The 2019 Major League Baseball Player Chatter, News and Fantasy Thread.

[koz-man]

Arrieta likely to have season-ending procedure

Philadelphia Phillies right-hander Jake Arrieta has been placed on the injured list and said he'll likely have surgery for a bone spur in his right elbow.
"I would have liked it to go differently," Arrieta told reporters Wednesday. "I would have liked to pitch the remainder of the season healthy, but it's something that I really couldn't control. The spur stayed pretty dormant for 7-8 years, and it decided to give me trouble and get to a size now where this is only option to me getting back to the pitcher that I am. And that's OK. This is what I have to do."
Arrieta, who has pitched with the injury this summer with sporadic effectiveness, told reporters that if he has the arthroscopic procedure, he'll "probably" not pitch again this season.
Over his past 13 starts, Arrieta has a 5.76 ERA with 84 hits and 25 walks allowed in 65 2/3 innings.
Zach Eflin will start for the Phillies on Saturday, and the team is calling up infielder Logan Morrison, a veteran left-handed hitter who has been hitting .308 at the Triple-A level this season.

[Cross]

Now I see why Cubs let him go and got Darvish.

[jrgum3]

Now I see why Cubs let him go and got Darvish.

You guys are better off without Arrieta that guy is past his prime and now he's out for the year so he really wouldn't have helped you.

[batt33]

Arrieta likely to have season-ending procedure


Philadelphia Phillies right-hander Jake Arrieta has been placed on the injured list and said he'll likely have surgery for a bone spur in his right elbow.
"I would have liked it to go differently," Arrieta told reporters Wednesday. "I would have liked to pitch the remainder of the season healthy, but it's something that I really couldn't control. The spur stayed pretty dormant for 7-8 years, and it decided to give me trouble and get to a size now where this is only option to me getting back to the pitcher that I am. And that's OK. This is what I have to do."
Arrieta, who has pitched with the injury this summer with sporadic effectiveness, told reporters that if he has the arthroscopic procedure, he'll "probably" not pitch again this season.
Over his past 13 starts, Arrieta has a 5.76 ERA with 84 hits and 25 walks allowed in 65 2/3 innings.
Zach Eflin will start for the Phillies on Saturday, and the team is calling up infielder Logan Morrison, a veteran left-handed hitter who has been hitting .308 at the Triple-A level this season.

what is he getting for salary?.... oh yeah way to much..

[Chi_archie]

Now I see why Cubs let him go and got Darvish.

Maybe

[Otters27]

Arietta was in stoppable for a short period. Lots of pitchers get like that. very hard to stay healthy

[JAKEPEAVY21]

looks like Tatis is probably going on the 10 day IL with lower back spasms after a swing the other day

[dudekid]

Easy for you to say, rooting for the Sox has been torture this year! lol

[stevenash]

Easy for you to say, rooting for the Sox has been torture this year! lol

No sympathy. lol
Boston has had more than their share of success the past decade.

p.s it's been two decades since any MLB team has repeated as back to back world champions.

[EmpireMaker]

As I watched last night’s Braves-Mets game, the already fascinating NL East bullpen dynamics really came into view. Here we have four clubs — those two, plus the Nationals and Phillies — with big expectations and major core talent, all trying to get past season-long relief woes.
Odds are, none of these clubs will truly put the ’pen problems behind them between now and the end of the season. Even if one or more teams get on a relief roll, you just know that fans — and, quite likely, each club’s uniformed and non-uniformed personnel — will have near-constant butterflies as soon as the starter hits the showers.
Honestly, it’s exciting. The Braves still hold a commanding lead, but the Nats are close enough that they can’t assume anything. Plus, they have to hone their late-inning approach for the postseason. The other three clubs will obviously be going all out to eek out every possible win from here to the finish line, knowing full well how tight the Wild Card race (if not also the division) will be down the stretch.
The Nats and Mets have received brutal overall results from their relief units all season long. In terms of ERA, their units rank second and third-worst in baseball, surpassed only by the lowly Orioles in the frequency of earned-runs allowed. While the Nationals’ rightly-maligned unit has probably received the most attention, it is the only one of the four that checks in above replacement level (only barely) by measure of FIP-based fWAR. The Mets, Braves, and Phillies are all in the black by that metric. Of course, the Nats’ relief corps is the runaway league leader in net win-percentage deducted (as opposed to added), so it has well earned its reputation for unreliability.
Recent developments have shifted the picture, but haven’t necessarily improved the outlook. The Phillies’ health issues are worsening, with David Robertson down for the year and Adam Morgan recently hitting the shelf. Closer Hector Neris has at least been back on the upswing of late. The Mets’ steadiest reliever, Seth Lugo, was just roughed up last night; their most talented pen arm, Edwin Diaz, has still not emerged from his season-long doldrums. Both of those clubs forewent opportunities to improve at the deadline and have been picking up veterans discarded by other teams. The Nationals did make some notable but modest deadline acquisitions and have received good work from them so far. But overworked closer Sean Doolittle hasn’t been his reliable self and the unit as a whole remains quite underwhelming. While the Braves surely added the most pen talent at the deadline, their new arms have been anything but conquering heroes. Shane Greene, Mark Melancon, and Chris Martin have combined to allow 19 earned runs in 15 1/3 innings in Atlanta. As a whole, the Atlanta relievers have been particularly awful over the past thirty days.

[EmpireMaker]

Second baseman Jurickson Profar rode the bench in favor of the just-promoted Corban Joseph for the Athletics’ victory over the Giants on Wednesday. It’s the beginning of a trend for Profar, who’s in for a “greatly reduced role,” Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle writes. Most of the switch-hitting Profar’s action will come against left-handed pitchers, Slusser explains, with the lefty-swinging Joseph and righty Chad Pinder set to eat into his playing time.
A late-season reduction in at-bats for Profar isn’t what the Athletics had in mind when they acquired him last winter, especially now that they’re locked in a playoff race. The addition of Profar from Texas in a three-way trade that also included Tampa Bay cost Oakland standout reliever Emilio Pagan and infield/outfield prospect Eli White. It didn’t look like an unreasonable price to pay for Profar, a once-prized prospect who finally lived up to some of his past promise in 2018. After largely disappointing from 2012-17, Profar batted .254/.335/.458 (108 wRC+) with 20 home runs, 10 steals and 2.9 fWAR as a 25-year-old last season.
The A’s likely expected more of the same from Profar this season, if not an even better performance. Instead, though, Profar has batted a miserable .205/.268/.382 (70 wRC+) through 395 PA. While Profar has swatted 15 homers and totaled seven more steals, his weak batting line and subpar reviews at second (minus-10 Defensive Runs Saved, minus-0.8 Ultimate Zone Rating), have limited him to a replacement-level impact in 2019. It may go down as the lone year with the Athletics for Profar. While he still has another season of arbitration control, in which Profar will hope to earn a raise over his current salary of $3.6MM, Slusser casts doubt on the possibility of him returning to the team in 2020.
Regardless of what his future holds, Profar – to his credit – is taking his demotion in stride, as he told Slusser: “I don’t feel like I’ve been contributing like I’m capable of, so I’m OK with it. I’ll just keep working and try to find it.”
Profar’s troubles have come against righties, who have held him to a .177/.245/.372 line (compared to a solid .304/.353/.418 versus lefties). A deeper dive into Profar’s numbers does indicate some bad fortune has factored into his woes. Profar has typically run low batting averages on balls in play in his career, evidenced by his lifetime .257 BABIP, but this year’s .205 mark is way down even by his standards. Meanwhile, according to Statcast, his .302 expected weighted on-base average easily outpaces his .278 real wOBA. Profar also remains difficult to strike out, having done so at a 15.2 percent clip this year.
Granted, those aren’t overwhelming positives, so the Athletics want to explore alternatives at the keystone. Manager Bob Melvin told Slusser the A’s aren’t “getting as much production as we want at that position, so maybe you look elsewhere.” That’ll lead them to Joseph, a 30-year-old with a mere 31 major league plate appearances under his belt.

[koz-man]

Reports: Harvey joining A's on minor league deal

Veteran right-handed pitcher Matt Harvey has agreed to a minor league deal with the Oakland Athletics, according to multiple reports.
Harvey, 30, was designated for assignment last month by the Los Angeles Angels, with whom he signed a one-year, $11 million deal before the season.
Harvey was 3-5 with a 7.09 ERA in 12 starts for the Angels in 2019.
Once dubbed "The Dark Knight," Harvey was among baseball's most dominant starters for a time with the New York Mets. He started the 2013 All-Star Game at Citi Field but hurt his elbow later that summer and never consistently regained his 98 mph fastball or command following Tommy John surgery.


Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.

[mr. leisure]

Reports: Harvey joining A's on minor league deal


Veteran right-handed pitcher Matt Harvey has agreed to a minor league deal with the Oakland Athletics, according to multiple reports.
Harvey, 30, was designated for assignment last month by the Los Angeles Angels, with whom he signed a one-year, $11 million deal before the season.
Harvey was 3-5 with a 7.09 ERA in 12 starts for the Angels in 2019.
Once dubbed "The Dark Knight," Harvey was among baseball's most dominant starters for a time with the New York Mets. He started the 2013 All-Star Game at Citi Field but hurt his elbow later that summer and never consistently regained his 98 mph fastball or command following Tommy John surgery.


Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.

I `ll be surprised if he is ever good again .

[stevenash]

Nice start Greenie.
3 taters in the first inning allowed.

• LOAISIGA PITCHING FOR NYY
  
  CLENYY
  
  
• Lindor flied out to center.
  
  70
  
  
  
• R. Pérez homered to right (370 feet), Naquin scored.
  
  70
  
  
  
• Naquin reached on infield single to second.
  
  50
  
  
  
• Reyes flied out to left.
  
  50
  
  
  
• GREEN PITCHING FOR NYY
  
  CLENYY
  
  
• Kipnis homered to right (374 feet).
  
  50
  
  
  
• Ramírez homered to center (405 feet), Lindor scored, Allen scored and Santana scored.
  
  40
  
  
  
• Puig struck out swinging.
  
  00
  
  
  
• Santana walked, Allen to second, Lindor to third.
  
  00
  
  
  
• Allen singled to right, Lindor to second.
  
  00
  
  
  
• Lindor singled to center.
  
  00
  
  

[JMobile]

Wow, Dodgers lost to the Marlins. Marlins avoid the sweep.

[EmpireMaker]

The Giants haven’t named a starter for Saturday’s game in Arizona, but president of baseball operations Farhan Zaidi “strongly hinted” in a radio appearance on KNBR the job will go to right-hander Logan Webb, Henry Schulman of the San Francisco Chronicle tweets. Webb is already on the Giants’ 40-man roster, so calling him up from the minors wouldn’t require a corresponding move in that regard.
Now 22, Webb joined the Giants as a fourth-round pick in 2014. He underwent Tommy John surgery two years later, which limited him to 70 innings from 2016-17, but has come back to thrive since then. The hard-throwing Webb’s currently one of San Francisco’s highest-regarded farmhands, ranking among the team’s top 10 prospects at MLB.com (No. 5), Baseball America (No. 8) and FanGraphs (No. 9).
The majority of Webb’s work this year has come in Double-A ball, where he put up a 2.18 ERA with 10.23 K/9, 2.61 BB/9 and a 65.5 percent groundball rate in 41 1/3 innings en route to his first Triple-A promotion. Webb made his inaugural Triple-A start Monday and fired seven innings of one-run, seven-hit ball, notching seven strikeouts and no walks along the way.
While Webb has been stellar on the mound this season, his year hasn’t been free of issues. Webb received an 80-game suspension May 1 after testing positive for the performance-enhancing drug dehydrochlormethyltestosterone. But it doesn’t appear that ban will prevent Webb from debuting this year for the starter-needy Giants, who are continuing to hang around the .500 mark and the National League wild-card picture.

[Cross]

Worst loss ever... only if Ricketts wasn’t cheap and signed Harper. Cubs deserved this.

[batt33]

The Giants haven’t named a starter for Saturday’s game in Arizona, but president of baseball operations Farhan Zaidi “strongly hinted” in a radio appearance on KNBR the job will go to right-hander Logan Webb, Henry Schulman of the San Francisco Chronicle tweets. Webb is already on the Giants’ 40-man roster, so calling him up from the minors wouldn’t require a corresponding move in that regard.
Now 22, Webb joined the Giants as a fourth-round pick in 2014. He underwent Tommy John surgery two years later, which limited him to 70 innings from 2016-17, but has come back to thrive since then. The hard-throwing Webb’s currently one of San Francisco’s highest-regarded farmhands, ranking among the team’s top 10 prospects at MLB.com (No. 5), Baseball America (No. 8) and FanGraphs (No. 9).
The majority of Webb’s work this year has come in Double-A ball, where he put up a 2.18 ERA with 10.23 K/9, 2.61 BB/9 and a 65.5 percent groundball rate in 41 1/3 innings en route to his first Triple-A promotion. Webb made his inaugural Triple-A start Monday and fired seven innings of one-run, seven-hit ball, notching seven strikeouts and no walks along the way.
While Webb has been stellar on the mound this season, his year hasn’t been free of issues. Webb received an 80-game suspension May 1 after testing positive for the performance-enhancing drug dehydrochlormethyltestosterone. But it doesn’t appear that ban will prevent Webb from debuting this year for the starter-needy Giants, who are continuing to hang around the .500 mark and the National League wild-card picture.

This well be interesting.....

[BigSpoon]

Now I see why Cubs let him go and got Darvish.

Darvish hasn't been great for the Cubs either though.

[jrgum3]

This well be interesting.....

Giants definitely need starting pitching. I'm hoping Johnny Cueto will be able to help them in that regard when he returns soon but who knows if he'll be able to regain his form after arm troubles have cost him most of last year and this year.

[Otters27]

Anyone bet the Cubs last night.

[Chi_archie]

Giants definitely need starting pitching. I'm hoping Johnny Cueto will be able to help them in that regard when he returns soon but who knows if he'll be able to regain his form after arm troubles have cost him most of last year and this year.

Didn't know he was still around

[dudekid]

starting to see a lot of prospect callups, love this time of year!

[stevenash]

Mike Ford throwing 58 mph in a mop up role for the Yanks last night in that Cleveland debacle was comedy gold.

https://www.mlb.com/yankees/video/ford-makes-his-debut-on-the-mound

[JaimeMiro]

Anyone bet the Cubs last night.

Was on the over

[Stallion]

Mike Ford throwing 58 mph in a mop up role for the Yanks last night in that Cleveland debacle was comedy gold.

https://www.mlb.com/yankees/video/fo...t-on-the-mound

That guy could start for the Jays

[koz-man]

Giants definitely need starting pitching. I'm hoping Johnny Cueto will be able to help them in that regard when he returns soon but who knows if he'll be able to regain his form after arm troubles have cost him most of last year and this year.

Didn't know he was still around

I forgot about him too

Bochy hopeful Cueto returns to Giants in Sept.


PHOENIX -- The San Francisco Giants could accelerate their timeline for right-hander Johnny Cueto to help with their pursuit of an NL wild-card playoff berth.

Cueto, who had season-ending Tommy John surgery a year ago, threw 49 pitches in 2⅔ innings in his third rehab start at Class A San Jose on Thursday and is scheduled to throw 55-60 pitches in his next outing.

Manager Bruce Bochy acknowledged earlier in the day that the team would "reevaluate" its timeline for activating Cueto, whom he said was "pretty close to 100%." The Giants' original plan was for Cueto to make at least two more rehab starts after his outing Thursday, but that could change.

After the Giants' 7-0 win over the Arizona Diamondbacks on Thursday night, Bochy said of Cueto, "The way he is throwing, he will be pitching for us in September."

Cueto went 3-2 with a 3.23 ERA in nine starts last season before the injury. He is in the fourth year of a six-year, $130 million contract.

Cueto struck out seven in four scoreless innings in his first two rehab appearances in the rookie Arizona League.

San Francisco (61-61) is 3½ games back in the NL wild-card race.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

[JMobile]

Bochy feels like he's taking the Giants to the Postseason???

[EmpireMaker]

It’s unclear whether injured Rays right-hander Tyler Glasnow will be able to pitch again this year, but he isn’t giving up on his season, Juan Toribio of MLB.com reports. Glasnow, out since May 10 with forearm troubles, has been throwing from 90 feet of late and is set for a bullpen session Monday. The soon-to-be 26-year-old told Toribio he feels “really good.”
The Rays’ expectation was that Glasnow would only sit out four to six weeks when he incurred his injury in a start against the Yankees, but he has suffered multiple setbacks during his recovery process. Those issues have helped derail what looked like a brilliant campaign in the making for Glasnow, a 2018 trade deadline acquisition from the Pirates who dominated out of the gates this season. The towering Glasnow posted 48 1/3 innings and eight starts of 1.86 ERA/2.31 FIP ball with 10.24 K/9, 1.68 BB/9 and a 51.7 percent groundball rate prior to hitting the IL.
Glasnow’s ongoing absence is far from the only adversity the Rays’ rotation has faced this season. Reigning AL Cy Young winner Blake Snell went to the shelf three weeks ago on account of arthroscopic left elbow surgery, while the team sent Yonny Chirinos to the IL on Aug. 5 with a finger injury. On paper, a healthy Glasnow, Snell and Chirinos would aid in giving the Rays one of the sport’s top rotation. As things stand, though, they’re lacking traditional starters. Charlie Morton has been superb this year, however, while Ryan Yarbrough has been eminently effective as a starter and a reliever. Their efforts have helped keep injury-laden Tampa Bay in contention, as the club’s 71-52 and a game up on the American League’s second wild-card spot.
The Rays are also missing a few banged up position players, including infielders Brandon Lowe and Joey Wendle and outfielder Avisail Garcia. There’s encouraging news on all three, though, as Toribio relays.
While Lowe still doesn’t have a timetable for a return, he is progressing in his rehab assignment. The 24-year-old second baseman has been out since July 4 with a right shin contusion, which has deprived the Rays of one of baseball’s premier rookies. As with Lowe, it’s not clear when Wendle will be ready to come back, but he also seems to be trending in the right direction as he works back from the wrist injury he suffered in late July. Likewise, things are looking up for Garcia. The Rays placed Garcia on the IL on Wednesday with the dreaded oblique strain, though an MRI on Friday revealed it isn’t especially serious. The club’s hopeful Garcia won’t miss more than the minimum of 10 days, according to manager Kevin Cash.

[batt33]

Giants definitely need starting pitching. I'm hoping Johnny Cueto will be able to help them in that regard when he returns soon but who knows if he'll be able to regain his form after arm troubles have cost him most of last year and this year.

yeah, You know he is in the background and with his rehab starts looking promising you never know.....

[Cross]

Not another blown save, need to get drunk.

[jrgum3]

Sad to see Fernando Tatis shut down for the year due to that back injury but smart move by the Padres to not risk him getting further injured.

[Chi_archie]

Sad to see Fernando Tatis shut down for the year due to that back injury but smart move by the Padres to not risk him getting further injured.

What a nice intro to the bigs

[JaimeMiro]

Looks like Arrieta done for the season

[JAKEPEAVY21]

Sad to see Fernando Tatis shut down for the year due to that back injury but smart move by the Padres to not risk him getting further injured.

thanks jrgum3, pretty gutting to say the least but smart to put him on the shelf and let it heal properly.

I have a feeling he is going to be on a mission next season.