Here are the latest minor moves from around the baseball world…
- Outfielder Nicky Delmonico announced Monday on Instagram that he has rejoined the White Sox. He’ll head to big league camp as a non-roster invitee, per Lamond Pope of the Chicago Tribune. Delmonico had been without a team since the White Sox released him in June on the heels of season-ending shoulder surgery. Before that, the 27-year-old struggled through a subpar year and a half as a member of the club. While Delmonico stood out during a 166-plate appearance major league debut in 2017, evidenced by a .262/.373/.482 slash, he has stumbled to an underwhelming .213/.290/.357 line in 386 MLB trips to the dish since then.
- Rockies right-hander Joe Harvey has been outrighted to Triple-A Albuquerque after clearing waivers, the team announced. Harvey, whom Colorado acquired from the Yankees at last season’s trade deadline, divided the majority of 2019 between the two clubs’ Triple-A affiliates. A bloated walk rate (5.19 per nine) helped lead to a less-than-stellar 4.93 ERA across 34 2/3 innings, though the 27-year-old Harvey did strike out upward of 12 batters per nine at the minors’ top level. The former 14th-round pick (2014) picked up his first MLB experience last season, but he yielded 10 earned runs on 18 hits and 13 walks (against 17 strikeouts) over 18 frames between New York and Colorado.
- Outfielder Jerry Sands has reached an agreement with the Hanshin Tigers of Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball, Jim Allen relays. Sands, a once-promising prospect, appeared with a few major league teams from 2011-16, but he had trouble establishing himself in the bigs. On the other hand, the 32-year-old was excellent in the Korea Baseball Organization over parts of the previous two seasons, during which he combined for a .306/.394/.574 line with 40 homers in 706 PA as a member of the Kiwoom Heroes.
Nicky D is back! Now if he can only stay clean, he might have a shot.
See there you go Brewers missed out in putting Delmonic at third base lol
Hahn just can’t quit poor fielding, poor OBP left-handed bats.
If he could just combine that with the good fielding, poor OBP right-handed hitters that he likes (Engel, Cordell), then we might have something!
@maximumvelocity
I would hope he’s simply minor league depth. The Sox are probably in trouble if he’s playing in Chicago at any point in ’20.
Why?
Non-Roster invitee, so hopefully he doesn’t stick. If he does, I assume he is just keeping a place warm till they promote Robert. I don;t see a place for him if they have Jimenez, Mazzara, Robert, Garcia, and Engel. All of whom are better fielders and hitters. Yes, even Engel based on his second half adequacy last year. Mendick even played 9 games in LF last year in AAA.
Jerry Sands should be able to thrive in Japan.
The home for misfit Brewers…
I’m posting here since this is about the only article under 100 posts.
This will be unpopular, but if it were me, I’d get a SP (Kuechel or Ryu, or even Price under certain conditions), get a bullpen arm or 2, and just roll with the team they have. There’s still way too much uncertainty for this team. Robert, Madrigal, Cease, and Kopech will all struggle to varying degrees in ’20. Vaughn won’t even be up until ’21. Rodon and Dunning are still recovering. Don’t know which Lopez the Sox are getting. Though Mazara was technically an upgrade, RF is still a huge ? Hopefully TA wasn’t a total fluke, assuming he will regress some. And I’m sorry to ask, but is Gio a one-year wonder (hopefully not, but it’s possible). On top of that, is Ricky capable of guiding this team toward the playoffs.
Keep in mind, when the Astros turned the corner, they won 86 in ’15 and 84 in ’16. The Nats took forever after their rebuild to finally reach the WS. Yes, the Cubs had a much quicker turnaround, but their window’s already in serious jeopardy with getting bounced in the WC last year, whiffing this year, and looking to be in sell mode right now.
My point with all this is, why the mad rush? Get that 1 quality SP, which won’t be a TOR, and a couple RP and see what you have in ’20, then make the adjustments, whether in July ’20 or next Winter. If it’s a must for a 2nd SP, dumpster dive for that one or throw Fulmer in there until Kopech is ready. Yes, those are bad options, but they will only need one for a few starts until Kopech fills that spot. Just don’t do something stupid to jeopardize this rebuild. It’s not 2020 or bust for the Sox. It’s OK to win 82-87 this year.
As for the F/A whiffs so far, they weren’t getting Cole. No one but the Yanks were getting Cole. The Sox would’ve had to pony up $375MM to $400MM for Cole, and that’s assuming the Yanks weren’t going to counter. Same with Stras, except at least $300MM. Why would they bother with Rendon when they have a 3B in Yoan. Wheeler they actually outbid the Phillies, so unless they went way overboard, they weren’t getting him.
As for the current F/A’s, not huge on Kuechel or Ryu, but I suppose. No on Cast and Ozuna. I don’t really want them to trade for Price, since I’m assuming Boston want something of value back for him. I wouldn’t make any more offensive moves. They don’t need a DH, since it looks like just about half their offensive roster could platoon at DH. They get a DH, they might as well send Collins back down, because he’ll be playing once a week, and we saw how well that worked for him back in June/July.
My apologies for it being so long.