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Spencer Turnbull Throws For Teams

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Free agent righty Spencer Turnbull has thrown for teams and continues to seek a big league opportunity, reports Jon Heyman of The New York Post. Turnbull, who placed #50 on MLBTR’s Top 50 free agents list last offseason, surprisingly remains unsigned into the second week of the regular season.

The 32-year-old is coming off a solid, albeit injury-shortened, season with Philadelphia. The Phillies signed him to a $2MM free agent deal in February 2024. Turnbull took six turns through the rotation before kicking into multi-inning relief. He made 10 appearances out of the bullpen and one final start. Turnbull put up a 2.65 ERA with a quality 26.1% strikeout rate and a 47.5% ground-ball percentage through 54 1/3 innings.

All that work came within the season’s first three months. A lat strain sent him to the injured list in late June. While he made one rehab appearance late in September, he was not able to get back to the majors before the end of the season. It clearly wasn’t how Turnbull hoped to finish his walk year, though it seemed his early-season numbers would make him an interesting target for teams seeking affordable rotation help.

Turnbull has generally been a productive pitcher on a rate basis but hasn’t stayed healthy consistently. He tossed 148 1/3 innings across 30 starts for the Tigers back in 2019. He hasn’t reached 60 MLB frames in a season since then. Turnbull took 11 turns through the rotation during the shortened 2020 season, but his elbow blew out early in ’21. He required Tommy John surgery that July and missed the entire 2022 campaign.

He only made seven major league starts during his final season in Detroit. He struggled to a 7.26 ERA and missed time with neck soreness and a toenail avulsion. The relationship between Turnbull and the organization seemingly soured amidst those injuries and the team’s attempt to option him to the minors. They non-tendered him at year’s end, leading to his brief but effective stint with the Phils.

Last offseason’s market clearly didn’t materialize to Turnbull’s liking. Even if he’s able to secure a major league contract, he’d probably need to agree to an optional assignment so he can build up over multiple minor league appearances.

Red Sox, Yasmani Grandal Agree To Minor League Deal

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9:33pm: Grandal’s deal has a May 1 opt-out clause if he’s not added to the MLB roster and would come with a $1.35MM base salary if he earns a call-up, Chris Cotillo of MassLive reports.

5:15pm: The Red Sox and catcher Yasmani Grandal have agreed to a minor league deal, reports Robert Murray of FanSided. The Wasserman client will presumably need some ramp-up time after missing Spring Training but could be an option for the Sox in a few weeks.

The move is likely a reflection of the thinning catching depth in Boston. Connor Wong was the club’s primary backstop to start the year but he recently suffered a broken finger on a catcher’s interference play, putting him on the 10-day injured list. The club previously had one of the top catching prospects in the sport but traded Kyle Teel to the White Sox as part of the Garrett Crochet deal.

The Wong injury has moved Carlos Narváez from the backup spot to the top of the depth chart. He has just 14 games of major league experience. Blake Sabol has been recalled to serve in the backup role, though he’s more of a utility guy who can catch in a pinch, with fairly suspect defensive abilities. They have one experienced non-roster option, as Seby Zavala is with Triple-A Worcester on a minor league deal, but he has a career line of .205/.271/.342 and is out to a .136/.136/.182 start with the WooSox.

Given those circumstances, adding a veteran is a fairly straightforward move, especially one with Grandal’s track record. He debuted back in 2012 and emerged as one of the best catchers in the league about a decade ago.

He is a few years removed from his prime now but had a solid season with the Pirates last year. He got into 72 games for the Bucs and stepped to the plate 243 times. His 9.9% walk rate and 18.9% strikeout rate were both better than league average and he also launched nine home runs. His .228/.304/.400 line led to a 95 wRC+. That indicates he was 5% worse than league average independent of position, but catchers are usually about 10% worse than par.

He’s always been considered a strong defender and still got good marks last year, especially in terms of framing. Grandal finished eighth on both the FanGraphs and Statcast framing leaderboards last year despite playing way less than most of the guys ahead of him. Thanks to his decent offense and strong glovework, FanGraphs considered him to be worth 2.0 wins above replacement on the year, even though he only played about half of it.

Despite that strong showing, he didn’t find much interest in free agency. He reportedly turned down an offer from Atlanta at one point and remained on the market until agreeing to this deal. He’s naturally a few weeks behind everyone else and will need to get in game shape. The Sox could send him to extended Spring Training or just throw him to one of their minor league affiliates to get playing time that way.

If he’s in game shape before Wong, he might be the club’s best option to take the lion’s share of playing time behind the plate. Even if Wong gets back while Grandal is still gearing up, Narváez has options and could be sent down if the club wants to go with a Wong/Grandal pairing. There’s no real harm on a minor league deal, especially in a clearly weak area for the club. Grandal is a bit more than just a warm body since he has years of experience and just had a decent enough performance last year.

Photo courtesy of Jeff Curry, Imagn Images

Zach Plesac Signs With Long Island Ducks

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Right-hander Zach Plesac has signed with the Atlantic League’s Long Island Ducks, the team announced yesterday. He’s the third former big leaguer to sign with the Ducks in the past week, joining Seth Beer and Mark Mathias.

The 30-year-old Plesac has pitched in the majors in each of the past six seasons, albeit for only 12 rough innings with the Angels in 2024. He made three starts for the Halos and was rocked for 11 runs (8.25 ERA) on a dozen hits and seven walks with only five strikeouts. Four of those hits against Plesac were home runs. He spent the rest of the season in Triple-A Salt Lake, where he logged an ugly 5.69 ERA in 99 2/3 innings.

Early in his career, Plesac looked like a potential long-term member of the rotation in Cleveland. He debuted with 115 2/3 frames of 3.81 ERA ball in 2019 and followed that with 55 2/3 innings and a 2.28 ERA the following season. A pedestrian 21.3% strikeout rate and an unsustainable 81.5% strand rate across those two seasons portended regression in his shiny 3.32 earned run average, but Plesac looked the part of an innings-eating fourth starter who relied more on command than overpowering his opponents.

For much of the next two seasons, that’s just how it played out. Plesac started 59 games for the 2021-22 Guardians and turned in a solid, if unremarkable 4.49 ERA. He fanned only 17.2% of his opponents but also limited them to a 6.2% walk rate. His 42.7% ground-ball rate was about average, and while his 1.38 homers per nine frames were too high, that lack of free passes helped to ensure that a fair number of those big flies were solo shots.

Plesac’s velocity and strikeout rate continued to decline in 2023-24, however. The 93.9 mph he averaged on his four-seamer was a distant memory last year, when his four-seamer sat at just 90.5 mph in Triple-A. With fewer missed bats and lesser velocity came more hard contact and more home runs.

Many players have used the Atlantic League — the Ducks, in particular — as a springboard back to affiliated ball. Plesac will hope to be the latest player to do so. He’ll pitch all of this season at 30 and still has three seasons of club control remaining if he ends up back in the majors.

MLB Reportedly Willing To License MLB.TV

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Major League Baseball is reportedly discussing the possibility of licensing the streaming platform MLB.TV. Per a report from Andrew Marchand of The Athletic, the league has discussed the possibility in talks with broadcasters/streamers. It’s unclear how MLB.TV consumers would be impacted if any deal is struck.

There are several moving parts in the league’s media strategy, most of them connected to the gradual pivot from regional sports networks (RSNs) to direct-to-consumer streaming. RSNs have been a massive part of the league’s business model for years but that has been chipped away at recently. Prior to streaming, many people ordered cable bundles which included baseball broadcasters, even if they didn’t watch the sport much. This was a big part of each club’s annual revenue streams and in some cases still is.

But with cord cutting and streaming, the league and teams have had to adjust. Main Street Sports, formerly known as Diamond Sports Group, was in bankruptcy for much of the past two years. They recently emerged from that status but with a smaller portfolio of MLB clubs under contract. Going into 2025, there are five teams that have no RSN deal and have MLB handling their broadcasts and streaming: the Guardians, Twins, Padres, Diamondbacks and Rockies.

Even the clubs that still have deals with Main Street aren’t committed for the long haul. It’s been reported that none of the current contracts go beyond 2028. MLB’s national deals with Fox and Turner are also set to expire after 2028. The same was true of ESPN, though that deal recently fell apart when both sides agreed to opt out, though ESPN is still broadcasting games through the 2025 season.

In addition to TV broadcasts, most clubs also have a direct-to-consumer streaming option of some kind. This week’s report from Marchand indicates that there are only three club that don’t have such a product available: the Astros, Nationals and Orioles.

MLB.TV has been around for decades, offering baseball fans the chance to pay one fee for the opportunity to stream all games, with some exceptions. Certain games have been carved out of MLB.TV if offered as exclusives on other platforms, while local blackout rules have also been in effect.

The hope of the league and commissioner Rob Manfred is that they can move away from blackouts, even in some sort of large package that resembles MLB.TV. There will be challenges in accomplishing that. Some teams still have very profitable RSNs and many of them are owned in whole or in part by the club itself. Such clubs would be reluctant to lumping their product together with less-popular clubs and effectively sharing their revenues.

There are many factors at play and the league is seemingly trying to get many buyers at the table. Back in November, Evan Drellich of The Athletic reported on the league’s long-term plans for getting a big deal done a few years down the road. He noted that executives from Apple, Amazon, CBS, Disney/ESPN, DirecTV, Fox, Netflix, NBC/Peacock, Roku, YouTube and Warner Bros.-Discovery were all present at the World Series.

MLB is seemingly open to various offers, perhaps from multiple companies. In recent years, they have split up their rights to companies like Fox, ESPN, Turner, Apple, Roku, YouTube and others, in addition to the local RSNs. It’s unclear exactly how MLB.TV would also fit into a new arrangement but it’s possible that the league could license it alongside other rights as part of a larger package. If a platform did license the rights, they might then market MLB.TV to consumers with other baseball games or even other sports, depending on the company and their portfolio. Speculatively speaking, Apple could license MLB.TV and then sell it to consumers but also include the Apple Friday Night Baseball games that currently aren’t available to MLB.TV subscribers. More information is likely to come out over time.

Photo courtesy of Rick Osentoski, Imagn Images

Cubs Acquire Tom Cosgrove From Padres

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The Padres announced that they’ve dealt reliever Tom Cosgrove to the Cubs for cash considerations. Chicago designated righty Caleb Kilian for assignment to create a 40-man roster spot. San Diego had designated Cosgrove for assignment over the weekend.

Cosgrove, 28, was drafted by the Padres in 2017. San Diego added him to the 40-man roster during the 2022-23 offseason, a testament to the bat-missing ability he’d shown in the minors. Cosgrove made his major league debut the following April and managed strong numbers as a rookie. He turned in a 1.75 earned run average through 51 1/3 innings. His strikeout and walk profile was pedestrian, but he very rarely allowed hard contact and pitched well against lefty and righty batters alike.

The pendulum swung dramatically in the other direction last year. Cosgrove gave up 19 runs in 14 2/3 MLB innings spanning 18 appearances. Opponents’ average exit velocity jumped by three ticks while his strikeout rate dropped from 21.5% to 19.7%. Cosgrove spent most of the season in Triple-A, where he posted a 4.85 ERA with an above-average 26.8% strikeout percentage in 32 appearances.

Cosgrove did not break camp after a rough Spring Training, in which he gave up seven runs through 5 1/3 frames. He has gotten out to a slow start in Triple-A as well, allowing three runs with four walks and two strikeouts in four appearances. The Cubs immediately optioned him. He’ll begin his Chicago tenure with their top affiliate in Iowa. This is his final minor league option year.

Kilian is in his last option season as well. The Texas Tech product was a decent prospect in the San Francisco farm system whom the Cubs acquired in the Kris Bryant deadline deal in 2021. Chicago also acquired outfield prospect Alexander Canario, whom they DFA and traded away a couple months ago. It’s possible they’ll lose Kilian via trade or waivers within the next week.

The 27-year-old righty never established himself on Chicago’s staff. He has made five starts and three relief appearances going back to 2022. Kilian owns a 9.22 ERA in 27 1/3 innings thus far. He has issued 20 walks while recording only 21 strikeouts. Kilian has better numbers over four seasons at the Triple-A level. He carries a 4.37 ERA with a slightly below-average 21.8% strikeout rate across 274 innings at the top minor league level. Most of that has come as a starter. Kilian has only started one Triple-A game so far this season. He was tagged for six runs on a trio of homers in 2 1/3 innings.

White Sox To Promote Chase Meidroth

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The White Sox are going to call up prospect Chase Meidroth, as first reported by Thomas Nestico of TJStats. He is not yet on Chicago’s 40-man roster, so they will need to make a corresponding move to open a spot for him.

Meidroth, 23, will seemingly get to make his major league debut against his original club. A fourth-round pick of the Red Sox in 2022, he was one of four players flipped to the White Sox as part of the December 2024 trade which sent Garrett Crochet to Boston. The White Sox will be hosting the Red Sox for a three-game set this weekend.

Kyle Teel and Braden Montgomery were the headliners of Chicago’s return, as top 100 prospects and former first-round picks, but Meidroth was an interesting secondary piece in the deal. As mentioned, he was a fourth-round pick in 2022, signing for a modest $272.5K bonus.

During his time in the minors, he has seemingly been disproving nominative determinism, as his primary attribute has been his plate discipline. He has 1,187 minor league plate appearances in his career thus far, with more walks than strikeouts. He’s drawn a free pass in 17.4% of those trips to the plate while only getting punched out 15.6% of the time.

The power is more questionable, as he only hit 23 home runs in that stretch. However, the overall production is still strong. He has a combined .285/.425/.414 batting line and 136 wRC+ at the moment, indicating he’s been 36% better than league average.

He has other attributes as well. He stole 13 bags last year and in 2023 as well. Defensively, he has played the three infield positions to the left of first base. Prospect evaluators don’t consider it likely that he becomes an everyday shortstop, but he can be solid at second and third while occasionally taking short in an emergency. Baseball America currently lists him as the #8 prospect in Chicago’s system.

Meidroth had a chance to crack the Opening Day roster since he spent all of 2024 at the Triple-A level. However, he hit just .146/.300/.171 in the spring and got sent to Charlotte to start the year. His nine games with the Knights have resulted in a .267/.450/.600 line and a call-up to the big leagues.

The White Sox should have lots of ability to give Meidroth playing time. Miguel Vargas has been the everyday third baseman this year but is hitting .179/.289/.231. Second baseman Lenyn Sosa has a line of .194/.219/.323. Shortstop Jacob Amaya is at .115/.143/.115.

Perhaps not coincidentally, today is the last day that a player can be promoted and earn a full year of service time in 2025. A player needs 172 days in the majors to earn a full year of service, but there are only 171 days left in the season after today. The Sox played this afternoon and Meidroth won’t be added until tomorrow at the earliest. That means Meidroth will be under the one-year line even if he stays up with the club for the rest of the season. That will mean the Sox can control him through 2031 even if he immediately establishes himself as a big leaguer. Some players can still earn a full service year under such circumstances by finishing in the top two of Rookie of the Year voting but that’s only for top prospects and not guys like Meidroth.

The Sox lost 121 games last year and are firmly in rebuild mode. Their loss today dropped them to 2-10 in the current season. The 2025 campaign is mostly about playing time for young guys or potential trade candidates. Meidroth didn’t get his chance when camp broke but turned things on in Triple-A recently while others struggled in the majors, so he’ll get a crack at the big leagues now.

Photo courtesy of Rick Scuteri, Imagn Images

Ryan Bliss To Miss 4-5 Months Due To Biceps Surgery

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The Mariners today provided an update on infielder Ryan Bliss, who was placed on the 10-day injured list yesterday with a torn left biceps. Today’s announcement relays that an MRI confirmed the severity of the tear and the need for surgery, with an expected recovery timeline of four to five months.

It’s obviously a frustrating development for Bliss and the club. It’s unclear if that timeline includes an eventual rehab assignment or if it will take that long just to begin rehabbing. Either way, he will miss the majority of the campaign even in a best-case scenario and it seems possible that he won’t return in 2025 at all.

For the team, it’s the second big blow to their position player group in the past few days. Víctor Robles has a shoulder fracture and is expected to miss about three months while avoiding surgery, though that timeline could change if surgery eventually is required. Now Bliss is also going to be sidelined for multiple months.

Lack of offense was an issue for them last year and their infield was particularly concerning. Justin Turner and Jorge Polanco became free agents at season’s end, with Josh Rojas non-tendered as well. That left them with J.P. Crawford at shortstop and a few role players or unestablished young guys as candidates for the other spots. There were many offseason rumors surrounding their infield pursuits but they only made a couple of modest moves, bringing back Polanco to play third and signing Donovan Solano to chip in at the corners in a part-time/platoon role.

That left second base open for internal options, including Bliss, a nice opportunity for him. He came into 2025 with just 33 major league games under his belt but some intriguing minor league numbers. Over 2023 and 2024, he produced a combined line of .290/.378/.497 for various minor league clubs. That production led to a wRC+ of 120, indicating he was 20% above league average. He also stole 105 bases in 133 tries. The M’s acquired him from the Diamondbacks as part of the July 2023 trade that sent Paul Sewald to the desert.

Bliss hit just .200/.282/.314 to start this year but in a small sample of just ten games. He won’t be able to adjust that line any time soon. Between him and Robles, the club has to improvise a new lineup around two vacancies. Polanco is battling some knee issues and has been serving as the designated hitter lately. Luke Raley has moved from first base to right field to replace Robles, with Rowdy Tellez taking over at first, platooning with Solano. Dylan Moore, Miles Mastrobuoni and Leo Rivas figure to cover third and second base, at least until Polanco can take the field again. Cole Young is one of the top prospects in the league and could take over the keystone at some point but he is hitting .171/.292/.244 through 11 Triple-A games to start the year.

All clubs deal with injuries but it’s perhaps a little more concerning for Seattle. They didn’t have many resources available for upgrading their lineup this winter, giving them a somewhat narrow margin for error to begin the year. They have now limped out to a 5-8 start and will be without two lineup regulars for multiple months. Bliss should be moved to the 60-day IL whenever the Mariners need a roster spot.

Photo courtesy of Joe Nicholson, Imagn Images

Adam Ottavino Elects Free Agency

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The Yankees announced that righty Adam Ottavino cleared waivers, rejected an outright assignment to Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre, and elected free agency. New York designated Ottavino for the second time in a week on Tuesday. He elected free agency following his first DFA and quickly re-signed.

A similar path could play out here, though it’s not a guarantee. Ottavino stated plainly in an appearance on Foul Territory yesterday that at 39 years old and with more than 13 years of big league service, he’s not keen on signing a minor league deal (video link). Ottavino noted he’s open to big league deals with a 45-day advance consent clause — a provision that allows the team to cut a player and not owe him the remainder of his salary, so long as it’s within the contract’s first 45 days — but he doesn’t sound like he’d head to Triple-A.

Ottavino also chatted with host A.J. Pierzynski about his pair of contracts and quick DFAs with the Yankees, noting that the team was up-front with him about their plans and that he was on board with it (video link).

“Devin Williams was on the paternity list,” said Ottavino. “That only lasts three days, so I knew he was coming back. The clock was ticking. Obviously, something could happen there. Somebody could get hurt or underperform and [the Yankees] could change their mind and keep you around. At the same time, I kind of knew that it was going to be a short stay, more than likely. They were up front with that. They were great to me. I have a good relationship with those people over there, a lot of love for them.

…It was great. I knew what it was. I tried to enjoy the three days I was there. I pitched in two of the games. It was great. I never saw myself back in Pinstripes again, to be honest, and it felt great. It was pretty special. … Every day in the big leagues is precious. I’ve had a lot of them, but I don’t take them for granted.”

A native of New York City, Ottavino has spent the majority of the past several years playing with the Yankees or Mets. He posted a 4.34 ERA in 56 innings with the Mets last year and tossed 1 2/3 shutout innings with the Yankees in his brief Bronx return, albeit with four walks against three strikeouts. Dating back to 2022, Ottavino carries a 3.11 ERA, 27.7% strikeout rate and 9.3% walk rate in 185 major league innings.

While it initially looked as though he may be amenable to the frequent DFA carousel role that the Yankees have used with journeymen like David Hale and Ryan Weber in the past, Ottavino’s comments yesterday pretty clearly indicate he’s looking for a more stable situation in a big league bullpen. Time will tell whether that opportunity presents itself, although given his track record and the number of pitching injuries around the league, logic would suggest there should be at least a team or two interested in bringing the righty aboard. It’s not clear, however, whether Ottavino will be selective based on geography, postseason outlook or other factors — only that he’s focused on offers with a quick or immediate path back to the majors.

Atkins: Jays Still Hope To Extend Bichette

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The Jays have one cornerstone in place long-term, having finalized their 14-year deal with Vladimir Guerrero Jr., and general manager Ross Atkins said in the wake of that deal’s announcement that his club is still hopeful of signing Guerrero’s longtime teammate, shortstop Bo Bichette, to a long-term deal as well (via Sportsnet’s Hazel Mae).

“The interest is definitely there,” said Atkins. “…It’s also our vision for [Guerrero and Bichette] to continue to play together. We will do everything in our power to see if we can line up.”

Bichette has voiced a desire to remain in Toronto long-term. He said last year that his “ultimate goal” in his baseball career is “to play with Vladdy forever, to win a championship with him and to do that with this organization.” Bichette acknowledged just a few days ago that there were currently no extension efforts in the works, but those comments came before Guerrero’s deal had been formally announced and mere hours after an agreement had reportedly been reached.

It stands to reason that the Jays’ primary focus has been on keeping Guerrero, who finished sixth in AL MVP voting last year on the heels of a fourth straight All-Star campaign. Both Guerrero and Bichette were set to become free agents following the 2025 season. With Guerrero standing as the focal point of the team’s long-term direction, the Jays may not have wanted to commit one way or another regarding Bichette until their first baseman’s status had been resolved.

Bichette, of course, is difficult to value at the moment. The 27-year-old is a two-time All-Star who’s garnered down-ballot MVP votes in three seasons and looked like an organizational pillar alongside Guerrero for much of his early career. From the time of his 2019 debut as a 21-year-old through the conclusion of the 2023 season, Bichette posted a collective .299/.340/.487 batting line — 26% better than league-average by measure of wRC+.

The 2024 season threw his outlook into disarray. Bichette floundered through the season’s first several months, posting an anemic .237/.286/.342 batting line before landing on the injured list due to a calf strain. He returned after a minimal stint but was back on the shelf with a strain in that same calf just three weeks later.

Bichette may not have been full strength at any point between the two calf strains, as his offense in the interim was even worse than it was prior to his original IL placement (.143/.218/.204 in 55 plate appearances). This time, Bichette missed two months of action, returned to go 2-for-5 in his first game back … and promptly suffered a broken finger during pregame fielding drills. That injury required surgery, ending his season with a career-worst .225/.277/.322 batting line.

Bichette’s name floated around the rumor mill both in the run-up to the trade deadline and again in the offseason, but Atkins was vocal about his unwillingness to discuss a deal. The GM stated in June that trading either Guerrero or Bichette “doesn’t make any sense for us,” and within days of the offseason commencing Atkins repeated that the concept of trading Bichette was “an easy no” for the Blue Jays.

That thinking surely hasn’t changed after Bichette enjoyed a monster spring training (.373/.411/.667, four homers in 56 plate appearances) and has started out with a strong .291/.344/.364 performance in the regular season. He’s yet to homer, but Bichette is making plenty of hard contact (90.6 mph average exit velocity, 48% hard-hit rate) and elevating the ball at even higher levels than he his in his career to date. If he keeps doing so, the big flies are sure to follow.

A big surge early in the season would presumably make a deal easier to strike. On the heels of last year’s disastrous results, the team may have had questions about whether 2024 was an anomaly or the beginning of a worrying trend. Bichette himself would presumably have been reluctant to sell himself short, considering his lengthy track record and proximity to free agency. If Bichette continues to look like himself and make last year appear to be an outlier, it’ll raise his price tag but also give the Jays more certainty that they’re making a sound investment.

Bichette doesn’t carry the earning power Guerrero did on the back of a colossal 2024 showing, but he’d be in line for a strong nine-figure deal as a free agent if he can get back to his 2020-23 form. He’ll hit the market ahead of his age-28 season, making him one of the youngest and highest-upside plays on the 2025-26 free agent market.

From a payroll vantage point, the Jays should have room to extend Bichette even after signing Guerrero. Toronto will see Max Scherzer, Chris Bassitt and Chad Green reach free agency at season’s end. RosterResource pegs them with about $186MM committed to next year’s books — a stark decline of about $64.5MM over their 2024 payroll. That doesn’t include arbitration raises, but Daulton Varsho is the only Blue Jay in line to command a notable salary in 2026. He’ll earn a raise over this year’s $8.2MM mark.

Angels Select J.D. Davis, Place Yoan Moncada On IL, Designate Jack Dashwood

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10:46am: The Angels have formally announced Davis’ selection to the big league roster. Moncada is indeed headed to the 10-day injured list due to a right thumb sprain. Left-hander Jack Dashwood has been designated for assignment to open a 40-man roster spot for Davis.

10:42am: The Angels are selecting the contract of veteran corner infielder J.D. Davis, MLBTR has confirmed. Jeff Fletcher of the Orange County Register first reported that Davis was in the visiting clubhouse in Tampa this morning. A corresponding move isn’t yet known, though third baseman Yoan Moncada has been dealing with a thumb issue this season and exited yesterday’s game early.

Davis, 32 later this month, signed a minor league deal with the Angels over the winter. The eight-year veteran didn’t originally make the cut this spring but has gotten out to a strong start with Triple-A Salt Lake, slashing .297/.357/.486 with a pair of homers, a double, four walks and eight strikeouts in 42 plate appearances (9.5 BB%, 19 K%).

Originally selected with the No. 75 overall pick by the Astros back in 2014, Davis debuted with Houston briefly in 2017. He didn’t get much of a look that year or in 2018, and the ’Stros traded him to the Mets ahead of the 2019 campaign. From 2019-23, Davis was a productive hitter for the Mets and Giants, batting a combined .268/.352/.443 (119 wRC+) with 63 homers in just over 1800 plate appearances. He was a bit strikeout-prone, at 27.3%, but he also walked in 10.2% of his trips to the plate.

Davis’ numbers slipped closer to average in the final season of that stretch, however, and he experienced a pronounced downturn at the plate in 2024 when he batted just .218/.293/.338 in 157 plate appearances between the A’s and Yankees. Davis actually cut his strikeout rate a few points last season and still made hard contact at a strong 43.7% clip, but his ground-ball rate spiked to a career-high 61.4%. For a player with sub-par speed, a deluge of even well-struck grounders isn’t a recipe for success. At his peak from 2019-22, Davis saw his ground-ball rate settle in just shy of 47%.

Moncada, 29, signed a one-year deal this offseason that guaranteed him $5MM. He’s battled thumb pain throughout spring and the season’s early stages. He’s appeared in only eight games and tallied just 27 plate appearances, going 4-for-21 with a pair of doubles, six walks and eight strikeouts (.190/.370/.286).

A ballyhooed international signing and one of the focal points of the failed White Sox rebuilding efforts, Moncada looked destined for stardom early in his career — so much so that Chicago signed him to a five-year, $70MM extension. Given the switch-hitter’s .315/.367/.548, 25-homer breakout back in 2019, that contract seemed like a sound investment. But Moncada’s output in subsequent seasons has routinely been sapped by injuries. He appeared in only 404 games over the life of that five-year pact (which, notably, included the shortened 2020 campaign) and hit just .244/.326/.395 along the way. That was roughly league-average production, so it wasn’t a total flop, but the Sox had much, much loftier expectations when signing him to that deal.

The 27-year-old Dashwood was added to the Angels’ 40-man roster ahead of the 2024 Rule 5 draft. He only pitched 10 innings in Double-A last year due to injury, but Dashwood posted a 15-to-1 K/BB ratio in that time and followed that truncated season with a big performance in the Arizona Fall League: another ten innings with just four runs on 10 hits and a huge 17-to-2 K/BB mark. The 6’6″ southpaw has been rocked for a dozen runs through his first two Triple-A frames this season, however.

The Angels will have five days to trade Dashwood, after which he’ll need to be placed on waivers. That’d be another 48-hour process. It’s possible he could be waived prior to that five-day mark as well, but either way, the Halos will get a resolution on his DFA within the next week.

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