White Sox, Nick Senzel Agree To Major League Deal
The White Sox are reportedly in agreement with free agent infielder Nick Senzel on a major league contract. Senzel, a client of the Boras Corporation, was released by the Nationals last week. Chicago will need to open space on the active and 40-man rosters once the move is finalized, which might not happen until after the All-Star Break.
As MLB’s clearest rebuilding team, the Sox are a sensible fit for Senzel. No team has gotten less from its third basemen this year. Through 371 plate appearances, Sox third basemen are hitting .206/.246/.315 with six home runs and a 4.6% walk rate. That’s in part because Yoán Moncada has been on the injured list since the second week of the season. Yet even with Moncada on a minor league rehab stint and nearing a return, there’s ample opportunity for Senzel around the Chicago infield.
The Sox have turned to Nicky Lopez, Paul DeJong and Lenyn Sosa as their primary options alongside first baseman Andrew Vaughn. DeJong has popped 16 homers and would certainly be dealt if the Sox can drum up any level of trade interest over the next two weeks. Sosa and Lopez have been well below-average hitters.
DeJong and Moncada are impending free agents. (The latter has a $25MM club option that certainly isn’t getting exercised.) Lopez would be due a raise on this year’s $4.3MM salary in his final year of arbitration, so he could be a non-tender candidate. Chicago’s infield could look quite a bit different next year.
Senzel is a long shot to emerge as a key piece himself, but there’s minimal risk for Chicago in taking a look at the former #2 overall pick. The one-time top prospect hasn’t met expectations on either side of the ball over his five-plus MLB seasons. He’s a career .235/.302/.368 hitter in just over 1600 big league plate appearances. Most of that came in one of the sport’s most favorable home hitting environments in Cincinnati’s Great American Ball Park.
Injuries perhaps played some role in diminishing Senzel’s production. He has never topped 420 plate appearances in a season and battled knee and toe issues during his time with the Reds. Cincinnati also bounced him around the diamond without much success in trying to expand his defensive versatility.
After the Reds non-tendered Senzel last winter, he landed with the Nationals on a $2MM free agent deal. Washington moved him back to his customary third base position in the hope that a more stable defensive setup could allow him to unlock some of his offensive upside. That’s not how things played out. Senzel hit .209/.303/.359 with below-average defensive grades over 64 games. Washington decided to move on and turn third base over to rookie Trey Lipscomb.
The Nationals are on the hook for the majority of Senzel’s contract. The White Sox will only pay him the prorated portion of the $740K minimum for any time he spends in the big leagues (which comes out of Washington’s obligations). Senzel surpassed the five-year service threshold earlier this season. That means he can no longer be sent to the minor leagues without his consent. He would be eligible for arbitration for the 2025 campaign if he plays well enough to hold a roster spot down the stretch.
Jon Heyman of the New York Post first reported Senzel was signing with the White Sox. James Fegan of Sox Machine reported it was a big league deal.
Image courtesy of USA Today Sports.
Cubs Acquire Jesus Tinoco From Royals
The Cubs announced this evening that they’ve acquired reliever Jesús Tinoco from the Royals for cash (X link via Maddie Lee of the Chicago Sun-Times). Tinoco had signed a minor league deal with Kansas City three weeks ago and was not on their 40-man roster. Unless tonight’s trade was spurred by some kind of upward mobility clause in that contract, the Cubs don’t need to immediately place Tinoco on their 40-man.
Tinoco made six appearances for the Royals’ top affiliate in Omaha. He fired 6 2/3 frames of three-run ball, striking out 10 while issuing one walk. Tinoco also missed plenty of bats in Triple-A with the Rangers earlier this season, fanning 30.3% of batters faced across 21 1/3 innings. His control was quite a bit spottier than he showed in his small sample with K.C., as he walked upwards of 11% of opponents with the Texas affiliate.
The 29-year-old Tinoco has appeared in parts of five MLB seasons between the Rockies, Marlins and Rangers. He tossed a career-high 36 innings of 4.75 ERA ball for Colorado as a rookie in 2019. Tinoco saw more sporadic work over the following few years, only narrowly topping the 20 inning threshold once. He spent last season in Japan, working to a 2.83 ERA despite pedestrian strikeout and walk numbers for the Seibu Lions.
Tinoco returned to the affiliated ranks on a minor league deal with the Rangers over the winter. He made nine MLB appearances with Texas earlier in the season, allowing nine runs over 10 innings. That pushes his career earned run average to 4.58 through 76 2/3 MLB innings. He has a below-average 18.1% strikeout rate with a near-14% walk percentage over that stretch.
While Tinoco hasn’t had much success against big league hitters, his recent form in Triple-A evidently intrigued Chicago. The Cubs rank 16th in the majors with a 4.01 ERA from their relief group. They’re in the top 10 in strikeout rate, but only the Rangers and White Sox have issued more free passes.
The Cubs also have six relievers — Julian Merryweather, Adbert Alzolay, Colten Brewer, Yency Almonte, Keegan Thompson and Luke Little — on the injured list. Chicago optioned Daniel Palencia to Triple-A Iowa today, opening a spot in the major league bullpen. If they decide to install Tinoco directly into the MLB staff, they’d need to create a 40-man roster space.
Brian Anderson Elects Free Agency
July 16: Anderson has elected free agency, per his transactions tracker at MLB.com.
July 15: The Braves announced that infielder/outfielder Brian Anderson has been sent outright to Triple-A Gwinnett. There wasn’t any previous reporting to suggest he was on waivers but it appears he was quietly passed through without being claimed in recent days. No corresponding move was announced so Atlanta will have an open spot on the active roster to be filled after the All-Star break. Their 40-man roster count drops to 39.
Anderson, 31, started the year with the Mariners on a minor league deal but opted out at the start of June. He then landed a major league deal with Atlanta shortly after Ronald Acuña Jr. suffered a season-ending ACL tear and Austin Riley missed a couple of weeks with a side injury.
Since Anderson has split his time between third base and the outfield in his career, he was a natural fill-in under those circumstances. Shortly thereafter, Michael Harris II suffered a left hamstring strain, further thinning Atlanta’s outfield depth.
Despite the need, the club never really used Anderson. He appeared in just three games from June 5 to 12 and then landed on the IL June 25, retroactive to the 22nd, due to a bacterial infection. He was reinstated on Wednesday last week but didn’t get into any of the club’s most recent games.
Anderson is a veteran with more than enough service time to reject this outright assignment and elect free agency, though it’s not yet clear whether he will choose to do so. Roster shakeup should be high in the coming weeks with the July 30 trade deadline just over the horizon. Perhaps that will open up some opportunities for him elsewhere if he decides to head to the open market.
He had a solid three-year run with the Marlins from 2018 to 2020. Over those campaigns, he hit .266/.350/.436 for a 115 wRC+ while providing solid defense at the hot corner and in the outfield. Since then, his results have tapered off with injuries playing a significant role. His line from 2021 to the present is .229/.316/.360, 87 wRC+, not hitting the 100-game plateau in any of those seasons with shoulder and oblique injuries holding him back.
Caleb Boushley Accepts Outright Assignment With Twins
Right-hander Caleb Boushley has cleared waivers after being designated for assignment a few days ago, with Do-Hyoung Park of MLB.com among those to relay the transaction on X. The righty had the right to elect free agency but has accepted his outright and will report to Triple-A St. Paul.
Boushley, 30, signed a minor league deal with the Twins in the offseason. He was added to the club’s roster in May but mostly kept on optional assignment, only getting into one big league game. That brought his tally of big league appearances to two, as he also appeared in one game with the Brewers last year. He has a 6.23 earned run average in his 4 1/3 innings at the top level.
He’s made 16 Triple-A starts this year with a 4.68 ERA. His 20.8% strikeout rate is a bit below par but he’s limited his walks to a tiny rate of 4%. Dating back to the start of 2021, he has a 4.55 ERA in 463 1/3 minor league innings with a 19.4% strikeout rate and 7% walk rate.
He still has a full slate of options yet the other 29 clubs passed on the chance to claim him and bring him aboard as pitching depth. Since he was outrighted by the Brewers last year, he had the right to elect free agency but has chosen to stay in the Twins’ system.
Minnesota lost Anthony DeSclafani for the year to flexor tendon surgery but their rotation is currently pretty healthy apart from that. At the moment, it consists of Pablo López, Bailey Ober, Joe Ryan, Chris Paddack and Simeon Woods Richardson. Guys like David Festa and Louie Varland are on the 40-man and currently in Triple-A, with Boushley now providing more depth alongside them in a non-roster capacity.
Twins Acquire Rylan Bannon From Mets
The Twins have acquired infielder Rylan Bannon from the Mets, per their transaction log at MLB.com. The return isn’t specified, though it’s typical for midseason trades of non-40-man players of this ilk to send cash the other direction. Speculatively speaking, Bannon may have had an out clause in his deal with the Mets; he was hitting well in Triple-A Syracuse prior to this swap.
Bannon, 28, has played in parts of two big league seasons, spending time with the Orioles, Braves and Astros. Despite having suited up for three clubs in 2022-23, he’s tallied only 21 plate appearances at the MLB level and gone 2-for-20 with a walk and eight strikeouts.
A seventh-round pick by the Dodgers back in 2017, Bannon was one of five players the Dodgers traded to Baltimore in the 2018 Manny Machado deal and for a few years looks as though he could have a role with the O’s in the majors. Bannon ranked among the Orioles’ top 30 prospects at MLB.com from 2019-21, sitting between 18th and 23rd on their list along the way. He’s had an inconsistent but at-times productive track record in the upper minors.
That minor league track record includes a strong three-month stint with the Mets organization to begin the 2024 season. Bannon appeared in 79 games and tallied 342 plate appearances with the Mets’ Syracuse affiliate, batting .254/.392/.475 with 15 homers, seven steals and a gaudy 17.5% walk rate. He played second base, third base, shortstop and both outfield corners during his time in the Mets’ system but ultimately didn’t receive a call to the majors.
The Twins have a crowded but increasingly banged-up infield mix, so it’s not a shock to see them adding some more depth. Third baseman Royce Lewis is on the shelf with an adductor strain, and Minnesota placed Jose Miranda on the injured list with a back issue just prior to the break. Neither player is expected to be in for an especially lengthy IL stint. The Twins selected the contract of infielder Diego Castillo just before the break when Miranda hit the injured list.
Carlos Correa, in the midst of his best season since signing with the Twins, is skipping the All-Star Game due to an ongoing bout of plantar fasciitis. There’s no indication yet that Correa will head to the injured list, and the Twins still have top prospect Brooks Lee to slot in at third base and All-Star utilityman Willi Castro as an option at second base. If Correa does require a stint on the 10-day IL, Edouard Julien could be recalled from St. Paul, with Castro or Lee taking over at shortstop.
Giants’ Logan Porter Triggers Opt-Out Clause
Catcher Logan Porter has triggered an opt-out clause in his minor league deal with the Giants, reports Ari Alexander of KPRC-2. San Francisco has 48 hours to either add Porter to its 40-man roster or trade him to another team that will do so. He’ll become a free agent if neither happens.
Porter, 29, made his big league debut with the Royals in 2023 but appeared in only 11 games and took 38 plate appearances. He hit .194/.323/.324 in that brief cup of coffee. He became a free agent at season’s end, and Kansas City re-signed him to a minor league deal over the winter. However, he was traded to the Giants earlier this season in exchange for cash or a player to be named later.
While Porter’s small-sample numbers in the bigs last year aren’t going to turn any heads, he’s slashing a combined .293/.390/.500 in 223 plate appearances between the Triple-A affiliates for the Royals and Giants. He’s also nabbed a solid 26% of runners who’ve tried to steal against him (11-for-43). In parts of three Triple-A seasons, Porter is a .260/.373/.424 hitter with a 24.6% strikeout rate and a huge 14.6% walk rate.
The Giants don’t have a dire need for catching help in the majors, not with former first-round pick Patrick Bailey in the midst of a breakout year. Bailey debuted in 2023 and quickly established himself as perhaps the game’s premier defender behind the dish but did so while posting a tepid .233/.285/.359 batting line. This year, he’s erupted with a .283/.354/.430 slash that checks in 25% better than league-average, by measure of wRC+. That massive step forward has cemented Bailey as the franchise’s catcher of the future.
Backing up Bailey is veteran Curt Casali, who’s in his second stint with the team. The 35-year-old isn’t hitting much, just .220/.350/.260 in 61 plate appearances, so it’s at least possible the Giants could look at Porter as a potential upgrade. If not, the opt-out clause ensures that the league’s other 29 clubs will have the chance to bring him aboard. Even if no club is interested in putting Porter directly onto its 40-man roster, there’s still value in taking the opt-out and exploring opportunities. A team with a less-entrenched starting catcher or a club that’s planning to trade away some big league catching help could offer Porter a more realistic path to the big leagues on a new minor league contract.
Reds Sign Patrick Weigel To Minor League Deal
Right-hander Patrick Weigel, who’s spent the bulk of the season pitching with the Mexican League’s Saraperos de Saltillo, has signed a minor league deal with the Reds, as first announced by his now-former club. Weigel was assigned to Double-A Chattanooga and tossed a perfect inning with one strikeout on Sunday.
Weigel, who turned 30 last week, pitched in a pair of big league seasons in 2020-21. The former seventh-round pick ranked as one of the Braves’ top organizational pitching prospects for years, climbing as high as the system’s ninth-best prospect on Baseball America’s 2017 list and ranking within BA’s top 20 Braves prospects each year from 2017-21.
Despite being a prospect of some note for more than a half decade, Weigel has just 4 2/3 innings at the big league level under his belt. He yielded four earned runs on six hits and seven walks with nine punchouts in that tiny sample. He’s posted sterling numbers throughout the lower and middle levels of the minors but stumbled a bit upon reaching Triple-A, where he carries a career 4.68 ERA, 21.1% strikeout rate and 13.4% walk rate in 209 2/3 innings across parts of four seasons.
Weigel’s run with Atlanta came to an end in 2021, when the Braves traded him to the Brewers alongside fellow righty Chad Sobotka in the deal that netted current shortstop Orlando Arcia. Weigel was cut loose following that 2021 season and has since pitched for the Mariners’ Triple-A affiliate and for the Kansas City Monarchs of the independent American Association in addition to this year’s stint in Mexico.
He’ll need to pitch his way into bullpen consideration for the Reds, but Sunday’s spotless frame was a good start — and his work in a very hitter-friendly Mexican League setting was intriguing as well. Weigel tossed 37 2/3 innings and worked to a sharp 2.87 earned run average while fanning 28.3% of his opponents against a tidy 7.9% walk rate.
Giants, Clayton Andrews Agree To Minor League Deal
The Giants signed lefty reliever Clayton Andrews to a minor league contract, per the transaction log at MLB.com. San Francisco assigned Andrews to their Arizona complex for the time being, though he’ll presumably head to Triple-A Sacramento before long.
A former 17th-round pick by the Brewers, Andrews has five MLB appearances under his belt. The 5’6″ southpaw reached the majors with four outings for Milwaukee last season. He made a lone appearance this year for the Yankees, who acquired him from Milwaukee in February. Andrews recorded one out and surrendered a homer to Luke Raley during his only game in pinstripes. New York designated him for assignment and ran him through outright waivers when they signed Tim Hill late last month.
Andrews has cleared waivers twice this season. After the second outright, he had the ability to choose minor league free agency instead of heading back to Triple-A with the Yankees. He took that opportunity and lands with an organization that plays much closer to home. The 27-year-old went to high school in Santa Rosa and attended Long Beach State.
The Giants have been light on lefty relief depth. Taylor Rogers and Erik Miller are the only southpaws to work multiple innings out of Bob Melvin’s bullpen all year. Raymond Burgos made a one-inning cameo in his MLB debut but was quickly outrighted off the 40-man roster. San Francisco has made a couple recent additions to their 40-man in an effort to shore up the group. They acquired Alex Young from the Reds for Austin Slater and grabbed Kolton Ingram off waivers from the Cardinals.
San Francisco takes a non-roster flier on Andrews, who has shown the ability to miss bats in the minors. He punched out almost 26% of opposing hitters over 24 2/3 Triple-A frames for the Yankees. Over parts of six seasons in the minors, Andrews has fanned nearly a third of batters faced. He hasn’t managed to harness that intriguing stuff consistently. Andrews has walked more than 12% of opponents in his professional career and dished out free passes to 22 of 108 opponents (20.4%) in the Yankees’ system.
Rockies Claim Antoine Kelly, Designate Josh Rogers
The Rockies announced Monday that they’ve claimed left-hander Antoine Kelly off waivers from the Rangers, who’d previously designated him for assignment. In order to open a spot on the 40-man roster, Colorado designated fellow lefty Josh Rogers for assignment.
Kelly, 24, was a second-round pick by the Brewers in 2019 and went to the Rangers alongside utilityman Mark Mathias in the 2022 deadline deal that sent righty Matt Bush from Texas to Milwaukee. Kelly pitched in the 2022 Futures Game and enjoyed a standout 2023 season split the Rangers’ Double-A and Triple-A bullpens: 57 1/3 innings, 11 saves, 2.04 ERA, 32.1% strikeout rate, 9.3% walk rate.
That promising trajectory has gone off the rails in 2024, however. Kelly has missed significant time with a forearm injury this season and been ineffective when healthy, yielding 17 earned runs in a span of 16 1/3 innings at the Triple-A level. His strikeout rate has dropped considerably, though at 25%, it’s still better than average. However, Kelly has issued nearly as many walks as he has recorded strikeouts, with a glaring 22.9% of his opponents reaching via base on balls. Add in the two batters he’s plunked, and he’s at a combined 24 walks/HBP — the same number of strikeouts he’s yielded this season.
Command troubles — albeit not to this extent — are nothing new for Kelly. Even prior to this season, he’d walked 13% of his career opponents. Last year’s strong K-BB profile represented a significant step forward for the southpaw, and the Rockies will hope they can get him back to that form down the stretch and into future seasons. Kelly is in the first of three minor league option seasons, so the Rox will be able to freely option him not only this year but also in 2025 and 2026 if they keep him on the roster for that long.
The 30-year-old Rogers signed minor league deals with Colorado in each of the past two offseasons. He didn’t pitch for the Rockies in ’23 but has appeared in five games this season, logging 9 1/3 innings out of the bullpen and surrendering seven runs on a dozen hits and two walks with two strikeouts. The Rockies selected Rogers to the MLB roster in late May but placed him on the injured list barely two weeks later, owing to a strain in his left rotator cuff. Rogers was reinstated from the injured list and optioned to Triple-A just yesterday. He’ll now spend up to a week in DFA limbo as he waits to learn whether he’s been traded, claimed by another club, passed through outright waivers or released.
Originally an 11th-round pick by the 2015 Yankees, Rogers went to the Orioles as part of the Zack Britton trade in 2018. He pitched parts of two seasons with the O’s and another two with the Nats after being released and signing a minor league deal in Washington. Overall, he’s pitched 97 1/3 innings in the majors between three teams and yielded a 5.55 ERA with a 10.9% strikeout rate and 5.5% walk rate. He’s pitched 496 innings in Triple-A as well but had similar struggles there: 5.72 ERA, 15% strikeout rate, 6.6% walk rate.
Brewers Select Brewer Hicklen
The Brewers have selected the contract of outfielder Brewer Hicklen, though he has been optioned and will stay at Triple-A Nashville. Infielder Oliver Dunn was transferred to the 60-day injured list to open a 40-man roster spot. The moves were relayed on X by Adam McCalvy of MLB.com.
Hicklen, 28, signed with Milwaukee in the offseason in a textbook case of nominative determinism. Since signing that deal, he has been having a great year in Triple-A. In 72 games for the Sounds, he has been struck out at a high rate of 26.5% but has also drawn walks 13.1% of the time and hit 19 home runs. That’s led to a .270/.383/.571 slash line and 139 wRC+, indicating he’s been 39% better than the league average hitter. He’s also stolen 26 bases in 30 tries while lining up at all three outfield spots.
When a player is selected to a 40-man roster but then immediately optioned, it’s usually a sign that his contract contains some kind of opt-out provision. Per McCalvy on X, Hicklen did indeed have a such a clause in his deal. The Brewers aren’t going to bring him up to the majors but have given him a roster spot because they didn’t want him to get away after that strong performance in the first few months of the 2024 season.
It will be difficult for him to crack the outfield at the big league level, as Milwaukee has a fairly crowded group of guys competing for playing time on the grass. As of right now, Christian Yelich is serving as the designated hitter fairly regularly but also with some outfield time mixed in there. Sal Frelick, Garrett Mitchell, Jackson Chourio and Blake Perkins are splitting the rest of the time out there. With those five guys on the active roster, Joey Wiemer has been on optional assignment for much of the year. The club toyed with using Frelick at third base earlier this year but Joey Ortiz has firmly taken over that spot.
Hicklen has a full slate of options and can be kept around as depth for quite a while, if the Brewers keep him on the 40-man. Speculatively speaking, it’s also possible that the club’s relative strength in the outfield could be used to address their need for pitching, which could perhaps change the outfield picture in the coming weeks.
Whenever Hicklen is back up in the majors, he can add to a track record that currently consists of just six games with the Royals in 2022. He only got four plate appearances in that time and is still looking for his first major league hit, as he struck out in all four of those trips to the plate. He’s generally hit well in the minors, with a slash of .244/.348/.469 and 113 wRC+ from 2021 to 2023 and has been in even better form this year.
As for Dunn, he was placed on the 10-day injured list on June 19 due to a back strain. He’s now ineligible to return until 60 days from that date, which would be in the middle of August. On June 29, Todd Rosiak of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel relayed on X that Dunn was expected to miss more than a month due to a disc issue in his back.