The Diamondbacks announced this evening they’ve selected the contract of reliever Anthony Swarzak. Fellow bullpen arm Chris Devenski has been placed on the restricted list in a corresponding roster move.
Swarzak signed a minor-league deal with the Arizona organization in early March. The 35-year-old is now in line to make his return to a major league mound after not pitching last season. Swarzak broke out with 77.1 innings of 2.33 ERA ball between the White Sox and Brewers in 2017, but he was less effective after signing with the Mets in the ensuing offseason. He struggled between a pair of injured list stints in 2018, and New York shipped him off to Seattle that winter. Other than a minor IL stint for shoulder inflammation, the veteran righty stayed healthy with the Mariners and Braves in 2019, but he only managed a 4.56 ERA/4.65 SIERA across 53.1 innings.
Devenski has pitched in two games for the D-Backs this season. He has been placed on the restricted list for unspecified personal reasons, manager Torey Lovullo told reporters (including Nick Piecoro of the Arizona Republic). No other updates are yet available, but Lovullo said Devenski’s situation is not related to COVID-19.
Another player being placed on the restricted list??
did Devenski “take time away” as well?
Conspiracy theory for laughs. League testing was about to be done so player leaves the team for personal reasons until clean.
I thought testing was random?
If anything, teams have to be more honest about things than they used to be; just too many sources of info, and cell phones are everywhere. I remember being in the Hudson Valley area years ago when the community joke was what “injury” was keeping Josh Hamilton on the IL, when everybody in town knew he was unavailable, probably because the team didn’t know where he was.
There’s 800 or so MLB players on active rosters. In any company that employs that many people, some are going to be unavailable because of a myriad of issues, some physical, some because of some other cause. And oftentimes the reason may not have anything to do with the employee.
It’s tough because you’d like to see the transparency, but I’m sure that a lot of these nebulous situations fall under HIPAA or other guidelines that limit what the organization is even allowed to say.
Agreed. There’s lots of things we don’t know about these guys; lots of reasons that players get traded that we don’t know about.
And players ARE entitled to their privacy. And like I said, the issue might not even be the player’s; relatives, etc.