Braves Release Garrett Cooper, Jordan Weems
The Braves released a pair of veterans who’d been playing with their Triple-A affiliates on minor league contracts: first baseman/outfielder Garrett Cooper and right-handed reliever Jordan Weems. Both moves are reflected on the transaction log at MiLB.com.
Cooper, 34, is a veteran of eight big league seasons. He was a regular with the Marlins when healthy from 2019-22, quietly delivering a sharp .274/.350/.444 batting line in 1273 plate appearances over that stretch. Cooper was snakebit by injuries over that four-year period, however, spending time on the injured list due to wrist, hand, elbow and back injuries. He also missed time with a concussion and suffered a broken finger in the final days of the 2022 season.
Miami traded Cooper to San Diego at the ’23 deadline — a deal netting them lefty Ryan Weathers — and Cooper became a free agent at season’s end. He appeared in 36 big league games with the Cubs and Red Sox last year but hit just .206/.267/.299 in 116 plate appearances.
The early returns on Cooper’s minor league deal with Atlanta were good. He opened the season hitting .244/.426/.415 and drew 11 walks in his first 54 plate appearances (20.4%). He’s fallen into a slump since, slashing just .220/.238/.256 with two walks and only three extra-base hits (all doubles) in his 84 most recent plate appearances.
Cooper’s last full, productive season was in 2022, but he was a nearly average bat in 2023 and has a track record of some length in the majors. He’s a career .265/.333/.427 hitter overall, and his right-handed bat plays particularly well against lefties: .283/.333/.468. Teams looking for help at first base — such as Cooper’s old Red Sox club — or just a veteran bat on the bench could take a speculative look now that he’s a free agent.
Similarly, the 32-year-old Weems had a nice start in Gwinnett before falling into a rough patch. The former A’s and Nationals righty tossed 9 2/3 innings with a 2.79 ERA and 12-to-5 K/BB ratio in April but has now yielded runs in five of his past six outings. Since the calendar flipped to May, Weems has surrendered seven earned runs in eight frames and fanned just 15.4% of opponents (compared to 29.3% in April). He’s now sitting on a 5.09 ERA in 17 2/3 innings this year.
Weems has logged big league time in each of the past five seasons and was a consistent presence in the Nats’ bullpen from 2022-24. His year-to-year ERA marks were a rollercoaster that evened out with a combined 5.03 through 136 innings during his time in D.C. The righty fanned 23% of opponents against a 10.8% walk rate with Washington.
Weems’ best year both with the Nationals and in his major league career on the whole came in 2023, when he pitched 54 2/3 innings with a 3.62 earned run average, a 25.7% strikeout rate and a 12.4% walk rate. Manager Dave Martinez typically used Weems in lower-leverage middle relief situations throughout his time as a National.
Braves Activate Spencer Strider
May 19: The Braves announced this morning that Strider has been reinstated. Dodd was optioned to Triple-A Gwinnett in a corresponding move.
May 18: The Braves optioned right-hander Bryce Elder to the minor leagues to call up southpaw Dylan Dodd earlier this weekend. The 2023 All-Star had a middling 4.50 ERA and 4.92 FIP in eight starts in the majors to this point in the season, so the club’s decision to send Elder to Triple-A is hardly a shock. That said, it’s still notable given that it opens up a spot in the rotation behind Chris Sale, Spencer Schwellenbach, AJ Smith-Shawver, and Grant Holmes.
At first glance, Dodd seems like the obvious candidate to take that role considering that the lefty has started seven of his eight MLB appearances so far in his career. Dodd has moved to the bullpen full time at Triple-A this year, however, and Mark Bowman of MLB.com reported today that right-hander Spencer Strider is actually the one who will take Elder’s spot in the rotation after he’s activated from the injured list on May 20.
The 26-year-old missed nearly all of last season after undergoing internal brace surgery on his UCL early last year. The righty made it back to the big league mound just over a month ago and struck out five across five innings of one-run ball, but suffered a hamstring injury shortly thereafter while playing catch in preparation for his second start of the season. Rather than take any chances with Strider pitching on a balky hamstring, Atlanta placed him back on the injured list, where he’s remained for the past month.
Now, it appears Strider is finally poised to take his second start of the 2025 season. It was reported last week that Strider was scheduled to throw a 70-to-75 pitch simulated game in preparation for his return to action, at which point the club would decide whether to send him on a short rehab assignment or activate him directly off of the injured list. It seems they’ve opted to go with the latter option in order to get Strider back to the majors as quickly as possible. A disastrous 0-7 start to the season has become little more than a bad memory, as the 24-23 Braves are just four games back of a playoff spot and five games back of the Mets in the NL East.
That’s hardly an insurmountable deficit, particularly for a club that’s hoping to get a healthy, vintage performance from Strider the rest of the way. The hard-throwing righty was among the best pitchers in baseball in his first two MLB seasons as he posted a 3.36 ERA with a 2.43 FIP and a 37.4% strikeout rate from 2022 to 2023. If he can offer anything close to that sort of a production for a rotation that already features the reigning NL Triple Crown winner in Sale and a pair of electric young arms in Schwellenbach and Smith-Shawver, Atlanta should be a force to be reckoned with moving forward this year before even considering the fact that Ronald Acuna Jr.‘s own return may be just around the corner or that All-Stars Ozzie Albies and Michael Harris II have yet to produce offensively this year.
Mets Release Billy McKinney
The Mets have released outfielder Billy McKinney from his minor league contract with the club, as noted by Anthony DiComo of MLB.com. McKinney signed a minor league deal with the club back in March.
Selected 24th overall by Oakland back in 2013, McKinney was once a consensus top-100 prospect who was included in two major trades before making his big league debut: first he was part of the package (headlined by Addison Russell) that the Cubs received in return for Jeff Samardzija and Jason Hammel from the A’s, and then just two years later he was part of the package (headlined by Gleyber Torres) that Chicago sent to the Bronx in exchange for Aroldis Chapman. After that whirlwind of trades, McKinney finally settled in with the Yankees long enough to make his big league debut during the 2018 season.
Unfortunately, by that point McKinney’s top prospect shine had already worn off. He made it into just two games with the Yankees before being traded once again, this time to the Blue Jays alongside Brandon Drury in exchange for J.A. Happ. He spent three years with Toronto in total and got into a combined 122 games during that time while slashing .230/.291/.439. He was DFA’d by the Jays following the 2020 season, however, and spent 2021 bouncing between multiple clubs. He ultimately appeared in a career-high 116 games that year but hit just .192/.280/.358 across 300 plate appearances with the Brewers, Mets, and Dodgers before being non-tendered by the Rangers that November.
A return to Oakland on a minor league deal in 2022 did not go well, but McKinney’s return to the Bronx in 2023 injected some life back into his career when he hit a solid .227/.320/.406 after being selected to the roster in June of that year following an injury suffered by Aaron Judge. McKinney’s roughly league average performance did not keep him on the club’s 40-man roster throughout the offseason, however, and he was outrighted off the 40-man and elected free agency that November. He initially re-signed with the Yankees on a minor league deal but was traded to the Pirates shortly thereafter. He hit .299/.406/.460 at the Triple-A level for the Pirates before being called up to the majors in August, though his lackluster 52 wRC+ in ten games wasn’t close to enough to earn him a more stable role with the organization.
After being outrighted last September and once again electing free agency, McKinney found himself unsigned until late March, when he landed with the Mets on the aforementioned minor league pact. Now in his age-30 season, McKinney struggled even with the club’s Syracuse affiliate this year, hitting just .184/.285/.307 across 130 trips to the plate in 33 games at the Triple-A level. That was enough for the Mets to decide to part ways with McKinney, and he’ll now return to free agency in search of a fresh opportunity elsewhere. As a depth option with the ability to handle first base and all three outfield spots, it’s not hard to imagine a club bringing him in on a fresh minor league deal, whether that’s to see if they can tap into the potential that made him a top prospect a decade ago or simply to fill out their Triple-A depth chart.
Royals Purchase John Gant’s Contract
The Royals have purchased the contract of right-hander John Gant from the Atlantic League’s Long Island Ducks, according to a report from Robert Murray of Fansided. Gant will report to club’s Triple-A affiliate in Omaha.
It’s an exciting turn of events of Gant, who last pitched in the majors back in 2021 and hasn’t pitched much since. A 21st-round pick by the Mets all the way back in 2011, Gant was traded twice before he fully established himself in the majors: once from New York to Atlanta in the 2015 Juan Uribe trade, and a second time from Atlanta to St. Louis prior to the 2017 season in exchange for Jaime García. In between those two deals, Gant made his big league debut and pitched to a 4.86 ERA with a 4.39 FIP in a 50-inning cup of coffee with the Braves during the 2016 season.
The majority of Gant’s time in the majors came as a member of the Cardinals, however. The right-hander made just seven appearances with the club in 2017 but was a fixture of the club’s pitching staff as soon as the 2018 season, when he posted a 3.47 ERA (112 ERA+) in 114 innings of work spread across 19 starts and seven relief outings. His 4.07 FIP and pedestrian 19.5% strikeout rate both stood out as potential red flags about his abilities in that role, however, and so the Cardinals moved him to the bullpen full time ahead of the 2019 campaign. Gant spent two years as a full-time reliever for the Cards, and pitched quite well in that time with a 3.43 ERA (123 ERA+) and a matching 3.44 FIP thanks to a more robust 23.6% strikeout rate.
That strong performance in relief was enough to earn Gant another crack at starting in 2021, and it went fairly well early in the season. On June 1 of that year, Gant pitched six scoreless frames to lower his ERA to 1.60 on the year through 50 2/3 innings of work. That impressive figure was belied by a 4.02 FIP, but even replicating that figure the rest of the way would have been enough to make Gant a solid mid-rotation arm. Unfortunately, Gant was torched for 18 runs across 14 innings in his final four starts of the year for the Cardinals before moving back to the bullpen. With a 1.54 ERA (albeit one that was once again paired with a lackluster FIP of 4.71) in 11 relief appearances, Gant’s value was able to recover enough that the Cardinals swapped him to the Twins for veteran southpaw J.A. Happ at the trade deadline.
Gant pitched decently in seven relief outings for Minnesota but floundered once moved back into the rotation for the stretch run, surrendering a 6.12 ERA in 25 innings of work across seven starts in August and September. The Twins decided to cut bait on the righty after the 2021 season, and he elected free agency after clearing outright waivers that November. Once he became a free agent, he signed with the NPB’s Nippon-Ham Fighters to play in Japan during the 2022 season. Unfortunately, he was largely sidelined for the 2022-24 seasons, making just three appearances for the Fighters in 2023 and missing the other two seasons in that window entirely.
He’s re-emerged with the Ducks in 2025, however, and in his age-32 campaign he’s looked dominant with a 1.71 ERA across four starts while striking out 35.5% of opponents. Independent league play is obviously a far cry from the majors, but that level of dominance was still enough to get the attention of a Royals club in need of some extra starting pitching depth after losing Seth Lugo and Cole Ragans to the injured list this weekend.
Marlins Place Xavier Edwards On 10-Day Injured List
The Marlins announced that shortstop Xavier Edwards has been placed on the 10-day injured list (retroactive to May 15) due to a left mid-back strain. Infielder Otto Lopez will take Edwards’ spot on the active roster, as Lopez was reinstated from his own IL stint after missing just two weeks due to an ankle sprain. Lopez and Javier Sanoja figure to handle shortstop duties while Edwards is sidelined.
As indicated by the retroactive placement, Edwards has missed Miami’s last couple of games with his bad back. Manager Clayton McCullough said yesterday that imaging didn’t reveal anything structurally wrong and that Edwards was going to test things out with some baseball activities, but clearly the infielder wasn’t yet good enough to return to action. It might be that the team decided to simply give Edwards the full 10 days to rest and recover, rather than bring him back in any kind of rushed fashion.
Edwards was a well-regarded prospect during his time in the Padres’ and Rays’ farm systems, but he didn’t make his MLB debut until he joined the Marlins in 2023. He got a good run of regular shortstop playing time in 2024 and responded by hitting .328/.397/.423 over 303 plate appearances and stealing 31 bases (in 35 attempts), but Edwards’ numbers have dipped to a .263/.337/.292 slash line in 194 PA this year. The dropoff in slugging percentage is eye-opening, yet since Edwards has never been a big power hitter, the reduced average and OBP may be bigger obstacles to his game.
Dodgers Place Kirby Yates On 15-Day IL, Select Lou Trivino
2:19PM: Yates has been officially placed on the 15-day IL with a right hamstring strain, and the Dodgers also announced Trivino’s selection.
12:21PM: The Dodgers will select Lou Trivino‘s contract when Yates is placed on the 15-day IL, the Athletic’s Fabian Ardaya reports. Trivino posted a 5.84 ERA over 12 1/3 innings with the Giants before he was designated for assignment, and Trivino subsequently elected free agency after clearing waivers. Los Angeles signed Trivino to a minor league contract last week, and he’ll head to the Dodgers’ roster on the heel of just one appearance (and one scoreless inning) with Triple-A Oklahoma City.
8:05AM: Dodgers right-hander Kirby Yates was pulled from Saturday’s game due to what was initially described by the team as right hamstring tightness, and later specified as a probable Grade 1 hamstring strain by manager Dave Roberts. “I don’t see how it’s not an IL [situation],” Roberts told Bill Plunkett of the Orange County Register and other reporters in postgame interviews, though Yates will get an MRI today to evaluate the severity of the injury.
It was a rough night all around for Yates, as the reliever was charged with three runs over a third of an inning pitched and was credited as the losing pitcher in the Dodgers’ 11-9 loss to the Angels. Yates retired just one of five batters faced, and after throwing a fourth ball and walking Jo Adell, Yates grabbed at his right hamstring and was in obvious discomfort on the mound.
That single tough outing boosted Yates’ ERA to 4.34 over 18 2/3 innings this season, but a .385 BABIP has contributed heavily to that inflated ERA. With a 1.90 SIERA, .282 xwOBA (which far below his .358 wOBA), and a 38.8% strikeout rate that is among the best in baseball, Yates has been perhaps more effective in 2025 than even during his 2024 comeback season with the Rangers, even if the bottom-line numbers have yet to reflect his performance.
Unfortunately, Yates’ hard luck looks to now continue with a trip to the Dodgers’ ever-crowded 15-day injured list. Yates would be the 14th pitcher on the Los Angeles IL, and that number expands to 15 if you count Shohei Ohtani‘s continued recovery from UCL surgery. In terms of high-leverage relievers, Yates would join Evan Phillips, Michael Kopech, and Blake Treinen on the sidelines, further thinning out the Dodgers’ list of late-game options.
Assuming Yates indeed goes on the 15-day IL today, Los Angeles will probably have to call up a reliever from Triple-A just to bring a fresh arm into the pen, since five relievers were used in Saturday’s game. While navigating multiple pitching injuries has become routine for the Dodgers in recent years, one wonders if the sheer attrition will catch up to the team at some point, particularly in a 2025 season that sees L.A. battling with three competitive foes (the Padres, Giants, and Diamondbacks) in the NL West alone.
Dodgers Release Chris Taylor
The Dodgers announced that outfielder Chris Taylor has been released, in order to open up roster space for Tommy Edman‘s activation from the 10-day injured list. Edman returns after missing a little more than two weeks due to ankle inflammation, but the bigger headline is the end of Taylor’s nine-year run in Dodger Blue.
The Athletic’s Fabian Ardaya initially reported that Taylor had been designated for assignment, and Ardaya and several other members of the Dodgers beat noted that Taylor didn’t have a locker in the team’s clubhouse today, but the transaction was a straight release, rather than what might’ve been a token stay for Taylor in DFA limbo. Since obviously no team was going to claim Taylor off waivers and take on the remainder of his salary, the Dodgers instead chose to just cut ties more promptly.
Taylor came to the Dodgers back in June 2016, as the return in an under-the-radar trade that sent Zach Lee to the Mariners. Taylor was a useful utility infield piece for L.A. over the remainder of that season, but the full breakout didn’t come until the next season, when Taylor suddenly hit .288/.354/.496 with 21 homers over 568 regular-season plate appearances, and then won NLCS MVP honors to help the Dodgers reach the World Series. He went onto deliver solidly above-average numbers through the 2021 season, and then re-signed with the team on a four-year, $60MM free agent deal that also includes a $12MM club option (and $4MM buyout) for 2026.
Things weren’t the same after that big long-term deal was inked. Taylor hit .265/.343/.461 over 2382 PA from 2017-21, but that production plummeted to a .222/.307/.369 slash line over 1119 PA since Opening Day 2022. A decrease in playing time naturally followed, and by this season, Taylor had become a sparingly used bench piece on the star-studded Los Angeles roster, appearing in 28 games but with only 35 trips to the plate.
While his struggles over the last few seasons have marred the end of his Dodgers tenure, Taylor (who turns 35 in August) has unquestionably been a big figure in the team’s success over the last decade. Taylor became something of a poster child for the Dodgers’ ability for getting great results out of previously unheralded players, and his ability to play all over the diamond made him a valuable utility option. Taylor has made at least 174 MLB appearances as a shortstop, second baseman, left fielder, and center fielder, plus he has also logged plenty of time in right field and at third base. His NLCS MVP award and two World Series rings were the highlights of a postseason career that saw Taylor bat .247/.351/.441 over 266 playoff plate appearances.
There is some irony that Taylor’s release came at the same time as Edman’s return from the IL, as Edman has essentially taken over Taylor’s old role as a multi-position threat. With Enrique Hernandez, Miguel Rojas, and the newly-signed Hyeseong Kim now all getting more playing time or taking up room on the bench, the Dodgers decided it was time to move on from Taylor entirely.
Los Angeles owes Taylor the remainder of his $13MM salary for 2025 (roughly $9.55MM still to go), as well as the $4MM buyout of his 2026 option. If another team signs Taylor, that club will owe him only the prorated MLB minimum salary for any time he spends on their active roster. That sum will be subtracted from the remainder of the money the Dodgers owe to Taylor.
Angels Announce Three Roster Moves
The Angels announced three moves this afternoon, including Jose Fermin‘s placement (retroactive to May 15) on the 15-day injured list due to an impingement in his right elbow. Los Angeles selected Hunter Strickland‘s contract from Triple-A, and also designated infielder Ryan Noda for assignment to open up a spot on the 40-man roster.
Noda, 29, ends his tenure with the Angels without making an appearance with the big league club. The infielder was plucked out of the Dodgers organization by the Athletics in the Rule 5 draft prior to the 2023 season. Noda made that pick look like a brilliant move during his first season in Oakland, hitting .229/.364/.406 with 16 homers, 22 doubles, and a 122 wRC+ while serving as the A’s primary first baseman that year. With that being said, a 34.3% strikeout rate raised real long-term concerns even as he was producing at an above-average clip.
Given that, it was hardly a surprise when he struggled badly in his sophomore season as a major leaguer. Noda’s age-28 campaign saw him hit just .137/.255/.211 (44 wRC+) in 111 trips to the plate as he spent most of the season at Triple-A. Following the 2024 season, the A’s placed him on waivers and he found himself claimed by the Angels off waivers. With that being said, Noda did not make the club out of Spring Training and has failed to hit even at the Triple-A level with a .148/.364/.270 slash line in 38 games for the club’s affiliate. That was evidently enough for the Angels to feel comfortable pulling the plug on Noda, and they’ll now have one week to either work out a trade involving the infielder or try to pass him through waivers.
Noda’s departure creates room on the roster for Strickland, a veteran of ten MLB seasons already who made his big league debut with the Giants all the way back in 2014. Strickland was a solid late-inning relief arm early in his career with San Francisco, pitching to a 2.91 ERA and 3.40 FIP while racking up 19 saves in parts of five seasons. Things have been up and down in the years since then, however, with a 4.18 ERA and 4.73 FIP from 2019 to 2022 including a 2021 season where he pitched to a strong 2.61 ERA despite bouncing between three different teams over the course of the season. Last year, Strickland was a largely adequate middle reliever for the Angels with a 3.31 ERA in 73 1/3 innings of work despite a 4.45 FIP. He signed with the Rangers organization on a minor league deal over the winter but returned to the Angels earlier this month and will now get a shot in the club’s bullpen once again in 2025. In doing so, he’ll replace Fermin, a 23-year-old rookie with 7 2/3 innings of 5.87 ERA ball to his name in the majors so far.
Braves Claim Kevin Herget
The Braves announced that right-hander Kevin Herget has been claimed off waivers from the Mets and been assigned to Triple-A Gwinnett. The Mets designated Herget for assignment on Thursday.
Herget came to New York on another waiver claim off the Brewers’ roster back in November, and his time with the Amazins ended up consisting of two innings in the Mets’ 8-3 win over the Diamondbacks on April 29. Herget was called up to the active roster that same day and optioned back to Triple-A the following day. His work at Triple-A Syracuse has seen Herget post a 2.87 ERA in 15 2/3 relief innings, but with some uninspiring peripheral numbers.
While he has now appeared in each of the last four MLB seasons, Herget hasn’t gotten much of an extended look, as his big league resume consists of 44 2/3 total innings of 4.63 ERA ball across 25 games with four different teams. A veteran of 14 pro seasons that includes a long stint in the Cardinals organization and a couple of stops in independent ball, Herget offers plenty of experience and some pretty decent numbers as a minor leaguer.
Atlanta becomes the latest team to get a look at the 34-year-old, and Herget becomes the latest in a very long line of veteran relievers the Braves have auditioned throughout Spring Training and into the season. The revolving door hasn’t brought much consistency to a bullpen that still around the middle of the pack in overall production, yet the Braves have had some luck in the past at finding hidden gems amongst less-heralded pitchers.
Astros Claim Jason Alexander From Athletics
The Athletics announced that right-hander Jason Alexander has been claimed off waivers by the Astros. Alexander was designated for assignment by the West Sacramento club earlier this week.
Signed to a minor league deal back in November, Alexander had that contract selected to the A’s roster in April, and he struggled to an 18.00 ERA over four appearances and six innings with the team. The grim results included 2 1/3 innings of nine-run ball in the Athletics’ 19-2 loss to the Dodgers on Thursday, and Alexander was sent to DFA limbo the next day.
This brief run with the A’s marked Alexander’s first MLB action since his 2022 rookie season, when he had a 5.40 ERA across 71 2/3 innings (starting 11 of 18 games) with the Brewers. A shoulder injury kept him shelved for a good chunk of the 2023 season, and he spent the 2024 campaign in Boston’s minor league system.
Despite the lack of production at the big league level, Alexander has some decent numbers in the minors, including a 1.27 ERA in 21 2/3 innings with Triple-A Las Vegas this year. The grounder specialist has a 63.6% groundball rate to show for his minor league work in 2025, and Alexander has routinely topped the 50% mark in grounder rates over his minors career. At the cost of a 40-man roster spot, there’s little risk for the Astros in seeing what the 32-year-old can do as a depth arm.