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Dodgers Select Andrew Heaney

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The Dodgers added a multi-inning arm to the pitching staff, selecting veteran lefty Andrew Heaney onto the major league roster. Righty Will Klein was optioned after he threw 30 pitches last night, which presumably took him out of the mix for the final two games of the regular season. The Dodgers opened a 40-man roster spot by recalling righty Nick Frasso and placing him on the major league 60-day injured list. Frasso’s injury is unknown; he’ll collect a little over $8K and pick up his first two days of service time for a weekend on the MLB roster.

Heaney signed a minor league deal with the Dodgers a couple days after he was released by the Pirates. They got that across the finish line just before the noon Eastern deadline on September 1 for players to be eligible for postseason play. Heaney would be available for L.A. in October, though it’s likelier they’re bringing him up to eat some low-leverage innings against the Mariners tonight or tomorrow.

The Dodgers are already locked into the #3 seed in the National League. They’ll host the Mets or Reds in a Wild Card Series that begins on Tuesday. The final two regular season games are irrelevant for playoff seeding. (Seattle is guaranteed to be the #2 seed in the American League, so this doesn’t mean much to them either.) The focus is on arranging their pitching staff to be in the best shape possible for next week.

They limited Emmet Sheehan to one inning in last night’s start. Sheehan will move to the bullpen in the postseason and could be the best right-hander in a spotty relief corps. Tyler Glasnow starts tonight. He’s their presumed Game 3 starter behind Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Blake Snell. Glasnow would be on regular rest for that contest, which would be played on Thursday if they split the first two of that three-game set. Still, it wouldn’t be a surprise if they lift Glasnow after an abbreviated start tonight to make sure he’s fresh for that outing. Clayton Kershaw is listed as tomorrow’s starter. He might be in the playoff bullpen, so that appearance may last only an inning or two as well.

Heaney logged 120 1/3 innings over 26 appearances (23 starts) with Pittsburgh. He posted a 2.50 ERA through the end of April but saw his numbers regress with each month. Heaney allowed at least 4.74 earned runs per nine in each of the following four months. That included 15 earned across 13 1/3 frames in August that led Pittsburgh to move on. He was much better with Triple-A Oklahoma City after signing with the Dodgers. The 34-year-old tossed 10 innings of one-run ball with 13 strikeouts and two walks.

Dodgers Place Michael Kopech On 15-Day Injured List

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The Dodgers announced that right-hander Michael Kopech has been placed on the 15-day injured list due to inflammation in his right knee.  Righty Will Klein was called up from Triple-A in the corresponding move.

Klein’s locker in the clubhouse was noted by several L.A. beat writers earlier today, leading to speculation that Kopech was going to be sidelined since manager Dave Roberts said yesterday that Kopech was playing at less than 100 percent.  Kopech addressed his situation with MLB.com’s Sonja Chen and other reporters, noting that his command was being impacted by “a couple different things right now” and not just his knee soreness.

The reliever also noted that he has had difficulty performing given the stop-and-start nature of his injury-plagued season.  Kopech has tossed only 11 innings in 2025 due to a pair of stints on the 60-day injured list — one due to a shoulder impingement, and another due to a prior bout of knee inflammation.  While the righty has a 2.45 ERA over his 11 frames, Kopech is clearly not himself, issuing 13 walks against 12 strikeouts.

Given the timing of the IL placement, Kopech’s regular season is now officially over, and his availability for both a first-round playoff series (and the playoffs in general) now seems in question.  Roberts hopes that resting Kopech now will get him healthy for the postseason, and described Kopech as “pitchable” right now, but the Dodgers felt it was wiser to give the right-hander some time off now with a playoff berth already clinched.

Even if Kopech is fully healthy, it is anyone’s guess as to how he might pitch in October.  As much as the Dodgers might be tempted to go with another arm for their playoff roster, it was just a year ago that Kopech was one of the key figures in the team’s World Series run.  After Kopech was acquired from the White Sox at the trade deadline, he posted a 1.13 ERA over 24 regular-season innings for Los Angeles, and then posted a 3.00 across 10 playoff innings.

Dodgers Notes: Snell, Ohtani, Rotation, Miller, Treinen

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Blake Snell threw 76 pitches in a rehab start with Triple-A Oklahoma City on Saturday, and it would appear as though this fourth rehab outing will also be the left-hander’s last.  Dodgers manager Dave Roberts told reporters (including Bill Plunkett of the Orange County Register) that Snell will be activated from the 60-day injured list this week, and the club will move to a six-man rotation.

It has been a long road back for Snell, who appeared in just two games for L.A. before shoulder inflammation put him on the shelf in the first week of April.  Some renewed soreness in the later part of April led to both an injection in Snell’s shoulder and a shutdown from throwing, which led to this lengthy stint on first the 15-day and eventually the 60-day IL.

The lingering shoulder problem is the latest setback in Snell’s checkered injury history, adding to his reputation as something of an all-or-nothing pitcher.  When Snell is healthy and available, there are few (if any) better pitchers in the game, as evidenced by Snell’s two Cy Young Awards and his tendency to catch fire in later in the season.  As we saw just last season with the Giants, Snell battled injuries and ineffectiveness in the first three months of the 2024 campaign before delivering an absurd 1.23 ERA in his final 14 starts and 80 1/3 innings of action.

Time will tell if Snell can deliver anything close to that in his return to the Los Angeles rotation, but his impending return should be a nice boost to a Dodgers pitching staff that has been crushed by injuries all year.  The move to the six-man rotation reflects this improved rotation health, and the club’s desire to manage everyone’s innings in an attempt to preserve the starters’ arms over the rest of the season and through October.  If all goes well, the staff will consist of Snell, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Clayton Kershaw, Tyler Glasnow, Shohei Ohtani, and one of Dustin May or Emmet Sheehan.

This isn’t the first time the Dodgers adopted a six-man rotation, and the ragged nature of the team’s pitching health has already led to a pretty irregular deployment of the starters.  There’s also the Ohtani factor, as the two-way star is still slowly building up his innings.  Ohtani has tossed three frames in each of his last two starts, with May and Sheehan working as piggyback starters in support.

Ohtani is now expected to pitch four innings for his next two starts, Roberts said, so the team will be setting aside the piggyback plan for now.  This doesn’t mean Ohtani is going to be viewed as a regular starter per se, as Roberts explained.  “We’re not going to have the reins off where we’re going to say, ’Hey, you can go 110 pitches.’  I don’t see that happening for quite some time,” the skipper said.  “So I think that staying at four [innings] for a bit, to then build up to five and we’ll see where we go from there.”

Ohtani’s next two starts will come on Wednesday against the Reds, and then on August 6 against the Cardinals.  Notably, the Dodgers don’t play on either of the days following Ohtani’s two scheduled starts, as Roberts said the intent is to give Ohtani some built-in recovery time following his pitching outings before returning to his usual DH duty.

There is still plenty of fluidity in the six-man rotation plan, so Roberts didn’t want to commit to stating which of May or Sheehan could be remaining in the rotation and which might be moved to bullpen duty.  Describing the Dodgers’ pitching depth as a surplus is probably misleading given how more injuries could arise at any time, yet Los Angeles is addressing its number of starters at the Triple-A level by moving Bobby Miller from rotation duty to a relief job.

Fabian Ardaya of The Athletic reported yesterday about Miller’s role change, and Roberts confirmed the plan today.  “I think that this might be something that unlocks him.  Going hard for a shorter period of time, to get some confidence for him, which could help us here,” Roberts said.

Selected 29th overall by the Dodgers in the 2020 draft, Miller posted a 3.76 ERA over 22 starts and 124 1/3 innings in his 2023 rookie season, but that promising beginning gave way to an 8.85 ERA in 61 big league innings since Opening Day 2024.  Shoulder problems cost Miller two months of the 2024 season but his struggles have continued into this year, including a 5.58 ERA at Triple-A Oklahoma City and continued control issues.  Miller’s walk rate (15.4%) is almost as high as his strikeout rate (17.9%) over his rough 69 1/3 Triple-A frames this year.

Returning to the Major League bullpen mix, the Dodgers welcomed Blake Treinen back from the 60-day injured list today.  Left-hander Justin Wrobleski was also called up from Triple-A, while righties Edgardo Henriquez and Will Klein were optioned to Oklahoma City.

Treinen posted a 3.38 ERA over eight relief innings for Los Angeles before right forearm tightness led to almost three and a half months on the sidelines.  While the veteran’s health is still a concern given his significant injury history, Treinen was a major bullpen weapon for the Dodgers as recently as last year, when he posted a 1.93 ERA over 46 2/3 innings in the regular season, and then a 2.19 ERA in 12 1/3 postseason frames.  His return won’t halt the Dodgers’ plan to acquire more high-leverage bullpen help at the deadline, but Treinen could help the club fulfill part of that need from within.

Dodgers Designate Chris Stratton For Assignment

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The Dodgers announced that they have acquired right-hander Will Klein from the Mariners in exchange for minor league lefty Joe Jacques, a move that was previously reported. They have also recalled righty Ryan Loutos. In corresponding moves, right-hander Noah Davis has been optioned to the minors and righty Chris Stratton has been designated for assignment.

Stratton, 34, was just signed about a week ago after being released by the Royals. He tossed three innings for the Dodgers over two appearances, allowing two earned runs and two walks and two hits while striking out five.

The veteran parlayed a solid 2023 season into a surprising two-year, $8MM deal with Kansas City going into 2024. But since signing that pact, he hasn’t been especially effective. He has thrown 78 1/3 innings dating back to the start of last season with a 6.09 earned run average. His 46.1% ground ball rate in that time is strong but his 18.2% strikeout rate and 12% walk rate are both a few ticks worse than average.

Since the Royals released Stratton, they remain on the hook for what’s left of his salary. Any other club can sign Stratton and only pay him the prorated league minimum for any time spent on the roster, as the Dodgers just did. That amount was subtracted from what the Royals paid.

The Dodgers were happy to grab a fresh veteran arm for a few days, but since they had no commitment to him, they have quickly jettisoned him for more fresh arms. He is likely to wind up on the open market again in the coming days and will see if another team is looking for bullpen reinforcements. He had a strong run of results from 2020 to 2023. In the last of those years, he tossed 82 2/3 innings with a 3.92 ERA, 24% strikeout rate and 7.4% walk rate.

Photo courtesy of William Purnell, Imagn Images

Mariners To Acquire Joe Jacques

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12:10pm: Ari Alexander of KPRC 2 reports that the Mariners are sending right-hander Will Klein to the Mariners for Jacques. Klein was just designated for assignment by the Mariners a few days ago. The Dodgers will need to open a 40-man roster spot for him.

Klein has just 7 1/3 innings of major league experience, which all came last year. He allowed nine earned runs in that time. This year, he’s been in Triple-A and has posted a 7.17 ERA at that level with a strong 30.5% strikeout rate but also a massive 18.1% walk rate. That’s generally been his recipe throughout his minor league career.

7:11am: In an early morning deal, Joel Sherman of the New York Post reports that the Mariners are acquiring southpaw Joe Jacques from the Dodgers. The return headed to Los Angeles is not yet known, though unlikely to be significant given Jacques’s status as a player on a minor league deal.

Jacques, 30, was a 33rd-round pick by the Pirates all the way back in 2018. He climbed the minor league ladder with Pittsburgh and ultimately reached Triple-A with them before posting a 3.12 ERA across three levels of the minors in his final season with the organization. It wouldn’t be until 2023 when he made his big league debut as a member of the Red Sox, for whom he pitched to a pedestrian 5.06 ERA in 26 2/3 innings of work. He generated an excellent 64.7% ground ball rate, but struck out only 16.4% of his opponents while walking 8.2%. Overall, Jacques profiled as a roughly average to slightly below average reliever based on his peripheral numbers, including a 4.53 FIP and a 4.12 SIERA.

Jacques remained on Boston’s 40-man roster throughout the 2023-24 offseason, but ultimately made just one appearance at the big league level in 2024 before he was designated for assignment and plucked off waivers by the Diamondbacks. He had a similar experience with Arizona, appearing in one game before he was eventually designated for assignment to make room on the roster for newly-acquired reliever A.J. Puk. Those two outings in the majors last year saw him surrender three runs on six hits and a walk across three innings of work while striking out two. Meanwhile, the lefty pitched to a 5.48 ERA in 42 2/3 innings of work at the Triple-A level.

It was a lackluster performance overall, but when Jacques reached minor league free agency he was quickly snapped up by the Dodgers on a minor league deal back in November. Jacques has struggled to a 6.04 ERA in 22 1/3 innings at Triple-A so far this year, although a 3.82 FIP and a .391 BABIP suggest there could be some bad luck baked into those numbers. Clearly, the Mariners saw enough in the underlying metrics to have interest in acquiring him. Yesterday was a day many players on minor league deals around the league had the opportunity to trigger opt outs and upward mobility clauses; if that came to play in this deal, it wouldn’t be a surprise to see Seattle add Jacques to the 40-man roster once the deal becomes official.

One possible reason for Seattle to have interest in Jacques is their dearth of left-handed pitching options. Gabe Speier is the only lefty on the Mariners’ pitching staff at the moment, and while he’s currently in the midst of a resurgent season that’s made him a legitimate high-leverage option he’s just one season removed from a 5.70 ERA in 29 appearances. Jhonathan Diaz and Tayler Saucedo are both in the minors on the 40-man roster, but Diaz has been used primarily as a starter this season while Saucedo has surrendered four runs in 3 2/3 big league innings this year. It’s a thin enough group to justify the addition of another arm to the mix, especially one like Jacques that has a minor league option remaining.

Mariners Promote Cole Young, Activate Bryce Miller

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TODAY: The M’s officially announced Young’s selection and Miller’s reinstatement from the IL. Right-hander Casey Legumina and infielder Leo Rivas were optioned to Triple-A in corresponding 26-man roster moves, and righty Will Klein was designated for assignment to open up space for Young on the 40-man roster.

Klein made his MLB debut in 2024 and posted an 11.05 ERA over 7 1/3 combined innings with the Royals and Athletics.  Sent to the A’s as part of the deadline deal that brought Lucas Erceg to Kansas City, Klein was then flipped to Seattle in another trade this past January.

MAY 30: The Mariners will promote top infield prospect Cole Young this weekend, reports Daniel Kramer of MLB.com. He is not yet on the 40-man roster, so the team will need to make a move in that regard. They’ll also need to create active roster space for Young and starting pitcher Bryce Miller, who’ll be reinstated from the 15-day injured list to start tomorrow’s game against the Twins.

A Pittsburgh-area native, Young signed with Seattle out of high school in 2022. He received a $3.3MM bonus as the 21st overall pick. Scouting reports praised a potential plus hit tool and ability to play somewhere up the middle. While Young doesn’t have huge power projection in a 5’11” frame, he was viewed as a very polished player for his age.

That has been borne out in his systematic progression through the minors. He reached base at a .399 clip between two A-ball levels in his first full professional season. Young spent all of last season in Double-A, batting .271/.369/.390 as a 20-year-old in a tough league for hitters. The M’s bumped him to the more favorable Pacific Coast League this season. Young has taken to it well, running a .278/.391/.463 slash with more walks than strikeouts in his first look at Triple-A pitching.

The lefty-hitting Young actually began his Triple-A career mired in a slump. He hit .200 without a home run over 25 games in April. He’s been on an absolute tear since the calendar flipped. Young has raked at a .370/.466/.680 clip over 118 plate appearances in May. He has connected on five home runs, 10 doubles and three triples among a total of 37 hits. He has added another 15 walks while striking out all of eight times.

Young couldn’t have done more this month to force his way to the big leagues. He has divided his time evenly between shortstop and second base this season. Baseball America wrote over the offseason that he’s likely better suited for second base because of average arm strength. That figures to be his long-term home in Seattle. They’re committed to J.P. Crawford at shortstop. The path to playing time at the keystone is much more open. Ryan Bliss will miss most of the season recovering from biceps surgery. Miles Mastrobuoni and Dylan Moore have split the second base work over the past few weeks.

Moore is having a strong year, though his bat has tailed off following a huge April. He’s a right-handed hitter with a long track record of producing against lefty pitching. Moore figures to take some starts at second base against southpaws, but he’s versatile enough that it doesn’t need to be a strict platoon. Moore can spell Leody Taveras in right field or play regularly at third base over rookie Ben Williamson, who is hitting .246/.278/.297 through his first 38 games. Mastrobuoni, acquired in an offseason DFA trade with the Cubs, carries a .221/.306/.284 line through 111 plate appearances. He’ll be bumped to a utility role if not optioned to Triple-A.

Young was a consensus Top 100 prospect over the offseason. He meets the criteria for the Prospect Promotion Incentive. If he plays well enough to finish in the top two in Rookie of the Year balloting, he could earn a full year of service time. A’s shortstop Jacob Wilson seems as if he’ll run away with the award, but the runner-up spot is still there for the taking. That would not earn the Mariners any kind of draft compensation, which only applies if the team carries a top prospect in the big leagues for at least 172 days.

If he doesn’t earn the top-two Rookie of the Year finish, Young will fall short of a full service year and remain under club control for at least six seasons beyond this one. He’d be well-positioned to qualify for early arbitration as a Super Two player during the 2027-28 offseason if he’s in the big leagues for good.

Mariners Option Gregory Santos

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The Mariners have optioned right-hander Gregory Santos to Triple-A Tacoma and recalled fellow right-handed reliever Will Klein in his place, per a team announcement.

It’s the first time in nearly three years that Santos has been optioned to the minors. He was a notable trade acquisition in the 2023-24 offseason, with the Mariners sending prospects Prelander Berroa, Zach DeLoach and a Competitive Balance (Round B) draft selection to the White Sox in return.

At the time of the swap, Santos was fresh off an excellent breakout season in Chicago and had five years of club control remaining. His 2023 campaign with the South Siders featured 66 1/3 innings of 3.39 ERA ball. Santos had averaged 98.9 mph on his sinker while turning in strikeout, walk and ground-ball rates of 22.8%, 5.9% and 52.5%, respectively. He’d started that season in a low-leverage role but found himself pitching more meaningful innings as the year went on; he finished with five saves and six holds. It looked like the start of a lengthy run as a quality high-leverage reliever.

As we see all too often with pitchers, however, injuries intervened. Santos was diagnosed with a lat strain last spring and spent the first three-plus months of the season on the injured list as a result. He returned in early July but was back on the 15-day IL less than a month later, this time owing to biceps inflammation. He returned in the season’s final week and pitched a pair of scoreless innings.

Heading into 2025, Santos looked to be on track for a rebound. The lat strain was behind him, he’d finished the prior season healthy, and he posted a 1.59 ERA in six spring appearances (one run in 5 2/3 innings). That hasn’t played out whatsoever.

Santos’ once premium command has been nowhere to be found. He’s pitched seven innings and faced 36 batters. Eight of them have reached via base on balls (albeit, two of them being intentional). He’s also tossed a pair of wild pitches. Equally or more concerning is the fact that he hasn’t recorded a single strikeout yet. He’s still getting heaps of ground-balls (63%), but he’s missing badly and not inducing chases off the plate. His 11.5% opponents’ chase rate is the fourth-worst among all pitchers with at least five innings this year. His 4.6% swinging-strike rate is tied for ninth-worst.

There hasn’t been a major drop-off in Santos’ velocity. His sinker is down a bit, sitting at 98 mph, but that’s less than a one-mile gap from his 2023 peak. He’s had a bit more of a pronounced drop in his slider velo, but there’s no reason to believe he’s injured at the moment. (He is, after all, being optioned and not placed on the 15-day IL.) Santos has seen some changes in his release point from 2023 to 2025, but again, it’s not necessarily a drastic difference. For now, he’ll head to Triple-A Tacoma for a reset and look to get back on track.

It’s possible, though not yet certain, that today’s demotion could alter Santos’ path to arbitration and to free agency. He entered the season with two years and 55 days (2.055) of big league service, meaning he needed 117 days on the roster to reach three years and keep pace for arbitration eligibility this winter and free agency following the 2028 season. Of course, those factors will be rendered moot if he can’t get back on track and reestablish himself as a credible big league reliever.

Klein has actually had similar struggles to those of Santos down in Tacoma this year. He’s faced 36 batters and walked seven of them while plunking another and being charged with four wild pitches. He’s at least missing bats however and is doing so at an eye-popping rate; Klein has fanned 36.1% of his opponents and is sitting on a strong 13.8% swinging-strike rate. He’ll give Seattle a fresh arm one day after four relievers (Santos among them) needed to cover 3 2/3 innings following a rough start from Luis Castillo.

Mariners Acquire Will Klein, Designate Tyler Jay For Assignment

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The Mariners have acquired right-hander Will Klein from the Athletics, according to announcements from both clubs. The latter club had designated him for assignment last week. The A’s get international bonus pool space in return, though the exact amount wasn’t specified. The M’s designated left-hander Tyler Jay for assignment as the corresponding move.

Klein, 25, was traded from the Royals to the A’s as part of last summer’s deadline trade that sent Lucas Erceg to Kansas City. Klein has a sliver of major league experience to this point, having tossed 7 1/3 innings between the two clubs last year, allowing nine earned runs.

That means he currently sports an ugly 11.05 earned run average in the bigs, but it’s a tiny sample of work and he averaged 97 miles per hour on his fastball. In general, his pitching on the farm has resulted in heaps of strikeouts and walks. He has thrown 221 1/3 innings across various minor league levels, with a 5.16 ERA, 30.4% strikeout rate and 16.4% walk rate.

Given the poor control, Klein is probably considered something of a project. He still has a couple of options remaining, so the M’s can plug him in as depth while they see if he can rein in his arsenal a bit more.

Jay, 31 in April, was just claimed off waivers from the Brewers earlier this month. He has had a somewhat unique baseball journey, as he was the sixth overall pick in 2015 but various injuries derailed his career. He actually just debuted in the majors last year, almost a decade after being drafted. He tossed 7 2/3 innings between the Mets and Brewers, allowing four earned runs.

It’s hard to glean much from that sample but Jay also tossed 56 2/3 minor league innings last year between those two clubs with a 3.02 ERA. His 20.9% strikeout rate was subpar but he kept walks down to a 5.1% rate and got grounders on 47.3% of balls in play.

The M’s were intrigued enough to grab Jay off waivers but have now bumped him off the roster. He’ll be in DFA limbo for a week at most, waiting to see what comes next, whether that’s a trade or some fate back on the wire. The waiver process takes 48 hours, so any potential trade talks would have to come together in the next five days. He still has options and just a few days of service time, so any acquiring club could perhaps deploy him as a cheap depth arm with roster flexibility.

While it’s not great for the A’s to have already lost one of the three players they got for Erceg, they at least are getting some pool space out of this deal. As mentioned, the exact amount wasn’t reported, but pool space can only be traded in $250K increments. The A’s will get a bump of at least that much, which they can use to add some more talent to their system.

Athletics Sign José Leclerc

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The Athletics announced that they have signed right-hander José Leclerc to a one-year deal. It’s reportedly a $10MM guarantee for the former Ranger. Fellow righty Will Klein has been designated for assignment to open a roster spot.

Leclerc, 31, jumps across the American League West. He had spent his entire career with the Rangers up until now. During his time in Texas, he has shown flashes of excellence as a reliever. In general, his career has been defined by a strong ability to get strikeouts but also some poor control.

Overall, he has 360 1/3 innings under his belt to this point, having allowed 3.27 earned runs per nine. His 31.2% strikeout rate is a very strong number but his 13.2% walk rate is much higher than average.

That lack of control has made his performance somewhat inconsistent. He was once the primary closer for the Rangers, having earned 12 saves in 2018 and 14 more the year after. But he missed essentially all of the next two seasons. A right teres muscle tear limited him to just two appearances during the shortened 2020 season. He then required Tommy John surgery in March of 2021, which wiped out that whole year.

Since coming back, he hasn’t been able to retake the closer’s role, with just 12 saves over the past three years combined. However, his control has actually been better lately, at least relative to his own previous performance. He had a 14.9% walk rate as of his Tommy John surgery. Since coming back, he has only walked 11.3% of batters faced. That’s still a high number, as league average is usually in the 8-9% range, but it was a noticeable improvement.

From the start of the 2022 season to the present, he has a 3.36 ERA, 29.2% strikeout rate and, as mentioned, an 11.3% walk rate. His 3.60 FIP and 3.58 SIERA are marginally higher than his ERA, likely because his .271 batting average on balls in play and 76.5% strand rate are a bit on the fortunate side. He also formed a notable portion of the Texas relief corps during their World Series run, tossing 13 2/3 innings with a 3.29 ERA during the 2023 postseason.

His ERA did jump to 4.32 in 2024, but that doesn’t seem to have been his fault. His .314 BABIP was actually on the high side last year. His 30.9% strikeout rate and 11.1% walk rate were pretty close to what he has done before. His 3.48 FIP and 3.26 SIERA both suggest he was pretty similar to the guy he was going into the year.

In addition to the strikeouts, Leclerc has often been good at avoiding damage. Statcast had his hard hit rate at 30.7% last year, which placed him in the 96th percentile of qualified pitchers. That was actually above his career rate of 29.3%. His 87.4 mile per hour average exit velocity was in the 84th percentile last year. Again, his career average of 86.4 mph is even better. The pitch velocity on his four-seam fastball and sinker both averaged around 95 miles per hour, while he also mixed in a slider, cutter and changeup.

It’s an interesting buy-low move for the A’s, since they are grabbing Leclerc after a rough year in the ERA department, but with encouraging numbers under the hood. They already have one of the best closers in the league in Mason Miller, so they can use Leclerc in a setup capacity.

The club has been surprisingly aggressive this winter in bolstering the roster. They gave a big deal to sign free agent right-hander Luis Severino, acquired lefty Jeffrey Springs from the Rays and signed outfielder/designated hitter Brent Rooker to a five-year extension.

Cynically, this likely has a lot to do with the club having to spend its revenue-sharing money in order to avoid a grievance from the MLBPA, but they are making some notable improvements nonetheless. The team went 32-32 in the second half of 2024 after graduating a lot of young talent to the majors, so it’s not impossible for them to be a surprise contender in 2025, especially with their new additions. Though if that doesn’t come to pass and they are still shy of contention, Leclerc could then be traded prior to the summer deadline as long as he’s having a strong year, since he’s only on a one-year deal.

Leclerc’s pact takes the club’s payroll to $74MM and their competitive balance tax number to $106MM, per the calculations of RosterResource. Reporting has indicated the club needs a CBT number of $105MM to avoid that grievance, but a final CBT calculation doesn’t come until the end of the year. The A’s might want to push it a bit further, just in case they end up trading players like Leclerc at the deadline and knocking that number down. Otherwise, their deadline dealings would have to be fairly revenue neutral.

Klein, 25, was one of three players that the A’s just acquired from the Royals in the Lucas Erceg trade at last year’s deadline. He didn’t have much big league experience prior to the deal and the A’s mostly kept him on optional assignment. He currently has 7 2/3 innings of MLB experience with nine earned runs allowed.

That’s obviously not a huge sample size and the A’s surely acquired Klein based on his larger sample of work in the minors. His numbers on the farm are vaguely Leclerc-esque, since he has been able to get strikeouts but has also given out plenty of walks. He has 221 1/3 minor league frames under his belt with a 5.16 ERA, 30.4% strikeout rate and 16.2% walk rate.

The punchouts are attractive but even those faded in 2024. He tossed 43 Triple-A innings on the year between the two organizations, with a 22.4% strikeout rate and the walk rate still up at 16.7%. The 3.77 ERA wasn’t bad but a .234 BABIP and 75.4% strand rate surely helped him there, which is why he had a 5.42 FIP.

The Erceg deal was considered light by many observers at the time. It can often be difficult to grade a trade so soon after it’s consummated but it doesn’t bode well for the A’s that they are now potentially moving on from one of the three players they got in return.

They will now have a week to figure out Klein’s fate, whether that’s a trade or something on the waiver wire. The waiver process takes 48 hours, so that leaves five days for trade talks. He still has a couple of option years left, meaning any acquiring club could potentially keep him in the minors until he shows improved control.

Jon Heyman of The New York Post first reported the $10MM guarantee.

A’s Select Grant Holman

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The Athletics announced a quartet of roster moves, including the news that right-hander Grant Holman’s contract has been selected from Triple-A Las Vegas.  Star slugger Brent Rooker is also back from the paternity list, and right-hander Will Klein and infielder Armando Alvarez were both optioned to Triple-A to create the two needed opening on the 26-man roster.

Holman will be making his Major League debut whenever he makes his first official appearance for the A’s.  A sixth-round pick in the 2021 draft, Holman has worked exclusively as a reliever since he was promoted to Double-A in 2023, and his results this season have been spectacular.  The righty has a tiny 0.55 ERA over 48 2/3 combined innings at Double-A (19 1/3 IP) and Triple-A (29 1/3 IP), along with a strong 29% strikeout rate and a more modest 11.83% walk rate.  It should be noted that Holman has received a lot of batted-ball luck in the form of a .174 BABIP against Triple-A competition, but allowing just one homers in 29 1/3 frames of Pacific Coast League action is quite impressive.

MLB Pipeline rates Holman as the 21st-best prospect in Oakland’s farm system, and he received a 60-grade on his 95mph fastball.  Beyond that top offering, Holman also has a decent slider and a rather lightly-used splitter.  It makes for a pretty solid arsenal for a reliever, and Pipeline’s scouting report observes that “much of Holman’s step forward this season has come simply as a result of being healthy and getting regular reps,” following two seasons of elbow and shoulder problems.

There’s plenty of intrigue in Holman’s arsenal, and the 24-year-old should get opportunities for an Athletics team that continues to evaluate young talent as part of its rebuild.  Mason Miller has deservedly drawn most of the headlines, but Oakland’s bullpen has been pretty decent as a whole this season, and Holman will become the latest rookie arm to try and earn higher-leverage work.

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