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A’s Acquire Lucas Erceg From Brewers

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The A’s announced this evening they’ve acquired minor league reliever Lucas Erceg from the Brewers for cash. The 28-year-old was not on Milwaukee’s 40-man roster and will not immediately go on the Oakland 40-man.

A San Jose native, Erceg entered the professional ranks as Milwaukee’s second round pick in 2016. He was a third baseman at the time and generated a fair amount of attention from prospect evaluators early in his career. After multiple seasons of offensive struggles in the upper minors, he gradually fell off the prospect radar. He was sitting on a .223/.270/.379 batting line as a 26-year-old in Double-A two seasons ago when he and the organization agreed to transition to pitching.

Erceg has spent the past two and a half seasons pitching in the upper minors. As one might expect, his results have been mixed. Erceg has missed bats around a league average rate but struggled to throw strikes consistently. That’s understandable for someone who’s new to pitching full-time but has translated into a 5.07 ERA over 124 1/3 minor league frames.

The right-hander has allowed 15 runs (11 earned) over 15 1/3 frames with Triple-A Nashville this season. He’s fanned 16, walked ten and induced grounders at an excellent 53.8% rate. While Erceg clearly still isn’t a finished product, Eric Longenhagen of FanGraphs named him the #32 prospect in the Milwaukee farm system last offseason. According to Longenhagen, Erceg’s fastball sits in the 96-99 MPH range. The A’s will take a flier on his power arm and lofty ground-ball totals in spite of the overall performance inconsistency.

As with much of the roster, Oakland’s bullpen has been among the league’s worst. The A’s entered play Wednesday with the highest bullpen ERA (6.64) and lowest strikeout rate (18%). Erceg won’t step immediately into that mix but should have a clearer path to an MLB job than he would’ve in Milwaukee if he can find success in Triple-A.

Brewers To Place Wade Miley On IL With Lat Strain

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3:05pm: The Brewers have now officially placed Miley on the IL, recalling righty Jake Cousins in a corresponding move.

9:34am: Brewers lefty Wade Miley departed  last night’s game in the second inning after throwing just 22 pitches. It was later announced that he has a left lat strain and will be placed on the 15-day injured list, per Adam McCalvy of MLB.com (Twitter links).

At this point, it’s not known who will take Miley’s roster spot or how long he’ll be out of action, with the southpaw undoubtedly set for further testing in the days to come. But even a mild lat strain usually requires about two to three weeks of recovery time, meaning Miley will likely be looking at more than a minimum stint on the injured list.

Miley was off to a solid start to the year, proceeding in his low-strikeout ways, succeeding by inducing soft contact. Through eight starts, he has a 3.67 ERA despite a modest 14% strikeout rate. But his 5.3% walk rate is excellent and Statcast pegs his average exit velocity in the 73rd percentile among qualified pitchers and his hard hit rate in the 76th.

Losing Miley for a few weeks will present a challenge to a Milwaukee club that is already dealing with a few other injuries to its rotation. Brandon Woodruff has a subscapular strain and isn’t expected back before late June, Jason Alexander has a shoulder strain of his own and is on the 60-day IL, while Aaron Ashby had shoulder surgery and may not be able to pitch this year at all.

That will leave the Brewers with Corbin Burnes, Freddy Peralta, Eric Lauer and Adrian Houser in the four rotation spots and a question mark for the final slot. It’s possible that they recall Colin Rea, who had been with the club in recent weeks until Houser returned from his groin strain. Rea has a 5.52 ERA in 31 innings this year over six starts and one relief appearance. He was only optioned a few days ago but would be eligible to return quicker than the standard 15-day minimum if he’s the corresponding move for Miley going on the injured list. Janson Junk is also on the 40-man roster and has a 3.86 ERA in Triple-A this year. He was called up to make a spot start in April but allowed four earned runs on seven hits and two walks in 4 2/3 innings.

Non-roster options would include Robert Gasser, who is one of the club’s top pitching prospects and is at the Triple-A level, but he has a 5.17 ERA there this year. Thomas Pannone is with the club on a minor league deal, having started the year in the Triple-A bullpen but getting stretched out recently. He has a 2.04 ERA through 17 2/3 innings there. Either of these two or any other non-roster option would require a corresponding move to get them onto the 40-man.

Cardinals Select Oscar Mercado

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2:40pm: The Cardinals have announced Mercado’s selection, along with left-hander Matthew Liberatore being recalled from Triple-A Memphis. In corresponding moves, Carlson was placed on the 10-day injured list retroactive to May 15 while righty James Naile was optioned. To make room for Mercado on the 40-man roster, lefty Packy Naughton was transferred to the 60-day injured list. Naughton has been on the IL since April 8 with a forearm strain and will now be ineligible to return until early June, 60 days from that initial IL placement.

12:47pm: The Cardinals are set to select the contract of outfielder Oscar Mercado, as first reported by Robert Murray and Joshua Jacobs of FanSided (Twitter link). They’ll need to make a corresponding 40-man roster move, as Mercado is currently in Triple-A Memphis on a minor league deal.

Outfielder Dylan Carlson has been hobbled by an ankle injury that’s kept him out of the lineup for the past few games. He’s been available off the bench on an emergency basis but hasn’t played since exiting the Cardinals’ Sunday game after just one plate appearance. Tyler O’Neill is already on the injured list with a back strain, and it stands to reason that Carlson could also wind up headed there if he’s still unavailable. A 10-day IL placement can be backdated up to three days, so he that move could still have him available for activation within a week’s time, if the Cards go that route.

Calling up Mercado will give the Cards some additional depth in center field behind Lars Nootbaar, who’s been starting in center recently. Mercado will join Nootbaar, Brendan Donovan, Alec Burleson and Juan Yepez as outfield options on the big league roster.

Mercado, 28, was a second-round pick by St. Louis back in 2013 but was traded to Cleveland before making his big league debut. He was a fringe Rookie of the Year candidate in Cleveland in 2019, batting .269/.318/.443 with 15 homers and 15 steals in 482 trips to the plate. That landed him an eighth-place finish on the ballot and looked to set the stage for Mercado to hold down a long-term spot in the outfield, but he regressed badly in 2020 and has yet to recover. In 459 plate appearances since that strong debut campaign, Mercado has batted .200/.258/.330.

The Cardinals brought Mercado back to the organization on a minor league contract this offseason, and he’s out to a nice start in Memphis, where he’s slashed .278/.361/.421 (100 wRC+) with a pair of home runs and 15 steals (in 18 tries). Mercado is out of minor league options, so it could be a short stay on the big league roster for him once O’Neill and/or Carlson can return to the lineup. The Cards won’t be able to send Mercado down without first passing him through waivers, which would make him a DFA candidate once the outfield is at full strength.

Rays Select Zack Burdi

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The Rays have selected the contract of right-hander Zack Burdi from Triple-A Durham and optioned right-hander Yonny Chirinos to Durham in his place, per a team announcement. Tampa Bay also announced that right-hander Javy Guerra, whom they designated for assignment over the weekend, has accepted an outright assignment to Triple-A after clearing waivers.

This’ll be Burdi’s second stint of the season with the Rays. He came up earlier in the season and pitched three scoreless frames with a 4-to-1 K/BB ratio before being designated for assignment and passed through waivers. He accepted an outright assignment ten days ago and is now back with the big league club.

Burdi, 28, is a former first-round pick and top prospect whose career has been waylaid by injuries, including 2018 Tommy John surgery and a torn patellar tendon in 2019. He inked a minor league deal with the Rays over the winter, and while he got out to a rocky start in Durham this season, he’s tossed seven innings and allowed just one run over his past four appearances. Add in the three shutout big league frames, and he’s been quite effective dating back to mid-April, even in spite of an ugly 5.56 ERA in Triple-A.

Guerra, 27, has bounced between the Rays and Brewers over the past six months. Tampa Bay originally acquired him from the Padres in exchange for cash last April. After tossing 16 innings of 3.38 ERA ball with elite velocity but sub-par strikeout and walk rates, he was traded to the Brewers in an offseason swap that netted right-handed pitching prospect Victor Castaneda. The Brewers designated Guerra for assignment after he walked nine batters against five strikeouts while pitching to an 8.64 ERA in 9 1/3 innings, and Milwaukee flipped him right back to Tampa Bay for a player to be named later.

Guerra walked another nine batters in an even smaller sample of five innings (28 total batters faced) before being designated for assignment by the Rays. The former top shortstop prospect has been working to make the jump to a successful reliever, but his command is in clear need of refinement. He pitched 41 2/3 innings of 1.74 ERA ball with a 31.9% strikeout rate and 9.8% walk rate with Durham last season, and if he can get back to that form, he could yet be a prominent bullpen piece for the Rays.

As for Chirinos, he worked 9 1/3 shutout innings with a 5-to-2 K/BB ratio to kick off his comeback from Tommy John surgery earlier this year, but his work of late has been far less crisp. Over his past four appearances (one start, three following an opener), Chirinos has a 4.12 ERA in 19 2/3 innings with nine walks against just six strikeouts. His overall season ERA is a strong 2.79, but Chirinos’ matching 9.7% strikeout and walk rates tell another story. Fielding-independent metrics like FIP (4.68) and SIERA (5.74) are far more bearish on his work.

Chirinos’ workload figures to be monitored this season as well, after he pitched just 33 1/3 innings in 2022. He’s already at 36 1/3 frames on the year between Triple-A and the Majors. He’ll head to Durham for the time being while the Rays figure out how they’ll manage a host of pitching injuries that included Jeffrey Springs (Tommy John surgery), Drew Rasmussen (flexor strain, 60-day IL) and Tyler Glasnow (oblique strain, has yet to his season debut).

Mets To Option Luis Guillorme

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The Mets are going to option infielder Luis Guillorme, per Andy Martino of SNY. Guillorme’s roster spot will go to infielder Mark Vientos, whose promotion was reported on earlier today.

Guillorme, 28, debuted with the Mets in 2018. He served as a frequently-optioned depth piece in his first couple of seasons but has generally been a fixture of the club since the 2020 season. Though not a superstar, he has been a useful member of the club as a guy who can do a lot of things well.

From the start of 2020 to the present, Guillorme has appeared in 228 games for the Mets and stepped to the plate 627 times. He only has three home runs but has drawn walks in 12% of those appearances while striking out just a 16.1% rate. His .273/.362/.335 batting line in that time translates to a 105 wRC+, indicating he’s been a bit above average. He’s done all that while moving between second base, third base and shortstop, generally considered to be a passable defender or better at any of those spots.

Guillorme’s bat has taken a bit of a step backward here in 2023, as he has been punched out in 22.1% of his plate appearances while slashing .233/.324/.267 for a wRC+ of 77. The Mets are off to a sluggish start this year, currently 20-23 and in fourth place in the National League East. It seems they are looking to shake things up to try to find some more offense, bringing up Vientos and his .333/.416/.688 Triple-A batting line.

It’s easy to see why the Mets see that as an upgrade worth pursuing, but there will be a bit of risk on the defensive side of things. Guillorme was backing up several infield positions and the club will be a bit short-handed there, particularly up the middle. Vientos and Baty will have third covered but neither has any recent work at second or short. With Francisco Lindor and Jeff McNeil getting the starts up the middle most days, it would appear Eduardo Escobar is the backup there. He has plenty of shortstop experience but only two innings at the position since 2018, while McNeil has just one career inning there, which was earlier this season.

Guillorme will head to the minors to try to get back into good form at the dish. From a service time perspective, he came into this season with three years and 167 days, meaning he’s already gone over the four-year mark. Assuming the Mets recall him again at some point this season, he’ll remain on track for free agency after the 2025 season. However, once he spends 20 days in the minors, he’ll burn his final option season and be slated to be out of options in 2024. He’s making $1.6MM this year and would be eligible for an arbitration raise this winter if the Mets tender him a contract.

Dodgers Select Dylan Covey

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1:37pm: The Dodgers formally announced the selection of Covey’s contract from Triple-A Oklahoma City. In a pair of corresponding moves, lefty Justin Bruihl was optioned to Triple-A and right-hander Jimmy Nelson was transferred from the 15-day IL to the 60-day IL. Nelson hasn’t pitched in the Majors this season as he recovers from 2022 Tommy John surgery, and his rehab assignment was recently halted due to some soreness, so his move to the 60-day IL was largely a formality and not a particular surprise.

1:06pm: The Dodgers are going to select the contract of right-hander Dylan Covey, manager Dave Roberts tells reporters, including Fabian Ardaya of The Athletic. The righty isn’t currently on the 40-man, so the club will need a corresponding move or moves to get him a spot there and on the active roster.

Covey, 31, pitched for the White Sox from 2017 through 2019, primarily as a starter. He logged 250 1/3 innings over those three seasons but registered an unimpressive 6.54 ERA. He got grounders at a solid 50% clip but struck out just 15.3% of batters faced while walking 10.1%. The Red Sox gave him eight relief appearances in 2020 but he put up a 7.07 ERA in those.

He then spent the next two years with the Rakuten Monkeys of the Chinese Professional Baseball League in Taiwan, faring quite well. He made 33 starts there over 2021 and 2022 with a 3.63 ERA in 198 1/3 innings. He returned to North America this winter by signing a minor league deal with the Dodgers and currently has a 4.22 ERA through 32 Triple-A innings over six starts and one relief appearance, getting grounders on 62.2% of balls in play.

He will add a fresh arm to a bullpen that has been busy this week. The club played a 12-inning game on Monday and then saw Clayton Kershaw last just four innings yesterday, leading to the relief corps getting plenty of work. Covey can slot in and potentially cover multiple innings if need be, with the club’s next off-day not until May 25, next Thursday.

Diamondbacks Option Alek Thomas

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The Diamondbacks announced today that they have optioned outfielder Alek Thomas to Triple-A Reno, recalling right-hander Luis Frías in a corresponding move.

Thomas, 23, has been one of the club’s most notable prospects in recent years. He was selected in the second round of the 2018 draft and featured on Baseball America’s top 100 list in three straight years starting in 2020, with his speed and defense drawing particularly high praise.

He’s now been in the majors for roughly a full season of work, getting into 152 games between last year and this year. The speed and defense parts of his game have been apparent, with Statcast pegging his sprint speed in the 89th percentile among qualified position players this year, though he’s stolen just seven bases in 11 attempts in his career thus far. In terms of his glovework, he’s already accrued nine Defensive Runs Saved and seven Outs Above Average in center field in his short career, as well as earning a grade of 3.7 from Ultimate Zone Rating.

The problem has been his work at the plate. Though Thomas hit very well in the minors, he hasn’t produced much in his 534 major league plate appearances thus far. He has 10 home runs but has walked in just 5.6% of his trips to the plate and has slashed .223/.270/.340 for a wRC+ of 68. That includes a paltry .195/.252/.327 line here in 2023. A career .257 batting average on balls in play likely suggests there’s a bit of bad luck in there, but it’s been a fairly uninspiring showing overall.

The Diamondbacks went into the winter with a surplus of young outfielders, including Thomas, Corbin Carroll, Jake McCarthy and Daulton Varsho. They felt good enough about the group that they were frequently rumored to be discussing those players in trades, eventually sending Varsho to the Blue Jays for Gabriel Moreno and Lourdes Gurriel Jr. However, Thomas is now the second member of that group to wind up back in the minors after posting disappointing results, as McCarthy was sent down last month.

In addition to his own struggles, the demotion of Thomas seems to have been spurred by the ascendance of Dominic Fletcher, who was promoted a few weeks ago and has hit .377/.400/.604 in his first 15 games. He won’t sustain a .429 BABIP forever but it seems the D’Backs are riding the hot hand and will give Fletcher a chance to stretch his results over a longer sample of playing time. He figures to be the regular center fielder for now, flanked by Gurriel and Carroll with Pavin Smith in the fourth outfielder slot.

Thomas, meanwhile, will head to Reno and try to get back into a groove at the plate. From a service time perspective, he came into this season with 151 days and has already gone over the one-year mark, which is 172 days. Assuming he’s recalled at some point this season, today’s option won’t affect his free agency trajectory but it could impact his ability to reach arbitration after 2024 as a Super Two player, depending on the eventual length of time between now and his next recall.

Royals Select Mike Mayers

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The Royals announced Wednesday that they’ve selected the contract of veteran right-hander Mike Mayers from Triple-A Omaha. Lefty Amir Garrett was placed on the family medical emergency list in a corresponding 26-man roster move, while left-hander Ryan Yarbrough was transferred to the 60-day IL in order to open a spot on the 40-man roster.

Yarbrough has been on the 15-day IL since May 7, when he was struck in the face by a comeback line-drive off the bat of A’s first baseman Ryan Noda. The Royals announced on May 9 that Yarbrough would not require surgery but had sustained multiple facial fractures and was entering concussion protocol. Today’s shift to the 60-day IL means he’ll be out until at least early July.

Mayers, 31, has seen big league time in seven prior MLB seasons — all split between the Cardinals and Angels. He posted strong numbers with the 2020-21 Halos, logging a combined 3.34 ERA with a 30.5% strikeout rate, 8% walk rate, 35.9% ground-ball rate and 1.11 HR/9 in 105 innings — picking up four saves and 22 holds along the way.

Unfortunately, Mayers’ 2022 campaign more closely mirrored his rough four-year stretch with the Cardinals; in 50 2/3 innings last year, Mayers was tagged for a 5.68 ERA with diminished strikeout abilities and fastball velocity. He also yielded a career-worst 2.66 homers per nine frames with lofty opponents’ exit velocity and hard-hit rate marks (91.2 mph and 48.1%).

The Royals inked Mayers to a minor league contract over the winter, and he’s spent the 2023 season in their Triple-A rotation, where he’s been hit hard. In eight starts, Mayers has lasted just 34 innings with a 6.88 ERA, a sub-par 18.1% strikeout rate and an elevated 10.6% walk rate.

Kansas City has an off-day today and, as such, won’t need a starter in the near future. They’re lined up with Zack Greinke, Jordan Lyles, Brad Keller and Brady Singer to make their scheduled turns Friday through Monday, so it seems likely that Mayers will step into the bullpen and provide some length. The Royals’ pitching staff as a whole has flopped in 2023, as their collective 5.32 ERA ranks 28th in the sport and leads only the White Sox (5.44) and Athletics (7.18).

Kevin Plawecki Opts Out Of Deal With Nationals

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Veteran catcher Kevin Plawecki triggered an opt-out clause in his minor league contract with the Nationals, reports Andrew Golden of the Washington Post (Twitter link). Unless Washington selects him onto the big league roster, he’ll return to the open market.

Plawecki signed with the Nats on April 1. It was his second non-roster pact of the year, as he’d previously opted out of a deal with the Pirates after being informed he wouldn’t make the Pittsburgh roster in Spring Training. Plawecki has appeared in 24 games with the Nats’ top affiliate in Rochester. He hit .256/.354/.341 through 94 trips to the plate. The right-handed hitter homered just once but walked at a strong 11.7% clip against a manageable 16% strikeout rate.

Now 32, Plawecki is looking to reach the majors for a ninth straight year. He’s a career .235/.313/.341 hitter in 447 MLB games between the Mets, Indians, Red Sox and Rangers. He split last year between Boston and Texas, combining for a .220/.286/.286 mark over 186 trips to the plate. He had a very tough time controlling the running game last season, catching just five of 51 attempted basestealers. He’d been off to a better start in Rochester, cutting down 10 of 42 runners (a slightly below-average 23.8% rate) through 201 1/3 innings.

The Nationals have relied on a catching tandem of Keibert Ruiz and Riley Adams. The former has gotten the bulk of the playing time and is off to a .242/.308/.356 start through 146 plate appearances. Adams has struggled in seven games scattered over the season’s first six weeks.

White Sox Reinstate Garrett Crochet

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The White Sox announced that left-hander Garrett Crochet has been reinstated from the injured list. Right-hander Nicholas Padilla was optioned in a corresponding move.

Crochet, 24 next month, will be pitching in the majors for the first time in about a year and a half once he makes his first appearance of the season. He required Tommy John surgery in early April of 2022, which wiped out that entire season for him and the early parts of 2023 as well.

Prior to that lost year, Crochet had quickly established himself as a viable major league arm. The Sox selected him 11th overall in the 2020 draft and added him to their 60-man player pool shortly thereafter, with the minor leagues having been canceled by the pandemic that year. He made his major league debut later in that campaign with five scoreless appearances in the regular season and another in the postseason. In 2021, he stuck in the big leagues and tossed 54 1/3 innings with a 2.82 ERA, 28.3% strikeout rate, 11.7% walk rate and 40.2% ground ball rate.

In the 2021-2022 offseason, the Sox seemed to give some consideration to stretching the lefty out as a starter, though those plans ended up getting pushed off the table by his surgery. It was reported in November that the club would keep him in a relief role in the 2023 season after the long layoff, with his health and performance this season perhaps dictating what role he will have in the future.

Going forward, it will be interesting to see if the Sox ever have any interest in reconsidering a move to the rotation. Both Lucas Giolito and Mike Clevinger are slated for free agency this winter, while the club has an $18MM club option on Lance Lynn with a $1MM buyout. With Lynn currently sporting a 7.51 ERA on the year, he’ll need a strong finish for the club to consider picking that up, meaning it’s possible three holes open up in that rotation next year. With only Dylan Cease and Michael Kopech currently lined up for jobs in 2024, there would have to be at least some temptation to give Crochet a shot at making the switch if they felt he were capable of it from a health and workload perspective.

For now, the Sox could use the extra southpaw in the bullpen after Jake Diekman posted a 7.94 ERA in 13 outings and was designated for assignment. Aaron Bummer is still with the big league club but has a 9.45 ERA so far this year. Sammy Peralta was with the Sox earlier this year but struggled in his one outing before getting optioned. Tanner Banks had a more palatable 3.38 ERA in his eight innings this year but struck out just 16.1% of opponents and also has been optioned to the minors.

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