Angels To Reinstate Andrew Heaney From IL On Saturday
The Angels are set to bring Andrew Heaney back from the injured list on Saturday to start that day’s game against the Red Sox. (MLB.com’s Rhett Bollinger was among those to report the news.) Heaney has been sidelined with shoulder inflammation for a little more than three weeks, as per a retroactive IL placement for July 17.
Between this injury and an elbow issue that kept him from debuting until May 26, Heaney has been limited to just 46 innings this season. The southpaw has a 5.09 ERA over that brief stretch, as his career-long problems with home runs have again surfaced — Heaney has surrendered nine big flies. The home runs have obscured some otherwise decent numbers, as he has a 10.6 K/9, 2.84 K/BB rate this year.
2018 marked the first full and healthy season of Heaney’s career, as he pitched 180 innings after missing virtually all of 2016 and 2017 due to Tommy John surgery. A return to that 2018 performance (4.15 ERA, 4.00 K/BB rate, 9.00 K/9, albeit with a 1.4 HR.9) would be a big help for an Angels team that has been desperate for any type of consistent starting pitching.
A strong finish to his 2019 campaign would also allow Heaney to get a bigger raise on his $3.4MM salary from this season. As a Super Two player, Heaney is eligible for arbitration two more times before hitting the free agent market after the 2021 season.
Cubs Sign Chih-Wei Hu To Minors Deal
The Cubs have signed right-hander Chih-Wei Hu to a minor league contract, according to Roster Roundup. Hu had been pitching in the Indians’ farm system before being released from that minors deal in late July.
After posting a 3.52 ERA, 8.2 K/9, and 3.00 K/BB rate over 23 relief innings with the Rays in 2017-18, Hu was dealt to Cleveland last November but struggled badly with Triple-A Akron this season. Hu managed only a 7.18 ERA over 57 2/3 innings (starting nine of 18 games), thanks in large part to 18 home runs allowed. The Tribe outrighted Hu off their 40-man roster in early July, so it seemed like a change of scenery was probably inevitable.
Hu has always been an extreme fly-ball pitcher, so it could be that the changes to the baseball used in Triple-A leagues this season have turned his fly-ball issues into a potentially insurmountable problem. Still, given the solid numbers he posted in the minors prior to 2019, there’s little risk for the Cubs in seeing if they can correct Hu’s problems.
Phillies Reinstate Jay Bruce From 10-Day IL
The Phillies have activated Jay Bruce from the 10-day injured list, as per a team announcement. Outfielder Adam Haseley has been optioned to Triple-A to create space for Bruce on the 25-man roster.
A right oblique strain sent Bruce to the IL on July 17, so such a relatively short absence is good news for both Bruce and the Phils, considering how oblique injuries often sideline players for at least a month, and often longer. Now, the left-handed slugger will return to the Philadelphia lineup after already contributing a .256/.273/.564 slash line and 10 homers over 121 PA since being traded from the Mariners in June.
It remains to be seen how Bruce will be regularly deployed, since the newly-acquired Corey Dickerson will be taking over left field and obviously right fielder Bryce Harper isn’t going anywhere. Both Dickerson and Harper are left-handed, so there’s even less opportunity for Bruce to get platoon action. Rather than relegate Bruce to bench duty, however, Haseley’s demotion would seemingly indicate that Dickerson (or maybe even Harper in a pinch) could play center field against some right-handed starters, with the switch-hitting Roman Quinn playing in center when a lefty is on the mound. It doesn’t exactly make for an ideal defensive alignment, but the Phillies might see it as a necessary evil if Bruce’s bat sparks a middling offense.
Haseley, the eighth overall pick of the 2017 draft, made a respectable accounting of himself in his first taste of big league action. Haseley hit .274/.315/.452 with three homers over 89 plate appearances, while flashing some above-average glovework in the outfield.
Padres Place Adrian Morejon On 10-Day IL, Reinstate Jose Castillo
The Padres announced that young left-hander Adrian Morejon has been placed on the 10-day injured list due to a shoulder impingement. Southpaw Jose Castillo has been reinstated from the 60-day IL to take Morejon’s spot on the active roster.
It’s been a rough beginning to Morejon’s big league career, as he has been tagged for a 10.13 ERA over his eight innings of work (five outings) since making his Major League debut back on July 21. There were a couple of silver linings to Morejon’s first taste of the Show, as he averaged 96.4mph on his fastball and recorded nine strikeouts over his eight frames. MLB.com and Baseball America ranked Morejon within the top 50 of their midseason prospects rankings, making him one of the many intriguing youngsters coming out of the loaded San Diego farm system.
Castillo didn’t have nearly the same prospect pedigree when he made his Major League debut for the Padres last season, though the southpaw had much better early results. He posted a 3.29 ERA, 4.33 K/BB, and 12.2 K/9 over 38 1/3 relief innings for San Diego in 2018, though a flexor strain has kept him on the sidelines for all of 2019.
Braves Place Austin Riley On Injured List
4:12pm: Riley has suffered a partially-torn LCL, manager Brian Snitker told reporters (including Gabe Burns of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution). Riley is set to visit Dr. James Andrews on Monday to determine the full extent of the injury.
TODAY, 12:50pm: The Braves announced that Riley has been placed on the IL with a sprained right knee. No timetable for his return was provided. Right-hander Jeremy Walker is up from Triple-A in his place.
Aug. 7: The Braves will place third baseman/left fielder Austin Riley on the 10-day injured list due to an injured ligament in his right knee, David O’Brien of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution tweets. Riley sustained the injury in the weight room this week but didn’t initially believe it to be serious. His knee stiffened overnight, however, and he’ll undergo some testing to determine the extent of the issue. Atlanta will announce a corresponding move (and perhaps further details on the injury) tomorrow.
Riley, 22, debuted to great fanfare in Atlanta earlier this season and quickly established himself as a serious power threat in the Braves’ lineup. He’s homered 17 times in 255 plate appearances, but his considerable pop has been overshadowed by alarming contact issues of late.
Riley batted .298/.336/.628 with 11 homers in his first 30 big league games (128 plate appearances) but did so with a 32 percent strikeout rate, a .362 average on balls in play and a 29.7 percent homer-to-flyball ratio that’d currently rank fifth in MLB behind Nelson Cruz, Christian Yelich, Pete Alonso and Franmil Reyes if sustained. Suffice it to say, his instant success was impressive but didn’t appear likely to be fully maintained. A drop of this magnitude, however, wasn’t exactly foreseeable itself. Over his past 127 trips to the dish, Riley has batted just .183/.252/.374 with a strikeout rate of nearly 39 percent.
With his injury, the Braves will rely on a primary outfield trio of Adam Duvall in left, Ender Inciarte in center and Ronald Acuna Jr. in right field, with Matt Joyce serving as the fourth outfielder. Charlie Culberson figures to be the primary backup to both Josh Donaldson at third base and Johan Camargo at shortstop. Dansby Swanson is also on the injured list at the moment and is not yet ready to be activated, O’Brien tweets.
Mets Sign Brad Brach
The Mets have signed right-hander Brad Brach, as per the team’s Twitter feed. Brandon Nimmo was shifted to the 60-day injured list to create a 40-man roster spot, while left-hander Donnie Hart was optioned to Triple-A to create space on New York’s active roster.
After being released earlier this week by the Cubs, the Mets are hopeful that a change of scenery can turn around what has been easily the roughest full season of Brach’s career. The righty has a 6.13 ERA, 10.2 K/9, and 1.61 K/BB rate over 39 2/3 innings this season, with an ungainly 6.4 BB/9 and a career-high 37.4% hard-hit ball rate standing out as the biggest issues. That said, Brach was perhaps a touch unlucky to post that big ERA, as his .375 BABIP and ERA predictors (4.13 FIP, 4.88 xFIP, 4.93 SIERA) could hint.
It’s worth noting that Brach also didn’t pitch well last season with the Orioles before a midseason trade to the Braves got him back on track, as Brach had a 1.52 ERA over 23 2/3 frames for Atlanta. Overall, Brach has spent much of the decade as a solid-to-excellent relief arm for the Padres, Orioles, and Braves, posting a 3.05 ERA, 2.43 K/BB rate, and 9.4 K/9 over 449 innings from 2012-18.
Anything close to that performance would be a big help to a New York bullpen that has largely struggled this season, apart from a superlative year from Seth Lugo and some good work from southpaw Justin Wilson over his 21 innings with the club. Edwin Diaz is ostensibly still the closer, though Lugo could potentially get more save opportunities down the stretch, so Brach could possibly step right into a setup role.
The Mets will only be paying Brach a prorated minimum salary for the remainder of the season, as the Cubs are covering the rest of the salary owed to Brach under the terms of his rather bonus-heavy one-year contract. The deal also contains a dual option for 2020 — the Mets can either pay Brach $5MM or buy him out for $100K. If the latter option occurs, Brach can enact a player option worth $1.35MM.
Though Brodie Van Wagenen has only been the Mets’ general manager for less than a year, the club had interest in Brach prior to the 2018 season, Mike Puma of the New York Post reports. A Brach-for-Matt Harvey deal was discussed between the Mets and Orioles, which creates an interesting what-if scenario for fans.
Mets, Zack Wheeler “Failed To Progress” In Extension Talks
The Mets were seemingly exploring all options as both buyers and sellers leading up to the trade deadline, including the possibility of signing Zack Wheeler to an extension and (presumably then) trading Noah Syndergaard. The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal had the original report about the Mets’ interest in extending Wheeler, and in a longer piece (subscription required), Rosenthal notes that Mets GM Brodie Van Wagenen actually did broach a long-term deal with Wheeler’s agent. However, “the conversations failed to progress,” and Wheeler is still on track to reach free agency after the season.
It isn’t any surprise that the two sides didn’t link up, if for no other reason than it’s rare to see a pending free agent sign a midseason extension. Usually, such deals are completed before Opening Day (or perhaps shortly into April) in the player’s final season under contract. With over two-thirds of the season in the books, however, it likely would’ve taken a real sweetheart of an offer from the Mets to convince Wheeler to forego his shot at the open market, particularly since he stands to land a rich deal. MLBTR’s Tim Dierkes recently slotted Wheeler fourth in his latest power ranking of the 2019-20 free agent class.
If anything, Wheeler’s stock has only risen since the trade deadline. The right-hander has tossed 15 shutout innings over his last two starts, continuing his career-long trend of pitching better in the second half of the season. For all of 2019, Wheeler has a 4.20 ERA, 9.62 K/9, 46.3% grounder rate, 4.26 K/BB rate, and .297 xwOBA over 139 1/3 innings, with ERA indicators (3.44 FIP, 3.74 xFIP, 3.93 SIERA) hinting that he is outperforming his actual ERA.
Even before his two post-deadline starts boosted his numbers, Wheeler was still generating a lot of trade interest, though no team was prepared to meet the Mets’ “high, high expectations” (as one team official told Rosenthal) placed on any trade offer for Wheeler, Syndergaard, or any other player who might have been available. The asking price was high enough even to deter teams who might have been willing to overpay for Wheeler — one rival executive tells Rosenthal that his club was prepared to make a “stupid” offer to add him to their rotation before the deadline.
As Rosenthal notes, this “stupid” offer (and possibly other offers from other teams) would likely have given the Mets more in return for Wheeler than the compensatory draft pick they’d be in line to receive if Wheeler signed elsewhere this winter after rejecting a qualifying offer. Like so many other free agents in recent years, Wheeler’s market could be somewhat impacted by a qualifying offer (a one-year deal in the range of $18MM+), though the odds are good right now that he’d reject the QO in search of a longer-term contract.
The Mets ended up being buyers rather than sellers at the deadline, adding Marcus Stroman from the Blue Jays and holding onto the rest of their starting staff. At the moment, it’s hard to argue with results, as New York was already on a hot streak going into the deadline that has now extended to a run of 13 wins over their last 14 games. If the Mets did plan to make a playoff push, however, Rosenthal wonders why Stroman ended up being the only move, as the club didn’t address other needs (i.e. relief pitching, center field), and also traded another starter in Jason Vargas to the Phillies, another team in wild card contention. It’s possible the Mets could be active on the August waiver wire, though Rosenthal also wonders if the $206MM luxury tax threshold could have been a consideration — Roster Resource has the Mets’ luxury tax number at just under $203.22MM.
Blue Jays Claim Zack Godley
TODAY: The Jays officially added Godley to the active roster, optioning right-hander Brock Stewart to Triple-A in a corresponding move.
YESTERDAY: The Blue Jays have claimed righty Zack Godley off waivers from the Diamondbacks, according to Nick Piecoro of the Arizona Republic (via Twitter). Toronto will owe Godley the remainder of his $609K salary.
It’s easy to see why the Jays took a shot on the 29-year-old Godley. In need of some additional arms to finish out the season, there’s no harm in giving him an opportunity. And the club could tender Godley a contract for 2020 if he manages to bounce back.
Make no mistake, though: it has been a rough campaign to this point for Godley. His strikeout rate has plummeted to just 6.9 K/9 after sitting at better than a batter-per-inning in the prior two seasons. Godley is giving up more homers than he had in those immediately preceding campaigns as well. The result: a 6.39 ERA over 76 innings.
A mid-season move to a multi-inning relief role did help, as Godley’s velocity turned up a bit. He held opposing hitters to a .218/.297/.414 batting line and posted an improved 28:13 K/BB ratio. But he was also tagged for seven long balls and a 4.62 ERA in his 37 relief frames.
Godley is just two years removed from an excellent 2017 campaign and also posted reasonably promising peripherals last year. But he’ll have to figure some things out if he’s to get back on an upward trajectory. Rediscovering some of the lost velo would help. He’s generating swinging-strikes at a significantly lower rate than he did in his ’17 effort (10.1% vs. 13.3%), with the difference residing almost entirely in the fact that hitters have made way more contact on pitches out of the zone. His groundball rate has sagged from 55.3% at its peak to to just 43.0% this year.
Red Sox Place David Price On 10-Day Injured List
The Red Sox announced that left-hander David Price has been placed on the 10-day injured list due to a left wrist injury. The placement is retroactive to August 5. Price received a cortisone shot after an MRI revealed a TFCC cyst within his wrist. Righty Hector Velazquez has been called up from Triple-A Pawtucket to take Price’s spot on Boston’s roster.
This will be Price’s second IL stint of the year, following a relatively minor two-week absence in May to recover from left elbow tendinitis. This current injury also doesn’t seem overtly serious, though losing Price for any amount of time is another blow to a Red Sox team that is falling further and further back in the AL wild card race.
It’s been a decent, if somewhat unlucky, season for Price, as he has a 4.36 ERA that advanced metrics (3.64 FIP, 3.67 xFIP, 3.81 SIERA) suggest should be lower, plus his .310 xwOBA is slightly outperforming his .324 wOBA. Price’s 10.77 K/9 is the highest of his career, though he has also posted career highs in hard-hit ball rate (37.2%) and home run rate (15%).
Price hasn’t pitched well since the All-Star break, as he has a whopping 10.59 ERA over his last four starts (17 innings). The southpaw’s struggles have contributed to the overall desultory recent performance of Boston’s starting pitching, as Red Sox started have a combined 6.24 ERA over the last 30 days, the third-worst mark of any club in baseball over that timeframe. Velazquez will try and fill Price’s shoes in the rotation, though the swingman has also had a rough go of it in 2019, with a 5.67 ERA over 46 innings this season.
Twins Select Randy Dobnak
TODAY: The Twins officially announced the move.
YESTERDAY: The Twins will select the contract of right-hander Randy Dobnak from Triple-A Rochester on Thursday, Darren Wolfson of SKOR North 1500 first reported (Twitter link). Minnesota already optioned righty Kohl Stewart to Rochester following today’s game. The Twins already have a 40-man roster spot open following last month’s bullpen purge that saw the team DFA Adalberto Mejia, Mike Morin, Matt Magill and Blake Parker in less than two weeks’ time.
Dobnak, 24, hasn’t exactly taken a conventional path to the Majors. Undrafted out of Division-II Alderson-Broaddus College in West Virginia, Dobnak’s first professional outing came with the Utica Unicorns of the independent United Shore League in June 2017. He signed with the Twins less than two months later and began his career in affiliated ball with the Twins’ Rookie-level affiliate in the Appalachian League. Dobnak posted strong numbers there against younger, teenaged competition and enjoyed a solid, if unspectacular 2018 campaign in Class-A Cedar Rapids.
In 2019, Dobnak opened the season in the Class-A Advanced Florida State League but was promoted to Double-A before the calendar flipped to May. By early June, he’d been promoted for his first taste of Triple-A ball. Dobnak hasn’t posted an ERA higher than 2018’s 3.14 mark in the Midwest League at any stop in the minors; in fact, his next-highest ERA at any level is 2.57. Through 125 innings across three minor league levels in 2019, Dobnak has pitched to a minuscule 2.02 ERA with 7.3 K/9, 1.7 BB/9, 0.43 HR/9 and a 59 percent ground-ball rate.
That meteoric rise was enough to land a player who once looked like little more than organizational filler in the No. 30 spot on Baseball America’s midseason update to the Twins’ top prospects, and all he’s done since the publication of that list is toss another 26 1/3 innings, allowing four runs on 12 hits and five walks with 21 strikeouts. While Dobnak still shouldn’t be mistaken for any kind of elite pitching prospect, his ascent from undrafted indie ball player to Major Leaguer in just north of two calendar years is nevertheless remarkable. The Twins currently have Michael Pineda on the injured list, so it’s possible that Dobnak will get a start. If not, he’ll add some length to a Twins bullpen that has been a frequent source of headaches for fans and the organization alike in recent months.