The Mariners have reached a minor-league deal with righty Josh Smith, per Ryan Divish of the Seattle Times (via Twitter). Details aren’t fully clear, but Divish notes that Smith is ultimately expected to land at the team’s top affiliate.
Smith, 30, has thrown 127 1/3 total MLB innings of 5.30 ERA ball over the past three seasons with the Reds and Athletics. He was outrighted by the Oakland organization following a 2017 campaign in which he worked to a 4.89 ERA with 6.4 K/9 and 3.9 BB/9 over 35 frames.
Though he hasn’t yet found success at the game’s highest level, Smith has been a solid performer in the minors. He threw 41 1/3 frames at Triple-A last season, his first as a full-time reliever, finishing with a 3.70 ERA with 9.6 K/9 against 2.4 BB/9.
Wow, first all the corner infielders, now this. The M’s must have a thing for our trash.
lollll we can have fun dropping bombs off him now
DiPopto has trashed the minors and nearly half of our upper minor kids left as free agents this winter. I’m not sure how the Rainiers or Arkansas are going to field teams.
Josh is the guy who you call up when you have nobody left to call up.
Most of the names that left were minor league free agents signed in the 2017 offseason, with a few exceptions, such as Aro and Unsworth.
Dipoto’s going to have to sign plenty more minor league free agents, but Povse, Whalen, De Jong, Rumbelow, Armstrong, Garton, Miranda, and Moore are all slated for AA or AAA. So is Morin, though he hasn’t been good.
Gamel may very well end up serving as a reserve in Tacoma if Ichiro is productive and the same goes for Healy (and Ford, if they can sneak him through waivers and make a trade with NY).
The Mariners lack fielding depth, but it’s not as bad as it may seem. That said, another outfielder, middle-infielder (I suspect Beckham will make the team and Motter will be optioned), and another pitcher or two would be nice.
I’d ‘bet the farm’ that Ichiro does not force Gamel to be a reserve in Tacoma. Gamel is better than a 44 yr old Ichiro in every aspect of the game- hitting/fielding and baserunning. According to Baseball Reference last yr Gamel gave us 0.7 WAR while Ichiro had a -0.3 WAR season in Miami. Gamel clearly tired down the stretch because it was his first full season in the majors, may I remind you Gamel was leading the League in BA in June. Ichiro is purely a marketing purchase that will fill in on the odd night when players are tired.
Who’s we? And I would remind you that this is a minor league deal.
I don’t think you meant to use the word “our”….
Yes he did, he was associating himself with the A’s.
I think the bigger point was that the A’s are known to produce trash.
Couldn’t resist.
Ugh….
Fans have every right to say “we”, “my” and “our” when referring to the teams we invest so much of ourselves in.
There were definitely some better options out there so I don’t quite get this one. I’m sure there were a number of guys at that FA Camp in FL who can come in and pitch better but I guess we’ll see….
As a Mariners fan all I can say is, meh