Football starts in 9 days!!! Pujols hits his 700th HR this season, they are just lobbing them in there for him.
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The Giants are starting to look like they're going to finish 4th in the division and the streaking Diamondbacks of all teams will overtake them and finish 3rd. I knew they'd be mediocre but lets face it they're just a bad baseball team and I'm glad that the season is coming to an end so I don't have to watch them anymore.Comment -
At this point, it’s not much of a surprise to write that Jose Ramirez is having an MVP-quality season. He’s not a frontrunner in 2022 — not with the season Aaron Judge is having — but Ramirez is hitting .283/.353/.548 with 26 home runs, 14 steals, 38 doubles, four triples, 106 runs knocked in and anywhere from average to plus defense at the hot corner, depending of your metric of choice. He ranks 11th among Major League position players in wins above replacement, per Baseball Reference, and seventh, per FanGraphs. It’s a Jose Ramirez season that’s so typical we’ve almost become numb to it.
It’s also, arguably, only the second-best season being enjoyed by a Guardians infielder.
Andres Gimenez can’t go to-to-toe with Ramirez’s power or his run-production numbers — particularly since he’s had 107 fewer plate appearances. I will freely admit that, in my view, Ramirez is having the better season, but there are arguments to the counter. Gimenez leads Ramirez in batting average and on-base percentage, has hit with surprising power, has surpassed him in steals and baserunning value (despite the lower total of plate appearances) and has graded out as one of baseball’s best defensive players, regardless of position. Baseball-Reference credits Gimenez with 5.4 wins above replacement — tied for the fifth-highest mark in the Majors among position players. FanGraphs “only” has him tied for 14th, at 4.7.
Whether Gimenez can sustain this output in future seasons is a far more pertinent debate for the Guardians than whether Gimenez or Ramirez has had the better season. Gimenez is, after all, just a season removed from hitting only .218/.282/.351 through 210 big league plate appearances. Entering the 2022 campaign, Gimenez had slashed just .235/.302/.369 in 117 career games — not exactly a resounding declaration he could be an impact big leaguer.
Those struggles came in Gimenez’s age-21 and age-22 seasons, however. It’s hardly uncommon for players that young to struggle with the transition to the majors, even if they’re former top prospects, which was very much the case with Gimenez. Originally signed by the Mets as an amateur out of Venezuela, Gimenez thrice ranked among the game’s top 100 prospects at Baseball America and at Baseball Prospectus, also making multiple top-100 lists at MLB.com and FanGraphs. Gimenez’s defense and speed always garnered more praise than his bat, but he was projected as a potential everyday middle infielder. He was regarded highly enough to be one of the key pieces sent from New York to Cleveland in the trade that made Francisco Lindor a Met.
So, what’s changed for Gimenez in 2022? For starters, he’s simply making more contact. After punching out at a 24% clip in 2020-21, he’s down to 20.2% this season. His overall 73.3% contact rate from 2020-21 is up to 75% this season. Looking a bit deeper, he’s both slightly cut back on the rate at which he chases pitches off the plate and greatly increased his contact rate when he does chase. Gimenez struggled against lefties in 2021 but is hitting them at a .289/.352/.458 clip in 2022. It’s only 94 plate appearances, but it’s encouraging that Gimenez has actually fanned less often (17%) against lefties than against right-handers (21.2%).
The quality of contact made by Gimenez has markedly improved, too; he’s seen his line-drive rate rise nearly 10 percentage points, from 12.6% in 2021 to 22.3% in 2022. Gimenez also boasts a better than two mile-per-hour increase in his average exit velocity (88.4 mph, up from 86.3 mph in ’21) and a jump of nearly nine percentage points in his hard-hit rate (39.2%, up from 30.4%) this year. He’s more than doubled his rate of barreled balls, sitting at 7.4% after checking in at 3.6% a year ago.
Granted, those Statcast batted-ball ratings are still below the league average, and even Gimenez’s slightly improved 40.2% chase rate on pitches off the plate ranks among the highest levels in the league. There’s some clear work to be done for him to improve his overall approach, and his 2022 batting line wouldn’t look so rosy were it not for a .354 batting average on balls in play that he’s unlikely to sustain.
Even if his current production looks ripe for some regression, however, it’s hard not to be encouraged by all the positive strides in Gimenez’s game — both on a year-over-year basis and within the confines of the current season. Gimenez’s walk and strikeout rates were fairly dismal early in the season, for instance, sitting at 2% and 24.5%, respectively, through the end of April. Since Memorial Day weekend, he’s walked at a more passable 6.8% clip and logged an 18.6% strikeout rate. Ramirez’s hack-happy approach might always render him with a below-average walk rate, but if he can keep it around seven percent and also continue to put the ball in play at his current rate and with his current level of authority, he’ll be productive even as that aforementioned BABIP normalizes.
Barring the adoption of a more patient approach and/or further gains in terms of raw power, the 2022 campaign could very well represent something of a ceiling for Gimenez. Even if that’s the case, though, it’s quite the ceiling. He’s on pace to finish the year with six to seven wins above replacement, vastly above-average offense, plus baserunning marks and Gold Glove-caliber defense. Gimenez isn’t going to be considered a favorite or finalist in American League MVP voting, but he ought to get some down-ballot votes given just how strong his all-around performance has been.
It’s also possible that Gimenez will see his value to the team increase even further in future seasons, though not necessarily through his own doing. Scouting reports long touted him as a plus defender at either middle-infield spot, but he’s been limited to second base for most of his time in Cleveland thanks to the presence of Amed Rosario. While Rosario has improved his glovework at shortstop this year, he’s still received a mixed bag of defensive grades. Gimenez, meanwhile, has shined at shortstop, turning in marks of 7 Defensive Runs Saved, a 3.0 Ultimate Zone Rating and 8 Outs Above Average in just 634 career innings.
Rosario is due for his final arbitration raise this winter, and it’s feasible that the Guardians, with a bevy of middle-infield prospects and perennial payroll constraints, could look to trade Rosario rather than pay him a raise on this year’s $4.95MM salary. Doing so could open up shortstop for Gimenez, whose offense would be even more valuable at a position higher on the defensive spectrum, while subsequently opening second base for Tyler Freeman or another prospect.
Wherever his defensive home ultimately lies, Gimenez has used the 2022 season to cement himself as a viable big league contributor — not just a regular but an All-Star-caliber player who, at his best, could get some stray MVP votes. He’s controlled for another four seasons beyond the current year, won’t even reach arbitration eligibility until the 2023-24 offseason, and has yet to celebrate his 24th birthday. Ramirez is going to draw all the headlines in the Cleveland infield, but Gimenez has likely earned himself a long-term spot to draw some fanfare alongside his teammate.Comment -
How far can the Guardians go in the playoffs?Comment -
Is Buxton coming back to fortify Twins lineup?Comment -
Jays in the 3rd wildcard spot.Comment -
The Tigers are planning to select infield prospect Ryan Kreidler onto the major league roster tomorrow, relays Chris McCosky of the Detroit News (Twitter link). First baseman Spencer Torkelson will also be recalled from Triple-A Toledo, seemingly filling the two vacant active roster spots associated with the September expansion from 26 to 28 players. Detroit technically needs to create a 40-man roster vacancy for Kreidler, but they can do so by transferring Austin Meadows to the 60-day injured list without affecting his eligibility timeline.
Kreidler is one of the better prospects in the Detroit organization. A fourth-round pick from UCLA in 2019, the 6’4″ infielder spent his draft year in short season ball. After the canceled 2020 minor league campaign, he was bumped to Double-A Erie in 2021. Kreidler performed well over 88 games there before mashing following a late-season bump to Triple-A Toledo. He entered 2022 among the top 11 farmhands in the system according to each of Baseball America, FanGraphs and Keith Law of the Athletic.
After the impressive late-season run in the upper minors, Kreidler looked like a candidate to factor into the MLB mix early this year. He broke his right hand in April, though, an injury that cost him six weeks of action. By the time he was healthy again in early June, the Tigers had fallen well out of the potential playoff mix, and they elected to give Kreidler a longer run in Toledo. He’s played in 55 games there this year, hitting .218/.359/.421 with a robust 14.7% walk rate but a worrisome 29% strikeout percentage.
During their midseason re-rank of the Detroit system, BA slotted Kreidler eighth. The outlet raises concerns about his propensity for whiffs but praises his defense all around the infield and solid power upside. The 24-year-old has played primarily shortstop in the minors, although he seems likelier to factor in at second or third base down the stretch with Javier Báez entrenched at short. Jeimer Candelario has underwhelmed at the hot corner all season, while the Tigers have turned to utilityman Willi Castro at the keystone with Jonathan Schoop on the injured list.
Kreidler would’ve needed to occupy a 40-man roster spot this offseason if the Tigers didn’t want to make him available in the Rule 5 draft. They’ll take advantage of the expanded active rosters to get a look at him a few weeks earlier than necessary. With the club’s attention squarely turned to 2023 at this point, there’s an opportunity for Kreidler to try to get off on a strong foot as he looks to carve out a spot next season.
Torkelson is already on the 40-man roster, of course. He broke camp as the team’s primary first baseman. The former first overall pick and consensus top prospect had hit very well in the minor leagues, and the club justifiably felt he could carry that over against MLB pitching. That hasn’t happened yet, as Torkelson owns a .197/.282/.295 line with only five home runs through 298 plate appearances.
After three months of struggles, the Tigers optioned the 23-year-old back to Toledo in mid-July. He’s hit .228/.347/.394 with five longballs in 34 games since then. That’s obviously far better than his first crack against major league arms, but it’s still well shy of the .238/.350/.531 mark he posted there late last season — particularly from a power perspective.
Torkelson is still a key piece of the future in Detroit, even if his initial MLB look was underwhelming. Manager A.J. Hinch seems likely to pencil him back in as the everyday first baseman for the final five weeks, with Torkelson trying to establish himself as the favorite for that job coming out of camp next year. He spent enough time on his optional stint that he won’t accrue a full year of MLB service this season, so Torkelson will be under club control through at least 2028.Comment -
Giants have an older roster, they need a young player to build around.Comment -
Blue jays got lots of major league sons.Comment -
The Jays are struggling a bit on offense right now, and the pitching outside of 2 starters is very inconsistent.Comment -
The Braves announced this afternoon that righty Mike Soroka has been activated from the 60-day injured list. He’s been optioned to Triple-A Gwinnett. To open a spot on the 40-man roster, Atlanta transferred reliever Darren O’Day from the 15-day to the 60-day IL.
Soroka hasn’t thrown a major league pitch since August 2020. He ruptured his right Achilles tendon while trying to get off the mound to cover first base, a devastating injury that has kicked off multiple years of rehab. His efforts to return last season were cut short in June when Soroka suffered another Achilles tear while walking to the team’s clubhouse. He underwent a second surgery and has been trying to work his way back. He suffered an unrelated setback this July when he took a comebacker off the knee while throwing live batting practice, leading to another shutdown.
Six weeks later, Soroka made it back to a professional mound. He kicked off a rehab assignment with High-A Rome on August 16, and he’s since made two appearances with Gwinnett. He worked 4 2/3 innings and threw 75 pitches during his outing last Saturday. That’ll technically be his final rehab start now that he’s back on the 40-man roster, but the club will give him a bit more time with the Stripers to find his form. With five weeks left in the regular season, it seems likely we’ll see Soroka back on the Truist Park mound this month. How he pitches could well determine whether the club carries him on their postseason roster.
Despite having missed two seasons, Soroka just recently turned 25 years old. Before the Achilles tears, he looked like one of the better young arms in the sport. The former first-rounder pitched to a 2.68 ERA with a very strong 51.2% ground-ball rate over 174 2/3 innings in 2019, his age-21 season. He and the team agreed to a $2.8MM salary to avoid arbitration during Spring Training. He’ll be in line for a similar amount this winter and is controllable through 2024.
O’Day has been out since the All-Star Break after straining his left calf. Signed to a minor league deal over the offseason, the veteran submariner made the Opening Day roster. O’Day has been an excellent, if unconventional, late-game reliever for much of the past decade. The 2022 season had been more pedestrian even before the injury, however. Through 21 2/3 innings, the 39-year-old owns a 4.15 ERA with a strong 27.7% strikeout percentage but a career-high 10.6% walk rate.
Today’s IL transfer shouldn’t have much of an effect on O’Day, who still looks likely to factor into the bullpen mix for manager Brian Snitker late in the season. The 60-day minimal stint backdates to his original placement on July 12, so he’ll be eligible to return to the big league club next weekend. O’Day has been on a rehab assignment with Gwinnett, working seven innings over as many appearances.
Soroka and O’Day aren’t the only injured players who are planning to make it back from long-term absences this month. Ozzie Albies has been out of action since fracturing his left foot on June 13, but he’s closing in on a return. Albies began a rehab assignment in Gwinnett tonight, taking four at-bats while serving as the designated hitter. It was his first game action since the injury, and it opens the 20-day window allotted to position players for rehab stints. Barring a setback, he should be back in Atlanta by the middle of September.
Since Albies went down, the Braves have used a revolving door at second base. Orlando Arcia, Phil Gosselin and Ehire Adrianza have each gotten some work, but the job has finally fallen on rookie Vaughn Grissom. A highly-regarded prospect, Grissom is off to a .312/.354/.468 start through his first 21 MLB games. Those numbers have been propped up by a .344 batting average on balls in play, but the 21-year-old has also already connected on three home runs and has only gone down on strikes 13 times (15.9% of his plate appearances).
How the Braves will divvy up playing time when everyone’s healthy remains to be seen. That’s an enviable problem to have, of course, with an infield of Matt Olson, Albies, Dansby Swanson and Austin Riley arguably the best in baseball. If the Braves want to keep Grissom’s bat in the lineup, the cleanest path to playing time could be at designated hitter, although that’d present its own complications.
The Braves have rotated hot-hitting backup catcher William Contreras through the DH spot, and they’ve occasionally used those at-bats to get Ronald Acuña Jr. off his feet. Acuña, who tore the ACL in his right knee last July, told reporters last night the surgically-repaired joint feels “terrible” (via Gabe Burns of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution). Acuña has remained in the lineup and maintained that he’ll play through the pain for the rest of the season, but the Braves may want to continue easing his workload on defense before postseason play gets underway.Comment -
Giants gotta be pissed that they traded Canario and Killian for a couple months of KB.Comment -
Padres and Dodgers series again. We all know how that will goComment -
Slightly Stoopid tonight at petcoComment -
That signing did not make much sense for a non contending team.Comment -
Do the Dodgers sweep??Comment -
Terrible signing by the Rockies, although rooting for KB to get healthy.Comment -
The Dodgers announced they’ve designated reliever Jake Reed for assignment. The move clears an active and 40-man roster spot for Blake Treinen, who has been reinstated for the 60-day injured list and will be in the bullpen for tonight’s game against the Padres.
Reed is no stranger to DFA limbo, as he’s frequently been a victim of churn at the back of the 40-man roster over the past couple years. The low-slot righty has attracted plenty of interest on the waiver wire, though, bouncing from the Dodgers to the Rays to the Mets and back to Los Angeles dating back to last July. He never appeared in the big leagues with Tampa Bay, but Reed has been called upon out of the bullpen a combined 20 times as a Dodger and Met over the past two seasons.
Through 21 innings, he owns a 5.57 ERA with pedestrian strikeout and ground-ball marks (19.4% and 39.1%, respectively). Reed’s latest run has been solid, as he’d worked four scoreless appearances prior to his DFA, including locking down his first career save against his former team in Queens on Tuesday. The former fifth-round pick also has a solid track record in the minors, notching a 3.84 ERA with an above-average 25.6% strikeout rate over parts of six Triple-A campaigns.
The Dodgers will have no choice but to place Reed on waivers over the next few days. He’s drawn interest on waivers on multiple occasions, and he still has a minor league option remaining beyond this season. It’s not out of the question another team could take a shot on him to add some bullpen depth with a decent track record in the upper minors.
Treinen, meanwhile, has been out of action for more than four months. The right-hander has battled shoulder discomfort for much of the season, but that didn’t stop the Dodgers from signing him to a contract extension in May. Treinen is coming off a brilliant 2021 campaign in which he worked to a 1.99 ERA through 72 1/3 innings. If he can recapture that form now that his shoulder is back healthy, he’ll be a key late-game weapon for skipper Dave Roberts heading into the playoffs.Comment -
Maybe it will be time to fade the Dodgers here n there.Comment -
I usually like to bet 1 MLB game on college football Saturday. But always wait till the latest game might try padresComment -
Padres got smashed todayComment -
I played the Giants over 8.5 and the Rays ML today. Was happy that both cashed fairly easily although Judge did hit another homer to make it a sweat in the 9th. Seems like thats a common theme for the Yankees Judge will get his dingers but nobody else contributes so they lose. If they're not careful Tampa Bay will overtake them and I definitely don't see them making it very far in the playoffs.Comment -
The Red Sox are going to add first base prospect Triston Casas to the team tomorrow, according to Chris Cotillo of MassLive. That report has been confirmed by Julian McWilliams of the Boston Globe, who adds that Bobby Dalbec will be optioned to Triple-A Worcester. Casas is not currently on the club’s 40-man roster, meaning they will have to open a spot for him. However, it would likely come down to transferring someone to the 60-day IL, such as Tanner Houck, who was previously reported to be done for the season.
Casas, 22, was selected by Boston in the first round of the 208 draft, 26th overall. He got a brief showing in rookie ball that year and jumped to A-ball to start 2019. He hit 19 home runs for the Greenville Drive while slashing .254/.349/.472, producing a wRC+ of 136 and earning a brief promotion to High-A to finish the year.
After that strong showing in his first full season as a professional, he was ranked the #70 prospect in the sport by Baseball America. Of course, the minor league seasons were canceled that year by the pandemic, preventing Casas from playing organized ball that season. In 2021, he split his time between Double-A and Triple-A, hitting 14 homers and slashing .279/.394/.484. He walked in 15.4% of his plate appearances while striking out in just 19.1% of them, producing a wRC+ of 141.
After that excellent season, he jumped up to #19 on BA’s 2022 top prospects list and seemed a candidate to make his major league debut this season. The Red Sox stuck with Dalbec as their first baseman to start the year and Casas was taken off the table when he suffered an ankle injury in May, returning to Worcester at the end of July. In Triple-A this year, he’s hit .273/.382/.481 for a wRC+ of 127, walking in 14.5% of his trips to the plate while going down on strikes just 21.5% of the time. He’s currently ranked as the #28 prospect in the league by Baseball America, #14 by FanGraphs and #31 by Keith Law of The Athletic.
Fans of the Red Sox have been calling for this move for some time, not just because of the strong showing of Casas, but also the struggles of Dalbec. After hitting 25 home runs last year and slashing .240/.298/.494 for a wRC+ of 107, he’s slumped this year to a showing of .211/.282/.363. That production is 22% below league average, as evidenced by his 78 wRC+. Based on those disappointing results, he and Casas will switch places, with Dalbec going down to the minors to try to get back on track.
The Red Sox are seven games behind the Blue Jays for the final Wild Card spot in the American League with three teams in between, making it very difficult for them to make a serious playoff run over the final month of the season. Regardless, they will give Casas a look over the remainder of the campaign to see how he fares against big league pitching in the next few weeks and hopefully go into the winter with some momentum towards next season. Eric Hosmer was acquired from the Padres at the trade deadline but is currently on the IL. Assuming Casas shows well enough to earn himself regular playing time, the club will have to figure out how to balance having both on the team.
With only a few weeks to go until the offseason, it’s unlikely that Casas will reach 130 at-bats here in 2022, meaning he will hang onto his rookie/prospect status through the winter. That’s a potentially important note under the new collective bargaining agreement. Players with less than 60 days of service who appear among two preseason Top 100 lists at Baseball America, ESPN or MLB Pipeline can net their team a bonus amateur draft choice based on their early-career finishes in awards voting, so long as their club carries them on the MLB roster for a full service year. If Casas cracks next year’s Opening Day roster and sticks around all season, and he wins a Rookie of the Year or places highly in MVP balloting during his first couple seasons, the club could pick up an extra draft choice down the line.Comment -
Manaea is a straight fade going forward.Comment -
Manaea is a bum.Comment
