Yankees Release Robinson Chirinos, Nick Goody
The Yankees have released catcher Robinson Chirinos and right-hander Nick Goody from their minor league deals, reports Bryan Hoch of MLB.com (Twitter link). As expected, utilityman Derek Dietrich has also been let go after triggering his opt-out clause.
Chirinos signed with the Yankees over the winter. He was hit by a pitch in Spring Training, though, fracturing his right wrist. That injury required surgery, delaying the veteran’s debut with Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre. Chirinos ultimately appeared in just thirteen games with the RailRiders. He mashed at a .278/.422/.556 clip but also struck out in 16 of his 45 plate appearances. With the Yankees catching duo of Gary Sánchez and Kyle Higashioka set, Chirinos will look for another opportunity elsewhere. The 37-year-old has appeared in parts of nine major league seasons, compiling a .231/.325/.431 line.
Goody, like Chirinos, signed with New York last offseason. It was his second stint in the organization, as the 29-year-old began his MLB career with the Yankees in 2015. The 29-year-old has pitched to a 2.86 ERA with an elite 36.5% strikeout rate and a lower than average 8.2% walk percentage with Scranton/Wilkes-Barre. That wasn’t enough to earn a place in a crowded Yankee bullpen, but it should draw the attention of other clubs with more glaring relief needs. Goody has a 4.19 ERA/3.84 SIERA in parts of six big league seasons.
Twins Sign Joe Harvey
The Twins have signed reliever Joe Harvey to a minor league contract, per an announcement from their Triple-A affiliate in St. Paul. The right-hander elected free agency last weekend after being designated for assignment by the Rockies.
Harvey began his career with the Yankees, making his major league debut with New York in April 2019. The Yankees sent him to the Rockies before that year’s trade deadline, and he appeared in the majors with Colorado between 2019-20. Altogether, Harvey’s tossed 21 1/3 innings at the big league level, pitching to a 4.22 ERA/5.25 SIERA with worse than average strikeout and walk percentages (19.4% and 13.3%, respectively).
The 29-year-old had spent most of this season with the Rockies Triple-A affiliate in Albuquerque. He made 15 appearances, working to a 2.63 ERA with a stellar 34.5% strikeout rate but a very high 15.5% walk percentage. Colorado selected Harvey to the big league roster last month, but he was cut loose two days later without having appeared in a game.
Harvey becomes the third notable reliever the Twins have signed to a minor league deal in recent weeks. Minnesota has also added former big leaguers Kyle Barraclough and Nick Vincent in an effort to stockpile some experienced depth. The bullpen has been one of the bigger reasons for the Twins disastrous season, as the relief corps sits 26th in the league with a 4.88 ERA. (Their peripherals are a bit better but still below-average).
The 33-48 Twins are almost certain to sell off some players from the big league roster at this point. Relievers Alex Colomé, Hansel Robles, Taylor Rogers, Tyler Duffey and Caleb Thielbar are among the many players the Twins could make available in the next few weeks. Trading one or more of that group could open spots in the majors for some of their recent non-roster additions down the stretch.
Padres’ Prospect CJ Abrams Out For The Season
Padres shortstop prospect CJ Abrams has been diagnosed with a fractured left tibia and sprained MCL, reports Dennis Lin of the Athletic (Twitter link). His recovery comes with a three-month timetable, ending his season. He suffered the injury during an on-field collision on Wednesday.
Abrams is one of the sport’s most electrifying minor league talents. Each of Baseball America, Keith Law of the Athletic, and Eric Longenhagen of FanGraphs ranked him among the game’s top 11 overall prospects entering the year. The 6th overall pick in the 2019 draft, Abrams draws praise for his abilities on both sides of the ball. A top-of-the-scale runner and extremely advanced hitter, the 20-year-old is seen as a potential future star.
He’s reached the high minors for the first time this season. Through 183 plate appearances with Double-A San Antonio, Abrams has hit .296/.363/.420 with a pair of home runs and 13 stolen bases. That’s quality production from any player in a pitcher-friendly environment, but it’s particularly impressive considering Abrams’ youth.
Abrams never seemed especially likely to make an impact at the major league level this season. Because of last year’s canceled minor league campaign, he has all of 348 plate appearances since being drafted out of a Georgia high school. He also doesn’t need to be added to the 40-man roster this winter. Any small chance that existed of Abrams making his major league debut this year is now gone, although the expectation seems to be he’ll have a relatively normal offseason and be ready for Spring Training in 2022.
Braves Recall Orlando Arcia
The Braves announced they’ve recalled Orlando Arcia from Triple-A Gwinnett. Left-hander Kyle Muller was optioned out last night to clear active roster space.
Arcia will be making his team debut when he first appears in a game. Atlanta acquired him from the Brewers for relievers Patrick Weigel and Chad Sobotka in early April but immediately optioned him. That wasn’t unreasonable; while Arcia was a one-time top prospect, he never developed the way the Brewers had hoped. Between 2018-21, the right-handed hitting infielder hit just .232/.282/.344 (64 wRC+) across 1112 plate appearances. Arcia was coming off a career-best 2020, but his .260/.317/.416 line last year was still a tad worse than league average.
To his credit, Arcia has looked completely rejuvenated since changing organizations. The 26-year-old has hit .303/.380/.552 over 229 trips to the plate with the Stripers. He’s popped thirteen home runs and compiled an equal number of walks and strikeouts (25 apiece). Arcia’s 145 wRC+ ranks tenth among the 79 Triple-A East hitters to tally at least 150 plate appearances.
Arcia will get another chance to try to carry over that success against big league arms. A longtime shortstop in Milwaukee, he’s also seen action at third base and in left field this season in preparation for a potential multi-positional role off the bench.
White Sox Reportedly Interested In Trevor Story
The White Sox “have serious interest” in star Rockies shortstop Trevor Story, reports Bob Nightengale of USA Today. Colorado isn’t expected to trade Story — to the White Sox or anyone else — before the All-Star Break, Nightengale adds.
At first glance, the Sox would appear to be an odd fit to acquire a high-end shortstop. They already have an All-Star caliber player at the position in Tim Anderson. The idea under consideration, though, would be for Chicago to add Story with the idea of kicking him over to second base for the remainder of the year.
Chicago has already lost incumbent second baseman Nick Madrigal for the season on account of a hamstring strain that required surgery. The position has been manned by Danny Mendick and Leury García since then, and it’s clearly an area at which the Sox front office is hoping to upgrade. Chicago has been tied to both Diamondbacks infielder Eduardo Escobar and Pirates second baseman Adam Frazier in recent weeks. Those remain plausible scenarios, although Nightengale writes that Escobar’s recent battle with a nagging right quad injury has cooled Chicago’s interest in him somewhat.
While it might be surprising to hear of a team contemplating a trade for a plus defensive shortstop only to move him off the position, the idea becomes more sensible when considering the league context. Most contending clubs already have an entrenched in-house shortstop. That could cause teams to look for more creative ways of installing Story into the lineup to plug other holes on the roster.
Story hasn’t played anywhere other than shortstop during his MLB career. He had a little bit of time at second and third base during his days as a prospect but hasn’t logged a single inning at another position since 2015. Nevertheless, there’s reason to believe he’s equipped to take on another spot on the dirt.
Second and third base are less demanding positions to handle than shortstop. A team acquiring Story and moving him to second temporarily wouldn’t be all that dissimilar from the Blue Jays signing former A’s shortstop Marcus Semien to man the keystone in deference to Bo Bichette. Semien has adjusted to that transition swimmingly.
A player’s willingness to take on new positions can vary person-to-person, of course. But there’d be ample reason for Story to embrace a move off shortstop if it helps facilitate a trade. Not only would he leave the 36-48 Rockies for a chance to compete for a postseason berth, a midseason deal would remove the possibility of Story being tagged with a qualifying offer before he hits free agency at the end of the year.
Teams other than the White Sox are certainly also in the mix for Story, so a trade of some sort continues to look very likely. The 28-year-old isn’t amidst his best season, hitting .255/.328/.445 with ten home runs across 296 plate appearances. He was among the best players in baseball over the past three seasons, though, combining for a cumulative .292/.355/.554 slash line.
Welington Castillo Retires
Former big league catcher Welington Castillo is retiring from baseball, reports Jesse Dougherty of the Washington Post (Twitter link). He’ll hang up his spikes having appeared for five teams in parts of ten major league seasons.
Castillo began his professional career with the Cubs, signing out of the Dominican Republic in 2004 and reaching the majors by 2010. He went on to spend the next four-plus years on the North Side of Chicago, hitting fairly well as the Cubs regular catcher from 2013-14. Chicago traded him to the Mariners in May 2015, and Seattle flipped him to the Diamondbacks as part of a deal to acquire Mark Trumbo a little more than a month later.
The right-handed hitting backstop spent the next year and a half in Arizona, working as the D-Backs primary backstop before being non-tendered. He signed on with the Orioles for the 2017 campaign, again offering his typical blend of quality offense and fringy but playable defense behind the dish. He then returned to Chicago — this time on the South Side — on a two-year deal with the White Sox.
Unfortunately, Castillo’s White Sox tenure didn’t go as hoped. He was suspended for eighty games after testing positive for a banned substance midway through the 2018 season, and he struggled at the plate for the first time in his career in 2019. While Castillo signed minor league deals with the Nationals in each of the past two offseasons, he didn’t make it back to the majors. The 34-year-old opted out last season due to COVID-19 concerns and has spent this year with Washington’s Triple-A affiliate.
While Castillo’s career didn’t end the way he’d likely envisioned, there’s little doubt he had a solid run. Castillo tallied 2701 plate appearances over his ten big league campaigns, compiling a .254/.313/.426 line that betters the .243/.311/.390 mark managed by the league average catcher between 2010-19. Castillo picked up 626 hits (including 98 home runs), drew 183 walks, scored 251 times and drove in 339 runs. Baseball Reference estimates he was worth around 12 wins above replacement. (FanGraphs, which accounts for his generally poor pitch framing metrics, pegs him closer to five wins). B-Ref tallies his career earnings at just north of $28MM. MLBTR congratulates Castillo on a fine career and wishes him all the best in his future endeavors.
Derek Dietrich To Opt Out Of Contract With Yankees
Derek Dietrich is opting out of his current contract with the Yankees and electing to head back to free agency, per Robert Murray of FanSided (via Twitter).
The 31-year-old infielder has not been called up to the Majors, so he will look for an opportunity to do so elsewhere. With the Triple-A RailRiders this season, Dietrich slashed a typically Dietrichian .215/.413/.393 with four doubles and five home runs in 143 plate appearances. Dietrich split his time between first, second, and third. He has also appeared in the outfield corners, but not since 2019 with the Reds.
Dietrich had an unusual 2019 season with the Reds, bull-rushing pitching in the early going as he hit 17 home runs and slashed .260/.366/.707 through the end of May. From June 1st until the end of the season, however, Dietrich hit .117/.294/.227 with two home runs over 161 plate appearances. Those disparate showings came together for a .187/.328/.461 line. He put up a similar season with the Rangers in 2020, slashing .197/.347/.459 over 75 plate appearances.
For all the flaws in his game, Dietrich has been better than average with the bat by measure of wRC+ in every season of his career save for his rookie campaign in 2013. Even these past two seasons, as his batting average has dipped below the Mendoza line, Dietrich posted 102 wRC+ in 2019 and 124 wRC+ in 2020. The hallmarks of his game of late have been big-time power (.275 ISO in 2019 and 262 ISO in 2020) alongside some real batted ball difficulty (.176 BABIP in 2019, .200 BABIP in 2020).
Dietrich’s isn’t exactly known as an easy personality in the clubhouse, but those teams desperate for offense could very well look to the former second round pick. The Yankees, of course, chose to trade for Rougned Odor rather than call up Dietrich — which perhaps played a part in Dietrich’s decision to opt out and seek greener pastures.
AL Notes: Blue Jays, Jansen, Moreno, Mariners, White, Mize, Skubal
Before this afternoon’s game against the Rays, the Blue Jays activated catcher Danny Jansen from the injured list and optioned Riley Adams to Triple-A. Jansen will be limited to scripted usage in the near-term, as manager Charlie Montoyo is committed to riding the hot hand of Reese McGuire for now, per Scott Mitchell of TSN Sports (via Twitter). McGuire was designated for assignment at the start of the season, and he’d have to be waived again for Toronto to take him off the active roster. He’s not going anywhere for now, however, not while he continues to hit as he has, with a .302/.350/.406 triple slash line through 104 plate appearances. That means Alejandro Kirk will remain in Triple-A for the time being, where he is currently on a rehab assignment.
More from Toronto and the rest of the American League:
- In other Blue Jays catching news, top prospect Gabriel Moreno underwent surgery on his fractured right thumb, as first reported by Future Blue Jays (and confirmed by Ben Nicholson-Smith of Sportsnet). There’s no specific timetable on his return, but the young backstop will be out for multiple weeks. Moreno entered the season as one of the top catching prospects in the minors, and he’s taken his stock to another level with Double-A New Hampshire. Despite only being 21 years old, Moreno has thrived at the minors’ second-highest level, hitting .373/.441/.651 with eight homers across 145 plate appearances.
- The Mariners don’t appear particularly close to returns from either of a pair of injured regulars. There’s still no timetable on center fielder Kyle Lewis, who is recovering from a meniscus tear in his right knee, relays Ryan Divish of the Seattle Times (Twitter links). Lewis isn’t eligible to return from the 60-day injured list until early August, but it doesn’t seem feasible to expect him back at that point given the vague outlook on his injury. First baseman Evan White, meanwhile, “isn’t close” to even resuming baseball activities after receiving a cortisone shot in his ailing left hip, per Divish. White is eligible to return from the 60-day IL in a little over a week, but he’s obviously going to need significantly more time than that to recover.
- The Tigers are planning to be more judicious with Casey Mize’s and Tarik Skubal’s in-start workloads in the coming weeks, writes Evan Woodbery of MLive. Detroit isn’t planning to shut down either of their prized young hurlers entirely; instead, there’ll be pre-planned quick hooks during some starts to keep their innings totals in check. The process already began during Mize’s start yesterday, as manager A.J. Hinch lifted the 24-year-old after three innings and 56 pitches against the White Sox. Mize, who threw 28 1/3 innings during last year’s shortened season, is up to 91 1/3 frames in 2021. Skubal tossed 32 innings in 2020 and is up to 82 2/3 this season after today’s five-inning outing against Chicago.
Marlins Outright Luis Marte
JULY 3: Marte has cleared waivers and been outrighted to Triple-A Jacksonville, per his transactions log at MLB.com. He’s apparently accepted the assignment, as he’s listed on the Jumbo Shrimp active roster.
JUNE 30: The Marlins have designated infielder Luis Marte for assignment. The move makes way for infielder Joe Panik (acquired in yesterday’s four-player trade with the Blue Jays) to be added to Miami’s active roster.
This is the second time this month that Marte has been DFA’ed, with the first move coming after Marte had appeared in just one game with the team, making his Major League debut. After being outrighted off the 40-man roster, Marte had his contract selected again on June 19, this time seeing action in three games and collecting his first hit as a big leaguer.
Marte joined the Marlins on a minor league deal this past offseason, following a decade of action in the Rangers and Braves farm systems. The 27-year-old native of the Dominican Republic was originally signed by Texas in November 2010, and Marte has hit .249/.270/.337 over 3184 career PA in the minors. Because this is his second DFA of the season, Marte has the option of declining another outright assignment if he chooses to test free agency.
Cubs Sign Tony Cingrani
The Cubs signed Tony Cingrani to a minor league contract earlier this week, per an announcement from the Lexington Legends of the Atlantic League. The southpaw had been pitching for the independent club since May.
Cingrani appeared in the big leagues every year from 2012-18. He tossed 104 2/3 innings of 2.92 ERA/3.31 SIERA ball for the Reds in 2013 but struggled the following season before moving to the bullpen by 2015. Cingrani issued far too many walks over his first couple seasons as a reliever but eventually dialed in his control. Between 2017-18, he tossed 65 1/3 innings of 4.41 ERA ball between the Reds and Dodgers, but his lofty 32.5% strikeout rate and tiny 6.6% walk percentage suggested additional upside.
Unfortunately, Cingrani required season-ending surgery to repair a torn labrum in his shoulder before he threw a pitch in 2019. While he reportedly drew interest late in the 2019-20 offseason, he ultimately didn’t wind up signing anywhere during the lost minor league campaign. After a two-month stint in indie ball, Cingrani has worked his way back into the affiliated ranks. He has been assigned to Triple-A Iowa, where he’ll be on hand as lefty relief depth.