Yankees Place Jonathan Loaisiga On 60-Day IL, Select Dennis Santana
8:57am: Loaisiga first felt discomfort in his elbow near the end of his most recent outing on Wednesday, manager Aaron Boone explained to the Yankees beat this morning (X link via Greg Joyce of the New York Post). He called the injury “concerning,” noting that an MRI conducted last night revealed a “significant” strain. Loaisiga and the team are gathering more information on the injury and will determine next steps for the right-hander once they’ve received additional opinions.
7:35am: The Yankees have placed right-handed reliever Jonathan Loaisiga on the 60-day injured list with a right flexor strain, the team announced. In a corresponding move, the team has selected the contract of right-hander Dennis Santana. He’s joining the big league bullpen.
Loaisiga, 29, has all the makings of a high-end leverage reliever but hasn’t been able to stay healthy enough to establish himself in that role. He showed just how dominant he could be back in 2021 when he pitched 70 2/3 innings of 2.17 ERA ball with an above-average 24.4% strikeout rate, a very strong 5.4% walk rate and a sensational 60.6% ground-ball rate. The Nicaraguan-born righty averaged a blazing 98.4 mph on his sinker that season, notched an excellent 13.7% swinging-strike rate and posted a mammoth 41.1% opponents’ chase rate on pitches off the plate.
Unfortunately for both the Yankees and for Loaisiga, that’s the only season in which he’s ever thrown even 50 big league innings. Loaisiga has only reached even 20 appearances in two seasons. Since committing to a bullpen role in 2020, he’s delivered 163 1/3 innings with a 2.98 ERA (3.34 FIP, 3.42 SIERA), 20.3% strikeout rate, 6.5% walk rate and 58% grounder rate. There’s little doubting the raw talent is there to make him a star bullpen arm, but he’s missed time due to a shoulder strain, subsequent shoulder inflammation, elbow inflammation (twice) and now a flexor strain that’ll sideline him into at least the early summer months.
If Loaisiga’s absence extends further than that 60-day minimum, it’s feasible this could spell the end of his time in the Bronx entirely. The right-hander has five-plus years of major league service time and is slated to become a free agent at season’s end.
Santana, 27, signed a minor league pact with the Yankees back in early December. Like Loaisiga, he features a power sinker and strong ground-ball rates when at his best, but he hasn’t found nearly the same success and consistency that Loaisiga has when healthy.
Once one of the Dodgers’ top-ranked pitching prospects, Santana has bounced to the Rangers, Mets and now Yankees since leaving Los Angeles. He’s pitched just 149 2/3 innings in the big leagues and has a pedestrian 5.17 ERA to show for it (though a 4.26 FIP and 4.47 SIERA are a bit more favorable). Santana has averaged just under 96 mph on his sinker in his career and has kept the ball on the ground at a nearly 50% clip since adopting that as his primary offering. But he’s walked more than 12% of his big league opponents and struggled with men on base, resulting in a well below-average strand rate that’s helped to inflate his ERA.
Santana has regularly missed bats at a high level in the upper minors, and his power sinker fits a mold that the Yankees tend to prefer out of their late-inning relievers. He’ll need to improve his command, but Santana wouldn’t be the first relatively obscure arm to break out with the Yankees if he can get himself on track in the Bronx. He’s out of minor league options, however, so it could be a short stint on the 40-man roster if the Yankees feel they need to open another spot in the near future. If he gets a decent leash and can find some success, he’s controllable through the 2026 season via arbitration.
Mariners Release Cory Abbott
The Mariners released right-hander Cory Abbott yesterday, according to his transactions tracker at MLB.com. He’s now a free agent and can be signed by any club.
Abbott, 28, signed a minor league deal with the club in January and was in big league camp until being reassigned to minor league camp at the beginning of March. He was with Triple-A Tacoma long enough to make one regular season start lasting three innings, during which he allowed three earned runs on four hits and two walks while recording two strikeouts.
Selected by the Cubs in the second round of the 2017 draft, he was a notable prospect coming up the minors but hasn’t been able to find success in the majors or in Triple-A. Prior to the pandemic, he posted a 2.84 earned run average in the minors, getting as high as Double-A. Since the minors were canceled in 2020, he’s pitched in parts of four Triple-A seasons with a 5.51 ERA in 189 1/3 innings. He has struck out an impressive 28.5% of batters faced in that time but has also given out walks at a 12.9% clip.
He’s also thrown 104 2/3 innings at the big league level from 2021 to 2023 but with a 6.02 ERA. His 20.2% strikeout rate and 11.4% walk rate in that time were both a few points worse than league average.
Abbott’s lack of results at both the major league and Triple-A levels will tamp down his interest, but the Triple-A strikeouts are interesting. If any club feels they have the key to unlocking something with Abbott, he can be had for another no-risk minor league deal. If he eventually winds his way back to the majors, he is out of options but has just over a year of service time and therefore has years of potential club control.
Cardinals Recall Pedro Pagés For MLB Debut
The Cardinals announced today that infielder Matt Carpenter has been placed on the 10-day injured list due to a right oblique strain, retroactive to April 2. In a corresponding move, catcher Pedro Pagés was recalled from Triple-A Memphis and will be making his major league debut as soon as he gets into a game.
It’s unclear when or how Carpenter hurt himself. He last played on Monday but that doesn’t necessarily mean he’s been hurt for days since he’s only been in part-time bench role for the Cards anyhow. It’s also unclear how long he’ll be out of action but more information will perhaps be forthcoming in the near future.
The mysterious injury to Carpenter allows the club to add a third catcher to their active roster. Willson Contreras was hit on the hand by a pitch yesterday and is out of today’s lineup with Iván Herrera starting. Brendan Donovan was also hit by a pitch yesterday, twice, and is also getting a day off today. That might leave the club a bit short-handed in their home opener today as the four position players not in the lineup today are Contreras, Donovan, Pagés and Brandon Crawford, who has never played a position other than shortstop in his career.
Regardless of the circumstances, the result is that Pagés gets called to the big leagues for the first time. Now 25, he was added to the club’s 40-man roster in November to keep him out of the Rule 5 draft. Long considered a strong defensive catcher, he took a step forward at the plate in 2023.
He got 497 plate appearances at the Double-A level last year and drew a walk in 11.9% of them, while only striking out at a 19.3% clip. He also hit 16 home runs and slashed .267/.362/.443 for a wRC+ of 113.
Marlins Claim Otto López From Giants
The Marlins have claimed infielder/outfielder Otto López off waivers from the Giants, per Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle. The Giants had designated him for assignment earlier this week when they selected Nick Avila. The Marlins announced the claim and that they have transferred righty Eury Pérez to the 60-day injured list in a corresponding move. It was reported earlier that Pérez will require Tommy John surgery and miss the remainder of the season.
López, 25, provides some speed and a great deal of defensive versatility but it’s unknown how much he will hit. In each of the past five years, he has been able to get his stolen base total in the minors into double digits. He’s also bounced around the field to play the three infield spots to the left of first base and each of the three outfield slots.
On offense, he definitely puts the bat on the ball but the power is very limited. From the start of 2021 to the present, he’s had 1,273 minor league plate appearances and hit just 10 home runs but his 16.4% strikeout rate is quite low. He’s slashed .288/.355/.396 in that time for a wRC+ of 101.
López came up as a Blue Jays prospect but was designated for assignment when that club signed Yariel Rodríguez a couple of months ago. He was traded to the Giants for cash but got bumped off that club’s roster this week.
The Marlins effectively had a roster spot to burn with the news of Pérez requiring surgery and they will now use it to fill in some of the utility depth they sacrificed when they traded Jon Berti to the Yankees last week. López still has an option remaining so the Marlins could send him to Triple-A for regular at-bats or bring him to the big league squad to give them some cover at multiple positions around the diamond.
Astros To Claim Miguel Diaz, Cooper Hummel Off Waivers
2:05 pm: The Astros have now announced both claims. In corresponding moves, they transferred right-handers Luis Garcia Jr. and Penn Murfee to the 60-day injured list. Both pitchers underwent elbow surgery last summer and won’t be available for a few more months, at least.
12:27 pm: The Astros are set to make a pair of waiver claims. Neither has been formally announced by the club just yet, but Chandler Rome of The Athletic reports that Houston is claiming right-hander Miguel Diaz off waivers from the Tigers, who’d designated him for assignment last week. Ari Alexander of KPRC-2 in Houston further reports that the ‘Stros are claiming catcher/outfielder Cooper Hummel, who was designated for assignment by the Giants last week.
Diaz, 29, has pitched in parts of six big league seasons — four with the Padres and two with the Tigers. He tossed 14 innings out of the Detroit ’pen in 2023, allowing just one run on eight hits and five walks with 16 strikeouts. It was a brief but dominant showing that surely enhanced his standing within the organization and gave him a chance to break camp with the 2024 club. However, Diaz struggled this spring, surrendering five runs on ten hits and five walks in 8 1/3 innings.
Originally selected by the Padres (by way of a trade with the Twins) out of the Brewers organization in the 2016 Rule 5 Draft, Diaz’s big league career began in rocky fashion. That was understandable, given that San Diego carried a then-22-year-old Diaz on the roster all season after plucking him directly out of A-ball. He pitched just 66 2/3 innings in his first three seasons, logging a lowly 6.62 ERA. The Friars non-tendered him in 2019 to remove him from the 40-man roster but quickly re-signed him.
In 2021, Diaz returned to the majors with 42 effective innings out of the San Diego ‘pen. Over the past three seasons, he carries a 2.87 ERA, 27.1% strikeout rate, 10.8% walk rate and 41.9% ground-ball rate in 59 2/3 innings. Diaz is out of minor league options, so he’ll head directly to the Houston bullpen as he cannot be sent to the minors without first passing through waivers. If he can demonstrate some staying power in manager Joe Espada’s bullpen, he can be controlled through the 2027 season via arbitration.
Hummel, 29, has bounced from the Mariners, to the Mets, to the Giants and now the Astros since the end of the 2023 season. He appeared in 10 MLB games last year and came to the plate 26 times with Seattle. He also received a brief look with the D-backs in 2022, and he’s posted an overall .166/.264/.286 line in 227 career plate appearances.
Ugly as that small-sample slash line may be, Hummel turned in a .262/.409/.435 batting line in Triple-A last year and drew walks at a massive 18% clip. His ability to play both catcher and corner outfield gives him a relatively uncommon brand of versatility. Hummel has logged more than 1800 innings in left field, 1054 frames behind the plate, 508 innings at first base and another 296 innings in right field. Add in that he has a minor league option remaining, and he’s an interesting depth piece even if he hasn’t yet produced at the big league level.
White Sox Re-Sign Mike Clevinger
April 4: The White Sox have formally announced Clevinger’s new contract and confirmed the $3MM base salary. The team also confirmed the previously reported DFA of infielder Jose Rodriguez, which opens a spot on the 40-man roster. Clevinger has agreed to be optioned to the team’s Arizona Complex League affiliate to build up.
April 1, 9:50pm: Clevinger’s deal with the White Sox will pay him $3MM in 2024, with an additional $3MM available in incentives (per Robert Murray of FanSided).
4:55pm: The White Sox and right-hander Mike Clevinger are in agreement on a deal, pending a physical, reports Robert Murray of FanSided. The full details of the pact for the ACES client are not yet known, though Jon Heyman of The New York Post relays that it’s a one-year deal.
Clevinger, 33, was one of many free agents to linger on the open market for a very long time, as the offseason turned out to be far slower than anyone had anticipated. He had signed with the White Sox last winter, a one-year deal with a $12MM guarantee. It was later reported that Clevinger was under investigation for domestic violence allegations, though that investigation concluded without the pitcher receiving any discipline.
He went on to have a decent season for the Sox, throwing 131 1/3 innings with a 3.77 earned run average. He went on the injured list twice, the first due to right wrist inflammation and the second due to right biceps inflammation, but still managed to take the ball 24 times.
Though the ERA was nice, there were other numbers that were less impressive. His 20% strikeout rate was below league average and well below the 28% rate Clevinger posted from 2017 to 2020. He underwent Tommy John surgery in November of 2020, missing the entire 2021 season, and hasn’t been quite the same since his return. His velo hasn’t quite come all the way back to pre-surgery levels and he only struck out 18.8% of batters faced in 2022.
In 2023, luck may have helped him keep his ERA low, as his .281 batting average on balls in play and 77.2% strand rate were both on the fortunate side. His 4.28 FIP and 4.81 SIERA suggest he may not have been as effective as the ERA make him look.
Perhaps it was those underlying metrics or maybe it was just a side effect of the generally weak offseason, but Clevinger didn’t find a deal to his liking during the winter and will now be signing after the 2024 campaign has already begun.
The Sox don’t need Clevinger to be an ace, as simply having him eat some innings should be useful to them. They traded away Lucas Giolito and Lance Lynn last year as they kicked off a rebuild, then flipped Dylan Cease this winter and moved Michael Kopech into a relief role. Touki Toussaint was outrighted off the roster and Jesse Scholtens required Tommy John surgery. With José Ureña having signed with the Rangers, the Sox came into the 2024 season with every pitcher that made more than three starts for them in 2023 either gone, injured or in the bullpen, prior to Clevinger’s return.
The rotation currently consists of new arrivals. Reliever Garrett Crochet is going in the opposite direction of Kopech, while Michael Soroka was acquired in a trade and Erick Fedde and Chris Flexen were signed as free agents. The club also brought in Jared Shuster, Jake Eder and Jairo Iriarte via trades in the past year, but each has been optioned for work in Triple-A.
That leaves one spot open, which Clevinger will fill at some point. Since he missed all of Spring Training, he will presumably need a bit of tune-up time to get into game shape, even if he’s been building up a pitch count in some unofficial capacity.
Any of their current starters could find themselves available at the trade deadline, which could further open up the need for innings. Soroka and Flexen are both impending free agents while Fedde is controlled through 2025 and Crochet through 2026. With the club’s timeline for a return to contention unclear, there would be an argument for making any of those guys available.
If those players end up getting moved, some of the aforementioned younger pitchers could get an audition but the likelihood of needing someone to take the ball is high, with injuries sure to crop up throughout the year. If Clevinger can find a way to get his strikeouts back, he could pitch himself into a trade scenario as well.
Marlins Designate Kent Emanuel For Assignment, Select Matt Andriese
The Marlins announced Thursday that they’ve selected the contract of right-hander Matt Andriese from Triple-A Jacksonville and designated lefty Kent Emanuel for assignment in a corresponding move. Miami also optioned infielder Jonah Bride to Jacksonville, opening an active roster spot for infielder Emmanuel Rivera, whom they acquired from the D-backs on Tuesday.
Emanuel, 31, was selected to the roster himself earlier this week when Miami designated right-hander Vladimir Gutierrez for assignment. Like Gutierrez, he worked one long relief outing — three innings, four hits, four runs, three walks, two strikeouts — to help spare an overworked bullpen and will now be designated for assignment in favor of a fresh arm.
Emanuel has just 20 2/3 innings of MLB experience under his belt, including this recent brief stay with the Fish. The former third-rounder (Astros, 2013) has a 3.92 ERA and 15-to-7 K/BB ratio in that time. Emanuel pitched well at the Triple-A level in 2019 and 2022 but struggled there with the Pirates organization in 2023. He’s in his final minor league option year, so a new club could acquire him and send him to Triple-A without needing to worry about first passing him through waivers.
The 34-year-old Andriese will be making his first big league appearance since 2021 if and when he takes the ball for the Marlins. Like Emanuel and Gutierrez before him, he could be in for a short stay on Miami’s roster, as the overworked bullpen for a winless Marlins club could find itself in need of a fresh arm yet again in the near future. And, if Andriese enters the game, it’ll likely be in a multi-inning relief setting, which will render him unavailable in the short-term.
Andriese appeared in the big leagues in every season from 2015-21, logging 509 innings of 4.63 ERA ball along the way. The bulk of that work came with the Rays, for whom he pitched 339 innings with a 4.30 ERA, 20.4% strikeout rate and 6.2% walk rate from 2015-19. Andriese spent the 2022 season with Japan’s Yomiuri Giants. He was with the Dodgers’ Triple-A affiliate last year but never got a look in the majors.
Jackie Bradley Jr. Signs With Atlantic League’s Long Island Ducks
The Long Island Ducks of the Atlantic League announced that they have signed outfielder Jackie Bradley Jr. He’s the second former big leaguer they’ve signed this week, joining left-hander Wei-Yin Chen, who signed with the Ducks on Tuesday as he apparently embarks on an age-38 comeback attempt.
Bradley, 34 this month, has played in the past 11 major league seasons, carving out a career as a superb defender in the outfield who could occasionally chip in with the bat and on the basepaths as well.
There were some whispers over the winter that Bradley was considering retirement but it was reported in February that he was open to continuing his career and was working out in the hopes of finding a club for the 2024 season. It seems he didn’t find an opportunity to his liking from an MLB club but will get some game action with the Ducks. The Atlantic League is an official partner league of MLB so perhaps Bradley can use this signing as a platform to getting back to the big leagues.
Bradley is within range of 10 years of major league service time, currently with a tally of nine years and 57 days, putting him 115 days shy of that milestone. It’s a significant marker for players both due to the fact that there are significant benefits in the MLBPA pension plan for those over the ten-year line and due to the symbolism of reaching a feat that fewer than 10 percent of players get to.
He has played in 1,182 major league games to this point, racking up 78 Defensive Runs Saved and 62 Outs Above Average in the process. Both of those figures place him in the top 10 among outfielders from 2013 to the present. Even as he’s moved towards his mid-30s in recent seasons, his glovework has continued to receive positive grades.
The offense has been less consistent. His best stretch at the plate was with the Red Sox in 2015 and 2016. He hit 36 home runs over those two seasons and slashed .262/.345/.489 for a wRC+ of 119. For the next three years, he settled in as a subpar hitter, but just barely. He combined for a line of .234/.318/.409 for the 2017 through 2019 seasons, with a wRC+ of 90 over that stretch.
He then had a well-timed surge in the shortened 2020 season, hitting seven home runs and batting .283/.364/.450 for a 118 wRC+ just as he was going into free agency for the first time. He was able to parlay that into a two-year, $24MM deal with the Brewers but his offense crashed after signing that pact and never really recovered. He has hit .176/.238/.275 since the start of the 2021 season, wRC+ of 40, while bouncing from the Brewers to the Red Sox, Blue Jays and Royals.
White Sox Designate Jose Rodriguez For Assignment
The White Sox have designated infielder Jose Rodriguez for assignment, as first reported by Francys Romero. Romero suggests that Rodriguez will be put on waivers, though Sox Machine’s James Fegan indicates that the organization will first seek a potential trade partner. Presumably, Rodriguez’s DFA will clear the way for right-hander Mike Clevinger to return to the Sox. Clevinger agreed to a one-year deal to return to Chicago earlier in the week.
Rodriguez, 22, appeared in one game with the White Sox in 2023 — his lone MLB appearance. He entered that game as a pinch-runner and came around to score, but he’s still awaiting his first major league plate appearance. He split the 2023 season between Double-A Birmingham and Triple-A Charlotte, batting a combined .262/.292/.437 with 21 home runs, 19 doubles, 31 steals (in 40 tries), a 21.9% strikeout rate and just a 4.1% walk rate.
Baseball America ranked Rodriguez ninth among White Sox farmhands heading into the 2023 season — a solid review on the back of a 2022 campaign in which he hit .280/.340/.430 in a full season of Double-A ball. His stock has dropped off considerably since that time, due in no small part to last year’s pedestrian offensive output and anemic walk rate. He’s regarded as a capable defender up the middle, though BA notes that he can at times be “too nonchalant” on defense, leading to some avoidable miscues.
Rodriguez is in the second of his three minor league option years. He’s played primarily in the middle infield but also has 184 innings of experience at third base. He’s a right-handed hitter with above-average speed, at least average power and some defensive versatility. All of that could hold appeal to another club seeking infield depth, even if there are still some refinements that need to be made in his free-swinging approach. The Sox will have a week to trade Rodriguez or attempt to pass him through outright waivers.
Athletics Outright Adrian Martinez
Right-hander Adrian Martinez went unclaimed on waivers after being designated for assignment by the Athletics and has been assigned outright to their Triple-A affiliate, per the team’s transaction log at MLB.com. It’s his first career outright, and he has under three years of service time, so Martinez cannot reject the assignment.
Acquired alongside Euribiel Angeles in the trade sending lefty Sean Manaea to the Padres, the now-27-year-old Martinez has pitched 112 2/3 innings for Oakland over the past two seasons. He worked exclusively as a starter in 2022 and primarily out of the bullpen in 2023, turning in a below-average but passable 20% strikeout rate against a sharp 7.6% walk rate.
However, even playing his home games in the Athletics’ cavernous home setting, Martinez has been far too susceptible to home runs; opponents have tagged him for 21 long balls in the big leagues — an average of 1.68 round-trippers per nine innings pitched. A .321 average on balls in play hasn’t helped his cause, but the home runs are the primary reason for his 5.51 ERA. Fielding-independent metrics are a bit more bullish, due largely to that solid K-BB profile. SIERA pegs Martinez at a much more respectable 4.25 mark.
Martinez averages 93.9 mph on a sinker he throws at a 54% clip, but despite that being his primary offering, he’s been more of a fly-ball pitcher. That two-seamer has only generated grounders at a 41.5% rate, and both of his secondary offerings — a slider (82.6 mph average) and changeup (83.5 mph) — skew more heavily toward airborne contact. The right-hander posted strong minor league numbers with the Padres organization in 2019 and 2021, but his production has taken a sharp decline since being traded to Oakland.
Martinez worked as a starter in Triple-A last year, but he was a reliever in the big leagues and made his first appearance of the 2024 season out of the ‘pen in Las Vegas. It seems he’ll look to get back on track in a relief role.