Indians Designate Eric Haase For Assignment
The Indians have designated catcher Eric Haase for assignment, the club announced. His roster spot was needed for César Hernández, whose one-year signing is now official.
Haase, who just turned 27, has only tallied 34 plate appearances at the game’s highest level. He spent nearly all of 2018-19 with the club’s Triple-A affiliate in Columbus, where he’s tallied nearly 900 plate appearances with a cumulative .232/.302/.479 slash with 49 home runs.
He’s carried that same high-strikeout, big power profile throughout his minor-league career. Coupled with a solid defensive reputation, that was enough to make him a decent prospect, as he twice finished among the back half of Cleveland’s top 31 farmhands at Baseball America.
Haase comes with all six seasons of team control and another option year, so it’s plausible some other club will give him a look. Numerous clubs could be in the market for catching help. Speculatively speaking, teams like the Tigers and Pirates could be in position to give playing time to a talented but unproven option in hopes of striking gold.
Notable September Callups
We’ll track the flurry of notable callups as roster expand on September 1.
Latest Moves
- The Mets promoted left-hander Daniel Zamora and right-hander Tyler Bashlor from Triple-A, and also selected the contract of second baseman Sam Haggerty. (The club posted a fun video on its Twitter account of the players receiving the news.) A 24th-round pick for Cleveland in the 2015 draft, Haggerty came to the Mets last winter part of the trade that sent Kevin Plawecki to the Indians. Haggerty began the year at low-A ball and worked his way up to the Show after posting a .907 OPS over 49 plate appearances at the Triple-A level.
Earlier Updates
- The Diamondbacks announced a slew of callups today. Most notably, the club has selected the contract of outfielder Abraham Almonte and recalled right-hander Jon Duplantier. Almonte, 30, has logged time as a reserve each of the past six seasons, to the tune of a career .237/.294/.367 slash (79 wRC+). Duplantier, one of the club’s top pitching prospects, has battled injury issues in recent years but offers a high-upside bullpen piece for the stretch run.
- The Rays‘ September additions include a number of notable players, with Nate Lowe headlining a group of five call-ups. He’ll be joined by Peter Fairbanks and Daniel Robertson, among others.
- The Braves announced they’ve recalled utilityman Johan Camargo. Camargo was optioned after the club signed Adeiny Hechavarría to replace the injured Dansby Swanson at shortstop. Swanson’s back now, and Hechavarría is still on hand, so it’ll be a tough climb for Camargo, who’s mired in a dreadful season. He’s only a year removed from a productive age-24 campaign, though.
- The Padres will select the contract of right-handed reliever David Bednar, reports Jon Heyman of the MLB Network (via Twitter). The 24 year-old gets a little lost among the Padres’ loaded system, but he boasts a pair of plus offerings in his fastball and curveball, opine Kiley McDaniel and Eric Lognenhagen of Fangraphs. Despite a less-than-stellar reputation for his command, Bednar has dazzled in the Texas League this season, pitching to a 2.95 ERA with elite strikeout (35.8%) and walk (7.5%) numbers.
- The Indians announced today they have selected the contracts of Ryan Flaherty and James Hoyt. They’ve also recalled Eric Haase. Flaherty’s solid Triple-A work this year has earned him his seventh consecutive big league season, where he’ll serve as infield depth for the club down José Ramírez. Hoyt logged 72.2 innings with the Astros from 2016-2018 and offers right-handed bullpen depth, while Haase, 26, is a power-hitting catcher with contact issues.
- The Yankees announced they have selected left-hander Tyler Lyons. The veteran reliever just signed a minor-league contract with the organization a few weeks ago and adds depth to a loaded bullpen. Right-hander David Hale was transferred to the 60-day injured list to clear 40-man space. The Bombers also recalled right-handers Ryan Dull and Chance Adams and outfielder Clint Frazier.
- The Cardinals have selected catcher Joe Hudson, per a team announcement. The 28 year-old got into eight games last year with the Angels. He’s had a tough season offensively with Triple-A Memphis, slashing .223/.293/.411. Outfielder Lane Thomas was transferred to the 60-day injured list with a season-ending wrist injury. Anne Rogers of MLB.com tweets that veteran backstop Matt Wieters is day-to-day with a calf strain, so the club elected to bring Hudson and Andrew Knizner aboard to bolster their catching depth.
- The Brewers announced they have selected the contract of first baseman Tyler Austin. A former Yankee, Twin and Giant, Austin has a strong minor-league track record and brings some right-handed power, but has mustered only a .220/.288/.451 line in 556 career MLB plate appearances thanks to untenable strikeout rates.
- Top Astros prospect Kyle Tucker isn’t up yet, but he will be shortly, tweets Chandler Rome of the Houston Chronicle. Houston’s additional reinforcements will be announced tomorrow, Rome adds. The 22 year-old corner outfielder has again laid waste to the Triple-A Pacific Coast League and has nothing left to prove at the minor-league level, but opportunities have been few and far between in the Astros’ loaded lineup.
- Just-acquired first baseman Ryan McBroom will be selected to the Royals‘ active roster shortly, tweets Jeffrey Flanagan of MLB.com. As Flanagan notes, the 27 year-old was likely to be added to the 40-man this offseason to protect him from the Rule V draft regardless, so there’s little harm in giving him his first taste of MLB action in the meantime. The former 15th-rounder has put up strong offensive numbers throughout his minor-league career, culminating in a .315/.402/.574 line in the Triple-A International League this season.
Indians Release Carlos Gonzalez
TODAY: Gonzalez has officially been released, as per Roster Roundup (Twitter link).
WEDNESDAY: The Indians have designated veteran outfielder Carlos Gonzalez for assignment in order to open a spot on the active roster for catcher Eric Haase, Ryan Lewis of the Akron Beacon Journal tweets. Haase was already on the 40-man roster, but the club opted to cut ties with Gonzalez rather than place Roberto Perez on the 7-day concussion list. Perez apparently tested well enough following last night’s concussion that the team isn’t currently planning to place him on the IL (though he’ll quite likely still sit out the next couple of days at the least).
Gonzalez, 33, will see his time with Cleveland come to an end after 30 games and 117 ugly plate appearances that didn’t inspire much confidence. The three-time All-Star and former NL batting champ hit just .210/.282/.276 with a pair of homers, a double and 33 strikeouts in his short time with the Indians. That type of production wouldn’t cut it even if the Indians were a first-place club, but the fact that they’re sitting six and a half games back in the American League Central only further creates a sense of urgency to coax production out of what has been a dismal lineup.
Gonzalez is the second former superstar with whom the Indians have parted ways since Opening Day; Hanley Ramirez cracked the Opening Day roster as the team’s designated hitter but was cut loose after 16 games and 57 plate appearances worth of similarly disappointing numbers.
With Gonzalez now subtracted from the outfield mix, the Indians will free up additional at-bats for younger options. Oscar Mercado has shown well in his first handful of MLB games, and the Indians could take further looks at some combination of Tyler Naquin, Greg Allen, Jake Bauers and Jordan Luplow their corner outfield/DH rotation. The Athletic’s Zack Meisel tweets that former first-round pick and top prospect Bradley Zimmer, who is recovering from 2018 shoulder surgery, is expected to begin a rehab assignment with Triple-A Columbus sometime next week, so he’ll emerge as an option in the not-too-distant future as well.
Cleveland will have a week to either find a trade partner for Gonzalez or release him. An outright assignment is technically possible but seems unlikely; Gonzalez would have to accept the assignment despite knowing that there are younger options that the team wishes to evaluate at length before giving him another look. The most probable outcome is that Gonzalez will simply be released and look for a new opportunity to rebuild his stock following a change of scenery.
Indians’ Roberto Perez Diagnosed With Concussion
Indians catcher Roberto Perez was diagnosed with a concussion after taking a foul ball off the mask in last night’s game against the Athletics, manager Terry Francona told reporters after the game (link via Paul Hoynes of the Cleveland Plain Dealer). While Francona called it a “mild” concussion and suggested the team will take a day before determining whether to place Perez on the 7-day injured list, though clubs typically err on the side of caution with regard to head injuries. Fellow catcher Eric Haase is already on his way to join the club from Triple-A Columbus, Francona indicated.
The 30-year-old Perez has taken over as Cleveland’s top catching option in 2019 following the offseason trade of Yan Gomes, and while he’s never previously been much of a threat at the plate, he’s enjoyed a solid start to the season. In 117 plate appearances, Perez is hitting .228/.319/.426 with six home runs and a pair of doubles. He’s always been able to draw a walk, but Perez has slashed his strikeout rate by four percent over last season and upped his walk rate a bit while showing the best home-run pop of his career to date. He’s also gone 6-for-18 in stopping stolen-base attempts and posted above-average framing marks (per Baseball Prospectus).
Given that improved offense and his typically solid brand of glovework, an absence for Perez would sting perhaps more than many Indians fans would’ve thought entering the season. Cleveland’s other catcher, Kevin Plawecki, has managed only a .143/.250/.286 batting line — albeit in a mere 56 plate appearances.
Haase, 26, is on the 40-man roster, so the Indians would only need to make a 25-man move to bring him up to the Majors. He’s out to a nice start of his own in Columbus, having batted .245/.341/.562 with 11 home runs in 129 plate appearances. His 31 percent strikeout rate is too high but is also a mirror image of the rate at which he’s fanned dating back to Class-A Advanced in 2015. He’s offset that mark a bit with a 13.2 percent walk rate and the best power production of his career.