The Guardians have signed reliever Jake Jewell to a minor league contract, according to Chris Hilburn-Trenkle of Baseball America. The righty had qualified for minor league free agency after being outrighted off the Giants’ 40-man roster late last season.
Jewell split the 2021 campaign between three organizations, although he only suited up at the big league level with one. The 28-year-old began the year with the Cubs after signing a minors pact the prior offseason. He was selected to the MLB roster right around the trade deadline and went on to make ten appearances with Chicago. He allowed 12 runs, including a staggering five home runs, in just ten innings for the North Siders before they designated him for assignment.
That obviously wasn’t a productive MLB run, but Jewell had pitched to a sterling 2.78 ERA in 32 1/3 innings with Triple-A Iowa to earn the call-up. That minor league showing caught the interest of a pair of NL West rivals, as he landed with the Dodgers and Giants on successive waiver claims. Both Los Angeles and San Francisco stashed him at Triple-A without getting him into a big league game, however, and he cleared waivers once the Giants bumped him from their 40-man in September.
In addition to his time with the Cubs, Jewell pitched in the big leagues with the Angels from 2018-19. He posted a 6.99 ERA in 21 outings with Anaheim, striking out a below-average 19.2% of batters faced. He boasts a fastball that typically sits in the 95-96 MPH range, though, and his career 12.4% swinging strike rate is solid. Cleveland relievers ranked sixth last season in both ERA (3.64) and strikeout/walk rate differential (15.9 percentage points), so Jewell might have a hard time getting a look early in the season. He’ll add a fairly live depth arm to Triple-A Columbus.
Sounds like a real gem of a signing!
Surprised Emerald City didn’t take a flier
You never know, Jewell could be a real diamond in the rough…
The Guardians need to ensure the Jake Jewell stays out of Thanos’s hands or I’m pretty sure half of MLB will disappear.
Who said they weren’t opening up the checkbook?
Didn’t he have relatives in the MLB? Family Jewells.
*SPIDERS
Dude, drop it already! It’s so woke for you to keep on about this name thing!
– Totally joking, I don’t care….at all
People have suggested “Cleveland Steamers” but I think we should go with alliteration and call them the Cleveland Carpet Cleaners.
Alliteration! Always alluding to alliteration…..
**LAKERS
Boring
Solid chance he gets a big league look. They have just 14 pitchers on their 40 man roster with MLB experience (they have 4 rookies, 2 of which will be hurt and not ready at start of season). And on minor league deals they have just 5: him, Alex Young, Justin Garza, Enyel De Los Santos, and Ian Gibault. They will likely need to add at least one of those.
Since teams have 28 man roster to open the season, likely the Guardians will have 15 pitchers give or take 1. That would be something like:
SP: Bieber, Civale, Plesac, McKenzie, Quantrill
Multi-Inning relief: Eli Morgan, Sam Hentges, Logan Allen, Trevor Stephan
Bullpen: Clase, Karinchak, Gose, Sandlin, Shaw, ?
Figure once the starters are fully stretched out (reports are they’ll only be to 60-70 pitches by opening day, hence the multi-inning guys to start the season) it’ll be about May, which is when rosters shrink back to 26 with a max of 13 pitchers. So you figure then Morgan will go back to AAA to be starting depth and Hentges/Stephan will convert more to single inning bullpen roles. Maybe with Logan Allen as long relief.
By May, Cleveland – and every other team – will have had at least 17 pitchers on their roster.
Most teams use over 32 during a season in today’s MLB – where bullpen’s decide games. The arms have to stay fresh so teams are forever making callups / sending guys down and bringing in others via waivers and trades hoping to fix them and/or strike paydirt.
The only plan is to give guys a chance. They sift through pitchers during the season playing a numbers game in an attempt to find some that can produce. Those that produce – or look like they can produce with some tweaks – stay. If they’re out of contention they trade off some of the quality ones for prospects in-season.
They’ll have to remove somebody from the 40 man roster to give him that look, I don’t see that happening early. He’s a depth piece and there for when arms start landing on the IR.
More dumpster diving.
Every team, including the Dodgers and Yankees, sign players to minor league deals. Sometimes, they work out, if they don’t, no harm is done.
The Jewell with 2 “L’s” hasn’t been sighted on Earth in a Millenia….Guardians UNITE!!!
P.S. I Hate this new name, gonna make fun of it every chance I get…..FOR-EV-ER!!!! 🙂
Plan the parade!