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Twins Designate Juan Minaya, Select Griffin Jax

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The Twins have designated right-hander Juan Minaya for assignment, as per a team press release.  Right-handed pitching prospect Griffin Jax’s contract has been selected from Triple-A (as reported earlier today by Betsy Helfand of the St. Paul Pioneer Press), and Jax will take Minaya’s spot on the active roster.

Minaya inked a minor league deal with the Twins in the offseason and had his contract selected just last week, so he could potentially be moving on after appearing in only four games for Minnesota.  The veteran righty posted a 4.26 ERA over 6 1/3 innings, getting his first bit of Major League action since 2019 when he was a member of the White Sox.  The Twins also signed Minaya to a minor league contract prior to the 2020 season but designated him for assignment before he could make any appearances last year.

With Michael Pineda battling a sore forearm, his scheduled start for Sunday has been pushed back, so it’s possible Jax could be in line to take that start for his MLB debut.  A third-round pick out of Air Force in 2016, Jax isn’t one of MLB Pipeline’s top 30 Twins prospects, but he has posted a 3.33 ERA and 25.9% strikeout rate over 27 innings for Triple-A St. Paul this season.

Marlins Place Cody Poteet On 10-Day IL, Elieser Hernandez Moved To 60-Day IL

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The Marlins announced a series of moves this afternoon, including the placement of right-hander Cody Poteet on the 10-day injured list due to a right MCL sprain.  (The Miami Herald’s Jordan McPherson was among those to report the news.)  Right-hander Zach Thompson’s contract was selected from Triple-A to take Poteet’s spot on the active roster, and a 40-man roster spot was created when Elieser Hernandez was moved to the 60-day injured list.

Hernandez went to the 10-day IL just yesterday because of a right quad strain, though the Marlins specified today that Hernandez’s injury was “severe” in nature.  Hernandez will now be out of action until at least early August, and given the apparent seriousness of the injury, it is fair to speculate whether or not the right-hander could possibly be out of action for the remainder of the season.

Poteet’s injury only adds to an increasingly short-handed pitching situation for Miami.  Due to the absence of Hernandez and Sixto Sanchez, Poteet got an opportunity for his MLB debut and was making the most of it, with a 3.75 ERA/4.42 SIERA over five starts and 24 innings.  Despite a below-average 22.1% strikeout rate, Poteet was using some elite curveball spin to outperform his overall middling Statcast numbers.  At the very least, Poteet was doing enough to doing enough to solidify his spot in the rotation before injury struck yesterday, and he was forced out of the 9-2 loss to the Pirates after only 2 2/3 innings.

Trevor Rogers, Sandy Alcantara, and Pablo Lopez have been a solid top three for the Marlins’ rotation, but there is now a major void with both Poteet and Hernandez out of action.  Braxton Garrett and Daniel Castano are both at Triple-A and might be the most logical options for the moment, considering that many of Miami’s top starting candidates are still recovering from injury.

Jordan Holloway might not be too far away, as he is expected to begin a Triple-A rehab assignment tonight.  A groin injury sent Holloway to the 10-day IL on May 22, and he has already made two starts in a piggyback capacity this season.  Marlins manager Don Mattingly told MLB.com’s Christina De Nicola and other reporters that the plan is to build Holloway’s workload up to 75-90 pitches so he can potentially be used as a starter when his rehab assignment is over.

Given all this rotation uncertainty, it isn’t surprising that the Marlins are looking for some external pitching help, pitching coach Mel Stottlemyre Jr. told McPherson (Twitter links) and other reporters.  The team would prefer to add an experienced arm rather than prematurely force their pitching prospects up to the majors for fill-in duty.

Sanchez has yet to pitch this season due to shoulder discomfort, and his rehab was recently halted after he felt discomfort between bullpen sessions.  Stottlemyre didn’t shed much light on when Sanchez might continue on the road to recovery, saying, “Some of the things that he was doing before got better, but there’s still a stall in his program.  I’m not going to tell you he’s hurt, but it’s not time to move forward with rehab starts yet.”

Thompson was a starter earlier in his minor league career, but considering he hasn’t started a game since 2017, it’s safe to assume the righty will head to Miami’s bullpen as he seems set to make his Major League debut.  A fifth-round pick for the White Sox in the 2014 draft, Thompson has a 4.11 ERA over 519 career frames in the minors, which includes a 6.60 ERA over 15 innings at Triple-A Jacksonville this season.  Thompson has allowed four homers in those 15 innings to inflate his ERA, and his other peripherals (21 strikeouts and two walks) are otherwise quite impressive.

Cardinals Place Kwang Hyun Kim, Justin Williams On 10-Day IL

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The Cardinals have placed left-hander Kwang Hyun Kim and outfielder Justin Williams on the 10-day injured list, manager Mike Shildt told reporters.  Kim left his start last night due to lower back tightness, while Williams is dealing with a stiff neck.  Righty Angel Rondon (as reported earlier today) and first baseman John Nogowski have been called up from Triple-A to fill the roster spots.

A similar back problem sidelined Kim during Spring Training and kept him from making his 2021 debut until April 17.  The 32-year-old’s second Major League season has been pretty solid, as Kim has overcome some lackluster peripheral numbers to post a 4.05 ERA/4.25 SIERA over 40 innings of work.  Kim’s current injury doesn’t seem as serious as his earlier injury, Shildt told MLB.com’s Katie Woo and other reporters, so the team is hoping a minimal 10-day stint will correct the issue.

A quick return from Kim would certainly help a St. Louis rotation that is already without Jack Flaherty and Miles Mikolas due to injuries.  Johan Oviedo is slated to start today, and Shildt said that Rondon will be used as a long reliever for the time being.  The Cardinals have off-days on both Monday and Thursday this week, so if Kim is indeed only out for 10 days, the team might not need a replacement starter at all.

Injuries in the outfield have led to a lot of playing time for Williams this season, as he has appeared in 51 of the Cardinals’ 58 games.  Williams is hitting only .160/.270/.261 in 137 plate appearances, and when combined with some below-average defense, Williams has been a sub-replacement level (-0.8 fWAR) performer.  Prior to this season, Williams had appeared is only four MLB games over parts of two seasons with St. Louis and Tampa Bay.

White Sox Activate Andrew Vaughn, Option Gavin Sheets

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TODAY: Vaughn has been activated from the COVID-IL.  Sheets has been optioned back to Triple-A as the corresponding move.

JUNE 3: The White Sox announced they’re placing corner outfielder/first baseman Andrew Vaughn on the injured list. First baseman/corner outfielder Gavin Sheets has been recalled from Triple-A Charlotte to replace him on the active roster.

Vaughn’s IL placement is related to the coronavirus, although the club didn’t announce whether he has tested positive or merely been exposed to the virus. “In compliance with MLB’s existing COVID-19 protocols, Andrew Vaughn has been placed on the injured list,” executive vice president/general manager Rick Hahn announced. “Andrew is currently asymptomatic and our hope is that, similar to our other IL placements of this nature, he will return shortly to the active roster. At this time, no other players on the roster are impacted.”

The Sox decided to break camp with Vaughn after Eloy Jiménez went down with a torn pectoral in Spring Training. He got out of the gates slowly- not an unexpected development for a player who had previously topped out at the High-A level- but Vaughn found a bit of a groove at the plate by the tail end of April. Altogether, he’s put up a roughly league average .226/.316/.394 line with four home runs over his first 158 MLB plate appearances.

Vaughn’s absence will lead to Sheets’ first big league chance. The 25-year-old was the Sox second-round pick out of Wake Forest in 2017, and he’s been a productive offensive player all the way up the minor league ladder. During his last full minor league season in 2019, Sheets hit .267/.345/.414 in an extremely pitcher-friendly environment at Double-A Birmingham. He’s followed that up with a very good start to his Triple-A career this season, compiling a .319/.360/.500 mark over his first 100 plate appearances with Charlotte. Baseball America ranked Sheets as the White Sox #12 prospect entering the year, praising his raw power and lofty minor league exit velocities.

Phillies Reinstate Bryce Harper From Injured List

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Bryce Harper has been reinstated from the 10-day injured list, the Phillies announced.  A roster spot for Harper was created when right-hander Hector Neris was placed on the paternity list.

Harper hit the IL due to a forearm contusion on May 25, and his activation comes as a bit of a surprise since manager Joe Girardi said just yesterday that the outfielder wasn’t yet ready to rejoin the Phillies’ lineup.  Another 24 hours of treatment seems to have done the trick, however, and Harper will now get back into action.

Beyond the forearm contusion, wrist and shoulder troubles have bothered Harper this season, with the wrist problem perhaps being the biggest factor in a 2-for-25 slump for Harper prior to his IL placement.  Even with that slump weighing down his numbers, Harper is still in the midst of a tremendous season, hitting .274/.395/.489 with seven home runs over 162 plate appearances.

Harper’s return brings an enormous boost to a Philadelphia squad that is still missing Didi Gregorius and Scott Kingery to injury, while Roman Quinn is out for the season due to a ruptured Achilles tendon.  Brad Miller has handled most of the right field duties in Harper’s absence, and the utilityman might now be shifted over to shortstop or third base.

Angels Sign Jake Petricka To Minors Contract

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The Angels signed righty Jake Petricka to a minor league deal, purchasing his contract from the High Point Rockers of the independent Atlantic League.  (The Rockers’ Twitter feed announced the move earlier this week.)

Petricka’s last MLB appearance was on April 26, 2019, while pitching for the Brewers.  He was dealt to the Rangers later that season and then signed a minors contract with the Blue Jays prior to the 2020 campaign, though neither of those changes of scenery resulted in any big league playing time.  After multiple offseason workouts for scouts didn’t result in a new contract with a Major League organization, Petricka signed with the Rockers in May, and ended up pitching just a single scoreless inning for the club.

Best known for his time as a stalwart member of the White Sox bullpen, Petricka’s career was largely thrown off-track after a pair of injury-plagued seasons in 2016 and 2017.  He posted a 3.24 ERA over 144 1/3 innings with Chicago from 2013-15, but only a 5.15 ERA over 87 1/3 innings with the White Sox, Blue Jays, and Brewers from 2016-19, largely due to a big spike in his home run rate.

Today marks Petricka’s 33rd birthday, so there’s still time for him to get a second act in the big leagues.  Given the struggles of the Angels’ bullpen, Petricka might get an opportunity sooner rather than later as the team continues to look for stability in the relief corps.

Cardinals To Promote Angel Rondon

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The Cardinals are promoting right-hander Angel Rondon to the active roster prior to today’s game with the Reds, according to Jeff Jones of the Belleville News-Democrat (via Twitter).  Rondon is already on the 40-man roster, and the corresponding move to add him to the active roster isn’t yet known.

An international signing from the Dominican Republic in 2016, Rondon is set to make his big league debut at age 23.  He has a 3.15 ERA and 22.8% strikeout rate over 371 innings in the minors, though he has a 5.32 ERA over 23 2/3 innings at Triple-A Memphis this season, which marked his first taste of Triple-A action.  Most of Rondon’s struggles at Triple-A, however, came in his first two starts, and he has been solid enough over his last three outings that the Cards will give him a look in the majors.

It’s quite possible that first look could come in the starting rotation, given the Cardinals’ injury problems.  Jack Flaherty and Miles Mikolas are both on the injured list, and Kwang Hyun Kim made an early departure from last night’s game due to back tightness.  Rondon could be used as a long reliever until more is known about Kim’s status, and if Kim also has to hit the IL, Rondon can slide right into the rotation.

MLB Pipeline ranks the right-hander as the 10th-best prospect in the St. Louis farm system, citing Rondon’s curveball and fastball as plus pitches.  That heater can hit 97mph but usually sits in the mid-90’s, and Pipeline’s scouting report notes that Rondon’s “delivery creates natural deception, which often helps his fastball play above its velocity.”

Red Sox Acquire Three Prospects To Complete Andrew Benintendi Trade

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Nearly four months after trading Andrew Benintendi to the Royals as part of a three-team swap also involving the Mets, the Red Sox announced that they’ve acquired outfielder Freddy Valdez from the Mets and right-handers Grant Gambrell and Luis De La Rosa from the Royals as players to be named later, officially completing the trade. The Red Sox acquired outfielder Franchy Cordero (from the Royals) and minor league righty Josh Winckowski (from the Mets) at the time of the trade, which also sent outfielder Khalil Lee from Kansas City to New York.

The 19-year-old Valdez has yet to progress to A-ball after splitting the 2019 season between the Rookie-level Dominican Summer League and Gulf Coast League. The Mets signed him for a $1.4MM bonus as a 16-year-old out of the Dominican Republic back in 2018. In his lone season of pro ball, he hit .274/.367/.448 with an 18 percent strikeout rate and an 11.4 percent walk rate.

Valdez is generally regarded as one of the Mets’ top 20 prospects, ranking 13th at The Athletic, 14th at MLB.com, 17th at Baseball America and 18th at FanGraphs. FanGraphs’ Eric Longenhagen calls Valdez an “absolute behemoth of a corner outfield prospect” with “thunderous” power, likening him to Indians slugger Franmil Reyes. The Athletic’s Keith Law writes that Valdez has “huge” power with above-average speed and a plus arm, though many scouting reports on Valdez raise questions about his hit tool and his defensive future.

Obviously, given Valdez’s age and the fact that he’s yet to even take a single at-bat in A-ball, he’s years from factoring into the Red Sox’ big league plans. On some levels, there figure to be comparisons to another player the Red Sox received in this trade: Franchy Cordero. Valdez, by all accounts, is a physical specimen at a young age with a tantalizing set of loud tools but has a ways to go before scouts will be sold that those tools can translate at the Major League level. As far as lower-level lottery tickets go, he’s the type that comes with considerable upside but also a fair bit of risk.

Gambrell, 23, is the more highly regarded of the two players coming over from the Royals and also much nearer to the big leagues. Kansas City’s third-round pick out of Oregon State in 2019, Gambrell has tossed 22 2/3 innings of 4.37 ERA ball in Class-A Advanced to begin the season, recording a 19.8 percent strikeout rate, 7.6 percent walk rate and 50 percent ground-ball rate in that time. Longenhagen ranked him 21st among K.C. prospects, noting that Gambrell used the off-time in 2020 to get into better shape and reported to camp in 2021 with a “totally different body” and improved velocity.

De La Rosa is even more of a lottery ticket than Valdez. Still just 18 years old, he signed as a 16-year-old in 2018 and carved up the Dominican Summer League a year later, tossing 38 2/3 innings with a 2.33 ERA, a ridiculous 52-to-7 K/BB ratio and a strong 48.9 percent grounder rate. Despite that exceptional short-season debut, De La Rosa isn’t ranked among the Royals’ best prospects, although he could certainly generate some further recognition if he can back up that dominant 2019 showing at a more advanced level.

The Athletic’s Chad Jennings first reported that the Red Sox would acquire Valdez from the Mets (Twitter link). Julian McWilliams of the Boston Globe reported (via Twitter) that Gambrell and De La Rosa were also headed to the Sox.

Nationals Sign Josh Rogers To Minor League Deal

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The Nationals have signed left-hander Josh Rogers to a minor league contract and assigned him to Triple-A Rochester, tweets Red Wings communications director Nate Rowan. The Orioles cut Rogers loose over the weekend.

Rogers, 27, was one of the players Baltimore received from the Yankees in the 2018 trade that sent Zack Britton to New York. At the time, he was largely MLB-ready arm, but things haven’t panned out as the O’s or Rogers had hoped. The lefty had Tommy John surgery in 2019 and has only been healthy enough to tally 26 innings in the big leagues, during which time he’s yielded 25 runs with as many walks (11) as strikeouts (11).

To his credit, Rogers was excellent for the Orioles as a 23-year-old in Triple-A following the trade. In 30 2/3 innings down the stretch with Baltimore’s top affiliate in Norfolk that year, he worked to a 2.08 ERA with an 18-to-7 K/BB ratio. He was rocked in a cup of coffee that September and both at the Triple-A and MLB level in 2019 before undergoing surgery. Rogers made it back to the mound for 17 1/3 innings with Norfolk this season but was again hit hard.

For now, Rogers will hope that a change of scenery will get him back on track. The lefty logged a 3.24 ERA across two levels during the 2017 season and a combined 3.54 mark in the minors in 2018 prior to his injury-shortened 2019 season. At the very least, he’ll give the Nats some depth in the rotation or perhaps as an eventual left-handed option out of the ’pen.

KBO’s SSG Landers Sign Sam Gaviglio

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The SSG Landers of the Korea Baseball Organization have signed former Mariners, Blue Jays and Royals right-hander Sam Gaviglio for the remainder of the season, the team announced (hat tip: Jee-ho Yoo of South Korea’s Yonhap News Agency, on Twitter). The KVA Sports client was on a minor league deal with the Rangers, who have announced the sale of his contract to the Landers. Gaviglio will earn a $246K salary in addition to a $100K signing bonus, per Yoo.

Gaviglio, 31, had tossed 26 1/3 innings in Triple-A Round Rock while awaiting a big league opportunity in Texas, but he’ll now take a guaranteed six-figure payday for a bit more than a half season’s work to close out the 2021 campaign. The move overseas also serves as something of an audition for him; if he throws well with the Landers, he could very well earn an offer to return in 2022 or generate interest elsewhere in the KBO or Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball. A strong performance could also earn him another look back with a big league club.

A fifth-rounder by the Cardinals back in 2011, Gaviglio made his MLB debut with the 2017 Mariners. He spent parts of the next four seasons in the big leagues, tallying a combined total of 296 2/3 innings and pitching to a 4.88 ERA with a 19.1 percent strikeout rate and a 7.2 percent walk rate.

Gaviglio has worked as both a starter and a reliever in the Majors, but he appears ticketed for the Landers’ rotation. Yoo notes that he’ll be taking the roster spot of right-hander Artie Lewicki, who started four games for the Landers before a pectoral injury sidelined him for the foreseeable future.

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