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Twins Claim Ralph Garza Jr.

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The Twins have claimed right-hander Ralph Garza Jr. off waivers from the Astros, per a club announcement. Garza has been assigned to Triple-A St. Paul for the time being. A corresponding 40-man roster move isn’t necessary, as Minnesota already had an open spot. Their 40-man roster is now full.

Garza was designated for assignment by the Astros over the weekend when they activated Josh James from the 60-day injured list. The 27-year-old Garza made his MLB debut earlier this season, totaling 11 innings out of the Houston bullpen and allowing five runs on 11 hits and seven walks with 14 punchouts. The righty sat at an average of 92.6 mph with his four-seamer and 90.6 mph with his sinker, also logging a 12.4 percent swinging-strike rate and a 30.9 percent opponents’ chase rate.

A 26th-round pick back in 2015, Garza has never ranked among Houston’s top tier of farmhands but has delivered decent results in the upper minors. He’s appeared in parts of four seasons in a very hitter-friendly Triple-A environment, working to a 3.72 ERA with a solid 25.8 percent strikeout rate and an 11.3 percent walk rate he’ll want to improve upon. Garza’s contract was only selected to the MLB roster this season, meaning he can be optioned freely for the remainder of the year and still carry another pair of option years down the road.

Brewers Place Lauer, Hader, Hiura On Covid List

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Aug. 4: The Brewers announced yet another positive test: lefty Eric Lauer. He’ll head to the Covid list and be subject to a 10-day quarantine, at minimum. That move opens roster space to add righty Sal Romano, whom the Brewers claimed off waivers from the Yankees this week.

Lauer, acquired alongside Luis Urias in the trade that sent Trent Grisham and Zach Davies to San Diego, has quietly enjoyed a strong season in Milwaukee. He’s made 15 appearances — 11 starts, four bullpen outings — and notched a 3.50 ERA with a 22.9 percent strikeout rate and an 8.9 percent walk rate. He’s been brilliant as of late, too, making even a brief departure a tough blow to the Brewers. Over Lauer’s past seven outings (six starts, one relief appearance), he’s pitched to a 1.98 ERA with a 31-to-13 K/BB ratio through 36 1/3 frames.

Aug. 3: Milwaukee has also placed infielder Keston Hiura on the COVID-19 list, the team announced.

Aug. 2, 4:50pm: Hader indeed tested positive, tweets Adam McCalvy of MLB.com. He’ll be out a minimum of 10 days.

3:38pm: The Brewers have placed lefty Josh Hader on the Covid-19-related injured list, per a club announcement. Newly added righty John Axford has been selected to the Major League roster in a corresponding move. The team did not specify whether Hader has tested positive or was a close contact. Individuals who test positive are subject to a 10-day quarantine, while close contacts are subject to seven-day absences.

It’s been another dominant season for the 21-year-old Hader, who has pitched to a sterling 1.83 ERA while striking out 45 percent of his opponents against a 9.4 percent walk rate through 39 1/3 innings thus far in 2021. Hader is the latest in a growing number of Brewers to hit the Covid IL, joining bullpen-mates Hunter Strickland, Jandel Gustave and Jake Cousins as well as right fielder Christian Yelich.

With Hader sidelined for a yet-unknown period of time, right-hander Devin Williams figures to step in as the primary option in save situations for manager Craig Counsell. Brent Suter, Brad Boxberger and the recently acquired John Curtiss will be among the first names up for setup work.

Dodgers Sign Cole Hamels

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11:00am: Hamels signed a Major League deal with a $1MM base salary, tweets ESPN’s Buster Olney. USA Today’s Bob Nightengale adds that Hamels will take home a $200K bonus for every start made.

10:32am: The Dodgers have a deal in place with Hamels, tweets Mike DiGiovanna of the L.A. Times. He’ll first head to the team’s Spring Training complex in Arizona to continue building up arm strength.

9:00am: The Dodgers are nearing a deal with free-agent lefty Cole Hamels, reports MLB Network’s Jon Heyman (via Twitter). The 37-year-old Hamels recently held a widely attended showcase for clubs and will give the Dodgers another option in the rotation once he builds up to game readiness. Hamels is represented by JBA Sports.

Hamels’ 2020 season with the Braves was wiped out by a series of triceps and shoulder issues. Signed to a one-year, $18MM contract in December 2019, Hamels would only throw 3 1/3 innings during his time with Atlanta. A quiet offseason ensued, with Hamels waiting until his shoulder was back to 100 percent before auditioning for clubs. That might’ve taken longer than initially anticipated, but the lefty drew scouts from upwards of 20 teams last month once he felt ready to go.

It’s unlikely that Hamels will be an immediate option for the Dodgers. He’s pitched just 3 1/3 innings since the end of the 2019 season and hadn’t been throwing in game settings prior to his showcase. For some context, Phillies president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski discussed Hamels’ showcase with NBC Sports Philadelphia’s John Clark and laid out the reason that teams in need of immediate pitching help didn’t pounce on Hamels right away.

“The one thing in Cole’s case, and he’s the first to admit it, he’s not ready to pitch now,” said Dombrowski just a few days after Hamels’ showcase for teams. “He has to go through his own ’Spring Training,’ so you’re talking about somebody that’s maybe 30 to 40 days down the road helping you.”

Those comments came back on July 19, and Hamels has surely been working out in the interim — likely with more intensity as he geared up to sign with a team. Still, it stands to reason that the Dodgers would send him through at least a handful of minor league rehab starts, so Hamels seems like a late-August or early-September possibility more than someone who’ll be thrown right into the fire.

Whenever he does make his debut, Hamels will bring one of the more accomplished track records of the current generation of pitchers to the Dodgers’ staff. Hamels is a World Series champion and former World Series and NLCS MVP who has made four All-Star teams and has long been considered one of the game’s premier arms. His 2010-16 peak saw him pitch 1477 2/3 innings of 3.14 ERA ball. His work since that peak has dropped off a bit, but Hamels still tossed 480 1/3 innings of 3.92 ERA ball from 2017-19 before last year’s injury-ruined season.

Rotation help has become an unexpected need for the Dodgers, who lost Dustin May to Tommy John surgery early. Los Angeles also has both Clayton Kershaw (forearm inflammation) and Tony Gonsolin (shoulder inflammation) on the injured list at the moment. Trevor Bauer has been on administrative leave since early July following sexual assault allegations that were brought forth against him. Starter-turned-reliever David Price moved back into the rotation last month and built up to about 75 pitches, but his most recent outing was once again a single-inning relief appearance.

The Dodgers addressed their sudden lack of rotation depth at the trade deadline, first picking up the currently injured Danny Duffy before putting together a deadline-day blockbuster acquisition of Max Scherzer. That duo, plus the apparently impending addition of Hamels, ought to give the Dodgers some more firepower on the starting staff down the stretch in a tightly contested three-team race for the NL West crown. For now, the Dodgers will lean on Scherzer, Walker Buehler and Julio Urias as their top three options.

It’s not fully clear just when Hamels, Kershaw or Gonsolin could be cleared to pitch for the Dodgers. Hamels needs the aforementioned buildup, while the team’s last update on Kershaw was that he’d experienced some “residual soreness” following his latest throwing session. Gonsolin hit the 10-day IL on July 31, and there’s been no update since. Duffy landed on the injured list back on July 20, owing to a forearm strain. Royals GM Dayton Moore said on July 27 that the club felt Duffy was perhaps three to four weeks from a return.

The Dodgers themselves probably don’t know exactly how their rotation will shape up over the season’s final eight-plus weeks, but their recent pickups of Scherzer, Duffy and Hamels give the team an enviable stockpile of accomplished arms from which to draw as they look to chase down the first-place Giants and defend their 2020 World Series victory.

Orioles Select Marcos Diplan, Dusten Knight

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The Orioles are set to shake up their bullpen mix a bit on Wednesday, per Dan Connolly of The Athletic, who reports that the team is set to select right-handers Marcos Diplan and Dusten Knight to the big league roster (Twitter link). Neither pitcher is on the 40-man roster, so Baltimore will need to make a couple of corresponding moves.

Diplan, 24, has bounced around the league a bit in recent years but looks to have found a home in the Orioles organization. The righty was designated for assignment by the Brewers two days prior to the 2019 deadline and traded to the Twins in exchange for cash just an hour before the deadline itself. The Twins designated Diplan a couple weeks later, prompting a waiver claim from the Tigers. Detroit held onto Diplan into the offseason, but the O’s picked him up on a waiver claim of their own in December. Baltimore then managed to pass Diplan through waivers unclaimed the following month, allowing the Orioles to keep him as a non-40-man player.

Despite that journeyman trajectory, Diplan thrived out of the bullpen in Triple-A Norfolk to begin the season — so much so that he was a surprise participant in this summer’s Futures Game. Diplan himself said he was caught off-guard by his selection but very appreciative of the opportunity (link via MASNsports.com’s Roch Kubatko). At the time, he’d pitched to a 2.60 ERA with a 28.6 percent strikeout rate and a 7.8 percent walk rate. He’s yielded four runs in 2 1/3 innings since the Futures Game, but it’s nevertheless been a strong year for Diplan, and he’ll now be rewarded with his first trip to the big leagues more than eight years after he initially signed with the Rangers as a teenager out of the Dominican Republic.

Similarly, it’s been a grind for Knight to reach this point. The 30-year-old righty worked through seven minor league seasons prior to the 2021 campaign, and he also spent time pitching in Mexico and in the independent Atlantic League. He’s pitched in 272 professional games since being selected by the Giants in the 28th round of the 2013 draft, but he’ll now be able to call himself a big leaguer once Baltimore formally adds him to the MLB club later today.

Rays Sign Evan Phillips To Minor League Deal

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The Rays have signed reliever Evan Phillips to a minor league deal, according to Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic. This is a quick bounceback for Phillips, as he was one of three players released by the Orioles yesterday.

Phillips has been shuffling between Triple-A and the big leagues over the past few years. Since the start of the 2018 season, he’s pitched 54 innings at the MLB level, with a bloated 7.50 ERA, although advanced metrics are kinder. (5.33 FIP and 5.22 xFIP.) The 25.4% strikeout rate is okay, though it’s come with an unpalatable 14.9 walk rate. But his minor league numbers are much better in that timeframe: a 3.41 ERA over 116 innings, with an excellent 31.5% strikeout rate. The walk rate is better but still high at 10%.

The 26-year-old will now report to Triple-A and see if he can work his way back to the majors over the final months of the season.

Phillies Release Brandon Kintzler

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The Phillies have released reliever Brandon Kintzler, according to the MLB.com transactions tracker. That was the anticipated outcome after the veteran right-hander was designated for assignment over the weekend. Kintzler has well over five years of MLB service time, so he’d have had the right to reject an outright assignment in favor of free agency while retaining the remainder of his salary. With that in mind, the Phils evidently just decided to place him on release waivers. Once he clears, Kintzler will be free to sign anywhere of his choosing.

Kintzler was non-tendered by the Marlins over the winter despite a productive 2020 campaign serving as Miami’s closer. The 37-year-old signed a minor league deal with the Phillies that came with a $3MM base salary if he made the club out of Spring Training. He bet on himself, turning down guaranteed deals that would’ve come with a lower salary and ultimately made good on that decision, earning a season-opening spot in the Phils bullpen.

While Kintzler has generally been a productive reliever over the course of his career, that hasn’t been the case so far in 2021. The sinkerballer managed just a 6.37 ERA across 29 2/3 innings in Philadelphia. Kintzler’s still racking up grounders at a very high clip (58.2%), but he’s nevertheless been tagged for seven home runs.

That’s the result of a exceptionally high 29.2% HR/FB rate that’s more than double Kintzler’s career mark of 13.2%. Given his generally solid track record, Kintzler should find interest from other clubs on minor league arrangements. If a few more batted balls die in the outfield grass as opposed to clearing the fences, it’s possible he could bounce back towards his more typically steady form.

Brewers Claim Sal Romano Off Waivers From Yankees

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The Brewers announced they’ve claimed right-hander Sal Romano off waivers from the Yankees. He’ll add some depth to a bullpen that has been hit hard by the spread of COVID-19 throughout the Milwaukee clubhouse in recent days.

Milwaukee will be Romano’s third team of the year. He opened the season in Cincinnati but was cut loose after a poor first month. He signed a minor league deal with the Yankees not long after and pitched his way back to the big leagues in late July. His stint in the Bronx proved rather brief, though, as he wound up again designated for assignment after a pair of appearances.

Between the Reds and Yankees, Romano has tossed 23 innings with a 4.70 ERA. He has punched out only 14.9% of batters faced against an average 8.9% walk rate. Romano has had better results with the Yankees’ top affiliate in Scranton/Wilkes-Barre, working 23 1/3 frames of 3.47 ERA ball. He is out of minor league option years, so the Brew Crew need to keep him on the big league roster or wind up placing him on waivers themselves.

Yankees Claim Jonathan Davis Off Waivers From Blue Jays

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The Yankees announced a series of roster moves before this evening’s game against the Orioles. Most notably, outfielder Jonathan Davis has been claimed off waivers from the Blue Jays. New York also selected the contracts of right-handers Brody Koerner and Stephen Ridings. They’re replacing Gerrit Cole and Jordan Montgomery, who landed on the COVID-19 injured list after testing positive for the virus.

Davis lost his 40-man roster spot when the Jays acquired Joakim Soria before last Friday’s trade deadline. The 29-year-old appeared in the majors with the Jays in each of the past four seasons, tallying a combined 241 plate appearances of .180/.285/.263 hitting. While he hasn’t performed well at the big league level, Davis has a decent .256/.357/.421 line over parts of three seasons at Triple-A.

Koerner and Ridings are both in line to make their big league debuts. Koener, a 17th-round pick of the Yankees back in 2015, has done very well at Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre this season. Through 61 innings, the Clemson University product has a 2.95 ERA, the seventh-lowest mark among the 49 Triple-A East pitchers with 50+ innings pitched. His 18.3% strikeout rate is below-average, but Koerner has also issued walks at a lower than typical 7.8% clip.

Ridings began his career as an 8th-round draftee of the Cubs out of Haverford College. He was a starting pitcher early in his minor league tenure (which also included some time in the Royals system).  This year, though, he’s worked exclusively in relief, splitting the campaign between Double-A Somerset and Scranton. Altogether, the 25-year-old has pitched to a sterling 1.24 ERA in 29 innings, striking out an elite 38.2% of opponents while walking just 3.6%.

Because Koerner and Ridings were selected to the roster as COVID replacements, they can be returned to the minor leagues and removed from the 40-man without being exposed to waivers upon others’ returns from the IL.

Diamondbacks Select Tyler Gilbert

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The Diamondbacks announced they’ve selected the contract of pitcher Tyler Gilbert. Southpaw Miguel Aguilar was optioned to Triple-A Reno in a corresponding move.

It’s the first big league call for Gilbert, a 27-year-old southpaw. A sixth-round pick of the Phillies out of USC in 2015, Gilbert spent his first few professional seasons in the Philadelphia organization. The Phils traded him to the Dodgers for Kyle Garlick in February 2020, but he never appeared in a game for a Los Angeles affiliate due to last year’s canceled minor league season. The D-Backs selected Gilbert in the minor league phase of the Rule 5 draft over the offseason.

He’s spent the year to date with Reno, making eleven appearances (ten starts). Over 52 1/3 innings, Gilbert has a 3.44 ERA with decent strikeout and walk rates (22.8% and 8.7%, respectively). That’s deceptively strong production in the supercharged Triple-A West environment. Among the 26 pitchers with 50+ innings in the league, only one (Drew Anderson) has a better ERA than Gilbert. That quality work in the high minors will earn him a look from a D-Backs team that has little reason not to give opportunities to potential long-term members of the pitching staff.

Twins Release Matt Shoemaker

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The Twins released right-hander Matt Shoemaker this afternoon, manager Rocco Baldelli told reporters (including Phil Miller of the Minneapolis Star-Tribune). Minnesota had already passed Shoemaker through outright waivers earlier this season, so the move won’t clear up a 40-man roster spot.

Minnesota signed Shoemaker to a one-year, $2MM deal over the winter in hopes of stabilizing the final spot in the rotation. The union didn’t pan out, as the veteran tossed 60 1/3 innings of 8.06 ERA/5.41 SIERA ball before being designated for assignment in early July. It was a nightmarish campaign for Shoemaker, who posted a career-worst 14.1% strikeout rate and served up fifteen home runs in sixteen appearances.

To his credit, Shoemaker has tossed 20 innings of four-run ball since accepting an assignment to Triple-A St. Paul. With the Twins expected to use the final few months of their lost season to take a look at younger, controllable arms, it nevertheless made sense to move on. Shoemaker will now get to explore other opportunities, and he’ll presumably latch on somewhere via minor league deal with a chance to pitch himself back to the big leagues down the stretch.

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