The Orioles have selected the contract of utilityman Jace Peterson from Triple-A, as per a team announcement. Rio Ruiz was optioned to the minors earlier today, and no 40-man move was required since Baltimore had open space on its 40-man roster.
Signed to a minor league deal by the Orioles in the offseason, Peterson opted out of that deal on July 16, though he quickly re-signed a new minors contract just a few days later. Now, Peterson is headed back to the big leagues, which would mark his sixth season of MLB competition.
The 29-year-old Peterson was an everyday player for Atlanta in 2015 and has spent the last three years as a bench piece for the Braves, Yankees, and Orioles. Peterson originally joined Baltimore’s organization in April 2018 after being claimed off waivers from New York. While Peterson has only a .228/.318/.330 slash line over 1524 plate appearances in the Show, he brings a lot of defensive versatility to the table — Peterson has started at least one game at every fielding position except catcher, playing primarily as a second baseman and also seeing significant time as a third baseman and left fielder.
For a second I thought this was a repost from 2017 and you just replaced Braves with Orioles.
Disappointed. I thought Ruiz had done more to justify his place on the roster. Good defensively at third, got on base pretty well the first few months. I thought he’d make a good #2 hitter. Hopefully he can recover some at Norfolk. I don’t know that he’s a full time piece moving forward but I know for sure that Peterson isn’t.
I would imagine 2 things happened here. They wanted Rio to get a little time at AAA so they told Jace he’d get a shot in the majors to keep him around
Ruiz’s bat has been anemic for months now. Good 3B defense only goes so far. Tony Kemp just got DFA’d if he makes it to waivers I would imagine we’ll be all over him.
Rio has been fine. His wife is due to have a baby in the next week and with the Orioles on the west coast it made more sense to send him to Norfolk to be closer to the family.
I would assume part of this is getting Jace some big league time this year to see if his solid AAA stats translate and can maybe entice a trade for a lower level body or some more international bonus slots. He’s been hitting .300 all year and is certainly not part of the future, so it only makes sense to try and flip him.
He opted out a few days ago. Any team in the big leagues could’ve had him for a ML contract.
The orioles are going to be looking for any possible route to acquiring young bodies to put in their system. Jace has done nothing in the bigs to date – it’s not surprising no one else gave him a big league deal. The o’s are gonna give him another mlb shot and if he plays well at all, somebody could give us something for him, like slot money, which Elias would take in a heartbeat. He’s versatile enough defensively that any improvement he can make with the bat would make him an attractive bench player on a contender.