The news broke last night that Cooper Ingle is getting the call for the Guardians.
Cleveland Guardians Prospective was the first I saw with the move on Twitter:
It will be interesting to see what move is made to get him on the 26-man. (To get him on the 40 seems easy enough with the various injuries the team has sustained). One would assume it is a Petey
Halpin demotion. But, what if it isn’t? …A Gabriel Arias or a Stuart Fairchild being DFA’d? A shock David Fry demotion? An even more shocking Rhys Hoskins DFA?
I am sure it’ll be Halpin.
Meanwhile, Ingle has a 150 wRC+ with a 22/18 K/BB% in Columbus. I checked his Baseball Savant for performance against various fastballs – .464 wOBA/.418 xwOBA – breaking balls – .361 wOBA/.301 xwOBA – and offspeed – .349 wOBA/.333 xwOBA. He seems ready for a big league challenge. He also has a 1.112 OPS in Columbus and a .865 OPS on the road. The biggest issue with Ingle is that he hasn’t been able to hit LHP very well… but, hey, join the club here. He has a .611 OPS vs LHP this year and his career numbers are solidly in the mid 600’s range.
But he’s here, he’s real and he’s spectacular. Ingle was ranked the 7th best Guardians prospect by this site, 4th in the Guardians system by Baseball America, 3rd by MLB Pipeline, 10th by FanGraphs, 5th by ESPN and 7th by the Athletic.
Drafted as a catcher, recently, Ingle has seen a bunch of time in left field. It will be interesting to see if the team mostly abandons him catching or if he mixes in occasionally with Patrick Bailey and Austin Hedges. It certainly cannot hurt to have him hanging out with those two.
I applaud the Guardians for their aggression with promotions. Would have been nice to have Ingle in Chicago… but I should not complain. I am very excited to have tickets for his likely debut tonight. Bringing my 3 year-old daughter for Ingle and fireworks as the Mariners come to town. Now, if the rain will just hold off…
AROUND MLB:
The Royals and Tigers lost.
The Pope says he is following the White Sox’ season. Explains a lot tbh.
MLB and MLBPA are still exchanging CBA ideas and insults.
