The Mariners have released lefty Ariel Miranda, as reflected on the MLB.com transactions page. The move was made to enable Miranda to pursue an opportunity with an organization in Japan, Ryan Divish of the Seattle Times reports on Twitter.
While the 29-year-old Miranda spent all of 2017 in the Seattle rotation, he managed only a 5.12 ERA in 160 frames on the year. He has taken just one start in the bigs thus far in 2018 and obviously was not viewed by the club as an essential depth piece.
For most of the present season, Miranda has worked at Triple-A. Through 45 1/3 innings, he carries a 3.97 ERA with forty strikeouts and 24 walks — numbers that largely reflect his limited prior work in the upper minors.
Miranda originally joined the Orioles organization out of his native Cuba. He was sent to the M’s in the 2016 deadline deal that delivered Wade Miley to Baltimore.
Wow really? A young lefty with a good changeup and ability to elevate his fastball is now being relegated to Japan? I get his enormous fly ball rates but damn I thought he had some good potential. His stuff was major league ready, he just needed tinkering.
I’m shocked
Too many walks and not enough strikeouts to put up with especially with his low groundball rate link to fangraphs.com
No I know trust me I look at stats as much as anybody but I thought he passed the eye test pretty well. Plus he’s left handed and breathes so I’m just shocked with his service time nobody wants him at least in their organization.
His results aren’t great but compare him to the worst pitcher on most teams active roster right now.
Look at the results that Baltimore has gotten from Cobb and Tillman this year and Wade Miley last year.
Seems like there should be a place for Miranda somewhere even if it is in relief.
Nope, Tillman was also the worst pitcher for the Orioles last year too.
He’ll get more money and will be able to start, potentially building up value.
29 isn’t exactly young
29 is plenty young for a guy with finesse stuff. Not like he’s 35. I was emphasizing the fact that he’s left handed and has a wide array of pitches. Very shocked to see him off any Mlb team or milb
I don’t have the link but I think I remember seeing an article before the season predicting that he, Dinelson Lamet, and Luis Castillo would step forward this year…obviously hindsight is 20/20 but that hasn’t happened
I think Danny Salazar was also on that list…
I think you’re right
I remember that, it referenced spin rate and their “stuff” despite other holes that were swept under the rug. Wasn’t fan of that article when it came out.
Yeah I agree, I saw breakout potential in Castillo but Lamet and Miranda were surprising to me.
Lamet has a good slider and mid 90’s fastball with an improving change, he just needs to command quadrants more. Injury bug hit him regardless
Japan will be good for him. Sad, though, the Mariners called on him to start 29 times last year and he pitched 160 innings which is more than twice as many as he every had. This year they have 3 left hand starters a head of him with Elias in the pen. Just no room at the major league level. Of course, Paxton and Hernandez have made all their starts this year.
I really think its time for expansion. Miranda is just the latest of very good players being cut loose. I mean, how does Tim Collins clear waivers too. Also Felix Jorge (has options) is cut loose, Albuquerque (as I mentioned a few days back),
Point being, there are so many very good players without a team right now.
Im not saying all these guys are all-stars, but serviceable major leaguers- 100%.
A 2 team expansion would be awesome.
Right? Miranda has good stuff! Jorge has a live arm. It’s baffling. Collins and Louis Coleman were a tandem with KC
I also think expansion would be great for the MLB. Not enough teams go to the playoffs every year, which makes playoff baseball less watched among casual fans. What hooks casuals into becoming a fan of a certain sports is the playoff games. I’ve always been a die hard baseball fan, but after watching my local NBA team in the playoffs, I keep an eye out for the league. Still think the NBA is trash, but I cared enough about it to realize that. Hope the MLB expands to 32 with 16 making the playoffs, which is an unpopular opinion, but it’s my opinion.
With more teams making the playoffs, we could see less teams tanking as playoff baseball isn’t as lopsided as other sports, a 16 seed could beat a 1 seed with the right momentum and luck. We would see more free agent signings, trades, and personally I think the league would be more exciting.
In the 16 team playoff, it would be 8 per league. Probably makes divisions irrelevant but I dont mind that.
I think everyone is really pushing for 32 teams, 6 playoff team per league.
Yea I thought about a 12 team playoff but it doesn’t really make any sense. How would a 12 team bracket work without some sort of bye gimmick? Only even brackets are 8-team, 16-team, 24-team, and so on. Unless you want MLB playoff brackets to be confusing like the NFL.
It actually sounds like best method for that. And it would be a familiar method, compared to the wild card deathmatch.