Friday’s minor moves from around baseball…
- The Royals have signed infielder Chase d’Arnaud to a minor league deal, Jeffrey Flanagan of MLB.com tweets. D’Arnaud was last with the Rangers, who released him Tuesday. The 32-year-old opened 2019 with a .164/.275/.316 line in 178 plate appearances with Texas’ Triple-A affiliate. While the well-traveled d’Arnaud has primarily played at the Triple-A level as a professional, he has combined for 599 major league PA – 100 of which came with the Giants in 2018. He’s a .222/.273/.316 hitter in the bigs.
- The Mariners have inked infielder Jordan Pacheco to a minors pact, according to Triple-A Tacoma broadcaster Mike Curto. Pacheco saw action with the Rockies, Diamondbacks and Reds from 2011-16, but he has since made a few stops outside the majors – including Monclova of the Mexican League this season. The 33-year-old’s known for his defensive versatility, having lined up at catcher, first base, second, third and in the outfield in his MLB days. Pacheco hit .272/.310/.356 during that 1,149-PA span.
First Mac Williamson now Jordan Pacheco – the Mariners really know how to put bums in seats
Pacheco has the lowest career WAR (according to the Baseball Reference link) that I can recall seeing (-4.1).
So I had to look it up. Bill Bergen, a catcher, who played from 1901-1911 had a -14.85 career war and a 37 WRC+ in his best season! With a career 16 WRC+…just wow!
Having watched Jordan Pacheco play a lot with the Rox, just having played several different positions does not equal defensive versatility. The reason he is defensively versatile is because the Rockies had to move him so much because his defense was horrible at a position. He was bad at catcher, so they moved him to third. He was horrible there, so they moved him to first. Then he was even bad there. Being bad at many positions does not seem like a positive trait to me.
M’s calling up Pacheco in the Mexican League probably played out EXACTLY like that ‘Major League’ Movie when Indians called up Jake Taylor! Pacheco I’m sure had the same response too….”at least you could have said it was the Yankees!” :)