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Quick Hits: Towers, Portland, Stanton, Draft

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Before tonight’s tilt between the Diamondbacks and Padres, the Arizona organization honored the late Kevin Towers, who previously served as general manager with both clubs. The D-Backs dedicated his former Chase Field suite as “Kevin’s Tower.” The widely-loved executive passed away this January at 56 years of age.

As we join once more in a tip of the cap to Towers, here are some worthwhile links from around the game:

  • The effort to bring a MLB team to Portland appears to be growing in seriousness, as Gordon Friedman of The Oregonian recently reported. Portland Diamond Project, the entity spearheading the effort, has submitted bids on two parcels that could potentially house 32,000-seat ballparks. Clearly, there’s still a long ways to go before anybody will be watching a major-league contest in Portland, but it’ll certainly be interesting to see whether that municipality (and a few others) end up as serious suitors for existing or expansion franchises.
  • It wasn’t long ago that the Giancarlo Stanton trade drama, rather than his scuffles at the plate, was the hot topic in baseball. If you recall, before the Yankees got involved heavily, the Marlins had set deals with both the Giants and Cardinals in hopes that Stanton would waive his no-trade clause to join one of those blue-blood organizations. There were varying reports at the time as to just what package would have been headed from San Francisco to Miami had Stanton approved, but Robert Murray of Fan Rag now claims to have discovered the true offer. Lefty Andrew Suarez and third baseman Jacob Gonzalez were the prospect pieces in the deal, says Murray, while the Fish also would have taken on Denard Span and his contract. Otherwise, the Giants were said to be prepared to take on all (or substantially all) of the Stanton contract.
  • Draft season is upon us, and we’re starting to see some early mocks and rankings. We’ll try to pass along worthwhile links as they come in. Those interested in seeing how things are shaping up will want to check out the top-fifty list of ESPN.com’s Keith Law (Insider link), who tabs Auburn righty Casey Mize as an easy choice as the top overall draft asset as things stand. That seems to be the consensus; Eric Longenhagen and Kiley McDaniel of Fangraphs say the same.

NL Roster Notes: Bautista, Perdomo, Gonzalez, Mac/Pence

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The Braves don’t intend to take a long time deciding whether to bring up recent signee Jose Bautista, Michael Hoad of Sportsnet.ca writes. GM Alex Anthopoulos says that the club is “optimistic [Bautista is] going to have an opportunity to come up,” so it seems the expectation is that the former star will indeed get a shot. He’ll be looking for a return to form at the plate even as he makes a surprising return to third base after nearly a decade spent mostly in the outfield. But Anthopoulos did note that he hasn’t made any promises of a MLB promotion, so it seems that Bautista will at least have to show something to get a crack at boosting a Braves team that is off to a nice start.

Here are a few notes on some National League players who are already slated to move onto or off of a major league roster:

  • The Padres have optioned righty Luis Perdomo, per a club announcement, with reliever Kirby Yates being activated from the DL to take his roster spot. Though he showed a good bit of promise last year, Perdomo has been tagged for 13 earned runs in 14 innings in his first four starts of the 2018 campaign. Though he has given up quite a lot of hard contact, the resulting .510 batting average on balls in play surely seems like an outlier. Beyond the performance considerations, the move helps the team manage a roster that has quite a few moving parts.
  • Marlins pitching prospect Merandy Gonzalez is heading to the majors for the first time, as MLB.com’s Joe Frisaro writes. Skipper Don Mattingly says he’ll use his new hurler as a long relief option for the time being. Gonzalez is a starter by trade, and has some long-term hopes of working in a big-league rotation, but at the moment is appealing mostly because he offers the possibility of filling some innings and is already on the 40-man. Miami added Gonzalez in the trade that sent reliever A.J. Ramos to the Mets last summer.
  • There’s nothing official yet, but Andrew Baggarly of The Athletic tweeted the “informed speculation” that outfielder Mac Williamson will join the Giants tomorrow. There are still some complications, but the 27-year-old has clearly played his way to a call-up. In fifty trips to the plate at Triple-A, he’s hitting a ridiculous .487/.600/1.026 with six home runs. Meanwhile, veteran Hunter Pence has managed only one extra-base hit, nine singles, and two walks in his 61 MLB plate appearances. It seems he will be headed to the DL with a thumb issue.

Johnny Cueto Likely To Return Tuesday

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  • The Giants expect righty Johnny Cueto to come off the DL for a start Tuesday against Arizona, manager Bruce Bochy informed reporters, including Kerry Crowley of the Mercury News, on Saturday. Cueto landed on the shelf this past Tuesday, retroactive to April 7, with a sprained ankle. As a result, the Giants have been missing their three best starters – the injured Madison Bumgarner and Jeff Samardzija are the others – though the only one who’s not nearing a return is Bumgarner, whom the club moved to the 60-day DL earlier this week (fractured finger).

Minor MLB Transactions: 4/13/18

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Here are the day’s minor moves from around the league, all courtesy of Baseball America’s Matt Eddy unless otherwise noted…

  • The Angels have added right-handed reliever Jordan Jankowski on a minor league contract. The 28-year-old got his first taste of the big league in 2017, tossing 4 1/3 frames for the Astros before landing with the Dodgers via waiver claim. Jankowski has averaged 11.9 strikeouts per nine innings in 177 1/3 Triple-A frames in his career, though he’s struggled with control since being selected in the 34th round of the 2012 draft as well.
  • Former big league infielders Tyler Ladendorf and Darnell Sweeney have signed minor league pacts with the Blue Jays. Ladendorf, a former Twins second-rounder who was once traded to the A’s in exchange for Orlando Cabrera, logged 68 MLB plate appearances with Oakland from 2015-16 but hit just .123/.149/.154 in that brief time. He’s a career .258/.326/.350 hitter in Triple-A and has played second base, shortstop, third base and corner outfield as a pro. Sweeney, meanwhile, posted a .639 OPS in 98 plate appearances with the Phillies in 2015 after they acquired him from the Dodgers in the Chase Utley trade. He’s a career .258/.325/.394 hitter in Triple-A.
  • The Giants released outfielder Daniel Carbonell, who they’d originally signed Carbonell to a four-year, $3.5MM contract back in 2014 after he left Cuba. Signed because of his defensive prowess and speed, Carbonell’s bat never came around, as he appeared in just two Triple-A games with the Giants after stalling out in Double-A. In 437 plate appearances at that Double-A level, the now-27-year-old Carbonell hit just .188/.227/.273.

Latest On Mark Melancon

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Giants closer Mark Melancon has still yet to take the hill for the team and it remains uncertain just when he will. Most recently, he underwent a stem cell injection to his troublesome pronator, as Alex Pavlovic of NBC Sports Bay Area was among those to report.

For the time being, the righty reliever is going to take another two weeks of rest before hopefully attempting to resume throwing. He’ll surely require a full ramp-up from that point, though it’s tough to know how long it may take for Melancon to work back to the MLB bullpen.

Melancon, who missed a big chunk of the 2017 season, seemed destined for the Opening Day roster until a late-spring announcement that he was struggling once more with forearm and elbow issues. It emerged that he had never been able to throw pain-free despite a surgical procedure performed in early September of last year.

There’s no particular reason at this point to find further concern with Melancon’s status, though the timing does indicate that rest alone did not solve the problem and it seems there’s still plenty of uncertainty in how things will progress. Regardless, the veteran hurler’s timeline will surely depend upon when he’s finally able to throw without discomfort.

Needless to say, the Giants are hoping to get a significant contribution from the 33-year-old sooner than later. He’s in the second season of a four-year, $62MM contract that now looks to be among the least productive investments ever made in a relief pitcher. To this point, Melancon has provided the San Francisco organization with only thirty innings of 4.50 ERA pitching — though he did carry a typically solid 29:6 K/BB ratio last year.

Giants Promote Andrew Suarez, Move Madison Bumgarner To 60-Day DL

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The Giants announced today that they have promoted lefty Andrew Suarez, as expected. To create space on the 40-man roster, the club moved star hurler Madison Bumgarner to the 60-day DL. An active roster spot was opened by optioning reliever Steven Okert.

Suarez, 25, will follow Tyler Beede in making his debut for a San Francisco organization that has been hit hard by rotation injuries. There is a bit of good news on that front, as Jeff Samardzija is on track to return next week, as Alex Pavlovic of NBC Sports Bay Area tweets. For now, though the club will see what it has in some young hurlers.

Suarez, 25, was a second-round pick in the 2015 draft. He has been a steady performer while climbing the ladder in the Giants’ farm system, first reaching the top rung last year. In his 155 2/3 total innings in 2017, split between Double-A and Triple-A, he carried a 3.30 ERA with 7.8 K/9 and 2.4 BB/9 while generating grounders on nearly half the balls put in play against him.

As for Bumgarner, it is not exactly a surprise to see him put on ice for the full sixty days while he returns from a fractured pinky finger. That injury, which occurred late in camp, was expected to keep him out until early June anyway. Though the veteran had hoped to return sooner than initial projections, he could still conceivably beat the target by a few weeks after today’s placement.

Giants Place Johnny Cueto On 10-Day DL

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The Giants have placed right-hander Johnny Cueto on the 10-day disabled list due to a sprained ankle he sustained in a workout over the weekend, as Alex Pavlovic of NBC Sports Bay Area writes. The move is retroactive to April 7. Left-hander Steven Okert is up from Triple-A to give the team an extra arm for tonight’s game against the D-backs, and southpaw Andrew Suarez will be promoted tomorrow to make his Major League debut in what would’ve been Cueto’s spot in the rotation.

While Cueto’s injury doesn’t sound serious, it’s nonetheless the latest blow in a series of rotation injuries that have hindered the Giants early on in the season. Madison Bumgarner has yet to pitch this season due to a fractured finger that he sustained in Spring Training, while Jeff Samardzija has also yet to make his season debut owing to a pectoral injury. Pavlovic does relay some good news for Giants fans, as Samardzija is slated to make a rehab appearance on Saturday and should be activated for his next turn in the rotation after that.

In many respects, Cueto is off to a solid start to the 2018 season, having yielded just one run on nine hits and two walks through his first 13 innings. However, Cueto’s velocity has dipped from an average of 91.3 mph last season to just 90 mph thus far, and he’s managed to strike out just five batters while posting an uncharacteristically low seven percent swinging-strike rate.

Suarez, meanwhile, was the Giants’ second-round pick back in the 2015 draft. The University of Miami product has made just one Triple-A start this season but impressed there in 2017, tossing 88 2/3 frames with 8.1 K/9, 2.7 BB/9 and a 49.2 percent ground-ball rate following a promotion from Double-A, where he’d also impressed. San Francisco is already turning to its top pitching prospect, Tyler Beede, to make his MLB debut tonight, and they’ll follow him with another of the farm’s most promising young hurlers in Suarez — giving fans a potential glimpse of the future. MLB.com ranks Suarez as the Giants’ No. 10 prospect, calling him a high-floor prospect who should at the very least settle in as a back-of-the-rotation starter.

Giants Promote Tyler Beede

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The Giants will hand the ball to pitching prospect Tyler Beede tonight, as Kerry Crowley of the Bay Area News Group was among those to report. Reliever Roberto Gomez was optioned to create space.

The righty had already joined the MLB team on its taxi squad, but the team’s precise plans were not clear. Skipper Bruce Bochy announced last night that the youngster will be activated for his first MLB start.

Beede, the Giants’ first-round pick in the 2014 draft, will make his debut about six weeks before his 25th birthday. The Vanderbilt University product has steadily moved up the ladder in the San Francisco farm since signing out of the amateur ranks.

The results have been mixed of late for Beede. He turned in a strong 2016 season at Double-A, working to a 2.81 ERA with 8.2 K/9 and 3.2 BB/9. But he failed to carry that forward last year, when he allowed 4.79 earned per nine (with 6.9 K/9 and 3.2 BB/9) in his 109 Triple-A innings.

While Beede entered camp this spring with at least some hope of forcing his way into the Opening Day roster mix, he labored through his four outings. Still, he’ll receive a shot now that there’s an opening. Fellow hurler Andrew Suarez might also have been considered, but Beede is a much simpler selection from a logistical standpoint since he already has a 40-man roster spot.

It’s not clear at this point whether Beede will have much hope of sticking in the rotation for the remainder of the year. With Jeff Samardzija not far from a return, it could be that Beede will only get a limited opportunity. If he impresses, though, perhaps there’s a chance he could stake a claim to a permanent job. It’s doubtful the Giants are looking too closely at Beede’s service situation, as he isn’t exactly considered a can’t-miss ace, but it’s worth noting that he could still accrue a full year of MLB service in 2018 if he sticks on the active roster from this point forward.

Jeff Samardzija Nearing Return

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  • Giants righty Jeff Samardzija is aiming to make his season debut around April 19, Kerry Crowley of the Bay Area News Group writes. In the meantime, the plan is for Samardzija to pitch in extended spring training Monday and then make a minor league rehab start. The 33-year-old innings-eater has been out since late March with a strained pectoral muscle. Thanks to Samardzija’s injury and ace Madison Bumgarner’s broken left pinkie, the Giants are without two of their best starters.

Giants More Aggressive With Infield Shifting

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  • While they didn’t call a great deal of attention to it, the Giants beefed up their analytics department over the offseason, writes Alex Pavlovic of NBC Sports Bay Area. San Francisco has become more aggressive in terms of infield shifting and, during Spring Training, displayed leaderboards with more modern metrics such as exit velocity in the clubhouse. Giants players have begun to ask for additional info on their launch angles and batted-ball tendencies, Pavlovic notes. Regarding the infield shifts, Pavlovic also points out that the addition of a strong defensive player in Evan Longoria, plus the increased emphasis on data, figures to make the club considerably more aggressive in terms of shifts.

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