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Kyle Freeland Suffers Shoulder Strain

By Connor Byrne | March 25, 2021 at 1:56pm CDT

March 25: Freeland will not require surgery, manager Bud Black announced Thursday, calling the initial reports from the team’s medical staff “encouraging” (link via Saunders). That said, Black also declined to provide a timeline, revealing only that Freeland will have more imaging performed “in a couple of weeks,” at which point the Rockies hope to be able to offer a more definitive timeline. Freeland will open the season on the injured list.

March 23: Rockies left-hander Kyle Freeland exited his outing against the Athletics on Tuesday with a strained pitching shoulder, per Patrick Saunders of the Denver Post. Freeland left the mound in pain after throwing a pitch to the A’s Mark Canha, as Thomas Harding of MLB.com tweets.

There is no word on how serious Freeland’s injury is, but it does look like one that could sideline him for at least the beginning of the regular season. A healthy Freeland would follow No. 1 starter German Marquez in the Rockies’ rotation, having thrown 70 2/3 innings of 4.33 ERA/4.95 SIERA ball last year. Those aren’t great numbers – especially compared to a 2018 effort in which Freeland put up a 2.85 ERA/4.35 SIERA in 202 1/3 innings and finished fourth in National League Cy Young voting – but they were markedly better than the 6.73 ERA/5.19 SIERA he recorded over 104 1/3 frames in 2019. The 27-year-old has followed last season’s bounce-back performance with seven scoreless innings and six strikeouts against one walk this spring.

If Freeland isn’t available to start the season, the Rockies will open with Marquez, Jon Gray, Austin Gomber and Antonio Senzatela as their top four. Ryan Castellani, Antonio Santos and Jose Mujica are also on their 40-man roster, but Dereck Rodriguez and Chi Chi Gonzalez are in the mix as NRIs.

MLB Faith And Hope Report: 2021

By Tim Dierkes | March 25, 2021 at 1:15pm CDT

In Andrew Zimbalist’s 2006 book In The Best Interests Of Baseball?, he wrote:

“[Commissioner Bud] Selig had a pet phrase that makes considerable sense: the fans of each team need to have ’faith and hope’ that their team has a chance to win at the beginning of each season. Without this faith and hope, fans will eventually lose interest, and the game will suffer.”

After reading that in 2019, I was inspired to create an annual Faith And Hope Report here at MLB Trade Rumors, so we can put a number on how many teams are competitive and track it over time. 70% of teams had hope in 2019 by my estimate. Given the strange nature of the 2020 season, I skipped that year. To make this assessment for 2021, I’ll be combining FanGraphs’ projected playoff odds with my own common sense, and there is subjectivity involved on the borderline teams. I’ll elaborate on those later in this post.

Teams that enter the 2021 season with faith and hope: Dodgers, Padres, Yankees, Mets, Astros, Braves, White Sox, Twins, Blue Jays, Brewers, Angels, Red Sox, Athletics, Cardinals, Rays, Cubs, Reds, Nationals, Indians, Phillies, Royals, Giants, Marlins

Teams that enter 2021 without faith and hope: Rangers, Pirates, Rockies, Orioles, Tigers, Diamondbacks, Mariners

Conclusion: 76.67% of MLB teams have faith and hope of contending in 2021.

Arguable teams:

The Royals have a 8.9% chance at making the playoffs, with a 78 win projection. As a team that very clearly worked to get better in the offseason and could make further additions at the trade deadline, they belong in the contender category.
With a 5.2% chance at the playoffs and a 76 win projection, the Giants are a tough one. With the Dodgers and Padres in their division, their playoff chances rest almost entirely on grabbing one of the NL’s two Wild Card spots. Their offseason involved some decent veteran contracts, including an accepted qualifying offer for Kevin Gausman and almost $42MM in additional commitments. I’d say there’s some faith and hope for their fanbase this year.
The Mariners have a projected 2.7% shot at the playoffs and a 74 win projection. It wasn’t a particularly aggressive offseason, and one of their bigger acquisitions, Ken Giles, won’t pitch this year. They did add James Paxton, Rafael Montero, and various smaller pickups. This isn’t a playoff caliber team and I sense that they’ll truly go for it in 2022, so I am going to nudge them into the non-contender category.
The Diamondbacks have a 1.6% chance at the playoffs and a 72 win projection, and like the Giants they’re hurt by the division they’re in. It’s a fairly veteran club, and Baseball Prospectus has them better than the Giants. But with a significant payroll cut and a quiet offseason, this doesn’t seem like a team with playoff aspirations. Arbitrary as it may be, I’m putting them in the non-contender category.
The Marlins have just a 1.3% chance at the playoffs, per FanGraphs, with a 71 win projection. Baseball Prospectus says 70. This club made the playoffs in 2020 with a season that extrapolated to about 84 wins. They would have just missed the postseason if not for the expanded format. The club’s quiet offseason doesn’t tip the scales much. The Marlins did pick up Starling Marte’s option and didn’t lose anyone too significant. This one could go either way, but based on last year I have to lean toward the contender category even if the projection systems call for major regression.

Carl Edwards Jr. Opts Out Of Braves Deal

By Steve Adams | March 25, 2021 at 12:30pm CDT

Right-handed reliever Carl Edwards Jr. has opted out of his minor league deal with the Braves and is now a free agent, tweets Gabe Burns of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. He’d been vying for one of the final spots in the Atlanta ’pen.

Edwards has allowed just one run and punched out eight batters in 8 1/3 innings this spring, but he’s also surrendered seven hits and walked six batters. Control has never been a strong point for the lanky right-hander, and his lackluster command of the zone this spring seemed to leave him behind fellow non-roster invitee Nate Jones in terms of the pair’s chances to make the roster.

Now 29 years old, Edwards was a key reliever for the Cubs from 2015-18, pitching to a combined 3.06 ERA with a hefty 33.9 percent strikeout rate over the life of 159 innings. His effectiveness dipped early in the 2019 season, however, and he’s been mired in something of a downward spiral since. Edwards has been tagged for 18 runs on 14 hits and 14 walks apiece over his past 21 2/3 big league innings, battling shoulder and forearm injuries along the way.

Ivan Nova, Hector Rondon Granted Release By Phillies

By Steve Adams | March 25, 2021 at 12:27pm CDT

Veteran right-handers Ivan Nova and Hector Rondon have requested and been granted their release by the Phillies, per a club announcement. They were both in camp on minor league deals and hoping to win roster spots. Both had out clauses in their deals.

The 34-year-old Nova was signed in late January — not long after president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski voiced a desire to add some veteran rotation depth on minor league pacts. However, his hopes of making the Opening Day roster were likely dashed just a few weeks after he inked his deal; the Phillies signed both Matt Moore and Chase Anderson to one-year, Major League contracts in early February. A poor showing in camp didn’t do him any favors, either. Nova yielded 10 runs on 15 hits and an uncharacteristic nine walks in 12 1/3 innings of work, striking out six along the way.

Rondon, 33, has been tagged for six earned runs on eight hits in seven innings, but he has a more encouraging 8-to-2 K/BB ratio in that time. The Phillies have some openings in their bullpen, but it’s widely expected that Brandon Kintzler and Tony Watson are leading the pack of non-roster invitees competing for those remaining jobs. It’s plausible that one or both of Kintzler and Watson make the club. Both have March 24 opt-outs in their deals — the same as Rondon — but the team hasn’t announced a move regarding either pitcher yet. Assuming both Kintlzer and Watson triggered their out clauses, the Phils have until tomorrow afternoon to add them to the roster or grant them their release.

Yankees Receiving Trade Interest In Mike Tauchman

By Steve Adams | March 25, 2021 at 11:00am CDT

11:00am: Eight clubs have contacted the Yankees about Tauchman, Martino tweets.

9:10am: The Yankees are receiving trade interest in outfielder Mike Tauchman, SNY’s Andy Martino reports. They’re looking past his 2020 season and valuing him more in line with his 2019 output, per Martino, who adds that it’d take a reliever with some team control or another piece with legitimate value for the Yanks to part with the 30-year-old outfielder.

That teams are inquiring on Tauchman comes as little surprise at this juncture of Spring Training. He’s out of minor league options and looks to be without much of a path to regular playing time, given the presence of Clint Frazier, Aaron Hicks, Aaron Judge, Brett Gardner and Giancarlo Stanton all on the roster.

The Yankees also have veterans Jay Bruce and Derek Dietrich in camp on non-roster deals. Bruce, in particular, has been rumored to pique the Yankees’ interest. Neither has put together a particularly overwhelming spring performance thus far, but both are left-handed bats with pop who could bring some versatility to the mix. While Tauchman is capable of playing all three outfield spots, he doesn’t have any experience in the infield. Bruce has spent a good bit of time at first base, however, and Dietrich can play second base in addition to all four corner positions.

Yankees skipper Aaron Boone acknowledged the looming decisions after yesterday’s game, telling reporters: “The reality is we — and a few of our players — have decisions to make in the next 24, 48, 72 hours,” (link via the New York Post’s Dan Martin). “But no decision has been made as of right now.”

Bruce’s minor league deal with the club contained an opt-out clause yesterday, which gives the Yankees 48 hours to put him on the roster. There’s no formal indication that Bruce triggered that clause, although there’s little reason for him not to have done so. Exercising the clause puts pressure on the Yankees and, if he’s not going to make the Opening Day roster in the Bronx, gives him the opportunity to pursue a roster spot with another club.

Martino has suggested it’s possible that both Tauchman and Bruce make the Opening Day roster, with infielder Tyler Wade being optioned to Triple-A to begin the season, although that’s obviously not the most ideal scenario for the Yankees. Doing so would mean a bench of Gardner, Tauchman, Bruce and backup catcher Kyle Higashioka. Each of Gio Urshela, Gleyber Torres and DJ LeMahieu can play multiple spots around the infield, but there’s not much of a safety net on the bench if one of them needs to depart a game with an injury. Keeping Dietrich, who has ample experience at both second base and third base, would be a cleaner fit in the event that Wade is optioned.

The simplest course of action for the Yankees would be to let Bruce and Dietrich pursue other opportunities, keeping Tauchman and Wade both on the bench to begin the season. However, there’s a case to be made that Tauchman is somewhat redundant with Gardner back in the fold and so many other outfield options on the roster. And with the Yankees losing Zack Britton for up to four months and Justin Wilson working through some shoulder tightness — yesterday’s MRI came back clean — it could work to their benefit if they could pry a useful reliever away from another club in a deal for Tauchman.

The 2020 season was a rough one for Tauchman, who played through a shoulder injury and recently acknowledged (via Martin in the previously linked piece) that he “developed some bad swing-path patterns” while trying to compensate for the pain he was experiencing. Tauchman hit just .242/.342/.305 in 111 plate appearances last season, maintaining the strong plate discipline he displayed from 2017-19 but showing nowhere near the power he did the prior year.

The 2019 season was a breakout campaign for Tauchman, whom the Yankees plucked from the Rockies in exchange for lefty Phillip Diehl. In 296 plate appearances with the Yankees that year, Tauchman slashed .277/.361/.504 with 13 home runs. He won’t be eligible for arbitration until next winter, and the Yankees control Tauchman through the 2024 season.

Orioles Select Matt Harvey

By Steve Adams | March 25, 2021 at 8:46am CDT

The Orioles have selected the contract of veteran right-hander Matt Harvey, per a club announcement. The move fills Baltimore’s 40-man roster and assures Harvey of a spot on the Opening Day club. Harvey had an opt-out clause in his contract yesterday, which gave the O’s 48 hours to add him to the roster or cut him loose, Dan Connolly of The Athletic tweets.

Harvey inked a minor league deal with the O’s back in mid-February and reported to camp as non-roster invitee this spring. He’s started three Grapefruit League contests, during which he’s yielded six runs on 10 hits and a walk with six punchouts through 10 innings of work. He and fellow veterans Felix Hernandez and Wade LeBlanc have been vying for spots on an extremely inexperienced pitching staff. Lefty John Means is the only other true lock for the rotation, though young righty Dean Kremer and southpaw Keegan Akin both seem likely to leave Spring Training with starting jobs.

Harvey, 32 this weekend, is years removed from his status as one of the game’s most promising young aces and from the “Dark Knight” moniker that took baseball by storm. The No. 7 overall pick in the 2010 draft, Harvey was in the big leagues by 2012 and flat-out dominated opposing hitters early in his career. Through his first 427 big league frames, the righty notched an outstanding 2.53 ERA while striking out 26.6 percent of the batters he faced against an excellent 5.6 percent walk rate.

Injuries, however, have wreaked havoc on what looked to be a brilliant career in the making. Harvey missed the 2014 season due to Tommy John surgery, and while he was terrific during his 2015 return, he dealt with shoulder discomfort in 2016 before ultimately undergoing the much more ominous thoracic outlet surgery. The general track record of pitchers coming back from a thoracic outlet procedure isn’t great in the first place, and Harvey is one of few pitchers who underwent both Tommy John surgery and thoracic outlet surgery in a span of under three years.

Unsurprisingly, Harvey simply hasn’t been the same since. He regained some velocity following a trade to the Reds in 2018 and parlayed a decent showing with Cincinnati into a one-year, $11MM free-agent deal with the Angels. However, that contract proved regrettable for the Angels, who released Harvey that July. A 2020 comeback attempt with the Royals was similarly unproductive.

Overall, since returning from throacic outlet surgery, Harvey has tallied 319 innings in the Majors and limped to a 6.09 earned run average. He’s yielded 365 hits, including 67 home runs, in those 319 frames while watching both his strikeout and walk rates trend in the wrong direction. His fastball, which averaged 95.9 mph at his peak, sat at 93.2 mph with the Angels in 2019 and 94.1 mph with Kansas City last year (when he was working in shorter stints).

The Orioles will hope to catch lightning in a bottle and see Harvey bounce back to an extent, although at this point the expectations for a rebound should be rather low. Harvey’s deal guarantees him just a $1MM base salary, so it’s a low-cost roll of the dice for a tanking Orioles club.

AL Notes: Rengifo, Wilson, Biggio, Allen, Hamilton

By Anthony Franco | March 24, 2021 at 10:50pm CDT

The Angels announced they’ve optioned catcher Anthony Bemboom and infielders Luis Rengifo and Jack Mayfield. None of that trio will make the Opening Day roster. That’s a bit surprising in Rengifo’s case, since he had looked like the favorite to open the year as Los Angeles’ top infielder off the bench. The Angels optioning out Rengifo and Mayfield could be good news for non-roster invitee Jose Rojas, Rhett Bollinger of MLB.com was among those to point out. The 28-year-old Rojas has yet to make his MLB debut but has mashed at a .321/.487/.607 clip in Spring Training. Optioning out Bemboom, meanwhile, suggests the Angels will open the year with a catching tandem of Max Stassi and Kurt Suzuki.

Pirates Made Extension Offer To Ke’Bryan Hayes

By Anthony Franco | March 24, 2021 at 9:16pm CDT

The Pirates proposed a contract extension to third baseman Ke’Bryan Hayes, reports Jon Heyman of MLB Network (Twitter link). It seems no deal is imminent, as Heyman writes that there’s “no traction” in talks between Pittsburgh and the Ballengee Group client.

It’s hardly surprising the Pirates would have interest in locking up Hayes long-term. The former first-rounder has been considered a top prospect for a while, but he arguably took his stock to new heights last season. Called up to the big leagues on September 1, Hayes went on an absolute tear to start his MLB career. He hit .376/.442/.682 with five home runs in his first 95 plate appearances. Both FanGraphs and Baseball Reference credited him with nearly two wins above replacement, an incredible amount of value to amass in less than a month of action.

No one should expect Hayes to sustain anything approaching that level of offensive output, but he only needs to be a decent hitter to be quite productive given the reports on his glove. Still rookie-eligible, Hayes enters 2021 as a consensus top 15 prospect in the league.

Hayes is controllable through 2026 and stands to make salaries around the league minimum for the next three years. Already 24 years old, he isn’t slated to hit free agency until after his age-29 season. The Pirates needn’t have any urgency in locking him up then, although it’s easy to see the appeal for the organization in initiating talks. Not only is there reason to be bullish on Hayes’ future, early-career extensions tend to carry plenty of upside for teams.

The specific offer the Pirates put on the table isn’t known. Extensions for players with less than one year of MLB service are rare but not unheard of. Looking at players in comparable situations over the past couple years, however, it’s difficult to find a prior agreement that perfectly maps with Hayes’ situation.

Luis Robert and Eloy Jiménez signed six-year extensions guaranteeing $50MM and $43MM, respectively, each including a pair of club options to buy out free agent years. Both the White Sox stars were more than a full year younger at the time of their deals than Hayes is now, though. Evan White and Brandon Lowe, meanwhile, signed extensions with guarantees around $24MM and multiple club options. Neither of those players was seen as the same caliber of prospect as Hayes at the time. A guarantee in between those general ranges that extends the Pirates’ team control window could make some sense, but obviously a player’s urgency to sacrifice earnings upside for upfront guarantees varies person-to-person.

Rico Garcia To Undergo Tommy John Surgery

By Anthony Franco | March 24, 2021 at 7:58pm CDT

The Giants announced that right-hander Rico Garcia will undergo Tommy John surgery this Saturday, Maria Guardado of MLB.com was among those to pass along. The 27-year-old was in camp as a non-roster invitee.

This will obviously sideline Garcia for all of 2021 and quite likely into the following season as well. He had been looking to earn his way back into the San Francisco bullpen. Garcia pitched in twelve games for the Giants last season, but they non-tendered him at year’s end. Altogether, he’s pitched 16 MLB innings with the Rockies and Giants, allowing thirteen runs with nine strikeouts and walks apiece.

While he has struggled in his brief time in the majors and at Triple-A, Garcia has pitched extremely well up through the Double-A level. Unfortunately, he won’t get another opportunity to carry that success over to the big leagues until next year.

Brock Holt To Make Rangers’ Opening Day Roster

By Anthony Franco | March 24, 2021 at 7:29pm CDT

The Rangers have informed utilityman Brock Holt he’ll break camp with the team, Evan Grant of the Dallas Morning News was among those to report. He has been in camp as a non-roster invitee, so the club will need to officially select his contract to the 40-man roster. Holt had the ability to opt out of that deal if not added to the roster this week, Grant notes. Texas has an open 40-man spot after passing right-hander Joe Gatto through outright waivers yesterday.

Holt, 32, was a valuable utility piece for the Red Sox between 2013-19, even earning a trip to the All-Star game in 2015. He stumbled to a miserable .211/.283/.274 line between the Brewers and Nationals in 2020, though, forcing him to settle for a non-roster deal this winter. Between a productive few weeks in Spring Training and the Rangers’ uncertain third base situation (where Rougned Odor appears the favorite for playing time), Holt will get another opportunity in Arlington. By making the club, he’ll lock in a $1.75MM base salary.

Among the others who’ll be on the season-opening roster (via Grant and Jeff Wilson of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram): Dane Dunning, Taylor Hearn, Wes Benjamin and Jonah Heim. None of that group is particularly surprising. Hearn and Benjamin played important roles in last year’s bullpen, while Dunning and Heim were acquired in offseason trades. All four are already on Texas’ 40-man roster.

Fellow offseason acquisition Khris Davis won’t be ready for the start of the season. He suffered a Grade 2 strain of his left quadriceps and will be out three to four weeks, per Wilson. Presumably, he’ll start the year on the 10-day injured list.

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