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White Sox To Select Jonathan Cannon

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The White Sox will promote right-hander Jonathan Cannon from Triple-A Charlotte to start Tuesday’s game, tweets Daryl Van Schouwen of the Chicago Sun-Times. He’s not on the 40-man roster, so they’ll need to formally select his contract and make a corresponding transaction to open a 40-man spot. It’ll be the big league debut for the 2022 third-rounder.

Listed at 6’6″ and 225 pounds, Cannon has been a fast riser through the South Siders’ system. The former Georgia Bulldog split the 2023 season between High-A and Double-A, and he was also on the roster for the 2023 Futures Game during last year’s All-Star festivities. He’s opened the 2024 campaign with 9 2/3 decent frames at the Triple-A level (three earned runs on ten hits and five walks with 11 punchouts). Baseball America ranks Cannon eighth among White Sox farmhands, while FanGraphs tabs him tenth in the system and MLB.com lists him 11th.

Cannon, 23, pitched 121 innings last season, working to a 4.46 ERA with a 20.5% strikeout rate, 7.5% walk rate and an impressive 53% ground-ball rate. Baseball America tabs him as a potential fourth/fifth starter, barring improvement to his command, which could further boost his ceiling. Their report on Cannon praises a deep arsenal (four-seamer, two-seamer, cutter, slider, curveball, changeup) that generates grounders and weak contact. Cannon sits 93-97 mph with his fastball, and scouting reports from BA, FanGraphs and MLB.com all call him a high-floor, high-probability fourth starter who can eat plenty of innings for the White Sox in the years to come.

It’s not clear yet how long Cannon or tonight’s starter, Nick Nastrini (another rookie who’s making his MLB debut) will stick in the rotation. Sox Machine’s James Fegan tweets that manager Pedro Grifol alluded to a potential bullpen move for struggling veteran Chris Flexen, but Grifol also didn’t commit to Nastrini or Cannon remaining in the mix beyond their debut efforts this week. Certainly, given the dismal results from the rotation thus far — Sox starters rank 26th in the big leagues with 72 1/3 innings pitched, 28th with a 5.60 ERA and dead last with a 5.20 FIP — an impressive debut for either pitcher could earn him another opportunity in the next trip through the rotation.

Beyond Garrett Crochet — who’s likely to be on an innings limit this season — there’s virtually no certainty in the Chicago rotation. Flexen, Erick Fedde and Michael Soroka opened the year in starting roles, but Flexen and Soroka are on cheap one-year deals and will be free agents at season’s end. Fedde’s two-year, $15MM contract after his KBO breakout gives him a longer leash, but he’s also not a long-term piece of the puzzle at Guaranteed Rate Field. The Sox will hope that between Cannon, Nastrini and other prospects like Jairo Iriarte, Jake Eder and Noah Schultz, the Sox have at least a few long-term rotation pieces who can help to quickly usher them out of the team’s latest rebuilding phase.

White Sox Promote Nick Nastrini

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3:40pm: The Sox have now made Nastrini’s promotion official and also activated outfielder Eloy Jimenez from the injured list. To open active roster spots for those two, they optioned right-hander Justin Anderson and infielder/outfielder Zach Remillard. To open a 40-man spot for Nastrini, they transferred catcher Max Stassi to the 60-day injured list. The backstop opened the season on the 10-day IL due to hip inflammation but was hit on the hand by a backswing while rehabbing recently, per Scott Merkin of MLB.com. His exact timeline isn’t clear but he’s now ineligible to be activated until late May.

9:27am: The White Sox will call up right-hander Nick Nastrini to start today’s game in what will be his MLB debut, manager Pedro Grifol announced (link via Kyle Williams of the Chicago Sun-Times). He’s not on the 40-man roster, so the Sox will need to open a spot for his contract to be formally selected.

Nastrini, 24, is widely regarded as one of the White Sox’ top pitching prospects. Acquired from the Dodgers in the trade sending Lance Lynn to Los Angeles last summer, the 2021 fourth-round pick has routinely posted massive strikeout numbers throughout his minor league tenure but has also battled sub-par command for much of his professional career.

Scouting reports at Baseball America, MLB.com, FanGraphs, The Athletic and ESPN all rank Nastrini eighth or better among ChiSox farmhands, with BA listing him third in the system. The Athletic’s Keith Law ranked Nastrini 76th on his 2024 top 100 list, touting him as a possible No. 4 starter and with the ceiling to become quite a bit more than that, given the strength of his secondary pitches.

There’s little doubting the quality of Nastrini’s stuff; he runs his fastball up as high as 98 mph and complements it with a slider, curveball and changeup that all project as potentially average to plus offerings. Nastrini features high-end spin rates on his heater and breaking pitches, and his changeup helped him limit lefties to a .226 average with a 29.7% strikeout rate between Double-A and Triple-A last season. (Righties hit .216 and punched out at a 26.1% clip.) Law touts the changeup, in particular, as a potential plus-plus pitch (70-grade on the 20-80 scale).

If Nastrini had better control of his electric arsenal, he’d undoubtedly grade as one of the game’s elite prospects. At 6’3″, 215-pound righty has the size and deep repertoire to profile as a starter, but he’s walked 11.1% of his career opponents. His penchant for missing the zone leads to plenty of deep counts as well; in 2023 he averaged about 4 2/3 innings per start. There’s still some refinement to be made, though he’s improved his command since college ball at UCLA and has also seen further gains in that field since being traded from L.A. to Chicago (9.5% walk rate in the Sox’ system).

The state of the White Sox’ roster amid their current rebuild gives Nastrini ample opportunity to show he can stick. The Sox are out to their worst start in franchise history, sitting at 2-13 on the season. The woeful state of their rotation has played a significant role in those struggles. Even with Garrett Crochet pitching like a borderline No. 1 starter through his first four turns, White Sox starters rank 26th in the big leagues with 72 1/3 innings pitched, 28th with a 5.60 ERA and dead last with a 5.20 FIP. Despite totaling MLB’s fifth-fewest innings, the rotation is tied for the MLB lead with 14 home runs allowed.

Nastrini will join Crochet, Erick Fedde, Michael Soroka and Chris Flexen in the rotation for the time being. Recently re-signed Mike Clevinger will join that group in a few weeks as well, once he’s sufficiently built up, and other prospects like Jake Eder, Jairo Iriarte and Jared Shuster (currently working as a long reliever in the big league ’pen) could eventually garner looks over the course of the season.

Even if Nastrini is in the big leagues to stay, he won’t accrue enough service time to reach a full year in 2024. Were it not for an illness that rendered Nastrini unavailable the first time Chicago needed a fifth starter, that may not have been the case, but he wasn’t healthy enough in the season’s first week to step onto the staff at the time. He’s still made just two starts in the minors this season, in part due to that illness. Further optional assignments could always alter his timeline anyhow, but for now, Nastrini will be controllable all the way through 2030.

Marlins Option Max Meyer

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The Marlins announced Monday that they’ve optioned right-hander Max Meyer to Triple-A Jacksonville. He’ll be the corresponding move for the previously reported activation of fellow righty Edward Cabrera, who’s been on the injured list with a right shoulder impingement. MLB.com’s Christina De Nicola first reported that Meyer would be optioned to open a roster spot for Cabrera.

It’s a surprising move, given the Marlins’ struggles and Meyer’s excellence through his first three turns. The former University of Minnesota standout, No. 3 overall draft pick and top prospect has been outstanding in his first big league action since returning from 2022’s Tommy John surgery. In 17 innings, Meyer touts a 2.12 ERA; he’s surrendered just four runs on 11 hits and three walks with 14 punchouts and a 48.9% ground-ball rate.

Heading into the season, Meyer wasn’t expected to break camp with a rotation spot. Spring injuries to Cabrera, Braxton Garrett and Eury Perez changed that calculus and put the 25-year-old Meyer back onto the rotation radar. Nothing he’s done this season takes away from his promising long-term outlook, but the Fish also plan to be mindful of his workload and limit his innings in his first year back from that UCL reconstruction procedure.

Be that as it may, the optics of the move aren’t great. The Marlins have only won three games this season, and Meyer has started two of them. He’s been both excellent and highly efficient, topping out at 91 pitches in his most recent start, which included six innings of one-run ball against a juggernaut Braves lineup. It’s easier to manage his innings at the minor league level, but given the overarching struggles of the Marlins’ big league roster, optioning one of their lone bright spots is tougher to justify.

It should be noted that it’s unlikely the decision to option Meyer was overly motivated by service time. He entered the year at 1.082 years of service, meaning he needed just 90 days on the active roster or big league injured list in order to reach two years of service and remain on track for free agency following the 2028 season. He’s picked up 17 days of service already, so unless the Marlins are planning to keep him in Jacksonville for as many as 95 more days this season, his free agent timeline will be unchanged. One would imagine he’ll rejoin the big league rotation sooner than later.

Miami certainly had other paths to consider when opening a spot for Cabrera’s return. Struggling top starter Jesus Luzardo was never going to be sent down, but reliever-turned-starter A.J. Puk has struggled mightily in his first three trips to the mound. Even if they understandably didn’t want to give up on that experiment yet, lefties Trevor Rogers and Ryan Weathers have both demonstrated worrying command issues.

A six-man rotation would also make some sense, creating an organic means of limiting not only Meyer’s workload but also those of Rogers and Puk — both of whom have innings concerns as well. Rogers pitched just 27 innings last season due to injury. Puk tossed just 59 1/3 innings last year while working as a reliever; his 66 2/3 innings in 2022 were his most since the 2017 season when he was still working as a full-time starter in the A’s minor league ranks.

Tigers Claim Ty Adcock From Mariners

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The Tigers have claimed right-hander Ty Adcock off waivers from the Mariners, per announcements from both clubs. The Tigers had an open 40-man roster spot and won’t need to make a corresponding move. The righty has been optioned to Triple-A Toledo.

Adcock, 27, was drafted by the Mariners in 2019 but hasn’t been able to pitch too much since then. The pandemic wiped out the minor leagues in 2020 and then Adcock required Tommy John surgery in April of 2021, which put him out of action for that season and most of 2022.

Last year, he was able to get back on track a bit. He tossed 20 2/3 innings in the minors between High-A and Double-A with a 1.74 earned run average. He struck out 29.3% of batters faced while giving out walks at just a 6.7% clip. He was also able to make his major league debut and posted a 3.45 ERA in 15 2/3 innings. His 19% strikeout rate was a bit below average but he didn’t issue any walks.

Here in 2024, Adcock was optioned to Triple-A to start the year and got off to a shaky start, allowing two earned runs in his first 2 1/3 innings. That included three walks, though one of them was intentional. The M’s shook up their bullpen last week and Adcock got bumped off the roster.

As mentioned, the Tigers had an open roster spot, so nabbing Adcock off waivers was basically free depth for them. The righty has a very limited track record due to missing so much time but he averaged 96.6 miles per hour on his fastball in the majors last year, with his slider at 86.5 mph. Power pitchers often come with control issues but that hasn’t been the case so far in Adcock’s brief amount of official action.

Adcock will report to Toledo and look to position himself for his next big league call-up. He still has two options and just a few weeks of service time, so he could theoretically stick on the roster for many years, as long as he justifies his spot with his performance.

Dodgers Shut Emmet Sheehan Down; Walker Buehler Could Return Soon

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Dodgers right-hander Emmet Sheehan hasn’t pitched this season while rehabbing from a forearm injury. He’d recently resumed throwing to live hitters, but manager Dave Roberts told reporters last night that the 24-year-old righty has been shut back down because his arm “hasn’t been responding” the way Dodgers medical personnel hoped (link via Fabian Ardaya of The Athletic). Sheehan said he had another round of testing on his arm that didn’t reveal any structural damage, but Roberts still called his injury a “longer-term situation.” The Dodgers had already transferred him to the 60-day injured list at the end of March.

Sheehan entered the 2023 season as one of the Dodgers’ top pitching prospects and pushed his way into top-100 consideration with a strong minor league showing early last year. By mid-June, he was up in the big leagues for his debut. While the right-hander’s 4.92 ERA in a subsequent sample of 60 1/3 innings didn’t exactly cement him as a long-term fixture just yet, he entered camp as perhaps the favorite to land a rotation spot behind Tyler Glasnow, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Bobby Miller and James Paxton. That spot instead went to fellow righty Gavin Stone, who started his 2024 campaign with two shaky starts before an excellent third outing that saw him carry a perfect game into the sixth inning before running into trouble.

The setback for Sheehan creates further uncertainty in a Dodgers’ rotation that also has Miller, Walker Buehler, Tony Gonsolin, Clayton Kershaw and Dustin May on the injured list. Sheehan’s status on the 60-day IL already meant he was out until at least mid-May, but there’s no way to gauge how long he might be expected to miss right now.

The Dodgers still rank tenth in the majors in rotation ERA, thanks in no small part to a dominant start to the season from Glasnow. Some alarm bells sounded when Yamamoto was torched for five runs in one inning during his MLB debut, but he’s responded by rattling off 15 innings with just three runs allowed while posting a terrific 19-to-3 K/BB ratio. Paxton has quality run-prevention numbers, but his success isn’t sustainable if he keeps walking more hitters than he’s striking out. He’s issued 14 free passes in 16 innings, yielding a walk to a glaring 20.6% of his opponents on the season. He’s fanned just ten (14.7%).

In Glasnow and Paxton, the Dodgers are banking on a pair of oft-injured veterans to help lead the staff while awaiting the returns of Buehler, Kershaw and May. Buehler is expected to make another rehab start this Thursday, per Mike DiGiovanna and Jack Harris of the L.A. Times. His most recent rehab outing was cut short when a comebacker struck his pitching hand, but Buehler escaped that injury scare unscathed. Roberts indicated that Buehler is targeting 80 to 85 pitches in that scheduled Thursday outing. He’ll be reevaluated after that point. If the team feels he’s ready, that’d point to a return next week. If he needs one more rehab start following Thursday’s outing, he could still return in the final days of April.

Mariners Promote Jonatan Clase, Place Dominic Canzone On Injured List

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April 15: The Mariners formally announced Monday that they’ve recalled Clase for his MLB debut. Canzone indeed was placed on the injured list with a sprained AC joint.

April 14: The Mariners will be calling up outfield prospect Jonatan Clase, according to ESPN’s Kiley McDaniel (X link).  It seems like Clase will replace Dominic Canzone on the active roster, as Canzone suffered a left AC joint sprain in today’s game and will surely be placed on the 10-day injured list.  No further roster move will need to be made since Clase is already on Seattle’s 40-man.

Clase’s first appearance in a game will mark his official MLB debut, and the highlight of a pro career that began as an international signing in 2018.  Over 1483 plate appearances in the minors, Clase has hit .263/.376/.457 with 39 homers and 183 stolen bases (out of 221 attempts).  Those numbers include a .308/.404/.641 slash line in 47 PA for Triple-A Tacoma this season, which marked Clase’s first taste of Triple-A ball.

The combination of this hot start and Canzone’s injury have now punched Clase’s ticket to the Show, though questions remain about his all-around readiness.  Baseball America and MLB Pipeline each rank Clase as the tenth-best prospect in the Mariners’ farm system based on his incredible 70-grade speed and impressive overall set of tools, but as BA’s scouting report notes, “he is an aggressive and energetic player, who alternately excites and frustrates.”

Clase (who turns 22 next month) has struck out in 25.55% of his career minor league plate appearances, making him a bit of a three-true-outcomes style of player given that he draws a fair share of walks and has some good raw power.  At only 5’9″ and 150 pounds, Clase doesn’t fit the usual physical model for a power hitter, so if the power doesn’t translate against Major League pitching, Clase will need to improve his contact to better maximize his speed.  As MLB Pipeline’s report puts it, “maintaining a sound approach and not selling out for power and getting away from his best abilities will also be vital.”

Clase became a switch-hitter in 2022 and his career splits are generally pretty even, though his numbers are a lot better as a left-handed batter in his small sample of Triple-A at-bats.  This could indicate that he’ll slide into Canzone’s role as the left-handed hitting side of a left field platoon with righty-swinging Dylan Moore.  Clase doesn’t have a great throwing arm so he has played only left and center field, and his glovework is considered solid enough to handle some center at the big league level.

Francisco Lindor’s Slow Start Is Not Abnormal

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This post is brought to you by Stathead.  We use Stathead, powered by Baseball Reference, to find interesting stats in our articles. Stathead has easy-to-use discovery tools to take you inside the BR database. Try it for free today!

The 2024 season is now rolling along, which means it’s time to wildly overreact to small samples of data. Previously unremarkable players are suddenly looking like Hall-of-Famers while reliably good players now seem to be washed.

A midseason slump is easy to dismiss when you look up and the full season stats still seem good. Maybe a slumping hitter is still hitting .265 or a pitcher that just got lit up still has an earned run average around 4.00. But early on, a batting average that starts with a zero or an ERA that has two digits before the decimal place can be a cause for concern.

Thankfully, Stathead has an amazing tool to help put this all into proper context. Using the Span Finder, we can search a player’s entire career to see if they have ever had a previous slump that compares to what’s currently happening. Let’s use Francisco Lindor as an example.

It’s no secret that Lindor hasn’t exactly been his best self so far this year. His struggles became such a talking point amid fans of the Mets that some of them got together on social media and decided to support Lindor with a standing ovation, mirroring how Phillies’ fans responded when Trea Turner was struggling last year.

Through 15 games, Lindor has just eight hits in 62 at-bats for a .129 batting average. Just two of those eight hits have been for extra bases, one double and one home run. His batting line is just  .129/.236/.194 and his on-base plus slugging is just .430, well below his career mark of .810.

Now that Lindor is 30 years old, it might be tempting to consider this the start of some age-based decline, but Span Finder shows us that he has been here before. Doing a custom search for every 15-game stretch of Lindor’s career and sorting by ascending OPS, we get this…

  • September 10 to September 26 of 2016: .309 OPS
  • September 11 to September 28 of 2016: .337 OPS
  • September 9 to September 24 of 2016: .340 OPS
  • April 17 to May 5 of 2021: .388 OPS
  • October 1 of 2023 to April 13 of 2024: .392 OPS
  • September 8 to September 23 of 2016: .404 OPS
  • April 17 of 2021 to May 3 of 2021: .414 OPS
  • September 29 of 2017 to April 11 of 2018: .429 OPS
  • March 29 to April 14 of 2024: .430 OPS

Lindor is clearly in one of the worst stretches of his career right now, but it’s not totally without precedent. He slumped real bad at the end of the 2016 season when he was 22 years old. Despite that awful finish, he still hit .301/.358/.435 on the year overall for a 106 OPS+. Cleveland made the playoffs that year and Lindor immediately put that slump behind him, hitting .310/.355/.466 in the postseason as the club went all the way to Game 7 of the World Series, even going to extra innings in that classic game.

Given that there were also some notable struggles early on in 2018 and 2021 mixed in there, it seems fair to conclude that Lindor is performing within the range of previous outcomes. It’s clearly not ideal for him or the Mets that he’s started the season in this hole, but it’s one he has climbed out of before. Throughout the ups and downs of his career, he has hit .272/.340/.470 for a 116 OPS+.

That bat, along with Lindor’s speed and defense, are why the Mets gave him a ten-year, $341MM extension a few years ago. That deal pays Lindor $32MM annually through the 2031 season, so it’s good for the Mets that his current slump isn’t totally unprecedented.

Mariners, Luke Barker Agree To Minor League Deal

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The Mariners agreed to a minor league contract with right-handed reliever Luke Barker, Jon Morosi of MLB.com reports. The Gaeta Sports client will head to Triple-A Tacoma.

Barker, 32, made three appearances for the Brewers in 2022 — his lone MLB experience to date. The right-hander was undrafted out of Division-II Chico State University in California back in 2015 but parlayed a dominant showing in the independent Frontier League into a minor league look with the Brewers organization. He spent the next six seasons in the Brewers system, working toward that ’22 debut.

While Barker was tagged for five runs in four innings during his MLB cup of coffee, his minor league track record is outstanding. In 261 2/3 minor league innings, the righty carries a 2.38 ERA, 27.6% strikeout rate and 6.4% walk rate. That includes three seasons of Triple-A work — a total of 116 1/3 frames with a 2.32 earned run average, an even better 30.4% strikeout rate and a 6% walk rate. Barker doesn’t throw hard, averaging just 91 mph on his heater during his brief MLB look, but he’s routinely posted swinging-strike rates north of 14% in the upper minors.

Barker didn’t pitch in 2023. He spent the season rehabbing from Tommy John surgery after suffering a UCL tear late in the 2022 campaign. He’ll now join just the second organization of his career.

The Mariners aren’t short on talented relievers, though two of their best are currently on the 15-day injured list: righties Matt Brash and Gregory Santos. Brash was slowed by a bout of elbow inflammation during spring training, while Santos suffered a lat strain late in camp. Neither has pitched in the big leagues or on a minor league rehab assignment so far this season. Barker will give the M’s some more depth in the upper minors. Seattle has a recent track record of striking gold on unheralded bullpen acquisitions — Paul Sewald, Drew Steckenrider, Justin Topa, Gabe Speier, Tayler Saucedo among them — and Barker will hope to add his name to the list.

Astros Outright Cooper Hummel

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Catcher/outfielder Cooper Hummel, whom the Astros designated for assignment last week, went unclaimed on outright waivers and has been assigned to Triple-A Sugar Land, per the team’s transaction log at MLB.com. He hasn’t been outrighted before and doesn’t have three years of MLB service, so Hummel can’t reject the assignment. He’ll remain in the organization as a depth piece.

Hummel is no stranger to the DFA circuit, having bounced from the Mariners, to the Mets, to the Giants, to the Astros just from the end of the 2023 season until now. The 29-year-old has just 227 big league plate appearances under his belt, most of which came with the 2022 Diamondbacks. He’s a .166/.264/.286 hitter between the D-backs and the Mariners (10 games in 2023). Those numbers aren’t much to look at, but Hummel hit .262/.409/.435 in Triple-A last season and walked at a mammoth 18% rate along the way. He’s a .287/.419/.488 hitter in 992 overall plate appearances in Triple-A.

Given that standout production in the upper minors and his unusual blend of defensive versatility, Hummel makes a nice depth option for the Astros to be able to stash in Triple-A. He’s logged more than 1800 innings in left field, 1054 frames behind the plate, 508 innings at first base and another 296 innings in right field. He also still has a minor league option remaining, so if he plays his way back onto the 40-man roster, he doesn’t necessarily need to be exposed to waivers a second time if Houston wants to send him down.

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

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On the MLB Trade Rumors podcast, we’ll frequently 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.

MLBTR will be publishing the first edition of our Free Agent Power Rankings for the 2024-25 offseason this week. If you have a question about that or the ongoing 2024 season or anything else related to baseball, we’d love to hear from you!  You can send 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.

MLB Trade Rumors is not affiliated with Major League Baseball, MLB or MLB.com

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