The A’s announced today they’ve signed corner infielder Matt Davidson to a minor league contract. He’ll report to Triple-A Las Vegas. Oakland also agreed to a minor league deal with right-hander Jorge Juan, whom they’d released over the weekend.
Davidson began the season with the Diamondbacks, opening the year with their top affiliate in Reno. The big right-handed hitter blasted eight home runs in 11 games for the Aces, and the Snakes promoted him in late April. Davidson went yard in his first plate appearance of the season in the majors as well, but he went hitless in his other nine at-bats. The D-Backs designated him for assignment when active rosters were reduced last Monday. He cleared outright waivers but declined the assignment in favor of free agency.
While the 31-year-old will remain in the Pacific Coast League to start his A’s tenure, he presumably believes there’s a clearer path to another MLB job in Oakland than there’d been in the desert. The A’s have primarily relied on Sheldon Neuse, Kevin Smith and Seth Brown in the corner infield this season. Neuse has done well in spite of poor strikeout and walk numbers, but neither Smith nor Brown has gotten off to a good start. Davidson is a career .222/.292/.433 hitter in a bit more than 1000 MLB plate appearances.
Juan, 23, has yet to even reach Double-A. His contract was nevertheless selected last November as the A’s set their 40-man roster in preparation for the Rule 5 draft (which never ended up transpiring). Unfortunately, Juan has spent the entire 2022 season on the minor league injured list. Injured players can’t be outrighted, so the A’s could only remove him from the 40-man by releasing him or placing him on the MLB 60-day injured list (which would’ve required paying him the prorated portion of the $700K MLB minimum salary). The A’s chose to release him but brought him back on a non-roster deal after he cleared waivers.
Last time the a’s signed a 3rd baseman that was just released by the dbacks it went pretty well so they probably figured why not try again?
Best player on their team!
Never got a chance in Arizona because Torey Lovullo insisted on playing Sergio Alcantra and his .100 average over the minor league home run leader with an OPS over 1.000. And the argument of better defense becomes moot when he or Geraldo Perdomo (.255 SLG) consistently were missing balls and making errors at third.
He did the same thing with CJ Cron’s brother a few years ago. The guy was a cheat code in Triple-A and when the front office called him up, Lovullo played him maybe once every three or four days. There wasn’t an NL DH back then, so it was tougher to fit him into the lineup, but not finding a spot in the worst offense in baseball for Davidson, brings back similar memories.
I admire the passion in your comment but Davidson had just one hit that was a solo homerun, so it really isn’t a great argument to defend a starting job for him.
And Kevin Cron couldn’t hit a breaking ball and still can’t, just take a look at his numbers in Asia. These are fringy MLB players, if MLB worthy material at all, so it is not like their presence on or off the roster will make much of a difference on any Diamondbacks roster. Alcantara just got DFAd, Perdomo needs ABs to find out what his role will be in the future…it isn’t that hard to understand decisions made by this FO.
I hear what you’re saying but for a team ranked dead last in offensive production, why bring him up if you weren’t gonna let him hit? At the time Alcantra was barely hitting his waste size and yet Lovullo continued to start him. Plus, his defense was atrocious.
Davidson may have gotten one hit but he did it in his first game (a homer) and then walked twice in his second, and after that he got regulated to bench duty. What’s the man gotta do? Hit a home run every time up?
Perdomo should still be on the farm and the cash sent to Chicago for Alcantra better not have been more than a 10 bucks because all he did was help them lose. Yes, he’s gone now, but I’m talking about the head scratching move to continually start him then over a guy who just hit 8 home runs in 11 days when your team is scoring two runs a game.
And ya, Cron hasn’t been good overseas, but again why bring the man up when he is leading the Minors in OPS if you weren’t gonna play him. No doubt the dude felt the pressure of having to perform once a week to keep his job and it messed with his psyche and development.
Matty D! This guy can rake!
Good luck sir
No, he cant.
He can against KC
Play him against the Royals! And opening day! He can also pitch in a pinch.
Hope he does well, wish he had a better go with the white sox… Injuries and acquisitions kinda forced him out of town
*SACRAMENTO SQUIRRELS
They can’t keep getting away with signing all the Matt’s
White Sox Legend!