Dodgers To Option Gavin Lux Back To Taxi Squad
9:39PM: Lux will be optioned back to the Dodgers’ taxi squad, Roberts told Gurnick (Twitter link) and other media after the game.
5:45PM: The Dodgers have called up infielder Gavin Lux from their alternate training site, with Lux set to serve as the extra 29th man for Game 2 of today’s doubleheader with the Giants.
Lux will appear on the Los Angeles roster for the first time this season, after he was somewhat surprisingly not included on the club’s roster for its July opener. Lux did miss part of Summer Camp for unexplained reasons, and while there was speculation that Lux may have been kept in the minors for service-time reasons, manager Dave Roberts explained in early August that the Dodgers didn’t “feel he’s ready right now.”
“It was a short ramp-up for Gavin and he wasn’t right mechanically,” Roberts told MLB.com’s Ken Gurnick and other media on August 5. “And he knows that, we know that. He’s still getting there at [alternative training site] USC, getting at-bats daily, it’s coming. I see video every day, it’s getting better.”
Roberts said at the time that Lux would only be called up to the Dodgers on an everyday basis, so though the “29th man” designation could imply some fluidity with Lux’s status, it would seem like the star prospect will now be part of the team’s regular mix. Lux is in tonight’s starting lineup as a second baseman, which was also his position during his 23-game debut with Los Angeles last season.
Corey Seager obviously has Lux’s normal minor league position of shortstop covered at the MLB level, so Lux now looks to be the first-choice option at the keystone. Enrique Hernandez, Max Muncy, and Chris Taylor have split time at second base this season with Hernandez getting the bulk of the playing time at that particular position, though all three players have been deployed elsewhere around the diamond given the Dodgers’ penchant for versatility. With the DH spot in play for the 2020 season, Roberts should be able to find enough at-bats to keep everyone satisfied and rested as the Dodgers are already essentially in tune-up mode for the postseason.
Lux hit .240/.305/.400 over 82 PA with the Dodgers last season, plus an .856 OPS over 10 postseason PA. A consensus top-five prospect in baseball coming into the 2020 campaign, Lux has dominated minor league pitching since being selected 20th overall in the 2016 draft, and now aims to be the next homegrown Dodgers prospect to find stardom in the majors.
Minor MLB Transactions: 8/27/20
Catching up on some minor moves from around baseball…
- The Rangers outrighted Rob Refsnyder off their 40-man roster and assigned him to their alternate training site after the utilityman cleared waivers. Texas designated Refsnyder for assignment earlier this week. Refsnyder signed a minors contract with the Rangers back in November and has appeared in 15 games this season, marking his first Major League action since the 2018 campaign. With only a .200/.265/.233 slash line through 34 PA, however, Refsnyder became expendable. The five-year veteran will remain in the organization as a depth option at first base and both corner outfield slots.
Cardinals Place Andrew Miller On 10-Day Injured List
The Cardinals placed lefty Andrew Miller on the 10-day injured list due to shoulder fatigue, the team announced. Right-hander Junior Fernandez was activated from the injured list in a corresponding move.
Miller’s IL visit is apparently “just a recovery thing,” manager Mike Shildt told MLB.com’s Anne Rogers and other reporters. Like many other Cardinals players, Miller is still getting back up to full speed following the team’s coronavirus outbreak-driven stoppage in play. To that end, Fernandez himself is returning after a positive COVID-19 sidelined him for much of the season, as the rookie has only appeared in one game this season. Rogers also notes that infielder Edmundo Sosa was assigned to the Cardinals’ alternate training site after being activated today from the team’s coronavirus injured list.
Shildt feels Miller will be back after the 10-day minimum stay, saying that “he’s been a warrior and just was honest and said, ‘I could probably keep going and pushing through it,’ but I think we’d all feel better if we could get it behind him.”
Miller has a 4.76 ERA through 5 2/3 innings this season, with the bulk of that damage coming in one tough outing (two earned runs over one-third of an inning) against the Cubs on August 19. The left-hander has held opponents scoreless in five of his other six appearances this season.
Even a minimal visit to the injured list will create a bit of extra drama in regards to Miller’s contractual status. His original two-year, $25MM deal carries a $12MM club option for 2021 that was originally set to become guaranteed with at least 110 games pitched over the 2019 and 2020 seasons. Rogers writes that Miller is seven games short of triggering his vesting option, meaning that the 37 appearances he still required (after pitching in 73 games in 2019) was prorated down to 14 appearances, as per the normal prorated rate of a 60-game schedule. Assuming Miller is back in 10 days or not much beyond, however, he should still have time left to bank his remaining seven games, though his usage down the stretch could be worth observing in the season’s final weeks.
Orioles Activate Jose Iglesias From 10-Day IL
The Orioles have activated shortstop Jose Iglesias from the 10-day injured list, one of multiple transactions announced today by the team. Infielder Ramon Urias and southpaw Keegan Akin have been optioned to the Orioles’ alternate training site, while the O’s selected the contract of right-hander Cesar Valdez. In addition, outfielder Dwight Smith Jr. cleared waivers (Smith was designated for assignment earlier this week) and was outrighted to the alternate site.
Iglesias’ return from a left quad injury comes after a minimum 10-day absence, as his original placement was backdated to August 16. Baltimore will now get perhaps its most unexpectedly hot bat back in the lineup, as Iglesias was off to a fantastic .400/.414/.564 start through his first 58 plate appearances.
Valdez signed a minor league deal with the Orioles over the offseason and is now on track to appear in his first Major League game since the 2017 season. His 30 2/3 innings with the A’s and Blue Jays that season marked a return to the Show from an even longer absence, as Valdez’s previous MLB experience came in a nine-game stint with the Diamondbacks in 2010. In between these hiatuses from the big leagues, Valdez has a long track record in the Mexican League, as well as eight games in the Chinese Professional Baseball League and 861 1/3 career minor league innings with the A’s, Blue Jays, D’Backs, and also the Marlins, Astros, and Pirates.
Diamondbacks Designate Matt Grace For Assignment
The Diamondbacks have designated left-hander Matt Grace for assignment, as per a press release. The D’Backs also announced that infielder Andy Young and righty Joel Payamps were called up from the club’s alternate training site to take the roster spots left open by Grace and Kevin Cron, who was optioned to the training site after last night’s game.
Grace just had his contract selected by the D’Backs last week, though his three-game tenure with the club has been a rough one. Grace has a 54.00 ERA over one official inning pitched, as his last two outings have seen the southpaw charged with three earned runs without recording an out.
A veteran of six MLB seasons, Grace posted a 4.29 ERA, 2.69 K/BB rate, 53.4% grounder rate, and 6.7 K/9 over 176 1/3 relief innings for the Nationals from 2015-19. The highlight was a 2018 season that saw Grace deliver a 2.87 ERA over 59 2/3 frames, though he struggled to a 6.36 ERA over 46 2/3 innings in 2019 and was left off Washington’s postseason roster.
Rockies Sign Zac Rosscup
TODAY: The Rockies have announced the signing. Rosscup has inked a minor league deal and been added to the team’s 60-man player pool.
AUGUST 25: The Rockies are close to a deal with left-hander Zac Rosscup, FOX 26’s Mark Berman reports (Twitter link). The deal, presumably a minor league contract, will be official once Rosscup passes a physical and a COVID-19 screening.
Rosscup previously pitched for Colorado in 2017-18 and was also a member of the organization just this season, as he signed a minor league deal last winter but was released in June. He’ll now get a second chance at that second stint with the Rox, who are likely looking to add some bullpen depth in the wake of some injuries. James Pazos and Phillip Diehl are the only left-handed relievers on the Rockies’ current active roster, and none of the other southpaws at their alternate training site have any big league experience.
Rosscup has tossed 83 2/3 career innings over parts of six MLB seasons, pitching for the Rockies and four other clubs. In 2019, Rosscup threw 18 innings split over separate stints with the Mariners, Blue Jays, and Dodgers, plus he also spent time in the Cardinals’ farm system. Since being released by Colorado this summer, Rosscup has been pitching in independent baseball in Sugar Land, Texas.
The 32-year-old has a 5.16 ERA and a very impressive 12.2 K/9 over his 83 2/3 frames, though home runs (1.6 HR/9) and walks (5.9 BB/9) have been consistent issues over Rosscup’s time in the majors. Over 329 1/3 career minor league innings, Rosscup has a 2.71 ERA, 11.0 K/9 and only an 0.4 HR/9 and 3.6 BB/9, though he had some major control issues over 16 2/3 innings of Triple-A ball in 2019.
Pirates Claim Anthony Alford
The Pirates have claimed outfielder Anthony Alford off waivers from the Blue Jays. Alford was designated for assignment by Toronto last week.
Alford is still only 26 years old, and was still garnering top-60 prospect buzz as recently as the 2018 preseason. Over nine pro seasons, however, Alford’s production has been inconsistent, though his development has been hampered by multiple injuries. Alford has a .265/.358/.393 slash line over 2098 career plate appearances in the minors, along with 34 homers and 114 stolen bases (out of 146 chances). At the big league level, Alford has appeared in each of the last four seasons, though he has played in only 46 total games and amassed 75 total plate appearances (with only a .454 OPS over that small sample size).
The Bucs are hoping that a change of scenery can help unlock Alford’s potential, and it’s possible Alford could immediately jump onto the Pirates’ roster as a backup outfielder. With the trade deadline just around the corner, it also isn’t out of the question that Alford could see more playing time if Pittsburgh opted to move another outfielder in a future deal.
Rays Acquire Brett Phillips From Royals
The Rays have acquired outfielder Brett Phillips from the Royals in exchange for minor league infielder Lucius Fox, the teams announced. Both players are on the 40-man roster, so corresponding 40-man moves aren’t necessary.
It’s a swap of two once-heralded young talents whose respective stocks have dipped in recent years. Phillips, 26, went from the Astros to the Brewers alongside Josh Hader in the famed Mike Fiers/Carlos Gomez deal. At the time, he was a top 50 prospect who was regarded as a potential five-tool superstar, but in the years since, his contact issues have continued to limit his value. Phillips went from Milwaukee to K.C. in the original Mike Moustakas trade, and he’s since settled in as an absolutely rocket-armed, plus defensive outfielder with power but major swing-and-miss issues at the plate.
It’s fun to think about what an outfield of Kevin Kiermaier, Manuel Margot and Phillips could do from a defensive standpoint, but it’s hard to overlook the fact that in 358 MLB plate appearances, Phillips is a .205/.282/.344 hitter with an enormous 35.2% strikeout rate. His penchant for “did-he-just-do-that,” highlight-reel assists from any of the three outfield spots make him one of the game’s more entertaining defenders, but the Rays have some work to do if they are to coax anything out of Phillips from an offensive standpoint. Phillips is controllable through 2024, but he’s already out of minor league options, so the Rays have to keep him on the big league roster.
The 23-year-old Fox, meanwhile, is a switch-hitting Bahamian shortstop who signed a hefty $6MM bonus with the Giants back in 2015. That deal came near the peak of aggressive spending on international amateurs that preceded the hard-capped bonus pools which are now in place under the 2016-21 CBA. He was seen at the time as an athletic, high-contact middle infielder or center fielder with speed and the potential to grow into a bit more power than he had, but Fox hasn’t developed at the plate as hoped.
He lasted just one season with the Giants before being traded to the Rays as part of their return for Matt Moore, and there was some controversy when it was discovered post-trade that Fox had been playing through a foot injury which was not disclosed to the Rays. Fox eventually settled in as a mid-range prospect in a deep Rays system, but his stock has continued to dip as he’s posted pedestrian minor league numbers. He spent most of the 2019 season in Double-A, where he hit .230/.340/.342 with three homers and 37 steals. The speed is surely a highly appealing trait to a Royals club that tends to stockpile stolen-base threats, but Fox’s overall offensive game has yet to come together.
Pirates Place Keone Kela, Colin Moran On Injured List
The Pirates announced Thursday that they’ve placed right-hander Keone Kela and infielder Colin Moran on the injured list. Kela heads to the 10-day IL with forearm tightness, while Moran is on the 7-day concussion list. Both moves are retroactive to Aug. 24. Righty Nick Mears and infielder Will Craig were recalled in a pair of corresponding moves.
The IL placement for Kela substantially hampers the team’s ability to extract a meaningful return in a trade for the righty, who’d been the Pirates’ most obvious trade chip prior to Monday’s deadline. He can technically still be traded even while on the IL, but he won’t be eligible for activation until a few days after Monday’s trade deadline has passed. Considering that Kela is a free agent at season’s end, however, the Bucs could still try to move him for whatever they’re able to get.
Kela, 27, has been limited to just two innings in 2020 due to a positive Covid-19 test that caused him to miss all of Summer Camp and the forearm issue that prompted him to be lifted from last Friday’s relief outing. His fastball sat at 96.5 mph in his three outings this year — right in line with his career average — but that doesn’t guarantee the issue he’s facing to be minor. Kela has a strong track record dating back to his 2015 debut, but he’s obviously a wild card for the remainder of the year.
Moran himself could conceivably been a trade candidate on the heels of a huge start to the season. The former No. 6 overall pick is out to a .259/.326/.531 start with six homers and four doubles through 89 plate appearances. Moran’s 93.4 mph average exit velocity (per Statcast) is up more than five miles per hour from the 88.2 mph mark he logged in his first two years with Pittsburgh, and his 48.3 percent hard-hit rate absolutely dwarfs the 34.6 percent mark he posted in 2018-19. He’s controllable for three years beyond 2020, however, so a move involving him carries less urgency and wasn’t necessarily likely (as it was with Kela).
Blue Jays Acquire Taijuan Walker
The Blue Jays have grabbed the first notable starting pitcher of deadline season, acquiring righty Taijuan Walker from the Mariners in exchange for a player to be named later. Both clubs have announced the trade. The PTBNL, per The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal (Twitter link), is someone not currently in Toronto’s 60-man player pool.
To make room for Walker on the 40-man roster, the Blue Jays transferred righty Trent Thornton from the 10-day injured list to the 45-day injured list. He’d been diagnosed with loose bodies in his right elbow and will now miss the remainder of the 2020 season.
Walker, who turned 28 earlier this month, was the No. 43 overall draft pick by the Mariners back in 2010 and spent six years in the organization before being traded to the D-backs in the 2016-17 offseason. He returned to Seattle on a one-year, $2MM deal this season after missing the vast majority of the 2018-19 seasons in Arizona due to injury. That figure is prorated to about $720K in the shortened season, with about $344K of that sum yet to be paid out. Presumably, the Jays are on the hook for that portion of the deal.
Though the reunion was short-lived, Walker looked plenty healthy in his five starts to begin the season. He’s pitched to an even 4.00 ERA with a 25-to-8 K/BB ratio, five homers allowed and a 36.8 percent ground-ball rate. Walker’s most recent outing saw him hold a tough Dodgers lineup to three runs — all solo homers — on four hits and a walk with eight punchouts over seven frames. He’s averaged 93 mph on his heater thus far in 2020, and that number has crept upward of late; Walker sat at 92.6 mph as recently as July 31 but averaged 93.3 mph in his two most recent outings.
Seattle GM Jerry Dipoto said in a radio appearance on 710 ESPN Seattle (Twitter link via 710’s Jessamyn McIntyre) that he hopes to eventually discuss another reunion between the Mariners and Walker. Given Walker’s status as a pending free agent and the Mariners’ distance from postseason contention, however, the move was widely expected. Dipoto added that he’s happy to send Walker somewhere that he’ll have the opportunity to pitch in the postseason.
The Jays will add Walker to a rotation that recently lost Nate Pearson to an elbow injury and has generally struggled beyond top starter Hyun Jin Ryu. Veterans Matt Shoemaker and Tanner Roark have matching 4.91 ERAs — each with an FIP greater than 6.00. Righty Chase Anderson has been solid in a tiny sample, but he only just returned from an oblique injury and has yet to top five innings in a single appearance this year. The Jays have ridden an unexpectedly strong bullpen into the AL Wild Card mix, but it’s been clear that rotation upgrades would be needed for the team to hang onto that opportunity.
General manager Ross Atkins made that much clear a week ago when he acknowledged his plans to focus on win-now moves — specifically those that would reinforce his team’s starting pitching. The Jays were also recently linked to Pirates righties Trevor Williams and Chad Kuhl, and it stands to reason that they could yet look into acquiring another starter. For now, Walker represents an affordable rotation upgrade who could conceivably make six or seven starts over the final 32 days of the regular season. He’d likely factor into the club’s playoff rotation as well, should the Jays ultimately qualify.
Onlookers may be a bit surprised to see the return as a PTBNL not in the Blue Jays’ 60-man player pool, although that hardly means the Mariners’ return will be negligible. No team can fit all of its noteworthy prospects into the 60-man pool, of course, particularly given that most clubs — contenders in particular — have some of those slots allocated to veteran depth pieces. (Toronto, for instance, has Ruben Tejada, Caleb Joseph, Jake Petricka and Justin Miller in its pool.)
Furthermore, the expectation throughout the industry has been that the return for rental players such as Walker will be even more tepid than usual in a given season. Clubs are typically reluctant to part with high-end prospects even for a full two-month rental of a player in a 162-game season, and parting with notable prospect(s) for half that time is obviously an even tougher sell.
That’s not to say the return for Walker will be negligible. He was among the likeliest pitchers to change hands and surely drew interest from virtually any contender in search of rotation upgrades, so the Jays are presumably parting with a prospect of some note to acquire him. The likelihood is that said prospect was omitted from the 60-man pool either due to a lack of proximity from the Majors or a current injury.
The player’s identity won’t be formally announced by the team until after the season and might not even be settled upon yet; it’s not uncommon for teams to provide lists from which a trade partner can select a PTBNL. There’s also been some speculation that conditional trades — i.e. the PTBNL is X if acquiring team makes the playoffs or Y if the acquiring team does not — could be of increased popularity given the truncated nature of the current season.
Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic first reported the trade (Twitter links).