MLB Player News

Civale did allow seven hits, but the only run that came across came on solo Brandon Marsh homer in the fifth. The 29-year-old issued one walk and struck out six in a solid outing versus a tough Philadelphia lineup. Civale has not been great nor anything close with Milwaukee, but he’s done just enough to keep his spot in the rotation. He’ll take a 4.48 ERA into a start Saturday versus the Diamondbacks.

Woodruff has been throwing on the back fields and pitched against Padres Minor Leaguers the other day. He reportedly recovered well from that outing and will not face MLB hitters for the first time in a game since undergoing shoulder capsule surgery last season. How many pitches Woodruff can throw in that outing on Sunday, and how his arm responds to those, will give us a better sense of his timeline, but since he will likely need to be built up to at least five innings before being ready for an MLB game, there remains a strong likelihood that he starts the season on the IL. However, the biggest takeaway from Sunday will simply be if Woodruff looks healthy and anything like the fantasy ace he was before surgery.

It remains to be seen if the deal gets finalized, but it appears to be close. Lynn isn’t a bad choice to fill out an MLB rotation since he registered a 3.84 ERA, 1.34 WHIP, and a 109/44 K/BB ratio over 117 1/3 innings in 23 starts with the Cardinals in 2024. He will certainly not be ready for Opening Day if the Cubs sign him two weeks before the season starts, but he could push Colin Rea or Jordan Wicks for the fifth spot in the rotation by the end of April.

Bradford was shut down this week with elbow soreness, and even though the MRI came back clean, the Rangers shut him down from throwing for at least a week. He will then need to ramp back up and build up his pitch counts, so the team is opting to take it slow with him. That could mean that Jack Leiter, who has impressed this spring, opens the season in the rotation, but Bochy is “not laying odds” as to whether that will be the case or not.

There is heavy rain in the forecast for this afternoon, so the Rangers are choosing to have deGrom pitch his innings earlier in the day in the backfields of the complex rather than risk getting rained out in the afternoon. This would normally not even be a story, but it’s Jacob deGrom, so we feel the need to ensure you that this has nothing to do with injury.

The 22-year-old former first-round pick hit just .188/.278/.375 in MLB spring training with eight strikeouts in 18 plate appearances. That said, he had a strong year in 79 games across Double-A and Triple-A this year and will head back to Triple-A Sugar Land to begin the season. Astros manager Joe Espada said second base “is a place where I think (Matthews) can find comfort and he can be an above-average defender.” We should expect Matthews to play second base regularly in Triple-A this season, and a strong start to the year could mean that he pushes for an MLB call-up early this summer, especially with Jose Altuve now set to mainly play the outfield.

Tomczyk mentioned that the Pirates “envision [Hayes] being available for game activity in the coming days as well.” Hayes has already played in seven spring games so far, so another week of games should give him plenty of reps to be ready for opening day. Injuries have sapped the 28-year-old of some of the upside fantasy managers were hoping for a few years ago, but he figures to play every day at third base for the Pirates, so if he can remain healthy, he could still be a target in deeper formats.

The Pirates have not said which part of Falter’s arm is not recovering well, but they did say that removing him from the scheduled start was “out of an abundance of precaution.” At this point, it seems unlikely the left-hander will miss any time, but if this injury were to progress, it could open the door for Bubba Chandler to push his way into the Pirates’ rotation.

Diaz has not appeared in a game over the last two days, but it appears he is simply sick, not injured. That’s good news with so many catches going down with injuries early in spring training.

This is the first time Walker has swung a bit since being scratched from the lineup on March 5th. Depending on how his body responds to the swings, he could move to live batting practice swings and then get back into spring training games. With two weeks until the regular season, he’s cutting it a bit close, but there’s a good chance that he’ll be back by Opening Day, as long as he doesn’t experience any setbacks.

Yankees manager Aaron Boone made it clear that Cabrera was not dealing with any sort of injury; he’s simply sick. Cabrera is the favorite to start at third base for the Yankees to begin the season and is hitting .286/.333/.392 in 30 plate appearances this spring. He doesn’t have a ton of power or speed, but he makes a good amount of contact and hits in a good lineup, which makes him a fine late-round pick in deeper formats.