An unknown team claimed Ramon Hernandez on waivers, according to Jon Heyman of SI.com (Twitter links). However, the Reds pulled the catcher back off of waivers, so he'll be staying in Cincinnati.
The 35-year-old earns $3MM this year and projects as a Type A free agent, so it's not hard to see why the Reds are keeping him. He'll only cost $500K or so for the remainder of the season and could bring Cincinnati draft picks next year. Hernandez, a 13-year veteran, has a .288/.345/.458 line with 11 homers in 290 plate appearances so far this season.
Angels?
Really he shouldn’t have made it past the Astros
surprise surprise…
Hernandez may be a Type A free agent, but it’s hard to imagine a team giving up a first round pick to sign him–or a second round pick for a team in the bottom half of the league. The Reds might have to go through arbitration with him, then trade him.
More surprising things have happened. Catching depth seems to be a commodity of late, so, I wouldn’t be shocked if someone gave up a first round pick for him. But, the Reds haven’t really offered arbitration to type A free agents here of late anyhow, so, this is probably all moot.
Shocker it’s a unknown team whoopee pie
It has to be the Giants. They are pretty desperate for a catcher.
and the reds raised a middle finger to them
If he made it to the Giants in the waiver process, they definitely should have claimed him. I’m surprised he wasn’t traded to them before the deadline, with the Reds being pretty much out of the race by then and also having depth at C … and the Giants in desperate need at that position.
Unless he’s told them he will decline arb then this is stupid….
I honestly don’t understand this. The defense is that he’s a type A, yeah I get that, but like someone else said, I don’t see someone giving up a draft pick to sign a 35 (might as well say 36) year old catcher. I see us going through arbitration with him and then trying to trade, but who’s to say we didn’t try to trade him at the deadline and didn’t have any takers? Probably not likely, but you never know. Meanwhile, Mesoraco sits in Louisville, our catcher of the future who could use some big league reps, but that won’t happen because carrying 4 catchers on your 40 man is ridiculous. Bad handling of this situation IMO and even worse handling of the Grandal contract, but that’s another day and another soapbox.