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Jon Gray Placed On IL With Thoracic Outlet Syndrome

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Righty Jon Gray has been placed on the 15-day injured list, according to an announcement from the Rangers earlier this morning. A diagnosis wasn’t announced alongside that IL placement, but Shawn McFarland of the Dallas Morning News was among those to relay that (according to club manager Bruce Bochy) Gray is suffering from thoracic outlet syndrome. There’s no timetable for Gray’s return to play at this point, but Bochy noted that he’ll “miss some time” due to the issue. Right-hander Caleb Boushley was recalled to replace Gray on the active roster.

TOS is certainly a worrisome diagnosis for Gray, though it’s one that comes with a wide variety of potential outcomes. Some of the more notable examples of players who were sidelined by TOS, such as Stephen Strasburg and Chris Archer, were never able to fully recover from the ailment and saw the issue bring an end to their big league careers, even after surgery. On the other hand, however, Gray’s teammate Merrill Kelly underwent surgery due to TOS following his age-31 season and has been quite successful in the years since then with a 3.64 ERA and 3.86 FIP in 128 starts. Jesse Dougherty of the Washington Post discussed the medical differences between the situations Kelly and Strasburg faced back in 2023, and interested readers are encouraged to read that piece in full.

It’s impossible to say at this point what the news means for Gray, but it seems unlikely he’ll pitch again this year. Selected third overall by the Rockies back in 2013, the veteran of 11 MLB seasons has spent each of the past four years in Texas. He served as a solid back-of-the-rotation arm for the Rangers from 2022-24, with a 4.16 ERA and 4.05 FIP in 387 1/3 innings of work, but this year he’s surrendered a 7.71 ERA in 14 innings of work across six long relief outings after missing most of the season due to a forearm fracture suffered after he was struck by a comebacker during Spring Training.

The news of Gray’s TOS diagnosis adds a new wrinkle to the club’s decision to place the right-hander on waivers last week, which was only reported on after he went unclaimed last night. The right-hander is owed an additional $3.1MM for the remainder of the 2025 season, and given that the Rangers are known to be just over the first luxury tax threshold it was hardly surprising that the club wanted to see if there were any takers on that remaining chunk of Gray’s salary. There’s no reason to assume that the Rangers knew about Gray’s diagnosis before placing him on waivers, of course, but it’s possible that the specter of an injury causing his recent poor performance scared some would-be suitors off from placing a claim.

Gray is slated to hit free agency following the 2025 season. He figured to be a decent veteran arm for a club in need of a back-of-the-rotation starter or swing man this winter, but now it’s impossible to say what’s in store for Gray until we have more information about his status, including whether he’ll require surgery and what his recovery timetable looks like. Of course, the possibility of retirement can’t be completely ignored for a veteran facing notable health challenges who will turn 34 in November, but Gray has given no indication to this point about his plans for 2026 and beyond.

Rangers Select Dane Dunning

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The Rangers announced that they have selected right-hander Dane Dunning to their roster. Fellow righty Caleb Boushley has been optioned as the corresponding active roster move. The 40-man roster already had a vacancy.

The Rangers have been running a four-man rotation in recent weeks, having lost both Nathan Eovaldi and Tyler Mahle to the injured list. Behind starters Jacob deGrom, Jack Leiter, Kumar Rocker and Patrick Corbin, the club has had Boushley and Jacob Latz serving as multi-inning relievers. Leiter started yesterday and only lasted four innings, with Boushley getting the final four. The club lost on the road, meaning the bottom of the ninth didn’t need to be played.

Boushley likely wasn’t going to be available for a few days, so he’ll be swapped out. Corbin is taking the ball tonight but there’s likely going to be some sort of bullpen game tomorrow. The club then has deGrom likely to go on Wednesday with an off-day on Thursday and Eovaldi potentially returning after that. But in the meantime, they are still limping for a few more days and could need guys like Latz and Dunning to soak up some innings over the next few days.

Dunning, 30, has had some decent seasons for the Rangers but his results have backed up over the past year or so. He got bumped to the bullpen last year and has been bouncing off and on the roster this year. That’s due to the fact that he’s making a $2.66MM salary this year, which is preventing other clubs from claiming him off waivers. As a player with between three and five years of major league service time, he can reject an outright assignment but would have to forfeit his remaining salary commitments in order to do so. Twice this year, he has been passed through waivers and then accepted an outright assignment to Round Rock.

The club’s current pitching predicament will get him back to the majors yet again. He has just three big league innings pitched on the year, spending most of this time with Round Rock. For the Express, he has thrown 46 1/3 innings over 12 appearances with a 4.77 earned run average, 24.4% strikeout rate, 9% walk rate and 46.8% ground ball rate.

Photo courtesy of William Purnell, Imagn Images

Rangers Place Evan Carter On 10-Day Injured List

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The Rangers placed outfielder Evan Carter on the 10-day injured list (retroactive to May 17) due to a right quad strain.  Fellow outfielder Kevin Pillar has been activated from his own stint on the 10-day IL to take Carter’s place on the active roster.  Texas also made two more roster moves, optioning right-hander Cole Winn to Triple-A and calling up righty Caleb Boushley.

Carter has a Grade 2 quad strain, as manager Bruce Bochy told the Dallas Morning News’ Shawn McFarland and other reporters.  This means that Carter’s absence will stretch well beyond the 10-day minimum and he is likely facing several weeks or even months on the sidelines.  The injury apparently surfaced yesterday, as Carter was a late scratch from the Rangers’ starting lineup for their game with the Astros.

The quad strain continues Carter’s injury-riddled pro career.  Carter missed a good deal of the 2021 minor league season and most of the 2024 MLB season due to back problems, and arm problems also kept him on the minor league IL for about a month in 2023.  Carter did get healthy in time to make his big league debut in September 2023, and he quickly lived up to his top-prospect status by tearing up the league in both the remainder of the regular season and into the postseason, as Texas went on to win the World Series.

Just when it looked like Carter was a breakout star, however, his bad back limited him to 45 games of action in 2024.  He began this season in the minors and was recalled a couple of weeks ago for his 2025 debut, and Carter has hit only .182/.270/.273 in 37 plate appearances before going on the IL.

In part due to concerns over Carter’s health following his lost 2024 campaign, the Rangers added Pillar as a depth option on a minor league contract back in January.  Pillar made the Opening Day roster and hit .237/.237/.289 over 38 PA before going on the injured list due to lower back inflammation earlier this month.  He’ll return to the roster after missing 15 days of action.

Rangers Designate Daniel Robert For Assigment

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The Rangers announced that they have selected right-hander Dane Dunning and optioned right-hander Caleb Boushley, two moves that were reported earlier today. To open a 40-man spot for Dunning, right-hander Daniel Robert has been designated for assignment.

Robert, 30, was added to the club’s 40-man roster in July of last year. By the end of the season, he had made four appearances and logged 5 2/3 innings with two earned runs allowed. He has been on optional assignment for all of this year, so that is the totality of his big league experience to this point.

His work in the minors has been intriguing, though with some control issues. Dating back to the start of 2022, he has thrown 136 2/3 innings for Triple-A Round Rock. He has allowed 4.15 earned runs per nine innings with that club, who play in the hitter-friendly Pacific Coast League. He had an 11.5% walk rate in that time but also punched out 28.7% of batters faced.

He’s been far better than that more recently. From the start of 2024 to the present, he has a 2.45 ERA in 55 Triple-A innings. His 31.7% strikeout rate is quite strong and he has only walked 7.8% of opponents.

Despite the strong minor league work, he has been nudged off the roster. Perhaps that’s because of his late-bloomer status. A two-way player in college who hardly pitched, his professional ascent was interrupted by the canceled 2020 season and a few injuries. When he made his major league debut in July of last year, he was on the cusp of his 30th birthday, which was in August.

Now that he’s been nudged off the roster, the Rangers will have one week to figure out his fate. The waiver process takes 48 hours, so any trade talks will have to come together in the next five days. Given his strong minor league numbers and the fact that he’s still optionable for the rest of this season and one additional year, it’s possible he’ll garner some interest from other clubs.

Photo courtesy of Joe Camporeale, Imagn Images

Rangers To Select Dane Dunning

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Right-hander Dane Dunning is going to be added to the Rangers’ roster, per Shawn McFarland of the Dallas Morning News. Fellow righty Caleb Boushley will be optioned to get Dunning onto the active roster but the club will need to make a corresponding move to open a 40-man roster spot. The club has not announced the moves yet.

Dunning, 30, was outrighted off the club’s 40-man roster just ahead of Opening Day. He had just wrapped up a tough spring showing, allowing 10 earned runs in 11 innings. He also had a pretty rough campaign in 2024. He posted a 5.31 ERA around some injured list stints last year. He had come into the season with a 4.16 career ERA, so that was a notable jump. Over the course of the season, he was bumped to the bullpen and also optioned to the minors for a while.

Since being outrighted, he’s been pitching out of the rotation for Triple-A Round Rock. He has a 5.40 ERA across five starts for that club, pitching in the hitter-friendly Pacific Coast League. His 22.6% strikeout rate and 9.7% walk rate are both close to average but he has allowed four home runs, a rate of 17.4% per fly ball.

He’s likely ticketed for a long relief role with the big league club. The Rangers have Jacob deGrom, Nathan Eovaldi, Tyler Mahle, Patrick Corbin and Jack Leiter making up their current rotation. The team has completed six contests in a 13-game stretch without an off-day, leading to heavy bullpen usage. Of their eight relievers, all of them have pitched at least twice in the past six days. Luke Jackson, Chris Martin and Robert Garcia have each pitched in three of the past four days.

With the staff fairly gassed, Dunning will provide manager Bruce Bochy with a guy who could potentially take a few innings of mop-up duty. Dunning tossed 5 1/3 innings in his most recent outing, which was on Thursday. He still has an option remaining, so he can be optioned back down to Round Rock whenever the need for a fresh arm arises again.

Photo courtesy of William Purnell, Imagn Images

Rangers Select Caleb Boushley

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The Rangers announced a series of roster moves today. Infielder Josh Jung has been activated from the 10-day injured list and the club has also selected the contract of right-hander Caleb Boushley. To open active roster spots for those two, the club optioned infielder/outfielder Ezequiel Durán and right-hander Gerson Garabito. To open a 40-man spot for Boushley, left-hander Cody Bradford was transferred to the 60-day injured list.

The pitching moves appear to be motivated by recent usage. The Rangers used seven of their eight relievers over the weekend, most of them pitching twice. Garabito was the only member of the bullpen to not pitch in the Friday-Sunday series against the Rays. Yesterday, Nathan Eovaldi was pulled after 4 2/3 innings, with Garabito covering the final 3 1/3 as the Rangers lost 7-0 to the Cubs at Wrigley.

Garabito threw 51 pitches in the process and was likely going to be unavailable for a few days. Instead of proceeding without a long man, the club has tagged in Boushley to take on that job for now. The 31-year-old Boushley signed a minor league deal with the Rangers in the offseason. He posted a 3.27 earned run average in the spring and has a 2.08 ERA in his first two Triple-A starts to begin the year.

His major league track record is fairly minimal. He has only appeared in three big league games, though his debut was a memorable one. He was called up by Milwaukee late in September, with the Brewers having already clinched the National League Central. He pitched the final 2 1/3 innings of a ten-inning walk-off victory, earning the W and a post-game sport-drink shower. He also pitched twice for the Twins last year. He currently has a 4.26 ERA in 6 1/3 innings. In the minors, dating back to the start of 2021, he has a 4.66 ERA in 521 2/3 innings with a 19% strikeout rate and 6.9% walk rate.

Boushley still has options, so he could perhaps be shuttled to Triple-A and back throughout the year, if the Rangers want to keep him available as a long relief guy who can be called upon when needed. In the short term, he’s on hand in the big leagues and will be on hand if they need mop-up work.

They had a spot available on the 40-man due to Bradford’s status. He started the season on the 15-day injured list due to some soreness in his throwing elbow. In the middle of March, the team said he would be shut down for four weeks. Even if he’s healthy at some point in the second half of April, he’ll need to effectively restart his spring ramp-up. This transfer makes him ineligible to be activated until late May at the earliest.

Photo courtesy of Joe Camporeale, Imagn Images

Rangers Sign Caleb Boushley To Minor League Deal

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The Rangers have signed right-hander Caleb Boushley to a minor league deal, according to his transactions tracker at MLB.com. He has been assigned to Triple-A Round Rock for now but will presumably receive an invite to major league spring training.

Boushley, 31, has a small amount of major league experience. He made one appearance for the Brewers last year and two for the Twins this year. He has thrown 6 1/3 innings in the big leagues, allowing three earned runs.

He has naturally had a larger body of work in the minors. Over the past three years, he has made 80 Triple-A appearances, including 77 starts. In his 397 1/3 frames, he has a 4.55 earned run average, 18.4% strikeout rate and 7.3% walk rate.

He was outrighted off the Twins’ roster in September and was able to elect free agency at season’s end, which has led to this deal with Texas. The Rangers have plenty of rotation uncertainty, having recently lost Nathan Eovaldi, Andrew Heaney, Max Scherzer and José Ureña to free agency. They have interest in bringing back some guys from that group but they are reportedly planning to duck under the competitive balance tax next year, which could lead to some budgetary constraints this winter.

On paper, the current rotation includes Jacob deGrom, Tyler Mahle, Jon Gray, Cody Bradford, Dane Dunning, Kumar Rocker, Jack Leiter and others, though there are plenty of question marks in that group. deGrom and Mahle returned from Tommy John surgery in 2024 but each of them made just three major league starts this year. Gray and Bradford missed decent chunks of the 2024 season as well. Dunning has been deployed as more of a depth/swing guy and could be a non-tender candidate. Rocker and Leiter each have less than 40 innings of major league experience.

Boushley will give the club a bit of non-roster depth. Even if he doesn’t earn a job out of camp, the Rangers might need a spot start or long reliever as the season goes along. Should Boushley get on the 40-man roster at some point, he still has options and could be freely moved to Round Rock and back, though a player can only be optioned five times in one season.

Eight Players Elect Free Agency

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As the offseason nears, a number of players elect minor league free agency each week. These players are separate from six-year MLB free agents, who’ll reach the open market five days after the conclusion of the World Series. Eligible minor leaguers can begin electing free agency as soon as the regular season wraps up. These players were all outrighted off a team’s 40-man roster during the year and have the requisite service time and/or multiple career outrights necessary to reach free agency since they weren’t added back to teams’ rosters.

Electing free agency is the anticipated outcome for these players. There’ll surely be more to test the market in the coming weeks. We’ll offer periodic updates at MLBTR. These transactions are all reflected on the MiLB.com or MLB.com logs.

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Trevor Richards, Caleb Boushley Accept Outright Assignments With Twins

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Right-handers Trevor Richards and Caleb Boushley both passed through waivers unclaimed following their recent DFAs by the Twins, tweets Bobby Nightengale of the Minneapolis Star-Tribune. Either could’ve rejected an outright assignment to the minors, but they’ve accepted assignments to the Twins’ Triple-A affiliate in St. Paul.

Richards, 31, was the Twins’ lone pickup at this summer’s trade deadline. The right-hander tossed scoreless outings in seven of his 10 relief appearances as a Twin and posted a respectable, if unspectacular 4.15 ERA in 13 innings overall. However, Richards also walked 11 of the 59 batters he faced following the trade (18.6%), plunked another pair of hitters and unleashed a staggering seven wild pitches in his 13 frames with Minnesota. The command woes were glaring enough that Minnesota opted to put him on waivers.

While Richards could’ve rejected the outright and retained his salary because he has more than five years of major league service, the timing of his DFA might’ve made it hard to latch on with another club. He’s a free agent at season’s end, so non-contending clubs would have little reason to bring him in for just a few weeks. Contending clubs who feel they might be able to get him back on track with a few tweaks on a minor league deal also would’ve likely passed, as even if that proved true, Richards would’ve been ineligible for a new club’s postseason roster. As such, he’ll head to St. Paul and hope to get back on track and pitch his way into a late look with the Twins. Failing that, he’ll become a free agent when the season draws to a close.

Boushley, 30, is a depth arm who inked a minor league deal with Minnesota over the winter and has twice been selected to the big league roster this season. He’s passed through waivers both times and remained with the organization’s top affiliate in St. Paul. Boushley has pitched four innings with the Twins and allowed a pair of runs on six hits and two walks with one strikeout. He’s spent most of the season in the Saints’ rotation, pitching to a 4.97 ERA in 22 starts and 116 innings at the Triple-A level.

Twins Select Diego Castillo, Michael Helman; Activate Brooks Lee

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The Twins announced a flurry of roster moves this afternoon as they selected the contracts of right-hander Diego Castillo and utility hitter Michael Helman to the big league roster. The club also placed outfielder Manuel Margot on the 10-day IL and activated infielder Brooks Lee from the 10-day IL. To make room for Castillo and Helman on the 40-man roster, left-hander Caleb Boushley was designated for assignment while right-hander Chris Paddack was transferred to the 60-day IL.

Castillo returns to the Twins for his second stint in the majors this year. The 30-year-old righty signed with Minnesota on a minor league deal over the offseason and was selected to the roster at the end of May. He ultimately made just five appearances for the club before being designated for assignment despite a solid 2.57 ERA thanks to worrying peripherals, highlighted by a 10% strikeout rate and an eye-popping 23.3% walk rate. Castillo elected free agency but returned to the Twins on a fresh minor league deal shortly thereafter, and since then has been pitching for the club’s Triple-A affiliate in St. Paul.

Even so, the results have not been good. While his numbers at Triple-A have been skewed by a disastrous performance where he surrendered five runs while recording just one out last month, he’s still posted a 4.00 ERA with nearly as many walks (6) as strikeouts (7) in nine innings of work since then. While Castillo was among the more reliable late-inning arms in the game from 2018 to 2022 with a 3.12 ERA and 3.69 FIP over that time, it seems extremely unlikely that he’ll be able to recapture that form down the stretch with Minnesota. That being said, his presence on the roster should allow the club to keep its key relief arms like Jhoan Duran and Griffin Jax fresher down the stretch by soaking up lower-leverage innings.

As for Helman, the Twins’ eleventh-round pick in the 2018 draft has steadily worked his way through the minor leagues through his career before starting the season at Triple-A this year and delivering strong results. The 28-year-old has slashed .283/.367/.508 with 13 homers, 15 doubles, and ten steals in just 63 games this year at the level, and he’s done that while splitting time between shortstop, center field, second base, third base, and left field. The versatile defender figures to offer the Twins an interesting combination of power and speed off the bench for the stretch run, and his ability to play all over the field will surely come in handy as the club navigates injuries and rest for its regular players.

Also returning to the majors is Lee, the club’s 23-year-old top prospect who struggled to a somewhat lackluster .253/.309/.333 slash line in 110 trips to the plate at the big league level before going on the IL in early August. Now that he’s back in the majors, Lee figures to feature prominently in the club’s infield mix, though with Royce Lewis locking down third base and Willi Castro performing admirably in place of Carlos Correa at shortstop, it’s not clear whether or not Lee will be able to get regular reps as the Twins look to preserve their 3.5-game lead over the Red Sox for the final AL Wild Card spot.

As for the players moving off the roster to accommodate these additions, Margot’s placement on the IL is hardly a surprise after he suffered an apparent groin strain during last night’s game. After the game, manager Rocco Baldelli told reporters (including Do-Hyoung Park of MLB.com) that the outfielder was “not moving well” due to the issue and would need to undergo an MRI. The results of that MRI are not yet clear, but they evidently warranted a trip to the IL for the 29-year-old outfielder, who has slashed just .250/.302/.350 in 116 games with the club this year.

Meanwhile, Paddack’s placement on the 60-day IL isn’t necessarily a surprise given the fact that he’s already been on the shelf since mid-July due to a forearm strain. A regular season return has long seemed unlikely for the right-hander, but it’s still possible he could return to action at some point in the postseason depending on how far the Twins make it this season. As for Boushley, the lefty has appeared in just two games for the Twins this year after signing a minor league deal with the club over the offseason, pitching to a 4.50 ERA in four innings of work.

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