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Cardinals Place Steven Matz On Injured List Due To Back Strain

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The Cardinals announced that left-hander Steven Matz has been placed on the 15-day injured list, retroactive to May 1, due to a lower back strain. Right-hander Kyle Leahy was recalled in a corresponding move.

The Cards signed the southpaw to a four-year, $44MM deal going into 2022 but they’ve gotten little return on that investment so far. Matz battled shoulder issues for much of 2022 and only tossed 48 innings with a 5.25 earned run average. Last year, he struggled out of the gate and got moved to the bullpen. He got in a good groove and retook a rotation spot as they played out the string on a lost season, finishing strong enough to have a 3.86 ERA by season’s end.

The club was surely hoping he could carry some momentum from that solid finish into 2024, and he did for a brief moment. After three starts, Matz had allowed just three earned runs and had a 1.80 ERA. But he’s allowed 16 earned runs in his three most recent outings, swelling his ERA to 6.18 for the year.

Per Katie Woo of The Athletic (X link), an issue cropped up with Matz’s back after his April 23 outing. The club had an off-day on April 25 and then a rainout April 29, which meant Matz got some extra rest before taking the ball again on April 30. It was hoped that the extra time would help him get beyond the back problem, but that didn’t come to pass. His velocity was down in that last start and he was pulled after allowing four earned runs in 3 1/3 innings. He was sent for an MRI yesterday, per Woo on X, and it seems the club has decided to put Matz on the shelf for at least a couple of weeks.

That will leave the club with Sonny Gray, Lance Lynn, Kyle Gibson and Miles Mikolas as healthy starters, but they will need a fifth at some point. As of today, the Cards are playing 13 games in a row before their next off-day.

Drew Rom was recently transferred to the 60-day injured list and won’t be an option. Matthew Liberatore could be considered but he’s been in the bullpen and isn’t stretched out. Zach Thompson was in the big league rotation before being being moved to the bullpen and then optioned to the minors. He tossed 3 2/3 innings in his most recent Triple-A start.

Sem Robberse and Adam Kloffenstein are each stretched out at Triple-A on on the 40-man, though Kloffenstein has a 5.93 ERA this year. Robberse is in much better form with a 1.77 ERA through six Triple-A starts, though he just started last night and likely wouldn’t be called up before Tuesday. Prospects Gordon Graceffo and Michael McGreevy are also stretched out in Triple-A, but neither is on the 40-man and they both have worse results than Robberse so far.

Twins, Adam Plutko Agree To Minor League Deal

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The Twins signed veteran right-hander Adam Plutko to a minor league contract, per the team’s transaction log at MLB.com. The CAA client will presumably head to Triple-A St. Paul once he’s built up, but he wasn’t with a team in spring training and could thus need some work at the team’s spring complex before joining an affiliate.

The 32-year-old Plutko spent the past two seasons pitching in the Korea Baseball Organization — for the LG Twins, coincidentally — and pitched quite well overseas. Through 285 1/3 innings out of LG’s rotation, he worked to a 2.40 ERA with a 21.7% strikeout rate, a 6% walk rate and a 46.5% ground-ball rate.

Prior to that run in the KBO, Plutko pitched in parts of five big league seasons between Cleveland and Baltimore, logging a 5.39 ERA in 273 2/3 innings while pitching both out of the rotation and in a long relief role. He’s fanned 17% of his big league opponents against a 7.2% walk rate. Twins president of baseball operations Derek Falvey worked in Cleveland’s front office from the time Plutko was drafted in 2013 until his eventual hiring in Minnesota following the 2016 season, so he should be quite familiar with Plutko.

Plutko gives the Twins some low-cost depth at a time when they’ve already seen their rotation thinned out. Righty Anthony DeSclafani underwent season-ending flexor surgery before Opening Day, and young right-hander Louie Varland struggled in his initial rotation look after showing promise in his first 22 MLB appearances in 2022-23.

Rookie Simeon Woods Richardson has stepped into the rotation and pitched well in three starts, but Minnesota’s options behind Woods Richardson and Varland aren’t plentiful. Left-hander Brent Headrick is on the 60-day injured list in the minors due to a forearm strain. Top prospect David Festa has pitched to a 2.18 ERA in Triple-A, but he’s also posted a 14.8% walk rate and has all of 33 career innings north of the Double-A level. Right-hander Randy Dobnak has an ERA just shy of 6.00 through his first six appearances of the season. Plutko doesn’t have a great big league track record, but he’ll add a needed depth option that’s had some recent success overseas.

Braves Acquire Jimmy Herget

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The Braves have acquired reliever Jimmy Herget from the Angels for cash considerations, both teams announced. Atlanta had an opening on the 40-man roster after waiving David Fletcher last week. They optioned Herget to Triple-A Gwinnett, so no further move was necessary.

Herget has been with the Halos since 2021. Los Angeles inked the sidewinding righty to a minor league deal that August and selected his contract two weeks later. Herget logged 14 appearances with a 4.30 ERA down the stretch and held his spot on the 40-man roster. The South Florida product followed up with a career year in 2022. He tossed a personal-high 69 innings with a 2.48 ERA, striking out 23.7% of opponents against a tidy 5.6% walk rate.

A spike in home runs the following season led the Halos to shuffle Herget between Anaheim and Triple-A Salt Lake. He allowed 4.66 earned runs per nine over 29 MLB innings and turned in a similar 4.68 mark over 32 2/3 frames in the Pacific Coast League. The Angels overhauled their bullpen last offseason, pushing Herget back to Salt Lake to open this season.

The 30-year-old has made 10 appearances with the Bees, tossing 11 1/3 innings. He has allowed seven runs (five earned) on 10 hits. Herget has only issued one walk, but opponents have connected on four homers in the early going. The Angels designated him for assignment over the weekend when they selected Zac Kristofak onto the MLB roster. (Kristofak was himself DFA yesterday when the Angels selected Willie Calhoun.)

Herget is in his final option year, meaning the Braves can keep him in Gwinnett for the rest of the season without putting him on waivers. He owns a 3.47 ERA in 142 2/3 major league innings between the Reds, Rangers and Angels.

Atlanta has a strong relief group without much in the way of roster flexibility. Of the eight relievers in the current MLB bullpen, only one (Dylan Lee) can be optioned. Herget joins Ray Kerr and Daysbel Hernández on optional assignment, while Ken Giles and Jackson Stephens are among the non-roster bullpen pieces in Gwinnett.

D-Backs Acquire Matt Bowman From Twins

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The Diamondbacks announced they’ve acquired reliever Matt Bowman from the Twins for cash considerations. Nick Piecoro of the Arizona Republic reported the move (on X) shortly before the announcement. Arizona optioned southpaw Blake Walston to Triple-A Reno in a corresponding active roster transaction. Starter Merrill Kelly moved from the 15-day to the 60-day injured list to clear 40-man roster space.

Bowman, 32, inked a minor league deal with Minnesota over the winter. The Twins selected his contract in the second week of the regular season. Bowman pitched five times, tossing 7 2/3 innings of two-run ball. He struck out six and issued four walks before being designated for assignment when the Twins welcomed Jhoan Duran back from the injured list. Bowman is out of options, so the Twins didn’t have the luxury of sending him back to Triple-A once they called him up.

A Princeton graduate, Bowman pitched for the Cardinals and Reds between 2016-19. He turned in three sub-4.00 ERA showings along the way, generally relying on huge ground-ball numbers to compensate for middling strikeout tallies. Injuries — most notably a September 2020 Tommy John procedure — kept Bowman out of game action for the next few years. He returned to health in Triple-A with the Yankees a year ago.

Bowman had a solid run for New York’s Triple-A affiliate. He posted a 3.99 ERA behind a 51.9% grounder percentage over 58 2/3 frames. The Yankees called him to the majors for a trio of appearances in September before waiving him at the end of the season.

Arizona is willing to install Bowman into the middle relief group. They’ll send cash Minnesota’s way to jump the waiver line. While Bowman doesn’t have much recent MLB experience because of the injuries, he’d gotten out to a strong start with Minnesota’s top farm team. He worked six innings and allowed only one unearned run with Triple-A St. Paul, striking out seven against a pair of walks.

The Diamondbacks have had a below-average relief group through the season’s first month. They entered play Thursday ranked 20th in ERA (4.34) and 28th in strikeout rate (18.7%). Arizona relievers have the fifth-highest walk percentage (11.3%) and have needed to shoulder the ninth-most innings.

The group was put under particular stress this week. After the now famous bee incident delayed Tuesday’s game, the D-Backs scratched Jordan Montgomery and used seven relievers to get through a bullpen game. Montgomery started yesterday but was knocked out after just three innings, requiring three more relievers (including a 3 2/3 inning stint from Walston in his MLB debut). Bowman adds a fresh arm to the middle innings.

Kelly suffered a shoulder strain that’ll require a lengthy absence. Manager Torey Lovullo was recently noncommittal on getting him back before the All-Star Break. He’s now out for a minimum of 60 days from the time of his original IL placement on April 20. He’s at least out of MLB action until mid-June.

Chasen Shreve Opts Out Of Rangers Deal

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Left-hander Chasen Shreve has opted out of his minor league deal with the Rangers, per Evan Grant of the Dallas Morning News. The southpaw is now a free agent and therefore eligible to sign with any club.

Shreve, 33, signed a minor league deal with the Rangers in February but didn’t break camp with the club. Towards the end of March, Jeff Wilson of Rangers Today reported that Shreve, Danny Duffy and Shane Greene were free to explore opt-outs in their deals, since none of that trio would be making the big league team.

It seems that Shreve decided not to opt out at that time, since he reported to Triple-A Round Rock. He has made ten appearances already this year with a 2.61 earned run average. He has nine strikeouts but has issued five walks.

The Rangers are fairly light in terms of left-handed relievers. Brock Burke is on the injured list after punching a wall and requiring surgery to address a broken bone on his non-throwing hand. That left Jacob Latz, who came into this year with just four major league appearances, as the only healthy southpaw in the bullpen.

Regardless, they don’t seem to have a spot for Shreve, so he’ll try his luck on the open market. He has appeared in 367 major league games, debuting back in 2014 with Atlanta and subsequently bouncing to the Yankees, Cardinals, Mets, Pirates, Tigers and Reds. He has a 3.97 ERA in his career, striking out 25.3% of batters faced while giving out walks at a 10.8% clip and getting grounders on 41.6% of balls in play. That walk rate is a tad high but he kept it to 8.8% in 2022 and just 7.3% last year, still striking out about a quarter of batters faced.

Red Sox Outright Joely Rodriguez

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The Red Sox have sent reliever Joely Rodríguez outright to Triple-A Worcester, tweets MassLive’s Chris Cotillo. Boston had designated the left-hander for assignment over the weekend.

Rodríguez signed a minor league deal with the Sox over the offseason. Boston carried him on the Opening Day roster to keep him from opting out and retesting free agency. That didn’t work as the team hoped, as he surrendered 12 runs (eight earned) over 11 innings. Rodríguez ran an 11:2 strikeout-to-walk ratio and induced grounders on over 55% of batted balls, but the Red Sox clearly weren’t overly bullish on his chance to get back on track.

It is the second straight season in which Rodríguez struggled over an 11-inning stint for Boston. Oblique, shoulder and hip injuries kept him to just 11 appearances a year ago. Rodríguez also allowed eight earned runs in that season, which came on the heels of a $2MM major league free agent deal. He divided the 2021-22 seasons between the Rangers and the two New York franchises, combining for a 4.56 ERA across 107 appearances.

Rodríguez has the requisite three years of major league service to decline an outright assignment, but he has not crossed the five-year threshold necessary to retain his salary if he does so. If Rodríguez accepts the assignment, he’ll join Lucas Luetge as a veteran non-roster southpaw in Worcester. Boston has Brennan Bernardino and Cam Booser in the big league bullpen. They acquired Bailey Horn from the White Sox earlier this week. He’s on the 40-man but was immediately optioned to Worcester and hasn’t yet pitched in the big leagues.

White Sox Outright Deivi Garcia

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White Sox right-hander Deivi Garcia passed through waivers unclaimed following this weekend’s DFA, the team announced Thursday afternoon. He’s been assigned outright to Triple-A Charlotte. Garcia has not been previously outrighted and does not have three years of big league service time, so he can’t reject the assignment. He’ll remain in the White Sox organization but no longer occupy a spot on the 40-man roster.

Once ranked among the game’s very best pitching prospects, the now-24-year-old Garcia (25 later this month) has seen his stock diminish amid shaky upper minors performances and some injuries. Garcia began to encounter significant command issues back in 2022, when he walked nearly 16% of his opponents in Triple-A. His command has yet to rebound, as evidenced by a career 14.3% walk rate in parts of four Triple-A seasons and a glaring 17% walk rate in 29 big league frames over the past two seasons.

The Yankees designated Garcia for assignment following the trade deadline last season, The rebuilding White Sox claimed the once-touted righty off waivers after the fact, but he’s struggled in his new environs as well. Garcia pitched 14 innings out of the Chicago bullpen this season and allowed 16 runs (11 earned) on 16 hits and 11 walks against 15 strikeouts. He also tossed four wild pitches along the way. Now that he’s passed through waivers, Garcia can head to Triple-A and attempt to get his command back on track.

Mychal Givens Opts Out Of Marlins Deal

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Veteran right-handed reliever Mychal Givens triggered an opt-out clause in his deal with the Marlins, MLBTR has learned. Givens was granted his release and is now a free agent.

Givens inked his deal with the Fish back in mid-March. He only got into a pair of spring games after signing and opened the year with the club’s Triple-A affiliate in Jacksonville. He showed some early rust when he was tagged for five runs in 1 1/3 innings in his first outing but has righted the ship of late; he’s allowed one run with an 8-to-1 K/BB ratio in his past 5 2/3 innings. Givens is still sitting on an unsightly 7.94 ERA overall through 11 1/3 frames after that rough start.

The 33-year-old Givens spent the 2023 season back with his original Orioles club, but knee and shoulder injuries limited him to just four big league innings (plus another 15 rehab innings in the minors). The right-hander’s original run with Baltimore was quite good, however. From 2015-20, Givens was a mainstay in the Birds’ bullpen, pitching to a 3.32 ERA with a 29.6% strikeout rate and 9.4% walk rate over 336 innings. The O’s, then mired in a lengthy rebuild, traded Givens to the Rockies at the 2020 deadline as his initial window of club control was drawing to a close.

Givens would ultimately pitch for five clubs over a three-year period from 2020-22, suiting up for the O’s, Rockies, Reds, Cubs and Mets. The overall output was quite similar to his time in Baltimore. In 134 2/3 innings while bouncing around the league via a series of one-year contracts and trades, Givens posted a 3.41 ERA with a 26.4% strikeout rate and 10.4% walk rate.

Overall, Givens has pitched in 425 big league games and tallied 461 2/3 innings of 3.47 ERA ball. He’s a fly-ball pitcher, but not to extreme levels, and has whiffed 28.2% of his career opponents against a 10% walk rate. With 85 holds and 31 saves under his belt, he’s no stranger to working in high-leverage spots. Givens’ heater was down about three miles per hour in last year’s tiny sample, though he also surely wasn’t pitching at full strength in that brief four-inning stint on the mound. Now back on the open market, he’ll give bullpen-needy teams a veteran option to consider when pondering ways to deepen their relief corps and/or make some changes amid early-season struggles.

Orioles Reinstate Kyle Bradish, Designate Yohan Ramírez

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The Orioles announced today that right-hander Kyle Bradish has been reinstated from the injured list and will start today’s game. To open a roster spot for him, righty Yohan Ramírez has been designated for assignment.

Bradish has been on the injured list all season and will be making his season debut today. While missing more than a month to start the year is less than ideal, it’s essentially a best-case scenario when considering where things stood a few months back. Bradish was diagnosed with a sprained ulnar collateral ligament in his right elbow in the middle of February, which naturally led to worries about Tommy John surgery and an absence of more than a year.

But the righty receive a platelet-rich plasma injection and began a throwing program shortly thereafter.  A few weeks later, general manager Mike Elias said that subsequent MRIs had shown “accelerated healing” of the ligament. Bradish began a rehab assignment a couple of weeks ago and made three starts, tossing 3 innings, then 3 1/3, then 5 frames.

Considering the scary diagnosis from the winter, seeing Bradish return to a big league mound just a few months later is just about the best outcome that could have been imagined. He had a huge breakout for the O’s last year, making 30 starts and finishing the year with a 2.83 earned run average. He struck out 25% of batters faced, walking opponents at a 6.6% rate while keeping 49.2% of balls in play on the ground. He finished fourth in American League Cy Young voting.

Getting that kind of production back in the rotation will be key for the Orioles, as their starting staff has been in constant flux this year. Both Bradish and John Means started the season on the injured list. Tyler Wells and Grayson Rodriguez have gone on the IL in recent weeks, though Means and Bradish have now both been activated. That leaves the club with a rotation of Bradish, Means, Corbin Burnes, Cole Irvin and Dean Kremer, with Albert Suárez likely bumped into a long relief role.

Despite the various injuries, the club has weathered the storm well. They are currently 19-11, one of the best records in baseball so far this year. Their starting staff has a collective ERA of 3.58 at the moment, which places them 10th in the majors.

The activation of Bradish will cost Ramírez his roster spot. It’s now possible that he will celebrate his birthday in DFA limbo, as he turns 29 on Monday. The righty has bounced around the league quite a bit in his career, having gone from the Mariners to the Guardians, Pirates, White Sox, Mets and Orioles over the past few years.

His stints with those last three clubs have each been fairly brief. The White Sox claimed him off waivers from the Pirates in September of last year. He was designated for assignment in December and traded to the Mets for cash. He lasted with the Mets through the winter but was designated for assignment just over a week into the season, going to the O’s in another cash deal.

Between the Mets and the Orioles, he has thrown 11 1/3 innings this year with an 8.74 ERA, though a lot of that ERA is due to a five-run outing for the Mets just before they cut him loose. He has struck out 22.2% of batters faced this year while walking 11.1%. He is out of options, so the only way for the O’s to clear him from the active roster was to remove him from the 40-man entirely.

They will now have a week to trade him or pass him through waivers. He now has a career ERA of 4.39 in 135 1/3 innings, going back to his 2020 debut. His 23.1% strikeout rate and 44.2% ground ball rate are both around league average, though his 12.4% walk rate is on the high side.

Angels Release Aaron Hicks

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The Angels have released Aaron Hicks, per the transaction log at MLB.com. That was the expected course of action once the Halos designated the veteran outfielder for assignment on Monday.

Assuming he clears release waivers, Hicks will become a free agent. That clearly wasn’t the way the Angels envisioned his tenure when they inked him to a major league deal over the winter. With the Yankees still responsible for Hicks’ salaries in the final two years of his contract, the Halos took a league minimum flier to add him to the big league bench. The switch-hitter had turned in a surprising .275/.381/.425 slash in 65 games with the Orioles after being released by New York last May.

The 34-year-old did not maintain that positive form in his month in Orange County. Hicks struck out in 23 of his 63 plate appearances as an Angel. He hit .140/.222/.193 overall, an even colder start than the .188/.263/.261 slash he’d had with the Yankees before his release last season. Despite Hicks’ productive stint in Baltimore, he has a below-average .224/.330/.330 batting line in 828 plate appearances going back to the start of 2022.

One day after designating Hicks for assignment, the Angels lost Mike Trout to a meniscus tear. They signed Kevin Pillar, himself recently DFA by the White Sox, to a major league deal. Pillar will back up the new starting trio of Taylor Ward, Mickey Moniak and Jo Adell in the Angel Stadium outfield.

As was the case for the Angels, any team willing to offer Hicks an MLB roster spot could do so at minimal cost. He’d be paid the prorated $740K league minimum for any time spent in the majors with New York on the hook for the bulk of the money.

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