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Rangers Acquire Pedro Gonzalez To Complete Jonathan Lucroy Trade

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The Rangers announced that they’ve acquired minor league outfielder Pedro Gonzalez from the Rockies as the player to be named later in the trade that sent Jonathan Lucroy to Colorado.

Gonzalez, 19, ranked as the Rockies’ No. 14 prospect per Jim Callis and Jonathan Mayo of MLB.com. Fangraphs’ Eric Longenhagen rated him as highly as fourth among Colorado farmhands on his updated summer ranking of Rockies prospects.

Callis and Mayo note that Gonzalez has the type of power that scouts can dream on, noting that he has “considerable” bat speed and has grown three inches and added 15 pounds of muscle since signing as a 16-year-old. Longenhagen calls his upside “immense,” though he notes that strikeouts are an issue for the shortstop-turned-outfielder. MLB.com’s report notes that while he has the present range for center field thanks to improved speed, he could be destined to play a corner in the bigs.

Through 209 plate appearances, Gonzalez is batting an excellent .321/.388/.519 with three homers, 16 doubles and six triples against older competition. He’s swiped 11 bases in 17 tries on the season as well. He’ll report to the team’s short-season Class-A affiliate in the Northwest League, per the Rangers’ announcement.

Gonzalez looks to be a nice add to the Rangers’ farm system, even if he’s a ways from the Majors and obviously won’t eliminate the sting of surrendering Lewis Brinson, Luis Ortiz and Ryan Cordell to acquire Lucroy and Jeremy Jeffress in the first place.

As for the Rockies, they have to be rather pleased with the way the trade has played out to date, as through his first 16 games in Colorado, Lucroy has slashed a resurgent .313/.443/.458. He’s yet to connect on his first Rockies homer, but he’s chipped in five doubles and a triple since joining his new club.

Red Sox Acquire Rajai Davis

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The Red Sox have struck a deal to acquire fleet-footed outfielder Rajai Davis from the Athletics, the teams announced on Tuesday night. Minor league outfielder Rafael Rincones is going back to the A’s in exchange, and Boston has designated first baseman/outfielder Steve Selsky to clear a 40-man roster spot. Davis had previously ranked eighth on MLBTR’s most recent list of the top August trade candidates.

Rajai Davis | Sergio Estrada-USA TODAY SportsThe 36-year-old Davis had a slow first half to the season but has been on fire since the All-Star break, hitting .303/.361/.487 with three homers and 11 steals (in 13 attempts). Overall, he’s stolen 26 bases in 32 attempts. Davis will give Boston a huge boost in terms of speed in the season’s final month as well as in the postseason — both times when clubs are more likely to carry pinch-running specialists.

Of course, Davis’ second-half production and his respectable .255/.319/.396 slash against left-handed pitching illustrate that he brings far more to the table than just his wheels. He’ll also give the Sox a veteran outfield option capable of playing all three spots while Jackie Bradley sits out for the next week-plus due to a sprained thumb.

Davis brings to the Red Sox a history of speed and performing well against left-handed pitching. The veteran outfielder has five seasons of 40-plus steals under his belt, including a 43-steal campaign in 2016 that paced the American League. He’s also a career .285/.341/.434 hitter when holding the platoon advantage; His most memorable hit against a lefty provided one of the most dramatic moments in recent postseason history, when he took Cubs closer Aroldis Chapman deep in Game 7 of the 2016 World Series.

Davis signed a one-year deal worth $6MM to return to Oakland for his second stint with the A’s this past offseason, and he’s still owed the balance of that salary — a sum of approximately $1.28MM.

Rincones turned 18 on July 1 and has spent the first two seasons of his professional career playing for the Red Sox’ affiliate in the Dominican Summer League. Through 380 plate appearances, the switch-hitting Rincones has batted .267/.386/.368 with a pair of homers, 18 doubles, four triples and 14 steals (in 19 attempts).

Nick Cafardo of the Boston Globe and Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic had both previously reported that the Red Sox were nearing a trade or waiver claim, and Rosenthal added that Selsky had been designated for assignment. CSN New England’s Evan Drellich first reported that Davis was going to Boston (on Twitter). Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle tweeted that it was a trade, not a waiver claim, and she was also the first to report that the A’s were acquiring Rincones (Twitter link).

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.

Red Sox Designate Steve Selsky, Could Be On Verge Of Acquiring Outfielder

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The Red Sox will designate first baseman/outfielder Steve Selsky, reports Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic (via Twitter). Rosenthal adds that the Red Sox may be on the verge of a trade, but president of baseball ops Dave Dombrowski refused comment on the matter.

Notably, the Boston Globe’s Nick Cafardo tweeted recently that the Sox “appear” to be on the verge of adding someone via trade or waiver claim, so Selsky’s DFA would clear a 40-man roster spot to facilitate such a move. Rosenthal tweets that the move is “likely” for an outfielder.

[Related: Last Week’s Top 25 August Trade Candidates]

Selsky, 28, received just nine plate appearances with the Red Sox this offseason and has struggled through Triple-A as well. Despite a strong track record at that level in the Reds organization prior to the 2017 season, Selsky has posted a disappointing .215/.270/.360 batting line with 11 homers and 10 doubles through 322 plate appearances. That’s a far cry from the solid .280/.353/.469 that he slashed in Triple-A last year as well as the strong .314/.340/.471 line he posted through 54 PAs in his Major League debut with Cincinnati in 2016.

Red Sox Place Jackie Bradley Jr. On 10-Day DL

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5:08pm: Tests on Bradley’s thumb indicated that he does not have any tears or fractures in his thumb, but it still looks like he’ll miss more than the 10-day minimum due to this injury (Twitter links from Britton). Bradley will wear a splint on his hand for around a week, and he’ll need some time to get back up to speed once the splint is removed.

1:38pm: The Red Sox have placed outfielder Jackie Bradley Jr. on the 10-day DL, per a club announcement (via Tim Britton of the Providence Journal; Twitter links). He has been diagnosed with a left thumb sprain, per the team.

Bradley was injured on a play at the plate last night, leading to fears that he may have suffered a significant injury. With MRI results still yet to be revealed, at least publicly, the severity of the damage is not yet known. Boston will obviously hope that Bradley can bounce back relatively quickly, with a division lead to protect and less than six weeks until the start of the postseason.

The Sox have recalled infielder Deven Marrero to take the open roster spot. He will likely function as a utility option, perhaps freeing Brock Holt to share time in left field with Chris Young. It seems reasonable to anticipate that Andrew Benintendi will shift over to center while Bradley is down. While right fielder Mookie Betts is also capable of playing up the middle, Benintendi has seen more time there in recent years.

Thus far in 2017, Bradley has taken a slight step back at the plate but continued to function as a quality regular. He’s running a .262/.343/.432 slash with 14 home runs through 440 plate appearances. Though Bradley is reaching base and making hard contact as frequently as ever, his .170 isolated slugging mark sits well shy of the rates he carried in the prior two seasons (.219 in 2016; .249 in a shorter sample in 2015). Of course, he remains a quality defender and baserunner as well as a key part of the Red Sox roster.

Trevor Rosenthal To Undergo Tommy John Surgery

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The Cardinals announced earlier today that Trevor Rosenthal has been placed on the 60-day disabled list, and a followup announcement out of St. Louis confirms what many Cardinals fans had feared; general manager Mike Girsch confirmed to reporters that Rosenthal has suffered a tear of the ulnar collateral ligament in his right elbow and will undergo Tommy John surgery next week (Twitter link via Ben Frederickson of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch).

Rosenthal’s placement on the 60-day DL already ended his season — a critical blow to a team that is still in the mix for both a division title and an NL Wild Card spot — but the prognosis of a torn UCL may now also spell the end of his time as a member of the Cardinals organization entirely. Rosenthal will almost certainly miss all of the 2018 campaign, and even if the Cardinals hold out faint hope that he can return for the final month next year, he’ll still be non-tendered rather than given a raise on this year’s $6.4MM salary.

The 27-year-old Rosenthal struggled through a down year in 2016 but was tendered a contract for the 2017 campaign anyhow, and he’d largely righted the ship this year. While he had a rocky stretch in mid-to-late June, Rosenthal had burst out of the gates in the season’s second half, firing 14 1/3 innings with just three earned runs allowed and a scintillating 23-to-4 K/BB ratio. Of those three earned runs he surrendered, two came in his final outing of the year (and possibly his final appearance as a Cardinal); Rosenthal allowed a leadoff homer to Xander Bogaerts and walked Mitch Moreland before being pulled from the game.

Rosenthal’s agent, Scott Boras, will now find himself in a similar position to the one he faced with Greg Holland two years ago. Like Holland, Rosenthal is a well-regarded high-leverage reliever that will undergo Tommy John surgery late in the regular season. (Holland’s surgery was performed at the end of September in 2015.) Rosenthal and Boras could seek some kind of backloaded two-year contract this winter, which would allow the righty to rehab with a new organization before hopefully being healthy enough to take the field in 2019.

Alternatively, Rosenthal could opt not to sign a contract at all this winter. That’s the route that Holland took following his own Tommy John procedure, as he opted not to sign in the 2015-16 winter before hosting multiple showcases/workouts for interested teams when he was back to full strength in the 2016-17 offseason.

Indians Place Miller, Salazar, Kipnis On 10-Day DL

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3:32pm: The team doesn’t currently have a timetable for Kipnis’ return, manager Terry Francona tells reporters (Twitter links via Bastian). An MRI revealed a strain, but there could be some scar tissue forming in Kipnis’ hamstring as well. As for Miller, the Indians consulted with the Cleveland Cavaliers’ medical staff to get another opinion on dealing with this type of injury to a player of Miller’s height. They’ll have a more detailed update tomorrow, but it doesn’t appear that the injury is especially serious.

Aug. 23, 1:57pm: Kipnis is headed to the DL with what the team is calling a hamstring strain, though the severity isn’t yet known. Infielder Erik Gonzalez has been recalled to take his roster spot.

Aug. 22, 10:38pm: Indians fans can breathe a sigh of relief with respect to Salazar, as Ryan Lewis of the Akron Beacon-Journal tweets that his MRI came back clean. That said, Salazar will still “be down a few days before being built back up,” per Lewis.

Unfortunately for Cleveland fans, though, there’s now yet another injury situation over which to have some trepidation. Second baseman Jason Kipnis exited tonight’s game in the second inning with tightness in his right hamstring, and Paul Hoynes of the Cleveland Plain Dealer tweets that Kipnis is scheduled for an MRI of his own tomorrow.

Kipnis was on the disabled list from July 9 through Aug. 6 due to a strained right hamstring and missed three additional games with discomfort in that same hamstring earlier this month.

4:22pm: MLB.com’s Jordan Bastian tweets that Salazar felt “tightness” in his right elbow during a side session Tuesday and will undergo an MRI later tonight.

2:23pm: The Indians have placed two key hurlers — lefty Andrew Miller and right-handed starter Danny Salazar — on the 10-day DL, per a club announcement. The team has recalled righty Shawn Armstrong and infielder Yandy Diaz to take the open roster spots.

It’s disappointing to see both Miller and Salazar landing back on the DL so soon after recent trips. The former left his appearance last night after a worrying dip in velocity, as his patellar tendinitis flared up. Meanwhile, the latter has been diagnosed with elbow inflammation. He missed a lengthy stretch with shoulder woes, but had pitched brilliantly in his first five starts upon his return before turning in a dud in his last outing.

The outlook on these two pitchers isn’t yet clear, but Cleveland will obviously be hoping for a relatively quick return. While the Indians do enjoy a fairly healthy 5.5-game cushion in the AL Central, that’s hardly an unassailable position. If a repeat postseason run is to be had, the club will need these high-powered arms at its disposal.

Reds Designate Blake Wood, Select Contract Of Alejandro Chacin

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The Reds have announced a series of transactions designed to get some fresh arms to the majors. In moves with 40-man implications, righty Blake Wood was designated for assignment while the team selected the contract of fellow right-hander Alejandro Chacin. Additionally, righty Luke Farrell was recalled and outfielder Phil Ervin was optioned back to Triple-A.

It’s a bit surprising to see Cincinnati cut ties with Wood, who is eligible for arbitration one final time in 2018 after earning $1.275MM this year. The 32-year-old does carry an ugly 5.65 ERA, but that’s due in large part to the staggering nine earned runs he allowed in his last two outings. (More generally, too, he carries a low strand rate of 62.1% and has been tagged for a lofty .364 BABIP by opposing hitters.) Of course, that pair of disastrous appearances also likely paved the way for today’s move.

Despite the less-than-exciting earned run average, Wood has averaged 9.7 K/9 against 4.6 BB/9 on the year while sporting a 53.6% groundball rate. And he still delivers an upper-nineties heater that could hold appeal to other organizations.

That said, the Reds surely at least looked for takers and perhaps found insufficient interest. And the move makes way for Chacin, a 24-year-old who has steadily risen through the ranks over the past three years and figures to be a bullpen option for 2018 and beyond.

Chacin has spent the entirety of 2017 at Triple-A, posting a 2.60 ERA with 8.2 K/9 and 3.5 BB/9 over 69 1/3 innings in 44 appearances. That multi-inning versatility could give the Reds yet another flexible arm — part of an acknowledged strategy of the organization.

Cardinals Place Trevor Rosenthal On 60-Day DL

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The Cardinals have moved righty Trevor Rosenthal from the 10-day to the 60-day DL, per a club announcement. That move brings his season to an end, though a course of treatment for his elbow injury has yet to be disclosed.

With Rosenthal hitting the shelf for good, it seems Seung-hwan Oh is the odds-on favorite to function as the St. Louis closer the rest of the way. St. Louis has purchased the contract of southpaw Ryan Sherriff, necessitating the 40-man roster move. The club optioned righty Josh Lucas to clear active roster space.

While his fate this year has now been resolved, Rosenthal’s future remains up in the air. It is not yet entirely clear just what elbow injury he has suffered, though indications are that ligament damage is involved. Should Rosenthal require a significant procedure, such as Tommy John surgery, he might be sidelined long enough that the Cardinals would elect not to tender him a contract for his final year of arbitration eligibility. But the team could still keep him around — with a raise over his $6.4MM salary — if Rosenthal is instead able to rehab or escape with a less significant surgical approach.

Regardless, today’s news is quite disappointing for both the team and a player who had shown a return to form in 2017. The 27-year-old surrendered 6.5 walks and 4.46 earned runs per nine innings in a disappointing 2016 campaign that was further marred by questions about his arm health. He came into camp this year having lost his closer role, seeking instead to work as a starter.

As it turned out, Rosenthal ended up working back into the ninth for St. Louis, ultimately saving 11 games before hitting the DL. He carried a 3.40 ERA through 47 2/3 innings, tamping down on the free passes (3.8 BB/9) while sporting career-highs in strikeout rate (14.3 K/9), swinging-strike rate (15.9%), and average fastball velocity (98.9 mph).

No matter how things proceed from here, Rosenthal will surely be looked upon as one of the game’s most intriguing bounceback candidates given his age and demonstrated ceiling. Whether that effort will come with the Cards or another organization, though, remains to be seen.

Steven Matz Undergoes Elbow Surgery

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TODAY: Matz’s surgery took place today and went as expected, Carig tweets.

MONDAY, 8:36pm: Matz will indeed undergo a procedure to reposition his ulnar nerve, the Mets have announced. That will be scheduled in the coming days, per the announcement.

4:52pm:Mets lefty Steven Matz is dealing with a nerve issue in his pitching elbow that will likely lead to a DL stint and may require surgery, according to reports from Kristie Ackert of the New York Daily News and Marc Carig of Newsday. It seems the problem is similar to the one experienced last year by teammate Jacob deGrom.

Matz, 26, has struggled through a disappointing campaign after showing immense promise in his first two seasons of MLB action. Through 13 starts, he has pitched only 66 2/3 innings with a 6.08 ERA, recording 6.5 K/9 against 2.6 BB/9 while surrendering a dozen long balls. Arm health has been a longstanding concern for Matz, and he has already missed time this year for an elbow injury.

It seems that Matz has been skipping pen sessions between starts to help manage the issue, which has caused him pain all year long. There was at least some concern that the southpaw was experiencing arthritis; it’s not apparent whether that has been ruled out. Matz received treatment in the form of a shot earlier today, so perhaps his response will dictate the course of treatment.

It’s worth emphasizing that there’s no evidence of a structural problem in Matz’s elbow. And while it’s never good to hear of possible elbow surgery, deGrom has not shown any ill effects from the nerve repositioning procedure he underwent last September.

Still, this represents the latest jolt to a Mets’ rotation that was expected to be one of the game’s very best. If Matz hits the DL, only deGrom will remain standing among the hurlers that were expected to comprise the staff entering the year.

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