MLB Trade Rumors and News: Dodgers get Mookie Betts back from the IL

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• The Dodgers have been on quite the surge of late and that has been happening without the services of one of the best players in baseball, Mookie Betts, who has been dealing with a bone spur in his hip. Now, it looks like he is on track to lift LA to even greater heights as the team activated him from the injured list last night during a flurry of roster moves.
• The Rays have been putting on quite the show in the second half and, so far at least, have been able to hold off the surging New York Yankees in the AL East. Unfortunately, they did get some bad news yesterday as top prospect Brendan McKay was all but ruled out for the rest of the 2021 season with a flexor strain. This makes two seasons in a row that we can now chalk up as lost seasons for McKay as he missed 2020 with a shoulder injury.
• The remainder of Cardinals starter Jack Flaherty’s season is in question after he was placed on the injured list Wednesday with shoulder tightness. Flaherty has a 3.08 ERA and a 1.03 WHIP this season but has been limited to 14 starts due to an oblique injury that cost him over two months.
• Cardinals catcher Yadier Molina announced after agreeing to a one-year, $10 million extension with St. Louis that he will retire following the 2022 season.
• Diamondbacks lefty Caleb Smith is the second pitcher to be busted under MLB’s more stringent foreign substance policy. He received a 10-game suspension Tuesday, and Arizona will have to play shorthanded in his absence.
• The San Diego Padres have struggled of late to remain in the NL West race and lately, their stranglehold on the second wild card spot has faltered in a big way. In a move that frankly seems a be desperate, the team decided to fire pitching coach Larry Rothschild with around five weeks to go in the season.
• Mets fans, look away. New York has moved Jacob deGrom to the 60-day IL. In turn, they’ve claimed Heath Hembree off of waivers. Fingers crossed on no other setbacks arising, deGrom could be back in mid-September. So everyone light your prayer candles.
• There is no silver lining to the new litany of injuries for the Mets, but there is a teeny bit of hope; Noah Syndergaard is expected to being his rehab assignment soon, reports Tim Healey of Newsday Sports. This would be his second rehab assignment this year, as Thor continues to march down the long path of recovery from Tommy John surgery in 2020. While there isn’t enough time left in the season to for the length of the rehab assignment to put Syndergaard in the starting rotation again, the opportunity to have him come out from the bullpen is exactly what the Mets are hoping for. And at this point, nearly two years removed from his last big league outing, those potential bullpen appearances could be crucial to Syndegaard’s future with the Mets.
• The Braves know not to let a good thing go. Atlanta has signed Travis d’Arnaud to a two-year extension with a club option for 2024. He’ll earn $16M over the next two years with the team, while his 2024 option does not include a buyout. d’Arnaud is slashing .223/.277/.369 for the year, but his skills behind the plate far exceed what he does next to it. This also buys Atlanta a little more time to prime their young, homegrown catchers, William Contreras and Shea Langeliers.
• The negotiations between MLB and the MLBPA over the new CBA seem to be being productive in the early going, as the league came to the table with a proposal regarding new parameters for salary limitations in baseball. While it would lower the luxury tax threshold to $180 million, it would also impose a $100 million salary floor, which seems like a good starting point for discussion.
• There was a very scary moment in last Tuesday’s Athletics-White Sox game, as right-hander Chris Bassitt was hit in the face by a 100.1 MPH Brian Goodwin line drive and stayed down in pain for several minutes while being worked on by trainers. Bassitt, who remained conscious the whole time, was later taken to a local hospital.
• The Dodgers made news yet again, deciding to take a flyer on 37-year-old lefty Cole Hamels, who they signed to a one-year, $1 million deal. However, Hamels suffered a season-ending shoulder surgery while ramping up and won’t throw a pitch for Los Angeles this season. An interesting way to earn $1 million, for sure.
• With Yu Darvish, Dinelson Lamet, and Chris Paddack on the IL, the Padres went out and added a veteran starter (albeit one who has struggled significantly in recent years), signing recently released former Cy Young winner Jake Arrieta.
• The Giants have signed Brandon Crawford to two-year, $32 million extension. The 34-year old will stay in San Francisco until the end of 2023, and thank goodness for that. He’s currently leading all Giants position players with a 4.5 bWAR—his highest since 2016. Don’t call it a comeback.
• The Angels were already having a rough time of it with Mike Trout’s return from a calf injury getting perennially pushed back, now they will be without another bat that they were counting on this season. Anthony Rendon has been dealing with a right hip impingement and will have surgery that will end of his season.
• Rays right-hander Tyler Glasnow underwent Tommy John surgery, officially ending his 2021 season and likely ruining his chances of pitching in 2022. Glasnow, 27, has been stellar since joining the Rays in July 2018, and it will be a real challenge for Tampa to get back to the World Series this year without him in the rotation. Glasnow hasn’t pitched since mid-June, when he suffered a UCL tear, though he spent the last six weeks trying to rehab the injury before committing to surgery.
• The Yankees continued their busy trade deadline work as they added Anthony Rizzo in a deal with the Cubs after already grabbing Joey Gallo. The Yankees clearly know what they want (lefty power bats) and are going for it this year. Gallo and Rizzo should fit in nicely with that short porch in right.
• Not to be outdone, the Boston Red Sox made a move to bolster their lineup as well as they made a late trade for Kyle Schwarber from the Nationals. It is pretty wild how quickly the Nationals roster has gone from perennial contender to trade deadline fire sale booth, but here we are.
• It had been clear for a while that one of the bigger bats on the trade market that was also likely to have a new team by the trade deadline was the Rangers’ Joey Gallo. While not a perfect hitter, Gallo gets on base at a high clip and you won’t find greater raw power in the bigs than him. Well, now we will get a chance to see what he can do with that short right field porch in New York as the Yankees acquired Gallo for a healthy haul of prospects.
• If Joey Gallo was likely to be traded, then Starling Marte was a lock to move on given how extension talks with the Marlins quickly broke down. The Athletics were the team that decided to pony up in a big way as they snagged Marte along with some cash in exchange for Jesus Luzardo.
• The Diamondbacks have had a rough season in 2021 and that is being pretty charitable in that description. However, one of the bright spots has been the play of Eduardo Escobar who was the team’s lone All-Star Game representative this year. Now, he has a new team as the Brewers acquired him for a couple of prospects.
• Lefty Tyler Anderson thought he was going from the Pirates to the Phillies, but the deal fell through, apparently due to a medical concern with one of the prospects who was set to go to the Pirates: right-hander Cristian Hernandez and catcher Abrahan Gutierrez. Late Tuesday night, the Pirates pivoted and dealt Anderson to the Mariners for minor league catcher Carter Bins and Joaquin Tejeda. It’s a deal that Seattle GM Jerry Dipoto apparently believes will soothe Mariners fans and players after he traded his closer while the team was one game out of a playoff spot.
• The Anderson deal was Seattle’s second of the day. Before a matchup with the division rival Astros, one night after they came back from a 7-0 deficit to beat Houston 11-8 and pull within a game of a wild card spot, the Mariners dealt star closer Kendall Graveman and recently DFA’d right-hander Rafael Montero to the Astros for infielder Abraham Toro and veteran sidearmer Joe Smith. Mariners players expressed major displeasure at the move, with several crying, one going postal in the clubhouse, and a few anonymously ripping the front office to the Seattle Times’ Ryan Divish.
• The White Sox have signed Lance Lynn to a two-year, $38 million extension with a club option for 2024. In ten seasons, Lynn has been a solid rotation staple, but this season feels like the comeback most players only dream of. So far in 2021, the veteran is hurling a 1.99 ERA with 105 strikeouts, and only 31 walks over 90.2 innings. Talk about getting your money’s worth.
• Encouraging news for baseball fans who don’t like the major rule changes instituted over the last two seasons: Rob Manfred says that seven-inning doubleheaders and the runner-on-second rule in extra innings are unlikely to survive beyond the 2021 season, with Manfred saying those changes were instituted for the purpose of limiting time at the ballpark during the COVID-19 pandemic — something that isn’t expected to be a factor in future seasons.