The Athletics announced a series of roster moves Friday, placing outfielder Stephen Piscotty on the Covid-related injured list in addition to placing catcher Austin Allen, left-hander A.J. Puk and left-hander Kirby Snead on the restricted list in advance of the team’s series in Toronto. In their place, the A’s added catcher Christian Bethancourt, right-hander Ryan Castellani, left-hander Zach Logue and outfielder Drew Jackson as “substitute” players. That they’ve been designated Covid-related substitutes will allow the A’s to send all four back to Triple-A without needing to use an option or (in the case of Bethancourt, Castellani and Jackson) pass anyone through waivers. Lastly, the A’s announced that outfielder Luis Barrera, whom they designated for assignment last week, cleared waivers and has been assigned outright to Triple-A Las Vegas.
The series of placements on the restricted list quite likely stems from restrictions preventing unvaccinated athletes from traveling into Canada to participate in games there. Many teams will likely make a few placements of this nature in advance of road series against the Jays, at least so long as those regulations remain in place (although the Rangers did not do so prior to traveling to Toronto for last weekend’s opener).
Piscotty, 31, is out to a 4-for-14 start with four singles, a pair of walks and five strikeouts in 17 trips to the plate. He’s hoping for a bounceback season after logging a combined .223/.277/.355 batting line in 359 plate appearances from 2020-21. That he was placed on the Covid-related injured list does not necessarily indicate a positive test from Piscotty; players can also be placed on the Covid-related IL if they’re deemed close contacts or experiencing symptoms.
Bethancourt, Castellani, Logue and Jackson will provide some depth in the absence of the three players going on the restricted list. Bethancourt, Castellani and Jackson have some MLB experience — Bethancourt, in particular — but this’ll be the first call to the Majors for the 25-year-old Logue, who was one of four players Oakland acquired from the Blue Jays in the trade that sent Matt Chapman to Toronto (as was Snead). Logue has made a pair of starts in Triple-A Las Vegas thus far but will likely be available out of the ’pen, with Daulton Jefferies, Paul Blackburn and Adam Oller slated to start the next three games for Oakland.
As for Barrera, the A’s will surely be glad they were able to hang onto the 26-year-old — although the very fact that he went unclaimed speaks to the manner in which his stock has deteriorated in recent years. Barrera has long been considered one of the organization’s better prospects but hit just .276/.348/.393 in Triple-A last season, checking in at 12% worse than league-average by measure of wRC+.
Despite last year’s 10.1% walk rate in Triple-A, however, virtually every scouting report on Barrera cites a need to be more selective at the plate. Baseball America notes that he swung at 48% of the pitches he saw in 2021, which might make it tough for him to repeat that walk rate. Still, Barrera can play all three outfield spots and has above-average speed, as well as a solid track record up through Double-A.
Good to see Betancourt get back to the bigs after 5 years and a attempt to convert him to a pitcher.
I recall that the primary reason for his absence from a major league roster was he is defensively challenged……..oh, and he couldn’t hit either. Otherwise the guy was a world beater.
He’s a solid no hit no glove player
*SACRAMENTO SQUIRRELS
I’m sure those players are concerned about the potential health effects of poutine fries with gravy
poutine tastes better than covid tbh
The beauty of covid is you can’t taste anything especially not disgusting fries with curds and gravy
Still beating that dead horse, I see. Yawn.
Mound, i am shedding a tear for your pain.
Glad Barrera is staying put. He just needs to figure it out. Unfortunately, if is not one thing is another for Piscotty. With Pache in CF and Laureano In RF – Ramon has a cannon for an arm – then the A’s should consider trading Piscotty. A change of scenery might be better for Stephen.
Piscotty has negative trade value.
They’d have to sell him with a prospect, and they’d rather eat the 1y/8M to carry a local guy through his last year than do that.
Yes, its much easier and better to take a risk on Piscotty catching fire and gaining any kind of deadline trade value as a rental. If the A’s can get any single prospect back for Piscotty its a huge W. But his family ties make things ugly and the team already has had enough bad press.
All of Piscotty’s struggles are on himself, btw. He’s a very low IQ player because he was openly talking about how he was dedicated to hitting liners (outs) instead of launch angle (what everyone else having success right now is doing). Piscotty has seasons of 27 and 22 homers, so he has power, which means he should be a prime launch angle success guy. Instead he claims he wants to hit line drives and move runners over aka archaic, outdated, bad baseball for 2022. A higher IQ player would see the similarities between Piscotty and a guy like JD Martinez, and copy JD’s launch angle swing.
@ UK
You might be right about the launch angle thing, but I am still hopeful for him. I think his lack of production the last couple years has been all about his wrist and other injuries. I think Stephen is highly underrated defensively. I’m hoping he can be healthy this year, and if so, I expect him to be a contributor.
Was kind of Hoping to see Buddy Reed get the Call-up as a Substitute player instead of Drew Jackson. He has elite range on Defense in the Outfield.
Since neither Jackson or Reed have to be put on the 40-Man Roster to serve as a Substitute player, kind of like to have the Elite D on the field, in case Pache pulls a hamstring or something.
I love when guys who couldn’t hit a beachball advise MLB players on how they should approach hitting…
Hard to believe Snead would rather be unvaxxed rather than a World Series champion /s
Jdgoat, I was just thinking the same thing and what prompts a player to remain behind while his team plays for the sake of not getting a vaccination. He probably had the flu shot, shingles shot, he gets shots of adrenalin or other shots to help heal injuries, he had all the children shots, polio, small pox, but he is terrified of just another shot that everyone in the world is getting with no difficulties. What prompts the player, if the team makes it to the world series to be left off the roster because they can’t cross the border. Was it worth playing all year only to be a spectator for the main event? Doesn’t make sense but common sense is so rare in today’s world.
Strange, since he was of course with the Jays himself last year. I wonder what he was planning to do if they *didn’t* trade him?
He probably wasn’t making the team regardless of his vax status
I understand the vaccination status precluded Robbie Ray from resigning in Toronto. That was hurdle one, they couldn’t get past.
Everyone Snead , Ray , Judge et al, makes their own decisions.
That doesn’t sound right. If he refused to get vaccinated, wouldn’t he have been unable to go to Toronto with the team last year?
Blue jays had travel exemption last year that has since expired.
How long of a Leash do you think the Team will give to new Starting pitcher Adam Oller?
Say he fails to make it out of the 2nd Inning again, against the Blue Jays, do we start to think about replacing him in the Rotation?
Not sure when James Kaprelian is coming back, but the other Options on the 40-Man Roster are new acquisitions Adrian Martinez and Zach Logue, and perhaps Justin Grimm.
Maybe Oller gets 3 Starts to prove himself ?
Have you looked at their lineup tonight? Hard to imagine anyone not pitching through the second. I have the A’s winning 2 out of three this weekend, MFY sweeping, the Sox taking 3 of 4 (though today didn’t help), and Tampa losing two of 3 to the White Sox.
I only watched the condensed game, but it’s not like the D helped him out. Andrus f’d up twice. He made a couple mistakes and his stuff is not good enough to get away with them consistently.
Wouldn’t read too much into the 2+ innings.
Those that are vaccinated don’t understand those that are not and those unvaccinated do not understand being forced to. That’s is the basic of it, but the problem is neither side wants to understand the other and that is the problem that is pervasive in our world it seems for many issues
In the midst of several arguments pro and con, I end up remembering that there are three Athletics players who accept letting their team play without them against the AL favorites at their home park. Twenty fives teammates didn’t let their teammates and management down. No one forced these three to get vaccinated. They chose this path.
From a vaccinated person’s perspective, there’s usually nothing to understand, because the vast majority of people who don’t get vaccinated actually *could* but are choosing not to because *they* don’t understand something about it. Plenty of explanations from expert, official sources are out there for those who need them. (I know there are a few who can’t get it for legit medical reasons. I’m not talking about them.) Also, nobody is “forced” to get vaccinated. The government isn’t hunting people down, restraining them, and shoving needles into their arms. People can choose not to get it, but the only reason some of those people are complaining is that they forget that choices always have consequences. So you can choose not to get vaccinated, but you have to understand that means giving up certain things you might not otherwise have to.
Not being able to work because of your vaccination status is not a consequence of a choice it’s a consequence of an overreaching government.
Take a step back, it’s been 2 years of this now. Granted prior to vaccines, travel restrictions were necessary, we didn’t know enough about the virus or spread and took an overly cautious approach.made sense
But now what is a travel restriction doing? There could be 50,000 unmasked, unvaccinated and vaccinated people at the game tonight in Toronto that would lead to more spread than one player on a plane who is going to be back with his teammates in 3 days.
There is no argument, science backings, data points etc to support the continued travel restrictions for unvaccinated. It’s pure theatre and attempt to punish those who didn’t listen.
This is about much more than rights or semantics as you like to portray. Would you feel the same if the issue was a virus epidemic causing leprosy and there was a vaccine for it but 10% of the population chose not to take it. Would you be fine with those unvaccinated sitting beside your family at a restaurant or in a bus or on a rollercoaster at an amusement park, etc.? At that point would you not agree that the greater good is more important than individual rights?
NEVER.
Obviously.
FREEDOMMMMMMMM
Your argument doesn’t make sense given that millions of people aren’t vaccinated for more serious diseases than Covid.
Life is a risk and everyone tolerates the risk they feel comfortable with. If you don’t want to die of Covid or the flu or other respiratory illnesses, you can stay home or avoid high risk situations. Covid is an endemic, it’s not going away, even with vaccines.
“Not being able to work because of your vaccination status is not a consequence of a choice it’s a consequence of an overreaching government.”
Option 1: get vaccinated so you can accompany your team to Toronto and play there.
Option 2: don’t get vaccinated, which restricts you to playing in the US and forces your team to replace you when they go to Toronto. Oh, and also increases your risk/severity of side effects from a contagious disease.
So yes, it’s a consequence of a choice.
I support their choice to not be jabbed. It’s a personal medical choice.
100%
strange that so many are unbothered by players not being vaccinated from a public health standpoint, yet make the “you are letting down the team argument”. somehow I feel like the latter as a priority over the former is a little absurd.
It’s only weird if you believe that public health is a thing (it is).
If you take more of an every person for him/herself approach to community well-being (there is an oxymoron in there, I swear), then it makes perfect sense.
“Why would I wear a mask if it doesn’t benefit me? (The answer to this is easy for anyone with a bit of empathy and/or game theory)”
“If parents are so worried about their unvaxxable kids, they should just shelter in place for two years. (Not even worth a comment here)”
“But the people who die from Covid are really old (still waiting for someone to explain to me why this is relevant in a way that doesn’t come across as “old people deserve to die”) and/or have pre-existing conditions (the majority of Americans have a pre-existing condition… add them to the elderly and that’s a LOT of people… who deserve to die, I guess?)!”
Pure emotion and no fact. This is the problem.
Nah.
Problem is everyone thinking they know what the problem is, buddy. That sense of righteous self-absolution from just “GETTING IT” in a way that not even those danged science fellas in them schools and hospitals do.
You think you’re the hero here. The one with all the right answers. You’re just some rando on a baseball transaction forum! The epidemiologists merely had to search in all the wrong places to find you, our savior and declarer of who and what is right and wrong!
There’s your problem.
P.S. you are not worthy of a real, factual argument. Because you likely wouldn’t GAF if one dickslapped you awake right now.
Really though, these comments sections are the absolute dregs of the world.
My fault for even coming here. Good luck!
Heres to not seeing your garbage comments again….
-98% of the readers
@raisinsss
We live in an age of unprecedent stupidity.