Orioles Acquire Keon Broxton, Claim Chandler Shepherd

The Orioles have acquired outfielder Keon Broxton from the Mets and claimed righty Chandler Shepherd from the Cubs, per a club announcement. $500K in international signing bonus slots are headed to the Mets in the swap.

Those additions created a need for two 40-man slots. To do so, the team moved starter Alex Cobb to the 60-day IL and designated fellow righty Yefry Ramirez for assignment.

Broxton, 29, obviously drew some interest since it took a non-trivial trade return to add him. He’ll need to stay on the active roster since he’s out of options. It’ll be interesting to see whether the O’s give him an extended audition in center field. While the results just haven’t been there for Broxton at the game’s highest level, he also has not had much of a chance to get going since the 2017 campaign.

This year has been a wreck so far for Broxton, who saw action in 34 games but took only 53 plate appearances with the Mets. He struck out 22 times in that span while delivering just one extra-base hit. Broxton did still manage to swipe four bags and figures to be a strong contributor in the field and on the bases.

As for the 26-year-old Shepherd, he’s on the move again just days after being claimed by the Cubs from the Red Sox. The right-handed hurler has been hit exceptionally hard this year at Triple-A, allowing 33 earned runs on 53 hits (eleven of them long balls) in 29 2/3 innings. But he had previously been a solid performer in the upper minors. The O’s are in need of innings and may have some ideas for getting him sorted out.

In any event, the organization obviously preferred Shepherd to Ramirez, who has had his own struggles this year. In 10 1/3 MLB frames, Ramirez has issued nine walks against eleven strikeouts while coughing up eight earned runs. Though it had never been an issue in the minors, he also struggled with the free passes last year in the majors.