The Yankees announced that they have designated left-hander Josh Outman for assignment in order to clear roster space for outfielder Eury Perez, who was claimed off waivers from the Nationals earlier today. Meredith Marakovits of the YES Network first tweeted that Outman was packing up his locker, bringing about speculation that he’d be the corresponding roster move for Perez.
Outman, who turned 30 last week, appeared in nine games for the Yankees, totaling 3 2/3 innings of scoreless baseball. He faced a dozen hitters and set down 10 of them, dropping his season ERA to just 2.86. However, Outman’s lofty walk rate — he 16 free passes in 24 2/3 innings with Cleveland before being acquired by New York — kept him in the minors for much of the season and caused sabermetric marks such as FIP (4.82) to predict his ERA to be a mirage.
Right-handed hitters have always given Outman trouble, but he’s been lights-out against lefties in his career, yielding just a .186/.254/.283 batting line. Outman will finish the season with less than five years of Major League service, meaning that he can be controlled via arbitration for the 2015 and 2016 campaigns.
And so goes those great stirrups.