Blue Jays Claim Darin Mastroianni, Designate Kenny Wilson
The Blue Jays have claimed outfielder Darin Mastroianni off waivers from the Twins, the club announced via press release. To make room on the 40-man roster, Toronto designated fellow outfielder Kenny Wilson for assignment.
Mastroianni originally came to Minnesota from the Jays via waiver claim in February of 2012, as Mike Berardino of the St. Paul Pioneer Press notes on Twitter. The 28-year-old has not produced much in limited MLB time since,: he possesses a .220/.228/.295 career line, virtually all of which has come with the Twins. Mastroianni is known for his ability to get on base: he has a lifetime .372 OBP at both the Double-A and Triple-A level, having spent parts of four seasons at each.
Wilson, 24, has yet to see time in the bigs or the highest level of the minors. He is off to a slow start at Double-A (.210/.239/.306 in 68 plate appearances) after putting up a .259/.333/.375 line with 16 stolen bases in 242 plate appearances in his first stint at that level last year. Wilson opened the year at the 22nd spot on Baseball America’s list of the team’s prospects. The speedy center fielder is said to have starter upside if he can translate his tools into production.
NL Central Links: Maldonado, Volquez, Walker, Cubs
The Pirates and the Brewers found themselves in the midst of controversy over the weekend as the result of a benches-clearing brawl started by a verbal exchange between Gerrit Cole and Carlos Gomez. However, Martin Maldonado was also involved in the scuffle, landing a punch on Travis Snider, and ESPN’s Buster Olney reports that Maldonado will be suspended for five games and fined $2,500 (Twitter links). Maldonado, who is earning $502K this season, will end up losing a little more than $16K as a result of the suspension and fine, which translates to roughly three percent of his salary. The official announcement of all suspensions resulting from the brawl is expected today, tweets Tom Haudricourt of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel. Here’s more from the NL Central…
- MLB.com’s Anthony Castrovince examines Edinson Volquez‘s strong start with the Pirates and wonders if he is the next successful reclamation project for pitching coach Ray Searage and special assistant to the GM Jim Benedict. Castrovince runs down many of the techniques that Searage and the Pirates have gone through with Volquez to improve his command and mechanics. He also writes that Francisco Liriano played a large role in Volquez signing with Pittsburgh, as Liriano heavily recruited his fellow Dominican to join the Bucs, telling him it was a perfect place to rebuild his career. (In addition to Liriano, both A.J. Burnett and Mark Melancon have experienced tremendous turnarounds upon arrival in Pittsburgh.)
- Travis Sawchik of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review breaks down Neil Walker‘s continually improving approach at the plate, noting his increased contact rates and decreased chase rates over the past few years. Sawchik wonders if Walker’s approach has him on the cusp of emerging as a star-caliber second baseman.
- Former Cubs coach Dave McKay spoke with Gordon Wittenmyer of the Chicago Sun-Times and said that both he and former manager Dale Sveum were surprised by their dismissals after two years, as president Theo Epstein had said from the beginning that the coaching staff wouldn’t be evaluated based on performance. Still, McKay praised the organization and Epstein’s rebuild, stating that he had no hard feelings toward the club and praising them for retaining pitching coach Chris Bosio and catching coach Mike Borzello. McKay, a Phoenix-area resident, caught on as a coach with the Diamondbacks this offseason.
Free Agent Notes: Hanrahan, Carbonell, Penny, Braddock
Free agent reliever Joel Hanrahan has fielded “a few” offers from clubs, tweets Chris Cotillo of MLBDailyDish.com. He is not close to signing, however, adds Cotillo. Hanrahan reportedly drew a large showing to his recent showcase, and looked good as he works to return from Tommy John surgery. Since then we’ve heard that multiple teams are already discussing a contract with him, but the Mets have yet to decide whether they’ll make an offer.
Here are a few more notes on some free agents from around the league…
- Cuban outfielder Daniel Carbonell has been declared a free agent, reports FOX Sports’ Ken Rosenthal (Twitter links). There is very little public information floating around on the 23-year-old outfielder, though ObstructedView.net rounds up some information suggesting that speed is his calling card. Last October, El Diario De Cuba reported that Carbonell and fellow Serie Nacional player Orlando Perez had defected from the island. Carbonell has enough experience to be considered a professional and therefore wouldn’t count against a team’s international bonus pool as long as he signs by July 2 of this year.
- Brad Penny‘s agents at Millennium tell Cotillo that Penny will throw for multiple clubs in Kansas City this week (Twitter link). Penny requested his release from the Royals early in Spring Training after the club told him that he wasn’t likely to make the team. Penny, 35, last appeared in the Majors in 2012 with the Giants and has a 4.26 ERA in 1899 career innings at the big league level.
- Cotillo also reports (via Twitter) that former Brewers left-hander Zach Braddock worked out for the Dodgers yesterday. Baseball America ranked the control-challenged strikeout artist 13th or higher on Milwaukee’s list of Top 30 prospects each year from 2007-09. Braddock has a career 3.80 ERA in the minors and has averaged a whopping 12 strikeouts per nine innings, but he’s also averaged nearly five walks per nine frames. That same profile has held true in the Majors, where he has a 4.41 ERA with 10.4 K/9 and 5.3 BB/9 in 51 innings. Braddock underwent shoulder surgery to repair his left labrum midway through the 2012 season.
Jeff Todd contributed to this post.
Yankees Outright Cesar Cabral
Left-hander Cesar Cabral has cleared waivers and been outrighted to Triple-A by the Yankees, according to the team’s official transactions page. Cabral, who has been outrighted before, will have the option to refuse the assignment and elect free agency if he wishes.
The 25-year-old Cabral, who was designated for assignment on April 18, originally came to the Yankees back in 2011. The Royals selected him fifth in that year’s Rule 5 Draft and promptly traded him to New York for cash considerations. A stress fracture in his elbow caused him to miss most of the 2012 campaign and a good deal of 2013 as well, which is the reason that he has just 4 2/3 innings at the big league level. Within that small sample of Major League experience, Cabral has allowed four runs on seven hits and three walks with eight strikeouts. Most of the damage against him came in his final outing this year, in which he hit three batters without recording an out and was charged with three runs.
Cabral has a pretty solid minor league track record, having turned in a 3.77 ERA with 8.8 K/9 and 3.0 BB/9 in 384 career innings. However, just 10 1/3 of those innings have come at the Triple-A level, and the results (eight earned runs) haven’t matched up with his success at lower levels just yet.
Ryan Roberts Accepts Outright Assignment
Infielder Ryan Roberts has cleared waivers after being designated for assignment and accepted an outright assignment to Triple-A Pawtucket, the Red Sox announced yesterday.
The 33-year-old Roberts collected just two hits and three walks in 22 plate appearances for the Sox after signing a Major League deal with them when Will Middlebrooks went down with an injury. Though he didn’t perform particularly well in that very small sample, Roberts has demonstrated in the past that he has enough pop and speed to post double-digit totals in homers and stolen bases, particularly in his 2011 campaign with the D’Backs when he slashed .249/.321/.427 with 19 homers and 18 steals.
For his career, Roberts owns a .243/.320/.388 batting line with 46 homers and 35 stolen bases. He’s been particularly useful against left-handed pitching, hitting at a .261/.337/.435 clip. Defensive Runs Saved feels that he’s an average defender at third base and has been worth +5 runs in about a season’s worth of innings at second base (1357), while UZR/150 feels he’s a plus defender at each position.
Ryan Rowland-Smith Elects Free Agency
The Diamondbacks announced yesterday that left-hander Ryan Rowland-Smith has cleared waivers after being designated for assignment and elected free agency rather than accept an outright assignment to Triple-A.
The 31-year-old Australian made a return to the Major Leagues this season after a three-year absence, and though he posted a 4.91 ERA in a small 7 1/3 inning sample size, he also struck out nine batters in that time and limited left-handed batters to three singles in 12 plate appearances.
For his career, Rowland-Smith has a 4.57 ERA with 5.6 K/9, 3.4 BB/9 and a 37.5 percent ground-ball rate. He’s worked 47 games as a starter and posted a 4.87 ERA in that time, but in 100 1/3 innings of relief, he’s posted a much better 3.77 ERA with an even better 3.59 FIP, suggesting that he could be a useful arm out of the bullpen.
MLBTR Is Back
MLB Trade Rumors is back! It’s been a trying several days for our website, as our blogging platform was subject to distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks. We tried in vain all day yesterday to get MLBTR back online. Ultimately, we were able to simply move up a planned change in blogging platforms by one day. So, MLBTR is now operational on WordPress, hosted by WP Engine. We appreciate your patience.
DDoS attacks involve sending huge amounts of traffic to websites or groups of websites in hopes of crashing them. It’s not an issue of hacking, as nothing was broken into, but our blogging platform was flooded and knocked offline. It’s a serious attack though, and doesn’t have a quick fix. In this case, the goal of crashing our former blogging platform, TypePad, was apparently to extort money from them. This post from Sarah Perez of TechCrunch has further details. TypePad has been working round-the-clock to restore their websites.
Launching on WordPress one day early means we still have a few minor issues on the site, mainly a gap in our archive from March 13th through April 20th. We’ve filled in all of Monday, April 21st with new posts, however, and will be writing new ones today as usual.
Oscar Taveras Changes Agencies
Cardinals prospect Oscar Taveras has changed agencies yet again, according to a report from Jesse Sanchez of MLB.com (via Twitter). Taveras will now be represented by Dan Lozano and Brian Mejia of MVP Sports Group.
Taveras, 21, has moved between agencies quite a bit for a player who has yet to see his first MLB action. The outfielder has consistently been rated as among the game’s very best prospects over the last few seasons, but injuries and the lack of need at the big league level have kept him in the upper minors. Taveras has produced at every level of the minors, and is off to a .297/.348/.500 start in his second stint at Triple-A (after a shortened season there in 2013).
Twins Still Looking To Improve Bench
The Twins have been active in seeking bench help in the past week or so, acquiring Eduardo Nunez from the Yankees (in exchange for lefty Miguel Sulbaran) and claiming Sam Fuld off waivers from the A’s. It doesn’t sound like the team has any plans to stop actively seeking bench upgrades on the waiver wire, however, reports Mike Berardino of the St. Paul Pioneer Press. Neal spoke with manager Ron Gardenhire, who expressed a continued emphasis on improvements:
“We aren’t finished. We’re going to get better. We’re going to continue to get better. We’re going to keep changing around until we get what we want and get a feel for what we want off the bench. How we can move people around. And we are still working on it.”
As La Velle E. Neal of the Minneapolis Star Tribune pointed out, Darin Mastroianni was an unfortunate roster casualty following the Fuld claim. The Twins had hoped that Jason Bartlett‘s retirement papers would be processed by the time the Fuld claim became official, but the holiday weekend worked against them and they had to designate Mastroianni. The silver lining for them, he adds, is that there will now be a free spot on the 40-man roster, which will make it easier to make an additional move on the waiver wire or trade market.
Based on Berardino’s writing, it seems as if the Twins will give Nunez a test run as their shortstop based on Pedro Florimon‘s offensive woes. Nunez’s poor defense might lead to further moves down the line, however, as he’s graded out very poorly there per Ultimate Zone Rating and Defensive Runs Saved. Gardenhire sounded adamant in insisting that changes should be expected: “We had three years to make adjustments. Now it’s time. Everyone is tired of watching that other stuff. I’m tired of it. You’re tired of it. The fans are tired of it. We see something we like, go get it.”
Mets Notes: Abreu, Payroll, Ike, Duda, Hanrahan
The Mets announced today that they’ve selected the contract of Bobby Abreu, who will join the club as a bench bat and part-time outfielder. New York signed the former Phillies/Yankees slugger to a minor league deal after Philadelphia released him near the end of Spring Training. Abreu slashed .395/.489/.579 with a homer, four doubles and a 7-to-5 K:BB ratio for the Mets’ Triple-A affiliate prior to his promotion. Here’s more on the Amazins…
- ESPNNewYork.com’s Adam Rubin writes that following the departure of Ike Davis in a trade to the Pirates, the Mets’ payroll now sits at an estimated $86.1MM. Rubin’s estimate is based on his discussions with a team official that estimate $4-4.5MM for paying players that are replacing those who are injured (e.g. Kirk Nieuwenhuis and Juan Lagares are both collecting an MLB paycheck at the moment). In a separate piece, Rubin also looks at the rarity of mid-April trades for the Mets and runs own the history of such transactions.
- With Davis out the door, Newsday’s David Lennon opines that Lucas Duda needs to become the cleanup hitter the Mets are looking for instead of being sheltered lower in the lineup. Curtis Granderson, signed for four years and $60MM to fill a run-producing role, was frank with Lennon in stating, “I haven’t given [the fans] much to cheer about.”
- Mike Puma of the New York Post reports that the Mets have not yet decided whether or not they will make a contract offer to free agent closer Joel Hanrahan (Twitter link). Hanrahan reportedly looked very impressive in a showcase last week, and the Mets were one of about 20 teams that had scouts on hand to watch him throw.