The Diamondbacks have recalled infielder Andrew Young, per a team announcement. To make room on the roster, catcher Bryan Holaday has been released.
It’s been an up-and-down season for Young, in many ways. He’s been optioned to the minors and recalled six times already this season and has seen mixed results as well. In a small sample size of 67 plate appearances at the big league level, Young has shown some power but also a lot of strikeouts. His overall line is .228/.328/.596 for a wRC+ of 140, despite striking out a whopping 49.3% of the time. (MLB average is 23.4%) His Triple-A output on the year is similar, a line of .282/.380/.564, wRC+ of 128 and a strikeout rate of 35.4%.
Young can play multiple positions but has been primarily slotted into second base this year. Josh Rojas has gotten the bulk of playing time at the keystone in Arizona this season, but the club recently lost Asdrubal Cabrera on waivers, who had been the regular third baseman. With him out of the picture, that could potentially open up some infield playing time by having Young or Rojas at the hot corner.
As for Holaday, the veteran catcher has become extraneous given the presence of Carson Kelly and the emergence of Daulton Varsho. He hasn’t started a game since August 19th, only getting three pinch-hit plate appearances since then. Overall, he’s gotten 34 plate appearances on the year, slashing .194/.265/.258. He’ll now head to the open market and look for a new home.
I find it very interesting that the D’backs would straight up release Holaday from their active roster instead of DFA’ing him. I wonder if he is looking for an opportunity internationally.
He’s a catcher unless he speaks fluent japanese or Korean he is not signing anywhere overseas.
Didn’t realize a series of hand signals varies from English to Japanese/Korean.
The idea of a catcher overseas intrigued me…
At the time of an article from May, 2020, there were no North American catchers in Taiwan, Korea or Japan.
There hasn’t been a foreign catcher in Japan in 70yrs
Not sure why they have kept van meter all year and not young
The good news is, somehow Holaday has now participated in 10 MLB seasons making him eligible for HOF consideration.
The question is whether or not he did enough in those 301 games to garner a spot on the ballot.
10 yrs 300 games lol
More importantly the 10 years of service time gets him his pension.