Angels Outright Chad Wallach
September 17: Wallach cleared waivers and has been outrighted back to Salt Lake, the Angels announced this afternoon.
September 15: The Angels announced a few roster moves during tonight’s off day. Logan O’Hoppe is back from the seven-day concussion list, leaving the club to designate catcher Chad Wallach for assignment. Los Angeles also announced that infielders Scott Kingery and Niko Kavadas cleared waivers and were outrighted to Triple-A. MLBTR covered the Kavadas outright this morning.
O’Hoppe went down a week ago when he was struck on the head by a Jacob Wilson backswing. The Halos called up Sebastian Rivero to back up Travis d’Arnaud, who stepped into the starting catching role. A few days later, d’Arnaud landed on the injured list with his own concussion symptoms. The Angels were forced to call up Wallach, the #4 backstop on the organizational depth chart. Rivero started all three games behind the dish in the weekend series in Seattle.
Wallach made one appearance as a defensive replacement. He caught the final two innings on Friday after Jo Adell pinch hit for Rivero in the top of the seventh. That was the 33-year-old’s first major league action since 2023. Wallach spent all of last year with the Halos’ Triple-A team in Salt Lake. He divided this season between the top affiliates of the Rangers and Angels, hitting .251/.321/.439 across 251 plate appearances.
The Angels will place Wallach on waivers this week. There’s a good chance he goes unclaimed and accepts a minor league assignment to spend the final two weeks of the regular season in Salt Lake. He’ll qualify for minor league free agency at year’s end if he’s not on a 40-man roster.
Kingery was designated for assignment on Saturday when the Angels called up Denzer Guzman. The former Phillies second baseman has cleared waivers three times this season. He hit .148 in 19 games during his first big league action in three years. He’ll also be a minor league free agent at year’s end unless the Angels call him back up before then.
Lucas Giolito Converts Club Option To Mutual Provision
Lucas Giolito completed four innings against the Athletics tonight. That pushes him beyond 140 frames on the season, clinching a contractual milestone that’ll have an impact on the upcoming free agent class. Giolito has hit the vesting threshold needed to convert the Red Sox’s $14MM club option into a $19MM mutual option. That means he’ll be able to opt out in favor of a $1.5MM buyout and return to the open market in search of a multi-year deal.
Giolito is sure to go that route unless he suffers a major injury within the next few weeks. The 31-year-old righty is amidst his best season since he received down-ballot Cy Young votes each year between 2019-21. He has rebounded nicely from the elbow surgery that robbed him of his first year in Boston. Giolito returned this season on a $19MM player option. A Spring Training hamstring strain forced him to wait a few weeks to make his team debut, but he has been one of Boston’s most reliable starters behind Garrett Crochet over the past few months.
The righty’s first few starts were a little rocky. Giolito pitched to a 4.85 ERA across five appearances in May. He has performed well since then. Giolito has not allowed more than 3.41 earned runs per nine innings in any of the past four months. He carries a 2.86 ERA while averaging almost six innings per start in 18 appearances since the beginning of June. That doesn’t include tonight’s start, in which walks and a handful of inherited runners coming across the board left him with four earned runs through 4 2/3 innings.
All told, Giolito took a 3.30 ERA into today’s appearance. His 20% strikeout rate and 10% swinging strike mark are both a little below average. Giolito isn’t missing bats at the plus rates that he did during his early run with the White Sox, but he’s throwing strikes and working relatively deep into games. He has picked up 14 quality starts while tamping down on the home run issues that plagued him late in his time with Chicago (and during his brief stops with the Angels and Guardians in 2023).
Giolito is going into his age-31 season. He’s coming off a platform year that is arguably better than the one Luis Severino turned in for the Mets a year ago. Severino landed three years and $67MM with an opt-out after the second season. One could write that off as an anomaly by an A’s team that wanted to avoid a revenue sharing grievance and needed to overpay in the midst of a relocation. Even so, Giolito’s numbers stack up to those of Eduardo Rodriguez (four years, $80MM at age 31) and Michael Wacha (three years, $51MM at age 33) in their respective walk years.
Time will tell what kind of deal the market will bear for Giolito. His camp will probably take aim at four years. Even if that doesn’t materialize because of concerns about the dip in strikeouts or the home run issues he batted in previous seasons, he’ll easily beat the $17.5MM net call he faces in declining his end of the mutual option. That’s close to what rebound candidates like Walker Buehler, Alex Cobb and late-career Max Scherzer and Justin Verlander received last winter.
Boston can and almost certainly will tag Giolito with a qualifying offer, which would be in the $22MM range. In the likely event that Giolito declines, that’d entitle them to draft compensation. RosterResource estimates the Red Sox are narrowly above the $241MM luxury tax threshold. Assuming that’s the case, they’d receive a pick after the fourth round in 2026 if Giolito declines the QO and signs with another team.
Image courtesy of James A. Pittman, Imagn Images.
Rays Acquire Marshall Toole As PTBNL From José Caballero Trade
Outfield prospect Marshall Toole is heading from the Yankees to the Rays, according to announcements from both clubs. He is the player to be named later from the deadline deal which sent José Caballero to the Yankees and Everson Pereira to the Rays. Toole wasn’t on the Yankees’ 40-man roster and therefore doesn’t need to take up a spot with the Rays.
Toole, 22, was a 15th-round pick of the Yankees in last year’s draft. Since that selection, he has played in 113 Single-A games, stepping to the plate 441 times. His 20.6% strikeout rate thus far is decent while his 15.2% walk rate is quite strong. His .298/.413/.462 batting line translates to a 148 wRC+. He has also stolen 52 bases in 60 tries.
Those are obviously some nice numbers but there are some caveats. That offensive production includes just six home runs and is being propped up by a massive .380 batting average on balls in play. Toole is also a bit old for his level and will face stiffer competition as he moves up the ladder. He’s not currently listed as one of the top 30 prospect in the Yankee system by Baseball America nor MLB Pipeline.
Put all together and it feels like a very Rays-style pickup, a player without a huge profile but one with some interesting tools. The club has turned a few such players into decent big league contributors over the years. Perhaps the same could be true of Toole but he’s likely a few years away since he still has to climb a few more rungs of the minor league ladder. He won’t be eligible for the Rule 5 draft until December of 2027.
Photo courtesy of Kim Klement Neitzel, Imagn Images
Braves Claim Carson Ragsdale
The Braves have claimed righty Carson Ragsdale off waivers from the Orioles, per an announcement from the O’s. Atlanta has not yet announced the move, but David O’Brien of The Athletic reports that outfielder Jake Fraley is being transferred to the 60-day IL to clear a 40-man roster spot. Baltimore designated Ragsdale for assignment on Monday.
Baltimore originally claimed Ragsdale off waivers from San Francisco following the trade deadline. The 27-year-old is a longtime Giants farmhand but never pitched in the majors until a brief three-inning cup of coffee with the O’s. He was tagged for eight runs on nine hits and a walk with two punchouts during that initial MLB audition.
A 2020 fourth-round pick by the Phillies (who traded him to the Giants for Sam Coonrod), Ragsdale has solid numbers throughout his minor league tenure but appeared to hit a roadblock in Triple-A this season, logging a sub-par 4.87 ERA with a 19.7% strikeout rate and 12% walk rate that are both worse than average. That said, he posted a 2.93 ERA in High-A and a 3.49 mark in Double-A before stumbling in Triple-A. He’s averaged 92.6 mph on his four-seamer this year and paired that pitch with a splitter and a curveball that sits in the high 70s. Ragsdale has a pair of minor league option years remaining beyond the current season.
For the Braves, Ragsdale adds some optionable depth to a rotation mix that’s been absolutely hammered by injuries this season. Spencer Strider began the year on the injured list rehabbing from last year’s UCL surgery, and he’s looked shaky in his return while also missing time due to a hamstring injury. Chris Sale was out for two months due to fractured ribs. Reynaldo Lopez made just one start before undergoing shoulder surgery. Young righty AJ Smith-Shawver underwent Tommy John surgery in June. Spencer Schwellenbach suffered a fractured elbow just a couple weeks later. Righty Grant Holmes suffered a partial tear of his UCL in late July. He’s attempting to rehab without surgery (knowing that late-July/early-August surgery would’ve wiped out his entire 2026 campaign anyhow).
There’s no guarantee that Ragsdale will last the entire offseason on Atlanta’s 40-man roster, but with so many of those pitching injuries extending into next season, it’s understandable that they’d take a late look at an optionable depth arm who won’t turn 28 until late next May. Bolstering the rotation will be a point of focus for Atlanta this offseason, but stockpiling depth in this fashion will be plenty important in its own right.
Royals Activate Cole Ragans From 60-Day Injured List
Sept 17: The Royals have formally reinstated Ragans from the 60-day IL. Righty Luinder Avila was optioned to Triple-A Omaha to open a spot on the active roster. Ragans’ reinstatement brings Kansas City’s 40-man roster to capacity.
Sept. 16: The Royals will reinstate left-hander Cole Ragans from the 60-day injured list tomorrow, per Anne Rogers of MLB.com. Kansas City already has an open 40-man roster spot, so unless there are other 40-man moves coming in conjunction with Ragans’ return, they’ll only need to clear a spot on the active roster.
Ragans, 28 this offseason, has been out more than three months due to a strained rotator cuff in his left shoulder. His absence has been a major reason for Kansas City’s slide in the standings and the team’s all but certain elimination from playoff contention, although Ragans certainly hasn’t been the only rotation member to run into health woes this year.
Kris Bubic‘s own rotator cuff strain ended his season in late July. Seth Lugo has had IL stints due to both finger and lower back injuries. Michael Lorenzen missed more than a month with an oblique strain. Michael Wacha has been on the concussion list for the past week but is expected to return for tonight’s game. Alec Marsh hasn’t pitched all season due to a shoulder impingement. It’s a far cry from the 2024 season, when the Royals improbably had four pitchers make at least 29 starts (and five make at least 25 starts).
Still, the loss of Ragans has arguably been the most damaging. The southpaw was sitting on an ugly 5.18 ERA in ten starts when healthy, although much of the damage against him came in his final three starts before landing on the IL with this shoulder issue. Ragans carried a 3.79 ERA into mid-May and reached double-digit strikeout figures in four of his first seven starts of the season. And, of course, the lefty’s 2024 breakout was one of the driving forces behind the Royals’ return to the postseason. Ragans pitched 186 1/3 innings with a 3.14 ERA, 29.3% strikeout rate and 8.8% walk rate across 32 starts last year, garnering an All-Star nod and fourth-place finish in Cy Young voting for his efforts.
At 75-75, the Royals haven’t been mathematically eliminated from the postseason just yet, but they’re 6.5 games out in the AL Wild Card chase with 12 games left to play. It’d take a borderline miracle for them to sneak into the field. Even with little to play for in terms of 2025 results, however, Ragans’ return gives him the chance to head into the offseason feeling that his shoulder troubles are behind him. If he looks sharp in two starts between now and season’s end, Kansas City would surely feel a bit better about its staff heading into next year. Ragans posted a 4.35 ERA and punched out 20 of the 43 hitters he faced (46.5%) across three minor league starts while rehabbing in recent weeks.
Rays Select Cole Wilcox
The Rays have selected the contract of righty Cole Wilcox from Triple-A Durham, per a team announcement. He’ll join the bullpen and make his major league debut the first time he gets into a game. Infielder Taylor Walls was transferred from the 10-day IL to the 60-day IL to open a spot on the 40-man roster, while right-hander Joey Gerber was optioned to Durham to clear space on the active roster.
Wilcox, 26, was a third-round pick by the Padres in 2020, though that undersells his stock at the time of the draft. Wilcox “slid” into the third round due primarily to signability concerns. A draft-eligible sophomore at the University of Georgia, Wilcox was widely regarded as a first-round talent. San Diego plucked him with the No. 80 overall pick and swayed him with a $3.3MM signing bonus that was a record for a third-round pick at the time. Just five months later, he was traded to the Rays alongside Francisco Mejia, Luis Patiño and Blake Hunt in the Blake Snell blockbuster.
Things haven’t panned out for Wilcox in the years since. He was dominant for the Rays’ Class-A club in 2021 but made just 10 starts before incurring an elbow injury that eventually led to Tommy John surgery. He returned late in the 2022 season but totaled just 16 innings between the Rays’ Class-A and Rookie-level affiliates.
Wilcox spent the 2023 season pitching out of the rotation with Tampa Bay’s Double-A affiliate but struggled to a 5.23 ERA while showing far worse command than he had prior to surgery. He repeated the Double-A level in 2024 and found better success in terms of his bottom-line run prevention numbers; Wilcox dropped his ERA all the way to 3.18, but he did so with a below-average 18.9% strikeout rate. That still prompted a promotion to Triple-A, but Wilcox again struggled with shaky command and diminished stuff. His fastball, which had previously sat 94-97 mph and scraped triple digits, instead sat at 92.5 mph that season.
Tampa Bay moved Wilcox to the bullpen in 2025, and the results are more encouraging. He’s pitched to a 3.70 ERA in 58 1/3 innings. His 10.8% walk rate is still too high, but he’s averaging 95.8 mph on his sinker now that he’s moved into a short relief role. He’s also scrapped his changeup and now relies on a pure two-pitch mix featuring that sinker and a sharp slider that always graded as his best pitch in scouting reports. Wilcox has kept 50.3% of his opponents’ batted balls on the ground, and his 12.3% swinging-strike rate is better than average as well.
At the time of the Snell trade, the Rays had surely hoped that Wilcox would develop into a key member of their rotation. That no longer appears to be in the cards, but with a sinker approaching 96 mph and a quality slider that’s averaging 86.1 mph, he still has the makings of a potentially useful reliever. He’ll get his first opportunity in the majors in the final weeks of the 2025 campaign, but now that he’s on the 40-man roster, Wilcox will have a full slate of three minor league option years and ample runway to prove himself as a member of manager Kevin Cash’s relief corps in subsequent seasons.
Phillies Select Rafael Lantigua
The Phillies announced they’ve selected infielder Rafael Lantigua onto the big league roster. He replaces Edmundo Sosa, who heads to the 10-day injured list (retroactive to September 13) with a right groin strain. Philly needed to create a spot on the 40-man roster, so they designated outfielder Brewer Hicklen for assignment.
Lantigua gets his first major league call at age 27. A 5’7″ infielder, he signed with the Blue Jays as an amateur from the Dominican Republic. The righty-hitting utilityman played in the Toronto system through the end of last season. He spent two and a half seasons at Triple-A Buffalo without getting a major league call. Lantigua departed the organization last winter as a minor league free agent, catching on with the Phils on a non-roster deal.
Philadelphia assigned Lantigua to their top minor league affiliate. He has hit .232/.359/.333 across 491 trips to the plate for Lehigh Valley. Lantigua’s batted ball metrics and power numbers are unimpressive, but he has a clear understanding of the strike zone. He has walked at a huge 15.7% clip while rarely chasing pitches off the plate. He pairs that with plus bat-to-ball skills and a tidy 14.3% strikeout percentage.
Lantigua is mostly a second baseman. He has logged 661 innings there while tallying a little over 300 frames at third base. He has made a handful of starts at shortstop and in left field as well. Last month, Baseball America surveyed minor league managers on the various tools for rookie-eligible players. Lantigua was named the International League’s top defensive second baseman.
It could be a brief stay on the big league roster. The Phils are without each of Trea Turner, Alec Bohm and Sosa for the time being. Turner has a Grade 1 hamstring strain and is trying to make it back before the end of the regular season. Sosa will miss at least a week. Bohm could be back by this weekend’s series in Arizona, however, which probably pushes an infielder back to the minors. Bryson Stott is at shortstop tonight, leaving Weston Wilson and Otto Kemp at second and third base, respectively. Lantigua and the out-of-options Donovan Walton are available off the bench.
Hicklen landed with Philly in late July in a DFA trade with the Tigers. The 29-year-old has been on optional assignment to Lehigh Valley for the past two and a half months. Hicklen has turned in a .218/.293/.437 slash with eight homers but a near-32% strikeout rate over 32 games. He owns a .221/.318/.403 line between the Detroit and Philadelphia farm systems this year overall. Hicklen made one appearance for the Tigers, going 2-3 with a walk and a stolen base at Coors Field on May 8. He’ll be placed on waivers this week.
Blue Jays Release Orelvis Martinez
September 16: The Jays confirmed this evening that Martinez went unclaimed on release waivers. He’s officially a free agent.
September 15: The Blue Jays released former top infield prospect Orelvis Martinez, according to the MLB.com transaction log. Assuming he clears release waivers, he’ll be a free agent. The Jays had designated Martinez for assignment on Saturday when they needed a 40-man roster spot to activate Alek Manoah from the 60-day injured list in a procedural move.
Martinez was on optional assignment to Triple-A Buffalo and landed on the minor league injured list with an undisclosed injury last week. Injured players cannot be placed on outright waivers. Players on the 40-man roster can’t be traded after the deadline. Once the Jays designated Martinez for assignment, they had no choice but to release him.
Toronto could have placed Martinez on the MLB 60-day injured list rather than designating him for assignment in the first place. That also would have opened a 40-man roster spot but would have required paying him the prorated major league minimum salary for the final two weeks of the regular season. That the Jays preferred to release him rather than pay the roughly $70K to keep him on the IL is a testament to how far his stock has fallen. There’s a good chance they intended to run him through outright waivers at the beginning of the offseason.
The 23-year-old Martinez appeared in one major league game last season. He singled in three at-bats during his MLB debut. He had occupied a 40-man roster spot for the past three years and had otherwise been on optional assignment. He also missed 80 games last season following a failed performance-enhancing drug test. The PED ban was announced all of five days after Martinez received his first major league call in June 2024. He finished that year in Triple-A and has been in Buffalo for the entirety of this season.
Martinez has endured a nightmare season in the minors. He’s batting .176/.288/.348 while striking out at a 28.4% clip through 394 plate appearances. He has taken a lot of walks and connected on 13 home runs, but both his power production and contact rates have backed up relative to last season. Martinez had turned in a far stronger .267/.346/.523 line with 17 homers in 319 trips at the Triple-A level a year ago.
The Jays could look to bring Martinez back on a minor league contract. That is fairly common in situations where a team DFAs and subsequently releases an injured minor leaguer. Martinez will have the ability to look elsewhere in free agency, though, and it’s possible a change of scenery is ideal given the way his career has gone over the past year-plus. His youth and one-time projection as a potential power-hitting second/third baseman will surely intrigue plenty of teams if he’s relegated to a minor league deal going into 2026.
Angels Select Carter Kieboom, Place Zach Neto On Injured List
The Angels announced Tuesday that they’ve selected the contract of infielder Carter Kieboom and placed shortstop Zach Neto on the 10-day injured list due to a left hand strain. The Halos had an open 40-man roster spot after previously outrighting utilityman Scott Kingery.
Kieboom, 28, hasn’t appeared in the majors since 2023. The former top-100 prospect was once viewed as a potential long-term contributor with the Nationals but never found his footing in the big leagues. He’s a career .199/.297/.301 hitter in 508 plate appearances, all of which came with the Nationals, who selected him with the No. 28 overall pick back in 2016.
The 2025 season is Kieboom’s first away from the Nats. He’s had a fine year in Triple-A Salt Lake, slashing .319/.368/.449 with nine homers and 11 steals in 402 trips to the plate. It’s an impressive-looking stat line, though after weighting for home park and league run-scoring environment, Kieboom’s rate stats are about two percent better than league average in the overwhelmingly hitter-friendly Pacific Coast League (by measure of wRC+).
Neto, 24, returns to the injured list for the second time this season. The 2023 first-rounder missed the first few weeks of the year recovering from 2024 shoulder surgery but has largely matched his breakout 2024 form when healthy. In 128 games and 554 plate appearances, Neto has slashed .257.319/.474 with 26 homers and stolen bases apiece. He hit .249/.318/.443 with 23 homers and 30 steals in 155 games/603 plate appearances last season.
The Angels haven’t specified how long Neto will need to recover, although given how close we are to the end of the season, it’s obviously possible that he could miss the remainder of the year. With Neto sidelined, the Angels’ options at shortstop include Denzer Guzman and Oswald Peraza. Veteran utilityman Chris Taylor has plenty of career innings at shortstop under his belt as well, though he hasn’t played there at all since the 2023 season.
Orioles Designate Emmanuel Rivera For Assignment
The Orioles have designated infielder Emmanuel Rivera for assignment and reinstated Jordan Westburg from the 10-day injured list, per a team announcement. Baltimore also optioned lefty Grant Wolfram to Triple-A Norfolk, clearing a spot for the activation of lefty Jose Castillo, whom the O’s claimed off waivers yesterday.
Rivera, 29, came to the Orioles following a DFA in Miami last summer. He erupted for a .313/.370/.578 slash and four homers in 73 plate appearances down the stretch, prompting the O’s to tender him a $1MM contract in the offseason. He hasn’t replicated that output in 2025, however. Through 127 turns at the plate, Rivera has logged a tepid .250/.291/.283 slash that more closely resembles his career .245/.305/.360 output in 1169 plate appearances.
He’s still a quality defender at third base and has added some experience at first base, but Rivera is out of minor league options and thus couldn’t simply be sent to the minors without first being removed from the 40-man roster by way of a DFA. He’ll now be made available to the game’s 29 other teams via outright waivers. If and when he clears, Rivera would have the right to reject a minor league assignment in favor of free agency (both by virtue of having more than three years of MLB service and a prior outright in his career).
It’s been a stop-and-start year for the 26-year-old Westburg. He’s been highly productive when healthy enough to take the field but has endured lengthy IL stints owing to both a hamstring strain and a right ankle sprain. He’s just now returning from the latter of those two maladies after spending nearly a month on the shelf.
When he’s been able to take the field, Westburg has popped 25 extra-base hits (15 homers, nine doubles, one triple) and recorded a stout .276/.326/.473 batting line while splitting his time between third base and second base. Dating back to last season, Westburg has belted 33 home runs in just 751 plate appearances — despite being a right-handed hitter in a ballpark that overwhelmingly sapped right-handed power in 2024 (before altering their left field dimensions this past offseason).
Westburg is controllable for another four seasons in Baltimore and won’t be eligible for arbitration until after the 2026 season. He’s been limited to just 73 games this season, but he’s demonstrated potential 30-homer pop if he can remain healthy for a full year. He’ll enter the offseason lined up as the Orioles’ starter at third base, joining shortstop Gunnar Henderson and second baseman Jackson Holliday as locks in the infield at Camden Yards.
Former top prospect Coby Mayo is currently getting plenty of run at first base but has yet to solidify himself as a credible hitter at the MLB level. Samuel Basallo, another touted prospect (whom the Orioles recently extended), will also be in the mix for reps at first base. Longtime O’s slugger Ryan Mountcastle is also still in the picture, but he’s slumping badly to close out a down year overall and will be owed a raise on this year’s $6.78MM salary ahead of his final season of club control, making him a non-tender or trade candidate.