Joel Payamps

NL Notes: Lindor, Blackburn, Barnes, Payamps

By Leo Morgenstern | September 15, 2024 at 10:27pm CDT

After exiting early on Friday and sitting out on Saturday, Mets superstar Francisco Lindor was pulled in the second inning of today’s series finale against the Phillies. Back discomfort has been a problem for the NL MVP candidate all weekend, and as it turns out, significantly longer. Lindor told reporters, including Tim Britton of The Athletic, that he has been playing through back pain for the past two weeks. Ever since he further irritated the injury on Friday, it has become too difficult to ignore.

Lindor will go for an MRI tomorrow, after which the Mets will have a better sense of the severity of his condition. Needless to say, they’ll be hoping it’s nothing serious and the star shortstop can get back on the field as soon as possible. The Mets are in a dead heat with the Braves in the race to secure the third and final NL Wild Card berth.

In further injury news out of Queens, starting pitcher Paul Blackburn is dealing with a spinal fluid leak in his back (per Anthony DiComo of MLB.com). President of baseball operations David Stearns suggests the injury isn’t quite as bad as it might sound, but nonetheless, the team does not know when Blackburn will be able to return. The right-hander has not pitched since August 23. Thankfully for the Mets, their pitching staff, and particularly their starting rotation, has been a strength as of late. Their starters rank third in MLB with a 2.32 ERA since Blackburn landed on the IL. Meanwhile, Blackburn had a 5.18 ERA in five starts after joining the Mets at the trade deadline.

Brewers Promote Robert Gasser

By Darragh McDonald | May 10, 2024 at 3:10pm CDT

May 10: The Brewers have made it official, announced that they have selected Gasser’s contract today. They also recalled right-hander Janson Junk from Triple-A Nashville. In corresponding moves, right-hander Joel Payamps was placed on the bereavement list while righty Tobias Myers was optioned to Nashville. To open a 40-man spot for Gasser, righty JB Bukauskas was transferred to the 60-day IL. Bukauskas has been on the injured list for almost a month due to a lat strain and has not yet begun a rehab assignment.

May 9: The Brewers are expected to promote pitching prospect Robert Gasser to the majors, per Curt Hogg of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. The left-hander will be starting tomorrow’s game and making his major league debut. He’s not currently on the 40-man roster, so the Brewers will need to find a way to add him.

Gasser, 25 this month, was selected by the Padres in the 2021 draft. They grabbed him out of the University of Houston in Competitive Balance Round B, with the 71st overall pick. About a year later, he came to the Brewers via the 2022 deadline deal that sent Josh Hader to San Diego.

The Padres had him in High-A at the time of that trade, but the Brewers let him go to Double-A and Triple-A shortly thereafter. He finished 2022 with a combined 3.94 earned run average in 137 innings. He struck out 29.7% of batters faced while giving out walks at a 9% clip.

He spent all of last year with Triple-A Nashville, tossing 135 1/3 innings across 26 outings with a 3.79 ERA. He punched out 28% of the batters who came to the plate while giving out free passes just 8.4% of the time.

The lefty could have been in contention for a rotation spot to start the season but he was sidelined at the end of March due to a bone spur in his left elbow. He didn’t make his first Triple-A start of 2024 until April 24 and he has now taken the ball three times, throwing four frames each time out. He hasn’t been super sharp, with six walks and four homers allowed in his 12 innings, but has struck out 17.

Despite his name, Gasser doesn’t overpower hitters, mostly sitting in the 89-93 miles per hour range with his fastball. But he has a four-seamer, a two-seamer, a cutter, a slider and a changeup, allowing him to keep hitters off balance. Baseball America ranked him the club’s #5 prospect coming into the year while FanGraphs had him at #8 and Keith Law of The Athletic at #7. MLB Pipeline currently has him in the #5 slot.

The Brewers have been dealing with various moving parts in their rotation since late last year. Brandon Woodruff required shoulder surgery and is going to miss most or perhaps all of the 2024 season. Corbin Burnes was traded to the Orioles in the offseason. Since the season started, Wade Miley required Tommy John surgery while DL Hall and Jakob Junis have also landed on the injured list.

On top of those injuries, Freddy Peralta is going miss one turn through the rotation. He was given a five-game suspension for his part in the fracas between the Brewers and Rays about a week ago. He initially appealed that suspension and took the ball against the Cubs on Sunday, before he began serving the suspension on Monday.

Gasser’s promotion might be a temporary one to cover for Peralta. But at least for now, he’ll jump into the rotation next to Bryse Wilson, Colin Rea, Joe Ross and Tobias Myers. Myers has a 6.23 ERA through three starts and could perhaps be sent down instead of Gasser, especially if things go poorly when he takes the ball against the Cardinals tonight.

Even if Gasser does get optioned after just one outing, opportunities could open up later in the year. Ross will likely hit a workload limit at some point since he hardly pitched over the previous two seasons while recovering from his second career Tommy John surgery. More generally, pitchers injuries are fairly inevitable, though Milwaukee should also have Hall and Junis coming off the IL later in the year.

Time will tell how much time Gasser spends in the majors in 2024. But for now, it’s an exciting day for the young southpaw, who will take the ball tomorrow at American Family Field against the division-rival Cardinals.

The Brewers’ Offseason Heist Is Paying Off

By Nick Deeds | August 20, 2023 at 10:58pm CDT

When a three-team deal was announced last December that saw ten different players change hands, it was hardly surprising that Sean Murphy’s move to Atlanta received the lion’s share of the focus, particularly considering the fact that Murphy inked a six-year extension with the Braves just two weeks later. After all, rumors of the A’s looking to move on from their franchise catcher had circulated for weeks at that point and the Braves, who were coming off a 101-win season that was ultimately cut short during the NLDS, were an interesting landing spot.

Nine months later, it’s unlikely the Braves have any regrets about the deal. Murphy has taken a step forward with the bat in Atlanta, slashing a sensational .278/.387/.538 with a career-best wRC+ of 149 that when combined with his typical stellar defense behind the plate has allowed the 28-year-old All-Star to rack up 4.3 fWAR in just 87 games this season. Meanwhile, the Braves are the consensus best team in baseball with Fangraphs’ playoff odds giving the club an incredibly 26.5% chance at winning the World Series this year.

While Atlanta’s success both in this season and in landing Murphy is impressive in its own right, the Braves are not the only winner of this trade to this point in the season. Indeed, they may not even be the biggest winner of the deal so far. That’s because the Brewers, the requisite third team needed to help facilitate the deal, managed to turn their #8 prospect in outfielder Esteury Ruiz into five seasons of an All-Star catcher of their own, plus an excellent set-up man and an additional pitching prospect to boot.

En route to a breakout season with Atlanta during which he made his first career All-Star appearance, catcher William Contreras shared time behind the plate with Travis d’Arnaud while also mixing in at DH and even in the outfield. In all, he slashed an impressive .278/.354/.506 with 20 home runs in just 376 trips to the plate.

While that impressive display of power combined with Contreras’s 10.4% walk rate was enough to make him the 12th most valuable catcher in all of baseball last year, there were reasons to wonder if the youngster would be able to maintain his production going forward. Contreras’s 27.7% strikeout rate left plenty of reason for concern, as was a massive .344 BABIP. With those potential red flags signalling possible regression in Contreras’s future, it’s hardly a surprise to find that his .370 wOBA in 2022 outstripped his .347 xwOBA considerably.

Far more concerning than his offensive numbers, which were excellent for a catcher even if they regressed to match his expected numbers, was his glovework behind the plate. In 2022, Contreras was worth -7 runs per Statcast’s catcher defense metric, with negative marks in each of framing, stealing, and blocking. His framing, in particular, left much to be desired, as he landed in just the 20th percentile of all catchers in terms of catcher framing runs, with only 3 catchers in the sport posting a worse figure than Contreras’s -3 without receiving more pitches than him. Fielding Bible’s DRS agreed with that assessment, as Contreras’s -4 mark put him in the bottom 20 of all catchers last year.

With so many questions regarding Contreras’s fielding and his ability to maintain last year’s excellent offensive production, it makes perfect sense for the Braves to prefer a fully developed, surefire starting catcher in the form of Murphy. That preference created a window of opportunity for the Brewers, however, who had just lost their current starting catcher, Omar Narvaez, to free agency. The club had a history of helping bat-first catchers develop defensively, including with Narvaez himself.

This year, Milwaukee has managed to add Contreras to their list of defensive success stories behind the plate. It’s been a transformational year defensively for Contreras, as the youngster has soared to an excellent +8 runs per Statcast, with his catcher framing runs in particular leaping from -3 all the way up to +7, the seventh-best mark in the sport this year behind only defensive stalwarts like Murphy, Austin Hedges, and Jonah Heim. Once again, DRS backs up Contreras’s improvement behind the dish as well, as his +7 DRS leaves him as the eighth most valuable defensive catcher in baseball according to the metric, even clocking in ahead of Murphy.

Contreras’s defense is clearly the star of the show when discussing his year-to-year improvement, but his offensive adjustments deserve a mention as well. While he has undergone some expected offensive regression from his All-Star campaign in 2022, particularly in the power department, his current production is not only still excellent for a catcher (his 113 wRC+ ranks 6th among catchers with at least 300 PA this season) but also appears far more sustainable going forward. His BABIP has dipped to a less outlandish .327 figure, but most importantly, Contreras has cut his strikeout rate to just 20.4%, a figure that’s actually better than league average. While his walk rate has dipped slightly and he isn’t hitting for as much power this season, this new version of Contreras is posting a strong .341 wOBA that matches his .338 xwOBA, indicating a level of sustainability that couldn’t be found in last season’s power-driven numbers.

Contreras isn’t the only player the Brewers received in last year’s trade, of course. While pitching prospect Justin Yeager has managed just 2 1/3 innings of work this season while spending almost the entire year on the injured list, right-handed reliever Joel Payamps has also proved to be a revelation with Milwaukee, though not quite as impactful of one as Contreras. Payamps came to the Brewers as a solid if unexciting middle reliever, with a career 3.35 ERA and 4.19 FIP in 113 innings of work with the Diamondbacks, Blue Jays, Royals, and A’s.

Since joining the Brewers, however, he’s looked like a different pitcher entirely. His walk rate dipped from a career 7.6% mark entering 2023 to just 5% this season, while his strikeout rate ballooned from a career mark of just 17.6% entering the year to an incredible 29.3% figure with Milwaukee. Those improvements are seemingly thanks to a combination of across-the-board velocity gains and change in his pitch-mix to emphasis his slider. Payamps’ step forward has allowed the Brewers to rely on him as the primary set-up man to closer Devin Williams, forming a lethal duo at the back of the club’s bullpen.

As with any trade, a few months isn’t enough time to understand the full scope of the impact last year’s three-team blockbuster will have on the clubs involved. Ruiz, who has posted a wRC+ of just 81 with Oakland this year but has offered plus defense in center field and swiped a whopping 48 bags, could prove to be a valuable piece in the coming years and change the perception of the deal. True as that may be, however, Milwaukee’s front office is surely delighted with the early returns on the deal, particularly considering they control Payamps through the end of the 2026 campaign and Contreras through the end of 2027.

Each MLB Team’s Players On WBC Rosters

By Darragh McDonald | February 9, 2023 at 7:30pm CDT

The World Baseball Classic is returning this year, the first time since 2017. The quadrennial event was supposed to take place in 2021 but was scuttled by the pandemic, now returning after a six-year absence. Rosters for the tournament were announced today and those can be found at this link. Here is a breakdown of which players from each MLB team are set to take participate. Quick caveat that this list is fluid and might be changed as more information becomes available.

Without further ado…

Angels

Astros

Athletics

Blue Jays

Braves

Brewers

Cardinals

Cubs

Diamondbacks

Dodgers

Giants

Guardians

Marlins

Mariners

Mets

Nationals

Orioles

Padres

Phillies

Pirates

Rangers

Rays

Red Sox

Reds

Rockies

Royals

Tigers

Twins

White Sox

Yankees

Braves Acquire Sean Murphy, Brewers Acquire William Contreras In Three-Team Trade

By Darragh McDonald | December 12, 2022 at 11:59pm CDT

The Braves, Brewers and A’s have agreed to a three-team blockbuster that will see each team get a new catcher with nine players involved in total. The full trade is as follows:

Braves get catcher Sean Murphy, giving up Kyle Muller, Royber Salinas, Justin Yeager, Freddy Tarnok, Manny Piña and William Contreras.

Brewers get William Contreras, Joel Payamps, Justin Yeager, giving up Esteury Ruiz.

A’s get Kyle Muller, Esteury Ruiz, Freddy Tarnok, Royber Salinas and Manny Piña, giving up Sean Murphy and Joel Payamps.

The deal is official, with the clubs all making announcements.

This move finally brings an end to a trade saga that has been going on for about a year now. After the 2021 season, the A’s leaned hard into a rebuild that saw them trade away Matt Olson, Matt Chapman, Sean Manaea and Chris Bassitt before Opening Day, with Frankie Montas getting flipped at the 2022 deadline.

Murphy was widely seen as the next to go for a number of reasons. Firstly, he just crossed three years of MLB service time in 2022 and will now be making higher salaries via arbitration. MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz projected that Murphy will jump to $3.5MM in 2023 with two further bumps before reaching free agency after 2025. Secondly, the A’s received a highly-touted catching prospect from Atlanta in the Olson deal in Shea Langeliers. He had an excellent season in Triple-A and carried himself well in a 40-game debut in the majors. Given all those factors, it seemed more and more likely that the A’s would hand the job over to Langeliers and trade Murphy for improvements elsewhere on the roster.

By taking this path, the A’s are parting with one of the best catchers in the game. The 28-year-old Murphy has 330 games in the big leagues under his belt thus far and has performed well in just about every facet of the game. He’s hit 46 home runs and has a combined batting line of .236/.326/.429. That production leads to a wRC+ of 116, indicating he’s been 16% above the league average hitter and even further ahead of the average catcher, since they generally come in a bit lower than others. He also took a step forward at the plate in 2022, striking out in just 20.3% of his plate appearances after being above 25% in his career prior to that.

Defensively, Murphy gets rave reviews as well. Since the start of 2020, he’s posted 13 Defensive Runs Saved behind the plate, a number that places him in the top 10 in the league. FanGraphs’ framing metric gives him a 19.5 in that timeframe, the third-highest such tally. Those all-around contributions have allowed him to produce 10 wins above replacement in those three seasons, according to FanGraphs, second among all MLB catchers with only J.T. Realmuto ahead of him.

Taking all that into consideration, it’s hardly surprising that Murphy garnered plenty of interest around the league. The Diamondbacks, Astros, Cubs, Guardians, Twins, White Sox, Red Sox, Rays, and Cardinals were some of the teams connected to him at various points in recent months. It was reported about a week ago that the Braves were getting close to acquiring him but president of baseball operations Alex Anthopoulos shot down those reports, saying that he didn’t anticipate a trade. That was either a bluff or something drastically changed in the past week since Atlanta have now indeed closed the deal. This is now the third huge deal Anthopoulos has negotiated with the A’s, though David Forst has since taken over baseball operations from Billy Beane. He acquired Josh Donaldson when he was working for the Blue Jays and has now nabbed Olson and Murphy for the Braves.

Atlanta always seemed a curious fit for Murphy given that they already had three viable catchers on the roster in Contreras, Piña and Travis d’Arnaud. They have cleared out that logjam and acquired Murphy in one fell swoop by including two of those catchers in the deal. On the surface, it seems that the club was keen to swap out Contreras for Murphy as a way of improving behind the plate. However, since the A’s seem set to give Langeliers a shot, it’s possible they were less interested in Contreras, which necessitated Milwaukee’s involvement.

That’s not to say that Contreras isn’t an exciting young catcher in his own right. It’s just that, as mentioned, Murphy is one of the best in the game. Contreras will now join his older brother Willson Contreras, who recently signed with the Cardinals, in the NL Central. The younger Contreras has gotten into 153 games in his career so far, hitting 28 home runs and producing an overall batting line of .260/.338/.471 for a wRC+ of 121. His defensive work isn’t as highly rated as his bat, but he’s still quite young, turning 25 later this month. Even with subpar defense, he’s produced 2.5 fWAR in his brief career thus far, meaning any developments in that department would make him tremendously valuable. It had been recently reported that the Brewers were interested in catching upgrades, but since the club has been paring back a tight payroll, they never seemed like candidates for a big free agent splash. Instead, they’ve acquired a young backstop who has yet to reach arbitration eligibility and has five years of club control remaining. The club has also added a couple of depth arms in Payamps and Yeager.

For the A’s, it’s been reported that they have been prioritizing MLB-ready talent in their trade talks and they have achieved that here. Muller, 25, has appeared in each of the past two major league seasons, logging 49 innings so far. He has an unimpressive 5.14 ERA in that time, but he’s fared much better in the minors. He’s made 40 Triple-A starts in the past two years and has a 3.40 ERA, 28.4% strikeout rate and 9.2% walk rate. Baseball America recently ranked him the top prospect in Atlanta’s system.

Ruiz has spent most of his career in the Padres’ system but he went to the Brewers in the Josh Hader trade last year. He has some MLB experience, having played in 17 games this year between the two clubs. In 114 minor league games, he hit .332/.447/.526 while stealing 85 bases in 114 games. BA has not yet published their list of top Milwaukee prospects for this offseason, but Ben Badler of BA tweets that Ruiz was going to be in the #8 slot.

Tarnok also has very limited MLB experience, with 2/3 of an inning on the books so far. He threw 106 2/3 innings in the minors this year with a 4.05 ERA, 27.2% strikeout rate and 9.6% walk rate. He ranked #9 on the BA list of top Atlanta prospects. Piña is a 35-year-old veteran who is likely to serve as insurance in case Langeliers struggles or needs some veteran guidance. He signed a two-year, $8MM deal with Atlanta but required season-ending wrist surgery in May. He’ll earn $4.5MM in 2023 with a $4MM club option for 2024 with no buyout.

The one prospect who isn’t likely to help the big league club immediately is Salinas. He turns 22 in April and split the most recent season between Single-A and High-A. He posted a 3.55 ERA over 25 starts with a huge 37.6% strikeout rate but a 13.5% walk rate. Baseball America recently placed him #7 on their list of Atlanta prospects.

The Braves were facing a challenge in the NL East despite having won the division in five straight seasons. The Mets and Phillies have been been spending wildly to upgrade for the coming season. The Mets have added Justin Verlander, Kodai Senga, José Quintana and David Robertson, in addition to re-signing Brandon Nimmo and Edwin Díaz. The Phillies have signed Trea Turner, Taijuan Walker and Matt Strahm. The Braves were going to face a challenge in keeping up with that pace since they were nearing the luxury tax. As is his wont, Anthopoulos has turned to the trade market to make his upgrades. The club still has a question mark at shortstop, with Dansby Swanson having departed for free agency. They could always bring him back though they reportedly haven’t been talking much this offseason. After this trade, the club’s CBT figure is at $229MM, per Roster Resource, just shy of the $233MM luxury tax threshold for next year.

For the Brewers, they’ve parted with an outfield prospect they just acquired but have added an exciting young catcher, something they would be challenged to do in free agency with their payroll constraints. For the A’s, they have parted with yet another established major leaguer, adding to the list of quality players they’ve sent out the door. In exchange, they’ve brought in one veteran backstop and four young players that they hope can be a part of forming the next competitive core in Oakland.

Talkin’ Jake of Jomboy Media first reported that the Braves, Brewers and A’s were lining up on a deal, as well as the involvement of Contreras (Twitter links). Jeff Passan of ESPN first reported Murphy going to the Braves, as well as the involvement of Piña and the eventual final deal. Robert Murray of FanSided first mentioned Ruiz and Tarnok (Twitter links). Joel Sherman first mentioned Payamps and Yeager on Twitter. Kiley McDaniel first had Muller’s name on Twitter.

Images courtesy of USA Today Sports.

A’s Claim Ernie Clement From Guardians

By Anthony Franco | September 23, 2022 at 4:37pm CDT

The A’s announced they’ve claimed infielder Ernie Clement off waivers from the Guardians, who’d designated him for assignment earlier this week. Oakland also recalled reliever Sam Selman from Triple-A Las Vegas and placed right-hander Joel Payamps on the 15-day injured list with a lumbar strain. The A’s already had an opening on the 40-man roster, so no additional corresponding move was necessary.

Clement changes organizations for the first time in his career. A fourth-round pick out of Virginia in 2017, the right-handed hitter spent a few seasons generally ranked at the back half of Cleveland’s top 30 prospects. One of the game’s highest-contact batters, he worked his way up the minor league ladder and eventually earned a spot on the 40-man roster heading into the 2021 campaign. After opening last season with Triple-A Columbus, he received his first MLB call last June.

The 26-year-old has bounced on and off the active roster over the past year-plus. Clement has tallied 294 major league plate appearances, hitting .214/.273/.274. He’s only picked up three home runs and doubles apiece, and his well below-average exit velocities have muted his overall offensive impact. He’s continued to showcase excellent bat-to-ball skills against MLB arms, though, making contact on greater than 85% of his swings and only going down on strikes in 14.6% of his plate appearances (well below this year’s 22.3% league average). He’s been better overall in the minors, hitting .261/.311/.419 with a 13% strikeout rate over 238 Triple-A plate appearances.

In addition to his plus contact skills, Clement offers a fair bit of defensive versatility. He’s capable of playing anywhere on the infield, with the bulk of his professional experience coming at shortstop. He’s played mostly second and third base in the majors, with brief stints both at shortstop and in left field. The A’s have plenty of long-term uncertainty on the infield, giving Clement an opportunity to at least carve out a utility role if he can make a bit more impact from a power perspective.

Clement is in his second minor league option year, so the A’s can bounce him between Oakland and Triple-A Las Vegas through the end of next season if he holds his spot on the 40-man roster. He won’t be arbitration-eligible until after the 2024 season at the earliest.

Athletics Claim Joel Payamps

By Darragh McDonald | August 20, 2022 at 2:10pm CDT

The A’s announced that they have claimed right-hander Joel Payamps off waivers from the Royals, who designated him for assignment earlier this week. To create room on the 40-man roster, fellow righty Paul Blackburn was transferred to the 60-day injured list.

Payamps, 28, has appeared in the big leagues in each of the past four seasons, spending time with the Diamondbacks, Blue Jays and Royals. With KC this year, he’s logged 42 2/3 innings out of the bullpen with a 3.16 ERA. His 17.6% strikeout rate is a few ticks below league average, but his 53.3% ground ball rate is a few points above.

For the rebuilding A’s, they will take a shot on Payamps, which makes sense for a couple of reasons. His low-strikeout, pitch-to-contact profile could be a good match for the spacious confines of the Coliseum. He’s also yet to reach arbitration, having come into this season with just over a year of service time. If he sticks with the low-spending A’s as a valuable bullpen piece, they can keep him around cheaply for years to come.

As for Blackburn, it was reported earlier this week that he’s been shut down for the remainder of the season. That means today’s transfer is a mere formality.

Royals Designate Joel Payamps For Assignment

By Steve Adams | August 18, 2022 at 1:44pm CDT

The Royals have designated right-hander Joel Payamps for assignment and optioned infielder Maikel Garcia to Triple-A Omaha, per a club announcement. That pair of moves will open roster space for Hunter Dozier to return from the paternity list and for righty Max Castillo to be recalled from Omaha. Castillo, whom the Royals acquired in the trade that sent Whit Merrifield to Toronto, will start tonight’s game in place of veteran Brad Keller, who has been moved from the rotation to the bullpen.

Payamps, 28, has been a solid member of the Kansas City bullpen this season, working to a 3.16 ERA with a 17.6% strikeout rate, an 8.5% walk rate and a hearty 53.3% ground-ball rate, all of which makes his DFA at least a mild surprise. Fielding-independent metrics aren’t quite as bullish on the righty, who’s benefited from an elevated 78.9% left-on-base rate and given up a fair bit of hard contact (40.9%). Still, Payamps is averaging a career-high 95 mph on his heater, keeping the ball on the ground at a career-best rate and sporting a career-best 10.1% swinging-strike rate.

It’s not an elite package of results and secondary marks, but Payamps has had a better year than the standard DFA casualty and figures to have a decent chance of being claimed on waivers. That’ll be the Royals’ only course of action, as he can’t be traded now that the deadline has passed. Payamps is controllable for another four years beyond the current season but is out of minor league options, so any team to claim him will have to carry him on the MLB roster.

Castillo, 23, slotted in as the Royals’ No. 24 prospect at Baseball America in their post-deadline reranking of the system. He made his big league debut with Toronto earlier in the season, appearing in nine games (two of them starts) and working to a 3.05 ERA with a 20-to-5 K/BB ratio in 20 2/3 innings. It’s been a strong season on the whole for Castillo, who notched a 3.10 ERA in Double-A before jumping to Triple-A and yielding six runs in 31 innings (1.74 ERA).

Castillo isn’t a power pitcher but has displayed solid walk and ground-ball rates while garnering praise for an above-average changeup and command of the strike zone. The Royals will take at least some of the remainder of the season to evaluate him as a potential rotation piece, though it’s always possible that he ultimately slots in as a multi-inning reliever or swing man. For now, he’ll join Zack Greinke, Brady Singer, Daniel Lynch and Kris Bubic on the starting staff.

Royals Activate Joel Payamps, Outright Daniel Mengden

By Mark Polishuk | July 2, 2022 at 3:33pm CDT

The Royals activated right-hander Joel Payamps from the COVID-related injury list today. In the corresponding move, Kansas City outrighted right-hander Daniel Mengden off the 40-man roster and assigned him to Triple-A.

Payamps was placed on the COVID list on June 13, and he returned to the field last week to make a trio of Triple-A outings as part of a rehab assignment. Despite below-average strikeout and walk rates, Payamps has a 2.42 ERA over 26 relief innings for K.C. this season, relying on a 53.7% grounder rate, a lack of hard contact, and zero homers allowed. The righty used a pretty similar recipe for success in 2021, as Payamps posted a 3.40 ERA over 50 1/3 innings with the Blue Jays and Royals in his first full MLB season.

Payamps is only 28 years old but he has 11 years of pro experience, including time in the majors in each of the last four seasons. While not a premium bullpen arm, his numbers could get him some looks from other teams heading into the trade deadline, as the Royals are already known to be open to offers on veteran players.

Mengden signed a minor league deal with Kansas City in March, and in fact got his contract selected to the Show when Payamps was first placed on the COVID-IL. Mengden appeared in four games with the Royals, posting a 2.08 ERA over 4 1/3 innings — this marked his first MLB action since 2020, as Mengden pitched in South Korea last season.

Though the Royals have only deployed Mengden as a reliever to date, he has started 11 of his 12 games for Triple-A Omaha, and has worked as a starter for the bulk of his career in the majors, minors, and the KBO League. Mengden had some solid numbers pitching for the A’s in 2017-18 before control problems hampered him in 2019.

Royals Select Daniel Mengden

By Anthony Franco | June 13, 2022 at 4:42pm CDT

The Royals announced they’ve selected right-hander Daniel Mengden onto the major league roster. In a corresponding move, reliever Joel Payamps has been placed on the COVID-19 injured list.

Mengden is now in position to make his first MLB appearance in two years. The Texas A&M product pitched in the majors with the A’s each season from 2016-20, starting 48 of his 60 outings. Not a particularly hard thrower, Mengden rarely missed many bats but looked like a viable back-of-the-rotation arm at times based on the strength of his control. He posted a 3.80 ERA through 158 2/3 innings from 2017-18, and while the A’s pitcher-friendly home ballpark and excellent team defenses no doubt aided him, Mengden walked a meager 5.4% of batters faced during that stretch.

By 2019, however, Mengden began to struggle with his control. Oakland outrighted him off the roster in 2020, and he signed on with the Kia Tigers of the Korea Baseball Organization last winter. He proved a solid pickup, tossing 120 frames of 3.60 ERA ball with a 20.7% strikeout rate and a 7% walk percentage for the Gwangju-based club. Mengden returned to the United States this past offseason, inking a minors pact with Kansas City in March.

The 29-year-old has spent the entirety of the 2022 campaign with Triple-A Omaha. He’s worked almost exclusively as a starter, opening 11 of his 12 outings. Mengden has a 5.47 ERA across 52 2/3 frames for the Storm Chasers, posting worse than average strikeout and walk numbers (21.3% and 12.6%, respectively) while struggling with home runs. Nevertheless, Kansas City will give him another crack in the majors, presumably as a multi-inning relief option for skipper Mike Matheny.

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