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Tyrone Taylor

NL Central Notes: Brewers, Taylor, Yardley, Cubs, Hoerner, Thompson, Jewell

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The Brewers placed outfield Tyrone Taylor on the 10-day injured list with an oblique injury. They recalled Eric Yardley to fill his roster spot, per Tom Haudricourt of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (via Twitter). Taylor is expected to be out for 3-4 weeks, per MLB.com’s Adam McCalvy (via Twitter). Taylor has been a key contributor for Milwaukee, piling up 1.2 rWAR as a fill-in outfielder. The 31-year-old Yardley has struggled to the tune of a 6.75 ERA over 18 2/3 innings this year, but he was gold for the Brewers in 2020. That season, he tossed 23 1/3 innings with a 1.54 ERA, though still with just a 4.09 FIP. Elsewhere in the NL Central…

  • Cubs shortstop Nico Hoerner will begin a rehab assignment in South Bend tomorrow. He is likely to move up to Triple-A when the Iowa Cubs return home on Tuesday, per The Athletic’s Sahadev Sharma (via Twitter). Hoerner will probably start to see more concentrated playing time at shortstop now that Nick Madrigal has joined the organization. Regardless of where he plays, Hoerner has a much more central role in the organization now than when he went down with an oblique strain on July 29th.
  • Keegan Thompson got the start in Chicago today after being recalled from Triple-A. Jake Jewell was optioned to Triple-A to clear the roster spot, per Bruce Levine of WSCR-AM (via Twitter). Jewell has appeared in nine games, tossing nine innings with a 8.00 ERA.

Brewers Outright Derek Fisher

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JUNE 28: Fisher has cleared waivers and been sent outright to Nashville, the team announced. The 27-year-old doesn’t have the requisite service time to reject an outright assignment. He’ll remain in the organization as non-roster depth and attempt to play his way back onto the MLB team before the end of the season.

JUNE 22: The Brewers announced a series of roster moves before tonight’s game against the Diamondbacks, the most notable of which is the designation of outfielder Derek Fisher. Outfielder Tyrone Taylor was activated from the 10-day injured list, while right-hander Ryan Weber was recalled from Triple-A Nashville. The club selected the contract of righty Miguel Sánchez, placed starter Brett Anderson on the 10-day IL with a right knee contusion and optioned reliever Hoby Milner to Nashville.

Fisher, a supplemental first-round pick by the Astros back in 2014, emerged as one of the more well-regarded position player prospects in the organization. The left-handed hitter long drew praise for his combination of raw power and speed, but there were always lingering questions about his hit tool. Indeed, Fisher has been undone by a lofty 35.4% strikeout rate to this point in his MLB career, contributing to a .195/.285/.378 line over 466 plate appearances at the highest level.

Given his obvious physical gifts, Fisher could draw interest from another club via small trade or waiver claim. The 27-year-old is out of minor league option years, though, so any acquiring club would have to keep him on their active roster or again expose him to DFA limbo.

Sánchez, also 27, is now in line to make his MLB debut. A pure reliever, he didn’t appear in affiliated ball until he was 22 years old, but he’s performed fairly well over parts of five seasons in the Milwaukee system. Sánchez has a 3.95 ERA across 84 1/3 innings over parts of three seasons at Triple-A, striking out a decent 24.2% of opposing hitters while walking 9.4%.

Brewers Place Tyrone Taylor On 10-Day Injured List, Recall Tim Lopes

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Brewers place Tyrone Taylor 10-day injured list with right shoulder strain, per the Athletic’s Will Sammon (via Twitter). Tim Lopes has been recalled from Triple-A.

Taylor himself has been a key injury replacement for the Brewers this season. Their four-man first team of Christian Yelich, Jackie Bradley Jr., Lorenzo Cain, and Avisail Garcia have dealt with a variety of injuries this season. Ultimately, Taylor has played a role at each outfield spot, accounting for four percent of the playing time in left, five percent in center, and three percent in right. The 27-year-old is generally regarded as a strong defender, but he’s also posted a 111 wRC+ in exactly 100 plate appearances.

With Yelich, Bradley Jr., and Garcia all healthy right now, Taylor has not had as much playing time of late. In his absence, Pablo Reyes becomes the primary backup outfielder, but Jace Peterson, Daniel Robertson, and Lopes are capable of playing in the grass.

As for Lopes specifically, the 26-year-old right-hander has logged playing time in Majors with the Mariners in each of the past two seasons. He put together a .252/.315/.362 line across 279 plate appearances while mostly playing in the outfield corners. He has a .193/.308/.330 line at Triple-A this season.

Brewers Place Lorenzo Cain On 10-Day Injured List, Recall Tyrone Taylor

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As expected, the Brewers have placed outfielder Lorenzo Cain on the 10-day injured list with a strained right hamstring and recalled outfielder Tyrone Taylor to take his place, per the team.

There is no timetable for Cain’s eventual return, per MLB.com’s Adam McCalvy (via Twitter). Cain have managed a relatively punchless .223/.322/.350 across 118 plate appearances in 31 games this season. The veteran has continued to take his walks (11.9 percent walk rate) and put the bat on the ball (20.3 percent strikeout rate). The former Royal has always been above-average at avoiding strikeouts, but the better-than-average patience in a new skill developed – and, thus far, maintained – in Milwaukee.

Taylor has been a frequent guest star on the Brewers in 2021 with 84 big league plate appearances to just 20 at Triple-A. In the Majors, he is hitting .203/.298/.365 with three home runs. He is starting tonight’s ballgame in centerfield and batting sixth.

Cain’s injury could have an impact beyond Taylor, however. As recently covered by the Athletic’s Will Sammon, Avisail Garcia finds himself on pace for 550 plate appearances, a threshold that, if passed, would turn a team option for 2022 into a mutual option. When the Brewers signed Jackie Bradley Jr. this winter, the odds were against Garcia, but the presumptive starting trio of Cain, Bradley, and Christian Yelich have all struggled to stay healthy, providing Garcia with plenty of opportunity in the grass.

That’s significant because it provides Garcia with a little more agency in his future. The 30-year-old is having himself a fine season at the plate, slashing .244/.312/.452 with 10 home runs through 186 plate appearance – good for a 109 wRC+.

Brewers Activate Christian Yelich, Lorenzo Cain; Option Tyrone Taylor, Keston Hiura

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4:17pm: Yelich and Cain are indeed in Monday’s lineup, the Brewers announced. The team optioned Taylor and infielder Keston Hiura to its alternate site in corresponding moves. Taylor’s one of the odd men out despite a fantastic .323/.400/.581 line with a pair of homers in 35 trips to the plate. Hiura has endured an awful start, though, with a .152/.247/.266 mark, 32 strikeouts and one HR over 89 PA. So far, it has been the second consecutive adverse season for Hiura, who burst on the scene as a rookie in 2019 but hasn’t come close to replicating his output from then.

Hiura has gotten the lion’s share of playing time at first base this year for Milwaukee, which has also utilized Daniel Vogelbach at the position. Vogelbach and McKinney will now split time there. Manager Craig Counsell expressed optimism that Hiura “can be our primary first baseman,” though he admitted the Brewers “need more offense” from that spot, Tom Haudricourt of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel relays.

4:03pm: Brewers outfielders Christian Yelich and Lorenzo Cain will return from the 10-day injured list Monday as the first-place club begins a series against the Phillies, Robert Murray of FanSided reports.

This will be the first action since April 11 for Yelich, who has been down with a back ailment. The Brewers were optimistic Yelich wouldn’t be out for long, evidenced by the fact that they didn’t place him on the IL until April 17 (retroactive to the 14th). Now that the former MVP is coming back from a three-week absence, he’ll try to build on the highly  productive .333/.459/.367 line he logged in 37 plate appearances to start the season. However, the two-time 30-plus-home run hitter hasn’t left the yard yet in 2021.

The Brewers received very strong numbers from the left field combination of Tyrone Taylor and Billy McKinney during Yelich’s absence. The same hasn’t been true in center, where Jackie Bradley Jr. has struggled in his first year with the Brewers. Bradley divided his time between center and right to open the year, but he has played the former spot almost every day since Cain went on the IL on April 14 with a strained left quad. As is the case with Bradley, Cain has come out of the gates slowly in 2021. He batted an underwhelming .154/.214/.423 in 28 PA prior to his trip to the IL.

NL Notes: Marlins, Brewers, Knebel, Taylor

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We’ll round up a few notes from the Senior Circuit to finish the weekend.

  • The Marlins are in ongoing negotiations with Sinclair Broadcast Group about a new TV rights contract, reports Barry Jackson of the Miami Herald. The parties’ current deal, which will pay the club a league-low $20MM for broadcast rights on Fox Sports’ regional networks in 2020, expires at the end of the season. The figures the parties are discussing for 2021 and beyond are unclear. However, Jackson notes that the Marlins turned down an offer which would’ve paid north of $50MM annually in 2017; that offer was put on the table after the current Bruce Sherman/Derek Jeter group agreed to buy the franchise, but before the franchise sale was completed, and new ownership preferred to negotiate the TV deal on their own. Whether that particular offer (or something higher) is still on the table isn’t known. What is apparent, however, is the new TV contract will be far more lucrative than the old deal, which could spur ownership to significantly increase spending on player payroll (Jackson estimates an extra potential $20MM annually) in future seasons.
  • Brewers’ reliever Corey Knebel is progressing well from March 2019 Tommy John surgery, manager Craig Counsell told reporters (including Adam McCalvy of MLB.com). Knebel won’t be ready for the start of the season, but he’ll begin throwing from a mound next week as he ramps up his rehab, McCalvy reports. Knebel signed a one-year, $5.125MM contract to avoid arbitration in December, suggesting the club believes he’ll make an impact in 2020.
  • Brewers’ outfielder Tyrone Taylor underwent minor surgery this offseason to repair a wrist injury, he told reporters (including McCalvy). Nevertheless, Taylor should be at full strength for the start of spring training. The 26-year-old has only 12 MLB plate appearances to his name. Coming off a passable two-year run in Triple-A and with Milwaukee having traded Trent Grisham to San Diego this offseason, though, Taylor has a shot to earn a reserve outfield spot in spring training.

NL Central Notes: Cardinals, Taillon, Taylor

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With Kolten Wong unlikely to play for at least “several days,” the Cardinals will turn to Tommy Edman at second base and return Matt Carpenter to regular duties at third base, per Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Wong is undergoing an MRI to determine the severity of a left hamstring strain he suffered in last night’s game, and his status for the remainder of the Cardinals’ season is up in the air at the moment. The 24-year-old Edman is the latest in a seemingly ceaseless parade of largely unheralded Cardinals prospects to immediately emerge as an impact contributor in St. Louis. A sixth-round pick in 2016, he’s never sniffed a Top 100 ranking, entering the season 12th among Cards prospects at Baseball America and 20th at Fangraphs. But Edman has hit at a .289/.325/.481 clip with 10 homers, 15 doubles, five triples, 13 steals and a 17.9 percent strikeout rate through his first 83 MLB games (302 plate appearances). He’d supplanted the struggling Carpenter as the Cards’ primary third baseman but will now slide over to second base, where he’s logged 857 minor league innings in his pro career.

More from the division…

  • Pirates righty Jameson Taillon is taking as optimistic an approach to his second Tommy John surgery as possible, writes Adam Berry of MLB.com. The right-hander feels that he used the downtime from his first surgery in 2014 to improve other areas of his game and believes he can do the same this time around. “I’m seriously confident I’m going to find a way to get better from this one,” said Taillon. “Whether it’s mechanics, how can I take stress off my elbow, how can I get stronger, how can I age better, how can I dive into analytics and video.” Taillon acknowledged that he lost “a lot, a lot, a lot of money” because of the timing of the injury, which came on the heels of his first trip through arbitration and will wipe out his entire second year of arbitration. However, the 27-year-old also said he hopes to pitch for another seven or eight seasons upon returning from surgery and isn’t focusing on the more short-term financial ramifications.
  • Brewers outfielder Tyrone Taylor had already gone home for the season and was in the process of applying for an offseason job with FedEx when he got the news that he’d instead be joining the MLB club, Robert Murray of The Athletic writes (subscription required). Taylor’s career has been filled with ups and downs, but after a series of injuries and poor performances, he put himself back on the map with a strong 2018 showing that landed him on Milwaukee’s 40-man roster. He’s been limited to a pinch-hitting role thus far but relishes the opportunity to not only be in the dugout for a playoff race but also to pick the brain of veterans players like Christian Yelich on a daily basis. “You want rookies feeling comfortable and welcome,” Yelich said of his talks with Taylor. “All of that is creating a culture – a winning culture.”

Brewers Select Contract Of Tyrone Taylor

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The Brewers announced today that they have selected the contract of outfielder Tyrone Taylor. With that move, and the departure of three free agents from the 40-man roster, the club has two roster spots to work with at present.

Once considered one of the Milwaukee organization’s very best prospects, owing primarily to his defensive profile, Taylor fell largely off the map as he struggled to reach base or hit for power with any real consistency. The 24-year-old was a second-round selection in the 2012 draft, so he has been eligible for the Rule 5 draft quite a few times, but has never drawn outside interest.

Taylor would have qualified for minor-league free agency in a few days had it not been for this move. Whether or not he’ll remain a part of the picture in Milwaukee isn’t clear, as Taylor could conceivably be utilized as trade bait, but the club obviously felt he had shown enough in 2018 to have real value.

Despite first reaching the Double-A level (albeit briefly) in 2014, Taylor did not touch the highest level of the minors until the just-completed campaign. Once there, he followed through on the burst of life he had shown in an injury-shortened 2017 effort, turning in 481 plate appearances of .278/.321/.504 hitting along with twenty long balls — his first double-digit homer tally.

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