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COVID Notes: 4/9/21

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The latest COVID-related notes from the majors:

  • The Blue Jays placed outfielder Teoscar Hernandez on the COVID-19 injured list after “someone close to him tested positive,” Gregor Chisholm of the Toronto Star tweets. The team also placed left-hander Ryan Borucki on the COVID IL because he is dealing with side effects from the vaccine. [UPDATE: Outfielder Lourdes Gurriel Jr. exited Friday’s game with vaccine-related symptoms, the team announced.]
  • Yankees third baseman Gio Urshela landed on the COVID IL on Friday because of side effects from the vaccine, according to a club announcement. The hope is that Urshela will return Saturday, manager Aaron Boone said (via Marly Rivera of ESPN). In the meantime, the Yankees recalled first baseman Mike Ford to take Urshela’s roster spot.
  • In better news, Tigers right-hander Spencer Turnbull has returned to the team’s alternate site and could throw a simulated game this weekend, Cody Stavenhagen of The Athletic reports. The Tigers have been without Turnbull since March 20 because of health and safety protocols. Turnbull piled up 56 2/3 innings for the Tigers last year and notched a 3.97 ERA with a 50 percent groundball rate.

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COVID Notes: 4/8/21

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Some good news on the COVID front today…

  •  Tigers’ pitching coach Chris Fetter was cleared to rejoin the team, per the Athletic’s Cody Stavenhagen (via Twitter). Fetter tested positive for coronavirus at the end of March, and he’s been away from the team since. He will re-join the club for their upcoming series in Cleveland.
  • Spencer Turnbull is throwing and will soon move to the Tigers’ alternate site, tweets Stavenhagen. When he does return, the Tigers could consider moving to a six-man rotation. Turnbull developed a bit of a niche following this offseason as a guy with some breakout potential, but that was obviously tempered somewhat when news broke of his positive test on March 20th. The Tigers will be glad to welcome him back to the rotation.

COVID Notes: 3/28/21

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The latest coronavirus situations to monitor around baseball…

Latest Updates

  • Right-hander Spencer Turnbull will miss at least the Tigers’ first few series of the year, manager A.J. Hinch told MLB.com’s Jason Beck and other reporters.  Turnbull has been away from Spring Training camp since March 20 due to healthy and safety protocols, and the club placed him on the COVID injured list earlier this week.  Back on March 20, Hinch made the point to note that Turnbull wasn’t in violation of any team rules himself, so it’s possible Turnbull just needs some extra time to ramp up after pitching only nine Grapefruit League innings.

Earlier Today

  • Utilityman Abraham Toro and catcher/outfielder Garrett Stubbs are away from camp due to health and safety protocols, Astros manager Dusty Baker told MLB.com’s Brian McTaggart (Twitter link) and other reporters.  The Houston Chronicle’s Chandler Rome reported yesterday that a player in the Astros’ camp is a presumed positive COVID-19 case, and that at least three players (presumably Toro, Stubbs, and Myles Straw) were quarantined for contact tracing purposes.  Baker hopes to have the players back in camp within the next one or two days.
  • Eight members of the Red Sox organization are away from camp for contact-tracing purposes in the wake of Matt Barnes’ positive COVID-19 test, manager Alex Cora told reporters (including The Athletic’s Jen McCaffrey and The Boston Globe’s Alex Speier).  Four of the eight-person group are automatically in isolation due to being close contacts with Barnes, though Cora didn’t specify how many of the eight were players.  Assuming negative tests, any players included within the eight-person group would likely be ready to play Thursday on Opening Day.

Tigers Select Julio Teheran’s Contract

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The Tigers have informed veteran righty Julio Teheran that he will make their Opening Day roster, manager A.J. Hinch announced to reporters Wednesday (Twitter links via Evan Petzold of the Detroit Free Press). Teheran had a March 22 opt-out date in his contract that he triggered two days ago, giving the club 48 hours to make the move. He’ll now be guaranteed a $3MM salary with up to $1MM available via additional incentives. In a corresponding roster move, the Tigers announced that righty Spencer Turnbull has been placed on the injured list. No reason was given, but he’s been away from the rest of the club since Saturday due to Covid-19 protocols.

Detroit also informed left-hander Tarik Skubal that he’s made the big league rotation. Meanwhile, veteran righty Erasmo Ramirez and lefty Ian Krol did not make the club but will stick with the team. Ramirez has more than six years of service time and finished out the 2020 season on a 40-man roster, making him an Article XX(B) free agent under the collective bargaining agreement and thus entitling him to a $100K retention bonus for remaining with the Tigers rather than taking the release opportunity afforded to him by that status.

Teheran, 30, has had an outstanding spring with the Tigers, holding opponents to three runs on just six hits and one walk with 15 strikeouts over the course of 11 innings. More encouragingly, he’s shown improved velocity this spring, with both Petzold and The Athletic’s Cody Stavenhagen indicating that he came out of the gates hitting 92.8 and 92.9 mph — just a year after Statcast pegged his average four-seamer at 89.2 mph and his average sinker at 88.7 mph.

Last year was a particularly dismal season for Teheran. In his first season away from his original organization, the Braves, Teheran missed the early portion of the year due to a positive Covid-19 diagnosis and attempted to build up his pitch count in a big league setting but never looked like himself. He was clobbered for a disastrous 10.05 ERA (5.99 SIERA) with a career-low 13.4 percent strikeout rate against an elevated 10.7 percent walk rate.

Prior to 2020, Teheran had been a durable workhorse in Atlanta. He may not have developed into the ace-caliber starter that many expected based on his former top prospect status — his 2014 season came close — but from 2013-19 Teheran combined for a 3.64 ERA over the life over 1334 innings. He averaged 32 starts per season along the way, landing on the injured list only twice: a two-week stretch due to a minor lat strain in 2016 and a 10-day stint for a thumb contusion in 2018.

Teheran now steps into the Tigers’ rotation alongside Matthew Boyd, Jose Urena and the up-and-coming Skubal, who ranked as one of the game’s top 50 prospects prior to making his MLB debut in 2020. The 24-year-old Skubal was tagged for a 5.63 ERA last season, but only in a small sample of 32 innings. He battled some control issues a bit in his most recent spring start but has held opponents to a pair of runs on eight hits and eight walks with 15 strikeouts in 12 Grapefruit League innings. Obviously, he’ll need to command the strike zone more effectively during the season, but Skubal has encouraged the club enough to further audition for a long-term rotation spot.

Turnbull was likely ticketed for a rotation spot himself, but there’s no timeline for his return to the club. In the meantime, the Tigers can look to former No. 1 overall pick Casey Mize or former Rookie of the Year Michael Fulmer. The latter worked out of the bullpen in his most recent outing and has generally struggled this spring, but he still hopes to return to form as a starter after undergoing Tommy John surgery late in 2018, missing 2019 and struggling in 2020. Mize has also struggled, however, so the Tigers could look elsewhere within the organization to piece things together until Turnbull is deemed eligible to return. Both Daniel Norris and Tyler Alexander have experience starting at the MLB level.

COVID Notes: 3/21/21

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The latest on COVID-19 situations throughout the league:

  • Tigers starter Spencer Turnbull looks unlikely to return to Spring Training before the end of camp due to health and safety protocols, manager A.J. Hinch told reporters (including Chris McCosky of the Detroit News).  Hinch didn’t rule out the possibility of Turnbull taking a turn in the season-opening rotation, although it seems he’s now more likely to be pushed to the back end rather than take the ball on Opening Day.
  • Joey Votto returned to Reds’ camp today after testing positive for COVID-19 eleven days ago.  The former MVP is still on Cincinnati’s COVID injured list, but has been cleared for workouts and Spring Training games. It remains to be seen whether Votto will be able to sufficiently ramp up in time for Opening Day, as Reds GM Nick Krall told MLB.com’s Mark Sheldon and other reporters that the team was going to let Votto “get his legs underneath him and go from there.  I can’t give you a timetable.”

COVID Notes: 3/20/21

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The latest on coronavirus-related situations around baseball…

  • Tigers right-hander Spencer Turnbull is away from camp due to COVID-19 protocols, manager A.J. Hinch told reporters (including MLive.com’s Evan Woodbery), though Hinch specified that Turnbull himself hadn’t done anything in violation of rules.  Turnbull was a candidate to pitch for the Tigers on Opening Day, though it isn’t known how much time he may miss, or whether his readiness for one of the season’s first few games could be in question.  Now entering his fourth MLB season, Turnbull is coming off a 2020 campaign that saw him post a 3.97 ERA and 50.0% grounder rate over 56 2/3 innings, allowing only two home runs.  Advanced metrics weren’t as impressed, as Turnbull had a 5.00 SIERA and several below-average Statcast numbers.

Filling Out The Tigers’ Starting Rotation

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UPDATE: Zimmermann has been placed on the 45-day injured list, per MLB.com’s Jason Beck and others (Twitter links). The Tigers aren’t ruling him out for the season yet.

TODAY: Jordan Zimmermann is dealing with the same sort of forearm soreness that sapped him of much of the 2019 season, per Chris McCosky of The Detroit News. If he can stay healthy – a big if – Zimmermann would look to make the most of a short season by proving his arm still plays at the major league level. This will be the final year of the five-year, $110MM pact he signed with the Tigers before the 2016 season.

It’s been a tough couple of years for Zimmermann, who will end his contract without ever making 30 starts in a season after doing so in each of his final four seasons with the Nationals. Despite the precipitous drop in performance, the Tigers were nonetheless turning to Zimmermann as a veteran stopgap in a rotation that will soon be overrun by high-upside prospects like Tarik Skubal, Matt Manning, Franklin Perez, Casey Mize, and Joey Wentz. The rotation is already without Daniel Norris, who has yet to pitch in camp after testing positive for coronavirus.

In the meantime, the Tigers are scrambling to fill out the rotation behind ace Matthew Boyd. Veteran Ivan Nova was brought in to soak up innings (34 starts, 187 innings in 2019), and Spencer Turnbull figures to slot in somewhere in the middle of the rotation after a mostly-strong showing in 2019. Turnbull went 3-17 last season with a 4.61 ERA/3.99 FIP. He’s done a nice job of limiting long balls throughout his two seasons in the majors, and if he can improve upon some control issues that led to an AL-high 16 hit batters and 3.6 BB/9, the Tigers hope Turnbull can level off his 4.76 career ERA and land closer to his 3.88 career FIP mark.

Beyond those three, the Tigers are working on extending the innings of Dario Agrazal, Shao-Ching Chiang, Hector Santiago, and Tyler Alexander to potentially fill out the rotation. Former Rookie of the Year Michael Fulmer also has a chance to get some rotation innings, writes McCosky. Fulmer missed all of 2019 after undergoing Tommy John surgery.

Of the youngsters in camp, Mize probably has the best shot of cracking the rotation. Under normal circumstances, Mize would be ticketed for Triple-A after 22 starts with a 2.55 ERA in Double-A last year, but without minor league games to further his development, count Mize among the many young stars with a slightly better chance of breaking into the big leagues sometime during the shortened 2020 season. Seven days on the taxi squad will be enough for the Tigers to secure an extra year of service time, notes McCosky, but manager Ron Gardenhire doesn’t plan on making any official decisions until knowing more about the health of Zimmermann and Norris.

Pitcher Notes: Scherzer, Bundy, Turnbull, Garrett, Alexander

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With summer storms peppering much of the country today, we’ve got our own torrent of pitcher-related news to sort through. Out of D.C., we hear from MLB.com’s Jamal Collier that Nationals ace Max Scherzer threw 15 pitches off of a mound this afternoon (Twitter link). The superlative hurler has been dealing with inflammation in the bursa sac under his right shoulder blade and hasn’t appeared in a game since a seven-inning win against the Royals on July 6th. That Scherzer is throwing again–and could possibly throw another bullpen on Monday–is a sign that he apparently took well to a recent cortisone shot in his ailing back. Given the notoriously fickle nature of back injuries, the Nats are likely to be over the moon at this positive step in Scherzer’s recovery.

The latest on a few other waylaid hurlers…

  • The Orioles’ Dylan Bundy will apparently come off the injured list as soon as he is eligible, with MLB.com’s Joe Trezza reporting that the righty will start Tuesday in Arizona (link). Bundy, who has never really delivered on the promise that was conferred upon him when he was selected 4th overall in the 2011 draft, has a 5.28 ERA and 5.32 FIP in 92 innings this year. He has been on the shelf since July 13th with right knee tendinitis.
  • Chris McCosky of the Detroit News has reported on separate channels that Tigers starter Spencer Turnbull has suffered a back injury that will usher him to the IL. Apparently, Turnbull, who has put together a quietly effective 2019 campaign, experienced a strain during a workout Friday–a strain that persisted in a post-workout game of catch (Twitter link). In a subsequent piece, McCosky cogently points out that this injury could actually serve as a convenient means of limiting Turnbull’s innings–the 26-year-old was expected to pitch around 140 frames this year and had already logged 98.2 entering the weekend (link).
  • Bobby Nightengale of the Cincinnati Enquirer reports that the Reds will welcome back two bullpen stalwarts with the activation of Amir Garrett and Raisel Iglesias from the injured list and paternity list, respectively (Twitter link). Garrett has been sidelined since July 4th with a left lat strain–an injury he presumably incurred from striking out most of the league this season en route to a 13.14 K/9 rate across 37 innings. To accommodate these moves, the Reds optioned righties Jimmy Herget and, as MLB.com’s Mark Sheldon reported, Matt Bowman (link).
  • In concerning news, Dodgers manager Dave Roberts has relayed to Ken Gurnick of MLB.com that veteran reliever Scott Alexander has been shut down for foreseeable future with a “nerve and thumb problem” (link). Alexander has been solid in 17-plus innings for Los Angeles this year, but injuries have been a prominent theme. Originally sidelined in June with a forearm ailment, issues with Alexander’s thumb have subsequently followed, and this latest language regarding his nerve is certainly ominous from a medical perspective. The lefty has posted a 3.63 ERA on the season.

Health Notes: Story, Kluber, Tigers, Brewers, Royals, Jays

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Rockies shortstop Trevor Story will start a Triple-A rehab assignment Saturday, Nick Groke of The Athletic relays. It’ll be a two-game rehab stint for Story, whom the Rockies placed on the injured list June 20 with a right thumb issue. It seems Colorado dodged a bullet in this instance with the all-important Story, who missed a large portion of the 2016 campaign with a torn UCL in his left thumb.

  • Indians ace Corey Kluber has received clearance to begin a throwing program, per Mandy Bell of MLB.com. The venerable Kluber has been out since suffering a non-displaced fracture in his right forearm May 1. Kluber’s absence, not to mention the other adversity the Indians have faced this season, has left the three-time reigning AL Central champions out of the playoff picture at the 80-game mark. They’re eight games back of the division-leading Twins and a half-game out of a wild-card spot.
  • The Tigers put righty Spencer Turnbull on the injured list Friday with shoulder fatigue after he departed Thursday’s start early. The team plans to welcome Turnbull back after the All-Star break, according to Jason Beck of MLB.com. That Turnbull seemingly isn’t dealing with a serious injury is undoubtedly a relief to Detroit, which has seen the 26-year-old post terrific production as a rookie this season. Turnbull has pitched to a 3.31 ERA/3.91 FIP with 8.43 K/9, 3.41 BB/9 and a 49 percent groundball rate in 89 2/3 innings.
  • The Brewers announced that they’ve placed Jimmy Nelson on the 10-day IL, retroactive to June 26, with a right elbow effusion. It’s an issue that has bothered Nelson since spring training, Robert Murray of The Athletic tweets, and may help explain his 2019 struggles. Nelson made his season debut June 5 after sitting out since September 2017, when he underwent surgery on a torn shoulder labrum. The 30-year-old has since allowed 13 earned runs on 18 hits and 14 walks (with 15 strikeouts) in 14 innings. The Brewers pulled Nelson from their rotation last weekend.
  • Royals shortstop Adalberto Mondesi will begin a rehab assignment at the Double-A level Saturday, Lynn Worthy of the Kansas City Star tweets. Mondesi has been on the IL since June 19 with a groin injury. Prior to that, the 23-year-old batted .269/.302/.441 (91 wRC+) with six home runs, 27 stolen bases on 30 tries and 2.1 fWAR in 312 plate appearances.
  • Blue Jays lefty Ryan Borucki will need at least three to four minor league rehab starts before making his 2019 major league debut, manager Charlie Montoyo said Friday (via Gregor Chisholm of MLB.com). Borucki’s not on track to rejoin Toronto until the end of July as a result. Elbow problems have kept the 25-year-old Borucki from building on an encouraging 2018 rookie campaign. The starter turned in a 3.87 ERA/3.80 FIP with 6.17 K/9, 3.04 BB/9 and a 46.8 percent grounder rate over 97 2/3 frames last year.

AL Central Notes: Kluber, Carrasco, Turnbull, Buxton, ChiSox, Abreu

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The Indians have been without Corey Kluber since May 3, when he suffered a forearm fracture upon being hit by a comeback line-drive, but Paul Hoynes of the Cleveland Plain Dealer provides some reason for optimism regarding his return.  Kluber went through his throwing motion while wearing “stabilizing straps” this week and is slated to undergo MRIs to determine whether his fracture has healed.  If that proves to be the case, he’d be cleared to begin a throwing program.

There’s also some progress to report on Carlos Carrasco, who is out indefinitely due to an undisclosed blood condition.  Carrasco played catch this week, Hoynes notes, and the Tribe could learn within the next two to three weeks whether his condition can be managed.  If that’s the case, he could rejoin the Indians’ rotation even before Kluber.  That said, the Cleveland organization still isn’t fully sure when or if either righty will return to the 2019 club.

Here’s more from the division…

  • Tigers right-hander Spencer Turnbull left today’s start after just two innings due to shoulder fatigue, manager Ron Gardenhire told The Athletic’s Cody Stavenhagen (Twitter link) and other media.  An MRI didn’t reveal any structural damage and Turnbull didn’t feel any pain, but rather the club decided to make the move due to a drop in Turnbull’s fastball velocity.  It isn’t known yet if Turnbull will miss any time, though it would mark yet another pitching injury for Detroit’s rotation this season.  Turnbull’s emergence helped the club fill one hole in the starting five, as the rookie has a 3.31 ERA, 8.43 K/9 and 49% grounder rate over 89 2/3 innings.
  • Byron Buxton is “getting close to his return” from the injured list, MLB.com’s Do-Hyoung Park tweets.  Buxton was sidelined on June 18 (IL placement retroactive to June 15) with a wrist contusion after being hit by a pitch, and while the Twins outfielder has already exceeded the 10-day minimum IL stint, the injury isn’t considered to be serious.  Buxton was expected to face live pitching today in the Twins’ indoor batting cage, though rain kept him participating in on-field batting, Park notes.  Buxton’s all-around play has been a key factor in Minnesota’s rise to the top of the AL Central, as he has provided his usual excellent center field defense and baserunning while also hitting .266/.324/.527 with nine homers over 227 plate appearances.
  • The White Sox have been open about their desire to keep Jose Abreu beyond the 2019 season, and the first baseman also has no plans to leave the south side, he tells Paul Sullivan of the Chicago Tribune.  “I’ll always be a White Sox….I’m a part of this organization. This is the organization that gave me a chance to play at this level and made all my dreams come true. I hope to stay here a very long time,” Abreu said.  While there’s nothing stopping the Sox from trading Abreu at the deadline and then re-signing him after the season, Abreu said he expects to remain with the club.  As Sullivan notes, this might leave Alex Colome as the only real trade chip for the White Sox at the deadline, as Chicago’s other veteran players apart from Colome, Abreu, and James McCann (who might also be retained) have largely struggled.
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