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Charlie Blackmon Rejoins Rockies

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Outfielder Charlie Blackmon arrived at Coors Field on Monday for Summer Camp, Nick Groke of The Athletic tweets. It’s an especially notable and encouraging development after Blackmon tested positive for the coronavirus three weeks ago.

Blackmon, a four-time All-Star, explained how he’s doing and expressed hope that he’ll be in Colorado’s lineup when its season starts July 24, saying (via Thomas Harding of MLB.com): “I feel great. I have felt that way for at least a couple of weeks now. I had a day and a half of symptoms. After that I started feeling much better. I want to be ready for Opening Day. That’s a pretty short period of time.”

Of course, if the Rockies are going to pull off a surprise playoff run in 2020, it stands to reason they’ll need a healthy Blackmon. The 34-year-old turned in yet another quality offensive season in 2019, in which he slashed .314/.364/.576 (125 wRC+) with 32 home runs in 634 plate appearances to further cement himself as one of the Rockies’ most important contributors.

Aside from Matt Kemp, a recent minor league signing, Blackmon is by far the most proven outfield-capable player the Rockies have. David Dahl, Raimel Tapia, Sam Hilliard, Garrett Hampson and Yonathan Daza are also on their 40-man roster, but only the injury-plagued Dahl has fared well offensively over a large sample of major league plate appearances.

Indians Place Delino DeShields On IL

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The Indians announced that they have placed outfielder Delino DeShields on the 10-day injured list. The team didn’t give a reason for DeShields’ IL placement, but it’s worth noting he recently tested positive for COVID-19.

DeShields’ positive test forced him to sit out the beginning of Summer Camp, though he did fly to Cleveland last week after a negative test and take batting practice at Progressive Field on Saturday. However, the 27-year-old had not been cleared to rejoin the Indians for instrasquad workouts at that point, as Joe Noga of cleveland.com notes.

The hope is that DeShields will return to the field as soon as possible, but considering what he has gone through in recent weeks, it seems unlikely he’ll be ready to make his Indians debut when their regular season commences on July 24. The 27-year-old was a key offseason pickup by Cleveland, which acquired him from Texas in a trade for two-time American League Cy Young winner Corey Kluber.

Even without DeShields, the Indians have no shortage of options in the outfield. Oscar Mercado, Jordan Luplow, Tyler Naquin, Greg Allen, Jake Bauers, Domingo Santana, Daniel Johnson and Bradley Zimmer are among the team’s other choices in the grass, but as is the case with the light-hitting DeShields, most or all of those players come with question marks.

Orioles’ Richie Martin, Ty Blach To Undergo Surgery

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Orioles shortstop Richie Martin and left-hander Ty Blach will both undergo surgery on Wednesday, manager Brandon Hyde announced to reporters Monday (Twitter links via Roch Kubatko of MASNsports.com). Martin will undergo wrist surgery after sustaining a fracture over the weekend, while Blach will undergo Tommy John surgery to repair a ligament tear in his elbow. Martin is expected to be sidelined for two to three months, which all but eliminates him as an option for the team in 2020. Blach will likely be out until late next season at least, as recovery from Tommy John surgery typically takes between 12 and 14 months.

Martin, 25, was the top pick in the 2018 Rule 5 Draft, and the Orioles carried the former Athletics first-rounder all season despite his struggles against MLB pitching. Martin saw action in 120 games but only logged 309 plate appearances, turning in an underwhelming .208/.260/.322 batting line against big league opponents. Martin had never played a game at the Triple-A level when Baltimore selected him, but he’d posted an encouraging .300/.368/.439 slash in a pitcher-friendly Double-A setting in 2018.

The O’s had surely hoped to get him some time in Triple-A now that they could send him there after getting through his Rule 5 season, but the prolonged shutdown and cancellation of the 2020 minor league season made that impossible. Now, Martin won’t even get reps in at the MLB level or in alternate camp during this summer’s shortened season.

As for Blach, the former Giants southpaw had been hoping to crack the roster as a rotation or long relief candidate, but he may not ever throw another pitch as an Oriole now. Blach struggled in 20 2/3 frames with the O’s in 2019 and was removed from the roster, but Baltimore liked him enough to bring him back on a minor league pact. That deal will run out at season’s end, and Blach will search for a new club either next summer or in the 2021-22 offseason, depending on his recovery process.

Blach, 29, was a solid piece for the Giants from 2016-18, racking up 299 1/3 innings with a 4.36 ERA over the course of 85 appearances (39 of them starts). Blach doesn’t throw particularly hard (90.1 mph average fastball) or miss many bats (career 4.9 K/9), but he’s found success in the past due to strong control (2.7 BB/9 prior to ’19) and his ability to keep the ball on the ground (50.1 percent).

Mets Add Seven To 60-Man Player Pool

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The Mets announced Monday that they’ve added seven players to their 60-man player pool: right-handers Matt Blackham, Jordan Humphreys and Franklyn Kilome; left-handers Stephen Gonsalves and Thomas Szapucki; infielder Jake Hager; and catcher David Rodriguez. They’ve filled 58 of the 60 spots in their pool. MetsMerized’s Michael Mayer first reported that Blackham, Humphreys and Gonsalves would be added (Twitter links).

Of the new adds today, Szapucki is the most highly regarded of the team’s prospects, ranking seventh at both FanGraphs and MLB.com. A fifth-round pick in 2015, Szapucki returned from Tommy John surgery to log 61 2/3 innings of 2.63 ERA ball with 10.5 K/9 against 3.8 BB/9 across three minor league levels in 2019. The 24-year-old topped out with four innings in Double-A, and while he wasn’t viewed as a candidate to log much time in the Majors this season, he’ll at the very least get in some developmental reps in the absence of a conventional minor league season.

Kilome, also 24, came over from the Phillies in the trade that sent Asdrubal Cabrera to Philadelphia back in 2017. He lands ninth on FanGraphs’ list and 12th at MLB.com on the heels of a 2019 season that he lost to his own Tommy John surgery. That procedure came back in October 2018, so Kilome should be largely back up to speed and ready to pick up after tossing 140 innings at Double-A that year. Kilome logged a 4.18 ERA with 8.0 K/9 against 3.9 BB/9. Kilome improved considerably upon being flipped to the Mets; in 38 innings with his new club his K/9 jumped from 7.3 to 10.0, and his BB/9 dropped from 4.5 to 2.4.

Among the other additions, the 26-year-old Gonsalves might be the most recognizable name. The former fourth-round pick was long a top prospect in the Twins organization and cracked multiple Top 100 lists as he rose through the minors, regularly drawing praise as a high-probability back-end starter. He never got much of a look in Minnesota, though (24 2/3 innings), and he’s been limited by arm troubles in recent years.

Humphreys, 24, is another arm on the mend from Tommy John surgery. He had a big 2017 season before surgery and will aim to work his way back into the team’s bullpen mix after pitching just 13 2/3 frames last year. Blackham posted sharp numbers last year, but he turned 27 in January and has only has 15 2/3 frames above Double-A to his credit. Hager and Rodriguez were minor league pickups this winter with limited offensive track records in the minors. Hager is a former first-round pick (Rays, 2011) who can play all over the infield, while Rodriguez brings some additional catching depth and a lifetime 39 percent caught-stealing rate to the table.

Mariners’ Gerson Bautista Out Indefinitely Due To Flexor Strain

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Mariners right-hander Gerson Bautista will be sidelined indefinitely due to a flexor mass strain in his right elbow, manager Scott Servais revealed to reporters Monday (Twitter link via Ryan Divish of the Seattle Times). The flamethrowing bullpen hopeful was lifted from Saturday’s intrasquad game with the injury. While he won’t require surgery, the unspecified timeline and nature of the injury obviously cast some doubt on whether Bautista will be an option for the Mariners this year.

Bautista, 25, came to the Mariners from the Mets alongside Jarred Kelenic and Justin Dunn in the Robinson Cano/Edwin Diaz blockbuster. He was lit up for 11 runs in nine Major League innings last year and has yet to find success in the Majors, but he’s armed with a heater that averaged 97.7 mph in last year’s brief call to the big leagues and can reach as high as 101 mph. Bautista missed most of last season due to a significant pectoral strain but dominated in the Dominican Winter League this offseason (2.18 ERA, 14 hits allowed, 17-to-5 K/BB ratio in 20 2/3 innings of relief).

The absence of Bautista will only create further opportunity for others in a wide-open competition for bullpen jobs. Offseason signees Yoshihisa Hirano and Carl Edwards Jr. should be locks for spots, and holdovers Austin Adams and Matt Magill impressed after their midseason acquisitions in 2019. Righty Dan Altavilla is out of options, so he also has a leg up in securing a spot. Other than that, the Mariners could have four to five relief jobs up for grabs.

Seattle will use a six-man rotation to begin the season. They’ll be particularly cautious building up the workloads of promising youngsters Justus Sheffield and Justin Dunn as well as veterans Kendall Graveman and Taijuan Walker, each of whom is coming back from injury. That should mean plenty of bullpen innings early in the year, giving players like Brandon Brennan, Erik Swanson, Nestor Cortes Jr., Taylor Guilbeau, Taylor Williams, Art Warren, Zac Grotz and several others the opportunity to demonstrate their long-term value to the organization.

Tigers Release Zack Godley

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The Tigers announced this morning that they’ve released right-hander Zack Godley. He’d been in Spring Training and Summer Camp as a non-roster player, though he seemed to have a reasonable chance of making the club. Godley’s initial deal was worth up to $3MM after incentives and allowed him to elect free agency at season’s end even though he’d normally have been arbitration-eligible. That was surely a notable incentive for the 30-year-old, but it seems the Tigers’ thought process has changed. MLB.com’s Jason Beck tweets that Godley had an opt-out prior to Opening Day anyhow, and the team wanted to give him some extra time to find a new club.

Godley has spent the vast majority of his career with the Diamondbacks, for whom he racked up 520 2/3 innings from 2015-19. His best season came back in 2017, when he spun 155 innings of 3.37 ERA ball with 9.6 K/9, 3.1 BB/9, 0.87 HR/9 and a 55.3 percent ground-ball rate. He followed that up with a career-high 178 1/3 frames and a 4.74 ERA (3.82 FIP) in 2018.

Last season, however, Godley’s strikeout rate and ground-ball rate plummeted. His sinker sat at just 90 mph after averaging 91.9 mph in that strong 2017 season, and hitters were able to elevate the ball against him like never before (11.1 percent launch angle in ’19; 3.1 percent in ’17). The end result was an ERA north of 6.00 in 76 innings with the D-backs, although he did post better results upon landing with the Blue Jays (3.94 ERA in 16 innings).

All told, Godley has experience in parts of five Major League seasons, during which time he’s pitched to a 4.70 ERA (4.13 FIP, 4.07 xFIP) with averages of 8.6 K/9, 3.1 BB/9 and 1.04 HR/9. His sinker didn’t have its usual effectiveness last year, but half the balls put into play against Godley since his MLB debut have been put on the ground. For a team in need of some rotation depth and/or a long relief option, Godley could certainly hold some appeal. With three-plus years of MLB service time, he’d be controllable through the 2022 season (barring a similar clause to the one he had with Detroit,  allowing him to hit free agency early).

From the Tigers’ vantage point, Godley seemed like a long shot to make the rotation after a long delay, as the extra down time gave righty Michael Fulmer time to recover from Tommy John surgery. Fulmer will join Matthew Boyd, Spencer Turnbull, Jordan Zimmermann and offseason signee Ivan Nova on Detroit’s starting staff, though Godley could’ve given them a sixth starter/long relief type of arm early in the year. His release could open the door for another option like Hector Santiago or Nick Ramirez. Eventually, the Tigers may call upon a top pitching prospect like Casey Mize, Matt Manning or Tarik Skubal to get an audition.

Giancarlo Stanton Aiming To Play On Opening Day

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After battling injuries for the better part of two years, Giancarlo Stanton feels he is on pace to be in the Yankees’ lineup on Opening Day.  Stanton suffered a calf injury back during Spring Training that would have landed him on the injured list had the season opened as scheduled, though “the progress back has been good,” Stanton told MLB.com’s Bryan Hoch and other reporters.

“I’m good again and getting everything I need to be ready….I’ve been [taking fly balls] in batting practice.  It’s better to be in a controlled setting right now, especially while pitchers are trying to get their work in.”

That batting practice work has been Stanton’s only action on the grass during Summer Camp, as he hasn’t played in the field during intrasquad games.  The Yankees intend to use Stanton only as a DH when the season begins, and then potentially get him back to outfield work depending on his health.

Biceps and knee injuries limited Stanton to just 18 games and 72 plate appearances in 2019, plus 18 more PA over five of New York’s postseason games.  While Stanton had been rather notoriously injury-plagued earlier in his career, it seemed like had turned a corner after playing in 317 of a possible 324 games for the Marlins and Yankees in 2017-18.  The peak, of course, was Stanton’s 59-homer performance that won him the 2017 NL MVP Award, though his first full season in the Bronx was also very productive, as Stanton slugged 38 homers and slashed .266/.343/.509 over a career-high 705 PA in 2018.  Even last year, Stanton was dangerous when he was in the lineup, posting an .894 OPS over his 72 PA.

Latest On Cardinals, COVID-19

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TODAY: Cabrera, Sanchez, and Montero have all tested positive for a second time, manager Mike Shildt told reporters (including Rick Hummel of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch).  As such, the trio will continue to remain in quarantine protocol, though all three are asymptomatic.

JULY 5: The Cardinals revealed today that minor leaguer Elehuris Montero has also tested positive for the coronavirus. Montero is the team’s third positive test, following Cabrera and Sanchez yesterday. The Cardinals are still awaiting the results of more tests. Montero, 21, was added to St. Louis’s 60-man player pool at the start of the month. One of the most promising prospects in the organization, he would surely benefit from reps in a big-league environment, especially after a disappointing season at Double-A last year.

JULY 4: Left-handers Genesis Cabrera and Ricardo Sanchez have both tested positive for COVID-19, the Cardinals announced this afternoon.  As detailed by MLB.com’s Anne Rogers and other reporters, Cabrera and Sanchez are each currently in quarantine, and both pitchers are asymptomatic.

Cabrera and Sanchez both tested positive during the club’s initial round of intake testing as players arrived in St. Louis for training camp.  They will now remain isolated for a two-week period, and will then have to be symptom-free and deliver negatives on two separate COVID-19 tests before returning to training.

Cabrera was looking to win a job in the Cards’ bullpen in the wake of his 2019 rookie season.  The southpaw’s first taste of the big leagues resulted in a 4.87 ERA, 1.73 K/BB rate, and 8.4 K/9 in 20 1/3 innings, with Cabrera starting his first two games and then working in relief during his 11 other appearances.  Acquired from the Rays in July 2018 as part of the return for Tommy Pham, Cabrera has mostly worked as a starter in the minor leagues, though he has yet to look effective even at the Triple-A level.  Cabrera’s live arm (96.3mph fastball in 2019) could make him a reliever over the long term, and while St. Louis has a number of other starters ahead of him on the depth chart, Cabrera could get the odd spot start or opener assignment depending on how the Cardinals manage their rotation in the short season.

Sanchez just joined the Cards in February after being claimed off waivers from the Mariners.  The 23-year-old has yet to reach Triple-A ball, topping out with a 4.33 ERA over 203 2/3 innings at Double-A (with the Seattle and Atlanta affiliates) in 2018-19.

Twins’ Wilfredo Tovar Tests Positive For COVID-19

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Infielder Wilfredo Tovar has tested positive for the coronavirus, Twins president of baseball operations Derek Falvey told reporters (including MLB.com’s Do-Hyoung Park and Phil Miller of the Minneapolis Star-Tribune).  Tovar was included on Minnesota’s 60-man player pool but was training at the minor league site in St. Paul.  Tovar initially tested negative on the intake tests at the beginning of camp, but then had a positive result on a subsequent test.

There aren’t any other known cases in camp, as Miller writes that “contact tracing has produced no other positives among the squad.”  Tovar himself is asymptomatic, and will go through the mandatory procedures (two-week quarantine period, no symptoms developed, then two negative test results) before being allowed to return to camp.

Of the four other Twins players with positive COVID-19 tests on their record, Falvey said that Miguel Sano, Willians Astudillo, and Nick Gordon are all still in quarantine.  Right-hander Edwar Colina, however, has tested negative twice and is on pace to join the team in Minneapolis at some point this week.

Tovar inked a minor league contract with the Twins during the winter, looking to get another taste of the big leagues after returning to the Show in 2019.  Tovar appeared in nine games with the Mets in 2013-14 and didn’t make it back to the majors until last season, when he played in 31 games (with a .492 OPS over 88 PA) with the Angels.  In between those two big league stints, Tovar played for the Twins’ Triple-A club in 2016, and also spent time in the Cardinals’ farm system in 2017 and 2018.  Tovar was likely no more than a depth option anyway for Minnesota, though this two-week absence will erase any chance he had of making the Opening Day roster.

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