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Mariners Outright Casey Lawrence

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The Mariners announced Friday that right-hander Casey Lawrence again passed through waivers following a recent DFA. He’s been assigned outright to Triple-A Tacoma.

Lawrence has the right to reject the assignment and elect free agency, although at this point, whether he chooses to do so seemingly has little bearing on his future with the organization. Lawrence has been designated for assignment by Seattle a whopping four times in the past six weeks — plus another time by the Blue Jays, who briefly claimed him from Seattle. (He elected free agency following that DFA and re-signed with the Mariners.) Each time, he’s returned to the Mariners.

In 2025 alone, Lawrence has had four stints with the Mariners, and there’s little reason to think it’ll stop there. He appears perfectly content to function as an effective 41st player on the 40-man roster, being selected to the roster whenever the big league club needs some extra length in the bullpen and then quickly being placed on waivers. The 37-year-old righty clearly has a good relationship with the organization and is comfortable in the Tacoma area, which is no surprise given that he also spent the entire 2024 season pitching for the Mariners’ Triple-A squad there.

Lawrence has pitched in six MLB games this year — five with Seattle, one with Toronto — and eaten up 17 2/3 innings in a long relief role. He’s logged a 4.08 ERA in that time, including a flat 3.00 mark in his 15 frames as a Mariner. He’s averaging just 88 mph on his fastball and carries a minuscule 8.8% strikeout rate, but Lawrence has also walked only one of the 80 men he’s faced (1.3%).

It’s not the smoothest way to earn a living, but by my count he’s picked up 23 days of major league service time this year. Even with a league-minimum split on the contracts he’s signing — and the Mariners are presumably compensating him a bit better than that — he’d have already earned a bit more than $96K in just big league salary, before factoring in any minor league pay. Assuming he has several more stints of this nature ahead of him, he’ll take home a fair bit more cash in 2025 than your standard mid-30s journeyman on the fringes of big league rosters, however unorthodox the road to that endgame may be.

Athletics To Promote Logan Davidson

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The Athletics are promoting infielder/outfielder Logan Davidson to the majors, reports Martín Gallegos of MLB.com. He’s not yet on the 40-man roster, so the club will need to open a spot for him. Moving Zack Gelof to the 60-day injured list would be one one way of doing that but it also seems like the A’s are planning to make a series of moves today.

Last night, Jeff Passan of ESPN reported that the A’s would be shaking up their roster on the heels of a nine-game losing streak, with outfielder Denzel Clarke to be promoted. Manager Mark Kotsay also relayed that infielder Gio Urshela would be heading to the 10-day injured list with a left hamstring strain. The full slate of moves hasn’t yet been announced but it seems that Davidson will also be a part of them.

Now 27, Davidson was the Athletics’ first-round pick back in 2019. The A’s grabbed him 29th overall and signed him to a slot-value bonus of more than $2.4MM. He quickly became one of the club’s top prospects but his stock then faded.

Even as a college player, his obvious power came with concerns about the swing-and-miss in his game. Those fears have been borne out in his time as a minor leaguer. After the minor leagues were canceled in 2020, Davidson took 1,437 plate appearances in the minors across the 2021 to 2023 seasons with a 27.6% strikeout rate. His 11% walk rate was good but he had a fairly modest tally of 31 home runs. The result was a combined line of .246/.332/.379 and an 85 wRC+ over those three campaigns. He largely fell off lists of the top prospects in the system in that time.

Since then, he has regained some promise, to a degree. He overcame some hip injuries that were plaguing him and was healthy enough to get into 87 Triple-A games last year, plus 41 more this year. The strikeouts are still a big flag but there have been some positives as well. In 347 plate appearances last year, he struck out at a 31.1% clip but launched 14 homers. So far this year, in 186 Triple-A plate appearances, he has just two homers and a 31.2% strikeout rate. However, his 20.4% walk rate is a massive spike from last year’s 7.8% clip at Triple-A.

Dating back to the start of 2024, he has 543 plate appearances, mostly at the Triple-A level but with a handful in the Complex League as well. In that span, he has a 30.8% strikeout rate, 12.5% walk rate, 17 home runs, .303/.400/.506 line and 120 wRC+.

Being a productive hitter while striking out that often will be hard to maintain in the majors, but Davidson can at least be useful in other ways. He stole seven bags last year and has added seven more swipes already this year. Defensively, he has been bouncing all around the diamond, having played every position except the battery.

At the time they selected Davidson with a first-round pick, the A’s were probably hoping to get more than a utility guy. But considering where his stock was a couple of years ago, that might not be a terrible outcome. Time will tell how the A’s plan to deploy him. As mentioned, Urshela is going to the IL. He had been in a bench role, with Miguel Andujar taking over at third and Luis Urías at second lately. Perhaps Davidson will therefore slot into a multi-positional bench role, with his switch-hitting ability enhancing his versatility.

Photo courtesy of Rick Scuteri, Imagn Images

Reds Sign Garrett Hampson To Major League Deal

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The Reds announced Friday that they’ve signed veteran utilityman Garrett Hampson to a one-year, major league contract. He’ll go directly onto Cincinnati’s big league roster. In a pair of corresponding moves, outfielder Rece Hinds was optioned to Triple-A Louisville, and righty Carson Spiers was transferred from the 15-day IL to the 60-day IL. The Reds also announced the reinstatement of ace Hunter Greene from the injured list, as expected. Righty Lyon Richardson had been optioned to Louisville on yesterday’s off-day to clear a spot on the roster for Greene.

Hampson, 30, opened the season with the D-backs. He’d signed a minor league deal with Arizona over the winter but broke camp with the team after nice spring performance. He received only 41 plate appearances in about six weeks with the Snakes, however, turning in only a .167/.359/.167 batting line. Hampson did draw 10 walks, but he was 5-for-30 with a quintet of singles in his official at-bats and produced poor batted-ball metrics when he made contact. The Diamondbacks designated Hampson for assignment and released him last week.

The Reds are Hampson’s fifth big league team in four years. He spent the first five seasons of his career with the club that originally selected him in the third round of the 2016 draft, the Rockies, but has since bounced to Miami, Kansas City, Arizona and now Cincinnati. Hampson hasn’t been productive with the bat over the course of that journey around the big leagues, hitting just .237/.308/.323 in 750 plate appearances since Opening Day 2022. He’s a plus runner who can handle just about any position on the diamond, however, which surely enhanced his appeal to a banged-up Reds club.

Cincinnati currently has Noelvi Marte, Christian Encarnacion-Strand, Jeimer Candelario, Jake Fraley and Tyler Callihan all on the injured list (the 60-day IL, in Callihan’s case). Those injuries, coupled with the offseason trade of Jonathan India, have thinned out what once appeared to be an extremely deep group of infielders. Presently, the Reds have Spencer Steer at first base, Matt McLain at second, Elly De La Cruz at shortstop and utilityman Santiago Espinal at third base. Gavin Lux can play all over the diamond but has been used much more as an outfielder than an infielder this season. The Reds are also carrying three catchers at the moment, which further creates a need for some versatility in the other players they decide to carry on the bench.

Hampson will provide some needed infield depth while Marte & Co. heal up in the weeks ahead. He’ll also give the Reds a righty-swinging option to plug into an outfield mix that currently includes Lux, Austin Hays, TJ Friedl and Will Benson.

White Sox Outright Yoendrys Gómez

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The White Sox announced to reporters, including Scott Merkin of MLB.com, that right-hander Yoendrys Gómez has cleared waivers and been outrighted to Triple-A Charlotte. He had been designated for assignment earlier this week.

While no player wants to be booted out of the major leagues, it’s possible that this is the best result for Gómez in the short term. He came into 2025 out of options, which has led to him bouncing around the league in a long relief role. He started the year with the Yankees but was designated for assignment about three weeks into the season. He was claimed off waivers by the Dodgers but lasted a little over a week with that club. The Sox then claimed him on May 10th and he was DFA’d on the 20th.

Around those transactions, he logged 17 2/3 innings over 12 long relief outings, posting a 6.62 earned run average in the process. But now that he has cleared waivers, perhaps the Sox will let him get stretched back out as a starter in Charlotte.

That’s a role in which he has shown some promise in the past. Though he made his professional debut in 2017, the canceled 2020 season and a Tommy John surgery in 2021 kept him from climbing too high on the minor league ladder. He went into 2022 without having pitched any higher than Single-A.

Over the 2022 through 2024 seasons, he went through High-A, Double-A, Triple-A and the majors. He logged 195 2/3 innings on the farm over those three seasons with a 3.36 ERA. His 11.6% walk rate in that time was certainly high but he also punched out 27.2% of batters faced. Baseball America considered him one of the top 30 Yankee prospects in each season from 2019 to 2024.

But as mentioned, his out-of-options status has had him in a sort of holding pattern for this year. He hasn’t shown enough for a proper big league rotation job, with a 5.23 ERA in 31 big league innings over three seasons. He has been bouncing around to various clubs in a mop-up role.

While losing his roster spot probably isn’t fun, it might at least be a chance to get back into a groove as a starter. The White Sox have a fairly inexperienced rotation, so there could be opportunities available later in the year. Adrian Houser was just signed but he’s on a one-year deal and should be traded this summer if he’s throwing well. Davis Martin, Jonathan Cannon, Sean Burke and Shane Smith all came into this season with less than a year of service time. Injuries are also fairly inevitable, with the Sox having already lost Drew Thorpe and Ky Bush to Tommy John surgery this year.

Photo courtesy of Jonathan Hui, Imagn Images

Royals Designate Hunter Renfroe For Assignment

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The Royals announced Friday that they’ve designated veteran outfielder Hunter Renfroe for assignment. Infielder Nick Loftin has been recalled from Triple-A Omaha in a corresponding move. Renfroe is being paid $7.5MM in the second season of a two-year, $13MM contract and will very likely be released in the coming days.

Kansas City gave out a pair of surprising two-year deals with player opt-outs in the 2023-24 offseason: one to Renfroe and another to veteran reliever Chris Stratton. Both struggled in year one of the contract and picked up said player option. Both players have been cut loose within days of each other, less than one-third of the way through the second season of those pacts.

The 33-year-old Renfroe had a big performance in June and July last season but struggled immensely outside those two months. From August onward, he batted only .211/.244/.333, finishing out the season with a sub-par .229/.297/.392 slash in 424 plate appearances. Renfroe understandably wasn’t keen on taking that batting line back to the open market, particularly not ahead of his age-33 campaign.

Any hopes of a rebound have faded, however, as the veteran slugger has declined even further at the plate this season. In 108 turns at the plate, Renfroe is hitting just .182/.241/.242 (32 wRC+, or 68% worse than league-average offense). He’s yet to hit a home run this season.

Given the magnitude of those struggles, there’s no way Renfroe will be claimed on waivers. Finding a trade partner should be nearly impossible as well. The overwhelming likelihood is that he, as was the case with Stratton, will be released on the heels of his DFA. At that point, the Royals would be on the hook for the remainder of his $7.5MM salary. A new team would owe Renfroe only the prorated league minimum for any time spent on the MLB roster.

Renfroe was a buy-low candidate even in the 2023-24 offseason (hence the surprise surrounding a two-year deal with a player opt-out). He’d slashed .233/.297/.416 between the Angels and Reds a year prior. He hasn’t had an above-average season at the plate since a 29-homer campaign with the 2022 Brewers, and once-strong defensive grades have declined considerably over the past few seasons. Renfroe did smack 60 homers and hit .257/.315/.496 in just under 1100 plate appearances between Boston and Milwaukee in 2021-22, so someone will probably take a flier on a minor league contract, but he’s a project at this stage of his career.

Mets Release Sean Reid-Foley

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The Mets have released right-hander Sean Reid-Foley, reports Anthony DiComo of MLB.com. He’d been pitching at Triple-A Syracuse after the Mets passed him through waivers unclaimed during spring training and assigned him outright to their top affiliate.

The 29-year-old Reid-Foley has long been a tantalizing arm but has yet to capitalize on all of his potential. He was a second-round pick, 49th overall, by the 2014 Blue Jays and ranked among their system’s top prospects before being traded to the Mets alongside Josh Winckowski and Yennsy Diaz in the 2021 trade that sent Steven Matz to Toronto.

Reid-Foley has had an up-and-down tenure with the Mets, finding success and posting big strikeout rates at times but also battling myriad injuries that have limited him to just 60 big league innings and 57 1/3 minor league frames in four-plus years with the organization. That includes a 2022 Tommy John procedure that cost him more than a calendar year.

Reid-Foley returned from that injury in 2023, pumping better than 95-97 mph on his heater and missing bats at a huge level. From 2023-24, he pitched 29 1/3 innings in the majors and logged a 2.15 ERA with an excellent 33.1% strikeout rate and strong 13.3% swinging-strike rate …. against a woeful 16.1% walk rate.

Command has never been a strong point for Reid-Foley, but his walk troubles have escalated in recent years. Beyond that ugly 16.1% walk rate in his post-TJS tenure with the Mets, he’s also dished out a free pass to 18.4% of his opponents in Triple-A this season. As one might expect, Reid-Foley also sports a big strikeout rate (31.6%), but between those walks and a hefty four home runs in only 14 innings pitched this year, he’s been saddled with an 8.36 ERA in Syracuse. His fastball, which averaged 94.9 mph in the majors last year, has sat 93.8 mph so far in 2025. (However, he posted a matching 93.8 mph average fastball in the minors last season.)

Reid-Foley, by all accounts, is healthy at the moment. He pitched two shutout innings with three punchouts and no walks as recently as May 18 against the Phillies’ top affiliate in Lehigh Valley. He’ll be a project arm for any team that wants to speculate on a minor league contract. His command struggles are an obvious blemish on his overall record, as is the potential velo dip. But there’s no risk for another organization in taking a flier on a reliever who has shown huge swing-and-miss ability and has had some degree of big league success — particularly since Reid-Foley would be controllable for two more years via arbitration if he’s eventually able to rein in his command and get back to MLB success.

Nationals Select Daylen Lile

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The Nationals have selected the contract of outfield prospect Daylen Lile, the team announced Friday. He’ll join the major league roster and take the place of center fielder Jacob Young, who’s being placed on the 10-day injured list due to a sprained AC joint in his left shoulder. The Nats already had a 40-man vacancy, so Young’s placement on the IL is the only move needed to get Lile to the majors. Washington’s 40-man roster is now at capacity.

Lile is the second young outfielder summoned to make his MLB debut in as many days, joining prospect Robert Hassell III in that regard. Young, meanwhile, is the second outfield starter for the Nats to land on the injured list in as many days. Dylan Crews landed on the IL yesterday due to an oblique strain.

The 22-year-old Lile has torn the cover off the ball in the minors this season, opening the year with a .319/.340/.505 slash (144 wRC+) in his second stint at Double-A before his first promotion to Triple-A, where he’s slashed .361/.432/.514 (157 wRC+) in 18 games and 82 plate appearances.

The Nationals selected Lile out of Louisville’s Trinity High School with their second-round pick in 2021. He missed the 2022 season due to Tommy John surgery but has come back with strong offensive numbers and put himself into the team’s top prospects at MLB.com (9) and at Baseball America (10). His bat-to-ball skills and speed draw consistent praise, though like Hassell, Lile is considered a hit-over-power player in the batter’s box. Baseball America’s scouting report makes special note of how Nationals staffers think Lile is an 80-grade worker with outstanding makeup and clubhouse presence.

Lile swiped 25 bags in 30 tries between High-A and Double-A as a 21-year-old last year. He’s 9-for-12 to start the 2025 campaign. That vaunted hit tool has been on full display as well. After fanning at an already relatively low 17.6% rate against older and more experienced competition in ’24, he’s down to a 13.1% strikeout rate in ’25. He’s only walked in 6.8% of his plate appearances this season, although it’s worth noting that he barely walked at all in Double-A before drawing nine bases on balls in his 82 Triple-A plate appearances (11%). He’s walked in 10.4% of his 1281 professional plate appearances overall.

Lile will now get his first crack at trying to carve out a role in a crowded Nationals outfield. James Wood has entrenched himself and is breaking out as one of the game’s top young sluggers. Young is one of the game’s best defenders in center. Crews struggled early this season but had been swinging considerably better of late; he’s also a former No. 2 overall draft pick who entered the 2025 season considered to be among MLB’s five to ten best prospects. The organization views him as a cornerstone piece. Hassell has a similar profile to Lile but is considered a better defender. Righty-swinging Alex Call has predictably cooled off after a torrid start that was fueled by a BABIP north of .400, but he has a solid track record versus lefties.

Of course, it’s hardly a bad thing for the Nationals to have more potentially high-quality outfield options than spots to play them. It provides depth in the case of injuries (like the ones they’re currently facing), creates opportunities to rotate several players through the DH spot, and could eventually give them some ammunition in trade talks with outfield-needy clubs around the league.

Mariners To Promote Blas Castano

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The Mariners are recalling right-hander Blas Castano from Triple-A Tacoma, reports John Brophy. The 26-year-old righty will be making his MLB debut when he first takes the mound. The team has not announced the move or any corresponding transactions. Castano is already on the 40-man roster — Seattle selected his contract last November to shield him from being taken in the Rule 5 Draft — so the M’s only need to make a 26-man roster move to accommodate their newest call-up.

Castano, 26, was originally signed out of the Dominican Republic by the Yankees back in 2018. They released him in the summer of 2023, after which he quickly signed a minor league pact with the Mariners. He’s since solidified himself as a prospect of some note in the system. Baseball America ranked him 23rd in a deep Mariners farm heading into the year.

Though he stands at an undersized 5’10” and 162 pounds, Castano has found some success in the upper minors. He split the 2024 season between Seattle’s Double-A and Triple-A affiliates, thriving at the former (3.31 ERA) but struggling a bit at the latter (5.13 ERA, albeit in a hitter-friendly league). It evened out to a 4.38 ERA, 20% strikeout rate and 8% walk rate in 125 1/3 innings — a strong enough showing that the Mariners clearly felt a pitching-needy organization might scoop him up if given the chance in the Rule 5 Draft.

This year, Castano has better run-prevention numbers but shakier rate stats in Tacoma. He’s posted a 3.43 ERA through 44 2/3 innings, but his strikeout rate has fallen from 23.3% to 15.5%, while his walk rate has jumped from 7.6% to 10.5%. He’s also plunked four batters in those 44 2/3 innings — including three in his most recent appearance. Despite clearly spotty command that day, he still held his opponents to a run through seven innings, however.

Castano’s primary pitch is a sinker that sits 93.1 mph this season, per Statcast. He’s complemented that offering with a slider that sits 82-83 mph, a changeup that sits 87-88mph, an 89 mph cutter to help neutralize lefties and a seldom-used four-seamer that sits in the same velo range as his sinker. Baseball America’s scouting report notes that Castano’s changeup is his best secondary offering when it’s working and calls the righty a potential fifth starter or a “do-everything swingman” who can pitch in a wide variety of roles.

Mariners relievers Jesse Hahn and Eduard Bazardo threw 28 and 30 pitches yesterday, respectively, and their scheduled starter is right Emerson Hancock, who’s pitched just 9 2/3 innings across his past two starts. They could want a fresh arm to give them some length in the event of another relatively short start from Hancock, or it’s possible Castano could get a spot start if the Mariners decide to shuffle up their rotation this weekend for any reason.

Astros Sign Greg Jones To Minor League Deal

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The Astros announced that they have signed infielder/outfielder Greg Jones to a minor league contract. Per his MLB.com transactions tracker, he’s been assigned to the Florida Complex League club for now, but should report to Triple-A Sugar Land at some point in the near future.

Jones, 27, was released by the White Sox a couple of weeks ago. That opened a 40-man roster spot for the Sox to claim Yoendrys Gomez, who has since been designated for assignment. At the time of the claim, Jones was on the minor league injured list with an unknown ailment. Injured players can’t be placed on outright waivers, which essentially forced the Sox to release him since they wanted to open that roster spot.

That has freed up Jones to sign this deal with the Astros. His current health status is unclear but he will provide the Astros with a nice set of wheels whenever he’s ready to go. In 375 minor league league games, he has stolen 167 bases in 192 tries, an 87% success rate. Defensively, he has played the two middle infield spots and all three outfield positions.

The offense has been less impressive, however. From the start of 2023 to the present, he has 769 plate appearances on the farm, mostly at the Triple-A level. He has 28 home runs in that time but has also been struck out in 37.3% of those trips to the plate. The result is a .247/.326/.428 line and an 84 wRC+ for that span. He has been sent to the plate just eight times at the major league level with a .143/.250/.571 line in those.

For the Astros, there’s no risk on a minor league deal. Jones is a former first-round pick, with the Rays having selected him 22nd overall in 2019. At the very least, he seems capable of being a useful bench player who serves as a pinch runner and defensive replacement. Any progress with the bat would be a nice bonus.

Photo courtesy of Isaiah J. Downing, Imagn Images

Royals Release Chris Stratton

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May 22: Stratton was released as expected, according to the MLB.com transaction log.

May 18: The Royals announced that right-hander Chris Stratton has been designated for assignment.  Fellow righty Jonathan Bowlan was called up from Triple-A in the corresponding move.

The DFA probably closes the book on what has been a disappointing season-plus for Stratton in Kansas City.  Following four solid seasons of bullpen work from 2020-23 and a World Series ring with the 2023 Rangers, Stratton signed a two-year, $8MM free agent deal with the Royals during the 2023 Winter Meetings.  The contract paid Stratton $3.5MM in 2024, and he then could choose between a $4.5MM salary for 2025 or exercising an opt-out clause to re-enter free agency.

Stratton’s decision ended up being a pretty easy one, as he chose to stick with the $4.5MM after struggling to a 5.55 ERA over 58 1/3 innings out of the K.C. bullpen last year.  He also ended the season with a flexor strain his right forearm, and while he was able to return healthy for the start of Spring Training, the righty’s poor form continued into this year, as Stratton had a 7.94 ERA over 17 innings and 12 appearances in 2025.

Considering these numbers, it seems wholly unlikely that another team would claim Stratton on DFA waivers and absorb the remainder of his salary.  The probable scenario is that Stratton will be released after clearing waivers, leaving the Royals on the hook for the approximately $3.1MM still owed to the reliever.  If Stratton signs elsewhere and joins a Major League roster, his new team will only owe him the prorated portion of a big league minimum salary, which will be subtracted from the Royals’ $3.1MM commitment.

Bowlan has pitched in four MLB games spread out over the last three seasons, and his latest cup of coffee in the Show was two innings of scoreless ball in the Royals’ 7-3 loss to the Astros back on April 27.  Bowlan has worked mostly as a starter throughout his minor league career, but a transition into full-time relief pitching seems to be working wonders, as he has a 2.08 ERA, 35.7% strikeout rate, and 7.1% walk rate in 17 1/3 bullpen innings for Triple-A Omaha this year.

The Royals could use Bowlan as a long man within their pen, or perhaps explore using him as a bulk pitcher (behind an opener) as the team figures out how to address some sudden rotation needs.  Cole Ragans and Seth Lugo were both placed on the 15-day IL yesterday, and while Noah Cameron is likely to take one of those open spots, there is no obvious answer for the other hole in the starting five.

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