Rangers Designate Wandy Rodriguez For Assignment
The Rangers announced (via EVP of communications John Blake) that they have designated left-hander Wandy Rodriguez for assignment. Lefty Alex Claudio and righty Jon Edwards were promoted from Triple-A as well, with right-hander Phil Klein being optioned to the minors.
The DFA of Rodriguez is somewhat of a surprise, as the left-hander has been a mostly solid rotation piece for Texas this season and has even been rumored as a potential trade candidate. The DFA, though, certainly doesn’t eliminate the possibility of a trade. It does allow potentially interested parties, though, to show limited interest with the hope that Rodriguez will eventually become a free agent and be available for the league minimum.
The 36-year-old Rodriguez signed a minor league deal with the Braves this winter but didn’t make the team’s rotation in Spring Training despite quality numbers. (That spot went to fellow lefty Eric Stults.) Rodriguez worked to a 3.20 ERA with a 50-to-23 K/BB ratio in 64 2/3 innings over his first 11 starts this year, though he’s recently been hit extremely hard in a pair of outings. Rodriguez has a 9.97 ERA over his past 21 2/3 innings, although the vast majority of that damage came in a pair of brutal outings where he combined for 15 runs in five innings. He’s mixed in a pair of very solid five-inning starts in that time as well.
Overall, Rodriguez has a 4.90 ERA with 7.5 K/9, 3.8 BB/9 and a 41 percent ground-ball rate in 86 1/3 innings this season. He’s never been a hard thrower, but he’s creeping ever closer to the “crafty lefty” territory, as his 2015 heater is averaging just 88.4 mph. Recent meltdowns notwithstanding, Rodriguez has a fairly palatable 4.27 FIP and 4.28 xFIP on the season, so one would think that he could still be a passable back-end starter for a team with a top-heavy rotation.
Red Sox Designate Jemile Weeks For Assignment
The Red Sox have infielder Jemile Weeks for assignment in order to clear a spot on the roster for Josh Rutledge, tweets Alex Speier of the Boston Globe. Rutledge was acquired in the trade that sent Shane Victorino to the Angels.
Weeks’ stay on Boston’s big league roster was brief, as he was only recalled earlier this week. He picked up nine plate appearances with the Red Sox, collecting three singles in that time and also striking out twice.
The younger brother of Rickie Weeks, Jemile is a former 12th overall draft pick (Oakland, 2008) that hasn’t seen his career pan out after a promising rookie campaign in 2011. That year, he appeared in 97 games with the A’s and batted .303/.340/.421 with 26 doubles, eight triples, a pair of homers and 22 steals. He’s hit just .226/.307/.311 in 574 plate appearances between the A’s, Orioles and Red Sox since that time.
Mets-Brewers Deal For Carlos Gomez Collapses
9:58pm: The deal is off and won’t occur before the deadline, Mets GM Sandy Alderson tells reporters including Anthony DiComo of MLB.com (via Twitter).
EARLIER: The Mets have acquired Carlos Gomez, according to Joel Sherman of the New York Post. He says the deal is done pending physicals. In exchange for Gomez, the Mets will send right-hander Zack Wheeler and infielder Wilmer Flores to Milwaukee, according to Bob Klapisch (Twitter link).
Now 29 years old, Gomez cut his teeth in the Majors as a 21-year-old with the Mets. Traded to the Twins as part of the 2008 Johan Santana blockbuster, Gomez spent two seasons in Minnesota and delivered mixed results before being flipped to Milwaukee in a one-for-one swap that sent J.J. Hardy to Minneapolis. His first few seasons with the team resulted in more of the same underwhelming results, but Gomez broke out into superstar territory with an explosive 2012 campaign.
That 2012 season saw Gomez bat .260/.305/.463 with a career-high 17 homers and 39 stolen bases to go along with his elite center field defense. Since that time, Gomez has paired a .276/.336/.475 batting line with some of the game’s best center field defense to deliver more than 16 wins above replacement for the Brewers.
Blue Jays Designate Felix Doubront
The Blue Jays have designated lefty Felix Doubront for assignment, Ben Nicholson-Smith of Sportsnet.ca reports on Twitter. The move creates roster space for the activation of Troy Tulowitzki.
Still just 27 years of age, Doubront was not long ago looked at as a potential rotation piece for the Red Sox. He topped 160 innings in both the 2012 and 2013 seasons with Boston, working to an overall ERA of 4.59. While that mark isn’t terribly impressive, he showed a good ability to miss bats (8.5 K/9) in addition to a ground-ball rate of roughly 44 percent, both of which helped to partially offset his questionable control (4.0 BB/9). Sabermetric marks like FIP and xFIP pegged his talent level closer to 4.00 than his 4.59 ERA.
Doubront’s velocity has declined, though. After averaging 92.7 mph in 2012, he averaged 90.5 mph in 2013 and has seen his fastball hover around 90 mph since that time. This season with the Blue Jays, he pitched to a 4.76 ERA with a 13-to-5 K/BB raito in 22 2/3 innings. While the sample was brief, Doubront did see a massive spike in his ground-ball rate, which soared to 64.6 percent. He’s utilized a cut fastball far more in 2015 than he did in 2012-13, perhaps signaling a change in his approach on the mound.
Yankees Designate Chris Capuano For Assignment
The Yankees have designated lefty Chris Capuano for assignment, Jack Curry of the YES Network reports (Twitter links). Righty Caleb Cotham will be recalled to take his active roster spot.
Capuano hits the DFA wire after a rough outing yesterday, in which he gave up five earned runs on five walks and three hits while recording just two outs. Over 31 total innings on the year, he’s posted a 6.97 ERA with 8.7 K/9 against 4.4 BB/9. After missing time early on, Capuano has worked mostly from the pen, though he’s also made four starts.
The 36-year-old is playing on a one-year, $5MM contract signed as a free agent. Obviously, New York has not received quite the value it hoped for out of that deal. The club is said to be at least considering a move to add another arm at the deadline.
Cubs Designate Mike Baxter
The Cubs have designated outfielder Mike Baxter for assignment, Mark Gonzales of the Chicago Tribune tweets. The club needed roster space for Ben Rowen, who was called up today.
Baxter, 30, put up a .246/.348/.263 slash in his 66 big league plate appearances this year. His stint with Chicago marked his sixth straight season with at least some time in the majors, though he’s only compiled 489 total turns at bat (with a cumulative .664 OPS).
Minor MLB Transactions: 7/29/15
We’ve got some catching up to do on the minor moves front after a busy couple of days:
- Reds outfielder/first baseman Chris Dominguez has cleared outright waivers and been assigned to Triple-A, John Fay of the Cincinnati Enquirer tweets. Dominguez has seen short big league stints in each of the past two seasons, but the 28-year-old has played mostly in the upper minors. He owns a .216/.264/.368 slash over 221 plate appearances on the year at Louisville.
- The Pirates outrighted infielder Steve Lombardozzi to Triple-A after recently designating him for assignment, according to Rob Biertempfel of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review (via Twitter). Following two seasons as a significant utility piece for the Nationals, Lombardozzi has received only 85 big league plate appearances over the 2014-15 campaigns. He owns a .303/.362/.352 slash in his 291 turns at bat for Triple-A Indianapolis.
- After he, too, cleared waivers, Pirates third baseman Brent Morel elected free agency, per Bill Brink of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (Twitter link). The 28-year-old has spent at least some time in the big leagues in every season since 2010, putting up a .601 OPS in 712 plate appearances. In 326 times coming to bat at Triple-A this year, he owns a .266/.322/.441 batting line.
- As expected, Astros outfielder Alex Presley has accepted an outright assignment with the organization, Evan Drellich of the Houston Chronicle reports on Twitter. He previously agreed to an outright assignment in order to preserve his $1MM arbitration salary, and chose to do the same once again.
- The Mariners acquired righty J.C. Ramirez from the Diamondbacks, Seattle announced. Ramirez, 26, made it up to the big leagues for the second time this year, throwing 15 1/3 innings of 4.11 ERA ball from the Arizona pen. He’ll return to his first professional team, which shipped him to the Phillies in the 2009 Cliff Lee trade.
Braves Designate David Carpenter For Assignment
The Braves announced tonight that they’ve designated right-handed reliever David Carpenter for assignment. The move creates a spot for Mike Foltynewicz to return to the big league club.
This marks the second DFA of the season for Carpenter, who is not to be confused with the Nationals reliever of the same name. Both David Carpenters, of course, have pitched for the Braves in the past two seasons, creating a bit of confusion around Atlanta’s pair of DFAs this season.
The Carpenter in question — David Lee Carpenter — has the more limited track record of the two. He’s pitched just 3 2/3 innings for the Braves this season, allowing three runs in that time but also fanning five without any walks. Carpenter has a 5.40 ERA over the life of his career — a span of 46 2/3 innings. He has a 4.02 ERA in 118 2/3 Triple-A innings to go along with averages of 7.9 K/9 and 4.7 BB/9.
Joe Thatcher Elects Free Agency
JULY 28: The Astros announced today that Thatcher cleared waivers and elected free agency. He and his representatives at Platinum Sports are now free to seek a deal with interested parties.
JULY 21: The Astros have designated left-handed reliever Joe Thatcher for assignment in order to clear room on the active roster for Vincent Velasquez, reports MLB.com’s Brian McTaggart (via Twitter).
Thatcher signed a minor league deal with Houston in the offseason but made the team out of Spring Training and has enjoyed generally successful results in his first year with the Astros. He’s posted a 3.79 ERA and averaged better than 10 strikeouts per nine innings, though he’s also battled his command, yielding 5.2 walks per nine frames as well.
Thatcher is typically an effective weapon versus left-handed hitters, but that wasn’t the case in 2015. In fact, opponents as a whole batted .292/.376/.389 versus the 33-year-old. However, Thatcher did have his share of poor luck on balls in play; over the life of his career, opponents have notched a .321 BABIP versus Thatcher, but that number soared to .377 this season in Houston. He did have his share of good fortune as well, as both his strand rate and homer-to-flyball rate were a bit more favorable than his career norms.
Thatcher’s minor league deal had a $1MM base salary and called for up to $1.3MM worth of additional incentives, so his financial cost wouldn’t be exorbitant. Given the reasonable dollars and the fact that he has a 3.04 ERA with 10.0 K/9 vs. 3.0 BB/9 dating back to 2009, Thatcher looks to be capable of serving as a useful bullpen cog elsewhere, should the Astros attempt to gauge interest on the trade market. Of course, the return for a player that took a minor league deal in the winter and has since been designated — decent results notwithstanding — would be minimal.
Nationals Acquire Jonathan Papelbon
8:05pm: Barry Svrluga of the Washington Post reports (via Twitter) that the Nationals will receive $4.5MM from the Phillies in 2015, which covers all but about $400K of Papelbon’s remaining salary. Papelbon’s 2016 salary will indeed be $11MM, he adds, but $3MM of that will be deferred and paid in the 2017 season.
7:12pm: The Nationals announced on Tuesday evening that they have acquired closer Jonathan Papelbon from the Phillies in exchange for Double-A right-hander Nick Pivetta. Not only has the team acquired Papelbon, though, they also announced that they have signed him through the 2016 season. Papelbon and the Nationals have reportedly agreed to restructure the pre-existing club/vesting option on his contract, reducing the value from $13MM to $11MM in exchange for having the option immediately exercised. The Phillies also announced the move, adding that they sent cash considerations to Washington along with Papelbon.
Among the roadblocks that needed to be resolved prior to finalization of a complicated trade were Papelbon’s no-trade clause, his vesting option for the 2016 season and his adamant desire to remain a closer upon a trade to a new team.
The Nationals, of course, have Drew Storen pitching exceptionally well in the ninth inning this season, but the trade was reportedly contingent upon Papelbon becoming the team’s closer. As such, Storen will slide back to the eighth inning and return to a setup role which he has handled with aplomb in the past. This season, Storen has saved 29 games and worked to a 1.73 ERA, averaging 10.9 strikeouts and just 2.2 walks per nine innings pitched.
A need for a late-inning reliever, then, might not appear to be a strong one for the Nationals, but the rest of the bullpen has been suspect. When subtracting Storen’s 36 1/3 dominant innings, the Nationals’ other relievers have combined to post a considerably less dominant 3.68 ERA.
Papelbon will unquestionably deepen the team’s bullpen, though he may not necessarily be an improvement over Storen in the ninth inning. However, his acquisition will allow Nationals manager Matt Williams more flexibility when using Storen. Williams has deployed Storen, his best reliever, in the eighth inning just once this season, and he’s never used him for more than three outs. Whether or not Storen will be available in multi-inning (or at least four- and five-out situations) remains to be seen, but the Nats will now have a pair of relievers with sub-2.00 ERAs to close out the final two innings of the game.
For all the talk about Papelbon’s diminished velocity, he remains an elite reliever. He’s pitched to a 1.87 ERA dating back to Opening Day 2014, averaging 8.7 K/9 against 2.0 BB/9 in 106 innings of relief. Though he’s now averaging just over 91 mph on his heater, Papelbon has improved his control and become a significantly more ground-ball-oriented pitcher. His 51.9 percent ground-ball rate is the highest of his career and comes in a full 13 percent above his career mark of 38.9 percent. The result of his new approach on the hill has been a 1.59 ERA that would represent the second-best mark of his career and his best since 2006, were the season to end today.
Papelbon is earning $13MM in 2015, and about $4.9MM of that sum remains through season’s end. Papelbon was just 21 games finished shy of seeing his 2016 option vest anyway, but by agreeing to the restructured deal he’s traded a bit of financial upside for financial security and the opportunity to join a winning team. While Papelbon’s option was long viewed as a detriment to his trade value and, in the end, still proved to be that, he would almost certainly have been in position to receive a much more sizable commitment on the free agent market, so there’s some value in the deal for the Nats as well.
Turning to the Phillies’ side of the deal, Baseball America ranked the 22-year-old Pivetta as the Nationals No. 10 prospect on their midseason update. Per BA, the Canadian hurler’s 6’5″ frame allows him to throw a low-90s fastball with downward plane. MLB.com’s Jonathan Mayo and Jim Callis ranked Pivetta 12th among Nats farmhands, noting that he can reach 96 mph with his heater and giving him a chance to start in the big leagues while noting that he’s somewhat of a project.
In 101 1/3 innings split between Class-A Advanced and Double-A this season, Pivetta has a 3.02 ERA with 6.9 K/9 against 3.4 BB/9. He’ll join Ben Lively, Zach Eflin, Tom Windle and Joely Rodriguez as arms acquired by the Phillies dating back to the offseason’s trades of Jimmy Rollins, Antonio Bastardo and Marlon Byrd.
Ken Rosenthal of FOX Sports reported that there was a deal in the works, but both Jim Bowden and Jayson Stark of ESPN reported that there were hurdles to be cleared before a deal was struck. Barry Svrluga of the Washington Post reported (on Twitter) that a deal was close. Bowden reported that a Double-A pitcher was headed to the Phillies (Twitter links). Rosenthal reported (Twitter links) that the trade was contingent upon Papelbon becoming Washington’s closer and restructuring his option. MLB.com’s Todd Zolecki reported Pivetta’s inclusion (via Twitter). Joel Sherman of the New York Post tweeted the new terms of Papelbon’s 2016 salary.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.