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Curt Casali

Braves Release Curt Casali, Reassign Sandy León To Minor League Camp

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The Braves announced yesterday that catcher Curt Casali was reassigned to minor league camp. They announced the same with Sandy León today. Casali has been released, according to his transactions tracker at MLB.com.

It now seems highly likely that prospect Drake Baldwin will break camp with the club. Atlanta hasn’t made any firm announcements but Sean Murphy is going to start the season on the injured list due to a cracked rib. That leaves Chadwick Tromp as the only healthy catcher on the 40-man roster, meaning Atlanta needs to add someone. Casali and Leon were in camp as NRIs but that is no longer the case. Unless Atlanta brings in a catcher from outside the organization, then it seems like Baldwin will get an Opening Day job.

Baldwin, 24 this month, is one of the top catching prospects in the game. A third-round pick in the 2022 draft, he split last year between Double-A and Triple-A. He got into 124 games in total, including 72 at the top minor league level. Combined, he had a 13.1% walk rate and 17.2% strikeout rate on the year. He hit 16 home runs and slashed .276/.370/.423 for a 119 wRC+.

Coming into 2025, Baldwin is a consensus top 100 prospect. Baseball America currently has him in the #53 spot, noting that he profiles as a competent defender who is getting strong reviews for his work with pitchers.

Atlanta turned down a club option on Travis d’Arnaud at the start of the offseason, leaving Murphy and Tromp as the two catchers on the roster. Murphy’s injury opened a path for Baldwin to earn a job to start the season. He has certainly done everything he can to take advantage of that opportunity. He enters today with a spring batting line of .370/.485/.444.

That will seemingly be enough to get him a crack at the big leagues, at least to start the season. When Murphy suffered his cracked rib in early March, it was announced that he would be out of action for four to six weeks. He could therefore be back on the field in April but will likely need a bit of a rehab assignment to effectively redo his spring training.

While he does that, the team will see how Baldwin does against major league pitching. If he does well, perhaps he and Murphy could share the catching duties going forward, though Tromp is out of options. That means he would need to be removed from the 40-man roster, unless the club wants to carry three catchers when Murphy is healthy. But even the best prospects sometimes struggle when first promoted to the majors. If that happens with Baldwin, he can be optioned back to Triple-A while Murphy and Tromp handle things. For now, Baldwin will need a 40-man roster spot, though that could be easily accomplished by putting Joe Jiménez on the 60-day injured list.

Casali, 36, was in camp on a minor league deal. He’s been in the big leagues for over a decade now, generally providing solid defense with flashes of offense, though he hasn’t hit much in the past two years. He had a career batting line of .223/.316/.392 and 92 wRC+ at the end of the 2022 season, but he has slashed .186/.292/.229 over the past two campaigns for a 52 wRC+. His struggles have continued into this spring. He has 15 plate appearances in camp with Atlanta with no hits, no walks and seven strikeouts. The only time he reached base was on a hit-by-pitch.

That’s a small sample but obviously not a good showing, especially when compared to what Baldwin has been up to. Casali is an Article XX(B) free agent, meaning that he has at least six years of service time and finished last season on a major league roster or injured list. That means he has guaranteed opt-out dates on his minor league deal: five days before Opening Day, May 1 and June 1.

Since he wasn’t going to break camp with Atlanta, he was likely going to opt out and look for other opportunities. The club has seemingly let him go a bit early, allowing him to get a headstart on finding his next gig.

Despite his rough spring, he should get interest based on his track record. There are several clubs around the league with injury concerns. The Mets are going to be without Francisco Alvarez for a while. The Reds will start the season with Tyler Stephenson on the IL and Jose Trevino is banged up as well. The Giants have Patrick Bailey behind the plate but Tom Murphy will start the year on the IL and won’t be able to back him up. Casali could perhaps find a fresh minor league deal with one of those clubs or circle back to Atlanta after making a few calls.

Poll: Will The Braves Add A Catcher?

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At the outset of the offseason, the Braves made a surprising move to decline their club option on veteran catcher Travis d’Arnaud despite prior indications being that they’d planned to exercise the option. Things turned out just fine for d’Arnaud, who signed a two-year deal with the Angels shortly thereafter, but the decision came back to bite Atlanta when starting catcher Sean Murphy suffered a cracked rib that will keep him out of action through at least the middle of April.

When Murphy missed time due to an oblique issue last year, d’Arnaud was there to step in as a capable regular option. This year, they’ll have no such ready-made answer locked and loaded on the roster. That’s not to say the club has no internal options; youngster Drake Baldwin is a well-regarded prospect who already seemed likely to make his MLB debut at some point this year, and Chadwick Tromp was already in line to make the roster as the club’s backup catcher. Baldwin has raked this spring to the tune of a .368/.520/.474 slash line, and perhaps that’s enough to convince Atlanta brass to give him the reins for the start of the season while Murphy recovers.

However, it’s hardly a reliable solution to the issue. Baldwin has yet to take a major league at-bat, and he struggled offensively at the Double-A level just last year before turning his season around upon his promotion to Triple-A. And if Baldwin proves unprepared to handle the big leagues, Tromp isn’t a viable starting option. The soon to be 30-year-old backstop has just 59 games and 156 plate appearances under his belt over parts of five seasons in the majors. In that time, he’s hit just .232/.237/.397 with a wRC+ of 66. While it’s not impossible to imagine more regular playing time in the majors allowing Tromp to perform better, 47 catchers produced more offense that Tromp’s career numbers across at least 100 plate appearances in the majors last year.

The Braves do have a pair of non-roster invitees in camp who could step in, but neither inspires confidence. Sandy Leon didn’t play in the majors at all last year, last had even 100 plate appearances in a season back in 2021, and is a career .208/.276/.311 hitter. Fellow NRI Curt Casali has a somewhat stronger track record, having played at least 40 games in the majors every year since 2018 (excluding the 60-game 2020 season where he appeared in 31 games for the Reds), but hit just .194/.293/.250 for the Giants in 125 trips to the plate last year.

Given all of the uncertainty facing Atlanta, an external addition can’t be ruled out. It’s been reported that the club made an offer to Yasmani Grandal even prior to Murphy’s injury. While Grandal turned that deal down, it signals the club already had reservations about its catching depth and it’s at least possible that the sides could circle back to each other with Opening Day fast approaching and additional playing time having opened up for Grandal.

Other options on the free agent market are few and far between. James McCann and Yan Gomes remain unsigned, but other options could emerge in the coming days as veterans on minor league deals with other teams begin to get the opportunity to opt out and return to free agency.

Jorge Alfaro, Omar Narvaez, and Tucker Barnhart are among the veterans in camp with other clubs who could return to free agency if they don’t make their current club’s Opening Day roster. It’s also at least possible that a club with an excess of catching options on the 40-man roster like the Twins could either make one of their backstops available on waivers or via trade, though trades of particular note are quite rare at this stage of the calendar. While none of the options likely to be available are game changers, they could offer a higher floor than any of Atlanta’s current options and allow the club to avoid rushing Baldwin to the majors.

How do you think the Braves will approach the situation? Will they take Murphy’s injury as an opportunity to give Baldwin regular playing time and stand pat with their internal options, or will they instead look to upgrade over a potential tandem of Baldwin and Tromp by bringing in a more reliable veteran to help handle the pitching staff? Have your say in the poll below:

Sean Murphy Out Four To Six Weeks With Cracked Rib

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Braves catcher Sean Murphy has a cracked rib on the left side of his ribcage and will be out for the next four to six weeks, manager Brian Snitker announced this morning (link via Gabe Burns of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution). He sustained the injury when he was hit by a pitch during a Grapefruit League game this past Friday.

The injury opens the door for top prospect Drake Baldwin to potentially make his big league debut on Opening Day, though Baldwin is not yet on the 40-man roster and will likely still need to earn the job with a nice showing in camp. Since Atlanta surprisingly declined Travis d’Arnaud’s option at the start of the offseason and let him walk in free agency, the other in-house options include Chadwick Tromp (who’s on the 40-man roster) and veteran non-roster invitees Curt Casali and Sandy Leon.

Murphy, 30, is entering his third season with the Braves and will miss the beginning of the season for a second consecutive year. An oblique strain suffered on Opening Day last year sent Murphy to the injured list on March 30 and sidelined him into late May. That was the first major league IL placement of Murphy’s career, but with the season set to open in just over three weeks, he’ll all but assuredly start the 2025 campaign with his second career IL stay.

The 2024 season was the worst of Murphy’s career. It clearly didn’t start on a high note with that early oblique injury, but upon activation from the injured list he didn’t hit anywhere near his prior standards, slashing just .193/.284/.352 in 264 plate appearances. He still smacked 10 homers and graded as a strong defender, but Murphy’s strikeout rate climbed to its highest point since 2021 (25.4%).

More damaging was a huge spike in both Murphy’s ground-ball rate (career-high 53.9%) and infield fly rate. Among the 324 players who tallied 250 plate appearances in 2024, only 12 hit a higher rate of grounders than Murphy. For a player ranked in the eighth percentile in Statcast’s average sprint speed, that’s clearly suboptimal. Beyond the influx of ground-balls, roughly one in six of Murphy’s fly-balls was a hapless pop-up to the infield. He entered the 2024 season with only 9% of his flies being of the infield variety (and just 3.8% in 2023).

Murphy’s struggles really date back to September of 2023. The first five months of his Braves tenure could scarcely have gone better. He slashed .271/.379/.520 with 20 homers in 383 plate appearances, making the All-Star team and looking every bit like the star catcher Atlanta envisioned when trading for and extending him. Murphy hit just .111/.273/.178 in 55 September plate appearances in ’23, but given his track record that seemed like little more than a late slump.

Perhaps that was indeed the case, but with Murphy’s rough 2024 season now tacked onto that poor finish the year prior, he’s running a pretty lengthy stretch of struggles at the plate. In his past 329 plate appearances — including ten in the playoffs — he’s lugging a .181/.280/.319 batting line.

Of course, any talk of Murphy’s recent struggles should mention that they’re short-lived relative to his longstanding all-around production. From the time of his 2019 debut through August 2023, Murphy hit .237/.333/.434 with premium defense. By measure of wRC+, he was 16% better than an average hitter at the plate, which is even more impressive for his position, as the average catcher in that span tended to be around 12% worse than average with the bat. From 2019-23, Murphy ranked third among all catchers in FanGraphs’ wins above replacement, trailing only J.T. Realmuto and (much more narrowly) Will Smith.

He’ll look to get back on track once he’s past this rib injury, but Murphy’s looming IL stint does give the aforementioned Baldwin an opportunity at his MLB debut. The 23-year-old is widely considered among the sport’s top 100 prospects. Atlanta’s third-round pick in 2022 split the 2024 season between Double-A and Triple-A, hitting a combined .276/.370/.423 with 16 homers, a 13.1% walk rate and a 17.2% strikeout rate. He’s not considered the super-premium defender that Murphy is, but scouting reports have credited him with improving defense. Baseball America credits his ability to manage a pitching staff as a particular plus element of his defensive game.

The Braves aren’t going to want to have Baldwin up on the big league roster without regular at-bats available to him. It’s possible that he hits well enough this spring to break camp and then forces the issue further by getting out to a hot start in the majors. In that scenario, perhaps Murphy and Baldwin could shoulder a roughly even split of the workload behind the plate. That’d keep both fresh and would mirror many other catching situations around the league, as several clubs have moved away from one iron man catcher and a seldom-used backup (as was more common in prior generations). If Baldwin struggles, though, he could always be sent to Triple-A for further development. He’s still less than three years from being drafted, after all, and has all of 141 games above A-ball under his belt.

The Braves have Murphy signed at $15MM per season through 2028, plus a club option over the former All-Star’s 2029 campaign. Baldwin has yet to debut, meaning he has six years of club control — or nearly seven, if the team keeps him in the minors for more than a couple of weeks in 2025 but bring him to the majors for the remainder of the year.

Salary Details For Several Minor League Deals

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Every offseason, the primary focus for baseball fans is on trades and free agent activity. Naturally, major league free agent signings garner the majority of the attention and generate the most buzz. Minor league signees come with less fanfare, typically with good reason. They tend to be older veterans who are looking to extend their playing careers or perhaps younger names looking to rebound from an injury or a disappointing showing the prior season (sometimes the prior few seasons).

As spring training progresses, we’re seeing an uptick in minor league signings. Free agents who’ve lingered on the market and felt their leverage in negotiations dry up begin to concede and accept non-guaranteed pacts to get to camp in hopes of winning a roster spot.

Salary details for minor league signees isn’t as prominently reported on as it is for players signing guaranteed big league deals. The Associated Press just published a list of free agent signings throughout the winter, including within salary details for a handful of (mostly) recent minor league signings. Many of the salaries reported by the AP were already known and reflected here at MLBTR, but the report does include more than two dozen previously unreported base salaries for players on minor league deals. Here’s a quick rundown (player salary links point back to prior MLBTR posts detailing that minor league signing):

Blue Jays: Jacob Barnes, RHP, $1.4MM | Ryan Yarbrough, LHP, $2MM

Braves: Curt Casali, C, $1.25MM | Buck Farmer, RHP, $1MM

Brewers: Manuel Margot, OF, $1.3MM | Mark Canha, 1B/OF, $1.4MM

Cubs: Brooks Kriske, RHP, $900K | Travis Jankowski, OF, $1.25MM | Chris Flexen, RHP, $1.5MM

Diamondbacks: Garrett Hampson, INF/OF, $1.5MM | Scott McGough, RHP, $1.25MM

Dodgers: Luis Garcia, RHP, $1.5MM

Giants: Lou Trivino, RHP, $1.5MM

Mariners: Shintaro Fujinami, RHP, $1.3MM | Trevor Gott, RHP, $1.35MM

Padres: Yuli Gurriel, 1B, $1.35MM ($100K higher than initially reported)

Rangers: Nick Ahmed, SS, $1.25MM | Jesse Chavez, RHP, $1.25MM | David Buchanan, RHP, $1.375MM | Kevin Pillar, OF, $1MM

Red Sox: Matt Moore, LHP, $2MM

Royals: Luke Maile, C, $2MM | Ross Stripling, RHP, $1.75MM

White Sox: Brandon Drury, INF/OF, $2MM | Mike Clevinger, RHP, $1.5MM

A few things bear emphasizing. First, this is clearly not a comprehensive list of minor league signings throughout the league — nor is it even a comprehensive list of the listed teams’ non-roster invitees to camp. Secondly, many of these sums are of little consequence to the team. They’re not even guaranteed, after all, and even if a player makes the Opening Day roster and earns the full slate of his minor league salary, most of these salaries aren’t going to carry significant payroll ramifications.

That’s not true across the board, though. For instance, the Rangers are fully intent on remaining under the $241MM luxury tax threshold. At present, RosterResource projects them at $235.7MM of luxury obligations. Opting to select the contract of Buchanan or Chavez rather than allocating those innings to pre-arbitration players who’s being paid at league-minimum levels (or a few thousand dollars north of it) would inch the Rangers’ CBT number forward. They’re not going to hit the tax line even in if they wind up adding multiple NRIs to the actual roster, but selecting their contracts will further narrow the resources president of baseball ops Chris Young will have at his disposal for midseason dealings.

The Red Sox, meanwhile, are effectively seated right at the tax threshold. RosterResource has them with $241.4MM of luxury considerations. Team president Sam Kennedy said after signing Alex Bregman that he expects his team will be a CBT payor in 2025. As things stand, the Sox could duck back under that threshold, but selecting the contract of Moore, Adam Ottavino (also $2MM) or another prominent NRI would further signal ownership’s willingness to return to luxury tax status for the first time since 2022.

There’s probably no getting back under the tax line for the Blue Jays, who currently have a $273.3MM CBT number. However, the front office would presumably like to avoid reaching $281MM in tax obligations, as that’s the point at which Toronto’s top pick in the 2026 draft would be dropped by ten spots. In-season trades will have more of an effect on their tax number than decisions on NRIs like Barnes, Yarbrough, Eric Lauer and others, but it bears mentioning that the Blue Jays are around $8MM shy of what many clubs consider to be the most detrimental impact of straying to deep into CBT waters.

Braves Sign Curt Casali To Minors Deal

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The Braves have signed catcher Curt Casali to a minor league contract, Just Baseball Media’s Aram Leighton reports.  Atlanta is Casali’s 11th different organization over his 14 professional seasons.

The last eleven of those seasons have come in the big leagues, with Casali amassing 543 career games with the Rays, Mariners, and two separate stints apiece with the Reds and Giants.  Most recently, Casali suited up 41 times for San Francisco last season, stepping in as the primary backup catcher after Tom Murphy was lost for the season due to a knee injury.

Casali has mostly worked in a backup or part-time capacity, appearing in as many as 84 games twice (2016 with the Rays and 2019 with the Reds) in his career.  His most productive overall stretch came with Cincinnati from 2018-2020, when he hit .260/.345/.440 in 485 plate appearances while working in what was more or less a timeshare with Tucker Barnhart behind the plate.  Casali’s offensive numbers have tailed off significantly since, and he had only a .194/.293/.250 slash line in 125 PA with the Giants last season.

His glovework also took a downturn in 2024, as Statcast rated his blocking, framing, and caught-stealing numbers all below average.  This could be a sign of age catching up to Casali as he enters his age-36 season, but he has a solid reputation as a defensive catcher who works well with pitchers.

Atlanta declined its $8MM club option on Travis d’Arnaud, and the longtime Braves backstop then signed with the Angels in one of the offseason’s more significant early moves.  Sean Murphy will look to rebound from a down year as the Braves’ starting catcher and Chadwick Tromp is penciled in as the backup, though Casali and Sandy Leon are two well-traveled veterans who will provide some competition in Spring Training.  The other name to watch here is Drake Baldwin, as the top prospect hit well in 334 PA with Triple-A Gwinnett last season and is expected to make his MLB debut at some point in 2025.

Giants Among Teams Interested In Elias Diaz

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The Rockies cut catcher Elias Diaz loose earlier this week after he went unclaimed on waivers, and Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle reports that the Giants are among the teams with some interest now that Diaz is a free agent who could be signed for the prorated league minimum. (San Francisco also had some interest in Diaz prior to the trade deadline, per Slusser.) So long as Diaz signs on or before Aug. 31, he’d be eligible for his new club’s postseason roster.

The Giants just placed Patrick Bailey on the injured list yesterday with an oblique strain, severely compromising the team’s catching depth. San Francisco called up journeyman Jakson Reetz in a corresponding move to Bailey’s IL placement, and they’ll use Reetz as their No. 2 catcher behind backup-turned-starter Curt Casali, at least for now. Casali, 35, was a midseason signing himself and has only produced a .205/.318/.233 batting line in 86 plate appearances. The 28-year-old Reetz is just 2-for-16 in 17 MLB plate appearances and was batting .254/.368/.431 (102 wRC+) in a hitter-friendly Pacific Coast League setting prior to his recall to the big leagues.

Diaz would represent an upgrade over that tandem in virtually every capacity. While it’d be a stretch to call him even an average offensive contributor, given his lackluster power output and perennially middling on-base percentages, Diaz has solid contact skills and can typically hit for a fairly empty batting average at the very least. He batted .270/.315/.378 this year in Colorado (80 wRC+) and carries a .251/.304/.388 slash in 2010 plate appearances dating back to the 2019 season.

Defensively, Diaz has typically drawn good grades for his ability to block pitches in the dirt, and he’s regularly posted average or better numbers in terms of caught-stealing rate. He’s frequently been panned for poor pitch-framing skills, but he’s delivered a career-best performance in that regard this season and been credited with plus overall glovework as a result (5 Defensive Runs Saved and Outs Above Average alike).

Even with those defensive improvements, Diaz can’t hold a candle to the injured Bailey’s glovework — although that’s true of virtually every defender in the sport. The 25-year-old Bailey has quickly emerged as the sport’s premier defensive catcher — and one of its premier defenders at any position — drawing the best framing marks of anyone in MLB and thwarting a hefty 30% of stolen-base attempts against him since his big league debut. Drilling down further, Bailey is the best in the sport in Statcast’s “caught stealing above average” metric, which contextualizes stolen base attempts based on who’s running, who’s on the mound and what type of jump the runner gets — rather than treating them all as equal. (Throwing out Elly De La Cruz when he has an outstanding jump, after all, is far more difficult than throwing out Hunter Renfroe on the back end of a double-steal attempt.)

After a strong start to the season with the bat, Bailey’s offense has tanked in the past six weeks or so, leaving him with a .233/.299/.344 slash on the season. That might make Diaz look like an upgrade offensively at the very least, but it should be pointed out that Diaz himself has floundered in the batter’s box of late as well. A calf strain cost Diaz three weeks in June, and in the time between his return and his eventual DFA, he hit only .208/.243/.264 in 111 plate appearances.

That said, Diaz has a track record of putting the ball in play and delivering offense that, while below that of a league-average bat, is generally solid relative to fellow catchers (who tend to be below-average hitters on the whole, in large part given the physical demands of the position). And given the in-house alternatives with Bailey on the shelf, it’s fairly logical that the Giants would have interest in placing a bet on that track record as they look to stay afloat in a tightly contested chase for the final Wild Card spot in the National League. The Braves currently hold that third Wild Card spot, but they’re only 2.5 games up on the Mets and 3.5 games ahead of the Giants.

Giants Option Camilo Doval

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The Giants have optioned right-hander Camilo Doval, per Maria I. Guardado of MLB.com on X. Earlier, Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle had reported on X that Doval appeared to be headed out. The club also optioned catcher Jakson Reetz, per Guardado on X. To take the two roster spots, catcher Curt Casali was reinstated from the paternity list and Landen Roupp was recalled.

The move highlights what a struggle the 2024 campaign has been for Doval, especially lately. He spent the 2022 and 2023 seasons as a lights-out closer for the club, tossing 135 1/3 innings with a 2.73 earned run average. He struck out 29.5% of batters faced and got ground balls at a 54.4% clip. His 9.9% walk rate was a tad high, but not egregiously so. For reference, MLB relievers had a combined 9.5% walk rate last year. Doval saved 27 games in 2022 and 39 last year, the latter number leading the National League.

That performance put him on the map as one of the better closers in the game. He was selected to the 2023 National League All-Star team and the Giants had some extension talks with him last year. But 2024 has been a different story. Doval has racked up another 22 saves but that’s in spite of his 4.70 ERA on the year. His strikeout and ground ball rates are still strong but he’s walked 14.3% of batters faced.

Things have been trending in the wrong direction as well. Since the start of June, Doval has a 6.75 ERA in his 21 1/3 innings pitched and blown four saves in that time. Clearly, the Giants feel he needs some kind of reset. Rather than simply moving him to a lower leverage role, they’ll send him to the minors to try to get him back on track.

The Giants will now have to figure out who will close games. Manager Bob Melvin said that they will have one guy for the job but he hasn’t told that guy yet, per Slusser on X. He did say that Jordan Hicks could be an option later but not at the moment.

Perhaps that will point to Ryan Walker stepping in and taking the job. The righty debuted last year with a 3.23 ERA in 61 1/3 innings. He’s been even better this year, with a 2.24 ERA in his 60 1/3 innings. He has struck out 30.5% of batters faced while only giving out walks at a 5.6% clip and opposing batters have put the ball on the ground at a 47.5% rate. He has moved into a leverage role with 21 holds on the year so far.

Turning to Doval and his contract status, the move isn’t likely to have a massive impact on him unless this turns into an exceptionally long stint in the minors. He came into this season with two years and 71 days of service time, putting him 101 days shy of the three-year mark. Since we’re over 130 days into the season at this point, he’s already gone past that line. That means he’ll qualify for arbitration this winter and is still on track for free agency after 2027.

Optional assignments in future seasons could impact that timeline, however. He currently has two option years. A player needs to spend at least 20 days on optional assignment in a given season for that to count as one of their options. Even if Doval does stay down to use one here in 2024, he’ll have another that could be used in an upcoming season.

Of course, all parties involved will be hoping that these are concerns that will become moot. Ideally, Doval can quickly regain his control and return to the Giants in short order and boost their bullpen for the stretch run. The club is 59-58 and just three games away from a playoff spot at the moment. They feel that optioning Doval to the minors is the best thing for the club at the moment but him returning to form would obviously be best for the future.

Giants Select Jakson Reetz

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The Giants made a few roster moves today, relayed on X by Shayna Rubin of the San Francisco Chronicle. They have recalled right-hander Hayden Birdsong and selected the contract of catcher Jakson Reetz. In corresponding moves, catcher Curt Casali has been placed on the paternity list while right-hander Spencer Bivens has been optioned to Double-A Richmond. The club already had a couple of 40-man vacancies after the flurry of deadline transactions and their count now climbs to 39.

Reetz, 28, will be in his second stint with the Giants this season. San Francisco selected him to the 40-man roster back in May. He went just 1-for-12 in a brief five-game stint, though his lone hit in that run was a big fly. The Giants designated Reetz for assignment and passed him through waivers later in the month when opening a roster spot for veteran lefty Drew Pomeranz.

Between his brief look with the Giants and an even shorter look with the 2022 Nats (two plate appearances), Reetz has just 14 trips to the plate under his belt in the majors. He’s hitting .250/.362/.428 with Triple-A Sacramento this season and carries a career .240/.336/.467 line in parts of four seasons at the top minor league level. With Casali only headed to the paternity list — a three-day maximum — it could be a brief stay in the majors for Reetz. However, he’s in the second of three minor league option years, so he could simply be optioned rather than designated for assignment whenever Casali returns. That’d at least keep him on the 40-man roster.

Birdsong, 22, will come back to the majors after an impressive debut earlier this season. He’s made six MLB starts and posted a 2.97 ERA in 30 1/3 frames, fanning a huge 30.2% of his opponents against an 11.9% walk rate that’ll need to improve if he’s to sustain his small-sample success. The 2022 sixth-rounder is one of the organization’s more promising pitching prospects and has carved up Double-A this season in addition to yielding five runs in nine Triple-A innings (two starts). With Jordan Hicks now in the bullpen and Alex Cobb traded to Cleveland, Birdsong should have a runway to establish himself as the fifth starter behind Logan Webb, Robbie Ray, Kyle Harrison and the resurgent Blake Snell in the Giants’ rotation.

Giants Sign Curt Casali To Major League Deal

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The Giants announced they’ve signed catcher Curt Casali to a big league contract. San Francisco optioned Jakson Reetz to Triple-A Sacramento in a corresponding move. To create a 40-man roster spot, they moved Tom Murphy from the 10-day to the 60-day injured list. Casali, a Beverly Hills Sports Council client, is guaranteed a $1MM base salary, reports Jon Heyman of the New York Post (on X).

It’s the second stint in San Francisco for the 35-year-old backstop. Casali signed a major league free agent deal back in 2021 after being non-tendered by the Reds. He spent a year and a half in the organization, combining for a .218/.317/.357 slash line over 357 plate appearances. San Francisco packaged him alongside Matthew Boyd to the Mariners at the 2022 deadline for a pair of minor leaguers.

Casali hasn’t produced much at the MLB level since that trade. He hit .125/.300/.225 in 16 games with Seattle. Cincinnati brought him back on a $3.25MM free agent deal that winter, but his return stint with the Reds didn’t go as hoped. Casali lost a good portion of the season to a foot injury. He played sparingly as the third catcher even when healthy, hitting .175/.290/.200 over 96 plate appearances.

The Reds made the easy call to decline their end of a $4MM mutual option last winter. Casali spent Spring Training with the Marlins after inking an offseason minor league contract. He didn’t hit at all during camp and was released before Opening Day. Casali has spent the past six weeks in Triple-A with the Cubs, where he was out to a fantastic start to the season.

In 23 games, he mashed at a .362/.489/.551 clip for Chicago’s top affiliate. He connected on a pair of homers and drew 15 walks against 16 strikeouts. While he’s certainly not going to continue hitting at that level in the majors, it was a strong enough showing to get back to Oracle Park. Casali’s familiarity with the San Francisco front office and much of the clubhouse no doubt helped matters.

That said, the Giants surely didn’t envision looking for MLB catching help this early in the season. San Francisco entered the year with a surplus behind the plate. Patrick Bailey had emerged as their clear #1 option. They inked Murphy to a two-year deal over the offseason to add a power-hitting backup. That pushed Blake Sabol to Triple-A and former #2 overall draftee Joey Bart, who is out of options, off the roster entirely. San Francisco traded Bart to the Pirates during the first week of the season.

They’ve been hit with a brutal stretch of injury luck at the position since then. Bailey landed on the seven-day concussion injured list on May 4. He was reinstated over the weekend but went back on the concussion list last night as he dealt with renewed virus-like symptoms. San Francisco lost Murphy to a significant left knee sprain one day after Bailey’s first IL placement. Today’s transfer rules him out of action into early July.

Casali and Sabol will work as the MLB catching duo for the time being. Reetz heads back to Triple-A as the top depth option. Sabol still has options remaining, so the Giants could send him back to Sacramento once Bailey returns from the IL.

Image courtesy of USA Today Sports.

Cubs, Curt Casali Agree To Minor League Deal

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The Cubs have signed veteran catcher Curt Casali to a minor league contract, per the team’s transaction log at MLB.com. The BHSC client spent spring training with the Marlins but didn’t make the roster and was granted his release earlier this week.

Casali, 35, is a veteran of 10 big league seasons. He had a solid run with the Reds and (more briefly) the Rays from 2017-20, batting .262/.348/.444 over the life of 498 plate appearances, working primarily in a backup role. His bat has declined in the three seasons since, however.

Dating back to 2021, Casali has posted a lackluster .201/.311/.315 batting line — about 22% below league-average (78 wRC+) in a span of 504 plate appearances. He had a tough showing in camp with Miami, too, going just 1-for-17 with a double, a pair of walks and a pair of strikeouts.

Though his bat has seen a clear downturn in recent seasons, Casali is generally regarded as a sound defender. He nabbed six of 19 potential thieves on the bases last year (32%), and Statcast graded him as better than average when it comes to blocking pitches in the dirt. Defensive Runs Saved (+3) had a favorable view of his glovework as well.

The Cubs don’t have an immediate need behind the dish. Veteran Yan Gomes is slated to serve as the primary catcher for new manager Craig Counsell, and he’ll split time with 25-year-old Miguel Amaya, who’s out of minor league options and thus has to remain on the big league roster or else be traded or exposed to waivers. Presumably, Casali will head to Des Moines to suit up for the Cubs’ Triple-A affiliate and be one of their first considerations in the event of an injury on the big league catching corps.

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