MLBTR's Steve Adams hosted a live chat today at 2pm CT, exclusively for Trade Rumors Front Office subscribers.
The Braves announced that left-hander José Suarez has been designated for assignment. That was the corresponding move to open a 40-man roster spot for righty Scott Blewett, whom they acquired from the Orioles yesterday.
Suarez, 27, was acquired from the Angels just prior to Opening Day. It was a one-for-one swap with righty Ian Anderson going to the Halos. Since then, Suarez has been working as a long reliever for Atlanta, tossing 7 1/3 innings over three appearances.
He has only allowed two earned runs in that time, meaning he’s currently sitting on a 2.45 earned run average for the year, but is probably lucky to be in that position. He has walked more opponents than he has struck out so far, with seven free passes to five punchouts. He’s been spared further damage by a .118 batting average on balls in play and 81.4% strand rate.
It seems Atlanta decided to cut bait before regression caught up with the lefty, so he’s been sent into DFA limbo. That can last as long as a week but the waiver process takes 48 hours, so any potential trade talks would have to take place in the next five days.
Any interest in Suarez would likely be based on his 2021 and 2022 seasons. Over those two campaigns, he logged 207 1/3 innings for the Angels, working both as a starter and reliever. In that time, he had a 3.86 ERA, 21.5% strikeout rate, 7.9% walk rate and 44.5% ground ball rate.
Things haven’t been as great since then. In 2023, he missed a lot of time due to a shoulder strain and posted an 8.29 ERA in 33 2/3 innings. He didn’t get back on track last year, with a 6.02 ERA in 52 1/3 innings.
Suarez is out of options, so any acquiring club would have to keep him on the active roster. If he clears waivers, he would have the right to elect free agency as a player with at least three years of service time. However, since he has less than five years, heading to the open market would mean forfeiting his remaining salary. Prior to being traded to Atlanta, he and the Angels agreed to a $1.1MM salary for this year. If no club grabs him off the wire, he’ll likely accept an outright assignment and provide Atlanta with some non-roster depth.
Photo courtesy of Denis Poroy, Imagn Images
April 21: Ramirez’s promotion to the majors is official, per a team announcement. Miami officially recalled Ramirez and righty George Soriano from Triple-A Jacksonville. Lefty Cade Gibson was optioned to Triple-A to open one spot, while Brantly was placed on the 10-day IL due to a right lat strain in order to open the other.
April 20: The Marlins are calling up catching prospect Agustin Ramirez prior to tomorrow’s game against the Reds, SportsGrid’s Craig Mish reports. Ramirez will be making his Major League debut whenever the 23-year-old backstop appears in a game.
The corresponding moves aren’t yet known, though Ramirez is already on Miami’s 40-man roster. The likeliest 26-man roster move probably relates to catcher Rob Brantly, who made an early exit from today’s 7-5 win over the Phillies due to right shoulder discomfort. As per the Fish On First blog, the Marlins were already planning to call Ramirez up prior to today’s game and Brantly’s injury, so it’s a rough outcome for Brantly if he got hurt and lost his roster spot in the same day (though if he was on the cusp of a DFA anyhow, he’ll at least continue to accrue MLB service time and pay a bit longer this way).
Baseball Prospectus ranked Ramirez as the 55th-best prospect in baseball prior to the 2025 season, and ESPN’s Kiley McDaniel also had Ramirez 96th on his top-100 list. In their ranking of Marlins prospects only, Baseball America slots Ramirez third and MLB Pipeline has him fourth. The pundits agree that Ramirez has a lot of hitting potential, with plus power and good contact numbers, plus a good batting eye. While not a quick baserunner, Ramirez is a canny baserunner who has stolen 53 bases (out of 63 attempts) during his minor league career — “in particular, he loves to steal third base by timing up pitchers’ looks,” as per BA’s scouting report.
It remains to be seen if Ramirez will stick behind the plate, as he is considered below average in pretty much every defensive category. Ramirez does has a strong throwing arm, but evaluators note that he can’t take full advantage due to a lack of accuracy, plus he isn’t quick in getting the ball out of his glove. If former first-rounder Joe Mack is the Marlins’ true catcher of the future, Ramirez’s eventual home might be first base, so that will put more pressure on Ramirez to produce at the bat-first position.
The Marlins have used Ramirez just as a catcher (and DH) during his two years in their organization. Ramirez was an international signing for the Yankees during the 2018 int’l window, and was dealt to Miami last July as part of the three-player return the Marlins received for Jazz Chisholm Jr. Over 86 games and 362 plate appearances at the Triple-A level, Ramirez has hit .248/.340/.430, with 12 home runs, 19 doubles, and 14 steals in 15 attempts.
Since starting catcher Nick Fortes is also on the 10-day IL recovering from an oblique injury, the Marlins’ decision to promote Ramirez may have been at least partially forced by a lack of depth behind the plate, which has now become pronounced if Brantly is out. Ramirez and Rule 5 Draft pick Liam Hicks now comprise Miami’s catching corps, and if Ramirez hits well, the rebuilding Marlins will likely let him stick around on the big league roster in order to get more experience in the Show.
The Royals announced Monday that minor league righty Cesar Espinal has been traded to the Brewers. He’s the player to be named later from the swap that sent Mark Canha from Milwaukee to K.C. late in spring training.
Espinal is just 19 years old, but this is already the second time in his career that he’s been traded. He originally signed with the Orioles out of his native Dominican Republic, but Baltimore flipped him to Kansas City in a December 2023 deal that sent right-hander Jonathan Heasley over to the O’s.
The 19-year-old Espinal has spent his entire pro career pitching in the Rookie-level Dominican Summer League. He’s totaled just 73 innings and worked to a 3.95 ERA with 22.7% strikeout rate and 13.7% walk rate. He’s kept the ball on the ground at a 43.8% clip. Espinal wasn’t a high-profile prospect when signing as a 16-year-old in 2022 and hasn’t appeared among the top-30 prospects for either Baltimore or Kansas City to this point.
That sort of return is to be expected, given the nature of the trade. Canha signed as a non-roster invitee with the Brewers and looked like a long shot to make the roster this spring. Milwaukee adding any kind of lottery-ticket arm in exchange for a spring NRI who could’ve opted out of his contract if he didn’t make the roster is a nice bit of business.
Of course, it should be mentioned that the Royals likely don’t have any buyer’s remorse. Canha missed 10 days with an adductor strain but has started out 7-for-18 with a pair of doubles, two walks and three strikeouts in 21 plate appearances with Kansas CIty. It’s a nice start for a typically productive veteran whose offense last year was about league-average and who hasn’t posted a below-average offensive output since establishing himself as a big leaguer back in 2018.
Veteran catcher Omar Narvaez, who was designated for assignment by the White Sox last week, passed through waivers unclaimed. He was assigned outright to Triple-A Charlotte but has rejected that assignment in favor of free agency, per the transaction log at MiLB.com.
The 33-year-old Narvaez appeared in four games in his return to the White Sox — with whom he originally made his MLB debut — going 2-for-7 with a pair of walks in 10 plate appearances. It was a tiny sample as the Sox looked for a short-term stopgap to pair with Matt Thaiss in the wake of an injury to catcher Korey Lee. Chicago quickly pivoted, turning Narvaez’s roster spot over to top prospect Edgar Quero, who’d had a big start in Charlotte and has been excellent through his first four MLB games.
Narvaez was a solid regular behind the plate from 2017-21, when he tallied 1670 plate appearances and batted .266/.351/.403 between the White Sox, Mariners and Brewers. He improved his defensive reputation, particularly his framing grades, along the way and even earned an All-Star nod with the 2021 Brewers.
His output since that terrific 2021 season has faded, however. He’s taken 521 plate appearances between the Brewers, Mets and this brief ChiSox return, posting a collective .201/.278/.286 line that checks in nearly 40% below average at the plate, by measure of wRC+.
Narvaez could simply return to the organization on a new minor league contract, but although the White Sox have the second-worst winning percentage in MLB, catcher is an area of depth for them. In Quero, Lee, Thais and top prospect Kyle Teel — the headliner from the Garrett Crochet trade with Boston — the Sox have a quartet of younger catchers who’d land ahead of Narvaez on the depth chart. Quero and Teel, in particular, are viewed as potential building blocks for the organization and should get prominent opportunities this season. The veteran Narvaez could likely find a less-crowded path back to big league playing time with another organization.
On the MLB Trade Rumors podcast, we regularly answer questions from our readers and listeners. With the next episode set for Wednesday, we’re looking for MLBTR’s audience to submit their questions and we’ll pick a few to answer.
The 2025 season is chugging along. If you have a question about the season, a look ahead to the deadline or anything else baseball-related, we’d love to hear from you! You can email your questions to mlbtrpod@gmail.com.
Also, if you want to hear your voice on the podcast, send us your question in audio form and we might play it. iPhone users can find instructions on how to do so here.
In the meantime, don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.
The White Sox selected the contract of infielder Bobby Dalbec from Triple-A Charlotte, per a team announcement. Fellow infielder Chase Meidroth heads to the 10-day injured list due to inflammation in his right thumb, while veteran lefty Martin Perez is moving from the 15-day IL to the 60-day IL. Perez exited his most recent start due to forearm soreness and was placed on the 15-day injured list over the weekend due to inflammation in his left elbow.
The Sox haven’t provided further word on Perez’s injury, but the move to the 60-day IL was not expected based on the information that’s been made publicly available. A move to the 60-day IL takes him out until at least late June. That’s a tough blow for the ChiSox, both because Perez has had a nice start to the season and because it clouds his potential outlook as a trade candidate prior to July’s deadline.
Perez, 34, signed a one-year deal worth $5MM over the winter. Through his first three starts with the South Siders, he posted a 1.59 ERA with a 26.9% strikeout rate and 13.4% walk rate in 17 frames. History tells us that Perez is highly unlikely to keep inducing strikeouts at that level but also that his walk rate should be expected to drop substantially; over the past four seasons, Perez fanned just 18.4% of his opponents but also limited his walk rate to a solid 8% mark.
However, Perez was roughed up for four runs in three innings against the Red Sox his last time out. He yielded five hits, including a homer, walked two batters and didn’t record a strikeout. There was no major velocity drop, but Statcast did measure Perez’s cutter at a season-low 84.9 mph on average, down from his 85.5 mph average in his first start. His sinker had a similar dip. That’s not stark enough to prompt major concern, but it’s of some mild note in the wake of his 60-day placement. Presumably, White Sox skipper Will Venable will have more information on Perez’s status prior to today’s series finale at Fenway Park.
Fenway was long the home park for Dalbec, 29. The former Red Sox fourth-rounder (2016) ranked among the team’s best prospects for much of his minor league tenure and posted a solid .243/.308/.511 batting line with 33 home runs through his first 545 major league plate appearances from 2020-21. It’s been a sharp decline ever since. Dating back to the 2022 season, Dalbec has appeared in 175 big league games and tallied 499 plate appearances, but he has just a .198/.269/.330 slash to show for it. He’s fanned in 38% of his plate appearances along the way and nearly 37% of his overall plate appearances in the majors.
Through his first 12 games in Triple-A this season, Dalbec has been on a tear. He’s hitting .326/.354/.696 with four homers, three doubles, a triple and a stolen base in only 48 trips to the plate. He’s still punched out in exactly one-third of those turns at the dish, but he’s stinging the ball when he makes contact.
It seems likely to be a short-term stint on the 40-man roster for Dalbec. He’s out of minor league options, so he can’t be sent back down without first being designated for assignment and passed through waivers.
Meidroth tells MLB.com’s Scott Merkin that x-rays on his thumb were negative. He first felt the issue in Charlotte, prior to his original promotion to the majors. He rested a few days and returned to the Triple-A lineup pain-free. It’s resurfaced recently, and after trying to play through it for the past week or so, he’ll now sit down for a longer spell to try to get the issue cleared up once and for all.
Acquired from the Red Sox in the Garrett Crochet trade, the 23-year-old Meidroth was Boston’s 2022 fourth-round pick. He opened the year with a .267/.450/.600 slash through 40 Triple-A plate appearances before being summoned for his MLB debut, and he’s batted .269/.387/.269 in his first 31 trips to the plate as a big leaguer.
As the 2025 regular season continues, here are three things we’ll be keeping an eye on around the baseball world today:
1. Arraez collision aftermath:
A scary incident happened at last night’s game between the Astros and Padres, as Luis Arraez had to be carted off the field following a collision with Houston second baseman Mauricio Dubon. Arraez remained down on the field for several minutes, but the Padres thankfully announced that he was in stable condition after he was transported to a local hospital. He returned to the Padres’ clubhouse last night, and while he remained in Houston overnight for observation, it appears as though he’s avoided any severe injuries. Arraez is expected to join his teammates in Detroit for their series against the Tigers later today if he’s remained well overnight. The Padres can rely on a combination of Yuli Gurriel and Gavin Sheets at first base for any games Arraez misses.
2. Carpenter nursing hamstring issue:
Tigers slugger Kerry Carpenter exited last night’s game against the Royals due to soreness in his hamstring. Carpenter is set to be evaluated further today to determine his status, but if Carpenter is out of commission for more than a day or two that could be a major concern for his team. Manuel Margot, Parker Meadows, Matt Vierling, and Wenceel Perez are all already on the injured list, leaving the club’s outfield depth stretched significantly. Brewer Hicklen is the only player on the 40-man roster who could be called up to replace Carpenter, though Hicklen would likely serve in a bench role with Justyn-Henry Malloy getting more reps in the starting lineup. Non-roster options in Triple-A include Ben Gamel and Akil Baddoo, both of whom are hitting well.
3. Series Preview: Phillies @ Mets
The Phillies are headed to Queens for a clash between the NL East’s two best teams that’s scheduled to begin at 7:10pm local time. The only clubs with winning records in the division at the moment, Philadelphia (13-9) currently trails New York (15-7) by two games. Right-handed workhorse Aaron Nola is poised to take the mound for Philadelphia and will look to get his season on track after stumbling to a 6.65 ERA in his first four starts. Meanwhile, Mets righty Tylor Megill will look to build on his hot start (1.40 ERA). Southpaw Cristopher Sanchez (2.96 ERA) and righty Griffin Canning (3.43 ERA) are set to square off tomorrow, and the series will wrap on Wednesday with Phillies ace Zack Wheeler (3.73 ERA) and Mets southpaw David Peterson (3.27 ERA) on the mound.
Kris Bryant’s star-crossed Rockies tenure added another chapter earlier this week when the former NL MVP was placed on the 10-day injured list earlier this week due to lumbar degenerative disc disease. Recurring back issues are just one variety of the of several injuries that have limited Bryant to 170 games over his three-plus seasons with Colorado, yet it appears to be the most persistent obstacle keeping Bryant from getting onto the field for any sustained length of time.
Bryant shared some details about his situation with reporters (including MLB.com’s Thomas Harding) on Sunday, including some of the side effects of his current back problem. After undergoing an exercise program yesterday, Bryant said “I woke up not feeling great,” and described himself as being “in constant pain and nauseous, where I can’t eat, which was the situation today.” The nature of the back injury can come and go, as Bryant described a game situation where he was feeling fine for most of the contest, but by his final at-bat could barely swing.
The “extremely frustrating” degenerative disc disease has left Bryant at least thinking about a surgery, though “the doctors aren’t there yet” in recommending it. Such a procedure would almost surely end Bryant’s 2025 season and put him onto another lengthy cycle of rehabilitation and workouts with an eye towards Opening Day 2026, maybe as a best-case scenario.
For now, Bryant isn’t sure when he’ll feel well enough that a return to the field is feasible. He received two anti-inflammatory shots on Tuesday, though the injections apparently only provided limited help given his nausea today. In the bigger picture, Bryant also said he isn’t considering retirement, stating plainly that “I want to play. I want to talk to doctors, see if there’s anything else we can do. But, yeah, I want to not give up.”
Bryant’s seven-year, $182MM contract with the Rockies can’t be considered anything but a bust, as Bryant has hit only .244/.324/.370 over 712 plate appearances during the life of the deal, and the Rox have a disastrous 192-315 record since Opening Day 2022. Beyond all the talk of salaries and second-guessing front office decisions, one can’t help but feel sympathy for Bryant as he is struggling through what is clearly a painful situation that is impacting the quality of his life.
Until a health breakthrough emerges or perhaps until Bryant decides to get surgery, all he and the Rockies can do is play the waiting game. Colorado’s dismal 4-17 start has almost surely sunk whatever chance the team had at a competitive season, and the Rox have increasingly turned to a number of younger players making their MLB debuts as a possible glimpse into the future.
With four outfielders already on the injured list, the Tigers might’ve lost another key contributor when Kerry Carpenter left today’s 4-3 loss to the Royals with what manager A.J. Hinch described as right hamstring soreness. As Hinch told the Detroit News’ Chris McCosky and other reporters, Carpenter suffered the injury while running out an infield single in the seventh inning. Nothing appeared to be amiss until Carpenter was replaced in left field in the top of the ninth inning.
More will be known about Carpenter’s status tomorrow, but if he has to miss time, he’ll join Parker Meadows, Matt Vierling, Wenceel Perez, and Manuel Margot (who was signed in late March to help address the outfield depth issue) on the increasingly crowded Detroit injured list. Carpenter likely would’ve been a part-time outfielder and part-time DH in the world where everyone was healthy, but he has played only twice at the DH position this season. Beyond the outfield crunch, Carpenter’s absence would also remove a big bat from the Tigers’ lineup, as the slugger is hitting .315/.338/.562 with five homers in his first 77 plate appearances of 2025.
More from around the AL Central…
MLB Trade Rumors is not affiliated with Major League Baseball, MLB or MLB.com
Do not Sell or Share My Personal Information
scroll to top
