The Opener: Athletics, Orioles, Cubs, Cardinals
Here are three things we’ll be keeping an eye on around the baseball world throughout the day:
1. Athletics groundbreaking ceremony in Las Vegas:
The A’s are scheduled to finally break ground on their planned ballpark in Las Vegas this morning, nine months after they played their final game in Oakland. The ceremony is scheduled for 8am local time. According to Mick Akers of the Las Vegas Review Journal, the ceremony will feature an appearance from MLB commissioner Rob Manfred in addition to a number of local- and state-level government officials. Akers suggests that they’ll be joined by A’s ownership, executives, and alumni at the event. The A’s have today off, but with a game scheduled for tomorrow evening in Detroit it’s unlikely that any current players will make appearances at the ceremony.
2. Orioles examining catcher following collision:
The very same day Adley Rutschman was placed on the injured list due to an oblique strain, the Orioles may have lost another catcher when backup Maverick Handley collided with Yankees infielder Jazz Chisholm Jr. as Chisholm attempted to score. As noted by MLB.com’s Jake Rill, O’s manager Tony Mansolino told reporters after the game that Handley’s “full body” was being evaluated and that placing the 27-year-old in the concussion protocol had not been ruled out. It wouldn’t be a surprise if Handley ended up needing a trip to the injured list, at which point Baltimore would need to make a 40-man roster move to bring up a depth catcher like David Banuelos or Chadwick Tromp.
3. Series Preview: Cubs @ Cardinals
One of the league’s most storied rivalries has yet to face off in 2025, but that changes tonight when the Cubs take the field in St. Louis against the Cardinals in a game scheduled for 6:45pm local time. St. Louis is currently 4.5 games back of Chicago for the NL Central lead, meaning a sweep of this four-game set could but them within spitting distance of the division lead. It would likely put them in playoff position as well, given that they’re just one game back in the NL Wild Card race. As for the Cubs, a strong showing in this series could help them turn things around after a middling stretch of play that’s seen them go 7-8 over their past 15 games.
Right-hander Ben Brown (5.57 ERA) will face off against southpaw Matthew Liberatore (4.08 ERA) in tonight’s game. Cubs veteran Jameson Taillon (3.84 ERA) is the only other announced starter for the series, but The Athletic’s Katie Woo and Sahadev Sharma write that right-hander Michael McGreevy (2.70 ERA in 3 appearances) and southpaw Shota Imanaga (2.82 ERA in eight starts) are expected to take the mound during the series at some point as well.
Mets Option Francisco Alvarez
The Mets announced today that they’ve optioned catcher Francisco Alvarez to Triple-A. Catcher Hayden Senger was called up to take Alvarez’s spot on the active roster.
Alvarez, 23, is in the midst of his fourth MLB season. He played just five games in the majors in 2022, however, and entered the 2023 campaign a consensus top-10 prospect in the entire sport. He hit a respectable .209/.284/.437 (97 wRC+) with 25 home runs in 123 games during that rookie campaign while grading out as one of the sport’s best defensive catchers. It was a strong enough showing to make Alvarez a lock to serve as the Mets’ regular catcher in 2024, but was sidelined by a hand injury that ultimately required him to undergo surgery on his thumb and miss nearly two months. Alvarez was able to hit a respectable .237/.307/.403 (102 wRC+) last year, roughly league average production despite a sharp decline in power output.
While Alvarez’s overall offensive line was on par with expectations in 2024, there were still reasons for concern. His once-elite defense was just average in 2024 as his blocking ability went from average to the second percentile among qualifying catchers per Statcast. His pitch framing numbers also slipped slightly, though they still remained elite. In addition to the step back defensively, Alvarez’s power outage last year led underlying metrics to judge his performance at the plate more harshly last year; his xwOBA dropped from .305 in 2023 to just .289 in 2024 despite his wOBA remaining steady at .310 across both seasons.
2025 started out on a familiarly tough note for Alvarez, as he missed the start of the season due to surgery on his left hand—this time to repair a fractured hamate bone. Since making his season debut on April 25, Alvarez has hit just .236/.319/.333 with a wRC+ of 91. That’s not terrible for the standards of the catcher position, but it’s still a far cry from the roughly league average production he had posted for his career entering this year. He’s also hitting for even less power than last year, with just three home runs and three doubles in 35 games. An 8.2% barrel rate suggests that might be due to some lackluster batted ball luck, but further steps backward defensively aren’t as easy to dismiss.
Alvarez has remained below average as a blocker behind the plate after last year’s rough showing, and he’s now become one of the worst framing catchers in the league after that was his strong suit in his career prior to this season. While he’s stayed somewhat valuable by throwing out opposing base runners at an elite rate, Alvarez has fallen off to the point of becoming an average to below average catcher overall based on his numbers this year. Between his offense trending downward and his uncharacteristically lackluster defense behind the plate, the Mets clearly felt it was time to send him to the minors for a reset.
It’s a sign of urgency for a club that recently lost seven consecutive games before snapping that losing streak with a win over the Phillies last night. The Mets are in a statistical tie with Philadelphia for the NL East title at the moment, which puts a premium on wins as they look to rebuild their lead in the division and put the club’s front office in position to buy more aggressively at the trade deadline this summer. While the best version of the Mets involves Alvarez in the lineup on a regular basis, though Luis Torrens has shown himself to be deserving of a regular role in the short-term with strong defensive grades and an 89 wRC+ that’s not too far off of Alvarez’s own figure this year.
In the short term, it seems Senger will be tasked with backing up Torrens. The 28-year-old made his MLB debut earlier this year and has hit .179/.207/.214 (18 wRC+) in 29 plate appearances across 13 games in the majors. Longer term, there’s little question that Alvarez will return to the majors with the club and rejoin Torrens as part of the club’s catching tandem. The Athletic’s Will Sammon reports that the Mets are satisfied with their catching tandem at this point and that they aren’t expected to enter trade season in the market for catching help.
Rotation Notes: Scherzer, Stroman, Imanaga, Eovaldi
The Blue Jays will activate Max Scherzer from the 60-day injured list on Wednesday to start Toronto’s game against the Guardians, the team announced. Scherzer has thrown two Triple-A rehab outings and then tossed 30-40 pitches in a bullpen session today in what seems like the final checkpoint in an extended recovery process from a thumb problem that has plagued the future Hall-of-Famer for over a year. “My stuff is fine. I’m trying everything I can to manage this (thumb) and make sure I can recover. There’s no knowing, just have to get out there,” Scherzer told Sportnet’s Hazel Mae and Shi Davidi.
Scherzer signed a one-year, $15.5MM deal with the Jays this past offseason, but he lasted just three innings before thumb soreness forced him out of his Toronto debut on March 29. As Scherzer acknowledged, it is anyone’s guess as to whether or not this thumb problem could resurface, and it stands to reason that the Blue Jays will limit Scherzer’s pitch count. Since the 50-pitch threshold has generally been the tipping point for Scherzer’s thumb, it is a good sign that he threw beyond 50 pitches in both of his rehab starts, topping out at 74 pitches. Toronto seems likely to explore piggyback or long relief options behind Scherzer on Wednesday and for the foreseeable future, until Scherzer feels comfortable enough to test throwing deeper into games.
Here’s the latest on some other prominent pitchers nearing a return to a big league mound…
- Marcus Stroman will throw his third and possibly final minor league rehab start on Tuesday, Yankees manager Aaron Boone told MLB.com’s Bryan Hoch and other reporters. Assuming Stroman gets through that outing (set for roughly 70 pitches) feeling good, Boone said Stroman might then “be in the mix” to be activated from the 60-day IL. The right-hander made three starts before knee inflammation sent Stroman to the IL in April, and a setback resulted in Stroman being shifted to the 60-day IL as he continued his recovery process. With Ryan Yarbrough hitting the 15-day IL today, there’s a ready-made opening for Stroman within New York’s rotation.
- A left hamstring strain has kept Shota Imanaga out of action since the first week of May, but after making three minor league rehab starts, Imanaga will return to the Cubs‘ rotation this week. Manager Craig Counsell shared the news with reporters (including Vinnie Duber of the Chicago Sun-Times), but stopped short of confirming that Imanaga would indeed pitch during the four-game series with the Cardinals that begins on Monday. The Cubs are still monitoring Matthew Boyd after the southpaw suffered a bruised shoulder in his last start, so there’s a bit of flux in the rotation order until Boyd’s status is confirmed. Regardless, Imanaga’s return is obviously great news for a Chicago team is leading the NL Central despite operating without Imanaga and Justin Steele for the majority of the season. Following his spectacular 2024 rookie year, Imanaga has kept it going in 2025 with a 2.82 ERA in 44 2/3 innings and eight starts this season.
- Nathan Eovaldi hasn’t pitched since May 27 due to right posterior elbow inflammation, but it seems as though he’ll return to the Rangers without a minor league rehab assignment. Manager Bruce Bochy indicated (to Shawn McFarland of the Dallas Morning News and other reporters) that Eovaldi will be activated from the 15-day IL to start during the Rangers’ upcoming series with the Mariners that begins on Friday. Though Eovaldi won’t need any rehab starts, he did ramp up in the form of a live batting practice session of over 50 pitches on Saturday. With Tyler Mahle, Jon Gray, and Cody Bradford all still on the Texas IL, getting staff ace Eovaldi back is an enormous help, as the righty had a sterling 1.56 ERA in his first 69 1/3 innings of the season.
NL West Notes: Carroll, Glasnow, Garcia, Freeland, Black
Corbin Carroll has missed the Diamondbacks‘ last four games due to a sore left hand, after the outfielder was hit by a pitch in Wednesday’s 8-1 loss to the Blue Jays. X-rays were negative and manager Torey Lovullo indicated today that Carroll’s hand was improving to some extent, but the skipper told MLB.com’s Steve Gilbert and other media that Carroll would undergo an MRI as an extra precaution. “Just because it’s not progressing as quickly as we wanted it to, and because of what we’ve just gone through with [Gabriel Moreno] and several of the injuries that we’ve been taking on, we want to definitely get a baseline,” Lovullo said.
In Moreno’s case, what apparently seemed like a minor hand injury ended up leading to a much longer expected absence, as a second MRI revealed a hairline fracture in the catcher’s right index figure. Such an outcome for Carroll would be devastating, as the young star has bounced back from a fairly ordinary 2024 campaign to hit .255/.341/.573 with 20 home runs in his first 323 plate appearances of 2025. Only 12 players in baseball have a higher wRC+ than Carroll’s 148, so naturally even losing him for a few days has been a hit to Arizona’s lineup. Losing Carroll to a more serious hand issue might well change the trajectory of the Diamondbacks’ season, as it would make it even harder for the Snakes to make up ground in both the crowded NL West or in the NL wild card picture.
More from around the NL West…
- Tyler Glasnow and Luis Garcia each began minor league rehab assignments today, with Glasnow tossing two innings for the Dodgers‘ Triple-A Oklahoma City and Garcia throwing an inning with the Dodgers’ A-ball affiliate in Rancho Cucamonga. Glasnow has been on the injured list (first the 15-day and then the 60-day) since late April due to shoulder inflammation, and is expected to make at least three rehab outings before a potential return to the Los Angeles rotation. Garcia has been out since late May due to an adductor strain and probably won’t need as much of a build-up to return to his bullpen role, so a return before the end of June seems possible.
- Kyle Freeland is hoping to return from the 15-day IL when first eligible on Friday, the Rockies left-hander told MLB.com’s Thomas Harding and other reporters. Lower back stiffness led to Freeland’s IL placement, but he said “everything felt great” after a 50-pitch bullpen session today. The plan is for a shorter bullpen session on Tuesday as the final step in an abbreviated recovery process, and the extended 50-pitch outing today was meant to get Freeland into something of a simulated game environment without the need for any rehab starts.
- Sticking with the Rockies, another quick return of a more unusual fashion may be occurring if Bud Black rejoins the organization. Fired as Colorado’s manager on May 11, “Black is a strong candidate to rejoin the Rockies as a pitching director or special assistant,” USA Today’s Bob Nightengale writes. While some managers are occasionally re-assigned to a new role within an organization in lieu of being altogether axed, such shuffling usually happens at the time of a managerial change, not a little over a month afterwards. Black managed the Rockies to a 544-690 record over eight-plus seasons, as playoff appearances in 2017-18 gave way to six straight losing seasons, plus Colorado’s current 18-60 record under Black and interim manager Warren Schaeffer.
Michael King Unlikely To Return Prior To All-Star Break
TODAY: King addressed reporters (including Jeff Sanders of the San Diego Union-Tribune) about his status, and said that he is “very confident that I will pitch by the end of the year.” This framing isn’t exactly a relief to Padres fans since there seemingly hadn’t been any concern that King’s season could be in jeopardy, yet the righty painted a reasonably positive view about the progress that he has made to date.
“I’ve had days where I’ve been really, really frustrated with it and been really sore and felt like I didn’t get much activity that day,” King said. “And then I’ll wake up the next day and all of a sudden [it’s] like, ‘Oh my God, I feel like I can pitch in a game right now.’ So it’s taking it step by step and knowing that [the nerve] can fire when it fires, but obviously it’s that annoying process. I’ve got a ton of confidence that what we’re doing is the correct thing to do, and I’ve felt my body progress in great ways.”
JUNE 19: The Padres have been without right-hander Michael King for nearly a month now due to a pinched nerve in his shoulder, and it doesn’t sound as though he’ll be rejoining the team anytime soon. Asked yesterday by MLB.com’s AJ Cassavell whether King would be out through the All-Star break, manager Mike Shildt replied, “I think that’s pretty accurate” before declining to put a specific target date on the star right-hander’s return.
It’s a brutal injury for all parties involved. King is a free agent at season’s end and appeared to have a chance at cashing in on a nine-figure contract in free agency after a dominant run dating back to his late-2023 move to the rotation when he was still with the Yankees. An absence of this length owing to a fairly uncommon shoulder issue does him no favors in that regard. From the team’s perspective, he’s one of their top rotation options — if not the top rotation option — and there’s minimal depth to replace him.
[Related: 2025-26 MLB Free Agent Power Rankings]
King, 30, opened the 2025 season on a tear. In his first 10 starts, he logged a 2.59 ERA with a gaudy 28.4% strikeout rate, a sharp 7.6% walk rate and a 38.3% grounder rate. He averaged less than a homer per nine innings pitched, held opponents to a pedestrian 88 mph average exit velocity and had tossed his first career shutout against the Rockies on April 13. Add all of that onto to King’s 2024 season and his huge finish to the 2023 campaign, and the former 12th-round pick (Marlins, 2016) boasts an electric 2.72 ERA, 28.4% strikeout rate and 8.1% walk rate in 267 2/3 innings since his full-time move to rotation work.
With King joining Joe Musgrove (2024 Tommy John surgery) and Yu Darvish (elbow inflammation) on the injured list, the Friars have leaned on Dylan Cease and Nick Pivetta atop their rotation. Cease has had two brutal outings — including his most recent one — that have skewed his ERA, but he had an 11-start run of 3.39 ERA ball with a 30.6% strikeout rate and 9% walk rate between his two meltdowns. Pivetta, who signed a creative four-year deal after lingering in free agency for much of the winter, has proven to be a godsend. He’s cooled a bit after racing out to a 2.01 ERA through his first seven starts but still sports a tidy 3.40 mark on the season, pairing that with a 27.7% strikeout rate and 6.9% walk rate.
The rest of San Diego’s staff hasn’t been nearly as impressive. Righties Randy Vásquez and Stephen Kolek have both posted mid-3.00 ERA marks but done so with poor strikeout and walk rates (and a poor home run rate, in Vásquez’s case), creating some justifiable skepticism about their ability to sustain their respective marks of 3.70 and 3.59.
Twenty-five-year-old Ryan Bergert has looked strong through his first three career starts and pitched well in nine Triple-A starts, too. His track record is limited, however; he posted a 4.78 ERA in 98 Double-A frames a year ago and has never reached even 110 innings in a professional season. Offseason signee Kyle Hart has been clobbered for a 6.66 ERA in his return from a big year in the Korea Baseball Organization. Knuckleballer Matt Waldron ate up 146 2/3 innings with a 4.91 ERA last year but opened the 2025 season on the injured list due to an oblique strain. He was reinstated from the 60-day IL earlier this month and optioned to Triple-A where he’s made three straight effective starts. He’s likely the next man up if the Padres need another starter.
The emergence of Bergert and the manner in which Kolek has stepped up — even if he’s been shaky since two brilliant starts to begin his season — have left the Padres in a better spot than most would’ve expected upon hearing that both King and Darvish would face protracted absences in 2025. Still, with multiple rotation arms sporting ERAs that don’t appear all that sustainable, King’s nebulous injury status is all the more problematic for San Diego.
This level of uncertainty seemed hard to imagine when King was first placed on the injured list. Shildt said at the time that the right-hander “felt like he slept on [his shoulder] wrong” at that time. It’s clear now that there was something more significant at play. King is doing some occasional light throwing work, but it sounds as though he’ll need to build through a full throwing progression and a rehab stint of some note before he’s back on the big league radar. For a Padres team that’s patching over its rotation with a series of relative unknowns and a pitcher who was eyeing a major contract in free agency, that seemingly innocuous start to his absence has snowballed in a most unwelcome manner.
MLBTR Chat Transcript
Mark P
- After a two-week hiatus due to some shift rescheduling, the Weekend Chat is back!
Thomas
- Twins need to sell some pieces at the deadline. What would a trade package for Duran look like?
Mark P
- It would be pretty substantial, yet I’m not sure I see Minnesota making that big of a move if they do sell. Trading Duran would say something about the team’s plans for 2026 and beyond, and I think the Twins expect (hope?) to reload for next year if this season ends up going off the rails by the deadline
YamaPhoto
- You predict the Braves to be sellers at the deadline?
Mark P
- Anthopoulos pretty firmly closed the door on the idea of trading Chris Sale or anyone at the deadline, unless the team absolutely cratered. These statements were made before Sale’s IL placement, however, which dealt another big blow to Atlanta’s chances.I don’t see the Braves selling (or fully deciding to sell) until close to the deadline, if at all.
Die Hard Rox Fan
- What would a Jake Bird return look like. 2 top 100s?
Mark P
- Bird’s having a great season, but that is a very, VERY optimistic hope for a reliever who hasn’t shown a whole lot prior to 2025
Andrew Abbott
- Am I firmly in the Cy Young conversation?
Mark P
- Too many NL pitchers having better years, and the advanced metrics hint at some regression coming for Abbott. That doesn’t detract from the fact that he’s pitched really well this year, and greatly helped Cincinnati’s rotation
….
Red Sox Place Hunter Dobbins On 15-Day Injured List
7:45PM: Dobbins didn’t receive an MRI, as he downplayed the seriousness of the elbow strain when speaking with reporters (including the Boston Globe’s Tim Healey). “Just some tightness that we’ve been grinding through for a little bit. It hasn’t been bouncing back how we would like, so [we’re] just trying to give it a couple for weeks,” Dobbins said, noting that his elbow soreness increased in his last start and didn’t get better in the subsequent days. Regardless, Dobbins said he expects to resume throwing bullpen sessions in “a couple of days.”
3:34PM: The Red Sox announced that right-hander Hunter Dobbins has been placed on the club’s 15-day injured list due to right elbow strain. Righty Richard Fitts was called up from Triple-A in the corresponding move.
The placement is retroactive to June 21, a day after Dobbins allowed four earned runs on five walks and four hits over a four-inning start against the Giants. It is fair to guess that Dobbins’ elbow issue impacted his performance, as he was throwing with less velocity than usual and his control was uncharacteristically off — the rookie had issued just 11 walks over his previous 55 1/3 innings and 11 games prior to Friday’s struggles.
Multiple injuries in Boston’s rotation opened the door for Dobbins to make his MLB debut this season, and (Friday’s start notwithstanding) he has made a solid showing for himself in his first taste of the majors. Dobbins has a 4.10 ERA over 59 1/3 frames, with an above-average 47.1% grounder rate and 6.5% walk rate, though he doesn’t miss many bats with a modest 17.3% strikeout rate.
An eighth-round pick for the Red Sox in the 2021 draft, Dobbins would likely have been selected earlier had his junior year at Texas Tech not been wiped out by a Tommy John surgery. That past procedure adds a bit of extra weight to another elbow-related injury for Dobbins, though the severity of the strain isn’t yet known.
Fitts has made five starts for the Sox this year and will at least the short-term replacement for Dobbins in the rotation. Tanner Houck is on a Triple-A rehab assignment but is expected to make at least two more minor league appearances before returning from the injured list, so Fitts will have to hold down the fort until Houck is ready. That might also roughly line up with a potential return date for Dobbins, though one would imagine that even a minor elbow sprain would keep him out beyond the minimum 15 days just for precautionary reasons.
Astros Sign Jon Singleton To Minors Contract
The Astros have reunited with first baseman Jon Singleton on a minor league contract, The Athletic’s Chandler Rome reports. Singleton had been a free agent since the Mets released him from a previous minors deal earlier this week.
This marks the third separate stint for Singleton with the Astros. Initially obtained in a trade with the Phillies back in July 2011, Singleton rose to prominence as a highly-touted prospect in Houston’s farm system, and even signed a five-year extension worth $10MM in guaranteed money before he had even made his MLB debut. However, Singleton didn’t live up to those big expectations, and hit .171/.290/.331 over 420 plate appearances in 2014-15 before disappearing off the big league map for the better part of a decade. He didn’t play at all from 2018-20 as he served a 100-game suspension and battled substance abuse problems, and then played in the Mexican League in 2021 and then back in affiliated ball in the Brewers’ farm system in 2022.
Returning to the Show with Milwaukee in 2023, Singleton was released partway through that season and returned to Houston for the next two years. Singleton ended up receiving quite a bit of playing time at first base in the wake of Jose Abreu‘s struggles and eventual release partway through the 2024 campaign, and Singleton hit a respectable .234/.321/.386 with 13 homers over 405 PA in 2024. This offensive production translated to a decent 105 wRC+, but Singleton was still a -0.1 fWAR player overall due to a lack of glovework or baserunning.
Christian Walker‘s signing seemingly locked down the Astros’ first base position for the next three years, and Houston released Singleton at the end of Spring Training prior to Singleton landing with the Mets about a week later. Despite an upward mobility clause Singleton triggered in his minors deal in May, New York never called up him to the big leagues, and the Mets eventually decided to part ways entirely with the infielder.
Though Walker hasn’t hit up to expectations, there isn’t much chance Singleton will be stepping back into regular duty at first base. With seven position players currently on the injured list, the Astros are thin on experienced roster depth, so Singleton provides a familiar face and some experience at Triple-A Sugar Land. Singleton is also a left-handed hitter, which could get him a relatively quick call to the Show to help out an Astros lineup that is very heavy in right-handed bats.
Diamondbacks Sign James McCann
The Diamondbacks have signed James McCann to a Major League contract, according to The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal. McCann’s MLB.com profile page indicated earlier today (hat tip to the Baltimore Banner’s Andy Kostka) that the catcher had been released from his minor league deal with the Braves in order to facilitate the move to Arizona. McCann is represented by the Ballengee Group.
As Rosenthal reported earlier this month, McCann’s Atlanta contract contained a rolling opt-out clause that would trigger if another team offered the catcher a guaranteed deal. The Braves could then either keep McCann by selecting his contract to their active roster, or release him to his next opportunity. Since Sean Murphy and Drake Baldwin are both receiving regular playing time as Atlanta’s catching combo and both Sandy Leon and Jason Delay are providing further depth at Triple-A, it didn’t seem like McCann was going to get much of a shot in Atlanta, despite a .297/.331/.493 slash line in 160 plate appearances in Gwinnett.
However, Gabriel Moreno‘s recent finger fracture suddenly left the D’Backs with a need for experienced catching help. Moreno is expected to be on the injured list for “weeks, not days” in the words of manager Torey Lovullo, leaving Jose Herrera, Aramis Garcia and Triple-A depth options Adrian Del Castillo and Rene Pinto as the makeshift catching corps. This group combined has far less MLB experience than McCann’s 11 seasons and 917 games in the Show, and the 35-year-old McCann will now slide right into at least a part-time role in the Diamondbacks lineup.
McCann’s big league career was highlighted by two big seasons with the White Sox in 2019-20, which included an All-Star selection in 2019. His overall career slash line is a modest .241/.293/.380 over 3307 plate appearances, as McCann has only shown brief flashes of the offensive form he showed in Chicago. McCann spent the last two seasons as Adley Rutschman‘s backup with the Orioles, helping out as a veteran mentor for the up-and-coming star and with the Baltimore pitching staff. The advanced metrics haven’t thought much of McCann’s blocking and framing work, though he is well-regarded for his ability to work with pitchers.
The signing is a fairly low-risk move for a D’Backs team that is hanging in with a 39-38 record, despite a swath of injuries and under-performance from the Arizona pitchers. The Diamondbacks’ impressive offense is helping keep the team afloat, and McCann’s veteran presence might help coax some slightly more respectable results out of an increasingly makeshift rotation and bullpen.
Giants, Yankees Monitoring Isiah Kiner-Falefa
The Giants and Yankees “are keeping a close eye on” Isiah Kiner-Falefa as a potential trade acquisition, USA Today’s Bob Nightengale writes. Nightengale reported two weeks ago that IKF was drawing attention from interested teams, though no clubs were specifically cited at the time.
It is worth noting that Kiner-Falefa’s bat has gone cold in the time between Nightengale’s two reports. The veteran infielder has only a .389 OPS over his last 42 plate appearances for the Pirates, and he is hitting .275/.319/.342 over 241 total PA this season, translating to an 84 wRC+. This being said, Kiner-Falefa’s offense has always been the lesser part of his value, as his quality defense and versatility has long been IKF’s calling card.
The Yankees have plenty of first-hand experience with Kiner-Falefa, who played for the team in 2022-23 first as the starting shortstop, and then in a multi-positional role once Anthony Volpe took over shortstop duties in the second of those two seasons. Re-acquiring Kiner-Falefa could reinstall him back into this utility role, with IKF providing more of an experienced hand than Oswald Peraza in a backup position.
Rumors have swirled for months that New York would be targeting infield help at the deadline, with an eye towards landing a second baseman or third baseman and then installing Jazz Chisholm Jr. at the other position. There is nothing preventing the Yankees from acquiring a clear-cut starter as well as a backup option like Kiner-Falefa, though that would further crowd a depth chart that also includes Peraza, DJ LeMahieu, and Ben Rice being toggled between first base, DH, and catcher (when starters Paul Goldschmidt, Giancarlo Stanton, and Austin Wells aren’t playing). Having plenty of depth can be a good problem to have, of course, especially since several Yankees players have checkered health histories.
San Francisco’s infield picture also got a bit more complicated with the blockbuster addition of Rafael Devers last weekend, as Devers will eventually factor into the first base picture. Third baseman Matt Chapman has missed the last two weeks with a hand sprain and is no longer wearing a split, though his return timetable remains unclear. Casey Schmitt has hit so well as Chapman’s replacement that the Giants might be able to make do while Chapman is sidelined, but adding a player like IKF would help out the depth chart as well, probably pushing Christian Koss or Brett Wisely to the minors.
Kiner-Falefa would be a pure rental piece for a new team, as the infielder is in the final season of his two-year, $15MM deal that he initially signed with the Blue Jays prior to the 2024 season. Kiner-Falefa is owed a little over $4MM remaining on his $7.5MM salary for 2025, and that initial $7.5MM number was actually around $6.28MM, as Toronto kicked in some extra money to the Pirates as part of the trade that sent IKF to Pittsburgh at last year’s trade deadline. While Kiner-Falefa’s salary is modest, even a relatively small sum could factor into the equation for a team like the Yankees that is already over the higher level of luxury tax penalization, so they’ll pay a $110% tax rate on any more salary assumed.
The Pirates certainly appear to be sellers as they approach what looks like the club’s seventh straight losing season. Kiner-Falefa is a logical trade candidate as an impending free agent, and it remains to be seen if the Bucs might wait until closer to the actual July 31 deadline to move the infielder, or if they’ll make an earlier move if a rival club makes an acceptable offer.