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Rockies Designate Chad Qualls, Reinstate Jon Gray

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The Rockies have announced a series of interesting transactions. Reliever Chad Qualls was designated for assignment, making way for the return of top righty Jon Gray from the DL. And veteran catcher Ryan Hanigan was recalled, with Tom Murphy optioned back to Triple-A.

It’s not terribly surprising to hear that the Rockies are moving on from Qualls. The 39-year-old has produced a typically strong 57.4% groundball rate on the year, but has managed just 5.9 K/9 to go with 2.7 BB/9. He has coughed up 1.6 home runs per nine, helping to explain his ugly 5.40 ERA.

That said, there are some signs that there could be something left in the tank. Qualls is still generating a 10.3% whiff rate and has probably been somewhat unlucky only to strand 61.8% of opposing baserunners.

Still, there’s little denying that Qualls has fallen shy of hopes since arriving in Colorado on a two-year, $6MM deal. (Fellow veteran Jason Motte followed a similar course.) It seems unlikely any rival organizations will take over the rest of the $3.25MM total that Qualls is owed this year. The Rockies will pay the remainder unless they are able to find a team that will take some cash in a trade or Qualls makes it to the majors elsewhere after signing a minors deal (in which case he’d earn a pro-rated portion of the league-minimum salary from his new team).

Gray, meanwhile, will hope to provide a much-needed boost to a Rockies team that has dropped eight straight ballgames. He has only managed three starts this year, exiting the last of those with what proved to be a stress fracture in his left foot. The prized righty has been sharp in his rehab outings and returns with big expectations.

Meanwhile, the Rox effectively reversed the move they made a few weeks ago in activating Murphy from the DL. The 26-year-old, considered quite a talented hitter for his position, is off to a miserable 1-for-22 start to the season. While Hanigan doesn’t offer nearly the same offensive ability, the veteran will hopefully help to settle the pitching staff while allowing Murphy to work back into form at Albuquerque.

Red Sox Release Allen Craig

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The Red Sox have released veteran first baseman/outfielder Allen Craig, according to a club announcement (h/t Brian MacPherson of the Providence Journal, via Twitter).

Craig, 32, will hit the open market after an ill-fated stint in the Sox organization. He was acquired back in 2014 along with righty Joe Kelly in the surprising trade that sent John Lackey to the Cardinals.

At the time, Craig was viewed as a possible bounce-back piece. Though he was carrying only a .237/.291/.346 batting line at the time of the deal, Boston obviously saw upside in the remainder of Craig’s contract extension. After all, prior to 2014, he owns an excellent career .306/.358/.492 batting line.

Unfortunately, the rebound never occurred. Craig only appeared in 65 MLB games with the Red Sox, posting a .432 OPS. And he has never shown much life while banished to Triple-A. Though Craig continues to reach base at a solid clip, he has hit just one home run and carries a .316 slugging percentage this year at Pawtucket.

Boston has long since written off his salary as an investment that won’t deliver any return, but it’s still a notable sum. Craig will still be entitled to the remainder of his $11MM guarantee this year, and will also take home a $1MM buyout on a $13MM option for 2018.

Orioles Sign First-Rounder DL Hall

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The Orioles have announced the signing of first-round pick DL Hall. He’ll receive a $3MM bonus, per Steve Melewski of MASNsports.com (via Twitter).

That payday lands just over the $2,892,400 slot value for the 21st overall pick with which Hall was selected. He and second-rounder Adam Hall both commanded more than was allocated for their picks, but the O’s have cleared added funds by signing later-round choices to below-slot deals.

Hall (the first-rounder) is a high-school southpaw out of Georgia. Coming into the draft, he was ranked well above his ultimate draft position by prospect observers.

Eric Longenhagen of Fangraphs and Keith Law of ESPN.com both viewed Hall as one of the draft’s top ten prospects. He drew praise for having three promising pitches (with his change running behind a quality fastball/curve combination) and good athleticism.

While he doesn’t carry a large frame and could stand to further develop his command, per Longenhagen, that’s an intriguing package for a left-handed pitching prospect. MLB.com (#14) and Baseball America (#16) concurred that Hall is one of the most promising players in this year’s crop of talent.

Nationals Place Trea Turner On 10-Day DL

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TODAY: As anticipated, the Nats have placed Turner on the 10-day DL, per a club announcement. The club selected the  contract of Adrian Sanchez to take his spot on the active roster.

Sanchez, 26, has been playing in the organization for 11 years. He’ll bring plenty of defensive versatility to the table — he has spent significant time at second, third, and short — but not much in the way of hitting ability. Sanchez carries a .259/.312/.384 slash line with 21 steals over 280 plate appearances on the year, mostly of them coming at Triple-A.

To open a 40-man spot, the Nationals moved lefty Sammy Solis to the 60-day DL. That’s just a formality, as he has already been out for that span. It seems reasonably likely that Sanchez will function as a little-used bench piece until there’s a need for his roster spot.

YESTERDAY: Nationals shortstop Trea Turner, who was hit by a pitch in tonight’s game against the Cubs, has been diagnosed with a broken right wrist, reports Chelsea Janes of the Washington Post (on Twitter). There’s no timetable for a return to the roster at this point, she adds.

Suffice it to say, the loss of Turner for any stretch of time is a crushing blow to the Nationals, although the Nats have a large enough lead in the NL East (nine games, at present) to weather an absence for the 23-year-old star. That said, Turner has batted .279/.324/.422 with seven homers and an outrageous 35 stolen bases in 315 plate appearances this season, and he’s turned in roughly average defense at shortstop as well. Subtracting that level of output from any roster is a tough pill to swallow.

In the short term, the Nats can turn to veteran Stephen Drew and rookie Wilmer Difo and entrust that pair with the bulk of the playing time at shortstop. The 34-year-old Drew has somewhat quietly been excellent for the Nationals across the past two seasons, hitting at a combined .286/.347/.515 in an admittedly small sample of 225 plate appearances. Just 19 of those plate appearances have come against left-handed pitching, so Drew would ideally benefit from a platoon partner. The switch-hitting Difo can provide that; while he’s struggled against lefties in a tiny sample of 37 plate appearances, Difo hit left-handed pitching considerably better than right-handed pitching in the minors in 2015-16.

There will, of course, be some options available for the Nationals to pursue on the trade market. Zack Cozart stands out as the most logical candidate, as the 32-year-old has taken his offensive game to a new level in 2017 and paired it with his usual brand of defensive wizardry. Cozart is a free agent at season’s end, and the rebuilding Reds will undoubtedly be open to moving him once he returns from a much more minor DL stint of his own (for a strained quadriceps). Other available options for the Nats include Jed Lowrie of the Athletics and Eduardo Nunez of the Giants. Looking across the division, Asdrubal Cabrera recently expressed frustration with the Mets and suggested that he’d prefer a trade, but he’s since walked those comments back a bit (and it’s not clear if the two division rivals would be able to line up on a trade anyhow).

Brewers Outright Tyler Cravy, Select Rob Scahill

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The Brewers have outrighted right-hander Tyler Cravy, per a club announcement. Milwaukee selected the contract of righty Rob Scahill while optioning righty Jorge Lopez — after just one outing — to open an active roster spot.

A need for fresh arms in the pen drove the decision. Obviously, Cravy himself represented an option, but evidently Milwaukee wasn’t swayed by his work this year at Triple-A.

Cravy, who’ll soon turn 28, worked to a 2.86 ERA over 28 1/3 MLB innings last year, with 7.0 K/9 against 3.8 BB/9. He also sported an intriguing 11.3% swinging-strike rate. But he had struggled during his time at Colorado Springs, and that continued in 2017. Over 26 2/3 frames thus far at the highest level of the minors, Cravy owns a 5.06 ERA with 7.1 K/9 and 4.7 BB/9.

Instead, the club will go with Scahill, who has himself been removed from the 40-man roster once already this year. The 30-year-old, a six-year MLB veteran, managed only five strikeouts (while issuing nine walks, three of which were intentional) in his 17 2/3 MLB innings prior to that move. Scahill has gone on to post much better numbers at Tripe-A, with a 2.45 ERA and 6.9 K/9 against 1.5 BB/9 in his 16 appearances.

Cardinals To Promote John Mozeliak, Mike Girsch

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2:02pm: Both executives are now under contract through 2020, MLB.com’s Jenifer Langosch tweets.

12:24pm: The Cardinals are set to promote John Mozeliak from general manager to president of baseball operations, while assistant GM Mike Girsch will be promoted to the post of general manager, reports Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. The Cardinals have called a 2:00pm press conference to announce the move.

John Mozeliak | Steve Mitchell-USA TODAY Sports

Mozeliak will still, of course, oversee the team’s baseball operations decisions and will remain heavily involved in all facets of the department, Goold notes, though he’ll now have a title that is perhaps more commensurate with his considerable experience. Mozeliak has been the general manager of the Cardinals for nearly a decade, and in making this move, the Cardinals will adopt what has become an increasingly popular front office structure throughout the game. Among the teams that utilize the president of baseball ops/GM hierarchy are the Dodgers (Andrew Friedman/Farhan Zaidi), Cubs (Theo Epstein/Jed Hoyer), Athletics (Billy Beane/David Forst), Rays (Matt Silverman/Erik Neander) and Indians (Chris Antonetti/Mike Chernoff).

It’s not immediately clear if Mozeliak will receive an extension with the new title, though Goold notes that chairman Bill DeWitt Jr. has recently suggested that extension negotiations and talk of a new title for Mozeliak have been ongoing. His current deal runs through the 2018 season, though it certainly stands to reason that with the elevation in title will come a lengthier deal.

The 2017 season, of course, hasn’t been a strong one for the Cardinals, although the organization has generally prospered under Mozeliak. Since he took the job following the 2007 season, the Cards have made six postseason appearances, including a World Series victory in 2011 and a second World Series appearance two years later in 2013. Mozeliak, of course, also had a role in the Cardinals’ 2006 World Series championship, as he previously spent five years as an assistant GM to Walt Jocketty and has been involved in the organization’s scouting department dating all the way back to 1995.

Girsch, meanwhile, has held his AGM post since 2011 and has been with the organization since serving as an amateur scouting coordinator back in 2006. He’s spent six years directly assisting Mozeliak in nearly all facets of the game, including: contract negotiation, player evaluation, amateur scouting, player development and international operations.

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.

Central Notes: Jorge, Diaz, Montero, Petricka

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With the Twins set to play 20 games in a 19-day span heading into the All-Star break, including four games against the Royals this weekend, they’ll dip into the minors and call on prospect Felix Jorge to make his MLB debut tomorrow, reports Mike Berardino of the St. Paul Pioneer Press. The 23-year-old Jorge currently sits eighth among Minnesota farmhands, per Jim Callis and Jonathan Mayo of MLB.com, and also ranked eighth among Twins prospects entering the season, per Baseball America. The right-hander doesn’t overpower opponents but has walked just 1.7 hitters per nine innings dating back to 2015. He currently has a 3.26 ERA with 6.4 K/9, 2.3 BB/9 and a 50.4 percent ground-ball rate through 85 2/3 Double-A frames. Both scouting reports peg Jorge as a fourth or fifth starter, noting that he’s added some bulk to his slender frame and sits in the low 90s with a bit of sink on his heater while also offering an above-average changeup. Jorge is already on the 40-man roster, so there won’t be a DFA or 60-day DL move required to add him.

More on the game’s Central divisions…

  • Aledmys Diaz was caught off-guard by the Cardinals’ decision to option him to Triple-A, writes Rick Hummel of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. However, the 26-year-old offered a professional attitude to the media following the move’s announcement, telling reporters that he’s happy to do whatever is best for the Cardinals in the long run. General manager John Mozeliak also weighed in on what he labeled a difficult decision, telling the media: “What we really want to see is that he’s able to take a deep breath and go down and work on some things offensively, as well as his whole game. … (Diaz) hasn’t been picking the ball up (at the plate) and he’s been chasing a lot of balls outside the zone.” Mozeliak also noted that injured second baseman Kolten Wong won’t be back with the team until after the All-Star break.
  • Cubs manager Joe Maddon spoke candidly about the organization’s decision to designate Miguel Montero for assignment following the catcher’s blasting of Jake Arrieta and the Cubs’ pitching staff, Mark Gonzales of the Chicago Tribune writes. “(There are) too many young guys in (the clubhouse) who are impressionable,” said Maddon. “…With this young impressionable group, to me, and a really good group that’s going to be together for a long time, you don’t want to foster, nurture, condone (Montero’s) kind of message.” President of baseball operations Theo Epstein was alerted to Montero’s comments by GM Jed Hoyer on Tuesday night this week, per Gonzales, and the two reached the decision to move on from Montero after speaking with Maddon late that night. Epstein stresses that Montero shouldn’t be viewed as any kind of scapegoat for the team’s overall struggles, though he said they felt Montero was “not being a good teammate” and demonstrated a lack of accountability in such a public manner that they were forced to act.
  • The White Sox announced yesterday that righty Jake Petricka has been placed back on the disabled list due to a right elbow strain. Fellow righty Juan Minaya was summoned back from Triple-A just a day after being sent there. The elbow issue is the latest in a slew of injuries for Petricka, who has missed time due to a forearm strain, hip surgery and a lat strain in recent years. The 29-year-old’s hard sinker has led to a sizable 63 percent ground-ball rate, though Petricka has averaged just 6.5 K/9 against 4.0 BB/9 as a big leaguer. Nonetheless, that huge ground-ball rate has helped him post a 3.70 ERA through 163 innings in the Majors. No timetable was given for a return to the mound.

Phillies To Place Howie Kendrick On DL, Promote Nick Williams

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The Phillies are set to promote outfield prospect Nick Williams to the Majors, reports Jim Salisbury of CSNPhilly.com (via Twitter). The move means that left fielder Howie Kendrick will land on the 10-day disabled list due to an injured left hamstring, tweets MLB.com’s Todd Zolecki.

Williams, 23, rated as a consensus top 100 prospect headed into the 2016 season but saw his stock dip following an awful year with Philadelphia’s Triple-A affiliate last year (.258/.287/.427, 26% strikeout rate). Those struggles dipped him off most prospect lists this season, though Baseball Prospectus still ranked him 51st headed into the year, and MLB.com currently rates him fourth among Phillies prospects.

Thus far in 2017, Williams has demonstrated a large number of the skills that made him such a touted prospect and a key piece to the 2015 Cole Hamels blockbuster, though there’s still some work to be done. Through 302 plate appearances, he’s hitting a much-improved .277/.326/.511 with 15 homers, 16 doubles and two triples. He’s upped his walk rate a bit, but the boost from 3.6 percent to a still-modest 5.3 percent and Williams’ actually elevated 29.8 percent strikeout rate still indicate room for improvement.

That said, Williams has the potential to provide power and speed with solid defense in an outfield corner for years to come if he can manage to refine his approach at the plate. Whether he remains on the roster to stay or is only up in the big leagues for a brief period is unclear, though certainly one would imagine that a strong first showing could force Williams into the mix with Kendrick on the shelf and veteran Michael Saunders now back with the Blue Jays organization following his release.

As for Kendrick, his second trip to the disabled list saps some of the trade value he’d built up over the past month. Kendrick missed roughly six weeks of the season with an abdominal injury, but he returned swinging a blazing bat. In 96 plate appearances following his most recent activation from the DL, Kendrick slashed a ridiculous .356/.406/.471 with a pair of homers, four doubles and seven stolen bases.

It remains to be seen how long he’ll miss, but the injury seems minor enough that he’ll be back with time to spare before the July 31 non-waiver deadline. However, with a pair of DL stints under his belt, roughly $4-5MM remaining on his contract and his status as a rental player, Kendrick doesn’t figure to fetch a premium return, even though a number of teams will be intrigued by the thought of adding a well-respected veteran with some defensive versatility.

NL East Notes: Bartolo, Kendrick, Nationals

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The Mets will at least consider a reunion with 44-year-old righty Bartolo Colon following yesterday’s DFA by the Braves, reports MLB.com’s Anthony DiComo (Twitter link). They are, however, understandably wary of his poor performance in Atlanta. Kristie Ackert of the New York Daily News spoke to one Mets person who expressed some intrigue regarding the possibility of once again pairing Colon with pitching coach Dan Warthen to see if Colon could succeed in a bullpen role in New York. And, as Ackert points out, the additional depth would hardly be a bad thing for a Mets pitching staff that has been decimated by injury.

Elsewhere in the NL East…

  • The Phillies could be facing a trip to the disabled list for Howie Kendrick, writes CSNPhilly.com’s Jim Salisbury. Kendrick has been bothered lately by a sore hamstring, and while he was in the lineup as a DH on Tuesday this week, he told manager Pete Mackanin that he didn’t feel good enough to go on Wednesday. Mackanin acknowledged that the Phils have to consider a DL stint for Kendrick, which would be a disappointing development for the organization, as Kendrick’s hot bat has elevated his trade candidacy since returning from a lengthy six-week stint on the DL earlier this year. Salisbury wonders whether the Phils would bring up a prospect such as Nick Williams or Dylan Cozens and give him regular playing time in lieu of Kendrick, though that suggestion appears to be made somewhat speculatively.
  • Although the Nationals have a well-documented need for bullpen upgrades, sorting out the roster in the wake of a move won’t be as easy as one would imagine, writes Chelsea Janes of the Washington Post. Ownership typically doesn’t love the notion of adding significant contracts midseason in the first place, she writes, and the concept of adding a reliever and then cutting a player already on a relatively significant deal (e.g. Joe Blanton) may not be appealing to the Lerner family — especially if it meant acquiring another significant contract. Janes runs down a list of virtually every relief option on the roster, noting that the team’s best-performing relievers (Matt Albers, Enny Romero) are among the most affordable options. Despite Shawn Kelley’s struggles, Janes writes, he’s a well-liked clubhouse presence that is under contract through 2018, and it’s unlikely that the Nats would simply eat the rest of his contract to free up a roster spot.

Yankees’ Dustin Fowler Injures Knee In MLB Debut, Requires Surgery

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JUNE 30: Manager Joe Girardi told reporters after the game that Fowler’s injury comes with a recovery time of at least six months (via Hoch).

JUNE 29: In terrible news for the Yankees and one of their most promising young talents, the team announced that outfielder Dustin Fowler suffered an open rupture of the patella tendon in his right knee and will undergo surgery tonight in Chicago (Twitter link via MLB.com’s Bryan Hoch).

Fowler, 22, sustained the injury when running full-speed into the right-field retaining wall in an effort to catch a foul ball off the bat of Jose Abreu in the bottom of the first inning (video available at MLB.com). He was carted off the field shortly thereafter.

Yankees fans have been waiting for months to get a look at Fowler following a terrific start to his season in Triple-A. Through 313 Triple-A plate appearances, Fowler hit .293/.329/.542 with 13 homers and 13 stolen bases. Unfortunately, tonight’s injury occurred before Fowler was even able to take his first big league plate appearance.

Eschewing the baseball perspective and viewing the injury through a human element lens, the injury is a terribly saddening occurrence for a 22-year-old that was merely minutes into realizing a lifelong dream. Hopefully, Fowler proves able to make a full recovery and rejoins the Yankees as a part of their future down the road.

From a strictly on-field perspective, New York has the outfield depth to weather the injury, though they’ll be short-handed for awhile with Aaron Hicks on the shelf for upwards of four weeks and Fowler down for the remainder of the season. The Yankees do have another of baseball’s top outfield prospects, Clint Frazier, not far off from Major League readiness in Triple-A, though it’s not clear when he’ll emerge as a candidate for a promotion of his own.

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