Second baseman Eric Sogard was among the many players the Athletics outrighted off their 40-man roster earlier this week. That may have ended Sogard’s tenure with the organization, as the 30-year-old has elected free agency in lieu of an assignment to Triple-A Nashville, according to Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle (Twitter link).
Sogard, whom the Padres chose in the second round of the 2007 draft, joined the A’s in 2010 in a trade that also sent Kevin Kouzmanoff to Oakland. Sogard garnered minimal major league experience over his first three seasons with the A’s, but his playing time picked up in earnest in 2013. Between then and 2015, Sogard amassed 1,140 plate appearances and batted a below-average .247/.305/.315. On the plus side, Sogard graded well on the base paths and in the field during that span, per FanGraphs, and he showed off some versatility by spending time at shortstop and third base.
Injuries were the main story during the 2016 campaign for Sogard, who began the year on the disabled list with a shoulder problem and then underwent season-ending knee surgery in April. Sogard made $1.5MM this year and was scheduled to go through arbitration for the third and final time during the offseason. He’ll instead hit free agency a year early.
Good bye specs
You can take the specs off of the man but you can’t take the man off of the specs?
Angels will sign him. He fits their budget and his all glove/no bat play will fit in nicely next to SuperStar SS Andrelton Simmons.
Edit: Not a knock on Sogard at all. Love him as a player and person.
Same would like him and Bartolo as signings for the halos in the offseason
Have fun with that league average defense at 2B and totally empty bat.
Not bad to roll the dice on this though. Not like the Angels will be going anywhere next year
How do you edit?
A bunch more Athletics elected free agency as well.. We reported it on our Athletics Farm site and twitter account last night – Jarrod Parker, Felix Doubront, Henderson Alvarez, Fernando Rodriguez and Matt McBride.