The Rangers have released veteran southpaw Jon Niese, as Evan Grant of the Dallas Morning News was among those to tweet. He had joined the organization on a minor-league deal over the offseason.
Niese, 31, never really got going this spring owing to injuries, including a recent diagnosis of a sub scapularis muscle strain. While it’s not clear at this point what kind of treatment that will require, it evidently was a significant enough issue that the team decided to part ways.
The long-time MLB starter had been looking to get back on track after turning in a middling 2016 effort that ended with knee surgery and then missing all of the ensuing campaign. Before things turned south, Niese had been quite a productive starter. Between 2008 and 2015, he compiled over a thousand innings of 3.91 ERA ball for the Mets.
Man,I hope he can get back to the Majors and stick.
Baltimore on line one Jon!
Time to insert the proverbial fork.
John who? 😉
pirates will pick him up sometime this season….
was thinking the same
Japan
Indy ball
Walker is in the ML and two days later Niese is out.As mentioned in the article Niese was a good starter for eight years but lost it in a very quick manner after the trade from the Mets to the Pirates.I wish him the best at his next stop.
I honestly remember that trade well.
I thought Pirates won that trade! I recall, Pirates had a team option on Niese, giving them more potential team-control, had he exceeded expectations. As we all know, Pirates’ pitching coaches have a well-deserved reputation, as some of the best in the game, even though they’re not perfect.
Hindsight is 20/20,
Niese was a very consistent pitcher for a long time,and the Buccos needed to open up a position for Harrison who had more range than Walker and was not injury prone.They also needed to replace one of Happ,Morton,and Burnett who had all left for various reasons.Niese was a stretch for a three,but in my opinion was a pretty solid four.You are correct xabiel,if only foresight was 20-20!
Hey Jon, bullpen