IL with a calf strain in this same left leg but has decimated opponents with a .365/.431/.712 output between the two IL trips. Hays has already clubbed five homers in just 58 plate appearances, and he’s walking at a career-high 10.3% clip against a manageable 22.4% strikeout rate.

Hays is the third potential Reds regular on the injured list. He’ll join Christian Encarnacion-Strand and Jeimer Candelario, both of whom are dealing with back injuries. With that trio sidelined, the Reds can go with a combination of Stephenson and Spencer Steer at first base. In the outfield, TJ Friedl, Jake Fraley and Gavin Lux ought to see plenty of run — particularly against right-handed pitching. Steer and fellow righty hitters Blake Dunn and Santiago Espinal can contribute in the outfield against left-handed opponents.

MLB Trade Rumors is not affiliated with Major League Baseball, MLB or MLB.com

hide arrows scroll to top