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Royals Acquire Lucas Erceg

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The Royals have acquired right-hander Lucas Erceg from the Athletics, per announcements from both clubs. The A’s receive right-handers Mason Barnett and Will Klein as well as outfielder Jared Dickey.

Erceg took an unusual path to being a midseason trade target. He was drafted by the Brewers as a third baseman back in 2016 but flamed out as a hitter and eventually moved to the mound. In 2021, he tossed 47 2/3 innings at the Double-A level, allowing 5.29 earned runs per nine. As you might expect for a new convert to pitching, control was an issue at first. Erceg gave out walks to 16.4% of batters faced that year but he also got strikeouts at a decent 21.1% clip and grounders at a strong 56.8% rate.

He has generally made positive progress in each season since as he has become more accustomed to his new career path. In 2022, he logged 61 1/3 innings between Double-A and Triple-A with a 4.55 ERA, a decent step forward from the prior season. His strikeout and walk rates also improved to 24.4% and 13.1%, respectively.

In 2023, he started the year back at Triple-A before he was traded from Milwaukee to Oakland in a cash deal, with the A’s adding him to their roster shortly thereafter. He tossed his first 55 major league innings last year with a 4.75 ERA, 27.1% strikeout rate, 14.3% walk rate and 46.1% ground ball rate. The control was still an issue but it was an encouraging debut nonetheless, especially for a guy with such a limited track record on the mound. He averaged 98 miles per hour with both his four-seam fastball and his sinker while also throwing a changeup, slider and cutter.

His second major league season has seen him continue to grow. His 26.3% strikeout rate is a slight drop from last year but he has cut his walk rate all the way down to 8.3%, with his ground ball rate also creeping up to 50.5%. That’s resulted in a 3.68 ERA in 36 2/3 innings, with Erceg racking up three saves and 12 holds on the year.

The A’s didn’t necessarily have to trade Erceg now. He came into this season with less than a year of service time, meaning he can still be retained for five seasons after the current campaign, but there are also logical reasons why they were tempted to make him available.

Due to his unusual trajectory, Erceg is now 29 years old. With the A’s deep in a rebuild, he will be in his early 30s and into his arbitration seasons by the time they are likely to be competitive again. Relievers are generally considered pretty volatile in general and that might be even more true with Erceg, who has such limited experience relative to most of his peers. Rather than hold him and take the risk that his performance takes a downturn or he suffers an injury, the A’s decided to make him available at this deadline, while the industry consensus has generally been that the acquisition costs for pitching have been quite high.

The Royals have surged back into contention after many years of struggles and have been aggressive in bolstering their roster for a playoff push. The bullpen has naturally been a target area for the club this year, as their relievers have a collective 4.30 ERA that places them 24th in the majors. Their 18.6% strikeout rate is actually second to last, ahead of only the Rockies.

They acquired Hunter Harvey from the Nationals recently and this trade for Erceg will give them a couple of fresh arms who both have big punchout potential. They also added Michael Lorenzen as a swingman to bolster the group in general, as he can help them in multiple ways.

Considering the A’s just got Erceg in a cash deal last May, they are likely quite happy to cash him in for three younger players barely over a year later. Barnett, 23, was a third-round pick of the Royals in 2022. He made 23 starts last year between High-A and Double-A with a 3.30 ERA, 28.8% strikeout rate and 10.5% walk rate. His ERA has jumped to 4.91 at Double-A this year but with similar peripherals. His .336 batting average on balls in play and 64.2% strand rate are probably masking those underlying metrics, as he has a 27.4% strikeout rate and 9% walk rate. Baseball America currently lists him as the #11 prospect in the Royals’ system while FanGraphs has him slightly higher at #7.

Klein, 24, is a reliever who made his major league debut this year. He has 5 2/3 innings in the show so far with a 6.35 ERA. Command appears to be the biggest issue with him. Since being selected in the fifth-round of the 2020 draft, he has tossed 216 minor league innings with a 5.17 ERA. His 30.7% strikeout rate is quite impressive but he’s also given free passes to 16.1% of batters that have come to the plate. BA and FG both put him at #16 in the system.

Dickey, 22, was just drafted in the 11th round last year. He’s slashing .269/.360/.424 in High-A this year for a wRC+ of 127 and has also stolen eight bases. Neither BA nor FG have him on their KC prospect lists.

Jeff Passan of ESPN first reported on X that Erceg was headed to the Royals. Mark Feinsand of MLB.com reported the return on X.

Mariners Acquire JT Chargois

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The Mariners have landed right-hander JT Chargois in a deal with the Marlins, The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal reports (X link). In return, the Marlins will receive minor league right-hander Will Schomberg, as reported by Christina De Nicola of MLB.com (X link).

Chargois began the 2024 season on the injured list due to neck spasms and did not make his 2024 debut until mid-June. Since his return from the IL, the 33-year-old has put up excellent surface-level numbers, having allowed just three earned runs over 16 2/3 innings. However, he has struck out only 12 batters (16.9% K%) while walking seven (9.9% walk rate), and all three runs he has given up have come on home runs. What’s more, he is inducing groundballs at just a 34.6% rate, well below his 52.9% career average entering the season. As a result, Chargois’s underlying numbers are not nearly as impressive as his sparkling ERA; he has a 4.74 SIERA and 5.21 xERA, both of which would be the worst of his career. Even more worrisome, his fastball velocity has decreased significantly. His sinker, which averaged 96.3 mph last season, is down to 94.4 mph this year.

With all that said, Chargois has been an effective reliever in the recent past. Over 211 2/3 career innings with the Twins, Dodgers, Mariners, Rays, and Marlins, he has a 3.40 ERA and 3.84 SIERA. He was particularly effective from 2021-23, following his return from a brief stint in NPB. Across those three seasons, the righty went 9-1 with a 2.89 ERA and 3.99 SIERA over 118 1/3 innings. Perhaps a return to Seattle – an organization known for developing excellent pitching – will help Chargois get back on the right track. After all, it was the Mariners who took a chance on him in 2021 after his difficult 2019 season with the Dodgers (6.33 ERA in 21 1/3 IP) and poor performance in Japan (4.58 ERA in 35 1/3 IP). He pitched to a 3.00 ERA in 30 IP with Seattle over the first four months of the season before he was traded to Tampa Bay at the deadline.

Chargois will presumably slot into a middle relief role in the Mariners’ bullpen. Seattle ranks 12th in MLB with a 3.76 bullpen ERA and sixth with a 3.54 bullpen SIERA this season. Every reliever currently on the team’s active roster has a SIERA under 3.70, but the Mariners surely understand that there is no such thing as too much bullpen depth down the stretch. Chargois, who is earning $1.285MM this season, will be eligible for arbitration one more time in 2025.

Schomberg signed with the Mariners organization as an undrafted free agent in July of 2023. He has split the 2024 season between Single-A and High-A, pitching to a 2.83 ERA and 4.23 FIP in 19 starts (92 1/3 innings). Eric Longenhagen of FanGraphs included Schomberg among the “other prospects of note” beyond his top 34 prospects in the Mariners system earlier this month. Longenhagen praised the righty’s “elite breaking ball spin,” noting the success he had “throwing a lot of cutters and curveballs” before his promotion to High-A.

Yankees Scratch Gerrit Cole With Body Fatigue, To Select Will Warren

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The Yankees scratched Gerrit Cole from tonight’s scheduled start against the Phillies due to general body fatigue. Well-regarded pitching prospect Will Warren is getting the call for a spot start in what’ll be his major league debut. The Yankees will need to select him onto the 40-man roster, which has two vacancies pending their deadline activity.

There’s no indication this is anything more than a day-to-day issue. Yet it’s at least worth monitoring after Cole missed the first half of the season with elbow inflammation. Cole has made seven starts since being reinstated in the middle of June. He owns an uncharacteristic 5.40 ERA thanks largely to nine home runs allowed.

If the Yankees are at all concerned about Cole’s health, it could impact their approach to the deadline over the next two hours. They’ve already been tied to starting pitchers, including to Jack Flaherty at the top of the market. There are rumblings the Yanks could even add an impact starter like Flaherty and look to flip Nestor Cortes.

Warren, 25, is a former eighth-round pick who has developed into one of New York’s top prospects. He ranks seventh among Yankees farmhands at Baseball America. Warren’s arsenal is headlined by his mid-90s fastball and potential plus slider. He has a shot to be a mid-rotation starter. The Southeastern Louisiana product has started 20 times in Scranton. His 6.11 earned run average is disappointing, but Warren has an impressive 27.1% strikeout rate against a manageable 8.2% walk percentage.

Alex Verdugo Receiving Trade Interest

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An unknown number of teams have been in touch with the Yankees about Alex Verdugo’s availability, according to reporter Francys Romero (X link).  There doesn’t appear to be any sense that a trade is particularly close, though another source tells Romero that it isn’t out of the question that Verdugo could be moved.  Verdugo would be a pure rental for any acquiring team, and he is owed roughly $2.9MM for the remainder of the season (from his $8.7MM salary).

New York just picked up Verdugo this past offseason, as a rare trade between the Yankees and Red Sox resulted in the outfielder coming to the Bronx for his final arbitration-eligible season.  Verdugo got off to a nice start with his new team by hitting well over the first five weeks of play, but his production has since gone south, with a .222/.264/.346 slash line in his last 297 plate appearances.  He is providing strong glovework as the regular left fielder, but Verdugo’s 90 wRC+ for the season has added to the Yankees’ overall difficulty in finding consistent offense beyond Aaron Judge and Juan Soto.

Giancarlo Stanton’s return from the injured list fills one hole in the lineup, and with Stanton getting the bulk of DH duty, Judge will resume the everyday center field role.  Trent Grisham and utilityman Oswaldo Cabrera could get some left field work in the event of a Verdugo trade, but the likelier scenario would be that the Yankees would again call up star prospect Jasson Dominguez, who was recently activated from the Triple-A injured list.

Dominguez didn’t make his 2024 debut until mid-May due to his recovery from Tommy John surgery, and he got only about a month’s worth of action before an oblique strain shelved him for roughly six weeks.  With only 25 games under his belt this season, the Yankees might want to give him a bit more Triple-A time to make sure Dominguez is fully healthy and ramped up, though his big numbers at the plate indicate that he doesn’t have much less to prove against minor league pitching.  Dominguez wowed baseball with a .980 OPS in his first 33 PAs as a big leaguer last season before the TJ surgery brought his debut year to an abrupt end.

Angels Acquire Mike Baumann From Giants

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2:10pm: The Angels announced that they have acquired Baumann from the Giants for cash considerations.

2:00pm: The Angels are acquiring right-hander Mike Baumann from the Giants, reports Robert Murray of FanSided on X. The righty was designated for assignment by the Giants a few days ago. It’s unclear what that club is receiving in return. The Angels have open 40-man spots and won’t need to make a corresponding move.

Baumann, 28, spent his entire professional career with the Orioles prior to 2024 but has spent the year bouncing around the league. He exhausted his final option year in 2023 and has therefore found himself on the transaction logs many times. He was designated for assignment by the O’s in May and has since gone to the Mariners, Giants and now Angels in small trades after DFAs.

Pitching for three different clubs this year, he has a 4.84 earned run average in 35 1/3 innings. His 20.8% strikeout rate, 10.7% walk rate and 40.2% ground ball rate are each a bit worse than league average.

But he seemed to be a solid bullpen piece as recently as last year. He tossed 64 2/3 innings for Baltimore with a 3.76 ERA, 22.3% strikeout rate and 42% ground ball rate, though the 12.1% walk rate was on the high side.

The Angels traded away Carlos Estévez recently and could make further subtractions from their pitching staff. Tyler Anderson and Griffin Canning are each controlled through 2025 and could be moved today. Guys like Matt Moore and Hunter Strickland are impending free agents. Bauman will finish this year with over two years of service time, meaning he could be retained for four further seasons if he continues to hang onto a roster spot.

Guardians To Acquire Alex Cobb

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The Guardians and Giants are in the process of finalizing a trade that will send veteran right-hander Alex Cobb from San Francisco to Cleveland, reports ESPN’s Jeff Passan. Zack Meisel of The Athletic reports that there’s an agreement in place, with Cleveland sending minor league lefty Jacob Bresnahan and a player to be named later to San Francisco in the swap.

Cobb has yet to pitch this season after opening the year on the injured list while rehabbing from offseason hip surgery. He was expected back sooner in 2024, but multiple setbacks — including a shoulder issue and blister troubles — slowed his recovery. He’s on the cusp of being reinstated from the injured list at this point, however, and could pitch within the next week. Joel Sherman of the New York Post tweets that the Guardians’ plan for Cobb is to make one final rehab start before his reinstatement. He last pitched on the 26th and should be on turn to throw again tomorrow.

The 36-year-old righty is in the final season of what was originally a two-year, $20MM deal but became a three-year, $28MM contract after the Giants chose to exercise a $10MM club option rather than pay a $2MM buyout. He’s still owed $3.333MM of this year’s salary between now and season’s end.

Though Cobb has yet to pitch in 2024, he’s been a rock-solid rotation arm for the Angels and Giants over the past three seasons, pitching to a combined 3.79 ERA with a 22.8% strikeout rate and 6.9% walk rate in 394 1/3 innings. He’s started 74 games in that time, averaging about 5 1/3 frames per outing.

The Guardians, who’ve lost Shane Bieber for the season and had to option Triston McKenzie and Logan Allen due to notable struggles, have been relying on a patchwork staff including veteran Carlos Carrasco and journeyman Ben Lively. Lively has exceeded expectations, but Carrasco has struggled to a 5.68 ERA in 95 innings (19 starts). The Guards recently called on rookie southpaw Joey Cantillo for his MLB debut as well. The only steady presences in the rotation at the moment are righties Tanner Bibee, Gavin Williams (who opened the season with a monthslong IL stint) and Lively.

In return for Cobb, the Giants will add Cleveland’s 13th-round pick from the 2023 draft (Bresnahan) and a PTBNL. The 19-year-old Bresnahan was an over-slot add for Cleveland in the 13th, signing for a $375K bonus ($225K of which counted against the Guardians’ pool). That’s the equivalent of a signing bonus near the tail end of the fifth round in the draft.

Baseball America ranked Bresnahan as the No. 491 prospect in last year’s draft. He’s not considered to be among the Guardians’ top prospects but has had a nice start in the low minors after getting hit hard in last summer’s pro debut. He’s pitched 50 innings between Cleveland’s Rookie-level ACL and Class-A affiliates, logging a 2.70 ERA with a 32.5% strikeout rate and 8.9% walk rate. BA’s scouting report on Bresnahan from the draft notes an upper-80s/low-90s heater (which could add velocity as he continues to mature) and a changeup that has the potential to be an above-average pitch.

With Cobb now out of the fold in San Francisco, the Giants will likely go with young Hayden Birdsong to follow Logan Webb, Blake Snell, Robbie Ray and Kyle Harrison. The Giants surely wanted to get Birdsong a look after he’s impressed in six big league starts (2.97 ERA, 30 1/3 innings, 30.2 K%, 11.9 BB%) and shown well in the upper minors as well. With Cobb out of the mix, that’s now easier to accomplish.

That said, the Giants could easily have gone to a six-man rotation. They’ve been anything but adherent to the conventional five-man rotation under the watch of president of baseball operations Farhan Zaidi, after all. The Cobb trade was very likely as much about the modest return and an opportunity for Birdsong as it was shedding the remainder of Cobb’s contract once a taker presented itself. The Giants shed the remainder of Jorge Soler’s contract in last night’s deal with the Braves, and adding Cobb to the pile trims more than $30MM off the books in total — all while dropping the Giants down a tier in terms of luxury-tax penalization.

The Giants will be hard-pressed to actually duck beneath the $237MM threshold, barring a trade of a major contract like Snell or Ray, but the Cobb trade alone will spare them a bit shy of $4MM when factoring in his remaining salary and their 20% tax on his contract’s AAV.

Yankees Acquire Mark Leiter Jr.

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The Yankees announced that they have acquired right-hander Mark Leiter Jr. from the Cubs. In return, the Cubs will receive infielder Ben Cowles and right-hander Jack Neely. The Yankees had two open 40-man spots and jump to 39, while the Cubs drop down to 38.

Leiter, now 33, has been great for the Cubs over the past few years after a late-bloomer trajectory. The son of Mark Leiter and nephew of Al Leiter, the younger Mark made it to the big leagues by 2017 but didn’t impress in his first tastes of the show. By the end of 2018, he had a 5.53 earned run average in 114 big league innings. He then required Tommy John surgery early in 2019 and was on the shelf for an extended period of time. He signed a minor league deal with the Tigers in 2021 but didn’t get a call to the show.

A minor league deal with the Cubs going into 2022 turned into the opportunity he needed. He was selected to the big league roster by mid-April that year and eventually tossed 65 2/3 innings for the Cubs with a 3.99 ERA. He struck out 25.9% of batters faced while giving out walks at an 8.9% clip and kept the ball on the ground at a 48.9% rate.

Despite that generally strong work, he was nudged off the club’s roster in January of 2023. He had exhausted his final option year and so the Cubs designated him for assignment, with all 29 clubs passing on the chance to grab him off waivers. He elected free agency but re-signed with the Cubs on a minor league deal prior to the next season.

He was added back to the roster for Opening Day and has been a key part of the Chicago bullpen since then. Going back to the start of 2023, he has a 3.75 ERA in 100 2/3 innings. His strikeout rate is up to 30.9% in that time while he still has decent walk and ground ball rates of 8.8% and 47.1% respectively.

This year’s 4.21 ERA doesn’t look pretty but that’s mostly due to a tiny strand rate of 55%, well below the 71.9% league average. Since he’s striking out 34.9% of batters faced and also getting grounders at a 50.6% clip, his 2.11 FIP and 2.42 SIERA suggest he’s been about two runs better than his ERA would have you believe.

The Cubs have been balancing present and future needs at this deadline. Just over a week ago, president of baseball operations Jed Hoyer said that the club would be prioritizing “2025 and beyond” in their transactions. That didn’t necessarily point to a deadline selloff, as the club then went out and acquired Isaac Paredes from the Rays and Nate Pearson from the Blue Jays, with both of those players having multiple years of control.

But there were also some rumors that they might make some pitching available and there’s a logic to Leiter being moved out. Due to his unusual trajectory, Leiter still has a couple of years of club control remaining after this one. But given his age, the Cubs probably didn’t consider him a core piece of their future-focused agenda and made him available.

Those circumstances are likely also why the win-now Yankees wanted to get him. He only just qualified for arbitration for the first time coming into this season and is making $1.5MM, not much above this year’s $740K league minimum. The Yankees are slated to pay the competitive balance tax for a third straight year and finish well above the top tier. That means they face a 110% tax rate for any new spending, so Leiter’s minimal salary fits in nicely for them, and they can keep him around for two more years beyond this one.

While Leiter is cheap in terms of dollars, the Yankees have paid the price of two prospects to get him. Neely, 24, was an 11th-round pick in the 2021 draft. He’s been exclusively a reliever in his professional career, racking up significant strikeout totals. In 160 1/3 minor league innings overall, he has a 2.75 ERA, 38.8% strikeout rate and 9.4% walk rate. That includes 41 2/3 innings this year between Double-A and Triple-A with a 2.81 ERA, 36% strikeout rate and 9.1% walk rate. Baseball America currently lists him as the #20 prospect in the Yankees’ system.

Cowles, 24, was a 10th-round pick in 2021 and has played in 88 Double-A games this year. His .294/.376/.472 batting line leads to a strong 141 wRC+, indicating he’s been 41% better than league average. His .340 batting average on balls in play is high but he’s also got strong walk and strikeout rates of 10.3% and 17.7%, respectively. He also has 14 steals and has lined up at the three infield spots to the left of first base.

Both Neely and Cowles are Rule 5 eligible this winter, so the Yankees would have been facing a decision about whether or not to add them to their 40-man roster. Instead, they have cashed them in for an immediate bullpen upgrade, meaning those decisions will now transfer to Chicago.

Rob Zamparelli first reported on X that Leiter was headed to the Yankees. Jeff Passan and Kiley McDaniel of ESPN relayed the full trade on X.

Orioles To Acquire Trevor Rogers

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The Orioles are acquiring southpaw starting pitcher Trevor Rogers from the Marlins, according to Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic.  The Marlins will receive second baseman/outfielder Connor Norby in the deal, reports Robert Murray of FanSided.  Miami also gets outfielder Kyle Stowers, according to MLB.com’s Mark Feinsand.

Rogers marks the Orioles’ second recent rotation addition, after they acquired Zach Eflin from the Rays four days ago.  Rogers, 27 in November, owns a 4.53 ERA, 18.0 K%, 9.7 BB%, and 46.9% groundball rate in 105 1/3 innings this year.  Rogers has a 3.17 ERA over his last nine starts, but with no apparent improvement in his skills.

Rogers was at his best three years ago, when he made the All-Star team and finished second in the NL Rookie of the Year voting by posting a 2.64 ERA in 133 innings.  He averaged 94.6 miles per hour on his fastball that year, and looked like one of the game’s best young starters.  The lefty had a strong pedigree, as well, having been drafted 13th overall out of high school in 2017.

Things took a turn in 2022, as Rogers’ strikeout rate plummeted and he missed a month with lower back spasms.  That season also ended a bit early due to a lat strain.  2023 was worse, as Rogers’ season ended in April after four starts due to a left biceps strain and a partial tear in his right lat.

Rogers then entered the arbitration system, and is earning $1.53MM this year.  He remains under team control through 2026.  Rogers has avoided the IL thus far this year, but it’ll be up to Orioles pitching coach Drew French and the rest of the staff to attempt to help him regain his 2021 form.  Rogers’ average fastball velocity is down to 92.2 miles per hour this year, a notable 2.4 mile per hour drop from his one stellar season.

Having lost Kyle Bradish, John Means, and Tyler Wells to Tommy John surgery, the first-place Orioles have a rotation of Corbin Burnes, Grayson Rodriguez, Eflin, Dean Kremer, and Rogers.  Burnes and Means are eligible for free agency after the season, leaving Rodriguez, Kremer, and new additions Eflin and Rogers for 2025.

The Orioles had been connected to Garrett Crochet and Blake Snell, and could theoretically add one of them in the next three-plus hours, but are likely done with their rotation at this point.  Aside from Eflin and Rogers, Orioles executive vice president and GM Mike Elias also bolstered his bullpen by acquiring Seranthony Dominguez last week.

Marlins president of baseball operations Peter Bendix did quite well in adding a pair of Major League-ready position players for two-plus years of Rogers.

Norby, 24, ranked 93rd on Baseball America’s top 100 prospects heading into the 2023 season.  Prior to this season, BA gave Norby a 50 grade, calling him a “bat-first second baseman” who can also handle left field.  The former 2021 second-rounder has spent most of the season repeating Triple-A, and has shown quite well with a 134 wRC+ in 80 games.  He’s gotten a few brief looks with the Orioles due to Jorge Mateo’s injuries, but has only played in nine big league games so far.  Norby is under the Marlins’ control through 2030 and will likely receive regular playing time at second base for the rest of the season.

Stowers, 26, was drafted by the Orioles in the second round out of Stanford in 2019.  Known for his big raw power from the left side, Stowers has been unable to secure regular playing time on the stacked Orioles since his 2022 debut.  Stowers, who is best-suited for right field, will get that chance with the Marlins.  Like Norby, Stowers has spent most of the season at Triple-A, posting a decent 115 wRC+.

If the Marlins did indeed come up with a pair of controllable regulars for a back-end starter in Rogers, it’ll be quite the win as Bendix makes his mark on the team.

At the time of this writing, Bendix still has three-plus hours remaining to further remake the Marlins, likely by dismantling his bullpen and possibly trading outfielder Bryan De La Cruz.  The team’s 2024 rotation is particularly bare with the departure of Rogers, leaving Edward Cabrera, Max Meyer, and Kyle Tyler.  Jesus Luzardo is working his way back from a lumbar stress reaction, Ryan Weathers is recovering from an index finger strain, and Braxton Garrett is on the IL for a forearm strain.  Next year, the team will get Sandy Alcantara and eventually Eury Perez back from Tommy John surgery.

Cards, Nats Have Discussed Dylan Carlson, Dylan Floro

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1:11pm: The Cards and Nats have indeed had ongoing talks on a swap of the two Dylans and could complete a deal this afternoon, tweets Mark Feinsand of MLB.com. It’s not yet clear if other players are involved.

11:17am: The Cardinals crossed a pair of big items off their wishlist yesterday when they acquired right-hander Erick Fedde and outfielder Tommy Pham from the White Sox, but they’re still hoping to add to the bullpen, Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports. The Cardinals are openly shopping outfielder Dylan Carlson in a related pursuit, and MLB.com’s John Denton tweets that Nationals right-hander Dylan Floro is a name to watch if St. Louis indeed moves on from Carlson. The Nats are known to have some interest in Carlson.

A few years ago, the notion of trading Carlson for a middle-relief rental would’ve been unfathomable (though it’s of course possible that a theoretical Dylan-for-Dylan swap would also include additional minor league players to balance out the scales). Carlson isn’t all that far removed from ranking among the game’s top 10 to 20 overall prospects. The former first-rounder’s bat has wilted since a solid 2021 showing.

Dating back to 2022, Carlson has batted just .225/.310/.345 in 881 big league plate appearances. That’s come in scattered playing time — in part due to injuries — so the Nats could well view him as a buy-low option with two-plus seasons of club control remaining who could benefit from a change of scenery. (The last controllable outfielder they pried from the Cardinals in exchange for a rental pitcher — Lane Thomas for Jon Lester — worked out nicely, after all.)

Floro, 33, is on a one-year, $2.25MM contract and will be a free agent at season’s end. He’s pitched to a pristine 2.06 earned run average this season, albeit with a rather pedestrian 19.6% strikeout rate and tepid 90.3 mph average fastball. That said, Floro has walked only 6.4% of his opponents and kept the ball on the ground at a strong 47.6% clip. He’s not going to continue to see this level of fortune on his fly-balls — only 2.2% of them have become homers, compared to the 7% mark he carried into the season — but it’s been a nice rebound effort for a veteran reliever who struggled to keep his ERA under 5.00 last year between the Marlins and Twins.

Since cementing himself as a viable big league reliever in 2018, Floro touts a 3.11 ERA in 361 1/3 innings. He’s had a below-average strikeout rate nearly every season along the way, but never egregiously so, and has offset that with habitually strong command. Floro also regularly avoids loud contact, evidenced by a career 87.4 mph average exit velocity, 3.7% barrel rate and 38.4% hard-hit rate.

Floro is surely just one of many bullpen arms the Cardinals have looked into in the final hours leading to today’s 5pm CT trade deadline. Concurrently, they’re looking for trade partners for Carlson and the already-designated-for-assignment Giovanny Gallegos. The Cards may not have another blockbuster along the lines of yesterday’s three-team swap in them, but they could still have multiple trades in store today.

Red Sox Acquire Lucas Sims

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The Red Sox announced the acquisition of reliever Lucas Sims from the Reds. Pitching prospect Ovis Portes is going back to Cincinnati. Boston designated left-hander Brandon Walter for assignment to open a 40-man roster spot.

Sims spent parts of seven seasons in Cincinnati. A former first-round pick by the Braves, the Georgia native struggled in Atlanta before going to the Reds at the 2018 deadline in the Adam Duvall trade. Cincinnati quickly moved Sims to the bullpen, where he’s been a bit volatile but flashed high-leverage upside.

After a strong showing during the abbreviated 2020 schedule, Sims showed huge swing-and-miss potential in ’21. He lost most of the next season to injuries that culminated in season-ending back surgery. Sims rebounded to turn in 61 innings of 3.10 ERA ball a year ago. He carries a 3.57 mark through 35 1/3 frames this season.

Sims has fanned an above-average 26% of batters faced. His 11.3% swinging strike percentage is solid but down a few points from last year’s excellent 14.3% clip. The 30-year-old righty has been a bit homer-prone this year — strangely much more so on the road than at Cincinnati’s hitter-friendly Great American Ball Park — and has always had wobbly control. He’s walking 13% of batters faced this season after handing out free passes at a 15.1% clip a year ago.

That command leads to some inconsistency, but he’s posted generally strong results while working in the middle to late innings for skipper David Bell. Sims owns a 3.27 mark with a 27.2% strikeout rate against a 14.3% walk percentage in 110 appearances over the last two years. Opponents have hit .190/.325/.343 over that stretch. Sims has a bit of closing experience but won’t be needed in the ninth inning in Boston. He adds a right-handed setup option in front of Kenley Jansen while Chris Martin and Rule 5 pickup Justin Slaten are on the injured list.

Sims is playing on a $2.85MM salary in his final season of arbitration. He’ll hit free agency for the first time next winter. Boston is taking on roughly $935K for the stretch run. RosterResource calculates Boston’s CBT number around $222MM, giving chief baseball officer Craig Breslow and his group ample flexibility for more moves this afternoon while staying under the $237MM tax line.

Cincinnati is five games out in the Wild Card race. They’re seemingly positioned as soft deadline sellers and have moved impending free agents Frankie Montas and Sims in the past 24 hours (albeit for upper level talent in Montas’ case). The Reds have a strong relief group overall and could feel they’re not taking too much of a hit to their slim playoff chances by parting with Sims and giving a few more meaningful innings to someone like Tony Santillan.

The Reds grab a developmental low minors pitching prospect in the process. Portes, 19, is a 6’4″ righty who signed with the Sox out of Antigua and Barbuda in 2022. He has turned to be a nice find for Boston’s international scouting department. Baseball America ranked him as the #29 prospect in the Boston system, writing that he sits in the mid-90s and can run his fastball up to 99 MPH. He needs to continue developing his secondary stuff and control but there’s intriguing velocity and physical upside. Portes has reached Low-A this season, where he has a 3.43 ERA over 21 innings. He’s striking out more than a quarter of opponents but struggling to throw strikes.

Walter has been on the minor league injured list all season. Injured players cannot go on outright waivers, so the Sox are likely to release him this week. The 27-year-old southpaw made his big league debut last season and tossed 23 innings of 6.26 ERA ball over nine long relief outings.

Robert Murray of FanSided first reported the Red Sox were acquiring Sims. MassLive’s Chris Cotillo suggested Portes might be in the return, which Joel Sherman of the New York Post confirmed.

Image courtesy of USA Today Sports.

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