The Rangers have placed left-hander Wandy Rodriguez on release waivers, according to the team’s executive vice president of communications, John Blake (on Twitter).
Rodriguez, 36, was designated for assignment last week. Though he’s had a pair of disastrous outings over his past six appearances (he allowed eight runs in four innings on June 24 and seven runs in one inning on July 28), Rodriguez has been a serviceable rotation option in Texas for much of the season. Through his first 11 starts this season, Rodriguez worked to a 3.20 ERA with a 50-to-23 K/BB ratio in 64 2/3 innings.
Any team will have the ability to claim Rodriguez off release waivers, although doing so would mean agreeing to pay him any of the additional $1.8MM he can earn via performance incentives. It’s more likely that Rodriguez will clear release waivers and be free to sign with any team for the pro-rated portion of the Major League minimum (for any time spent on the new team’s active roster).
Multiple teams are on the lookout for rotation depth. The Yankees recently lost Michael Pineda to a forearm strain and will be without him for the next month, at least. The Royals lost Jason Vargas to Tommy John surgery shortly before the trade deadline, and the Angels may be without C.J. Wilson for the balance of the season. It’s also possible that a rebuilding team such as the Phillies could just look to Rodriguez as a source of innings every fifth day down the stretch in 2015 as they give their mid- to upper-level arms a bit more time to develop in the minors.
Can’t be much worse than Jerome Williams.
Just me or does it seem like Wandy has played for about 31 teams in the past two seasons?
We did sign him before injuries nullified the deal. Maybe give it a 2nd try?
now where are the naysayers who said the braves were worse off for releasing wandy and keeping stults.
well, stults has barely played in the majors at all, and until recently Wandy had pitched quite decently. So I would say that letting Wandy go was indeed the incorrect move.
I should amend that, Stults has been in the majors this year more than I thought, however he has been quite awful.
Even with Wandy’s pair of meltdowns, the difference between the two has been about a full win. Rodriguez threw 86 1/3 innings for the Rangers, the vast majority of which were pretty solid. I think it’s pretty easy to say the Braves would’ve been better off keeping him.
Wouldn’t have changed the season much, most likely, but tough to make the claim that there’s no discernible difference between the two.
Is it wrong of me that I mentally read the headline as “Wangers Welease Wandy Wodwiguez”?