The Astros announced they acquired veteran lefty reliever Oliver Perez from the Diamondbacks for minor league southpaw Junior Garcia. Houston moved righty Sam Deduno to the 60-day DL to open a spot for Perez, while Arizona announced that it will select the contract of lefty Keith Hessler to take Perez’s place on its active roster.
Perez, 34 next week, has a 3.10 ERA, 11.5 K/9, 3.4 BB/9, 0.62 HR/9, and 38.9% groundball rate in 29 innings for Arizona this year. This year he’s faced an even number of lefty and righty hitters and has been more effective against left-handed batters, as you would expect. Perez joins Tony Sipp as another lefty option out of Houston’s bullpen, which ranks second in the American League with a 2.70 ERA. The Astros had designated lefty reliever Joe Thatcher for assignment on July 21st, though he remained in the organization on a minor league deal.
Perez spent his first nine seasons in the Majors as a starter for the Padres, Pirates, and Mets before beginning a bit of a career renaissance as a reliever for the Mariners. He signed a two-year free agent deal with the Diamondbacks in March 2014 and will be a free agent after the season.
Garcia, 19, signed with the Astros out of the Dominican Republic for $200K late in 2012. He mostly pitched in the Gulf Coast League in 2014 and got good results, although he posted a 3.9 BB/9 for the season. He’s improved upon that mark in 2015 while pitching in the Appalachian League and the NY-Penn League, posting an 0.96 ERA, 6.3 K/9 and 1.7 BB/9 in 37 1/3 innings. He’s so far from the Majors, though, that parsing his statistics probably misses the point. He’ll provide the Diamondbacks’ system with a bit of left-handed pitching depth and upside.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.
Never mind. Fixed.
I’d forgotten about him completely, but he’s handled lefties well this year (better than his more even career splits). Wouldn’t he have been a safer pickup for the Mets than O’Flaherty, or are the Mets just never going to want him back?
Deals coming fast,
Am I the only one that doesn’t have a clue what the D-Backs are trying to do? They are well behind in July and make no trades whatsoever, but they get hot in August and are within striking distance of the WC and now they are selling off pieces? That franchise has really become as much of a punch line as the Marlins.
I wouldn’t say they’re within striking distance of the WC. They’re two games below .500 with a pretty poor squad that doesn’t project well the rest of the way, plus number of really good teams ahead of them. Doesn’t surprise me that they’re selling now. They should be. I don’t know what was up with the lack of trades in July though. Maybe they just couldn’t find a deal they liked.
There’s not a number of really good teams ahead of them. There’s the Cubs,Giants, and the struggling Nationals between them and the 2nd WC. I’m not saying it would be easy or guaranteed by any means, but 7 games can be made up in 2 months. It’s been done many times in the past. And, BTW projections don’t really mean anything because projections said the Indians were going to win the WS this year. How’d that work out?
8 back just for a play in game without a dominant ace or bullpen isn’t what you want to go for, especially with how good the cubs have been since recalling schwarber, he has added a new dynamic to their offense.
So giving up is what you want to go for? Eh, whatever floats your boat, but it’s not the way I would do it.
I was calling for this for the past 6 weeks. Thank god the Astros have an arm for high leverage situational K’s vs lefties. Not sure how Perez made it to the Astros on waivers. Hes cheap and has been outstanding this season.