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Yankees Option Jordan Montgomery, Select Contracts Of Avilan, Iannetta, Hale

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In a surprising move, the Yankees announced Tuesday that they’ve optioned lefty Jordan Montgomery to the team’s alternate site in Scranton. The Yanks also selected the contracts of non-roster veterans Luis Avilan, Chris Iannetta and David Hale.

New York also announced that non-roster righty Dan Otero has been placed on the restricted list. Meanwhile, each of Matt Duffy, Estevan Florial, Deivi Garcia, Zack Granite, Erik Kratz, Brooks Kriske, Tyler Lyons, Nick Nelson, Clarke Schmidt, Nick Tropeano, Miguel Yajure and Tony Zych has been reassigned to the team’s alternate site.

Montgomery, 27, seemed like a lock for a rotation spot to begin the season. It seems likely that he’ll be called back to the big leagues in short order, but it seems that the Yankees will roll out Gerrit Cole, James Paxton and a either Mike King or a bullpen game in their first three contests. Manager Aaron Boone indicated as much today an added that J.A. Happ is expected to start the fourth game (Twitter link via WFAN’s Sweeny Murti), so Montgomery may not join the club until its second trip through the rotation. An off-day should allow Cole to start the team’s fifth game.

Avilan, 31, has a strong big league track record but stumbled to a 5.06 ERA and 4.96 FIP in 32 frames with the Mets last year. That forced him to settle for a minor league deal over the winter, but Avilan has a career 3.28 ERA and 3.41 FIP with averages of 8.1 strikeouts, 3.5 walks and 0.5 home runs per nine innings pitched. He’s held opposing lefties to a putrid .203/.280/.283 slash since his 2012 MLB debut and has held righties in check reasonably well: .259/.340/.374.

The 37-year-old Iannetta gives the Yankees a third catcher behind Gary Sanchez and Kyle Higashioka early in the season when rosters are expanded to 30 players. The 14-year veteran hasn’t hit particularly well in recent seasons but has a long track record of quality on-base percentages thanks to a gaudy 13.5 percent walk rate in his career. Iannetta posted a .254/.354/.511 slash in 316 plate appearances as recently as 2017, but his two-year reunion with his original club, the Rockies, didn’t go well; in 524 plate appearances over the past two seasons in Colorado, Iannetta hit .223/.335/.395 (85 OPS+, 80 wRC+).

Hale’s boomerang act with the Yankees is well-documented by this point. He’s signed a ridiculous five minor league contracts with the Yankees since Jan. 2018 and, despite being jettisoned from the roster so many times, fared quite well. Hale has racked up 48 1/3 innings across his scattered stints in the Bronx and, amid constant roster uncertainty, pitched to a strong 2.98 ERA with a 29-to-8 K/BB ratio. He’s plenty capable of working in multi-inning stints, which should prove particularly valuable early in the year as the club both manages workloads and apparently tinkers with the occasional opener/bullpen game.

AL Notes: Yankees’ Rotation, Royals, Perez

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Some notes on the Yankees and Royals to kick off Sunday morning:

  • Jordan Montgomery is the “overwhelming favorite” for the fourth spot in the Yankees’ rotation, notes George King III of the New York Post. That’s not especially surprising, given that the lefty’s Tommy John procedure is now 21 months behind him. The 27-year-old’s strong 2017 rookie season positions him well to step up in the wake of injuries to Luis Severino and James Paxton. The final spot in the rotation is still entirely up for grabs, although King feels Jonathan Loaisiga is the early frontrunner. Surprisingly, King notes that right-hander Clarke Schmidt could be in the fifth starter mix after turning some heads early in spring training. The 24-year-old was the Yankees’ first-round pick out of the University of South Carolina in 2017, but he’s made all of three career starts above High-A, thanks largely to rehab from a Tommy John of his own. That, coupled with Schmidt’s roster status (he needn’t be added to the 40-man until after this season), would seem to make him a long shot for a season-opening role.
  • One pitcher who might not be as strong a contender for the Yankees’ final rotation spot is Luis Cessa, whom King says the club “seemingly likes…in the bullpen.” That jibes with a similar report from Bryan Hoch of MLB.com earlier this week, although Hoch’s report came before news broke of Severino’s season-ending Tommy John surgery. From the outside, it appeared that blow could have changed the calculus on Cessa’s potential usage, but it seems he’s still more likely to occupy a bullpen role in 2020. The 27-year-old has started 19 of his 86 career MLB appearances, but he was used exclusively as a reliever in 2019.
  • Salvador Pérez logged four innings behind the plate in the Royals’ spring training game Friday (h/t to the Associated Press). That marked his first catching action since his Tommy John surgery last March. “It was kind of like Opening Day — once you catch the first pitch, it’s a regular game,” Pérez said postgame, via the AP. “I blocked some balls, threw to second base between innings. It was all great.” At last check, the 29-year-old was on track to be ready for Opening Day. In 2018, Pérez hit just .235/.274/.439 (89 wRC+), but he’s long shouldered extremely high workloads behind the plate in Kansas City.

Latest On Yankees’ Rotation

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The Yankees’ rotation looked set when the month of February started, but the back surgery left-hander James Paxton recently underwent threw a wrench in their plans. They’re now lacking an obvious answer after Gerrit Cole, Luis Severino, Masahiro Tanaka and J.A. Happ. The team will give plenty of hurlers chances to emerge as its No. 5 during spring training, though, as Bryan Hoch of MLB.com relays.

General manager Brian Cashman on Wednesday named five pitchers – Luis Cessa, Deivi Garcia, Jonathan Loaisiga, Michael King and Jordan Montgomery – as candidates to take the last spot in New York’s rotation. The leader may be the 27-year-old Montgomery, who had an impressive rookie campaign in 2017 but hasn’t been much of a factor since then because of injury troubles. Montgomery underwent Tommy John surgery in June 2018 after throwing a mere 27 1/3 innings that year, though he did make a late-season return to a major league mound in 2019. Manager Aaron Boone said Wednesday that Montgomery’s now “in a good place” with respect to his health.

As for Montgomery’s competition, Cessa and Loaisiga have each garnered a decent amount of experience at the game’s highest level. Cessa’s heater checks in around 95 mph, but it hasn’t led to great results in the majors. He’s the owner of a 4.50 ERA/4.98 FIP with 7.37 K/9 and 2.91 BB/9 in 232 career innings. Most of his work (67 of 86 appearances) has come as a reliever. Cessa is out of minor league options, so he could end up in another organization if he doesn’t make the Yankees this spring.

Loaisiga can throw even harder than Cessa (96-97 mph), and he’s a former top-100 prospect, but his MLB production hasn’t been special, either. While Loaisiga recorded a tremendous strikeout rate of 11.18 per nine in his first 56 1/3 innings as a Yankee from 2018-19, he walked almost five per nine and only registered a 4.79 ERA/4.33 FIP. Moreover, the right-hander dealt with shoulder problems last season.

Neither Garcia nor King has appeared in the majors yet, but there’s plenty of promise in the two cases. FanGraphs’ Eric Longenhagen ranked the 20-year-old Garcia as the game’s 42nd-best prospect Wednesday, calling the 5-foot-10, 163-pounder  “a diminutive firecracker righty with a beautiful curveball.” However, because of his size, there are questions about Garcia’s durability. He also didn’t put up great numbers last year as an extremely young Triple-A pitcher, as he managed a subpar 5.40 ERA/5.77 FIP with 10.13 K/9 and 4.5 BB/9 over 40 innings at the level.

King, 24, racked up a combined 62 2/3 innings in Triple-A from 2018-19, pitching to a sterling 2.30 ERA with 8.5 K/9 and 1.7 BB/9 in that span. He even made a one-appearance MLB debut last season, and currently ranks as the Yankees’ 19th-best prospect at MLB.com.

Considering how volatile the back end of most teams’ rotations are, it’s entirely possible (maybe even likely) that more than one of the above hurlers will start games for the Yankees as they await Paxton’s return. The World Series hopefuls figure to get Paxton back early in the summer, so those who wind up filling his spot could be on borrowed time in that role.

AL East Notes: Yankees’ Rotation, Cobb, Blue Jays

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James Paxton’s back surgery leaves a hole in the Yankees’ rotation, and while the team obviously won’t make any decisions on how to address the vacancy just yet, manager Aaron Boone spoke highly of left-hander Jordan Montgomery when discussing the team’s starting pitching depth (link via George A. King III and Dan Martin of the New York Post). “I think he has proven himself at this level,” Boone said of Montgomery, who posted a 3.88 ERA in 155 1/3 innings back in 2017 before undergoing Tommy John surgery in 2018. “For him to get back last year was big, just for his frame of mind. The fact he was able to make it back and get some work done, get into some games, I think was big for him and his mindset moving forward.” All signs point to a spring competition to round out the rotation behind Gerrit Cole, Luis Severino, Masahiro Tanaka and J.A. Happ. It wouldn’t be a surprise to see the Yankees bring in a veteran on a minor league deal, although between Montgomery, Luis Cessa and Jonathan Loaisiga, the Yankees do have three options who’ve at least made some big league starts.

More from the AL East…

  • Orioles righty Alex Cobb is hoping for a healthier 2020 season and has already been throwing off a mound at Orioles minicamp, per Roch Kubatko of MASNsports.com. The 32-year-old Cobb, who signed a surprising four-year, $57MM deal late in the 2017-18 offseason, has been limited to 164 2/3 innings in Baltimore and hasn’t pitched effectively at all when healthy. A back injury cost him nearly all of the 2019 season — Cobb pitched in just three games last year — and he’s still owed $29MM under that four-year pact. A healthy Cobb would be a boon for a perilously thin rotation mix in Baltimore. Beyond him, the Orioles will lean on lefty John Means, journeyman Asher Wojociechowski and perhaps non-roster invitee Wade Leblanc. Baltimore’s only rotation additions this winter have been Leblanc, Rule 5 pick Brandon Bailey and former Twins prospect Kohl Stewart.
  • The Blue Jays announced yesterday that director of player development Gil Kim will join the Major League coaching staff for the upcoming season. He’ll retain that title as he continues to work with the Jays’ up-and-coming wave of talent in the Major League clubhouse. “We identified an opportunity on the Major League coaching staff that would maximize Gil’s expertise in player development as an obvious asset,” general manager Ross Atkins explained in a release announcing the unorthodox move. “…As the season progresses, Gil’s role as a coach will continue to develop. His previous work to streamline our player development programs, philosophies and systems gives us tremendous confidence that incorporating his leadership and skillset into our Major League coaching staff will be an exciting addition.”

Players Avoiding Arbitration: American League

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Entering the day, there were more than 150 players on the clock to exchange arbitration figures with their respective teams prior to a noon ET deadline. As one would expect, there’ll be an utter landslide of arbitration agreements in advance of that deadline. We already ran through some key facts and reminders on the arbitration process earlier this morning for those who are unfamiliar or simply need a refresher on one of MLB’s most complex idiosyncrasies, which will hopefully clear up many questions readers might have.

We’ll track the majority of the American League’s settlements in this post and split off a separate one for NL settlements as well. Note that all projections referenced come courtesy of MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz:

  • Newly acquired Angels righty Dylan Bundy receives a $5MM salary, per Jon Heyman of MLB Network (Twitter links). He had projected at a $5.7MM price tag. Teammate Hansel Robles gets $3.85MM, per Heyman, just shy of his $4MM projection.
  • The Yankees have worked out deals with all of their eligible players. The team has a hefty $8.5MM pact with Aaron Judge, per MLB.com’s Mark Feinsand (via Twitter). Backstop Gary Sanchez settled for $5MM, per Feinsand (via Twitter). The New York org will pay righty Luis Cessa $895K and Jonathan Holder $750K, Murray reports (Twitter links). Fellow reliever Tommy Kahnle will earn $2.65MM, per Jon Heyman of MLB Network (via Twitter). And star lefty James Paxton has settled at $12.5MM, Heyman adds via Twitter. Chad Green and Jordan Montgomery have also agreed to terms, the former at $1.275MM and the latter at $805K, per Heyman (Twitter links).
  • The Twins announced that they struck deals with Trevor May, Taylor Rogers, Eddie Rosario and Byron Buxton. Jon Heyman of MLB Network followed up with salary terms (all links to Twitter). May earns $2,205,000; Rogers takes home $4.45MM; Rosario lands at $7.75MM; and Buxton receives $3.075MM. While the first and last of those land rather close to the projected amount, Rogers got $550K more and Rosario got $1.15MM less than the calculators predicted.
  • Shortstop Carlos Correa settled with the Astros for $8MM, per MLB.com’s Brian McTaggart (via Twitter). Righty Brad Peacock lands at a $3.9MM salary, per Chandler Rome of the Houston Chronicle (Twitter link). The former went for more than his $7.4MM projection, while the latter ended up shy of the $4.6MM mark produced by the computers. The ’Stros also have agreed with closer Roberto Osuna as well, per an announcement. It’s a $10MM deal, slotting in just $200K shy of his projection, per Rome (via Twitter).
  • The Orioles have a deal with outfielder/first baseman Trey Mancini, Roch Kubatko of MASNsports.com tweets. It’s for $4.75MM, per Dan Connolly of The Athletic (via Twitter), well south of the $5.7MM projection.
  • Outfielder Jorge Soler has agreed to a $7.3MM deal with the Royals, MLB.com’s Jeffrey Flanagan tweets. That’s well off of the $11.2MM that MLBTR’s model projected, though it is likely that the cause of the gulf lies in the interpretation of the correct baseline to start from in building Soler’s salary. He’s in the 4+ service class but had been playing on the original deal he signed out of Cuba.
  • The Tigers have a deal in place with southpaw Matthew Boyd, per Anthony Fenech of the Detroit Free Press (via Twitter). It’ll pay him $5.3MM, per Chris McCosky of the Detroit News (Twitter link). That falls comfortably below the $6.4MM, suggesting that Boyd’s camp was concerned with the way his suboptimal ERA would play in the arb process. Fellow lefty starter Daniel Norris will earn $2.96MM, McCosky tweets.

Earlier Settlements

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Edwin Encarnacion Expects To Return Before End Of Regular Season

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Alarm bells were raised when Yankees slugger Edwin Encarnacion turned up with an oblique strain recently, as a significant version of that injury could easily spell a lengthy absence. But the progress has been so promising that the veteran says he believes he’ll return to the field of play in the next two weeks, as MLB.com’s Bryan Hoch covers on Twitter.

Encarnacion, 36, says that he’s “feeling better every day.” So long as he continues to ramp up, he ought to have a chance to pick up some plate appearances before the club wraps up play on the 29th. It doesn’t matter much to the Yanks whether they have Encarnacion’s bat in the lineup down the stretch, but the club will certainly hope to have him at full speed in the postseason.

The Yanks still have quite a few interesting potential roster questions to resolve before playoff action gets underway. Giancarlo Stanton joins Encarnacion as a rehabbing righty power bat, with a bevy of other possibilities for roster spots. And the team has a variety of hurlers — Luis Severino, Dellin Betances, Jordan Montgomery — trying to show they’re ready to roll, with other pitchers waiting in the wings.

One of those other key players, Betances, just had his first outing. As Hoch tweets, the power righty was not only happy with the outing — he struck out the two batters he faced — but how he feels the day after. Montgomery’s own season debut wasn’t quite so promising, as he gave up three earned in two innings. Both pitchers worked well below their previously established levels of fastball velocity. Severino will take the ball in the majors tomorrow for the first time this year.

Yankees Designate Ryan Dull; Activate Betances, Montgomery

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The Yankees announced they have designated right-handed reliever Ryan Dull for assignment. That, coupled with the transfer of Jonathan Holder to the 60-day injured list, clears roster space for the previously-reported activations of Dellin Betances and Jordan Mongtomery from the IL.

Betances is the most notable name in today’s series of transactions. The fireballer has missed the entire season to date with a shoulder injury. Notably, he tells Erik Boland of Newsday (via Twitter) that he’s still not up to full strength, although he expressed optimism he’ll be 100% by the end of the regular season. Betances’ progress will be one of the stretch run’s biggest health situations to monitor, as the hulking righty will be elligible for free agency at season’s end, which both player and team surely hope won’t come until after a lengthy postseason run for the soon-to-be AL East champs.

It has been an even longer absence for Montgomery, who hasn’t toed an MLB mound since undergoing Tommy John surgery last June. As a rookie in 2017, Montgomery started 29 games and pitched to a better-than-average 3.88 ERA with solid peripherals. It’ll be interesting to see how the Bombers build him up down the stretch and what role, if any, he’ll play in the postseason.

Those returns to health come at the expense of Dull, a 29 year-old righty. He was blasted in three games as a Yankee, continuing a disappointing season. Dull has never followed up on a 2016 season in which he pitched to a 2.42 ERA in 74.1 innings in Oakland. He does come with one more option year and throws the same 91 MPH fastball he had in his breakthrough effort in the Bay Area, so Dull should still hold some appeal as a depth piece this offseason.

Holder was initially shelved in August with right shoulder inflammation. A longshot to make the Yankees’ postseason roster even when healthy, this almost certainly concludes a trying season for the 26 year-old, who pitched to a 6.31 ERA despite serviceable strikeout (25.4%) and walk (6.1%) rates.

Jordan Montgomery To Make Season Debut This Weekend

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Yankees left-hander Jordan Montgomery hasn’t taken a major league mound since May 1, 2018, but he’s on the verge of making a long-awaited return. Montgomery is expected to make his season debut “in some capacity” this Sunday, James Wagner of the New York Times reports. Meanwhile, fellow lefty J.A. Happ just had a cortisone shot in his biceps, but manager Aaron Boone said he should make a start next week.

Considering he hasn’t pitched in the majors in almost two full seasons, Montgomery has become somewhat of a forgotten Yankee. But before Montgomery underwent Tommy John surgery in June 2018, he looked like a quality homegrown arm for New York. Montgomery, a fourth-round pick of the Yankees in 2014, debuted in 2017 and proceeded to amass 182 2/3 innings and 35 starts of 3.84 ERA/4.09 FIP ball with 8.23 K/9 and 3.1 BB/9 through last season.

Now, with the playoffs just a couple weeks away, it’s unclear whether Montgomery will factor into the Yankees’ plans when they try to charge toward a World Series in October. On the other hand, a healthy Happ will definitely be someone the team counts on during the fall. Happ exited his start Thursday with a biceps issue, but it seems the Yankees – whom injuries have haunted all season – dodged a serious problem in his case.

Severino, Stanton Expected To Join Yankees Next Week

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10:40am: Not only are Severino and Stanton on the verge of a return, it seems that left-hander Jordan Montgomery and righty Dellin Betances could be back in the same general timeframe. Montgomery could start things off in a bullpen game for the Yankees in Toronto on Sunday (Twitter link via Newsday’s Erik Boland), while Hoch tweets that Betances will pitch once more for Trenton tomorrow and could be added to the Major League roster after that outing.

10:22am: After missing nearly the entire season due to shoulder and lat injuries, Yankees ace Luis Severino is expected to return from the injured list and start Tuesday’s game against the Angels at Yankee Stadium, manager Aaron Boone revealed to reporters this morning (Twitter links via Bryan Hoch of MLB.com). That on its own is good news, but Boone added that Giancarlo Stanton could rejoin the roster at the start of that homestand as well, meaning he could be in the lineup Tuesday as well.

A healthy Severino would be a welcome reprieve for a beleaguered Yankees rotation that has stumbled throughout the second half of the season. Since the All-Star break, Yankees starters have posted a collective 5.25 ERA and averaged fewer than five innings per outing. Those shortcomings have done nothing to endanger New York’s overwhelming lead in the American League East, but such difficulties among their starting staff are no doubt a concern with the postseason looming. Adding a healthy Severino into the fray could be a substantial boost not only for the final two weeks of the regular season but also to the team’s outlook in the American League Division Series.

The Yankees have been relying primarily on the quintet of Masahiro Tanaka, James Paxton, Domingo German, J.A. Happ and CC Sabathia to make their starts, but Paxton (3.90) and German (4.90) are the only members of the bunch with a sub-5.00 ERA since the All-Star break. Happ has rattled off a string of solid starts and could be rounding into form late in the year, but the Yankees’ rotation has generally been a weak point. A strong bullpen and overwhelming offensive attack have paved their road to success.

As for Stanton, it’s clear that scoring runs hasn’t been an issue for the Yankees this season. Staying healthy, however, has. Stanton is a major part of that, but he could rejoin the lineup at an opportune time. The Yankees just lost out-of-the-blue breakout outfielder Mike Tauchman for the rest of the season, and Aaron Hicks could be down for the rest of the year as well. Luke Voit, meanwhile, hasn’t hit much since returning from the injured list.

Stanton has only managed to appear in nine games for the Yankees this year, first going down with a biceps strain that sidelined him for two months and then spraining his knee in just his sixth game back from that first injury. His injury-shortened campaign has caused some Yankees fans to sour on him, but Stanton was plenty dangerous in his Yankees debut in 2018, hitting .266/.343/.509 with 38 big flies and 34 doubles in 158 games (705 plate appearances). Adding him back into the late-season and playoff picture would be bad news for whichever postseason opponent lines up against the Yanks.

Health Notes: Lopez, Gott, Indians, McKay, Yankees

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Marlins righty Pablo Lopez returned today from the 10-day injured list. The 23-year-old had been out since June with shoulder problems, so it’s good to see he was able to get back up to speed before the end of the season. Lopez wasn’t at his best, allowing four earned in five innings, but averaged 94.1 mph with his fastball.

Here are some more health notes from around the game …

  • The Giants are sending reliever Trevor Gott in for a closer look after he experienced tightness in his right forearm tonight, as John Shea of the San Francisco Chronicle was among those to cover on Twitter. That’s not the news anyone wanted at the end of an enormously successful season for the young reliever, who has been among the nicest surprises in San Francisco. At this point, there’s nothing to be done but wait and hope that there isn’t a significant underlying problem.
  • There are a bevy of updates on the health front for the Indians, as MLB.com’s Mandy Bell covers on Twitter. In particular, the club has a big slate of rehabbing hurlers appearing over the next few days. Danny Salazar threw a frame today at Double-A without incident. Jefry Rodriguez is slated to appear with the club’s top affiliate tomorrow, with fellow starter Carlos Carrasco and reliever Dan Otero scheduled to throw in game action on Wednesday. Meanwhile, long-absent outfielder Bradley Zimmer has reached the Triple-A level and seems likely to be an option in the majors again soon.
  • Prized young Rays hurler Brendan McKay, optioned down after a rough recent start, has hit the injured list at Triple-A, as MLB.com’s Juan Toribio was among those to tweet. He’s said to be dealing with shoulder fatigue, which sounds worrisome but doesn’t appear to be cause for any concern. The expectation is that he won’t miss more than a week of action, which means he ought to be ready to help the Rays again soon — if and when he’s needed.
  • As usual, there’s a lengthy list of Yankees injury updates to touch upon. MLB.com’s Bryan Hoch has the latest (all links to Twitter account). Key righties Luis Severino and Dellin Betances are just one step removed from possible rehab outings, which puts them back on the map for activation down the stretch — and potential postseason availability. The situation is less certain for outfielder Giancarlo Stanton, who “could take on-field batting practice Tuesday for the first time” since going down with a PCL strain about two months ago. And the club indicates it’s possible that southpaw Jordan Montgomery will be ready to throw in the majors before the end of the regular season. He’s slated to continue his rehab work at Double-A. As for shortstop Didi Gregorius, he’s bouncing back quickly after being hit by a pitch. He could be back in the lineup in short order.
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