Here are the day’s minor moves:
- The Brewers moved right-hander Tyler Thornburg to the 60-day disabled list in order to create a 40-man roster spot for the newly-acquired Gerardo Parra, the club announced. Thornburg has been on the DL since early June with an elbow injury and still seems weeks away from a return, if he pitches again in 2014 at all.
- The Athletics released embattled former closer Jim Johnson, per a club announcement. Brought in via trade, Johnson failed to deliver on his $10MM salary. The A’s will be responsible for the rest of it, less the prorated league minimum rate if Johnson catches on with a new team.
- The Athletics outrighted outfielder Kenny Wilson to Double-A yesterday, according to the MLB transactions page. The speedy 24-year-old outfielder has been no stranger to transactions this year, as he obviously holds appeal to clubs but is hard to keep on a 40-man roster.
- Catching up on the always-shifting DFA rolls, the following players are currently in limbo, per MLBTR’s DFA tracker: Jake Elmore (Athletics), Nick Noonan and Jose De Paula (Giants), Juan Carlos Oviedo and Erik Bedard (Rays), Jeff Francis and Brian Roberts (Yankees), Josh Wall (Pirates), and Ryan Wheeler (Rockies).
Biggest issue with Kenny is he was delayed in development due to a should problem that was surgically repaired and started to age out becoming rule 5 exposed leading to rushing to put him on the 40 man roster before he was ready.
LAD should be all over J Johnson
Why, don’t the Dodgers already have enough over the hill former closers (Perez, Wilson, League)? He’s most likely retuning to Baltimore since he has a good relationship with the team.
I would ditch Perez to see if J Johnson can get a spark. Perez has a .262 BABIP and still blows, JJ has a .390 BABIP with a 56% GB rate. I do not see the downside to trying, honestly. Perez is horrible…
well except that if he does well for a month, Ned will hand him 8MM a year.
Detroit is going to add Jim Johnson to their failed closer repertoire.
a’s fan here: good idea, keep adding on, maybe “T’s” can make magic, too!
I think he’s going back to the Os.
He was one of the virtual captains and very big figure in the bullpen, and clubhouse. A lot of respect for him by everyone in the org. So I think getting shipped so suddenly was deeply wounding to him. He came to a new team, had to build up that respect from square one, got off to a bad start that snowballed, and never looked like himself while on the As. Everytime I saw him in an As uniform he seemed to have a lost hurt look.
I feel bad for the As fans because, on paper, he should have thrived there, which is probably why Beane pulled the trigger in the first place. This should have been one of his deals that scored big. Oh well.