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Red Sox Outright Robert Stock

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The Red Sox announced today that right-hander Robert Stock cleared waivers and has been outrighted to Triple-A. He was designated for assignment by the club earlier this week.

It’s the second time the 35-year-old has been outrighted to the minors by Boston this year. He previously threw two innings for the club in an appearance earlier this year and was outrighted off the 40-man roster shortly thereafter. It was a similar story this time around, as he spent just two days on the roster and made a single appearance before being cut from the club’s roster.

Drafted by the Cardinals in the second round of the 2009 draft, Stock didn’t make his big league debut until he was with San Diego in 2018. Stock was nothing short of excellent in his first taste of the majors with a 2.50 ERA and 2.71 FIP across 39 2/3 frames. Unfortunately, he’s never come close to that in the majors in the years since. While pitching for the Padres, Red Sox, Cubs, and Mets from 2019 to 2021, he surrendered a 7.36 ERA and 5.50 FIP in 33 innings of work. Following the 2021 season, Stock departed affiliated ball to pitch as a starter for the KBO League’s Doosan Bears throughout the 2022 campaign.

That stop in South Korea went fairly well for Stock, as he posted a 3.60 ERA in 165 innings of work. Even that solid figure pales in comparison to the top imported arms in the KBO league, though, so it wasn’t exactly a shock when he didn’t return to the Bears for 2023. Instead, he wound up pitching for the Atlantic League’s Long Island Ducks and the Mexican League’s Tecolotes de los Dos Laredos (along with a brief stint in the Brewers’ minor league system) in 2023 and ’24 before he settled back in with the Red Sox at Triple-A Worcester this year. He’s posted a 3.09 ERA for the WooSox in 55 1/3 innings of work across 12 appearances last year, nine of which have been starts.

Those strong results at Triple-A obviously haven’t translated to results at the big league level, where Stock has surrendered three runs in 2 2/3 innings of work this year while walking four batters and striking out just one. Lackluster as Stock’s results have been at the big league level, however, there’s always a place for a versatile veteran capable of eating innings out of either the rotation or bullpen as necessary on a club’s minor league depth chart. Given that, it’s hardly shocking that the Red Sox decided to outright the right-hander to the minors and keep him in the fold as an emergency depth option who they can call back up to the majors when they need an extra arm to provide some length out of the bullpen or an emergency starter. Until that happens or the 2025 campaign comes to a close, Stock figures to remain a member of the Triple-A pitching staff who provides non-roster depth for Boston going forward.

Angels Sign Chad Wallach To Minor League Deal

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The Angels have signed catcher Chad Wallach to a minor league deal, according to his transactions tracker at MLB.com. He had previously been with the Rangers on a minor league deal but was released a few days ago.

Wallach, 33, is a known commodity for the Halos. He got into 77 games for them over the 2022 and 2023 seasons. He also spent last year at Triple-A Salt Lake on a minor league deal but didn’t get called up.

He pivoted over to the Rangers at the start of this year and got into 28 games for Triple-A Round Rock. He struck out 27.2% of the time but also walked at a strong 11.4% clip and hit four home runs. That added up to a .245/.333/.408 line and 89 wRC+.

Wallach faced a steep path to playing time in Texas, where Jonah Heim and Kyle Higashioka are the primary catching duo. Even when Higashioka went on the injured list earlier this year, it was Tucker Barnhart who got the call to cover for him. Higashioka subsequently returned from the IL and Barnhart was bumped off the roster but quickly re-signed on a new minor league deal.

The Angels have Logan O’Hoppe and Travis d’Arnaud at the big league level. For much of the season, they had Chuckie Robinson at Salt Lake on an optional assignment, but he was lost to the Dodgers via waivers a couple of weeks ago. Though Wallach is not on the roster, he essentially replaces Robinson as the top option to get called up if either O’Hoppe or d’Arnaud suffers an injury.

Including his time with the Angels, Wallach has also suited up for the Reds and Marlins. He has 155 big league games under his belt over seven separate seasons. He has a .198/.263/.328 batting line but solid defensive grades.

Image courtesy of Dale Zanine, Imagn Images

Giants Select Logan Porter, Designate Osleivis Basabe For Assignment

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The Giants have selected catcher Logan Porter to their roster. Fellow backstop Patrick Bailey goes on the 10-day injured list with a neck strain, retroactive to June 8. Infielder Osleivis Basabe has been designated for assignment as the corresponding move. Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle was among those to relay the moves.

It doesn’t appear as though Bailey is facing a lengthy absence. He was initially in Tuesday’s lineup but was scratched due to neck spasms. Not even half an hour before this news dropped, Bailey wasn’t sure if he would actually be going on the IL or not, per Slusser. Manager Bob Melvin also said they were hoping to have Bailey in the lineup by tomorrow, per Slusser. Instead, it seems the club has decided to give Bailey some time to rest up. Since the move has been backdated by three days, he could be back in a week.

Bailey is one of the best defensive catchers in the game but has struggled badly at the plate this season. In 180 plate appearances, he has a .185/.246/.272 batting line and 46 wRC+. The Giants will surely miss his glovework but it’s possible the lineup will get a boost.

Suddenly, the club’s catching corps looks totally different from earlier in the year. Bailey was sharing the position with Sam Huff for most of the season but the Giants swapped in Andrew Knizner for Huff a week ago. Huff was outrighted to Triple-A Sacramento but the club has opted to select Porter instead of bringing Huff back.

Porter, 29, has just 38 major league plate appearances. He hit .194/.324/.323 in those trips to the plate, which came with the 2023 Royals. He has put up good offensive numbers at the Triple-A level but has been inconsistent. He slashed .301/.452/.451 for a 148 wRC+ in 2022 but that dropped to a .232/.339/.377 line and 80 wRC+ in 2023. Last year, he bounced back with a .267/.370/.453 showing and 113 wRC+ but he’s down to a .237/.350/.319 line and 89 wRC+ this year.

He may not get much playing time. Knizner has 296 big league games under his belt and doesn’t have great offensive numbers, with a .208/.277/.314 line. However, he was hitting .378/.512/.520 in the minors this year before getting called up. Between that and his experience, he might get a bit more trust to handle things for Bailey’s absence. The fact that Knizner has had a one-week headstart in working with the Giants’ pitching staff should only help. Porter has a full slate of options and can easily be sent back down to Sacramento when Bailey returns.

Basabe, 24, was acquired from the Rays in an offseason cash deal. He has played 53 Triple-A games this year with a tepid .242/.287/.352 line and 69 wRC+. He was once a notable prospect thanks to some big numbers in the lower levels. However, his bat has cratered since reaching the top rung of the minor league ladder. In 213 Triple-A games, he has a .269/.319/.381 line, as well as a .218/.277/.310 showing in his 94 major league plate appearances.

He’ll now head into DFA limbo, which can last as long as a week. The waiver process takes 48 hours, so the Giants could take five days to explore trade possibilities. Basabe can be optioned for the rest of this year but will be out of options in 2026. If the Giants pass him through outright waivers, he could stick with the club as non-roster depth.

Photo courtesy of Rick Scuteri, Imagn Images

Athletics Outright Carlos Durán

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The Athletics announced today that right-hander Carlos Durán, who was designated for assignment a few days ago, has cleared waivers and been sent outright to Triple-A Las Vegas. He’ll stick with the club as non-roster depth.

Durán, 23, has spent most of his professional career in the Dodgers’ system. He was traded to the A’s in early April for outfielder Esteury Ruiz. The A’s added Durán to their 40-man roster at the end of April.

Since then, he’s been shuttled to Triple-A and back a few times. He’s only been able to make one major league appearance, which didn’t go especially well. On May 22nd, he was sent into the game against the Angels with the A’s down 7-5 in the ninth. He got the first batter to pop out but then allowed two walks, a single and then a bases-loaded walk. Hogan Harris then came into the game and allowed two more baserunners to score. That left Durán charged with three earned runs in a third of an inning, so he currently sports an unfortunate 81.00 earned run average in his career.

He has occasionally shown some promise in the minors but that hasn’t been the case here in 2025. He has logged 31 1/3 Triple-A innings with a 7.18 ERA. That’s been in the hitter-friendly Pacific Coast League but he hasn’t helped his cause with a 17.1% walk rate.

Since this is Durán’s first outright and he doesn’t have three years of big league service time, he doesn’t have the right to elect free agency. The A’s will therefore hang onto him and try to get him back on track. He was able to put up some good numbers as recently as last year, when he had a 3.71 ERA and 29.4% strikeout rate in 53 1/3 innings. His 12.9% walk rate was definitely high but also miles better than this year’s control.

Photo courtesy of Jerome Miron, Imagn Images

Royals Place Cole Ragans On IL With Rotator Cuff Strain

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The Royals announced a series of roster moves today. Right-hander Lucas Erceg has been reinstated from the 15-day injured list and righty Jonathan Bowlan has been recalled from Triple-A Omaha. In corresponding moves, right-hander Trevor Richards has been designated for assignment while lefty Cole Ragans has been placed on the 15-day IL due to a left rotator cuff strain, retroactive to June 8th.

The Royals have not yet announced how long they expect Ragans to be out of action but it’s obviously a concern whenever a pitcher’s throwing shoulder is injured. It’s also the second IL stint for Ragans in as many months. A left groin strain sent him to the shelf in mid-May. He just came off the IL recently and started on Thursday. His velocity was down a bit and his results weren’t great but that wasn’t necessarily alarming since it was his first start in three weeks due to the groin injury.

Now it’s possible there’s a more serious issue at play, which could be awful news for the Royals. Ragans had a tremendous breakout last year, posting a 3.14 earned run average over 186 1/3 innings. His ERA has jumped to 5.18 this year, though all signs point to that being bad luck. His 36.4% strikeout rate and 7.7% walk rate are both improvements over last year’s 29.3% and 8.8% figures. This year’s .382 batting average on balls in play and 62.1% strand rate are both on the unfortunate side, which is why his 2.40 FIP and 2.46 SIERA suggest he’s actually been pitching better than last year.

For the Royals, they started strong but have been in a bit of a skid lately. From May 10th to the present, they have gone 10-17, dropping them out of playoff position. Pulling out of that skid will be a little more difficult without Ragans in the mix.

What will be working in the club’s favor is that they should still have a strong rotation even without Ragans. The club has a collective 3.32 ERA from their starters this year, one of the top five marks in the majors. Kris Bubic, Michael Wacha, Seth Lugo and Michael Lorenzen are a fine quartet. Rookie Noah Cameron was recently called up while Ragans and Lugo were both on the IL. He has decent numbers through six starts, although he was just torched by the Yankees in his most recent outing. Kyle Wright is also on a rehab assignment and could rejoin the club shortly. Veteran Rich Hill is also in the system on a minor league deal, though he could opt-out of that deal in a few days.

One thing that will also help the Royals is that their bullpen gets Erceg back. He was dealing with a lower back strain in late May and landed on the IL because of it. He has a 1.96 ERA on the year while working as the primary setup guy to closer Carlos Estévez and can continue building on that performance after a brief rest period.

Richards, 32, signed a minor league deal with the Royals last month and was only added to the roster a few days ago. He tossed three innings over three appearances but allowed four earned runs while recording just two strikeouts. He issued two walks and three wild pitches.

As a veteran with years of experience, Richards can’t be optioned to the minors without his consent, so he’s been bumped off the 40-man entirely. He’ll likely end up on waivers in the coming days and it wouldn’t be a surprise to see him clear.

He has had some good results at times in his career but struggled late last year, which is why he had to settle for minor league deals this year. In Triple-A with the Cubs and Royals, he has a 4.19 ERA this year, giving out walks at a 13.3% clip with three wild pitches. After being traded from the Jays to the Twins at last year’s deadline, he walked 11 batters, an 18.6% clip. He also hit another couple of opponents and threw seven wild pitches. He was passed through waivers late in the year and hasn’t gotten on a better track here in 2025.

Photo courtesy of Peter Aiken, Imagn Images

Twins Claim Joey Wentz

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The Twins announced that they have claimed left-hander Joey Wentz off waivers from the Pirates. The latter club designated him for assignment a few days ago. Wentz is out of options, so the Twins will need to make a corresponding active roster move when he reports to the team. To open a 40-man spot for Wentz, the Twins have transferred righty Pablo López to the 60-day injured list. It was reported last week that López is expected to miss eight to twelve weeks due to a teres major strain.

Wentz, 27, is in his fourth major league season. He was primarily a starting pitcher in 2022 and 2023 but didn’t quite establish himself as a bonafide big league rotation member. At the end of the 2023 season, he had a 5.99 earned run average and had exhausted his final option season.

That pushed him to the bullpen, a role in which he has shown some potential. He tossed 55 1/3 innings out of Detroit’s bullpen last year. The 5.37 ERA wasn’t great, nor was his 10.6% walk rate, but his 23.6% strikeout rate and 42% ground ball rate were pretty close to average. That got him bumped off the roster at the end of August last year.

The Pirates put in a claim and got some encouraging results from Wentz to end the season. He posted a 1.50 ERA in 12 frames after that claim. His walk rate ticked up to 12% but he also struck out 26% of batters faced.

He stuck on Pittsburgh’s roster through the winter and into 2025 with some mixed results so far. His 9.6% walk rate is still a bit high but an improvement for him. He’s also tamped down his home runs, with only 6.5% of fly balls leaving the yard compared to 11.3% last year. His 41.8% ground ball rate is still close to league par but his strikeout rate has dipped to 19.1%.

That got him bumped off Pittsburgh’s roster but the Twins will take a shot on him. Minnesota currently has Danny Coulombe as its only lefty reliever on the active roster, with Kody Funderburk on optional assignment. Wentz will give manager Rocco Baldelli a second southpaw in the relief corps alongside Coulombe, at least for the time being. Given his out-of-options status, Wentz will likely have a tenuous hold on a roster spot unless he takes a step forward.

Photo courtesy of Mark J. Rebilas, Imagn Images

Blue Jays Select Will Robertson, Place Nathan Lukes On Injured List

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June 11: The Jays will place Lukes on the 7-day concussion list as the corresponding move to bring Robertson to the majors, manager John Schneider announced today (via MLB.com’s Keegan Matheson).

June 10: The Blue Jays are promoting outfielder Will Robertson to the majors, according to a report from Trevor Hahn of News Tribune Sports. Toronto has space on their 40-man roster, so the only corresponding move needed to bring Robertson into the fold will be one to clear room on the active roster.

Robertson, 27, was Toronto’s fourth-round pick back in 2019. After getting a taste of pro ball in Low-A during his draft year, Robertson’s career was delayed slightly by the canceled minor league season in 2020 and when he returned in 2021 he struggled somewhat across 56 games at the High-A level with a wRC+ of just 94 as he hit .235/.310/.385. He once again put up relatively middling numbers the following year, this time slashing .215/.291/.401 (89 wRC+) across 90 games in his first taste of the Double-A level. Overall, Robertson’s approach came with a hefty dose of strikeouts and somewhat limited power that made it difficult for him to put up even average results early in his professional career.

Things began to change during a repeat of the Double-A level in 2023, however. That year, Robertson hit .245/.323/.488 with a wRC+ of 118. He pushed his walk rate up to 9.7%, the best it had been since his draft year, cut his strikeout rate by two points, and slugged 19 homers in 103 games. That sort of strong performance is to be expected of a 25-year-old making his second trip through Double-A, but it was still enough to get him promoted to Triple-A Buffalo for the first time in his career. While Robertson’s increased walk rate and power remained from the year prior, his strikeout rate jumped to 31.3% in 2024 as he struggled against Triple-A pitching an ultimately slashed just .226/.319/.429 with a wRC+ of 95.

Robertson’s 2024 performance may have seemed to indicate he didn’t have much of path to the big leagues, but he’s changed that narrative with a brilliant season in 2025 so far. In 51 games for the club’s Buffalo affiliate, Robertson has crushed the ball to the tune of a .288/.410/.582 slash line. He has 12 home runs in just 188 plate appearances, he’s walking a whopping 17.0% of the time, and he’s striking out less than he has since 2019 with a 23.9% clip. Taken together, it leaves him with a 159 wRC+ that’s good for fourth in the International League this year. Robertson isn’t considered much of a prospect, as he isn’t even ranked on MLB.com’s Top 30 Blue Jays prospects list. Regardless of a player’s prospect status, however, Robertson’s numbers are the type that will get you attention from the big league club.

That’s especially true for a Blue Jays club that is running a bit thin on outfield depth after losing both Anthony Santander and Daulton Varsho to the injured list. Alan Roden, Myles Straw, Jonatan Clase, Addison Barger, and Nathan Lukes have been mixing and matching in the outfield for the Jays in recent weeks alongside veteran right fielder George Springer, and Ben Nicholson Smith of Sportsnet was among those to relay this afternoon that Lukes had been scratched from today’s lineup due to neck discomfort. Perhaps Robertson’s call-up is a sign that Lukes’ neck issue is serious enough to require a stint on the injured list, though it’s also possible Robertson’s phenomenal play to this point in the year has simply forced the issue in the eyes of Blue Jays brass.

Giants, Scott Alexander Agree To Minor League Deal

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The Giants have agreed to a minor league deal with veteran left-handed reliever Scott Alexander, per the team’s transaction log at MLB.com. The Apex Baseball client will head to Triple-A for the time being.

Alexander, 36 next month, signed a one-year deal with the Rockies over the winter. That pact, which paid him a guaranteed $2MM, didn’t work out for either party. In 16 1/3 innings as a Rockie, Alexander was shredded for a 6.06 earned run average. He allowed 11 runs on 20 hits — four of them homers — and seven walks. He’s never been a big strikeout arm, but Alexander punched out only six of 72 opponents (8.3%) against a 9.7% walk rate. Colorado designated him for assignment on May 23 and released him a few days later.

Ugly as that short run in Denver was, Alexander has a nice track record in the majors overall. He carries a career 3.34 ERA, 17.5% strikeout rate and 8.8% walk rate in 325 2/3 innings — all accompanied by a gargantuan 66.6% ground-ball rate. As recently as last season, the southpaw tossed 38 2/3 innings of 2.56 ERA ball for the A’s.

Giants fans should be plenty familiar with Alexander, who pitched in San Francisco in 2022-23. He tallied 65 2/3 innings with a 3.70 ERA, a 15.1% strikeout rate, a 4.4% walk rate and a 63.8% grounder rate in his two seasons calling Oracle Park home.

At present, Erik Miller is the only left-hander in manager Bob Melvin’s bullpen. The only other southpaws on the 40-man roster at all are starters Robbie Ray and Kyle Harrison, both of whom are currently in the Giants’ excellent rotation. Alexander will join Joey Lucchesi as an experienced non-roster lefty in the Giants’ bullpen with their Triple-A club in Sacramento.

Casey Lawrence Elects Free Agency

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Right-hander Casey Lawrence has elected free agency after being outrighted to Triple-A Tacoma by the Mariners, according to the transactions log on his MLB.com profile page.

Lawrence, 37, was DFA’d over the weekend in what has become an extremely familiar pattern for him and the Mariners. He’s been shuttled between Tacoma and Seattle all throughout the 2025 campaign so far with multiple trips to the waiver wire in between stints, utilized effectively as a 41st member of the 40-man roster who can be called upon when the Mariners need an extra arm before being cut loose and placed on waivers once he’s provided some length out of the bullpen.

It’s an unusual role, but he’s done fairly well in it this year. Lawrence has a 4.08 ERA and 4.09 FIP across 17 2/3 innings of work, almost all of which came as a member of the Mariners save one short stint with the Blue Jays where he allowed three runs on six hits in 2 2/3 innings of long relief work. The arrangement has allowed Lawrence to find his first big league opportunities since 2023, when he struggled to a 6.59 ERA in 27 innings of work for the Cardinals out of the bullpen.

That was the only time in his career he donned a major league uniform other than those of the Blue Jays and Mariners, but his 96 2/3 innings in the majors prior to that time in St. Louis were largely more of the same as he pitched to a 6.80 ERA and 5.31 FIP in 44 appearances between 2017 and 2022. A stint with Nippon Professional Baseball’s Hiroshima Carp in 2019 wasn’t especially fruitful either, as he allowed six runs in five innings during his lone Central League appearance and mostly posted middling numbers for the Carp’s Western League team, the NPB equivalent of a minor league club.

While Lawrence’s results have improved substantially this year, it’s anyone’s guess whether that league average production is sustainable for the right-hander. His 8.8% strikeout rate is nothing short of microscopic, but he’s walked just 1.3% of his opponents and has a fairly solid 40.8% ground ball rate. If anything Lawrence’s .348 BABIP and 51.6% strand rate suggest he may be getting slightly unlucky when it comes to batted ball luck and sequencing, although an 8.0% home run to fly ball ratio seems unlikely to be sustainable. Lawrence’s 4.54 SIERA paints him as an average to slightly below average pitcher overall this year, and given Lawrence’s status as the team’s extra arm over the first few months of the season the Mariners are likely to be quite satisfied with that level of production.

Lawrence is now a free agent and able to sign with any of the league’s 30 clubs, though it wouldn’t be a surprise if he finds himself re-signing with the Mariners on a fresh minor league deal within the next few days to restart the cycle between Triple-A and the majors Seattle brass seem content to continue pushing him through. It’s an unequivocal win for Lawrence, who collects big league service time and salary even when he’s in DFA limbo or on the waiver wire. That means this process has allowed him to collect a healthy portion of the league minimum salary to this point in the season and more than a month of big league service time.

Diamondbacks Outright Aramis Garcia; Scott McGough Elects Free Agency

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The Diamondbacks announced a pair of roster moves this evening, as right-hander Scott McGough elected free agency while catcher Aramis Garcia cleared waivers and was assigned outright to Triple-A. Both players had been designated for assignment by the club last week.

McGough, 35, was a fifth-round pick by the Dodgers back in 2011 but didn’t make his big league debut until 2015 when he made six ill-fated outings as a member of the Marlins. He surrendered seven runs on twelve hits and four walks while striking out four across 6 2/3 innings of work for Miami and did not appear in the majors again for quite some time. After spending the next few years bouncing around the Marlins’, Orioles’, and Rockies’ minor league systems McGough caught on overseas with Nippon Professional Baseball’s Yakult Swallows. McGough ultimately spent four seasons in Japan and pitched quite well out of the bullpen there with a 26.0% strikeout rate and a 2.94 ERA across his 236 Central League appearances.

That work was enough to catch the attention of the Diamondbacks, who signed him to a deal worth $6.25MM guaranteed over two years ahead of the 2023 campaign. That signing did not go over well. McGough was a below average reliever by the numbers in 2023, with a 4.76 ERA (93 ERA+) in 70 1/3 innings, but some peripherals like his 25.6% strikeout rate and 3.49 SIERA suggested he had more to offer. Unfortunately, those underlying numbers collapsed in 2024 as he posted a 7.44 ERA and a 6.04 FIP across his 26 appearances while striking out just 16.7% of his opponents against a 14% walk rate. The Diamondbacks made the easy decision to decline a 2025 club option on his services last winter, though they eventually re-signed him to a minor league deal in February. When added to the roster back in April, McGough posted a 6.43 ERA in seven innings of work while walking (six) more batters than he struck out (five). He now returns to free agency in the midst of his age-35 season in search for a change of scenery as he looks to try and salvage his season.

As for Garcia, the 32-year-old was a second-rounder by the Giants in 2014 who made his big league debut during the 2018 season, when he helped fill the void when Buster Posey’s season came to an abrupt end due to hip surgery. Garcia hit .286/.302/.492 (117 wRC+) across 19 games in his first taste of major league action, but he hasn’t hit a lick since. Garcia’s appeared in the majors for five different clubs since the start of the 2019 season, and in that time he’s hit just .192/.233/.282 with a 39 wRC+. Of course, that slash line comes across a sample of just 101 plate appearances in the big leagues as Garcia has been used primarily as a third-string catcher throughout his time as a big league option. Even so, there’s been very little over the years to suggest that he’s more than a depth option behind the plate for a big league club. That’s exactly how the Diamondbacks figure to use him going forward, as his outright means he can serve as non-roster depth behind the club’s primary catching tandem of Gabriel Moreno and Jose Herrera.

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