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Phillies Reinstate J.T. Realmuto From Covid-Related IL

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MAY 14: The Phillies announced that they have reinstated Realmuto and optioned righty Enyel De Los Santos to Triple-A.

MAY 13: 10:40am: Realmuto did not test positive, manager Joe Girardi tells reporters (link via Jim Salisbury of NBC Sports Philadelphia). He developed a fever and grew ill last night, however, so the Phils have moved him to the Covid list to perform testing. He is not traveling with the team at the moment.

10:10am: The Phillies announced this morning that catcher J.T. Realmuto has been placed on the Covid-19-related injured list. Fellow catcher Rafael Marchan is up from Triple-A Lehigh Valley to take his spot on the active roster for the time being.

The team did not indicate at this time whether Realmuto has tested positive or is on the Covid list as a close contact or for contact-tracing purposes. In the event of a positive test, he’d be away from the club for a minimum of 10 days.

Realmuto, 30, is out to the finest start of his career in 2021, slashing a robust .314/.418/.520 with four homers, seven doubles, a triple and three steals through his first 33 games. That excellent production comes despite suffering a fractured thumb that cost him much of Spring Training. Recently, Realmuto has missed a couple games due to a minor knee injury, though the expectation had been that he’d avoid the IL for that particular issue.

With Realmuto sidelined for a yet-to-be-determined period of time, the Phillies will turn catching duties over to Andrew Knapp and the aforementioned Marchan. That pairing certainly can’t be expected to replicate Realmuto’s contributions at the plate — few catchers could — but Knapp did turn in a .278/.404/.444 line through 89 plate appearances last year. He’s out to a much slower start in 2021, however, and is an overall .228/.332/.345 hitter in 712 Major League plate appearances. The 22-year-old Marchan is one of the organization’s top prospects and is out to a .250/.429/.313 start through 21 plate appearances in Triple-A. He went 4-for-8 with a homer and a walk in a brief MLB debut effort last summer.

Phillies’ Adam Haseley Returns From Personal Leave

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Outfielder Adam Haseley has rejoined the Phillies after a month-long leave of absence, Matt Breen of the Philadelphia Inquirer was among those to report.

Haseley stepped away on April 14 for personal reasons, leading the Phillies to place him on the restricted list. He can remain on that list for up to another 30 days, and in the meantime, Haseley will get back in shape at the Phillies’ facility in Clearwater, Fla. Expectations are that he will go on a minor league rehab assignment when he’s ready.

Haseley, now 25, was the eighth overall pick of the Phillies in the 2017 draft. He has since hit well in the minors, including a line of .294/.337/.471 (116 wRC+) with two home runs during his 78-plate appearance Triple-A debut in 2019. However, that success so far hasn’t carried over to the majors, where Haseley has batted .264/.322/.373 (84 wRC+) with five home runs in 355 PA. He got off to a slow start across 21 PA this season (.190/.190/.238) for a club that hasn’t found a solution in center field. Odubel Herrera, Mickey Moniak and Roman Quinn have joined Haseley in struggling to varying degrees.

Phillies Sign Ryan Cordell

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The Phillies recently inked outfielder Ryan Cordell to a minor-league contract (h/t to Chris Hilburn-Trenkle of Baseball America). He has been assigned to Triple-A Lehigh Valley, although he’s yet to get into a game for the IronPigs.

A former Ranger draftee, Cordell bounced between the White Sox’s, Brewers’, and Mets’ organizations in recent years before landing with the Phils. The 29-year-old has appeared in the big leagues in each of the past three seasons, including a fairly extended run with Chicago in 2019. He hasn’t produced much in that time, managing just a .202/.263/.328 line over 295 MLB plate appearances.

The 29-year-old has had more success in the minors, including a .266/.323/.451 mark in parts of three seasons at Triple-A. He also has experience at all three outfield positions. Philadelphia has Andrew McCutchen and Bryce Harper on hand in the corners, but center has been a nightmare to this point. Roman Quinn, Adam Haseley, Mickey Moniak and Odúbel Herrera have all struggled, and Quinn (finger laceration) and Haseley (personal reasons) are currently unavailable.

Phillies Place Roman Quinn, Matt Joyce On Injured List

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Before this evening’s win over the Brewers, the Phillies placed outfielders Roman Quinn and Matt Joyce on the 10-day injured list. Quinn has a laceration on his right index finger, while Joyce suffered a right calf strain. In corresponding moves, outfielder Mickey Moniak and utilityman Scott Kingery were recalled from Triple-A Lehigh Valley.

The Joyce and Quinn injuries further thin a Phillies’ outfield that already looked to be in a difficult spot. Right fielder Bryce Harper has been incredible in the season’s early going, but he’s nursing a left wrist injury. The Phils are hopeful he won’t need to go on the IL, but utilityman Brad Miller got the nod at the position tonight. Andrew McCutchen is off to a bit of a rough start in left, while center field has been a train wreck.

Philadelphia has gotten a combined .112/.194/.194 line from their center fielders, by far the worst production in the league. Each of Quinn, Moniak, Adam Haseley and Odúbel Herrera have gotten off to bad starts. Haseley has been away from the team for a few weeks for personal reasons, and now Quinn’s on the shelf due to injury. That leaves the Phils with Herrera, Moniak and Kingery as options at the position, with Kingery coming off a dismal 2020 season. Nick Maton might get a look eventually, but the Phillies are currently using him to hold down second base while Jean Segura works back from an injury of his own.

Joyce has worked primarily as a pinch hitter, although he’s gotten some sporadic corner outfield time as well. The veteran left-handed hitter slashed a decent .252/.351/.331 over 148 plate appearances with the Marlins last season, although he hasn’t produced much in the early going this year.

Phillies, Ruben Tejada Agree To Minor League Deal

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The Phillies have agreed to a minor league contract with veteran infielder Ruben Tejada, tweets MLB Network’s Jon Heyman. The Primetime Sports client will presumably head to their Triple-A affiliate to open the season.

Outside of a brief, six-game resurgence with the 2019 Mets, we haven’t seen Tejada at the big league level since a rough showing with the Orioles back in 2017. He appeared in 41 games for the O’s that year and managed only a tepid .230/.293/.283 output in 124 trips to the plate.

The vast majority of Tejada’s career has come with the Mets, for whom he served as an oft-used utility infielder from his MLB debut as a 20-year-old in 2010 up through the 2015 season. Tejada logged significant action at shortstop, second base and third base in Queens and, in 2194 plate appearances as a Met, has posted a .254/.328/.322 batting line.

The Phillies currently have Jean Segura (quadriceps strain) and Ronald Torreyes (undisclosed) on the injured list, and they’re not exactly teeming with upper-level infield depth. The hope was that veteran infielder Greg Garcia could serve as this type of depth option, but he opted out of his minor league deal and was given his release earlier this week. As such, the most experienced infield pieces set to open the year in Lehigh Valley were former Red Sox prospect C.J. Chatham — whom the team released in late March but apparently re-signed, as he was announced as part of their Triple-A roster — and versatile Scott Kingery. Kingery has bounced between the Majors and the alternate site multiple times this year already as he looks to return to form after a disastrous 2020 season.

Phillies Select Enyel De Los Santos

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The Phillies announced that they’ve selected the contract of right-hander Enyel De Los Santos and optioned lefty Cristopher Sanchez to Triple-A.

Now 25 years old, De Los Santos joined the Phillies before 2018 in a trade that sent infielder Freddy Galvis from Philadelphia to San Diego. De Los Santos was a noteworthy prospect in his younger days, topping out as Baseball America’s sixth-best farmhand in the Philly organization in 2019.

Since a promising showing with the Phillies’ Triple-A team in 2018, De Los Santos’ production has taken a negative turn. Across 30 major league innings from 2018-19, De Los Santos put up a bloated 5.70 ERA with a 19.6 percent strikeout rate and a walk percentage of 10.2. He also threw 94 frames of 4.40 ERA ball with similar strikeout and walk rates during the 2019 Triple-A campaign.

With no minor league season in 2020, De Los Santos’ only hope of getting into a real game was to crack the Phillies’ bullpen. He was unable to do that at any point, though, and the team removed him from its 40-man roster in August.

Phillies Notes: Velasquez, Harper, Segura, Maton

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The Phillies held on to secure a nail-biting win over the Brewers last night, and they did so largely on the strength of a strong outing from enigmatic righty Vince Velasquez. The 28-year-old righty has been in and out of the rotation over the past several years, but Jim Salisbury of NBC Sports Philadelphia suggests that he’s put himself in line for another look after his recent stretch. The Phils haven’t gotten much out of their offseason investment in Matt Moore, and at least for the time being, Velasquez has pitched well enough that it’d be hard to justify putting him back in the ’pen even now that Moore is back from the IL. Manager Joe Girardi has yet to confirm who’ll take the ball when the fifth spot in the rotation comes up again this weekend, but if he wants to ride the hot hand, Velasquez has a 3.24 ERA and 19-to-8 K/BB ratio in his past 16 2/3 frames.

More on the Phils…

  • Phillies right fielder Bryce Harper is dealing with a left wrist problem, though manager Joe Girardi doesn’t expect him to go on the injured list, Todd Zolecki of MLB.com tweets. The issue cropped up last week, causing Harper to sit out the Phillies’ games on Friday and Saturday. Harper returned to their lineup Sunday, but he re-aggravated the injury then, and he wasn’t in Monday’s lineup as a result. The hope is that he’ll return in the next couple of days. The Phillies have used a combination of Matt Joyce, Roman Quinn and Odubel Herrera in right when Harper as been unavailable, but their numbers have left plenty to be desired. Harper, on the other hand, has slashed a tremendous .317/.446/.598 with six home runs and three stolen bases over 101 plate appearances.
  • Second baseman Jean Segura and utilityman Ronald Torreyes will embark on rehab assignments this week, tweets Matt Gelb of The Athletic. The Phillies have gone without Segura since he went on the 10-day IL with a strained right quad April 21, while Torreyes landed on the Covid IL on April 19. Rookie Nick Maton has emerged at the keystone during Segura’s absence with an impressive .327/.365/.429 showing in his first 52 major league trips to the plate. To keep Maton’s bat in the lineup when Segura returns, the Phillies could give him an opportunity in center field, Girardi said. Phillies center fielders — Quinn, Herrera, Adam Haseley (who’s away from the team for personal reasons) and Mickey Moniak — have combined for an astonishingly poor .105/.190/.189 line through 105 plate appearances in 2021.
  • More from Gelb, who reports in a full column that the Phillies removed Rafael Chaves as their director of pitching development in March and promoted Travis Hergert on an interim basis. Chaves remains with the organization, but his new role isn’t clear. Hergert has just one year of experience as a professional coach, having joined the Phillies prior to 2020 after a stint at North Iowa Area Community College. Hergert is a major advocate of Driveline Baseball’s training programs, according to Gelb, who reports that not everyone in the Phillies’ player development ranks is on board. Nevertheless, the Phillies are hopeful Hergert and pitching coach Caleb Cotham will work well together with a data-driven approach.

Minor MLB Transactions: 5/3/21

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The latest minor moves from around baseball…

  • Infielder Greg Garcia opted out of his minor league contract with the Phillies, who subsequently released him, Jon Heyman of MLB Network tweets. Garcia spent roughly two weeks with the Phillies, though he never made it to their roster after signing April 22. The former Cardinal and Padre will return to the open market as the owner of a .245/.354/.339 line in 1,303 plate appearances.

Earlier transactions:

  • JT Riddle and Tzu-Wei Lin both cleared waivers after being designated for assignment by the Twins earlier this week, according to SKOR North’s Darren Wolfson (Twitter links).  The infielders will be assigned to the Twins’ Triple-A affiliate in St. Paul for the start of the minor league season.  Riddle and Lin signed minors deals with Minnesota in December, and each had their contracts selected in April as the Twins looked to fill some roster holes created by injuries and a COVID-19 outbreak.  Riddle appeared in four games before landing on the COVID injured list himself, while Lin appeared in just one game as a defensive sub.

Jose Alvarado To Serve Two-Game Suspension

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TODAY: Alvarado and the league have agreed to a reduced suspension of two games.  He will begin serving his suspension tonight.

SUNDAY: Jose Alvarado has been suspended three games for his part in Friday’s fracas between the Mets and Phillies, per an MLB release. Alvarado will appeal the decision.

In case you missed it, the Phillies were leading 2-1 in the top of the eighth inning when Alvarado hit Jeff McNeil on the elbow with his second pitch. With two outs and first base open, the Phillies elected to intentionally walk J.D. Davis to bring up Dominic Smith. A wild pitch moved up the runners as Alvarado struggled with his command. Smith appeared to disrupt Alvarado’s timing a couple of times in the at-bat, leading to an emotional celebration from Alvarado when he finally coaxed Smith into striking out to end the inning. Alvarado was amped, yelling at Smith and throwing his glove down. Though no punches were thrown, Alvarado’s incendiary behavior earned him an ejection.

On the Mets’ side, Smith was fined an undisclosed amount. Reliever Miguel Castro was also fined. Castro entered the game in the bottom of the inning. With one out, he walked Rhys Hoskins on back-to-back inside fastballs that were well off the plate. Hoskins took exception, and though the benches did not clear again, the game was brought to a halt as the umpires met to discuss. No other action was taken, however, and Castro was able to finish the inning.

Roman Quinn Reintstated From IL, Mickey Moniak Optioned

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  • The Phillies have reinstated Roman Quinn from the COVID-related injured list, returning Mickey Moniak to the alternate site, per the team. Moniak, still just 22 years old, has just a .120/.214/240 batting line in 28 plate appearances this season. The speedy Quinn has also struggled at the plate, slashing .083/.250/.111 in 44 plate appearances this season.
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