Here are the latest minor moves from around the game, all via Baseball America’s Matt Eddy unless otherwise noted:
- Likewise, the Red Sox will bring back outfielder Aneury Tavarez on a minors pact. The 25-year-old qualified for minor-league free agency after a 2017 season in which he missed significant time due to injury. Tavarez had been taken in the Rule 5 draft by the Orioles, but was returned to Boston before playing in the Baltimore organization. He ended up slashing .244/.292/.400 in 145 Triple-A plate appearances.
- Braves lefty Ian Krol has elected free agency following his outright, as ESPN.com’s Jerry Crasnick first tweeted. The 26-year-old reliever worked to a 5.33 ERA over 49 frames in 2017, with 8.1 K/9 against 3.9 BB/9. The results weren’t exciting, obviously, but Krol did still average a healthy 93.7 mph with his fastball and recorded a career-best 11.4% swinging-strike rate, so he’s likely to draw plenty of interest from organizations looking for bullpen competition and depth in camp.
- Similarly, Athletics righty Chris Smith took free agency after being outrighted off of the 40-man roster. The 36-year-old handled 55 2/3 MLB innings in Oakland over nine starts and five relief appearances, but surrendered 2.6 homers and 6.79 earned runs per nine innings. Smith had never before topped 46 innings in a single season over his unusual career.
- Other right-handed pitchers taking free agency include Jacob Turner of the Nationals and Jose Valdez of the Padres. The 26-year-old Turner made it back to the majors with the Nats, but managed only a 5.08 ERA in his 39 frames of action. A former top prospect, Turner averaged better than 95 mph on his fastball for the first time in his career, but carried a marginal 6.0% swinging-strike rate. Valdez, 27, was knocked around for 15 earned runs on seven home runs in 17 MLB frames last year, though he did record 16 strikeouts against just four walks. He has spent time in the bigs with three organizations in the past three campaigns.
Well all of these players and stats will help there career out lol. Good way to advertise them.
And Valdez thinks he has a better offer out there than on the rebuilding padres? Ehh
Bye felica
In fairness to Valdez, he was jettisoned from the 40 man in late September. So while technically “electing to be a free agent”, in actuality, his minor league contract expired.
If I recall correctly he was only a pitcher bc he was a bad catcher
“Likewise, the Red Sox will . . . “
That’s how the substantive portion of this post begins. Usually the word “likewise” is used to compare two or more events while finding them similar. Difficult to tell from this post what the Red Sox move is actually like. Toss me a clue, perhaps?
good riddance to Krol
Whatever the case maybe, Valdez was and is awful