Braves Re-Sign Jesse Chavez To Minor League Deal
The Braves have re-signed right-hander Jesse Chavez to a fresh minor league deal, as reflected in his transaction tracker at MLB.com. The Apex Baseball client has been assigned to Triple-A Gwinnett.
The news is not surprising in the least. Chavez is a 41-year-old veteran who has bounced around to various teams in the league, but in recent years, he always seems to wind up back in Atlanta. Going into the 2021 season, he signed a minor league deal with the Angels. When he didn’t make that club’s Opening Day roster, he was released and signed with Atlanta. Going into 2022, he signed with the Cubs but was traded to Atlanta before the end of April. He was flipped to the Angels in early August as part of the Raisel Iglesias trade but was released and back in Atlanta before September. He re-signed with Atlanta for 2023. Going into 2024, he signed a minors deal with the White Sox but didn’t make the Opening Day roster and was with Atlanta before the end of March. The same thing happened this spring, only with the Rangers instead of the White Sox.
Chavez was added to Atlanta’s roster earlier this week and tossed two mop-up innings in Monday’s game. With the pitching staff fairly taxed and Chavez likely unavailable for a day or two, they designated him for assignment. He cleared waivers and elected free agency but is now back with the club on a new deal.
Despite his age, he has managed to stay very effective in recent years. Dating back to the start of the 2021 season, he has thrown 203 major league innings with a 2.93 earned run average, 24.3% strikeout rate, 7.6% walk rate and 42.4% ground ball rate.
He got squeezed off Atlanta’s roster but is now back to provide them with some non-roster depth. Given recent patterns, he should be back in the big leagues as soon as the bullpen is gassed again and they need a fresh arm.
Photo courtesy of Mark J. Rebilas, Imagn Images.
Mariners Designate Hagen Danner For Assignment
The Mariners announced that right-hander Hagen Danner has been designated for assignment. That opens a 40-man spot for Luis F. Castillo. It was reported yesterday that Castillo would be coming up to start today’s game, making for an odd bit of trivia as the other Luis Castillo started the prior game for the M’s. An active roster spot was already opened by optioning left-hander Jhonathan Díaz yesterday.
Danner, 26, hasn’t been with the Mariners for long. He was claimed off waivers from the Blue Jays in January. He then tossed 3 1/3 innings in the Cactus League, allowing five earned runs. He was then sent to Triple-A Tacoma and started his season with 2 2/3 scoreless innings there.
His overall track record as a pitcher isn’t terribly long. The Jays drafted him as a catcher and tried him at that spot for a few years, but his bat didn’t pan out and they moved him to the mound. He has since put up some decent numbers on a rate basis but with occasional injury absences. Due to those health issues, he still hasn’t thrown 40 innings in any one season.
He has one third of an inning in the majors, which was back in 2023, and then 116 2/3 minor league innings from 2021 to the present. In that minor league work, he has a 2.93 earned run average, 28.3% strikeout rate and 8.7% walk rate.
The M’s will now have a week of DFA limbo to figure out what’s next. The waiver process takes 48 hours, so any trade interest would have to be gauged in the next five days. Danner still has an option, so he could be stashed in the minors by any club willing to give him a 40-man spot. If he were to pass through waivers unclaimed, the Mariners could hold onto him as some non-roster depth.
Photo courtesy of Mark J. Rebilas, Imagn Images
Nationals Place Michael Soroka On Injured List Due To Biceps Strain
The Nationals announced that right-hander Michael Soroka has been placed on the 15-day injured list, retroactive to April 1st, due to a right arm biceps strain. Fellow righty Jackson Rutledge has been recalled in a corresponding active roster move.
At this point, it’s unclear how serious Soroka’s injury is. He tossed five innings against the Blue Jays on Monday but departed with an apparent injury. After the game, manager Dave Martinez told reporters that Soroka had bicep cramps and framed the move as precautionary. Andrew Golden of The Washington Post was among those to relay the update.
Golden relays today that Soroka threw on the field before Wednesday’s game and the club wanted to see how he felt after that session before making a decision. It seems they have decided to put him on the shelf for at least another 12 days, since they backdated the IL move by three, the maximum allowed.
Whether this proves to be a notable injury or not, health issues have been a big part of the Soroka narrative. Back in 2019, he posted a 2.68 earned run average over 29 starts for Atlanta, finishing second to Pete Alonso in National League Rookie of the Year voting. But staying healthy has been a big challenge since then. Most significantly, he tore his right Achilles on two separate occasions. He wasn’t able to pitch much over the 2020 to 2023 seasons, missing 2021 and 2022 entirely.
He was flipped to the White Sox ahead of 2024 and had mixed results in Chicago. He started in the rotation but had a 6.39 ERA through nine starts and got moved to the bullpen. His first few relief appearances weren’t great but he finished strong. He logged 24 1/3 innings over his last 11 appearances with a 1.48 ERA, 42.7% strikeout rate and 9.4% walk rate. However, he was on the IL for about two months, with a shoulder strain putting him out of action from mid-July to mid-September.
He hit free agency with a bit of positive momentum, generating interest both as a starter and a reliever. He landed with the Nats on a one-year, $9MM deal with the plan being to give him another shot at a starting gig.
That plan is now on pause at least for a little while. Presumably, the Nats will put him back in the rotation if he only missed a short amount of time. They aren’t expecting to be competitive this year and likely have an eye on trading Soroka in July. He would have more value as a successful starter than as a reliever. Though given his injury history, there may come a point where they decide it’s better to keep him in short stints if they think he will have a better shot at staying healthy that way.
In the meantime, a rotation opportunity will be open for someone else, alongside MacKenzie Gore, Trevor Williams, Jake Irvin and Mitchell Parker. They were off yesterday and start a six-game homestand tonight before another off-day on Thursday. After that, they have a ten-game road trip. Rutledge has starting experience but began this season working out of the bullpen in Triple-A. DJ Herz, Cade Cavalli and Josiah Gray are all on the injured list. Shinnosuke Ogasawara and Andry Lara are on the 40-man roster but currently on optional assignment. Each has already made a Triple-A start and could be recalled in the coming weeks.
Photo courtesy of Kevin Sousa, Imagn Images
Jesse Chavez Elects Free Agency
The Braves announced that reliever Jesse Chavez elected free agency after being designated for assignment on Tuesday. He cleared outright waivers and retested the market rather than accept the assignment to Triple-A.
This was the expected outcome, though there’s a decent chance Atlanta will look to bring the 41-year-old righty back on a new minor league contract. He signed his most recent minor league deal with the Braves on March 23, two days after he was released by the Rangers. Atlanta called him up on Monday but squeezed him off the roster after one game. Chavez tossed 41 pitches to get through two innings of mop-up work. He would not have been available for at least a day or two, so Atlanta swapped him out for Zach Thompson to add some length to the bullpen.
Over the past four years, the Braves signed Chavez to four separate contracts, claimed him off waivers once, and traded for him once. He has provided Atlanta 186 2/3 innings of 2.56 ERA ball while striking out a quarter of batters faced between those various stints. Chavez hasn’t had anywhere near that level of success anywhere else. He has also spent time in the Angels, Cubs, White Sox and Rangers organizations (at least during Spring Training) in recent years, but he has continually circled back to the Braves.
It would not be a surprise if that continued. It’s common for players to decline an outright assignment before re-signing with that team. (Phillies infielder Buddy Kennedy took that approach on Tuesday.) That allows the player to renegotiate opt-out or upward mobility provisions that may not have been in the previous deal.
Braves Acquire Jason Delay
The Pirates and Braves announced a trade sending catcher Jason Delay to Atlanta for cash. Pittsburgh had designated him for assignment on Tuesday. Atlanta optioned Delay to Double-A Columbus and transferred Reynaldo López to the 60-day injured list to open a 40-man roster spot. Pittsburgh also optioned infielder Ji-Hwan Bae to Triple-A Indianapolis to make room on the active roster for Alexander Canario, who has reported to the team.
Delay had been with the Pirates since they drafted him in the fourth round in 2017. The Vanderbilt product cracked the big league roster for the first time in 2022. He worked as Pittsburgh’s backup catcher for good chunks of the 2022-23 seasons, combining for 127 MLB appearances. He only got into seven big league games last year and had been in Triple-A to begin this year.
The 30-year-old Delay owns a .231/.295/.315 batting line with two home runs across 373 career plate appearances. He’s a .239/.310/.338 hitter over parts of seven minor league seasons. Delay isn’t going to provide much offensively, but he has slightly above-average pitch framing grades and a strong reputation for his work with pitching staffs. He has yet to qualify for arbitration and has a couple minor league options remaining, so the Braves add him for minimal cost.
Delay is the fourth catcher on Atlanta’s 40-man roster. Drake Baldwin and Chadwick Tromp are dividing the MLB playing time while Sean Murphy is on the injured list. Murphy is at Triple-A Gwinnett on a rehab stint after breaking a rib early in Spring Training. He could return from the IL by the end of next week. Baldwin, one of the sport’s top catching prospects, will probably be optioned back to Gwinnett at that point. If they want to keep Baldwin on the MLB roster, they’d need to designate the out-of-options Tromp for assignment.
The Braves essentially had a free 40-man spot because of the López injury. The righty was placed on the 15-day IL earlier this week with shoulder inflammation. The Braves announced that he’ll undergo an arthroscopic procedure to confirm there’s no structural damage. Even in the best case scenario, he didn’t have much chance of coming back within the next two months. He’s officially out until at least the end of May but seems unlikely to return until the second half of the season at the earliest.
Mariners To Select Luis F. Castillo
The Mariners plan to select right-hander Luis F. Castillo to start tomorrow evening’s game against the Giants, the club informed reporters (including Adam Jude of The Seattle Times). As Jude notes, it’ll be the second straight Mariners game started by a Luis Castillo. Seattle’s veteran right-hander of the same name tossed seven innings in yesterday’s win over Detroit.
Luis F. Castillo will be making his first major league start. The 30-year-old has three MLB relief appearances under his belt. Those came with the 2022 Tigers, for whom he tossed 3 2/3 scoreless innings with four strikeouts. Detroit sent him through outright waivers at the end of that season. Castillo signed with the Chiba Lotte Marines of Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball the following offseason.
After turning in a 3.12 ERA across 49 innings for the Marines, Castillo moved to the Orix Buffaloes. He fired 94 1/3 innings of 2.96 ERA ball despite a pedestrian 19.6% strikeout rate. Castillo showed fantastic control, though, walking fewer than 5% of batters faced for the second consecutive season. The Dominican-born pitcher returned to the affiliated ranks last offseason, joining the Mariners on a minor league contract in January.
Castillo pitched five innings of three-run ball across three appearances in Spring Training. He worked 5 2/3 frames in his first Triple-A start on Sunday, allowing one run on two hits and a pair of walks. Seattle will bring him up for at least a spot start as the fifth spot in their rotation comes around. Emerson Hancock got that job out of Spring Training because of the George Kirby injury, but the former sixth overall pick couldn’t escape the first inning in his season debut. Seattle optioned him out a few days later.
The Mariners announced this afternoon that they reinstated Jorge Polanco from the paternity list. They optioned Leo Rivas and swingman Jhonathan Díaz to Triple-A Tacoma. Castillo will take Díaz’s active roster spot. The 40-man roster is at capacity, so they’ll need to make another move in that regard tomorrow.
Padres Select Oscar González, Outright Eguy Rosario
The Padres announced that outfielder Oscar González has been selected to the 40-man roster and optioned to Triple-A El Paso. To open a 40-man spot, right-hander Jhony Brito was transferred to the 60-day injured list. The Friars also announced that infielder Eguy Rosario, who was designated for assignment a week ago, cleared waivers and has been outrighted to Triple-A El Paso.
González, 27, signed a minor league deal with the Padres in the offseason. When he didn’t make the Opening Day roster, it was reported that he had an in-season opt-out at some point. That’s presumably why he is being added to the roster but kept in El Paso today. The club doesn’t have a spot on the active roster for him but also doesn’t want him to get away. He’ll give them some optionable depth for now.
He has shown a bit of pop but also with pretty rough plate discipline. He made a splash with the Guardians in 2022, hitting 11 home runs in just 382 plate appearances, plus another clutch home run in the playoffs. But his 3.9% walk rate was very low and dropped to 2.8% the following year. He has also only drawn walks in 4.7% of his minor league plate appearances since the cancelled 2020 season.
When his results tapered off in 2023, the Guardians optioned him to the minors several times and put him on waivers at season’s end. He was claimed by the Yankees but passed through waivers shortly thereafter. He spent 2024 in the Yankees’ minor league system, hitting eight home runs in 78 Triple-A games. He didn’t get called to the majors and was able to elect free agency at the end of the year, which led him to the Friars.
He had a huge .400/.431/.564 showing in the spring but with a .500 batting average on balls in play in that small sample. In four games with El Paso thus far, he has two home runs but a .167 batting average and no walks. It’s a flawed profile but the Padres are perhaps intrigued by the power potential, at least enough to give him a 40-man spot for now.
They have Jackson Merrill and Fernando Tatis Jr. locked into the center and right field positions respectively. The left field and designated hitter spots are more open, currently featuring a rotating cast that includes Jason Heyward, Brandon Lockridge, Gavin Sheets and Yuli Gurriel. Lockridge isn’t fully established as a big leaguer while the other three have been fairly inconsistent in recent years. If any of them struggle or get hurt, the Padres could turn to Tirso Ornelas, Connor Joe or González, who are each on the 40-man.
The reason they had a 40-man spot to work with is that they evidently don’t expect Brito back anytime soon. He started the year on the 15-day IL due to a right forearm strain. The club hasn’t provided any updates on his status but this transfer means he can’t be reinstated until late May at the earliest.
As for Rosario, it’s a bit of a surprise to see him go unclaimed. He is out of options, meaning he would have needed an active roster spot with any claiming club, but his numbers have been decent. His major league work comes in a sample of just 100 plate appearances but he has a solid .245/.283/.500 line in those. He has slashed .279/.363/.493 for a 115 wRC+ in the minor leagues since the cancelled 2020 season. Defensively, he has experience at all four infield spots and right field.
President of baseball operations suggested recently that the Padres would find a trade partner for Rosario. “Eguy’s a big league player,” Preller said. “…He’s going to get an opportunity to go elsewhere and play in the big leagues I would think immediately, and we’ll try to add some value through a trade here in the next week.” But not only did the Padres not line up a trade. No club was even willing to grab Rosario off the wire.
He’ll therefore stick with the Padres as non-roster depth. Since this is his first career outright assignment and he has less than three years of big league service time, he does not have the right to elect free agency.
Photo courtesy of Mark J. Rebilas, Imagn Images
Cooper Hummel Elects Free Agency
The Astros announced that utility player Cooper Hummel has cleared waivers and elected free agency. Ari Alexander of KPRC 2 relayed the news prior to the official announcement. Houston had designated Hummel for assignment a week ago as they set their Opening Day roster. Since he had a previous career outright, he had the right to reject another such assignment and has exercised that right.
Hummel, 30, will now head to the open market and assess his options. The fact that he cleared waivers means that no club was willing to give him a 40-man roster spot, perhaps a reflection of his out-of-options status.
He should be able to find offers on minor league deals. He has only hit .159/.255/.275 in his major league career, though in a fairly small sample of 235 plate appearances spread across three seasons. His minor league work has been greater in quality and quantity. Since the start of 2021, he has stepped to the plate 1,419 times at the Triple-A level. He drew a walk in 17.5% of those appearances while only striking out 20.9% of the time. His .285/.419/.480 combined line translates to a 130 wRC+. He hit .316/.435/.447 in spring action before the Astros cut him loose.
In addition to those interesting offensive numbers, he provides value on the basepaths and defensively versatility. He racked up double-digit stolen base totals in each of the past two years. In terms of his glovework, he has done plenty of work behind the plate and also lined up at the four corner spots.
He didn’t crouch behind the plate last year and hasn’t played third since 2021, but the overall package is still intriguing. The offense has always been strong in the minors and he looked good in camp recently. He can play first base and the outfield corners and perhaps there’s a club willing to put him back in the catcher position. If he clicks somewhere and gets back to the majors, he is out of options but his service time count is barely over the one-year line, meaning he can be cheaply retained beyond this season if he earns and holds a roster spot.
Photo courtesy of Reinhold Matay, Imagn Images
Mets Sign Jon Singleton, Niko Goodrum To Minor League Deals
April 3: Per Robert Murray of FanSided, Marte’s deal is a two-year pact. That could suggest that he’s unlikely to pitch much in 2025 as he recovers from his shoulder surgery.
April 2: The Mets announced today that they’ve signed first baseman Jon Singleton and infielder Niko Goodrum to minor league deals. Additionally, the club has signed right-hander Jose Marte to a minor league deal according to the transactions tracker on Marte’s MLB.com profile page.
Singleton, 33, served as the Astros regular first baseman last year after the club parted ways with Jose Abreu early in the 2024 season. Drafted in the eighth round of the 2009 draft by the Phillies, Singleton was shipped to Houston in the Hunter Pence trade and eventually became a consensus top-30 prospect in the sport with the Astros. The club signed Singleton to a pre-debut extension that guaranteed him $10MM over five years during his debut season back in 2014. The deal was viewed as a coup for the Astros at the time, but Singleton unfortunately hit just .171/.290/.331 over two seasons with the Astros before toiling in the minor leagues for a few years and eventually being released in 2018.
At first, it seemed likely that Singleton’s release marked the end of his baseball career. However, the first baseman resurfaced during his age-29 season with a strong showing in the Mexican League and got enough attention that he signed with the Brewers on a minor league deal for the 2022 season. He hit reasonably well at Triple-A for the club and posted even stronger numbers the following season, earning him a call-up back to the majors. He hit just .103/.188/.138 in 11 games for the Brewers, but upon being released signed with the Astros and hit a more respectable (though still subpar) .194/.301/.324 in 25 games for the club.
That performance was enough to earn Singleton his aforementioned shot at the regular first base job in 2024, and he actually started to hit for the first time in his career last year when given that opportunity. In 405 trips to the plate across 119 games, Singleton slashed .234/.321/.386. That slightly better than league average production was enough to convince the Astros to keep Singleton on the roster throughout the offseason, though not enough to stop them from signing Christian Walker to take over regular first base duties. When Singleton hit just .171/.239/.195 in Spring Training, however, Houston had seen enough and decided to cut bait.
Goodrum, meanwhile, has been part of seven MLB seasons so far in his career. The Twins’ second-rounder back in 2010, he made his big league debut in Minnesota back in 2017 but was cut from the club’s roster and ended up signing with the Tigers on a minor league deal that offseason. He went on to put up solid numbers with Detroit over the next four seasons, hitting hit a decent .232/.306/.401 (90 wRC+) in 376 games from 2018 to 2021. His production tapered off in 2020 and 2021, however, as he hit just .203/.282/.350 (75 wRC+) in those final two years in Detroit before he was outrighted off the Tigers’ roster.
In the years since leaving Detroit, Goodrum has appeared in just 28 total MLB games, hitting a paltry .111/.169/.139 in 78 plate appearances between the Astros, Rays, and Angels. When not in the majors, he’s bounced between the Red Sox, Pirates, Orioles, and Padres organizations and even had a brief stint in the KBO league where he slashed .295/.373/.387 in 50 games for the Lotte Giants. San Diego was Goodrum’s most recent stop, and the 33-year-old actually hit quite well in Spring Training as he slashed .278/.519/.444 in 14 games. That solid showing wasn’t enough to earn a roster spot with the Padres, however, and Goodrum returned to free agency where he’s now caught on with the Mets.
As for Marte, the right-hander signed with the Giants out of the Dominican Republic as an amateur and made his pro debut back in 2016. He was traded to the Angels in the deal that sent southpaw Tony Watson to San Francisco a couple of years later, however, and eventually went on to make his big league debut with Anaheim during the 2021 season. Marte was shuttled between Triple-A and the majors over the next four seasons, and his results from 2021 to 2023 were nothing short of disastrous as he posted an 8.14 ERA and 7.61 FIP in 24 1/3 innings of work with more walks (28) than strikeouts (27).
Things seemed to click for Marte in 2024, however, as he pitched to a 2.22 ERA in 28 1/3 innings in the inflated offensive environment of the Pacific Coast League while striking out 28.4% of opponents and walking a more manageable 11.2%. That success translated to the big leagues, as he posted a 2.33 ERA in 19 1/3 innings, though he only struck out 17.5% of his opponents while walking 12.5%. His season was cut short by a viral infection and shoulder surgery, however, and he found himself outrighted off the Angels’ 40-man roster at the end of the year.
With all three now set to join the Mets at Triple-A, each figures to fill a depth role for the club going forward. Singleton is locked behind Pete Alonso and Jesse Winker on the first base/DH depth chart, but it wouldn’t be a shock to see him be the next man up behind Winker as a left-handed part-time option in the case of injury. Goodrum, meanwhile, is a versatile bench piece who can play virtually anywhere on the diamond except for catcher. That’s a particularly useful skillset for the Mets while the versatile Jeff McNeil is on the injured list. As for Marte, it’s unclear whether the righty is recovered from shoulder surgery at this point, but when he returns he could be an interesting, high-upside bullpen option for the Mets at some point this year.
White Sox To Sign Joshua Palacios To Minor League Deal
The White Sox are signing outfielder Joshua Palacios to a minor league deal, reports Robert Murray of FanSided. The Ballengee Group client elected free agency earlier this week after being outrighted by the Pirates.
Palacios, 29, has bounced around the majors in the past few years. He has suited up for the Blue Jays, Nationals and Pirates in the four most recent big league seasons. Broadly speaking, he has hit well in the minors without finding success in the majors.
He has been sent to the plate 433 times thus far in his big league career, with a .230/.286/.364 line in those. That translates to a wRC+ of 75, indicating he’s been 25% below league average overall. He also took 781 minor league plate appearances in that 2021-24 span with a .303/.387/.484 line and 131 wRC+.
The gap between his major and minor league numbers has led to him frequently being sent to the farm and back. He exhausted his final option year in 2024 and is now out of options, which got him squeezed off Pittsburgh’s 40-man.
If he puts together another good minor league showing with the White Sox, they should be able to give him some big league playing time later in the year. Their outfield mix currently consists of Luis Robert Jr., Andrew Benintendi, Travis Jankowski, Austin Slater and Michael A. Taylor. All of those players should be available in midseason trade talks, as they all have fairly narrow windows of control on a White Sox team that isn’t expecting to compete in the near term.
Assuming some of those players do indeed get traded in the coming months, the White Sox have a bunch of guys who could pick up some of the playing time. Greg Jones is on the 40-man roster but currently on optional assignment. Guys like Dominic Fletcher, Corey Julks, Oscar Colás and Zach DeLoach have been bumped from the 40-man but are still in the system as non-roster depth. Palacios will join that latter group of guys and will try to earn his way back to the majors.
Photo courtesy of Kim Klement Neitzel, Imagn Images