The Orioles announced that they’ve claimed right-handed reliever Cole Sulser off waivers from the Rays. Baltimore had an opening on its 40-man roster after outrighting fellow righty Chandler Shepherd yesterday.
Sulser, 29, went from the Indians to the Rays in the three-team Edwin Encarnacion/Carlos Santana/Yandy Diaz/Jake Bauers deal last offseason. The former 25th-round pick made his MLB debut with Tampa Bay this season and tossed 7 1/3 scoreless innings with just five hits and three walks against nine strikeouts. That was a continuation of a strong season in Triple-A, where Sulser worked 66 innings with a 3.27 ERA, 12.1 K/9, 3.3 BB/9 and a 31.6 percent ground-ball rate.
Sulser averaged 93.4 mph on his heater in his brief MLB tenure this season, complementing that pitch with an 86.7 mph slider and a much more occasional changeup. He has a decent track record of missing bats in the upper minors despite never getting an opportunity with the Indians. Sulser went unclaimed in last year’s Rule 5 Draft, but he’s managed to elevate his profile in 2019. While he’s too old to be deemed a “prospect,” given that he’ll turn 30 next March, Sulser will have all three minor league option years remaining beyond this season and looks the part of a legitimately intriguing late bloomer. The Rays, who have an extremely crowded 40-man roster, cut him loose over the weekend to get the aforementioned Diaz back on the roster in advance of this week’s AL Wild Card game.
Interesting that the Rays let him go. Certainly not surprising that he only made it past one team on the waiver wire.
Rays have 0 room on 40 man and I mean 0, they’re gonna be in a spot as it is this offseason already and Sulser wasn’t a priority by any means
With the five or six players the Orioles have to add to the forty man or risk losing them and then Cobb and Rogers, wonder how long Mr. Sulser will be an Oriole.
Orioles easily have 5 or 6 players to drop from the forty man. Trumbo, Armstrong, Hess, Wojciechowski, Rogers, Smith, Williams, Tayler Scott, Eades, Phillips, not to mention Davis
Armstrong isn’t going anywhere. I can promise you that. Dwight Smith could be our starting LF next year to start the year so I highly doubt we punt on him now also. Though I’d be fine with the move because he looks like a second division platoon bat at best. Davis? Yeah, I’ll lbelieve that when it happens.
Williams, Woj,Rogers, and Eades all go. Ynoa seems likely to me to go as well. He may find his way back on it next year but he’s the kind of guy who easily passes through waivers. After that I would venture to say it’ll be 2 of Phillips, Tay Scott or Eric Hanhold. They chose to keep Cody Carroll on all season so I suppose he’s safe.
They’ll have to keep some starting pitchers on the 40 man. We have a clear abundance of fringe major league right handed relievers. We’ve already DFA’d potential starters in Eshelman, Blach, and Shepherd. With only Akin and Kremer being added. And realistically only Akin has a shot to be on the big league club before the middle of the summer. Someone has to soak up innings.
Click bait could have been “O’s Acquire Cole”.
Ah, tigers must be happy with Edwin hackson.
Unsurprising that he was claimed so early in the order. He looks like a low-leverage set-up man (7th inning).
Cole “Alka” Sulser