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Hunter Harvey

Nationals Claim Hunter Harvey, Place Carter Kieboom On 60-Day Injured List

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The Nationals have claimed right-hander Hunter Harvey off waivers from the Giants, per a club announcement. In order to open a spot on the 40-man roster, third baseman Carter Kieboom has been placed on the 60-day injured list with what the team has termed a right UCL sprain/flexor mass strain.

Harvey is a former first-round pick and top prospect who once looked as if he’d be an important part of the Orioles’ long-term plans. His professional career has been thrown off track by injuries, though, as he landed on the minor league injured list in every season between 2014-18. That included a July 2016 Tommy John procedure that kept him to 31 1/3 cumulative innings between 2016-17.

Baltimore eventually moved Harvey to the bullpen in an attempt to keep him healthy, although that hasn’t yet manifested in better results in that regard. He missed the majority of last season recovering from oblique and lat strains. Between the injuries, Harvey has only managed to log 23 2/3 innings at the big league level.

Despite the questionable health record, the North Carolina native has continued to catch teams’ attention. San Francisco nabbed him off waivers from the Orioles in November, but they’ll lose him before he ever logs an inning in their uniform. It’s easy to see why Harvey hasn’t yet passed through the wire unclaimed, as he owns a 3.42 ERA while averaging north of 97 MPH on his heater in his limited big league time. If he can stay healthy — which is clearly no small caveat — it’s still easy to envision Harvey as a productive arm in the middle or late innings. He also has a minor league option year remaining, so the Nats can shuttle him between Washington and Triple-A Rochester for the rest of the year if they carry him on the 40-man roster.

Kieboom is a former first-rounder and top prospect himself. He has struggled to a .197/.304/.285 line over his first 414 MLB plate appearances, but the 24-year-old still seemed to have a path to regular playing time on a retooling Nationals club this year. Unfortunately, he recently sustained a forearm/elbow injury when throwing, and MLB.com’s Joe Trezza tweets that he’ll need to rest for at least six weeks before he can resume baseball activities.

It’s a tough setback for both Kieboom and the Nationals, as 2022 is shaping up as something of a make-or-break year for the young infielder. The Nats don’t look like a strong playoff contender this season, but they’re not about to embark on a rebuild with Juan Soto only under club control for three more seasons. Evaluating whether Kieboom could be part of the long-term core seemed like a key objective for the Washington front office, but that’ll be on hold for at least a couple months. With Kieboom out, Luis Garcia, veteran utilityman Ehire Adrianza and non-roster invitee Maikel Franco all seem to have an easier path to playing time at the hot corner early in the year.

Giants Sign Jakob Junis, Designate Hunter Harvey

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The Giants have signed right-hander Jakob Junis to a one-year, Major League contract, per the team. Alex Pavlovic of NBC Sports Bay Area reports that Junis, a Wasserman client, will be guaranteed $1.75MM on the deal. Right-hander Hunter Harvey has been designated for assignment in order to clear a 40-man roster spot, tweets Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle.

Junis, 29, has spent his entire professional career in the Royals organization prior to this deal. A former 29th-round pick, he made his big league debut with Kansas City back in 2017 and, for his first two seasons at least, looked like he might hold down a spot in their rotation for the foreseeable future. Over those two seasons, Junis was a valuable source of solid, if unspectacular innings, pitching to a combined 4.35 ERA with a 20.7% strikeout rate and a strong 5.7% walk rate over the life of 275 1/3 frames.

The 2019 season marked the beginning of a downturn for Junis, however, and he has yet to recover. Junis made 31 starts for Kansas City in ’19 and soaked up 175 1/3 innings but was tagged for an untenable 5.24 ERA on the season. He’s posted an even higher ERA in each of the past two seasons and, on the whole, owns a 5.36 mark over his past 240 big league innings.

That said, Junis has maintained plus levels of command even amid his downturn and picked up strikeouts at a slightly above-average rate last season. He doesn’t throw particularly hard (91.1 mph average fastball in ’21) but has ample experience both in the rotation and in the bullpen at the MLB level. He also has a minor league option remaining and, because he was cut loose by the Royals during his arbitration years, he can be controlled through the 2023 season if he rebounds in San Francisco and finds his footing.

The Giants, of course, have developed quite the reputation for restoring the careers of pitchers, and Junis is badly in need of just such a bounceback. He won’t have a rotation spot to begin the season — not with Logan Webb, Carlos Rodon, Anthony DeSclafani, Alex Wood and Alex Cobb all on board — but he can give the Giants a multi-inning/long-relief option and serve as a sixth starter. Given the injury histories of Rodon, Wood, Cobb and DeSclafani, having some experience depth like Junis carries extra importance.

Giants Claim Hunter Harvey Off Waivers From Orioles

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The Giants have claimed right-handed pitcher Hunter Harvey off waivers from the Orioles, per Robert Murray of FanSided. The promising 26-year-old again dealt with health problems in 2021, pitching just 18 2/3 innings across the Triple-A and Major League levels.

When healthy, the 2013 first-rounder has shown significant promise, posting a 3.42 ERA across 23 2/3 career big-league innings. The hard-throwing righty missed a good deal of the 2021 season, landing on the 60-day IL with an oblique strain ahead of Opening Day, and managed just 8 2/3 innings (in nine appearances) in the bigs after a June return. Harvey’s 2021 line matched matched his 2020 numbers almost exactly, as he pitched to 4.15 ERA in both across the same number of innings. A fixture on mid-2010s top-prospect lists, Harvey apparently ran out of runway in Baltimore, who will likely use his spot on their 40-man roster to protect a prospect otherwise vulnerable to the Rule 5 draft.

Harvey’s own frustrations with his inability to stay healthy are well documented, but San Francisco may have unearthed a gem if they can keep him healthy. Though his minor league numbers are hardly sparkling, Harvey’s upper-90s fastball and solid command (3.1 BB/9 across all levels) could still play in the bullpen. As Harvey is still a year away from arbitration eligibility, the move represents a pure upside play for the Giants, who already boasted an MLB-best 2.99 bullpen ERA in 2021. Should he prove himself capable of avoiding the IL, there’s no reason he can’t contribute in 2022.

AL East Notes: Yankees, Barnes, Harvey

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If the Yankees pushed for one of the big shortstops in the free agent market, Joel Sherman of The New York Post believes Corey Seager would be the best fit, as his left-handed bat and contact skills would help a mostly right-handed Yankees lineup that contained plenty of swing-and-miss in 2021.  Marcus Semien is also a candidate, but Sherman isn’t as bullish on the chances of Carlos Correa, Trevor Story, or Javier Baez ending up in the Bronx.  “There seems to have been a steady falling out of love with Story” on the Yankees’ part, Sherman writes, while Baez drew some interest at the trade deadline but perhaps only as a short-term fix.  As for Correa, there might still be so much bad blood over the sign-stealing scandal that the Yankees might not want anything to do with a player who was such a prominent member of the 2017 Astros.

This assumes, of course, that New York will actually aim for one of the big names, rather than wait for highly-touted shortstop prospects Anthony Volpe and Oswald Peraza to reach the majors.  Seager may also be a good fit in this regard, Sherman opines, as Seager could eventually be moved over to third base.  Or, depending on how the new collective bargaining agreement alters business, the Yankees could just opt for a stopgap shortstop as a bridge to Volpe/Peraza and spend resources elsewhere.

More from around the AL East…

  • “The first four months, five months, everything was perfect.  The last six weeks anything that could have gone wrong has gone wrong,” Matt Barnes told Alex Speier of The Boston Globe, discussing the rough end to the season that turned the former Red Sox closer into a postseason question mark.  Barnes was enjoying a tremendous season until August, when he ran into some struggles on the mound and was then sidelined with a case of COVID-19.  If that wasn’t enough, Barnes revealed that he also suffered a self-inflicted left thumb injury in late September, as he sliced off the tip of his thumb while chopping peppers to make an omelet.  Barnes was able to keep playing, albeit with a bandage on his thumb and what Speier describes as “a hard plastic casing inside his glove so he can catch the ball without pain.”  Though Barnes was part of the roster for Boston’s wild card game victory over the Yankees, he wasn’t included on the ALCS roster and wasn’t originally on the ALDS roster until rejoining the team as an injury replacement.  Given the circumstances, it is difficult to see Barnes figuring into a potential World Series roster unless there’s another injury absence.
  • Between an oblique strain, a lat strain, and then a triceps strain that occurred while rehabbing the lat injury, Hunter Harvey pitched only 8 2/3 innings in 2021.  The 22nd overall pick of the 2013 draft, Harvey has been ravaged by a variety of injuries over his pro career, resulting in only 23 2/3 total MLB innings on his career resume.  “We’ll keep trying it until no teams want to try it anymore or until I figure out how to stay healthy. That’s my two options,” Harvey told MASNsports.com’s Roch Kubatko, and Harvey has confidence that he can prove himself as a reliable reliever for the Orioles if he can avoid the injured list.  Harvey admitted “there have been times I wanted to hang it up and not keep doing it anymore,” but he credited his father (former Angels and Marlins closer Bryan Harvey) with helping him stay motivated.  “He’s kind of talked me off that ledge a couple times, and he’s put that mindset in my head that it could be worse,” Harvey said.  “It just gets to the point now, it’s like, we’ll get through this and start back over and try it again.”

Orioles Select Manny Barreda

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The Orioles announced they’ve selected right-hander Manny Barreda to the big league roster. Baltimore also confirmed the previously-reported recall of pitching prospect Mike Baumann, who is in line to make his major league debut. In corresponding moves, reliever Zack Burdi was optioned to Triple-A Norfolk and righty Jorge López was placed on the 10-day injured list with a right ankle sprain. To create space on the 40-man roster for Barreda, Baltimore transferred righty Hunter Harvey from the 10-day to the 60-day injured list.

Barreda’s promotion is the culmination of a winding journey up the minor league ranks. He began his professional career as a 12th-round selection of the Yankees way back in 2007. Barreda spent the next seven years in the New York system, topping out at Double-A before being released. From 2015-17, Barrera sandwiched a couple of stints in the Brewers and Braves organizations between work with the Toros de Tijuana in the Mexican League. He spent the entirety of the 2018-19 seasons with Tijuana.

The fourteen-year pro made it back to affiliated ball this March when he landed a minor league deal with the Orioles. He’s spent almost the entire season with Norfolk, working 34 1/3 innings (almost exclusively in relief) of 4.19 ERA ball. Barreda has managed solid strikeout and walk numbers at the minors’ top level to earn his first big league call just more than a month away from his 33rd birthday.

López left his appearance yesterday afternoon against the Royals after sustaining the injury. Manager Brandon Hyde called it significant and said it could end López’s season (via Rich Dubroff of Baltimore Baseball). If that proves to be the case, the 28-year-old will end the year with a 6.07 ERA/4.64 SIERA over 121 2/3 innings.

Harvey’s IL transfer is a formality. The 26-year-old has been on the IL since July 2 due to a right lat strain. With more than sixty days already logged, moving him to the longer term IL doesn’t have any effect on his eligibility to return. Harvey is on a rehab assignment with Norfolk.

Orioles Place Hunter Harvey On 10-Day Injured List, Recall Zac Lowther

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The Orioles have placed Hunter Harvey back on the injured list with a right lat strain, per Rich Dubroff of baltimorebaseball.com. Harvey’s career continues to switchback from potential high-impact arm to star-crossed former prospect. The former first round pick has produced promising bottom-line results since moving to the bullpen full-time in 2019, though his opportunities has been limited because of injuries. This season, the 26-year-old appeared nine times for 8 2/3 innings of work with a 4.15 ERA/4.31 FIP. He’s shown decent control (8.3 percent walk rate), but for the second consecutive season, he has struck out less than 17 percent of opposing batters, a rate that falls well below the 23.3 percent league average (small sample caveats apply). Harvey now goes back on the 10-day injured list, not quite a month since coming off it: He missed the first 64 days of the year with an oblique injury.

Zac Lowther has been added to the active roster to claim Harvey’s roster spot. The 25-year-old southpaw made his Major League debut earlier this season, starting one game and pitching twice out of the bullpen, covering a total 5 1/3 innings. Lowther was knocked around for nine earned runs on 11 hits. On the plus side, he only allowed two walks — good for a 6.9 percent walk rate — and he missed some bats, posting a solid 24.1 percent strikeout rate. Because of the small sample, both the good and the bad here can be taken with a grain of salt. Lowther was the O’s No. 19 ranked prospect by Baseball America entering the season.

Baltimore also received bad news on Travis Lakins, who left his first start of the year earlier this week in just the second inning. Manager Brandon Hyde said that Lakins has a “significant elbow injury,” Dubroff noted. The 27-year-old right-hander has been a reliever for the O’s, pitching 23 times out of the pen before starting last Tuesday’s game. He has not, however, proved particularly effective in either role, logging a 5.79 ERA/5.11 SIERA in 28 innings. He’s neither missed very many bats (19.5 strikeout rate) nor done enough to limit free passes (13.8 percent walk rate). Still, his ability to handle multiple innings had value for the Orioles, who will dig deeper into the organization to fill innings.

Orioles Make Several Roster Moves

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The Orioles announced a flurry of moves this afternoon, including the news that infielder Domingo Leyba has been claimed off waivers from the Diamondbacks and optioned to Triple-A Norfolk.  Infielder Ramon Urias and right-hander Travis Lakins have been called up from Norfolk, and righty Hunter Harvey has been activated off the 60-day injured list.

To create roster space, right-hander Shawn Armstrong and lefty Brandon Waddell were designated for assignment.  (Roch Kubatko of MASNsports.com reported earlier today that Waddell was being DFA’ed.)  Additionally, infielder Pat Valaika was placed on the bereavement list.

Leyba was designated for assignment just two days ago.  The 25-year-old went hitless (with two walks) in 24 plate appearances for Arizona this season, following a very respectable .807 OPS over his first 30 career big league PA in 2019.  This wide range of production comes on the heels of a solid .290/.347/.434 slash line in 2624 PA in the minors as part of the Diamondbacks’ and Tigers’ farm systems since 2013.  Leyba put up particularly big numbers with Arizona’s Triple-A team in 2018-19, though the hitter-friendly Pacific Coast League environment might have played a role considering his more modest career output in previous years.

Harvey suffered a left oblique strain in mid-March, and is now set to finally make his 2021 debut.  Injuries have pretty much been the story of Harvey’s career since being selected 22nd overall in the 2013 draft, as his MLB resume consists of only 15 total innings in 2019-20.  Even that small sample size still hints at some promise, however, as Harvey’s fastball sits in the high 90’s and he has struck out 17 of his 63 batters faced.  Orioles manager Brandon Hyde told The Athletic’s Dan Connelly and other reporters that Harvey will be used in a variety of bullpen roles, with seemingly no concession made to his injury history — he’ll be deployed “like a regular piece in the bullpen,” Hyde said.

Since being claimed off waivers from the Mariners in April 2019, Armstrong has been something of a workhorse out of the Baltimore pen, appearing in 85 games and tossing 89 1/3 innings.  The results weren’t always there, however, as Armstrong had a 5.34 ERA during his stint in the orange and black.  Armstrong is out of minor league options, so the O’s had no choice but to designate him and expose him to a potential waiver claim.

Waddell was a waiver pickup himself, selected by the Orioles off of the Twins’ roster in early May.  He has pitched in only one game for the O’s and two games for Triple-A Norfolk, as Kubatko notes that Waddell was delayed by the intake process required by COVID-19 protocols.  A longtime member of the Pirates’ minor league system, Waddell has seen MLB action with the Bucs, Twins, and Orioles over the last two seasons, with a 6.48 ERA over 8 1/3 total career innings in the big leagues.

Orioles Option Chance Sisco, Select Austin Wynns

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The Orioles made a change to their catching corps today, optioning Chance Sisco to Triple-A and selecting the contract for Austin Wynns, per Roch Kubatko of MASNsports.com (via Twitter).

Sisco has shared time behind the plate with Pedro Severino thus far this season. The 26-year-old is having his worst season at the plate since debuting in 2017, slashing .154/.247/.185 across 73 plate appearances.

Wynns, 30, has been a piece of the Orioles’ catching picture for the past couple of seasons, though he did not appear in 2020. Across 2018-19, however, he put up a .239/.271/.339 line in 192 plate appearances.

Richie Martin has also been transferred to the 60-day injured list. The move presumably paves the way for Hunter Harvey’s eventual activation from the 60-day injured list. An oblique strain has kept Harvey from the mound thus far in 2021.

Pitching Notes: Tigers, A’s, Orioles

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Not only is veteran Julio Teheran hitting as high as 94 mph on the radar gun, but he got three strikeouts on his slider in his most-recent outing, writes Evan Petzold of the Detroit Free Press. Said Teheran, “My slider is the best it’s been in a while. The last time I felt my slider was like this was my 2016 All-Star season. That’s the kind of confidence I have right now. I feel like I can throw my pitches anytime I want. My command is there. Just a different game when you have everything working.” The Tigers will owe Teheran $3MM at minimum if he makes the team, so there is a financial component to audition. Still, Detroit has an active payroll of only around $75MM, per Spotrac, and a projected luxury tax payroll of around $94MM. Fangraphs’ estimates for those payroll numbers to be closer to $81MM and $100MM, respectively. In either case, the Tigers shouldn’t need worry about an extra few million if Terehan proves worthy of a rotation spot. In other pitcher news…

  • Mike Fiers suffered a setback and is now questionable for opening day. The Athletics’ right-hander will have an MRI done on his hip/back tomorrow, per John Shea of the San Francisco Chronicle (via Twitter). In a best case scenario, Fiers would be competing with A.J. Puk for the A’s fifth starter spot, though neither has appeared in a spring contest as of yet. Puk has the higher ceiling, but Fiers would seem to have the inside track on the role after posting a palatable 4.58 ERA/4.94 FIP across 59 innings last season. While he’s out, Daulton Jefferies, Grant Holmes, or James Kaprielian could receive a look out of the rotation. Puk remains a candidate, though they’re likely to be cautious with his usage.
  • Hunter Harvey had been one of the few locks to start the season in the Orioles’ bullpen, but with his latest setback, opportunity knocks for another of Orioles’ hurler, per Jon Meoli of the Baltimore Sun. With so many roster spots still up for grabs, the Orioles could use Harvey’s spot to secure a job for another short-stint arm, like Cole Sulser, Dillon Tate, or Travis Lakins. But they could also take the opportunity to have yet another starter/piggyback arm on the roster. Even the Orioles’ likely rotation arms – John Means, Keegan Akin, and Dean Kremer – aren’t locks to pitch deep into games. Bruce Zimmermann seems a decent candidate to make the roster as a swingman – and a near lock to see time on the Major League roster at some point in 2021 – but he may need some help filling the middle innings. Tyler Wells would be one such candidate. A starter in the Twins’ system, Wells is a Rule 5 pick who needs to make the roster in order to stay in the organization.

Pitching Notes: Gallen, Greene, Braves, Pearson, H. Harvey

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The Diamondbacks renewed right-hander Zac Gallen’s contract on Thursday, meaning he’ll earn roughly the major league minimum of $570.5K this season. That’s standard operating procedure for most teams when it comes to players who aren’t yet eligible for arbitration, though Gallen said it “wasn’t fair based on my performance last year,” Zach Buchanan of The Athletic tweets. While Gallen acknowledged there’s “a business side to this game,” he would like to see the pre-arb salary situation addressed in the next collective bargaining agreement because the system’s “not necessarily in the favor of younger players.” Whether or not you agree with Gallen, there is no doubt the 25-year-old has vastly outperformed his salaries since he debuted with the Marlins in 2019. So far, the 25-year-old has logged a 2.78 ERA across 152 big league innings. Gallen is not on track to reach arbitration until after 2022. There will be a new CBA in place by then, but it remains to be seen whether it will address Gallen’s concerns on this subject.  

  • Righty reliever Shane Greene spent the previous year-plus as a member of the Braves, with whom he held his own, but he remains a free agent as the regular season nears. Greene could prove to be a late-spring bargain for someone, but it doesn’t appear the Braves will re-sign him for anything other than “a really cheap offer” in the $1MM range, David O’Brien of The Athletic writes. Unless Greene elects to settle for that type of deal, the Braves will be content to start the year with Will Smith, Chris Martin, A.J. Minter and Tyler Matzek as their main end-of-game options, according to O’Brien.
  • A groin strain has slowed Blue Jays right-hander Nate Pearson this spring, but manager Charlie Montoyo said Friday (via Shi Davidi of Sportsnet) that he’ll throw a bullpen Saturday. Pearson will not have enough time to build up for a five-inning role by Opening Day, though the Blue Jays aren’t ruling him out for the start of the season, according to Montoyo. A healthy version of Pearson could play a major role in a Toronto starting staff that has little in the way of surefire answers after ace Hyun Jin Ryu.
  • Orioles righty Hunter Harvey exited his outing Friday with a left oblique issue. The severity isn’t known yet, but Harvey – who had been in line for a bullpen spot – is unlikely to be ready for Opening Day, per Roch Kubatko of MASNSports.com. It’s the latest injury-related setback for Harvey, a 2013 first-round pick who has dealt with multiple health issues (including Tommy John surgery) during his professional career. The 26-year-old has totaled 15 innings out of the O’s bullpen dating back to his 2019 debut.
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