Padres Notes: Hosmer, Myers, Suzuki, Cruz, Montesino
Eric Hosmer and Wil Myers have been regulars in trade rumors for months, and that status hasn’t changed now that the lockout is over. The Padres have been “aggressively shopping” both players in trade talks, according to MLB.com’s Mark Feinsand, in an effort to clear some salary and roster space, plus create some more flexibility under the competitive balance tax.
Even with the tax threshold rising to $230MM this season, the Padres are already projected for a luxury tax number just shy of $218MM (as per Roster Resource). Since the Padres did exceed the CBT last season, they’d have to pay the larger “two-timer” penalty for crossing the threshold in consecutive years, so all things considered, the club would surely prefer to avoid a second tax overage if at all possible.
Getting either Hosmer or Myers off the books would help greatly in this regard. Since a player’s tax number is determined by the average annual value over the life of his contract, Hosmer’s tax number is $18MM per season and Myers is $13.83MM, though both players are set to earn more in actual dollars. Myers is owed $20MM in 2022 and there is a $20MM club option on his services for 2023 with a $1MM buyout, while Hosmer is owed a total of $59MM over the 2022-25 seasons.
These pricey contracts also don’t hold a ton of appeal to other teams, which is why San Diego has explored any number of scenarios to try and swing a deal. The Padres have looked to try and attach a prospect (Luis Campusano and Robert Hassell were mentioned) to Hosmer in talks with the Rangers and Cubs last summer, as some kind of sweetener is likely necessary to move the first baseman. Beyond the $59MM, Hosmer has also posted essentially replacement-level production (0.6 fWAR) since the start of the 2018 season. Myers has been similarly inconsistent over that same timeframe but his 5.5 fWAR has clearly marked him as the more productive of the two. If Myers may be the easier trade candidate, however, the Padres’ needs in the outfield would only be increased if Myers was suddenly no longer around.
This isn’t to say that San Diego isn’t already eyeing replacements. As Kevin Acee of The San Diego Union-Tribune puts it via Twitter, the Padres’ “Plan A” would seem to be a scenario where the club signs Seiya Suzuki and Nelson Cruz, while moving one of Hosmer or Myers. Several other teams have been linked to both Suzuki and Cruz, though in Cruz’s case, recent reports have indicated the Padres could be a finalist for the veteran slugger. Even with one of Hosmer or Myers dealt, plans to add two prominent free agent bats could seem to indicate that the Friars are willing to spend at least in the range of that $230MM tax threshold.
In other team news, first base/outfield prospect Daniel Montesino will miss the 2021 season due to Tommy John surgery, Jeff Sanders of The San Diego Union-Tribune reports. Montesino signed for a $1MM bonus during the 2020-21 international signing period, and posted a big .934 OPS over 243 plate appearances for the Padres’ Dominican Summer League squad last year. MLB Pipeline (24th) and Baseball America (29th) each listed Montesino within their rankings of San Diego’s top 30 prospects.
Padres Among Teams Interested In Matt Olson
Whenever transactions are again permitted to take place, A’s first baseman Matt Olson is among the most prominent names who’ll be discussed on the trade market. The 2021 All-Star and two-time Gold Glover has already been linked to the Yankees, Rangers and Braves, among others, and Dennis Lin of The Athletic suggests in his latest mailbag column that the Padres figure to be “in the mix” on Olson as well. President of baseball operations A.J. Preller has already at least touched base with the Oakland front office as part of a broader sweep of exploratory trade talks throughout the league, per Lin.
Interest notwithstanding, the Padres seem like a long shot to actually pull off a deal involving Olson for myriad reasons. San Diego already has Eric Hosmer installed at first base and signed for another four seasons at a total of $59MM. The Friars have reportedly pursued various trade scenarios involving Hosmer in an attempt to create payroll flexibility and reduce their luxury-tax ledger, but those efforts have unsurprisingly come up short.
Hosmer’s eight-year, $144MM deal with the Padres was widely panned from the start, and the first baseman’s tepid .264/.323/.415 batting line (99 wRC+) since signing hasn’t made the final four years of the contract any more appealing (though it should be noted that the contract is frontloaded, with Hosmer earning $20MM in 2022 and $13MM annually from 2023-25).
The universal designated hitter is viewed as something of a foregone conclusion by now, so one can imagine a scenario where Hosmer spends more time at DH and Olson plays first base. However, that’d still move the Padres’ payroll north by a good margin. Olson is projected by MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz to earn $12MM in 2022 before commanding one more raise in his final arbitration season in 2023. San Diego already has about $199MM on the books for the 2022 season, per Roster Resource’s Jason Martinez, in addition to about $215MM worth of luxury-tax obligations. The Padres narrowly exceeded the luxury tax in 2021, but it’s unclear whether they’d be willing to do so again in 2022 — particularly if it’s by a larger margin. Lin notes that owner Peter Seidler has “steadfastly declined” to discuss payroll and luxury tax to this point.
That $215MM figure is a substantial factor in the Padres’ reported efforts to move Hosmer and/or right fielder Wil Myers (who’s owed $21MM in the final season of a six-year, $83MM extension himself). Perhaps if the Padres could find a way to shed one or both salaries, the subsequent luxury breathing room could then be make a potential Olson acquisition more feasible. That, however, would require time to be on the Padres’ side — which is not the case. Post-lockout transactions are expected to be frenetic, and it doesn’t figure to be easy for Preller & Co. to find a trade involving Hosmer or Myers. The San Diego front office has been investigating trades involving the pair for at least the past year, after all — and longer than that with regard to Myers. If an Olson acquisition is predicated on moving Hosmer and/or Myers, it’s hard to imagine there’d be time to complete that deal then circle back to the A’s.
Some might suggest that the Padres simply try to send Hosmer back to Oakland as part of a deal, offering better prospects in return to push a deal across the finish line. That scenario appears decidedly unlikely, though. The cost on Olson figures to be sky-high in the first place, and the driving factor behind Oakland’s ostensibly looming sell-off is a desire to pare payroll. Taking on Hosmer’s deal runs counter to that. Lin speculates that the Padres could try to engineer a three-team swap that places Hosmer with a third team and Olson in San Diego, but that’s obviously an even more ambitious undertaking than simply finding a taker for Olson in a more straightforward two-team deal.
One wild card in all of this is the uncertainty surrounding the status of the luxury tax/competitive balance tax itself. The tax thresholds are a key talking point in collective bargaining talks between the league and the Players Association. The MLBPA is seeking major increases to the tax thresholds, beginning with a jump all the way to $245MM this coming season and cresting with a $273MM threshold in 2026. The league, meanwhile, has only been willing to offer far more marginal increases: $214MM in 2022-23 and incremental increases up to $222MM in 2026. MLB is also seeking to greatly increase the penalties for crossing the threshold, which the MLBPA considers a nonstarter.
[Related: Latest Collective Bargaining Positions For MLB, MLBPA]
It’s possible that whatever middle ground is reached will come with enough of an uptick in the first threshold that the Padres could technically squeeze Olson into the fray without needing to pay the tax. However, the Padres are also facing needs elsewhere on the roster — namely in one corner outfield spot. If the hope is to add an outfielder and/or deepen the pitching staff or bench at all, then San Diego would be looking at shoehorning more than just Olson’s salary into the puzzle.
All of that is based on a theoretical stance that Padres ownership is deterred by the luxury tax alone, but we can’t know that for certain. Last year’s bottom-line payroll of nearly $174MM shattered the former franchise-record payroll by more than $60MM. The current $199MM projection further trounces that number, and adding Olson and any others to the mix would bring the Padres well north of $200MM in actual 2022 salaries (and quite a bit higher in terms of AAV-based luxury calculations). It would require an unprecedented level of spending for the Padres, and we can’t know at what point ownership will simply be uncomfortable with further expenditures. It’s possible they’ve already reached that juncture.
To sum up a bit, there’s good reason to expect the Padres will indeed try to make something happen on the Olson front. Preller has shown time and again that he’ll always explore creative options when marquee talents are available. San Diego hired manager Bob Melvin away from the A’s earlier this offseason, and Melvin would surely love to have his former franchise first baseman follow him down I-5. If the Padres were to somehow move Hosmer, they’d have an opening at first base. It all makes sense on paper, and various permutations of Olson-to-San Diego deals or three-team blockbusters involving Olson, Hosmer, Myers and top prospects make for fun hypotheticals with Major League transactions approaching a three-month standstill.
At the end of the day, however, there are so many moving parts involved even in these theoretical exercises that it’s hard to see the Padres finding a way to make the pieces work. Still, even a tangential Padres involvement in the Olson market is of some note. Their lurking presence could carry implications on the asking price Oakland can put forth to other clubs, and if trade talks with other suitors drag on long enough post-lockout, it’d only give the Padres more time to pull off their latest trade-market stunner.
Padres Activate Wil Myers, Option Brian O’Grady To Triple-A
The Padres activated Wil Myers from the injured list today. He is in the lineup playing right field. Brian O’Grady, meanwhile, was optioned to Triple-A, while Keone Kela was moved to the 60-day injured list, per the team.
Myers has been out of action since May 11th. The multi-positional righty was off to a solid start at the plate, slashing .255/.342/.415 with four home runs in 120 plate appearances. Myers, the longest-tenured Padre, has taken a backseat to more prominent players in recent years, but he remains a key piece of the lineup. He has settled in as their everyday right fielder after years of shifting around the diamond. His 154 wRC+ in 2020 was easily the highest such mark of his career.
O’Grady has been part of the solution in right field during Myers’ absence, along with Jurickson Profar, Jorge Mateo, and Patrick Kivlehan. But O’Grady saw the most time, starting five games versus five starts for the other three players combined. The 29-year-old hit just .100/.268/.150, however, across 27 plate appearances. The most action he has seen in a Major League season is 48 plate appearances with the Reds back in 2019.
Fernando Tatis Jr., Wil Myers Test Positive For Covid-19
May 12: Wil Myers, who actually started last night’s game, exited after three innings when the team learned of a positive Covid-19 test, manager Jayce Tingler revealed after the game (link via AJ Cassavell of MLB.com. Eric Hosmer, meanwhile, departed for contact-tracing purposes and has been placed on the injured list as a result. The league’s health-and-safety protocols stipulate that a player who tests positive will be away from the team for at least 10 days.
The Padres selected outfielder Patrick Kivlehan to take Myers’ roster spot. Kivlehan, whom the Padres signed to a minor league deal over the winter, has hit .208/.302/.401 with 10 home runs in 242 PA in the bigs.
May 11, 4:34pm: Tatis tested positive for COVID-19 and is asymptomatic, Dennis Lin of The Athletic tweets. Profar and Mateo are in contact tracing. To fill their open roster spots, the Padres selected the contract of outfielder John Andreoli and recalled a pair of players – infielder/outfielder Tucupita Marcano and righty Nabil Crismatt – per a club announcement.
3:34pm: The Padres announced that they have placed shortstop Fernando Tatis Jr. and utilitymen Jurickson Profar and Jorge Mateo on the injured list because of Major League Baseball’s health and safety protocols. They’ll decide on corresponding moves before their game against the Rockies on Tuesday.
As is typically the case in COVID-related situations, there isn’t any word on how much time any of these players will miss. Regardless, it’s a blow to the Padres’ offensive depth. Tatis has gotten off to an effective start, albeit with much less on-base ability than he flashed in his first two seasons, having batted .240/.315/.552 with nine home runs and seven stolen bases in 108 plate appearances. Profar owns a far less imposing .234/.333/.308 line with a home run and five steals over 128 PA, though he has shown off defensive versatility by lining up at first base, second base and both corner outfield spots. And Mateo has hit a useful .250/.325/.417 through his first 40 trips to the plate this year.
This is the second time this year the Padres will have to go some time without Tatis, who was on the 10-day IL for part of April on account of a shoulder injury. They used Jake Cronenworth and Ha-Seong Kim at short in Tatis’ absence then. Profar, meanwhile, has been the Padres’ primary starter in left field, but Tommy Pham hasn’t been far behind. He figures to get the lion’s share of action there with Profar out.
NL Injury Notes: Braves, Myers, Betances, Cain
The Braves don’t have a timetable yet for injured right-handers Mike Soroka and Chris Martin to return, per David O’Brien of The Athletic. Soroka missed almost all of last season with a torn right Achilles, and as he was working his way back, the Braves had to shut him down because of shoulder inflammation. Martin went on the IL with the same issue on April 10 (retroactive to April 7). Between their injuries and Max Fried‘s placement on the IL because of a hamstring strain, the Braves are without three of their most important pitchers.
- Padres right fielder Wil Myers left their game Tuesday with right knee inflammation and was not in their starting lineup Wednesday. Myers has been dealing with patellar tenonitis, but it’s not believed he’ll miss much time or require surgery, according to Kevin Acee of the San Diego Union-Tribune. Even though Myers has had to play through discomfort, it hasn’t had an obvious effect on his production. On the heels of a massive rebound in 2020, he has begun this year with a torrid .341/.438/.659 line and three home runs in 48 plate appearances.
- Mets reliever Dellin Betances, on the 10-day IL since April 8 with a right shoulder impingement, is still a ways from returning. Betances hasn’t begun throwing, and he won’t travel with the Mets for their April 16-22 road trip, Anthony DiComo of MLB.com reports. Injuries have been a constant problem over the past few years for Betances, a four-time All-Star who has thrown only 13 1/3 innings dating back to his final season with the Yankees in 2019. The Mets had high hopes for a Betances bounce-back effort when they signed him to a $10.5MM guarantee during the ensuing winter, but he yielded 10 earned runs in 11 2/3 innings in 2020. So far this year, Betances has made one appearance and thrown one inning, in which he allowed an earned run and a walk.
- The Brewers have placed center fielder Lorenzo Cain on the 10-day IL with a strained left quad and recalled outfielder Tyrone Taylor, the team announced. There’s no word on how much time Cain will miss, but he strained his other quad during the spring and was limited to seven exhibition games as a result. The 35-year-old has gotten off to a slow start this season with a .154/.214/.423 line in 28 plate appearances.
NL Notes: Willis, Syndergaard, Myers
The Dodgers have hired Dontrelle Willis as a special assistant in the player development department. Willis made the announcement himself via Twitter, joking “Special assistant sounds dope even tho i don’t know what it means.” A veteran of nine MLB seasons, the D-Train is best remembered for his time with the Marlins from 2003-07, a stint that included NL Rookie Of The Year honors in 2003, a second-place finish NL Cy Young voting in 2005, two All-Star appearances, and a World Series ring with the Marlins’ 2003 championship team.
Still only 39 years old, Willis’ last MLB game was in 2011, though he kept pitching in the minors and in independent ball until 2015. He has since worked as a TV broadcaster since retiring, and Willis will now move into a front office role alongside a former teammate from the 2010 Tigers — Will Rhymes is entering his third season as the Dodgers’ director of player development.
More from around the National League as we head into March…
- Noah Syndergaard is making good progress in his recovery from Tommy John surgery, Mets manager Luis Rojas and pitching coach Jeremy Hefner told reporters (including Deesha Thosar of the New York Daily News). The right-hander’s latest rehab step was throwing three sliders on Saturday, and Syndergaard has otherwise been participating in most normal workouts and baseball activities. This doesn’t mean his timeline has been pushed up, however, as Syndergaard’s target date for a return is still sometime in June, more than 14 months after his TJ procedure. Hefner sees the extended recovery time as a plus, describing the usual 14-15 month process as “good for the player, for their long-term success…making sure that you’re really locked in before the lights turn on and intensity goes up.”
- “It was fun to sit back on a team and I wasn’t in a trade rumor,” Wil Myers told Kevin Acee of the San Diego Union-Tribune. “It was cool to watch these trades unfold and they became my new teammates instead of guys I was traded for.” Myers been a constant on MLBTR’s pages over the years, thanks to two past trades and a number of other rumors, particularly last season when the Padres reportedly explored several deals to get Myers (and his contract) off the books in the wake of his lackluster 2019 season. In 2020, however, Myers rebounded to hit .288/.353/.606 with 15 homers in 218 plate appearances — the best overall season of his career in terms of pure production, with the caveat that it came during an abbreviated season. Myers still has $41MM in guaranteed money remaining on his deal through the 2022 season, though that contract no longer looks quite as onerous as it once did, given both Myers’ production and the Padres’ willingness to spend big in pursuit of a title. “To sit back and know what this organization has been through, what I’ve been through, it’s really cool to sit here and see where we are in 2021,” Myers said.
NL West Notes: Taylor, Padres, Myers, Giants, Luciano
The Dodgers may not have a key player available for today’s Game 6 against the Braves, as Chris Taylor suffered an ankle injury in last night’s game. Taylor suffered the injury while chasing down a Freddie Freeman double in the eighth inning of Game 5, and Taylor managed to finish the inning before being lifted for a pinch-hitter in the ninth. Manager Dave Roberts told reporters that Taylor would undergo tests to determine the severity of the problem.
It hasn’t been a great postseason for Taylor, who has hit only .161/.257/.226 over 35 plate appearances during Los Angeles’ playoff run. Still, Taylor’s regular-season performance and his versatility (he has been used as a second baseman and left fielder this October) make him a valuable roster asset, and it’s not like Taylor hasn’t had success in the playoffs — he was the 2017 NLCS MVP. If Taylor can’t play in Game 6, the Dodgers could turn to Max Muncy or Enrique Hernandez to play second base. The Dodgers would also be reduced to a three-man bench, as they used 15 of their 28 roster spots for the NLCS on pitchers. [UPDATE: Taylor isn’t in the Game 6 lineup, but Roberts told Mike DiGiovanna of the Los Angeles Times and other reporters that Taylor is available off the bench and is “moving around much better today. It’s better than he expected.”]
More from around the NL West…
- Several Padres-related topics are addressed by The Athletic’s Dennis Lin as part of a reader mailbag piece, with a particular focus on San Diego’s offseason plans. Lin doesn’t think the Padres will make a play for Trevor Bauer this winter, and re-signing Jurickson Profar could be difficult since his asking price may be beyond the Friars’ comfort zone. “The team isn’t interested in paying handsomely for a secondary option,” Lin writes, though Profar ended up being essentially an everyday player in 2020.
- Of course, more regular playing time could emerge for a player like Profar if the Padres were to trade Wil Myers. Lin figures San Diego will again look into trades for Myers, whose once-negligible trade value has been boosted by an outstanding 2020 season (.288/.353/.606 with 15 homers in 218 PA). The $41MM that Myers is owed through the 2022 season may still make a trade hard to complete, though naturally the Padres wouldn’t mind keeping Myers if he keeps producing as he did this year. At the outskirts of the Padres’ roster, Lin thinks Francisco Mejia, Joey Lucchesi and Trey Wingenter could also be trade candidates.
- In a Giants mailbag, Henry Schulman of the San Francisco Chronicle believes shortstop Marco Luciano is the Giants’ only truly “untouchable” prospect in trade talks. This doesn’t mean that other highly-touted youngsters like Joey Bart or Heliot Ramos are anywhere near being available, but rather that San Francisco perceives Luciano as “the main driver for a winning era.” Luciano emerged as a favorite of top-100 prospect lists (ranked 14th by Fangraphs, 17th by Baseball America, 29th by MLB.com) after a big breakout in last year’s Arizona Fall League, though the 19-year-old has only one official year of pro ball under his belt. It remains to be seen if he’ll stay at shortstop or move to third base or the outfield in the future, but the 19-year-old Luciano’s batting potential has already drawn raves.
Latest On Dinelson Lamet, Wil Myers
TODAY: Myers is in the Padres’ lineup today, batting cleanup and playing right field. Myers sat out Saturday’s game due to some quad tightness but the injury was apparently minor.
SEPTEMBER 26, 4:47 pm: Lamet is playing catch today and will throw a bullpen session in the next few days, reports AJ Cassavell of MLB.com (Twitter link). The club did not find an MRI to be necessary, notes Dennis Lin of the Athletic. San Diego hopes he’ll be able to start the first game of the Wild Card round.
SEPTEMBER 26, 8:18 am: Lamet complained of biceps tightness, manager Jayce Tingler told reporters (including Kevin Acee of the San Diego Union-Tribune) postgame. At this point, the organization anticipates him being able to start in next week’s Wild Card round, Tingler adds.
SEPTEMBER 25: Padres right-hander Dinelson Lamet and outfielder Wil Myers left the team’s game against the Giants on Friday for undisclosed reasons, Dennis Lin of The Athletic tweets.
Lamet’s the second key Padres starter who may have suffered a key injury in the past few days, joining fellow righty Mike Clevinger. The Padres seem likely to go without Clevinger for at least the first round of the playoffs because of a sprained elbow. Therefore, they can ill afford to lose Lamet, who has been a Cy Young-level starter this season. The 28-year-old entered Friday with a 2.07 ERA/2.51 FIP across 65 1/3 innings.
While Lamet has been one of the Padres’ best pitchers, Myers has emerged as one of their top hitters. After three straight disappointing seasons, Myers has rebounded in a big way with a .285/.352/.591 slash and 14 home runs in 213 plate appearances this year. He, like Lamet, is among the reasons the Padres broke a 13-year playoff drought this season. But now it seems the Padres are in danger of entering the postseason without Lamet, Myers and Clevinger, so they won’t be at full strength when the playoffs commence.
Padres Place Wil Myers, Emilio Pagan On Injured List
The Padres have announced a series of roster moves, including IL placements for outfielder Wil Myers and reliever Emilio Pagan. They also optioned David Bednar and Taylor Williams to their alternate site, and added new acquisitions Mike Clevinger, Greg Allen and Dan Altavilla to their 28-man roster.
The Padres didn’t provide a reason for placing Myers on the IL. Regardless, the 22-15 club can only hope he’ll return as quickly as possible. Myers performed poorly for the Padres over the previous three seasons, but he has rebounded this year to become an integral part of the franchise’s resurgence. The 29-year-old has slashed a marvelous .293/.365/.602 with nine home runs and 1.4 fWAR in 137 plate appearances, making him one of the NL’s best players in 2020. Myers has also played almost every one of the Padres’ games in right field. The only other players who have seen action there, Edward Olivares and Josh Naylor, departed during the team’s pre-deadline flurry of trades. The Padres are now left with Allen, Jurickson Profar, Jorge Mateo and Abraham Almonte as the healthy outfield options in their 60-man player pool alongside budding star center fielder Trent Grisham.
Pagan, meanwhile, is dealing with right biceps inflammation. There’s no word on how much time he’ll miss, but the issue continues what has been a rough season for a reliever who was a lights-out option for Rays last season. In his first season with the Padres, who swung a trade for him last winter, Pagan has managed a 5.40 ERA/5.81 FIP with 7.8 K/9 and 5.4 BB/9 in 15 innings. Owing in part to the Pagan acquisition, the team had designs on a dominant bullpen in 2020, but the unit has put up a disappointing 5.01 ERA thus far. The Padres did acquire Altavilla and Trevor Rosenthal before the deadline, though, and they reinstated Drew Pomeranz from the IL shortly before then. The hope is their relief corps will turn things around down the stretch, though they’ll have to do it without Pagan for the time being.
Quick Hits: Trade Deadline, Boras, Lynn, Smith, Padres, Burger
There’s no doubt the 2020 trade deadline will be the most unusual in baseball history, and The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal (subscription required) looks at some of the many unique aspects of the lead-up to August 31. Everything about how teams evaluate their own rosters, decide on being buyers or sellers, scout other teams’ talent, and potentially spend to acquire that talent will be in flux, plus there are some factors unique to the threat of COVID-19.
For instance, there might have to be some back-channel negotiations with trade candidates to ensure that a player wouldn’t opt out of the season rather than be dealt to an undesirable location. Just the idea of changing locations whatsoever also carries issues, as Rosenthal notes that intake testing could delay a new acquisition’s arrival to his new team by a few days (no small amount of time in a shortened season), and there is inherent risk in travel and in introducing the health x-factor of an unfamiliar player into a new clubhouse.
In regards to the latter concern, agent Scott Boras contacted Rosenthal with the following message (Twitter link): “So that deadline deals are not impacted by COVID, I am letting all owners know if any of our players are traded and asked to leave their existing teams’ protocols, we have arranged a private jet protocol to allow players to be safely transported (between clubs).”
More from around the baseball world…
- Rosenthal’s piece also notes that the Rangers have been getting trade interest in Lance Lynn, though a move doesn’t seem likely with Texas battling for a playoff spot. Lynn theoretically would be a good trade candidate if the Rangers were to fall out of the race, as the veteran is under contract for $8MM in 2021 and has been one of the sport’s best pitchers this season. After yesterday’s complete-game victory over the Rockies, Lynn has a sparkling 1.11 ERA, 3.00 K/BB rate, and 11.0 K/9 over a league-best 32 1/3 innings.
- Athletics reliever Burch Smith suffered a right forearm strain during Saturday’s game with the Giants. (Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle was among those to report the news.) The hurler will undergo an MRI on Monday and an injured list placement seems inevitable, though the A’s are hopeful that the injury isn’t structural in nature. Smith allowed three runs in 1 2/3 innings of work tonight, boosting his ERA to 2.25 after he delivered scoreless work over his previous 10 1/3 frames for Oakland. Smith was dealt from the Giants to the A’s back in February.
- Tommy Pham and Wil Myers both made early exits from the Padres‘ game with the Diamondbacks tonight. Pham left during the second inning due to cramping in both calves, while Myers left in the fifth inning due to lower back tightness.
- White Sox prospect Jake Burger is now represented by The Bledsoe Agency, MLB Network’s Jon Heyman reports (Twitter link). Picked 11th overall in the 2017 draft, Burger’s young career has been waylaid with injuries, as two torn Achilles tendons and a severe heel bruise have kept him off the field since 2017. Burger’s switch has been noted in MLB Trade Rumors’ updated Agency Database.