The Padres have placed righty Dan Straily on waivers, FOX Sports’ Ken Rosenthal tweets. Straily was out of options.
The Padres, of course, acquired Straily for catcher Erik Kratz in a minor deal with the Astros earlier this week. It appears their interest in Straily wasn’t particularly strong, or at least that they didn’t have an immediate use for him. They could be hoping to use him as minor-league depth if they anticipate he’ll go through the waiver process unclaimed.
Straily was once a regular in the Astros’ rotation, but he appeared in only four big-league games last season. He spent most of the year at Triple-A Fresno, posting a 4.77 ERA but with 9.1 K/9 and 1.8 BB/9 in 122 2/3 innings. For his big-league career, the 27-year-old has a 4.60 ERA, 7.5 K/9 and 3.6 BB/9.
I think that should be “was once a regular member of the A’s rotation. 41 starts for the A’s over three seasons before being moved to the Cubs. Only three starts in four appearances for the Astros, not exactly a regular member of the rotation.
Thank you for saving me a trip to BBRef. I was confused.
It’s April Fools so they’re purposely getting one Dan Straily fact wrong per post hahaha get it
Astros:”cool, we got Kranz for free” lol
In defense, the Padres got Kratz essentially for free as he was signed in November as a free agent. He wasn’t going to make the MLB club, so he would have had to accept assignment to AAA to stay with the Padres. Now he has an MLB job as a backup backstop.
He wasn’t going to make the El Paso roster either. Hedges and Gale have that locked up, with Hagerty as a fall-back position if they need someone for a short while.
Also, chances are pretty good the Astros employees actually know the name of the catcher.
I wish Straily could somehow come to the Angels — that being said, he would be stashed at AAA. So, he’ll need to pass through waivers and elect free agency.
I would want them to try and bring back Gonzalez
The rest of the AL West would want you guys to bring back Gonzalez too.
the angels have a pitchers park so I think Gonzalez would fit
Kratz is like one of the best backups in baseball at the moment but it’s just so funny how back ups come and go, like remember like 2 seasons ago John Buck was great
I honestly can’t tell if this post is sarcasm or not. If I had to rank all 30 backup catchers I am fairly certain that Kratz would be the worst. And if not, definitely bottom 5. He has a career .270 OBP and 78 wRC+ which is extremely pathetic
Dont you think you are setting the bar a little too high for a BACKUP catcher? Those numbers are par for the course for backup catchers. He’s a solid defender, or at least an average one, and he has some pop in his bat. That’s perfectly fine for a backup catcher. You could do a lot worse than Kratz as a backup.
Probably not “a lot,” but you could do worse.
Actually, no I am setting the bar based on research and common sense. Kratz is 35, had 28 PA last year and projects to be the 61st best catcher this year based on ZIPS projections (0.6 WAR). By my count that means every team could have 2 catchers better than Kratz. So not sure where you get the idea that “you could do a lot worse than Kratz”.
I get the idea that you can do a lot worse than Kratz because you CAN do a lot worse than Kratz. What you fail to mention is that his ZIPS projection is for just over 200 PA. Excluding this makes that projection fairly misleading he would produce more than 1 WAR if given a full season of ABs. Kratz’s Steamer600 projection has him at 1.7 WAR, 37th among all catchers, better than A.J. Pierzynski, Hank Conger, Jason Castro, and Calendar Joseph, to name a few. I’m not saying that Kratz is a great catcher, but he IS a serviceable backup that is better than a lot of other backup catchers and he’s even better than some primary catchers.