The Braves have announced that they’ve released first baseman Ernesto Mejia after reaching an agreement with the Seibu Lions of the Japanese Pacific League to allow him to play for them. Mejia had been on the Braves’ 40-man roster.
Mejia, 28, had been at Triple-A Gwinnett, where he had a line of .354/.420/.684 in 88 plate appearances. Mejia holds a career .279/.341/.513 line at Triple-A, but he only plays first base and was blocked at the big-league level by Freddie Freeman. He had collected 1,198 plate appearances at the Triple-A level since 2012, never collecting a single at-bat in the Majors.
makes sense. He’s been a beast in the minors, just never translated to the majors….wishing him the best of luck in Japan, some guys revive their careers there ie Casey McGehee.
Babe Ruth wouldn’t have translated into the Majors if he never got a chance.
Bad decision for the Braves, he would be a real good prospect to put in a trade. Dude was a powerhouse in the minors.
If he was trade material, he would have already been traded.
He wasn’t exactly going to supplant Freeman.
Exactly, even with the case of a Freeman injury I would expect that he would only have seen backup duties in the bigs with Doumit/Johnson probably seeing more starts. I think the guy is a AAAA player, he has dynamite in his bat, but nothing more of that. I am glad personally he is going to Japan, if he has a run at being a big league starter he will have to get momentum overseas.
It’s still a little odd that they wouldn’t try a AAAA player exchange with some team.
I mean, if nothing else, this dude could probably place top three in a worldwide Pujols lookalike contest.
Touche..
I don’t understand why we didn’t try him in LF or something.
he was basically a dh that stood on first base wearing a glove. they would’ve tried him in left if it was an option, especially since just a couple years ago they were hunting for a power hitting LFer.
Just because a guy plays 1B does not mean he could play OF
because that’s where Justin Upton plays…
I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a prospect handled as poorly as the Braves handled Mejia over the years. Everyone knew he wasn’t going to get a shot in Atlanta with Freeman in place, but there was a point in time when Frank Wren could have actually gotten something (even if it was a PTBNL) for this guy. Wren painted himself in a corner sitting on his hands and this result has been about 2 years in the making. Wish Ernesto the best in Japan.
He’s widely viewed as an AAAA player. It wasn’t like Wren was just sitting on his hands here, Bowman said they had been trying to trade Mejia for 2-3 years with no takers.
Trading Mejia would have netted the Braves nothing that would have helped them.
Seems like he was tailor made as a DH in the AL. I wonder if that avenue was explored. I have to assume it was.
I wish him the best of luck. Who knows, he may turn things around in Japan getting to play more, and earn a spot on somebody’s roster.
Couldn’t hit a curveball, couldn’t field a position. teams don’t exactly line up for a dh that makes his living off minor league fastballs.
I’m surprised that Meija wasn’t at least converted to an outfielder once it became clear that Freddie Freeman would be ensconced as the long-term first baseman.
My understanding of the Meija situation was that he was a good bad ball hitter, and that scouts and the organization didn’t feel like his really good minor league number would translate to the big leagues. That being said, this is a good move for him as it will allow him to see some better pitching and see if he can keep that slash line.
I know that..but he hasn’t always. I’m sure a team starved for offense like Houston could have given us maybe a utility player or maybe a bullpen prospect arm for him.