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Diamondbacks To Promote Jordan Lawlar

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The Diamondbacks are poised to recall top prospect Jordan Lawlar, according to a report from Nick Piecoro of the Arizona Republic. Lawlar is already on the club’s 40-man roster, so only an active roster move will be necessary to promote the former No. 6 overall pick.

The promotion is a long time coming for Lawlar, who actually made his big league debut back in 2023 with a 14-game cup of coffee in late September. He hit just .129/.206/.129 in that brief stint in the majors, though the Diamondbacks nonetheless had enough belief in their top prospect to carry him on their postseason roster that year as a pinch hitter and defensive replacement. He got only two plate appearances during that postseason run, although he did draw a walk and score a run against the Rangers in the World Series.

It seemed like a given that Lawlar would play a big role in the Diamondbacks’ 2024 plans after his debut in 2023, but things unfortunately didn’t quite work out that way as he was limited to just 23 games last year by thumb surgery and a hamstring strain. The youngster hit an astounding .367/.439/.592 in the brief period he was healthy enough to play at the Triple-A level last year, but there simply wasn’t enough time left in the calendar for Lawlar to get a promotion to the big leagues by the time he was back in game shape after those injuries.

Headed into 2025, Lawlar was once again held back from joining the big league roster. That’s in part due to the presence of clear everyday players at every position he plays (Ketel Marte at second base, Eugenio Suarez at third base, and Geraldo Perdomo at shortstop), but also an acknowledgment of Lawlar’s lost season in 2024 and the developmental hurdles associated with that.

After Lawlar lost nearly an entire year of reps, Arizona brass appeared to be concerned about the impact a part-time role in the majors would have on his development. Lawlar has forced the issue across 37 games at Triple-A so far, however, with a .336/.419/.579 slash line in 179 plate appearances. Lawlar’s knocking on the door has evidently become impossible to ignore, and the Diamondbacks will now need a find a way to work all four of those infielders, first baseman Josh Naylor, and DH Pavin Smith into the lineup on a regular basis.

Piecoro notes that manager Torey Lovullo said he believes that if Lawlar could get into four games per week while mixing and matching positions, then that would be enough playing time for him to stay fresh and avoid falling behind on his development.

Removing any of Suarez (117 wRC+), Marte, (154 wRC+), Smith (175 wRC+), Naylor (125 wRC+), or Perdomo (138 wRC+) from the lineup for even a day is a not insignificant hit to the Diamondbacks’ offense, though of course Lawlar’s own contributions as a consensus top-30 prospect in the sport for a fourth consecutive season could help to balance out those losses. Smith typically only plays against right-handed pitching, so Lawlar could slide into the DH slot against lefties fairly seamlessly. The other four are all everyday players, but theoretically each could sit just once a week with Smith covering first base when Naylor is sitting so Lawlar can DH and Lawlar filling in around the rest of the infield.

An arrangement along those lines would likely keep veteran players like Suarez and Marte fresher, allow each of the club’s regulars to stay in the lineup as much as possible, and get Lawlar plenty of exposure to big league pitching as he works to establish himself at the big league level. Speculatively speaking, if Lawlar takes to the majors well, the D-backs could look into moving someone like Suarez (a pending free agent after this season) at the trade deadline to open up a more regular role for the youngster while bolstering a bullpen that has lost both A.J. Puk and Justin Martinez to the injured list. Injuries can always open up other avenues to at-bats.

For now the 21-20 Diamondbacks need to dig themselves out of fourth place in the NL West and put themselves ahead of teams like the Cardinals and Phillies in the NL Wild Card race. They’ll hope that Lawlar, still just 22, can provide a spark. He’s hit at an above-average clip at every level of the minors while showing off effective defense all around the infield. He’s also an excellent baserunner, having swiped 39 bags in 2022 and 36 the following year. This season, he’s already gone 13-for-14 on the bases in just 37 games. Lawlar is the sort of dynamic, all-around player who can help virtually any team, even one that already boasts a top-seven offense in the majors like the Diamondbacks.

Rockies Fire Bud Black

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Forty games into his ninth season as the Rockies’ manager, Bud Black has been fired.  The Rox announced today that Black and longtime bench coach Mike Redmond have been dismissed in the wake of the team’s nightmarish start to the 2025 season.  Warren Schaeffer (previously the club’s third base coach) will serve as interim manager for the remainder of the season, and hitting coach and ex-manager Clint Hurdle will become the interim bench coach.

“Our play so far this season, especially coming off the last two seasons, has been unacceptable.  Our fans deserve better, and we are capable of better,” Rockies owner Dick Monfort said in an official press release.  “While we all share responsibility in how this season has played out, these changes are necessary.  We will use the remainder of 2025 to improve where we can on the field and to evaluate all areas of our operation so we can properly turn the page into the next chapter of Rockies Baseball.  I want to thank Bud Black and Mike Redmond for their contributions to the organization across their eight years here.  I appreciate their hard work and dedication and wish them nothing but the best going forward.”

In other coaching changes, assistant hitting coach Andy Gonzalez will take over as the new third base coach, USA Today’s Bob Nightengale reports.  Jordan Pacheco and Nic Wilson will become the Rockies’ new hitting coaches.

Colorado’s 9-3 victory over the Padres today improved the Rockies’ record to a miserable 7-33, putting the Rox on pace to challenge the all-time loss record set by the White Sox just a year ago.  Against this backdrop, it isn’t surprising to see some changes in the dugout, even for an organization that has long prized loyalty.  The Rockies made another prominent coaching change in mid-April, when Hurdle went from special assistant to the GM to his hitting coach role after Hensley Meulens was fired.

The 2025 campaign was Black’s 18th as a big league manager, with nine seasons apiece with the Padres (from 2007-15) and Rockies (2017-today).  Black has winning records in only four of those seasons, as his 1193-1403 career record is broken down as a 649-713 record in San Diego and a 544-690 mark in Colorado.  While the numbers aren’t in Black’s favor, his overall effectiveness as a manager is still somewhat hard to gauge.  The Padres were in a rebuilding phase for portions of Black’s tenure, and the Rockies’ issues are so myriad that it is hard to single out Black as a particular reason for the club’s extreme struggles.

Black’s arrival in Denver marked the Rockies’ last successful stretch, as the club reached the postseason as a wild card in his first two seasons as the skipper (and Black won NL Manager of the Year honors in 2017).  Since then, however, the Rox have reeled off six straight losing seasons, and the 2025 season already seems like the seventh in that increasingly dismal stretch of baseball.  Colorado is already coming off the two worst seasons in franchise history, after losing 103 games in 2023 and 101 games last year.

There was some speculation that Black could be let go following last season, yet the Rockies announced in October that the skipper had been signed to a one-year extension covering 2025.  Black’s contract situation was somewhat unique, as it was believed that Black was essentially a rolling year-to-year deal (as described by reporter Nick Groke), yet the fact that the Rockies waited until October to finalize Black’s return was perhaps a sign of some discontent.  Black’s previous two extensions had been announced in March 2022 and March 2023, giving the manager plenty of extra security and removing any lame-duck perception.

It may be that Monfort genuinely believed Black could still get things turned around, though things have gone so haywire so early that ownership had no choice but to make some kind of change.  Ironically, GM Bill Schmidt just gave Black a vote of confidence yesterday in an interview with Patrick Saunders of the Denver Post, just hours before the Rockies perhaps hit rock bottom in a 21-0 loss to San Diego.

At the time, Schmidt said “I don’t think we are” at the point of requiring a managerial change.  “I think our guys are still playing hard, and that’s what I look at,” Schmidt explained.  “Guys are working hard every day, they come with energy, for the most part….Guys still believe in what we are doing and where we are headed.  We are all frustrated.”

Of course, player effort doesn’t overcome a marked lack of talent on the roster.  Colorado’s struggles have been exacerbated by lack of action from the front office, as the Rockies haven’t done much to either clearly upgrade the team, or to go in the other direction of blowing things up for a full rebuild.  Monfort has often been accused of being both too optimistic about his team’s potential and too insular in his hiring practices, which has left the Rockies seemingly lagging behind the rest of the league not just on the field, but also in terms of analytics, scouting, player development, and other front office practices.

Since Monfort’s statement painted 2025 as an evaluation year, it could be that the Rockies’ brutal start has finally inspired a broader change of direction at Coors Field.  What this might mean for Schmidt (a longtime staffer who became interim GM in 2021 and then the full-time GM after that season) remains to be seen, or if the Rox will perhaps explore a fire sale at the trade deadline.

Schaeffer has been a member of Colorado’s organization dating back to his playing days, as he was a 38th-round draft pick in 2007 and spent his entire six-year playing career in the Rockies’ farm system.  After retiring from the field, he turned to coaching and managed three different Rockies affiliates from 2015-22, and Schaeffer then became the big league third base coach prior to the 2023 season.

While first-time MLB managers are rarely stepping into an ideal situation, the 40-year-old Schaeffer faces a tall order in trying to salvage anything from the 2025 Rockies’ season.  At this point, perhaps just avoiding a record number of losses would count as a minor triumph, even if another 100-loss season seems inevitable.

Schaeffer will have an experienced voice to help him in Hurdle, who managed the Rockies from 2002-09 and led the franchise to its only World Series appearance in 2007.  Hurdle also managed the Pirates from 2011-19 before retiring, and then returning to baseball in his special assistant role during the 2021-22 offseason.

Redmond and Black were hired in the same offseason, so Redmond had been Black’s chief lieutenant throughout the manager’s entire tenure in Denver.  A former 13-year veteran of the big leagues, Redmond is perhaps best known for his own former managerial stint with the Marlins over the 2013-15 seasons.

Photo courtesy of Ron Chenoy – Imagn Images

Cubs Sign Tommy Romero To Minor League Deal

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The Cubs have signed right-hander Tommy Romero to a minor league deal, according to the transactions tracker on Romero’s MLB.com player page.

Romero, 27, was a 15th-round pick by the Mariners back in 2017. He was traded to the Rays shortly thereafter as part of the Alex Colome deal back in 2018 and spent years in the Rays organization before finally making his big league debut in 2022. Unfortunately for Romero, that debut did not go especially well as he was torched to the tune of a 7.71 ERA in 4 2/3 innings for Tampa. He was designated for assignment not long after, and while he was plucked off waivers by the Nationals he fared even more poorly in D.C. with eight runs (six earned) allowed in just 3 2/3 frames. The Nationals kept him on the 40-man roster through the remainder of the 2022 season but non-tendered him that November.

That wasn’t the end of Romero’s time with the organization, however, as they re-signed him to a minor league deal just a few short months later. He pitched as a swingman for the Nationals at the Triple-A level in 2023, but did so with lackluster results as he posted a 5.44 ERA with an untenable 15.2% walk rate. Romero caught on with the Giants last year and pitched much more effectively there, however. In 72 2/3 innings for the club’s Sacramento affiliate, Romero posted a 3.14 ERA with a 22.1% strikeout rate against a 12.4% walk rate. Those numbers are solid enough on paper but become all the more impressive when you consider Romero was pitching in the Pacific Coast League’s inflated offensive environment. That season added to an overall strong body of work for Romero at the minor league level; he has a career 3.08 ERA in the minors, and 2023 was his only season where he posted a figure higher than 3.24 at any level.

Despite that generally strong track record and a solid platform season, Romero did not return to affiliated ball for the start of the 2025 campaign. Instead, he headed for the Mexican League and pitched for the Guerreros de Oaxaca, though he was lit up for a 7.27 ERA across two starts with them. After that brief sojourn to the south, Romero is back in affiliated ball with the Cubs and could theoretically be part of the club’s starting depth going forward. Expecting a minor league journeyman to replace the production of injured front-end arms Justin Steele and Shota Imanaga would be foolish, but the club has also lost depth options like Javier Assad and Brandon Birdsell to the injured list this year who Romero could more plausibly fill in for. What’s more, top prospect Cade Horton and veteran starter Chris Flexen were both recently promoted to the major leagues, creating vacancies in the club’s Triple-A rotation.

Perhaps one of those vacancies will be filled by Romero, who could certainly pitch his way into an opportunity with Chicago if enough injuries crop up. Currently, the club’s rotation options on the big league roster are Jameson Taillon, Matthew Boyd, Ben Brown, Colin Rea, Horton, and Flexen. It’s a group that features a number of veteran arms with lengthy injury histories, as well as two young pitchers who figure to have their innings managed after missing most of last season. That creates plenty of room for depth arms to get play at the big league level for the Cubs, although options like Jordan Wicks and Connor Noland will likely land ahead of Romero on the club’s depth chart.

Orioles Activate Zach Eflin

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The Orioles have activated right-hander Zach Eflin from the injured list ahead of his start against the Angels this afternoon, per a team announcement. Right-hander Colin Selby was optioned to Triple-A Norfolk to make room for Eflin on the active roster. In an additional move, southpaw Trevor Rogers was activated from the injured list and optioned to Triple-A.

Eflin, 31, went on the shelf just over a month ago with what was described at the time as a “low-grade” lat strain. The right-hander has been a revelation for the Orioles ever since he was acquried from the Rays ahead of last year’s trade deadline. He pitched to a 2.60 ERA in nine starts down the stretch last year, and his first three starts of 2025 saw him post a 3.00 ERA despite an unusually small 11.8% strikeout rate. The Orioles were 5-6 after Eflin’s last start with the club, but since losing him from the front of their rotation the wheels have come off. The club has posted a brutal 9-18 record since then, however, and much of those struggles have been attributable to lackluster performances in the rotation.

Since the day Eflin went on the shelf, Baltimore has the worst rotation in baseball by FIP (6.10), and the third-worst by ERA (5.97). Tomoyuki Sugano has pitched quite well with a 2.72 ERA despite his 4.61 FIP and 14.2% strikeout rate, but that doesn’t appear to be particularly sustainable and the rest of the rotation has ERAs north of 5.00 across the board. Perhaps adding Eflin to the rotation ahead of Sugano can help stabilize things, particularly if he rediscovers the bat-missing abilities he flashed when he struck out 21.0% of opponents down the stretch last year. Even so, more reinforcements appear to be necessary if the Orioles are going to have a serious chance of getting back into the playoff picture.

One other potential rotation option was also activated from the IL today alongside Eflin: Rogers. Acquired from the Marlins in exchange for Kyle Stowers and Connor Norby at last year’s trade deadline, Rogers struggled badly in four starts for the Orioles before being optioned to Triple-A late last year. He could have been in the mix for a rotation job this spring had he not suffered a kneecap subluxation in January that slowed his start of the season. He’s been ramping back up ever since, and is finally healthy enough to be activated from the shelf. With that being said, he’s currently set to act as Triple-A depth for the club rather than come up and pitch in the majors immediately. Perhaps that’s a sensible decision, seeing as he’s struggled to a 7.50 ERA across four rehab starts this year.

Making room for Eflin on the active roster is Selby, who made his big league debut with the Pirates back in 2023. He struggled to a 9.00 ERA in 24 innings of work, and since then has bounced between the Royals and Orioles organizations with just 10 2/3 frames in the majors total over the past two years. Most recently, he’s logged 3 2/3 innings of 4.91 ERA ball for Baltimore this year. He’ll head to Triple-A as a potential depth option for the birds going forward.

Rockies Select Ryan Rolison, Transfer Kris Bryant To 60-Day IL

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The Rockies announced this morning that they’ve selected the contract of left-hander Ryan Rolison. Kris Bryant was transferred to the 60-day to make room for Rolison on the 40-man roster after he recently underwent an ablation procedure on his back. Colorado also announced that righty Anthony Molina has been recalled from Triple-A, while righties Bradley Blalock and Juan Mejia were optioned to Triple-A to make room for Rolison and Molina on the active roster.

Rolison, 27, was the Rockies’ first-round pick back in 2018 but has yet to make his major league debut. The southpaw’s career has been thrown off track by plenty of missed time. He missed the entire 2020 season due to the cancelled minor league season, missed multiple months in 2021 due to an appendectomy, and lost his entire 2022 campaign due to shoulder injuries. He returned in 2023 but once again battled shoulder problems, leaving him to make just four starts that season. Since then, he’s mostly pitched out of the bullpen for the Rockies, with a 4.67 ERA in 34 appearances at the Triple-A level over the past two years. That includes a solid 3.72 ERA with a 26.1% strikeout rate this year, however. With Rolison now finally in a groove after years of injury-marred campaigns, it seems the Rockies are going to take the opportunity to get their former first-round talent into a big league game for the first time in his career.

Moving off the 40-man roster to make room for Rolison is Bryant. It’s hardly a surprise to see the 33-year-old transferred to the 60-day IL given the seriousness of the procedure he underwent this past week to try and alleviate the chronic back pain stemming from his chronic lumbar degenerative disc disease. Ablation destroys the nerves in an area causing pain in an effort to eliminate pain signals from that area. As Bryant told reporters (including Patrick Lyons of Just Baseball Media) yesterday, he won’t resume baseball activities for a “couple weeks” before beginning to ramp up as is feasible in terms of pain tolerance. That leaves him with no concrete timetable for his return, but he did make clear he hopes to return to the field during the 2025 season.

Regardless of when Bryant ultimately ends up returning, 2025 already appears to be the latest in a string of seasons where the former MVP has been derailed by injuries. The veteran was among the game’s perennial All-Stars as recently as 2021 and carried a .278/.376/.504 career slash line into the 2022 season. After signing a seven-year deal with the Rockies during the 2021-22 offseason, however, Bryant has appeared in just 170 games total while slashing a well below-average .244/.324/.370. With Bryant having returned -1.6 bWAR/-1.8 fWAR at the halfway mark in his contract, it’s hard to imagine the deal being anything other than a bust for the Rockies once all is said and done.

Even so, with three seasons and $81MM left on the contract after 2025, the Rockies are surely hoping that Bryant can eventually get healthy enough to be a legitimate contributor before his contract comes to a close. While the sort of production that earned him the NL Rookie of the Year award in 2015 and the MVP award the following season is unlikely to be in the cards at this point, it’s not impossible to imagine Bryant being able to get back to being an above-average hitter; after all, he did manage to hit a solid .306/.376/.475 in 42 games with the Rockies back in 2022.

As for the club’s other roster moves, Molina joins the big league roster for the first time this year after pitching to a 6.79 ERA in 35 relief outings for the Rockies last year. Mejia made his MLB debut earlier this year and sports a 4.70 ERA across six appearances, while Blalock is in his second MLB season but has struggled to a 12.94 ERA in 16 innings of work for Colorado this year.

Brewers Option Tobias Myers

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The Brewers announced this morning that they’ve optioned right-hander Tobias Myers to Triple-A. Righty Elvis Peguero was recalled to the major league roster in his place.

It’s a surprising move for Milwaukee given that Myers was a key cog in the club’s rotation not only this year but also in 2024. The righty broke out last season as a rookie with the Brewers, posting a phenomenal 3.00 ERA (138 ERA+) in 138 innings of work spread between 25 starts and two relief outings. He’s followed that up with a 3.86 ERA across 16 1/3 innings across four starts and one relief appearance. Those solid top-level run prevention numbers are belied somewhat by less impressive peripherals, however. Last year, Myers posted a 3.91 FIP thanks in part to a relatively pedestrian 22.3% strikeout rate and an elevated home run rate, though his tidy 6.3% walk rate made up for it somewhat.

Things have taken a turn for the worse on the peripheral side of things this year, however. Myers has watched his strikeout rate dip to just 14.7% while his walk rate has crept up to 13.3%. That’s a walk rate that can prove untenable for even elite strikeout artists in a rotation role, and when paired with Myers’s paltry strikeout numbers from this year it’s easy to see why the Brewers may be concerned about his ability to continue providing quality production. Just 5.0% of Myers’s fly balls have left the yard for home runs this year, down from 11.3% last season. If that number were to normalize, his solid enough ERA would surely spike to a level closer to his 4.59 FIP or perhaps even his ugly 5.61 SIERA.

To this point in the season, the Brewers have had little choice besides simply sticking with Myers in a rotation role and hoping he gets right thanks to the bevy of rotation injuries they’ve been forced to navigate. Six starting rotation options are currently on the 15- or 60-day injured list in Milwaukee, a situation that forced them to sign Jose Quintana and trade for Quinn Priester just to keep a full rotation on the roster. That’s set to change in the relatively near future, however. Brandon Woodruff is poised to make what’s expected to be his final rehab start today, which would put him on track to return to the Brewers rotation as soon as next weekend. Aaron Civale and Aaron Ashby are expected to be ready to rejoin the club later this month as well.

Those incoming reinforcements on their own likely wouldn’t be enough to convince Milwaukee to pull the trigger on optioning Myers, but the club also has a day off this coming Thursday. That means the club can simply skip Myers’s next turn in the rotation without needing to lock Woodruff into Friday’s start against Minnesota, as today’s projected starter Chad Patrick will also be available on full rest that day. Optioning Myers now affords the Brewers an additional bullpen arm for their next few games while offering Myers the opportunity to sort out whatever issue may be causing his lack of strikeouts and uptick in walks this season in a lower-pressure environment.

Sensible as it may be, it’s an aggressive move that shows how uncharacteristically uncomfortable Milwaukee is this year. The Brewers are just 19-21 so far this year and have fallen to fourth place in the NL Central, four games back of the Cubs for the division lead. That’s certainly not an insurmountable gap for the club with more than four months to go in the regular season, but for a team coming off a run of six playoff appearances (and four NL Central titles) in seven years, it’s been quite some time since they were firmly on the outside of the playoff picture in the NL.

Replacing Myers on the roster for the time being is Peguero. The 28-year-old has struggled to a 5.68 ERA in five appearances this year but has generally been a quality relief options for Milwaukee since joining the organization ahead of the 2023 season, with a 3.20 ERA in 112 2/3 innings of work over the past two seasons. He’ll likely join struggling righty Joel Payamps in a lower leverage role for the time being given the success right-handed arms like Abner Uribe, Nick Mears, and Grant Anderson have found to this point in the 2025 campaign.

Danny Duffy Signs With Mexican League’s Piratas de Campeche

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Former big league left-hander Danny Duffy is signing with the Piratas de Campeche of the Mexican League, according to a report from Robert Murray of Fansided.

Duffy, 36, is a veteran of 11 major league seasons who last pitched in the big leagues back in 2021. The lefty was a third-round pick by the Royals back in 2007 and never pitched at the big league level with another club. Duffy’s first season in the majors back in 2011 saw him make 20 starts, though his 5.64 ERA left much to be desired. Despite that middling rookie season, Duffy earned a spot in the club’s starting rotation the following year. He ultimately made just 11 appearances between 2012 and 2013 due to Tommy John surgery, however, though he did post an impressive 2.94 ERA across those outings.

When Duffy had his first healthy season since his rookie year in 2014, he was extremely successful with a 2.53 ERA in 149 1/3 innings of work split between 25 starts and six long relief outings. Duffy’s success came in spite of a lackluster 18.6% strikeout rate, however, and his lackluster peripherals caught up to him during a far more pedestrian 2015 season. Once again pitching primarily out of the rotation with occasional cameos in the bullpen, Duffy’s results took a big step back that year as he pitched to a 4.02 ERA (102 ERA+) in 136 2/3 innings during the regular season. The 2014 and ’15 seasons also saw Duffy make the only postseason appearances of his career as Kansas City went to the World Series in back to back campaigns and won it all in 2015. Duffy’s contributions to those runs were relatively minimal as he pitched to a 5.06 in 10 2/3 innings, though that did include outings in the club’s Game 1 and Game 4 victories against the Mets in 2015.

Following the Royals’ championship, Duffy pitched quite well in 2016 with a 3.51 ERA in 179 2/3 frames with a solid 25.7% strikeout rate. That showing was enough to earn Duffy a five-year extension with the club worth $65MM. The next several years saw Duffy provide generally solid middle-to-back of the rotation production for the Royals, with a roughly league average 4.42 ERA (102 ERA+) in 87 appearances (86 starts) from 2017 to 2020. When the final year of Duffy’s deal in Kansas City came around, he enjoyed a phenomenal start to the season as he posted a 2.51 ERA with a 25.8% strikeout rate in 61 innings of work, but he found himself slowed by a flexor strain. Duffy was traded to the Dodgers over the summer, but did not throw a pitch for L.A. that year.

Since being traded away from the Royals, Duffy pitched in the minor leagues for the Dodgers and Rangers but did not crack either club’s big league roster. Last season, he posted a 5.50 ERA in ten outings for Texas at the Triple-A level before being granted his release in May of last year. He then pitched to a 3.24 ERA in the Puerto Rican Winter League, which evidently caught the attention of the Piratas de Campeche. Duffy will now get the opportunity to continue his professional career in Mexico on a team that also features former big league names like Hanser Alberto and Chris Carter.

Red Sox Place Romy Gonzalez On 10-Day Injured List

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The Red Sox announced this afternoon that they’ve placed infielder Romy Gonzalez on a the 10-day injured list due to a left quad contusion. Infielder Nick Sogard was recalled from Triple-A to replace Gonzalez on the active roster.

The loss of Gonzalez is particularly devastating for Boston given that he’s been filling in for Triston Casas at first base after the latter underwent season-ending knee surgery. The 28-year-old has hit quite well in that fill-in capacity, slashing .308/.362/.423 in 17 games for the Red Sox this year. Gonzalez had been handling first base as part of a tandem with Abraham Toro in Casas’s absence, in part due to the refusal of Rafael Devers to play first base. That refusal and Devers’s subsequent comments expressing frustration with chief baseball officer Craig Breslow for bringing up the possibility of a move to first base after Devers had already been moved from third base to DH this spring has ignited plenty of public scrutiny that eventually led to a meeting between Devers and club owner John Henry.

It still seems as though there’s no plans to have Devers begin taking grounders at first, much less play the position in a game. As noted by MassLive’s Chris Cotillo, manager Alex Cora commented on the first base situation with reporters earlier today.

“He’s DHing today… We’ll keep talking about stuff. We’ll keep looking for alternatives, with what we need to do to keep getting better,” Cora said of Devers, as relayed by Cotillo. “Of course, we’ve got Romy, we’ve got Toro and now we’ve got (Sogard). That’s the route we’re going to have right now.”

While Cora name-checked Gonzalez as an option at first, he’ll be unavailable for at least the next ten days. That leaves Toro and Sogard as the most likely options to handle first in the meantime. Outfielder Rob Refsnyder has some first base experience and could be another option, but Cora has expressed hesitance about taking him out of the outfield mix in the past and Cotillo relays that the veteran is currently dealing with back spasms that leave his status as day-to-day.

The combination of Toro and Sogard at first base isn’t exactly an inspiring one. Toro is a career .219/.283/.350 hitter in the majors who has gone just 2-for-14 with two strikeouts and zero walks or extra base hits at the big league level to this point in the year. Sogard, meanwhile, got his only big league action last year when the Red Sox leaned on him as a utility man in 31 games. During that brief look in the majors, Sogard hit a below-average .273/.326/.325 with a 29.1% strikeout rate. Gonzalez’s eventual return should help matters, and fortunately the nature of his injury does not seem severe enough that an extended absence should be expected.

Even so, one must assume that the Red Sox are looking at other options given the worrisome state of first base. If Devers is still not an option to get work in at first base, perhaps the team will be able to swing a minor trade to add a depth option like DJ Stewart, Dominic Smith, or Joey Meneses who’s not currently on a 40-man roster. None of those names would be especially impactful, but the fact that major trades at this point in the calendar tend to be exceedingly rare figures to limit Boston’s external options.

Cubs Promote Cade Horton

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May 10: The Cubs have officially selected Horton’s contract, according to a team announcement. Left-hander Tom Cosgrove was optioned to Triple-A to make room for Horton on the active roster, while right-hander Eli Morgan was transferred to the 60-day injured list due to an inflamed ulnar nerve in his right elbow.

May 8: The Cubs are promoting pitching prospect Cade Horton, per reporting from Patrick Mooney and Sahadev Sharma of The Athletic. Tommy Birch of The Des Moines Register first reported this afternoon that Horton was traveling to New York in advance of this weekend’s series against the Mets. The young righty is not yet on the club’s 40-man roster, so they will need to open a spot for him.

Chicago’s rotation has taken a few notable hits recently. They came into the season with Justin Steele and Shota Imanaga as a one-two punch atop the rotation. Unfortunately, Steele required UCL surgery last month, putting him out of action for the rest of the year. Imanaga suffered a hamstring strain a few days ago. He is surely facing a far shorter absence than Steele but has been placed on the 15-day IL, meaning he’ll miss at least a few turns through the rotation.

Those are the two most obvious losses, but the clubs has also been without Javier Assad all year. He started the season on the 15-day injured list due to an oblique strain. He started a rehab assignment last month but re-aggravated the same muscle, suffering a Grade 2 strain.

Those injuries have created an opening for Horton to make it to the majors for the first time. The Cubs have “TBD” listed as their starter for Saturday’s game at Citi Field, which will seemingly be when Horton takes the ball. It seemed the decision on Imanaga’s rotation spot came down to promoting Horton or stretching out veteran swingman Chris Flexen.

Horton is the higher-upside play. Chicago selected him out of Oklahoma with the seventh overall pick in 2022. The 6’1″ righty has been the organization’s top pitching prospect over the past few seasons. His arsenal is headlined by a mid-90s fastball and a slider that grades as a plus pitch. Horton’s fastball velocity had dipped slightly to the 94 MPH range last year but has rebounded to sit at 95.8 MPH on average with Triple-A Iowa this season.

The 23-year-old has been out to an excellent start in Triple-A. Horton carries a 1.24 ERA while striking out nearly 31% of batters faced through 29 innings. He’s issuing walks at a lofty 12% clip, but the high-octane stuff will get him an opportunity to step into Imanaga’s rotation spot. If Imanaga makes it back within a few weeks, it might be a brief call-up, but the Cubs could theoretically push Ben Brown or Colin Rea to the bullpen if Horton forces their hand with a strong showing over his first few starts.

It’s too late for Horton to reach a full year of service time the traditional way. He meets the necessary prospect criteria to qualify for the Prospect Promotion Incentive, however. That means he could earn a full service year if he finishes in the top two in NL Rookie of the Year balloting. The Cubs would not receive a bonus draft choice if that happens because they didn’t promote Horton early enough to spend 172 days in the majors.

Tigers Place Casey Mize On 15-Day Injured List

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The Tigers announced right-hander Casey Mize is being placed on the 15-day injured list due to a strained left hamstring. Right-hander Chase Lee is being recalled from Triple-A Toledo to replace Mize on the roster. As noted by Evan Petzold of the Detroit Free Press, manager A.J. Hinch told reporters that the strain was “very mild.” Cody Stavenhagen of The Athletic adds that the issue initially cropped up during his last start against the Rockies, but that it was initially believed to be dehydration.

Given the mild nature of the issue, it’s reasonable to think that a reasonably quick recovery could be on the table for Mize. With that said, Petzold points out that Mize has had issues with his left hamstring before and ultimately ended up missing two months due to the issue last season. Given that previous injury history, it would hardly be a surprise if the Tigers ended up being cautious with Mize’s hamstring. He’ll miss at least the next two weeks due to the issue in any case, but even mild hamstring strains can leave pitchers away from the big league mound for a month or longer.

Losing a pitcher from the starting rotation is always worrisome, but it’s especially disappointing for Mize and the Tigers given the former first-overall pick’s strong start to the 2025 campaign. After throwing just 112 1/3 innings from 2022 to 2024 due to a number of injuries and struggling to a middling 4.57 ERA even when healthy enough to pitch, Mize entered the 2025 season without any assurances of a starting role. He managed to make the club’s Opening Day rotation despite that, however, and has looked excellent in seven starts this year with a sparkling 2.53 ERA across 42 2/3 innings of work. That level of dominance isn’t quite supported by the advanced metrics, as Mize is striking out just 21.0% of his opponents with a 3.93 FIP and 3.81 SIERA, but even those less impressive numbers would be a big step forward for the right-hander if carried forward across a full season.

Now that Mize’s attempts to put together a quality season in the middle of the Tigers rotation are on hold for the time being, Detroit will need to find a way to replace his production in the rotation. Mize was next slated to start for the Tigers on May 13, so a decision won’t be necessary for another few days. Right-hander Alex Cobb threw a live, two-inning bullpen session yesterday that lasted 30 pitches, but isn’t expected to be ready to return from hip inflammation until later this month. Matt Manning and Keider Montero are both on the 40-man roster with starting experience in the majors; Montero’s last start was the same day as Mize’s start against Colorado, while Manning’s came the day prior. That means either righty would be on full rest and able to take the ball if necessary. If the Tigers don’t want to turn to either Montero or Manning as a starter, they’ll likely be left forced to go with a bullpen game against the Red Sox this week.

Fortunately for the Tigers, they’ve gotten generally strong production from the rest of their rotation this year that should help them weather the loss of Mize. Tarik Skubal looks every bit like the reigning AL Cy Young award winner after winning the pitching triple crown last year, Reese Olson has built on an excellent 2024 season with strong numbers again this year, and Jack Flaherty has looked solid even if he isn’t quite as dominant now as he was in his first stint in a Tigers uniform last year. The only slot in the rotation that’s currently providing the club below-average production is that of top prospect Jackson Jobe, but even he had a solid 3.38 ERA before he was torched for six runs in 3 2/3 innings at Coors Field during his last start. As for Lee, the 26-year-old righty made his big league debut with Detroit earlier this year and pitched to a 1.42 ERA in six appearances with six strikeouts against three walks.

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