The Astros have designated right-hander Pedro Baez for assignment and recalled righty Seth Martinez from Triple-A Sugar Land, the team announced Tuesday.
Baez, 34, is just weeks into the second season of a two-year, $12.5MM contract that also contained a club option for the 2023 season. He missed the majority of the 2021 season due to shoulder troubles, however, pitching just 4 1/3 innings. He’s been limited to 2 1/3 frames thus far in 2022, during which time he’s been clobbered for six runs (three earned) on five hits and three walks with two punchouts. Baez’s fastball, which averaged nearly 98 mph at its peak and sat at 96 mph as recently as 2019, has averaged just 90.2 mph so far in 2022.
Houston will technically have a week to trade Baez or place him on outright waivers, but that’s a generally moot point. Another team isn’t going to take on the remainder of this season’s $5.5MM salary or the $2MM buyout he’s still owed on next year’s club option — not with his recent shoulder troubles and alarming velocity dip. Even if Baez were to be passed through outright waivers, he could reject an outright assignment to a minor league affiliate, elect free agency and retain his salary based on the level of big league service time he’s accrued.
The most likely outcome here is that the Astros will eat the remaining $4.91MM on Baez’s salary, as well as the $2MM buyout on next year’s option and simply release him. Baez would be free to sign with a new club, at which point that team would only owe him the prorated league minimum for any time he spent in the Majors. That sum would be subtracted from the $6.91MM the ’Stros otherwise owe him.
Disheartening as Baez’s brief time with the Astros was, he was a well-regarded late-inning arm for the Dodgers in the years leading up to his free agency. From 2014-20, Baez tallied 356 innings of 3.o3 ERA ball with 100 holds, three saves, a 25.3% strikeout rate and an 8.2% ground-ball rate. He tacked on another 29 1/3 innings of 3.99 ERA ball in the playoffs, and if you set aside a rough showing in the early stages of his career (2014-15), Baez notched a 2.70 mark in 26 1/3 postseason innings from 2016-20.
Baez has a pretty good track record of success. Some team out there will send cash to the Astros for him.
More likely to wait until he hits free agency. I’d be willing to wager he gets a minor league contract with a salary at the major league minimum and is given a chance in the majors if he excels. It’s still early enough where he could get a call by late-May, and serve as an inexpensive trade chip for a rebuilding team come deadline time (best case scenario)
You think another team will give the Astros cash to take on that contract? Why would a team do that when they can sign him to league minimum after he is released?
I didn’t realize he was getting paid that much. I was thinking he was an arbitration eligible guy. I guess I was getting him confused with someone else.
I’ve been there.
They won’t pick up that contract, let the Astros pay him off and sign for league minimum.
No team will do that, they will simply let him pass through waviers and try to be the first team to sign him.
Thank the Lord!!!!! Worst signing ever along with Odorizzi.
odorizzi has a 3.99 career ERA. he isn’t that bad.
Hasn’t been good for last 2 years
Odorizzi has not been awful, I would not call it the worst signing ever, 119.2 Innings of 4.44 ERA Ball so far past two years is league average, and it’ll work when you have a very good offense.
At last, the Twins didn’t resign someone before they turned sour.
To honor Pedro Baez and how good he once was, tonight’s starting Astro pitcher will step off the rubber repeatedly and wander around the mound for no apparent reason.
Human rain delay
The video comparing Pedro’s one pitch to Nolan Ryan’s pace is one of my favorites ever
Too true. A pitch clock would ruin his career faster than injuries.
Sounds like he has not yet fully recovered from the prior season’s shoulder injury. He should be seeing some independent shoulder specialists and the MLBPA on his status.
When a pitcher loses that kind of velocity it screams labrum injury. I hope not. Pitchers never seem to return to their preinjury form after a labrum injury.
Allowing Baez to walk is another reason they are called the Dodgers.
I know he had pretty good figures but every time he came in to pitch late innings for us, I was nervous.
I hope he gets his injuries sorted and comes back.
I was surprised LAD just let him walk, but they knew him better than anyone. Dodgers put a lot of miles on that arm, and they apparently knew he was due for a breakdown.
I wouldn’t assume they had any special powers of prediction, but his pitching was always an adventure and his pace was like watching paint dry. I wasn’t sorry to see him go but he actually got more reliable when he found a faster rhythm and improved offspeed stuff. In letting him go the Dodgers really just got lucky IMO. It happens.
It may be coincidence, but look at how CLE jettisoned Kluber and Clevinger just before both went on to suffer significant injuries that led to long IL stretches. Dodgers rode Baez long and hard for years.
Good.
His fastball velocity was sapped by injuries, his control has looked bad since spring training, and the Astros have a long stretch of consecutive games where they’ll need a pitcher capable of going multiple innings (Seth Martinez).
Good luck to Baez. Hopefully Ronel Blanco will be next.
Ronel was coming off a good ST but would like to see Bermudez or Rosscup brought up for this stretch of 33 games in 34 days
Yeah, Rosscup’s been looking sharp in Triple A and I like the idea of having another lefty in the pen after Blake Taylor.
Bermudez has been okay there though I’m not sure if he should be brought up. Yet with Odorrizi struggling and Javier just now getting the nod for a 6th rotation spot, having another long relief option would be good insurance for the pen.
Massive overpay at the time. Should’ve signed a LHRP.
As a dodger fan Baez will always haunt me
You should phone that in. Stalking is crime.
Astros games will now be 10 minutes quicker.
As a dodger fan. Baha baha baha. Could have predicted that. He’s a gas can. Hope the giants sign him
Dude takes like 3 minutes per pitch, it is painful to watch
Oh no this sounds like a Orioles signing.
If the Orioles don’t get him the Nats will. Corbin, Fedde and Sanchez hardly ever go deep into a game so Davey Martinez needs a new bullpen arm practically every day.