« East Notes: Murphy, Cano, Perez, Rays | Main | Central Notes: Twins, Scherzer, Shields, Samardzija »

Minor Moves: Valdez, Diaz, Gonzalez, Souza, McCoy

By Jeff Todd [November 15, 2013 at 6:18pm CST]

Here are today's minor moves, all via Matt Eddy of Baseball America (links to Twitter) unless otherwise noted ...

Middle infielder Jeudy Valdez will join fellow former Padre Aaron Cunningham in moving to the Cubs organization, reports Chris Cotillo of MLBDailyDish.com. The 24-year-old, who has posted double-digit home runs and steals in each of the last four seasons, does not receive a Spring Training invite in the deal.
The Marlins have signed shortstop Juan Diaz to a minor league deal. Eddy calls the 24-year-old a possible diamond in the rough.
Righties Juan Gonzalez and Justin Souza have inked minor league pacts with the Dodgers. Gonzalez is a 23-year-old who just transitioned to the bullpen, where he put up a 2.14 ERA -- driven by a large drop in his career walk rates -- in 46 1/3 innings thrown for the Rockies' Double-A affiliate. Cotillo first reported the Gonzalez signing (via Twitter), nothing that he received a lot of interest. Souza, meanwhile, is a 27-year-old bullpen arm coming off of a 4.58 ERA over 55 innings pitched between the Double-A and Triple-A outposts of the Tigers.
The Red Sox have reached minor league deals with lefty Tommy Layne and shortstop Mike McCoy. In his age-28 season, Layne put up a 4.50 ERA over 46 innings for the Pads' top affiliate in Tucson, but posted a 2.08 ERA in 8 2/3 big league innings (though he registered just 6.2 K/9 against 5.2 BB/9 in his 14 outings). McCoy has played in over a season's worth of MLB games, though spread over four years of brief apearances. His career triple-slash is .190/.273/.256 over 380 plate appearances.
The Diamondbacks have signed minor league free agents Danny Dorn, an outfielder, and Mark Thomas, a backstop. Dorn is a 28-year-old fresh off a .258/.335/.460 campaign in 565 Triple-A plate appearances at Toledo. Thomas is known as a defensive whiz behind the dish, but hit just .151/.195/.274 in 202 plate appearances last year for the Rays' Double-A squad in his age-25 season.
There are a host of new minor league deals out of Cincinnati, with the Reds inking lefty Lee Hyde, second baseman Rey Navarro, outfielder Mike Wilson, and catchers Rossmel Perez and Max Ramirez. Hyde, a 28-year-old former fourth-round pick, returns to the Cinci organization after a 1.98 ERA campaign in 54 2/3 innings spent mostly in Double-A. Navarro and Perez just played their age-23 seasons at Double-A. Wilson registered a sightly .300/.368/.472 slash in his age-thirty season at Triple-A in the Padres' organization. And Ramirez had a poor season at 28 years of age after putting up two straight better-than-.800 OPS years at the Triple-A level.
Heading to the Rockies as minor league free agents are lefty Pedro Hernandez, righty Nate Striz, and second baseman Rafael Ynoa. Hernandez washed out of Minnesota after getting bombed in twelve big league starts, though he was much more effective in the minors and is still just 24. Striz just turned 25, but has only thrown three innings above the High-A level. At 26, Ynoa is coming off of a series of campaigns in which he's just topped the .700 OPS level at Double-A; the former Dodger farmhand gets on base at a solid clip, though, and has stolen a decent number of bags (though he's also been caught at a troubling rate).
And staying with the Angels are righty Orangel Arenas, outfielder Julio Concepcion, and shorstop Jimmy Swift. Arenas made it to Triple-A for a brief stint last year at age 24 but was hit hard; Cotillo was the first to report the news of his signing (on Twitter). Concepcion has not moved past low-A ball and is 23 years old. And Swift, 25, was better at Triple-A (.303/.336/.422 in 118 plate appearances) than at Double-A (.259/.291/.367 in 324 plate appearances) in 2013.