Pirates Select Contracts Of Robbie Erlin, John Ryan Murphy
The Pirates have selected the contracts of lefty Robbie Erlin and catcher John Ryan Murphy, per the team’s transactions page. Both had been assigned to the alternate training site but will now join the 40-man roster.
These moves were obviously made with an eye to structuring the Bucs’ Opening Day roster. With thirty roster spots to fill, the rebuilding club has quite a lot of openings to tinker with. These two players — both of whom are 29 years of age, were selected in the early rounds of the 2009 draft, and debuted in 2013 — are among the beneficiaries.
There was an especially clear need behind the dish in Pittsburgh. Murphy has never fully established himself as a MLB-caliber hitter, with a cumulative .219/.265/.357 slash line over 674 total plate appearances. But he’s trusted to handle backstop duties, having appeared with four different organizations over the past seven seasons.
Like most teams, the Pirates are likely to dedicate much of their added roster availability to pitching. Erlin will join a number of other arms hoping for their names to be called in on the bullpen phone. He could end up functioning as a situational lefty and/or long reliever. The 29-year-old carries a 4.57 ERA in 313 total MLB innings, all with the Padres.
Henderson Alvarez Signs With Indy Ball Club
Former MLB right-hander Henderson Alvarez is hoping that an independent league stint will get his career back on track. He is joining the Milwaukee Milkmen of the American Association.
Alvarez says he is finally healthy and in good form. While MLB outfits obviously weren’t convinced, the 30-year-old says he intends to re-prove himself on the field.
In 2014, Alvarez spun 187 innings of 2.65 ERA ball. But he was derailed by injury in the ensuing season and has only made three MLB appearances over the past four campaigns.
Alvarez got a look at Triple-A last year with the Nationals, but couldn’t turn the corner. He pitched to a 5.94 ERA in 53 frames, recording 6.3 K/9 against 3.1 BB/9 while surrendering 15 long balls in the supercharged offensive environment.
Marlins Release Ryan Cook
The Marlins have released righty Ryan Cook, per a club announcement. He had been in camp on a minor-league deal.
Additionally, the team announced that fellow righty relievers Josh Smith and Nick Vincent have been reassigned to the club’s alternative training site. It appears that they’ll both remain with the organization but fall shy of making the Opening Day roster.
Cook hooked on with the Fish in January after pitching in Japan for the 2019 season. The 33-year-old is a six-year MLB veteran but has only made 28 total appearances since the start of the 2015 campaign.
Braves Sign Matt Adams
The Braves announced today that they have signed first baseman Matt Adams. It’s a minor-league arrangement.
Adams had recently opted out of his deal with the division-rival Mets. Though there just wasn’t room for him on the New York roster, it seems the left-handed hitter showed enough to earn a spot in the Atlanta 60-man player pool.
This isn’t the first go-round for Adams with the Braves. He had a productive part-season stint with the team in 2017 — so much so that Freddie Freeman lined up at third base to keep Adams in the lineup. While he was also effective at the plate in 2018, Adams limped to a .226/.276/.465 slash line in 333 plate appearances last year with the Nationals.
Mariners Reportedly Expected To Sign Bryan Shaw
The Mariners are evidently closing in on a veteran bullpen addition. Per Jon Heyman of MLB Network (via Twitter), the Seattle club is expected to land recently released reliever Bryan Shaw. Contract details aren’t yet known.
Shaw, 32, was cut loose a few days ago by the Rockies, who’ll continue to owe him for the pro-rated portion of his $9MM salary along with a $2MM buyout in advance of the 2021 campaign. The Mariners would only be on the hook for the league-minimum rate if Shaw is able to crack the active roster.
After a long run of success with the Indians, Shaw struggled mightily over two seasons with the Rockies. It wasn’t just a matter of pitching at altitude, as he was actually better at Coors Field last year. Shaw dealt with a notable velocity drop-off and rise in the frequency of hard contact against him.
The M’s will undertake a bit of a reclamation effort, perhaps banking on the fact that Shaw still generates 80th percentile spin with his cut fastball. If he shows well at the team’s satellite location, there ought to be plenty of opportunity in a bullpen that’s short on sure things.
George Kontos Retires
Longtime major league reliever George Kontos has hung up his cleats, Alex Pavlovic of NBC Sports Bay Area reports. The 35-year-old Kontos hasn’t pitched since the Nationals’ Triple-A affiliate released him last August, but he will stay in baseball as an analyst with NBC Sports Bay Area.
“I did have some inclinations from early on when I was a player in San Francisco that one day this might be the route that I would take,” Kontos told Pavlovic on the Giants Insider Podcast. “It’s definitely nice to be coming back to the black and orange and being around San Francisco again.”
The right-handed Kontos was a fifth-round pick of the Yankees in 2006, but the majority of his work as a big leaguer came as a member of the Giants. He notched quality results with the club from 2012-17 – a 309 2/3-inning span in which he logged a 3.05 ERA with 7.3 K/9 and 2.06 BB/9. Kontos was also part of a pair of World Series-winning Giants teams.
Along with the Yankees (with whom he debuted in 2011 and spent time with again in 2018) and Giants, Kontos saw major league action with the Pirates and Indians. All told, he amassed 357 innings of 3.10 ERA ball in the bigs over parts of eight seasons. MLBTR congratulates Kontos on a successful career and wishes him the best in his new role.
Reds Release Derek Dietrich
Reds utilityman Derek Dietrich has requested and received his release from the team, Mark Sheldon of MLB.com tweets. Dietrich, whom the Reds brought back on a minor league contract over the winter, just joined their player pool last week after a positive coronavirus test. He excercised an opt-out clause, meaning he won’t be able to re-sign with the Reds this year, C. Trent Rosecrans of The Athletic notes.
For the Reds and Dietrich, this ends what was briefly a very fruitful relationship. The former Marlin signed a minors pact with the Reds heading into 2019, earned a roster spot and then went into the summer as one of the game’s hottest hitters. Dietrich posted a ridiculous .304/.400/.841 line with 12 home runs in just 80 plate appearances in May, but his production cratered after that. He finished the season a .187/.328/.462 hitter with 19 homers in 341 PA, though that line was still 2 percent better than league average, according to FanGraphs’ wRC+ metric.
The 31-year-old Dietrich, to his credit, has consistently been a better-than-average offensive player since his career started in 2013. He owns a lifetime triple-slash of .246/.334/.427 (108 wRC+) with 79 HRs in 2,438 trips to the plate, though most of the lefty-swinger’s damage has come against righties. Defensively, Dietrich has garnered extensive experience at several positions (first, second, third and left). While Dietrich hasn’t graded particularly well at any of those spots, his versatility in the field and history of respectable offense should enable him to catch on elsewhere.
Phillies Release Anthony Swarzak
The Phillies announced that right-handed reliever Anthony Swarzak has requested and received his unconditional release. Swarzak had been on a minor league contract since June. It was the second minors pact Swarzak signed with the Phillies dating back to February. The two sides reworked the initial deal.
The 34-year-old Swarzak isn’t that far removed from a brief run as one of the game’s most effective relievers. Between the White Sox and Brewers in 2017, Swarzak parlayed career-high 95 mph velocity into a 2.33 ERA/2.74 FIP with 10.59 K/9 and 2.56 BB/9 over 77 1/3 innings. That was enough to convince the Mets to sign Swarzak to a two-year, $14MM contract in the ensuing offseason. However, thanks in part to oblique and shoulder problems, his career has gone off the rails since then.
Swarzak only lasted a year with the Mets, who traded him to the Mariners in the teams’ Robinson Cano/Edwin Diaz blockbuster in December 2018. And he barely pitched for the Mariners, who dealt him to the Braves for fellow relievers Arodys Vizcaino and Jesse Biddle last May. Swarzak could only muster a 5.08 ERA/5.63 FIP with 9.63 K/9 and 4.63 BB/9 in a combined 79 2/3 innings among the three teams. The well-traveled veteran will now presumably look to catch on with yet another club.
Justin Grimm, Logan Morrison To Make Brewers’ Opening Day Roster
6:01PM: Right-hander Justin Grimm has also been told he will make Milwaukee’s roster, MLB Network’s Jon Heyman tweets. Grimm signed a minors contract last December, and will thus also require a 40-man roster spot before being officially selected.
Grimm posted solid numbers over 180 1/3 innings out of the Cubs bullpen from 2013-16, including a 4.10 ERA over 52 2/3 frames for Chicago’s 2016 World Series championship club. Since that memorable year, however, Grimm has struggled, and he didn’t pitch in the big leagues at all in 2019.
11:00AM: The Brewers plan to add Logan Morrison to the Opening Day roster, reports Robert Murray (Twitter link). He’ll need to be added to the 40-man roster. Morrison signed a minor-league deal with the club in January.
The 32-year-old has impressed both in the spring and into summer training camp since arriving as a non-roster invitee. He did hit 3 home runs in 33 Spring Training plate appearances, though it would be rash to draw conclusions from such a small showing. Of course, Craig Counsell and the Brewers have seen more good signs to warrant including him as part of their Opening Day 30.
With Justin Smoak in the fold and slotted in as the regular first baseman, Morrison doesn’t figure into the Brewers’ everyday starting lineup, though he’ll be the first off the bench if Smoak needs a day off. Ryan Braun is in line to get the lion’s share of at-bats at DH, but with Braun’s status for Opening Day questionable due to soreness, Morrison could see an expanded role early in the season.
The last two seasons have been unequivocally disappointing for Morrison, who’s not far removed from a 38-homer showing with the Rays in 2017. Since then, he’s bounced between a few teams, making stops with the Twins, Yankees, and Phillies, but he hasn’t caught on anywhere. Last year, he appeared in just 29 games for the Phils and posted a dismal .663 OPS. He posted solid numbers at the Triple-A level, hitting .308/.369/.640, but the Major League production has not been there. Of course, the Brewers will look to unlock a version of Morrison closer to his 2017 self, and if that happens, he could be a real bargain-bin find for the Brew Crew.
Dodgers Add 3 To Player Pool, Activate Pedro Baez From Injured List
Outfielder Terrance Gore and infielders Kody Hoese and Devin Mann have all been added to the Dodgers’ 60-man player pool, MLB.com’s Ken Gurnick reports (Twitter link). In other roster news, right-hander Pedro Baez was already in the player pool but has now been activated from the 10-day injured list.
There is some mystery to the Baez news, as Gurnick notes that the team hadn’t previously announced that Baez was on the IL, or why he had been absent from Summer Camp. The lack of information inevitably leads to COVID-19 speculation (whether Baez tested positive for the virus or perhaps was just held up by a delay in getting test results back), though we won’t know for certain unless Baez agrees for such information to be made public.
Whatever the case, the Dodgers bullpen will be bolstered by the return of a pitcher who become a key part of the relief corps. The 32-year-old has a 3.03 ERA, 3.15 K/BB rate, and 9.5 K/9 over 339 career relief innings for Los Angeles, and delivered just a touch below those career norms over 69 2/3 frames in 2019. Dodgers manager Dave Roberts told Gurnick and other media that Baez is expected to be ready for Opening Day, and will throw a simulated game against teammates at some point this week.
Of the new players joining the player pool, Gore is the best-known name, as the outfielder has appeared in 100 Major League games over the last six seasons. The majority of that experience has come as a pinch-running specialist, as Gore has only 77 plate appearances (and a career .608 OPS) to his resume, though he has stolen 40 bases from 49 attempts. That total jumps to 45-for-55 if you count postseason games, and Gore was a valuable bench piece for the Royals in their back-to-back trips to the World Series in 2014 and 2015.
Hoese was selected 25th overall in the 2019 draft, and the Tulane product has a .299/.380/.483 slash line over 171 plate appearances as a pro. Since Hoese has yet to play above the A-ball level, his inclusion in the player pool is likely more about getting him some high-level reps in training camp than it will be about potentially making his MLB debut in short order. The same could be true of Mann, a fifth-round pick in 2018 who has also yet to advance beyond high-A. Hoese and Mann rank seventh and 22nd, respectively, on MLB Pipeline’s list of the top 30 Dodgers prospects.