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Reds Promote Chase Petty, Tyler Callihan

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April 30: The Reds announced earlier today that Callihan has been recalled. As a corresponding move, Candelario was placed on the 10-day injured list with a lumbar spine strain, retroactive to April 28th. Petty was officially selected to the 40-man between games and will be the 27th man for the twin bill.

April 29: A pair of Reds prospects will receive their first major league calls. C. Trent Rosecrans of The Athletic reports that right-hander Chase Petty will be tabbed to start the second game of tomorrow’s doubleheader against the Cardinals. He’ll go opposite Steven Matz in his major league debut. Meanwhile, Ari Alexander of KPRC 2 reports that infielder Tyler Callihan is also coming up.

Cincinnati will not need an active roster spot for Petty, who can serve as the allotted 27th man in the doubleheader, but they will need to formally select him onto the 40-man roster. They already have an opening after waiving Randy Wynne last week. Callihan is on the 40-man, but they’ll need to make an active roster move to accommodate his promotion.

Petty, 22, was Minnesota’s first-round pick in the 2021 draft. He didn’t spend a whole lot of time in the Twins’ farm system. Minnesota shipped him to the Reds the following spring in a one-for-one trade that netted Sonny Gray. It worked out well for both clubs. Gray had a fantastic two-season run in the Twin Cities, while Petty has become one of the better pitching prospects in baseball.

As a high schooler, Petty received plenty of attention for a fastball that ran into the triple digits. He’s not throwing quite as hard in pro ball, but he’s still averaging 95-96 MPH on his four-seam and sinker. Prospect evaluators credit him with a plus slider that serves as his best secondary offering. He rounds out a four-pitch mix with a cutter and changeup that’ll hopefully allow him to handle left-handed hitters multiple times through a lineup.

Baseball America ranked Petty third among Cincinnati prospects and among the back 10 of their overall Top 100 over the offseason. He landed among the sport’s Top 50 prospects at FanGraphs, while ESPN’s Kiley McDaniel had him in the back half of his Top 100. Keith Law of The Athletic had him outside his overall 100 but slotted him among the 10 best minor league talents in the Cincinnati system.

Petty spent most of last season in Double-A, where he turned in a 4.39 earned run average across 127 innings. He earned a late-season promotion to Triple-A Louisville, where he’s spent the first month of the ’25 campaign. Petty has pitched well through five starts. He carries a 3.52 ERA with a plus 27% strikeout rate. That includes six scoreless frames with seven strikeouts in his most recent outing last Wednesday.

Tomorrow’s appearance may simply be a spot start. Players promoted as the 27th man in a doubleheader are usually sent back to the minors the following day. Still, it’s unlikely to be the only time Petty gets the call this season. He’ll remain on the 40-man roster even if he’s returned to Louisville postgame. The Reds wouldn’t have made that move unless they anticipated Petty factoring in as rotation depth throughout the season.

The Reds added Callihan to the 40-man roster last November to keep him out of the Rule 5 draft. The left-handed hitting infielder has been on optional assignment to Louisville all season. He has raced out to a strong start to the season, batting .303/.410/.528 with four homers and six stolen bases in 24 games. Callihan has walked 16 times in 106 plate appearances, though he’s also punched out on 29 occasions.

Cincinnati’s third-round pick in 2019, Callihan has battled injuries (including a 2021 Tommy John surgery) during his pro career. He’s generally regarded as a bat-first infielder. Inconsistent minor league production had dropped him to 21st among Reds prospects on BA’s offseason list, but the Reds liked him enough to ensure they didn’t lose him in the Rule 5 draft. The hot start at Louisville earns him an opportunity to contribute to an infield facing some injury questions.

They’ve been without Christian Encarnacion-Strand for a couple weeks, while Jeimer Candelario is day-to-day with lower back soreness. Candelario went for an MRI today, according to the MLB.com injury tracker. A trip to the 10-day IL doesn’t seem out of the question. Callihan is primarily a second baseman and has experience at both corner infield spots (and in left field). Candelario had already ceded the starting third base job to Noelvi Marte, but Callihan could replace him as a bench bat.

Image courtesy of Imagn Images.

Zach Thompson Elects Free Agency

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Right-hander Zach Thompson has rejected an outright assignment to Triple-A Gwinnett in favor of free agency, per David O’Brien of The Athletic. Thompson was designated for assignment earlier this week and clearly went unclaimed on waivers. As a player who’s previously been outrighted in the past, has has the right to turn down all future outright assignments in favor of a trip back to the open market.

Thompson, 31, appeared in two big league games and fired 3 2/3 scoreless innings with the Braves. He yielded three earned runs on seven hits and three walks with a pair of strikeouts during 4 1/3 innings with Triple-A Gwinnett. That limited action so far in 2025 marks Thompson’s first time on a mound since 2023. He missed the entire 2024 season after undergoing surgery to repair a tear in his right flexor tendon.

Prior to his run with the Braves organization, Thompson has seen big league time with both the Marlins and Pirates. He made his MLB debut with the 2021 Marlins, pitching 75 innings of 3.24 ERA ball with a 21% strikeout rate, an 8.9% walk rate and a 43.4% ground-ball rate. That proved enough for the Pirates to acquire him as one of three players in their return for trading catcher Jacob Stallings to Miami.

Thompson’s time with the Pirates didn’t pan out. Pittsburgh surely hoped to be adding a controllable back-end starter who could be plugged right into the rotation after trading Stallings away. Thompson did indeed step right onto the starting staff, but he was roughed up for a 5.18 ERA in 121 2/3 innings. The majority of that time was spent in the rotation (22 starts), but Thompson struggled just as much in seven bullpen appearances later in the year. The Bucs designated him for assignment that offseason and traded him to Toronto. Thompson spent the entire year in the minors before requiring that flexor surgery in October.

A team in need of some rotation depth or long relief help may take a look at Thompson in the near future now that he’s once again a free agent. He pitched decently with the Jays’ Triple-A squad in 2023 (105 innings, 4.61 ERA), has had some degree of success in the majors, and most importantly now appears healthy after missing all of the 2024 season. Thompson also has a full slate of three minor league option years, which may not immediately come into play if he signs a minor league deal but would be a benefit to his next club if he pitches his way into 40-man consideration.

Cubs Select Chris Flexen

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2:46pm: The Cubs have announced the move. Flexen’s contract has been selected from Iowa, and Assad was indeed transferred to the 60-day IL to open a spot on the 40-man roster. Lefty Tom Cosgrove was optioned to Iowa to clear a spot for Flexen on the active 26-man roster.

9:04am: The Cubs are selecting the contract of veteran righty Chris Flexen from Triple-A Iowa, reports ESPN’s Jesse Rogers. He’s been excellent through his first five starts in Des Moines and would’ve been able to opt out of his minor league contract tomorrow if not added to the 40-man roster. Chicago has a full 40-man roster, so a corresponding move will be necessary.

Flexen, 30, has turned in a pristine 1.16 ERA with a much-improved 22.3% strikeout rate against an 8.5% walk rate in 23 1/3 innings of Triple-A work. He hasn’t made any notable changes to his repertoire, and his velocity is right in line with previous levels (91.3 mph average four-seamer), but Rogers notes that Flexen did make a change to his arm slot that the team believes has contributed to his early success.

Flexen has followed an unusual career arc, originally debuting as a 22-year-old with the Mets in 2017 and struggling through parts of three seasons before heading overseas. Flexen reinvented himself with the Korea Baseball Organization’s Doosan Bears, parlaying one strong year there in 2020 into a two-year free agent deal with the Mariners. Upon coming back to North America, he quickly became a pivotal member of Seattle’s rotation, posting a 3.66 ERA in 317 2/3 innings from 2021-22.

After his 2023 option was picked up, his production cratered and Flexen found himself designated for assignment. He struggled down the stretch after being scooped up by the Rockies, and then pitched the 2024 season on a one-year deal with the White Sox, for whom he worked as an innings-eating fifth starter (4.95 ERA, 160 innings, 30 starts).

Based on how his 2023-24 seasons played out, it wasn’t a big surprise that the free agent market produced only a minor league deal for Flexen. His terrific early performance amid some tangible changes to his delivery, however, has fast tracked him back to the big leagues.

The Cubs will be without ace Justin Steele for the remainder of the season due to elbow surgery, but even with Steele out of the picture, the rotation has generally been solid. Shota Imanaga, Jameson Taillon and Matthew Boyd have all delivered strong results (albeit in spite of some more concerning underlying numbers for Imanaga in particular). Veteran swingman Colin Rea has stepped into Steele’s rotation spot and been brilliant in three turns (13 1/3 innings, 1.35 ERA, 17-to-3 K/BB ratio).

The Chicago rotation isn’t without flaws, though. Twenty-five-year-old Ben Brown has been inconsistent. He’s shown a promising ability to miss bats but has yet to top five innings in an outing and has scarcely kept his ERA in the rotation under 6.00. All three of Imanaga, Boyd and Taillon have strikeout rates around 19% — about three percentage points shy of the league average. Imanaga and Boyd have roughly average walk rates. Neither seems likely to sustain a sub-3.00 ERA without improvements in one or both areas.

Regardless, the Cubs don’t necessarily have a glaring rotation need. Brown seems likely to get a bit more leash. There are no injuries of any note among the existing quintet. Imanaga exited his most recent start due to some cramping in his legs, but Rogers adds in a second report that Flexen’s promotion is not related to that early exit.

For now, it seems Flexen will just provide some length, perhaps in a similar swingman role to the one previously held by Rea. If Imanaga’s legs ultimately require an IL stint and/or if Brown’s struggles continue, perhaps there’ll be a more notable change to the pitching staff’s composition.

It’s not yet clear how the Cubs will make room on the 40-man roster, though one straightforward option would be to transfer righty Javier Assad from the 15-day IL to the 60-day IL. Assad has been out all season due to an oblique strain, and while he was progressing through a rehab stint last week, he exited his most recent rehab appearance due to renewed discomfort in his side. That was eight days ago, the Cubs have since announced that he’s been diagnosed with a Grade 2 oblique strain. He’s not going to be ready to return at any point in the near future, making a 60-day transfer the clearest path to open a roster spot without sacrificing any depth.

A’s Select Carlos Duran

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The A’s have selected the contract of righty Carlos Duran from Triple-A and optioned lefty Jacob Lopez, per a team announcement. Right-hander Jose Leclerc was transferred from the 15-day IL to the 60-day IL in order to open space for Duran, who’ll be making his MLB debut the first time he takes the mound.

Duran, 23, was just acquired from the Dodgers in exchange for outfielder Esteury Ruiz earlier in the month. He’s pitched 16 innings between the Triple-A clubs for the Dodgers and A’s in 2025 and posted unsightly results, due largely to poor command. Currently, Duran holds a 6.75 ERA on the season. He’s fanned a respectable 24.3% of his opponents but also issued walks at an untenable 16.2% clip (in addition to three hit batters and a pair of wild pitches).

This year’s command troubles notwithstanding, Duran has a decent minor league track record. He pitched 53 1/3 innings across three minor league levels with the Dodgers in 2024 and notched a combined 3.71 ERA with a robust 29.4% strikeout rate. His location still wasn’t sharp, evidenced by a 12.9% walk rate, but it wasn’t quite as rough as it’s been so far in 2025. Duran is averaging better than 95 mph on his heater this season and pairing it with a slider that sits about 10 mph slower on the radar gun.

That slider, in particular, has drawn heaps of praise from scouts. Baseball America in 2023 called it a plus-plus offering that stood as perhaps the best individual pitch in the Dodgers’ entire minor league system. That’s high praise, but commanding that slider (and his fastball) have been an issue for Duran — as one might expect from a pitcher listed at 6’7″. Duran also has a notable injury under his belt, having missed the 2023 season due to Tommy John surgery (which may also have contributed to his poor command dating back to last year).

Leclerc’s move to the 60-day injured list shouldn’t come as a surprise. The A’s placed him on the 15-day IL due to a lat strain last week. The team noted at the time that Leclerc would be shut down entirely for an indefinite period. There’s still no firm timetable, but it’s been clear for the past seven days that the right-hander wasn’t going to be a candidate to return from the IL at any point in the near future.

The A’s signed Leclerc to a one-year, $10MM contract in the offseason. He’s had an ugly start to his 2025 campaign, yielding six runs on 13 hits and five walks in only nine innings. Leclerc has whiffed just eight of his 46 opponents — a 17.4% rate that’s miles shy of his career 30.8% mark — and has seen his average fastball drop by more than one mile per hour. It currently sits at a career-low 94.2 mph.

Mets Select Brandon Waddell

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April 30: The Mets have now made it official. Waddell has been selected with right-hander Kevin Herget optioned as the corresponding move.

April 29: The Mets are going to select the contract of left-hander Brandon Waddell tomorrow, per Tim Healey of Newsday. The southpaw will either start the game or work bulk innings behind an opener. That decision will perhaps be determined by who the club uses in tonight’s game. The Mets have an open 40-man spot after designating José Ureña for assignment earlier today, but they will need to make a corresponding active roster move.

The move is perhaps a reflection of the club’s schedule, as they are currently four games deep into a stretch of playing 13 straight. Kodai Senga, Clay Holmes, Tylor Megill and Griffin Canning started the first four. David Peterson starts tonight. Rather than have Senga pitch on normal rest tomorrow, Waddell will take the ball and push everyone else by a day.

Waddell, 31 in June, signed a minor league deal with the Mets in the offseason. He has made five Triple-A starts to begin the year and logged 23 1/3 innings, allowing just 1.54 earned runs per nine. He has a 21.6% strikeout rate, 7.2% walk rate and 50% ground ball rate.

His previous major league experience is fairly limited. He tossed 12 2/3 innings over the 2020 and 2021 seasons with the Pirates, Twins, Orioles and Cardinals. He headed to Korea for the 2022 through 2024 campaigns, pitching for the Doosan Bears of the KBO League. He tossed 244 2/3 innings over that time with a 2.98 ERA, which led to his minor league deal with the Mets this past winter.

Presumably, Waddell is just going to make one appearance and then be sent back down to the minors. He does still have an option remaining, so it’s possible he could hang onto his 40-man roster spot to serve as depth.

Photo courtesy of Sam Navarro, Imagn Images

Guardians Acquire Matt Festa From Rangers

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1:57pm: Festa indeed had an opt-out opportunity in his minor league deal tomorrow, per Evan Grant of the Dallas Morning News. It seems likely the Guardians will bring him to the big leagues soon, though the team has not yet announced as much.

9:35am: The Guardians announced Wednesday that they’ve acquired right-hander Matt Festa from the Rangers in exchange for cash. Festa isn’t on the 40-man roster at the moment, although given the timing of the move, it’s fair to wonder whether this trade was prompted by an opt-out or upward mobility clause in his minor league deal with Texas. If that’s the case, he’ll likely be selected to the major league roster in the next day or two.

Festa, 32, has pitched in parts of five big league seasons between the Mariners, Mets and Rangers. He carries a career 4.60 ERA in 117 1/3 MLB frames, during which he’s punched out one-quarter of his opponents and issued walks at a 10.3% clip. Festa has shown promise at times, most notably with the 2022 Mariners, but he’s yet to find consistency in the majors. Injuries have played a notable role, particularly a 2020 Tommy John procedure that wiped out his entire season and sidelined him for most of the 2021 campaign as well.

Entering the 2024-25 offseason, Festa was on the Rangers’ 40-man roster. He lost his spot when Texas signed Chris Martin. The Cubs picked him up in exchange for cash following that DFA. Chicago ultimately designated Festa for assignment as well, after which he cleared waivers, elected free agency and returned to the Rangers on a minor league deal.

Festa is now Cleveland-bound and will head to the Guards on the heels of a dominant showing in Triple-A. The right-hander has rattled off 14 2/3 shutout innings, striking out 32.3% of his opponents against an 11.3% walk rate. Festa has kept the ball on the ground at a hearty 47.1% clip and done a terrific job avoiding hard contact (85.9 mph average exit velocity, 23.5% hard-hit rate). He hasn’t made any big changes to his arsenal or seen a noticeable change in velocity, but the results are impressive nonetheless.

Cleveland’s bullpen has been solid but not up to its usual level of excellence. Guardians relievers have combined for a 3.72 ERA, and that includes three rough innings from position players Austin Hedges and Will Wilson in mop-up work. However, former All-Stars Emmanuel Clase and Paul Sewald have both struggled, with each sporting an earned run average north of 6.00.

Quality contributions from Cade Smith, Joey Cantillo, Hunter Gaddis, Tim Herrin and Jakob Junis have helped to offset those troubles, and Festa could soon get a crack at chipping in himself. The Guardians currently have veterans Vince Velasquez and Kolby Allard in the bullpen, both of whom signed minor league deals. Neither can be optioned to Triple-A, but their presence speaks to the unsettled nature of Cleveland’s final couple bullpen spots.

Blue Jays Select Eric Lauer, Designate Casey Lawrence For Assignment

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The Blue Jays announced that they have selected left-hander Eric Lauer to their roster. To open a 40-man spot for him, Casey Lawrence has been designated for assignment. Prior to the official announcement, Mitch Bannon of The Athletic relayed that Lauer was no longer scheduled to start for Triple-A Buffalo. Shi Davidi of Sportsnet reported that Lauer was on his way to join the Jays.

Lauer, 30 in June, signed a minor league deal with the Jays in the offseason. He’s been pitching out of the Buffalo rotation so far this year, having logged 24 innings over five starts. He has allowed 4.50 earned runs per nine with a 20.6% strikeout rate and 5.9% walk rate.

The Jays need some innings, whether that’s from a starter or a bulk guy pitching behind an opener. Left-hander Easton Lucas took a rotation spot earlier in the year when Max Scherzer landed on the injured list. Lucas had two good starts and two awful ones, getting optioned to Buffalo last week.

The Jays planned to use some off-days in the schedule to have a four-man rotation for a while, though Mother Nature interrupted there. A rainout in the Bronx on Saturday led to a Sunday doubleheader, with Kevin Gausman and Chris Bassitt starting those two games. After an off-day on Monday, Bowden Francis started against the Red Sox last night. José Berríos could have started on regular rest today but the club would have needed someone to start Thursday’s game.

The club grabbed Lawrence off waivers on Monday to give them a long man on the heels of the doubleheader. He was needed immediately, as Francis only lasted three innings yesterday. After Dillon Tate and Mason Fluharty got four and six outs respectively, Lawrence came in and absorbed 2 2/3 innings of long relief. Lauer logged five innings in each of his four most recent starts for the Bisons, so he will ideally give the club some length today. The last of those starts was on Thursday, so he’ll be on five days of rest today.

It’s unclear if he’ll stick on the roster beyond today’s game. The Jays have another off-day on Monday, so they could go back down to four starters for a couple of turns. Lucas was optioned on April 21st, so he’ll be beyond the 15-day minimum by next week and could be recalled. Jake Bloss has also been in better form of late, with his two most recent Triple-A starts resulting in 12 strikeouts and no earned runs allowed. That could get Lauer bumped off the roster, depending on how things go in today’s game. It’s also possible Lauer holds a rotation spot for a few turns while Lucas and Bloss stay in Buffalo as depth.

Either way, Lauer will be making his first major league appearance in quite some time. He had a solid run with the Padres and Brewers earlier in his career. From 2018 to 2022, he had a 4.11 ERA over 550 innings. His 22.1% strikeout rate and 8.7% walk rate were both around league average. But in 2023, a shoulder impingement sent him to the injured list for most of the year. He was only able to toss 46 2/3 innings with a 6.56 ERA. He split 2024 between Triple-A clubs of the Astros and Pirates as well as the Kia Tigers of the KBO League, with an ERA near 5.00 in all of those stops.

He is out of options and can’t be easily sent back down to the minors if this is just a spot start situation. If he’s later designated for assignment and passed through waivers unclaimed, he would have the right to reject an outright assignment and elect free agency. Players gain that right when they have a previous career outright or at least three years of service time, with Lauer meeting both criteria.

Lawrence heads into DFA limbo for the fourth time this year, the first three being with the Mariners. He was called up by Seattle whenever they needed a fresh arm to cover long relief innings. Since he is out of options, he was designated for assignment a few days after being called up in each instance. The first two DFAs resulted in him clearing waivers and returning to the team, though the Jays claimed him on the third try.

Photo courtesy of Kim Klement Neitzel, Imagn Images

Luke Raley Out At Least Six Weeks; Mariners Select Rhylan Thomas

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12:55pm: Raley will be sidelined for at least the next six weeks, general manager Justin Hollander announced to the Mariners beat (link via Adam Jude of the Seattle Times). Raley suffered the strain during batting practice yesterday.

12:25pm: The Mariners announced Wednesday that they’ve designated right-hander Sauryn Lao for assignment and selected the contract of outfielder Rhylan Thomas from Triple-A Tacoma. Thomas will take the active roster spot of outfielder Luke Raley, who is headed to the 10-day injured list due to a right oblique strain.

Raley’s injury comes at a particularly poor time. The 30-year-old slugger has been in the process of shaking off a dreadful early slump — like the majority of Seattle’s offense — and had heated up with a .273/.419/.424 output over his past 43 trips to the plate. Even while he was slumping early on, Raley maintained a patient approach and is now up to 10 free passes on the season. His 11.9% walk rate is nearly double that of the 5.9% he posted in 2024, and he’s also posting career-best batted-ball metrics (91.6 mph average exit velocity, 49% hard-hit rate).

Raley becomes the second Mariners right fielder lost to the injured list before the calendar even flips to May. He’d already shifted from first base to right field to cover for the injured Victor Robles, who’s out until midseason.

Thomas, 25, came to the Mariners last summer in the trade sending reliever Ryne Stanek to the Mets. The former 11th-round pick has enjoyed a terrific start to his season in Tacoma, slashing .319/.363/.362 in 104 plate appearances. He’s always posted low strikeout rates in the minors but has taken his hit tool to new heights in 2025, fanning just four times so far (3.8%). Thomas has never hit for power and has only one round-tripper and one double on the current season, but he’s 6-for-9 in stolen base attempts. He’ll give the Mariners some speed in the outfield mix and the type of high-contact bat the team has lacked in recent seasons.

Thomas, Samad Taylor and Miles Mastrobuoni all figure to see time in the outfield while Raley is out. Utilityman Dylan Moore would’ve been an option as well, but he just landed on the injured list this week due to shoulder inflammation. The M’s will go with a patchwork group for the time being, although given the length of Raley’s absence and the typically active nature of Seattle’s front office — this past offseason notwithstanding — it stands to reason that the Mariners could add to that mix via waivers, free agency or a small trade. True difference-making regulars aren’t likely to be available until closer to July’s trade deadline, but there are veterans on minor league deals and fringe big league outfielders who’ll be designated for assignment throughout the course of Raley’s IL stint.

The 25-year-old Lao was only selected to the big league roster last week. He made his MLB debut with the M’s on April 22 and pitched 1 2/3 scoreless innings with three strikeouts. He was optioned back to Tacoma shortly thereafter.

Lao originally signed out of the Dominican Republic with the Dodgers and spent the first four seasons of his career as an infielder. He moved to the mound in 2023 and hasn’t looked back. The 6’2″ righty has a career 3.61 ERA in 122 minor league frames, including a 2.25 mark in 12 Triple-A innings this season. Lao doesn’t have the glaring command troubles displayed by so many former position players who transition to the mound; he’s walked only 6.5% of his minor league opponents against a robust 26.6% strikeout rate.

Lao is averaging a pedestrian 92.9 mph on his four-seamer in Triple-A and sat at just 90.7 mph with the pitch in his lone MLB appearance, which could work against him, but Lao has a solid (if brief) track record on the mound and a full slate of minor league options remaining. The track record and slate of options could appeal to another club. The Mariners will have five days to trade Lao or place him on outright waivers. If he hits waivers, that’d be a 48-hour process, meaning the maximum length of his DFA window will be one week.

Astros To Activate Lance McCullers Jr. This Weekend

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The Astros are planning to reinstate right-hander Lance McCullers Jr. from the injured list this weekend, the team announced to reporters Wednesday (link via Chandler Rome of The Athletic). He’ll take the ball Sunday to start against the White Sox.

Sunday will mark McCullers’ first appearance on a major league mound since the 2022 postseason. Even in 2022, McCullers was limited to 47 2/3 regular-season innings because of a forearm injury. He made his 2022 debut in August, pitched down the stretch and added another 15 postseason innings. His forearm again flared up in spring training 2023, and McCullers eventually underwent surgery to repair the flexor tendon in his right arm and to remove bone spurs from his elbow.

That procedure ended McCullers’ 2023 season before it began, but the general expectation was that he’d return at some point in 2024. That never came to pass. McCullers worked through a throwing program last summer but never made it to the mound for a rehab start. The Astros revealed in August that McCullers was being shut back down due to persisting pain in his surgically repaired right arm. His absence extended into the 2025 season, but after making four rehab starts — including nine straight scoreless Triple-A frames — McCullers is now set to finally return to the majors.

“It’s a day I’ve been waiting for a long time,” McCullers replied when asked what Sunday’s return means to him (video link via Brian McTaggart of MLB.com). “I almost feel like I’m making my debut in some aspects. It’s been a really long road for me. I thank my teammates, the coaching staff, the Astros organization for standing by me and supporting me.”

Injuries have been a persistent theme throughout the now-31-year-old McCullers’ career, but there’s never been any doubt of his abilities when he’s been healthy enough to pitch. The former No. 41 overall draft pick was a top prospect before making his debut in 2015 and has posted a sub-4.00 ERA in six of his seven major league seasons. Overall, McCullers touts a career 3.48 earned run average, 26.5% strikeout rate and 9.8% walk rate in 718 2/3 regular season frames. His work in 72 2/3 postseason innings is nearly identical: 3.47 ERA, 26.5% strikeout rate, 7.3% walk rate.

It’s impossible to know what to expect from McCullers on the heels of such a lengthy absence. If he can recapture even 80% of his prior form, he’d be a boon to an Astros staff that has five other rotation options on the injured list (Luis Garcia, J.P. France, Cristian Javier, Spencer Arrighetti, Shawn Dubin). Hunter Brown has been one of MLB’s best pitchers this year, and fellow starters Framber Valdez and Hayden Wesneski have pitched well. Ryan Gusto has impressed in a small sample of 19 innings since being thrust into the rotation following Arighetti’s injury. Last year’s rotation savior, Ronel Blanco, has stumbled out of the gate with a 5.08 ERA.

On the whole, Astros starters rank seven in the majors with a 3.50 earned run average, but Blanco has struggled and the depth beyond the current quintet is a bit suspect. A healthy McCullers would be a pivotal development.

Houston signed McCullers to a five-year, $85MM extension back in March 2021 — a rare (but hardly unheard of) extension for a Boras Corporation client on the cusp of free agency. He was excellent in ’21, but those previously mentioned 63 innings (regular season and postseason combined) in 2022 are the only innings he’s pitched throughout the duration of that extension. He’s being paid $17MM this year and next in the final two seasons of that contract.

Griffin Conine Expected To Miss Remainder Of 2025 Season

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Marlins outfielder Griffin Conine underwent left shoulder surgery yesterday, as previously reported, but the team announced this morning that Conine is expected to miss the remainder of the 2025 season. A firm timetable for his absence hadn’t been previously established. He’s expected to be ready for spring training 2026, the Marlins added.

Conine, 27, made his big league debut with Miami late last season and hasn’t stopped hitting since he arrived in the majors. He’s appeared in only 50 games and tallied just 160 plate appearances but has impressed with a .274/.338/.445 slash (116 wRC+) in that time. He’s benefited from a .379 average on balls in play and punched out too often (29.4%), but it’s still an encouraging start to his career — one that’s been backed up by solid batted ball metrics.

Conine, of course, is the son of “Mr. Marlin” Jeff Conine — a two-time MLB All-Star who won the World Series both with the 1997 Marlins and 2003 Marlins. Griffin was originally a second-round pick by the Blue Jays in 2018 (one of many second-generation talents drafted/signed by Toronto in that time) but made his way to the Fish as the player to be named later in a trade sending infielder Jonathan Villar from Miami to Toronto.

The younger Conine’s big league batting line closely mirrors the .260/.341/.454 line he’s logged in parts of two Triple-A seasons (135 games, 528 plate appearances). With Miami’s outfield — really, its entire roster — in a general state of flux, Conine appeared to have a runway for regular playing time as he sought to establish himself as a viable everyday big leaguer. That endeavor will now be put on hold until next season. In the meantime, Conine will accumulate major league service time and pay.

The Marlins are currently deploying longtime corner outfielder Jesus Sanchez in center field on most days, although Derek Hill and Dane Myers have both played there this season as well (particularly when Sanchez was injured to begin the year). Hill is currently out with a wrist injury, leaving Sanchez, Myers, Eric Wagaman, Kyle Stowers and Javier Sanoja in the mix for outfield playing time.

Outside of Sanchez and Stowers, it’s a group composed primarily of journeymen and/or utility players. Sanchez, controlled through the 2027 season, could very well be a summer trade chip if he’s performing well later this season. The 27-year-old Stowers came to Miami alongside Connor Norby in the deal sending Trevor Rogers to Baltimore last July. He’s hitting well to begin the season (.293/.374/.413) but has been aided by a massive .410 average on balls in play and has fanned at a 29% clip. Prospects Jakob Marsee, Andrew Pintar or Victor Mesa Jr. could get looks later this season, but given the lack of long-term solidity in the group, Conine should still have a path to playing time if he returns next spring and continues hitting.

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