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Cubs Designate Robert Stock For Assignment

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The Cubs are designating right-hander Robert Stock for assignment, per Jordan Bastian of MLB.com (Twitter link). The move clears 40-man roster space for left-hander Kyle Ryan, who was activated from the COVID-19 list, per Russell Dorsey of the Chicago Sun-Times. Chicago claimed Stock off waivers from the Red Sox last December.

A former Cardinals’ second-round pick as a catching prospect, Stock washed out as a position player but clicked after a conversion to the mound. The hard-throwing reliever earned a big league job with the 2018 Padres and showed some promise, pitching to a 2.50 ERA/3.61 SIERA over 39.2 innings.

Stock wasn’t able to carry that success over in the following seasons, though, thanks largely to difficulty throwing strikes. He has a 7.13 ERA across 24 innings over the past two seasons with San Diego and Boston. Stock’s 24.6% strikeout rate in that time is adequate, but he’s issued walks at an untenable 15.3% clip.

Despite his control issues, it’s easy to see why Stock has continued to attract interest from teams with space available at the back of the 40-man roster. Stock’s four-seam fastball sits in the mid-high 90’s. He has gotten swings and misses at a near league-average rate and has induced ground balls on a strong 50.8% of balls in play over his big league career. Perhaps there’s still some hope the late-blooming Stock could develop adequate control and stick in a team’s middle relief mix.

The Cubs have a week to trade Stock or place him on waivers. He hasn’t yet reached arbitration and still has a minor-league option year remaining, so he’d represent a rather flexible depth piece for potential acquiring clubs.

Minor MLB Transactions: 2/27/21

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The latest minor moves from around the sport…

  • The Athletics will bring right-hander Paul Blackburn back into their big league Spring Training camp after Blackburn cleared waivers.  (Shayna Rubin of the San Jose Mercury News was among those to report the news.)  Blackburn was designated for assignment earlier this week.  The grounder specialist has a 5.69 ERA over 99 2/3 innings in the majors, all since Oakland since the start of the 2017 season, and Blackburn’s usage has dipped over each of those four years — he appeared in just one game in 2020.  With a decent track record as a starter in the minors, however, Blackburn does provide the A’s with some rotation depth.

Astros Claim Robel Garcia

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The Astros have claimed infielder Robel Garcia off waivers, the Angels announced (Twitter link).  The Halos designated Garcia for assignment earlier this week.  Justin Verlander was placed on the Astros’ 60-day injured list to create roster space for Garcia, Chandler Rome of the Houston Chronicle tweets.

Garcia is no stranger to the waiver wire at this point, as he is now joining his fifth different organization since July.  Initially DFA’ed by the Cubs on July 23, Garcia was claimed and then subsequently designated by the Reds, Mets, and Angels, with Los Angeles just picking Garcia up at the start of February.

Is there a chance Garcia could finally stick in Houston?  He offers some versatility as a utility infielder (who has also spent some time in left field), though Almedys Diaz and Abraham Toro already provide a lot of multi-positional depth on the Astros’ bench.  Toro hasn’t yet shown much at the plate over 186 Major League plate appearances, however, so the Astros could see Garcia as a potential option if Toro is sent to Triple-A.

Garcia’s big league resume consists of 80 PA over 31 games with the Cubs in 2019, when he hit .208/.275/.500 with five home runs.  His unique minor league career included four years in the Indians’ farm system from 2010-13 before taking three years away from baseball and then resurfacing in the Italian Baseball League in 2017.  This led to a minors deal with the Cubs in 2019, and some very big numbers at the Double-A and Triple-A levels prior to his call-up.  Garcia doesn’t turn 28 years old until next month, so he presents some intrigue as a late-blooming power bat.

Red Sox Acquire Zach Bryant From Cubs

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The Red Sox have acquired right-hander Zach Bryant from the Cubs to finish the Josh Osich trade, per Julian McWilliams of the Boston Globe (via Twitter). The Red Sox sent Osich to the Cubs at the August 31st trade deadline last year for a player to be named later.

Bryant now heads to Boston to complete that deal. The Cubs didn’t ultimately get much out of this transaction. They designated Osich for assignment at the end of September when he struggled to a 10.13 ERA in four appearances. The southpaw signed a minor league deal with the Reds in December. For his career, he owns a 5.02 ERA, 4.37 xFIP, and 125 FIP- across 234 appearances totaling 206 1/3 innings with the Giants, White Sox, Red Sox, and Cubs. Osich is better as a lefty specialist, holding a 3.75 xFIP against lefties and a 4.99 xFIP against right-handed hitters.

The 22-year-old Bryant made his professional debut in 2019. The Cubs signed him for $125K as a 15th round draft choice out of Jacksonville University. He made it to Low-A posting a 1.27 ERA across 12 appearances at two levels, striking out 24 versus to eight walks over 21 1/3 innings.

Giants, Scott Kazmir Agree To Minor League Deal

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FEB 27: Kazmir’s deal is official and he will report to spring training, per Kerry Crowley of the Bay Area News Group (via Twitter).

FEB 23: Comeback season is upon us, it seems. The Giants have agreed to a minor league contract with left-hander Scott Kazmir, reports ESPN’s Buster Olney. He’ll be invited to Major League Spring Training. Kazmir will earn a $600K base salary if he makes the Giants, Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle tweets. His deal doesn’t include any opt-out dates.

It’s been nearly five years since Kazmir, now 37, pitched in the Majors with the Dodgers. Current San Francisco president of baseball operations Farhan Zaidi was serving as general manager under president Andrew Friedman in Los Angeles at that point, and he was also an assistant GM in the Athletics’ front office in 2013 when Oakland inked Kazmir to a two-year deal.

There’s some obvious history between Zaidi and Kazmir, who at one point was one of the game’s brightest young starters. Kazmir broke out with the Rays in 2005, drawing Rookie of the Year votes that season and going on to make a pair of All-Star teams with Tampa Bay, where he posted a 3.51 ERA and a 25.1 percent strikeout rate from 2005-2008 (back when the league-average strikeout percentage was just 17 percent).

Injuries looked to have derailed Kazmir’s career after a disastrous stint with the Angels. He recorded just five outs in the Majors from 2011-12 and looked to be in danger of washing out entirely before even celebrating his 30th birthday. But Kazmir parlayed a minor league deal with the Indians — not unlike the one he’s now signing with the Giants — into a strong rebound campaign in 2013. He rewarded the A’s with an All-Star season in ’14 and a strong first half in ’15 before being traded to the Astros. Injuries again waylaid Kazmir in the second and third seasons of his three-year pact with the Dodgers, and he hasn’t been on a big league mound since Sept. 2016.

Overall, Kazmir owns a lifetime 4.01 ERA that, remarkably, is an exact match with both his FIP and his SIERA. He’s fanned 22.2 percent of his opponents at the MLB level against a 9.4 percent walk rate. Those numbers come across as that of a third or fourth starter, but Kazmir has shown on multiple occasions that when he’s at his best, he’s a good deal better than that.

Whether he has anything left in the tank remains to be seen, but Olney notes that Kazmir hit 92-93 mph in recent bullpen sessions. He’s never been a particularly hard thrower, so that velocity aligns nicely with Kazmir’s peak years. Even during his All-Star campaigns in 2006, 2008 and 2014, Kazmir averaged just north of 91 mph on his heater.

There’s no harm in the Giants taking a look this spring to see if Kazmir has another rebound in him — even if this comeback seems all the more improbable given his age and his considerably longer layoff from pitching in the Majors. He’ll add another intriguing, high-upside arm to a Giants staff that has rolled the dice on Aaron Sanchez, Alex Wood and Anthony DeSclafani on Major League deals.

Giants Claim Jordan Humphreys

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The Giants have claimed right-hander Jordan Humphreys off waivers from Cleveland, Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle tweets. The Indians designated Humphreys for assignment Wednesday. In a corresponding move, the Giants placed righty Tyler Beede on the 60-day injured list as he continues to recover from March 2020 Tommy John surgery.

This will be the second go-around with San Francisco for Humphreys, whom the team first acquired from the Mets for outfielder Billy Hamilton last August. Humphreys never made an appearance with the Giants, though, and they designated him in November. The Indians quickly claimed Humphreys, who only lasted about three months with the organization.

An 18th-round pick of the Mets in 2015, Humphreys has yet to get past the High-A level, owing in part to the Tommy John procedure he underwent in 2017. The 24-year-old has performed well in the minors, however, with a 2.60 ERA and a 26.1 percent strikeout rate against a minuscule 4.4 percent walk rate over 169 2/3 innings.

Minor MLB Transactions: 2/26/21

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The latest minor transactions from around baseball…

  • The White Sox have signed outfielder Mikie Mahtook to a minor league contract, Daryl Van Schouwen of the Chicago Sun-Times tweets. Mahtook did not receive an invitation to major league spring training. The 31-year-old was most recently with the Phillies organization, but he did not appear in the majors last season. Mahtook saw big league action in each season from 2015-19, which he divided between the Rays and Tigers, and batted .235/.292/.405 with 33 home runs and 14 stolen bases in 965 plate appearances.
  • Giants right-hander Trevor Gott cleared waivers and was outrighted to Triple-A Sacramento on Friday, per Andrew Baggarly of The Athletic. He’ll remain in the organization as depth after it designated him for assignment last week. The hard-throwing Gott, 28, had a difficult 11 2/3-inning season in 2020, when he issued an equal number of strikeouts and walks (eight) and gave up 13 earned runs on 13 hits. The home run ball was one of the main culprits for Gott’s struggles, as he surrendered seven during that short period.

Braves Outright Phil Pfeifer

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FEB. 26: Pfeifer has been outrighted to Triple-A Gwinnett, the Braves announced.

FEB. 23: The Braves announced Tuesday that they’ve designated left-hander Phil Pfeifer for assignment in order to open a spot on the 40-man roster for corner infielder Jake Lamb, whose non-guaranteed Major League deal is now official.

Atlanta picked up the now-28-year-old Pfeifer in a 2016 trade with the Dodgers and selected him to the 40-man roster in Nov. 2019 to protect him from that year’s Rule 5 Draft. He’s yet to make his Major League debut, though it’s possible he’d have been called upon had their been a full 162-game slate played in 2020.

Pfeifer was hit hard in his first go-around at Triple-A in 2018 and hasn’t gotten much of a chance to redeem himself at that level thanks to last year’s lack of a minor league season. He did post very strong numbers between Double-A and a quick 7 1/3-inning return to Triple-A in 2019, however. On the whole, he tossed 133 1/3 innings of 2.97 ERA ball between the two levels that season, adding in impressive strikeout (28.7) and walk (7.6) percentages.

Pfeifer has a pair of minor league options still remaining, so he could pique the interest of a club with more acute pitching needs. At 28, he’s a bit old to be considered a “prospect,” but outside of an ugly 40 innings of Triple-A work in 2018, the lefty has a strong minor league track record.

Angels To Sign Jesse Chavez

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The Angels have agreed to a minor league contract with free-agent right-hander Jesse Chavez, reports Jon Heyman of MLB Network (Twitter links). He’ll join their Major League camp once the deal is official and once he goes through intake protocols.

It’s the second Angels stint for Chavez, who struggled as a member of the Halos back in 2017 (138 innings, 5.35 ERA). He went on to rebound with the Rangers and Cubs the following season, parlaying that strong showing into a two-year pact to return to Texas.

The 37-year-old Chavez is a well-traveled and experienced arm who has pitched both as a starting pitcher, a long reliever and a late-inning/high-leverage reliever. After bouncing between the Pirates, Royals, Braves and Blue Jays early in his career, Chavez found himself with the 2013 A’s and has been a steady presence on MLB rosters since that time.

Dating back to that 2013 season, the righty has piled up 755 2/3 frames of 4.18 ERA ball with a matching 4.18 FIP and a 3.87 SIERA. Along the way, he’s started 77 games and made 248 relief appearances while posting a solid 21.4 percent strikeout rate and a strong 7.1 percent walk rate. The 2020 season was a rough one, as Chavez yielded 13 runs in 17 innings of work, but his overall track record is that of a versatile arm who’ll help deepen the Angels’ rotation and bullpen mixes.

Kelvin Herrera Announces Retirement

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Two-time All-Star and 2015 World Series champion Kelvin Herrera announced today, via Twitter, that he is retiring after spending parts of 10 seasons in the Major Leagues.

Kelvin Herrera | Denny Medley-USA TODAY Sports

“I want to thank everyone who has been a part of my career, starting with the Kansas City Royals organization who believed in this kid from Tenares, Dominican Republic and gave him a chance to do something meaningful with his life,” Herrera wrote in his announcement. “From ownership, to the Front Office, the staff, my teammates and last but not least, the fans, I owe you guys everything.”

Herrera goes on to thank both the Nationals and White Sox organizations for welcoming him as well. For the time being, Herrera says he plans to focus on his family and the next chapter of his life.

It’ll no doubt surprise some readers to see that Herrera is still just 31 years old. He’s been around the Majors for a decade due to the Royals calling on him for his Major League debut at just 21 years of age.

Herrera pitched in just two games late in that 2011 season, but the right-hander was an immediate success in 2012 — his first full season at the MLB level. In 84 1/3 innings, he worked to a pristine 2.35 ERA with 19 holds, three saves and a heater that averaged a blistering 98.5 mph. In a normal year, that overwhelming success would’ve no doubt garnered Rookie of the Year consideration, but 2012 happened to also be the rookie season for Mike Trout, Yoenis Cespedes and Yu Darvish, who commanded nearly every top-three vote on the ballot that year.

Even without any Rookie of the Year love, Herrera had established himself as a dominant late-inning arm in short order, and that’s the exact role he’d over the next half decade as a steady presence at the back of some elite Kansas City bullpens. From 2012-16, Herrera pitched 354 1/3 regular-season innings with the Royals and notched a collective 2.57 ERA with 106 holds and 17 saves.

The bullpen was in many ways the backbone of the Royals’ back-to-back World Series runs in 2014-15, and Herrera joined teammates Wade Davis, Greg Holland and (in 2015) Ryan Madson in forming a juggernaut late-inning group that gave opposing lineups absolute fits. Each of Herrera, Davis and Holland posted ERAs south of 1.50 and appeared in at least 65 games during the 2014 season. Herrera was as untouchable during the postseason as he was in the regular season, combining for 28 2/3 innings of 1.26 ERA ball in his playoff career.

With the Royals out of contention during Herrera’s final year of club control in 2018, they made the decision to trade him to the Nationals for a package of young players including Kelvin Gutierrez, Blake Perkins and Yohanse Morel. Herrera was injured for part of his time with the Nats, going down with a Lisfranc tear in his foot, but he gave them 18 1/3 innings of 4.34 ERA ball before reaching free agency and signing a two-year pact with the White Sox. Things didn’t pan out in Chicago, as Herrera was tagged for 39 runs in just 53 2/3 innings across his two seasons there.

Herrera’s peak was brief but absolutely dominant, and he’ll go down in Royals lore as an absolutely vital member of a bullpen that fueled a baseball renaissance in Kansas City and brought home the club’s first title in three decades. He’ll hang up the spikes with a career 3.21 ERA, 119 holds, 61 saves and 510 strikeouts in 513 2/3 innings of regular-season work — plus the aforementioned sterling postseason track record. Best wishes to Herrera and his family in whatever the future holds.

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