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Carl Edwards Jr.

Braves, Carl Edwards Jr. Agree To Minor League Deal

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The Braves have reached a minor league agreement with right-handed reliever Carl Edwards Jr., Jon Heyman of MLB Network tweets.

Edwards is best known as a member of the Cubs, with whom he spent 2015-19 and won a World Series in 2016. He was a highly effective reliever for most of that period, though Edwards’ production fell off in his last season as a Cub and they traded him to the Padres that summer. Edwards didn’t last long as a Padre, throwing 1 2/3 innings of six-run ball before they let him go.

Edwards became a Mariner before last season when he signed a major league deal with the team, though forearm problems limited him to just 4 2/3 innings. However, the 29-year-old did yield a meager one run during that time and post better strikeout and walk percentages than usual (35.3 and 5.9).

In all, Edwards has recorded a 3.54 ERA/3.52 SIERA, averaged about 95 mph on his fastball, and registered a 32.9 percent strikeout rate against a 13.7 walk rate in 180 2/3 major league innings. Based on his track record, it’s easy to see why a team would take a chance on him in free agency. The Braves are an especially logical fit with Mark Melancon and Shane Greene on the free-agent market.

Matt Magill, Carl Edwards Jr., Nestor Cortes Jr. Elect Free Agency

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The Seattle Mariners outrighted three relievers to Triple-A, the team announced. Matt Magill, Carl Edwards Jr., and Nestor Cortes Jr. each elected free agency. The Mariners have 7 open spots on their 40-man roster.

Magill underwent arthroscopic debridement surgery on his right shoulder on Sept. 15, effectively ending his season. The surgery was performed by Dr. Neal ElAttrache in Los Angeles, per the team release. The 30-year-old reliever did a fine job for the Mariners in 2019 after Seattle purchased his contract from the Twins in July, posting a 3.63 ERA across 22 appearances totaling 22 1/3 innings. His 2020 was more fraught, however, yielding over 6 runs per 9 innings before going down with injury. Originally drafted in the 31st round by the Dodgers, Magill has appeared in the bigs with the Dodgers, Reds, Twins, and Mariners since his debut in 2013.

Edwards Jr. will be well-remembered by Cubs fans for his time in Wrigley Field where he spent the first 4 1/2 seasons of his career. One of a small cadre of relievers that gained manager Joe Maddon’s trust during their title run in the 2016 playoffs, Edwards Jr. remained a key member of the Cubs’ bullpen from 2015 to 2018 with a 3.06 ERA/3.12 FIP in 159 innings over 172 appearances with 12.3 K/9 to 4.9 BB/9. The String Bean Slinger lost his command as he stumbled through a difficult season in 2019. The Cubs eventually traded him to the Padres for Brad Wieck in a swap of bullpen projects.

Edwards Jr. signed with the Mariners as a free agent before 2020, appearing in just 5 games, though he looked sharp in those 4 2/3 innings, allowing just 1 earned run while striking out 6 to just 1 walk. A forearm strain sent him to the injured list on August 10th, ending his season. The 29-year-old will be an interesting reclamation project to track for someone next season. If he can return to the player he was with the Cubs, he’d certainly be a viable weapon out of the bullpen.

Like Magill and Edwards Jr., Cortes was put on the injured list in mid-August, and he too missed the remainder of the season. Cortes made one start and four relief appearances for the Mariners, giving up 13 earned runs across 7 2/3 innings. The 25-year-old has a 6.72 career ERA over parts of 3 seasons with the Orioles, Yankees, and Mariners.

Pitching Notes: Hamels, Quintana, M’s, Tigers

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Left-hander Cole Hamels, whom the Braves placed on the 45-day injured list July 23, still has not thrown off a mound during his recovery from a triceps problem, Mark Bowman of MLB.com tweets. The Braves remain hopeful Hamels will pitch this year, though, per manager Brian Snitker. Of course, Hamels isn’t eligible to return until early September, so the Braves will get a very limited season from him at best. That wasn’t the outcome either side expected when the Braves signed the longtime workhorse to a one-year deal worth $18MM deal during the offseason. The Hamels injury is one of many issues the Braves’ rotation has encountered since then (most recently, they optioned lefty Sean Newcomb on Monday in the wake of a horrid performance), but the back-to-back NL East champions are still off to a solid start at 11-7.

  • Cubs southpaw Jose Quintana will throw a three-inning sim game Tuesday, Bruce Levine of 670 The Score reports. However, there’s still no word on when Quintana will make his 2020 debut after suffering a left thumb injury over a month ago. Even without Quintana, though, the Cubs’ rotation has come storming out of the gates. Entering Monday’s action, the Yu Darvish–Kyle Hendricks–Jon Lester–Tyler Chatwood–Alec Mills quintet was second in the game in FIP (2.76) and fourth in ERA (2.83)
  • The Mariners placed right-hander Carl Edwards Jr. on the injured list with a flexor mass strain in his forearm and recalled fellow righty Bryan Shaw from their alternate site, Ryan Divish of the Seattle Times relays. Edwards’ injury sounds worrisome, though manager Scott Servais said it’s “not that serious.” But as Servais noted, even a couple weeks lost in a 60-game season is a significant amount of time. It’s unfortunate for the M’s and Edwards, who combined for an awful run in Chicago and San Diego from 2018-19 but who has come back nicely this year. He yielded one earned run on two hits and one walk (six strikeouts) across 4 2/3 innings before landing on the IL.
  • The Tigers placed righty Buck Farmer on the IL on Monday with a left groin strain and recalled righty Beau Burrows, per Evan Petzold of the Detroit Free Press. Farmer was a bright spot on a bottom-feeding Tigers team a year ago and has kept runs off the board at an even better clip this season, having allowed just two ER on four hits and three walks in 6 2/3 innings. On the negative side, Farmer has struck out only one hitter after fanning almost 10 per nine in 2019.

8 AL West Pitchers Looking For Bounce-Back Years

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Our preseason series exploring potential bounce-back candidates for 2020 began with a look at several AL West hitters hoping to rebound. Let’s stay in the division and focus on a group of talented pitchers who want to put disappointing seasons behind them…

Corey Kluber, RHP, Rangers: Kluber was the Rangers’ highest-profile offseason pickup and someone who’s now near the front of a revamped rotation, but the Indians decided the 33-year-old was expendable in the wake of a truncated 2019. In a limited number of innings (35 2/3), Kluber came nowhere near his two-time Cy Young form, notching a 5.80 ERA/4.06 FIP, and didn’t pitch past May 1 as a result of a broken forearm. Kluber did strike out almost 10 batters per nine when he was healthy enough to take the mound, but he offset that with some of the worst walk (3.79 BB/9), groundball (40 percent) and average fastball velocity (91.6 mph) marks of his career. With the Rangers holding an $18MM option or a $1MM buyout over him for 2021, this is an especially pivotal season for Kluber.

Jose Leclerc, RHP, Rangers: Leclerc was an absolute force during a breakout 2018, but his run prevention numbers took noticeable steps backward because of control problems. He lost his job as the Rangers’ closer at one point early in the year and wound up with a 4.33 ERA and 5.11 BB/9 in 68 2/3 innings. However, the 26-year-old did get a lot better after a terrible May, and he also concluded with 13.11 K/9 and a career-high 96.8 mph average fastball velocity (1.5 mph better than he recorded during his dream ’18).

Andrew Heaney, LHP, Angels: Considering their lack of high-end pitching additions in the offseason, it’s particularly important for the the Angels to get a healthy and better version of Heaney in 2020. Injuries victimized Heaney last year, holding him to 95 1/3 innings of 4.91 ERA/4.63 FIP ball. He also struggled to induce grounders (33.6 percent), which helped lead to an 18.3 percent home run-to-fly ball rate. But Heaney did log 11.14 K/9 against 2.83 BB/9 with a personal-best average fastball velocity (92.5 mph) and a career-high swinging-strike rate (14.1 percent).

Lou Trivino, RHP, Athletics: Trivino had an outstanding rookie year from the A’s bullpen in 2018, but with the clear exception of his 97 mph-plus velocity, just about everything went downhill last season. Fewer strikeouts and more walks meant far more runs against, with Trivino’s ERA/FIP shooting from the twos and threes to 5.25/4.53 over 60 frames during a year that ended early because of rib issues. And Trivino wasn’t as lucky as he was a rookie, as his batting average on balls in play and strand rate each went the wrong way. On a more encouraging note, the 28-year-old did rank near the top of the majors in a few notable Statcast categories, including average exit velocity against (85.5 mph).

Joakim Soria, RHP, Athletics: Soria was another A’s reliever who may not have produced as the team hoped he would have in 2019. The A’s signed Soria to a two-year, $15MM deal in December 2018 after a terrific season between the White Sox and Brewers, but for the most part, he couldn’t match what he did then. That’s not to say Soria was bad – he still posted a 4.30 ERA/3.62 FIP with 10.3 K/9 and 2.61 BB/9, and his mean fastball velocity remained in the 93 mph range. Also, as with Trivino, Soria was something of a Statcast favorite, mostly earning good marks in that area.

Yusei Kikuchi, LHP, Mariners: On the heels of an excellent tenure in his homeland of Japan, Kikuchi was a high-profile signing for the Mariners entering the 2019 campaign. They guaranteed Kikuchi $56MM on a contract that could max out at $109MM, but Year 1 of the deal probably didn’t go to the Mariners’ liking. In his first season in the majors, the 28-year-old recorded a 5.46 ERA/5.71 FIP – both among the worst in the game – across 161 2/3 innings. He relied primarily on a fastball-slider-curve mix, but all three of those offerings ranked among the least effective of their kind, per FanGraphs. Kikuchi did walk fewer than three hitters per nine, though his K/9 (6.46) placed sixth from the bottom out of 75 pitchers who accumulated at least 150 innings.

Carl Edwards Jr., RHP, Mariners: It wasn’t long ago that Edwards was a key component of the Cubs’ bullpen. As recently as 2018, he put up a 2.60 ERA/2.93 FIP with 11.6 K/9 across 52 innings, though that stellar production did come in spite of a 5.54 BB/9 and a lowly 28.9 percent groundball rate. Edwards found a way to dodge home runs then, as he gave them up on just 3.8 percent of the many fly balls he allowed, but he wasn’t able to do so during an abbreviated, shoulder injury-plagued 2019 in the majors. Edwards only totaled 17 innings between the Cubs and Padres (his other 17 2/3 frames came in Triple-A ball), and he gave up HRs 15 percent of the time en route to an abysmal 8.47 ERA/5.74 FIP. His control got worse along the way, as he surrendered almost seven walks per nine, and so did his strikeout rate. Edwards fanned a little over 10 hitters per nine, but his strikeout percentage fell almost six points from the prior year, while his swinging-strike rate dropped nearly 4 percent. Still, for $950K, you can’t fault the Mariners for rolling the dice.

Yoshihisa Hirano, RHP, Mariners: Hirano’s another low-cost bullpen flier for the Mariners, whom they inked for $1.6MM last month. No doubt, they’re hoping they get a version of Hirano closer to 2018 than ’19. The former Diamondback recorded a 2.44 ERA/3.69 FIP in his first year in the majors, but those numbers rose to 4.75 and 4.04, respectively, last season. Hirano also generated fewer ground balls, gave up more home runs and issued more walks, though he did see his K percentage go up almost 4 percent, finishing with 10.36 per nine. Like the Edwards signing, there’s little to no harm from the M’s perspective in taking a chance on a rebound.

Mariners To Sign Carl Edwards Jr.

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The Mariners have agreed to a contract with righty Carl Edwards Jr., per Bob Nightengale of USA Today (via Twitter). It’s a MLB deal for the reliever, per Ryan Divish of the Seattle Times. Edwards will earn $950K with another $500K in available incentives, Nightengale adds via Twitter.

Shoulder troubles ended Edwards’s 2019 season early. But it had been a forgettable one before that point. Edwards struggled on both sides of a trade that sent him from the Cubs to the Padres before being cut loose by the San Diego organization.

The M’s obviously are hoping that Edwards can regain the form that enabled him to throw 118 1/3 innings of 2.81 ERA ball over 2017-18. Even then, his 12.2 K/9 was accompanied by 5.3 BB/9, so there was room for improvement. But Edwards has a big arm and will bring plenty of upside with him to Seattle.

Padres Outright Seth Mejias-Brean, Carl Edwards Jr.; Designate Jacob Nix & Eric Yardley

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The Padres have outrighted Seth Mejias-Brean and Carl Edwards Jr. to Triple-A, with the latter having already elected free agency after clearing waivers. The club also designated Jacob Nix and Eric Yardley for assignment.

With the day’s moves, the Friars will bid adieu to Edwards after a brief stay in the organization. He was added as a buy-low candidate in a mid-season swap, but struggled in brief action and ended up going down with injury.

Mejias-Brean was fairly productive at all levels but evidently didn’t convince. The 28-year-old infielder earned his first taste of the majors after slashing .316/.371/.455 in 448 Triple-A plate appearances. He managed two doubles and two dingers in his 33 trips to the plate with the big club.

The future remains unclear for Nix and Yardley. The former had a tough MLB debut showing in 2018 and was then diagnosed with a small UCL tear. He was throwing rather well on a rehab assignment but was arrested in a bizarre incident after the end of the season.

Yardley, 29, was effective all year long at both Triple-A and in a brief MLB debut. All told, he allowed only 17 earned runs in 75 1/3 frames. Yardley didn’t get many strikeouts, but drew huge volumes of grounders and was the rare pitcher who proved largely immune to the long ball in 2019.

Padres Place Carl Edwards Jr. On Injured List

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The Padres announced that they’ve placed right-handed reliever Carl Edwards Jr. on the injured list with a strained pitching shoulder. The club recalled lefty Robbie Erlin from Triple-A El Paso to take Edwards’ place.

San Diego just acquired Edwards from the Cubs at last month’s trade deadline. The Cubs deemed the once-outstanding Edwards expendable after a few disappointing months, and things haven’t improved since he changed uniforms. Edwards has given up six earned runs on four hits and four walks (with two strikeouts) in two appearances and 1 2/3 innings as a Padre.

Overall, the 27-year-old Edwards has pitched to an 8.47 ERA (5.75 FIP) with 10.06 K/9, 6.88 BB/9 and a paltry 24.4 percent groundball rate in 17 major league innings this season. A drop in velocity – his fastball’s down to 93.9 mph after clocking in from 94.5 to 95.2 between 2016-18 – hasn’t helped matters. That has helped contribute to a serious dip in swinging-strike rate for Edwards, who generated misses 15.4 percent of the time over the prior three seasons but has seen the number sink to 10.7 this year.

Along with his troubles preventing runs with two teams in 2019, Edwards has dealt with a minor league demotion and now a pair of IL stints. The Cubs put him on ice in mid-June with a left thoracic strain. In all, this has been a surprisingly awful season for a pitcher who came into the year with a lifetime 3.06 ERA/3.12 FIP, 12.28 K/9 against 4.92 BB/9, and a 40.4 percent groundball rate in 159 innings.

Padres To Acquire Carl Edwards Jr.

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In yet another under-the-wire deadline deal, the Cubs traded right-handed reliever Carl Edwards Jr. to the Padres, ESPN’s Jesse Rogers tweets. The once-trusted setup man had clearly seen his standing with the organization slip, as evidenced by a recent demotion to Triple-A Iowa.

The Cubs are getting lefty Brad Wieck back from the Padres in return for Edwards, per Mark Gonzales of the Chicago Tribune (Twitter link). Chicago will also send $500K in international bonus pool money to the Padres in the deal, per Jeff Sanders of the San Diego Union-Tribune. All indications are that the San Diego organization will take over the remainder of Edwards’s $1.5MM salary.

Edwards Jr. will join a strong bullpen unit in San Diego, offering value as a buy-low candidate with a high ceiling if Padres management can resolve the issues that have driven his fall from grace this season. While the Pads find themselves outside the playoff picture in 2019, the addition of Edwards could pay dividends in years to come; the 27-year-old will remain under team control through the 2022 season, which would seem to jibe with the Padres’ desired timeline for contention. If Edwards can return to form in San Diego, the Padres will add yet another bullpen weapon to its already-deep arsenal.

Wieck, meanwhile, is slightly younger than Edwards and has two more years of team control, which makes him an attractive long-term relief option. However, he lacks the Major-League track record and electrifying potential that made Edwards a mainstay in recent Cubs bullpens. While Chicago still finds itself in position to contend, Jed Hoyer and company viewed Edwards as a change-of-scenery candidate and may not have seen an opportunity for him to contribute to this year’s team. Replacing him with Wieck, while likely not improving their chances in 2019, may provide insurance against possible departures of veteran cogs: Pedro Strop, Brandon Kintzler, and Steve Cishek will all be free agents at season’s end, and there are few internal options outside of that group.

Wieck’s 2019 numbers are not pretty—his 6.57 ERA, fueled by allowing 2.6 HR/9, won’t inspire any optimism in Cubs faithful—but there are signs of promise. Despite the struggles, he’s struck out 11.3 batters per nine innings, good for a 3.44 K:BB ratio. In 2018, between Double- and Triple-A, he struck out 70 batters in 46 1/3 innings while walking just 17. He’s certainly not a finished product, and it’s questionable whether he provides more value to a contender than a diminished version of Edwards; however, with the extra years of team control and good strikeout stuff, the Cubs believe Wieck will grow into a more valuable long-term asset than the Edwards, who may well be a lost cause.

Over a three-year stretch from 2016-2018, Edwards established himself as a key member of the Cubs’ bullpen. Tossing 154 1/3 innings of relief over that span, Edwards posted a 3.03 ERA while striking out 12.4 batters per nine innings. However, his fortunes took a turn for the worse this season, as his ERA has ballooned to an unsightly 5.87. His strikeout numbers, while still impressive, dipped slightly; while his command issues haven’t waned, his 5.51 FIP seems to have been inflated by an increased proneness to the long ball, as he’s already allowed 3 in just 15 1/3 innings of work.

Cubs Option Carl Edwards Jr., Recall Rowan Wick

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6:59pm: Wick is indeed coming up, the Cubs announced.

12:17pm: The Cubs have optioned right-hander Carl Edwards Jr. to Triple-A Iowa, Jesse Rogers of ESPN Chicago reports (via Twitter). The team has yet to formally announce the move, but Rogers adds that righty Rowan Wick is a possible replacement for the struggling Edwards.

It’s been a rough season for Edwards, who has missed time due to a thoracic strain and hasn’t generated quality results when healthy enough to take the mound. This is the second time he’s been optioned to Iowa, and while Edwards has performed well in Triple-A in 2019, he’s sporting a 5.87 ERA with nine walks, a hit batter, two wild pitches and a balk in 15 1/3 innings. Edwards does have 17 strikeouts, but he’s actually seen his swinging-strike rate dip precipitously (14.4 percent in ’18, 10.2 percent in ’19). His average fastball velocity is also down a half mile per hour from 2018 and 1.2 mph from 2017.

In 154 1/3 regular-season innings from 2016-18, Edwards turned in a 3.03 ERA with better than 12 strikeouts per nine innings pitched, so getting him back on track would be a boon to a Cubs ’pen that has been, at best, a middle-of-the-pack unit. Chicago has yet to receive so much as one inning from projected closer Brandon Morrow in 2019, and the front office felt strongly enough about the need to add bullpen help that it signed Craig Kimbrel to a $43MM contract following the June draft. President of baseball ops Theo Epstein, GM Jed Hoyer and the rest of the Cubs’ front office are reported to be on the hunt for bullpen upgrades between now and the July 31 trade deadline.

In the meantime, if Wick is indeed the corresponding move, he’ll get his second look with the Cubs. The catcher-turned-outfielder-turned-pitcher gave up five runs (three earned) in seven innings with the Cubs earlier this summer and has been excellent in Iowa. Through 35 innings there, the 26-year-old Wick has a 1.80 ERA with a 44-to-9 K/BB ratio and just three homers allowed.

Quick Hits: Realmuto, Dominguez, Edwards, McKay

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J.T. Realmuto was removed during the sixth inning of Sunday’s 13-6 Phillies win over the Marlins after feeling tightness in his left hamstring, Matt Breen of the Philadelphia Inquirer writes.  The issue arose while Realmuto was running the bases during a seven-run inning for the Phils, and the blowout nature of the game may have also contributed to the early exit, since Realmuto said the injury wasn’t serious.  The All-Star catcher described the problem as “just a little standard tightness thing,” and manager Gabe Kapler felt Realmuto would likely be fine for the Phillies’ next game on Tuesday.  Realmuto has yet to really catch fire since coming to the Phillies from Miami in a blockbuster trade, as his 95 wRC+ (off a .265/.319/.431 slash line in 310 PA) represents his lowest numbers since 2015.  Still, Realmuto’s .353 xwOBA far outpaces his actual .320 wOBA, so his production is likely to improve as long as he keeps up the quality contact.

Some more stray items as we head into July…

  • Also from Breen, Seranthony Dominguez will receive a re-evalution of his damaged right UCL on Wednesday.  This is the latest step in Dominguez’s quest to avoid Tommy John surgery, as the Phillies right-hander instead opted for a platelet-rich plasma treatment.  If everything checks out on Wednesday, Dominguez could begin throwing at the beginning of next week.
  • Cubs right-hander Carl Edwards Jr. is set to begin a Triple-A rehab assignment, ESPN.com’s Jesse Rogers tweets.  Edwards has been on the IL (retroactively) since June 10 due to a left thoracic strain.  2019 has been a tale of two seasons for Edwards, who allowed six runs over his first 1 2/3 innings of the season and was demoted to the minors, though he then delivered a 2.03 ERA over 13 1/3 frames after being recalled.
  • Two-way star Brendan McKay made his debut on the mound for the Rays on Saturday, though it isn’t yet known if McKay will also get any plate appearances at the Major League level, MLB.com’s Juan Toribio writes.  “We’ve expressed that I don’t think the at-bats are going to come as consistent for him over the next week or so, but if there’s an opportunity to get him in there where we feel it fits with his workload, then we’ll do that,” Tampa Bay manager Kevin Cash said.  McKay is set to start again on Friday, though in the interim, he’ll be both going through his usual pre-start routine and also getting some swings in, both during batting practice and in the Tropicana Field.  While McKay’s pitching was more developed than his hitting in the minor leagues, McKay did hit .265/.400/.551 over the small sample size of 60 plate appearances at Triple-A this season.
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