Orioles Trade Chayce McDermott To Dodgers
2:26pm: The Dodgers announced that they’ve acquired McDermott in exchange for minor league righty Axel Perez. They already had a 40-man vacancy, so no further moves are necessary.
2:10pm: The Orioles are trading right-hander Chayce McDermott, whom they designated for assignment last week, to the Dodgers, per Jon Heyman of the New York Post. He’s being optioned to Triple-A Oklahoma City with his new club, Jack Harris of the California Post adds.
McDermott, 27, is only a couple seasons removed from being considered one of Baltimore’s top prospects. He fired 119 frames of 3.10 ERA ball between Double-A and Triple-A and followed that with 100 frames and a 3.78 ERA in Triple-A the following season. McDermott made a brief MLB debut in 2024, tossing four innings, and it looked as though he’d soon emerge as a regular contributor on the Orioles’ staff.
That never happened, however. The 2025 season was a nightmare for the former fourth-rounder. McDermott was shelled for a 6.91 ERA in his first 11 starts at the Triple-A level. Opponents collected 43 hits — six of them homers — and drew 36 walks in just 43 innings across that brutal run of 11 starts. McDermott also hit four batters and was charged with seven wild pitches. In light of those struggles, the O’s moved him to the bullpen. After a rough first outing (five runs in 1 2/3 innings), he settled in to log a 1.76 ERA and 18-to-7 K/BB ratio across his final 15 1/3 innings out of the Triple-A bullpen.
It’s been a struggle for McDermott in 2026. He’s pitched 5 1/3 innings out of the Norfolk bullpen and surrendered four runs on five hits, six walks and a hit-by-pitch. McDermott also pitched three spring innings for Baltimore and was tagged for three solo home runs.
Shaky command has long been McDermott’s biggest flaw, and with the right-hander still struggling in that regard during what’s now his final minor league option year, Baltimore moved on last week. McDermott’s former prospect status was enough to generate some interest in the trade market, and he’ll now see whether he can become the latest change-of-scenery candidate to find new life in the Dodgers organization. Los Angeles has plenty of success stories of this nature — at least in part due to the sheer volume of players they pick up in fringe transactions of just this nature. Often, they’ll quickly try to pass said player through waivers themselves, though since McDermott can still be optioned, there’s no urgency to do so in the immediate future.
McDermott is sitting a career-best 95.3 mph on his four-seamer in Triple-A this season. The uptick in velocity isn’t surprising for a longtime starter who’s making the move to short relief. He’s also all but scrapped his changeup and curveball, now pairing his four-seamer with a new cutter residing at 90.1 mph and a slider he’s had for years (but is now throwing a few miles an hour slower, in the low 80s).
As for Perez, he’s a 20-year-old from the Dominican Republic who’s in just his third professional season. He signed with L.A. as an 18-year-old in January of 2024 and made his organizational debut in the Dominican Summer League last year. Listed at 6’4″ and 168 pounds when he signed, Perez has only 23 professional innings under his belt. He posted a 5.48 ERA during last year’s DSL season, punching out more than 31% of his opponents but also logging an ugly 12.6% walk rate. He’s a low-level lottery ticket who’s years from being any sort of consideration at the MLB level — if he develops to that point at all.
Cardinals Outright Jared Shuster
Left-hander Jared Shuster went unclaimed on waivers after being designated for assignment, the Cardinals announced Thursday. He’s been assigned outright to Triple-A Memphis. As a player who’s previously been outrighted, he’ll have the right to decline that assignment in favor of free agency.
A former first-round pick (Braves, 2020), Shuster signed a minor league contract with the Cardinals this past December. He was selected to the major league roster in early April and appeared in two games, tossing a total of 3 2/3 innings out of the bullpen. Opponents scored a pair of runs on the strength of two hits and two walks in that short span. Shuster fanned only one of the 15 batters he faced.
This marks the fourth season in which the 27-year-old Shuster has logged some big league time. The Wake Forest product has a 5.26 ERA through 145 1/3 innings in the majors, due in large part to sub-par strikeout and walk rates of 15.3% and 10.2%. He’s a fly-ball pitcher who’s never given up much hard contact, but Shuster’s inability to miss bats and penchant for free passes have led to too much traffic on the bases behind him.
Shuster’s run-prevention numbers in Triple-A generally mirror those big league rates. He’s missed a few more bats and walked hitters at a slightly lower rate in the upper minors, as one would expect, but the lefty hasn’t posted quality all-around results since a 2022 season split between Double-A and Triple-A. Shuster sits just over 92 mph with his heater and couples that pitch with a mid-80s slider and low-80s changeup. He tinkered with an upper-80s cutter during his brief look with St. Louis and got good results on the pitch in a minuscule sample.
Shuster is out of minor league options, so if he’s added back to the big league roster at any point, he’ll need to stick in the majors or else go through this DFA cycle again if the Cardinals want to send him down.
Nationals Acquire Richard Lovelady
The Nationals announced Thursday that they’ve acquired left-hander Richard Lovelady from the Mets in exchange for cash. Fellow southpaw Ken Waldichuk, who was recently recommended for Tommy John surgery, moves to the 60-day IL to open a spot on the 40-man roster. The Mets designated Lovelady for assignment over the weekend.
Lovelady was with the Nats in spring training but wound up going back to the Mets for a fourth stint in the past year when New York scooped him off waivers a couple weeks before Opening Day. He wound up making the Mets’ roster and has since pitched 7 1/3 innings of relief, holding opponents to three earned runs (3.68 ERA) on eight hits and four walks with six punchouts.
The 30-year-old Lovelady has now pitched in parts of seven big league seasons. He’s shown glimpses of promise — most notably, his 2021 performance with Kansas City — but has yet to carve out a consistent role in a big league bullpen. The southpaw has a 5.25 ERA in 118 1/3 major league frames with a big 51.9% grounder rate and strikeout and walk rates only a hair worse than average (20.9% and 8.9%, respectively). In parts of seven Triple-A seasons, he has a 2.61 ERA, a 26.9% strikeout rate and a 7% walk rate.
Lack of consistency notwithstanding, Lovelady continues to intrigue major league clubs. Though he hasn’t had a lot of staying power, he’s spent the better part of the past four years shuffling on and off 40-man rosters around the league. That’s underscored by the fact that he has well over three years of big league service time — with a viable path to crossing the four-year mark at some point in 2026 — despite his modest innings count in the majors.
The Nats will be Lovelady’s seventh team in the majors. In addition to the previously mentioned Mets and Royals, he’s also pitched for the A’s, Rays, Cubs and Blue Jays. He’s out of minor league options, so he’ll be added right to the major league roster when he reports to the team. Washington currently has three lefties in the ‘pen: Cionel Pérez, PJ Poulin and the recently recalled Mitchell Parker. Pérez, like Lovelady, is out of minor league options. Both Pérez (8.22 ERA in 7 2/3 innings) and Poulin (4.50 ERA, more walks than strikeouts in eight innings) have struggled this year.
Braves Designate Osvaldo Bido, Select Ian Hamilton
The Braves have designated right-hander Osvaldo Bido for assignment, per a team announcement. Right-hander Ian Hamilton‘s contract has been selected from Triple-A Gwinnett in a corresponding move. Atlanta also optioned southpaw reliever Hayden Harris to Gwinnett. That’ll clear another active roster spot for veteran lefty Martín Pérez. Braves skipper Walt Weiss said last night that Pérez, who quickly re-signed on a minor league deal after being designated for assignment and clearing waivers, will start Friday.
Bido, 30, has become the poster boy for the perpetual DFA carousel that some players ride in today’s game. Since the end of the 2025 season, he’s been on six different 40-man rosters via a series of DFAs and waiver claims. He spent the 2025 season with the A’s and has since bounced to the Braves, Rays, Marlins, Yankees, Angels and back to the Braves. It’s feasible he could now find himself with a seventh organization in the span of about five calendar months.
On the one hand, the parade of DFAs might suggest that teams don’t feel Bido is a big league-caliber arm. On the other, he’s yet to make it through waivers. Twenty percent of the league has rostered Bido since the 2025 Winter Meetings commenced. Clubs clearly think there’s major league potential in the lanky right-hander, but he’s yet to put things together with any real consistency.
Bido pitched 10 innings with Atlanta and was tagged for seven runs on seven hits and five walks. Walking five of the 41 hitters he faced (12.2%) is already problematic, but Bido also plunked a pair of batters and rattled off four wild pitches. Suffice it to say, his command has not been there in 2026.
Command has never been an especially strong point for Bido, but he hasn’t struggled to this extent in the past. He entered the season having walked or hit 12% of the batters he’s faced in the majors. He’d averaged a wild pitch every 10 innings or so. He’s walked/hit 17.1% of his opponents this year and averaged a wild pitch every two and a half innings — certainly not ideal.
Bido has had an up-and-down run in the majors, logging poor numbers in 2023, strong output in 2024 and more struggles in 2025. The 2026 season clearly hasn’t been kind to him. Overall, metrics like SIERA (4.62) and FIP (4.70) view him a bit more favorably than his career 5.13 ERA, but Bido has typically pitched like a swingman or sixth starter. He averages 94.7 mph on his four-seamer and sinker alike. He’s only a bit worse than average in terms of strikeout rate (20.6%) and walk rate (9.7%), but he’s an extreme fly-ball pitcher whose best season was spent pitching home games in the cavernous Oakland Coliseum during the Athletics’ final season there.
Last year’s move to West Sacramento’s Sutter Health Park, which played like an absolute launching pad, did Bido no favors. He served up 13 big flies in only 44 1/3 home innings, compared to just six on the road (35 1/3 innings). He’s been tagged for one home run in his 10 innings with the Braves.
Bido would ideally land in a more pitcher-friendly home park than he had with either the A’s or Braves. Sutter Health Park was the fifth-most homer-friendly park for left-handed batters in 2025, per Statcast’s Park Factors. Atlanta’s Truist Park was just behind, sitting sixth in MLB. Time will tell whether that happens. The Braves have five days to trade Bido or place him on waivers. Outright waivers are a 48-hour process, so today’s DFA will be resolved in no more than a week’s time.
As for Hamilton, he’ll be suiting up for a seventh major league season. He’s pitched 150 1/3 innings for the White Sox, Twins and Yankees in his career, turning in a sharp 3.59 ERA overall. A terrific 2023 season (2.64 ERA, 58 innings) disproportionately affects that career-long mark; Hamilton had a 4.91 ERA in 14 2/3 innings prior to that season and has a 4.06 earned run average in 77 2/3 frames since.
Hamilton, 30, has fanned just over one quarter of his opponents in the majors but also sports an 11.1% walk rate that’s nearly three percentage points north of average. He’s shown above-average grounder tendencies (45.9%) and has done a nice job of avoiding homers and hard contact in general. His first year with the Braves organization has kicked off nicely, with 6 1/3 innings of two-run ball and a 9-to-1 K/BB ratio in Triple-A Gwinnett.
Like nearly everyone else in the Atlanta bullpen, Hamilton is out of minor league options. At present, southpaw Dylan Lee is the only optionable pitcher — bullpen or rotation — on the Braves’ major league roster. It’s an untenable setup in the modern game, where teams tend to cycle various relievers through the final couple bullpen spots to maintain a stock of fresh arms in support of starters who rarely work deep into games. That’s all the more true given that Lee, while technically optionable, almost certainly isn’t being sent down anytime soon. He’s been one of Atlanta’s most consistently effective relievers dating back to 2024, with an overall 2.65 ERA and a 1.13 mark through his first eight frames in 2026.
Tigers Extend Kevin McGonigle
The Tigers announced Wednesday that they’ve agreed to an eight-year, $150MM extension with infielder Kevin McGonigle. The contract begins next season — he’s still on a league-minimum salary in 2026 — and runs through 2034. McGonigle, a client of Vayner Sports, can tack on another $10MM in total via a series of escalators, giving the deal a maximum value of $160MM from 2027-34. Detroit, one of the few teams that publicly discloses contract terms for its players, also provided a year-to-year breakdown of the deal.
McGonigle, 21, takes home a $14MM signing bonus that will be paid up front. He’ll earn a $1MM salary in 2027, $7MM in 2028, $16MM in 2029, $21MM in 2030, $22MM in 2031 and $23MM annually from 2032-34.
The contract locks in what would have been the second through sixth years of McGonigle’s original window of club control and gives the team control over what would have been his first three free agent seasons. There are no options on the contract, but escalators could raise his 2032-34 salaries to $25MM, $26MM and $28MM, respectively. McGonigle’s deal does not include conventional no-trade protection, but he’d be owed a $5MM assignment bonus if he’s traded to another club at any point.
It’s a bit of a departure from the standard way that teams tend to structure contracts; year-to-year salaries tend to reflect what a player might have earned in pre-arbitration and in arbitration. Instead, the Tigers will jump McGonigle to a $7MM salary in a year that he’d otherwise have been earning only a hair over the league minimum. This setup provides a little more balance on the back end of the deal (i.e. his would-be free agent seasons), obviously at the expense of some payroll hikes in the extension’s earlier seasons.
McGonigle entered the season as the game’s consensus No. 2 prospect behind Pirates shortstop Konnor Griffin and has now almost immediately surpassed Griffin’s record-setting extension for a young player with such little big league service. Griffin inked a nine-year, $140MM contract last week. Julio Rodríguez‘s $210MM contract is technically the largest ever for a player with under a year of service, but that contract was signed in late July of his rookie season, when he was already an All-Star and the overwhelming Rookie of the Year front-runner. Griffin and McGonigle may be in the same service class, but the context surrounding their extensions differs quite a bit from that of the Rodríguez deal.
Selected 37th overall in the 2023 draft, McGonigle hit the ground running as an 18-year-old in pro ball. He slashed .315/.452/.411 in 21 games following the draft in 2023 and emphatically rose to elite prospect status in the two subsequent seasons. McGonigle hit .309/.401/.452 with more walks than strikeouts as a 19-year-old across to Class-A levels in 2024. Last year, he utterly dismantled High-A pitching (.372/.462/.648) for 36 games before a promotion to Double-A, where he scarcely skipped a beat. McGonigle was one of the youngest players in Double-A but still turned in a .254/.369/.550 slash in 46 games.
Throughout the offseason, it wasn’t clear whether McGonigle would be seriously considered as an Opening Day roster candidate or whether the organization would send him to Triple-A for some further refinement. A strong spring performance quickly removed any doubt, however. McGonigle hit .250/.411/.477 in 56 plate appearances. As he’d done at virtually every stop in the minors, he walked more often than he struck out. The Tigers carried him on the Opening Day roster to begin the season, and he’s split the first few weeks of the year between third base and shortstop while slashing .311/.417/.492 with 11 walks against just eight strikeouts in 72 plate appearances.
One look at McGonigle’s repeated ability to not only avoid strikeouts but also draw walks at such a high rate highlights why he has such a high floor. Add in above-average speed and plus raw power that you wouldn’t necessarily expect from someone listed at 5’9″ and 187 pounds, and McGonigle has the makings of a perennial All-Star who could draw some MVP consideration during his peak years.
Scouting reports have questioned where his eventual defensive home will be, but he’s worked to improve his shortstop defense and looked solid there both in spring training and in the season’s first few weeks. Whether he settles in at short, third base or even second base, McGonigle’s preternatural feel to hit and robust suite of plus offensive tools should give him more than enough bat to fit anywhere on the diamond.
As is the case with any early-career extension, McGonigle had a path to greater earnings — but going the year-to-year route would have been fraught with risk. He could have reached the open market heading into his age-27 season, potentially setting him up for a contract worth more than half a billion dollars in free agency. However, locking in his first $150MM right now preserves the opportunity to reach the market ahead of McGonigle’s age-30 season, when he could still be in line for a mega-deal. It also eliminates much of the downside of a career-altering injury or a less-impactful-than-expected career trajectory. There are myriad examples of players who rebuffed early extension interest and then simply never lived up to their prospect billing — or of those who accepted long-term offers and never developed into stars or even established big leaguers.
McGonigle now cements his place as the face of a new Tigers core. The team surely hopes it will be able to re-sign reigning two-time AL Cy Young Award winner Tarik Skubal in free agency, but that’ll take a record contract of far greater magnitude, given Skubal’s established dominance and proximity to free agency, which he’ll reach following the current season. McGonigle and fellow infielder Colt Keith are now signed through at least 2032, but recent free agent signee Framber Valdez is the only other Tiger guaranteed anything beyond the 2027 season.
Top outfield prospect Max Clark, the No. 3 overall pick in 2023 (34 spots ahead of McGonigle) is also widely considered to be one of the sport’s 10 best prospects and could debut later this season. Looking further down the road, Detroit has some other ballyhooed prospects they’ll hope to add to the group (e.g. shortstop Bryce Rainer, catcher/first baseman Josue Briceño), but they’re probably more 2027-28 considerations.
The timing of McGonigle’s promotion to the majors and extension is also pivotal for the Tigers. Because he’s a consensus top-100 prospect who cracked the Opening Day roster and signed his deal after his MLB debut was already in the books, McGonigle remains eligible to net the Tigers a compensatory draft pick via MLB’s “Prospect Promotion Incentive” program, which was introduced in the 2022-26 collective bargaining agreement.
If McGonigle wins AL Rookie of the Year honors this season or finishes top-3 in AL MVP voting before he would have otherwise reached arbitration, the Tigers will gain an extra pick after the first round of the following season’s draft. For instance, the Royals picked up the No. 28 overall selection in 2025 after Bobby Witt Jr. was an MVP finalist in the preceding season. The Braves (No. 26) and Astros (No. 28) will have bonus picks in the 2026 draft due to Drake Baldwin‘s 2025 Rookie of the Year win and Hunter Brown‘s third-place finish in 2025 AL Cy Young voting.
Luke Williams Elects Free Agency
Utilityman Luke Williams elected free agency after being designated for assignment by the Braves, relays Chad Bishop of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. He cleared waivers and has multiple career outright assignments, allowing him to return to the market.
There’s a decent chance that’s just a formality and a precursor to a new minor league contract with Atlanta. Williams has bounced on and off the Braves’ roster for the past three-plus seasons. He received a brief call over the weekend while Michael Harris II was on paternity leave. Williams is out of minor league options and was surely aware he’d be the cut once Harris returned to the team.
The call-up gave Williams a few days of major league pay. He appeared in two games, once as a defense substitute and one as a pinch-hitter. He drew a walk against Kolby Allard in his only plate appearance. Williams has taken 350 trips to the plate in the big leagues. He’s a .212/.272/.280 hitter, though he has stolen 25 bases.
Rangers Select Cal Quantrill, Gavin Collyer
The Rangers are calling up swingman Cal Quantrill and reliever Gavin Collyer, reports Kennedi Landry of MLB.com. Texas will place righty relievers Chris Martin and Luis Curvelo on the 15-day injured list. In corresponding 40-man roster moves, Texas designated Marc Church for assignment and transferred Cody Bradford to the 60-day injured list.
Martin and Curvelo both made early exits from last night’s loss to the A’s. The former is dealing with a shoulder impingement, while the latter has a biceps strain. That’s actually a relief in Curvelo’s case, as his injury initially looked serious. He’ll miss at least a couple weeks, but there’s apparently nothing amiss structurally with his elbow.
Quantrill will be available as a long man out of Skip Schumaker’s bullpen. The veteran righty finished last season in the Texas organization and re-signed on an offseason minor league deal. He didn’t win a job out of camp and has taken three turns through the rotation in Triple-A. Quantrill has surrendered eight runs over 14 innings but has recorded 13 strikeouts against only four walks.
The Stanford product made 26 big league starts a year ago. Quantrill spent the majority of the season with the Marlins and took the ball twice for the Braves. He allowed 6.04 earned runs per nine across 117 2/3 innings. Quantrill has generally struggled since an excellent two-year stretch with Cleveland between 2021-22.
Collyer, 25 next month, gets his first call to the big leagues. The 6’1″ righty was a 12th-round pick in 2019 who signed for well above slot value out of high school. Control issues pushed him to the bullpen within a couple seasons. The strike-throwing remains a concern, but he has intriguing stuff. He punched out 30% of opponents with a massive 16% walk rate en route to a 4.40 ERA between the top two minor league levels a year ago.
Texas re-signed Collyer as a minor league free agent over the offseason. He has been out to an excellent start with Triple-A Round Rock, striking out 11 across 6 2/3 innings. Collyer has also been around the strike zone in that small sample and only issued two walks. Even if that level of command probably isn’t sustainable, he’ll bring a power arm out of the middle innings. Collyer is averaging around 98 mph on his heater and has both a slider and cutter in his arsenal.
Collyer has shown enough to jump Church on the depth chart. He has a similar profile as a 25-year-old righty with big stuff and well below-average control. Church has made brief MLB appearances over the past couple seasons, tossing 5 2/3 innings of two-run ball. He has spent most of the last two years on the minor league injured list. He has battled oblique and elbow issues, as well as a teres major injury in his shoulder.
Church has struggled over his first few appearances with Round Rock. He has given up four runs on nine hits and four walks across 4 2/3 innings. The fastball is in the 96 mph range, but the Rangers evidently felt more comfortable bringing Collyer up in the short term. They’ll have five days to trade Church or place him on waivers.
Bradford is working back from last year’s UCL surgery. He went on a rehab assignment in early April but hit a snag when he experienced some soreness after that outing. While the Rangers have downplayed any long-term concern, there’s no timetable for the resumption of the rehab stint. The 60-day window backdates to Opening Day, meaning Bradford won’t be able to pitch in the majors until late May at the earliest.
Dylan Carlson Elects Free Agency
April 15: The transaction log has been updated to indicate that Carlson elected free agency.
April 14: The Cubs sent outfielder Dylan Carlson outright to Triple-A Iowa, according to the MLB.com transaction log. Chicago designated him for assignment over the weekend when Seiya Suzuki returned from a season-opening injured list stint. Carlson has the right to elect free agency, though the log doesn’t specify whether he’ll do so or report to the affiliate.
Carlson signed a minor league contract in January. He broke camp alongside two other non-roster invitees, Michael Conforto and Scott Kingery. Suzuki’s activation needed to push one of those three off the roster. Conforto offers a lefty bat on a heavily right-handed bench. Kingery hasn’t started a game all season but provides a little more defensive versatility and speed in a pinch-running role than Carlson offers.
The 27-year-old Carlson started one game in left field. Between that and a pinch-hitting appearance, he went 0-4 with a couple strikeouts. Carlson has now appeared at the MLB level in seven straight seasons and has accrued more than five years of service time. A former top prospect, Carlson had a couple league average seasons with the Cardinals early in his career. His bat regressed as he got into his mid-20s, and he owns a .204/.280/.303 line across four teams going back to the start of the 2024 season.
If Carlson accepts the outright, he’ll join Kevin Alcántara, Chas McCormick and Justin Dean as outfielders with MLB experience in Iowa. Alcántara and Dean hold spots on the 40-man roster. The MLB starting outfield is settled with Ian Happ, Pete Crow-Armstrong and Suzuki left to right and Moisés Ballesteros taking the bulk of the designated hitter work.
Mets Release Luis García
Right-hander Luis García has been released by the Mets, according to his transactions tracker at MLB.com. He was designated for assignment on the weekend. He’ll head to free agency once he clears release waivers, if he hasn’t already.
García, 39, is a veteran with over ten years of service time. Any player with at least five years of service has the right to reject an outright assignment to the minor leagues while also keeping his salary commitments in place. It seems the Mets have decided to skip over the formality of that process.
The Mets signed García to a one-year, $1.75MM deal in the offseason. That’s relatively modest by the standards of big league contracts these days, though the Mets also face a huge tax bill as a repeated tax payor with a massive competitive balance tax number.
Despite making that financial commitment to García, the club quickly decided to pull the ripcord. He made six appearances, logging 6 1/3 innings. He allowed five earned runs via 11 hits and two walks while striking out four. It certainly wasn’t a good performance but that’s a tiny sample of work.
Despite his age, García was a solid relief arm as recently as last year. He tossed 55 1/3 innings for three different clubs with a 3.42 earned run average. His 20.6% strikeout rate and 11.2% walk rate weren’t amazing but he induced grounders at a strong rate of 49.7%.
Presumably, the Mets signed him because they thought he could still be effective in 2026 but they have quickly given up on that. Perhaps they were worried by his diminished stuff. His sinker averaged 96.9 miles per hour last year but has been at 94 mph so far this season, while his splitter and slider are also down about two ticks.
Garcia should land with another club shortly. Since the Mets are releasing him, they will remain on the hook for his salary. Another club could sign him and would only have to pay him the prorated portion of the league minimum for any time he spends on their roster. Given all the pitching injuries around the league, there will surely be clubs interested in a veteran arm who can be had for a minimal financial commitment.
Photo courtesy of Gregory Fisher, Imagn Images
White Sox Designate Dustin Harris For Assignment
The White Sox announced that they have selected the contract of infielder/outfielder Sam Antonacci and recalled left-hander Tyler Gilbert. In corresponding moves, they have optioned left-hander Brandon Eisert and designated outfielder Dustin Harris for assignment. It had been reported earlier this week that Antonacci was likely going to be promoted.
The Sox added Harris to the roster a week ago when Austin Hays landed on the injured list. He got into six games and was sent to the plate 16 times. He drew four walks and recorded three hits, including one double. It’s possible the Sox just viewed Harris as a placeholder while they gave Antonacci more time to get outfield reps in the minors. Antonacci played all four infield positions last year but not the outfield. So far this year, the Sox have used him primarily in left field, with 11 starts at that position.
Harris is out of options and can’t be easily sent back to the minors. He was once a prospect of note with the Rangers but his production in the upper levels was middling. From 2023 to 2025, he was on the Texas roster but mostly kept in the minors, exhausting his three option years. He got into just 21 big league games, producing a .217/.280/.435 line in those. For that same span, he had a .271/.368/.418 line in the minors, which translated to a 103 wRC+. He was outrighted at the end of last year and elected free agency, which led to a minor league deal with the White Sox.
He’ll now head into DFA limbo, which can last as long as a week. The waiver process takes 48 hours, so the Sox could take as long as five days to field trade interest. Since he has been outrighted before, he would have the right to elect free agency if he clears outright waivers again.
The Sox will see how Antonacci’s bat plays in the majors. He has great plate discipline but not a lot of power. In 688 minor league plate appearances, he has seven home runs, but his 14.7% walk rate and 13.7% strikeout rate are both much better than average. That strong approach has helped him produce a combined slash of .299/.445/.419 for a 159 wRC+.
Antonnaci can play some infield but the Sox have Munetaka Murakami, Chase Meidroth, Colson Montgomery and Miguel Vargas from right to left. Since Antonacci has been playing left field this year, he will presumably jump into the outfield mix alongside Andrew Benintendi, Luisangel Acuña, Tristan Peters, Everson Pereira and Derek Hill. The designated hitter spot can also be used to spread some at-bats around. Lenyn Sosa was getting a decent amount of the DH time but he was traded to the Blue Jays this week.
Photo courtesy of Jay Biggerstaff, Imagn Images