The Giants announced Friday that they’ve selected the contract of right-hander Nick Tropeano from Triple-A and opened a spot on the 40-man roster by designating righty Trevor Hildenberger for assignment. Right-hander Camilo Doval was optioned to Sacramento to open a spot on the 26-man roster.
Hildenberger, 30, spent just a few days in the Giants’ system, as he was only claimed earlier this week. He didn’t throw a pitch for them, however, and now appears likely to head back to waivers for the second time in as many weeks. The Mets designated him last week after he yielded four runs in 2 1/3 innings for them.
It’s been a remarkably swift downfall for Hildenberger, who looked to have broken out with an outstanding rookie campaign with the 2016 Twins. That season, the sidearming righty tossed 42 innings of 3.21 ERA ball with a 25.9 percent strikeout rate and a minuscule 3.5 percent walk rate. But Hildenberger was hit hard in 73 innings for the Twins the following season, and by the time the 2019-20 offseason rolled around, Minnesota non-tendered him.
Tropeano will be in the mix to start a game this weekend in place of the injured Logan Webb, who landed on the 10-day IL a couple days back due to a shoulder strain. It’s not expected to be a lengthy absence for Webb, so if Tropeano indeed gets the call, it’d likely be a spot start. The 30-year-old Tropeano started 35 games for the Angels from 2015-19, missing a season due to injury along the way. He tossed 15 strong innings for the Pirates in 2020 and has a generally solid track record at the Major League level. Through 233 big league innings, Tropeano carries a 4.29 ERA, a 21.2 percent strikeout rate and a nine percent walk rate.
Wow…Hildenberger didn’t last long!
Hopefully he’s not in DFA limbo for a while.
Seven days is the max any player is in DFA limbo. He, like every other guy DFA’d, has to be traded or waived within that 7 day span.
Glad to see Doval get sent down. His 6 walks, 4 HRs and 2 wild pitches in 10 innings of work has been begging for it.
Kinda expected Kazmir to get the call up over Tropeano though.
A weekend series vs. the Dodgers isn’t the time to test Kazmir though I would’ve liked to see him too. Looks like Tropeano will either start tomorrow or be part of a bullpen game tomorrow since Webb is out.
agree with doval – the guy is good but needs to rebuild confidence on his pitches in less stressful situations, ever since the first dinger he gave up on it he has been terrified of throwing the fastball in the zone despite triple digits and movement and his slider is just ok and needs to play off that fastball
whormongr:
I think he needs to take a little off his FB. A 97 MPH pitch, located on the corners, is far better than a 100 MPH FB in a hittable location. Shaving speed for better control is how Randy Johnson went from a thrower with a 101 ERA+, in his first 5 seasons, to a HoFer with a 166 ERA+ in his next 12 seasons.
Kazmir is the LONG-TERM plan and starting him against a dodger lineup is not a good state of mind for him. he needs some smoothing in. Tropeano gives them flexibility to move him to bp if he does good.
Not sure how long term of a plan Kazmir reall is though since he can eject free agency soon. He is already garnering interest from other clubs so it’s increasingly unlikely that he stays within the organization.
@gmenfan
This didn’t age well 🙂
I still maintain there should be rules that require minimum stays for claimed players.
MLBPA would never agree to that, as that would reduce players chances to prove themselves and move around more gives them opportunities, otherwise teams would be much more selective in who they choose
yeah I dont get this take. waivers greatly help young players get options and remain on 40 man rosters. limiting waivers harms this.
Except in this case (as well as several other cases with the current Giants front office), he was given no opportunity at all to prove himself and instead may very well have been prevented an opportunity to do so with an American League team that has since filled an open roster spot with somebody else.
Based on the move they made with Doval, it’s clear the Giants had no intention whatsoever of keeping Hildenberger on the 40-man roster and instead are trying to get the player for free to stash in their own minor league system. That, in my opinion, should come with some sort of cost.
The Giants . LOL They win a few games in April and May and now their dumb dumb fans think they have a team.
They think their historically bad hitters have suddenly figured something out or have Been coached up to perform at a higher level. It’s hysterical.
The Giants are the same mediocre they were before the season started. Nothing has changed. It’s just baseball. A combination of over performance and luck
Let’s revisit this team the last week of August. By then Longoria , Crawford, Belt and the rest will be hitting at their projected mediocre numbers and the team will be right where they are projected to be. Struggling to play .500 ball and battling Arizona in the NL West for a 3rd place participation trophy
I’m not sure how willing Giants’ fans would be to receive words from someone with the name “TonyGwynnSD19”…
Posey has more rings (3) than the Padres have World Series appearances (2)
Don’t feed the troll. He’s got nothing to offer reasonable people that want to discuss baseball. He’s obviously either very young, new to baseball, or just dense as a brick.
He seems to think he knows exactly what will happen in a baseball season based on his opinion of a team’s roster. He also seems to think the Giant’s success, so far, is because of their hitting.
If he was as old as I am, followed baseball as long as I have, or wasn’t so obtuse, whatever the case may be, he would know that baseball seasons rarely follow a predictable pattern, and favorites fail to take the title as often as they do. Him thinking that he does does only exposes his baseball ignorance.
All, please ignore this punk TonyGwynn
Funny how the giants are just over performing unlike last year where they overperormed, or the year before that where they overperformed… maybe there is an error in evaluation and not with the performance
At least he’s getting frequent flyer miles.