The Athletics announced on Friday that they’ve designated outfielder Brett Eibner for assignment in order to clear a spot on the 40-man roster for right-hander Santiago Casilla, whose two-year deal with the club is now official.
The 28-year-old Eibner’s stay with Oakland proved to be short-lived, as he was acquired from the Royals this past July in a straight-up swap for fellow outfielder Billy Burns. Eibner made his Major League debut with the Royals this season and also logged 123 plate appearances with Oakland, though he didn’t produce at the plate with either club. In a total of 208 trips to the plate, Eibner batted just .193/.266/.353.
Eibner, though, can play all three outfield positions and has a quite productive track record in Triple-A, where he’s spent parts of three seasons. At the top minor league level, Eibner’s a .280/.356/.474 hitter with 38 homers and 20 steals in 979 plate appearances. While he’s never rated as an elite prospect, he was a mainstay on Baseball America’s top 30 Royals prospect lists from 2010-15, ranking 17th as recently as two winters ago. BA noted that Eibner is a plus defender in center and an above-average runner with 15-homer pop. However, he’s also extremely streaky and prone to prolonged slumps, per their most recent report.
Eibner does have minor league options remaining, so any team that picks him up could send him to the minors without exposing him to waivers and utilize him as a depth piece even if there’s no immediately available place on the 25-man roster.
boo!
Phillies should get him
you can have both.
That was a bad move, they should have kept him and given him the 1st shot at the CF job next year because I doubt they bring Raji Davis back after this year
But Eibner is awful
Wouldn’t mind STL trying to get this guy as a depth piece, since it’s pretty much inevitable that Pham and Grichuk will get hurt at some point this year
And yet they keep the worse player in Smolinski, ugh.
Smolinski can hit circles around Eibner vs. lefties
Smolinski has a career .796 OPS vs LHP in MLB, Eibner hit .928 OPS in 2015 vs LHP in the minors and in 2016 hit .747 in the minors and .715 in his cup of coffee last year.
Hitting circles around = slightly better than?
They are both kind of bad though. Smolinski had a -0.3 fWAR last year and Eibner 0.2. The A’s would be smart to try out other players, because neither of them look like keepers.
Smolinski’s career OPS vs. lefty’s is over .850 but good try.
And last year Smolinski was exposed to righties due to the team being hit garbage. Platoon him and he destroys lefties. And he’s in his peak years. Eibner is still terrible.
*Hot Garbage
White Sox could use some added depth with Tilson coming back from injury and Melky being available if a trade suitor is found.
I wouldn’t be upset about it.
Reds should grab him and maybe platoon with Schlebler
Royals should pick him back up as depth since Solar is still unproven, Cain is injury prone, and Gordon hasn’t been the poster child of health of late either.
Can we just have Billy Burns back?
He’s awful. No thanks.