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Cardinals Acquire Austin Allen From A’s

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The Cardinals have acquired minor league backstop Austin Allen from the A’s, the team announced. Minor league pitcher Carlos Guarate is back to Oakland in return.

St. Louis designated Austin Romine for assignment yesterday, en route to trading the veteran to the Reds prior to today’s deadline.  With Yadier Molina being activated off the injured list for tonight’s game, the Cards will replenish their catching depth chart by adding Allen to the minor league ranks.  Andrew Knizner remains as Molina’s backup on the big league roster.

Allen was born in St. Louis, so the 28-year-old will now suit up for his hometown organization.  Originally a fourth-round pick for the Padres in the 2015 draft, Allen made his big league debut in 2019, and was then traded to the Athletics as part of the Jurickson Profar swap during the 2019-20 offseason.

Though he has been a part of the last four MLB seasons, Allen hasn’t received much playing time in the Show, with only 57 career games played and 127 plate appearances.  Allen has hit .195/.252/.288 against big league pitching, but he has mashed at the minor league level, including a .313/.362/.594 slash line in 680 PA at the Triple-A level.

Guarate is a 21-year-old right-hander with four years of pro experience, and he has a 4.18 ERA over 75 1/3 innings (starting 12 of 19 games) at A-ball this year.  This was Guarate’s first season with the Cardinals, as he was a selected in the minor league Rule 5 Draft this past winter, with St. Louis selecting him away from the Padres.

Reds Acquire Austin Romine From Cardinals

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The Reds have acquired catcher Austin Romine from the Cardinals for cash, per a team announcement.  Romine had been designated for assignment but didn’t last long on the DFA wire, quickly getting snapped up by the Reds.

Cincinnati will be Romine’s third different organization of the 2022 season, after he first signed a minor league deal with the Angels in March.  He was released in June but caught on with St. Louis on another minors deal a couple of weeks later, when the Cardinals were in need of some extra catching depth when Molina first went on the IL.  Overall, Romine has played in 14 total Major League games with his two teams this season.

Romine now joins another team trying to make do in the wake of a notable injury, as Tyler Stephenson could miss the rest of the 2022 campaign after undergoing surgery for a fractured collarbone.  With Aramis Garcia also on the IL, rookies Michael Papierski and Mark Kolozsvary comprise the Reds’ current catching corps, and thus an 11-year veteran like Romine brings some needed experience to the roster.

Blue Jays Acquire Mitch White From Dodgers

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The Blue Jays and Dodgers have agreed to a trade sending righty Mitch White from Los Angeles to Toronto in exchange for minor league pitchers, tweets FanSided’s Robert Murray. The teams have since announced the trade, with White and minor league infielder Alex De Jesus headed to Toronto in exchange for minor league righty Nick Frasso and minor league lefty Moises Brito.

White, 27, has been an up-and-down member of the Dodgers’ staff for the past couple seasons, generally pitching well when with the big league club but never getting a consistent, long-term spot in the rotation or in the bullpen. He’s logged 38 games, 14 of them starts, from 2020-22 and recorded a sturdy 3.58 ERA with a 22% strikeout rate, 8.3% walk rate and a 42.8% ground-ball rate in 105 2/3 innings.

A second-round pick back in 2016, White had a hiccup in his first run at the Triple-A level in 2019 but has generally fared well both there (six earned runs in 43 2/3 innings) and in the Majors over the past two seasons. White is in his final minor league option season, so he’ll need to stick on the Jays’ roster in 2023 and beyond. He’ll presumably be a back-of-the-rotation candidate, though he could also emerge in a role held by fellow Dodger-turned-Blue-Jay Ross Stripling, serving as a long man and spot starter. (Stripling, of course, has since moved into the Toronto rotation.)

The 20-year-old De Jesus, meanwhile, ranked 18th among Dodger farmhands on Baseball America’s midseason update, drawing praise for his plus arm, above-average power and a potentially average hit tool. De Jesus has split the 2022 season between Class-A and Class-A Advanced, hitting at a combined .272/.386/.447 clip with 11 homers, 20 doubles and three triples. He’s sporting an unsightly 28.6% strikeout rate but also an encouraging 14.9% walk rate.

Frasso, a fourth-rounder in 2020, was the Jays’ No. 13 prospect on Baseball America’s summer rankings. He boasts an outstanding 0.74 ERA with a 41.6% strikeout rate and 7.3% walk rate in 36 2/3 innings split across two Class-A levels. The former Loyola Marymount right-hander has primarily faced younger competition thus far, so he’s not yet tested against more advanced hitters, but it’s an impressive stat line nevertheless. Frasso had Tommy John surgery in 2021 and has thusly had his workloads limited in his return effort, but the 6’5″ righty has reached triple digits with his heater and gives the Dodgers a power arm to dream on.

There’s little in the way of public info on Brito, a 20-year-old righty who’s just 12 games into his first professional season. He’s slightly older than his average competition in the Dominican Summer League, but his 1.86 ERA and gaudy 32-to-1 K/BB ratio through 29 innings of work stand out.

Twins Acquire Michael Fulmer From Tigers

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The Twins announced they’ve acquired reliever Michael Fulmer from the Tigers. Pitching prospect Sawyer Gipson-Long is headed back to Detroit.

Fulmer is one of the better rental relievers available on the summer market. The 29-year-old has worked to a 3.20 ERA across 39 1/3 innings, his second straight season with strong run prevention. Fulmer’s 23.1% strikeout rate and 11.5% swinging strike percentage are more solid than great, but he’s consistently done an excellent job keeping the ball in the yard.

Minnesota can’t count on Fulmer sustaining this season’s 2.2% HR/FB rate, but he also did well to avoid hard contact last year. He’s induced plenty of infield fly balls over the past couple seasons, and he’s held opposite-handed hitters to a woeful .190/.256/.298 line on the season. That’s no doubt appealing to a Minnesota club that only has Jovani Moran as a left-handed bullpen option with Caleb Thielbar on the injured list.

Fulmer is an impending free agent, so he’s a pure stretch run play with the Twins a game ahead of the Guardians in the AL Central. He’s not as impactful an addition as this morning’s pickup of All-Star closer Jorge López from Baltimore, but he becomes a much-needed extra boost to a relief corps that has been the club’s Achilles heel. Fulmer is making $4.95MM, around $1.8MM of which is still to be paid out.

Detroit picks up a 6’4″ right-hander in the deal. Gipson-Long was a sixth-round pick out of Mercer in 2019. He’s split the year between High-A Cedar Rapids and Double-A Wichita, thriving at the former destination while struggling at the latter. Overall, he owns a 4.23 ERA across 87 1/3 innings with a decent 24.2% strikeout rate and a minuscule 5.3% walk percentage.

Jon Heyman of the New York Post first reported the Twins were acquiring Fulmer. Mark Feinsand of MLB.com reported that Detroit would receive Gipson-Long in return.

Mariners Acquire Curt Casali, Matthew Boyd From Giants

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The Mariners added a backup catcher and strengthened their pitching depth just prior to Tuesday’s deadline, acquiring catcher Curt Casali and lefty Matthew Boyd from the Giants in exchange for minor league righty Michael Stryffeler and catcher Andy Thomas. The Casali and Boyd were initially reported separately but were announced by the teams as part of the same swap. Seattle announced that left-hander Tommy Milone has been released to make room on the 40-man roster for Casali. Boyd is on the 60-day injured list and does not yet require a roster spot.

Casali adds some depth behind Seattle starter Cal Raleigh. The 33-year-old backstop has had a nice showing in limited playing time with the Giants this season. Through 102 plate appearances, Casali is hitting .231/.325/.370, connecting on four homers and a trio of doubles. That’s a nice blend of power and patience from a depth catcher, even when paired with Casali’s typically lofty level of swing-and-miss. He’s also plenty familiar with newly acquired ace Luis Castillo from the pair’s days together in Cincinnati.

Seattle’s No. 2 backstop Luis Torrens has underwhelmed this year, hitting .208/.262/.225 in 42 games. Torrens can’t be optioned to the minor leagues, so Casali’s addition could conceivably squeeze him off the 40-man roster entirely. Raleigh will continue to play most days amidst a breakout season, and the M’s may not want to carry three backstops on the active roster. Casali is currently on the injured list after suffering an oblique strain last month, but he’s on a rehab assignment and should be reinstated to the majors shortly. Casali is making $2.6MM this season, around $928K of which has still to be paid. He’ll be a free agent at season’s end.

Boyd, 31, inked a one-year, $5.2MM deal with the Giants after a mostly solid four-year run with the Tigers. A brutal showing in 2020 skewed his numbers in his final few seasons with Detroit, but Boyd often flashed quality bat-missing ability and typically posted low walk rates throughout his time in the Detroit rotation. He twice looked as though he may be among the more appealing arms available at a trade deadline — first in 2019 when he was sitting on a 3.95 ERA and 152 strikeouts in 114 innings and again in 2021 when he’d posted a similar ERA and reduced home-run rate (albeit with a diminished strikeout rate).

The Tigers held onto Boyd both times, however, declining to move him in ’19 because they (justifiably) set a huge asking price given Boyd’s three-plus remaining seasons of club control. The 2020 season brought little opportunity to move Boyd, thanks to the aforementioned struggles (6.71 ERA in 12 starts), and by the time last year’s deadline rolled around, Boyd’s season was in jeopardy due to that forearm issue.

It’s unlikely that Boyd will be able to return and build up to a starter’s workload this season — but the Mariners, particularly after landing Castillo, don’t really need Boyd to step into the rotation anyhow. He could, however, provide them with an experienced left-hander to plug into the bullpen. Seattle hasn’t had much luck with its left-handed bullpen arms this season, so taking what’s surely a low-cost flier on Boyd is a sensible enough peripheral move at this stage of deadline season.

Stryffeler is a 26-year-old reliever who’s spent the 2022 campaign in Double-A. A right-hander, he owns an excellent 2.27 ERA through 35 2/3 frames. Stryffeler has fanned an elite 37.7% of batters faced but walked an elevated 12.6% of opponents. The Lake Erie college product will be eligible for the Rule 5 draft this winter if he’s not added to San Francisco’s 40-man roster.

Thomas, meanwhile, was the Mariners’ fifth-round draft pick just last summer. He’s had a nice start to the season in High-A, where he’s posted a strong .264/.400/.444 with nine homers, a dozen doubles and a huge 16.2% walk rate. Thomas was a senior sign out of Baylor University, it should be noted, so he’s already 23 and is playing against notably younger competition. Time will tell how he fares against more advanced opponents, but the early results are promising. From a defensive perspective, he’s caught a roughly average 27% of attempted base thieves, but Baseball America questioned his overall receiving skills at the time of the draft.

Milone, 35, had been in his second stint with the Mariners. The journeyman southpaw has carved out a 12-year big league career, at times enjoying solid runs as a starter (2012-15, in particular) and as a reliever. The past several seasons have been a struggle for the soft-tosser, however, as evidenced by a 6.33 ERA in 69 2/3 frames. Milone was on the 15-day injured list due to a cervical sprain, but if he’s healthy in the season’s final couple months, he could latch on as a depth arm with another club.

In 944 1/3 innings at the big league level, Milone has a 4.60 ERA with a below-average 17.5% strikeout rate but an excellent 5.6% walk rate.

Robert Murray of FanSided first reported that Casali was headed to Seattle in exchange for Stryffeler (Twitter link). Jon Heyman of the New York Post reported that Boyd was going to Seattle as well.

Orioles Acquire Brett Phillips

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4:40pm: The Rays announced that Phillips was traded to the Orioles in exchange for cash.

4:28pm: The Orioles are acquiring outfielder Brett Phillips from the Rays, tweets Roch Kubatko of MASNsports.com. Tampa Bay designated Phillips for assignment yesterday after acquiring Jose Siri from the Astros. He was reported to have interest from multiple clubs earlier this morning.

Phillips, 28, is an all-world defender with prolific strikeout issues that have weighed down an otherwise enviable blend of power and speed. He’s hitting just .147/.225/.250 this season and carries a tepid career .190/.276/.350 batting line in 883 plate appearances. That said, Phillips has a more passable .212/.296/.407 slash against right-handed pitching, has swatted 28 home runs and has gone 36-for-41 in the rough equivalent of one and a third full season’s worth of plate appearances at the MLB level. He can also be controlled for another two seasons via arbitration.

It’s unlikely the O’s have an everyday role in mind for Phillips — barring a more stunning trade of an established outfielder such as Cedric Mullins or Austin Hays. But there’s good value to Phillips’ blend of speed, defense and power coming off the bench.

Mariners To Acquire Jake Lamb

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The Mariners are acquiring Jake Lamb from the Dodgers for cash considerations, tweets Robert Murray of FanSided.

Lamb, 31, signed a minor league deal with the Dodgers in March and had his contract selected in late June.  Much of his brief time with the Dodgers has been spent at designated hitter, but Lamb in left field and at first base for the club.  He’s primarily served as a third baseman in his nine-year career.  Lamb’s 2017 season was a highlight, as he hit 30 home runs and made the All-Star team as a member of the Diamondbacks.  A left-handed hitter, Lamb has struggled against southpaws in his career, though he’s shown a reverse platoon split in more recent years.  He’s hit well with a 121 wRC+ in his brief 77 big league plate appearances this year.

Lamb, a native of Seattle, may have become expendable for the Dodgers upon today’s acquisition of a more accomplished lefty bat, Joey Gallo.  Lamb can complement right-handed hitters for the Mariners, including Eugenio Suarez, Kyle Lewis, and Ty France.

Mariners To Acquire Matthew Boyd

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4:15pm: The Mariners and Giants announced this swap as part of a broader trade sending catcher Curt Casali and Boyd from San Francisco to Seattle in exchange for a pair of minor leaguers. You can read MLBTR’s full breakdown of the deal here.

3:56pm: The Mariners are set to acquire left-hander Matthew Boyd in a trade with the Giants, reports Jon Heyman of the New York Post (Twitter link). He’s currently on the injured list and has spent the entire season to date rehabbing from September surgery to repair a torn flexor tendon, but Boyd makes for an interesting roll of the dice and could give the M’s a quality arm late in the season if he’s able to return from that surgery.

Boyd, 31, inked a one-year, $5.2MM deal with the Giants after a mostly solid four-year run with the Tigers. A brutal showing in 2020 skewed his numbers in his final few seasons with Detroit, but Boyd often flashed quality bat-missing ability and typically posted low walk rates throughout his time in the Detroit rotation. He twice looked as though he may be among the more appealing arms available at a trade deadline — first in 2019 when he was sitting on a 3.95 ERA and 152 strikeouts in 114 innings and again in 2021 when he’d posted a similar ERA and reduced home-run rate (albeit with a diminished strikeout rate).

The Tigers held onto Boyd both times, however, declining to move him in ’19 because they (justifiably) set a huge asking price given Boyd’s three-plus remaining seasons of club control. The 2020 season brought little opportunity to move Boyd, thanks to the aforementioned struggles (6.71 ERA in 12 starts), and by the time last year’s deadline rolled around, Boyd’s season was in jeopardy due to that forearm issue.

It’s unlikely that Boyd will be able to return and build up to a starter’s workload this season — but the Mariners, particularly after landing Reds ace Luis Castillo, don’t really need Boyd to step into the rotation anyhow. He could, however, provide them with an experienced left-hander to plug into the bullpen. Seattle hasn’t had much luck with its left-handed bullpen arms this season, so taking what’s surely a low-cost flier on Boyd is a sensible enough peripheral move at this stage of deadline season.

Padres To Acquire Brandon Drury

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The Padres are acquiring Brandon Drury from the Reds, according to Ken Rosenthal and C. Trent Rosecrans of The Athletic. Prospect Victor Acosta is going to Cincinnati, per Bob Nightengale of USA Today.

The Padres have seemingly been at the center of all the activity at this year’s deadline, extending Joe Musgrove, acquiring Josh Hader, sending Eric Hosmer to the Red Sox and making perhaps the most impactful baseball trade of all time, acquiring Juan Soto and Josh Bell for a pile of prospects.

The Reds, too, have been busy, sending Luis Castillo to the Mariners, Tyler Mahle to the Twins and Tommy Pham to the Red Sox. Now the two clubs have aligned on a deal that will send Drury to San Diego.

Drury, 29, showed enough promise in his early years with the Diamondbacks that he cracked Baseball America’s top 100 list in 2016 and then was traded to the Yankees after the 2017 season. Unfortunately, this was the beginning of a miserable three-year stretch wherein Drury struggled mightily with the Yanks and then the Blue Jays. He dealt with various injuries and struggled to produce when healthy, eventually getting designated for assignment at the end of the 2020 season.

The Mets took a flier on him last year, which worked out well, as Drury hit .274/.307/.476 in a bench role. That production was 14% above league average, by measure of wRC+. Despite that solid work, he was designated for assignment again at the end of the season.

The Reds brought Drury aboard on a minor league deal, which could hardly have gone any better. Drury is having a career year, already having hit 20 home runs and producing an overall batting line of .274/.335/.520 for a wRC+ of 132. He’s also done it while bouncing all around the diamond, playing mostly third base but also seeing time at the other three infield positions and right field this year.

It seems likely that the Padres want Drury to fill a super utility role on the team, bouncing around to various positions based on who needs a day off. The regular infield lineup would likely see Josh Bell at first, Jake Cronenworth at second, Ha-Seong Kim at shortstop and Manny Machado at third. When Fernando Tatis Jr. eventually returns from his injury, the picture will get a little more crowded, but the Padres also cleared out their usual designated hitter by including Luke Voit in the Soto deal.

In exchange, the Reds are getting Acosta, an 18-year-old switch-hitting shortstop. He had an excellent debut in affiliated ball last year, slashing .285/.431/.484 in the Dominican Summer League for a 153 wRC+ and adding 26 stolen bases. He has slumped a bit this year, hitting .243/.346/.360 in the Arizona Complex League for a 99 wRC+. He is still just 18, however, and was considered one of the better prospects in the San Diego system coming into today.

Twins Acquire Sandy Leon From Guardians

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The Twins and Guardians have swung an inter-division trade, with Minnesota picking up catcher Sandy Leon.  Right-hander Ian Hamilton is headed to Cleveland on the other end of the swap.  The two players have been respectively assigned to their new teams’ Triple-A affiliates.

Ryan Jeffers suffered a thumb fracture in mid-July that will keep him out of action for another 4-6 weeks, leaving the Twins short at catcher behind Gary Sanchez.  The veteran Leon will provide some defense-first depth behind Sanchez, with rookie Caleb Hamilton and the more experienced Chance Sisco (on the Triple-A roster) also in the mix.

Leon’s second stint in Cleveland didn’t last long, as the Guardians only acquired him from the Reds in cash deal in late June, and then outrighted him off the 40-man roster two weeks ago.  For the season, Leon has appeared in only eight MLB games and posted a .514 OPS over 21 plate appearances.  Other than an offensive outburst over 78 games with the Red Sox in 2016, Leon has been a defensive specialist for much of his career, well-regarded as a pitch-framer and for his ability to manage pitchers and call games.

Hamilton has amassed 14 2/3 innings over parts of three MLB seasons, including 2 2/3 frames with the Twins this year.  An 11th-round pick for the White Sox in 2016, Hamilton had some excellent numbers at Triple-A this year, with a 1.88 ERA, 32.1% strikeout rate, and 7.1% walk rate in 28 2/3 relief innings.

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