The Twins have claimed right-handed reliever Neil Ramirez off waivers from the Brewers and transferred Phil Hughes (knee) to the 60-day DL, Mike Berardino of the Pioneer Press was among those to report (Twitter links).
Ramirez, 27, threw just 1 2/3 innings during his brief stint with the Brewers, who claimed him off waivers from the Cubs on May 31. In his time with those two teams this season, Ramirez yielded a combined six earned runs, three home runs and eight walks in 9 1/3 innings. The former 44th overall pick isn’t far removed from major league success, however. As a member of the Cubs from 2014-15, Ramirez totaled 57 2/3 frames of 1.87 ERA pitching, also posting an excellent 10.6 K/9 and a decent 3.6 BB/9 along the way. Ramirez has dealt with multiple injuries, though, and his fastball velocity has dropped as a result. He’ll now join a Twins bullpen that ranks fourth from the bottom in ERA (4.61), although the unit has the league’s fifth-best K/BB ratio (3.18).
Ramirez entered the season with 1.158 years of major league service time, meaning he comes with four more years of control. That also makes him a likely Super Two candidate this winter.
It’s hard for the Twins bullpen to walk anyone when they can’t throw 4 pitches to a batter without giving him one to crush somewhere.
Hope this works out for Ramirez. He’s a good guy, and when healthy, a damn good pitcher.
But he hadn’t been healthy for 2 years. Has lost quite a few ticks on the fast ball. Which is why Cubs let him go. His secondaries aren’t good enough to cover loss of velocity
Unbelievable
Ohh
I didn’t think he’d make it through waivers. Was kind of hoping the Pirates might take a look, but I didn’t think he’d make it that far.
Actually he made it past the Pirates and the rest of the National League as well. Waiver priority go to every team in the same league, worst to first, and then switches to the other league, also worst to first. If the Twins got him, that means every single NL team passed on him.
Is that right, Ray Ray? I’ve never heard of that before.
He’s correct, yes. The exception would be the first month of the season, when outright waiver priority is determined based on the previous year’s standings.