The Tigers announced that they have acquired right-hander Greg Ross from the Braves (Twitter link). The move completes the August 31st trade that sent Jeff Baker from Detroit to Atlanta for a player to be named later.
Ross, 23, spent the 2012 season with Atlanta's Class A Rome affiliate, posting a 4.60 ERA with 7.3 K/9 and 2.7 BB/9 in 131 innings. The 2011 18th round selection started 21 games, pitching out of the bullpen in four others.
Baker, 31, has appeared in ten games for the Braves this month, mostly as a pinch hitter and pinch runner. He has a career .295/.344/.499 batting line against left-handed pitching.
Quick baseball nerd question:
Since he was the PTBNL, now named, does the fact that he was a PTBNL before Aug 31st count as him being in the org then, making him eligible for the playoff roster if the Tigers make it?
He’s a 23 year old A ball pitcher, so I think it is irrelevant. But if the PTBNL was a reasonable major leaguer, that would be interesting.
No, because he was still with his previous organization until being sent to fulfill the PTBNL role.
If I had to guess, I would say they would NOT be eligible. How can a player be part of two organizations at the same time? (He’s playing for his current organization but would have to be “in” the other team’s organization while he’s doing it.) If he’s in your organization, shouldn’t you be responsible for his salary? If you’re paying him how can he play for somebody else, and if you’re not how can he play for you? I can also envision an unlikely but possible scenario where it is used to mess with a rival during the season and yet still maintain playoff eligibility.
Meanwhile, I see no positives to offset the question marks. If you want to acquire a player who is good enough to be a part of your playoff run, and you’re not doing it for some nefarious purpose, why not just name him and get him in the organization as fast as possible? We’re envisioning a scenario here where two teams agree pre-agree to a list of major-league ready players the other team can pick, but they can’t narrow it down to one? That’s really not how PTBNLs are used. They get used when something isn’t important enough to hold the deal up over (or to hide players who aren’t eligible to be traded yet).
Of course all of that is just speculation, I’m not sure what the rulebook actually says.
Sometimes the PTBNL isn’t eligible until he’s with the original team long enough…such as last year in one of the trades wwe made our PTBNL was a MiLer who was signed that year and they couldn’t (by the rules) trade him for a full year.
Now he just has to become John Smoltz so the Tigers can be even!
18th round pick in 2011. Finished out 2011 in rookie league, then 2012 in A ball.
Good. Let’s make him closer, and release Valverde.
World Series here we come!
I would have rather had a draft pick instead..