News and Notes: Carrasco Start in Philadelphia Goes as Expected.
The return of Carlos “Cookie” Carrasco to Cleveland has been a beautiful thing. But, all good things must come to an end.
I think it’s time to end the Carrasco starting pitcher experiment. He may find a spot in the bullpen. But, not even pairing him with catching savant Austin Hedges is helping him avoid getting tagged for six runs a start right now.
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There are other issues. Nick Sandlin looks bad, again, after starting the year out strong with a heavy splitter usage mix. He gets tatooed seemingly every time out. And, the Guardians can only hit singles (they had four and two walks in this game). I’ll be working on an article examining this post-trade deadline, but it looks to me like they are being offered a lot of offspeed and breaking pitches low and away and they aren’t laying off enough to get walks and too often making weak contact early in the count. Easy for me to say sitting on my couch and typing, but the whole team screams for an adjustment where they collectively work more counts and try to get better pitches to hit.
Anyway, the Phillies won 8-0 and there will be a rubber match on Sunday where it appears Joey Cantillo will make his major league debut. So, that’s at least a happy event.
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Josh Naylor is dinged up and did not play. The team is weirdly acting like the Kremlin about it, with Stephen Vogt saying Friday was a normal day off for Naylor, then vaguely referring to Naylor dealing with stuff, and then admitting that his being hit by a pitch recently was part of the issue. I find the team’s lack of transparency about injuries so silly and counter-productive, but I suppose it must be seen as a potential competitive advantage. Here’s hoping some rest helps Naylz rediscover his power stroke. And then ALL the Guardians could maybe use a few days off if that works. Except Big Christmas. His power is still there.
In good news, the Guardians signed every player from their 20-man draft class, including a record-breaking (for a 10th rounder) $1.8million deal for Chase Mobley. They went well into the penalty to get it done, so anyone who predicted they’d cheap out on this draft was predictably wrong as they topped $20 million total for the first time for any team in MLB history. The Guardians know the cheapest way to acquire talent is the draft:
Meanwhile, no trades had been completed by the Guardians at the time of this article’s composition. But, the Yankees traded for centerfielder/second baseman Jazz Chisholm from the Marlins, closer Carlos Estevaz was traded from the Angels to the Phillies (gulp), Danny Jansen was traded from the Blue Jays to the Red Sox, reliever Nick Mears went from the Rockies to the Brewers, and reliever Nate Pearson is a Cub now instead of a Blue Jay.
I think the most interesting one of these trades was the Estevaz trade because it illustrates that the Angels may actually be selling their tradeable assets. Potentially, the Mears trade could indicate the same thing about the Rockies. Still holding out hope for Jose Soriano, Reid Detmers, or Taylor Ward from the Angels, or Ryan Feltner from the Rockies or his teammate Cal Quantrill, returning for vibes and innings consumption.
I know this isn’t the minor league recap, but it was so good to see Chase DeLauter return to the Ducks rapping two doubles and a single. If the Guardians don’t add anyone at the deadline and DeLauter can stay healthy for a hot second, they should add him to the roster, call him up, and cement his precious feet to right field for the rest of the year.
