MLB Player News

Brennan signed a minor league contract with the Braves back in March and has been jettisoned after compiling a calamitous 6.91 ERA, 2.09 WHIP and 33/17 K/BB ratio across 27 1/3 innings (24 appearances) for Triple-A Gwinnett. The 30-year-old righty has made 50 relief appearances in the big leagues since 2019.

Suwinski was DFA’d by the Pirates on Feb. 16 and claimed by the Dodgers on Feb. 21, but he went right back on waivers again afterwards and cleared this time. As a result, he hadn’t gotten to play in a major league spring game until today. It doesn’t seem likely that the Dodgers will ever have much use for him, but if he thrives in Triple-A, another club might trade for him.

Sheehan struck out four on a bad velocity day. He averaged 95.6 mph with his fastball for the Dodgers last season and 94.6 mph last week in his spring debut, but he was down to 93.3 mph today. His changeups were off by 3.4 mph from last year. Many people are very excited about Sheehan’s potential as a starter this year, and it’s easy to understand why, given that he had an 89/22 K/BB in 73 1/3 innings over 12 starts and three relief appearances last year. Still, he’s going to need to rediscover that velocity if he’s going to maintain anything close to a 30% strikeout rate.

This is getting a little concerning. Taillon did fine against Panama while pitching for Team Canada last week, but he’s given up eight homers and 23 runs over 9 1/3 innings in his four official outings this spring. His velocity is down about one mph from last year, which isn’t unusual, but nothing in his arsenal is working quite the way it should be. That he’s historically a pretty good spring pitcher and that he had extra incentive to get ready for WBC makes it just a little more worrisome that he’s pitching this horribly.

It was a 414-foot shot off Jameson Taillon. Betts, who missed two days last week for the birth of his child, is 6-for-19 this spring.

León will open the regular season back in the minors after going 6-for-26 with three RBI in 16 games this spring. The 27-year-old former top prospect was claimed off waivers from the Astros last November. His departure makes it abundantly clear that Dylan Moore and Otto Kemp will have bench roles with the Phillies to kick off the season.

Hoskins is hitting .222/.343/.481 in nine games after his late signing with the Guardians. He seems like a lock for Cleveland’s roster as a sure starter against lefties and maybe the primary DH against righties, too.

Bibee had been looking pretty strong this spring, but his fastball was down one mph today and the A’s really punished him for hanging around the strike zone. He threw 85 pitches to 30 hitters, with 25 of those getting put into play for 15 hard-hit balls and three homers. Hopefully, his velocity will return next time out.

The A’s gave Zack Gelof a start in the outfield today, so he might be a potential alternative to Thomas as a platoonmate for Lawrence Butler. Thomas, though, projects to be the better player of those two right now. He didn’t excel in hitting .225/.267/.417 in 132 plate appearances as a rookie last year, but the pop is legit and he’s a quality defender. We also don’t know for sure that Butler will be platooned, but given that he’s being slowplayed this spring while coming off knee surgery, it’d make sense to go that route initially.

His two hits left the bat at 113 and 109 mph. The Guardians still haven’t used Arias anywhere other than short this spring, even though they indicated months ago that the plan was to treat him as more of a utilityman. It’s good news for his chances of lasting as a regular that he’s ahead of Brayan Rocchio on the depth chart defensively. Rocchio is seemingly going to start at second base initially, but one imagines Travis Bazzana will get a chance there sometime this summer. Arias still seems like a poor bet offensively and should lack value outside of deep AL-only leagues.

Technically, it was a faulty tarpaulin that led to water flooding the field at Ed Smith Stadium as the content was unable to continue due to field conditions following a rain delay. Eflin was off to a nice start with four strikeouts on 32 pitches (22 strikes) over two scoreless innings before a downpour ended his night. He’ll presumably get some work in on a side session to continue building up his pitch count. He’ll open the season at the back-end of Baltimore’s new-look rotation.