The Twins announced Monday that righty David Hale cleared outright waivers after last week’s DFA and rejected an assignment to Triple-A in favor of free agency. He’ll hit the open market in search of a new club after extremely brief stints with the Yankees and Twins thus far in 2018.
Hale, 30, signed a minor league pact with the Yankees over the winter and headed to Triple-A to open the season. After 14 2/3 innings there with a 5.32 ERA but a much more encouraging 10-to-2 K/BB ratio and 50 percent grounder rate, New York selected his contract to add some length to a depleted bullpen. He tossed two shutout innings for the Yankees but was designated for assignment anyhow, only to be claimed by the Twins and subsequently tagged (by the Yankees) for four runs in three innings of relief.
In all, Hale has totaled 183 2/3 innings at the big league level, most of which came with the Braves and Rockies. In that time, he’s posted a 4.56 ERA with 6.1 K/9, 3.2 BB/9 and a 51.9 percent ground-ball rate. Though he doesn’t miss many bats, Hale has done a good job in terms of limiting hard contact (career 27.1 percent). He’s worked as both a starter and a reliever and has a minor league option remaining, so he could provide some depth for a club with more 40-man roster flexibility than either the Twins or Yankees has to offer at present.
Just curious: how did Hale earn the right to elect free agency? According to B-Ref, he is well short of 3 years service time, and according to MLB.com, he has never been outrighted before either. I didn’t think he had the option of refusal for this outright assignment.
I’m sure the fact that he was in the minors for several years has something to do with his ability to become a FA????
Perhaps, but I thought it was based on MLB service time and/or whether a player had been outrighted before: thecubreporter.com/book/export/html/3530
If he rejoins the Yankees I’m declaring collusion.
I can’t find the specific transaction but I think he has been outrighted before.