Reds Select Sam Benschoter
The Reds announced Tuesday that they’ve selected the contract of right-hander Sam Benschoter from Triple-A Louisville. Cincinnati also recalled southpaw Sam Moll from Louisville. Left-hander Joe La Sorsa and righty Connor Phillips were optioned to Triple-A in their place. The Reds already had an open 40-man roster spot after releasing Jeimer Candelario. Their 40-man roster is now at capacity.
Benschoter, 27, was an undrafted free agent out of Michigan State back in 2021. He’s spent the past four seasons climbing Cincinnati’s minor league ranks, reaching Triple-A late last season. That first run at the top minor league level didn’t go well, but the 6’3″, 215-pound righty has had a better showing in 2025. Benschoter has pitched 51 innings — 17 relief appearances, four starts — and logged a 4.06 ERA with a 21.6% strikeout rate, 6.4% walk rate and 51% ground-ball rate.
Benschoter relies heavily on a four-seamer that’s averaged 93.4 mph in 2025, combining that pitch with a sinker, slider, cutter and seldom-used curveball to round out his arsenal. He worked primarily out of the rotation in the lower minors but moved into more of a hybrid role in 2024. He’s progressively moved more and more toward a multi-inning relief role in 2025. Even in his four “starts” this season, Benschoter has pitched a combined 12 1/3 innings. He’s most commonly been used in relief for two to four innings at a time.
Top prospect Chase Burns lasted only one-third of an inning in yesterday’s drubbing at the hands of the Red Sox, forcing the Cincinnati bullpen to cover the rest of the game. The Reds turned to Brent Suter and the now-optioned La Sorsa and Phillips for two-plus innings apiece. All three men threw at least 31 pitches. That understandably prompted some moves to freshen up the relief corps. If today’s game gets out of hand one way or another, Benschoter would seemingly be an option for a long relief stint. He last pitched a week ago and should be able to cover several innings if need be.
Michael Fulmer Elects Free Agency
Right-hander Michael Fulmer has elected free agency, according to his transactions tracker at MLB.com. He cleared outright waivers after being designated for assignment last week but exercised his right to reject that assignment and head to the open market.
Fulmer, 32, is back on the mound this year after spending 2024 recovering from Tommy John surgery. He has gotten brief major league stints with both the Red Sox and Cubs, with one appearance for Boston and two for Chicago. Combined, he has thrown 5 2/3 innings, allowing three earned runs on six hits and two walks while striking out three.
Around those big league appearances, he has been putting up good numbers in the minors. Between those two organizations, he has thrown 36 Triple-A innings with a flat earned run average of 3.00. He has walked 11.5% of batters faced at that level, which is a high number, but also punched out 33.8% of opponents.
In addition to this year’s strong minor league numbers, he has major league success on his track record. He had some good years as a starter with the Tigers almost a decade ago but some injuries eventually pushed him to the bullpen. From 2021 to 2023, he logged 190 1/3 big league innings with a 3.55 ERA, 24.6% strikeout rate and 9.4% walk rate. He earned 19 saves and 45 holds in that span.
His minor league numbers this year have largely been in line with that previous run, so he should garner interest elsewhere. The fact that he cleared waivers suggests that he will probably be limited to minor league deals.
Photo courtesy of Nathan Ray Seebeck, Imagn Images
MLBTR Chat Transcript
Steve Adams
- Good morning! We’ll get going at 1pm CT, but feel free to send in questions ahead of time, as always.
- Good afternoon!
Grover
- if anyone does pick up candelario who will it be
Steve Adams
- Brewers, Astros, Mariners could all take a more or less free look while they wait for more appealing options to become available on the trade market.
Dinelson Lament
- Assuming he stays healthy and reaches free agency, what type of contract might Skubal command in the 2026-2027 off season?
Steve Adams
- Something north of $400MM
Ben
- Will Eugenio Suarez cost a top 100 prospect, considering no top 100 prospects were traded at last year’s deadline, including for multi-year controllable players, while Geno is a rental?
Steve Adams
- “Top 100” prospect are subjective. There are several different lists, and the gap between the No. 100 prospect and the No. 130 prospect is pretty negligible. The Tigers probably had Thayron Liranzo as a top-100 guy when they got him as the Flaherty headliner last year. He was generally considered a 50 FV prospect, which is where all back-of-the-top-100 guys are. Within a few weeks, he was on most top-100 lists.Top-100 rankings are far more volatile than a lot of people give them credit for, and they kind of inherently misrepresent that there’s a larger gap between 100 and 150 than there really is. (Or between, say, 60 and 100, for that matter).At any rate, I don’t think Suarez will command a 50 FV type of prospect, but a 45 type headlining the deal wouldn’t surprise me.
Utah Fan
- Who gets traded by the TWINS at the deadline, if their recent decline continues?
Steve Adams
- Willi Castro, Chris Paddack, Harrison Bader, Danny Coulombe all make sense. Someone might grab Ty France as a cheap RH bat off the bench.
Nicky Lopez Opts Out Of Diamondbacks Deal
Veteran infielder Nicky Lopez triggered an opt-out clause in his minor league deal with the D-backs, reports Robert Murray of FanSided. Teams typically have 48 hours to decide whether to add a player to the 40-man roster or grant him his release when the player triggers an out clause, but Murray adds that Lopez will hit the open market, so it seems Arizona has already made up its mind.
The 30-year-old Lopez hit just .267/.303/.317 through 109 turns at the plate in a supercharged offensive environment with Arizona’s Triple-A Reno affiliate. He continued showing strong contact skills, fanning in only 8.3% of his plate appearances, but Lopez showed no real power and walked at only a 4.6% clip. He went 1-for-24 in 19 games between the Cubs and Angels earlier this year while receiving sparse playing time as a glove-first option off the bench.
Lopez is a defensive-minded utility infielder who can handle either middle infield spot or third base. He’s made a few brief cameos in left field as well but has just 17 major league innings at the position. Back in 2021, he posted an out-of-nowhere .300/.365/.378 batting line with 22 steals (in 23 tries) and plus-plus defense at shortstop. Baseball-Reference valued that season at 4.4 wins above replacement, and FanGraphs credited him with an even gaudier 5.5 WAR. Since that time, Lopez has proven 2021’s offensive output to be an outlier; he’s slashed only .229/.300/.283 in 1215 subsequent plate appearances.
Matt Gage Elects Free Agency
Tigers left-hander Matt Gage went unclaimed on waivers following his recent DFA, per Evan Woodbery of MLive.com. Rather than accept an assignment to Triple-A Toledo, Gage has opted to elect free agency, Jon Heyman of the New York Post adds, which is Gage’s right as a player who’s been outrighted previously in his career.
The 32-year-old Gage tossed 5 2/3 shutout innings with Detroit, though he did so while only fanning 12% of his opponents in that small sample. Still, he limited walks at an 8% clip and continued what’s generally been an effective run in limited MLB chances. Gage has now seen action in parts of three major league seasons and turned in a 1.42 ERA with a 22.5% strikeout rate, 10.8% walk rate and 45.3% ground-ball rate. He’s also done a nice job avoiding hard contact, yielding a tepid 86.8 mph average exit velocity and feeble 31.3% hard-hit rate across those three partial seasons.
Gage signed a minor league deal with the Tigers over the winter. They’re his third big league team in three seasons, having previously suited up for the Astros and Blue Jays. This year’s 91.9 mph average four-seamer is a career-low, but he’s posted quality numbers both in the big leagues and in Triple-A Toledo: 32 1/3 innings, 1.67 ERA, 22.8% strikeout rate, 3.3% walk rate.
Any team in need of some left-handed bullpen depth could take a look at Gage. The Mets have cycled through several left-handed relievers in recent weeks, and there are several clubs around the league operating with only one lefty in their relief corps at the moment — the Yankees, Nationals and Mariners among them.
Tigers To Place Kerry Carpenter On Injured List
The Tigers are placing designated hitter/outfielder Kerry Carpenter on the 10-day injured list due to a hamstring injury, manager A.J. Hinch told host Jim Duquette in an appearance on MLB Network Radio on SiriusXM this morning. Infielder Trey Sweeney will be recalled from Triple-A Toledo to take Carpenter’s spot on the roster.
Carpenter is fifth on the Tigers in plate appearances but third with 16 home runs, trailing Riley Greene (19) and Spencer Torkelson (17) despite having 68 fewer plate appearances than Greene and 53 fewer than Torkelson. The 27-year-old slugger is hitting .257/.285/.494 overall but had just been heating up at the plate, breaking out of a lengthy slump with three homers in his past four games started. Carpenter, however, exited Sunday’s win over the Twins after grabbing at his hamstring while legging out a triple.
It’s the first IL stint of the season for Carpenter but his fourth in the past four seasons. He’s twice gone on the injured list lumbar injuries in his back, ultimately landing on the 60-day IL due to that issue in 2024. Carpenter also missed about six weeks of the 2023 season due to a sprain in his right shoulder.
When healthy, Carpenter has quietly been one of Detroit’s top sources of power. He’s played 314 games since debuting in 2022 and slugged 60 round-trippers in 1148 trips to the plate. He popped 18 homers in just 296 plate appearances last year and is close to matching that pace in 2025. Carpenter’s power prompted teammate Beau Brieske to give him the tongue-in-cheek nickname “Kerry Bonds” back during their minor league days, and it’s carried over into the big leagues despite Carpenter’s reluctance to accept the moniker in full.
With Carpenter on the shelf, Matt Vierling and Javier Baez will likely be in line for additional plate appearances in the short-term. It’s not immediately clear how long Carpenter will be sidelined, though Hinch suggested that the team is taking a conservative approach with this IL stint, which would imply that it’s not a major injury.
Astros Notes: Peña, Matthews, Smith
The Astros placed star shortstop Jeremy Peña on the injured list due to a fractured rib, leaving them without their team’s most valuable player for at least a period of 10 days. A firm timetable for Peña’s return wasn’t provided by the team, and based on general manager Dana Brown’s comments regarding the injury, it sounds as though the club is taking an optimistic approach but doesn’t have a concrete idea of just how long he’ll be sidelined.
Via Brian McTaggart of MLB.com, Brown called Peña’s injury a “pain tolerance thing” and left a rather open-ended window when discussing his shortstop’s potential return date. “If he feels like he’s fine after a week, we’ll start some baseball activity,” said Brown. “We can give him some things to do, and he might be able to play through it as it heals.”
Brown noted that there’s still a good bit of inflammation at the site of the fracture, but if that clears up in a timely manner, it’s possible Peña could return “soon after the 10 days” — provided he can tolerate the discomfort. Of course, there are plenty of factors to consider. Swinging with a fractured rib would presumably impact Peña’s productivity at the plate, and the prospect of him laying out for a grounder at shortstop or taking another errant pitch off the ribs could exacerbate the matter. There’s also no telling when the inflammation will calm down and he’ll feel well enough to swing; Peña was originally plunked on Friday night and missed the next two games due to ongoing pain before follow-up MRI and CT scans revealed a fracture that initial x-rays failed to detect.
Now that Peña is out for at least a short spell, Leah Vann of Chron.com argues that the Astros ought to take their first big league look at 2023 first-rounder Brice Matthews. With utilityman Mauricio Dubón likely to slide over to shortstop, an already weak point in the lineup (second base) could become that much more compromised. Matthews has played 52 of his 67 games this season at second base and turned in a robust .285/.403/.492 batting line (135 wRC+) in 298 Triple-A plate appearances.
Houston doesn’t need to protect Matthews from the Rule 5 Draft before the 2026-27 offseason. Selecting him to the 40-man roster more than a year prior to that point runs the risk of prematurely burning through some of his option years. However, given his production at the top minor league level, Matthews is making a clear case for a promotion, and if the Astros are confident he’s going to be in the majors for the long haul anyway, concern over those option years would be rendered moot. It’s possible Houston trades for a veteran second baseman, but talks along those lines — not just for the Astros but for the whole league — probably won’t pick up in earnest until later this month.
With both Peña and Yordan Alvarez sidelined, Houston’s lineup is missing two of its most talented hitters. They’ll need to rely more heavily on the rest of the bats for the time being, including touted rookie Cam Smith. Smith has been on absolute fire at the plate lately, slashing .367/.433/.617 over his past 16 games. As he’s heated up, he’s also climbed the batting order. Smith was batting seventh, eighth and ninth for much of May but has been plugged into the fourth or fifth spot in the lineup each game since June 19.
The Astros are bullish on Smith’s ability to be a fixture in their long-term lineup, of course, and the manner in which he’s taken to right field from a defensive standpoint only bolsters that optimism. A former third baseman, Smith is learning right field on the fly, but Brown said on the Astros’ pregame radio show this week that even dating back to the draft, he believed Smith would benefit from a move off third base and into the outfield.
“I didn’t feel like, as a scout evaluating him, that he was going to be this piece at third base,” Brown said (via Chandler Rome of The Athletic). Brown personally scouted Smith on multiple occasions despite knowing he had no real chance to fall all the way to the Astros at No. 28. Those in-person looks paid off when the Kyle Tucker trade discussions began with the Cubs, however, and once the Astros pried Smith loose, Brown recalled advising his staff: “I don’t feel we took this guy for him to play third base, my vision for him is right field.”
Smith has taken to right field like a duck to water. He’s made just two errors in 597 innings at the position while generating a whopping +9 Defensive Runs Saved and +4 Outs Above Average. Statcast pegs Smith’s range in the 91st percentile of big league outfielders and credits him with 82nd-percentile arm strength. There’s still some learning to do when it comes to throwing, as Statcast actually grades his throwing as a negative despite that plus arm strength — likely a reflection of Smith still honing his accuracy on those lengthier throws and on developing instincts for hitting the cutoff man, throwing to the proper base, etc. For a converted infielder, however, the plus range, sure hands and strong arm set the foundation for a Gold Glove ceiling.
Unsurprisingly, Rome suggests that Smith’s long-term home is in right field and that there’s no infield return planned. With Isaac Paredes hitting well and controlled two more seasons beyond the current campaign, that seemed like a given anyhow, but Brown’s comments only further reinforce that long-term outlook for Smith.
The Opener: Orioles, Milestones, MLBTR Chat
Here are three things for MLBTR readers to keep an eye out for throughout the day today:
1. Orioles catching conundrum:
Orioles catcher Chadwick Tromp was pulled from yesterday’s game due to lower back tightness, a move that forced the Orioles to lose the DH for the remainder of the game so Gary Sánchez could come into the game to take over behind the plate. That suggested Tromp might be dealing with something serious, and interim manager Tony Mansolino confirmed as much to reporters (including Andy Kostka of The Baltimore Banner) after the game. Mansolino suggested that Tromp was “likely” headed to the IL due to a back strain. That creates a real issue for the Orioles given that they’ve already lost Adley Rutschman and Maverick Handley to the injured list recently. The club will need to add a fourth catcher to the 40-man roster in order to have a healthy backup to Sánchez. Jacob Stallings would seem to be the top candidate, although 20-year-old top prospect Samuel Basallo is already knocking on the doors of the majors with fantastic offense in Triple-A: .264/.390/.579, 16 home runs in 218 plate appearances.
2. Milestones on the horizon:
Several veteran players are on the cusp of crossing some milestone thresholds. Phillies shortstop Trea Turner is sitting on 299 steals in his career, placing him just one shy of becoming the 171st player in MLB history to reach the 300 milestone. He’ll tie B.J. Upton and Frank Taveras when he gets that 300th bag, though he currently has 42 fewer attempts than Upton and 56 fewer than Taveras. Turner is at 20 steals on the season right now — already one more than he tallied in 2024. Starling Marte and Jose Altuve are the only active players with more steals than Turner.
Guardians first baseman Carlos Santana, meanwhile, is just one two-bagger away from becoming the 198th player to reach 400 doubles in his career. He’d join Nolan Arenado (who just reached that milestone Sunday), Altuve, Paul Goldschmidt, Andrew McCutchen and Freddie Freeman as the only active players with 400-plus doubles — not bad company!
Over in San Diego, the countdown to 2000 hits is on for Manny Machado, who currently sits just six knocks shy of that threshold. He won’t get there tonight, but within the next few days Machado could become the 298th player in MLB history to reach that illustrious round number. He trails only Freeman, McCutchen, Goldschmidt and Altuve for the lead among active players.
3. MLBTR Chat Today:
It’s now July 1, which means we’re officially just a month away from this year’s trade deadline. Chatter about trade season has already begun in earnest, with clubs on the fence between buying and selling nearing decision time. While it will be difficult for another in-season blockbuster to top the Rafael Devers deal from June, a handful of smaller deals have started to come together around the league as well. Whether you’re looking ahead to the deadline or still trying to sort between the contenders and pretenders, MLBTR’s Steve Adams has you covered in a live chat scheduled for 1pm CT today. You can click here to ask a question in advance, join in live once the chat begins, or read the transcript once the chat is complete.
Astros Place Jeremy Peña On Injured List With Fractured Rib
The Astros announced Monday that star shortstop Jeremy Peña has been placed on the 10-day injured list due to a “small” fracture in one of his left ribs. The team has not yet provided a timetable for Peña’s expected return. A corresponding move will not be announced until later in the day, the team added.
Peña was hit with a pitch in the ribs by Cubs rookie Cade Horton this past Friday. He exited the game, but initial x-rays came back negative. Peña was out of the lineup both Saturday and Sunday, and he was clearly still feeling discomfort, as the Astros indicated that follow-up MRI and CT scans were performed, which revealed the fracture.
It’s an awful injury for the Astros. Peña is enjoying a full-fledged breakout this year, turning in a performance that could well make him an American League MVP finalist. The 27-year-old shortstop is hitting .322/.378/.489 with 11 home runs, 18 doubles, a triple and 15 steals (in 17 tries) — all while playing plus defense at shortstop. FanGraphs ranks him third in the majors with 4.1 wins above replacement, tied with Shohei Ohtani and trailing only Aaron Judge and Cal Raleigh. Baseball-Reference has Peña tied with Raleigh for second in baseball, behind only Judge.
Peña’s breakout has in part been fueled by some good fortune on balls in play (.360 BABIP, up from .308 in his three prior seasons), but that’s only part of the tale. He’s upped his walk rate, and while it’s still below league average, his 5.7% mark is a notable improvement over last year’s paltry 3.8% clip. His 15.7% strikeout rate is down from last year’s 17.1% mark. Peña’s batted-ball profile doesn’t necessarily look all that different upon first glance, but while his overall average exit velocity is nearly unchanged from 2024, his exit velocity on balls hit in the air. specifically, is up nearly three miles per hour. Statcast’s “expected” metrics still feel there’s some regression in store, but there are tangible changes to his underlying statistical profile that suggest he’s not simply going to fade back to his pedestrian offense from 2022-24.
Replacing the type of production Peña has provided simply isn’t feasible. Mauricio Dubón has stepped up at shortstop over the past couple days and can at least be expected to provide solid glovework, but he’s a career .259/.294/.379 hitter who’s batting .239/.278/.390 in 2025. Prospect Brice Matthews, Houston’s pick at No. 28 overall in the 2023 draft, is currently in Triple-A and slashing .285/.403/.492 with a huge 15.4% walk rate but also a weighty 28.5% strikeout rate.
Matthews is not yet on the 40-man roster and wouldn’t need to be added this winter to protect him from the Rule 5 draft, but his performance nonetheless puts him in the conversation for a look with Peña shelved. Presumably, the longer Peña is expected to miss, the more seriously the organization would consider Matthews an option to step in for him. Alternative options within the organization who have some shortstop experience include Shay Whitcomb (already on the 40-man roster), Zack Short and Greg Jones. Neither Short nor Jones is on the 40-man, however. Whitcomb has barely played shortstop in 2025 but does have a bit more than 1800 career professional innings at the position.
Ross Atkins Discusses Deadline Needs, Santander
The Blue Jays have finally put the lengthy Vladimir Guerrero Jr. extension saga behind them and are in the midst of a resurgent season with a 45-38 record that puts them in third place in a competitive AL East, just two games back of the Yankees for the division lead. In the Wild Card race, they’re in the second of three spots with a 2.5 game cushion over the Mariners. Despite all of that success in the standings, there’s plenty of cracks in their performance. That’s best represented by their (slightly) negative run differential of -3. That would suggest they should be around .500 rather than seven games over at this point, so there’s clearly work to be done on the roster.
Club GM Ross Atkins acknowledged as much to reporters (including Shi Davidi of Sportsnet) earlier today, when he said that the Blue Jays “can obviously be better” before adding that the front office will “focus on that” ahead of the trade deadline. As noted by Keegan Matheson of MLB.com, Atkins also added that the club has the financial support of ownership headed into the deadline and will have the ability to “flex that muscle” this summer. That suggests at least some willingness to take on salary in trade, which is notable for a club that’s already well into luxury tax territory this year. It was a somewhat roundabout way of confirming that his team figures to buy this trade season, but that didn’t stop Atkins from mentioning a pair of needs: pitching help and a right-handed bat.
That those would be needs on the team’s wish list is hardly surprising. The Blue Jays have a bottom-five rotation in the majors by both ERA and FIP this year, and that seems unlikely to change any time soon with Bowden Francis on the injured list and Max Scherzer still working through his nagging thumb issue. As noted by Matheson following Scherzer’s 71-pitch start earlier this evening, manager John Schneider told reporters after today’s game that Scherzer is battling through some “fatigue” in his thumb. That seems to be a day-to-day issue that could be managed without a trip to the shelf, but even if he can avoid the injured list Scherzer may be limited by his ailing thumb going forward.
That should make adding starting pitching a priority for the Jays. Potential front-of-the-rotation arms who could be available this summer include Sandy Alcantara and Zac Gallen, but both players are going through down seasons and aren’t exactly surefire bets to put up elite numbers. More stable veterans like Merrill Kelly and Mitch Keller could be attractive alternatives for a team like the Jays that’s in need of steady innings, but Atkins has suggested the club is more focused on adding depth to its pitching staff. Perhaps that means wading only into the shallow end of the starting market and focusing on relatively low-cost veteran rentals like Andrew Heaney and Michael Lorenzen.
The club’s search for a right-handed bat, then, could take priority. Third baseman Eugenio Suarez and DH Marcell Ozuna are perhaps the top righty hitters who could be available this summer, though neither Arizona nor Atlanta is guaranteed to sell. Even if they do, there’s some questions to be asked regarding either player’s fit in Toronto. George Springer is best served acting as a DH for the Jays, and Addison Barger has enjoyed something of a breakout season while splitting time between right field and third base for the club. If the Blue Jays are looking for a lower cost addition with more versatility, perhaps someone like Nationals infielder Amed Rosario or Red Sox infielder Romy Gonzalez could be of interest.
One other way to help the club hit against lefties would be a healthy and effective return from switch-hitting slugger Anthony Santander. Santander is a career 112 wRC+ hitter against lefties who posted an even stronger 121 figure against them last year, but he’s been on the injured list for a month now due to inflammation in his left shoulder. Atkins revealed today (as relayed by Davidi) that Santander actually suffered a subluxation (partial separation) in his left shoulder after crashing into the outfield wall in Anaheim in early May. Atkins notes that Santander initially tried to play through the injury, but he hit just .122/.265/.195 between the end of the club’s series against the Angels and his placement on the IL three weeks later. MLB.com adds that Atkins is “optimistic” that Santander could resume hitting soon and adds that he may be able to return to the Jays in late July.