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Gosuke Katoh

Gosuke Katoh Signs With NPB’s Nippon-Ham Fighters

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Infielder Gosuke Katoh has signed with the Nippon-Ham Fighters of Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball, the team announced (h/t to the Kyoto News). It’s the first NPB stint for Katoh, who made his major league debut this past season after nine years in the minors. Katoh is represented by John Boggs & Associates.

A second-round pick of the Yankees in 2013, Katoh played in the organization through the end of 2019. He didn’t reach the big leagues and qualified for minor league free agency, bouncing between the Marlins and Padres systems before landing with the Blue Jays last offseason. Katoh cracked Toronto’s big league club out of Spring Training, but he appeared in just eight MLB games before being waived in early May. He landed with the Mets and spent the remainder of the season with their top affiliate in Syracuse, hitting .223/.310/.383 across 324 plate appearances.

New York outrighted Katoh off their 40-man roster over the summer, and he was eligible for minor league free agency this winter. Another crack with an affiliated team would have come on a minor league deal with a non-roster invitation to Spring Training. His new deal with the Fighters assuredly comes with a much stronger base salary than he’d have gotten had he played next year in Triple-A and gives him an opportunity to suit up at Japan’s highest level.

Katoh, notably, is a California native. Despite having been born and raised in the United States, he’s a dual U.S. – Japanese citizen based on his Japanese heritage. As a report from The Mainichi explains, all Japanese citizens — regardless of their place of residence or professional experience — are subject to the NPB draft if they wish to play in the league. Katoh, therefore, was part of last month’s draft alongside a number of younger, amateur players. The Fighters, coincidentally Katoh’s favorite team from childhood, selected him in the third round and agreed to terms. As a Japanese citizen, he will not count against NPB’s limit of four foreign players per roster.

It’s possible Katoh plays well enough in Japan to draw some new big league interest down the line. For now, he’ll join the Fighters as an infield option with multi-positional experience and a career .270/.360/.434 line at the Triple-A level.

Outrights: Lowther, Katoh

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We’ll keep track of some recent players who’ve cleared waivers following earlier DFAs in this post…

  • The Orioles announced that left-hander Zac Lowther went unclaimed on outright waivers and has been subsequently assigned to Triple-A Norfolk. He was designated for assignment a week ago, when Baltimore claimed infielder Jonathan Arauz off waivers from the Red Sox. Lowther, 26, was a second-round pick by the Orioles back in 2017 and for a few years rated as one of their system’s most promising arms. It was easy to see why, as he breezed through the low minors, reaching Double-A as a 23-year-old in 2019 and hurling 148 frames of 2.55 ERA ball with a 26% strikeout rate (albeit against an elevated 10.6% walk rate). Since moving up to the Triple-A level, however, the former Xavier University standout has been clobbered for 61 earned runs in 65 1/3 frames. He’s endured similar struggles in his limited Major League action, pitching to a grisly 6.94 ERA with 15 walks, five hit batsmen and six homers allowed in just 35 innings.
  • Infielder Gosuke Katoh passed through outright waivers and has been assigned to the Mets’ Triple-A affiliate in Syracuse, per the team’s transactions log at MLB.com. Katoh was claimed off waivers from the Blue Jays in early May, and while he was recalled for a series later that month, he didn’t get into a game before being optioned back to Syracuse three days later. The Mets needed a 40-man roster spot last week when selecting veteran reliever Tommy Hunter, and Katoh proved to be the roster casualty. The longtime Yankees farmhand made his MLB debut with the Blue Jays earlier this year after signing a minor league deal and went 1-for-7 with three walks in a brief cup of coffee. Katoh entered the season with a strong track record in 197 Triple-A games between the Yankees and Padres, but he’s gone just 4-for-46 in 55 plate appearances between the Triple-A clubs for the Jays and Mets this year. He’ll remain on hand as a depth option in Syracuse and hope to start trending toward the .306/.388/.474 form he showed in Triple-A a year ago.

Mets Place Tylor Megill On 15-Day IL Due To Shoulder Strain

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The Mets have placed right-hander Tylor Megill on the 15-day injured list due to a shoulder strain.  The team announced several other corresponding moves, including righty Adonis Medina being called up from Triple-A, and the selection of Tommy Hunter’s contract (as previously reported).  Right-hander Jake Reed was also optioned to Triple-A, and infielder Gosuke Katoh was designated for assignment to open up a 40-man roster spot for Hunter.

Megill will be shut down for the next four weeks, and the team will then re-evaluate his status.  While the situation is still somewhat fluid, this lengthy shutdown period will likely require a pretty notable ramp-up period afterwards, so it looks like Megill could miss the better part of two months.  A move to the 60-day IL could eventually be possible, depending on New York’s 40-man roster needs and when more details are known about Megill’s status.

Megill has a 5.01 ERA over 41 1/3 innings and nine starts this season, though advanced metrics (3.03 xFIP, 3.24 SIERA) paint a far more favorable picture of the righty’s production.  His 27% strikeout rate and 6.3% walk rate are both above the league average, even if hitters have found a lot of success in barreling Megill’s offerings.  Megill’s numbers are clouded by one particularly dreadful start against the Nationals on May 11, as Megill allowed eight earned runs over just 1 1/3 innings of work.

The day after that start, Megill was sent to the IL due to right biceps inflammation, which sidelined him for almost a month.  The righty didn’t fare well in two starts in between his IL visits, with an 8.10 ERA over 6 2/3 innings.

The 26-year-old’s early success was a big help to a Mets team that was shorthanded with pitching injuries, but now Megill has joined New York’s still-notable list of absent arms.  Max Scherzer is set for a rehab start next week and could potentially be back from an oblique injury before June is over, though more will be known once Scherzer completes his rehab work.  Jacob deGrom is tentatively set to return at some point in July, after missing the entire season due to a stress reaction in his throwing shoulder (and the last half of the 2021 season due to forearm problems).

Off-days on June 23, June 27, and June 30 will help the Mets manage their rotation, as they might need a replacement for Megill for just one start.  Trevor Williams is probably the likeliest candidate to take that role, or the team could opt for a bullpen game.  If Scherzer is able to return sooner rather than later, he could slide right into that rotation spot.

This is the second time in two months that Katoh has been designated for assignment, as his previous trip to the DFA wire resulted in the Mets claiming the infielder away from the Blue Jays.  A longtime member of the Yankees’ farm system, Katoh made his MLB debut this season, appearing in eight games with Toronto.  In 55 combined plate appearances with the Mets’ and Jays’ Triple-A affiliates this season, Katoh has only a .367 OPS.

Mets Announce Series Of Roster Moves

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The Mets announced to reporters, including Anthony DiComo of MLB.com, a series of roster moves prior to today’s doubleheader. Max Scherzer is going on the 15-day IL and infielder Gosuke Katoh has been optioned to Triple-A. Going in the other direction, Starling Marte has been activated from the bereavement list, righty Jake Reed has been recalled, along with fellow righty Adonis Medina joining the roster as the club’s 27th man for the twin bill.

Scherzer’s placement on the injured list is the most notable yet least surprising part of all this, as it’s already been reported that he will be out for 6-8 weeks due to an oblique strain. With Scherzer out of the picture, the club’s rotation will likely consist of Chris Bassitt, Taijuan Walker, Carlos Carrasco, Trevor Williams and David Peterson. In the next couple of weeks, they’re likely to get Tylor Megill back into the mix, with some combination of those six aiming to keep the train on the tracks until Scherzer and/or Jacob deGrom can get back on the mound later in the summer. The club is off to a tremendous 26-14 start and has built up a 7 1/2 game lead in the NL East, though their depth will now be tested in the weeks to come.

It’s also possible that the club could need another arm to get through this week, as last night’s snowed-out game in the Rocky Mountains has been pushed into today’s doubleheader. The Mets will now be playing six games in the next five days. Medina could eat some innings as a long man, though he hasn’t topped three innings in any appearance this season, either in the majors or the minors. Thomas Szapucki started last night’s game in Triple-A but threw only 12 pitches in one inning, perhaps indicating that the club wants to save his arm for a showing with the big league team this week.

Mets Claim Gosuke Katoh From Blue Jays

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The Mets have claimed infielder Gosuke Katoh off waivers from the Blue Jays, according to an announcement from Toronto. The Mets had a vacancy on the 40-man roster and immediately optioned him to Triple-A Syracuse.

Katoh, 27, signed a minor league deal with the Jays over the offseason. A nine-year minor league veteran, he got his first big league opportunity when Toronto selected him to break camp with the MLB club. That proved a brief stay, as Katoh was optioned to Triple-A before appearing in a game. He was quickly recalled thereafter and got into his first eight contents, collecting a double and three walks with just one strikeout in 11 plate appearances.

The Jays designated Katoh for assignment on Wednesday when the need for another pitcher arose. They’ll lose him to the Mets, who add a versatile defender with a solid Triple-A track record to the organization. The left-handed hitting Katoh has a .292/.383/.457 line in a bit more than 700 career Triple-A plate appearances. He’s walked in a robust 12.3% of his trips to the dish at the top rung of the minor league ladder.

Blue Jays Select Casey Lawrence, Designate Gosuke Katoh

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The Blue Jays have selected the contract of right-hander Casey Lawrence and designated infielder Gosuke Katoh for assignment.  In another corresponding move, left-hander Andrew Vasquez was optioned to Triple-A Buffalo.

Lawrence is now on the verge of his first appearance in The Show since the 2018 season.  The righty posted a 6.64 ERA over 78 2/3 innings with the Blue Jays and Mariners in 2017-18, and after being let go by the Mariners following that 2018 campaign, Lawrence pitched in Japan in 2019 and inked a minors deal with the Twins prior to the 2020 season, but ended up not pitching at all due to the canceled minor league season.

Lawrence returned to the Jays on another minors deal in 2021 and he has posted some solid numbers with Triple-A Buffalo as a starter and reliever for the last two seasons.  He’ll most likely work out of Toronto’s bullpen as a long man, though he could provide some extra depth behind Ross Stripling and Yusei Kikuchi.  Normally a swingman, Stripling has been filling in for the injured Hyun Jin Ryu, while Kikuchi has been inconsistent thus far in the 2022 season.

A longtime member of the Yankees farm system, Katoh bounced around to the Marlins, Padres, and Blue Jays on minor league contracts over the last three seasons before finally getting his first MLB opportunity this season with Toronto.  Katoh had only one hit over 11 PA but he also walked three times and scored two runs while playing some first base and second base.

Blue Jays Place Teoscar Hernandez On 10-Day Injured List

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3:42PM: Blue Jays manager Charlie Montoyo told Kaitlyn McGrath and other reporters that the team will be cautious with Hernandez’s injury, but it doesn’t appear to be as severe as initially thought.

3:14PM: The Blue Jays have placed outfielder Teoscar Hernandez on the 10-day injured list due to a left oblique strain.  Infielder Gosuke Katoh has been called up from Triple-A to take Hernandez’s spot on the active roster.  The Athletic’s Kaitlyn McGrath reported earlier today that Katoh had joined the Jays in New York for tonight’s game with the Yankees, and The Toronto Sun’s Rob Longley also tweeted earlier that Hernandez was thought to have an oblique-related injury.

Hernandez suffered the injury during a sixth inning at-bat in last night’s game, as the outfielder looked pained after taking his first swing.  Hernandez waved off a visit from the team trainer but then continued to show discomfort after grounding out to end the plate appearance.  Hernandez didn’t take the field for the bottom of the sixth, replaced in the lineup by Bradley Zimmer.

As Longley noted, this isn’t the first time Hernandez has missed time with a left oblique strain, as a similar injury resulted in a 10-day IL stint in September 2020.  That proved to be a mild strain that resulted in Hernandez missing only the minimum 10 days, but oblique strains are notoriously tricky injuries that can often lead to weeks or even months on the IL, depending on the severity.  It was just three days ago that the Jays lost another regular to an oblique strain, as catcher Danny Jansen is expected to miss several weeks of action.

Losing Hernandez for any length of time is a blow to Toronto’s lineup, as the 29-year-old slugger has hit 49 home runs and slashed .295/.347/.538 in 825 PA since the start of the 2020 season.  Even for a Blue Jays team that has plenty of hitting, this type of production can’t be easily replicated, especially since the Jays already lost some depth when Jansen went down.

Raimel Tapia and Zimmer (both acquired in offseason trades) figure to get the bulk of outfield work in Hernandez’s absence, and Cavan Biggio also has some experience as an outfielder.  In the minors, Mallex Smith and Nathan Lukes are potential options, though neither are on the 40-man roster.  The same is true of veteran Dexter Fowler, but Fowler only signed with the Jays at the end of Spring Training and is still participating only in sim games as he works his way back from a torn ACL.

Blue Jays To Select Gosuke Katoh

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The Blue Jays are planning to select infielder Gosuke Katoh to the big league roster, the team informed reporters (including Ben Nicholson-Smith of Sportsnet) this afternoon. Toronto already has a vacancy on the 40-man roster, meaning they won’t need to make another move in that regard.

Once finalized, Katoh will get his first MLB opportunity. The 27-year-old began his professional career back in 2013, when he was selected by the Yankees in the second round out of a California high school. The left-handed hitter spent the next few seasons in the low minors, drawing plenty of walks but rarely hitting for power and striking out quite a bit. He didn’t reach Double-A until 2018, and he spent some time there the following season after struggling to a .229/.327/.335 line.

After a more productive 2019 campaign split between the minors’ top two levels, Katoh qualified for minor league free agency. He signed on with the Marlins for 2020 but didn’t play in a game in the Miami organization because of the canceled minor league season. Katoh caught on with the Padres last winter and spent the entire year with their top affiliate in El Paso. He had a solid .306/.388/.474 showing over 402 plate appearances with the Chihuahuas. Katoh walked at a customarily strong 11.4% clip and his 20.9% strikeout rate was among the lowest rates of his minor league career.

That wasn’t enough for Katoh to get an MLB opportunity in San Diego, but he latched on with the Jays on a minors pact this winter. He impressed the front office and coaching staff enough to get a season-opening bench job that had been up for grabs. It had seemed as if first baseman Greg Bird was trending towards that spot, but Bird was let go this afternoon once the club had opted for Katoh instead.

In doing so, the Jays will forfeit some power potential for a bit more defensive flexibility. Katoh bounced between first, second and third base and left field for El Paso last season, whereas Bird would’ve been limited to first base or designated hitter. Katoh pairs with the righty-hitting Santiago Espinal as utility options behind the starting infield of Vladimir Guerrero Jr., Cavan Biggio, Matt Chapman and Bo Bichette. He still has all three minor league option years remaining, so while he’ll be receiving his first MLB opportunity, Katoh could bounce between Toronto and Triple-A Buffalo for a while.

Marlins Sign Ryan Lavarnway, Josh A. Smith

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The Marlins announced a series of nine minor league signings on Wednesday, each of which contains an invitation to Major League Spring Training. In addition to confirming their previously reported signing of former All-Star Matt Kemp (more on that here), the Miami organization will bring two former big leaguers to camp: catcher Ryan Lavarnway and right-hander Josh A. Smith. Rounding out the list of non-roster invitees are catchers Brian Navarreto, Santiago Chavez and BJ Lopez; infielders Gosuke Katoh and Christian Lopes; and right-hander Aaron Northcraft.

Lavarnway, 32, has appeared in the Majors in eight of the past nine seasons — 2016 being the lone exception — but never tallied more than 166 plate appearances in a single MLB campaign. He’s a career .211/.270/.343 hitter in 445 trips to the plate at the big league level, and he owns a lifetime .272/.364/.426 batting line in 2055 Triple-A plate appearances spread across nine seasons. Lavarnway boasts a 31 percent caught-stealing rate in Triple-A but has struggled more in the Majors (20 percent).

Lavarnway has typically hovered around average in terms of pitch-framing in the upper minors (with the 2018 season being a notable outlier that saw him rate rather poorly). Miami has Jorge Alfaro and Chad Wallach on the 40-man roster but was thin at catcher beyond that, so the quartet of Lavarnway, Navarreto, Chavez and Lopez will add an influx of depth at the position.

Smith, also 32, pitched in 31 innings for the Red Sox in 2019 and has compiled 158 1/3 frames in the Majors between the Reds, A’s and Red Sox dating back to 2015. He has a career 5.40 ERA and a near-identical 5.37 FIP with averages of 7.5 K/9, 4.0 BB/9 and 1.65 HR/9 to go along with a 40.6 percent ground-ball rate.

The overall profile on Smith isn’t particularly appealing at first glance, but his curveball may have caught the attention of the Marlins. Smith ramped up the usage of his hook to a career-high 23.1 percent in 2019 and logged a career-high 12.1 percent overall swinging-strike rate (15.3 percent on the curve). Statcast pegged the spin rate on Smith’s curve in the 95th percentile among MLB hurlers, so perhaps the Marlins will look to more aggressively utilize that offering in hopes of coaxing better results out of the journeyman 32-year-old.

Minor MLB Transactions: 12/9/19

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The Kia Tigers of the Korea Baseball Organization have inked right-hander Drew Gagnon to a $650K contract with a $200K signing bonus, Dan Kurtz of MyKBO.net reports. The Tigers also re-signed outfielder Preston Tucker on a $550K salary with a $300K bonus. The Mets released the 29-year-old Gagnon in late November, which came after a couple brief but rough seasons in New York. Gagnon pitched to a 7.32 ERA across a combined 35 2/3 innings as a Met, but he did have a productive 2019 at the Triple-A level. Tucker, also 29, didn’t hit much in major league stints with the Astros, Braves or Reds, though he performed well after leaving the White Sox’s Triple-A affiliate last May to head to Korea. In his first year as a Tiger, Tucker batted .311/.381/.479 with nine home runs in 399 plate appearances.

Now for the latest minor moves from the bigs…

  • The Angels announced that right-hander Jose Rodriguez cleared waivers and was outrighted to Triple-A Salt Lake. The move leaves the Angels with one open spot on their 40-man roster. The 24-year-old Rodriguez made his major league debut in 2019, and though he managed a 2.75 ERA during that 19 2/3-inning span, he also totaled almost as many walks (11) as strikeouts (13). Furthermore, Rodriguez had difficulty across 44 1/3 frames at the Triple-A level, where he stumbled to a 6.29 ERA with 9.14 K/9 and 4.47 BB/9.
  • In another Angels transaction, the club signed lefty Hoby Milner to a minor league contract, Rhett Bollinger of MLB.com tweets. While Milner spent the previous two seasons with the Rays, the ex-Phillie didn’t log much major league time in either campaign. But the 28-year-old amassed plenty of impressive innings last season as a member of Triple-A Durham, with which he worked to a 3.06 ERA and recorded 12.99 K/9 against 1.9 BB/9 over 61 2/3 frames.
  • The Marlins have picked up infielder Gosuke Katoh on a minors deal, Wells Dusenbury of the Sun Sentinel writes. His agreement comes with an invitation to big league spring training. Notably, there are now members of the Miami front office who were in New York’s FO when the Yankees picked Katoh in the second round of the 2013 draft. Evidenced in part by his high selection (No. 66), Katoh was once a highly promising prospect. While Katoh hasn’t made it to the majors since then, the 25-year-old did have a nice season in 2019. In his first action at the Triple-A level, Katoh slashed .279/.382/.443 with 11 homers and eight steals in 308 PA.
  • The Mets have signed catcher David Rodriguez to a minors pact with an invitation to MLB camp, per Anthony DiComo of MLB.com. Rodriguez, 23, spent his first seven professional seasons in the Rays’ system, making it to the Double-A level in each of the past two years. He hit .225/.303/.366 with seven homers over 295 PA in 2019.
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