The Angels announced today that right-hander José Marte was reinstated from the 60-day injured list and optioned to Triple-A Salt Lake. To make room for him on the 40-man roster, righty Zack Weiss was designated for assignment. Additionally, catcher Chad Wallach cleared waivers and accepted an outright assignment to Salt Lake.
Weiss, 31, was first added to the Angels’ roster in September of last year. In that span of just under a full year, he’s served as a frequently-optioned depth arm for the club, tossing 18 2/3 innings in the majors, allowing 3.86 earned runs per nine frames in that time. He struck out 30.9% of batters faced but also walked 11.1%.
This year, he’s spent the majority of his time in Triple-A, tossing 37 1/3 innings with a 6.03 ERA. That’s been in the hitter-friendly Pacific Coast League but Weiss has still walked 14% of opponents, which hasn’t helped matters. It seems those control issues have nudged him off the roster. Since the trade deadline went by long ago, the Angels will have to put Weiss on waivers in the coming days. Despite his struggles with the free passes, he’s always had decent strikeout numbers to go with and could perhaps garner interest from other clubs.
He has less than a year of service time and a full slate of options, which could appeal to a club in search of some depth and with the ability to have some long-term patience. If he were to clear waivers, he lacks the previous career outright and three years of major league service necessary to elect free agency, though he would qualify for minor league free agency if not on a roster at season’s end.
Marte, 27, will take that roster spot from Weiss. He was placed on the injured list in March due to a right elbow stress reaction and has only just now been activated. He’s a similar pitcher to Weiss, in that he generally pair high strikeout numbers with high walk totals. In 15 major league innings, he’s punched out 26.3% of opponents while giving free passes to 27.6% in that small sample. In Triple-A last year, he had a 29.5% strikeout rate and 14.7% walk rate.
