Dodgers Place Gavin Lux On Injured List
JULY 19: Los Angeles has placed Lux on the 10-day injured list due to a left hamstring strain. It seems he could be in for something of a lengthy absence, as manager Dave Roberts told reporters (including Juan Toribio of MLB.com) his recovery “could take some time.”
JULY 18: Dodgers infielder Gavin Lux left today’s 6-5 loss to the Rockies with a hamstring injury. Lux immediately grabbed his left hamstring area while breaking out of the batter’s box on a ground ball in the ninth inning, and he was replaced at shortstop in the bottom half of the frame. Los Angeles manager Dave Roberts described the injury to reporters (including The Athletic’s Fabian Ardaya) as a “cramp, mild strain-ish” type of problem, and Lux will likely miss at least a few games while team trainers and doctors perform tests.
Should the injured list be required for Lux, it will create another hole in a Dodgers roster that hasn’t really been entirely healthy at any point this season. Pitching injuries have been the larger issue for the defending World Series champions, but several notable position players have missed time, including Corey Seager‘s ongoing absence due to a broken hand. (Lux himself had a minimal 10-game IL stint due to wrist soreness back in April.)
Lux began the season as the Dodgers’ regular second baseman, but took over as the primary shortstop when Seager was sidelined. Seager is playing simulated games and might be pretty close to returning, but until he actually does get back, Chris Taylor will likely be the top option at shortstop if Lux is also out.
One of baseball’s top prospects during his time in the L.A. farm system, Lux has yet to really deliver on that high potential, though he has played only 124 big league games from 2019-21. Lux posted a .655 OPS over 151 PA in his first two seasons and appeared in only one game during the Dodgers’ postseason run last fall. Coming into this season with a starting gig, Lux has hit .227/.307/.349 with six home runs over 313 plate appearances. There is some element of bad luck at play, considering Lux’s .294 wOBA is well below his .320 xwOBA, but even that latter statistic is below average.
Mets Select Anthony Banda, Stephen Nogosek
Before this evening’s game against the Reds, the Mets selected the contracts of pitchers Anthony Banda and Stephen Nogosek. To create space on the 40-man roster, New York transferred righty Corey Oswalt from the 10-day to the 60-day injured list and designated outfielder Johneshwy Fargas for assignment.
Acquired in a minor trade with the Giants earlier this month, Banda’s now set to appear in his fifth consecutive big league season, although he only has 51 1/3 combined innings under his belt. Banda hasn’t yet had sustained big league success, with just a 5.96 ERA/4.66 SIERA over that time. The southpaw was well-regarded as a prospect before being set back by injuries, thanks largely to some excellent minor league numbers up through Double-A. Banda hasn’t translated his low minors’ dominance to Triple-A though, pitching to a 4.99 ERA with average strikeout and walk rates (22.6% and 9.2%, respectively) over parts of five seasons.
Nogosek is back in the majors for the first time since 2019. He made seven relief appearances with New York that year before being outrighted off the 40-man roster. The 26-year-old has spent the entire 2021 campaign with Triple-A Syracuse, pitching to a 5.76 ERA across 29 2/3 innings. The poor run prevention belies strong swing-and-miss numbers, as Nogosek has punched out a lofty 32.8% of batters faced in the minors this year.
With their outfield decimated by injury, the Mets selected Fargas to the big league roster in mid-May. He had four extra-base hits in just 22 plate appearances but went down with a shoulder problem himself. By the time he returned from the IL last week, New York’s other outfielders had already made their way back. The Mets will now have a week to trade Fargas or expose him to waivers.
Oswalt landed on the IL on July 6 with right knee inflammation. He’ll miss at least the majority of the rest of the season, with today’s transfer ruling him out for sixty days from the date of that placement. Before going down with injury, the 27-year-old tossed 10 1/3 innings across three appearances.
Marlins Select Andrew Bellatti
The Marlins announced a handful of roster moves before this evening’s game against the Nationals. As expected, infielder Jazz Chisholm Jr. (left shoulder contusion) and corner outfielder/first baseman Garrett Cooper (left elbow sprain) have landed on the 10-day injured list. To take their places on the active roster, outfielder Lewis Brinson has been recalled from Triple-A Jacksonville, while Miami selected the contract of reliever Andrew Bellatti. Miami already had a vacancy on the 40-man roster, so no additional move was needed in that regard.
Bellatti is now in position to make his first major league appearance in six years. The right-hander tossed 23 1/3 innings of 2.31 ERA ball for the Rays in 2015 but hasn’t been in the big leagues since. Bellatti pitched in the high minors of the Tampa Bay system in 2016. He signed a minor league deal with the Orioles in 2017 but missed the entire season due to injury. Bellatti didn’t return to action until 2019 on a minors pact with the Yankees before spending some time in independent ball.
The 29-year-old hooked on with the Marlins on a minor league deal over the offseason. He’s earned a second big league call with 13 1/3 innings of 2.03 ERA ball between Double-A and Triple-A. Bellatti has struck out sixteen batters while walking only five and has allowed just a single home run.
Padres Activate Yu Darvish
The Padres announced they’ve reinstated ace Yu Darvish from the 10-day injured list to start this evening’s game against the Braves. Righty Miguel Díaz was optioned to Triple-A El Paso to open active roster space. Additionally, righty Jordan Humphreys has been passed through outright waivers and assigned to Double-A San Antonio. The move opens a spot on the Padres 40-man roster.
Darvish landed on the IL just before the All-Star Break with left hip inflammation. It was never expected to be a lengthy absence, and he’ll indeed make his return after a minimal stay. Last year’s NL Cy Young award runner-up is having another very strong season. He’s tossed 105 innings of 3.09 ERA/3.37 SIERA ball this year, earning his fifth career All-Star nod in the process.
Humphreys has yet to pitch in the majors, but he’s bounced between a few teams in recent years. A well-regarded prospect early in his career with the Mets’ organization, he missed much of the 2018-19 campaigns after undergoing Tommy John surgery. Acquired by the Giants last summer, Humphreys went to the Indians then back to San Francisco on waivers before landing with San Diego on another claim in early March.
The Friars have successfully gotten Humphreys through the wire, so he’ll remain in the organization without requiring a 40-man roster spot. He has pitched 10 2/3 innings with San Antonio already, managing just a 9.28 ERA with a below-average 13.2% strikeout rate.
Pirates Acquire Dillon Peters, Designate Kyle Crick
The Pirates have acquired left-hander Dillon Peters from the Angels in exchange for cash considerations, both clubs announced. The Angels designated Peters for assignment last week after signing outfielder Adam Eaton to a major league contract. To open roster space for Peters, Pittsburgh has designated reliever Kyle Crick for assignment.
Peters appeared in the majors each season from 2017-20, with the bulk of his experience coming in 2019. Altogether, he’s tossed 132 2/3 innings of 5.83 ERA/5.22 SIERA ball across 31 MLB appearances (including 24 starts). To date, Peters has struggled to miss bats at the big league level, striking out a below-average 16.7% of batters faced and generating swinging strikes on only 8.7% of his offerings (11.4% league average).
However, Peters has shown much better strikeout and walk numbers this season at Triple-A. Through 41 1/3 frames with the Angels’ top affiliate in Salt Lake, the 28-year-old has punched out a strong 26.8% of hitters while walking just 7.3% of opponents. Peters has been plagued by the home run ball this year (2.61 HR/9), but that’s also likely influenced by the extreme hitter-friendly environment of Triple-A West. Clearly, the Pirates’ front office was sufficiently intrigued by Peters’ improved minor league peripherals to take a low-cost flyer on him. He’s in his final option year, meaning he can move freely between Pittsburgh and Triple-A Indianapolis for the rest of the season if he sticks on the 40-man roster.
It has been a difficult 2021 season for Crick, who has intermittently flashed high-leverage potential. A one-time top pitching prospect coming up through the Giants’ system, the righty moved to the bullpen in 2017. He made his big league debut with San Francisco that year, tossing 32 1/3 innings of 3.06 ERA ball. That offseason, the Giants shipped him to Pittsburgh alongside Bryan Reynolds in a now-regrettable deal to acquire Andrew McCutchen.
Crick pitched well in his debut campaign with Pittsburgh, working 60 1/3 relief innings with a 2.39 ERA and a 3.57 SIERA. He’s not consistently managed to follow up on that success, though, as his control has gone backwards in recent years. Crick struggled in 2019, then missed much of the abbreviated 2020 season dealing with shoulder and lat injuries.
This year, Crick has made 27 appearances totaling 24 1/3 innings. He’s tallied a 4.44 ERA with worse than average strikeout (19.6%), walk (17.8%) and groundball (36.7%) rates. Crick’s velocity on both his fastball and slider is down 2-3 miles per hour relative to his heyday, and he’s seen an accompanying dip in swinging strike rate.
The Pirates will have a week to trade Crick or expose him to waivers. As a player with between three and five years of major league service, he’d have the right to reject an outright assignment if he passes through waivers unclaimed. Doing so, however, would mean forfeiting what remains of his $800K salary. If another club acquires Crick via small trade or waivers (or if he remains in the Pittsburgh organization but pitches his way back onto the 40-man roster before the end of the year), he’d be controllable via arbitration through 2023.
Jazz Chisholm, Garrett Cooper Undergoing MRIs
July 19: Both Chisholm and Cooper are undergoing MRIs today, Wilson tweets. Manager Don Mattingly said simply that it “didn’t look good” for either player. Mish adds that he expects Chisholm to be placed on the injured list. The outlook on Cooper is not yet clear.
July 18: Two of the Marlins’ most prominent players made early exits from today’s 7-4 loss to the Phillies. Jazz Chisholm Jr. suffered a left shoulder contusion in the first inning and had to leave the game, while Garrett Cooper departed in the eighth inning due to an elbow injury sustained after Travis Jankowski ran into Cooper’s arm during a play at first base.
Marlins skipper Don Mattingly told reporters (including Craig Mish and David Wilson of the Miami Herald) that both players will receive further testing, including an MRI for Cooper tomorrow. A first set of x-rays on Chisholm’s shoulder didn’t reveal anything, which is a very good sign considering how much pain Chisholm was in after awkwardly landing on the field in his attempt to catch a Bryce Harper bloop single in right field.
Chisholm already spent a few weeks on the injured list this season due to a hamstring injury, and missed a few games but avoided another IL visit while battling through a bad ankle. After a very hot start to the season, Chisholm has hit only .238/.293/.399 in 209 plate appearances since returning from the injured list on May 16, though he had started to swing the bat a little better over the last couple of weeks.
Overall, Chisholm hasn’t done anything to detract from his status as a building block piece for Miami, but naturally the team would love to see the 23-year-old shake the injury bug and continue to gain more experience (today was only Chisholm’s 91st career MLB game) in what is increasingly looking like a developmental year for the last-place Marlins. Today’s loss dropped the Fish to a 40-53 record, and with 9.5 games between the Marlins and first place in the NL East, Miami looks like a team that will be in seller mode heading into the July 30 trade deadline.
To that end, Cooper stood out as a potential trade chip, provided he is healthy. Cooper has quietly been a very productive player for the last three seasons, including a .282/.378/.463 slash line and nine homers in 251 PA in 2021. Any number of contending teams could be interested in that type of offense from first base or right field, and Cooper is also both controllable (through 2023) and affordable, as he is owed roughly $748K for the remainder of this season. Even a 10-day stint on the IL, however, could scuttle Cooper’s chances of being moved at the deadline, so the Marlins might have to wait until the offseason to possibly revisit the idea of trading the 30-year-old.
Reds Designate Jose De Leon, Mark Payton For Assignment
The Reds announced today that they’ve designated right-hander Jose De Leon and outfielder Mark Payton for assignment in order to clear 40-man roster space for right-handers Edgar Garcia and R.J. Alaniz, whose contracts have been selected from Triple-A Louisville. Cincinnati also formally placed righty Michael Lorenzen on the 10-day IL due to a hamstring strain — as manager David Bell first announced yesterday — and optioned lefty Cionel Perez to Louisville.
De Leon, 28, was one of the game’s top pitching prospects but had his development derailed by injuries, most notably Tommy John surgery early in the 2018 season. The Reds picked him up from the Rays in a deal that sent cash back to Tampa Bay, and he’s tossed 24 1/3 innings for them dating back to 2020. De Leon has whiffed 43 of the 126 batters he’s faced in that time (34.1 percent), but he’s also been clobbered for 29 runs in that time. Control has been a problem, as evidenced by a 17.6 percent walk rate and a pair of hit batters in that time.
Cincinnati took Payton, now 29, out of the A’s organization in the 2019 Rule 5 Draft but returned him to Oakland in early July last summer. The Reds thought highly enough of Payton to eventually acquire him in a trade, but he’s yet to produce much in limited chances. Payton has logged just 44 plate appearances since 2020, hitting .175/.250/.200 in that time. He’s hitting .281/.331/.446 in Triple-A this season and has a career .296/.368/.508 slash in parts of five seasons at that level.
Garcia, 24, signed a minor league deal with the Reds last December. He’s pitched in parts of two big league seasons with the Phillies and Rays but struggled to a 6.17 ERA in that time. Garcia has been sharp in Triple-A this season, however, pitching to a 3.38 ERA with a 29.6 percent strikeout rate, a 13.2 percent walk rate and a massive 70.4 percent ground-ball rate. Garcia has spent parts of three seasons in Triple-A and compiled 3.28 ERA in 57 1/3 frames.
Alaniz will be returning for his second stint with the Reds, who non-tendered him this past offseason. Alaniz has just 15 2/3 innings of work at the MLB level and has yielded 16 runs in that time. Like Garcia, though, he’s been quite effective down in Louisville this year, working to a 2.25 ERA with a very strong 31.5 percent strikeout rate against a 7.1 percent walk rate.
A’s Agree To Terms With First-Rounder Max Muncy
The Athletics have agreed to terms with first-round pick Max Muncy, reports Carlos Collazo of Baseball America (via Twitter). Muncy, the No. 25 overall pick, will receive a $2.85MM bonus that sits a bit north of his $2,740,300 slot value.
Not to be confused with the Dodgers slugger (and 2012 A’s draftee) of the same name, Muncy is a high school shortstop out of Thousand Oaks High School in California. A late riser up draft boards, Muncy landed 26th on the pre-draft rankings of ESPN’s Kiley McDaniel and was generally ranked in the 35 to 50 range on prospect rankings at Baseball America, MLB.com, FanGraphs and The Athletic. He’d committed to Arkansas but will now forgo his college career to ink an above-slot deal with the A’s.
Muncy, 18, draws praise for his plus power, a strong throwing arm, above-average speed and the athleticism to play multiple other positions if outgrows shortstop. Like most high school draftees, there’s a good bit of projection (and risk) baked into the Muncy selection, but he’ll add a high-ceiling, potential middle infielder to the A’s system. He headlines a position-player heavy crop of Oakland draftees in 2021, as the A’s only took a pair of pitchers in their first 10 selections this year before focusing on arms in the back half of their draft class.
Yankees Agree To Terms With First-Rounder Trey Sweeney
The Yankees have agreed to terms with first-round pick Trey Sweeney, per Baseball America’s Carlos Collazo (Twitter link). He’ll take home a $3MM signing bonus that checks in $242,900 south of the slot value for the No. 20 overall selection.
Sweeney, a shortstop out of Eastern Illinois, posted a ridiculous-looking .382/.522/.712 batting line during his junior season, adding 14 home runs, ten doubles and a pair of triples in 226 plate appearances. Pre-draft rankings didn’t necessarily foreshadow a first-round selection, as he ranked 54th among Baseball America’s top 500 draft prospects, 55th at MLB.com, 63rd at FanGraphs and 89th over at The Athletic. Scouting reports on Sweeney peg him as a candidate for a position change at the pro level — though his plate discipline and raw power could still play at a number of other spots on the diamond.
As Collazo has previously reported, the Yankees have gone under slot with their selections in the second, fourth, ninth and tenth rounds of this year’s draft. The total savings so far have netted them about $623K, which could help them sign high school lefty Brock Selvidge — their third round pick (No. 92 overall) who entered the draft believed to be a tough sign thanks to a strong commitment to Louisiana State University.
Marlins, Starling Marte End Extension Talks; At Least Three Teams Interested In Trades
Reports from earlier today indicated that Starling Marte rejected the Marlins’ offer of a three-year, $30MM contract extension, making it all the more likely that the outfielder would be dealt prior to the July 30 trade deadline. Contract negotiations are now over between the two sides, according to The Miami Herald’s Craig Mish (Twitter links), as Marte didn’t want the talks to become a distraction for him as the second half of the season progresses.
MLB Network’s Jon Heyman (via Twitter) adds the detail that the Marlins’ extension offer was greater than three years and $30MM, but regardless, it now seems that the team will focus on dealing Marte. As one might expect, Marte is already drawing interest from multiple suitors, as Heyman writes that the Astros, Phillies, and Yankees are three of the teams who have been in touch with the Marlins about the former All-Star.
Marte would be an upgrade for just about any team, considering his impressive .288/.387/.443 slash line, seven home runs over 249 plate appearances this season (though Statcast hints at some regression). In addition to his bat, the 32-year-old Marte also has 20 steals from 23 chances and he has displayed some impressive glovework in center field.
This is all music to the ears of outfield-needy teams like Houston, Philadelphia, and New York. The Astros have gotten very solid results both offensively and defensively from Myles Straw and Chas McCormick up the middle, but there is no doubt Marte would represent a big upgrade. For the Phillies and Yankees, center field has been a revolving door thanks to injuries.
In terms of contract, Marte is owed around $5.1MM of his original $12.5MM salary for the 2021 season. This adds another wrinkle to the trade market, as Marte’s three known suitors are all very close to exceeding the $210MM Competitive Balance Tax threshold. Marte alone could conceivably be added with a bit of maneuvering under the tax line, but that would eliminate pretty much all available payroll space for further trade needs like pitching.
Throughout the winter and into the season, the Yankees and Astros have in particular made several moves indicating that staying under the tax line (and avoiding an escalating repeater penalty) is a priority, though both Yankees owner Hal Steinbrenner and Astros GM James Click recently stated that they would go over the CBT line in the right circumstance. The Phils have never exceeded the luxury tax line, but owner John Middleton has said in the past that he would also be willing to make a tax payment for a difference-making addition.
An argument can certainly be made that Marte is such an addition, though it is also possible that he could be acquired in a trade that wouldn’t require any CBT overage. The Marlins could be more willing to eat most or all of Marte’s salary if they were offered higher-caliber prospects, though then it becomes a question of just how much prospect value any of the three teams would want to surrender for a rental player. Marte could also be included as part of a larger trade package that might see multiple players swap clubs, with perhaps a larger contract sent back Miami’s way as some kind of salary offset.