Here are the latest minor moves from around baseball, with the newest transactions at the top of the post…
- The Braves released southpaw Matt Marksberry, according to the pitcher himself earlier this week on his Facebook page. Marksberry posted a 5.06 ERA, 7.8 K/9 and 1.35 K/BB rate over 26 2/3 innings with Atlanta from 2015-16. He suffered a severe health scare last fall when he was placed in a medically-induced coma following a seizure that caused a collapsed lung, though Marksberry appears to be recovering well from that terrifying situation.
- The Cardinals signed righty Josh Zeid to a minor league deal, as per Zeid himself via Twitter. Zeid pitched 48 1/3 innings out of the Astros bullpen in 2013-14, after joining the organization as part of the trade package sent by Philadelphia to Houston for Hunter Pence in July 2011. Zeid spent 2015 and 2016 in the minors with the Tigers and Mets, respectively, and he most recently pitched for Israel in the World Baseball Classic.
- Outfielder David Denson announced his retirement from baseball via a message on his Facebook page. Denson made history in 2015 when he became the first active player in affiliated baseball to publicly announce that he was gay, and he tells Tom Haudricourt and Todd Rosiak of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that “leaving the game has nothing to do with my coming out. That wasn’t a factor at all. This was a decision I made purely from a baseball standpoint.” Instead, Denson said that he simply lost his passion for playing the game. Denson was a 15th-round pick of the Brewers in the 2013 draft, and he hit .229/.338/.368 over 1269 career plate appearances, making it to the High-A level in Milwaukee’s farm system.
- The Blue Jays released outfielder Jacob Anderson, Baseball America’s Matt Eddy reports. Toronto picked Anderson out of high school with the 35th overall selection of the 2011 draft, though he only made it as high as A-ball in five pro seasons, managing a .204/.271/.302 slash line.
Best of luck to Matt Marksberry. Super nice guy and I hope he has a long career.
Losing passion for your career at 22 is really young,. Regardless – Good luck, Denson. .
It may me young, but think of all the years of playing highly competitive ball, with crazy parents, everyone telling you that you’re the best, etc….at some point, you gotta reflect on where you came from, see where you may/may not be going and make a decision. He did. He got to a point where most of us never have and it did not work out. Time to find his next challenge in life. Wish we all had that opportunity at 22 to start over.
Yeah I suppose, that would be like heading to the cubicle at 7 years old. I would be sick of the that cubicle by 22 too.
Not to mention that minor leaguers really don’t get paid much of anything. That’s one reason why the attrition rate in the low minors tends to be so high.
Much respect and best of luck to David Denson. It sounds like his teammates and opposing players were nothing but respectful and accepting of him and that’s important for the next baseball player to come out openly. It’s quite a contrast to the Billy Bean situation in the ’80s, although he didn’t come out until after his career was over. But many of his teammates and opponents and managers knew and he was treated quite poorly by many of them. It’s progress.
Hopefully in the next few years a major leaguer will be willing to come out because of guys like Denson. Progress.
Definitely, great to see. Good luck to him in the future.