Angels Claim Jacob Rhame
The Angels announced Wednesday that they’ve claimed right-handed reliever Jacob Rhame off waivers from the Mets. Rhame was in the Mets’ 60-man player pool, and the Mets have already announced that his spot will be filled by right-hander Ryley Gilliam. The Angels’ pool will grow to 57 with the claim — assuming Rhame is indeed added.
Rhame, 27, was originally a sixth-round pick of the Dodgers back in 2013 but landed in the Mets organization via the trade that sent Curtis Granderson from New York to L.A. He’s spent parts of three seasons in the Mets’ bullpen but has yet to find much success. In 47 2/3 MLB innings, Rhame has worked to a 6.23 ERA and 6.06 FIP with averages of 7.6 strikeouts, 4.5 walks and 2.08 homers per nine innings pitched.
That said, Rhame also averages just under 96 mph on his fastball and, in 2018, posted impressive swinging-strike and opponents’ chase rates (13.4 percent and 35.8 percent, respectively). The spin rate on both his four-seam fastball and his curveball ranked among the game’s elite that season, so the Angels are surely hoping that with some adjustments to his approach, Rhame’s raw abilities will translate to improved bottom-line results.
Rhame underwent ulnar nerve transposition surgery last August, but MLB.com’s Anthony DiComo tweets that he’s been throwing off a mound in Summer Camp, which bodes well for his readiness to return. He’s out of minor league options, so Rhame will either need to break camp on the team’s expanded 30-man roster or else once again be exposed to waivers.
Gilliam, 23, was the Mets’ fifth-round pick just two summers ago and quickly rose through the ranks in the system, topping out in Triple-A last year. The Clemson product breezed through Class-A Advanced in 2019 and posted respectable numbers in Double-A before being torched in 9 1/3 innings of Triple-A ball. But Gilliam has punched out 87 hitters in just 56 pro innings (14.0 K/9, 35.1 percent overall strikeout rate) and ranks inside the organization’s top 30 prospects at both MLB.com and FanGraphs. He’s said to have a pair of above-average to potentially plus pitches: his heater and curveball. With no minor league season in 2020, it’s possible that Gilliam will largely skip over Triple-A and make his big league debut at some point this summer.
Giants Add Three To 60-Man Player Pool
The Giants announced Wednesday that they’ve added lefty Caleb Baragar, outfielder Alexander Canario and right-hander Sam Wolff to their 60-man player pool. They still have one vacancy if they wish to make another addition. Of the bunch, Canario is the most highly regarded prospect, but his inclusion is surely just for developmental purposes, as he is just 20 years old and has yet to play above short-season Class-A.
Baragar, 26, was the Giants’ ninth-round pick in 2016. He’s pitched in three Triple-A games but spent the vast majority of the 2019 campaign in Double-A, where he pitched to a 3.45 ERA with 8.0 K/9, 3.2 BB/9 and 0.9 HR/9 in 120 innings as a starter. He’s an extreme fly-ball pitcher, evidenced by a tiny 28.7 percent ground-ball rate in those 120 frames.
Wolff, 29, is a pure reliever who came over to the Giants organization in the 2017 trade that sent Matt Moore to the Rangers. Despite his age, he’s scarcely pitched in Triple-A (28 1/3 innings), but he posted strong numbers in Double-A last year when he compiled a 1.78 ERA and a 42-to-11 K/BB ratio in 35 1/3 innings of work.
Canario signed as a 16-year-old out of the Dominican Republic in the 2016-17 international class, and the Giants look to have found something of a gem (relative to his meager $60K signing bonus, at least). He ripped through opposing pitchers in Rookie ball and Low-A, posting a combined .318/.377/.623 batting line with 16 home runs, 20 doubles and a pair of triples in just 265 trips to the plate.
Canario ranks in the club’s top 10 prospects at Baseball America (fifth), MLB.com (sixth) and FanGraphs (ninth) thanks to considerable raw power, average or better speed and a plus throwing arm. FanGraphs Eric Longenhagen notes that he needs a lot of work on his approach at the plate but has a “huge ceiling if the hit/approach component improves.”
Cubs Add Hernan Perez To 60-Man Player Pool
The Cubs have added veteran infielder/outfielder Hernan Perez to their 60-man player pool, bringing their total number up to 51. He’ll report to Wrigley Field to work out with the team’s infielders tomorrow, tweets Sahadev Sharma of The Athletic.
Perez, 29, has seen action in parts of eight big league seasons and is likely a familiar name for many Cubs fans after spending the past five seasons as a heavily used utility piece for the division-rival Brewers. The versatile Perez suited up for 572 games with Milwaukee, hitting .258/.288/.400 in just over 1700 plate appearances dating back to the 2015 season.
A poor walk rate has weighed down Perez’s on-base percentage throughout his career, but he’s shown off some modest pop and plenty of speed since establishing himself with the Brewers. That includes a 13-homer, 34-steal season back in 2016 (despite tallying just 430 plate appearances that year). Perez hasn’t approached those stolen-base levels since, but he still checked in with above-average speed in 2019, per Statcast.
On the other side of the ball, Perez has played everywhere on the field with the exception of catcher — including 7 1/3 innings of mop-up work on the mound (where he’s allowed six runs on 10 hits and four walks with three strikeouts). He’s been above-average at both third base and second base in his career, per Defensive Runs Saved, and while he’s not a good defender at shortstop he can at least handle the position should a need arise.
Perez isn’t on the 40-man roster and would need to be added if he’s to emerge as a legitimate Major League option in 2020. But given the expanded rosters early in the season and his ability to effectively play anywhere that manager David Ross asks, it wouldn’t be much of a surprise to see him log some big league time at Wrigley Field in 2020.
Giants Resume Workouts
July 8: The Giants received their test results from Saturday this morning, per a team announcement. All were negative among both players and staff, and workouts will resume today. It’s not clear whether they’ve had an additional wave of results since those now-four-day old tests.
July 7, 2:45pm: The Giants have yet to receive results from Saturday’s batch of tests, manager Gabe Kapler tells reporters (Twitter link via Alex Pavlovic of NBC Sports Bay Area). Their hope is to receive those tests today and return to workouts Wednesday.
2:20pm: The Giants announced Tuesday afternoon that Summer Camp workouts at Oracle Park have been suspended, pending results from this weekend’s wave of COVID-19 testing (Twitter link via Kerry Crowley of the San Jose Mercury News). It seems the club has still not received results from Major League Baseball’s lab in Salt Lake City, Utah.
They’re not the first team to suspend or postpone workouts due to lags in the testing process. Both the Astros and Nationals called off Monday workouts for the same reason. In a statement on the matter, Nats GM Mike Rizzo offered particularly pointed criticism of the league’s testing inadequacies — apparently much to the chagrin of commissioner Rob Manfred. The cancellations by the Nats and Astros, as well as delays from clubs like the Angels and Athletics, led to broad criticism for the league, prompting Manfred’s office to issue a statement defending their testing procedures.
Notably, the league chalked up the delays to “unforeseen delays” due to the July 4 weekend and concluded that “we do not expect a recurrence.” Expected or not, it appears some kinks in the system still need to be ironed out.
The Giants have been able to get the results of some tests, as outfield prospect Hunter Bishop and minor league righty Luis Madero are both known to have previously tested positive. However, MLB’s testing protocols call for tests to be performed every other day. To this point, collecting, shipping, testing and processing all of those samples in a timely fashion has proven difficult. The league and the MLBPA are in the process of searching for a second testing site, which could help to avoid further issues like the early ones we’ve seen so far.
Nationals Add Taylor Gushue To 60-Man Pool
The Nationals announced today that they have added catcher Taylor Gushue to their 60-man player pool. The move comes in the wake of Welington Castillo‘s decision not to participate in the 2020 seaseon.
Gushue is not on the Nats’ 40-man roster. He would need to be added to it in order to take up a spot on the club’s active roster once the season gets underway. In all likelihood, the 26-year-old will be tasked primarily with working with the team’s pitching staff in its satellite training location while staying ready if a need arises.
A former fourth-round pick out of the University of Florida, Gushue has never rated as a significant prospect but is coming off of a nice 2019 season. In 288 plate appearances at Triple-A last year, the switch-hitter popped 11 home runs and posted a strong .312/.358/.517 batting line — good for a 108 wRC+ in a supercharged offensive environment.
Giants Nearing Completion Of Draft Signings
The Giants appear to have all but tied up their draft business. Things aren’t quite official, but the San Francisco organization is said to have deals with its final two unsigned selections.
The club inked fourth-rounder R.J. Dabovich for a $200K bonus, MLB.com’s Jim Callis reports on Twitter. Dabovich is a right-handed hurler out of Arizona State University.
That signing left $300K and change of extra pool money to work with, adding to an already well-stocked pile of untapped cash to utilize in signing third-rounder Kyle Harrison, a high-school hurler who has a commitment to UCLA. Per Andrew Baggarly of The Athletic (Twitter link), the deal with Harrison is not formally wrapped up but has been agreed to.
The Giants will push right up to the line to ink Harrison. The club is expected to incur a tax bill on the overage, while staying under the 5% excess line past which a team would sacrifice a future draft choice.
Harrison wasn’t widely regarded as a first-round talent by most draft pundits, but the Giants were clearly bullish on him. Keith Law of The Athletic, who ranked Harrison the 54th-best player available, explained that the youngster added heat to his fastball before play was suspended earlier this year.
Pitching Notes: Teheran, G. Holland, Taijuan
The latest on a few well-known major league hurlers…
- The Angels have placed right-hander Julio Teheran on the 10-day injured list for an undisclosed reason, J.P. Hoornstra of the Orange County Register was among those to report. “I have not heard from him specifically and I have not heard from the medical group either,” manager Joe Maddon said of Teheran. “For me, there’s been no contact.” That obviously doesn’t sound encouraging for Teheran or the Angels, who signed the ex-Brave to a one-year, $9MM guarantee in the offseason. The 29-year-old Teheran has effectively chewed up innings for the majority of his career, which is one of the reasons the Angels added him to a staff that has been low on reliable options in recent seasons. But it’s now unknown when Teheran will be in position to make his debut with the club.
- Once among the game’s elite relievers during his younger, pre-injury days with the Royals, righty Greg Holland is now fighting for a chance to make the team. Holland, whom the Royals reunited with on a minor league contract in the offseason, looked as if he’d earn his way back during the spring, but it’s up in the air whether he’ll do enough in Summer Camp to crack the club’s 30-man Opening Day roster, Jeffrey Flanagan of MLB.com writes. Fortunately for Holland, he has a fan in pitching coach Cal Eldred. “What I’ve seen here is just as good as his body of work was in spring,” Eldred told Flanagan. “Actually, the ball is coming out even better. I think he’s been really sharp. I think he’s in a great spot.” The 34-year-old three-time All-Star hasn’t pitched in the majors since last August, when the Diamondbacks released him after he tossed 35 2/3 frames of 4.54 ERA ball with 10.35 K/9 and 6.06 BB/9.
- Mariners righty Taijuan Walker took the hill for the first time at camp Tuesday and was hitting 90 to 93 mph with his fastball, per Greg Johns of MLB.com. Walker has averaged 94 mph on his heater during his career, but serious arm injuries limited him to just 14 innings with Arizona from 2018-19. He’s now back in his old stomping grounds in Seattle, where he was once a top prospect and a capable starter. And as Johns explains in his piece, while many players are understandably nervous about participating this year because of the coronavirus, Walker’s champing at the bit to reestablish himself after two lost seasons. He’ll open 2020 in what figures to be a six-man M’s rotation after signing a one-year, $2MM pact in free agency.
NL Central Notes: Cubs, Castellanos, Holt
The Cubs were among the many teams experiencing delays in COVID-19 testing, as today’s results from this weekend’s batch of tests were late to arrive, writes Steve Greenberg of the Chicago Sun-Times. The delay proved to be brief, and general manager Jed Hoyer told the media this afternoon that all of the team’s tests came back negative. That’s obviously good news for the organization, though they’ll need to continue with caution and Hoyer acknowledged that they’ll likely be faced with positive results at some point.
With that in mind, Hoyer understandably opted not to discuss the possibility of extensions for core players or any trade that might eventually be on the horizon (Twitter link via Mark Gonzales of the Chicago Tribune). “At this point, our focus is on making sure this season is operating effectively,” Hoyer said. The Cubs have a number of potential extension candidates — Javier Baez and Kris Bryant among them — and could very arguably use some rotation help following Jose Quintana‘s injury. There are obviously more pressing issues for the Cubs and other teams at the moment as they prioritize health-and-safety protocols in the buildup to this year’s shortened season.
More from the NL Central…
- The designated hitter will be implemented in the National League for at least the 2020 season, but Reds slugger Nicholas Castellanos made clear this week that he hopes to remain in the outfield on a regular basis rather than serve a a primary DH (link via John Fay of the Cincinnati Enquirer). “I don’t want to DH,” Castellanos plainly stated. “…I like being in National League where I get to play defense every day. A goal of mine is to become a better and better defender every year that I play – every game that I play is probably a more appropriate answer.” Castellanos went on to note that he’d of course play wherever skipper David Bell asked him to on a given day, and he spoke optimistically about the Reds’ chances in 2020. At least occasional time at DH seems likely for Castellanos and others, though; the Reds have him, Jesse Winker, Nick Senzel, Shogo Akiyama, Aristides Aquino, Phil Ervin and Scott Schebler all in the mix for outfield reps.
- Brewers infielder Brock Holt tells Tom Haudricourt of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel that like many other players, he’s not particularly comfortable playing in 2020. However, Holt also feels that given his contractual status — he’s on a one-year deal after facing a surprisingly tepid market in free agency this past winter — he has little choice but to suit up if he hopes to continue playing. “If I didn’t play, it would be hard for me to find a job next year,” says Holt, who is making the difficult decision to leave his pregnant wife and child in Texas for three months rather than bring them to Milwaukee. “…If I was in a different situation contractually, it’s definitely something I would have considered with my wife being pregnant.”
Brad Keller, Ryan O’Hearn Test Positive For Coronavirus
Royals right-hander Brad Keller and first baseman Ryan O’Hearn have tested positive for the coronavirus, per the team. Keller said in a statement that is dealing with minor symptoms at the moment, while O’Hearn is asymptomatic. They’ll both need a pair of negative tests before they’re cleared to return to the team. For now, they’ll isolate as they await those negative tests. Keller and O’Hearn join Salvador Perez as known Royals players to have tested positive in the early days of Summer Camp.
The hope is obviously that both will make swift recoveries and be ready when games begin later this month, although there’s no way of knowing when either will be cleared. Keller, 25 later this month, is a lock for the Royals rotation and served as their Opening Day starter a year ago. The former Rule 5 pick tossed 165 1/3 frames of 4.19 ERA ball over the course of 28 starts for Kansas City this past season.
O’Hearn, who’ll turn 27 in late July, had a big Spring Training before the league shutdown and was competing with Ryan McBroom for regular reps at first base. There’s an obvious platoon pairing between the two if the organization sees fit, but both are looking at the 2020 season as a hopeful proving grounds. O’Hearn posted a monstrous .262/.353/.597 slash (153 wRC+) in 170 plate appearances in 2018 but saw his production decline precipitously in 2019 (.195/.281/.369).
Diamondbacks’ Seth Beer Tests Positive For COVID-19
Diamondbacks first baseman/outfielder Seth Beer has tested positive for COVID-19, manager Torey Lovullo told Zach Buchanan of The Athletic and other reporters. It’s unclear whether Beer is asymptomatic, Buchanan adds. Regardless, he’ll need to log two consecutive negative tests before he’s eligible to rejoin the Diamondbacks.
Arizona’s among the teams hit hardest by the virus in recent weeks. Prior to Beer, the club saw several players – outfielder Kole Calhoun, pitchers Junior Guerra and Silvino Bracho, as well as multiple unnamed individuals – test positive for the illness. The Diamondbacks also lost righty Mike Leake for the season, as he opted out of playing because of health concerns.
Beer isn’t on the Diamondbacks’ 40-man roster, but the team does have him in its 60-man player pool. The 23-year-old power hitter is a recent first-round pick, having gone 28th overall to the Astros in 2018, and joined the D-backs in the two clubs’ blockbuster Zack Greinke deal at last summer’s trade deadline. Beer accrued 533 plate appearances between High-A and Double-A ball in 2019, when he slashed .289/.388/.516 with 26 home runs.