Dennis Santana Elects Free Agency
Reliever Dennis Santana has elected minor league free agency, the Mets informed reporters (including Tim Britton of the Athletic). New York had designated the righty for assignment over the weekend and he has evidently gone unclaimed on waivers.
Santana has been with the Mets since they grabbed him off waivers in mid-March. They’ve designated him for assignment on three separate occasions, running him through waivers each time. The 27-year-old accepted his first two outright stints but decided to seek out other opportunities this time around.
This is Santana’s sixth season logging some major league action. He pitched in nine games for the Mets, allowing seven runs in 10 1/3 innings. He fanned 12 but issued seven walks in that limited look. Santana showed a similar profile over 33 frames with Triple-A Syracuse. He pitched to a 4.91 ERA with a solid 27% strikeout percentage and a lofty 13.2% walk rate.
Consistently throwing strikes has been Santana’s biggest concern throughout his career. In 149 2/3 MLB innings, he’s walked 12% of batters faced. He throws in the mid-90s and has gotten swinging strikes on a decent 11.5% of his offerings but has dished out a few too many free passes, leading to a career 5.17 ERA.
Santana is playing this season on a $1MM arbitration salary. That makes it a bit surprising he declined the outright assignment. As a player with less than five years of major league service, Santana forfeits the roughly $220K in guaranteed salary he was due through season’s end in order to test the market. Perhaps he’ll look for a landing spot with a club in playoff contention over the next 10 days. If Santana signs elsewhere by end of day on August 31 — even on a minor league pact — he’d be eligible for postseason play with a new organization.
Angels Activate Mike Trout From Injured List
The Angels are activating outfielder Mike Trout from the injured list, reports Rhett Bollinger of MLB.com. Trout tells Sam Blum of The Athletic that he’s still sore but felt time was running out as the end of the season draws closer. The Angels have now officially announced the move, with outfielder Jordyn Adams optioned to Triple-A Salt Lake in a corresponding move.
Trout, 32, had his season interrupted in early July by a left hamate fracture that required surgery to correct. At that time, the estimated timeline for his absence was given as four to eight weeks. He now returns in the midst of that window but, as mentioned, he’s not yet at 100% health.
Despite losing Trout, the Angels ended up treading water in July, going 12-11 and staying in the playoff race. That was enough to convince the club to not only take Shohei Ohtani off the trade market but also make aggressive upgrades, acquiring players like Lucas Giolito, C.J. Cron, Randal Grichuk and others, as well as promoting Nolan Schanuel just a few weeks after drafting him. Unfortunately, August has been a nightmare for the club, as they have gone 5-13 and are now nine games out of a playoff spot.
As Trout himself acknowledged, time is running short for the Angels to take advantage of the Trout-Ohtani combo, with the latter set to reach free agency in a couple of months. The playoff odds at FanGraphs give them just a 0.5% chance of making the postseason and that narrowing window seems to have spurred Trout to return quicker than he might have otherwise done. Despite having two of the best players in the world on the same team, the Angels haven’t finished above .500 since 2015 and haven’t made it to the playoffs since 2014.
The club will be hoping that the return of Trout to the lineup can spur a miraculous late-season charge in the final few weeks. Prior to the surgery, he was hitting .263/.369/.493 for a wRC+ of 136. That indicates he was 36% above the league average hitter but that’s actually a significant drop-off relative to his own standards. He hasn’t had a wRC+ lower than 160 since his 40-game debut as a teenager in 2011. Though even if he can get back to that lesser level of production, he will provide a massive boost to the club for the stretch run.
Reds Select Nick Martini, Designate Henry Ramos For Assignment
The Reds announced a series of roster moves today involving four outfielders. Michael Siani was recalled from Triple-A Louisville and Nick Martini was selected to the roster while Stuart Fairchild was placed on the seven-day concussion list, retroactive to Monday, and Henry Ramos was designated for assignment.
Martini, 33, returns to the big leagues for the first time since 2021. He spent last year with the NC Dinos of the Korea Baseball Organization, hitting .296/.365/.461 over 139 games. He parlayed that into a return to affiliated ball, signing a minor league deal with the Reds in the offseason. He’s spent all of this year in Triple-A so far, hitting 15 home runs in 93 games while drawing walks in 14.4% of his plate appearances. His .275/.393/.481 line at that level amounts to a wRC+ of 121, indicating he’s been 21% above league average.
He’ll now get another chance to bring that production up to the majors, something that has generally eluded him in his career. His 2,186 Triple-A plate appearances have resulted in a strong line of .294/.398/.445 but his major league batting line is just .270/.369/.369, with most of his major league success coming with the A’s back in 2018.
He’s mostly been playing the outfield corners for Louisville this year, though has also spent some time at first base and had a brief look in center. The Reds have been using an outfield of Will Benson, TJ Friedl and Spencer Steer of late. Martini and Siani will replace Fairchild and Ramos as depth options, alongside TJ Hopkins.
As for Ramos, 31, he has been on and off the Reds’ roster this year. Signed to a minor league deal in the winter, he has twice had his contract selected and has now twice been designated for assignment. He’s taken 86 trips to the plate and has slashed .243/.349/.311 in those. His 54 Triple-A games have resulted in a much stronger .315/.399/.522 line. The last time he was DFA’d, he cleared waivers and accepted an outright assignment, which is a process that could play out again in the coming days.
Mariners Sign Luke Weaver To Major League Deal, Transfer Emerson Hancock To 60-Day IL
The Mariners announced a series of roster moves today, reinstating right-hander Bryan Woo from the injured list and signing righty Luke Weaver to a major league deal. To open two active roster spots, they optioned righties Eduard Bazardo and Darren McCaughan. To open a 40-man spot for Weaver, righty Emerson Hancock has been transferred to the 60-day injured list.
It’s a belated birthday present for Weaver, who just turned 30 years old yesterday. He was recently released by the Reds, who had signed him to a one-year, $2MM deal in the offseason. Unfortunately, his 21 starts for Cincinnati resulted in him allowing 6.87 earned runs per nine innings. His 7.6% walk rate was solid but he only struck out 19% of batters faced. Home runs were a particular problem as he allowed 24 balls to sail over the fence in that time, easily a career high for him.
The Mariners were planning to utilize a six-man rotation when Woo returned from the injured list, joining Hancock, Luis Castillo, George Kirby, Logan Gilbert and Bryce Miller, but Hancock’s injury threw a wrench in those plans. He landed on the injured list yesterday due to a shoulder strain and it seems the club isn’t expecting him back soon. Today’s transfer makes him officially ineligible to return until the middle of October. His season is now effectively over unless the club goes on a World Series run and he gets healthy enough in the next two months to put himself in position to rejoin the roster. Daniel Kramer of MLB.com reports that his recovery will take at least four to six weeks.
The club could simply go with a five-man rotation, though there are reasons why they might still prefer six. Both Miller and Woo are rookies who are pushing towards uncharted territory in terms of innings pitched in a season. Last year was Miller’s first full professional season and he was able to toss 133 2/3 frames. This year, between the majors and minors, he’s up to 117 1/3 already. Woo, meanwhile, tossed 67 2/3 last year and is already up to 99 innings this year between Double-A and the majors. Kirby was a rookie last year and logged 130 major league innings plus another 26 2/3 in the minors, and is at 150 2/3 this year.
Going with a six-man rotation would soften some of the workload concerns and the potential for fatigue down the stretch. Perhaps that is why they have brought Weaver aboard. Though his results haven’t been good this year, a change of venue would likely help him to some degree. Looking at Statcast’s park factors, the Mariners have one of the more pitching-friendly home parks while the Reds are on the other end of the spectrum, especially when it comes to home runs.
It’s also possible that the Mariners are planning to implement Weaver out of the bullpen, a role in which he’s showed some encouraging signs in the past. With the Diamondbacks and Royals last year, he had an ERA of 6.56 overall, but that included one start in which he allowed nine earned runs. As a reliever, he had a 4.78 ERA and may have deserved even better. He had a 21.7% strikeout rate, 7.9% walk rate, 40.4% ground ball rate and didn’t surrender a home run at all. But a .404 batting average on balls in play and 64.9% strand rate pushed some extra runs across the plate, with his 2.46 FIP suggesting he was perhaps better than his ERA would indicate.
Regardless of his role, it’s a low-risk move for the M’s financially. Since the Reds released Weaver, they remain on the hook for what’s left of his $2MM salary, while the Mariners will only have to pay him the prorated league minimum for any time spent on the roster. That amount will be subtracted from what the Reds pay.
Giants Promote Kyle Harrison
August 22: The Giants have now made this official, selecting Harrison and reinstating righty Ryan Walker from the paternity list. To open active roster spots, right-hander Sean Hjelle and outfielder Heliot Ramos were optioned. To open a 40-man spot for Harrison, infielder Mark Mathias was transferred to the 60-day injured list. Mathias was placed on the injured list a week ago due to a right shoulder strain. He’ll now be ineligible to return until 60 days from August 14, which rules him out until the middle of October. Barring a lengthy postseason run by the Giants, it seems his season is over.
August 20, 3:58 pm: Giants manager Gabe Kapler confirmed to reporters, including Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle, that Harrison was poised to be promoted. He’ll start the Giants’ game against the Phillies in Philadelphia on Tuesday.
10:14 am: The Giants are calling up top pitching prospect Kyle Harrison, FanSided’s Robert Murray reports (via X). Earlier today, the Athletic’s Andrew Baggarly wrote that San Francisco was “strongly considering” promoting Harrison during an upcoming series with the Phillies, and Murray says that Harrison is being aimed to start Tuesday’s game. San Francisco will need to make another transaction before then to create a 40-man roster spot for the left-hander.
The promotion makes for a nice late birthday gift for Harrison, who turned 22 on August 12. It is quite possible that the southpaw would have already made his MLB debut if it wasn’t for a hamstring strain that put him on the injured list for almost all of July, but after pitching in three Triple-A games since his return from the minor league IL, Harrison has been deemed ready for his first taste of the Show.
It doesn’t seem as though Harrison will be taking on a full-fledged starter role, as Baggarly notes that Harrison might work in more of a piggyback capacity on Tuesday, perhaps not throwing more than 3-4 innings. Harrison has had a limited workload for much of the minor league season, as he has topped the 80-pitch threshold only three times and has only once thrown as many as five innings in a single outing.
With this in mind, Harrison looks to become the latest member of a patchwork Giants rotation that has recently featured only two regular starters. Beyond Logan Webb and Alex Cobb, a group led by Jakob Junis, Alex Wood, Sean Manaea, and Ross Stripling have made limited starts, piggyback outings, or have worked as bulk pitchers behind an opener. This collection took a hit yesterday when Stripling was placed on the 15-day IL due to a back strain, and Sean Hjelle was recalled from Triple-A to work as a long reliever or bulk pitcher.
It’s not an ideal situation for a team fighting for a wild card berth, so there will be a bit of a bigger spotlight than usual on Harrison as he becomes a big leaguer. However, Harrison has dealt with plenty of hype as his prospect stock has risen over the last few years, since being selected by the Giants in the third round of the 2020 draft. In recent midseason updates to their prospect rankings, MLB Pipeline listed Harrison as the 20th-best prospect in the sport, while Baseball America slotted him 35th on their latest listing.
There’s no secret about Harrison’s biggest weak point, as he has a hefty 16.3% walk rate over 67 2/3 innings with Triple-A Sacramento this year. This shaky control (and pitching in the hitter-friendly Pacific Coast League) has contributed to Harrison’s 4.52 ERA, though he also has a tremendous 35.6% strikeout rate.
Both Pipeline and BA give Harrison a 70-grade for his fastball and a 60-grade for his slider, and he also has a good changeup that is still improving. Two plus pitches and the possibility of a third has created plenty of buzz about Harrison as a possible front-of-the-rotation starter, though the big question is naturally whether or not Harrison can improve his control and command. As Pipeline’s scouting report puts it, Harrison is “still learning to harness his enhanced stuff, though his ability to miss bats in the strike zone with all three of his offerings means that he doesn’t need to locate them with precision.”
However the Giants opt to manage Harrison’s workload among the rest of the pitchers, it seems likely that the club will limit him to less than 50 innings in the regular season, so he can retain his rookie eligibility for 2024. As per the rules of the Prospect Promotion Incentive, the Giants can receive a bonus pick in the 2025 draft if Harrison earns a full year of MLB service time in 2024, and he either wins the NL Rookie of the Year award or has a top-three finish in NL Cy Young voting during any of his pre-arbitration seasons. Harrison must be ranked as a top-100 prospect by at least two of MLB Pipeline, Baseball America, or ESPN.com in their pre-2024 lists to fully qualify as a PPI-eligible player, thought that seems like a foregone conclusion.
Beyond the 50-inning threshold, pitchers also have to have less than 46 days on a Major League roster to retain rookie eligibility. That date on the 2023 league calendar passed last week, so it isn’t surprising that Harrison and other notable prospects like the Reds’ Noelvi Marte, the Cardinals’ Masyn Winn, and the Angels’ Nolan Schanuel have all been called up within the last few days alone.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images
Angels Designate Zack Weiss For Assignment
The Angels announced today that right-hander José Marte was reinstated from the 60-day injured list and optioned to Triple-A Salt Lake. To make room for him on the 40-man roster, righty Zack Weiss was designated for assignment. Additionally, catcher Chad Wallach cleared waivers and accepted an outright assignment to Salt Lake.
Weiss, 31, was first added to the Angels’ roster in September of last year. In that span of just under a full year, he’s served as a frequently-optioned depth arm for the club, tossing 18 2/3 innings in the majors, allowing 3.86 earned runs per nine frames in that time. He struck out 30.9% of batters faced but also walked 11.1%.
This year, he’s spent the majority of his time in Triple-A, tossing 37 1/3 innings with a 6.03 ERA. That’s been in the hitter-friendly Pacific Coast League but Weiss has still walked 14% of opponents, which hasn’t helped matters. It seems those control issues have nudged him off the roster. Since the trade deadline went by long ago, the Angels will have to put Weiss on waivers in the coming days. Despite his struggles with the free passes, he’s always had decent strikeout numbers to go with and could perhaps garner interest from other clubs.
He has less than a year of service time and a full slate of options, which could appeal to a club in search of some depth and with the ability to have some long-term patience. If he were to clear waivers, he lacks the previous career outright and three years of major league service necessary to elect free agency, though he would qualify for minor league free agency if not on a roster at season’s end.
Marte, 27, will take that roster spot from Weiss. He was placed on the injured list in March due to a right elbow stress reaction and has only just now been activated. He’s a similar pitcher to Weiss, in that he generally pair high strikeout numbers with high walk totals. In 15 major league innings, he’s punched out 26.3% of opponents while giving free passes to 27.6% in that small sample. In Triple-A last year, he had a 29.5% strikeout rate and 14.7% walk rate.
Cardinals Select Jacob Barnes, Place Matthew Liberatore On IL
The Cardinals announced that they have selected the contract of right-hander Jacob Barnes. In a corresponding move, left-hander Matthew Liberatore lands on the 15-day injured list, retroactive to August 19, due to lower back tightness. There was already a vacancy on the 40-man roster.
Barnes, 33, has bounced around the league quite a bit, both this year and in his career overall. Things started out fairly steady, as he was drafted by the Brewers, debuted with them in 2016 and stayed until partway through the 2019 season. But from 2019 to the present, he’s become a valuable Immaculate Grid choice, suiting up in the big leagues for the Royals, Angels, Mets, Blue Jays, Tigers and Yankees.
This year, he’s yet to pitch in the majors, jumping to the Rangers, Phillies and Cardinals on minor league deals. Between those three organizations, he’s thrown 51 Triple-A innings, allowing 2.47 earned runs per nine frames. His 20.4% strikeout rate and 10% walk rate are both subpar, but he’s kept the ball on the ground more than 40% of the time at each of his three stops. In his major league career, he has a 4.70 ERA over 252 appearances but with his best results farthest in the past. He had a 3.54 ERA from 2016 to 2018 but a 5.39 mark since then.
The Cardinals made a number of subtractions from their pitching staff at the deadline, sending out Jack Flaherty, Jordan Montgomery, Chris Stratton and Jordan Hicks as part of their selloff. That’s led to some innings going to younger pitchers like Liberatore, Drew Rom and Zach Thompson, but they’ve also brought aboard some older guys like Casey Lawrence and now Barnes to supplement the staff. Barnes is out of minor league options but could be retained for 2024 via arbitration if the Cards like what they see out of him in the next few weeks.
As mentioned, Liberatore has been getting a chance to seize a job in the rotation but hasn’t quite succeeded thus far. He has a 6.06 ERA in 84 2/3 career innings to this point. The Cards are hoping to add three starters to their rotation this winter, though they could always alter those plans if they felt Liberatore or one of the other internal options took a step forward. Unfortunately, his audition will now be put on pause for at least two weeks as he deals with this back issue. The rotation now figures to consist of Rom, Thompson, Miles Mikolas, Dakota Hudson and Adam Wainwright.
Yankees Announce Several Roster Moves
The Yankees announced Tuesday that they’ve reinstated Carlos Rodon from the 15-day injured list, recalled infielder Oswald Peraza and outfield prospect Everson Pereira from Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre, placed outfielder Billy McKinney on the 10-day injured list due to back spasms, and designated outfielder Greg Allen for assignment. The recalls of Peraza and Pereira were reported on yesterday.
Allen, 30, will lose his spot on the active and 40-man rosters to clear the way for Pereira to enter the outfield mix in the Bronx. Allen is out of minor league options, so he can’t be sent down without first clearing waivers. He appeared in 22 games for the Yankees since returning to the organization but received just 28 plate appearances in that time (during which he went 5-for-23 with a pair of walks and 10 strikeouts). Allen has been used primarily as a pinch-runner and defensive replacement late in games.
That’s a role with which Allen has become increasingly familiar over the years. The fleet-footed switch-hitter hasn’t topped 134 plate appearances in a big league season since 2019 and has never tallied 300 trips to the plate in a given season. Allen is a career .231/.300/.340 hitter with 11 home runs and a 48-for-57 showing in stolen bases (84%) at the MLB level. He’s played all three outfield spots extensively and draws above-average marks at each, per Statcast. Defensive Runs Saved pegs him as a plus left fielder but a lesser option in center field.
Allen’s brand of speed and defense could prompt a clear postseason contender to consider him on waivers in the next few days. Rosters will expand from 26 to 28 players on Sept. 1, and as long as Allen is with a new organization at 11:59pm ET or earlier on Aug. 31, he’d be eligible for postseason play with that new club. It’s relatively common for teams to carry pinch-running and defensive specialists in such settings, so Allen isn’t a lock to make it through waivers. If he does go unclaimed, he’ll be able to reject an outright assignment in favor of free agency and sign with any team.
Rodon will look to get into a good groove and carry some momentum into 2024. He signed a six-year, $162MM deal in the offseason but hasn’t yet been able to provide the Yanks with any return on that investment yet. He dealt with forearm and back issues early in the year and wasn’t able to make his team debut until July. He struggled through six starts, posting a 7.33 ERA, before landing back on the IL due to a hamstring strain.
The Yankee season has largely been sunk by injuries, including those of Rodon but also many others. They are now 60-64 and 9.5 games back of a playoff spot with just over a month left on the schedule. Their playoff odds are down to 0.4% at FanGraphs. But both the club and Rodon would surely be encouraged if he could post some good starts before the offseason gets going, carrying some good feelings into the winter.
Rays Designate Francisco Mejía For Assignment
The Rays announced that catcher Francisco Mejía has been reinstated from the injured list and designated for assignment. Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times reported the DFA prior to the official announcement.
Mejia, 27, landed on the injured list about a month ago due to a left knee MCL sprain. He began a rehab assignment just over a week ago but the club evidently didn’t want to bring him back and have cut him loose instead. Since he has more than five years of major league service time, he can no longer be optioned to the minors without his consent.
Once one of the top prospects in the league, Mejía hasn’t been able to live up to the hype at this point. Through 355 career games, he’s hitting .239/.284/.394 for a wRC+ of 87. That includes a fairly similar line of .227/.258/.400 here in 2023. He also hasn’t been graded particularly well on defense, with -3 Defensive Runs Saved so far, as well as negative grades from the framing metrics of FanGraphs and Baseball Prospectus.
It’s surely not what was expected during his time as a notable youngster, with Baseball America having ranked him as one of the top 35 prospects in the league in three straight years starting in 2017. Originally signed by Cleveland, he went to the Padres in the 2018 Brad Hand trade before being one of four players sent to the Rays in the Blake Snell deal. Though the Rays have a reputation for winning just about every trade they make, this one hasn’t worked out so far. Luis Patiño struggled for years and was recently flipped to the White Sox for cash. The other two players in the deal, Cole Wilcox and Blake Hunt, could still give Tampa something but neither has reached the majors yet.
With Mejía on the injured list of late, the Rays have been using a duo of Christian Bethancourt and René Pinto. The latter has just 37 games of major league experience to this point, but the Rays evidently like the early results enough to ride with him instead of Mejía. Pinto is hitting .276/.300/.379 this year in a small sample of 30 plate appearances. He’s considered a solid defender and has generally performed well at the plate in the minors.
With the trade deadline now past, the Rays will have no choice but to put Mejía on waivers in the coming days. Though he has struggled in his career thus far, he is still young and isn’t too far removed from being a highly-touted prospect. If any club were to put in a claim, they could retain him for one more season via arbitration. Though if Mejía clears, he has enough service time to reject an outright assignment and elect free agency while retaining that remaining salary. In that scenario, the Rays would stay on the hook for the money while Mejia would be free to sign with any club for the prorated league minimum, with that amount subtracted from what the Rays pay.
A’s Acquire Sean Newcomb From Giants
The Athletics have acquired veteran left-hander Sean Newcomb from the Giants in exchange for minor league outfielder Trenton Brooks, per the teams’ transaction logs at MLB.com. It’s a rare post-deadline trade that sees a player going each way (as opposed to the more common cash trades in August) and an even rarer trade between the two Bay Area clubs. Both Newcomb and Brooks were eligible to be traded by virtue of the fact that they have not appeared on a 40-man roster or Major League injured list in 2023.
[Related: How to Acquire Players After the Trade Deadline]
Newcomb, 30, signed a minor league deal with the Giants over the winter and has primarily worked out of the bullpen in their system, pitching to a 3.16 ERA in 31 1/3 innings with Triple-A Sacramento. The command issues that have long plagued Newcomb persist (15.3% walk rate in Triple-A), but he’s fanned an impressive 30.5% of his opponents and has clearly changed up his repertoire a bit, based on a career-high 59.4% ground-ball rate. The left-hander posted a combined 35.2% grounder rate in 73 2/3 innings from 2020-22 — his most recent MLB work.
Early in his career, Newcomb looked like a budding mainstay on the Braves’ roster. Acquired from the Angels in the trade that sent Andrelton Simmons to Anaheim, Newcomb posted a 3.87 ERA and 23% strikeout rate through his first 332 1/3 big league innings — splitting his appearances roughly evenly between the rotation (2017-18) and bullpen (2019).
The 2020 season was a disaster for the former first-round pick, however, as he was tagged for 17 earned runs in just 13 2/3 innings spread across four starts. Newcomb walked 18% of his opponents the following year while pitching 32 1/3 innings out of the bullpen, and he yielded 27 runs in 27 2/3 innings between the Braves and Cubs last year.
Overall, Newcomb has a 4.52 ERA in 406 big league innings, but the vast majority of that success came upwards of five years ago at this point. He can be a free agent at season’s end if he’s not added to the big league roster, so it stands to reason that the A’s wouldn’t have given up a minor league player if he weren’t going to be selected to the Majors sometime soon. In the event that Newcomb can reestablish himself as a viable big league arm — presumably out of the bullpen, given his ’23 usage — the A’s would be able to control him through the end of the 2025 season via arbitration.
Brooks, 28, is in his first season with Oakland after spending the prior seven season in Cleveland’s system. The former 17th-round pick signed a minor league deal with the A’s after reaching minor league free agency, and he’s turned in a stout .299/.405/.529 output (125 wRC+) in 412 plate appearances in Triple-A this year. He’s turned in career-best marks in home runs (16) doubles (29) and stolen bases (five) — all while walking at a career-high (in a full season) 13.8% mark against just a 14.6% strikeout rate.
Defensively, Brooks has rotated between first base (816 innings), left field (1460 innings) and right field (1469 innings) throughout his professional career. He’s played all three spots in 2023, though this year’s usage skews more toward left field. He’ll give the Giants a left-handed-hitting corner option at a time when outfield options Mike Yastrzemski, AJ Pollock, Mitch Haniger and Mark Mathias are all on the injured list.