Royals Release Wily Peralta
July 24: Peralta has cleared release waivers and is now a free agent, per a club announcement.
July 22: The Royals announced that they have requested unconditional release waivers on right-hander Wily Peralta. He’d been designated for assignment over the weekend.
Peralta, 30, has pitched to an ugly 5.80 ERA with a similarly unsightly 24-to-19 K/BB ratio in 40 1/3 innings this season. He’s been tagged for seven home runs on the year and seen his fastball velocity drop from an average of 96.2 mph in 2018 to 94.4 mph in 2019.
Peralta did post a 3.67 ERA through 34 1/3 innings in his first season with Kansas City in 2018. However, the former Brewers hurler also averaged an untenable 6.0 walks per nine innings pitched with unfavorable ratings from fielding-independent metrics (4.73 FIP, 4.66 xFIP, 4.67 SIERA). That didn’t deter the Royals from bringing him back for a second season at a guarantee of $3.25MM. He’s still owed just under $847K of this year’s $2.25MM base salary in addition to a $1MM buyout on a 2020 mutual option.
That salary obligation and this year’s poor results make him a sure thing to clear release waivers and become a free agent on Wednesday. At that point, he’ll be free to sign with any club and will only be owed the prorated portion of the league minimum for any time spent in the Majors. The Royals will remain on the hook for the rest of his salary and the option buyout.
Braves To Select Contract Of Jeremy Walker
The Braves will select the contract of right-hander Jeremy Walker, per MLB.com’s Mark Bowman (via Twitter). Walker will be activated for tonight’s contest, taking the place of optioned righty Wes Parsons.
Walker put himself on the MLB radar with a strong showing to open the year in the upper minors. Previously a starter, the former fifth-round pick has functioned in a multi-inning relief capacity this season.
The results have been fairly compelling. Through 69 2/3 innings over 26 total appearances, Walker carries a 2.84 ERA with 9.2 K/9 and just 1.0 BB/9. He has generated grounders on well over half of the balls put in play against him and allowed just a pair of homers this season.
While it seems Walker is well-positioned to take his first crack at the majors, and he’d have needed a 40-man roster spot next fall for Rule 5 protection, adding him now will certainly impact the number of slots the club has to work with as it tweaks its roster in advance of the trade deadline. Improving the back of the pen still seems like a priority. Whether the team will end up jettisoning some veterans and/or trading valuable youngsters from its 40-man remains to be seen.
Mariners Release Eric Young Jr.
The Mariners released outfielder Eric Young Jr. over the weekend, Tacoma Rainiers broadcaster Mike Curto reports. Young had been with the Mariners’ Triple-A club in Tacoma after inking a minor league contract in late March.
The speedy Young entered 2019 having logged major league action in each season since he made his debut in 2009. But the 34-year-old never reached the bigs with the Mariners, instead struggling through a nightmarish stint in Tacoma. Young only managed a .236/.296/.362 line, good for a 57 wRC+, with two home runs and three stolen bases in 142 plate appearances before exiting the Rainiers’ roster. Historically, however, Young has been a solid contributor in Triple-A ball. He’s a .289/.371/.413 hitter with 29 HRs and 167 steals across 2,480 PA at that level.
Young has amassed just under 2,000 PA in the majors, where he has combined for 1,926 with the Rockies, Mets, Braves, Yankees and Angels. He has batted .245/.312/.332 with 13 homers and 162 steals in MLB.
Dodgers Outright Rocky Gale
The Dodgers have outrighted catcher Rocky Gale off the 40-man roster, Ken Gurnick of MLB.com tweets. The move drops the club’s 40-man roster to a total of 38 players.
Gale, 31, went 2-for-15 in a brief stint with the Dodgers earlier this season but has spent the bulk of the season in Triple-A Oklahoma City, where he’s batted .250/.303/.370 in 109 plate appearances. He’s spent the season as the primary backup to top catching prospect Will Smith in Triple-A, but the recent promotion of fellow top catching prospect Keibert Ruiz to Oklahoma City has further reduced Gale’s role on the roster.
Gale has appeared in 22 big league games between the Padres and Dodgers, though he’s received just 37 plate appearances in that time (and hit .108/.108/.189). The former ninth-round pick is a lifetime .277/.315/.359 in parts of nine Triple-A seasons.
Mariners Place Dee Gordon On IL, Designate Parker Markel For Assignment
6:25pm: Manager Scott Servais told reporters that Gordon will be out at least a couple of weeks (Twitter link via Ryan Divish of the Seattle Times). An MRI revealed a strain that is worse than a typical Grade 1 strain but not quite a Grade 2 strain.
4:55pm: The Mariners announced on Tuesday that they’ve placed infielder Dee Gordon on the 10-day injured list due to a left quad strain and selected the contract of infielder Tim Lopes from Triple-A Tacoma. In a corresponding 40-man move, right-hander Parker Markel was designated for assignment.
The injury to Gordon makes the already-difficult task of trading him now all the more problematic. Gordon was already a tough sell, given a lackluster .280/.306/.367 batting line and a hefty $19.3MM still owed to him between now and the end of the 2020 season. Add in a quadriceps injury for a player whose entire game is built on speed, and it’s difficult to see much in the way of legitimate interest in Gordon formulating.
Perhaps a contending club would actually be intrigued by the possibility of carrying Gordon on the IL into September, when rosters expand to 28 players, but for that to even be realistic, the Mariners would need to include a substantial amount of cash to offset his remaining salary.
Lopes, 25, is in his second stint with the Seattle organization and will be making his MLB debut this time around. Seattle originally with its sixth-round pick back in 2012, but he was traded to the Blue Jays at the PTBNL in 2016’s Pat Venditte swap. Lopes landed back in Seattle as a minor league free agent this winter and is enjoying a career year in Triple-A. Through 403 trips to the plate, he’s hitting .302/.362/.480 with 10 homers, 30 doubles, two triples and 24 steals (in 33 tries). He’s not in the lineup tonight but should make his debut in the near future.
Markel, 28, made his own MLB debut earlier this season, but he didn’t find much success in his limited audition. The righty tossed 4 2/3 innings but yielded nine runs (eight earned) on 10 hits, four walks and a hit batter with three punchouts. Markel has vastly more intriguing numbers in the minors, where he’s posted a 2.04 ERA with 62 strikeouts in 35 1/3 innings between Double-A and Triple-A. He’s also issued 23 walks in that time (5.9 BB/9), hit two batters and tossed 11 wild pitches. Control is clearly an issue for Markel, but he’s missing bats at a level he’s never come close to previously approaching, which could prompt a different organization to take a look.
Cubs Select Tim Collins
The Cubs announced that they’ve selected the contract of lefty reliever Tim Collins from Triple-A Iowa. Right-hander Alec Mills was optioned down to make room on the active roster. Chicago had an open spot on its 40-man roster.
Collins, 29, was with the Cubs earlier this season and tossed 7 2/3 frames. He surrendered three runs on nine hits and three walks with four strikeouts in that time before being designated for assignment last month and returning to the team’s Triple-A upon clearing outright waivers. In 27 innings with Iowa this year, Collins has a 4.67 ERA with 37 strikeouts against 16 walks. Opposing lefties have batted just .167/.268/.333 against him in 2019, althought right-handers have tagged him for a .256/.347/.537 line.
The Cubs are known to be on the hunt for additional left-handed bullpen help, and if they’re able to find an upgrade on the trade market, Collins’ latest stay with the big league club could be similarly brief. For now, he’ll at the very least give manager Joe Maddon a matchup specialist to use late in games.
Rockies Designate Seunghwan Oh For Assignment, Select Yonder Alonso
The Rockies have selected the contract of veteran first baseman Yonder Alonso from Triple-A, per a club announcement. In order to clear roster space, Colorado optioned right-hander Yency Almonte to Triple-A and designated right-hander Seunghwan Oh for assignment.
Oh recently underwent season-ending elbow surgery, so his subtraction from the 40-man roster is a formality. He’s in the final season of his contract and, in all likelihood, will be released in the coming days. Whether he opts for another season in the U.S. is entirely his call, but Oh recently turned 37 and reportedly contemplated returning to South Korea this past offseason.
The 32-year-old Alonso was released by the White Sox after a miserable half season in Chicago but quickly latched on with the Rockies. He’s raked at a .419/.500/.774 clip with two homers, three doubles and a triple in 38 plate appearances down in Albuquerque and will look to bounce back in hopes of securing a big league deal in free agency this winter. Alonso may only have batted .178/.275/.301 in 251 trips to the plate with the ChiSox, but he hit a combined .257/.340/.458 with the A’s, Mariners and Indians across the 2017-18 seasons.
Rays Designate Ian Gibaut For Assignment, Place Yandy Diaz On IL
The Rays announced that they’ve designated right-hander Ian Gibaut for assignment. His spot on the roster will go to third baseman Matt Duffy, who has been reinstated from the 60-day injured list. Tampa Bay also placed corner infielder Yandy Diaz on the 10-day IL due to a foot injury.
Gibaut, 25, spent the first two months of the season on the minor league injured list but returned in early June and made his MLB debut earlier this month. In 12 1/3 innings in the minors this season, Gibaut allowed 10 runs (only four earned) on 12 hits and 11 walks with 17 strikeouts. He also yielded a pair of runs in his two-inning MLB debut.
That said, Gibaut pitched well enough in 2018 that the Rays protected him from the Rule 5 Draft by adding him to the 40-man roster in the offseason. Last year in Triple-A, Gibaut logged a 2.09 ERA with 12.1 K/9, 3.4 BB/9, 0.48 HR/9 and an even 47 percent ground-ball rate. Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times tweets that the Rays have already heard from clubs expressing interest in Gibaut, and they expect to be able to trade the righty.
It’s not yet clear how long Diaz will be sidelined. Topkin tweets that the slugger is on crutches at the moment with what the team has termed to be a bruise, but Diaz is still in a good amount of pain. The fact that there’s no break or structural damage in his foot is obviously encouraging, however. A speedy return would prove most beneficial for the Rays, as their under-the-radar acquisition of Diaz looks like one of the offseason’s best moves for the team. In 344 plate appearances, he’s hitting .270/.343/.480 with 14 homers, 20 doubles and a triple.
The 28-year-old Duffy will be making his season debut after missing nearly four months due to a hamstring injury. Acquired in the trade that sent Matt Moore to the Giants, Duffy’s Rays tenure has been punctuated by injury. It’s been nearly three years to the day since Duffy was traded, but he’s only been able to suit up for 153 games. He’s been productive in that time (.292/.354/.364) and is regarded as a strong defender on the left side of the infield, but his acquisition has yet to yield significant dividends — at least, not to the extent the organization had hoped.
Phillies Outright Fernando Salas
1:55pm: Salas has accepted the outright assignment, tweets MLBTR’s Steve Adams.
12:46pm: The Phillies announced today that righty Fernando Salas has been outrighted to Triple-A after clearing waivers. He had been designated for assignment recently.
Despite throwing forty innings last year with the D-Backs, Salas opened the current season in the Mexican League before joining the Phillies on a minors pact. The 34-year-old ultimately received a three-game audition with the Phils, but the results weren’t promising. Opposing batters were as likely to get a base knock as to make an out, rapping eight hits and plating two runs in his 2 2/3 innings of work.
It is not clear at this point whether Salas will elect to remain with the Philadelphia organization, but he’ll have an opportunity instead to return to the open market. Through nearly five hundred career innings at the game’s highest level, he carries a 3.91 ERA with 8.7 K/9 and 2.7 BB/9.
Angels Release Matt Harvey
July 23: Harvey is now officially a free agent after clearing waivers, the Angels announced.
July 21: The Angels have requested unconditional release waivers on right-handed pitcher Matt Harvey, according to Rhett Bollinger of MLB.com. The move comes after Harvey was designated for assignment on Friday.
Thus continues a frustrating season for Harvey, who earned an $11MM contract from the Halos, representing an opportunity to re-establish himself as a viable rotation option after injuries derailed his career. Unfortunately, though, the contract has been a disaster for the playoff-hopeful Angels, who have by all measures received negative value from their one-year investment: Harvey’s ERA has ballooned to 7.09, the worst of his career. Other indicators paint a similar picture: with a 6.36 FIP and a .390 xwOBA, the Angels had little reason to continue trotting Harvey out to the mound every fifth day.
Harvey has seen his fastball velocity take yet another step back this season, continuing a trend that began after his peak in 2013. In 2019, Harvey’s fastball has averaged 93.68 mph per Brooks Baseball, a far cry from the 96.96 mark he posted in his All-Star season. While the former number still comes in slightly above average, the declining velocity mirrors an overall trend in Harvey’s performance, with his strikeout rate declining to a career-worst 14.7%. That, coupled with a walk rate that is likewise trending in the wrong direction, has led to an abysmal 1.34 K:BB ratio.
With his Angels tenure now in the rear-view, it will be intriguing to monitor Harvey’s status in free agency. Given the prodigious success that he enjoyed early in his career, it seems likely that several teams will have interest in taking a flyer on the veteran, especially at a much more affordable price; in light of his recent performance, Harvey may only garner a minor-league deal. Perhaps teams would be interested in converting Harvey to a bullpen role in hopes that his stuff would play up, though it’s unclear if Harvey himself would be open to such a change. The Mets experimented with Harvey as a reliever prior to his departure in 2018, though he only made four appearances, making it hard to draw any conclusions about his viability out of the bullpen.