Rangers Sign Domingo Leyba
The Rangers announced they’ve signed infielder Domingo Leyba to a minor league contract. He has been assigned to Triple-A Round Rock.
Leyba has seen big league action in parts of two seasons, including his most extended run this year. Originally a prospect in the Tigers’ system, he was traded to the Diamondbacks in 2015. The switch-hitter reached the majors with Arizona and picked up 30 plate appearances in 2019 but he missed all of last season and was passed through outright waivers over the offseason. The D-Backs brought Leyba back in May but quickly waived him again, and he landed with the Orioles via claim that time around.
Baltimore kept Leyba on the roster for a couple months but eventually passed him through waivers themselves. He was released in late August. The 25-year-old has tallied 126 career plate appearances at the big league level, hitting just .152/.238/.223 with one home run. He’s been far better at Triple-A, though, posting a .307/.355/.542 mark over 609 trips to the plate. Leyba has ample experience at each of second base, third base and shortstop.
The Rangers obviously aren’t competing for a postseason spot, but there’s no harm in bolstering the organizational depth chart. If Texas selects Leyba to the major league roster before the end of the season, he’d remain controllable for the next few years. If he doesn’t crack the big league club, Leyba will qualify for minor league free agency this winter.
White Sox, Ruben Tejada Agree To Minor League Deal
The White Sox have agreed to a minor league contract with veteran infielder Ruben Tejada, tweets MLB Network’s Jon Heyman. Tejada, a client of Primetime Sports Group, will join the White Sox’ Triple-A club this weekend.
Now 31 years old, Tejada is best known for his time with the Mets, with whom he spent the 2010-15 and 2019 seasons. In parts of seven years in Queens, Tejada slashed .254/.328/.322 while logging considerable time at each of shortstop, second base and third base. He’s also had brief stints with the Cardinals, Giants and Orioles, though he hasn’t been particularly productive at any of those three stops.
Tejada has spent the season thus far with the Phillies’ Triple-A affiliate after agreeing to a minor league deal back in May. He appeared in 72 games with the IronPigs and slashed .231/.341/.262 over the life of 264 plate appearances. He was released late last month.
Chicago’s infield depth was depleted a bit when both Romy Gonzalez and Danny Mendick were called up to the big league roster in recent days, so Tejada will give them another veteran option in Charlotte, where he’ll join a roster that also includes Matt Reynolds, Marco Hernandez, Mikie Mahtook, Nik Turley and the recently signed Carl Edwards Jr.
Angels Select Janson Junk
The Angels will select the contract of right-hander Janson Junk today, as first reported by Matt Kardos of Pinstriped Prospects (Twitter link).
Junk, 25, was acquired earlier this summer from the Yankees in the deadline deal that sent left-hander Andrew Heaney to New York. A 22nd-rounder out of Seattle University back in 2017, Junk has elevated his prospect status in 2021 with a strong showing in Double-A, where he’s pitched to a combined 2.81 ERA with a 25.9 percent strikeout rate, a 7.2 percent walk rate and a 43.3 percent ground-ball rate in 93 innings out of the rotation.
FanGraphs’ Kevin Goldstein noted at the time of the trade that Junk features a fastball he can work up into the mid-90s and a newly implemented slider that gives him a solid breaking ball to pair with his primary pitch. Junk currently ranks as the No. 22 prospect in the Angels’ system over at MLB.com, where their scouting report praises the spin rate on his fastball that tops out at 97 mph and also credits him with an average curveball in addition to that new-and-improved slider.
Junk needed to be added to the 40-man roster this offseason in order to protect him from the Rule 5 Draft anyhow, so it’s not a major surprise to see the Angels add him to the roster for a big league look a bit sooner than that. Coincidentally, his call-up comes on a day when the Angels are scheduled to face off against his former Double-A teammate, Glenn Otto. New York traded Otto to the Rangers as part of the Joey Gallo/Joely Rodriguez trade.
It’s not yet clear whether Junk will pitch out of the rotation or join the Halos’ bullpen for the time being, but he adds another option to a growing stable of young arms who could get auditions in the rotation before too long. Young lefty Patrick Sandoval has likely already seized a spot next season with a strong showing, and the Angels have also taken looks at 2020 top pick Reid Detmers and another promising prospect, right-hander Chris Rodriguez. Pitching help still figures to be a priority for general manager Perry Minasian and his staff this offseason, especially with Heaney now traded, Jose Quintana going to the Giants on waivers and Alex Cobb set to reach free agency at season’s end.
Dodgers Release Yaisel Sierra
The Dodgers have released right-hander Yaisel Sierra, as first reported by Francys Romero of Las Mayores (Twitter link). He’d been pitching with the team’s Triple-A affiliate in Oklahoma City.
While Sierra may not be a recognizable name for some, he was at one point a highly sought-after international free agent. Sierra defected from Cuba in 2015 and established residency in the Dominican Republic, at which point he was declared an international free agent. Because of his professional experience in Cuba, he was exempt from international bonus pools and able to sign with the highest bidder. Both the Cubs and Marlins were reported to have made offers, but the Dodgers landed Sierra by signing him to a six-year, $30MM Major League contract in Feb. 2016.
Obviously, that deal looks regrettable in retrospect. The now-30-year-old Sierra has yet to pitch in the Majors and has scarcely pitched above the Double-A level. He tossed 16 1/3 innings with the OKC Dodgers this season but was clobbered for 25 runs on 36 hits (six homers) and 12 walks. Sierra did punch out 18 batters in that time, but he also threw a staggering 11 wild pitches in those 16 1/3 frames. Overall, he has an 8.36 ERA in 37 2/3 Triple-A innings and a 5.43 ERA in just 179 total minor league innings.
Sierra was just one of many high-profile Cuban defectors to sign large deals with the Dodgers as they flexed their financial might in what was, at the time, a far less-restricted international market. While clubs still had international bonus pools for international amateurs, the penalties for exceeding those pools was a dollar-for-dollar tax and a temporary ban on signing players for more than $300K in subsequent international periods. The qualifications for a player to be considered a professional rather than an amateur were also less stringent than they are presently, which was important in the case of players like Sierra due to the fact that professional players are exempt from bonus pools (hence his Major League deal and $30MM guarantee).
Sierra, Yadier Alvarez, Hector Olivera, Alex Guerrero, Erisbel Arruebarrena, Yusniel Diaz and Yasiel Puig all agreed to signing bonuses or Major League contracts that promised them $15MM or more with the Dodgers, who came away with little to show for that spending spree. Puig, of course, paid dividends as the team’s primary right fielder for several years. Diaz was the centerpiece of the trade that netted the Dodgers Manny Machado back in 2018. The rest of that pricey group, however, hasn’t panned out in the manner the Dodgers hoped.
The Dodgers certainly weren’t the only team spending aggressively in this arena, but they definitely led the charge, likely contributing to the much more restrictive guidelines for international free agents in the 2017-21 collective bargaining agreement. Currently, players must have at least six years of professional experience and be at least 25 years of age to be exempt from international bonus pools. Further, bonus pools for amateur signings are now hard-capped.
Additional changes to international free agency has been an oft-discussed topic in recent years. Talk of an international draft hasn’t been as prominent of late given the other topics expected to be on the table in this offseason’s collective bargaining negotiations, but it’s certainly still possible that we’ll see some alterations to the regulations regarding teams’ paths to talent acquisition on the international market once a new CBA has been finalized.
Astros To Select Jose Siri
The Astros are set to select the contract of outfielder Jose Siri, tweets Chandler Rome of the Houston Chronicle. Right-hander Bryan Abreu posted a video of Triple-A manager Mickey Storey telling the clubhouse that Siri was getting his first call to the big leagues. (Hector Gomez of ZSports 101 also tweeted the video.)
It’s been a long journey to The Show for the 26-year-old Siri, who initially signed with the Reds as a 17-year-old amateur out of his native Dominican Republic back in 2012. He’s grinded through parts of eight minor league seasons and may have thought his call to the big leagues would come a bit sooner than this, given that Cincinnati selected his contract to the 40-man roster back in November 2017 in order to protect him from the Rule 5 Draft.
At that time, Siri was a 22-year-old who’d just wrapped up a brilliant season in Class-A, hitting .293/.341/.530 with 24 home runs, 24 doubles, 11 triples and a whopping 46 stolen bases. His bat took a step back in each of the next two seasons, however, particularly in 2019 when he hit just .186/.252/.245 in his first 30 games of Triple-A work. The Reds designated Siri for assignment in Jan. 2020 to make room on the roster for Nick Castellanos.
Siri wound up being claimed by the Mariners, but Seattle tried to pass him through waivers themselves early in Spring Training. The Giants then claimed him, but he was designated for assignment a second time in July once the league and the union had agreed on return-to-play conditions following the season stoppage due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The Giants passed Siri through outright waivers successfully, and he elected free agency this past offseason, eventually settling on a minor league deal with Houston.
Any downturns in Siri’s production since that brilliant 2017 season look like a distant memory now, as he’s put together a monster season in Triple-A Sugar Land and demonstrated why multiple clubs wanted to give him a look on the 40-man roster at various points in the past year. He’s appeared in 93 games and tallied 393 plate appearances with a .321/.372/.559 batting line in that time. Siri has clubbed 16 home runs, 29 doubles and four triples while also going 24-for-27 in stolen-base attempts. He’s appeared at all three outfield positions but spent the bulk of his time this season in center field.
The Astros technically have a full 40-man roster, but they have a pair of players currently in Covid-19 protocols — Zack Greinke and Taylor Jones — so neither counts against the 40-man roster at this time. Siri could potentially be selected as a Covid replacement player, which would mean he’d be able to be sent back down to Triple-A and removed from the 40-man roster without needing to pass through waivers, although given his brilliant season in Triple-A it wouldn’t be a surprise if he were kept on the 40-man roster even once Greinke and Jones return.
Injured List Placements: Flores, Anderson, Martin
The latest on some notable players heading to the 10-day injured list…
- The Giants have placed Wilmer Flores on the 10-day injured list due to a left hamstring strain, as Mauricio Dubon was called up from Triple-A in the corresponding move. Flores had a 10-day minimum absence due to a strain in his other hamstring in May, and Giants manager Gabe Kapler told reporters (including Susan Slusser of The San Francisco Chronicle) that the infielder “has been wrestling with hamstring issues for most of the season,” and he will now miss “a couple of weeks” with his latest injury. Flores has hit .249/.319/.438 with 17 home runs over 389 plate appearances this season, and the known lefty-masher has had uncharacteristically even splits against both left-handed and right-handed pitching. San Francisco’s infield depth will be tested yet again, as Flores joins Donovan Solano and Evan Longoria on the IL, and Tommy La Stella is day-to-day with tightness in his side.
- The Brewers placed Brett Anderson on the 10-day IL due to a left shoulder contusion. Anderson departed last night’s start after two innings after being hit in the shoulder by a Brandon Crawford line drive, though it appears as though the left-hander didn’t suffer any structural damage. This is Anderson’s third IL visit of the season, after two relatively brief absences due to a right knee contusion and a right hamstring strain. Through 88 1/3 innings this season, Anderson has a 4.18 ERA on the strength of a 59.5% grounder rate and an above-average 6.9% walk rate, despite a lot of blue ink on his Statcast numbers. Milwaukee at least has a ready-made replacement for Anderson, as Freddy Peralta is expected to be activated from the injured list to start tomorrow’s game against the Cardinals
- The Braves placed right-hander Chris Martin on the 10-day IL due to inflammation in his throwing elbow. Southpaw Sean Newcomb was recalled from Triple-A to take Martin’s spot on the active roster. In a season already shortened by a month-long injured list trip due to right shoulder inflammation, Martin has a 4.17 ERA over 36 2/3 innings out of Atlanta’s bullpen. That ERA has been inflated by four runs allowed over his last four appearances, which could be due to this elbow issue. For the season as a whole, however, Martin’s strikeout and hard-hit ball rates are each considerably down from his 2020 statistics.
Dodgers Select Andrew Vasquez
The Dodgers announced they have selected reliever Andrew Vasquez to the big league roster. Ryan Meisinger was optioned to Triple-A Oklahoma City to clear active roster space, while southpaw Scott Alexander has been transferred from the 10-day to the 60-day injured list to open a spot on the 40-man roster.
Los Angeles just acquired Vasquez from the Twins on Tuesday night, sending minor league catcher Stevie Berman back to Minnesota. They’ll immediately bring him up for his first big league action in two years. Vasquez made ten appearances with the Twins from 2018-19, throwing five innings of seven-run ball. The southpaw was passed through outright waivers that season and has spent the past couple years at the highest levels of the Twins’ system.
Vasquez spent this year with Triple-A St. Paul, working 42 1/3 frames across 33 appearances. He posted a 3.61 ERA and struck out a massive 37.4% of batters faced while racking up ground balls on a huge 61.8% of balls in play. He did struggle a bit with walks, but that combination of elite bat-missing ability and grounders against high minors’ hitters sufficiently convinced the L.A. front office to give him another big league look.
Alexander has been on the IL since July 20 with left shoulder inflammation. Today’s IL transfer makes him ineligible to return for at least the next couple weeks. The team hasn’t provided any sort of timetable, but Alexander hasn’t yet begun a minor league rehab assignment.
Marlins Designate Austin Pruitt For Assignment
The Marlins have designated right-hander Austin Pruitt for assignment, Jordan McPherson of the Miami Herald was among those to relay. The move opens space on the active and 40-man rosters for reliever Paul Campbell, who has been activated from the COVID-19 injured list.
It’s the second time this season the Fish have designated Pruitt, whom they acquired alongside Bryan de la Cruz from the Astros in the Yimi García trade shortly before the deadline. Pruitt cleared waivers the first time and was selected back to the big league roster not too long after. He has made four relief appearances for Miami, tossing 4 2/3 innings of one-run ball with four strikeouts and no walks.
Pruitt will now find himself back on the waiver wire, where the league’s 29 other teams will again have the opportunity to pick him up. The 32-year-old signed a $617.5K contract to avoid arbitration last winter, so he’s making just slightly more than the league minimum. Any claiming team would owe Pruitt the remainder of that salary (approximately $109K) for the season’s final month. If he were to pass through unclaimed, he’d have the right to elect free agency in lieu of an outright assignment.
In addition to swapping out Pruitt for Campbell, the Marlins will also add Zach Thompson to the bullpen. The 27-year-old has started all thirteen of his big league appearances but is moving to the relief corps for the stretch run, manager Don Mattingly informed reporters (including Daniel Álvarez Montes of ElExtraBase). That’s the role Thompson filled with Triple-A Jacksonville before his early-June promotion. All eight of his outings with the Jumbo Shrimp came in relief.
Miami will move forward with a starting group of Trevor Rogers (who returned from the restricted list yesterday), Sandy Alcantara, Jesús Luzardo, Elieser Hernández and top prospect Edward Cabrera. That’s an extremely exciting and talented group that figures to be the backbone of future Marlins’ clubs that should be more competitive than they’ve been this season. And that’s not even counting Sixto Sánchez and Max Meyer, who haven’t pitched in the majors this year (Sánchez due to injury, Meyer because it’s his first pro season) but have immense promise themselves.
Thompson isn’t as well-regarded as that group of high-octane arms, but he looks to be a great find himself. Signed to a minor league deal last offseason after spending seven seasons in the White Sox organization, Thompson has pitched well in his first big league look. The right-hander has worked 62 2/3 innings of 3.16 ERA ball. He has been the beneficiary of some batted ball luck and only has a 20.2% strikeout rate, but Thompson has also thrown a fair amount of strikes and generated whiffs at a decent 11.6% clip.
With that performance, Thompson should have solidified his spot on the 40-man roster over the upcoming offseason. He looks like a solid back-of-the-rotation option who could again be called upon as a starter in the event of injuries or underperformance next year. For now, the bullpen transition will help to keep his workload in check. Thompson’s 77 2/3 innings between Triple-A and the big leagues this year is his highest single-season total since he worked 93 1/3 frames in High-A back in 2017.
Mariners Outright Jimmy Yacabonis
The Mariners announced that right-hander Jimmy Yacabonis has cleared waivers and been sent outright to Triple-A Tacoma. Yacabonis has the right to elect free agency as a player who has previously been outrighted in his career, although the team didn’t indicate he’s planning to do so.
Yacabonis saw brief big league action for Seattle last season but hasn’t yet appeared in the majors in 2021. The Mariners outrighted him off the roster last winter but brought him back on a minor league contract. He has spent almost the entire season with the Rainiers, working 31 1/3 innings of 1.72 ERA ball with fine strikeout and walk rates (23% and 7.1%, respectively). Seattle selected him to the big league roster last weekend but designated him for assignment a couple days later without his making an appearance.
Between 2017-20, Yacabonis pitched in the majors with the Orioles and Mariners. The 29-year-old owns a 5.71 ERA/5.56 SIERA over 104 frames at the highest level. Even if Yacabonis accepts the outright assignment, he’ll reach minor league free agency this offseason if not selected back onto the 40-man roster.
Mets Designate Geoff Hartlieb For Assignment
The Mets have designated right-hander Geoff Hartlieb for assignment, per a club announcement. His spot on the roster goes to lefty Brad Hand, whose previously reported waiver claim has now been officially announced.
Hartlieb, 27, was claimed off waivers out of the Pirates organization earlier in the summer and appeared in just three big league games with the Mets, He was tagged for seven runs through 4 1/3 innings in that tiny sample. All in all, he has a 7.46 ERA in 66 1/3 big league innings dating back to 2019. He’s also had a rough go of it in 13 Triple-A frames with the Mets, which marks a departure from a generally excellent track record in the upper minors.
His struggles since being claimed by the Mets notwithstanding, Hartlieb carries a career 3.03 ERA in parts of six minor league seasons — including a 3.18 mark in 62 1/3 innings at the Triple-A level. He’s fanned just shy of 29 percent of the opponents he’s faced in parts of two Triple-A seasons and posted a very strong 56.3 percent ground-ball rate in that time as well.
The Mets will now either place Hartlieb on outright waivers or release waivers in the coming days. In addition to his strong numbers in the upper minors, Hartlieb has a minor league option remaining beyond the current season, so he could give another club some depth should they wish to place a claim.