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Phillies Select Rob Brantly, Move Pat Neshek To 60-Day IL

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2:08pm: It’s possible Neshek has thrown his last pitch for the Phils. He tells reporters, including Matt Breen of the Philadelphia Inquirer (Twitter link) that the best-case scenario is a return in early or mid-September. (His deal includes a club option for 2020, though that seems unlikely to be exercised.)

1:04pm: The Phillies have selected the contract of catcher Rob Brantly, per a club announcement. He’ll take the active roster spot of J.T. Realmuto, who’ll take a brief step away on paternity leave.

To create a 40-man roster spot, the Phils have moved reliever Pat Neshek to the 60-day injured list. Neshek has been sidelined for several weeks with a hamstring injury. Given the placement, he won’t be eligible to return until late in August.

Brantly, who’s days from his thirtieth birthday, will get his first time in a major league uni since 2017. He’s a .230/.294/.333 hitter in 428 career plate appearances at the game’s highest level, most of which came way back in 2012-13.

Phillies Hurt By Lack Of Offseason Rotation Moves

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  • The Phillies focused heavily on position-player additions during their splashy offseason, but a lack of focus on the rotation looks to now be a mistake, the Philadelphia Inquirer’s Scott Lauber writes.  The team’s starters have delivered middling-to-mediocre results all season, and depth has now become a particular issue given Jake Arrieta’s injury concerns.  While the Phils could still make a move to acquire a starting pitcher (or two) at the deadline, such a move will cost the club more prospects from a system that has already been thinned out by other trades.  As Lauber notes, the Phillies also haven’t done a great job of developing their own pitchers over the last four years, with Aaron Nola standing out as the last success story.

Jake Arrieta To Pitch Through Injury – For Now

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Phillies right-hander Jake Arrieta may be facing season-ending surgery on a bone spur in his elbow, but he’ll continue to pitch while the team evaluates his health. The plan is for Arrieta to take the ball sometime during Philadelphia’s series against the Nationals this weekend, Phillies manager Gabe Kapler told SportsRadio 94WIP on Wednesday (via ESPN.com).

While Kapler admitted the injury has hampered Arrieta, he added that “it’s always worth considering if Jake at 85 percent of himself is a better option than what we have at Triple-A.”

Three members of the Phillies’ 40-man roster – Enyel De Los Santos, Cole Irvin and Drew Anderson – are on Triple-A Lehigh Valley’s pitching staff. Santos, Irvin and Anderson have all spent some time in the majors this year, but they’ve each struggled over limited sample sizes. While De Los Santos and Irvin have put up mid-3.00s ERAs in the minors this year, their effective run prevention has come with less enticing peripherals. Anderson, meanwhile, owns a near-6.00 ERA with Lehigh Valley in 2019. The 22-year-old JoJo Romero is Philly’s seventh-ranked prospect at MLB.com (one spot behind De Los Santos, nine ahead of Irvin), but he isn’t on the 40-man and hasn’t earned a promotion anyway. Romero sports an ERA a tad south of 10.00 in seven Triple-A starts.

Not only do the Phillies lack starting options they’re fully comfortable with below the majors, but their big league rotation hasn’t lit it up. The team’s starters rank 19th in the majors in K/BB ratio, 24th in ERA and 25th in FIP, owing in part to Arrieta’s disappointing performance. Now in the second season of a three-year, $75MM contract, the 33-year-old has pitched to a 4.67 ERA/5.07 FIP with 7.08 K/9 and 3.33 BB/9 in 108 innings. Arrieta’s contract gives him the right to opt out after the season, while the Phillies could void his opt-out and opt into two more years and $40MM. Neither one of those things will happen, though, so the Phillies will end up owing him another $20MM in 2020.

Despite the Phillies’ pricey commitment to Arrieta, they’ll run the risk of having him continue to pitch through injury for the time being. Regardless of whether he holds up, the Phillies seem like shoo-ins to fortify their rotation from outside before the July 31 trade deadline. In the meantime, the club will start the second half of the season Friday at 47-43 and a half-game up on the NL’s second wild-card spot.

Realmuto Open To Long-Term Deal With Phillies

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J.T. Realmuto was clear toward the end of his time with the Marlins that he wasn’t interested in signing an extension with Miami, but the All-Star catcher has taken a different tone with his new organization after just a few months. As Matt Breen of Philly.com reports, Realmuto wasn’t shy during this week’s All-Star festivities about expressing his interest in signing a long-term deal with the Phillies.

“Everything I’ve experienced in Philadelphia has been awesome, so I wouldn’t be opposed to spending the rest of my career there,” Realmuto told the media. It doesn’t sound as though there’d be any particular deadline on talks, either, as Realmuto indicated he’d be open to talks “whether it be tomorrow or in the off-season or next July.”

While plenty has gone wrong for the Phillies in 2019, their acquisition of Realmuto has proven to be a terrific move. His offense is down from last year in Miami (despite a move to a more hitter-friendly park), but his .273/.328/.438 slash line translates to roughly league average for a hitter, per OPS+ and wRC+. Relative to other catchers throughout the league, that’s considerably above-average. And defensively, Realmuto has taken his already strong game to a whole new level.

Realmuto leads the Majors with an incredible 49 percent caught-stealing rate, having thrown out 26 of the 53 players who’ve been bold enough to attempt a steal. His framing marks, once again, are comfortably above the league average, and Baseball Prospectus credits Realmuto as the game’s second-best pitch-blocker (behind Cleveland’s Roberto Perez). Realmuto is tied with Perez for second among all MLB catcher with 10 Defensive Runs Saved, and Baseball Prospectus rates only San Diego’s Austin Hedges as a superior defender behind the dish.

As can be seen in MLBTR’s Extension Tracker, there haven’t been many catchers with four-plus years of service to ink long-term deals in recent seasons. Both Francisco Cervelli (three years, $31MM when he had 5+ years) and Salvador Perez (five years, $52.5MM as a 4+ player) did so in 2016, while Miguel Montero (five years, $60MM as a 5+ player) did so back in 2012. Montero’s deal is dated, though, while Cervelli wasn’t nearly as established a hitter and Perez was signing a make-good deal after initially inking an astronomically club-friendly extension as a pre-arb player. (Mammoth extensions signed by Joe Mauer and Buster Posey were outliers for prime-aged superstars coming off MVP seasons.) From an annual value standpoint, Yadier Molina is earning $20MM per year on a three-year pact that he signed when he was four years older than Realmuto would be in free agency. Yasmani Grandal secured an $18.25MM salary this past winter.

In a sense, a Realmuto extension could help to set some form of precedent for this type of player. He’s already earning $5.9MM in his second season of arbitration and could see that sum pushed to $10MM or more next year even without an extension. He’s on track to reach free agency in advance of his age-30 season, which would set him up nicely for a contract of four years in length. The Mets, as a point of comparison, were willing to pay a reported $60MM for Grandal at the same age, although that deal obviously never came together.

From a team vantage point, the Phillies could easily fit a long-term deal for Realmuto onto the books. Philadelphia opened the current season with a payroll in excess of $161MM (and has pushed $180MM in the past); the organization currently has just under $90MM on the books for Realmuto’s first would-be free agent season in 2021, per Roster Resource’s Jason Martinez.

Poll: Disappointing National League Teams

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It wouldn’t have been far-fetched at the beginning of the season to expect any of the Brewers, Cubs, Rockies, Cardinals, Phillies or Mets to end up as part of this year’s National League playoff field. Three of those clubs – Milwaukee, Chicago and Colorado – earned postseason trips a year ago and continued to boast capable rosters coming into 2019. St. Louis won 88 games in 2018 and then made a couple aggressive offseason moves in an effort to get over the hump. Philadelphia and New York were sub-.500 teams last season, though the NL East rivals were among the majors’ busiest franchises over the winter.

With the regular season having reached its brief summer recess, it’s fair to say all of the above clubs have disappointed to varying degrees so far. The Cubs (47-43) and Brewers (47-44) do hold playoff spots at the moment, while the Redbirds (44-44) are just two back of those teams in the NL Central. However, they’ve each contributed to the general mediocrity of their division.

Cubs president Theo Epstein just voiced disgust over his team’s weeks-long slump. Their closest competitors, the Brewers,  have gotten another otherworldly season from reigning NL MVP outfielder Christian Yelich. A thumb injury has helped lead to sizable steps back for 2018 outfield complement Lorenzo Cain, though, while first baseman Jesus Aguilar has a mere eight home runs after slugging 35 a season ago. Meanwhile, the Brew Crew’s pitching staff – like the Cubs’ and the Cardinals’ – has underwhelmed throughout the season. The Cards’ offense has also sputtered, in part because headlining offseason pickup and longtime superstar first baseman Paul Goldschmidt hasn’t resembled the player he was as a Diamondback.

The Rockies (44-45) reached the playoffs last year thanks largely to their starting pitching – something which has seldom been true about the team in its history. This season, though, reigning NL Cy Young candidate Kyle Freeland’s output has been so dreadful that he has spent the past month-plus trying to regain form in the minors. Aside from German Marquez and Jon Gray, nobody else in the Rockies’ starting staff has stepped up to grab a stranglehold of a spot.

Shifting to the NL East, the Phillies are in wild-card position at 47-43, but a .522 winning percentage and a plus-2 run differential may not have been what they had in mind after an action-packed offseason. A record-setting contract for Bryce Harper was the Phillies’ largest strike, but they also grabbed J.T. Realmuto, Andrew McCutchen, Jean Segura and David Robertson in other noteworthy transactions. However, at least offensively, Harper, Realmuto and Segura haven’t matched their 2018 production. McCutchen was enjoying another quality season before suffering a season-ending torn ACL a month ago, meanwhile, and Robertson got off to a terrible start in the year’s first couple weeks. The long-effective reliever has been on the injured list since mid-April with a flexor strain. Even with a healthy McCutchen and Robertson, the Phillies would still be riddled with problems in their pitching staff – including the rapidly declining Jake Arrieta, whose season may be in jeopardy because of a bone spur in his elbow.

The Mets are rife with concerns on and off the field, with recent behind-the-scenes drama involving GM Brodie Van Wagenen and manager Mickey Callaway the source of the franchise’s latest unwanted attention. Van Wagenen’s audacious offseason signings and trades were supposed to help the Mets snap a two-year playoff drought this season. Instead, the team’s an abysmal 40-50 through 90 games and on track to sell at the July 31 trade deadline. Trading for Robinson Cano and Edwin Diaz hasn’t worked out at all, while splashy free-agent additions Jeurys Familia, Jed Lowrie (injured all season and possibly out for the year), Wilson Ramos (a potential trade candidate just a few months into a two-year contract) and Justin Wilson have also failed to meet expectations.

In a league where only the Dodgers and Braves have truly stood out so far, all of these clubs still have at least some chance to earn playoff spots this season. They’re each no worse than seven back of postseason position at the All-Star break. Considering your preseason expectations, though, who’s the biggest disappointment to date?

(Poll link for app users)

Latest On Market For Madison Bumgarner

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We’ll continue our evening trip around the summer starting pitching market in San Francisco, where top rental rotation piece Madison Bumgarner resides. Earlier today, Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic (subscription link) updated the market for the burly southpaw, cataloging a variety of suitors.

The Astros, Braves, and Brewers are newly added entrants to the mix, joining the already reported Twins and Yankees. We’ve certainly seen many or all of these teams cited as possibilities — among others, as MLBTR’s Connor Byrne explored a month back — but this is the clearest indication yet of the kind of competition that could be developing.

All that said, there are limits to Bumgarner’s appeal, as Rosenthal explores. We’ve hashed out many of the pluses and minuses of late; suffice to say that there are good reasons to think the long-time star still has some gas in the tank, but no real reason to believe he’s the stud he once was.

Beyond that, there are also some clear alternatives floating around who’ll also draw attention from contenders. On the rental side, the Mets’ Zack Wheeler (latest rumors) has emerged as a younger, lower-salaried, and arguably higher-upside possibility. Teams that prefer future control could look to Marcus Stroman (latest rumors), Matt Boyd (latest rumors), and perhaps even Trevor Bauer (latest rumors).

Bumgarner’s no-trade rights could certainly play into the equation here, as he’ll have the ability to block deals to most of the interested teams. As Rosenthal originally reported a few months back, the savvy veteran put his eight-team list to full use by naming a host of clear contenders (Braves, Red Sox, Cubs, Astros, Brewers, Yankees, Phillies, Cardinals).

As Rosenthal rightly notes today, there’s also not much reason to think that MadBum would decline to facilitate a move. Beyond the obvious appeal of another shot at postseason glory after a few seasons away, the 29-year-old stands to shed the qualifying offer entering free agency.

The qualifying offer issue may not seem like a major factor for a player of Bumgarner’s stature, but the recent experience of Dallas Keuchel shows it’s still of real importance. Though he placed fourth on the latest free-agent power ranking from MLBTR’s Tim Dierkes, just edging Wheeler, Bumgarner still faces plenty of variability in his ultimate earning power.

Though Bumgarner left his last start with an elbow contusion, it seems he escaped a worrying injury. There’ll be plenty of time still in the run-up to the deadline for Bumgarner to show off his form to interested clubs, including those listed above.

Minor MLB Transactions: 7/8/19

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Here are Monday’s minor moves from around the league…

  • The Cubs released outfielder Jacob Hannemann and infielder Cristhian Adames from their Triple-A club, per the Pacific Coast League’s transactions log. Hannemann, 28, got a late start to the season after opening the year in extended Spring Training. He was hitting .248/.333/.453 with five homers and eight steals through 136 plate appearances. The 2013 third-rounder briefly appeared in the big leagues with the 2017 Mariners but totaled only 20 plate appearances. Adames, 28 later this month, has been limited to 73 plate appearances due to injury. He’d been rehabbing with the Cubs’ Rookie-level affiliate prior to his release. Adames hit .256/.375/.462 in 48 PAs at the Triple-A level and has generally posted respectable offensive numbers in parts of five Triple-A seasons. However, in parts of four MLB campaigns with the Rockies, he’s logged an unsightly .206/.283/.278 slash in 343 trips to the plate.
  • Right-hander John Curtiss has been released by the Phillies, as first indicated on the International League’s transactions page. The right-hander has bounced from the Twins organization to the Angels to the Phils but hasn’t found success in 2019. Curtiss was once considered a solid relief prospect with the Twins but has been shelled in Triple-A this season. While he’s missed bats in bunches (44 strikeouts in 33 2/3 innings), the 26-year-old Curtiss has also surrendered 29 runs on 40 hits and 22 walks. Opponents have clubbed nine homers against him so far in 2019.

Jake Arrieta Has Bone Spur In Elbow, Could Require Surgery

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10:28am: Manager Gabe Kapler confirmed Arrieta has a bone spur. The Phillies will evaluate Arrieta in the coming days to determine whether he should keep pitching (via Lauber).

8:24am: Arrieta does think he has a bone spur, but he expects he’ll be able to continue pitching through it this season, per Scott Lauber of the Philadelphia Inquirer.

7:49am: Phillies right-hander Jake Arrieta turned in his latest clunker Saturday, a 4 1/3-inning start in which he allowed five earned runs on 11 hits in a loss to the Mets. Afterward, not only did Arrieta have some choice words for Mets third baseman Todd Frazier, but the former ace suggested he has been pitching through an injury (via Ken Rosenthal and Matt Gelb of The Athletic).

“I labored physically,” Arrieta said. “I wasn’t able to put the ball where I wanted to. It’s been that way for a few weeks. Just physically not in a great spot.”

It turns out Arrieta’s dealing with a bone spur in his right elbow that will likely require surgery at some point, Rosenthal and Gelb report. The Phillies have known about the injury, but their hope has been that it won’t prevent him from continuing to pitch. Now, though, it looks possible Arrieta will have to undergo a season-ending procedure, according to Rosenthal and Gelb. He previously underwent season-ending surgery on a bone spur while with the Orioles in 2011.

Although Arrieta said there’s no medical examination scheduled, Jim Salisbury of NBC Sports Philadelphia tweets that his elbow “will be checked.” If that exam yields bad news, his season – the second of a three-year, $75MM contract – could end. Should that happen, it seems likely to affect the Phillies’ trade deadline plans. Even with Arrieta having thrown a team-high 108 innings this season, its rotation has failed to produce compelling results and could be in line for upgrades. The struggles of the Phillies’ staff have helped lead to a mediocre 46-43 record for the club in the wake of an ultra-aggressive offseason. Philadelphia’s in third place in the NL East and 6 1/2 games behind the first-place Braves, though it’s only a half-game back of a wild-card spot.

Formerly a star with the Cubs, with whom he won the 2015 NL Cy Young Award, Arrieta has declined precipitously since he joined the Phillies. Arrieta was merely decent across 172 2/3 innings last year, but he has fallen well short of even posting average production this season. The 33-year-old has put up a 4.67 ERA/5.07 FIP with 7.08 K/9 and 3.33 BB/9. Despite a 50.9 percent groundball rate, Arrieta has yielded home runs on 20.2 percent of fly balls – roughly a 6 percent increase over last year’s figure. It seems Arrieta’s elbow issue has contributed to his problems, though, and it’s in question whether he’ll be able to keep laboring through it.

Odubel Herrera Suspended For Remainder Of Season

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Phillies outfielder Odubel Herrera will be suspended for the remainder of the season, the league has announced on the heels of a report from Jim Salisbury of NBC Sports Philadelphia (via Twitter). Commissioner Rob Manfred determined that Herrera violated the MLB-MLBPA joint domestic violence, sexual assault, and child abuse policy.

Criminal charges were brought against Herrera after his arrest in Atlantic City on May 28th. At the time, it was alleged that Herrera had caused visible injuries to the arms and neck of his 20-year-old girlfriend. Those charges were dropped recently because the alleged victim did not wish to pursue prosecution. The league policy vests authority in Manfred to find a violation of its terms regardless of the presence of formal legal action, successful or otherwise, by authorities.

Though Herrera has been on administrative leave since the end of May, the suspension will formally be leveled retroactive to June 24 and will run for 85 games in total. That will cost Herrera just over half of his $5MM salary this season. He’ll be precluded from participating in the postseason this year and also be required to participate in a treatment program.

Herrera has agreed not to appeal the determination. That’s a common stipulation reached in these matters, prior to the formal imposition of punishment. This suspension is one of the lengthiest yet to come down from Manfred’s office. Previously, Jose Torres (100 games), Hector Olivera (82 games), and Roberto Osuna (75 games) were among those to have the dubious distinction of being hit with penalties of similar magnitude.

The Phillies have released a statement on the matter, saying that the organization supports the suspension and is “encouraged by Odubel’s acceptance of his discipline as an indication of his willingness to learn from this and change his behavior appropriately.” The Philadelphia organization owes him $7MM next year, $10MM for 2021, and $3.5MM in total buyouts for a pair of ensuing club options.

Herrera issued his own statement via the MLBPA (Twitter link). He acknowledged “inappropriate behavior” but did not specify what that constituted. Herrera further states: “I acted in an unacceptable manner and am terribly disappointed in myself. I alone am to blame for my actions. I’ve taken meaningful steps to assure that nothing like this will ever happen again.”

Phillies Place Juan Nicasio On 10-Day Injured List

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The Phillies announced that right-hander Juan Nicasio has been placed on the 10-day injured list due to a left groin strain.  Southpaw Austin Davis has been called up from Triple-A to take Nicasio’s spot on the 25-man roster.

Acquired as part of the blockbuster trade with the Mariners that also brought Jean Segura and James Pazos to Philadelphia, Nicasio came to his new team looking to rebound from a 6.00 ERA (albeit with some very impressive peripheral numbers) over 42 innings in 2018.  The results haven’t been quite been there this season either, as Nicasio has a 5.24 ERA, 8.1 K/9, and 2.07 K/BB rate over 34 1/3 frames.

Some of this damage has only recently been inflicted, and could potentially have been related to his injury — Nicasio has allowed six earned runs over his last two outings, totaling only two-thirds of an inning.  Nicasio’s advanced metrics are again outperforming his real-world ERA, though his walks are up and his strikeout rate is down from his 2018 numbers.

The Phillies have been hit hard with reliever injuries this season, with Nicasio joining Seranthony Dominguez, David Robertson, Jerad Eickhoff, and Pat Neshek on the injured list.  It isn’t known how much time Nicasio will miss, though the Phillies were already likely to be targeting bullpen upgrades at the deadline anyway given the middling numbers posted by their undermanned relief corps this season.

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