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Like many lists in New York, the IL is where you enter and you exit. Plus: Ken offers a postmortem on the José Abreu era in Houston, Atlanta calls up a minor leaguer who’s been in the league for ten years, and I found the strangest pitching season ever. Am Levi Weaverattach Ken RosenthalWelcome to The Windup!
Yankees get Cole back, lose Rizzo
The IL gives and the IL takes away, but usually not with such symmetry.
Yesterday we learned that Gerrit Cole, last year’s American League Cy Young Award winner with the Yankees, will make his season debut Wednesday against the Orioles. Cole has missed the first two months of the season with elbow inflammation.
The forecast would (and did) indicate that this was going to be a blow to New York’s rotation, but his absence hasn’t slowed them down one bit. Yankees starters have the best ERA in the league (2.90). so this isn’t so much a sigh of relief as it is a very, very hot can of gasoline thrown onto an already scorching bonfire.
But that good news came the same day we found out that Anthony Rizzo has a radial neck fracture in his right arm after a collision at first base in Sunday’s game. He will be out for four to six weeks. This news raised some immediate questions:
- What is a radial neck? It’s in the elbow! (I only know this because I Googled it).
- Will you need surgery? No (more details in the story link above).
- What will the Yankees do at first base in the meantime? Manager Aaron Boone did not have media availability on the team’s off day, but as Ken, Brendan Kuty and Chris Kirschner reported, the most likely option appears to be to move DJ LeMahieu to first base and play utility man Oswaldo Cabrera in the Third base. .
Speaking of first basemen who won’t be playing in Major League games for the foreseeable future…
Ken’s Notebook: Too Late for Houston
(Erik Williams/USA Today)
Often in baseball, teams become almost obsessed with players they lose in the amateur Draft or on the international market. Perhaps that was the case with the Astros and José Abreu, who almost reached a free agent contract in October 2013, and finally did so in an ill-fated deal nine years later.
It is well documented that the Red Sox reacted to their initial failure to sign Abreu by spending even more on another Cuban player, Rusney Castillo, the following August. Castillo, who received a seven-year, $72.5 million contract, was a major flop, appearing in only 99 major league games. The Astros also lost Abreu after his defection from Cuba, finishing second behind the White Sox, according to a source briefed on the discussions. As first reported by the Houston Chronicle, the Astros’ offer was $4 million short of the six-year, $68 million contract the White Sox gave the first baseman.
Nearly three years later, the Astros finally signed a Cuban star, first baseman Yuli Gurriel, to a five-year, $47.5 million contract. But evidently they never lost sight of Abreu. Owner Jim Crane, who is operating among general managers after winning the 2022 World Series, authorized the signing of Abreu for three years and $58.5 million.
Crane did not respond to a text message asking if the Astros striking out Abreu the first time influenced their pursuit of him a second time. But the possibility cannot be ruled out. This is an owner who signed Josh Hader after the team parted ways with the reliever and pursued Blake Snell during the offseason after trying to acquire him at last year’s trade deadline. Whatever Crane’s motivation, the Abreu deal turned out to be a big mistake. The Astros released Abreu on Friday with more than $30 million left on his contract. As Chandler Rome of The Athletic noted, Abreu in 697 plate appearances as an Astro accumulated minus-2.0 wins above replacement, according to Fangraphs. No player with at least 600 plate appearances since the start of last season produced a lower mark.
Abreu was excellent in his nine seasons with the White Sox, winning Rookie of the Year and MVP awards and making three All-Star teams. But when the Astros acquired him, he wasn’t the same. In his final season with the White Sox, he hit .304 with an OPS of .824. His 15 home runs, however, were half of what he hit the year before.The warning signs were present. The deal the Astros gave Abreu covered his age 36, 37 and 38 seasons. Whether the move was an overreaction to the team’s initial failure to land Abreu is an open question. One thing is certain: the player the Astros signed in 2022 was not the same one they were pursuing in 2013.
More Abreu: What is the post-Abreu plan in Houston? Chandler Rome has more.
Braves pitcher debuts after a decade in minors
(Jeff Robinson/Icon Sportswire via /Keynote USA/Getty Images)
This is my favorite type of baseball story: the guy who has toiled in the minor leagues for a decade or more and finally gets his chance. (Remember Drew Maggi with the Pirates last year?)
This time, it’s Atlanta’s Grant Holmes, who spent 10 years (or: 250 minor league games, 735 1/3 innings, 10,961 pitches) in the minors before his major league debut Sunday against the Rays; he pitched three scoreless innings. Dave O’Brien has the full story. And he looks at that hair!
For Holmes, the day was made a little more special by the fact that it occurred on Father’s Day. If you’ll excuse a side piece, it reminds me of a story I had the privilege of writing in 2018 when Brandon Mann debuted on an emotional Mother’s Day after 16 years in the minor leagues (he also didn’t allow a run). in his debut).
But for Holmes and the Braves, this might be slightly different than the stories of Mann and Maggi, each of whom were in their 30s when they received their long-awaited call-up and played only part of a year in the majors. . Holmes is still only 28 years old and the Braves have eight pitchers on the injured list (and six others with Major League experience currently in the minor leagues). If he can pitch like he did on Sunday, it’s possible he can extend his Major League dream a little further.
Meet Allen Sothoron
Last week, while doing some research for our section on under-celebrated pitching performances this year, I discovered that Cristopher Sánchez was on track to break an expansion era record by allowing just 0.13 home runs per nine innings (it’s 0.12 now, after seven innings of no homers in a 9-2 win over the Padres last night).
I gave them the existing record in the expansion era (0.16, Reggie Cleveland of the Red Sox, 1976), but I wanted to save the all-time record because it’s an interesting story!
First of all: remember the Dead Ball Era? A lot of guys allowed less HR/9 in those days, but that’s comparing apples to… really soft apples. In 1921, the year after the Dead Ball Era is generally accepted to have ended, Allen Sothoron embarked on the most home run-averse season in history.
Sothoron was known for throwing a spitball and using “strange deliveries,” but in 1920, that sport banned them. Each team was allowed to have two spitball pitchers, but Sothoron was not on the St. Louis Browns roster and had a pretty bad year.
In 1921, after five starts (and with a 5.53 ERA), the Boston Red Sox claimed him off waivers. But he only made two starts there before being returned to the Browns, who really seemed intent on getting rid of him. Two days later, he found himself in Cleveland.
No one seems to know if he secretly used the spitball again or not, but he went 12-4 in 22 games (16 starts). Between the three teams, he pitched a total of 178 1/3 innings.
And you’d believe it: He’s the only pitcher in the post-deadball era who pitched at least 162 innings (the minimum to qualify for the ERA title) and didn’t allow a single home run.
Aside from that notable fact, Sothoron’s career was good, but not extraordinary. He went 91-99 in 265 games (193 starts). He passed away 85 years ago yesterday, at the age of 46.
Handshakes and high fives
Dan Hayes will be responsible for some “are you okay?” questions about workspaces today, thanks to this story about Twins Assistant hitting coach Derek Shomon, whose long-awaited opportunity to break into the major leagues last year coincided with his newborn son’s health complications.
This week in Power Rankings– The team searches for the “unsung hero” of each team.
Kyle Schwarber He is known for his prodigious home runs. But today’s Matt Gelb story gives us a glimpse of the beloved man behind the monster shots.
royalty GM JJ Picollo joined the Starkville podcast to talk about, among other things, how special he is. Bobby Witt Jr. has been.
Jen McCaffrey has a Q&A with red stockings Craig Breslow, director of baseball.
Katie Woo tells us all about Ryan Helsleytransitioning to a more traditional closer role in Saint Louis.
Freddie Freeman He went 1 for 1 with five walks last night in the Dodgers‘9-5 victory against the Rockies. The last guy to do that? Harsh odor (career walk rate: 6.1 percent), who had five free passes and a home run on August 2, 2018 against the Orioles.
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(Cole photo above: Vincent Carchietta/USA Today)
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