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Blue Jays Designate Joel Kuhnel For Assignment

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The Blue Jays announced that they have selected the contract of right-hander Ryan Burr. It was reported yesterday that they would be acquiring him from the Phillies for cash considerations. To get Burr onto the roster, the Jays placed right-hander Alek Manoah on the 15-day injured list with a right elbow sprain. To open a 40-man spot for Burr, righty Joel Kuhnel was designated for assignment.

Manoah was removed from Wednesday’s start with elbow discomfort. Scott Mitchell of TSN relayed on X earlier today that Manoah is going for a second opinion and likely to miss an extended period of time. Manager John Schneider informed reporters that the sprain is in Manoah’s ulnar collateral ligament and that the righty will meet Dr. Keith Meister on Thursday. Keegan Matheson of MLB.com was among those who relayed the info on X. Further details will undoubtedly be forthcoming on that, but the Jays will need a fifth starter behind José Berríos, Kevin Gausman, Chris Bassitt and Yusei Kikuchi.

Matheson relayed on X today that righty Bowden Francis is with the club. He is currently on the injured list but has been rehabbing, most recently throwing 60 pitches 3 2/3 innings for Triple-A Buffalo on Tuesday. If added to the roster at some point in the coming days, he could make a start for the Jays or at least throwing multiple innings behind an opener.

For now, Manoah’s roster spot will go to Burr. He signed a minor league deal with the Phillies in the winter and has looked great so far in Triple-A this year. Through 16 2/3 innings, he has a 2.16 earned run average, 43.3% strikeout rate and 7.5% walk rate.

That has inspired the Jays to give the Phillies some cash to bring Burr aboard and they will now see if he can continue performing well at the major league level. He pitched 75 big league innings with the White Sox over the 2019-22 period with a 4.08 ERA, 20.6% strikeout rate, 12.2% walk rate and 50.5% ground ball rate. He still has a couple of options and could perhaps be sent down to the minors when Francis is reinstated from the IL, though the Jays have some other optionable relievers as well.

To get Burr on the 40-man, the Jays are bumping off Kuhnel. The 29-year-old was just acquired from the Astros less than a month ago in a cash deal. He has since thrown 8 2/3 innings for Triple-A Buffalo with a 1.04 ERA. His 10.8% walk rate is high and his 2.7% strikeout rate incredibly low, but he’s managed to keep 56.3% of balls in play on the ground.

That has generally been Kuhnel’s recipe. In 85 2/3 major league innings, he has only struck out 19% of opponents but has gotten the ball pounded into the dirt at a 52.2% clip. The resulting 6.30 ERA isn’t pretty but that’s partially attributable to a .327 batting average on balls in play and 62.6% strand rate. Going back to the start of 2021, Kuhnel has a 4.28 ERA in 82 innings in the minors. He struck out just 15.7% of batters faced in that time but has generally kept about half of balls in play on the ground.

The Jays will have one week to trade Kuhnel or pass him through waivers. He still can be optioned for the rest of this year and could appeal to clubs looking for extra rotation depth. He has been outrighted previously in his career and would therefore have the right to reject another outright assignment in favor of free agency, if he passes through waivers unclaimed.

A’s Place Lucas Erceg On IL With Forearm Strain

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TODAY: The A’s have now made it official, placing Erceg on the IL today and also optioned right-hander Tyler Ferguson to Triple-A. In corresponding moves, right-hander Dany Jiménez and left-hander Brady Basso were recalled. Additionally, infielder Tyler Nevin was outrighted to Triple-A after being designated for assignment earlier this week.

MAY 30: The A’s will place setup man Lucas Erceg on the 15-day injured list, manager Mark Kotsay told reporters on Thursday afternoon (via the MLB.com injury tracker). The right-hander experienced forearm tightness while warming up on Tuesday. He’s headed back to Oakland for further evaluation.

While Erceg isn’t as dominant as late-inning bullpen mate Mason Miller, he has been a key leverage arm in his own right. He’s carrying a 2.86 ERA with a 31% strikeout rate over 22 innings. Half the batted balls he has allowed have been hit on the ground. Erceg has averaged nearly 99 MPH on his fastball and has gotten swinging strikes on almost 13% of his offerings. He’s second on the team behind Austin Adams with eight holds and has picked up a pair of saves.

This has the makings of a breakout season for Erceg, who turned 29 earlier this month. He began his career as a reasonably well-regarded third base prospect in the Milwaukee system. When his bat plateaued in Triple-A, the Brewers moved him to the mound. Milwaukee abandoned the experiment when they traded Erceg to Oakland for cash last May. The A’s lived with some inconsistent results in his rookie campaign — a 4.75 ERA with a huge 14.3% walk rate over 55 innings — and have been rewarded through this year’s first couple months.

A healthy Erceg would make for an interesting trade candidate this summer. The A’s certainly don’t need to move him. He has five more seasons of team control and won’t get to arbitration until the end of 2025. There’s clear appeal to a Miller/Erceg pairing in the late innings. If the A’s decide to stretch Miller back out as a starter next year, Erceg could be their first choice to close.

Still, there’s also an argument for trying to sell high on Erceg. His winding career path means he’s well into what would typically be a pitcher’s prime (although it’s possible he’ll develop later than most because of his relative inexperience on the mound). Relief pitching tends to be volatile and Erceg’s command is still a work in progress. While this season’s 9.2% walk rate is average for a reliever, he had generally walked between 13-15% of opponents before this year.

Trade speculation is conditional on him being on the mound in July. He’s set to be out at least into the middle of June. The upcoming testing will reveal whether he’s in line for a longer absence and if there are any structural concerns.

Guardians Designate Estevan Florial For Assignment

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The Guardians have designated outfielder Estevan Florial for assignment, tweets Zack Meisel of The Athletic. His spot on the roster will go to outfielder Steven Kwan, who’s been reinstated from the injured list and is back in the Cleveland lineup tonight.

Acquired from the Yankees in a December swap that sent right-hander Cody Morris back to New York, the out-of-options Florial won a spot on Cleveland’s Opening Day roster but has yet to hit with his new club. The once-vaunted prospect has appeared in 36 games with the Guards and tallied 111 plate appearances while mustering only a .173/.264/.367 slash. Florial has shown some extra-base pop, with three homers, six doubles and a pair of triples, but he’s also gone down on strikes in a staggering 36.9% of his plate appearances.

Strikeout woes are nothing new for Florial, who’s now punched out in 33.5% of his 245 big league plate appearances. Even as Florial put up gaudy numbers in Triple-A with the Yankees organization in 2022-23, he did so while fanning in three out of every ten trips to the plate. The Yankees largely left him in Triple-A to try to sort through his lack of contact skills, but it’s not a flaw that Florial has been able to overcome to this point.

Florial’s combination of power and speed has long been tantalizing, but he’s now a .192/.291/.329 hitter in the big leagues who can’t be sent to the minors without first clearing waivers. Another club that’s not in contention could perhaps afford to take a flier and place a waiver claim, but it’d be hard for any team with postseason aspirations to give Florial any kind of meaningful playing time when he’s clearly a project. The Guardians will have a week to try to trade him, pass him through outright waivers, or release him. If he clears outright waivers, Florial can reject the assignment and elect free agency by virtue of the fact that he’s been outrighted once in the past (with the Yankees in April 2023).

John Curtiss Elects Free Agency

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May 31: Curtiss rejected the assignment and instead elected free agency, per the transaction log at MiLB.com.

May 30: The Rockies have sent right-hander John Curtiss outright to Triple-A Albuquerque, per his transactions tracker at MLB.com. That indicates he cleared waivers after being designated for assignment earlier this week. He has the right to elect free agency though it’s not yet clear if he has chosen to do so.

Curtiss, 31, was signed to a minor league deal in the offseason. He didn’t crack the Opening Day roster, reporting to Albuquerque for some work there. He tossed 21 1/3 innings in the Pacific Coast League with a 6.75 earned run average. His 7.1% walk rate was solid but he only struck out 18.2% of batters faced and was hurt by an unfortunately low 57.8% strand rate.

Despite that fairly shaky performance, the Rockies called him up last week. They had played two straight extra-inning games and needed some fresh arms. In Saturday’s game against the Phillies, Curtiss relieved Justin Lawrence with two out in the ninth inning after the latter had blown a save. With the Rockies down 4-3 and with two men on base, Curtiss was brought in to face Bryce Harper and allowed a three-run homer. He then allowed an Alec Bohm double and a Nick Castellanos single, with Castellanos thrown out at second to finally end the inning after Bohm had scored.

Colorado needed pitching reinforcements again a couple of days later and designated Curtiss for assignment, leaving him currently sporting an ugly ERA of 54.00, thanks to him having allowed two earned runs while only recording one out.

Players with more than three years of service time or a previous career outright have the right to reject an outright assignment in favor of free agency. Curtiss would qualify on both counts and may choose to exercise that right. He had a solid run in 2020 and 2021 before Tommy John surgery put him out of action, and he hasn’t really had an extended chance to establish himself since then.

He tossed 69 1/3 innings with a 2.86 ERA over 2020 and 2021, spending time with the Rays, Marlins and Brewers. He struck out 24.1% of batters faced and only gave out walks at a 5.2% clip. He went under the knife in September of 2021 and missed all of 2022. With the Mets last year, he tossed 19 2/3 innings with a 4.58 ERA and a diminished 19.8% strikeout rate.

The Rockies organization is a tough spot for a guy looking to re-establish himself, given the hitter-friendly nature of both Coors Field and the PCL, but Curtiss may not have had many options this winter after a long injury absence and underwhelming return. Now that the season is a third of the way through and several clubs are dealing with mounting injuries to their pitching staffs, Curtiss might be interested in pursuing opportunities elsewhere.

Rays Select Justin Sterner, Option Tyler Alexander

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The Rays have selected the contract of right-hander Justin Sterner from Triple-A Durham, per a team announcement. He’ll be making his MLB debut when he first gets into a game. Left-hander Tyler Alexander was optioned to Durham in a corresponding move to create space on the active roster. Tampa Bay already had a vacancy on the 40-man roster, so no additional move was necessary. Their 40-man roster is now at capacity.

Sterner, 27, is a reliever whom the Rays acquired in 2021 swap sending right-hander David Hess to the Marlins. The 2024 season marks the third in which he’s logged time in Triple-A but the first in which he’s found much success. Sterner allowed eight runs in seven Triple-A frames back in 2022 and pitched to a 5.80 ERA in 35 2/3 innings there last season.

This year in Durham, however, Sterner has notched a much-improved 3.60 ERA in 25 innings, thanks in large part to huge gains in his ability to miss bats and limit walks. Sterner has fanned one-third of his opponents in Triple-A after posting a 26.1% strikeout rate a year ago. His 8.1% walk rate in 2024 is more than three percentage points south of last year’s 11.8% mark.

For the 29-year-old Alexander, this will be his first optional assignment since way back in 2019. The Rays acquired the southpaw via a November waiver claim after he’d been designated for assignment in Detroit. He’s effectively been the Rays’ fifth starter for much of the season, though only six of his 11 outings have been true starts. Alexander has frequently followed a one- or two-inning opener, but even his relief appearances have averaged five innings apiece this season.

Alexander had a decent stretch from mid-April to mid-May, but he’s been shelled for a dozen runs in just 9 2/3 innings over his past two appearances. He’s now yielded four or more runs in three of his past four outings. That ugly stretch has left the southpaw with a 6.19 ERA on the season, although fielding-independent metrics are more bullish (particularly his 4.09 SIERA). Alexander has a below-average 19.4% strikeout rate on the season but also a very sharp 5.3% walk rate. He’s also an extreme fly-ball pitcher (48.6% fly-balls, 29.6% grounders) who’s seen a larger-than-average 15% of his fly-balls leave the yard this year — an average of 2.06 homers per nine innings.

Alexander entered the season with 4.058 years of big league service time and is up to 4.122 as of this assignment. He’ll reach five full years of service with another 50 days on the active roster or major league injured list, at which point he’d gain the right to refuse an optional assignment to the minors. For now, he’ll get a reset in Durham while the Rays go with a rotation of Zack Littell, Aaron Civale, Taj Bradley and Ryan Pepiot.

Right-hander Zach Eflin went on the injured list due a lower back issue on May 20, and the Rays are awaiting returns from injured pitchers Jeffrey Springs, Drew Rasmussen and (in 2025) Shane McClanahan. Longtime top prospect Shane Baz could be a rotation candidate at some point as well. He very recently wrapped up his rehab from 2022 Tommy John surgery and was reinstated from the 60-day injured list and optioned to Triple-A himself.

Mets To Designate Omar Narvaez, Acquire Luis Torrens, Option Brett Baty, Christian Scott

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10:20am: The Mets are sending cash to the Yankees in the deal for Torrens, tweets Sherman. Specifically, it’ll be a $100K return for the Yankees.

9:50am: The Mets are shaking up the roster with a broad-reaching set of roster moves. Catcher Omar Narvaez is being designated for assignment, reports SNY’s Andy Martino. His spot on the roster will go to catcher Luis Torrens, who is being acquired from the Yankees and selected to the MLB roster, according to Daniel Alvarez Montes of El Extra Base. Meanwhile, third baseman Brett Baty and righty Christian Scott will be optioned to Triple-A Syracuse, ESPN’s Jeff Passan reports. They’ll be replaced on the roster by infielder Jose Iglesias, whose contract will be selected from Syracuse, and righty Dedniel Nunez, who’ll be recalled from Syracuse, Joel Sherman of the New York Post reports.

It’s a significant slate of roster moves that’ll see the Mets jettison the veteran Narvaez, option two of their top prospects to Triple-A for more seasoning, and thus clear a full runway for Mark Vientos to get an opportunity as the everyday third baseman.

Narvaez, 32, inked a two-year deal worth a guaranteed $15MM in the 2022-23 offseason — the second season of which was a player option. After a lackluster debut campaign in Queens that saw him hit just .211/.283/.297, Narvaez unsurprisingly opted into the second season of his contract. This year’s production has been even more feeble, however. In 69 trips to the plate, Narvaez has managed only a .154/.191/.185 batting line with a dismal 22.2% hard-hit rate.

Prior to his time with the Mets, Narvaez was a quality regular with the White Sox, Mariners and Brewers from 2018-22 — even making an All-Star team with Milwaukee in 2021. That five-year span saw Narvaez bat .254/.337/.397. He was inconsistent with the bat on a year-to-year basis but wound up producing at a roughly league-average level overall during that half-decade run. On top of that, the Brewers — who have a reputation for improving catcher defense — revamped Narvaez’s skill set behind the plate. He rated as one of the game’s worst defenders in 2018-19 with Chicago and Seattle but posted seven Defensive Runs Saved and was worth an even more impressive 19 runs behind the plate in Statcast’s eyes — thanks largely to massive improvements in his framing.

The injury to Francisco Alvarez appeared to create an opportunity for Narvaez to get back to that previous form, but he’s been outhit by the defensively superior Tomas Nido, who returned to the big leagues after being outrighted to Syracuse last season. Nido hasn’t been great at the plate himself — his .233/.260/.370 batting line is well below par — but has handily outperformed his fellow backstop. That’ll allow Nido to stick around in what’ll likely be the lead catching role until Alvarez’s return.

Alvarez suited up for Double-A Binghamton yesterday, kicking off a 20-day window for his minor league rehab assignment. That could make for a short-lived stay on the roster for the newly acquired Torrens. The Mets will choose between him and Nido once Alvarez is ready for activation. In 124 Triple-A plate appearances with the Yankees, the journeyman Torrens hit .279/.339/.469 with five homers and six doubles.

Once a well-regarded catching prospect with the Padres and Mariners, the now-28-year-old Torrens is a career .227/.289/.354 hitter in 807 MLB plate appearances. He has a knack for hard contact, but too many of those well-struck balls are of the grounder variety. A hefty 49.9% of Torrens’ career batted balls in the majors have been on the ground, which is clearly suboptimal for a plodding catcher who ranked in the 24th percentile of big league players in sprint speed from 2022-23, per Statcast.

In Baty and Scott, the Mets are sending two of the organization’s most touted prospects back to the minors. Baty, 24, has now seen MLB action in three straight seasons but has yet to cement himself as the everyday third baseman — or even as a viable big league bat. This year’s .225/.304/.325 batting line is 12% worse than average, by measure of wRC+, but nonetheless stands as his most productive season in the big leagues. Since making his debut late in the 2022 season, Baty carries a .214/.281/.325 line in exactly 600 plate appearances.

Baty, the No. 12 pick in the 2019 draft, has been particularly cold of late, tallying just six hits in his past 54 trips to the plate. He’s considered a superior defender to the also-24-year-old Vientos, but Vientos’ bat has been too loud for the Mets to ignore. Also long considered one of the organization’s better prospects, Vientos is hitting .295/.354/.591 with three homers in just 48 plate appearances. The former No. 59 overall pick’s performance emphatically warrants greater playing time. With Baty sent to Triple-A, he’ll receive that chance and could well establish himself as a long-term corner option for the Mets with a strong showing.

Scott, who’ll turn 25 in a couple weeks, has pitched well through his first five MLB starts. In 27 2/3 frames, he’s worked to a 3.90 ERA with a 22.3% strikeout rate and excellent 5.4% walk rate. However, the right-hander was a reliever in college whom the Mets have moved into a rotation role since turning pro. He’s thus never worked a full starter’s workload, with last year’s 87 2/3 frames standing as a career-high. The Mets have multiple off-days on the schedule in the near future, lessening the need for rotation arms. As such, they’ll send Scott to Syracuse, where they can more easily manage his innings and simultaneously afford the big league club an extra reliever.

Passan does note that Scott is expected to return to the big leagues before long. His promotion to date certainly warrants that. And if the Mets continue on their current trajectory, it wouldn’t at all be surprising to see other members of the rotation dangled in trade scenarios. For now, Luis Severino, Sean Manaea, Jose Quintana, Tylor Megill and David Peterson are lined up to make the next five starts. Severino is on a one-year deal, while Manaea has a opt-out at season’s end and Quintana is in the second season of a two-year contract.

In place of Baty, the Mets will turn to the veteran Iglesias. He’s carved out a reputation as a plus defensive shortstop with good contact skills but minimal impact when he does put bat to ball. Iglesias didn’t play in the majors last season but is a career .279/.319/.382 batter in more than 4000 plate appearances. He’s come to the plate 175 times in Syracuse this season and turned in a .273/.309/.442 slash.

Iglesias will give the Mets a true backup shortstop to Francisco Lindor, something they previously lacked, and is plenty capable of spelling Vientos at the hot corner or stepping in for Jeff McNeil at second base even if the overwhelming majority of his career has been spent at shortstop.

As for Nunez, this will mark his third stint with the Mets already this year. He was up earlier this week as the 27th man for a doubleheader and also had a four-game run earlier in the season. He’s pitched 8 1/3 innings over five appearances, holding opponents to three runs on seven hits and three walks with 13 strikeouts.

Marlins Acquire Shaun Anderson, Designate Woo-Suk Go

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The Marlins on Thursday acquired recently DFA’ed right-hander Shaun Anderson from the Rangers in exchange for cash, reports Craig Mish of SportsGrid (X link)*. In order to open a spot on the 40-man roster, Miami designated right-hander Woo-Suk Go for assignment.

Anderson, 29, appeared in only two games with Texas, logging 3 1/3 innings and yielding a pair of runs on six hits and a walk with three strikeouts. This marks the fifth MLB season in which he’s seen action at the game’s top level. Anderson has previously suited up for the Giants, Twins, Orioles, Padres and Blue Jays — in addition to a prior run in the Rangers’ minor league ranks. He’s pitched 139 big league innings but struggled to a 5.83 earned run average in that time. He’s intrigued several teams over the years thanks in large part to a high-spin slider that has the potential to be a true bat-missing offering, but the rest of his arsenal hasn’t helped him reach passable results.

Anderson split the 2023 season between the Phillies’ Triple-A club and the Korea Baseball Organization’s Kia Tigers, making 14 starts for the latter. During that brief KBO run, he notched a respectable 3.76 ERA with a 19% strikeout rate, 7.7% walk rate and 61.7% ground-ball rate (though ground-ball rates in the KBO always tend to be higher than in MLB, it should be noted). Anderson is in his final minor league option year, so he can be sent back and forth between Miami and Triple-A Jacksonville freely without needing to pass through waivers.

Go, 25, was one of the top relievers in the KBO in recent years and made his way to North American ball via the posting system this winter. The Padres signed him to a two-year, $4.5MM contract but almost immediately cut bait on him, sending him to the Marlins as a financial counterweight in the Luis Arraez trade earlier in the month. He’s pitched well in Triple-A since the trade, logging nine innings with a 3.00 ERA. However, he’s fanned only 8.3% of his opponents against a 5.6% walk rate.

During his outstanding run with the KBO’s LG Twins from 2019-23, Go posted a collective 2.39 ERA with 139 saves, a 30.2% strikeout rate, a 10% walk rate and a ground-ball rate north of 60%. He missed time in 2023 with a lower back injury but still pitched 44 innings of 3.68 ERA ball with a 31.1% strikeout rate, 11.6% walk rate and massive 65.8% grounder rate.

Scouting reports on Go had his fastball topping out at 98 mph in the KBO, but when he reported to spring training reports out of Padres camp suggested he was in the 92-94 mph range, topping out just shy of 95 mph. Though the Friars had envisioned him as a potential entrant into their late-inning mix, the decision to instead option him (to Double-A) and then include him in the Arraez trade suggests they quickly became less enamored of him once he joined the organization. That the Marlins are now jettisoning him from the 40-man roster suggests they’re similarly unenthused about the right-hander’s chances of contributing at the MLB level.

Because of that $4.5MM contract, Go seems like a lock to clear waivers if he makes it there. Miami will have five days to explore trade possibilities before placing him on waivers becomes a necessity. Waivers themselves would then be a 48-hour process. If Go clears, he’d likely accept an outright assignment to Jacksonville, allowing him to continue collecting his salary while endeavoring to pitch his way into the Marlins’ big league bullpen plans.

*MLBTR originally mistakenly indicated the Marlins had formally announced the trade for Anderson and DFA of Go. The team had not done so yet at the time. We regret the error.

Reds Outright Brett Kennedy

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The Reds have sent right-hander Brett Kennedy outright to Triple-A Louisville, per the transaction log at MLB.com. Cincinnati designated him for assignment on Tuesday when they reinstated Alex Young from the 60-day injured list.

Kennedy only spent a few days on the 40-man roster and didn’t get into an MLB game. He made five appearances for the Reds a year ago, allowing 13 runs over 18 innings. Cincinnati outrighted him off their roster at season’s end but brought him back on a minor league deal during the winter. He has spent the bulk of the year working from the Louisville rotation. The 29-year-old has tossed 40 2/3 innings over eight starts, struggling to a 6.86 ERA in an offensive Triple-A setting.

While Kennedy has never missed many bats, he’s not afraid to attack the zone. He has walked fewer than 5% of opposing hitters this year and has a 7.9% walk percentage over parts of five Triple-A campaigns. The Reds have kept him around as a strike-throwing depth option who can make a spot start or work in long relief. Kennedy has the right to elect free agency because he has been outrighted a few times in his career, but it seems likely he’ll head back to Louisville in hopes of getting another MLB look during the year.

Blue Jays To Acquire Ryan Burr From Phillies

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The Phillies are trading minor league reliever Ryan Burr to the Blue Jays, reports Shi Davidi of Sportsnet (X link). The return isn’t clear, but trades of this nature tend to be for cash considerations.

Burr signed a minor league contract with Philadelphia in January. He was not on their 40-man roster and won’t need to immediately occupy a spot on the 40-man for the Jays (unless his contract contained some kind of upward mobility clause that spurred the trade). Burr has posted huge numbers for the Phils’ top farm team, so Toronto could decide to quickly call him up.

If Burr does get a look with the Jays, it’d be his first MLB work since 2022. The right-hander pitched in parts of four seasons with the White Sox between 2019-22. He had his best year in 2021, turning in a 2.45 ERA in a personal-high 36 2/3 innings. Chicago released him the following season after he suffered an injury in Triple-A. He pitched in the minors with the Rays last year, working to a 3.09 ERA over 23 1/3 innings. Tampa Bay never called him up, leading him to the Phils via minor league free agency.

He’s out to an even better start with Philadelphia’s affiliate. Burr has allowed only four runs in 16 2/3 innings. He has punched out 29 of 67 opposing hitters, a massive 43.3% clip, against a 7.5% walk rate. He has fanned nearly a third of his opponents in 40 Triple-A frames over the last two seasons.

Philadelphia’s bullpen has been around average at preventing runs, working to a 3.90 ERA that ranks 16th in MLB. They’re seventh in strikeout rate, fanning nearly a quarter of batters faced. Toronto’s relief group has been much shaker. They’re 27th with a 19.6% strikeout percentage and have allowed 4.77 earned runs per nine. Only the Rockies and Rangers have a higher bullpen ERA.

The Phils only have two relievers with minor league options: Orion Kerkering and Gregory Soto. Kerkering is one of their best relievers, while Soto’s a veteran with a power arm who is playing on a $5MM salary. Toronto has already optioned the struggling Erik Swanson and could send down one of Génesis Cabrera, Nate Pearson or Zach Pop if they want to give Burr a look against MLB hitters. Burr has a pair of options, so the Jays could shuttle him back and forth from Triple-A if they add him to the 40-man roster.

Athletics Outright Brandon Bielak

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The Athletics have sent right-hander Brandon Bielak outright to Triple-A Las Vegas, according to his transactions tracker at MLB.com. That indicates he cleared waivers after being designated for assignment last week.

Bielak, 28, only came to the A’s a couple of weeks ago. He had been designated for assignment by the Astros and then flipped to Oakland in a cash deal. Up until that point, he had spent his entire career in the Astros’ organization, as that club drafted him in the 11th round back in 2017.

He debuted in the big leagues in 2020 and had a 6.75 earned run average that year, but he went on to serve as a decent depth swingman for the next three years. Over the 2021-23 seasons, while getting frequently shuttled to the farm and back, he tossed 142 1/3 major league innings with a 4.05 ERA. His 19.2% strikeout rate wasn’t amazing but his 9.8% walk rate was close to average and he got grounders at a strong 48.1% clip.

But in the process, he exhausted his option years. That meant that he came into 2024 out of options and with a tenuous hold on his roster spot. The Astros dealt with various pitching injuries this year and kept Bielak in their bullpen but his 5.71 ERA in 17 1/3 innings eventually squeezed him off.

He landed with Oakland but made just three appearances for that club before getting designated for assignment again. The other 29 clubs had a chance to grab him in recent days but it appears they all passed.

Bielak came into this year with two years and 110 days of service time, putting him 62 days shy of the three-year mark. Players continue to earn service time while in DFA limbo, so Bielak should have been earning service time all year until his outright. May 28 was the 62nd day of the season and his outright is listed as May 29, so he should have hit the three-year mark.

That is significant since players with at least three years of service or a previous career outright have the right to reject an outright assignment and elect free agency. Bielak doesn’t have a previous career outright but should now have hit the three-year service line. It’s not yet confirmed that he has the right to hit the open market, nor is it known what his decision will be, if he has one.

If he sticks with the A’s, he should have a decent chance of making it back to the majors later in the year. They have one of the weaker pitching staffs in baseball and currently have ten hurlers on the injured list. Anyone who is pitching well this summer could wind up traded by the rebuilding club, opening up opportunities for other guys.

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