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The Opener: Reynolds, Woo, MLBTR Chat

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As the 2024 regular season approaches its midpoint, here are three things we’ll be keeping an eye on around the baseball world throughout the day today:

1. Reynolds nearing season-best streak:

Bryan Reynolds has been putting up fantastic numbers in recent weeks. Since the calendar flipped to June, the switch-hitter has slashed .357/.419/.643 and collected a hit in 21 straight games. While the Pirates have largely failed to take advantage of Reynolds’s hot streak, with a record of just 11-10 in June, the outfielder nonetheless enters play today on the cusp of establishing the longest hitting streak of the 2024 campaign so far, beating out Yankees shortstop Anthony Volpe, whose streak last month ended at 21 games. Reynolds and the Pirates will take on the Reds in Cincinnati at 7:10pm local time this evening. Cincinnati will send righty Hunter Greene (3.35 ERA) to the mound to take on Pittsburgh righty Mitch Keller (3.11 ERA).

2. Woo to undergo MRI:

It’s been a season fraught with injury concerns for young Mariners right-hander Bryan Woo, and that continued yesterday when he exited his start against the Rays yesterday after throwing just 60 pitches due to what the club has termed right hamstring tightness. As noted by MLB.com’s Injury Tracker, Woo is set to undergo an MRI to determine the severity of the issue before the club determines whether or not he’ll require a trip to the IL.

The 24-year-old Woo has dominated to the tune of a 1.77 ERA and 2.71 FIP in 40 2/3 innings of work this year but has been limited to just eight starts due to elbow inflammation and tightness in his forearm. Right-hander Emerson Hancock appears to be the most likely candidate to step into the rotation in Seattle if Woo ends up missing time. The former sixth-overall pick made his big league debut last year and struggled across eight starts in the majors earlier this year with a 4.79 ERA and 5.67 FIP in 41 1/3 innings of work.

3. MLBTR Chat today:

It’s been an eventful week around the majors. One of the top hitting prospects in baseball was suspended for nearly all of the 2024 season’s remainder. The Yankees added some a corner infield bat. With just over a month to go until the July 30 trade deadline, two notable lefties who might’ve otherwise been available went down with injuries. If you have any questions about the upcoming deadline or your team’s direction with July just over the horizon, MLBTR’s Steve Adams will host a live chat with readers today at 1pm CT. You can click here to ask a question in advance, and that same link will allow you to join in on the chat once it begins or read the transcript after it is completed.

Kris Bubic Moving To Bullpen On Rehab Stint

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Royals left-hander Kris Bubic is closing in on his first major league work since undergoing Tommy John surgery last April. The Stanford product began a rehab assignment last month and has made seven starts between Double-A and Triple-A.

While Bubic has worked from the rotation in the minors thus far, that won’t be his role with the big league club. General manager J.J. Picollo tells MLB.com’s Anne Rogers that the Royals are moving Bubic to the bullpen for now (X link). He has a week and a half left on his rehab assignment, so he’ll begin working in relief at Triple-A Omaha.

The assignment probably doesn’t come as a shock. While the 6’3″ southpaw has been a starter for essentially his entire career, Kansas City already has a defined front five. Cole Ragans, Seth Lugo, Brady Singer, Michael Wacha and Alec Marsh have taken all but four of the team’s starts this season. Ragans, Lugo and Singer have been varying degrees of excellent. Wacha is having his typically solid year, turning in a 4.07 ERA with plus control. K.C. signed him to fill that role as an innings eater and certainly isn’t bumping him from the rotation while he’s pitching this effectively.

Marsh is arguably the one question mark of the group. The second-year righty overcame a 15.9% strikeout rate to turn in a 2.70 ERA during the first month of the season. He dramatically increased the whiffs and ran a 3.86 ERA behind a 27.4% strikeout percentage in May. The wheels have fallen off over the past couple weeks, though. Marsh’s strikeout rate has normalized in between the levels of his first two months and he has allowed 6.66 earned runs per nine in June. He dominated the Yankees for seven scoreless innings on June 13 but has allowed at least three runs in the other six of his most recent seven starts.

If the Royals wanted to push Bubic back into the rotation, Marsh was the only one who might’ve been bumped. His overall body of work is still solid — a 4.40 ERA with average strikeout and walk rates — so the Royals will push Bubic to the bullpen instead.

Productive as their starting five has been, Kansas City’s relief group has been a weakness. They entered play Monday ranked 22nd in the majors with a 4.43 earned run average. No bullpen has recorded fewer strikeouts (17.5%) or missed fewer bats on a per-pitch basis (8.9% swinging strike rate). Picollo has already made clear the front office will try to add some firepower via trade.

Bubic isn’t the kind of power arm the front office has been seeking. His fastball sits in the low-90s and he leans on a low-80s changeup, not a power breaking ball, as his go-to secondary pitch. Yet Bubic had flashed bat-missing upside just before his elbow gave out. He ran a massive 14.7% swinging strike rate and punched out 23.5% of opposing hitters over his first three starts in 2023. Bubic’s elbow never gave him a chance to prove he could sustain that extra level.

The early returns on his rehab stint have been promising. Bubic owns a 2.14 ERA in 21 innings with Omaha, where he has fanned nearly 26% of opposing hitters.

Angels Outright José Suarez

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The Angels announced that left-hander José Suarez has been sent outright to Triple-A Salt Lake. That indicates he was passed through waivers unclaimed after being designated for assignment a week ago.

Suarez, 26, has more than three years of major league service time. That gives him the right to reject this outright assignment and elect free agency. However, since he has less than five years of service, choosing the open market would mean forfeiting what remains of his salary.

He qualified for arbitration for the first time after last season and eventually lost a hearing against the club. He is making $925K instead of the $1.3MM that his side filed for. It seems fair to presume he will report to Salt Lake as opposed to walking away from the roughly half a million still coming his way.

That will give the Halos a bit of non-roster pitching depth with some past success. The lefty had good results working as a swingman for the Angels over the 2021 and 2022 seasons. Between the two campaigns, he made 45 appearances, including 34 starts. He tossed 207 1/3 innings in that time, allowing 3.86 earned runs per nine. His 21.5% strikeout rate, 7.9% walk rate and 44.5% ground ball rate were all around league average.

Since then, the results have taken a steep nosedive. He spent much of 2023 on the injured list due to a shoulder strain, posting an 8.29 ERA in 33 2/3 innings. This year, he was healthy and moved to the bullpen, but couldn’t get his numbers in better shape. He threw 35 1/3 innings with an 8.15 ERA before getting bumped off the roster last week. Since he’s out of options, the Angels had to remove him from the 40-man to get him off the active roster.

It’s unclear if the Angels want him to continue working out of the bullpen or get stretched out to start. There would be an argument for the latter, with the club likely to end up making rotation moves in the weeks to come. With a record of 30-46, they are one of the few clubs clearly in seller position as the trade deadline approaches.

Since Suarez was designated for assignment, the rotation already took two big hits with Patrick Sandoval hitting the injured list with a UCL injury and José Soriano due to an abdominal infection. Tyler Anderson and Griffin Canning are logical trade candidates since both are slated for free agency after 2025. Zach Plesac has been inserted into the rotation to cover for those two but has an 8.68 ERA through two starts.

Chase Silseth is currently on a rehab assignment and will be back in the mix soon enough. Reid Detmers could be recalled from his optional assignment, as could Davis Daniel or Kenny Rosenberg. But even with those guys potentially coming back, it’s possible that Suarez may have a role to play on the club down the stretch.

Dodgers Temporarily Shut Down Clayton Kershaw With Shoulder Soreness

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The Dodgers are halting Clayton Kershaw’s rehab process. Manager Dave Roberts told reporters that L.A. is shutting down the future Hall of Famer after he reported lingering soreness in his surgically repaired shoulder (link via Bill Plunkett of the Orange County Register).

Roberts downplayed any significant alarm, noting that a recent MRI revealed “no new incidents.” Rather, it seems the team is chalking it up as residual soreness. That’s not entirely unexpected as Kershaw builds into game shape after undergoing the procedure to repair the gleno-humeral ligaments and capsule in his throwing shoulder last November.

It seems Kershaw will be shut down entirely for at least a week. Roberts left open a fairly broad timetable, indicating the 10-time All-Star will hold off until the soreness completely subsides. That’s an understandable approach that might not delay Kershaw for too much longer. It introduces some amount of uncertainty to his timeline, though.

The 36-year-old had looked to be on track for a return around the All-Star Break. Kershaw started a rehab stint for Low-A Rancho Cucamonga last Wednesday. He tossed 36 pitches, 26 of them strikes, over three innings of one-run ball in his first game action of the season. Kershaw’s second start had been scheduled for tomorrow but things are on hold after he felt the discomfort in the days coming out of his first appearance.

Los Angeles recently placed Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Walker Buehler on the 15-day injured list. That pushed Landon Knack into the starting five behind Tyler Glasnow, Bobby Miller, Gavin Stone and James Paxton. Knack was recalled to rejoin the MLB staff last Friday. He tossed five scoreless frames against the Angels. Roberts said this evening that the rookie righty will remain in the starting five for the moment and is slated to take the ball for this weekend’s series in San Francisco (relayed on X by David Vassegh of AM 570 LA Sports).

Latest On Rockies’ Deadline Outlook

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The Rockies enter this year’s trade deadline season in a familiar place. They’re sitting at the bottom of the NL West, 20.5 games out of first place and even a whopping nine games out of fourth place. Their 27-51 record has dipped behind the Marlins for the worst in the National League. Only the White Sox (21-58) have a worse record among MLB teams. They’re staring up at a 12-game deficit in the Wild Card race. Colorado isn’t mathematically eliminated from the postseason yet, of course, but the final nail on any faint playoff aspirations they may have harbored has long since been driven into the coffin.

Normally, this would set up a team to consider itself a pure seller at the deadline. The Rockies surely view themselves in that light to an extent, but not to the same extent as onlookers might expect. Reports more than a month ago indicated the team was quite unlikely to trade third baseman Ryan McMahon, for instance, and Patrick Saunders of the Denver Post doubles down on that sentiment in his latest look at the Rockies and the trade deadline, writing that there’s “nearly zero” chance McMahon will move. Specifically, he lists McMahon as a favorite of owner Dick Monfort, suggesting that even if GM Bill Schmidt and his crew wanted to field offers on the potential All-Star infielder, a deal wouldn’t necessarily be in the cards.

On a similar note, Jon Morosi of MLB Network reports that the Rockies have yet to hold any trade discussions surrounding right-hander Cal Quantrill. The team’s decision to buy low on the righty after the Guardians designated him for assignment last November — effectively a non-tender — has paid off in spades. Quantrill is sporting a 3.50 ERA in 90 innings out of manager Bud Black’s rotation. His 17% strikeout rate and 9% walk rate are both worse than average, but Quantrill’s 46.9% grounder rate is a career-best mark. His move to Coors Field also hasn’t dampened his characteristic knack for keeping the ball in the yard; Quantrill’s 0.90 HR/9 mark is not only better than the 1.06 mark he carried into the season — it’s a career-best rate for the former No. 8 overall draft pick.

Quantrill’s success is one of the best developments for the Rox this season, but he’s also not far from free agency. The righty is being paid $6.55MM in 2024 and has just one year of team control remaining. He could command around $10MM in arbitration this winter and would be a free agent following the 2025 season. Given his 2024 rebound, dwindling club control and mounting price tag, that would make him a logical trade candidate for most clubs.

The Rockies, however, have a history of extending just this sort of veteran. They’ve done so with Daniel Bard, C.J. Cron and Elias Diaz when all had previously stood as logical deadline trade candidates. Colorado has been particularly aggressive in extending pitchers, locking up Kyle Freeland, Antonio Senzatela and German Marquez to long-term deals. Of those three starting pitcher extensions, only the Marquez pact worked out in their favor. The Rockies weren’t successful in completing an extension with Jon Gray but still held onto him at the deadline three years ago (despite trade interest) in hopes of working out a long-term deal.

While there’s no firm word yet that the Rockies have approached or plan to approach Quantrill about an extension, it’s a logical conclusion to draw based both on their operating history and the lack of trade talks to date. Add in that Quantrill has spoken previously about being motivated by pitching at Coors Field, and it’s even easier to see Rockies brass being warm to the idea.

Indeed, Saunders writes in that same weekend piece that both Quantrill and teammate Austin Gomber could be candidates for such a deal. Gomber, like Quantrill, is enjoying a rebound campaign and is arbitration-eligible through the 2025 season. The 30-year-old southpaw has a spottier track record and lesser results but also a lower price tag (both on a contract and in a trade) as a result. It bears emphasizing that there’s no firm indication yet that the Rockies will steadfastly refuse to listen to offers on either pitcher, but history tells us it’s less than likely.

All of that raises the question as to which players the Rockies might actually consider moving. Saunders notes that one of Elias Diaz or Jacob Stallings is a fair bet to change hands, as is the case with reliever Jalen Beeks and outfielder Jake Cave. Diaz, Stallings and Beeks can become free agents this winter. Cave is controlled through 2025.

The two veteran catchers are having strong years at the plate — Diaz is hitting .303/.352/.439 (107 wRC+), Stallings is at .293/.371/.466 (123 wRC+) — though Diaz is currently on the shelf with a hamstring injury. Diaz is earning $6MM to Stallings’ $1.5MM. Stallings once graded as one of the game’s premier defensive catchers, but his glovework has deteriorated a bit in recent years and it’s actually Diaz who draws more favorable marks at this point.

Beeks, 30, has stepped up as the de facto closer in Black’s bullpen after much of the relief corps has struggled at large. He’s pitched to a 3.76 ERA and saved six games in 38 1/3 innings but has done so with a subpar strikeout and walk rates (18.8% and 10%, respectively). Beeks has a $1.675MM salary that’s plenty affordable and a nice track record outside of last year’s anomalous 5.95 ERA, but it’s unlikely other clubs would look at him as an option for the same type of high-leverage role he’s currently holding down for the Rockies. The 31-year-old Cave, meanwhile, is a career backup who’s hitting .258/.312/.336 (68 wRC+). He can play all three outfield spots and first base, but he hasn’t turned in even an average offensive season since 2019 with the Twins. It’s doubtful he’d fetch much in a swap, but Beeks could draw a marginal prospect from a club seeking left-handed bullpen help.

Nationals Select Harold Ramírez

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The Nationals announced on Monday that they’ve selected outfielder/designated hitter Harold Ramírez. Washington optioned corner infielder Trey Lipscomb to Triple-A Rochester to clear a spot on the active roster. The Nats have had a vacancy on the 40-man for weeks, so they didn’t need to make a move in that regard.

Ramírez inked a minor league deal with Washington a couple weeks ago. The Rays had somewhat surprisingly released him after a slow start to the season. The 29-year-old had hit .268/.284/.305 over 48 games. While the batting average was solid, he only hit one homer and drew walks in fewer than 2% of his plate appearances. Between the diminished offense and Ramírez’s limited defensive profile, he was squeezed off the Tampa Bay roster.

All 29 other teams passed on a chance to add Ramírez for the $2MM+ which remained on his $3.8MM arbitration salary. Once he cleared waivers, the Rays were left on the hook for that money (minus the prorated portion of the $740K league minimum for any time he spent on another team’s MLB roster). While he didn’t immediately secure a big league spot, Ramírez only needed seven games in Rochester to play his way back to the big leagues. He tattooed Triple-A pitching, picking up nine hits and drawing six walks over 31 trips to the dish.

The Nationals have left-handed hitting Jesse Winker and Eddie Rosario as their respective starters at designated hitter and in left field. Ramírez could ostensibly take some reps against left-handed pitching at either spot. The righty-swinging Ramírez has mashed southpaws at a .361/.393/.483 clip in 303 plate appearances since the start of the 2022 season. He owns a more pedestrian .274/.314/.380 line against right-handed arms over that stretch.

Ramírez has more than five years of MLB service time, so the Nats can’t send him back to the minors without his consent. Washington can keep him around through the 2025 season via arbitration, though he will need to hit better than he did early in the year with Tampa Bay to avoid being non-tendered.

Andrew Golden of the Washington Post first reported (on X) that Ramírez was joining the Nats.

Padres Place Fernando Tatis Jr. On Injured List

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Monday marked a busy day on the transaction front for the Padres. San Diego placed star right fielder Fernando Tatis Jr. on the 10-day injured list, retroactive to June 22, with a right femoral stress reaction. The Friars also optioned outfielder José Azocar and right-hander Jhony Brito to Triple-A El Paso. Filling the three spots on the active roster: outfielder Bryce Johnson, infielder Eguy Rosario and right-hander Adam Mazur. Johnson was not on the 40-man roster, but the Friars have had a vacancy for weeks.

The Tatis injury is the biggest development. Manager Mike Shildt indicated that Tatis could play through the issue but that it wouldn’t fully heal without rest (X link via Annie Heilbrunn of the San Diego Union-Tribune). The team isn’t providing a specific return timetable, though they expect it to be longer than the minimal 10 days. It’s not out of the question that Tatis is sidelined through the All-Star Break.

Any absence is a major blow to the San Diego lineup. Tatis has been one of the top outfielders in the National League this year. He’s hitting .279/.354/.468 with 14 home runs across 345 plate appearances. Tatis has trimmed his strikeout rate to a career-low 20.6% clip while making hard contact on a massive 53.4% of batted balls. There’s no easy way to replace that kind of production.

It seems the Pads could roll with a David Peralta/Johnson platoon in right field for the time being. The lefty-swinging Peralta is only hitting .204/.306/.241 over 25 games since being called up last month. Johnson, a switch-hitter, has yet to play in the majors this season. San Diego signed the 28-year-old to a minor league deal in January. The former Giant has reached base at a massive .430 clip over 259 plate appearances with El Paso. Johnson is hitting .301 while drawing walks more than 15% of the time. He has also swiped 18 bases in 20 attempts. Johnson is in the lineup against Patrick Corbin this evening.

Mazur returns to the big leagues just three days after being optioned. (He didn’t need to wait the minimal 15 days because he is technically being recalled to replace the injured Tatis.) In actuality, he’s more directly a replacement for Yu Darvish. San Diego anticipated the right-hander returning from the injured list tomorrow. However, Heilbrunn tweets that Darvish is battling some inflammation in his throwing elbow. While Shildt downplayed the long-term concern, he won’t be ready for MLB action tomorrow.

Darvish has been out since May 30 with a strained left groin. The late revelation of a new elbow concern is suboptimal, though it doesn’t seem the Padres are especially alarmed at this point. The injury will force San Diego to turn back to the 23-year-old Mazur for his fifth big league start. The former second-round pick has allowed 14 runs over his first 17 1/3 innings. Mazur has walked more than 19% of batters faced, a bizarre issue for a pitcher who has shown pristine control in his minor league career.

Jeff Sanders of the San Diego Union-Tribune observed (on X) that Johnson was in the clubhouse prior to the team announcement.

Braves’ Ray Kerr To Undergo Tommy John Surgery

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Braves left-hander Ray Kerr will need to undergo Tommy John surgery, manager Brian Sntiker told reporters this evening (video on X via Bally Sports South). Atlanta had optioned the hard-throwing southpaw to Triple-A Gwinnett on June 15. The Braves rescinded that option this evening and placed him on the MLB injured list with the UCL issue.

Kerr will spend the rest of the year on the injured list. (The small consolation is that he’ll be paid at the prorated $740K MLB minimum rate because the injury evidently occurred before he was sent down.) Atlanta can move him to the 60-day injured list whenever they need to open a spot on the 40-man roster. They’ll either need to reinstate him onto the 40-man or put him on waivers at the start of next offseason.

The latter outcome would be particularly frustrating, but it’s possible the Braves don’t want to carry Kerr on their 40-man roster all winter. He’ll certainly be out into the second half of next year and could miss the entire ’25 campaign.

Atlanta liked Kerr enough to eat $4MM of Matt Carpenter’s $5.5MM salary in a trade with the Padres last offseason. The Braves immediately designated Carpenter for assignment and released him, so the trade was entirely about “purchasing” Kerr’s contractual rights. Atlanta even dabbled with moving Kerr to the rotation, giving him a pair of starts in late May.

Those outings didn’t go particularly well, as the 29-year-old allowed seven runs across 7 1/3 innings from the rotation. Kerr had more success in his typical bullpen role, tossing 14 2/3 innings of six-run ball. He punched out 27 hitters while issuing seven walks overall. Kerr is up to 54 1/3 frames of 5.30 ERA ball over parts of three seasons in the big leagues. He likely wouldn’t reach arbitration until the 2027 season, so the Braves could keep him around at little financial cost if they’re willing to carry him on the roster.

Giants Designate Trenton Brooks For Assignment, Select Raymond Burgos

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The Giants announced that they have selected the contract of left-hander Raymond Burgos. To open spots on both the active and 40-man rosters, first baseman Trenton Brooks has been designated for assignment.

Brooks, 28, was selected to the roster just under a month ago. He had spent close to a decade in the minors and had generally hit well over the years, including producing a .308/.426/.462 line in Triple-A prior to his call-up this year.

Unfortunately, he hasn’t been able to bring any of that production up to the majors with him. He has only received 29 plate appearances since getting added to the roster May 28, hitting .120/.241/.120 in that time. His 13.8% walk rate and 20.7% strikeout rate are both solid but he didn’t hit the ball with much authority, leading to a .158 batting average on balls in play and no extra base hits. That performance got him bumped off the roster and the Giants will now have a week to trade him or pass him through waivers.

Taking his roster spot is Burgos, a 25-year-old left-hander. Originally drafted by Cleveland, he never cracked the big leagues with that team and hit free agency after 2022, which led to minor league deals with the Giants in each of the past two offseasons.

He has thrown 22 Triple-A innings over nine appearances this year, only allowing 1.64 earned runs per nine frames. He won’t be able to sustain a 100% strand rate nor a .245 BABIP, but his 27.4% strikeout rate, 2.4% walk rate and 53.6% ground ball rate are all strong. He’ll give the Giants a multi-inning option out of the bullpen as they try to cobble a pitching staff together. With each of Blake Snell, Kyle Harrison, Keaton Winn, Robbie Ray, Alex Cobb and Tristan Beck on the injured list, the rotation is down to Logan Webb and Jordan Hicks at the moment.

Royals Option Nelson Velázquez

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The Royals announced a series of roster moves today. Infielder Michael Massey was reinstated from the injured list and the club selected the contract of infielder CJ Alexander. In corresponding moves, the club placed infielder/outfielder Adam Frazier on the 10-day injured list due to a right thumb strain and optioned outfielder Nelson Velázquez to Triple-A Omaha. To open a 40-man spot for Alexander, left-hander Jake Brentz was designated for assignment.

Velázquez, now 25, was acquired from the Cubs in a deadline trade last year with reliever José Cuas going the other way. It seemed like that deal was going to work out brilliantly for the Royals, as Velázquez hit 14 home runs in 40 games after the deal last year.

That seemed to set him up to play a prominent role in Kansas City going forward but it hasn’t played out that way. He has added eight more home runs this year but is slashing just .200/.274/.366 overall. Part of that could be his .237 batting average on balls in play but he’s also not squaring it up like last year. He had a 21.4% barrel rate in 2023 but that figure is down to 8.8% this year. His average exit velocity has dropped by almost three miles per hour. His hard hit rate is down more than ten points and his infield fly ball rate has more than doubled.

The Royals have been good overall this year, currently at 42-35 and just half a game outside of a playoff spot. However, their outfield has been their weakest link, something that MLBTR’s Steve Adams looked at last month. Velázquez is a poor fielder and doesn’t provide value on the basepaths, so the drop-off at the plate has made him a big drawback on the roster this year.

He’ll head to Omaha to try to get things back on track for now, though this move could also have implications for him down the line. He came into this season with his service time count at one year and 13 days, meaning he would have finished the campaign at 2.013 if he had stayed up for the entirety. If this assignment lingers for more than a few weeks, it will push back his trajectory to free agency and/or arbitration. Coincidentally, Cuas also struggled with his new club and was designated for assignment by the Cubs, getting claimed off waivers by the Blue Jays over the weekend.

As for Alexander, he gets to the majors just before his 28th birthday, which is coming up in July. A 20th-round pick of Atlanta in 2018, he came to the Royals via the 2022 trade that also sent Drew Waters to Kansas City. He is hitting .323/.369/.555 in Triple-A this year, which is at least partially inflated by a .400 batting average on balls in play, but is impressive nonetheless.

He has played all four corner spots this year, but more third base than anywhere else. He is in the lineup at the hot corner tonight with Maikel Garcia having been moved over to second base and Massey in the designated hitter slot. Massey will stick in the DH spot for now, per Anne Rogers of MLB.com on X. He landed on the IL last month due to a low back ligament sprain and says he feels good enough to swing a bat but not take the field. With Massey and Frazier both unable to play second, perhaps Garcia will get regular time there with Alexander at third, though Garcia could also go back to the hot corner with Nick Loftin and Garrett Hampson taking some time at the keystone.

To get Alexander onto the 40-man, Brentz has been bumped off. The 29-year-old lefty had an encouraging major league debut back in 2021, making 72 appearances with a 3.66 earned run average. His 13.3% walk rate was quite high but he struck out 27.3% of batters faced and kept 49% of balls in play on the ground.

Unfortunately, he’s had a challenging time since then. He landed on the injured list early in 2022 and ultimately required Tommy John surgery that summer. He was non-tendered at the end of that season and re-signed on a two-year deal. He started a rehab assignment in August of 2023 but was shut down with a lat strain, unable to return to the big league club.

Here in 2024, he suffered a Grade 2 left hamstring strain in the middle of March, putting him back on the IL to start the season. He started a rehab assignment about a month later and was optioned to Omaha when reinstated off the IL.

The results have been abysmal thus far, as he has a 12.71 ERA through 17 innings on the farm this year. He has struck out 15 opponents but given out 30 walks, hit nine batters with pitches and thrown two wild pitches as well.

Some rust after so much missed time is understandable but the Royals clearly felt this was too much. They will now have a week to trade Brentz or pass him through waivers. He still has a full slate of options and could perhaps appeal to a club that believes in the stuff and has enough patience to let him get back on track.

If he were to pass through waivers unclaimed, he has more than three years of service time and can therefore elect free agency instead of accepting an outright assignment. However, since he has less than five years of service time, doing so would mean forfeiting what remains of his salary. As part of that aforementioned two-year deal he signed with the Royals, he is making $1.05MM this year with more than half a million left to be paid out. He presumably wouldn’t want to walk away from that money and would likely accept an outright assignment if no other club wants to grab him off waivers.

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