7:51pm: The Mariners are placing Randy Arozarena on the 10-day injured list, reports Adam Jude of The Seattle Times. Seattle’s left fielder hasn’t played since Friday due to left hamstring tightness, so it’ll be a retroactive placement to June 13.

Ryan Divish of The Seattle Times reports that the Mariners expect it to be a minimal IL stay. Arozarena is dealing with a mild strain that would’ve left him unavailable for the next few days. A team can only backdate an IL placement by a maximum of three days, so Seattle opted for the IL stint tonight rather than waiting a few days and risk shelving Arozarena beyond the next week.

A roster quirk will lead to the first big league call for 26-year-old outfielder Curtis Washington Jr., Divish reports. He’ll be selected onto the MLB roster and be available for tonight’s game against the Orioles. Washington is playing with High-A Everett, which is about 30 miles outside Seattle. The team’s Triple-A affiliate, the Tacoma Rainiers, are on the road this week for a series in Salt Lake. Washington can make the quick drive to T-Mobile Park. The M’s will need to open a spot on the 40-man roster but can do so by transferring infielder Will Wilson to the 60-day injured list.

Washington, a Purdue product, is a former 19th round pick. He’s hitting .190 over 44 games in High-A this season. He’ll surely be designated for assignment or outrighted this week but will collect a major league salary for a day while joining an MLB clubhouse. If tonight’s game is a blowout in either direction, maybe Dan Wilson can get him in as a pinch-hitter or defensive substitute and etch his name into an MLB box score.

Jude notes that outfielder Connor Joe was pulled from Tacoma’s lineup and will head to Seattle for tomorrow’s game. Joe is already on the 40-man and has appeared in 18 big league games this season. He’ll fill in as a right-handed bench bat with Victor Robles likely to replace Arozarena in left field for the next week. Josh Naylor and Luke Raley are also day-to-day, which pushed Miles Mastrobuoni and Rob Refsnyder into tonight’s lineup against Baltimore righty Brandon Young. Dan Wilson will likely only have backup catcher Mitch Garver and Washington Jr. available off the bench today.

In one other lineup note, today’s game officially marks J.P. Crawford’s first appearance as Seattle’s third baseman. The longtime shortstop was activated from a minimal 10-day injured list stint due to a right hand injury. He’s leading off and manning the hot corner, his first action there since the 2018 season with Philadelphia.

The Mariners had telegraphed the position change, as Crawford has been working out at third base for the past month. It’s to the former Gold Glove winner’s credit that he’s not only on board but actively approached the team about the possibility. Rookie Colt Emerson is the franchise’s long-term shortstop, so Crawford sought to expand his versatility in advance of his first trip to free agency. That allows Emerson to stay at his natural position while potentially making a case for the front office to bring Crawford back on a multi-year deal in the offseason.

8:38am: The Dodgers will designate infielder Santiago Espinal for assignment as the corresponding move for today’s activation of utilityman Tommy Edman, manager Dave Roberts told the team’s beat late last night (via Katie Woo of The Athletic).

It’ll be Espinal’s second DFA of the past few weeks. The Dodgers signed him to a minor league contract over the winter, and he clearly made a strong impression in spring training. He hit .378/.415/.644 in 53 plate appearances, and Roberts indicated barely two weeks into camp that Espinal was extremely likely to make the team.

That huge spring production hasn’t carried over to the regular season. Espinal has taken 60 plate appearances and turned in a .268/.276/.375 slash that relatively closely resembles his lifetime .261/.314/.350 output in 1836 trips to the plate as a major leaguer. He’s played third base, second base and first base for Los Angeles so far this season and also has some prior, albeit limited experience at shortstop (343 innings) and in the outfield (114 innings).

Espinal, 31, is a veteran of seven major league seasons who has more than six years of big league service. He had a particularly nice run with the Blue Jays in 2021-22, when he slashed .282/.340/.382 in 737 turns at the plate. The output was obviously light on power, but he did connect on nine round-trippers and 38 doubles, chipping in a triple and a dozen steals along the way. He struck out in a tiny 13.3% of his plate appearances against a 7.9% walk rate.

Espinal’s bat hasn’t been the same since. He’s totaled 1033 plate appearances between the Jays, Reds and Dodgers but mustered only a .247/.296/.328 line in that time. He still rarely strikes out (13.2%), but Espinal’s walk rate and already minimal power output have dipped to untenable levels.

The Dodgers will outright, release or trade Espinal within the next week. He already signed a new minor league contract after being designated for assignment last month. Another return on a minor league deal can’t be ruled out, but with Edman now healthy and each of Alex Freeland, Miguel Rojas and Hyeseong Kim on the 40-man roster (the latter currently in Triple-A), Espinal might prefer to seek out an opportunity with another organization whose infield/bench group is less crowded.

Milwaukee took a bounceback flier on Rengifo in the offseason. He had a solid run with the Angels from 2022 to 2024, slashing .273/.323/.431 for a 111 wRC+ while playing every position except for first base and the battery. He had a downturn at the plate in 2025, hitting just .238/.287/.335 for a 73 wRC+. That was particularly poor timing, as that swoon occurred just before he became a free agent.

The Brewers gave him a $3.5MM guarantee on a one-year deal with a mutual option and incentives. Obviously, they hoped that Rengifo could put his rough season behind him and get back on track. Unfortunately, he’s gotten even worse. In 209 trips to the plate, he has a .205/.280/.254 line and 53 wRC+. Part of that is due to a .233 batting average on balls in play but Rengifo also didn’t hit a home run as a Brewer.

That performance has prompted the club to move on. Rengifo now heads into DFA limbo, which can last as long as a week. The waiver process takes 48 hours, so the Brewers could take as long as five days to explore trade interest. Given his performance and his contract, there shouldn’t be too much interest. Rengifo has more than enough service time to reject an outright assignment in favor of free agency while keeping his salary in place. The Brewers might skip that formality and just release him.

One way or another, he’s likely to be on the open market in the coming week. Assuming that comes to pass, the Brewers will be on the hook for the remainder of the money. Another club could sign him for the prorated league minimum for any time spent on the roster, with that amount subtracted from what the Brewers pay.

What remains to be seen is how the Brewers distribute the playing time on the left side of their infield. They have been using Rengifo at third and Joey Ortiz at shortstop with David Hamilton getting regular playing time spelling both guys at those spots. As mentioned, Rengifo wasn’t doing much with the bat. That’s also true of the other two. Hamilton has a .231/.316/.320 line and 83 wRC+ on the year while Ortiz has a .207/.299/.262 line and 64 wRC+.

Pratt has almost exclusively played shortstop in his minor league career. The only other spot he has played is second base and that was only 21 innings at the Complex League in 2023. Presumably, Pratt is coming up to take over the shortstop job and will play there regularly.

Ortiz could spell Pratt on occasion but he might now be battling Hamilton for playing time at third. Ortiz has experience at the hot corner, as he was Milwaukee’s regular guy there in 2024. He moved over to short in 2025 after Willy Adames became a free agent and signed with the Giants. Hamilton and Ortiz are both strong defenders but the Brewers may look for a third base upgrade at the deadline if neither starts hitting.

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Brown, the third-place finisher in last year’s AL Cy Young voting, made only two starts this season before a shoulder strain sent him to the injured list. He was excellent in his first two starts (one run, 17 strikeouts, six walks in 10 2/3 innings) but has now been out of action more than two months. The Astros sent him on four minor league rehab starts — one in Double-A, three in Triple-A — and he logged a pristine 1.88 ERA with a 38.9% strikeout rate and 5.6% walk rate in 14 1/3 innings.

Based on those results, Brown seems plenty ready to step back in atop Houston’s rotation. The 27-year-old has been one of the best pitchers in the American League since his 2024 breakout, combining for 366 innings with a 2.88 ERA, a 27.1% strikeout rate, an 8.3% walk rate and a 48.6% ground-ball rate — all comfortably better than the league-average rate stats among pitchers.

Since Brown’s placement on the injured list, Houston starters have collectively posted the second-worst ERA in the majors. Their 5.14 mark leads only Colorado’s 6.19 ERA. Astros starters rank 21st in total innings since that time (327 1/3), 18th in strikeout rate (21.3%) and dead last in walk rate (11.6%).

All of that only underscores Brown’s importance to the Houston staff. They’ve used a dozen different starting pitchers since Brown’s injury. Spencer Arrighetti (2.57 ERA in 63 innings) and minor league signee Peter Lambert (3.47 ERA in 57 innings) have posted season-saving performances for the ‘Stros. Cody Bolton (4.70 ERA in 7 2/3 innings while acting as an opener) is the only other pitcher to start even one game for Houston and post an ERA under 5.00. Mike Burrows, Tatsuya Imai, Kai-Wei Teng and Lance McCullers Jr. have all started between seven and 13 games since Brown’s injury. Burrows’ 5.70 ERA in that span is the best of the bunch.

Diaz, also 27, has been out for the past six weeks due to an oblique strain. He’d been scuffling to begin the season, logging a career-worst .238/.255/.347 slash (62 wRC+) through his first 106 plate appearances. Diaz is coming off a pedestrian 2025 showing (.256/.284/.417) but was one of the game’s best-hitting catchers from 2023-24, when he logged a combined .293/.318/.478 line and popped 39 home runs over 996 plate appearances.

In Diaz’s absence, Christian Vázquez has shouldered the majority of the workload behind the plate. He’s hitting just .218/.277/.340 on the season and has seen his typically exceptional defensive ratings dip a bit. As a whole, Houston’s catching corps has been one of the least productive units in baseball. Their combined 60 wRC+ (indicating they’ve been 40% worse than average at the plate) leads only the Yankees (49), Phillies (49) and White Sox (47).

The 29-year-old Murray came to the Astros from the Rays at the 2022 trade deadline. He was part of the three-team swap sending Trey Mancini to Houston, Jose Siri to Tampa Bay and prospect Chayce McDermott to Baltimore. The 29-year-old righty pitched in the majors both this season and last. He’s totaled 25 innings of relief and been tagged for 13 earned runs (4.68 ERA) on 29 hits and 10 walks with 16 strikeouts.

Murray sits just under 96 mph with his four-seamer. A low-80s slider is his go-to secondary offering, though he’ll occasionally sprinkle in a changeup, sinker or cutter. The former 23rd-round pick struggled badly in his first two stints at the Triple-A level with the Rays in 2022-23. He then missed nearly all of 2024 due to injury. He returned to post decent minor league numbers last season (64 innings. 4.64 ERA, 23.8 K%, 10.8 BB%) and has been outstanding this season: 15 1/3 innings, 1.17 ERA, 19-to-6 K/BB ratio.

Murray still has a full slate of minor league options remaining. That, coupled with above-average velocity and this year’s showing in Sugar Land, could lead another club to show some interest either in a minor trade or via a waiver claim. Houston will have five days to trade him before he needs to be placed on waivers. Since outright waivers are a 48-hour process, we’ll know the result of his DFA within the next week.

Rutledge, 27, was a waiver claim out of the Nationals organization last month. Washington selected him in the first round of the 2019 draft, 17th overall. Rutledge spent several years ranked among the Nats’ most promising farmhands but never found his stride in the majors. Obviously, there wasn’t a minor league season in 2020, which set back Rutledge’s development. He then missed more than half the 2021 campaign due to shoulder troubles that limited him to 36 1/3 minor league frames. He spent another month on the 2022 injured list due to an undisclosed issue.

Although Rutledge has been mostly healthy since, the results haven’t been there. He’s pitched briefly in parts of four big league seasons but has a 6.29 ERA and just a 19% strikeout rate in 103 major league frames. Rutledge has had solid command at the game’s top level (7.3% walk rate), but he’s been quite prone to free passes in the minors, evidenced by a career 13.5% walk rate in 194 1/3 innings of Triple-A work. That shaky command has contributed to an unsightly 5.60 earned run average during his time in Triple-A.

The Phillies haven’t specified what Rutledge’s injury is, but he was on the minor league injured list at the time of his DFA. Since injured players cannot be placed on outright waivers, their only choices were to find a trade partner or release him. They’ve opted for the latter. It’s relatively common for players in this situation to re-sign a minor league deal with the organization that released them, though Rutledge doesn’t exactly have a long history with the Phillies, who claimed him off waivers just five weeks ago.

Bruján, 28, was acquired from the Twins in a January cash deal. He was designated for assignment just prior to Opening Day. He cleared waivers and stayed with the team in a non-roster capacity. He was added back to the roster in early May when Ronny Mauricio hit the injured list. Jorge Polanco and Francisco Lindor were already on the IL, so the club had three infielders out of action.

In the six weeks since then, Bruján has hardly played. He has appeared in nine games but mostly as an in-game replacement, only stepping to the plate 13 times. He has one walk and one hit, a single, leading to a .091/.167/.091 line.

Bruján and Short have similar profiles as light-hitting utility guys. It appears the Mets prefer Short, possibly for his glovework, so they are bumping Bruján off the active roster. Since Bruján is out of options, he needed to be nudged off the 40-man as well.

Once upon a time, Bruján was considered a top prospect. Baseball America had him in the middle of its top 100 list from 2019 to 2022. In the Rays’ system at that time, he was considered a fairly well-rounded player. Though he didn’t have power, he had speed, contact ability and strong defense at multiple positions.

Unfortunately, he has never been able to hit big league pitching. He has a .197/.266/.272 line in 658 plate appearances spread across six different seasons. He exhausted his final option season in 2023. In 2024 and 2025, he stuck in the majors but bounced around in bench roles. His past pedigree was too good to for him to clear waivers but no one committed regular playing time to him. Over those two seasons, he received 373 plate appearances between the Marlins, Cubs, Orioles and Atlanta.

The latter club avoided arbitration with Bruján, agreeing to a split contract that pays him $850K in the majors and $500K in the minors. The plan was seemingly to get him through waivers unclaimed. Since Bruján’s service clock is between three and five years, he would have the right to elect free agency but would have to walk away from that money if he were to do so. However, the Twins claimed him off waivers and later flipped him to the Mets.

The Mets were finally able to get Bruján through waivers in March. He got regular playing time in Triple-A but hit .241/.304/.313 there before being called up. Now he’ll likely be on waivers again. Perhaps some club will bet on the past pedigree once more. If he passes through waivers unclaimed again, he would once again have the right to elect free agency but likely wouldn’t, so that he can keep collecting the remainder of the money on his deal.

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It might seem odd to add a player to the 40-man roster but keep him in the minors. In these situations, the player usually has some kind of opt-out in his deal. Giving the player a roster spot prevents him from opting out. Keeping him in the minors means no one currently on the big league roster needs to be bumped off.

Hicklen, 30, signed a minor league deal with Atlanta in the offseason. He has been with Triple-A this year and performing quite well. He has a .316/.381/.519 line and 137 wRC+, indicating he has been 37% better than league average. He has gotten a bit of help from a .367 batting average on balls in play but he has put the ball over the fence 11 times. His 9.1% walk rate and 21.6% strikeout rate are both decent figures. He has also stolen 21 bases already, a pace which aligns pretty well with his previous seasons on the farm.

He has had minor league success before, which has led to very fleeting big league chances. Hicklen suited up for the 2022 Royals but made just four plate appearances. Living up to his name, he was a Brewer in 2024, but was sent to the plate just five times. He got another four plate appearances with the Tigers last year. He has a .167/.231/.167 line in that tiny sample of 13 sojourns in the batters box.

Atlanta is clearly happy with Hicklen’s performance and didn’t want to lose him as a depth piece. They made a similar move earlier this month with DaShawn Keirsey Jr., selecting him to the roster but keeping him in the minors. The club currently has Ronald Acuña Jr. on the injured list and is without Jurickson Profar all year due to a PED suspension. Their current outfield alignment consists of Michael Harris II, Mike Yastrzemski, Mauricio Dubón and Eli White.

Should another injury pop up in that group, Keirsey and Hicklen could be the top of the list of names to get the call. Hicklen has one option remaining. Once he spends 20 days on optional assignment, 2026 will officially be his final option season, meaning he will be out of options going forward.

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The 33-year-old Brown signed a minor league contract with the Yankees in January. He had a rough showing during spring training and didn’t make the club but has turned in a roughly average .235/.327/.436 slash with nine homers in 208 Triple-A plate appearances. Brown has walked in just over 11% of his plate appearances but has also fanned in just under one-third of his trips to the batter’s box. Part of that stems from not being strictly platooned; the lefty-swinging Brown has hit just .189/.286/.270 with 22 punchouts in 42 plate appearances versus southpaws (52.4%). He’s hitting .247/.337/.466 with a high but more palatable 28% strikeout rate against right-handed pitching.

Brown is a veteran of seven major league seasons — all coming with the A’s. He’s a career .226/.292/.419 hitter who has twice topped 20 homers in a season. From 2021-22, Brown popped 45 homers in 862 plate appearances with the Athletics, despite playing his home games in Oakland’s cavernous coliseum. He’s never hit lefties well (.147/.236/.275) but is a career .234/.301/.441 hitter (108 wRC+) against right-handed pitching.

Defensively, Brown has at least 1000 major league innings at first base and in each outfield corner. He’s logged 187 innings in center field, but the majority of that work came back in 2022. Interested parties are going to view him primarily as a first base/corner outfield/designated hitter depth option who’d presumably see the bulk of his action against right-handed pitching if he were summoned back to the big leagues. Speculatively speaking, both the Padres and Phillies have struggled against right-handed pitching this season, and both have recently incurred some notable injuries in the outfield mix.

San Diego designated Johnson for assignment on Friday. The 30-year-old had held a bench spot for the entire season but didn’t provide much at the plate. Samad Taylor has played well since being called up a couple weeks ago and has played his way into regular playing time in left field. Rookie Jase Bowen continues to hold a bench spot, while the Padres brought up Nick Solak over the weekend to replace the injured Miguel Andujar.

Johnson took 49 plate appearances over 32 games this year. The switch-hitter batted .178 without a home run while striking out 18 times. Johnson batted .342 over 84 plate appearances last year, but his broader track record is that of a fifth outfielder. He’s a .229/.286/.290 hitter over parts of five MLB campaigns.

San Diego is light on upper minors position player depth. Mason McCoy is their only hitter on the 40-man roster who isn’t already on the big league club. Solak, Taylor and Bowen have been three of their four best Triple-A hitters this year and have since been promoted. Journeyman utility player Pablo Reyes and 27-year-old Marcos Castañon have been El Paso’s only other above-average hitters this year among those with 40+ plate appearances.

Carrasco’s return felt inevitable, as he’s been on and off the roster all season. The only question was whether he’d sign a minor league contract or jump directly back onto the MLB roster after he elected free agency. Carrasco will probably be back up before long, especially after the Spencer Strider injury. That pushed JR Ritchie back into the rotation, so they may want another long man alongside Reynaldo López in the bullpen.

The 39-year-old Carrasco has made five MLB appearances this season, working nine innings of three-run ball. He has started six games with Triple-A Gwinnett, allowing 3.00 earned runs per nine across 30 frames. Carrasco has fanned 21% of opponents against a 5.6% walk rate.

Handley is back in the system as a depth catcher. Atlanta released him when they activated Hurston Waldrep from the 60-day injured list and needed to open a 40-man roster spot. Handley was injured at the time and has only played five games since the Braves claimed him off waivers from Baltimore in late May.

The Braves welcomed Drake Baldwin back from injury today. That pushes Sandy León to the backup role, leading Atlanta to outright Austin Wynns off the roster. (The Wynns move also opened a 40-man spot if the Braves want to re-select Carrasco’s contract and option Anthony Molina.) If Wynns reports to Gwinnett, that’d drop Handley to no higher than fourth on the organizational depth chart once he’s healthy.

Seattle added González on a waiver claim from Atlanta last August. The 26-year-old reliever had previously spent time in the Pittsburgh farm system before securing a spot on the Braves’ 40-man roster. He never reached the big leagues in Atlanta and finished last season in Triple-A in the Mariners system. González made it to MLB last month and has pitched in five big league contests. He has allowed four runs through 7 2/3 innings, striking out and walking five batters apiece.

González was designated for assignment last week when Seattle brought up Michael Rucker as a fresh bullpen arm. He doesn’t have the previous career outright or three years of MLB service to decline an outright assignment. González will remain in the organization with Tacoma, where he has an excellent 1.66 ERA despite a middling 21.3% strikeout percentage across 21 2/3 innings.

Stopgap backup catcher Chuckie Robinson and fourth outfielder Alex Call are the only players on the L.A. bench who have minor league options remaining. They can’t send Robinson down while Will Smith is on the injured list, and Call has done a decent job as a short side platoon outfielder all season. The only other position players they could consider optioning are Ryan Ward, who is hitting well as the left fielder against right-handed pitching, and starting second baseman Alex Freeland.

Assuming they don’t want to drop to 12 pitchers, the decision probably comes down to Freeland versus Santiago Espinal. They’d need to designate the latter for assignment to take him off the roster, which they already did a few weeks ago. They like Espinal as a clubhouse presence but haven’t gotten him much playing time as a multi-positional infielder. Freeland has played regularly since being recalled on May 27, hitting a league average .231/.340/.359 with one home run in 16 games.

Edman has positional versatility but won’t immediately jump back into an everyday role. The 31-year-old is coming back from last fall’s right ankle surgery. Roberts suggested they’ll continue ramping him up slowly, starting him a few times a week while moving around the diamond. Edman is primarily a second baseman but can spell Max Muncy at the hot corner and play the outfield. A switch-hitter who is better from the right side of the plate, he could take some at-bats against lefty pitching that would’ve otherwise fallen to any of Call, Espinal or Miguel Rojas.

Acquired from the Cardinals at the 2024 trade deadline, Edman has hit .229/.280/.392 over 530 regular season plate appearances in a Dodger uniform. He had a fantastic playoff run, including an NLCS MVP award, two years ago. His October production last year was more middling, presumably at least partially because of the ankle injury. Edman had started the ’25 season hot, connecting on eight home runs through the end of April, but hit .213/.264/.315 while playing at less than 100% the rest of the way.

Pomeranz, now 37, was once one of the best relief pitchers in the league. Unfortunately, injuries prevented him from pitching in the majors for three straight years from 2022 to 2024. He had a great comeback with the Cubs last year, posting a 2.17 earned run average in 49 2/3 innings, striking out 28.1% of opponents while only giving out walks at a 7.4% pace.

The Halos gave Pomeranz a $4MM deal for 2026, betting that he could keep it rolling. They have lost that bet. Pomeranz has given them 23 1/3 innings this year, around a minimal IL stint in May for elbow inflammation, with a 5.01 ERA. He might even be lucky to have that number where it is. His 14.8% strikeout rate and 11.1% walk rate are both awful figures. His .274 batting average on balls in play and 78.1% strand rate are a bit to the fortunate side, which is why his 6.32 FIP and 5.45 SIERA are even higher than his actual ERA.

He now heads into DFA limbo. The Angels can try to work out a trade but it’s hard to imagine him garnering much interest considering his performance this year, his salary, his age and his health history. He has more than enough service time to reject an outright assignment while keeping his salary in place. The Halos might skip that formality and release him.

Assuming he ends up on the open market in the coming days, the Halos will be on the hook for the remainder of the money he’s owed. Another club could sign him and would only have to pay him the prorated portion of the league minimum for any time spent on the roster. That amount would be subtracted from what the Angels pay.

The news on Rodriguez is also notable for the Halos. They have been without Yusei Kikuchi for almost two months due to shoulder inflammation. Jack Kochanowicz required Tommy John surgery this month. Now Rodriguez lands on the IL, further undercutting their rotation. The club is currently tied with the Royals in the basement of the American League with matching 29-43 records. Thanks to several other clubs struggling, they are technically only 6.5 games back of a playoff spot but making gains will be tough with this rotation picture.

Their current group consists of Walbert Ureña, Reid Detmers, Sam Aldegheri and José Soriano. They only have one off-day between now and July 6th, so they will need to figure out some kind of replacement for Rodriguez in the coming days.

That could be Kerry. A fifth-round pick from 2021, he has continued to work as a starter as he has climbed the minor league ladder. He has generally received more praise for his command than his stuff, as his fastball sits in the low-90s. He has been able to make his arsenal work in the lower levels, mixing in a cutter, slider, curveball and changeup, but has been torched at Triple-A, where the Salt Lake Bees play in the hitter-friendly Pacific Coast League. Kerry has a 6.89 ERA in 271 2/3 innings at that level.

It’s unclear if the Halos plan on giving Kerry some starts or if he is in the bullpen as long relief. Since this is his first call to the majors, he has a full slate of major league options and could be easily sent down in a few days, if need be. The Angels have George Klassen and Caden Dana on optional assignment at Triple-A and could call up one of those two, though Klassen has a 5.53 ERA in Triple-A this year and Dana 5.66. Taijuan Walker, Alek Manoah, Huascar Ynoa and Shaun Anderson are non-roster options with some major league experience.

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Wynns, 35, is a journeyman depth catcher. Over the years, he has suited up for the Orioles, Giants, Dodgers, Rockies, Reds and Athletics. He has a .228/.273/.342 line in 840 major league plate appearances. That’s well below league average but teams presumably value his work on defense and working with pitchers.

Atlanta has been shuffling catchers for quite a while. Both Sean Murphy and Drake Baldwin hit the IL in May, Murphy due to a finger fracture and Baldwin with an oblique strain. They added Sandy León and Chadwick Tromp to the roster in order to cover for those two. Wynns was acquired from the Angels earlier this month, bumping Tromp off. Now that Baldwin is back, they will go with León as the backup. Wynns got one hit in 14 plate appearances while on the team.

Wynns finished last season with the A’s. He and that club avoided arbitration by agreeing to a $1.1MM salary. He was later designated for assignment and released. He signed a minor league deal with the Halos, who then traded him to Atlanta.

Since Wynns has at least five years of big league service time, he has the right to reject outright assignments in favor of electing free agency while keeping his salary commitments in place. If he exercises that right, any club could sign him for the prorated league minimum salary. That amount would be subtracted from what the A’s pay, as they are still on the hook for the rest of the money.

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Short, 31, is a glove-first infielder who doesn’t provide much at the plate. He has 640 big league plate appearances spread across six seasons and has produced a .172/.273/.292 line in those. That includes a .167/.304/.222 line in 46 plate appearances for the Tigers this year.

He continues to get opportunities because he has a strong reputation with the glove. He has hundreds of innings at shortstop, second base and third base, in addition to very brief stints in the outfield. Most of that time has been at shortstop, with over 900 innings there. Publicly available metrics aren’t particularly glowing about his shortstop work. He’s been credited with minus-10 Outs Above Average and minus-1 Defensive Runs Saved but teams presumably have internal metrics that look at him more favorably.

The Mets have been on their backup plan at shortstop for quite a while. A left calf strain put Francisco Lindor on the injured list almost two months ago. Bo Bichette, signed to play third base, has been back covering shortstop basically on an everyday basis since then. Bichette isn’t really considered a strong defender at short, which is why he was being moved to begin the year. Presumably, Short will take a spot on the bench and will be used at short when stronger defense is warranted, perhaps later in games when the club is trying to hold a tight lead.

Vidal Bruján has been on the club’s bench for about six weeks but he has a .100/.182/.100 line in 12 plate appearances. He is out of options and could get squeezed off the roster when Short joins it, though another option would be to keep both Bruján and Short while optioning Eric Wagaman to the minors. Wagaman was selected to the roster about three weeks ago but has only received three plate appearances this month.

As for Polanco, transaction is a formality. His initial IL placement, due to a right wrist contusion, was retroactive to April 15th. That means he has already been out for 60 days and can be reinstated at any time. Last week, his rehab assignment was paused due to ankle soreness and his current timeline is unclear.

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