Orioles Place Richard Bleier On DL, Select Corban Joseph, Designate D.J. Snelten
SATURDAY: Bleier will indeed have season-ending surgery on Tuesday to repair a Grade 3 lat strain, as Eduardo A. Encina of the Baltimore Sun was among those to tweet.
FRIDAY, 3:33pm: Bleier may need surgery and is likely to miss the remainder of the season, MLB.com’s Britt Ghiroli is among those to report on Twitter.
2:19pm: The Orioles have announced a host of roster moves today. Southpaw Richard Bleier is heading to the DL with what has been diagnosed as a lat strain. He’ll be replaced in the pen by southpaw Tanner Scott.
Infielder Corban Joseph has been selected and added to the active roster as well. To create the needed roster space, righty Yefry Ramirez was optioned and lefty D.J. Snelten was designated for assignment.
The news on Bleier was fully expected at this point, as Roch Kubatko of MASNsports.com wrote earlier today. Bleier is said to be seeking a second opinion after already undergoing an MRI. It’s still unclear just how bleak the outlook is, but Kubatko suggests the internal belief is it’s a serious injury.
While Bleier, 31, is hardly a household name, perhaps he should be. The former Yankees southpaw is in his third big league season and currently is sporting the third sub-2.00 ERA of his career. Bleier has a 1.97 ERA in 119 innings, which is the sixth-lowest mark (min. 100 innings) in MLB history. He’s tied with Craig Kimbrel for the best ERA- (46) in MLB history (again, min. 100 innings; and a tip of the cap to ESPN’s Sam Miller for shining a light on Bleier’s curious dominance earlier this season).
Bleier has averaged just 4.1 K/9 in his career, but his 21.2 percent hard-contact rate in 2018 is outstanding. He’s allowed only two barreled balls this season (as defined by Statcast), and he leads the Majors in barrels per batted ball (1.8 percent of balls in play against him). Bleier may be an anomaly, but he’s been an important piece to the Baltimore bullpen who now looks headed for an absence of potential significance.
Orioles Designate Nestor Cortes
The Orioles have designated lefty Nestor Cortes for assignment, per a club announcement. The team promoted righty Yefry Ramirez to take his place on the active roster.
Cortes was taken from the Yankees in the 2017 Rule 5 draft. If he clears waivers, he’ll be offered back to the New York organization for a $50K sum, which the Yankees will all but assuredly pay. Regardless, the O’s have opened an additional 40-man spot for the time being.
The 23-year-old Cortes was one of two Rule 5 picks the O’s made back in December and one of three players with Rule 5 restrictions to crack the Opening Day roster. Baltimore also selected Pedro Araujo out of the Cubs organization, and outfielder Anthony Santander still comes with Rule 5 status for the first 44 days of the 2018 season after spending the bulk of the 2017 season on the disabled list.
Cortes appeared in four games for the Orioles and was tagged for four runs on 10 hits and four walks with three strikeouts through 4 2/3 innings of relief. Last year with the Yankees, he logged an impressive 2.06 ERA in 104 total innings between Class-A Advanced, Double-A and Triple-A, while averaging a strikeout per inning and just 2.8 walks per nine frames.
Orioles Acquire Yefry Ramirez From Yankees For International Bonus Money
The Orioles announced that they’ve acquired Double-A right-hander Yefry Ramirez from the Yankees in exchange for international bonus pool money. Ramirez’s departure opens a move on the Yankees’ 40-man roster.
Ramirez, 23, has worked as a starter with the Yankees’ Trenton affiliate this season, pitching to a 3.41 ERA with 8.9 K/9, 3.7 BB/9 and a 36.4 percent ground-ball rate. Baseball America rated him 23rd among Yankees prospects this past offseason, though he didn’t crack MLB.com’s midseason list of the top 30 Yankees prospects. Per BA’s report, he works with a low-90s fastball and a changeup and curve that both grade out as average pitches.
The Orioles have made a habit of trading their international bonus allocations rather than spending them to sign amateur free agents in recent years, so this swap represents a continuation of that tendency. However, Ramirez’s solid results in Double-A, presence on the 40-man roster and proximity to the Majors seem to suggest more upside than some of the others that Baltimore has received in exchange for previous international considerations.