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Brent Honeywell

Health Notes: Honeywell, Chapman, Bellinger, Elias

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Rays prospect recently Brent Honeywell underwent a staggering fourth elbow surgery since his last in-game appearance back in 2017, Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times reports. The latest operation, however, was an arthroscopic procedure to alleviate some mild discomfort and is not expected to impact Honeywell’s readiness for the upcoming 2021 season. Optimistic prognosis notwithstanding, the mounting number of arm injuries for Honeywell, once touted as one of he game’s premier pitching, is increasingly troubling. Honeywell has previously undergone Tommy John surgery, had surgery to repair a fracture in his elbow and undergone an ulnar nerve decompression procedure. He’s still just 25 years old (26 in March) and has a career 2.88 ERA with 9.9 K/9 against 2.0 BB/9 in 416 professional innings.

Some more health/injury updates from around the game…

  • Athletics third baseman Matt Chapman is “full speed ahead” after surgery to repair a torn labrum in his right hip ended his 2020 season prematurely, manager Bob Melvin told reporters Thursday (Twitter link via Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle). He’s expected to be a full participant in Spring Training. Chapman’s agent, Scott Boras, indicated this week that he’d likely be ready for Spring Training, but it’s all the more encouraging to hear prominent members of the A’s organization making similar declarations. Chapman belted 10 homers in 152 plate appearances this past season, but he was clearly dogged by the injury, as evidenced by a career-worst 35.5 percent strikeout rate (up from 21.9 percent in 2019).
  • Cody Bellinger’s rehab from last month’s shoulder surgery is ahead of schedule, Dodgers skipper Dave Roberts said in a Zoom call with reporters Thursday (Twitter link via Jorge Castillo of the L.A. Times). At the time of the surgery, it was reported that he’d need about 10 weeks to recover, although Roberts stopped short of proclaiming Bellinger ready for Spring Training, instead merely stating that the team hoped he could be “somewhat active” early in camp. Bellinger is expected to serve as the Dodgers’ primary center fielder again in 2020, which shouldn’t come as a surprise after he was named a Gold Glove finalist in 2020.
  • Free-agent left-hander Roenis Elias will throw for teams this Sunday in Texas as he looks to show that he’s put his a season-ending flexor strain behind him. The 32-year-old Elias didn’t pitch in 2020 after he opened the season on the Covid-19 list and then sustained that flexor strain when ramping back up. Sent from Seattle to D.C. at the 2019 trade deadline, Elias only pitched three innings for the Nats due to a hamstring injury. He was sharp with the Mariners from 2018-19, however, working to a 3.12 ERA and 3.84 FIP with 7.3 K/9, 3.0 BB/9 and 0.83 HR/9 in 98 innings of relief.

Player Pool Additions: Giants, Mets, Rays, Nats

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Teams have been tinkering with their 60-man player pools throughout the 2020 season, at times cutting veterans to make room for prospects and at times cutting bait on some lower-tier organizational pieces in order to make room for more experienced additions (be they via waiver claim, free-agent signing, etc.). There have been several clubs to announce additions to their player pools already Friday, and while such moves seem innocuous, it’s of course worth pointing out that adding a player to the 60-man pool makes him eligible to be traded.

That doesn’t mean all of the players added to pools today are on the trading block — far from it. We’ve also already seen the Marlins (in the Richard Bleier trade) and the Blue Jays (in the Taijuan Walker trade) take advantage of using players to be named later to get around the rule that only players in a 60-man pool are eligible to be traded. Both sent a PTBNL to their trade partner, each of whom is expected to be a non-60-man player that will be announced after the season.

So while not all of today’s additions will change hands, it’s still notable that some of these players now could change hands without needing to be listed as a PTBNL. In that scenario, a new club could get a look at said player at its alternate training site and, if close enough to the Majors, perhaps even promote them in September.

Here’s a quick rundown…

  • The Giants announced that first baseman/outfielder Chris Shaw and righty Melvin Adon were added to the 60-man player pool. Shaw, 26, was San Francisco’s first-round pick (No. 31 overall) back in 2015 and rated among the club’s best prospects for several years. His shine has worn off, however, after some shaky showings in the upper minors and the Majors. Shaw carries a .280/.328/.538 slash in 1092 Triple-A plate appearances but has struck out at a 30 percent clip there. He’s hit .153/.244/.222 in 82 big league PAs. Speculatively, he seems like a change-of-scenery candidate. Adon, also 26, received an 80 grade on his heater at FanGraphs this offseason and was called the hardest thrower in the minors by Eric Longenhagen and Kiley McDaniel. However, they also gave him just 30 command on the 20-80 scale and called his chances of realizing his ceiling low due to his inability to locate. Adon walked 34 batters, hit another and threw 11 wild pitches in 55 1/3 innings last year.
  • The Mets added third baseman Brett Baty, tweets Anthony DiComo of MLB.com. Baty, 20, was the No. 12 pick in the 2019 draft and is considered to be among the organization’s top prospects. He divided last year between rookie and Low-A ball, where he batted .234/.368/.452 with seven home runs in 228 plate appearances. Now that Baty’s in the fold, the Mets have all of their top five prospects in the player pool — including Andres Gimenez in the Majors — as DiComo points out.
  • Right-hander Brent Honeywell has been added to the Rays’ pool and reported to their alternate site in Port Charlotte, tweets MLB.com’s Juan Toribio. The highly touted Honeywell underwent Tommy John surgery in February 2018, hasn’t pitched since and may not take the mound for the Rays this season. By adding Honeywell to their pool, though, the Rays will give the 25-year-old an opportunity to rehab while facing professional hitters, Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times notes. For now, though, “there are still plenty of boxes” for Honeywell to check before he makes his MLB debut, according to manager Kevin Cash.
  • The Nationals already added righty Sterling Sharp and outfielder Jeremy De La Rosa earlier today (as covered here), and this afternoon they announced two more additions: infielders Jackson Cluff and Drew Mendoza. Both have reported to the alternate site in Fredricksburg. Cluff was a 2019 sixth-rounder who spent his first pro season in Single-A, where he batted .229/.320/.367 with five homers and 11 steals in 280 trips to the plate. The 23-year-old is now generally regarded as one of the Nationals’ top 20 prospects. Mendoza, another 2019 draft choice (third round, No. 94), hovers around Washington’s top 10 farmhands at multiple outlets. The 22-year-old also spent 2019 at Single-A, slashing .264/.377/.383 with four HRs and three steals in 239 plate appearances.

Brent Honeywell Undergoes Ulnar Nerve Procedure

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May 22: Rays pitching coach Kyle Snyder tells reporters that the organization hopes Honeywell will be cleared to throw off a mound prior to the offseason (Twitter link via Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times). Suffice it to say, that seems to rule out any contributions in 2020.

May 21: The Rays announced Thursday that touted pitching prospect Brent Honeywell Jr. underwent a decompression procedure on his right ulnar nerve yesterday. He’ll start strength and mobility exercises next Monday, MLB.com’s Juan Toribio tweets.

It’s yet another arm-related setback for Honeywell, a 2014 second-round pick who has ranked among the game’s premier pitching prospects in each of the past five offseasons. The 25-year-old hasn’t pitched in a minor league game since 2017, however. He underwent Tommy John surgery after sustaining a UCL tear in spring 2018, and he fractured his elbow last June while rehabbing from that Tommy John procedure. Honeywell had returned to a mound early in Spring Training this year, but there’s now no clear timetable for when he’ll resume throwing.

Scouting reports on Honeywell tout him as a high-impact starter — one who possesses a legitimate five-pitch mix, with each offering carrying average or better potential. One of the few pitchers in today’s game tossing a legitimate screwball, Honeywell has long been considered a potentially vital cog to the Rays’ future pitching plans, but his arm simply hasn’t cooperated. When he’s been healthy enough to take the mound, Honeywell has turned in 416 innings of 2.88 ERA ball with 9.9 K/9, 2.0 BB/9, 0.58 HR/9 and a ground-ball rate near 41 percent.

The Rays obviously have ample pitching depth. Their five-man rotation would consist of Charlie Morton, Tyler Glasnow, Blake Snell, Yonny Chirinos and Ryan Yarbrough. Beyond that quintet lies a quality stock of secondary options including Brendan McKay, Anthony Banda, Trevor Richards and Jalen Beeks. Southpaw Shane McClanahan, the No. 31 pick in 2018, isn’t too far behind that group. That said, few arms in that bunch can match Honeywell’s ceiling, making the latest bout of uncertainty regarding his health all the more difficult for the organization.

Brent Honeywell Returns To Mound

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In a key moment for the Rays and righty Brent Honeywell, the prized youngster resumed throwing from the mound today, as Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times reports. He remains a long ways away from competitive action but now can begin his rehab in earnest.

Long a lauded talent, Honeywell has been rehabbing for about two years now. He was sidelined by a brutal string of health problems in his elbow, beginning with Tommy John surgery and most recently featuring a fracture.

Honeywell’s timeline is still unclear, but Topkin provides some parameters. In the best case scenario, Honeywell might be ready to join a Rays affiliate at some point in May. Whether and when he could end up on the MLB map is obviously depend upon quite a few preliminary factors.

Honeywell seemed close to big league readiness when last he was seen in game action. In 2017, he worked to a 3.49 ERA with 11.3 K/9 against 2.3 BB/9 over 136 2/3 innings in the upper minors.

The future still remains bright as Honeywell closes in on his 25th birthday — presuming, at least, that he can finally get back to competitive pitching. Baseball America and MLB.com have ranked him among the game’s hundred best prospects in each of the past five years, even as the health concerns have mounted.

Honeywell knows he has a lot of work left, of course, having gone through this process before. But he called the return to the mound “a big, big leap mentally wise” and says he “was real happy with it.” Indeed, the former second rounder even indicated that he feels better and more confident now than he did at any point during his original comeback effort.

Rays Prospect Brent Honeywell Fractures Bone In Elbow During Rehab Process

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MONDAY: Honeywell could be ready to pick up a ball again in January of 2020, Topkin tweets. His replacement ulnar collateral ligament is just fine, which represents a silver lining to the unfortunate situation.

SATURDAY: Top Rays prospect Brent Honeywell, on the mend from an April 2018 Tommy John Surgery, fractured a bone in his right elbow during a scheduled bullpen in Port Charlotte, Florida, and is out for the season, reports Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times. A surgery is scheduled for Monday.

Honeywell, a consensus top-30 prospect in every major outlet even after the Tommy John, had already experienced a major setback in his rehabilitation process this April when he was temporarily shelved with forearm soreness, an injury often precursor to major elbow damage. The 24-year-old’s vaunted screwball, perhaps the only pure version of the pitch used with regularity among professional hurlers today, was felt in some circles to be the tear’s root, though Honeywell only features it sporadically and had never been hurt prior to the surgery.

It’s obviously a brutal hit for both Honeywell and the Rays, though the latter can at least can hang its hat on an impressive young group of big-league arms and emerging talents below. Topkin, in a follow-up tweet, writes that Honeywell’s 2020 outlook is at yet unclear, though the club should know more after the Monday surgery is complete.

In 416 minor-league innings before last season, Honeywell had set down 458 batters on strikes while walking just 93 en route to a 2.88 ERA. He had little issue with the longball until he arrived for 2017 at Triple-A Durham, but his grounder rates remained robust. He was near-unanimously projected as a #2 starter in the majors should his stuff have returned to form. The future outlook now, of course, is far cloudier.

Latest On Rays’ Pitching Staff

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Traditionalists may never fully embrace the approach, but it’s hard to argue with the results: through a quarter of the season, the Rays’ pitching staff has been lights out. By design, it’s a fluid and ever-evolving mix of hurlers. Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times provides an update on some particularly important arms for the AL East-leading team.

Most notably, prospect Brent Honeywell has encountered another hurdle in his effort to return from Tommy John surgery. He’s only slated for a week-long shutdown for nerve irritation in his right elbow, but this isn’t the first setback. The fact that Honeywell’s road back hasn’t been perfectly smooth doesn’t mean he won’t make it, but it does add to the uncertainty and bump back his timeline.

In Topkin’s assessment, the Tampa Bay front office won’t be able to consider Honeywell as a MLB option until July or August. He’s obviously going to be handled with plenty of caution given his high-ceiling billing and hiccups to this point. Honeywell is going to need a full arm build-up and even then will need to show he’s fully ready for the majors, having never yet pitched in the bigs. No doubt the Rays will keep a close eye on his workload even when he is ready for game action. Honeywell hasn’t yet topped 140 innings in a professional season and already missed all of 2018.

Clearly, then, Honeywell won’t be stepping into the opening in the rotation created when Tyler Glasnow hit the injured list recently. Nobody will, in fact. Skipper Kevin Cash tells Topkin that the club won’t tap a third starter, even on an interim basis. Rather, the club will continue to piece things together on a day-to-day basis behind rotation pieces Blake Snell and Charlie Morton.

Topkin warns not to expect any major acquisitions to plug the openings. Fortunately, Glasnow is said to be looking at an absence of only four to six weeks. That’s about as good an outlook as might have been hoped for when he left with forearm tightness. The injury might knock the 25-year-old out of surprise Cy Young contention, but hopefully won’t spoil his breakout season.

Plus, there are some other hurlers working back. Reliever Hunter Wood is close to being an option again for the MLB roster after hitting the IL with a shoulder issue, though he may take at least one more rehab outing. Wood showed an intriguing 18.0% swinging-strike rate in 6 1/3 innings to open the year. Former top prospect Jose De Leon is ready to move his rehab work to the highest level of the minors after a pair of High-A outings. Given his long and arduous rehab process, the odds are he’ll be given some time to work at Triple-A even when his assignment is up (which must occur on or before June 2nd). There’s no word yet on when Anthony Banda will be ready to begin his own rehab assignment after undergoing Tommy John surgery last June, but he was reportedly throwing from a mound late last month.

Injury/Rehab Notes: D. Duffy, Honeywell, Chisenhall

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Danny Duffy is scheduled to make what could be his final rehab appearance tonight for AA-Northwest Arkansas, writes the Kansas City Star’s Lynn Worthy. Though the 30-year-old had initially expressed interest in returning to the club as a reliever, GM Dayton Moore prefers the lefty return to a patchwork rotation: “That’s the natural question to ask for a lot of reasons as we’re looking for more consistency in our bullpen and you want to put quality arms in the back end, but we’ve gotta have guys that can start. We’ve gotta have guys that can go out there and set the tone every fifth day. We’ll be open-minded as we go forward.” Both units are again in shambles for a struggling Royals club, though the nightmare bullpen – last in the AL in all relevant park-adjusted metrics – is arguably in more dire need. Duffy’s 2018 season was his worst in years, but the eight-year MLB vet remains far and away the most talented arm on the 12-man Royal staff.

In more injury and rehab news from around the game…

  • Rays top prospect Brent Honeywell, on the mend from a February 2018 Tommy John surgery, couldn’t make it through his first start in extended spring training without a setback, Eduardo Encina of the Tampa Bay Times was among those to report. The 24-year-old, who was on track for a late-May/early-June return to competition, felt soreness in his forearm, the same symptom that was a surgery precursor 14 months ago. The team was quick to note that it’s “fairly common” for TJ rehabbers to experience similar issues, though the thinly-veiled unease wasn’t hard to detect. Honeywell be shut down indefinitely for the time being, though there’s no word on whether or not the club will ask him to shelve his said-to-be arm-shredding screwball, which has baffled minor leaguers high and low throughout his professional tenure.
  • The Pirates lost another outfielder to injury yesterday in center fielder Starling Marte, the club’s fourth in an early-season string of maladies at the positions. Offseason acquisition Lonnie Chisenhall, though, is finally on the mend: the 30-year-old began a rehab assignment at Triple-A Indianapolis yesterday, and appears set to rejoin the club in the coming days.  The oft-injured lefty will apparently see time at third base and first base, in addition to the corner outfield spots, writes MLB.com’s Adam Berry, and will look to add his much-improved bat (128 wRC+ over his last 365 MLB PA) to a surging Pirate club.

Rays Broached Extension Talks To Willy Adames, Brent Honeywell

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The Rays have traditionally been pretty aggressive in locking up young players to early-career extensions, as evidenced by their recent deals with Blake Snell and Brandon Lowe.  Beyond that duo, Willy Adames and Brent Honeywell told Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times that they had also been approached about long-term deals.

Adames has been a consensus top-25 prospect in baseball in each of the last two seasons, and he now projects as Tampa’s everyday shortstop after hitting .278/.348/.406 during 323 plate appearances in his 2018 rookie season.  Adames didn’t specify when the Rays first brought up an extension, whether it was this offseason, during last season, or perhaps even before Adames made his big league debut altogether.

For speculation purposes, if a long-term deal was explored this past winter, recent extensions for Tim Anderson and Paul DeJong stand out as comparables for Adames.  Both shortstops also had less than a year of service time, and each landed six-year pacts with two club option years, with Anderson getting a guaranteed $25MM and DeJong (signed a year later) $26MM in guaranteed money.  It’s probably safe to assume Adames would’ve gotten a bit more, both due to his top-prospect status, and since those deals were almost topped in value by the extension Scott Kingery signed with the Phillies before he ever set foot on a Major League field.  (This is also basically the deal Lowe signed, except with one fewer club option year.)

While Evan Longoria and Matt Moore each had just a small bit of MLB service time when they inked their extensions with the club, the Rays have never extended a player who has never appeared in the Major Leagues.  A Honeywell extension would’ve therefore been a precedent-setting deal for both the team and for the league as a whole, as no pitcher has ever signed an extension before making his debut in the Show.  Moore came closest, as he had just 17 days of regular-season service time when he inked his five-year, $14MM extension (with three club option years) back in December 2011.

It’s hard to use a contract that’s over seven years old as a comparable, plus Honeywell’s health situation also adds another unique wrinkle to his case.  Honeywell said the Rays discussed the long-term deal after he underwent Tommy John surgery in February 2018.  While we can assume that the team’s offer reflected that injury risk, it still represents some courage on Honeywell’s part in betting on himself to recovery from the surgery, rather than getting at least one multi-million dollar payday out of his professional career before even throwing a pitch in the majors.

It’s worth noting that Honeywell received an $800K bonus when drafted, so he has already obtained some financial security.  Honeywell was a second-round pick (72nd overall) for the Rays in the 2014 draft, and he has been perhaps even more highly-touted than Adames, with three consecutive years as at least a top-30 prospect in the eyes of Baseball Prospectus, and MLB.com and Baseball America.  The three publications had Honeywell respectively ranked 11th, 12th, and 14th on their top-100 lists prior to the 2018 season.  Honeywell has a 2.88 ERA, 9.9 K/9, and 4.92 K/BB rate over 416 professional innings, and he was expected to make an impact in Tampa’s rotation last season before injury struck.

Most teams, of course, probably at least float the idea of early-career extensions to much of their young talent.  The Rays in particular have made a habit of this tactic, given the team’s financial limitations.  Tyler Glasnow and Daniel Robertson didn’t want to comment to Topkin whether or not they had been offered long-term deals or not, while Jose Alvarado said he’s be open to discussions with the club (which could hint that the Rays haven’t yet talked to Alvarado).

The front office, for its part, seems to be open for business.  GM Erik Neander said that the Rays “would love to keep the one-[extension]-a-day pace here if we could. We’re very high on the group of players that we have here. It’s a group we believe in. And when there are opportunities to find overlap between our players and our organization that increases the chances they can be here for a longer period of time, that’s something that we will continue to explore whenever those opportunities present themselves.”

Rays Notes: Kimbrel, Honeywell/De Leon, Kiermaier

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The Rays will need to squeeze every last ounce of value out of their existing roster and payroll if they are to make a real bid for the postseason in an incredibly stratified American League. Here’s the latest, with all links to the reporting of Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times:

  • With some payroll space evidently still available, the Rays have “maintained regular contact” with legendary reliever Craig Kimbrel, Topkin tweets. A successful pursuit remains “unlikely,” per the report. Surely the Rays would only consider Kimbrel on a short-term deal, as the organization has always been careful not to tie up too much future payroll. Whether Kimbrel will ultimately settle for a one or two-year pact — and, if so, what will drive his decisionmaking — isn’t yet evident.
  • Two important young Tampa Bay hurlers are making progress in their efforts to return from Tommy John procedures, Topkin further reports (Twitter links). Brent Honeywell and Jose De Leon each threw against live hitters for the first time. It was only 15 pitches apiece, but that’s still a good sign that both of these well-regarded young hurlers are coming along. The Rays will likely continue to take things slow, but surely also entertain visions of either or both making an impact as a mid-season call-up.
  • Topkin also looks in at Rays center fielder Kevin Kiermaier, whom the team badly needs to turn in a healthy and productive campaign. Soon to turn 29, the rangy outfielder is coming off of a disappointing season at the plate in which he slashed just .217/.282/.370. Kiermaier has averaged barely more than 400 plate appearances annually over the past three years due to a variety of injuries. The maladies have tended to come about in the course of Kiermaier’s hard-charging play, though it doesn’t seem as if the team thinks there’s much to be gained from trying to rein him in. “It’s probably best for us to stay out of the way and keep our fingers crossed that none of the freak things happen,” says skipper Kevin Cash.

Rays’ Brent Honeywell Undergoes Tommy John Surgery

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FEBRUARY 27: Honeywell underwent surgery today, Topkin tweets.

FEBRUARY 23: Rays top pitching prospect Brent Honeywell has been diagnosed with a torn ulnar collateral ligament in his right elbow, tweets Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times. Tommy John surgery has been recommended for the promising 22-year-old.

The diagnosis represents a worst-case scenario for the Rays in the wake of yesterday’s ominous arm injury for Honeywell. The early diagnosis was a forearm strain, though that’s often a precursor to a UCL tear upon further testing. Topkin noted yesterday that the injury was of “major concern” to the Rays. Honeywell reportedly threw roughly 10 pitches in a batting practice session before loudly shouting after his final pitch and eventually walking off the mound with a trainer.

The likely loss of Honeywell for the season is a brutal hit to the Rays’ depth. Even though Tampa Bay is hardly lacking for rotation alternatives, Honeywell ranks as not just one of the best pitching prospects in baseball but one of the top overall prospects in the game. Each of Baseball America, MLB.com, ESPN, Fangraphs and Baseball Prospectus ranked Honeywell within the top 15 overall prospects on their respective top 100 lists heading into the 2018 season.

Honeywell, the No. 72 overall draft pick in the 2014 draft, enjoyed a terrific season in Triple-A against older competition in 2017, tossing 123 2/3 innings with 11.1 K/9, 2.3 BB/9, 0.8 HR/9 and a 41.2 percent ground-ball rate en route to a 3.64 ERA, a 2.84 FIP and a 2.77 xFIP.

Topkin had previously reported that Honeywell was likely ticketed for Triple-A to open the season, as the Rays are prepared to open the year with a four-man rotation of Chris Archer, Nathan Eovaldi, Jake Faria and Blake Snell. Matt Andriese will begin the season as a multi-inning reliever, but the extra off-days early in the 2018 schedule mean the Rays won’t need a fifth starter for several weeks. Andriese seems likely to eventually step into that role. Honeywell could’ve been called up early this summer to avoid Super Two status or, at the very least, called up at some point in May once the team had secured another year of club control over the highly touted righty.

That, of course, won’t be the case at all now at any point in the 2018 season. The Rays have alternatives to eventually step into the rotation as needed, though none comes with an upside that matches Honeywell. Nonetheless, the Rays have an enviable stock of young pitching in the upper minors and already on the 40-man roster, led by Anthony Banda, Jose De Leon, Ryan Yarbrough and Yonny Chirinos.

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