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Marlins Designate Burch Smith For Assignment

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The Marlins announced Friday that right-hander Burch Smith has been designated for assignment. His spot on the roster will go to fellow righty Shaun Anderson, who has been recalled from Triple-A Jacksonville.

Smith, 34, has pitched 29 2/3 innings out of the Miami bullpen this season and logged a respectable 4.25 earned run average with a subpar 17% strikeout rate but strong walk and ground-ball rates of 6.7% and 47%, respectively. He’s hit a rough patch of late, however, yielding five runs over his past 4 1/3 innings. Opponents have scored against him in three straight appearances.

This run with Miami marked Smith’s first big league work since the 2021 season. He spent the 2022 season with Japan’s Seibu Lions and the 2023 campaign with the Korea Baseball Organization’s Hanwha Eagles. Smith has previously pitched for the Padres, Royals, Brewers, Giants and A’s. In all, he’s pitched 220 2/3 innings at the MLB level and recorded a 5.79 ERA, 20.7% strikeout rate and 9.6% walk rate.

Burch signed with the Rays on a minor league deal back in January but exercised an upward mobility clause in that contract — a clause intended to give veteran players on minor league deals the option to opt out of their contract if another team is willing to place him on its 40-man roster. That scenario played out late in spring, when the Marlins showed interest in Smith. He made their Opening Day roster and has generally been used in low-leverage settings this season.

Smith will surpass five years of service time while in DFA limbo, meaning even if he goes unclaimed on waivers, he’ll have the right to reject an outright assignment and retain the remainder of this year’s $1MM salary. Miami will either trade him, release him or attempt to pass him through outright waivers within the next week.

Pirates Outright Ben Heller

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Right-hander Ben Heller went unclaimed on waivers after being designated for assignment by the Pirates and has been assigned outright to Triple-A Indianapolis, per the team’s transaction log at MLB.com. He’s been outrighted previously in his career, which will give Heller the right to reject the assignment in favor of free agency if he so chooses.

Heller, 32, signed a minor league deal with the Bucs in the offseason and was selected to the big league roster after punching out an eye-popping 43% of his opponents in 18 1/3 innings down in Indianapolis. His brief big league look with the Pirates could scarcely have gone worse, however. The former Yankees and Braves righty was rocked for five runs in an inning of work during his team debut and struggled even more considerably in his second appearance, yielding seven runs (six earned) in another inning. Heller’s ERA with the Pirates sits at a stratospheric 49.50.

Stunning as that number is, Heller entered the 2024 season with a career 3.06 earned run average in 50 innings. That includes 18 2/3 frames of 3.86 ball with Atlanta just last season. He’s fanned 20.4% of his big league opponents against an 11.3% walk rate and has generally kept the ball on the ground at an above-average level (45.1%). The Milwaukee native also has had plenty of success in the upper minors, pitching to a sharp 3.15 ERA with a 32.5% strikeout rate and 8.7% walk rate in parts of six Triple-A campaigns — a span of 163 innings.

Dodgers Acquire Jose Hernandez From Pirates

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The Dodgers announced the acquisition of lefty reliever Jose Hernandez from the Pirates for cash. Los Angeles transferred Ryan Brasier to the 60-day injured list to open a spot on the 40-man roster. Pittsburgh designated Hernandez for assignment earlier in the week when they claimed Dennis Santana off waivers.

Los Angeles took that opportunity to bring Hernandez back to his original organization. The Dodgers signed the Dominican-born southpaw as an amateur in May 2016. Hernandez spent the next six-plus seasons in the L.A. farm system, topping out at Double-A Tulsa. He tallied plenty of punchouts in the low minors but never consistently found the strike zone. The Dodgers left him off their 40-man roster at the end of the 2022 season, allowing other clubs to take a flier in the Rule 5 draft.

Pittsburgh selected Hernandez with the third Rule 5 pick that December (behind Thaddeus Ward and another former Dodger farmhand, Ryan Noda). The Bucs secured his long-term contractual rights by carrying him in the MLB bullpen for all of last season. Hernandez showed the ability to miss bats at the MLB level, fanning 27.8% of opposing hitters behind a 12.5% swinging strike rate. He walked just under 10% of batters faced and surrendered nine homers in 50 2/3 innings, leading to a 4.97 earned run average.

The Pirates gained the right to option Hernandez to the minors after his first MLB campaign. They shuttled him between Pittsburgh and Triple-A Indianapolis for the season’s first couple months. Hernandez tossed 5 1/3 innings of two-run ball with four strikeouts and walks apiece at the big league level. He has been tagged for 12 runs over 15 1/3 Triple-A frames despite punching out 21 of the 75 hitters he’s faced (a solid 28% rate).

It was moderately surprising to see the Bucs move on from Hernandez not long after they satisfied the Rule 5 requirements. His velocity has been slightly down, perhaps contributing to the move. As a rookie, Hernandez averaged 82.9 MPH on his slider (which he uses as his primary pitch) and 94.6 MPH on his fastball. Those speeds were respectively at 81.6 MPH and 93.1 MPH during his major league work this year.

Hernandez has just over one year of service and is in his first of three minor league option years. The Dodgers can keep him in Triple-A Oklahoma City for the foreseeable future if he holds his 40-man roster spot.

The team essentially had an open roster spot thanks to Brasier’s injury. The veteran righty has been out since April 28 after suffering a significant strain of his right calf. He has yet to begin a minor league rehab stint. Brasier will be eligible for reinstatement two weeks from now — the 60-day minimum is backdated to his initial IL placement — but it’s not clear if he’ll be ready by that point.

Nationals Claim Eduardo Salazar From Mariners

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The Nationals announced that they have claimed right-hander Eduardo Salazar off waivers from the Mariners and optioned him to Triple-A Rochester. The Mariners had designated him for assignment earlier this week. The Nats had two vacancies on their 40-man roster, which is now at 39.

Salazar, 26, signed a minor league deal with the Dodgers in the offseason. That club added him to their 40-man roster in the middle of April but designated him for assignment just over a month later. The Mariners stepped up with a claim at that time but he lasted just over two weeks before being designated for assignment again, now landing with his third club of the year.

Around those transactions, he only has one appearances in the majors this year, tossing two scoreless innings for the Dodgers back on May 15. He made seven starts for Triple-A Oklahoma City while in the Dodgers’ system with a 5.61 earned run average. The Mariners kept him in a relief role for their Triple-A club, having Salazar throw 3 1/3 innings over four outings, allowing two earned runs.

There’s not much to go on in that sample, but the Nats had a couple of roster spots to use. Last month, they designated both Víctor Robles and Matt Barnes for assignment, opening up a couple of spots on their 40-man.

The Nats are likely intriguied by Salazar’s ability to generate ground balls. He did so at a 58.6% clip with OKC and it’s possible his 5.61 ERA there wasn’t entirely his fault as he had a .389 batting average on balls in play at that time. For reference, major league average BABIP is .288 this season. He also got grounders over 54% of the time with Reds last year, both in Double-A and Triple-A. He tossed 12 1/3 innings in the majors with the Reds last year, with a 51.1% grounder rate in that time. During his brief stint in the majors here in 2024, his sinker averaged 93.9 miles per hour.

Whether the Nationals envision Salazar as a starter or a reliever remains to be seen, but he has a couple of options. That means he can be kept in the minors for the rest of this year and one more season as they try to figure out the best path forward for him. If things click, he has less than a year of service time and can therefore be a long-term piece for the Nats.

Orioles Claim Levi Stoudt

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The Orioles announced Thursday that they’ve claimed right-hander Levi Stoudt off waivers from the Mariners, who’d designated him for assignment earlier in the week. Left-hander John Means was transferred from the 15-day injured list to the 60-day injured list to open a spot on the 40-man roster. Stoudt has been optioned to Triple-A Norfolk.

Stoudt, 26, was the Mariners’ third-round pick in 2019 and for a few years ranked among the organization’s most promising pitching prospects. Though he was never quite as highly touted as current rotation members like Logan Gilbert, George Kirby, Bryce Miller and Bryan Woo during their own prospect days, Stoudt was a well-regarded member of a deep Mariners pitching pipeline. He was talented enough to be included as a secondary piece — behind headliners Noelvi Marte and Edwin Arroyo — in the trade that netted Luis Castillo from Cincinnati.

Stoudt would go on to make his big league debut with the Reds in 2023, pitching just 10 1/3 innings. The Pennsylvania native was tagged for 11 runs on 16 hits and eight walks over a stretch of four one-off appearances, being optioned back to Triple-A Louisville after each. Most of the damage against him came in his debut effort, when he was rocked for seven runs in four innings. The Reds removed him from the 40-man roster in the 2023-24 offseason, and the Mariners wound up reacquiring Stoudt via waivers.

Although Stoudt made six sharp starts in Triple-A with the Reds following the 2022 trade that sent him to Cincinnati, he struggled in Louisville last season, posting a 6.23 ERA in 82 1/3 frames. Things haven’t gone any better so far in 2024. He’s made 12 appearances with the Mariners’ Triple-A affiliate in Tacoma (11 starts) and posted an unsightly 6.92 earned run average. Stoudt has fanned a well below-average 14.9% of his opponents and issued walks at nearly as high a clip (12.4%).

Rough as his performance in Triple-A has been, Stoudt is an optionable starter with big league experience and a heater that sits just shy of 95 mph. Scouting reports during his prospect peak credited him with plus command — though that hasn’t been the case this season, clearly — with Baseball America calling his split-changeup an at-times “diabolical weapon” that lacked consistency. He’ll give the Orioles some needed rotation depth on the heels of season-ending surgeries for Means and Tyler Wells, and it’s always possible that Baltimore could shift him to a short relief role and see if his stuff plays up and allows him to emerge as a high-end relief option.

Rangers Reinstate Brock Burke, Outright Derek Hill

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The Rangers announced they’ve reinstated lefty reliever Brock Burke from the 60-day injured list. Texas optioned Grant Anderson to Triple-A Round Rock in a corresponding move. The Rangers already had an opening on the 40-man roster after designating outfielder Derek Hill for assignment last week. Texas announced tonight that Hill went unclaimed on waivers and was outrighted to Round Rock, though he has the right to elect free agency in lieu of the Triple-A assignment.

Burke suffered a fractured metacarpal in his non-throwing hand back in April. The southpaw punched a dugout wall in frustration after a poor outing. He underwent surgery and missed a couple months. Burke had an excellent 2022 campaign in which he threw 82 1/3 innings of 1.97 ERA ball. Last year’s 4.37 mark was more pedestrian, and he gave up five runs in his first three frames this season. Burke rejoins Jacob Latz as lefty options for Bruce Bochy, though he’ll likely need to pitch his way back into the later innings.

Hill, 28, signed a minor league deal with the Rangers and got added to their big league roster about three weeks ago. He got a small sample of work while on the roster, getting just ten plate appearances in five games, hitting .222/.300/.222 in those. Last week, the Rangers needed an extra infielder with Corey Seager day-to-day due to hamstring soreness. They recalled Davis Wendzel and nudged Hill out. Since Hill is out of options, they had to remove him from the 40-man entirely.

Any team acquiring him would have also had to plug him directly onto the active roster and it seems none of them were willing to do so. Since he has a previous career outright, he has the right to reject any outright assignment in favor of free agency. Should he explore that avenue, he should be able to find a minor league deal somewhere.

Hill hasn’t hit much in his big league career but he can provide value in others ways. Statcast considers his sprint speed to be in the 98th percentile this year and Hill has five Outs Above Average in his 746 1/3 outfield innings. It’s also possible there’s some upside at the plate since he’s had some good performances in the minors and was slashing .333/.387/.659 for Round Rock before getting called up this year.

Diamondbacks Sign Erich Uelmen To Minor League Deal

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The Diamondbacks have signed right-hander Erich Uelmen to a minor league deal, according to his transactions tracker at MLB.com. He’s been assigned to the Complex League for now but will presumably report to a higher affiliate after getting some work in.

Uelmen, now 28, was drafted by the Cubs and was a starter on his way up the minor league ladder. He didn’t have much success in that role as he reached the higher levels, so the Cubs moved him to the bullpen at Triple-A. The initial results were encouraging, as Uelmen finished 2022 with an earned run average of 2.79 in 42 innings at the top minor league level. His 12.8% walk rate was on the high side but he punched out 29.1% of batters faced and also got grounders on 55.3% of balls in play.

The Cubs also gave Uelmen his major league debut that year, as he pitched 27 innings for them that year. He had a passable 4.67 ERA in that time with a subpar 17.2% strikeout rate, average-ish 9.8% walk rate and decent 47.6% ground ball rate.

Late in 2022, the Cubs re-signed Drew Smyly and bumped Uelmen off the roster. He was then traded to the Phillies for cash but had a challenging season with his new club. He only tossed one inning in the majors and just 17 2/3 in the minors, spending a significant amount of time on the IL. He had a 4.08 ERA in that limited minor league action before getting recalled in late September and placed on the major league 60-day IL with a right flexor strain when the Phils needed to open a roster spot.

Uelmen was outrighted by the Phils at the end of the season and remained unsigned until signing with the Snakes. He’ll presumably undergo something of a delayed Spring Training for a little while before moving into a depth position for the Diamondbacks. The relief corps in Arizona hasn’t been strong this year, with a collective 4.38 ERA that comes in 23rd out of the 30 clubs. If Uelmen can earn a roster spot, he has two option years remaining and has less than a year of service time.

White Sox Designate Tim Hill For Assignment

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The White Sox announced today that outfielder Andrew Benintendi and right-hander Steven Wilson have been reinstated from the injured list. In corresponding moves, outfielder Duke Ellis was optioned to Triple-A Charlotte while left-hander Tim Hill was designated for assignment.

Hill, 34, signed with the White Sox in the offseason on a one-year deal with a guarantee of $1.8MM. The Sox were surely hoping that the experienced groundballer could provide a veteran presence to the club while also perhaps turning himself into a midseason trade chip.

Unfortunately, the results haven’t quite been there for Hill so far this year. He has made 27 appearances for the Sox but has an earned run average of 5.87. That’s obviously not a great number, but it’s possible that Hill has been more unlucky than bad.

His 11% strikeout rate is less than half the league average, but that’s not terribly unusual for him. He only struck out 12.6% of batters faced with the Padres in 2022, a season he finished with a 3.56 ERA. His 8.5% walk rate this year is right around league average while his 65.6% ground ball rate would actually be a career high, as his previous best was a clip of 61.8% in his rookie season.

The major difference in Hill this season seems to be a .436 batting average on balls in play. That’s well beyond the .286 league average and Hill’s career number of .310. ERA estimators like FIP and SIERA have Hill at 3.44 and 3.87 respectively, suggesting it’s possible he’s been closer to his previous form than it would appear at first glance, as he had a 3.72 ERA from 2020 to 2022. His exit velocity and hard hit numbers are roughly in line with previous seasons as well.

It’s possible the club’s poor defense isn’t doing him any favors, as the Sox have a collective -51 Defensive Runs Saved this year and -20 Outs Above Average. That DRS tally is the worst in the league while the OAA number in tied for last with the Marlins.

The Sox will now have one week to trade Hill or pass him through waivers. It’s possible that he could garner interest if some clubs are willing to overlook the earned runs this year and focus more on the underlying metrics. If he were to pass through waivers unclaimed, he has more than enough service time to reject an outright assignment while retaining his salary.

Yankees Reinstate, Option Jasson Domínguez

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The Yankees announced that outfielder Jasson Domínguez has been reinstated from the 60-day injured list and optioned to Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre. To open a 40-man roster spot, infielder Jon Berti was transferred to the 60-day injured list.

Domínguez, now 21, has long been one of the higher-ranked prospects in the Yankee system. He arrived on the major league scene with a splash late last year, hitting four home runs in his first eight contests as a September call-up. Unfortunately, he was then diagnosed with a torn ulnar collateral ligament in his throwing elbow and had to undergo Tommy John surgery.

That procedure generally has a lesser return timetable for position players as opposed to pitchers, with the Yankees providing an estimate of nine to ten months when announcing the surgery. He began this year on the injured list and has began a rehab assignment in the middle of May, eight months after going under the knife.

Domínguez has been hitting well on his rehab, with a line of .368/.415/.658 in his 20 games, but it he’ll have to stay in Triple-A due to a crowded outfield picture in the Bronx. The Yanks have mostly used an alignment of Aaron Judge, Juan Soto and Alex Verdugo on the grass this year, with Giancarlo Stanton the regular in the designated hitter slot and Trent Grisham providing depth from the bench.

All of those players are hitting well this year except for Grisham, but the Yanks don’t want their prized prospect to come up to the big leagues just to sit on the bench in a depth role. He’ll continue getting regular action for the RailRiders after his long layoff but will be a candidate to rejoin the major league club if anyone in that outfield mix needs a stint on the injured list. Soto has been dealing with some elbow inflammation of late but returned after a brief layoff.

From a service time perspective, it’s likely to have an impact on Domínguez’s future. He was able to get 31 days of service time during his call-up last year and would have been able to get to 1.031 this year if he were on the injured list or with the big league club all season long. If he stays an optional assignment for a number of weeks, he will fall short of that one-year mark here in 2024. If that comes to pass, the earliest he could qualify for free agency would be after 2030. If he is called up early enough to get to that one-year line, then free agency after 2029 would still be a possibility.

As for Berti, 34, he was acquired on the cusp of Opening Day as the Yankees were looking for some extra infield help while both DJ LeMahieu and Oswald Peraza were injured. Unfortunately, Berti himself has been injured for much of the year at this point. He missed the latter half of April due to a left groin strain, returning in early May. But a left calf strain sent him back to the IL on May 25.

Berti was told that he could miss six to eight weeks, per Greg Joyce of the New York Post on X, so the Yanks have decided to use his roster spot for this move. He now won’t be eligible for activation until late July.

Jorge López Agrees To Minor League Deal With Cubs

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Right-hander Jorge López has agreed to a minor league deal with the Cubs, according to a report from Will Sammon and Patrick Mooney of The Athletic on X. The righty is expected to report to the club’s Arizona complex, per Sammon and Mooney at The Athletic.

López, 31, was recently released by the Mets after an unusual scene. During a rough outing against the Dodgers, he argued with umpires and was ejected. While leaving the field, he tossed his glove into the crowd and untucked his shirt.

Things took another strange turn after the game. The Puerto Rican-born López spoke with reporters in English without an interpreter present, saying he did not regret his actions. He also said he had not spoken with manager Carlos Mendoza or president of baseball operations David Stearns about the outburst, though this was contradicted by others. There was also some confusion about something else he said to reporters, as some thought he was calling the Mets “the worst —-ing team” in MLB, but later clarified he was actually calling himself the “worst teammate” in the league.

After all of that, some in the baseball world tried to put a spotlight on the challenges López has faced. He has a child with significant medical complications that is currently on a transplant list and waiting for a donor, while the elder López also missed some time last year due to his mental health. Regardless of the explanations, the Mets considered his behavior unacceptable. He was designated for assignment and released, sending him out to free agency and keeping the Mets on the hook for most of his $2MM salary. The Cubs will bring him into the organization, though he has not yet been added to that club’s roster.

López had a stint as one of the better relievers in the league a few years ago, but with more middling results since then. After years as a starter without a lot of success, the Orioles moved him to a bullpen role in 2022 and he found immediate success. He tossed 48 1/3 innings for the O’s that year, allowing just 1.68 earned runs per nine frames. He struck out 27.6% of batters faced, gave out walks at an 8.7% pace and kept 60% of balls in play on the ground.

But he was traded to the Twins at that year’s deadline, with the results falling off from there. From that trade to the present, he has a 5.08 ERA, 18% strikeout rate, 9.8% walk rate and 48% ground ball rate. That includes his 3.76 ERA with the Mets this year prior to his release, though his 17.1% strikeout rate and 44.2% ground ball rate this season are still pretty far from his peak.

Though the numbers haven’t been amazing lately, there’s sense in the Cubs bringing him aboard. There’s no harm in taking a look on a minor league deal and López wouldn’t really cost them anything even if added to the roster. They would only have to pay the prorated league minimum for any time López is on the club, with that amount subtracted from what the Mets pay.

The bullpen has been an issue for the Cubs this year, with the relievers having a collective ERA of 4.47, which puts them 24th out of the 30 clubs in the league. Guys like Adbert Alzolay, Yency Almonte, Julian Merryweather and Keegan Thompson are all currently on the injured list. López can give them a boost if he’s able to make any sort of movement towards his previous form.

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