Headlines

Go To Pro Hockey Rumors
Go To Hoops Rumors

Rockies Listening To Trade Offers On Elias Diaz

By | at

The Rockies will consider trade offers on catcher Elias Díaz over the next few weeks, writes Jon Heyman of the New York Post. The veteran should slot in behind Danny Jansen as a rental target for contenders seeking catching help.

Impending free agents on last-place teams are frequently trade candidates. Díaz fits the bill, but the Rockies haven’t always been eager to trade rentals even after falling out of contention. Colorado held Trevor Story and Jon Gray at the deadline three years ago. They extended Daniel Bard rather than trading him at the 2022 deadline. The Rox were more aggressive in moving rentals last year, although they still held onto lefty reliever Brent Suter only to watch him walk in free agency.

It’s less likely they’ll do so with Díaz. Heyman reports that the team declined to engage in extension discussions with the 33-year-old catcher. If Colorado isn’t interested in keeping him beyond this season, they’re better off taking the best offer on the table by July 30. Díaz isn’t a qualifying offer candidate, so they wouldn’t get any compensation if they let him depart via free agency.

While the return wouldn’t be huge, Díaz has probably played well enough to net Colorado a mid-level prospect or two. He has career marks in batting average (.296) and on-base percentage (.340). Díaz’s overall .296/.340/.417 batting line is around league average after accounting for Coors Field, as measured by wRC+. That’s more than adequate for a catcher.

An acquiring team probably wouldn’t expect Díaz to match that level of production down the stretch. He’s hitting .347 on balls in play, a mark he’ll have a tough time maintaining. Díaz doesn’t hit the ball especially hard and isn’t going to beat out many infield hits. There’s room for regression while remaining a passable hitter at the position. Catchers around the league are hitting .236/.300/.381 this season.

Perhaps more importantly, Díaz has dramatically improved his defensive grades. For most of his career, the Venezuela native has rated as a subpar pitch framer. That’s not the case in 2024, as Statcast has lauded his receiving skills in more than 400 innings. Díaz has always had a strong arm and been very effective at controlling the running game. He’s doing so again, cutting down 14 of 45 stolen base attempts (31.1%). That’s well better than the 22.1% league average.

Díaz is in the final season of a three-year extension that he signed during the 2021-22 offseason. He’s playing on a $6MM salary. There’s a little less than $2.6MM remaining on that tab. That’ll be down to around $2MM by the deadline. Díaz’s contract shouldn’t be too much of an impediment to a trade. Some teams are reluctant to trade for catchers midseason because of the challenges of quickly adjusting to a new pitching staff, but Díaz could work as part of a timeshare with an in-house catcher.

The Cubs and Rays are fringe contenders but could look for catching help if they stick in the playoff mix. Díaz’s former team in Pittsburgh hasn’t gotten much from the position, while the Mariners may look for a better backup behind Cal Raleigh to keep Mitch Garver working primarily at designated hitter.

Díaz and Jacob Stallings are the only true catchers on Colorado’s 40-man roster (though Hunter Goodman can play there in a pinch). They’re each impending free agents, and Stallings has also played well enough to be viable trade candidate.

A trade of one or both veterans could open some late-season reps for Drew Romo. The 35th overall pick in the 2020 draft, Romo is hitting .300/.331/.494 in 66 games with Albuquerque. Colorado will need to select his contract by November to keep him out of the Rule 5 draft. They could take the final few weeks of the regular season to give the 22-year-old his first look against MLB arms.

Austin Cox Opts Out Of Royals Deal

By | at

Left-hander Austin Cox opted out of a minor league contract with the Royals, as first reported by MLBTR’s Tim Dierkes (X link). He returns to free agency after K.C. decided not to select him onto the 40-man roster.

Cox was a fifth-round pick by the Royals out of Mercer in 2018. He had spent all but one day of his professional career in the organization. The 27-year-old southpaw reached the majors last season and pitched in 24 games. He turned in a 4.54 ERA across 35 2/3 innings, striking out 22.1% of opponents against an elevated 11.4% walk percentage. His debut season came to an unfortunate end in September. Cox tore the ACL in his left knee as he tried to cover first base on a ground-ball. He underwent surgery not long thereafter.

That perhaps contributed to the Royals’ decision to take Cox off the 40-man roster. K.C. non-tendered him on November 17. That briefly sent him to free agency, though he returned to the organization on a minor league deal the following day. Cox wasn’t able to participate in Spring Training as he finished his injury rehab, but he made it back to the mound with Triple-A Omaha a couple weeks into the season.

Cox made 19 appearances with the Storm Chasers, working mostly in long relief. He worked to a 3.90 ERA with a decent 23.3% strikeout rate. Yet he also walked almost 14% of opponents, an issue he’s battled throughout his career. Cox is likely looking at another minor league deal on a team seeking multi-inning relief depth.

Blue Jays Place Kevin Kiermaier On Waivers

By | at

6:37pm: Kiermaier confirmed the report, telling Shi Davidi and Arden Zwelling of Sportsnet after the game that manager John Schneider informed him of the waiver placement (X link). “It’s the chance for a contending team to claim me if they want, from what I was just told. I totally get it with where we’re at as a team,” the Gold Glove center fielder said.

4:20pm: The Blue Jays have placed outfielder Kevin Kiermaier on waivers, reports Joel Sherman of The New York Post. The goal is seemingly to have another team claim him and take on the remainder of his salary. Kiermaier is still on the 40-man roster and can continue playing for the Jays while on waivers. In fact, he was playing in today’s game against the Giants as this report came out. If he clears waivers, the Jays can outright him or release him but keeping him on the roster would also be an option.

Last year, a new trend started to emerge of players being placed on waivers without being removed from the roster of their home club. This used to be a common practice back when there were two deadlines. Under the previous system, there was one deadline usually around the end of July and another around the end of August. In between those two deadlines, a player could still be traded but had to clear waivers first. This led to teams around the league putting huge numbers of players on waivers, most of whom had contracts that outpaced their on-field contributions, which usually led to them going unclaimed and then potentially being traded.

In 2019, MLB and the MLBPA agreed to a single deadline, getting rid of the August waiver trade system. This meant that players being placed on waivers while holding onto a roster spot essentially went away for a few years.

The practice came roaring back last year, thanks to the Angels. That club made an aggressive push at last year’s deadline, trying to win while they still had Shohei Ohtani for a few months. But they hit a big losing streak in August and fell way back in the standings, then pivoted to cost-saving mode. At the end of August, they put Lucas Giolito, Matt Moore, Reynaldo López, Hunter Renfroe, Randal Grichuk and Dominic Leone on waivers, hoping for another club to claim those guys and take on their salaries. Since the trade deadline had passed, this was their only avenue to cutting salary and lowering their competitive balance tax number.

This wasn’t the end of the waiver madness. The Yankees also put Harrison Bader out there, while Mike Clevinger of the White Sox, Carlos Carrasco of the Mets and José Cisnero of the Tigers were also out there. In each case, the club had fallen out of contention and was simply looking for cost savings by another team taking the player off their hands. It’s also possible that other players were on waivers and it wasn’t publicly known because they didn’t get claimed.

In the end, some players were claimed and other weren’t, though the Angels successfully managed to dip under the line and avoid the competitive balance tax. That was a significant development as it improved the compensation draft pick they received after Ohtani rejected a qualifying offer and signed with the Dodgers.

All of that is to say that is the probably the first of several reports that could emerge in the coming months about a player being placed on waivers while still on the team. Sherman uses the word “revocable” in his report, though that’s not entirely accurate. Revocable trade waivers no longer exist, but what Sherman likely means is that Kiermaier isn’t necessarily gone from the Blue Jays. Because they haven’t removed him from the 40-man roster by designating him for assignment, he can simply be retained if no one claims him. As an example, Grichuk went unclaimed last year, stayed with the Angels and was put back on waivers again in September. He cleared that time as well and was still playing for the club at the end of the season. But if someone does claim Kiermaier, he’ll be gone, as was the case with Giolito, Moore and several others who were claimed last year.

It seems fairly unlikely that Kiermaier will end up claimed. He’s playing this season on a one-year deal with a $10.5MM salary, with about $4.5MM of that still to be paid out. He still has wheels and is a strong defender but is hitting just .183/.232/.290. A contending team might be interested in him as a fourth outfielder who can pinch run and serve as a defensive replacement, but there’s little incentive for them to take on that salary right now. There’s still over two weeks until the July 30 trade deadline and interested clubs will have until then to work out a deal wherein the Jays eat some of the money, unless some club is willing to simply absbord the whole thing right now.

Whether Kiermaier is ultimately claimed or not, it does send a signal to where the Jays are at right now, as Sherman points out. The Jays are 42-50 as of this writing and 8.5 games back of a playoff spot. The Playoff Odds at FanGraphs currently give them just a 2% chance if making it into the postseason. The PECOTA Standings at Baseball Prospectus are more bullish but only slightly, giving the Jays a 6.2% shot.

Barring an incredible winning streak in the next two weeks, the Jays will likely enter the deadline period at sellers and recent reporting has pointed to them making rental players available. One of those is Kiermaier, but the list also includes Danny Jansen, Justin Turner, Yimi García, Trevor Richards and Yusei Kikuchi. Whether they look for cost savings or prospect capital in those trades remains to be seen, but Kiermaier’s struggles this year won’t allow him to bring back any huge prospect package regardless, so the Jays have opted to see if they can simply get maximum cost savings with this move.

The Jays currently have a CBT number of $247MM, per both RosterResource and Cot’s Baseball Contracts, with only a tiny difference between the calculations of those two sites. The base threshold of the CBT is $237MM this year, so the Jays could avoid paying the tax by shedding more than $10MM from their CBT calculation, so a claim of Kiermaier could get them about halfway there.

If they did manage to duck under the line, the cost savings would be minimal. The Jays are a on pace to be a second-time payor and are therefore subject to a base tax rate of just 30% on spending over the line, meaning they’d currently be lined up for a tax bill of roughly $3MM. But the CBT features growing tax rates for repeat payors, so even teams that pay it regularly like to “reset” their status by ducking under from time to time. If the Jays did that this year, they would be able to theoretically pay the CBT in 2025 as a “first-time” payor as opposed to a “third-time” payor. Paying the CBT also leads to a larger penalty for signing a player that rejected a qualifying offer and reduces the compensation a team receives for a QO player signing elsewhere.

Injury Notes: Hall, Lawlar, Garrett, Gipson-Long

By | at

As of a few days ago, it seemed like left-hander DL Hall was on the cusp of returning to the Brewers after going on the injured list in April due to a left knee sprain. But his rehab outing on July 4 was shortened by rain and the club decided to give him one more rehab start, per Curt Hogg of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel on X.

He took the ball for Triple-A Nashville on Tuesday and started out with two scoreless innings but then the leadoff hitter in the third lined a pitch back to the mound and hit Hall’s left forearm. Adam McCalvy of MLB.com relayed video of the play on X. Per Hogg on X, Hall avoided a fracture but will be shut down for three to ten days. That will obviously delay his return to the club for at least that stretch of time, and he may need another rehab stint or two after that, depending on how long he rests.

He has not yet established himself at the big league level but he has always pitched very well in the minors and was considered one of the top 100 prospects in the sport while with the Orioles, before coming over to the Brewers in the Corbin Burnes trade. The Brewers have dealt with several challenges in the rotation, with Wade Miley and Robert Gasser done for the year while Joe Ross is also on the 60-day IL.

The club recently acquired Aaron Civale from the Rays and Dallas Keuchel from the Mariners to bolster the rotation, slotting them in with Freddy Peralta, Colin Rea and Tobias Myers. Hall could have entered that mix and nudged someone to the bullpen or the minors, but that will now have to wait.

Some more notable injury updates from around baseball…

  • Diamondbacks shortstop prospect Jordan Lawlar’s injury woes continue. He underwent thumb surgery at the end of March, which put him out of action for about two months. He started a rehab assignment at the end of May but then dealt with a hamstring issue in the middle of June and underwent an MRI, per Nick Piecoro of the Arizona Republic on X. He was able to return to the field a few days ago but reinjured that hamstring and will now miss six to eight weeks, per Piecoro on X. Lawlar has only played 13 minor league games this year and won’t have much time to add to that, meaning 2024 will be mostly a lost season for him, an unfortunate development for a guy who’s still considered one of the top 20 prospects in the league and a big part of the future in Arizona. The Snakes have Geraldo Perdomo at short for now and Kevin Newman on the bench. Newman is a free agent after this year but they have Blaze Alexander on the 40-man and on optional assignment.
  • The Mets placed right-hander Reed Garrett on the 15-day IL this week due to elbow inflammation. Thankfully, his MRI revealed good news. As relayed by Anthony DiComo of MLB.com on X, he just has some nerve inflammation. While he’s slated for a shutdown of two to four weeks, that’s surely a better outcome for him and the team than a surgery followed by a lengthy recovery period. Garrett had an ERA of 1.04 through 26 innings this year but then a 7.88 ERA in his 16 most recent frames. If he can get back on track after his shutdown period, it would be a nice bump for the Mets’ bullpen down the stretch.
  • Tigers right-hander Sawyer Gipson-Long had internal brace surgery back in April and was already slated to spend the rest of 2024 rehabbing from that. On top of that, he’s also now undergone left hip labral repair surgery. Jason Beck of MLB.com was among those to relay the news on X and also passed along some thoughts from manager A.J. Hinch. It seems the club is hoping that it makes sense to address both at the same time and that the second procedure won’t add to his return timeline. “The timing works out to address this while he’s recovering from Tommy John,” Hinch said. “That’s the reason why now. It’s something that we’ve kept an eye on and he’s talked about.” He made his major league debut last year with a 2.70 ERA in four starts and will hopefully be back in the mix at some point next year.

Athletics Select Seth Brown

By | at

The Athletics announced that catcher/first baseman Tyler Soderstrom has been placed on the 10-day injured list, with first baseman/outfielder Seth Brown selected to the roster to replace him. The club already had three vacancies on their 40-man thanks to recently outrighting Aaron Brooks as well as releasing Aledmys Díaz and Sean Newcomb, so the count now climbs to 38. Soderstrom has a left wrist bone bruise, per Martín Gallegos of MLB.com on X.

It’s unclear how long the club expects Soderstrom to be out. Clubs sometimes have a quick trigger when it comes to IL stints around the All-Star break. Due to the four off-days, Soderstrom could theoretically return after a minimal stint and miss fewer games than an IL stint at any other point in the season. Perhaps further reporting will shed some more light on the situation.

Regardless of the details on that, Brown gets back to the majors. He was outrighted off the roster last month after a rough start to the season wherein he slashed .189/.251/.306 while striking out in 33.8% of his 195 plate appearances.

He reported to Triple-A Las Vegas and has been tearing the cover off the ball. He hit seven home runs in 16 games for the Aviators and produced a batting line of .403/.416/.736. Part of that is surely due to the hitter-friendly environment of the Pacific Coast League as well as his .423 batting average on balls in play, but it’s a nice bounceback nonetheless.

Brown hit 45 homers for the A’s over the 2021 and 2022 seasons, leading to a line of .224/.294/.457 and 112 wRC+. Last year, he hit just 14 homers and his line of .222/.286/.405 dragged his wRC+ down to 92. Then, as mentioned, he had an awful start to the 2024 season.

His recent showing with the Aviators was a small sample and surely he can’t maintain that insane pace, but it would be nice for the A’s if he could simply be back around his 2021-22 form. He won’t be a big part of the rebuilding club’s future since he turns 32 years old this Saturday, but he could be a deadline trade candidate if he’s in good form at the plate. He also has some versatility, capable of playing passable defense at first base or in an outfield corner. He is making $2.6MM this year and can be controlled via arbitration for two seasons beyond this one.

Cubs Place Cody Bellinger On Injured List With Finger Fracture

By | at

The Cubs announced that outfielder Cody Bellinger has a fracture in his left middle finger and has been placed on the 10-day injured list. Meghan Montemurro of the Chicago Tribune was among those to relay the news on X. Fellow outfielder Alexander Canario has been recalled to take his spot on the active roster.

In last night’s game, Bellinger was hit on the hand by a pitch from left-hander Cionel Pérez. He departed the contest as he felt he couldn’t throw a ball, per Montemurro on X. Now it seems a fracture has been found and he’ll need to miss some time.

Teams are generally more willing to put a player on the IL around the All-Star break, as it allows for an extended breather while perhaps only missing a handful of games. But if Bellinger has a broken bone, he was probably going to need an IL stint regardless, though the club hasn’t yet indicated how much time they expect him to miss.

Either way, it’s a rough development for the club. Bellinger isn’t quite hitting as much as he did last year but his .269/.331/.410 batting line is still 9% better than league average, according to wRC+. He’s also stolen five bases while playing competent center field defense.

The Cubs are in a tight spot, as they are currently 44-49. That only leaves them 3.5 games back in the crowded National League Wild Card race but with several teams ahead of them. They are currently only ahead of the Rockies, Marlins and Nationals and would have to leapfrog six other clubs to get into postseason position. With the trade deadline now less than three weeks away, they will soon have to make some decisions about how aggressively to buy or sell or walk a fine line between the two.

Losing a player of Bellinger’s quality will make it a bit more challenging to climb in the standings in the next few weeks. Bellinger himself has also been speculated as a potential trade candidate, though the opt-outs in his contract make that a complicated endeavor, something that MLBTR’s Anthony Franco recently explored in a piece for Front Office Subscribers. If there was any chance of the Cubs lining up something there, it’s possible that this injury will make it less likely.

With Mike Tauchman also on the IL, the Cubs are now down two outfielders. They will have to proceed with a mix of Pete Crow-Armstrong, Seiya Suzuki and Ian Happ with Canario now in there as well. Canario has a stout batting line of .282/.333/.538 in his big league career. That’s come in a small sample of 42 plate appearances but he also has a strong line of .238/.330/.502 in Triple-A this year.

For Bellinger, it’s possible this impacts him personally. At the end of the year, he will have to trigger his opt-out or stick with the Cubs. He can take a $2.5MM buyout or stick around and collect a $27.5MM salary in 2025, with another $25MM player option and $5MM buyout for the following year. Whether he wants another crack at free agency or not will naturally depend on the kind of platform he produces here in 2024, so he will obviously be hoping to come back in good form in short order.

Royals Trade Colin Selby To Orioles

By | at

The Orioles announced Thursday that they’ve acquired right-hander Colin Selby from the Royals in exchange for cash. He’s been optioned to Triple-A Norfolk. Kansas City had recently designated Selby for assignment. The O’s transferred Kyle Bradish from the 15-day injured list to the 60-day injured list to open a spot on the 40-man roster.

Selby, 26, pitched just three big league innings for the Royals this season, allowing a pair of runs in that short time. Kansas City acquired Selby from Pittsburgh back in April, sending minor league southpaw Connor Oliver to the Pirates in return. Selby pitched 24 innings with the Bucs last year but was tagged for 24 runs in that time. To date, he’s allowed 26 earned runs in 27 MLB frames.

Obviously, that’s a poor track record but also a small sample at the game’s top level. But the former 16th-round pick is no stranger to minor league success, having posted excellent numbers at the Double-A level in addition to some decent but inconsistent results in Triple-A. Selby notched a sub-4.00 ERA with a 30.8% strikeout rate for Pittsburgh’s Triple-A club last season but has struggled to a 5.32 ERA in 20 Triple-A frames between Indianapolis and Omaha this year.

Missing bats is nothing new for Selby, who’s punched out 25.6% of his career minor league opponents. That includes some lesser strikeout rates in the lower minors when he was still working as a starter. Since moving up to the Double-A level and shifting exclusively to a relief role, Selby has fanned 29.8% of the batters he’s faced. His bat-missing arsenal, as is often the case, is accompanied by troubling command woes, however. He’s dished out a free pass to 12.5% of his combined Double-A/Triple-A opponents and plunked another five hitters. Between those walks and HBPs, he’s given first base away to about 14% of the hitters he’s faced in the upper minors.

Selby is in the second of three minor league option years and doesn’t yet have a full season of MLB service under his belt. If the O’s can get him straightened out, he’ll be optionable again next season and under club control for a full six seasons. There’s quite a ways to go before that’s even a plausible situation, but Baltimore has a knack for coaxing strong relief work from unheralded acquisitions. Their track record isn’t spotless, of course, but the O’s have unlocked next-level performances from Yennier Cano, Danny Coulombe, Cionel Perez and Jacob Webb, among others, despite middling to nonexistent track records at their time of acquisition.

Orioles Select Burch Smith

By | at

The Orioles announced Thursday that they’ve selected the contract of right-hander Burch Smith from Triple-A Norfolk. Fellow righty Dillon Tate was optioned to Norfolk in a corresponding move. Baltimore already had an open spot on the 40-man roster, so a 40-man move wasn’t necessary.

The 34-year-old Smith signed with the O’s on a minor league deal two weeks ago. He’s pitched a pair of shutout innings for the Tides during his brief Triple-A stint in the organization, fanning a pair and only allowing one hit along the way. He also tossed 29 2/3 innings out of the Marlins’ bullpen earlier this season and worked to a solid 4.25 ERA — albeit with a subpar 17% strikeout rate. However, Smith also walked only 6.7% of his opponents and kept the ball on the ground at a hearty 47% clip.

That marked Smith’s first big league work since 2021. He spent the 2022 season with the Seibu Lions of Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball and the 2023 season with the Korea Baseball Organization’s Hanwha Eagles. A former 11th-round pick, Smith has pitched in parts of six big league seasons between the Padres, A’s, Royals, Giants, Brewers and Marlins, logging a combined 5.79 ERA, 20.7% strikeout rate and 9.6% walk rate.

As for Tate, he was a key member of the Baltimore bullpen in 2022, when he pitched 73 2/3 innings of 3.05 ERA ball for manager Brandon Hyde. He opened the 2023 season on the injured list due to a flexor strain, however, and when he’d progressed to the point that he was ready for a rehab assignment, he suffered a stress reaction in his elbow that led to a second shutdown. He wound up missing the entire 2023 season as a result of those two injuries.

Now healthy, Tate was enjoying a strong season up through mid-June before hitting a substantial rough patch. As recently as June 19, Tate was sitting on a sparkling 2.31 ERA. A poor 15.6% strikeout rate suggested he would have a hard time sustaining quite that level of success, but Tate sported an average walk rate and huge 56.3% grounder rate. Regression indeed came — and far more aggressively than anyone could’ve reasonably predicted. He’s been scored upon in three straight appearances and has given up runs in six of his past eight outings. Dating back to June 19, Tate has a 9.90 ERA (11 runs in 10 innings).

The move to option Tate comes not long before he’d have been granted the right to refuse such an assignment. The former No. 4 overall pick entered the season with 4.048 years of MLB service and has run that total up to 4.128 years. With just 44 more days on the active roster or injured list, he’d reach five years of service. At that point, he’d have to consent to being optioned.

So long as Tate gets 44 more days on the active roster or injured list between now and season’s end, he’ll remain on track to become a free agent following the 2025 season. If, however, he’s up for 43 or fewer days, he’ll finish the season with four-plus years instead of five-plus and have his path to free agency pushed back by a year.

Tigers Move Kenta Maeda To Bullpen

By | at

Tigers righty Kenta Maeda will not make his next scheduled start and will instead move to the bullpen “for the foreseeable future,” manager A.J. Hinch announced to the team’s beat this morning (X link via Evan Woodbery of MLive.com). Maeda is not currently expected to return to the rotation after the All-Star break. The Tigers will make a decision on what to do with that open rotation spot at a later date.

Maeda, 36, has struggled greatly in the first season of a two-year, $24MM deal signed over the winter. It appeared to be a highly reasonable signing at the time, as Maeda had shined over the final four months of the season with the division-rival Twins after returning from a triceps injury. In Maeda’a final 16 starts of the 2023 campaign, he pitched to a 3.36 ERA with an excellent 29% strikeout rate and strong 7% walk rate.

Things have gone the opposite direction in 2024. The longtime Dodgers and Twins righty has started 16 games but tallied just 65 2/3 innings with a grim 7.26 earned run average. His command remains solid (7.9% walk rate), but Maeda’s strikeout rate has plummeted to 17.1% and he’s lost close to a mile per hour off his fastball (averaging just 90.3 mph this season, per Statcast). Most problematically, Maeda has already yielded 15 homers on the year, just two shy of his 2023 total (in 104 1/3 innings) and one shy of his 2022 total (in 106 1/3 innings).

The Tigers’ other offseason rotation addition, righty Jack Flaherty, has enjoyed a brilliant rebound campaign. He and Cy Young candidate Tarik Skubal have formed a dynamic one-two punch atop the Detroit starting staff, and sophomore righty Reese Olson has stepped up to give Hinch three quality options with ERA of 3.30 or less. Former No. 1 pick Casey Mize returned from Tommy John surgery and back surgery to post a solid, if unspectacular 4.23 mark in 16 starts of his own.

That quartet gives the Tigers a quality slate of options in the top four spots, and righty Keider Montero has rattled off consecutive quality starts over the past week-plus. He might be the first up for a look in the fifth spot, but Detroit will likely need another starting option before long. Excellent as Flaherty has been, the Tigers as a whole have underwhelmed at 44-49. That leaves them 14 games out of the AL Central lead and seven back in the AL Wild Card hunt. A trade of Flaherty seems overwhelmingly likely between now and July 30, as the right-hander is playing on a one-year deal and is positioning himself for a potential nine-figure deal in free agency this winter.

The top internal option for the Tigers to take that spot, if and when it becomes necessary, is former first-round pick and top prospect Matt Manning. The 26-year-old has yet to establish himself as a consistent MLB rotation presence, working to a 4.43 ERA over 50 big league starts. That includes a 4.88 mark in five starts (27 2/3 innings) earlier this season. He’s yielded an unsightly 5.03 ERA in Triple-A this year but has far more promising strikeout and walk rates of 24.7% and 8.8%, respectively.

Speculatively speaking, Detroit could move forward with a rotation of Skubal, Olson, Mize, Manning and Montero while hoping that former top-40 pick Ty Madden (8.43 ERA in 12 Triple-A starts) turns things around in Toledo. It’s also feasible that their deadline dealings bring in some other rotation candidates of note. Of course, an ideal scenario would see a sojourn to the bullpen help Maeda rediscover his form, paving the way for him to rejoin the starting staff and create some optimism for better performance in 2025. There’s a long way to go before that’s a consideration right now, however.

Twins Sign Wynton Bernard To Minor League Deal

By | at

The Twins have signed outfielder Wynton Bernard to a minor league deal, according to his transactions tracker at MLB.com. He had previously been with the White Sox on a minor league deal but was released a few days ago.

Bernard, 33, got into 41 games with Triple-A Charlotte prior to being released. His 3.2% walk rate in that time was well below average but he also kept his strikeouts down to a 16.8% clip. His .306/.328/.446 batting line translates to a 97 wRC+ in this year’s International League environment. He also stole 11 bases in 12 tries and played all three outfield positions.

That’s a perfectly solid performance but the White Sox are deep in a rebuild and probably prefer to give their minor league playing time to younger players who could perhaps progress towards helping the club in the future.

For the Twins, they are in win-now mode and are a more logical fit for a veteran depth guy like Bernard, though his path to a big league roster spot in Minnesota will be steep. The Twins currently have an outfield mix consisting of Byron Buxton, Max Kepler, Trevor Larnach, Matt Wallner and Manuel Margot, with Willi Castro splitting his time between the infield and outfield. Alex Kirilloff and Austin Martin would also be in the infield/outfield camp but both are currently on the injured list.

Buxton and Margot both have pretty checkered injury histories, so it’s possible the need for help on the grass could emerge at any point. Bernard has also stolen quite a few bases in his minor league career and could perhaps serve as a bench piece as a September call-up, jumping in for some pinch-running opportunities or to serve as a defensive replacement. His major league track record consists of 12 games with the Rockies in 2022, during which time he hit .286/.286/.310 and stole three bases in four tries. If he gets a 40-man roster spot at any point, he still has a couple of options remaining.

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

Do not Sell or Share My Personal Information

hide arrows scroll to top