The Giants have designated right-hander Jose Lopez for assignment, Andrew Baggarly of The Athletic tweets. His roster spot will go to catcher Erik Kratz, whom the Giants acquired from the Brewers on Sunday.
It was a short stay on the Giants’ 40-man roster for Lopez, a 25-year-old who joined the team via waivers from the Reds on Feb. 12. As MLBTR’s Steve Adams wrote at the time: “A year ago, Lopez was considered to be one of the more promising pitching prospects in Cincinnati’s system. The righty was fresh off a 2.57 ERA with 8.8 K/9, 3.0 BB/9 and a 44 percent ground-ball rate in 147 innings between Class-A Advanced and Double-A and was added to the Reds’ 40-man roster in order to protect him from the Rule 5 Draft. In 2018, however, Lopez turned in a 4.47 ERA with 7.5 K/9, 2.6 BB/9, 1.21 HR/9 and a diminished 29.1 percent ground-ball rate in 141 innings at the Triple-A level.”
Lopez struggled during 3 1/3 spring frames as a member of the Giants, with whom he yielded five earned runs on seven hits and three walks, with three strikeouts. Despite his difficulties dating back to last year, it’s possible Lopez will once again fail to clear waivers, as he has a pair of minor league options remaining.
stupid move by the Giants they essentially give up two upper minors prospects for an extra catcher they don’t need.
Unless Vogt or Garcia are being used in a pending trade to bring in an outfielder.
little premature when its obvious zaidi is going to make a follow up move.
obvious? then look into your crystal ball and tell me what exactly.
Huh? Hinojosa is at best, a utilityman. Lopez will probably clear waivers. So, they can assign him to Sacramento. This is just roster cleaning.
The real question is do they need those two minor league prospects?
Only one of them was in the minors. They have other players with the same skills.
Dark side do you always panic like this?layoff the Meds and stay away from cliffs,it’s just sports Lol
Corey Dickerson coming in
I’d imagine they’d be going after a righty, already too lefty heavy
That’d be awesome. Wanted them to make a play for him last year when Tampa DFA.
Wrong Jose Lopez in the link.
He made a comeback.
And got 10 years younger apparently.
I believe the Angels have a spot open and seem to love poaching former Reds for the BP.
Zaidi better have a decent OF coming in a trade soon. maybe Smith or Watson and Garcia or Vogt for a big bat
Vogt wont net much of anything. if anyone wanted him they had several months to sign him.
I think most of Zaidi’s dealings will not make sense to us for a year or two. As to why he hasn’t really added much all I can say is it doesn’t make sense to do so right now. The Giants are a dumpster fire. Adding a significant amount of payroll just to be bad now and in the future is not going to work. He’s letting their higher- priced guys work off their bad contracts, at least to the point where they can feel good about releasing them and eating their salary (Melancon)
I have confidence that he will improve the team and the farm system. However, I see this (and the Connor Joe trade in which they unloaded Jordan Johnso ) as house-cleaning, getting rid of under-performing minor leaguers and relieving some congestion at AA and AAA. Hinojosa was disappointing in AA, the AFL, and he likely didn’t impress Zaidi in spring training. He had a lot of competition this year for a middle infield spot in Richmond or Sacramento (Avelino, Valera, Solano, and Howard and some others)
I wouldn’t be surprised if the Giants cut Kratz as well. If they were so desperately in need of a reserve catcher they wouldn’t have released Rivera.
As for Lopez he was just a waiver claim. They got a good look at him in Spring Training and probably came to the same conclusions about him as the Reds did before they designated him for assignment. With the flurry of last- minute roster moves maybe they keep him anyway. Like Jordan Johnson and Tyler Herb Lopez would have been caught in a numbers game at AAA. The River Cats already figure to have Andrew Suarez, Ty Blach, Shaun Anderson, Tyler Beede in their rotation. And River Cats fans, not the dumb ones who only show up to booze it up and applaud for rehabbing players, know that one starter will be some sort of bizarre Braulio Lara or Roberto Gomez experiment. No way Jose.
Lopez was on the 40 man roster. They had to waive him. He’ll probably wind up in Sacramento.
Why would Suarez be in the Sacramento rotation? He had 26 starts for the 2018 Giants and showed some promise. Chris Stratton is probably the one starting for the River Cats. I doubt that Ty Blach is starting in AAA either. He will probably return to his role as long man/spot starter like last season.
Their MLB rotation is full with Bumgarner, Samardzija, Holland, Rodriguez and Pomeranz. Stratton is out of options, so he will not be sent down. Suarez will be getting regular work in AAA, like he should, until one of the big-leaguers either gets traded or loses his job.
Because the starters they have are all better than Suarez, IMO. Can’t have 4 lefty starters. He did a nice job last year but he needs more seasoning and they have the depth and talent this year to let him go back down
Well put. Very thoughtful and accurate