Here are Friday’s minor moves from around baseball…
- The Nationals have inked righty Mitch Lively to a minor league deal with a spring training invite, the club announced on Twitter. Washington also made several other previously-reported signings official. Lively, 29, had pitched exclusively in relief as a professional before converting to the rotation in 2013. He joined the Nationals in the middle of last year after opting out of his deal with the Giants.
- Former Marlins right-hander Rick VandenHurk has signed with the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks of Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball, the team announced (Japanese link). Though VandenHurk’s big league career never took off, the Dutch hurler has a solid Triple-A track record and even more impressive numbers from a recent stint in the hitter-friendly Korea Baseball Organization. The 29-year-old VandenHurk has pitched to a 3.55 ERA with 9.6 K/9 and 2.8 BB/9 in 296 1/3 innings with KBO’s Samsung Lions over the past two seasons. He led the KBO with a 3.18 ERA in 2014, averaging 10.6 strikeouts per nine innings.
