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Yankees Claim Colby White

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The Yankees announced Thursday that they’ve claimed right-hander Colby White off waivers from the Rays, who’d designated him for assignment late last week. White has been optioned to Double-A Somerset. The Yankees already had an open 40-man spot after designating outfielder Taylor Trammell for assignment and outrighting him to Triple-A, so a corresponding 40-man move isn’t necessary.

The 25-year-old White was a 2019 sixth-round pick by the Rays. He ranked among the team’s most promising arms at one point but has seen his career set back by injuries. The right-hander missed the 2022 season and a good portion of the 2023 campaign recovering from Tommy John surgery. He returned to pitch 22 minor league frames late last year and posted a 1.64 ERA that looked pristine on the surface but masked some worrying trends. Namely, White issued a free pass to a whopping 19.5% of his opponents in last year’s comeback effort.

His command woes continued this year, and the good fortune he had in stranding all those free baserunners dried up. White pitched 7 2/3 innings in the Rays’ system but was rocked for 15 earned runs on the strength of 10 hits and 10 walks. He’s given up a walk to just under 22% of his opponents this year and has also hit a pair of batters.

Command wasn’t an issue prior to White’s surgery. In 2021, he posted a sparkling 1.44 ERA across four minor league levels while dominating opponents — evidenced by a comical 45% strikeout rate and a strong 6.4% walk rate. White is in the second of three minor league option years, so the Yanks will send him to Double-A and hope that the change of scenery can get him closer to his 2021 form. If they can accomplish that, White could yet emerge as a quality big league reliever, but he’s clearly a project in the wake of his post-surgery struggles to locate the ball.

Angels Claim Niko Goodrum

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The Angels announced Thursday that they’ve claimed utilityman Niko Goodrum off waivers from the Rays, who’d designated him for assignment earlier in the week. In a corresponding move, the Halos recalled righty Kelvin Caceres from Triple-A and placed him on the major league 60-day injured list.

Goodrum appeared in nine games with Tampa Bay but tallied only 18 plate appearances, during which he collected a trio of singles, walked once and struck out three times. He hit .316/.422/.605 with three homers in 45 plate appearances down in Triple-A Durham.

A second-round pick by the Twins in 2010, the now-32-year-old Goodrum has played in parts of seven MLB seasons (this year included). The best stretch of that seven-year span came with the 2018-19 Tigers, who gave Goodrum regular playing time and saw him enjoy a .247/.318/.427 slash while playing quality defense at multiple positions. For a time, Goodrum served as the Tigers’ everyday shortstop. He logged 964 plate appearances over those two seasons and belted 28 homers in addition to swiping 24 bags.

Goodrum’s bat wilted in subsequent seasons. He split the 2023 campaign between the Red Sox’ Triple-A affiliate in Worcester, batting .280/.448/.440, and the Lotte Giants of the Korea Baseball Organization, for whom he turned in a .295/.373/.387 line.

The switch-hitting Goodrum has experience at all four infield positions and in the outfield corners. He’ll give the Halos some depth at a time when Anthony Rendon was just transferred to the 60-day IL and when each of Miguel Sano, Michael Stefanic and potentially Brandon Drury — who exited yesterday’s game with a hamstring issue — are unavailable. Sano and Stefanic are both on the injured list already, and Drury could soon join them. The Angels also acquired Luis Guillorme in a morning trade with the Braves. Goodrum and/or Guillorme could eventually push current bench players Cole Tucker and Ehire Adrianza off the roster; neither has hit much in his first eight games with the team.

Rays Place Ryan Pepiot On Injured List, Reinstate Taj Bradley

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The Rays have made a swap of starters, with right-hander Ryan Pepiot going on the 15-day injured list, while Taj Bradley has been reinstated from the IL and will start Friday’s game. The moves were relayed on X by Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times.

Pepiot was hit on the leg by a comebacker on Sunday. A CT scan came back negative for any fractures but the club will give him some time on the injured list anyway, presumably to get over any soreness or swelling he’s currently experiencing.

It’s an unfortunate development for the Rays, as Pepiot was out to a strong start to the year. Acquired from the Dodgers as part of the Tyler Glasnow trade, Pepiot has made seven starts with a 3.68 earned run average. He has struck out 29.1% of batters faced while walking 7.8% of them.

Rotation health has been an ongoing concern in Tampa for quite a while. Each of Shane Baz, Shane McClanahan, Jeffrey Springs and Drew Rasmussen are on the injured list due to undergoing elbow surgeries last year, or 2022 in the case of Baz. Jacob Waguespack is also on the IL due to a strained shoulder while Bradley had been there due to a strained pectoral.

Bradley now swapping in for Pepiot makes this a neutral move in a sense, though Bradley’s results haven’t been as strong as Pepiot’s thus far. He had a 5.59 ERA in 104 2/3 innings for the Rays last year. His 28% strikeout rate was strong and his 8.5% walk rate around average, but he allowed 23 home runs.

The rotation will now consists of Zach Eflin, Zack Littell, Aaron Civale, Tyler Alexander and Bradley, at least until Pepiot heals up. Bradley still has options and could perhaps be sent back to the minors later in the year, though the club will have other choices available. Civale has a 6.14 ERA while Alexander is at 4.96 and both of them are optionable as well.

Rays Designate Niko Goodrum, Select Edwin Uceta

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The Rays made several roster moves today, as relayed by Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times on X. They selected right-hander Edwin Uceta to the roster while optioning left-hander Jacob Lopez and designated infielder/outfielder Niko Goodrum for assignment in corresponding moves. The club also activated outfielder Josh Lowe from the injured list and optioned infielder Curtis Mead.

Goodrum, 32, signed a minor league deal with the Twins this winter but was flipped to the Rays just before Opening Day. Tampa was about to start the year with a number of position players on the injured list, including Lowe, Taylor Walls, Jonathan Aranda and Jonny DeLuca. Since the season started, Brandon Lowe also went on the IL, further thinning their position player depth.

But Goodrum wasn’t able to take advantage of the opportunity, though it was quite limited. He received 18 plate appearances over nine games at the big league level, hitting .188/.235 /.188 in those. He’s spent more time on optional assignment in Triple-A, where he has performed much better. He stepped to the plate 45 times over nine games for the Bulls and hit .316/.422/.605, but that wasn’t enough to hold onto his roster spot.

The Rays will now have a week to trade Goodrum or pass him through waivers. He was a solid regular for the Tigers back in 2018 and 2019 but his production tailed off in the following three seasons. He hit .247/.318/.427 over 2018 and 2019 with 24 steals, but he then hit .196/.271/.334 over the following three campaigns.

There’s been some encouraging results in the past year-plus. He hit .280/.448/.440 for Boston’s Triple-A club last year before going to Korea, where he hit .295/.373/.387 for the KBO’s Lotte Giants. As mentioned, the results weren’t there at the big league so far this year but the Triple-A production was good. Since he still can be optioned to the minors, perhaps he will intrigue a rival club who would like to option him to the minors.

The Rays leaned heavily on their bullpen yesterday as starter Ryan Pepiot was hit by a comebacker and had to depart after just two innings. The club then used six relievers to cover eight innings, as the game eventually went 10 frames. The Rays only have two pitchers that are on the 40-man and on optional assignment rather than the injured list: Jacob Waguespack and Yoniel Curet. The latter has yet to even reach Double-A. The former tossed five innings on Thursday and may be needed to cover Pepiot’s spot in the rotation, depending on how he feels in the coming days.

All that led the club to go for a non-roster option in Uceta. He signed a minor league deal with the club back in December and has been pitching in Triple-A. He has thrown 18 innings over 10 outings with an unimpressive earned run average of 7.00, but with better peripherals. His 23.9% strikeout rate and 9.1% walk rate are both close to par, with a .370 batting average on balls in play and 55.6% strand rate pushing extra runs across the board.

He has 40 1/3 innings of previous major league experience with a 5.80 ERA, striking out 23.3% of opponents against an 11.9% walk rate. He is out of options and can’t be easily sent back down to the minors. But he has just over a year of service time and could be cheaply retained for future seasons if he manages to hold his roster spot through the end of the year.

The return of Lowe should also provide a boost to the club’s offense. He hit .292/.335/.500 for the club last year while also stealing 32 bases, but he suffered an oblique injury in Spring Training and started the season on the injured list. He was set to return just over a week ago before some hamstring tightness delayed him, but he will now finally make his 2024 debut.

With the various injuries in the club’s position player mix, Mead got plenty of playing time in the past few weeks but couldn’t capitalize on it. He hit .218/.269/.276 in his 94 plate appearances, only hitting one home run and only drawing walks at a 4.3% clip. He’ll now head down to the farm and try to get back on track.

Rays Select Alex Jackson, Option Rene Pinto, Designate Colby White

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The Rays announced Friday that they’ve selected the contract of catcher Alex Jackson from Triple-A Durham, reinstated outfielder Jonny DeLuca from the 10-day injured list, and optioned catcher Rene Pinto and utilityman Niko Goodrum to Triple-A. Right-hander Colby White was designated for assignment to open a spot on the roster for Jackson.

Pinto, the team’s Opening Day backstop, has posted a .214/.292/.429 slash with a pair of homers in 49 plate appearances. That’s technically 9% better than average, by measure of wRC+, but nearly all of Pinto’s production this season came in a single game. Pinto homered twice for the Rays back on April 14 but has batted .125/.300/.188 since. He’s since ceded the lion’s share of playing time to Ben Rortvedt, whom the Rays acquired from the Yankees just prior to Opening Day. Rortvedt is out to a strong start, batting .333/.419/.389 in 62 plate appearances (albeit with the benefit of a sky-high .500 average on balls in play).

The 28-year-old Jackson is a former top-10 draft pick — No. 6 by the 2014 Mariners — and longtime top prospect who’s played in parts of four big league seasons but hasn’t yet found any success. He’s a career .141/.243/.227 hitter with an enormous 48.1% strikeout rate in 185 big league plate appearances.

Jackson has generally hit well in the upper minors, particularly in 2021 with the Braves and in his current run with the Rays. He’s opened the season with a stout .282/.344/.612 slash in 93 trips to the plate, swatting seven homers, five doubles and a triple along the way. He’s only walked at a 7.5% clip and has struck out in 25.8% of his plate appearances. That walk rate is right in line with his career mark in parts of six Triple-A seasons. The strikeout rate is about par for Jackson since 2021 and marks an improvement over his earlier Triple-A seasons, when he would fan in around a third of his turns at the dish.

White, 25, was Tampa Bay’s sixth-round pick in 2019. He missed the 2022 season and much of the 2023 campaign due to Tommy John surgery but returned late last season to pitch 22 frames across three minor league levels en route to a 1.64 ERA. Impressive as that number appears, it came in spite of an alarming 19.5% walk rate that cast significant doubt on White’s ability to replicate his run-prevention numbers moving forward.

Regression, indeed, has come in abundance for White this season. He’s pitched 7 2/3 innings but been tagged for a whopping 15 earned runs on 10 hits and 10 walks. He’s issued a base on balls to nearly 22% of his opponents and plunked another pair as well. Command wasn’t an issue for White in 2021, when he notched a 1.44 ERA across four levels, striking out a superhuman 45% of his opponents against a tidy 6.4% walk rate.

Baseball America ranked White 15th among Tampa Bay farmhands prior to the 2022 season, but his injury and the astounding nature of his command issues has clearly dropped his stock. The Rays will have a week to trade him or attempt to pass White through outright waivers. If he clears, he’ll remain in the organization and continue to work to get his command back in the wake of his 2022 surgery.

MLBTR Podcast Mailbag: José Abreu Demoted, The Positional Surplus Myth, Erick Fedde’s Trade Value And More

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The latest episode of the MLB Trade Rumors Podcast is now live on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and wherever you get your podcasts! Make sure you subscribe as well! You can also use the player at this link to listen, if you don’t use Spotify or Apple for podcasts.

This week, host Darragh McDonald is joined by Steve Adams of MLB Trade Rumors to discuss…

  • José Abreu agreeing to be optioned by the Astros (2:50)
  • Upcoming knee surgery for Mike Trout of the Angels (5:05)

Plus, we answer your questions, including…

  • Given that a surplus can quickly disappear with injuries, will teams be more reluctant to trade from positions of relative strength? (6:50)
  • When will Jackson Jobe of the Tigers or Junior Caminero of the Rays be called up? (14:30)
  • Is it true that the White Sox can’t pick higher than tenth in next year’s draft? (18:20)
  • What is the current state of Tommy John surgery and longevity of pitchers after going under the knife? (22:00)
  • When can a team trade a recently-signed free agent? (28:50)
  • If Erick Fedde keeps pitching well, what kind of return could the White Sox get for him at the deadline? (30:50)

Check out our past episodes!

The podcast intro and outro song “So Long” is provided courtesy of the band Showoff.  Check out their Facebook page here!

MLB Announces Suspensions For Rays-Brewers Brawl

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2:55pm: Rays manager Kevin Cash said after today’s game that Siri’s suspension was reduced to two games and he already started serving it, per Topkin.

1:05pm: Major League Baseball announced several suspensions today in relation to last night’s confrontation between the Rays and the Brewers. Milwaukee right-handers Freddy Peralta and Abner Uribe got suspensions of five and six games, respectively. Their manager Pat Murphy got a two-game suspension. Outfielder Jose Siri of the Rays got three games. All four parties also received undisclosed fines.

Murphy is serving his suspension starting today but both of the Milwaukee hurlers are appealing, per Curt Hogg of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Siri will also be appealing his suspension, per Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times.

Siri homered off Peralta in the third inning and then was plunked by Peralta in the sixth. The umpires conferred and ejected Peralta, despite the fact that no warnings had been issued in the game to that point. Murphy objected to the ejection and he was also ejected.

Siri came up again in the eighth with Uribe pitching. Siri hit a grounder to Rhys Hoskins at first base, who flipped the ball to Uribe as he covered first and recorded the out. Siri and Uribe exchanged words by first base before Uribe took a swipe at Siri. The two tried throwing punches towards each other as various parties tried to intervene with the benches emptying. Both were ejected after the fracas died down.

Adam McCalvy and Adam Berry of MLB.com spoke to the relevant parties after the game and relayed some natural differences of opinion about what transpired. Crew chief Chris Guccione said the umpires thought it was “clear-cut” that Peralta intentionally threw at Siri, though the pitcher denied it. “How many homers did I give up in seven years? A lot, and I never did something after,” Peralta said. “It’s my first time I got ejected from a game in seven seasons and there’s no reason for me to hit him.”

For his part, Siri denied that he celebrated his home run in any outlandish way. “I didn’t take too much time,” Siri said through Rays interpreter Manny Navarro. “I hit the ball, took a couple of steps and then I started running like normal.”

As for the later incident at first base, Uribe had this to say: “There were some words shared that didn’t have much to do with the game that probably shouldn’t have been shared there in that exchange.”

His sparring partner described it thusly: “When I went to first base, I just went there normal, and he kind of hit me on the shoulder,” Siri said. “So I asked him why did he do that? And he just said, ‘Because I felt like it.’”

As mentioned, Murphy is serving his suspension immediately while the players are all appealing. Their suspensions will be held in abeyance until the appeal process is complete, though players in this situation will often drop an appeal at a convenient time, such as when they were planning to have an unrelated day off.

Orioles Place Grayson Rodriguez On Injured List

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The Orioles announced Wednesday that they’ve placed right-hander Grayson Rodriguez on the 15-day injured list due to inflammation in his right shoulder. The move is retroactive to April 30. Rodriguez will be replaced by veteran lefty John Means, who has been reinstated from a stint on the 15-day IL himself. Means has yet to pitch this season while recovering from a left forearm strain.

To this point, it’s unclear when Rodriguez hurt himself or how serious the injury is. He started Monday’s game and went 5 2/3 innings, throwing 101 pitches in the process. Until more information comes from the club, it can only be speculated as to how long he’ll out.

Regardless, it’s always a bit concerning when anything goes on with a pitcher’s throwing arm. Losing Rodriguez for any amount of time is a blow to the O’s since he has been in good form for quite a while now. His big league career got off to a rough start last year, as he had a 7.35 earned run average through 10 starts.

The Orioles optioned him to the minors and recalled him almost two months later, with Rodriguez posting good results since then. He had a 2.58 ERA after that recall last year and he has a 3.71 mark so far this year. Going back to that midseason call-up last year to today, he has a 2.93 ERA over 19 starts. In that time, he has a 24.4% strikeout rate, 7.3% walk rate and 46.7% ground ball rate.

Subtracting that kind of pitcher would hurt any rotation, but the O’s also have Kyle Bradish and Tyler Wells on the injured list. Until today, Means was in that group as well. After today’s transactions, the healthy rotation consists of Means, Corbin Burnes, Cole Irvin, Dean Kremer and Albert Suárez.

Burnes is excellent but there are some question marks behind him. Irvin has a good ERA this year but iffy peripherals that suggest he’s not much different from past seasons. Kremer has a 4.19 ERA despite a .209 batting average on balls in play he won’t be able to maintain. Suárez has looked good in his three starts but it’s anyone’s guess if he can keep it going since he’s 34 years old and this is his first stint in the majors since 2017.

As for Means, he’s a big unknown himself. The lefty posted a 3.81 ERA with the O’s until requiring Tommy John surgery in April of 2022. He returned late last year and made four starts but didn’t make the club’s postseason roster due to some elbow soreness. He began this year on the IL and has been rehabbing in recent weeks, but with shaky results. He has thrown 18 2/3 innings for Triple-A Norfolk but with 18 earned runs allowed in that time.

It’s impossible to say what Means can provide for the club this year after hardly pitching at all in the previous two seasons and his poor results during his rehab, though he would be an asset if he could even get part of the way back to his pre-surgery form. Bradish is also nearing activation, which will give Baltimore another arm to bolster the group and could perhaps push Suárez into a long relief role in the bullpen.

Dominic Smith Opts Out Of Rays Deal, Will Sign With Red Sox

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11:54am: Smith is indeed set to join the Red Sox’ big league roster, per the Globe’s Julian McWilliams. The Sox will need to make a corresponding 40-man roster move to make his signing official.

11:32am: The Rays granted first baseman Dominic Smith his release after he triggered an opt-out in his minor league deal, reports Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times. A big league opportunity with another club arose for Smith, per Topkin. Pete Abraham of the Boston Globe further reports that the Red Sox “look like the next destination” for Smith after he opted out of that deal with Tampa Bay. He’ll be the second addition to the big league roster for the Sox, who acquired infielder Zack Short from the Mets in exchange for cash less than one hour ago.

Boston recently lost first baseman Triston Casas to a rib fracture that’s expected to sideline him for a considerable period of time. The Sox acquired veteran Garrett Cooper in the aftermath of that injury, but he took a 95 mph fastball off his wrist/forearm last night and exited the game. MassLive.com’s Chris Cotillo tweets that Cooper is thankfully only bruised and does not have any fractures following that incident. Smith will give Boston some additional depth and a potential platoon partner for the righty-swinging Cooper.

Through 29 games and 81 plate appearances with the Rays’ Triple-A affiliate in Durham, Smith had posted a .263/.337/.375 batting line with a pair of homers and three doubles. He’s fanned in an uncharacteristic 29.2% of his plate appearances, but strikeouts typically haven’t been a glaring concern for the veteran, who’s fanned in 21.7% of his nearly 2000 MLB plate appearances.

Smith, 28, was a first-round pick, longtime top prospect and (more briefly) a quality run producer for the Mets prior to being non-tendered in the 2022-23 offseason. From 2019-20, Smith treated the Mets to a stellar .299/.366/.571 batting line in 396 trips to the plate. He swatted 21 homers and connected on 31 doubles in that time before stumbling to a .643 OPS over his next two seasons and being cut loose. He signed with the Nationals in the 2022-23 offseason but posted a middling .254/.326/.366 batting line with a dozen homers in his lone year in the nation’s capitol.

Rays Notes: Lowe, Diaz, Aranda

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Rays outfielder Josh Lowe appeared to be nearing a return from the injured list after heading out for a rehab assignment earlier this month, but it appears the 26-year-old’s 2024 debut is once again on hold. Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times reported earlier today that Lowe felt some tightness in his right hamstring and is now headed back to Tampa for an MRI, which is scheduled for Monday.

It’s another tough blow for Lowe, who impressed with a .292/.335/.500 slash line in 135 games with the Rays last season. It appeared Lowe was on track to be activated from the shelf as soon as this weekend to take over the everyday job in right field, but now those plans have been scuttled for at least a few days. Rays right fielders have hit an excellent .308/.361/.455 (145 wRC+) in Lowe’s absence, thanks primarily to surprisingly strong performances from Richie Palacios and Amed Rosario in a platoon at the position.

Even so, the return of Lowe to the club’s lineup would surely provide a boost for the Rays by allowing Rosario and Palacios to contribute elsewhere in the lineup, such as second base. The Rays have gotten minimal offensive production from the keystone this season, with their second basemen slashing a collective .227/.292/.299 (81 wRC+) so far this year while struggling youngster Curtis Mead has taken the lion’s share of starts at the position to this point.

Lowe isn’t the only big bat missing from the Rays lineup this weekend, as veteran infielder Yandy Diaz was absent from today’s lineup after being struck in the finger by a 99 mph pitch from right-hander Michael Kopech yesterday. Fortunately, Topkin reported last night that x-rays on Diaz’s hand were negative, indicating that the 32-year-old may be back in the club’s lineup in the near future. It’s been a tough start to the season for the veteran, as he’s slashed just .241/.303/.315 (87 wRC+) in his first 119 trips to the plate.

While his .278 BABIP to this point in the season is far below his career average of .323, Diaz’s 7.8% walk rate in 2024 would be a career low if maintained over the course of a full season and he’s offered little power with just five doubles and one homer to this point in the campaign. If the veteran can right the ship upon returning to the lineup and return to the form that earned him a sixth-place finish in AL MVP voting last year, it would be a huge boost for the Rays as they look to bounce back from a difficult start to the season that’s seen them go 13-14 while falling to fourth place in a crowded AL East division.

Also making his way toward a return to the big league lineup is infielder Jonathan Aranda, who’s been out for a little over a month after undergoing surgery to repair a broken finger back in March. As noted by MLB.com’s Injury Tracker, Aranda began a rehab assignment at the Triple-A level yesterday. It’s less than two weeks after Aranda had the pins removed from his finger thanks to the fact that Aranda was able to stay active throughout his rehab process.

If Aranda is nearing a return to action, it would give the Rays another left-handed option to complement the likes of Mead and Harold Ramirez both around the infield and at DH. Aranda hit a roughly league average .230/.340/.368 in 103 trips to the plate in the majors last year but impressed this spring with an excellent .371/.421/.571 line in 13 games prior to his injury.

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