Pirates Designate Tyler Beede, Dillon Peters For Assignment
The Pirates designated right-hander Tyler Beede and lefty Dillon Peters for assignment this afternoon, per a team announcement. Southpaw Eric Stout was recalled from Triple-A Indianapolis to take Beede’s spot on the active roster; Peters had been on the injured list, so there’s no corresponding transaction in his case. Pittsburgh’s 40-man roster count drops to 38.
Beede spent four months in Pittsburgh, working primarily as a multi-inning reliever. Since being claimed off waivers from the Giants in mid-May, he’s worked 51 2/3 innings across 25 appearances (including five starts). It was Beede’s longest stretch of MLB action since 2019, but the 29-year-old generally struggled. He posted a 5.23 ERA with the Bucs, only striking out 14.8% of batters faced on a modest 9.1% swinging strike percentage. Beede has induced a fair number of ground-balls, but the lack of swing-and-miss eventually squeezed him off the roster.
A former first-round pick, Beede had spent his entire professional career with the Giants before this year. He made 22 starts in 24 appearances with San Francisco three years ago, pitching to a 5.08 ERA but working in the mid-90s with nearly average peripherals. It was enough to offer some hope that Beede might be a back-of-the-rotation option for a few seasons, but his 2020-21 campaigns were mostly wiped out by injury. He underwent Tommy John surgery in March 2020, keeping him out of action until last July. After a month primarily spent working his way back into game shape, he suffered a lower back strain that ended his 2021 campaign after a lone big league outing.
Beede is out of minor league option years, so the Giants had to carry him on the big league roster or make him available to other teams this season. He spent the first month in the Bay Area, coming out of the bullpen six times. After walking more batters than he struck out, he was designated for assignment and placed on waivers. Pittsburgh used their relatively high priority on the waiver wire to bring him aboard, but he didn’t manage to sustain some early success. Beede carried a 2.64 ERA as a Pirate through the end of July, but he’s been tagged for an even 9.00 ERA in 21 frames since then.
The Bucs will now place him on waivers themselves. He’s averaged 95.6 MPH on his sinker this season, with the still-intact arm strength perhaps intriguing enough another team will roll the dice on a claim. Beede is slated to be arbitration-eligible for the first time this offseason and would be controllable through 2025 if another team is willing to give him a roster spot.
Peters, meanwhile, was first acquired from the Angels in July 2021. The 30-year-old picked up six starts down the stretch last season, but he’s worked primarily as a long reliever this year. Peters has started just four of his 22 outings in 2022, tossing 39 1/3 innings. He owns a 4.58 ERA and has fanned 15.8% of batters faced while walking opponents at an elevated 10.3% clip. He landed on the 15-day injured list in early August with inflammation in his throwing elbow, but he’s apparently ready for reinstatement after a pair of rehab outings at Double-A Altoona.
Like Beede, Peters is out of minor league options. The Bucs would’ve had to reinstall him onto the MLB pitching staff now that he’s healthy, but they’ll instead take him off the 40-man roster. He’ll land on waivers in the next few days. Peters is a virtual lock to qualify for early arbitration as a Super Two player this winter if another team were to claim him and keep him in the big leagues. He’s controllable through 2026.
Marlins Select Jake Fishman, Transfer Jorge Soler To 60-Day IL
The Marlins on Thursday placed right-hander Tommy Nance on the 15-day injured list due to a groin strain and selected the contract of lefty Jake Fishman in his place, tweets Payton Titus of the Miami Herald. Outfielder/designated hitter Jorge Soler was transferred from the 10-day injured list to the 60-day injured list in a corresponding 40-man move.
It’s the third time this season the Fishman, 27, has been selected to the Marlins’ big league roster. The longtime Blue Jays farmhand has pitched 4 1/3 innings with Miami this season, yielding a run on six hits and no walks (but with two hit batters) and one strikeout in 4 1/3 innings. He’s twice been designated for assignment and passed through waivers unclaimed despite a strong year in Triple-A Jacksonville. In 56 innings with the Marlins’ top affiliate, Fishman carries a 2.25 ERA with a 23.1% strikeout rate, 8.5% walk rate and 54.2% ground-ball rate.
As for Soler, the move to the 60-day IL doesn’t formally close the book on his season, as that 60-day minimum dates back to his original placement on the IL, on July 23. Still, Soler himself said earlier this week that he does not expect to return to the field this season as he continues to battle a back injury.
Signed to a three-year, $36MM deal over the winter, Soler has fallen well shy of expectations in his first year with the Fish. Through 72 games and 306 plate appearances, Soler has mustered just a .207/.295/.400 batting line with a 29.4% strikeout rate — his worst in a 162-game season since 2017.
It’s a far cry from the 2021 momentum that Soler carried into free agency this past winter. A change-of-scenery trade that shipped Soler from Kansas City to Atlanta at the 2021 deadline set the stage for a mammoth second-half showing: .269/.358/.524, 14 home runs in 255 plate appearances. Postseason heroics ensued, as Soler went 6-for-20 with three homers and three walks en route to World Series MVP honors. The Marlins will hope that in 2023-24, a healthier Soler will get back to that form and provide some much-needed power to a typically light-hitting lineup, but it increasingly looks as though the book on his first Miami campaign is drawing to a close.
Rockies Release Jhoulys Chacin
The Rockies announced Thursday that they’ve released veteran right-hander Jhoulys Chacin. A corresponding transaction was not announced, but Chacin had been on the 28-man roster, so the Rox will bring someone to the big league squad tomorrow, following Thursday’s off-day. Colorado’s 40-man roster now sits at 39 players.
Originally signed and developed by the Rockies, Chacin returned to Colorado in 2021, seeking a rebound after a poor 2019-20 showing. He enjoyed a solid enough year out of the Colorado ‘pen, logging 64 1/3 innings of 4.34 ERA ball but with sub-par strikeout and walk rates (17.5% and 10.4%, respectively). Chacin did induce plenty of weak contact, but he rarely caused hitters to swing and miss or even chase pitches off the plate — all while benefiting from a .242 average on balls in play.
The Rox re-signed him to a one-year deal worth a guaranteed $1.25MM, and Chacin appeared in enough games to unlock an additional $125K bonus prior to today’s release. The results when he took the mound, however, weren’t pretty. In 47 1/3 frames, Chacin was torched for a 7.61 ERA. He managed to scale back his walk rate slightly, to 9.6%, but his strikeout rate also dipped half a percentage point, to 16.9%.
Chacin’s BABIP regressed toward his career .299 mark this season, clocking in at a slightly elevated .316 — due largely to the dramatic improvement of batted-ball quality from his opponents. The right-hander’s ground-ball rate fell by seven percentage points as hitters began to not only elevate the ball more frequently but do so with considerably more force. Chacin’s hard-hit rate jumped from 35.1% in 2021 to 41.5% this season, and his average exit velocity spiked from 86.4 mph to 89.7 mph.
It’s now been four mostly rough years since Chacin was last a quality big league hurler, but there’s definitely plenty of success on his track record. From 2010-18, Chacin racked up 1204 2/3 innings of 3.86 ERA ball, punching out 18.6% of his opponents against a 9.3% walk rate (with much of that performance coming at a time when strikeouts weren’t nearly as prevalent as they’ve been for the past few years).
Chacin was an above-average innings eater with the 2017 Padres and 2018 Brewers, topping 180 frames with a sub-4.00 ERA in each season. Fans can file this one away in their trivia bank: Chasin’s 2018 campaign with the Brewers might mark the last time you’ll ever see a traditional starting pitcher start 35 games in a season. He and David Price (2016) are the only two pitchers to accomplish that feat in the past decade.
Solid as his broader track record may be, it’s also been nearly a half decade since Chacin pitched near his peak level. He’ll probably garner some interest on a minor league deal over the winter, but he’ll quite likely have to compete for a job in Spring Training.
Rays Activate Shane McClanahan
Sept. 15: McClanahan has formally been activated from the injured list. Fellow lefty Josh Fleming was optioned to Triple-A Durham to open a roster spot.
Sept. 14: The Rays are going to reinstate left-hander Shane McClanahan from the injured list to start tomorrow’s game against the Blue Jays, according to Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times.
McClanahan, 25, had his Cy Young-caliber season interrupted a couple of weeks ago. He was set to start against the Marlins on August 30 but felt something during his pre-game warmup and never actually made it into the game. He was placed on the 15-day injured list the next day with his injury listed as a shoulder impingement. At that time, manager Kevin Cash expressed confidence that an extended absence wouldn’t be necessary, with that assessment proving to be true as McClanahan is returning after a minimum stint.
McClanahan debuted last year with an excellent 3.43 ERA over 123 1/3 innings, though took his game to another level here in 2022, prior to the injury. He’s currently sporting an ERA of 2.20 through 147 1/3 innings this year, along with incredible strikeout, walk and groundball rates of 32.5%, 5.4% and 52.3%, respectively. He and Verlander seemed to be the frontrunners in the AL Cy Young race, though both of them went on the IL around the same time. Verlander seems poised to return this week as well, allowing that competition to continue, though the injuries have allowed others to gain ground.
If McClanahan is able to avoid any lingering effects of the injury and pick up where he left off, it will be a huge boost for the Rays. They face long odds of repeating as AL East champions since they are currently 6.5 games behind the Yankees with just three weeks left on the schedule. However, they are in the midst of a three-team melee for the Wild Card, with the Jays currently on top but only half a game ahead of the Rays and Mariners. The nearest non-playoff team, the Orioles, are five games back, making it likely that the three teams currently in playoff position will hold on. However, the final positioning will also matter, since the top seed will have home field advantage for all three games (if necessary) in the first round of the playoffs.
McClanahan will jump into the rotation next to Corey Kluber, Drew Rasmussen and Jeffrey Springs, with Ryan Yarbrough likely also picking up some bulk work behind an opener. McClanahan would likely be the club’s preferred choice to take the ball in game one of a postseason series, though they will first have to worry about clinching a spot.
Elsewhere on the roster, the news on Ryan Thompson isn’t as good. Topkin relays that the right-hander is done for the season after being diagnosed with a stress reaction in his right elbow. Thompson has already been on the 15-day IL since late August but will likely be transferred to the 60-day IL once the club needs to open a roster spot. He finishes the year with a 3.80 ERA over 42 2/3 innings, along with a 21.5% strikeout rate, 6.1% walk rate and 51.2% ground ball rate.
Matt Beaty Elects Free Agency
Utilityman Matt Beaty has elected free agency after being outrighted by the Padres, the team announced. As a player with more than three years of major league service time, he had the right to refuse a minor league assignment.
Beaty, 29, heads out onto the open market in search of a new opportunity. His time in San Diego didn’t go well, as a left shoulder impingement cost him roughly three months. He only made 20 big league appearances as a Friar, tallying 47 plate appearances and hitting .093/.170/.163 with two extra-base hits. He spent more time on optional assignment to Triple-A El Paso, where he compiled a .270/.366/.349 line through 145 trips to the plate. Beaty showed solid strike zone awareness in the minors but only connected on two home runs in the hitter-friendly Pacific Coast League.
Tough 2022 season aside, the left-handed hitting Beaty should find some interest on the open market. Before his lone season in San Diego, he spent a couple years as a productive utility bat for the division-rival Dodgers. Beaty posted an above-average .270/.363/.402 line in 234 MLB plate appearances last season, connecting on seven homers while striking out in just 18.8% of his trips to the plate. In addition to his strong contact skills, Beaty is capable of playing all four corner positions and looks like a viable bat-first platoon option off the bench. For his career, he carries a useful .252/.324/.412 line against right-handed pitching.
Beaty is free to explore opportunities with other clubs, but it’s possible he waits until the offseason at this point. There are only three weeks remaining on the regular season schedule, and he’s now ineligible for postseason play this year. Only players on a roster by August 31 can partake in the playoffs. Beaty would be arbitration-eligible for next season (and two additional years) if another team wanted to devote him an offseason 40-man roster spot, but that he recently cleared waivers suggests he could be looking at minor league offers with Spring Training invitations.
Diamondbacks To Promote Drey Jameson
The Diamondbacks will promote pitching prospect Drey Jameson before tomorrow’s game against the Padres, reports Nick Piecoro of the Arizona Republic. They’ll need to formally select his contract to do so, but the club already has a 40-man roster vacancy after designating Wilmer Difo for assignment this week.
It’s the first MLB call for Jameson, who has been one of the organization’s more interesting pitching prospects the past few years. A supplemental first-round pick (34th overall) out of Ball State in 2019, Jameson signed for $1.4MM. Credited with a mid-upper 90’s fastball and a promising combination of secondary offerings, the right-hander looked like a potential impact arm if he could develop more consistent control. Jameson didn’t get much of an opportunity until last year, with the 2020 minor league season wiped out by the pandemic. He posted excellent strikeout numbers with solid walk rates between High-A and Double-A last year, solidifying his status as one of the better arms in the system.
FanGraphs and Keith Law of the Athletic each slotted Jameson at the back half of their Top 100 overall prospects entering the season. Baseball America and Kiley McDaniel of ESPN each had him just outside the Top 100 but placed him among the ten most talented players in a strong Arizona system. Jameson dominated through four starts at Double-A to start the year, but he’s struggled to acclimate to the minors top level.
Since being promoted to Triple-A Reno at the beginning of May, the 25-year-old has made 22 appearances (21 starts). He’s surrendered a 6.95 ERA across 114 innings, striking out a personal-low 21.2% of opponents. Jameson’s 8.2% walk rate is manageable, but he’s allowed 1.66 home runs per nine innings and been plagued by a .351 batting average on balls in play. Reno is one of the more hitter-friendly environments in affiliated ball, which has certainly been a factor, but BA’s scouting report on Jameson also notes that hitters are able to identify the ball early in his delivery, causing his fastball to play below its velocity.
That’s something Jameson and pitching coach Brent Strom will work on, but it’s also easy to see the appeal with the 6’0″ hurler. Prospect evaluators suggest his slider is a plus-plus offering (a 70 on the 20-80 scale) at its best, and Jameson also shows an average or better changeup and curveball. Adding him to the 40-man roster at the end of the season to keep him from being selected in the Rule 5 draft was a no-brainer for the D-Backs’ front office, and they’ll take the season’s final few weeks to get an early look as Jameson tries to carve out a role on the 2023 staff.
Arizona is likely to see Zach Davies hit free agency this winter, thinning out their rotation depth. Zac Gallen has cemented himself as a top-of-the-rotation arm, and Merrill Kelly is amidst the best season of his career. Madison Bumgarner has been a fixture in the starting staff since signing an $85MM free agent deal heading into 2020, but his ERA is again approaching 5.00. The veteran may not be in imminent danger of losing his rotation spot, but Arizona has begun to introduce some of their younger starting pitching options at the big league level. Jameson joins Tommy Henry and Ryne Nelson as prospects to make their MLB debuts this season. Henry has struggled but Nelson (who ironically also broke in against the Padres a couple weeks back) hasn’t allowed a run with a 13:2 strikeout-to-walk ratio through his first two starts.
Cubs Select Jared Young
The Cubs have selected the contract of infielder/outfielder Jared Young, per Meghan Montemurro of the Chicago Tribune. Outfielder Rafael Ortega is going on the 60-day IL in a corresponding move after fracturing his finger last night.
Young, 27, was a 15th-round selection of the Cubs in 2017 and has been working his way up the ranks of the minor leagues since then. After the pandemic wiped out the minors entirely in 2020, Young split his time between Double-A and Triple-A in 2021. That year, he hit .290/.361/.471 for a wRC+ of 128, walking in a solid 9.8% of his plate appearances and striking out in just 19.3% of them. This year, he’s taken a bit of a step back, hitting just .228/.310/.413 for the season, but the Cubs will give him a shot in the majors regardless.
Defensively, Young has mostly played first base and third base, though a little bit in the outfield corners as well. That will give the Cubs some flexibility in how they deploy their lineups down the stretch. With just three weeks left on the schedule and the Cubs well out of contention, they can use that time to audition youngsters and just generally give them reps at the game’s highest level.
For Ortega, the transfer is largely procedural at this point. When the news of his fracture came out last night, it was expected to end his season, which is now a certainty.
Twins Place Randy Dobnak On Outright Waivers
The Twins have placed right-hander Randy Dobnak on outright waivers, according to Darren Wolfson of Skor North and Brandon Warne of Access Twins.
Dobnak, 27, made his MLB debut in 2019 and showed enough promise over that season and the shortened 2020 campaign that Twins made a long-term investment in him. He and the club agreed to a five-year, $9.25MM deal in March of 2021 that also came with three team options and various escalators that could bring the total outlay to $29.75MM. At the time, the Twins were hoping that they had locked up some extra control over a promising young arm that they saw potential in, while Dobnak got to lock in some guaranteed money by giving up future earning power.
Unfortunately, Dobnak has endured a very frustrating pair of seasons since then. A finger strain sent him to the IL multiple times in 2021, limiting him to just 14 big league appearances on the season. He also had diminished results while able to take the mound, registering a 7.64 ERA over 50 2/3 innings.
It seems that the offseason didn’t allow him to heal up, as another right middle finger strain sent him to the 60-day injured list in March of 2022. He’s been on the IL all year, having yet to appear for the big league club. He did recently start a rehab assignment, however, making his first appearance August 16 in the Florida Complex League. Since rehab assignments come with a 30-day limit for pitchers, Dobnak was nearing the time where he needed to be reinstated. Activating him from the 60-day IL would have meant opening up a spot on the 40-man roster, but it seems the Twins preferred not to do that, instead sending Dobnak out to the waiver wire. He threw 13 2/3 innings as part of that rehab assignment with a 5.93 ERA.
By placing Dobnak on waivers, the Twins are taking a risk that they may lose him to another organization. However, after two mostly lost seasons, the interest from other clubs may be limited. There’s also the financial aspect of a claim to consider. He’s making $800K here in 2022, which is just barely over the league minimum. However, he’ll go up to $1.5MM next year, $2.25MM in 2024 and $3MM in 2025. Then there’s a $1MM buyout on a $6MM option for 2026 and $100K buyouts on 2027 and 2028 options valued at $7MM and $8.5MM, respectively. Any team that claims Dobnak would be on the hook for those guarantees and buyouts, which would be a sizeable commitment for a pitcher who has been often injured and has yet to show quality results over a meaningful stretch of big league action.
What seems most likely to transpire is that Dobnak clears waivers, thus staying in the Twins’ organization without taking up a spot on the 40-man roster. Even if some team were intrigued enough to put in a claim, the Twins might be content with having the contract of their books. If that does indeed come to pass, Dobnak would be able to reject an outright assignment and elect free agency by virtue of having over three years of MLB service time. However, he lacks the five years of service time necessary to do so without forfeiting any salary. In the event he clears waivers, he would most likely accept an assignment to the minors and try to work his way back onto the roster.
Athletics Outright Skye Bolt
The Athletics announced that outfielder Skye Bolt has been reinstated from the injured list and outrighted to Triple-A Las Vegas.
The A’s also announced the outrights of outfielder Luis Barrera and right-hander Domingo Tapia, who were known to have been designated for assignment. In the case of Bolt, however, there had not been any previous indication he had lost his roster spot, though Oakland apparently quietly passed him through waivers in recent days.
The 28-year-old outfielder has had a challenging season, dealing with multiple injuries. He was first placed on the IL just a few days into the season due to an oblique strain. He began a rehab assignment in May but then suffered a strained hamstring and got transferred to the 60-day IL. He was activated in late June and lasted about a month before his next IL stint, this time for a right knee patella subluxation.
In between all of that time on the shelf, he got into 42 MLB games and hit .198/.259/.330 for a wRC+ of 73. He’s out of options, meaning the club wasn’t able to send him down to the minors without first exposing him to the waiver wire, though he’s apparently cleared and will head to Vegas. Since this is his first career outright and he has less than three years of MLB service time, he will have to accept the assignment. He will stick in the A’s organization without occupying a roster spot.
Phillies Claim Tayler Scott From Padres
The Phillies announced that they have claimed right-hander Tayler Scott off waivers from the Padres and optioned him to Triple-A. To create room on their 40-man roster, the Phillies recalled left-hander Kent Emanuel from Lehigh Valley and placed him on the 60-day IL with a shoulder strain.
Scott, 30, spent 2020 and 2021 with the Hiroshima Carp of Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball. He came back to North America for 2022, signing a minor league deal with the Padres. He had his contract selected in July and has thrown 12 innings for the big league club, though with a disappointing 6.75 ERA. He’s been much better in Triple-A, however, with a 3.76 ERA through 40 2/3 innings. That’s come with strong strikeout and walk rates of 30.4% and 6.4%, respectively. He’ll provide the Phils with an optionable depth arm, though he won’t be eligible for the postseason since he wasn’t in the organization prior to September 1.
In order to clear a roster spot for Scott, the Phillies have officially ended the season of Emanuel, who hasn’t pitched since the end of August. By recalling him and placing him on the 60-day IL, the club opens up a roster spot for Scott, though they will now be paying Emanuel a major league salary for the final three weeks of the season. Emanuel will also collect service time during that stretch. Claimed from the Astros in November, the lefty was also placed on the 60-day IL to begin the year due to an elbow impingement. Though he eventually returned to the hill in the minors, he was only able to make 13 starts in between his ailments. He registered a 2.55 ERA in that time with a 19.1% strikeout rate and 5.9% walk rate.