Minor Notes: Trades, signings, and surgery

Monday's minor league notes:

• After completing his 80-game suspension, SoxProspects.com's top-ranked prospect, infielder Michael Chavis (pictured, right), will make his season debut on Monday the team announced. While he will begin the year with the Lowell Spinners, it is almost certainly just for him to get re-acclimated as Chavis should be sent to Portland in short order.
• There is a lot of action going on between the draft, international signings, and trades. Luckily the SoxProspects.com Podcast is here with their latest episode to keep it all straight for you.
• Monday also marks the beginning of the 2018-2019 International Signing Period, where international prospects 16 years old and older can sign with major league organizations. Many of these deals are discussed in advanced and therefore there is always a flurry of activity on the opening day. Ben Badler of Baseball America's has an excellent preview of this for the AL East.
• Badler also has an international free agent tracker to keep tabs on all the signings for each team. Several of the players named in his preview have already signed, the most prominent of which are Dominican outfielders Bryan Gonzalez, who signed for $500,000, and Eduardo Lopez, who Badler said was expected to sign for around $1.15 million. MLB.com's Jesse Sanchez was the first one to report the bonus number for Lopez and has more detail on the signing. Lopez was ranked 20th by Baseball America and 23rd by MLB.com.

• The Red Sox began the period with a pool of $4,983,500 to sign players, but they are allowed to trade for pool money from other teams, as long as they acquire no more than 75% of another team's initial pool money. Already on Monday, the Red Sox proved they wanted to expand their pool by trading Greenville outfielder Lorenzo Cedrola (pictured, left) to the Reds, a very similar move to last year when they traded Nick Longhi. The 20-year-old Cedrola has had a strong start to the season, hitting .318/.350/.427 over 22 plate appearances. He was recently moved up to 31st on the SoxProspects.com rankings.
• That wasn't the only trade recently for Boston as the Red Sox also dealt for Blue Jays outfielder Steve Pearce this past week. In return, they sent 23-year old shortstop Santiago Espinal, who was playing for Salem. SoxProspects.com Executive Editor Chris Hatfield on Twitter laid out the type of player Red Sox GM Dave Dombrowski likes to deal and how Espinal fit the mold perfectly. Espinal was enjoying his best season as a pro, hitting .313/.363/.477 over 53 at-bats with seven home runs and 15 doubles. Check out his player page for a detailed scouting report from Ian Cundall and the scouting team.
• The Red Sox will have three players represent them at the Eastern League All-Star Game in first baseman Josh Ockimey, and lefties Matt Kent and Kyle Hart. Ockimey has hit .252/.377/.463 this year with 11 home runs, Kent is 5-5 with a respectable 3.68 ERA and 1.23 WHIP, and Hart is also 5-5 with a 3.68 ERA and 1.39 WHIP. The one potential snub is Kent and Hart's rotation-mate Michael Shawaryn, who had a better ERA (3.57) and WHIP (1.10) than either. Shawaryn is also the more highly ranked prospect, currently ranked 7th on the SoxProspects.com rankings.
• According to Derek Terry of CatsPulse.com, the Red Sox have signed 2018 16th round pick Chris Machamer out of the University of Kentucky. Machamer, a closer for the Wildcats, leaves after throwing 35 1/3 innings this year as a sophomore with a 3.06 ERA, 1.07 WHIP, 10 saves, and 38 strikeouts to nine walks. At this time, his signing bonus is unknown.
• A couple injury notes: The Red Sox announced 2018 first round draft pick Triston Casas underwent successful thumb surgery. While he is out for the rest of the year, he is expected to be ready for the start of the 2019 season. Also, outfielder Kyri Washington posted on Twitter that he has undergone successful Tommy John surgery with Dr. James Andrews.

Players of the Week

Luke Tendler, OF, Portland Sea Dogs

4 G, 17 AB, 8 H, 3 2B, 1 HR, 3 R, 4 RBI, 1 BB, 5 K, .471/.500/.824

Luke Tendler (pictured, right), playing his first season in the organization after beginning his career with Texas, has had a solid start, hitting .262/.325/.439 over his first 61 games. However, when you look at his season you see that his performance has continually been trending upward, culminating with his Player of the Week honors this week. His batting average and slugging percentages have increased each of the three full months of the season thus far.

While Tendler only appeared in four games this past week, he was excellent in each one with two hits in each. His best game of the week came on Saturday, when he went 2-for-5 with a double and a home run. 

Josh A. Smith, RHP, Pawtucket Red Sox

3 G, 8.1 IP, 0-0, 0.00 ERA, 5 H, 1 BB, 11 K, 0.72 WHIP

Josh A. Smith has had a bit of a rocky ride thus far in 2018 for the Pawtucket Red Sox. Smith began the year with the Seattle Mariners organization, pitching for the Triple-A Tacoma Rainiers. Over four appearances for the Rainiers, Smith had a 6.10 ERA and .962 OPS against over 10 1/3 inning before being released on April 24th. He was signed by the Red Sox on May 16th and over his first three appearances for Pawtucket he allowed 13 earned runs over 7 1/3 innings.

Smith had completely different results this week. Last Monday and this past Thursday, he appeared out of the bullpen, throwing a scoreless 2 innings and 1 1/3 innings, respectively. He capped off the week with a strong start on Sunday, throwing 5 scoreless innings with three hits, no walks, and five strikeouts. Those three appearances this week allowed Smith to lower his ERA from 10.19 coming into the week, down to 6.92 to end the week. 

Photo Credit: Michael Chavis, Lorenzo Cedrola, and Luke Tendler by Kelly O'Connor.

Will Woodward is a Co-Owner and Senior Staff Writer for SoxProspects.com. Follow him on Twitter @SPWill.

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