Minor MLB Transactions: 8/8/18

We’ll track the latest minor moves in this post:

• The Royals have released right-hander Michael Mariot, Jeffrey Flanagan of MLB.com tweets. The 29-year-old Mariot had been in his second stint as a member of the Royals, with whom he initially pitched from 2014-15 after they chose him in the eighth round of the 2010 draft. Mariot, who was with the Phillies from 2016-17 and the Padres earlier in 2018, threw 37 2/3 innings between the Royals’ Double-A and Triple-A affiliates this year. The majority of that work came with the latter club, as Mariot recorded a 3.81 ERA with 9.85 K/9 and 2.22 BB/9 in 28 1/3 innings (18 appearances, two starts).

Earlier updates:

• The Indians announced that they have released righty Zach McAllister, who had recently been designated for assignment. Though he cleared waivers, due in no small part to his $2.45MM salary, the 30-year-old ought to draw interest on the open market. After all, he had been quite a useful reliever for the Indians over the prior three seasons before hitting some bumps this year. McAllister is throwing strikes and getting swings and misses at the same levels as before. Though he’s giving up a fair bit of hard contact, he did that in 2017 as well. Of course, he had been outperforming ERA estimators in recent years. With a 68.5% strand rate and 1.51 homers per nine in 2018, some of the prior issues have finally shown up on the earned-run ledger. McAllister will qualify for free agency at season’s end, having already exceeded six full years of MLB service.
• Per the MLB transactions page, the Padres have selected the contract of righty Brett Kennedy. His forthcoming promotion was reported a few days back by Dennis Lin of the San Diego Union-Tribune (via Twitter). Though he isn’t generally cited among the organization’s best prospects, the 24-year-old Kennedy turned in strong results over 16 Triple-A starts this year, pitching to a 2.72 ERA with 8.1 K/9 against 2.3 BB/9 along with a 52.6% groundball rate.