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Cubs Release Tomas Nido

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The Cubs released catcher Tomás Nido, tweets Meghan Montemurro of the Chicago Tribune. Nido had been on the 10-day injured list but was occupying a 40-man roster spot. Chicago needed to create a 40-man vacancy to finalize their claim of reliever Shawn Armstrong from St. Louis.

Nido has been on the IL since July 25 with a meniscus injury that required right knee surgery. The Cubs sent him on a rehab stint with Triple-A Iowa last night. That suggests he’s nearing a return, but the Cubs no longer felt they needed him in the catching corps. Chicago called up Christian Bethancourt once Nido landed on the shelf. He has mashed over 11 games in the backup role. Starter Miguel Amaya, meanwhile, has a huge .337/.375/.554 slash since the All-Star Break. It’s a huge turnaround after the 25-year-old hit .201/.266/.288 in the first half.

Since Nido’s injury, Cubs’ catchers own an MLB-leading .327/.358/.634 batting line. Chicago’s catchers almost instantaneously flipped from one of the league’s worst groups to being among the best for the last month. There’s not much of a reason to make a change. The Cubs could have carried three catchers for September but probably would not have had many at-bats available for Nido.

Chicago has put the 30-year-old on waivers. He’d be a free agent if he goes unclaimed, though there may not be enough time for him to catch on elsewhere while still remaining eligible for postseason play with his new club. If another team claimed him or signed him to a big league contract, they’d only be responsible for the prorated portion of the league minimum. The Mets are otherwise paying his $2.1MM salary in the second season of a two-year contract.

Nido is a career .210/.245/.309 hitter over parts of eight seasons. He’s obviously not going to bring much to the table offensively but has a strong defensive reputation. Statcast grades him highly for his pitch framing acumen and arm strength.

Anthony Gose Elects Free Agency

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August 30: Cleveland announced Friday that Gose cleared waivers and again elected free agency in lieu of an outright assignment.

August 28: The Guardians announced Wednesday that they’ve designated left-hander Anthony Gose for assignment. It’s rather incredibly the third DFA of the month for Gose, who has twice cleared waivers and returned to the organization (the second time after very briefly electing free agency). His spot on the roster will go to fellow left-hander Erik Sabrowski, whose contract has been selected from Triple-A Columbus. Sabrowski is now in line to make his major league debut the first time he takes the mound for Cleveland.

Gose, 34, pitched two innings in last night’s loss to the Royals, allowing a run four hits with one strikeout. The outfielder-turned-reliever has pitched 3 1/3 big league frames this season and allowed three runs. He’s spent the bulk of the season pitching for Cleveland’s Triple-A affiliate in Columbus, where he’s logged 39 innings with a solid 3.46 ERA, a huge 32.9% strikeout rate and a problematic 15% walk rate.

The 2024 season is Gose’s first year back from a Tommy John procedure that wiped out his entire 2023 campaign. A former second-round pick who ranked as one of the top prospects in the game during his days as a center fielder, he’s still looking to establish himself as a viable big league option in the bullpen. Gose has pitched 31 innings in the majors since making the switch to the mound and recorded a 4.35 ERA with big strikeout numbers (29.5%) and also big walk issues (12.9%).

A two-way star in high school who had some draft interest as a pitcher, Gose was brandishing a fastball that averaged 99.3 mph when he made his mound debut in 2021. He’s since undergone elbow surgery and seen that average heater dip to 95.2 mph — still a well above-average mark (particularly for a lefty), but not the same type of overpowering offering it was a few years back. Gose is still piling up strikeouts in Triple-A, but the command of his fastball/slider combination is a work in progress.

Gose will once again head to the waiver wire now that he’s been designated for assignment. He has the right to reject an outright in favor of free agency, but at this point of the season there’s a good chance he’d just re-sign with Cleveland and head back to Columbus anyhow, as he did following his previous DFA.

As for Sabrowski, this is his first call to the big leagues. The 6’4″, 230-pound southpaw was a 14th-round pick by the Padres in 2018 who came to the Guardians organization by way of the Rule 5 Draft’s minor league phase in 2021. Although he’s a 2018 draftee, he’s only pitched in parts of three professional seasons, thanks to the canceled 2020 minor league campaign and a pair of Tommy John surgeries that both cost him at least a full season. He has just 99 1/3 professional innings under his belt at this point.

Even with that minimal workload, Sabrowski has been impressive with the Guardians since returning from his most recent elbow surgery. Like Gose, he’s posted huge strikeout numbers but also bloated walk rates. His 2023 season saw Sabrowski log 21 2/3 frames with a 2.49 ERA in Double-A. He punched out 30.4% of his opponents but also walked 19.6% of the batters he faced.

Sabrowski opened the 2024 season back at Double-A and notched a pristine 0.77 ERA in 11 2/3 innings there, fanning a comical 54.2% of his opponents against a vastly improved 4.2% walk rate. Since being promoted to Triple-A, he’s logged a 4.38 ERA in 37 innings while recording a 31.2% strikeout rate against a once-again troublesome 17.6% walk rate. He’ll need to improve that command in order to find sustained success in the majors, but there’s little doubting Sabrowski’s ability to miss bats in droves. For now, he gives Cleveland skipper Stephen Vogt a fresh arm as the Guards look to fend off a surging Royals club in the AL Central, with the Twins only 2.5 games behind as well.

Rockies Select Seth Halvorsen

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The Rockies announced they’ve selected reliever Seth Halvorsen onto the MLB roster. He joins the bullpen in place of Noah Davis, who was optioned to Triple-A Albuquerque. The Rox had an opening on the 40-man roster after passing left-hander Antoine Kelly through outright waivers yesterday.

Halvorsen, 24, will be making his big league debut. The 6’2″ righty spent two years at the University of Missouri before transferring to Tennessee for his junior season. He turned in a 3.81 ERA over 52 innings for the Vols. The Rockies selected him in the seventh round of last year’s draft.

Colorado got Halvorsen to Double-A by the end of his draft year. He has split this season between Double-A Hartford and Albuquerque. Halvorsen turned in a 4.84 ERA in 35 1/3 Double-A frames, striking out nearly 26% of opponents while walking 12% of batters faced. While he only has nine Triple-A appearances under his belt, he has already punched out 15 at the top minor league level.

In April, Eric Longenhagen of FanGraphs ranked Halvorsen the #14 prospect in the Colorado system. Longenhagen credited him with an upper-90s fastball, as well as an above-average slider and splitter duo. He doesn’t have great control, potentially pushing him into a middle relief role. The Rox are desperate for reliable contributors in the bullpen. There’s plenty of room for Halvorsen to establish himself quickly.

Giants Outright Thairo Estrada, Release Tyler Matzek

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Thairo Estrada and Tyler Matzek both went unclaimed on waivers. The Giants announced they’ve assigned Estrada outright to Triple-A Sacramento while recalling Brett Wisely (X link via Alex Pavlovic of NBC Sports Bay Area). Matzek, who’d been on the 60-day injured list, was placed on unconditional release waivers. Estrada drops off the 40-man roster, which now carries 38 players.

San Francisco reportedly placed Estrada, Matzek and lefty reliever Taylor Rogers on waivers earlier in the week. The Giants did not announce what happened with Rogers’ waiver process. It’s possible that they didn’t officially place Rogers on waivers until a day later than the Estrada and Matzek moves (and are therefore still waiting on a resolution). However, it seems likely that Rogers went unclaimed and the Giants simply elected to hold onto him.

A team is not required to send a player to the minors after he clears waivers. The Giants would have no reason to do so with Rogers. If the Giants tried to demote him, the former All-Star could elect free agency while retaining his $12MM salary for next season. That’d simply amount to cutting Rogers, a productive reliever, without any financial benefit for doing so.

Estrada does not have that luxury. The glove-first second baseman has between three and five years of service. That gives him the right to decline an outright assignment but would require him to forfeit the remainder of his salary to do so. Estrada is playing on a $4.7MM arbitration deal and isn’t likely to give up the more than $800K remaining on that contract. He’ll almost certainly report to Sacramento, while Wisely could get a look as the everyday second baseman at Oracle Park.

The 28-year-old Estrada was an average or better hitter during his first three seasons with the Giants, combining for a .266/.320/.416 slash. He topped 20 stolen bases and drilled 14 homers apiece in 2022 and ’23. He hasn’t been anywhere near that effective this season. He’s hitting .217/.247/.343 across 381 trips to the plate. Among hitters with 300+ plate appearances, only Eddie Rosario and Adam Duvall have a lower on-base percentage.

San Francisco can reselect Estrada onto the 40-man roster through season’s end. He’d technically remain eligible for arbitration if they called him back up, but the waiver process makes clear that the Giants don’t plan to tender him a contract in either case. Whether he returns to the MLB club next month, he’s very likely to be on the open market (either through minor league free agency or a non-tender) during the upcoming offseason.

The Giants acquired Matzek from the Braves as a salary offset in the Jorge Soler deadline deal. He’s playing on a $1.9MM salary that no team was willing to assume. Matzek was on the injured list at the time of the trade and never threw a pitch as a Giant. He missed all of last year recovering from Tommy John surgery. Matzek returned this season before landing back on the IL in May with elbow inflammation.

The 33-year-old southpaw had a tough first month in Atlanta, giving up 11 runs over 10 frames. The Giants sent him to Triple-A on a rehab stint a couple weeks ago. He made five appearances, allowing four runs through 4 2/3 innings. Matzek could be healthy enough to sign elsewhere, though he’d need to do so within the next day to be eligible for postseason play.

Angels Designate Johnny Cueto For Assignment

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The Angels announced they’ve designated Johnny Cueto for assignment. Los Angeles also placed reliever Carson Fulmer on the 15-day injured list (retroactive to August 27) with elbow inflammation. The moves create active roster spots for the previously reported promotions of Caden Dana and Samuel Aldegheri. The Halos transferred José Marte to the 60-day IL to clear the second 40-man spot.

Los Angeles called Cueto up last week. They gave him two starts, in which he surrendered nine runs over 11 1/3 innings. Cueto struck out six, walked three and gave up four home runs. He managed a quality start against the Royals in his team debut (three ER in 6 1/3 frames) before the Tigers tagged him for six runs on Tuesday.

The Angels then decided to take their first look at Dana and Aldegheri, two of the top pitching prospects in the organization. That’s a better use of the final month of a lost season than continuing to turn to a 38-year-old impending free agent. Cueto’s tenure with the Halos certainly wasn’t the most memorable, but it did mark his 17th straight year logging some amount of MLB action. Los Angeles will place Cueto on waivers in the next few days. He’ll almost certainly clear and become a free agent.

As for the injured players, Fulmer told the Halos beat that he’s headed for an MRI (X link via Rhett Bollinger of MLB.com). The 30-year-old righty expressed confidence there’s nothing structurally awry. Marte has been on the injured list for a few weeks with a viral infection. Manager Ron Washington told reporters earlier in the week that the righty experienced shoulder soreness once he resumed a throwing program (link via Jeff Fletcher of the Orange County Register). The severity of the injury isn’t clear, but his season is over.

Cubs Claim Shawn Armstrong

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The Cubs have claimed reliever Shawn Armstrong from the Cardinals, reports Jeff Passan of ESPN (X link). St. Louis had designated the righty for assignment on Tuesday.

Armstrong’s DFA ended a brief run in St. Louis. The Cards acquired him from the Rays at the trade deadline in a swap sending former top prospect Dylan Carlson to Tampa Bay. Armstrong pitched well in St. Louis, running a 12:2 strikeout-to-walk ratio while allowing only four runs in 12 2/3 innings. That was quite a bit better than the 5.40 earned run average he’d posted across 46 2/3 frames with Tampa Bay earlier in the year.

While Armstrong held up his end of the bargain, the Cardinals have had a tough month. They’ve dropped six games back of the last Wild Card spot. The front office has conceded the unlikelihood of a playoff run by waiving Armstrong and Tommy Pham, the two impending free agents they’d acquired at the deadline. Doing so allows them to offload what remains of Armstrong’s $2.05MM arbitration salary; they’d save the prorated portion of Pham’s $3MM deal if another team were to claim him.

The Cardinals lose Armstrong to their rivals, who are only one game closer to a postseason spot. Chicago enters play on Friday five games back of the Braves in the Wild Card mix. As with St. Louis, they’re long shots to get to the playoffs. The Cubs are riding a three-game win streak and kicking off a stretch of winnable games against the Nationals and Pirates. The front office isn’t completely throwing in the towel, adding to a bullpen that has pitched well over the past six weeks.

At 68-66, the Cubs had a higher waiver priority than any team that currently occupies a playoff spot (plus the Mariners, Red Sox and Mets). They’ll assume roughly $330K in salary commitments, plus another $66K in estimated luxury tax payments, to plug Armstrong into the bullpen for the season’s final month. Assuming the claim is officially processed tomorrow, he’d be eligible for Chicago’s playoff roster if they made a furious push to snag a spot.

Dodgers Release Jesse Hahn

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Right-hander Jesse Hahn has been released by Triple-A Oklahoma City, according to his transactions tracker at MLB.com. He had been pitching for that club after signing a minor league deal with the Dodgers in the offseason.

Hahn, now 35, had his 2021 season ended by a shoulder injury and then didn’t pitch in any official capacity in the following two years. With OKC here in 2024, he tossed 41 2/3 innings over 35 appearances, allowing 4.54 earned runs per nine. His 24.2% strikeout rate and 58% ground ball rate were both strong, but his 18.1% walk rate was abysmal. For reference, the major league average in 2024 is currently 8.2%.

It’s perhaps not surprising that Hahn has had some rust after such a long layoff, but it was also a trend prior to his absence. With the Royals from 2019 to 2021, he tossed 25 1/3 innings with a 26.1% strikeout rate but a 16.2% walk rate.

Hahn will now head to the open market and see if any club is interested in his services, presumably one that has a plan for reining in that control somehow. In 311 1/3 career innings from 2014 to 2021, he posted a 4.22 ERA with an 18% strikeout rate, 9% walk rate and 49.5% ground ball rate.

Vinnie Pasquantino To Miss Six To Eight Weeks With Broken Thumb

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3:30pm: The Royals announced that Pasquantino has been placed on the 10-day injured list with Loftin recalled as the corresponding move.

10:30am: The Royals announced that first baseman Vinnie Pasquantino has a broken right thumb. He is scheduled for further testing today but the club says he won’t be able to return for six to eight weeks. Given that timeline, he’ll miss the remainder of the regular season and would need the club to put together a deep postseason run to be a factor late in October.

During last night’s game against the Astros, Yainer Diaz hit a comebacker to right-hander Lucas Erceg, who attempted to field the ball with his bare hand. Erceg knocked the ball down, picked it up and fired to first. The ball arrived at the bag around the same time as Diaz, who made contact with Pasquantino as the first baseman attempted to field the throw (Video link from MLB.com). Both Erceg and Pasquantino were visibly injured and removed from the game after the play. Manager Matt Quatraro told reporters after the game that both players would undergo X-rays, per broadcaster Joel Goldberg on X.

The Royals haven’t yet provided an update on Erceg, but the news on Pasquantino is devastating. He’s been a key bat for the club this year, hitting 19 home runs while limiting his strikeout rate to 12.8%. His .262/.315/.446 batting line translates to a wRC+ of 106.

That’s only six percent better than league average but the Royals have had a fairly top-heavy offense this year. Bobby Witt Jr. has been elite and Salvador Perez has been great, but there’s a big drop-off without Pasquantino in the mix. The only others players on the team with an above-average wRC+ this year are Freddy Fermin, Michael Massey and Paul DeJong. Fermin’s output is fuelled by a .344 batting average on balls in play that he will struggle to maintain while DeJong has been a boom-and-bust players for years, alternating between home run surges and big strikeout woes.

The lineup looks a lot less imposing without Pasquantino in it and the Royals will now have to proceed in his absence. Despite that fairly middling offense, the club has been able to ride Witt’s amazing season and a strong rotation to a record of 75-60. They are in the middle of a three-way battle for the Central division, currently 1.5 games back of the Guardians but two ahead of the Twins. Both the Royals and Twins currently hold Wild Card spots, with Boston 3.5 games back of Minnesota for the final slot.

The club will now have to navigate the remainder of the regular season and at least the beginning of the playoffs while figuring out a solution at first base. Perez has gotten into 35 games there, including 31 starts, usually with Pasquantino slotting in as the designated hitter. Perhaps Perez will play first more often but Fermin won’t be able to catch every day, so Perez will have to be behind the plate from time to time.

Perhaps the club will turn to one of Nick Loftin or CJ Alexander, as both are multi-positional guys capable of playing first and each is having a good season in Triple-A. Loftin is slashing .331/.422/.509 for the Storm Chasers while Alexander is hitting .303/.352/.554. But neither player has hit in the majors yet, as Loftin has a line of .236/.316/.305 in 232 big league plate appearances while Alexander slashed .125/.125/.125 through his eight trips to the major league plate.

The Royals could look outside the organization for more offense, though their options will be limited now that the trade deadline has passed. Players like Tommy Pham and Robbie Grossman have reportedly been put on waivers this week. Neither is a real first base solution but they could conceivably help with the DH spot. It’s likely there are other names on the wire that haven’t been reported. Any player claimed prior to September 1 is playoff-eligible with his new team.

The next few days should shed some light on how the Royals respond. For Pasquantino, it’ll be a second consecutive season marked by injury. His 2023 campaign was ended in June by shoulder surgery, limiting him to just 61 games. He got into 131 contests this year but he won’t be able to increase that number now. He is slated to qualify for arbitration after 2025 and free agency after 2028.

Second-Half Snell Is Doing It Again

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Over the course of any given calendar year, Major League Baseball is full of oddities. The Dodgers gave the largest pitching contract ever to a starting pitcher who'd never pitched in the majors. The Marlins waved the white flag on their season after about five weeks. Rich Hill signed his eighth career free agent deal with the Red Sox. Heck, Danny Jansen played in the same game for two different teams. All that said, Blake Snell has had one of the strangest calendar years of any player in the game.

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Tigers Designate Joey Wentz For Assignment

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2:55pm: The Tigers made these moves official and also announced that right-hander Alex Faedo was transferred to the 60-day IL. He landed on the 15-day IL on August 22 due to a right shoulder strain and the club announced that his season is over, per Cody Stavenhagen of The Athletic on X. Detroit’s 40-man roster count drops to 39.

2:03pm: The Tigers have designated left-hander Joey Wentz for assignment, reports Evan Petzold of the Detroit Free Press. He’ll be the corresponding roster move for right-hander Casey Mize, who is being reinstated from the 60-day injured list.

Wentz, 26, was the No. 40 overall pick by the Braves back in 2016. The southpaw quickly became one of the more prominent pitching prospects in what was then a stacked Braves farm system and made his way to the Tigers alongside outfielder Travis Demeritte in the trade that sent righty Shane Greene to Atlanta. Wentz made his big league debut with the 2022 Tigers and has pitched for Detroit in each of the past three seasons.

That 2022 cup of coffee proved to be a solid debut effort. Wentz started seven games, totaled 32 2/3 innings and posted a 3.03 earned run average along the way. His 20% strikeout rate and 9.6% walk rate didn’t necessarily stand out, but for a 24-year-old making his debut after just 12 appearances at the Triple-A level, it was an encouraging start all the same.

Unfortunately, that’s the most success Wentz has enjoyed in the majors to date. He appeared in 25 games with the 2023 Tigers — 19 of them starts — and was rocked for a 6.90 ERA with nearly identical strikeout and walk rates to that ’22 debut. Wentz became extremely homer-prone, however, surrendering an average of 2.13 round-trippers per nine innings pitched — the third-worst mark of any pitcher who totaled at least 100 innings last year.

Wentz’s 2024 season has been somewhat better but not enough to save his roster spot. In 55 1/3 innings, he’s pitched to a 5.37 ERA with a career-high 23.6% strikeout rate but also a career-worst 10.6% walk rate. He’s out of minor league options, so the Tigers couldn’t simply send him to Triple-A if they wanted to free up his roster spot. The DFA became a necessity in that regard, and Wentz will now be made available to all 29 other clubs via waivers.

If another club claims him, he’ll need to go right onto the big league roster, as he can’t be sent to the minors without clearing waivers. If he goes unclaimed, he lacks the service time and prior outright needed to reject a minor league assignment. As such, he’d stick with the Tigers as a depth option in Triple-A Toledo without occupying a 40-man roster spot.

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