Brewers Activate Kolten Wong, Select Zack Godley
The Brewers announced they’ve activated second baseman Kolten Wong from the injured list and selected right-hander Zack Godley to the MLB roster. Utilityman Pablo Reyes and righty Eric Yardley were optioned to Triple-A Nashville in corresponding moves. To create space on the 40-man roster for Godley, Milwaukee designated infielder Jake Hager for assignment.
Wong went on the 10-day IL on June 4 with an oblique strain, his second stint of the season for that issue. As with his first IL trip, the strain proved to be relatively minor, as Wong returns after just two weeks out. That’s good news for the Brewers, since the offseason signee has hit .280/.343/.441 while playing strong defense in his first season with Milwaukee.
Godley makes his second appearance on the Brewers roster. The 31-year-old signed a minor league deal in March and was called up to make a spot start on April 27. Unfortunately, Godley suffered a right index finger contusion during that game and was forced out after just three innings.
Milwaukee designated him for assignment as soon as he was healthy enough to return from the injured list, but Godley accepted an outright assignment to Nashville upon clearing waivers. He’s pitched well in six appearances with the Sounds, working to a 2.40 ERA that ranks third-lowest among 37 Triple-A East pitchers with at least 30 innings. Godley’s struck out a strong 28.6% of opposing hitters in the minors this season while walking a slightly elevated 10.1%.
Hager spent the 2018-19 seasons in the Milwaukee system but signed with the Mets in 2020 as a minor league free agent. He got off to a torrid start with their Triple-A team in Syracuse this season, hitting .405/.436/.703 with three homers in 39 plate appearances. With the Mets reeling from a series of injuries last month, the 28-year-old very briefly cracked the major league roster, collecting one hit in eight at-bats. The Brewers claimed Hager off waivers shortly after and optioned him to Triple-A, but he hasn’t been able to build off his strong start at that level. Hager has hit just .211/.288/.394 across 80 trips to the plate with the Sounds. The Brewers will have a week to trade him or place him on outright waivers.
Additionally, Milwaukee announced that veteran infielder Logan Forsythe has been released from his minor league contract. The 34-year-old signed last month but only picked up 29 plate appearances in Nashville, partially due to a two-plus week absence to represent the United States in Olympic qualifiers. He’s now a free agent.
Royals Select Anthony Swarzak
The Royals announced they’ve selected the contract of reliever Anthony Swarzak. Righty Ronald Bolaños was transferred to the 60-day injured list to create 40-man roster space.
Swarzak, 35, pitched in six games earlier this year with the Diamondbacks. He allowed five runs over 4 2/3 innings, striking out four while walking just one. Arizona cut Swarzak loose at the end of April, and he latched on with the Royals not long thereafter on a minor league deal. He got off to a fantastic start with Triple-A Omaha, punching out 14 of 33 batters faced (42.4%) while not issuing a walk. He allowed three runs (two earned) in 9 1/3 frames as a Storm Chaser before earning his way back to the big leagues.
Bolaños went on the IL earlier this week with a forearm strain. It’s not yet clear if that’ll require surgical repair, but he’s now out until at least mid-August. The 24-year-old was off to a strong start to the year, striking out ten while issuing just a pair of walks over 6 1/3 relief innings.
Nationals Reinstate Starlin Castro, Outright Rogelio Armenteros
The Nationals announced they’ve reinstated infielder Starlin Castro from the restricted list. Also returning to the active roster is right-hander Austin Voth, who’s been on the 10-day injured list due to a broken nose. Reliever Ryne Harper was optioned to Triple-A Rochester, while outfielder Andrew Stevenson has been placed on the 10-day IL, retroactive to June 17, with an oblique strain. Additionally, righty Rogelio Armenteros, who was designated for assignment earlier this week, has cleared waivers and been outrighted to Rochester.
Castro went on the restricted list earlier this week to attend a personal matter. He’ll return after a three-day absence. Castro, who has started 62 of the Nationals 65 games this season at third base, will return to his customary role at the hot corner. He’ll look to right the ship after a brutal start to the campaign. The 31-year-old has hit just .239/.287/.312 over 254 plate appearances, a far cry from his generally average offensive output the three seasons prior. Castro, who is in the final season of a two-year, $12MM contract with the fourth-place Nats, could be a potential trade candidate before the July 30 deadline, although he’ll need to substantially pick up his performance at the plate to attract much interest.
Voth returns after a minimal IL stint, a fortunate development given the scariness of his injury. The 28-year-old was struck in the face by a Vince Velasquez pitch during his first start of the season. Voth, who has otherwise spent the entire year working out of the bullpen, has pitched to a solid 2.73 ERA/3.70 SIERA in 29 2/3 innings.
The Nationals will keep Armenteros in the organization without devoting him a 40-man roster spot. Washington claimed the 26-year-old off waivers from the Diamondbacks last winter. Once a decently regarded prospect in the Houston system, Armenteros made his MLB debut with the Astros in 2019. He tossed 18 innings of 4.00 ERA/4.08 SIERA ball that year but missed last season with bone spurs in his elbow. The righty has spent all of 2021 in Rochester, struggling over seven starts. Through 29 1/3 Triple-A frames, Armenteros has managed just a 5.83 ERA while walking an uncharacteristically high 14.2% of opposing hitters. He’ll stick around with the Red Wings and look to pitch his way back onto the 40-man roster at some point this year.
Orioles Designate Chance Sisco For Assignment
1:40pm: The Orioles announced that Sisco has indeed been designated for assignment. The move was necessary to open a spot on the roster for right-hander Thomas Eshelman, whose contract has been selected from Triple-A Norfolk. Eshelman will take the place of lefty Bruce Zimmermann and start tonight’s game for the O’s, while Zimmermann is headed to the injured list due to tendinitis in his left biceps.
1:07pm: The Orioles have designated former top catching prospect Chance Sisco for assignment, reports Roch Kubatko of MASNsports.com (Twitter link). They’ll now have a week to trade him or attempt to pass him through outright waivers.
Sisco, 26, was a second-round pick back in 2013 and quickly played his way into top prospect status. Sisco raked at every stop through his first few minor league seasons, and Baseball America ranked him among the sport’s 70 best prospects in both 2017 and 2018. His 2016 season, in particular, was an impressive run through Double-A Bowie and Triple-A Norfolk, as Sisco combined to bat .317/.403/.430 with a 12.3 percent walk rate against a 17.7 percent strikeout rate. The O’s called Sisco up for a look late in the 2017 season, and he responded with a 6-for-18 showing that included a pair of homers and a pair of doubles. He looked very much like the organization’s catcher of the future.
That began to change in 2018, when Sisco received his first extended look at the MLB level. He played in 63 games for Baltimore that season and logged 184 plate appearances with just a .181/.288/.269 output to show for it. Sisco’s numbers improved to .211/.345/.389 in 2019-20, but he’s struggled mightily so far in 2021 both in the big leagues and down in Norfolk.
Sisco had a nice showing with Triple-A during the 2019 season, but he hasn’t consistently produced even at the sport’s top minor league level. He’s batting .205/.327/.341 through 52 plate appearances in Norfolk this season and carries an overall .264/.352/.421 slash there in parts of five seasons.
Those struggles have become more problematic as Sisco has gotten older and been unable to improve his ability to control the running game. Baseball America noted back in 2018 that Sisco would likely need “perfect footwork” to be a passable thrower from behind the dish, given bottom-of-the-scale pop times as he attempted to throw out runners on the bases. To his credit, he went 6-for-9 in thwarting thieves at the MLB level this season, but he’s also 1-for-16 in that department in Norfolk this year and has a career 21 percent caught-stealing rate in the minors.
Further complicating matters for Sisco is that he’ll be out of options next spring, meaning he’d need to either make the big league roster or go unclaimed on waivers. With his current struggles pushing him down the depth chart, that lack of future flexibility likely contributed to today’s decision to remove him from the 40-man roster.
Sisco’s status as a one-time top catching prospect who can be optioned for the remainder of the year could well hold appeal to another club, either via a small trade or a waiver claim. The most plausible scenario for him to remain with the Orioles beyond the current season would be one where he clears waivers and is later selected back to the MLB roster, but given today’s move, it may be likelier that another club takes a chance on the former top prospect.
With Sisco now in DFA limbo, the only catchers on the Orioles’ 40-man roster are Pedro Severino and light-hitting Austin Wynns. The club has an experienced option in Norfolk in the former of former Rays catcher Nick Ciuffo, but the organization’s hope at the position clearly shifted to Adley Rutschman the moment he was selected with the top pick in the 2019 draft. The switch-hitting Rutschman has utterly obliterated Double-A pitching thus far in 2021, hitting at a .287/.421/.554 pace with ten homers and five doubles through 171 plate appearances in what is typically a pitcher-friendly environment.
It’s not implausible that Rutschman could crack the Majors this season, although rebuilding clubs like the Orioles often seek to delay the arrival of their top prospects in order to gain an additional year of club control. Calling Rutschman up this season, or at any point in the first two weeks of the 2022 campaign, would give the Orioles’ control over him through the 2027 season. Waiting to call him up until 15 days of the 2022 season have elapsed would push that path to free agency back into the 2028-29 offseason.
Rangers Claim Shaun Anderson, Designate Tyson Miller
The Rangers announced Friday that they’ve claimed righty Shaun Anderson off waivers from the Twins and designated fellow right-hander Tyson Miller for assignment in order to open a spot on the 40-man roster.
The waiver claim brings a quick Twins tenure for Anderson to a close and shines a spotlight on a now-regrettable swap that saw Minnesota send outfielder LaMonte Wade Jr. to San Francisco in exchange for Anderson over the winter. At the time, the Twins looked to be dealing from a position of depth and taking a shot on a reliever with a tantalizing slider, but the Twins have been beset by outfield injuries this season and gotten nothing from their end of that exchange. Wade, meanwhile, has batted .257/.350/.443 in an admittedly small sample of 81 plate appearances for the Giants while missing some time with an oblique injury.
Anderson, 26, has been clobbered for 12 runs (nine earned) on 13 hits and five walks with eight punchouts in 8 2/3 innings out of the Twins’ bullpen so far in 2021. A quadriceps strain and a blister issue on his pitching hand have limited him to just four big league appearances and five outings in Triple-A. He’s been sharp in the minors, firing six scoreless innings with five punchouts and three walks.
The Rangers will be the fourth organization for Anderson, originally a third-round selection of the Red Sox back in 2016. He went from Boston to San Francisco via the Eduardo Nunez trade and had a rough showing, mostly out of the rotation, in 2019 before a more intriguing 2020 performance. Anderson tossed 15 2/3 frames last year and fanned 27 percent of his opponents while recording a gaudy 39.7 percent whiff rate on his slider.
The Twins surely hoped they’d be able to pass Anderson through waivers based on his injuries and rough showing in the big leagues so far. Doing so would’ve allowed them to keep him in Triple-A while reallocating his 40-man spot. Had Minnesota not been hit so hard by the injury bug this season, perhaps the club would’ve been able to avoid trying to pass Anderson through waivers at all, but the loss of the right-hander is yet another ramification of the team’s injuries and generally poor showing in 2021.
As for the 25-year-old Miller, he only joined the Rangers a couple weeks back via a waiver claim out of the Cubs organization. The 2016 fourth-rounder at one point was considered to be one of the better arms in a thin Cubs minor league system, but he’s limped to a 7.26 ERA in 57 Triple-A frames between 2019 and 2021.
Miller made two appearances for the Cubs last year, allowing three runs on two hits and three walks without a strikeout in five innings against the Cardinals. Miller has multiple minor league options remaining, so he could pique the interest of another pitching-hungry club. Texas has a week to trade him or attempt to pass him through outright waivers.
Mariners Sign Alen Hanson
The Mariners have agreed to a minor league deal with utilityman Alen Hanson, per an announcement from their player development department. Hanson, a client of Daniel Szew’s L.A. Sports Management, will report to Triple-A Tacoma.
Hanson, 28, signed a similar deal with the Mariners prior to the 2020 season, though that arrangement was impacted by the lack of a minor league season in 2020. He’ll now return to the Mariners and give them some depth both around the infield and in the outfield.
The last big league appearance for Hanson came with the 2019 Blue Jays, for whom he posted a .163/.229/.163 slash in a small sample of 48 plate appearances. That marked Hanson’s fourth season with some big league time, as he’s also had stints with the Pirates, White Sox and Giants.
At one point, Hanson was considered one of the top prospects in the game. Baseball America rated him as a Top 75 prospect in 2013-14, while MLB.com had him ranked among the game’s 100 best farmhands each year from 2013-15. Unfortunately for Hanson and for the Pirates, who signed and developed him, the results have never been there at the MLB level.
Hanson did rack up 30 extra-base hits in a career-high 310 plate appearances for the 2018 Giants, but his overall .232/.266/.368 line in 625 plate appearances as a Major Leaguer has been lacking. He’s had better results in the upper minors and has logged at least 180 innings at every position on the field other than first base, catcher and pitcher, so he’ll give the M’s some depth at multiple spots.
Rays Acquire Mike Ford From Yankees
The Rays have acquired first baseman Mike Ford from the Yankees for cash considerations and a player to be named later, both clubs announced. Ford has been optioned to Triple-A Durham. To clear 40-man roster space, Tampa Bay transferred righty Tyler Glasnow from the 10-day to the 60-day injured list.
Ford has appeared in the majors in each of the past three seasons. The left-handed hitter showed plenty of offensive promise as a rookie, when he raked at a .259/.350/.559 clip with twelve home runs over his first 163 MLB plate appearances. Ford, whom the Mariners had selected in the Rule 5 draft the previous year but returned in Spring Training, looked like a potential long-term contributor in the Bronx after that strong debut. He hasn’t been able to follow up on that over the past two years, though.
In 156 plate appearances since the start of 2020, Ford has mustered just a .134/.250/.276 line with five homers. With Luke Voit tearing the cover off the ball last year en route to an MLB-best 22 homers, Ford didn’t have much of an opportunity for regular playing time. Voit’s injury issues this season opened up some recent run for Ford, but the 28-year-old didn’t take advantage. He’s hit just .133/.278/.283 in 72 plate appearances this season with a fairly significant bump in his strikeout rate. That led the Yankees to designate him for assignment last weekend.
Ford’s MLB career is still a collection of fairly small samples. He’s tallied just 319 total plate appearances at the highest level, with a resulting .199/.301/.422 line. Ford has a much bigger body of work at Triple-A, where’s hit a robust .268/.359/.501 in parts of four seasons. With a quality minor league track record, a pair of minor league option years remaining and a low acquisition cost, the Rays felt Ford was a worthwhile pick-up.
Ji-Man Choi has hit very well in limited time between a pair of injured list stints this season. He returned to the lineup this week and figures to assume much of the playing time at first base. Tampa Bay has primarily rotated Austin Meadows and Randy Arozarena between DH and the corner outfield this year. Ford’s likely being brought on as an optionable depth player, and he adds another lefty bat to a first base/DH mix that also includes righties Yandy Díaz and Mike Brosseau.
Glasnow’s move to the 60-day IL is unsurprising. The 27-year-old went on the IL this week after an MRI revealed a partial tear of his UCL. He’s hoping to rehab the injury and avoid Tommy John surgery, but he told reporters after the diagnosis his goal was to make it back for a potential playoff run. Regardless of whether he’ll be able to return at the tail end of the regular season or during the postseason, it never seemed plausible he’d be back within two months.
Brendan Kuty of NJ Advance Media reported that the Rays had acquired Ford shortly before the official announcement. Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times (Twitter link) first reported Ford would be optioned to Triple-A.
NL West Notes: Weil, Seager, Sanchez, Crawford
The Rockies and assistant GM Jon Weil have mutually decided to part ways, USA Today’s Bob Nightengale reports (Twitter link). Weil has been with the organization since 2005 and in his current role since 2014, and The Denver Post’s Nick Groke writes that Weil is known league-wide as “an astute evaluator,” such as his “instrumental” role in the Rockies’ acquisition of German Marquez in a trade with the Rays back in January 2016.
Weil was considered a candidate for the interim GM role after Jeff Bridich’s resignation back in April, though the club opted to give the job to another long-time employee in VP of scouting Bill Schmidt. The circumstances of Weil’s departure aren’t known, and it could be just as simple as both sides wanting a change after so many years. For a Colorado front office known for its long-term continuity, however, it could perhaps be a hint that the organization is looking ahead to some wider-scale changes after the season, such as the hiring of a new general manager or president of baseball operations from outside the organization.
More from the NL West…
- Dodgers manager Dave Roberts is hopeful that Corey Seager can begin a minor league rehab assignment by the “middle to end of next week,” the skipper told The Athletic’s Fabian Ardaya and other reporters. Seager suffered a fractured right hand after being hit with a Ross Detwiler pitch on May 15, and was expected to miss at least a month in recovery. The first step will come this weekend, as Seager is slated to do some hitting on the field at the Dodgers’ Spring Training facility. Seager was still ranked in the spot on MLBTR’s most recent 2021-22 Free Agent Power Rankings, assuming that he is able to return to the field in due course and is still able to play to his usual high standard in the wake of his injury.
- Aaron Sanchez left a minor league rehab outing tonight after 1 1/3 innings due to a blister on his throwing hand, Mark W. Sanchez of KNBR reports. The Giants right-hander has a checkered history of blister and finger issues, which ruined his last three seasons with the Blue Jays following an All-Star season in 2016. Sanchez missed all of 2020 recovering from shoulder surgery and was seemingly putting together a decent comeback campaign (3.18 ERA/4.26 SIERA) over 28 1/3 innings with San Francisco this year before biceps tightness sent him to the injured list on May 8.
- Longtime Giants shortstop Brandon Crawford hit a career milestone today when he officially reached 10 full years of Major League service time, and Kerry Crowley of the Bay Area News Group commemorated the achievement with a look back at several memorable moments from Crawford’s career. Ten years in the big leagues is a major landmark for any player, perhaps especially for a somewhat modestly-scouted player (Crawford was a fourth-round pick in 2008) who has become a fixture with his hometown team. Crawford’s contract with the Giants already contained a full no-trade clause, though by locking in “10-and-5” rights, Crawford can veto any potential trade for the remainder of his career. This isn’t to say that a trade is anywhere on the horizon, as the shortstop is posting career-best numbers for the first-place Giants.
Latest On Mike Trout’s Calf Injury
One month to the day after Mike Trout suffered a right calf strain, his injury rehab is “going good, I feel great,” the star outfielder said as part of an in-game interview during tonight’s Tigers/Angels game (hat tip to Brent Maguire). Trout is looking to “hopefully start some baseball activity in the next few days and go from there,” though he stressed that he is waiting to get the green light from doctors before going ahead with any sort of running drills.
Trout’s injury carried a rough timeline of 6-8 weeks, so if Trout is indeed almost on the verge of starting baseball activities after a month, that is a good sign that he might be back on the low end of that estimated absence.
Obviously the sooner Trout is able to return the better for the Angels, who took a 33-35 record into tonight’s contest with Detroit. A recent six-game winning streak gave the Halos a winning record for the first time since May 1, though three consecutive losses has brought them back under the .500 mark. Nine games back of the division lead and seven games back of the second AL wild card spot, Anaheim needs to make up at least some of that ground by the time Trout returns to have any chance at the postseason. If not, the Angels could be deadline sellers and staring at their seven consecutive season without any playoff baseball.
2021 was on pace to be perhaps Trout’s best season yet, considering that his 194 wRC+/OPS+ at the time of his injury represented a new career best. (In baseball history, the list of players with full seasons better than 194 wRC+ is not a long one.) Trout was hitting .333/.466/.624 with eight home runs over his first 146 plate appearances, and it’s fair to guess that the Angels would be a bigger factor in the AL West race if he had been healthy over the last month, though the Halos have been a respectable 15-13 since Trout hit the injured list.
AL Injury Notes: Gleyber, Boyd, Turnbull, White
Gleyber Torres made an early exit from tonight’s game due to what the Yankees described as stiffness in his left lower back. The shortstop will receive further examination tomorrow, when the Yankees return to the Bronx to open a three-game series with the Athletics. Torres took an awkward fall while fielding a Bo Bichette grounder in the third inning, and was replaced for a pinch-hitter in the top half of the fourth.
Torres has hit .260/.342/.344 over 244 plate appearances this season, working his way back up to close to league-average production (96 wRC+) after a rough April, and also a week-long absence in May due to a positive COVID-19 test. He also has a +3.7 UZR/150 and -2 Defensive Runs Saved over 505 2/3 innings at shortstop, a significant improvement with the glove after his shortstop defense has been such a point of criticism. If Torres’ back problem is serious enough to merit a visit to the injured list, Tyler Wade or Gio Urshela are the likely choices to step in at shortstop, with DJ LeMahieu or Miguel Andujar capable of stepping in at third base if Urshela changes positions.
More on other injury situations from around the American League…
- Matt Boyd will visit Dr. Neal ElAttrache for an examination of the Tigers southpaw’s ailing left arm, manager A.J. Hinch told reporters (including Chris McCosky of The Detroit News). More will be known once the exam takes place, though the team is already considering holding Boyd and Spencer Turnbull back until after the All-Star break. “Are we going to push these guys before the All-Star break versus utilizing the time (the four-day break) and targeting them back after the break? That’s the assessment that’s going to be done over the next couple of weeks on how we’re going to ramp these guys back up,” Hinch said. A forearm strain sent Turnbull to the IL on June 5, and while his injury wasn’t though to be overly serious, naturally the Tigers will be cautious with any forearm issue. Boyd — and perhaps Turnbull as well — figure to be trade chips for Detroit at the deadline, so while the team would surely want both hurlers to prove they’re healthy prior to July 30, there is no point in rushing them back and risking further injury.
- After missing a month due to strained left hip flexor, Mariners first baseman Evan White has halted his rehab due to a setback. (Jen Mueller of Root Sports was among those to report the news.) While White could potentially return to Triple-A Tacoma within a week, it represents another delay in his sophomore season. Though White won the Gold Glove for his excellent first base defense in 2020, he has yet to hit at the big league level, with only a .165/.235/.308 slash line in 306 career plate appearances in the majors.