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American League Non-Tenders: 11/21/25

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Every American League team has officially announced their non-tender decisions. It was a quiet evening in terms of subtractions, with only the Rangers parting with any marquee players. All players who were non-tendered are free agents without going on waivers. A few teams dropped pre-arbitration players from the back of the 40-man roster. It’s possible they preferred not to expose them to waivers and are hopeful of re-signing them to non-roster deals.

Here’s a full list of today’s activity in the AL, while the National League moves are available here. All projected salaries are courtesy of MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz.

  • The Angels announced they’ve non-tendered outfielder Gustavo Campero and catcher Sebastian Rivero. Campero is a depth outfielder who has hit .202/.272/.346 over the past two seasons. Rivero operated as the club’s third catcher for most of the season but spent the final few weeks on the active roster. Neither player had been eligible for arbitration. All their arb-eligible players were easy calls to retain.
  • The Astros technically made one non-tender, dropping infielder Ramón Urías after he was designated for assignment earlier in the week. He’d been projected at $4.4MM.
  • The Athletics officially non-tendered outfielder JJ Bleday, the club announced. He’d been designated for assignment on Tuesday, so this was inevitable unless they found a trade partner. Bleday had been projected at $2.2MM.
  • The only non-tenders for the Red Sox were first baseman Nathaniel Lowe and reliever Josh Winckowski, each of whom had been designated for assignment on Tuesday. Lowe was projected at $13.5MM, while Winckowski was at $800K.
  • The Guardians non-tendered outfielder Will Brennan and relievers Sam Hentges and Nic Enright. The latter had been designated for assignment on Tuesday. Hentges hasn’t pitched since undergoing shoulder surgery in September 2024. He underwent a right knee procedure a few months ago and will be delayed this offseason. Brennan only appeared in six MLB games this year and underwent Tommy John surgery while in the minors in June. He’d been projected at $900K.
  • The Mariners non-tendered reliever Gregory Santos, reports Francys Romero. He’d only been projected at $800K, narrowly above the MLB minimum, so the move was about dropping him from the 40-man roster. Seattle acquired the 26-year-old righty from the White Sox over the 2023-24 offseason. He has only made 16 MLB appearances with a 5.02 earned run average over the past two years because of lat and knee injuries. Seattle also non-tendered relievers Trent Thornton and Tayler Saucedo (the latter of whom was designated for assignment on Tuesday). Thornton had been projected at $2.5MM and is coming off a 4.68 ERA through 33 appearances. He suffered a season-ending Achilles tear in August.
  • The Orioles non-tendered swingman Albert Suárez, the team announced. Everyone else in their arbitration class was offered a contract, surprisingly including first baseman Ryan Mountcastle (as first reported by ESPN’s Jeff Passan). Suárez, 36, was a solid depth starter in 2024. He was limited to five MLB appearances this past season by a flexor strain but is not expected to require surgery.
  • The Rangers non-tendered each of Adolis García, Jonah Heim, Josh Sborz and Jacob Webb. MLBTR covered those moves in greater detail.
  • The Rays only non-tendered outfielders Christopher Morel and Jake Fraley, each of whom had been designated for assignment earlier in the week. Marc Topkin of The Tampa Bay Times reported last night that the Rays were open to bringing back Fraley at a lower price than his $3.6MM arbitration projection.
  • The Royals non-tendered outfielder MJ Melendez and reliever Taylor Clarke, per a club announcement. Melendez, who’d been projected at $2.65MM, was an obvious decision. The former top prospect never developed as hoped and is a career .215/.297/.388 hitter over parts of four seasons. Clarke isn’t as big a name but comes as the more surprising cut. He’d been projected at just $1.9MM and is coming off a 3.25 ERA with a 21.4% strikeout rate over 55 1/3 innings out of the bullpen.
  • The Tigers are non-tendering utility player Andy Ibáñez, according to Romero. He’d been projected at $1.8MM. The righty-hitting Ibáñez had been a solid short-side platoon bat for Detroit between 2023-24. His production against southpaws dropped this year (.258/.311/.403), limiting his value. The Tigers optioned the 32-year-old to Triple-A in early June and kept him in the minors until shortly before the trade deadline. Detroit also dropped the six pitchers they’d designated for assignment earlier in the week: Tanner Rainey, Dugan Darnell, Tyler Mattison, Jason Foley, Jack Little and Sean Guenther.
  • The only Twins non-tender was outfielder DaShawn Keirsey Jr., who’d been designated for assignment this morning to make room for the Alex Jackson trade. Everyone in the arbitration class was brought back.
  • The White Sox non-tendered outfielder Mike Tauchman, as first reported by Bruce Levine of 670 The Score. The lefty hitter turned in a solid .263/.356/.400 line in 93 games this past season. Tauchman has gotten on base at plus rates in three straight years but was also non-tendered by the Cubs a year ago. The 34-year-old (35 next month) had been projected for a $3.4MM salary. The Sox also announced they’ve dropped lefty reliever Cam Booser and first baseman Tim Elko. Neither had been eligible for arbitration. The former posted a 5.52 ERA in 39 appearances after being acquired from the Red Sox last winter, while the latter hit .134 in his first 23 MLB games despite a 26-homer season in Triple-A.
  • The Yankees announced five non-tenders. Relievers Mark Leiter Jr., Scott Effross, Jake Cousins and Ian Hamilton were all cut loose, as was pre-arbitration righty Michael Arias. Leiter, who’d been projected at $3MM, never clicked in the Bronx after being acquired at the 2024 deadline. He posted a 4.89 ERA in 70 innings as a Yankee. Hamilton, Effross and Cousins were all projected just above the MLB minimum but are cut to clear roster space. Hamilton was on and off the active roster and posted a 4.28 ERA in 40 big league frames this year. Effross was limited to 11 appearances and has been plagued by various injuries for the past three and a half years, while Cousins is working back from Tommy John surgery. Arias has never pitched in the big leagues and could be brought back on a minor league deal.

The Blue Jays tendered contracts to all unsigned players on the 40-man roster.

Tigers Designate Six Relievers For Assignment

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The Tigers designated six relief pitchers for assignment: Dugan Darnell, Jack Little, Sean Guenther, Jason Foley, Tanner Rainey and Tyler Mattison. They added five prospects to the roster to keep them out of the Rule 5 draft: Hao-Yu Lee, Thayron Liranzo, Trei Cruz, Eduardo Valencia and Jake Miller. The sixth roster spot is filled by Gleyber Torres, who officially accepted the qualifying offer.

Liranzo, 22, isn’t too far removed from being one of the better catching prospects in the game. The Tigers landed him alongside Trey Sweeney in the 2024 deadline deal that sent Jack Flaherty to Los Angeles. He’d posted a .378 on-base percentage that season but dropped to a .206/.308/.351 slash line in 88 games with Double-A Erie this year. The Tigers weren’t going to jump ship after one bad year, but he may need to repeat Double-A.

Lee, a 22-year-old infielder out of Taiwan, came over from Philadelphia in the 2023 Michael Lorenzen deadline trade. He spent the entire season at Triple-A Toledo, where he hit .243/.342/.406 across 579 trips to the dish. He walked at a strong 11.2% clip while striking out 21% of the time. Lee can’t play shortstop and isn’t going to have a path to second base playing time behind Torres. His best chance of carving out MLB playing time in 2026 comes at third base.

Cruz gets a 40-man spot for the first time going into his age-27 season. The Tigers had left the former third-round pick unprotected in the past two offseasons. The switch-hitting infielder, the son of former big league outfielder José Cruz, earned his way onto the roster with a breakout year in the upper minors. Cruz hit .279/.411/.456 while leading all minor league hitters with 102 walks between the top two levels. The Rice product can play both left side infield positions and has the athleticism to play some center field.

Valencia is a 25-year-old catcher/first baseman who posted a monster .311/.382/.559 slash line between Erie and Toledo. He blasted 24 home runs while keeping his strikeout rate around 20%. The Venezuela native has never been viewed as much of a prospect, but the offensive performance in the high minors was too much to ignore.

Miller, a 24-year-old lefty, ranked 16th in the Detroit system at MLB Pipeline. An eighth-round pick in 2022 out of Valparaiso, he has shown an intriguing three-pitch mix with enough command and deception to project as a starter. Miller was limited to six starts between High-A and Double-A this year by a back injury, but Detroit likes him enough to keep him as a developmental play. He should begin next season in Erie.

Getting all those players onto the roster required cutting most of their depth relievers. Little and Darnell were just claimed off waivers. Detroit knew they’d be likely non-tenders but could try to bring them back on minor league deals. That’s also the case for Mattison, whom they kept out of the Rule 5 draft last winter but who had a middling year in the minors. Guenther has been up and down for the past couple seasons and missed the second half of 2025 recovering from hip surgery.

Rainey is a journeyman righty who cracked Detroit’s big league bullpen in the final week of the season. He’s narrowly shy of six years of service and therefore could have been retained via arbitration. MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz projected a modest $1.2MM salary, but Rainey is looking at minor league deals as a free agent.

Foley was probably the toughest cut. He’d been a valuable late-innings arm between 2021-24, a run which he capped off by saving 28 games last year. Foley missed all of ’25 recovering from shoulder surgery, and he would have been set to match this year’s $3.15MM salary if they tendered him a contract. They opted not to do so and are likely to cut him loose on Friday, though they have the next few days to see if there’s any trade interest.

Evan Petzold of The Detroit Free-Press first reported the Cruz, Valencia and Miller additions.

Tigers Designate Alex Lange For Assignment

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The Tigers announced that they have claimed right-hander Dugan Darnell off waivers from the Pirates. The Bucs designated him for assignment last week. To open a roster spot for Darnell, the Tigers designated righty Alex Lange for assignment.

Lange, 30, is not too far removed from being Detroit’s closer. He notched 26 saves for the club in 2023. He pitched 66 innings that year, allowing 3.68 earned runs per nine. He struck out 27.4% of batters faced and got grounders on 50.6% of balls in play, though his massive 15.6% walk rate was worrisome.

The bottom fell out from there. His 2024 started out poorly. Through 18 2/3 innings, he had a 4.34 ERA. That wasn’t an atrocious jump but there were worse signs under the hood. His grounder rate fell to 45.8% and his strikeout rate to 23.3%. His walk rate, which was already awful, climbed to 18.9%. The Tigers optioned him to the minors in May of that year. A few weeks later, he suffered an injury and required lat surgery. He missed the final few months of the season and began 2025 on the 60-day injured list. He wasn’t reinstated from the IL until August.

A few days after coming off the IL, he was optioned to the minors and spent the rest of the year there. That burned his third option, meaning he will be out of options going forward. He’s also eligible for arbitration, with MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz projecting him for a $900K salary next year. He was likely going to be non-tendered next week but the Tigers have instead bumped him off the roster today to make this claim.

Lange will be in DFA limbo for a week at most. The waiver process takes 48 hours, so the Tigers could take five days to explore trade interest. They probably won’t find much, given that Lange has been injured for most of the past two years. His work in Triple-A this year resembled his past self, not in a great way. He logged 23 1/3 Triple-A innings in 2025 with a 4.63 ERA, 29.6% strikeout rate and 54.7% ground ball rate but a 14.3% walk rate.

If he were to clear waivers, he would have the right to elect free agency. He doesn’t cost much and still has three years of club control, so perhaps some rebuilding club could take a shot on him and hope for a bounceback.

Darnell, 28, still has a limited track record. He made nine appearances with the Rockies in 2025, logging 11 2/3 innings. In September, he underwent surgery to address a torn left hip labrum. The timeline given at that time was eight months. The Pirates claimed him off waivers in October but have now lost him to the Tigers.

Since the major league track record is so shallow, the Bucs and Tigers were presumably more interested in his work on the farm. He has 255 1/3 minor league innings under his belt with a 3.74 ERA. That includes 53 2/3 Triple-A innings this year, in the hitter-friendly Pacific Coast League, with a 3.19 ERA, 28.8% strikeout rate, 8.7% walk rate and 43.5% ground ball rate. He can give the Tigers some extra bullpen depth whenever he has recovered from his hip surgery.

Photo courtesy of Charles LeClaire, Imagn Images

Pirates Make Several Roster Moves

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The Pirates have designated right-handers Dugan Darnell and Michael Darrell-Hicks for assignment, the team announced Thursday. Pittsburgh also reinstated catcher/first baseman Endy Rodriguez and utilitymen Ronny Simon and Emmanuel Valdez from the 60-day injured list.

Former top infield prospect Liover Peguero, who was placed on waivers earlier in the week, went unclaimed and has been assigned outright to Triple-A Indianapolis. Jason Mackey of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports, however, that Peguero will reject the assignment to become a free agent. Meanwhile, Alex Stumpf of MLB.com reports that Pittsburgh will select the contract of minor league righty Ryan Harbin to its 40-man roster.

Darnell’s stay in the Pirates organization lasted only a week. He was claimed off waivers from the Rockies last week. He made his MLB debut in Colorado this year, tossing 11 2/3 innings and holding opponents to five runs on seven hits but with more walks (seven) than strikeouts (five). The 28-year-old undrafted free agent sits 94 mph with his heater and posted a 3.19 ERA, 28.8% strikeout rate and 8.7% walk rate in an extremely hitter-friendly Triple-A Pacific Coast League setting this season.

Darrell-Hicks, 28 next week, is another waiver claim and former undrafted free agent. The Bucs picked him up from the Angels back in June. He pitched 9 2/3 innings between the two clubs this year but was tagged for eight runs on 10 hits and four walks with eight strikeouts. He sits just under 95 mph with his heater. Darrell-Hicks posted outstanding numbers in the upper minors in 2024 (2.60 ERA, 26.4 K%, 5.0 BB% in 62 1/3 innings) but was rocked for an ERA north of 8.00 in Triple-A this season.

Peguero was once a touted prospect whom the Pirates acquired from the D-backs in exchange for Starling Marte. He’s a former top-100 prospect who was once viewed as a possible shortstop of the future in Pittsburgh. In an all-too-common refrain for Pirates position prospects, however, his bat never came around. Peguero has seen action in four big league seasons but has mustered only a .227/.278/.368 slash line in 315 turns at the plate.

Peguero has also looked overmatched at the top minor league level. Outside of a late-2023 cameo in Triple-A where he smacked a pair of homers in 30 promising plate appearances, he’s produced well below-average numbers with the Pirates’ top affiliate in Indianapolis. He’s a .253/.317/.403 hitter in 888 plate appearances there, including a career-worst .247/.313/.375 showing in 75 games with Indy this season. Baseball America and other outlets have lauded his quality defensive tools but also noted a penchant for slipping into poor mechanical stretches that lead to far too many throwing errors.

The 24-year-old Harbin was a 17th-round pick in 2019. He was about to become a minor league free agent, but the Bucs didn’t want to lose him after he posted such gaudy strikeout numbers in the minors this season. Harbin’s 4.69 ERA isn’t much to look at, but that mark is skewed by an ugly 17 earned runs allowed in his first 13 1/3 innings of Triple-A work this season. He’d posted sharp numbers in High-A and Double-A, and even while struggling to keep runs off the board in Indianapolis, Harbin continued missing bats.

Overall, the 6’4″ Harbin fanned 32% of his opponents in the minors this year — albeit against a brutal 16% walk rate. He averaged better than 97 mph on his heater and missed bats in droves with his upper-80s slider. Harbin posted a very strong 14.1% swinging-strike rate on the season overall, including an eye-popping 17% mark in Double-A, where he fanned nearly 38% of his opponents. Now that he’s on the 40-man roster, Harbin will be in major league camp and compete for a spot in manager Don Kelly’s bullpen next spring.

Pirates Claim Dugan Darnell

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The Pirates announced that they have claimed right-hander Dugan Darnell off waivers from the Rockies. He was immediately transferred to the 60-day injured list, so the Bucs didn’t need to open up a 40-man roster spot. In late August, it was reported that Darnell would be undergoing surgery to address a torn labrum in his hip, a procedure with a recovery timeline of about eight months.

There was no previous indication that the Rockies had removed Darnell from their roster. It’s common at this time of year for teams to place players on waivers, as many clubs are facing roster crunches. The 60-day IL goes away five days after the World Series, so players need to retake 40-man roster spots. Some breathing room is created by others reaching free agency but teams often need to clear space. Even if a team doesn’t need space now, having it is valuable throughout the winter for other moves, including protecting guys from the Rule 5 draft.

RosterResource projected the Rockies to have 41 guys for 40 roster spots at the beginning of the offseason, including Darnell. It seems Colorado tried to open a spot by passing Darnell through waivers but the Pirates intervened. The Pirates will face a crunch of their own, as RosterResource projects them to have 42 guys for 40 spots, not including Darnell. The Bucs will therefore have to do some clearing in the coming days.

For now, they are bringing a fresh relief arm into the system. Darnell, 28, was signed by the Rockies as an undrafted free agent in 2021. He got a very limited big league debut this year. He was called up August 1 but then left hip inflammation put him on the IL three weeks later. In that debut, he tossed 11 2/3 innings over nine appearances. He allowed five earned runs on ten hits and seven walks while striking out five.

That’s a small sample of work, so presumably the Bucs are also putting some stock in his minor league track record. He has thrown 255 1/3 innings on the farm with a 3.74 earned run average, 30.6% strikeout rate and 9.9% walk rate. That includes 53 2/3 Triple-A innings in 2025, pitching in the hitter-friendly Pacific Coast League, with a 3.19 ERA, 28.8% strikeout rate, 8.7% walk rate and 43.5% ground ball rate.

Given Darnell’s surgery timeline, he likely won’t be available until the middle of next year. Perhaps the Bucs will keep him on the 40-man through the winter and then put him on the 60-day IL again once it returns in spring training. It’s also possible the Bucs try to pass him through waivers unclaimed during the offseason, therefore keeping him as non-roster depth.

Photo courtesy of Isaiah J. Downing, Imagn Images

Rockies’ Dugan Darnell To Undergo Hip Surgery

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The Rockies placed Dugan Darnell on the 15-day injured list on August 22 and then moved him to the 60-day IL two days later, officially ending the right-hander’s first Major League season.  Darnell was initially sidelined due to left hip inflammation, but he told the Denver Post’s Patrick Saunders and other reporters that tests revealed a torn left hip labrum, and surgery will be required.  The procedure is expected to take place closer to the end of September, and Darnell is facing a recovery period of roughly eight months.

An Alex Call line drive struck Darnell in the hip on August 21, during the Rockies’ 9-5 loss to the Dodgers.  That fateful plate appearance may have been the last straw in forcing the surgery, as Colorado interim manager Warren Schaffer suggested last week that Darnell had been dealing with lingering hip soreness even before Call’s liner.

Regardless, it’s a tough setback for Darnell’s career so soon after he’d finally completed a long journey to the majors.  Darnell signed as an undrafted free agent with Colorado in February 2021, following two years of playing independent ball.  The righty then posted a 3.74 ERA over 255 1/3 innings in the Rockies’ farm system, working out of the bullpen in all but two of his 200 appearances.

After some rough numbers at the Triple-A level in 2023 and 2024, Darnell posted a 3.19 ERA, 28.8% strikeout rate, and 8.7% walk rate over 53 2/3 innings in Albuquerque in 2025.  This was enough for Darnell to earn a trip to the Show at the start of August, and he delivered a 3.86 ERA over 11 2/3 innings and nine relief outings for Colorado.  The 28-year-old benefited from some good luck in the form of a 76.9% strand rate and a .257 BABIP, as Darnell had more walks (seven) than strikeouts (five) during his brief time with the Rockies.

In the best-case scenario, Darnell will be available by June 2026, so he’ll start next season on Colorado’s 60-day injured list.  If there’s any silver lining to this situation, Darnell will continue to amass Major League service time while on the IL.

Rockies Select McCade Brown

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TODAY: The Rockies officially announced the selection of Brown’s contract.  In corresponding moves, left-hander Lucas Gilbreath was optioned to Triple-A, and right-hander Dugan Darnell was moved to the 60-day injured list. Darnell was placed on the 15-day IL two days ago due to hip inflammation, and the shift to the 60-day IL means that his rookie season has officially been ended. Darnell posted a 3.86 ERA over his first 11 2/3 innings in the majors, though he had more walks (seven) than strikeouts (five).

AUGUST 22: The Rockies will promote pitcher McCade Brown to make his MLB debut on Sunday against the Pirates, reports Thomas Harding of MLB.com. The 25-year-old will step into the rotation spot vacated when the Rox released Austin Gomber this afternoon. General manager Bill Schmidt tells Harding that the Rockies weren’t going to make an effort to re-sign Gomber, a free agent, and preferred to take a look at Brown to see if he should be part of next year’s Opening Day roster. They’ll need to clear a 40-man roster spot this weekend.

Brown was a third-round pick out of Indiana in 2021. Colorado left him exposed in last winter’s Rule 5 draft, where he went unprotected. The 6’6″ righty has had a breakout minor league season that might’ve garnered him legitimate consideration in the upcoming Rule 5. Colorado was going to add him to the 40-man roster at the beginning of the winter regardless. They’ll select his contract a couple months earlier to evaluate him over six or seven starts down the stretch.

On the one hand, they’ll give him a soft landing with a debut against the league’s worst lineup at PNC Park. He won’t have much margin for error, though, as the Bucs will send Cy Young favorite Paul Skenes to the mound. Brown will skip past the hitter-friendly Pacific Coast League and make the jump from Double-A. He has logged 43 innings with a 3.14 earned run average, striking out 33.5% of opponents. He’d punched out more than 35% of batters faced with a sub-2.00 ERA over nine High-A starts earlier in the year.

That production came against mostly younger competition, largely because of injury. Brown only made 18 appearances over three college seasons. He lost all of 2023 and the first half of last season recovering from Tommy John surgery. He was all over the place with his command when he returned last year, which isn’t uncommon for pitchers working back from surgery.

Brown has never placed among Colorado’s top 30 prospects at Baseball America. Eric Longenhagen of FanGraphs gave him an honorable mention in his writeup of the system in January, writing at the time that he was likely to end up in the bullpen. That could still be the case, but the Rox have nothing to lose in trying him out as a starter. Ryan Feltner leads their rotation with a 4.75 ERA, and he’s been limited to six starts by injury. Kyle Freeland is their only other returning starter who has allowed fewer than six earned runs per nine. Brown doesn’t need to show much to have a chance at cracking the ’26 rotation.

Rockies Release Austin Gomber

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The Rockies have released veteran lefty Austin Gomber, per a team announcement. (Thomas Harding of MLB.com reported the move just minutes prior to its announcement.) He was reportedly placed on outright waivers earlier this week. Given that he’s now being released, it’s clear he wasn’t claimed. Colorado will give his 40-man spot to lefty reliever Lucas Gilbreath, whose contract has been selected from Triple-A Albuquerque. The Rox also placed righty Dugan Darnell on the 15-day injured list due to inflammation in his left hip and recalled righty Angel Chivilli from Triple-A.

Gomber, 31, was the lone remaining player from the Rockies’ return in their trade of Nolan Arenado to the Cardinals. He was only a few weeks from reaching free agency anyhow, as he crossed six years of major league service earlier in the season, but he’ll now head to the open market a bit earlier than previously scheduled.

A shoulder injury kept Gomber on the injured list from Opening Day into mid-June. He’s since made 12 starts and struggled more than he has at any point in his career. Gomber has been a fifth starter over his time with the Rockies, pitching to a middling 5.08 ERA in 544 innings from 2021-24, but he’s been tattooed for a 7.49 earned run average in 57 2/3 innings with the Rockies in 2025.

Though he’s never thrown hard, Gomber’s average fastball this year is sitting at a career-low 89.5 mph. That’s down one mile from last year and down a bit more than two miles per hour over his first season with Colorado back in 2021. His already low strikeout rate has bottomed out at a career-worst 12.5%, and his 7.2% swinging-strike rate is tied (with teammate Antonio Senzatela) for ninth-worst among the 257 pitchers who’ve tossed at least 50 innings in 2025.

Despite Gomber’s sub-par results through his four seasons in Denver, the Rockies opted to tender him a contract this past offseason. He’s being paid $6.35MM this season, with about $1.26MM of that sum yet to be paid out over the final month-plus of the year. The Rockies will remain on the hook for the entirety of that amount, minus the prorated league minimum for any time Gomber may spend on another team’s big league roster.

Gilbreath, 29, posted solid numbers with Colorado in his first two seasons from 2021-22: 85 2/3 innings pitched, 16 holds, one save, 3.78 ERA, 25% strikeout rate (albeit with an ugly 13.2% walk rate). He looked like he’d carved out a role in the Rockies’ bullpen, but a UCL tear during spring training in 2023 wiped out his entire season and limited him to just one big league inning in 2024. The Rockies passed him through waivers earlier this season, and he’s now back in the majors for the first time this year and will look to get back into just his second MLB game since the conclusion of the 2022 campaign.

It’s been a tough year for Gilbreath in Albuquerque. Granted, that’s an extremely hitter-friendly setting, but a 6.21 ERA, 11.8% walk rate and 1.91 HR/9 rate can’t solely be blamed on league environment. He’s been a bit better of late (5.29 ERA in his past 17 innings), but the results still aren’t all that encouraging — nor is the fact that a heater that averaged 93.8 mph in 2022 is now sitting 89.8 mph three years and one major surgery later. Be that as it may, he’ll be summoned to the majors to give the Rockies a fresh arm and perhaps to audition for a 2026 spot in the season’s final few weeks.

Rockies Select Dugan Darnell

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The Rockies announced they’ve selected right-hander Dugan Darnell and recalled lefty Carson Palmquist. They’ll take the roster spots opened by the Tyler Kinley and Jake Bird trades. Colorado’s 40-man roster count sits at 39.

Darnell, 28, is up for the first time. He’s a former undrafted free agent who owns a 3.74 ERA over five seasons in the Colorado system. Darnell has spent the entire season with Triple-A Albuquerque. He’s having a good year, allowing 3.19 earned runs per nine through 53 2/3 innings. He has punched out 28.8% of opposing hitters against a league average 8.7% walk rate. Darnell has a three-pitch mix with a 94 MPH fastball and uses a mid-80s splitter as his best secondary pitch.

Colorado first promoted Palmquist in May. The former third-round pick started his first seven MLB appearances but was tagged for a 7.63 earned run average. General manager Bill Schmidt tells Patrick Saunders of The Denver Post that the Rox are permanently moving Palmquist to the bullpen. The southpaw has only averaged 90 MPH on his fastball as a starter. His velocity could tick up in shorter stints, though he’s unlikely to ever be a flamethrower. Palmquist has missed a lot of bats in the minors but has a career 11.1% walk rate over four professional seasons. It seems the Rox don’t feel he has the command to stick in a rotation and would rather see how his stuff plays in relief.

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