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Marcos Diplan

Orioles Transfer John Means On 60-Day IL, Select Marcos Diplan

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The Orioles announced a series of roster moves today, the most notable being John Means getting transferred from the 10-day injured list to the 60-day injured list. That opens a spot on the 40-man roster for right-hander Marcos Diplan, whose contract was selected. To make room for Diplan on the active roster, left-hander Alexander Wells was optioned to Triple-A.

It’s an unfortunate but unsurprising development for the Orioles. Means was initially placed on the IL on Friday with a left elbow strain. Nathan Ruiz of the Baltimore Sun relays that it’s actually a sprain, not a strain, clarifying that the latter involves bone-to-bone tissue as opposed to muscle or muscle-to-bone tissue. Although it was reported that Means would be undergoing further testing, O’s manager Brandon Hyde said that the southpaw would be out for “a while.” Now that he has been moved to the 60-day IL, he will be on the shelf until at least mid-June. Hyde said today that they still plan on getting second opinions, but they’ve obviously accepted that there’s no chance of a quick return.

The performance of Means has been one of the few bright spots for the Orioles over the past few seasons, as the club has spent most of the past five years in the AL East basement. Since his 2018 debut, Means has appeared in 70 games, throwing 356 2/3 innings with a 3.81 ERA. His 21.2% strikeout rate is just below league average, though his 5% walk rate is excellent. The 28-year-old (29 next week) can be controlled through the 2024 season and will be making an affordable 2022 salary in the $3MM range. (His arbitration hearing has yet to occur, due to the lockout pushing all hearings into the season. Means filed at $3.1MM with the team filing at $2.7MM. The arbitration process is backwards-looking and won’t be affected by this injury.)

In the short-term, this will thin out a rotation that was already short on proven options. Offseason signee Jordan Lyles is the most-seasoned arm, followed by less-experienced rotation mates Tyler Wells, Bruce Zimmermann and Spenser Watkins. With Means out, a spot is open for someone like Keegan Akin or Zac Lowther. The club does have two very well regarded prospects in DL Hall and Grayson Rodriguez. Both of them are in Triple-A and could be considered for an MLB debut at some point. In the long-term, the club wasn’t likely to be competitive anytime soon, but the injury will certainly take a bite out of Means’ trade value. Due to the fact that he’s been playing well on a poor team, he’s naturally been floated as a speculative trade candidate. Any trade talks will now have to be put on the backburner until he can return to health.

As for Diplan, he made his MLB debut with the Orioles last year, eventually throwing 30 innings of 4.50 ERA ball out of their bullpen. However, his 19.5% strikeout rate and 12.2% walk rate were both a few ticks worse than league average. He was outrighted off the roster at the end of last year but re-signed to a minor league deal in the offseason. The 25-year-old still has an option remaining.

Minor MLB Transactions: 11/18/21

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Some recent minor moves from around baseball:

  • The Orioles are re-signing righty Marcos Diplán to a minor league contract, reports Roch Kubatko of MASNsports.com (Twitter link). He’ll receive an invitation to big league Spring Training. Diplán made his first 23 big league appearances this past season, working 30 frames of relief. The 25-year-old managed a respectable 4.50 ERA, but that came with an unimpressive 19.5% strikeout rate and an elevated 12.2% walk percentage. The O’s outrighted Diplán off the 40-man roster after the season, but he’ll return to the organization and look to pitch his way back onto the big league club next spring.
  • The Reds agreed to a minors pact with righty Connor Overton yesterday, according to a report from Robert Murray of FanSided (on Twitter). The 28-year-old made his MLB debut with the Blue Jays in August, then landed with the Pirates via waivers the following month. Between the two clubs, he tossed 15 1/3 innings of 4.70 ERA ball with roughly league average strikeout and walk numbers. Overton had a great showing with the Jays’ Triple-A affiliate, posting a 2.03 ERA in 57 2/3 frames — working mostly out of the bullpen.
  • The Cubs reached agreement on a minor league deal earlier this week with catcher Tyler Payne, per a report from Russell Dorsey of the Chicago Sun-Times (Twitter link). Payne made his big league debut on the final day of the regular season, going hitless in two plate appearances. Chicago outrighted him off the 40-man roster after the season but they’ll bring the 29-year-old back to bolster their organizational depth behind the plate. The right-handed hitting Payne posted a .231/.291/.363 line over 234 plate appearances with Double-A Tennessee this year.

Orioles Announce Series Of Outrights

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NOVEMBER 5: The O’s formally announced the outrights of Severino, Diplan and Greene on Friday evening. Additionally, Baltimore announced that right-handers Chris Ellis and Spenser Watkins and catcher Nick Ciuffo have cleared waivers. Ellis has already elected minor league free agency, and Watkins and Ciuffo will also have that right.

Ellis made six starts for the O’s after being claimed off waivers from the Rays. He worked to a 2.49 ERA in 25 1/3 innings but did so with underwhelming peripherals after struggling in Triple-A. Watkins posted an 8.07 ERA over 54 2/3 frames during his first major league action. Ciuffo appeared in just two big league games at the very tail end of the season.

NOVEMBER 3: The Orioles have outrighted catcher Pedro Severino and right-handers Marcos Diplan and Conner Greene to Triple-A Norfolk.  According to MASNsports.com’s Roch Kubatko, all three players will elect free agency rather than accept the outright assignment.

Severino is the most experienced name of the trio, with parts of seven MLB seasons under his belt (the last three in Baltimore).  Severino was projected to earn $3.1MM in arbitration this winter, but was seen as a non-tender candidate following a season that saw him hit .248/.303/.383 with 11 home runs over 419 plate appearances.

The 28-year-old shouldn’t have much trouble catching on somewhere as a platoon partner or backup catcher.  As for the Orioles, Nick Ciuffo is the only catcher in the organization with Major League experience, but the O’s are expected to add another low-cost veteran backstop this winter, and star prospect Adley Rutschman is expected to make his MLB debut at some point in 2022.

Diplan made his Major League debut in 2021, with a 4.50 ERA over 30 innings out of the Orioles bullpen.  A veteran of seven minor league seasons with the Orioles, Twins, Brewers, and Rangers, 2021 was Diplan’s first season as a full-time reliever, though he had gotten an increasingly large share of bullpen work by 2019.  He showed some solid improvements to his strikeout and walk rates with Norfolk this season and even pitched in the Futures Game during All-Star week.

Greene also got his first taste of MLB action this year, posting a 7.11 ERA over 25 1/3 combined innings with the Orioles and Dodgers.  Beginning the season with the O’s, Greene was claimed on waivers by Los Angeles and then claimed back by Baltimore, all within the span of less than three weeks in August.  Greene has a live fastball, but he has yet to translate that heater into big strikeout numbers or even consistent results in the minors, with a 4.34 ERA over 729 2/3 career innings on the farm.

Orioles Select Marcos Diplan, Dusten Knight

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The Orioles are set to shake up their bullpen mix a bit on Wednesday, per Dan Connolly of The Athletic, who reports that the team is set to select right-handers Marcos Diplan and Dusten Knight to the big league roster (Twitter link). Neither pitcher is on the 40-man roster, so Baltimore will need to make a couple of corresponding moves.

Diplan, 24, has bounced around the league a bit in recent years but looks to have found a home in the Orioles organization. The righty was designated for assignment by the Brewers two days prior to the 2019 deadline and traded to the Twins in exchange for cash just an hour before the deadline itself. The Twins designated Diplan a couple weeks later, prompting a waiver claim from the Tigers. Detroit held onto Diplan into the offseason, but the O’s picked him up on a waiver claim of their own in December. Baltimore then managed to pass Diplan through waivers unclaimed the following month, allowing the Orioles to keep him as a non-40-man player.

Despite that journeyman trajectory, Diplan thrived out of the bullpen in Triple-A Norfolk to begin the season — so much so that he was a surprise participant in this summer’s Futures Game. Diplan himself said he was caught off-guard by his selection but very appreciative of the opportunity (link via MASNsports.com’s Roch Kubatko). At the time, he’d pitched to a 2.60 ERA with a 28.6 percent strikeout rate and a 7.8 percent walk rate. He’s yielded four runs in 2 1/3 innings since the Futures Game, but it’s nevertheless been a strong year for Diplan, and he’ll now be rewarded with his first trip to the big leagues more than eight years after he initially signed with the Rangers as a teenager out of the Dominican Republic.

Similarly, it’s been a grind for Knight to reach this point. The 30-year-old righty worked through seven minor league seasons prior to the 2021 campaign, and he also spent time pitching in Mexico and in the independent Atlantic League. He’s pitched in 272 professional games since being selected by the Giants in the 28th round of the 2013 draft, but he’ll now be able to call himself a big leaguer once Baltimore formally adds him to the MLB club later today.

Minor MLB Transactions: 1/9/20

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The latest minor league moves from around baseball….

  • The Reds signed southpaw Brooks Raley to a minor league deal with a Spring Training invitation, Bobby Nightengale of the Cincinnati Enquirer reports (via Twitter).  After posting a 7.04 ERA over 38 1/3 innings for the Cubs in 2012-13 and then spending 2014 back in the minors, Raley headed for the Lotte Giants of the KBO League.  Raley posted a 4.13 ERA, 2.79 K/BB rate, and 7.5 K/9 over 910 2/3 innings in Korea, starting all but one of his 152 outings.  If the 31-year-old Raley can carry over some measure of that form from the KBO League, he’ll provide the Reds with some veteran rotation depth at the Triple-A level, putting him in line for another crack at the majors in the event of an injury to Cincinnati’s starting five.
  • The Orioles have outrighted right-hander Marcos Diplan to Triple-A Norfolk, the team announced.  Diplan cleared waivers after being designated for assignment last week to create roster space for the newly-signed Kohl Stewart.  Diplan has a 3.88 ERA, 9.1 K/9, and 1.85 K/BB rate over 540 2/3 career minor league innings, working mostly as a reliever (starting seven of 38 total appearances) in 2019, pitching for the Double-A affiliates of the Twins and Brewers.  It has been a busy transactional stretch for Diplan, who was claimed off Minnesota’s waiver wire by the Tigers in September, and then claimed again by the Orioles in December.

Orioles Sign Kohl Stewart, DFA Marcos Diplan

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The Orioles announced the signing of former Twins’ right-hander Kohl Stewart. Fellow right-hander Marcos Diplan has been designated for assignment to clear 40-man space. Stewart’s deal is a split contract which will pay him $800K if he stays in the majors, reports Roch Kubatko of MASN (via Twitter). While Stewart was used primarily as a reliever/opener with the Twins, he’ll be in line to compete for a permanent spot in Baltimore’s rotation, hears Joe Trezza of MLB.com (via Twitter).

Stewart, 25, is best known as being the fourth overall pick by Minnesota out of a Texas high school in 2013. The former two-sport athlete was named Baseball America’s #52 overall prospect after that season, although he never realized his lofty upside with his original organization. In fairness to Stewart, injuries could have played a part in that, as he went on the injured list eight times as a prospect. He has been healthy the last two years, though, and he made the majors in 2018.

In 62 MLB innings over the last two seasons, Stewart has compiled only a 4.79 ERA. More importantly, his 12.7% strikeout rate and 7.4% swinging strike rate are both well below average. Coupled with a relatively lofty 9.7% walk rate, that convinced the Twins to bump Stewart from their roster last month.

That said, there’s plenty of reason for the rebuilding Orioles to take a look. Stewart has two option years, so the organizaton can shuttle him back-and-forth between Baltimore and Triple-A Norfolk for the next couple seasons. He also comes with six years of team control and just turned 25, so there’s plenty of time for him to emerge as a long-term success.

It’s not hard to see the appeal for Stewart, either. Calling Camden Yards home and facing the high-powered AL East may not be ideal, but it’s not hard to see a path toward a rotation spot. As Trezza notes, Stewart’s internal competition includes Asher Wojciechowski, prospect Keegan Akin, and Rule V selections Brandon Bailey and Michael Rucker. There are things to like about each, of course, but it’s a quartet light on MLB experience and track record.

Diplan, 23, has yet to make the majors but obviously holds some leaguewide appeal. He’s been acquired by five different organizations, four in the last six months. He made his mark as a Brewer farmhand but logged eight minor-league games in the Minnesota organization after being acquired in a minor trade. He’s been claimed (and subsequently waived) this offseason by the Tigers and Orioles, the teams with the top two waiver priorities. It wouldn’t be a surprise to see some other club further down the waiver order take a chance on him, too, even if in hopes of passing him through waivers themselves. Diplan has flashed strikeout stuff in the minors but that has too often come with a high volume of walks.

Waiver Claims: Kinley, Rodriguez, Diplan

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A spate of waiver claims have hit the wire this afternoon …

  • The Rockies claimed righty Tyler Kinley from the Marlins. Righty Joe Harvey was designated for assignment to create 40-man space in Colorado. Kinley, a 28-year-old righty, carried an ugly 46:36 K/BB ratio in 49 1/3 MLB frames last year. But he also managed a 3.65 ERA on the year, generated a 12.9% swinging strike rate, and carried a mid-nineties heater. He was a Rule 5 pick by the Twins in 2018, so it’s clear that multiple clubs are intrigued by his raw potential. He has a pair of minor league options remaining, so he’s a sensible and affordable depth option for the Rockies, who opened the season by proclaiming a lack of payroll flexibility.
  • The Brewers announced that they claimed infielder Ronny Rodriguez from the Tigers. The 27-year-old has struggled in two seasons with the Detroit organization, showing some power and defensive versatility but demonstrating some of the worst on-base skills in the league. Through an even 500 plate appearances at the MLB level, Rodriguez is a .221/.254/.396 batting line. He still has multiple option years remaining, so he can be shuttled between Triple-A and the Majors in both 2020 and 2021.
  • Also departing the Tigers is right-hander Marcos Diplan, who was claimed by the Orioles, per a team announcement. He appeared in 38 games between the Double-A affiliates for the Twins and Brewers, totaling 68 2/3 innings of 4.85 ERA ball with 9.6 K/9 against 5.8 BB/9. Diplan was ranked among the Brewers’ 10 to 20 best prospects back in 2017 but has seen his stock dip in recent seasons as he’s begun to bounce around the waiver circuit. Notably, Diplan was has now been claimed by the Tigers and Orioles this winter — the teams with the No. 1 and No. 2 waiver priorities. He has a minor league option remaining.

Tigers Claim Marcos Diplan

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The Tigers announced Monday that they’ve claimed right-hander Marcos Diplan off waivers from the Twins. In order to make room on the 40-man roster, Detroit placed left-handed reliever Daniel Stumpf on the 60-day injured list due to a left elbow strain.

Minnesota picked up Diplan in a minor July swap with the Brewers, sending cash to Milwaukee after Diplan had been designated for assignment. The 22-year-old righty never pitched in a big league game with the Twins before being designated for assignment himself this past weekend when Minnesota added hard-throwing prospect Jorge Alcala to its MLB roster.

Diplan, in fact, has never pitched at the big league level or even progressed beyond Double-A. He appeared in 38 games between the Double-A affiliates for the Twins and Brewers, totaling 68 2/3 innings of 4.85 ERA ball with 9.6 K/9 against 5.8 BB/9. Diplan was ranked among the Brewers’ 10 to 20 best prospects back in 2017 but has seen his stock dip in recent seasons. As Fangraphs’ Eric Longenhagen wrote back in ’17, he has an above-average fastball that runs up to 95 mph and a pair of inconsistent but at-times above-average secondary pitches in his changeup and slider.

Control has clearly been an ongoing issue for Diplan, who has averaged nearly five walks per nine innings pitched in his professional career. He has a minor league option remaining beyond the current season, however, and given the total lack of certainty in the Detroit bullpen, there’ll be ample opportunities for him in 2020 if he sticks on the 40-man roster over the course of the offseason.

Twins DFA Marcos Diplan, Select Jorge Alcala

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The Minnesota Twins designated Marcos Diplan for assignment, per MLB.com’s Do-Hyoung Park (via Twitter). Diplan’s designation paves the way for Jorge Alcala to join the big league club at Progressive Field for today’s doubleheader against the Indians. Alcala was not on the 40-man roster prior to today’s call-up.

Alcala, 24, came to the Twins from Houston as part of the Ryan Pressly trade. He is their 23rd ranked prospect, per MLB.com. Baseball America put him at #19 in their midseason report, while Fangraphs was less bullish, ranking him 26th at the outset of the season with a future value score of 40. The 6’3″ right-hander began the year in Double-A, where he made 16 starts and 26 total appearances for a 5.87 ERA and 2.84 K:BB. While those numbers won’t make you jump out of your seat, he did throw 7 2/3 scoreless innings in relief since a promotion to Triple-A.

Diplan, 22, was acquired from the Brewers at the trade deadline. He made 8 appearances for Double-A Pensacola since his acquisition with a 4.09 ERA in 11 innings.

The team also announced Devin Smeltzer as the starter for game one of today’s twin bill. Smeltzer is 1-2 with a 4.05 ERA/4.96 FIP across 40 innings (4 starts) on the year. The Twins acquired Smeltzer from the Dodgers at last year’s deadline as part of the Brian Dozier deal.

Twins Acquire Marcos Diplan From Brewers

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The Twins have acquired right-handed pitching prospect Marcos Diplan from the Brewers for cash considerations, Robert Murray of The Athletic reports. The Brewers designated Diplan for assignment earlier this week.

The 22-year-old Diplan ranked as FanGraphs’ 18th-best Brewers prospect as recently as the offseason, but that wasn’t enough to keep him in the organization after he struggled to start the 2019 campaign. He has made 30 appearances (five starts) at the Double-A level this season and pitched to a 4.99 ERA/4.41 FIP with 9.83 K/9 and 5.77 BB/9 in 57 2/3 innings.

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