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Zach Pop Elects Free Agency

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Zach Pop cleared outright waivers and elected free agency, the Mariners announced. Seattle had designated the righty reliever for assignment over the weekend.

Pop, 28, had a brief run in Dan Wilson’s bullpen. He signed a minor league contract in mid-April and was selected onto the MLB roster on June 13. The Kentucky product made four appearances over the next two weeks. He gave up nine runs (eight earned) on 10 hits and a pair of walks through 5 1/3 innings. Pop recorded only three strikeouts among 30 batters faced with a well below-average 7% swinging strike percentage.

Before his brief run in Seattle, Pop spent a couple seasons as a middle reliever with the Blue Jays. He hasn’t missed many bats but recorded a gaudy 55% ground-ball rate across 48 1/3 innings last year. While hitters had a difficult time elevating the ball, they did a lot of damage when they were able to get it in the air. More than 20% of fly balls cleared the fences, leading to a 5.59 earned run average.

Pop owns a 4.75 ERA in parts of five big league campaigns. He’ll probably be limited to minor league offers but should intrigue teams as a depth option thanks to a sinker that averages around 96 MPH.

MLB Announces 2025 All-Star Starting Hitters

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Major League Baseball announced the starting lineups for the 2025 All-Star Game this evening. The starting lineups are determined by fan vote. Starting pitchers and reserves, which are determined by a combination of player vote and the league office, will be announced on Sunday evening. Each team will eventually get at least one All-Star. 13 teams had at least one starter. The Dodgers and Tigers — the respective league leaders — were in front with three selections apiece.

The game will be played at Atlanta’s Truist Park on July 15.

American League

National League

Diamondbacks Designate Kyle Nelson For Assignment

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The Diamondbacks announced that left-hander Kyle Nelson has been designated for assignment. That’s the corresponding 40-man move for the signing of righty Jake Woodford, a move that was previously reported.

Nelson, now 28, has been with the Diamondbacks for years. He was claimed off waivers from the Guardians in the 2021-22 offseason. He showed some potential at times but required surgery to treat thoracic outlet syndrome in April of 2024 and his numbers since that procedure have been rough.

He missed the remainder of the 2024 campaign after going under the knife. Here in 2025, he has been on optional assignment, having tossed 17 Triple-A innings. He has allowed 16 earned runs in that time, leading to an 8.47 ERA. That’s a small sample of work but he also only has 12 strikeouts, a rate of 14.6% of batters faced. He has averaged just 89.9 miles per hour on his fastball.

There’s a big gap between that performance and what he was able to do a few years ago. In 2023, he logged 56 major league innings for the Snakes with a 4.18 ERA. He struck out 28% of batters faced while averaging 92 mph on his fastball.

Overcoming a thoracic outlet syndrome diagnosis is notoriously difficult. Pitchers like Matt Harvey and Chris Archer declined significantly later in their careers while Stephen Strasburg essentially had his career ended by the condition. On the other hand, Diamondbacks like Merrill Kelly and Ryan Thompson have each managed to engineer solid post-TOS seasons.

Nelson will now head into DFA limbo, which can last as long as a week. The waiver process takes 48 hours, so the Snakes could take five days to explore trade talks. Based on his injury absence and recent results, there may not be much interest.

If Nelson clears outright waivers, he will have the right to elect free agency but will probably decide to stay. Players with at least three years of big league service time have the right to reject an outright assignment, but those with less than five years have to forfeit their remaining salary in order to exercise that right. Nelson is in that three- to five-year window. He and the club avoided arbitration in the offseason by agreeing to a salary of $825K this year, a bit north of the $760K major league minimum.

Photo courtesy of Stan Szeto, Imagn Images

Astros Select Zack Short

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The Astros today have selected the contract of infielder Zack Short. He takes the active roster spot of fellow infielder Luis Guillorme, who has been placed on the 10-day injured list due to a right hamstring strain. Outfielder/designated hitter Yordan Alvarez has been transferred to the 60-day IL to open a 40-man spot for Short. Chandler Rome of The Athletic was among those to relay the moves.

Short, 30, signed a minor league deal with the Astros in the offseason. He didn’t make the club out of camp and has been playing for Triple-A Sugar Land this year. He has stepped to the plate 320 times for the Space Cowboys with a strong 17.5% walk rate and 12 home runs. He’s been held back by a .239 batting average on balls in play, however, leading to a .211/.356/.402 line and 103 wRC+.

In the past few weeks, the Astros have lost infielders Jeremy Peña, Brendan Rodgers and Zach Dezenzo to the injured list. That got Guillorme called up to the majors to serve a depth infielder role. Now that Guillorme is following those others to the IL, Short will get a return to the big leagues.

Short has appeared in 221 major league games in his career, mostly with the Tigers. He bounced around to the three infield positions to the left of first base and also had some brief time in the outfield, but hit just .167/.269/.287. He has hit better on the farm, with a .222/.360/.388 line and 105 wRC+ since the minors were cancelled in 2020.

As for Alvarez, his move is simply procedural and doesn’t change anything about his timeline. He was placed on the 10-day IL on May 3rd due to right hand inflammation. His 60-day count is retroactive to that date, so it’s already been 60 days. In other words, he’s eligible for reinstatement at any point. It’s unclear when he will realistically be able to return, however. It was eventually discovered that he has a fracture in his ring finger. It was reported yesterday that he’s still experiencing soreness and will be seeing a specialist to determine his next steps.

Photo courtesy of Reinhold Matay, Imagn Images

Rangers Option Josh Jung

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The Rangers announced today that they have reinstated infielder Jake Burger from the 10-day injured list. Fellow infielder Josh Jung has been optioned to Triple-A Round Rock as the corresponding move, the first time in his career he’s been optioned to the minors.

The move highlights what a tough time Jung has been having of late. Since the calendar flipped to June, he has produced an awful .158/.208/.221 slash line in 101 plate appearances. His 19 wRC+ in that time is the third-worst mark in the majors, ahead of just Brenton Doyle and Michael Harris II.

“He keeps working, but I don’t know what else to tell you,” manager Bruce Bochy said this week, per Evan Grant of The Dallas Morning News. “If it’s, you know, another break, and you have to do it, it’s a performance-based game, as we always say. We’ve got to find a way to score runs. … We do have some options if we have to give a guy a break.”

The lack of performance was naturally not lost on Jung himself. “I haven’t been very good,” he said on Monday, per Grant. “It’s been the worst [month] ever. I’m just trying to stay in my routine and make adjustments. It’s a daily grind, daily battle, but I’m doing everything I can. It’s frustrating. It’s hard. But this game isn’t easy. It’s just me versus me right now.”

Grant also relays that the club wants Jung to work on fastballs up-and-in, a pitch that he hasn’t been able to lay off of, with one of the worst rates in the majors for swinging at such pitches outside  the strike zone.

It’s a stark contrast to Jung’s previous work. The eighth overall pick in the 2019 draft, Jung got a cup of coffee in the majors in 2022. He got a fuller opportunity in 2023 and ran with it, hitting .266/.315/.467 in 122 games. He then hit .308/.329/.538 in 17 postseason games, helping the Rangers win their first title in franchise history. Last year, a right wrist fracture limited him to 46 games but he still put up a stout .264/.298/.421 line when on the field. Here in 2025, he was doing fine before the month of June, as he was sporting a .277/.321/.440 line at the end of May.

It seems possible that the book is out on him, which has led to his aforementioned struggles with those up-and-in fastballs. That’s been one part of a larger team-wide lack of offense this year, as the Rangers have a collective .228/.296/.366 batting line. Their 87 wRC+ is only better than four teams: the Royals, Pirates, White Sox and Rockies. Ezequiel Durán played third last night and is in there again tonight. He’s been even worse than Jung, with a .145/.229/.226 line this year, but the Rangers are probably hoping that Jung can quickly find his form and retake the job.

How that plays out could impact the club’s deadline plans. They are currently 42-44 and 2.5 games back of a playoff spot in the American League. If they can hang in the race and Jung is still struggling, perhaps the club would look to external third base options, or they could perhaps move Josh Smith over to the hot corner and leave Burger in charge of first base. That would open the designated hitter spot for the return of Joc Pederson or someone else on the roster. There are a few moving pieces there and the situation could change in a few different ways in the coming weeks.

For Jung personally, the length of this rehab assignment could impact him professionally. He came into this year with two years and 27 days of service time. By my count, he has added 97 days so far this year, getting him to 2.124. That’s 48 days shy of the three-year mark. If he’s recalled by the middle of August, he could still get over the three-year line before the offseason. If not, then his path to free agency would be pushed by a year. As of now, he may have enough service time to qualify for arbitration as a Super Two player, depending on where this year’s cutoff ultimately falls. Any service time he could add later in the year would increase his chances of qualifying for arb, while hitting the three-year line would guarantee it.

Photos courtesy of Jerome Miron and Kevin Jairaj, Imagn Images

Kevin Pillar Announces Retirement

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Kevin Pillar is hanging up his Superman cape. On an appearance on Foul Territory, he announced that he is retiring from playing. He was with the Rangers earlier this year but was released about a month ago.

Pillar, now 36, was able to engineer an incredible zero-to-hero career. The Blue Jays drafted him in the 32nd round of the 2011 draft. But despite that humble beginning, he would not only make it to the big leagues but he would stick around for more than a decade.

His best asset was his defense, as he quickly earned a reputation for making highlight-reel catches, often diving horizontally in a way that earned him his Superman nickname. He got some limited big league time in 2013 and 2014 before fully cementing himself as a big leaguer in 2015.

That year, he got into 159 games for the Jays, producing a batting line of .278/.314/.399. His 94 wRC+ indicated he was 6% below league average at the plate, but that was more than adequate to pair with his other attributes. He stole 25 bases and received strong grades for his glovework, leading FanGraphs to credit him with 3.7 wins above replacement. That played a big role in getting the Jays to the postseason for the first time since 1993. Though the club was eventually felled by the Royals in the ALCS, the Jays got José Bautista’s legendary bat flip game along the way.

That would ultimately prove to be an apex for Pillar. He never again stole more than 15 bases nor topped a 90 wRC+ in a full season. But he still proved to be a useful player in generally the same shape, with his speed and defense making up for some subpar offense. From 2016 to 2018, he got into 442 games for the Jays, slashing .258/.296/.401 for an 86 wRC+ and producing 4.5 fWAR.

By the time the 2019 season had rolled around, Pillar was 30 years old and the Jays were rebuilding. Early that year, he was flipped to the Giants, which started the journeyman period of his career. Over the next few years, he would bounce to the Red Sox, Rockies, Mets, Dodgers, Braves, White Sox, Angels and Rangers. Though he had moved into his 30s, his performance was roughly the same as before, though with his glovework naturally slipping a bit. Over those 2019-25 seasons, he played 544 games and hit .246/.284/.415 for an 85 wRC+ and produced 2.4 fWAR.

Most recently, he had a stint with the Rangers but hit just .209/.209/.256 in 20 games before getting designated for assignment and released. He had flirted with retirement before but now seems to have decided that it’s time to hang up the spikes.

Any 32nd-round pick making it to the big leagues is exceedingly rare. In fact, the draft was shortened to 20 rounds a few years ago, so it likely won’t happen again. Pillar not only made it, but he got into 1,234 games over 13 seasons. He racked up 1,053 hits, including 114 home runs. He was credited with 10.8 WAR from FanGraphs and 16.1 from Baseball Reference. He earned about $25MM in his career, according to Baseball Reference. We at MLB Trade Rumors congratulate Pillar on an impressive career and wish him the best with whatever comes next.

Braves Place Spencer Schwellenbach On IL With Elbow Fracture

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The Braves announced today that right-hander Spencer Schwellenbach has been placed on the 15-day injured list due to a right elbow fracture. Left-hander Austin Cox has been recalled to take his roster spot. The club also reinstated righty Daysbel Hernández from the IL and optioned right-hander Kevin Herget. They also officially announced that outfielder Jurickson Profar has been reinstated from the restricted list with outfielder Alex Verdugo designated for assignment, a swap that was previously reported.

Mark Bowman of MLB.com relays that Schwellenbach felt sore after his last game against the Phillies and a small fracture was discovered. He’ll be shut down for four weeks and could be back with the big league club in September.

It’s obviously bad news all around. For Schwellenbach personally, he was on the way to having an excellent first full season in the big leagues. He debuted with 21 starts last year and posted a 3.35 earned run average in 123 2/3 innings. That secured him a rotation spot for 2025 and he has been even better this year, with a 3.09 ERA in 17 starts. Put together, he has a 3.23 ERA, 25.2% strikeout rate, 4.4% walk rate and 44.1% ground ball rate in 234 1/3 innings.

All that is now on pause, as he’ll be on the shelf for a while. The four-week shutdown period will take him into August. If he’s healthy at that point, he could ramp back up and make a few more starts in September, though a setback could prevent him from returning again this year.

For the team, it’s yet another kick when they’re already down. Atlanta has struggled to get into a good groove this year and has produced disappointing results so far. They have a record of 38-46, which puts them seven games back of a playoff spot and with six teams to leapfrog. That’s partially due to underperformance from some guys on the roster but they also lost Profar to a PED suspension and have seen their rotation get weakened by injuries.

The first domino to fall was Reynaldo López, as he made just one start before requiring arthroscopic shoulder surgery. He’s been on the IL since then and still isn’t near a return. About a month ago, AJ Smith-Shawver required Tommy John surgery, putting him out of commission until well into next year. A couple of weeks back, Chris Sale suffered a rib cage fracture. His timeline is unclear but he has been transferred to the 60-day IL, meaning he can’t return until mid-August at the earliest. Now Schwellenbach is the latest blow.

Prior to the Sale injury, president of baseball operations Alex Anthopoulos tried to strike an optimistic tone and said the club would not be selling, though he did leave the door open a crack by saying they could reevaluate late in July. That reevaluation seems more likely with today’s news. The club still needs to climb in the standings to give the club justification to buy, but that will be hard to do with no López, Sale, Smith-Shawver or Schwellenbach.

For now, the club will proceed with a rotation consisting of Spencer Strider, Grant Holmes, Bryce Elder and Didier Fuentes. To take Schwellenbach’s spot, they could recall someone like Hurston Waldrep, Nathan Wiles or Davis Daniel. Non-roster guys like José Suarez, Ian Anderson and Zach Thompson are all on the minor league injured list.

Going forward, the club presumably has less confidence in its ability to contend with the recent injuries to Sale and Schwellenbach, so the prospect of doing some deadline selling with an eye towards returning to contention in 2026 has surely increased. The deadline is on July 31st this year, so there are still about four weeks to see some more results roll in and have conversations with other clubs.

Photos courtesy of Brett Davis and Orlando Ramirez, Imagn Images

Orioles Designate Matt Bowman For Assignment, Select Corbin Martin

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The Orioles announced today that they have recalled right-hander Yennier Cano and selected the contract of right-hander Corbin Martin. In corresponding moves, they have designated right-hander Matt Bowman for assignment and placed left-hander Keegan Akin on the 15-day injured list, retroactive to July 1st, due to left shoulder inflammation.

Martin, 29, was a top-100 prospect with the Astros and D-backs several years ago. He was one of four players who went from Houston to Arizona in the 2019 Zack Greinke trade, but while he saw MLB time with both the ’Stros and Snakes, he’s never really found his footing. Martin, who was on the mend from Tommy John surgery when he was included in that trade, has pitched 57 2/3 innings in the majors and recorded only a 6.71 ERA. He’s fanned 19% of his opponents against a 13.6% walk rate and been far too susceptible to home runs, yielding an average of 2.50 big flies per nine frames.

The Orioles claimed Martin off waivers from the Brewers last June. (Milwaukee had claimed him from Arizona a couple months earlier.) He was eventually removed from the 40-man roster but now returns after pitching 32 1/3 innings with a 5.29 ERA in Triple-A Norfolk this year. He’s set down 23% of his opponents on strikes against a 10.4% walk rate. It’s not a great set of season-long numbers, but Martin has been doing his best work of late. Dating back to May 30, he’s pitched a dozen innings and held opponents to just one run on three hits and four walks with 11 punchouts. If he gets into a game, it’ll be his first time on a major league mound since 2022.

Bowman, 34, has now been designated for assignment by the Orioles three times since Opening Day. He’s accepted a pair of outright assignments to Norfolk previously. The right-hander has appeared in 19 games for Baltimore this season but pitched to a middling 5.79 earned run average. In 23 1/3 innings, he’s fanned only 15.7% of his opponents. Bowman’s 5.6% walk rate is excellent, but he’s also plunked a pair of batters and served up four home runs (1.54 HR/9).

In parts of seven big league seasons, Bowman has pitched for seven different teams — including four in 2024 alone. He’s compiled 239 1/3 innings in the majors and recorded a collective 4.32 ERA, 18.7% strikeout rate and 8% walk rate. The O’s will trade him or place him on outright waivers within the next five days. If his prior DFAs this year are any indication, there’s a good chance Bowman will clear waivers and agree to head back to Norfolk while he awaits another call to Camden Yards.

Cano was only optioned to Norfolk last week, but he can return in under the 10-day minimum stint for an optional assignment because he’s replacing the injured Akin. The 30-year-old Akin has been an important part of the Orioles’ bullpen this season, pitching 38 innings of 3.32 ERA ball with a 23.3% strikeout rate and an uncharacteristically high 11% walk rate. Entering the season, Akin had just a 7.4% walk rate in more than 300 MLB frames.

Akin has cut back on the free passes lately — none in his past 4 2/3 innings — but Akin was roughed up for three runs (two earned) in an inning of work his last time out. There was no velocity drop or major signal that the left-hander’s shoulder was giving him trouble, but today’s IL placement means he’ll sit through at least the All-Star break as he mends.

Yankees Designate Geoff Hartlieb For Assignment

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The Yankees announced that right-hander Clayton Beeter has been recalled from Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre. Fellow righty Geoff Hartlieb has been designated for assignment in a corresponding move.

The 31-year-old Hartlieb only joined the Yankees yesterday. He pitched one inning, was tagged for three runs in that lone appearance, and will now give way to a fresh arm. It’s not how Hartlieb envisioned his call-up in the Bronx going, particularly not after such a strong performance in Triple-A. He pitched 35 innings for the Yankees’ Scranton/Wilkes-Barre affiliate and logged a 3.34 ERA with a 26.2% strikeout rate and 6.9% walk rate. That success came with some tweaks to his pitch usage, as the Yankees have had Hartlieb throw his slider at the highest rate of his career so far in 2025.

Hartlieb won’t get the chance to rebound from that rough outing — at least not with the Yankees’ big league club. He’ll be traded or placed on waivers within the next five days. He’s been outrighted in the past, so if he goes unclaimed, he could reject an outright assignment to the minors and instead choose free agency.

The Yankees were Hartlieb’s fifth big league club. He’s also pitched with the Pirates, Mets, Rockies and Marlins. The right-hander has logged only 80 1/3 innings in the majors and been tagged for an unsightly 7.62 ERA. Hartlieb carries a much more presentable 4.17 ERA in 261 Triple-A innings.

Twins Place Bailey Ober On IL With Hip Impingement

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The Twins have placed right-hander Bailey Ober on the 15-day injured list with a left hip impingement. Left-hander Kody Funderburk has been recalled to take his active roster spot for now, though Ober was scheduled to start Friday’s game, so the club will need to figure out their rotation plans in the coming days. The club also announced that infielder Jonah Bride, who was designated for assignment last week, has cleared waivers and been outrighted to Triple-A Saint Paul. Phil Miller of the Star Tribune reported the moves prior to the official announcement.

The towering 6’9″ Ober has been a constant in the Twins’ rotation dating back to 2021. He’s been a steady mid-rotation presence along the way, logging 471 1/3 innings with a 3.76 ERA (3.75 SIERA) from 2021-24. The 2025 season looked like more of the same. Ober was trounced for eight runs in his first start of the season but quickly righted the ship. By the end of May, he was sitting on a tidy 3.48 ERA despite that brutal first outing of the year.

The wheels came off completely last month, however. Ober started five games and yielded between four and seven runs in all of them. Opponents connected on an astonishing 14 home runs last month alone — more than half the amount he yielded all season in 2023 (22 homers) or in 2024 (27 homers). The long ball has always been somewhat of an issue for Ober, which isn’t a shock as a right-hander with sub-par fastball velocity, but last month’s sudden spike was alarming nonetheless.

Ober becomes the Twins’ third starter to hit the injured list in the past five weeks, joining ace Pablo López and top prospect Zebby Matthews. They’d already optioned Simeon Woods Richardson, who struggled after opening the season in the fifth spot, but he’s returned amid the recent injuries.

With Ober sidelined for a yet-to-be-determined period, the Twins will go with Joe Ryan, Chris Paddack, recent top prospect David Festa and Woods Richardson in the rotation. Prospects Travis Adams or Andrew Morris could get a look in the rotation moving forward, and Minnesota also claimed righty Connor Gillispie off waivers from the Marlins last week, providing a bit of additional depth.

It’s also possible the Twins will look outside the organization for more depth, as they already did late last month when signing José Ureña to a minor league deal. President of baseball operations Derek Falvey already acknowledged that he’d had some trade talks about adding more pitching in the wake of the Lopez and Matthews injuries, and further health woes could spur more urgency as the reeling Twins look to stay relevant in the AL playoff picture.

Bride, 29, came to the Twins in exchange for cash earlier this season after the Marlins had designated him for assignment. He posted a strong .276/.357/.461 slash and popped 11 homers in 71 games for Miami as recently as 2024, but he went 4-for-40 with a 33.3% strikeout rate in Miami to begin the season and batted only .208/.275/.236 in 80 plate appearances with Minnesota. Bride is a career .221/.311/.313 hitter in parts of four major league seasons but hasn’t had any success at the plate outside last year’s showing. Because Bride has fewer than three years of MLB service and has never been outrighted in the past, he can’t reject in favor of free agency. He’ll head to St. Paul and stick with the organization as a depth piece.

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