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The Rotation Trade Market Takes Two More Hits

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The past few days haven't been good for teams looking to acquire controllable starting pitching. On Friday, Angels southpaw Patrick Sandoval came out of his start shaking his arm. The Halos put him on the 15-day injured list the next day with an elbow strain. One day later, the Marlins announced that Jesús Luzardo was being shut down with a lumbar stress reaction in his back. Miami almost immediately put him on the 60-day injured list -- ruling him out into August.

Sandoval hasn't officially been ruled out beyond the early part of July, but it's hard to imagine he's looking at a minimal IL stint. Within 48 hours, two of the most talented controllable starting pitchers who could've plausibly been available instead very likely came off the trade market. (Players can still be traded while on the injured list, but it'd be such a sell-low on either pitcher that Sandoval and Luzardo would almost certainly stay put.)

Starting pitching injuries have been an unfortunate storyline throughout the season. Almost every team has been impacted, leaving all but a handful of contenders looking for rotation help over the next five weeks. Barring injuries of their own, the Mariners, Phillies and perhaps Yankees could feel great about the strength of their rotation. Everyone else has at least one or two points on which they could upgrade. Milwaukee, Houston, Baltimore, Atlanta, San Diego, Arizona and St. Louis could go into deadline season viewing the rotation as their top priority.

There aren't enough healthy starters to go around. Teams like the D-Backs and Reds came up empty in rotation pursuits at the '23 trade deadline. That'll be the case for a handful of teams yet again, particularly with two more arms more or less off the board. The White Sox are even more firmly positioned to dominate the market for controllable starting pitching, while the dwindling supply could provide an opportunity for a team like the Rockies or Rays to get good value for a mid-rotation type.

There are a handful of impending free agents who could change hands -- Jack Flaherty, Yusei Kikuchi and Luis Severino among them. Flaherty looks to have pulled to the top of the rental starter group. The supply of starters under control beyond the 2024 campaign is dwindling, though. Let's take stock of that market:

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Injury Notes: Luplow, Brown, Darvish

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Outfielder Jordan Luplow, who signed a minor league deal with the Phillies in March, is done for the year with a right knee ACL tear. The account @Kram207 was among those to relay the info on X.

Luplow has mostly been a small-side platoon guy in his career, as the right-handed hitter has a line of .227/.338/.495 against lefties over several seasons. This year, he had stepped to the plate 254 times at the Triple-A level with a line of .255/.343/.450. His splits were closer to even with the IronPigs, though in a small sample of 184 plate appearances against righties and 70 against lefties.

Perhaps there would have been a path to playing time in the Philadelphia outfield. Johan Rojas struggled enough to get optioned down to the minors. Brandon Marsh and David Dahl are lefties with notable platoon splits. The right-handed counterparts in their platoons are Whit Merrifield and Cristian Pache, who are both struggling.

With this season-ending injury for Luplow, that won’t be an option for the Phils to even consider anymore. Perhaps Edmundo Sosa will be a factor on the grass, since he has a bit of experience out there and played well while Trea Turner was on the IL. The Phils don’t have a lot of holes heading into the July 30 trade deadline but adding an intriguing righty bat to the bench could be one target, especially with Luplow no longer there as a depth option.

Some other notable injury updates from around baseball…

  • The Cubs placed right-hander Ben Brown on the injured list a couple of weeks ago with a neck strain, though subsequent reporting provided the more ominous-sounding diagnosis of a stress reaction in his neck. The timeline was and is murky, but Brown was able to throw from 90 feet recently, per Meghan Montemurro of the Chicago Tribune. Brown says that he was told at the time of his diagnosis that he’s already through the worst of his ailment. Montemurro describes the prognosis as a “two- to three-month burnout period,” with the first month being the worst. Brown and Jordan Wicks hit the IL within a week of each other, thinning the Cubs rotation and forcing Kyle Hendricks back into a starting role. The club is 37-41 but that still has them two games out of a playoff spot in the weak NL race. The club will try to ramp Brown up from here as long as there are no symptoms and hopefully get him back into the mix as his body allows. He has a 3.58 ERA on the year through 55 1/3 innings.
  • The Padres are another club in that NL race with some rotation injuries but Yu Darvish will be back tomorrow, with AJ Cassavell of MLB.com relaying the word from manager Mike Shildt on X. Darvish had made 11 starts with a 3.20 ERA before landing on the IL with a left groin strain. He and Joe Musgrove landed on the shelf at the same time, forcing the club to use less experienced hurlers like Randy Vásquez and Adam Mazur. With Mazur posting an ERA of 7.10 in his first four starts and getting optioned recently, the return of Darvish should give the San Diego rotation a boost. The Friars are 41-41 and currently holding the final Wild Card spot in the National League, but there are seven clubs within three games of them.

Twins Outright Jay Jackson

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June 24: Jackson passed through waivers unclaimed and has been assigned outright to Triple-A St. Paul, per the team’s transaction log at MLB.com. As previously noted, he’ll have the right to reject that assignment but is extremely unlikely to do so, as that would require forfeiting the remaining $685K on this year’s salary and the $200K buyout on next year’s $3MM club option.

June 20: The Twins are designating reliever Jay Jackson for assignment, manager Rocco Baldelli told the team’s beat after today’s loss to the Rays (relayed on X by Bobby Nightengale of the Minneapolis Star-Tribune). Darren Wolfson of SKOR North reports (on X) that Minnesota will recall southpaw Kody Funderburk from Triple-A St. Paul to step into the bullpen. Minnesota’s 40-man roster count drops to 39.

It’s the second time this season that Minnesota has taken Jackson off the roster. The Twins designated him for assignment in May and successfully ran him through outright waivers. The righty accepted his assignment to St. Paul and pitched his way back to the big leagues a couple weeks later. Jackson had only made a trio of appearances in Triple-A, working three innings of one-run ball.

He has pitched 20 times for Minnesota at the big league level. Despite decent strikeout and walk numbers, he has had a tough time keeping runs off the board. That continued this afternoon. Jackson allowed three runs on homers by Jose Siri and Yandy Díaz, stretching a one-run deficit into a 6-2 gap. Minnesota scored four in the bottom of the ninth to tie it but lost in the tenth inning.

The longball has been Jackson’s biggest concern. He’s up to seven homers surrendered across 26 1/3 innings. That’s the biggest reason he has been unable to strand many baserunners. After today’s outing, he carries a 7.52 earned run average. That’s a sharp downturn from the excellent 2.12 ERA he posted in 29 2/3 frames for the Blue Jays a year ago. Jackson’s strikeout and walk numbers are essentially unchanged from his productive stint in Toronto, but his batted ball results have pushed him off the roster twice.

It is likely that Minnesota will place the 36-year-old on waivers again in the next few days. Jackson could decline an outright assignment if he goes unclaimed, though doing so would require forfeiting what remains of this year’s $1.3MM salary and the $200K buyout on next year’s $3MM club option. He could wind up back in St. Paul as a result.

Astros Notes: France, Bloss, Caratini, Graveman

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Rotation depth has been an issue for the Astros throughout the season, and they’re still getting unwelcome updates on that front. General manager Dana Brown said yesterday in an appearance on SportsTalk 790 AM that righty J.P. France, who’s on the minor league injured list due to a shoulder injury, had a recent setback after building up to long-tossing (X link via Brian McTaggart of MLB.com). There’s presently no timetable for France’s return to the mound.

The 29-year-old France was an out-of-the-blue rotation savior in Houston for much of the 2023 season. He started 23 games for the ’Stros, posted a sharp 3.83 ERA, and wound up finishing fourth on the team in innings pitched (136 1/3) as Houston navigated several injuries. France appeared to fade down the stretch, however, yielding five or more runs in three of his final six starts — including a 10-run drubbing at the hands of the Red Sox in late August. He also turned in an ERA north of 7.00 in his first five starts of the current season, bringing his overall ERA in his past 11 big league starts to 7.71.

That rocky stretch notwithstanding, the ongoing injury trouble for France is a notable hit to Houston’s rotation depth. He was quite strong through his first 17 starts last season, and for a club that entered the year with Justin Verlander, Luis Garcia and Lance McCullers Jr. all on the injured list, France represented an important fifth or sixth option on the staff. Instead, he’s been limited to just 29 innings between the majors and minors combined, and it’s not clear when or whether he’ll pitch his way back into the team’s plans.

There’s better news on right-hander Jake Bloss, who exited his major league debut this weekend after 3 2/3 innings and was subsequently placed on the injured list with discomfort in his right shoulder. Manager Joe Espada said yesterday in his pregame media session that an MRI revealed only inflammation in the young right-hander’s shoulder (video link via SportsTalk 790). He’ll go “a few” days without throwing, but the absence of any structural damage is a welcome relief for the organization.

The 23-year-old Bloss was Houston’s third-round pick just last summer and raced through the minors — in part because of the team’s litany of rotation injuries but also because of outstanding performance. In a dozen minor league starts between High-A (four starts) and Double-A (eight starts) prior to his promotion, Bloss posted a 1.74 ERA through 62 innings.

Bloss’ placement on the injured list brings Houston back down to four healthy starting pitchers on the 40-man roster, however. He joins Verlander, Garcia, McCullers, Cristian Javier and Jose Urquidy on the major league injured list (plus France in Triple-A). Framber Valdez, Hunter Brown, Ronel Blanco and Spencer Arrighetti are locked into spots for the moment, but the Astros will still need to stretch further to bring up another arm or rely on a bullpen game or two while Bloss and Verlander mend. Verlander, Espada noted yesterday, has yet to resume throwing. There’s no firm timetable for when he might begin a throwing program or return to the Houston roster.

Elsewhere on the injury front, it seems backup catcher Victor Caratini will be out at least three to four weeks (per Brown in that same SportsTalk 790 appearance). He hit the injured list with a left hip flexor strain last week, which prompted the Astros to bring up catcher Cesar Salazar from Triple-A Sugar Land. That timeline from Brown could put Caratini roughly in line with the All-Star break, barring any setbacks.

Caratini has quietly been a solid option backing up young Yainer Diaz. His .248/.287/.400 batting line is right in line with the league average after weighting for his home park (by measure of wRC+). That level of production outpaces even most starting catchers around the league, leaving Caratini looking like a nice pickup on the two-year, $12MM contract he signed over the winter.

Lastly, righty Kendall Graveman tells Matt Kawahara of the Houston Chronicle that he’s not giving up hope of a late-season return following his January shoulder surgery. While Graveman acknowledged the possibility is “remote,” he’s midway through a throwing program and could begin throwing off a mound sometime in early August. He’s currently throwing on flat ground from a distance of 90 feet.

Graveman, 33, also offered further specifics on the nature of his surgery. (The team did not provide any details at the time of their announcement.) The right-hander had a pair of anchors installed in his labrum in addition to a cleanup of his rotator cuff. Graveman provides further details and offers plenty of quotes on his outlook and mindset that Astros fans, in particular, will want to check out in full.

In 66 1/3 innings between the White Sox and Astros last season, Graveman pitched to a combined 3.12 ERA with a 23.4% strikeout rate, 12.8% walk rate, 13 holds and eight saves. While Brown suggested at the time of the surgery that Graveman’s likely season-ending injury wouldn’t intensify his team’s bullpen pursuit in free agency, the Astros signed Josh Hader to a five-year contract just three days after announcing that Graveman had undergone his procedure.

Live Chat With Fantasy Baseball Expert Nicklaus Gaut

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Fantasy baseball expert Nicklaus Gaut will be holding a live chat today at 11am central time, exclusively with Trade Rumors Front Office subscribers. Use the link below to ask a question in advance, participate in the live event, and read the transcript afterward.

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Submit Your Questions For This Week’s Episode Of The MLB Trade Rumors Podcast!

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On the MLB Trade Rumors podcast, we regularly answer questions from our readers and listeners. With the next episode set for Wednesday, we’re looking for MLBTR’s audience to submit their questions and we’ll pick a few to answer.

The 2024 trade deadline is now just over a month away. If you have a question about the ongoing 2024 season, a future transaction, a look ahead to the offseason, or anything else baseball related, we’d love to hear from you! You can email your questions to mlbtrpod@gmail.com.

Also, if you want to hear your voice on the podcast, send us your question in audio form and we might play it. iPhone users can find instructions on how to do so here.

In the meantime, don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.

The Opener: Contreras, Orioles, Fry

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Here are three things we’ll be keeping an eye on around the baseball world throughout the day today:

1. Contreras to return:

The Cardinals are set to activate Willson Contreras from the injured list today, manager Oli Marmol told reporters yesterday (link via MLB.com’s John Denton). The final step before Contreras will be officially activated is a medical evaluation upon joining the club in Atlanta today. The news caps off a surprisingly fast return to action for Contreras, who was initially expected to miss ten weeks after suffering a fractured arm when he was struck by a swing from Mets DH J.D. Martinez.

Contreras is now set to return nearly a month ahead of schedule, and it couldn’t come at a better time for the Cardinals. The St. Louis club surged back into postseason contention during Contreras’ absence and will now plug the same bat that hit .280/.398/.551 in their first 31 games back into the lineup. Contreras’ return also dovetails with a recent injury to young Ivan Herrera, who had been filling in behind the plate but is now on the shelf with a back injury. That’s left the Cardinals with a third-string catching duo of Pedro Pages and Nick Raposo in recent days.

2. Orioles roster move incoming:

The Orioles will recall outfielder Heston Kjerstad to the major leagues today for what will be his third stint with Baltimore. The 25-year-old top prospect has hit just .205/.286/.364 in 50 trips to the plate in the big leagues but has torn up the Triple-A level. In 56 games this year, the former No. 2 overall pick has slashed .301/.397/.601 with 31 extra base hits (16 homers) in 258 plate appearances.

In order to make room for Kjerstad, the Orioles will need to make a corresponding move. Typically, that move could simply come in the form of optioning another player to the minors, but the Orioles’ bench lacks optionable players aside from veteran outfielder Austin Hays, who’s been on a hot streak (.333/.380/.569) since returning from the injured list last month. MASNsports.com’s Roch Kubatko suggested yesterday that the club could designate utilityman Nick Maton for assignment to make room for Kjerstad, but there’s no official word from the team just yet.

3. Guardians update on Fry?

The Guardians suffered a tough blow yesterday when slugger David Fry was pulled after the second inning due to inflammation in his elbow, as noted by The Athletic’s Zack Meisel. Meisel adds that Fry is currently being considered day-to-day by the club. MLB.com’s Injury Tracker adds that Fry was set to be evaluated further after yesterday’s game and that the Guardians hope to know more about his status today.

Much of the Guardians’ success on offense can be attributed to Fry, who has slashed an otherworldly .312/.429/.526 (172 wRC+) while splitting time between catcher, DH, first base, left field, right field and even third base for Cleveland. There’s no replacing that blend of production and defensive versatility, but if Fry lands on the IL, the Guardians could turn to top prospect Kyle Manzardo to take over Fry’s spot in the first base/DH mix while Bo Naylor and Austin Hedges take on a more traditional role as a catching tandem.

Yankees Acquire J.D. Davis

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The Yankees announced this afternoon that they’ve acquired infielder J.D. Davis and cash considerations from the A’s in exchange infielder Jordan Groshans. Davis had been designated for assignment by the A’s earlier this week. The Yankees transferred right-hander Nick Burdi to the 60-day injured list in order to make room for Davis on the 40-man roster.

Davis, 31, signed with the A’s in late spring after the Giants released Davis during Spring Training in order to get out from under most of the $6.9MM salary he had been awarded in arbitration over the winter. He managed to secure a guarantee of just $2.5MM from Oakland, a far cry from his previously-awarded arbitration salary even after factoring in the roughly $1.1MM in termination pay he received from San Francisco.

After that late spring controversy, Davis went on to appear in 39 games with the A’s where he slashed a roughly league-average .236/.304/.366 in 135 trips to the plate while splitting time between first base, third base, and DH. While his offensive numbers this year leave something to be desired, Davis’s positional versatility and track record as an above-average hitter make him a perfect fit for the Yankees’ current needs.

The club lost starting DH Giancarlo Stanton to the injured list earlier today, and first baseman Anthony Rizzo was also placed on the shelf not long ago due to a fractured forearm. Rookie Ben Rice has scuffled a bit in his first few games replacing Rizzo at first base, while the club has no obvious alternative to Stanton as an everyday DH in-house. Even at third base, where the club is currently relying on the combination of Oswaldo Cabrera and DJ LeMahieu, New York has gotten a wRC+ of just 78 — this ranks second-worst of all AL third-base units, ahead of only the White Sox.

Enter Davis, who entered the 2024 season with five consecutive seasons of solid production with the Mets and Giants. Since the start of the 2019 season, Davis has slashed a solid .265/.349/.438 with a wRC+ of 118. While he’s struck out a 27.1% clip during that time, he’s walked at a healthy 10% rate while flashing 20-homer power. That sort of production would be a major upgrade for a Yankees club that has generally struggled to produce offense outside of the outfield this year even before losing Stanton for at least the short-term. Davis seems likely to slide into the everyday DH role for the Yankees while Stanton is unavailable, but could also spell Rice at first base against left-handed pitching and even contribute at third alongside LeMahieu and Cabrera.

On days where Davis is playing the infield, the Yankees could offer Aaron Judge or Juan Soto the opportunity to get a half-day of rest as a DH and improve the club’s outfield defense by inserting glove-first center fielder Trent Grisham into the mix. When Stanton eventually returns to reclaim regular DH, the Yankees could pick and choose from Davis, Rice, Cabrera, and LeMahieu based on how everyone is performingt. That being said, if Davis can even maintain his production as an Athletic in the Bronx he should be a shoe-in for at least semi-regular playing time around the Yankees infield even after Stanton’s eventual return.

In exchange for Davis’ services, the Yankees are sending Groshans to Oakland. The 24-year-old’s stint in the Yankees organization was a relatively brief one, as the club claimed him off waivers from the Marlins back in February. He was outrighted off their 40-man roster in early March and has struggled to this point in the 2024 season with a .232/.310/.281 slash line while playing all four infield spots in 50 games split between the Double- and Triple-A levels. That follows a similarly rough performance at Triple-A with Miami last year; in 528 plate appearances across 125 games in 2023, Groshans slashed a paltry .244/.339/.330 with just six home runs.

Despite Groshans’ struggles over the past two seasons, it’s not hard to see why the A’s would be willing to give the youngster a shot. After all, the infielder was the 12th overall pick in the 2018 draft by the Blue Jays and received plenty of top prospect buzz earlier in his career, including a stint as a consensus top-50 prospect in the sport back in 2021. That pedigree combined with Groshans’ stronger numbers at the Double-A level earlier in his career provide some reason for optimism that he could contribute at the big league level at some point.

That possibility is surely an attractive one for an Oakland club that has struggled to find a consistent option at third base this year while cycling between Davis, Abraham Toro, and Tyler Nevin at the position. Toro will be out until at least the All-Star break recovering from a hamstring strain, leaving even more opportunity for Groshans to win some playing time at the hot corner.

Reds Outright Conner Capel

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Outfielder Conner Capel has cleared waivers and been outrighted to the Reds’ Triple-A affiliate.  Capel had the option of rejecting the outright assignment in favor of free agency because he has previously been outrighted in his career, but The Cincinnati Enquirer’s Charlie Goldsmith (X link) reports that Capel will indeed report to Triple-A Louisville.

The Reds designated Capel for assignment earlier this week, a month after optioning him down to the minors after a five-game cup of coffee on the big league roster.  Capel signed a minor league contract with Cincinnati over the offseason and had that contract selected in early May, with Capel receiving eight plate appearances in his five games.

A veteran of three Major League seasons, Capel made his MLB debut with the Cardinals in 2022, making a strong first impression with a .308/.356/.519 slash line in 59 plate appearances with St. Louis and (after a September waiver claim) Oakland.  Capel didn’t receive much of a longer look in 2023, however, as he appeared in just 32 games for the A’s with 86 trips to the plate.  All in all, the 27-year-old has a career .278/.359/.398 slash line in 153 PA over 59 games in the Show.

Capel’s minor league numbers are more solid, as he has hit .259/.354/.435 with 43 home runs in 1430 career PA at the Triple-A level.  He has also stolen 52 bases in 71 attempts, and has played mostly center field in the minors while also getting a lot of playing time at the two corner outfield slots.  This skillset makes Capel a useful player to have as depth either on a big league bench or in the upper minors, so he’ll continue to bide his time in Louisville awaiting his next opportunity in Cincinnati.

Orioles To Promote Heston Kjerstad

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The Orioles are set to call top prospect Heston Kjerstad back up to the majors, according to Andy Kostka of the Baltimore Banner (via X).  The corresponding move isn’t known, but MASNsports.com’s Roch Kubatko guesses the O’s might designate Nick Maton for assignment.  Maton had his contract selected earlier this week to give Baltimore some infield depth when Jordan Westberg was nursing a hip contusion, but since Westberg has kept playing with seemingly no ill effect from the contusion, Maton could be expendable.

Kjerstad made his MLB debut with 13 games in the 2023 season, and he received 17 plate appearances over seven games earlier this season when the O’s had called him up to the active roster from April 23 to May 12.  Kjerstad had a .748 OPS over 33 PA in 2023 and only a .437 OPS in his 17 PA this season, so one can’t really make any judgements based on such small and sporadic doses of playing time.

What is clear that is Kjerstad doesn’t have much less to prove at the Triple-A level.  He has hit .301/.390/.601 with 16 home runs over 255 PA for Norfolk this season, which comes on the heels of his .298/.371/.498 slash line in 334 Triple-A trips to the plate in 2023.  On just about any other team, Kjerstad would’ve already been a staple of the everyday lineup and been given a lot of time to test himself against big league pitching, but the Orioles’ unique situation creates more questions about just how often Kjerstad is going to play.

Kjerstad is a left-handed hitter who has played first base and both corner outfield slots in the minors, and he is generally considered a bat-first player more than a prime defensive option at any of his positions.  Ryan O’Hearn is another lefty bat on Baltimore’s roster with that same defensive profile, plus the O’s have Ryan Mountcastle and Anthony Santander in everyday roles at first base and right field.  Cedric Mullins and Colton Cowser (both left-handed hitters) have been splitting time in center field, with Cowser also seeing a lot of time in left field, and the right-handed hitting Austin Hays also in the mix.

When a right-handed pitcher is on the mound, therefore, the Orioles already have a pretty full set of lefty-swinging options.  It is worth noting that Cowser has struggled badly since a hot start to his season, so he might be the likeliest to lose playing time if Kjerstad is coming back to the Show.  Mullins has also started hitting better after a deep slump, so the Orioles could give Mullins more time in center field and Cowser could be become something of a clearer backup outfielder.  The issue there is that Cowser is another highly-touted young player whose development won’t be helped by mostly being a bench player in the majors, rather than getting regular time on the field.

Since the Orioles’ return to full-fledged contention has outpaced their rebuild, the team finds themselves with having almost too many good young players for too few 26-man roster spots.  Kyle Stowers, Connor Norby, and Jackson Holliday are other top prospects who have received limited playing time in the bigs this season, though in Holliday’s case, he was clearly ticketed for an everyday role but simply struggled too much to maintain a spot in the majors.  Kjerstad could force the issue by going on a tear at the plate once he’s back in the Show, though obviously that’s easier said than done for a 25-year-old player.

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