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Stephen Tarpley

Mets Designate Jake Hager

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The Mets designated outfielder Jake Hager for assignment, the team announced.  Right-hander Jordan Yamamoto was called up from Triple-A, and southpaw Stephen Tarpley was activated off the COVID-related injury list.

New York just selected Hager to the roster a week ago. The 28-year-old earned that promotion with a fantastic start to the year at Triple-A Syracuse, hitting .405/.436/.703 with three homers in 39 plate appearances. Hager only tallied eight plate appearances with the big league club this week, collecting one hit (a single). The Mets will have a week to trade him or expose him to outright waivers.

Yamamoto and Tarpley will add some depth to a New York pitching staff that went through seven relievers in last night’s 12-inning victory over the Marlins. Both hurlers have pitched in one game for the Mets this season.

Mets To Place Taijuan Walker On 10-Day IL

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4:55pm: McWilliams and Tarpley are on the COVID list, Healey tweets.

4:46pm: The team has officially placed Walker and fellow hurlers Sam McWilliams and Stephen Tarpley on the IL, Thosar relays. New York also activated outfielder Cameron Maybin, whom it acquired from the Cubs on Tuesday.

4:06pm: The Mets will place right-hander Taijuan Walker on the 10-day injured list, Deesha Thosar of the New York Daily News was among those to report. Walker is dealing with tightness in his left side.

The Mets now have four notable starters on the IL, with Walker joining Jacob deGrom (right side tightness), Noah Syndergaard (Tommy John surgery recovery) and Carlos Carrasco (hamstring strain) on the shelf. Nevertheless, the Mets have gone 20-16 and are in possession of a one-game lead in the National League East.

For his part, Walker – whom the Mets signed to a two-year, $20MM guarantee in free agency – has more than held his own in 2021. The former Mariner, Diamondback and Blue Jay, 28, has pitched to a 2.05 ERA over eight starts and 44 innings. That’s obviously going to be difficult production to replace, but the Mets seem hopeful Walker won’t miss much time, per manager Luis Rojas (via Tim Healey of Newsday).

Mets Notes: Lindor, Montgomery, Roster Cuts

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Mets owner Steve Cohen had dinner with Francisco Lindor on Saturday night, ostensibly to see if they could close the gap in their extension negotiations, per MLB.com’s Anthony DiComo. The Mets appear willing to cross the $300MM threshold, but that’s not a guarantee to keep Lindor in Queens long-term. The two sides continue to talk, however, and there is growing optimism that an accord will be reached before Lindor’s deadline of opening day. While we wait, let’s see how the rest of the Mets roster is shaping up…

  • The Mets released left-hander Mike Montgomery today, per Tim Healey of Newsday (via Twitter). Montgomery was thought to have a shot at making the Mets bullpen as a non-roster invitee, but he now heads back to free agency. The 31-year-old is best known for getting his first career save to close out the Cubs’ game seven World Series victory in 2016. He never quite rose to the level that many expected of him, but he nevertheless has put together a six-year career as a swingman for the Mariners, Cubs, and Royals. The Royals acquired him from the Cubs midway through the 2019 season with the plan to finally install him regularly into their starting rotation. He made 13 starts the rest of the way covering 64 innings with a 4.64 ERA/4.74 SIERA. He logged just 5 1/3 innings in 2020, however. Montgomery had pitched well in spring training, but the Mets would have been on the hook for $2.25MM if they rostered him, notes MLB.com’s Anthony DiComo (via Twitter). He had an opt-out clause in his contract for today.
  • The Mets also announced a series of roster cuts today. Jerry Blevins, Jerad Eickhoff,  Caleb Joseph, Jose Peraza, Mallex Smith, and Arodys Vizcaino were informed that they will not make the opening day roster, per Mike Puma of the New York Post (via Twitter). Blevins, 37, will head to the Mets’ alternate site in Brooklyn. He’ll be joined there by fellow southpaw Stephen Tarpley, who was optioned to Triple-A. Tarpley has two options remaining.

Mets Claim Stephen Tarpley

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The Mets have claimed left-hander Stephen Tarpley off waivers from the division-rival Marlins, Mike Puma of the New York Post tweets. The Marlins designated Tarpley for assignment last week.

Tarpley entered the majors as a third-round pick of the Orioles in 2013, but he never suited up for them. Instead, Tarpley has pitched for the Yankees and Marlins, with whom he has combined for a 6.65 ERA with a 27.2 percent strikeout rate and a 13.6 percent walk rate over 44 2/3 frames. He struggled mightily last year during his lone season as a Marlin, allowing 11 earned runs in as many innings and issuing eight walks. The 27-year-old has, however, managed a stingy 2.88 ERA across 65 2/3 Triple-A innings.

While Tarpley hasn’t exactly thrived at the game’s highest level, the Mets are taking a low-risk chance that he’ll at least provide useful depth. Notably, the club has an obvious need for left-handers relievers, as Daniel Zamora is the only southpaw bullpen option on its 40-man roster.

Marlins Designate Stephen Tarpley For Assignment

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The Marlins have announced that left-hander Stephen Tarpley has been designated for assignment.  The move creates roster space for Ross Detwiler, whose signing is now official.

Acquired from the Yankees just shy of a year ago, Tarpley missed a month of the 2020 season due to an oblique strain and otherwise struggled over 11 innings with Miami.  The southpaw posted a 9.00 ERA while allowing two homers and eight walks during his small sample size of work.  While Tarpley has a 5.8 BB/9 and 1.6 HR/9 over his 44 2/3 career MLB innings with the Marlins and Yankees, he has been almost an entirely different hurler over his 450 2/3 minor league innings — he owns a modest 3.0 BB/9 and only an 0.4 HR/9, while posting often extreme groundball numbers.

With this intriguing resume, it isn’t out of the question that Tarpley is claimed by another team during his DFA period in the hope that another change of scenery could unlock some late-career (Tarpley turns 28 in February) potential.  A third-round pick for the Orioles in the 2013 draft, Tarpley also spent some time in the Pirates’ farm system during his career.

Marlins Designate Brett Eibner For Assignment

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The Marlins have designated right-hander Brett Eibner for assignment and reinstated lefty Stephen Tarpley from the 60-day injured list, Joe Frisaro of MLB.com tweets.

This is the second time this season Miami has designated Eibner, a former Royals, Athletics and Dodgers outfielder from 2015-17 who has reinvented himself as a pitcher in the past couple years. The Marlins signed Eibner to a minor league contract in early August, at which point the team was dealing with serious coronavirus concerns.

To his credit, the 31-year-old Eibner has been successful enough as a hurler to get back to the majors in 2020. But Eibner has struggled across 3 1/3 innings as a member of the playoff-contending Marlins, with whom he has yielded five earned runs on seven hits, including two homers, with four walks and four strikeouts.

Marlins Designate Sterling Sharp For Assignment

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The Marlins made a series of roster moves Monday, beginning with the announcement that right-hander Sterling Sharp has been designated for assignment. Miami also reinstated infielder Eddy Alvarez from the paternity list and optioned him to the alternate training site. Lefty Stephen Tarpley, meanwhile, has been placed on the 10-day IL due to an oblique strain, while fellow southpaw Brandon Leibrandt was optioned to the alternate site.

Up from the alternate site in place of Sharp, Tarpley and Leibrant are first baseman Lewin Diaz and right-handers Jorge Guzman and Jesus Tinoco.

Sharp, 25, joined the Marlins via the NL East-rival Nationals as a Rule 5 pick over the winter. He went on to throw 5 1/3 innings with the Marlins this year before they booted him from their roster, but Sharp struggled mightily along the way. The soft-tossing Sharp made four appearances out of Miami’s bullpen and yielded seven runs (six earned) on seven hits and five walks, striking out just three in the process. Sharp will now head to the waiver wire, and if nobody claims him there, the Marlins will have to offer him back to the Nats.

Marlins Acquire Stephen Tarpley, Designate Brian Moran

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The Yankees have traded left-hander Stephen Tarpley to the Marlins in exchange for minor league third baseman James Nelson and cash, the two teams announced. In order to open a spot for Tarpley on the 40-man roster, fellow southpaw Brian Moran was designated for assignment. Tarpley was designated for assignment last week when the Yankees finalized their deal with Brett Gardner.

Tarpley, 26, came to the Yankees organization in the 2016 trade that sent Ivan Nova to Pittsburgh, but he’s only logged 33 2/3 innings of action in the Majors. Most of that workload came in 2019, when he pitched to an ugly 6.93 ERA with a 34-to-15 K/BB ratio in 24 2/3 innings.

Control was clearly an issue for Tarpley this past season, as in addition to his 15 walks, he plunked two hitters and unleashed five wild pitches. But he hasn’t had that type of issue finding the zone throughout his minor league tenure and has generally been a successful reliever in the upper minors. Tarpley pitched to a 1.76 ERA in 46 Double-A innings (albeit with less impressive marks of 7.6 K/9 and 3.3 BB/9) and is also the owner of a career 2.88 ERA with 9.9 K/9 and 3.3 BB/9 in 65 2/3 Triple-A frames. His gaudy ground-ball tendencies haven’t carried over to the Majors just yet, but Tarpley has routinely run up grounder rates north of 60 percent in Double-A and Triple-A. The lefty has a pair of minor league options remaining as well, so the Marlins can shuttle him between New Orleans and Miami as they see fit over the next two seasons.

Nelson, 22, was Miami’s 15th-round pick back in 2016. The Cisco College product turned in a big age-19 season in the Class-A South Atlantic League when he slashed .309/.354/.456 with seven homers, 31 doubles and three triples against older competition. But the past two seasons, both of which have come with Miami’s Class-A Advanced affiliate in Jupiter, have been nightmarish. Nelson has racked up 723 plate appearances but has sub-.300 marks in batting average, on-base percentage and slugging percentage: .222/.273/.290.

The 31-year-old Moran is the older brother of Pirates third baseman Colin Moran. He made his MLB debut at the age of 30 this past season, allowing three runs on six hits and two walks with 10 strikeouts through 6 1/3 frames. Moran has solid numbers in Triple-A, where he’s averaged better than 11 strikeouts per nine innings in parts of five seasons, so perhaps another club in need of some left-handed relief depth would place a speculative claim if the Fish try to pass him through outright waivers.

Yankees Announce Brett Gardner Signing, DFA Stephen Tarpley

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The Yankees officially announced the signing of Brett Gardner to a one-year contract with a club option for 2021. Left-handed pitcher Stephen Tarpley was designated for assignment to make room on the 40-man roster.

Gardner unofficially returned to the Yankees in mid-December when news broke of the one-year, $12.5MM deal. As reported at the time, Gardner receives a $2MM signing bonus, $8MM salary for 2020 and a buyout for a club option in 2020 valued at $2.5MM to make up the total $12.5MM guarantee. Should the Yankees pick up their 2020 option, he will earn $20MM over two years.

Gardner is one of only five players drafted by the Yankees to collect 1,000 hits in pinstripes, joining Derek Jeter, Jorge Posada, Thurman Munson and Don Mattingly. He is also one of only 10 players in the current MLB to play for the same team for the last 12 seasons (Ryan Braun, Miguel Cabrera, Alex Gordon, Felix Hernandez, Clayton Kershaw, Yadier Molina, Dustin Pedroia, Joey Votto and Ryan Zimmerman). A couple players could move from this list in 2019, while Molina holds the crown for longest-tenured player in the majors having made his debut with the Cardinals in 2004.

Tarpley saw 21 games of action with the big league club in 2019 after 10 games the year prior. In total, the soon-to-be 27-year-old owns a 5.88 ERA/4.77 FIP across 33 2/3 innings with 12.6 K.9 to a troubling 5.6 BB/9. Tarpley’s DFA comes as a bit of a surprise after back-to-back stellar seasons in the minors from 2017 to 2018 as a multi-inning reliever. Even given his troubles at the big league level in 2019, Tarpley figured to get a chance somewhere to start the season in a big league bullpen.

Yankees Select Brady Lail And Joe Mantiply, Transfer Stanton To 60-Day IL

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9:53 am: Tarpley is set to undergo an MRI on his balky elbow, tweets Bryan Hoch of MLB.com.

9:15 am: The Yankees announced a correction to Tarpley’s injury. He suffered a left elbow impingement, not a shoulder impingement as previously reported.

7:46 am: The Yankees announced today they have selected the contracts of relievers Joe Mantiply and Brady Lail. To create 40-man roster space, the club has transferred Giancarlo Stanton to the 60-day injured list. Infielder Breyvic Valera was optioned to Triple-A Scranton Wilkes-Barre, while left-hander Stephen Tarpley was placed on the 10-day injured list with a left shoulder impingement, opening up active roster spots.

New York just acquired Mantiply from the Reds on Friday. While the acquisition was swung after the hard July 31 deadline, Mantiply was still eligible to be traded because he initially signed a minor-league contract with Cincinnati. The left-hander threw a solid 29 innings in a long relief role for the Reds’ Triple-A affiliate before the trade and will get his second big league crack, having previously pitched five games for the Tigers in 2016.

It’ll be the first MLB go-round for Lail, who turned 26 on Friday. The Yankees’ 18th-round pick out of high school in 2012, Lail hasn’t been among the club’s top 30 farmhands since 2015, per Baseball America, and he went unselected in the Rule V draft last offseason. That said, Lail pitched to a 1.93 ERA with a 36.9% strikeout rate in Double-A this season. Like Manitply, he’s worked multiple innings in the minors and gives the club some long relief depth.

Stanton’s transfer to the 60-day IL is more of a formality than an indicator of any new health problems. He was already known to be out until September, and because his initial 10-day IL placement occurred June 26, he’ll be eligible to return August 26. With a commanding lead in the AL East and stunning production from their fill-in options, the club will surely be cautious with the star slugger.

The club didn’t announce a timetable for Tarpley’s return. The 26 year-old has served as optionable bullpen depth himself this season, pitching dreadfully in the majors- to an 8.24 ERA- but putting up solid results in Scranton. As James Wagner of the New York Times notes, he becomes the 27th different pinstriped player to hit the IL this season, making the club’s 76-41 record all the more remarkable.

Valera, a May waiver claim most notable for his defensive abilities in the infield, has been used sparingly at the big league level this season, but has raked in Triple-A. He’s hitting .328/.402/.532 with more walks than strikeouts for the RailRiders. He’s also bounced around in trade over the past few years, indicating multiple teams view him as a quality depth piece.

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