MLB Player News

Let’s just say we saw this one coming. Gonzales is expected to miss a significant portion of next season after undergoing flexor tendon surgery on his left elbow back in late August. The 32-year-old southpaw will head to free agency after making just seven starts in his lone season with the Pirates.

White is scheduled to return in 12-16 weeks, which ostensibly rules out any possibility of him pitching again this season. The 21-year-old southpaw is universally-regarded as one of the top pitching prospects in baseball and appeared to be on the verge of reaching Miami after posting a 4.01 ERA and 35/15 K/BB ratio across 24 2/3 innings across seven starts for Triple-A Jacksonville this season. Shoulder issues are complicated matters, but all signs point to White being a full-go by spring training following a relatively normal offseason. It’s a significant hit to his dynasty stock and eliminates any chance that he reaches the big leagues this season.

Altuve made it back to Houston’s lineup less than three weeks after being diagnosed with a Grade 2 left oblique strain, which is much faster than originally anticipated. The 36-year-old second baseman figures to hit behind a red-hot Isaac Paredes in the middle of the Astros lineup for now.

Díaz was let go by the Royals last week after going 5-for-22 with two homers in 23 plate appearances over 10 games. Barring a surprising decision to place Danny Jansen or Kyle Higashioka on the IL, it appears that he’ll be joining the Rangers as a third catcher, freeing up the top two catchers to start between catcher and DH against lefties. Justin Foscue or Michael Helman could be bumped from the roster.

That’s just never good. Fitzpatrick was hurt while warming up for his second inning of relief work Friday against the Rockies. He’s allowed two runs — one earned — in 6 2/3 innings for the Brewers this season.

Strowd was making his first appearance since being called up Thursday. It sounds like he’s destined for the IL, which might give Yilber Díaz a shot.

Paredes has homered in three straight games and is now at .241/.333/.415 with nine homers and 32 RBI in 59 games for the season. He still figures to get at least a little better from here on in, and while he’s not a good enough bet in average, runs scored and steals to rate as a top-10 third baseman, he is fairly underrated at this point.

Lambert stranded the bases loaded in the second and kept the A’s scoreless until the sixth, when he gave up a Brent Rooker homer, a walk and then a double with one out. Enyel De Los Santos entered and retired Zack Gelof and Jeff McNeil to strand both inherited runners. It went as Lambert’s third straight win, even though he’s walked 11 over 15 1/3 innings during the span. He’s 5-4 with a 3.55 ERA in nine starts overall. The big thing that he has in his corner is that he’s allowed just three homers in 50 2/3 innings, but he’s not a strong groundball pitcher and his walk rate is an increasing concern. Those relying on him in mixed leagues can feel free to use him against the Angels next week, but it’s still not rather likely that he’ll be a long-term solution.

It wasn’t a save situation for Hader, but he was very effective once again. The A’s swung at five of his nine sinkers and missed very time. We’re guessing he’ll be down Saturday after pitching Wednesday and tonight, so that might open the door for Bryan King to get a save.

Perkins was ineffective, but rather fascinating is that his velocity was actually up tonight in his first start of the year. He’d averaged 96.2 mph with his fastball and 85.9 mph with his sweeper as a reliever. Tonight, even though he was being expected to throw two or three times as many pitches as usual, he came in at 96.8 mph with the heater and 87.4 mph with the sweeper. He struck out six and produced 13 whiffs, so that’s not bad. He’ll probably stay in the rotation and face the Brewers next Wednesday. For fantasy purposes, though, in a very tough situation in Sacramento, he was only intriguing as a possibility for saves out of the pen.

Barnett seemed to be the likeliest choice to join the A’s rotation when Luis Severino went down last week, and he became an even better bet with the decision to demote Jacob Lopez a couple of days later. Instead, the A’s went to Jack Perkins and Kade Morris and brought up Barnett as a reliever, instead. Tonight, at least, Barnett looked like the easily superior choice to Perkins as a starter, as he took over after Perkins gave up five runs in four innings. He went on to allow just one hard-hit ball and generated 12 whiffs on 26 swings. Perhaps it’s too soon for the A’s to make another change right away, but Barnett could be starting before long.