{"id":796619,"date":"2026-09-04T18:00:16","date_gmt":"2026-09-04T18:00:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/796619\/"},"modified":"2026-09-04T18:00:16","modified_gmt":"2026-09-04T18:00:16","slug":"guardians-promote-austin-peterson-dfa-carlos-hernandez","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/796619\/","title":{"rendered":"Guardians Promote Austin Peterson, DFA Carlos Hern\u00e1ndez"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Guardians announced Friday that they\u2019ve recalled right-hander Austin Peterson<\/a> from Triple-A Columbus and designated reliever Carlos Hern\u00e1ndez<\/a> for assignment. Cleveland also reinstated righty Slade Cecconi<\/a> from the 15-day injured list and placed setup man Colin Holderman<\/a> on the 15-day IL due to right wrist inflammation. It\u2019s Peterson\u2019s first call to the majors; he\u2019ll make his debut the first time he takes the mound.<\/p>\n

Peterson will turn 27 in two weeks. The right-hander was selected to the major league roster last November in order to protect him from December\u2019s Rule 5 Draft. He\u2019s a 2022 ninth-round pick who was coming off a strong 3.21 ERA in 145 2\/3 innings split between the Double-A and Triple-A levels, which would\u2019ve given him a strong chance at being scooped up by another club had he been left unprotected.<\/p>\n

The 2026 season hasn\u2019t gone as smoothly. Peterson has pitched exclusively in Triple-A this season, making 19 starts and a pair of bulk relief appearances behind an opener. He\u2019s turned in a 4.53 ERA, though that\u2019s surely been inflated to some extent by a hefty .340 average on balls in play and a slightly low 68.2% strand rate. His 24.9% strikeout rate and 8.3% walk rate are both quality marks.<\/p>\n

Peterson was diagnosed with a triceps strain early in spring training this year, which delayed his season debut until the end of April. He\u2019s been on a roll of late, allowing no more than three earned runs in any of his past seven trips to the mound. He\u2019s totaled 35 innings in that span and recorded a 3.34 ERA with a 35-to-7 K\/BB ratio.<\/p>\n

The 6\u20196\u2033, 234-pound Peterson has a huge frame but doesn\u2019t throw especially hard. He\u2019s averaged 92.9 mph on his four-seamer this year and 93.1 mph on his sinker. He\u2019ll also incorporate a cutter (88 mph average), slider (81.1 mph), changeup (87.9 mph) and very occasional curveball (77.9 mph) as part of a deep six-pitch repertoire.<\/p>\n

Despite last year\u2019s strong showing, neither Baseball America nor MLB.com list Peterson among Cleveland\u2019s top 30 prospects. He\u2019s 22nd over at FanGraphs<\/a>, where Eric Longenhagen and Brendan Gawlowski tab him as a potential multi-inning reliever or spot starter who\u2019ll do his best work against righty-heavy lineups given the below-average nature of his changeup.<\/p>\n

Hern\u00e1ndez, 29, was only selected to the major league roster a couple days ago. He\u2019s pitched three innings and allowed a pair of runs on five hits and a walk with four strikeouts. He threw 25 pitches in two innings Wednesday and another 26 pitches in an inning of work last night. That would very likely have rendered him unavailable today on a day where Cleveland is playing a doubleheader against the Tigers. As such, they\u2019ll shuffle him off the roster in and bring in Peterson as a candidate to bring some length to the bullpen. Lefties Logan Allen<\/a> and Foster Griffin<\/a> are slated to start today\u2019s two games for Cleveland.<\/p>\n

Hern\u00e1ndez has pitched in parts of seven major league seasons, mostly with division-rival Kansas City. He\u2019s totaled 302 2\/3 frames with a 5.14 ERA. The right-hander throws extremely hard, averaging just shy of 98 mph on his four-seamer, but doesn\u2019t generate the number of whiffs or chases one might expect with that premium velocity. He\u2019s also too prone to walks (career 11.1%). Now that the trade deadline has passed, Cleveland will have to either place him on outright waivers or release him. If Hern\u00e1ndez clears waivers, he\u2019d have the right to reject an outright assignment in favor of free agency.<\/p>\n

As for Holderman, losing him for even a short spell is a tough hit to Cleveland\u2019s bullpen. The former Pirates righty flamed out in Pittsburgh but has had a resurgence since moving to Progressive Field. He\u2019s pitched 52 2\/3 innings for the Guards and posted a 2.73 ERA, 22.5% strikeout rate, 9% walk rate and 53.9% ground-ball rate en route to 11 holds and a save. The Guardians signed Holderman to a $1.5MM deal after the Bucs non-tendered him. He\u2019s still controllable via arbitration through the 2028 campaign.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Guardians announced Friday that they\u2019ve recalled right-hander Austin Peterson from Triple-A Columbus and designated reliever Carlos Hern\u00e1ndez…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":796620,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2290],"tags":[60659,5,6160,12858,9113],"class_list":["post-796619","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-baseball","tag-austin-peterson","tag-baseball","tag-carlos-hernandez","tag-colin-holderman","tag-slade-cecconi"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/117214080097992747","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/796619","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=796619"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/796619\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/796620"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=796619"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=796619"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=796619"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}