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Injury Notes: Jordan Walker, Christian Walker, Topa

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The Cardinals got good news on Jordan Walker this afternoon. An MRI revealed no structural damage in his left knee, manager Oli Marmol told reporters (including John Denton of MLB.com). Walker is dealing with inflammation that’ll shut him down for around a week, but there’s nothing to suggest this’ll be a serious issue. It would have been a freak injury, as the young outfielder felt the discomfort after stepping on a sprinkler head while tracking a fly ball during Tuesday’s game.

With three weeks until Opening Day, it seems the 22-year-old will be on track for the start of the regular season. He’s in line to work as the everyday right fielder. The former top prospect has yet to develop into the impact hitter that many evaluators believe he could become. Walker has turned in a .255/.317/.423 slash in 643 career plate appearances. That includes a .210/.253/.366 line over 51 MLB games last season. He had pedestrian numbers (.263/.326/.427 over 377 PAs) in Triple-A as well. Walker is young enough that this isn’t yet a make-or-break season, but the Cards’ transitional year should give him an extended opportunity to cement himself.

A couple other health updates from around baseball:

  • Christian Walker felt soreness in his left oblique during batting practice before the Astros game on Wednesday, manager Joe Espada told the beat (relayed by MLB.com’s Brian McTaggart). He’s day to day for the moment, but the team will know more tomorrow after further testing. Any kind of strain would make a season-opening injured list stint likely. Walker was Houston’s big free agent pickup, inking a three-year deal that guarantees $60MM. He’s coming off his third consecutive Gold Glove win and hit .251/.335/.468 with 26 homers over 552 plate appearances during his final season in Arizona. If Walker misses time, Jon Singleton would get the bulk of the first base reps. Righty-hitting Zach Dezenzo could take some at-bats against lefty pitching in that situation.
  • Twins reliever Justin Topa has had unfortunate injury luck for most of his career. He has undergone two Tommy John procedures and a flexor tendon surgery. A patellar tendon issue in his left knee limited him to three MLB appearances last season. Topa is now dealing with shoulder discomfort, writes Bobby Nightengale of the Minnesota Star-Tribune. Minnesota lifted the righty from Wednesday’s game after seven pitches when Topa reported shoulder tightness. Manager Rocco Baldelli told reporters that the pitcher wasn’t overly concerned, so it’ll hopefully be a precautionary removal, but he’ll go for further testing tomorrow.

Rangers Notes: Teodo, Bullpen, Leiter

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Rangers pitching prospect Emiliano Teodo is making a strong impression early in camp. The 24-year-old righty struck out the side to earn the save in today’s exhibition win against Cincinnati. He’s up to 3 1/3 scoreless frames with five punchouts, a pair of saves, and a hold. His fastball has reached triple digits in short stints.

While it’s far too small a sample on which to draw real conclusions, Teodo’s stuff has caught the attention of Bruce Bochy. “You don’t know, he could break spring with us. To be honest, yeah, he’s probably on the outside looking in, but that’s how much we think about him,” the veteran manager said on Monday (link via Shawn McFarland of the Dallas Morning News). “The stuff works, he’s been starting, I like him coming from the ‘pen too. There’s not a lot of arms like this.”

Teodo, whom the Rangers added to the 40-man roster over the offseason, doesn’t have a real shot to start the season in the big league rotation. The Rangers have Jacob deGrom, Nathan Eovaldi, Tyler Mahle and Jon Gray lined up for their top four spots. Cody Bradford and Kumar Rocker are vying for the fifth starter job. There may be an opportunity in the bullpen. Texas has built its relief corps with a handful of low-cost free agent pickups and the trade for Robert Garcia. Teodo might have as good of raw stuff as anyone in that group, but breaking camp would require him to make the jump directly from Double-A.

Working as a starter with Double-A Frisco last season, Teodo turned in a 1.98 earned run average across 86 1/3 innings. He punched out 30.7% of opponents against a huge 14% walk rate. While the high-octane stuff has translated into a lot of whiffs, Teodo has yet to throw strikes consistently. Baseball America ranked him the #4 prospect in the system. They credit him with the potential for three plus or better pitches — headlined by a huge fastball-slider combination — but his control could point to a bullpen future. If Texas believes that’s the likeliest outcome regardless, there’s an argument for seeing how his stuff plays in relief on Opening Day.

Jack Leiter has had a similar combination of whiffs and walks in the minor leagues. The former second overall pick fanned a third of opponents with a 10.6% walk rate over 17 Triple-A appearances last season. The strikeout rate dropped to 17.9% as he surrendered nearly a run per inning over his first 35 2/3 MLB frames. Leiter has a pair of minor league options remaining and seems likely to work out of the Triple-A rotation to open the season.

The 24-year-old righty told reporters he’s tinkering with his pitch mix (link via Kennedi Landry of MLB.com). Leiter said he’s working on a two-seam fastball that he picked up over the offseason. More interestingly, he said he adjusted the grip on his changeup late last year after a conversation with reliever Matt Festa. Leiter said he feels the new grip gets more downward action but that he didn’t feel comfortable using it frequently in games last year because it was difficult to command. Spring Training is an opportune time for pitchers to experiment with new offerings. Leiter has tossed five innings of one-run ball with five strikeouts and one walk thus far in camp.

Hall Of Fame Adjusts Era Committees Eligibility

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The Hall of Fame announced a change to its Era Committees eligibility. Beginning with the upcoming year, any candidate on an Era Committee ballot who does not receive at least five of 16 votes will be ineligible for consideration during their era’s next cycle. A candidate who receives four or fewer votes on two separate occasions is ruled permanently ineligible for future consideration.

The Era Committees, formerly known as the Veterans Committee, is the less common path for enshrinement. It is designed to reconsider players who were not elected by the Baseball Writers Association of America. The Era Committees also considers non-players (i.e. managers, executives, and umpires) for induction. The BBWAA voting process is exclusive to players.

In order to be elected, an Era Committee candidate must receive 12 of 16 votes. The voting panel generally consists of longtime coaches and executives, as well as Hall of Fame players. The smaller voting pool means they’ve generally had a slightly lower standard for induction than has the BBWAA, which requires 75% approval from a much larger body of media members.

The Era Committee process is on a rotating three-year cycle. In one year, it’ll consider individuals from the “Classic Baseball Era” — those whose most significant contributions to the sport came before 1980, including veterans of the Negro Leagues. The other two years have subsets of the “Contemporary Baseball Era.” That consists of one year for players whose greatest contributions have come since 1980, and one year for managers/executives/umpires of the same era.

Last offseason considered the Classic Baseball Era. As it does every year, the committee voted on eight candidates: Dick Allen, Ken Boyer, John Donaldson, Steve Garvey, Dave Parker, Vic Harris, Tommy John and Luis Tiant. Allen and Parker each received at least 12 votes and will be inducted this summer alongside the trio of players elected by the BBWAA: Ichiro, CC Sabathia and Billy Wagner. Of the remaining six candidates, only John (seven votes) received at least five votes.

The rule change is not retroactive, so this doesn’t impact any of the other candidates for now. However, under the new system, those who don’t receive five votes will not be allowed on the ballot when their era comes back up for consideration in three years. They may be considered four-plus years later, but falling shy of five votes again would end their Hall of Fame chances for good.

The Hall is hoping to diversify the candidates it evaluates. The logic is presumably that anyone who only receives a handful of votes from multiple committees is unlikely to ever garner serious consideration and should be removed in favor of someone else. In that sense, it’ll serve as an analogue to the sometimes controversial 5% voting threshold necessary for a player to stay on the BBWAA ballot each year.

This December’s class will consider players from the Contemporary Era. Contemporary Era managers/umpires/executives get their turn in 2026. The Classic Era will be up again in 2027.

Bryce Harper Willing To Return To Outfield To Accommodate Future First Base Addition

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Bryce Harper hasn’t played the outfield in a long time but is willing to head back out there if the Phillies find a big first base addition. “I talked to (the Phillies) this offseason about that, just in case a guy was available (at first) that we needed to have, needed to get,” Harper said to Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic. “I’d be more than open to it if we had a guy like that, who was going to change our lineup or change the demeanor of our team. They like me at first base. But I’d go out there to have a guy who was going to play first base and hit 35 or 40 homers.

“When Pete (Alonso) was on the block still, I kind of sat there and was like, ‘Hey, why not?’ When we talked about it, I kind of just reiterated to (the Phillies) and Scott (Boras) that I’m willing to move out there if it’s going to help us. I love playing first base. It’s been great. But if it’s going to help us win, I’d go back out there.”

Harper spent many years as an outfielder but hasn’t been out there in a while. He was diagnosed with a torn ulnar collateral ligament in his throwing elbow in May of 2022. He wasn’t able to throw but served as the club’s designated hitter until he underwent Tommy John surgery in November of that year. He again served as the designated hitter once he initially got healthy in 2023. After that, the Phillies put him at first base and have kept him there.

That means it’s now been almost three years since his last outfield appearance. Regardless, Harper tells Rosenthal that his main goal is to win a World Series and he wants to do whatever it takes to help the club achieve that goal.

It’s an intriguing tidbit, given the potential impact on future markets. As Harper mentioned, he first broached the subject when Alonso was lingering on the market unsigned this winter. Nothing came of that, with Alonso eventually returning to the Mets, and there are no notable first basemen left unsigned at this point. But this coming winter, Alonso could be back out there since he has an opt-out in his two-year deal with the Mets. Vladimir Guerrero Jr. also didn’t reach an extension with the Blue Jays and is slated for free agency this coming winter as well.

Whether the club wants to go down that road remains to be seen. Even before the surgery, Harper’s outfield defense was questionable. Outs Above Average gave him a grade of -29 from its inception in 2016 through 2022. Defensive Runs Saved has Harper at +8 as an outfielder in his career, but since he tallied +14 in his rookie season in 2012, he’s been below average overall since then. Given that he’s now 32 years old and has been away from the grass for a few years, he would face a challenge in being better than that going forward. At first base, however, he has +8 OAA in his career and +6 DRS.

There’s also the larger roster construction to consider. The Phils have seemingly been committed to keeping Harper at first, so much so that they told Rhys Hoskins they wouldn’t be able to bring him back as he hit free agency after 2023. Since then, they have had Harper at first and Kyle Schwarber at designated hitter. Schwarber is slated for free agency after 2025, though there seems to be some mutual interest in getting an extension done. Even if Schwarber isn’t back in 2026, Nick Castellanos would be a logical candidate to move into that role, since his contract runs through ’26 and his defense isn’t well regarded.

Hypothetically, signing Guerrero to a deal of a decade or longer could lead to long-term awkwardness on the roster. Harper is already 32 and will be 33 next year, with his contract running through 2031. In this hypothetical, he and Guerrero would be on the same roster for six years, from 2026 through 2031. By 2027, both Schwarber and Castellanos could be gone, perhaps allowing Harper and Guerrero to share first base and the DH slot at that point, though that would give the club very little flexibility for a five-year stretch. Most clubs these days prefer to have some wiggle room to cycle other players into the DH spot in order to manage season-long workloads and nagging injuries.

With Alonso, perhaps the hypothetical fit is a bit easier to see, depending on his 2025 season. He is obviously hoping to bounce back and find a stronger market next winter, but his age will still cap the length of his deal even if that happens. While Guerrero is just about to turn 26 this month, Alonso is already 30 and will be turning 31 next offseason. He didn’t seem to find any clubs willing to make a long-term investment in him this winter, so perhaps that will be true again going into 2026.

Regardless, all of his is contingent on the Phillies taking Harper up on his willingness to head back out to the grass. Perhaps this will end up being a moot point but it’s possible this could lead to some interesting rumors next winter. It’s also theoretically possible that Guerrero and/or Alonso are available at this summer’s deadline. Theoretically, the Phillies could acquire one of them and move Harper to the outfield, though a midseason trade is perhaps is even harder to see since Harper wouldn’t have an offseason and spring training to prepare for the outfield move.

Brewers Sign Jose Quintana

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March 5: The Brewers made it official today, announcing that they have signed Quintana to a one-year deal with a mutual option for 2026. DL Hall was placed on the 60-day IL to open a roster spot. Per Jon Heyman of The New York Post, it’s a $2MM salary in 2025 with a deferred $2MM buyout on a $15MM mutual option for 2026 and a $250K roster bonus. The incentives are $125K each for 16, 18, 20, 22 and 24 games started, as well as $100K for 110, 120, 130 and 140 innings pitched.

March 3: The Brewers are making a veteran addition to their rotation. Milwaukee is reportedly in agreement with Jose Quintana on a one-year, $4.25MM deal. That takes the form of a $250K roster bonus and a $4MM base salary for the ACES client. The signing, which has not been made official by the team, also includes incentives. The Brewers have a full 40-man roster and will need to make a corresponding move once the deal is finalized.

Quintana, 36, is one of the top unsigned free agents as the regular season is just over three weeks away at this point. He just finished a two-year, $26MM deal with the Mets that saw him post solid surface-level results, though with the numbers under the hood a bit less impressive.

In 2023, a left rib fracture put him on the injured list at the start of the season and kept him there until the middle of July. He returned in time to make 13 starts down the stretch, allowing 3.57 earned runs per nine innings, though his strikeout rate fell to 18.8%. Last year, he stayed healthy enough to take the ball 31 times for the Mets and logged 170 1/3 innings with a 3.75 ERA. But his strikeout was again a tepid 18.8% and he benefited from .263 batting average on balls in play. His 4.56 FIP and 4.57 SIERA on the year both pointed to him deserving worse results than he actually posted.

Prior to signing with the Mets, Quintana had engineered a strong bounceback season. After struggling with injuries and underperformance in 2020 and 2021, the lefty posted a 2.93 ERA over 32 starts in 2022. In that bounceback year, he had a 20.2% strikeout rate, 6.9% walk rate and 46.4% ground ball rate. Since then, he has a 3.70 ERA over 246 innings but with his 18.8% strikeout rate, 8.4% walk rate and 45.6% ground ball rate each moving slightly in the wrong direction.

Quintana’s isn’t the most exciting profile, but even getting some boring back-of-the-rotation innings could be good for the Brewers, especially for the price. At the start of the winter, MLBTR predicted the lefty to secure a two-year, $20MM contract, alongside other mid-rotation or back-end guys like Frankie Montas, Andrew Heaney or Matthew Boyd.

The pitching market was very aggressive early on, with Montas able to get a two-year, $34MM guarantee plus an opt-out from the Mets. Boyd got two years and $29MM from the Cubs. But the heat died down more recently, which seems to have squeezed out certain guys. Heaney had to settle for a $5.25MM guarantee from the Pirates on a one-year deal. Quintana reportedly turned down a better offer than that Heaney deal from the Bucs but is now joining Milwaukee on a fairly similar arrangement.

The Brewers have clearly been operating with no financial wiggle room this winter. Prior to signing Quintana, their biggest free agent signing was giving a $1MM guarantee to Tyler Alexander. They did add Nestor Cortes in a trade with the Yankees, but that deal was fairly revenue-neutral, with Devin Williams going the other way.

Their rotation mix has a few question marks in it. Robert Gasser required Tommy John surgery in June of last year and will be out of action until the second half of 2025. Brandon Woodruff is working his way back from shoulder surgery which wiped out his 2024 campaign and it’s unclear when he will be a viable option. DL Hall suffered a lat strain a few weeks ago and will start the season on the injured list.

As of now, Freddy Peralta and Cortes have spots alongside Aaron Civale and Tobias Myers. Civale tossed 161 innings last year but that was a personal best for him, having never hit 125 frames in a big league season before. Myers posted an ERA of 3.00 in his first big league action but was a nomadic former prospect prior to that, so it remains to be seen if he can maintain his results or if his 2024 was a fluke.

Other options in the mix include Alexander and Aaron Ashby. Alexander has a 4.55 ERA in his career but mostly in a swing role, oscillating between starting and relieving. This Quintana deal should push him more firmly into that position again. Ashby, who left today’s Spring Training appearance with an oblique injury, has some starting experience but struggled through much of 2024 before finishing strong in a relief role. He is still a starting candidate but he could eventually end up back in the bullpen and also has an option year remaining, which could push him to the Triple-A rotation.

Even if Quintana’s results in 2024 were a bit of a mirage and he ends up with an ERA in the mid-4.00s this year, a steady veteran presence at this price is a logical add for a club with so many rotation question marks and little spending capacity.

For clubs still looking to add starting pitching at this late stage of the offseason, there are still a few unsigned options, including Kyle Gibson, Lance Lynn and Spencer Turnbull. The trade market could feature Jordan Montgomery and Taijuan Walker, though their salaries are much larger than what free agents have been settling for in recent weeks.

Robert Murray of FanSided first reported that the Brewers were signing Quintana to a one-year deal. Francys Romero reported that the salary would land in the $4-5MM range and the presence of incentives. Mark Feinsand of MLB.com had the specific $4.25MM guarantee and salary structure.

Gunnar Henderson Diagnosed With Intercostal Strain

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Orioles shortstop Gunnar Henderson has been diagnosed with a mild right intercostal strain. Manager Brandon Hyde relayed the information to reporters today, including Jake Rill of MLB.com. Hyde says the club is still “very, very hopeful” of Henderson being on the Opening Day roster, which is now just over three weeks away.

Henderson was removed from a Grapefruit League game against the Blue Jays last week, with the O’s announcing that he had lower right side discomfort. After that contest, Hyde downplayed the concern, framing the removal as precautionary and saying that Henderson would not even require an MRI.

A week later, it seems the issue has lingered enough that his readiness for Opening Day is a question mark. Though Hyde still thinks Henderson could be ready by the opener, he also suggests they won’t be aggressive with him just for that one game. “I’m very, very hopeful,” Hyde said today, per Rill. “But we’re going to not push a strain there, and we want to make sure that he gets it taken care of. It’s one of those sensitive areas where we don’t want anything to reoccur.”

Whether Henderson is in the lineup on Opening Day or not, it’s a situation worth monitoring, given his importance to the team. Henderson won American League Rookie of the Year honors in 2023 and vaulted to a new level last year. He hit 37 home runs, stole 21 bases, slashed .281/.364/.529 and got strong grades for his shortstop defense. FanGraphs credited him with 8.0 wins above replacement on the year. That would have been good enough for an MVP award in many years but Henderson finished fourth in the voting, thanks to outrageous seasons from Aaron Judge, Bobby Witt Jr. and Juan Soto.

The O’s will likely have to consider some contingency plans, even if they ultimately expect Henderson to get healthy in the next three weeks. Jorge Mateo played a lot of shortstop before Henderson took over that spot but he’s currently recovering from elbow surgery and likely to start the season on the injured list. Jackson Holliday has shortstop experience but the club has largely moved him to second base.

Jordan Westburg has plenty of shortstop experience in the minors but just ten big league innings there. He has his own health situation since he’s been dealing with back soreness/spasms this spring. He hasn’t played in a while but Hyde said to Rill it’s possible he could play in Thursday’s game, depending on how he feels in the morning. If Westburg were to cover short, it would create a hole a third, which could be filled by Coby Mayo or Ramón Urías. The O’s also have a few infielders in camp as non-roster invitees, such as Terrin Vavra, Liván Soto, Luis Vázquez, Emmanuel Rivera and Vimael Machín.

There are many moving parts and the situation will surely change in the coming weeks before Opening Day. Ideally, Henderson will just be back in action and everything would be back in its proper place, though Baltimore fans will likely be keeping a keen eye on developments between now and then.

Elsewhere on the roster, reliever Andrew Kittredge has some left knee soreness. Hyde tells reporters, including Andy Kostka of The Baltimore Banner, that he’s undergone an MRI and will seek multiple opinions. The O’s signed Kittredge to a one-year, $10MM deal in January to bolster their bullpen. He posted a 2.48 earned run average over the 2021 to 2024 seasons. Tommy John surgery wiped out most of the middle two seasons of that span but he tossed 70 2/3 innings last year with a 2.80 ERA, 23.3% strikeout rate, 7% walk rate and 45.2% ground ball rate.

Brewers Place DL Hall On 60-Day Injured List

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The Brewers announced that left-hander DL Hall has been placed on the 60-day injured list. Adam McCalvy of MLB.com was among those to relay the news. That means Hall has been officially ruled out until late May at the earliest. That’s the corresponding move to open a roster spot for lefty Jose Quintana, who has now been officially signed.

Back on February 12th, it was reported that Hall had a lat strain and was going to be shut down for at least the next two weeks. It has now been three weeks since that reporting with little information coming out about his progress. About a week ago, McCalvy relayed that Hall had not even been cleared to start playing catch. Manager Pat Murphy tells McCalvy today that Hall is expected to resume playing catch at the end of this week.

Given the sluggish progress and this transaction, it seems the Brewers don’t expect Hall to return anytime soon. Players can be placed on the 60-day IL once pitchers and catchers report to camp but the clock doesn’t start ticking until Opening Day, so Hall won’t be eligible for reinstatement until late May even in a best-case scenario.

It’s an unfortunate development for Hall, who hasn’t been able to build a decent workload. He still doesn’t have a 100-inning season on his track record as a professional. With the Orioles in 2022 and 2023, they shuttled him between the majors and minors as well as the rotation and the bullpen. He was traded to the Brewers as part of the Corbin Burnes deal ahead of the 2024 season and Milwaukee mostly deployed him as a starter last year, but a knee sprain capped him at 84 frames, majors and minors combined.

The Brewers still have hope of Hall becoming a viable starter one day, given that he’s a former top 100 prospect and was a key part of the Burnes deal. He could still have a nice season in 2025 but starting it with a lengthy IL stint isn’t ideal.

For the Brewers, they will have some rotation question marks to start the season, though the Quintana signing helps to solidify the group. Alongside Quintana will be Freddy Peralta, Tobias Myers, Aaron Civale and Nestor Cortes. They will add Brandon Woodruff in there at some point, though his timeline is unclear after he spent 2024 recovering from shoulder surgery. Aaron Ashby has an oblique strain and is still getting tested, per Curt Hogg of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, but seems likely to start the season on the IL. Robert Gasser is already on the 60-day IL as he recovers from last year’s Tommy John surgery.

Behind the front five, the Brewers currently have Logan Henderson, Carlos Rodríguez, Chad Patrick and Elvin Rodríguez as healthy options on the 40-man roster. However, Henderson and Patrick have no major league experience while the Rodríguezes have just 45 1/3 big league innings combined. Jacob Misiorowski is one of the top prospects in baseball but isn’t on the 40-man and walked 14.4% of batters faced last year.

Giants Notes: Eldridge, Luciano, Villar, Rogers, Stroman

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The Giants announced a wave of cuts from camp this morning, with top prospect Bryce Eldridge and former top prospect Marco Luciano among the most notable names sent out to minor league camp. (Luciano is on the 40-man roster and was thus optioned, technically speaking; Eldridge was reassigned to minor league camp.) Right-hander Mason Black was also optioned to minor league camp.

Though some fans might’ve hoped the 20-year-old Eldridge would break camp this year, that was always an extreme long shot. The 2023 first-rounder has all of 17 games above A-ball under his belt: nine in Double-A (where he hit quite well) and eight in Triple-A (where he struggled in a small sample). Eldridge’s overall .289/.372/.513 slash across four minor league levels helped propel him to the No. 12 spot on Baseball America’s top-100 list and did nothing to dispel the notion that he’s San Francisco’s first baseman of the future. For now, however, he’ll open the season in the upper minors while veterans LaMonte Wade Jr. and Wilmer Flores platoon at first base.

Luciano’s path to the roster was similarly unlikely. The former shortstop is still learning the ropes in his new corner-outfield environs, and San Francisco’s outfield mix has little room to break in. Heliot Ramos will be in left field after a breakout 2024 season. Jung Hoo Lee will be back in center now that he’s recovered from last year’s shoulder surgery. Mike Yastrzemski is in right field for what will be his seventh straight season. With Luciano still adjusting to the outfield, it benefits him to be in a setting where he can play every day and further familiarize himself with the new position.

The starters for the Giants are largely set. Patrick Bailey is the primary catcher. Wade and Flores will split at first base. Tyler Fitzgerald moves from shortstop to second base in deference to free agent signee Willy Adames. Matt Chapman inked a six-year extension late last season. Ramos, Lee and Yastrzemski round out the outfield. There’s more competition for the bench spots, but one player who’s all but squeezed out barring injuries further up the depth chart is infielder David Villar.

Villar impressed with a .231/.331/.455 showing and nine homers in 181 plate appearances as a 25-year-old rookie back in 2022. He’s since hit .170/.243/.346 in the majors while turning in only slightly above-average offense in a hitter-friendly Triple-A setting. Villar is out of minor league options and has less defensive versatility than fellow infielders Casey Schmitt and Brett Wisely. Both Schmitt and Wisely have one minor league option remaining, and both can play shortstop. Villar has never played a professional inning at short.

As soon as Chapman and Adames were locked in on the left side of the infield, Villar looked to be an odd man out. Alex Pavlovic of NBC Sports Bay Area wrote yesterday that for the former 11th-rounder, spring training this year is more about showcasing himself to 29 other clubs than earning a spot on the Giants’ roster.

Speculatively speaking, the front offices in Milwaukee and in the Bronx have been eyeing cost-effective third base options. Former Giants GM Scott Harris is now president of baseball operations in Detroit and has been looking for right-handed bats. His club just missed on Alex Bregman and lost one third base candidate (Matt Vierling) to a shoulder strain. Another, Jace Jung, has only 94 big league plate appearances and is out to a slow start this spring.

Villar is 28, out of minor league options and has a .200/.288/.400 slash in 358 big league plate appearances. There’s a chance he’d simply clear waivers and stick with the Giants as non-roster depth. But he’s a .268/.377/.511 hitter in three Triple-A seasons and can play both infield corners — in addition to more limited experience at second base. A club with a less-solidified infield mix could be interested in a small trade or waiver claim. It’ll be worth keeping an eye on how he performs for the remainder of the spring.

Shifting a bit away from the focus on what’s currently taking place in camp, Joel Sherman of the New York Post provides some context on earlier offseason trade talks between the Giants and Yankees. Per Sherman, the Yankees approached the Giants about a potential deal that would’ve sent righty Marcus Stroman to San Francisco in exchange for lefty Taylor Rogers. The Giants weren’t interested in that framework, it seems, preferring to move forward with a rotation including Logan Webb, Robbie Ray, Justin Verlander, Jordan Hicks and one of Kyle Harrison, Hayden Birdsong or Landen Roupp. (Harrison seems like the strong favorite.)

The Giants eventually traded Rogers and $6MM to the Reds, ducking out from half the money they still owed to the veteran lefty and adding minor league righty Braxton Roxby to their system in the process. The Yankees spent much of the offseason trying to move Stroman but now might be glad to have hung onto him; Luis Gil is dealing with a shoulder injury that’s thrust Stroman back into the rotation outlook in the Bronx.

Dodgers Notes: Phillips, Kopech, Henriquez

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The Dodger bullpen was so crowded that Ryan Brasier was designated for assignment and flipped to the Cubs a little over a month ago, despite posting a solid 3.54 earned run average last year. Since camp has opened, a few injuries have created a bit of breathing room, with Evan Phillips and Michael Kopech a bit behind the rest of the group.

It was reported about three weeks ago that both pitchers were delayed as camp opened. Phillips was diagnosed with a small tear of a tendon in his rotator cuff during last year’s playoffs. Surgery was not recommended and a cortisone injection had led to some healing, but the damage lingered into at least December and slowed his offseason throwing progression. It was reported a little over a week ago that the righty would not be ready by Opening Day.

Manager Dave Roberts provided Fabian Ardaya of The Athletic with a positive update. Roberts relayed that he watched Phillips throw a bullpen session today and came away impressed. He added that Phillips will stay in Arizona to continue getting work in while most of the Dodgers head to Japan for the Tokyo Series. Phillips will miss those Tokyo games and the start of the domestic regular season but Roberts says he should be back with the club in the first half of April. That’s good news as Phillips posted a 2.21 earned run average with the Dodgers over the past three seasons, striking out 29.6% of opponents while only giving out walks at a 6.5% clip.

As for Kopech, his track record as a reliever is far shorter but he still projects to be a key part of the bullpen. A starter for most of his career, he moved to relief work last year and had a 3.46 ERA between the White Sox and Dodgers. His 12.2% walk rate for the year was high but he punched out 31.5% of batters faced.

But he has been battling some forearm inflammation in recent months, putting his status for the start of 2025 in question. Yesterday, Ardaya relayed that Kopech was throwing a bullpen session. Kopech’s status is still up in the air but it does at least seem as though some progress is being made.

With some extra bullpen opportunities opening up, it could have been a chance for someone like Edgardo Henriquez to earn a job, but that won’t happen now. The young righty was spotted in a walking boot in the clubhouse yesterday. Roberts told Ardaya that the righty had a “mishap” away from the field and will be out of action for about four to six weeks. While the nature of the injury is mysterious, the point is that Henriquez won’t be able to step up and force his way into the bullpen while Phillips and Kopech are delayed.

Henriquez, 23 in June, was called up by the Dodgers late in September of last year. He tossed 3 1/3 innings but impressed the club enough to make the playoff roster, tossing another five innings in the postseason.

It’s hard to read much into that small sample of work but he averaged 98.7 miles per hour on his heater and 89.4 mph with his cutter. Prior to his call-up, he logged 53 minor league innings last year with a 2.72 ERA and 38.9% strikeout rate. The 12.8% walk rate is on the high side but the punchouts are huge and he is still young. He should factor into the Dodger bullpen mix down the line but will have to stay on ice for now.

A’s Shut Brady Basso Down Due To Shoulder Strain

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The A’s have shut southpaw Brady Basso down for the time being due to a shoulder strain, per Martin Gallegos of MLB.com. There’s currently no timetable for his return to throwing.

While Basso wasn’t guaranteed a spot on the Opening Day roster — he still has a pair of minor league option years remaining — his solid rookie showing in 2024 put him in position to genuinely compete to break camp. A 16th-round pick back in 2019, Basso pitched the first 22 1/3 innings of his MLB career last season and logged a 4.03 earned run average with a 20.4% strikeout rate, 5.4% walk rate and 42% grounder rate. That came on the heels of a 4.55 ERA, 27.5 K% and 6.3 BB% in 93 innings (18 starts, four relief appearances) between Double-A and Triple-A.

The Athletics currently have Luis Severino, Jeffrey Springs and JP Sears locked into rotation spots. Last season’s Rule 5 pick, Mitch Spence, very likely pitched his way into the fourth rotation spot with a nice rookie effort. Basso was in competition with Osvaldo Bido, Joey Estes, J.T. Ginn and Hogan Harris for a remaining rotation spot. It’s also possible he could’ve cracked the bullpen as a second lefty alongside veteran T.J. McFarland.

Through the first few weeks of camp, Basso had only strengthened his case. While Ginn, Bido and Estes have been hit hard and Harris has struggled with his command, Basso has rattled off 4 1/3 scoreless — and hitless — innings. He’s only allowed one of 14 opponents to reach (a walk) and had fanned four batters. Things can change in a hurry in a small spring sample, but to this point he could scarcely have done more with the opportunities he’d been given.

The A’s will have more information on his timeline for recovery in the days and weeks ahead, but a shutdown at this point effectively takes him out of the running for the Opening Day roster. If there’s a strain of any real significance, Basso could be a 60-day IL candidate the next time the team needs a 40-man roster spot, but that’ll hinge on the forthcoming prognosis and recovery timetable.

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