Outfielder Jaylin Davis, designated for assignment by the Red Sox last week, went unclaimed on waivers and has been assigned outright to Triple-A Worcester, per MassLive.com’s Chris Cotillo (Twitter link). He’ll remain with the organization but no longer occupy a spot on the 40-man roster.
Davis, 27, was claimed off waivers out of the Giants organization late last month. He hadn’t been outrighted previously in his career and doesn’t have three years of big league service time, so he didn’t have the option to reject the assignment in favor of free agency.
Originally a 24th-round pick of the Twins back in 2015, Davis was traded from Minnesota to San Francisco in exchange for Sam Dyson at the 2019 trade deadline. Despite enormous Triple-A production with the Twins and Giants in ’19 — .306/.397/.590 with 35 home runs in 541 plate appearances — Davis has never managed to carry things over to the big leagues. He hit just .159/.221/.270 in parts of three seasons with the Giants (68 plate appearances) and was 2-for-4 in his pair of games with the Sox prior to his DFA.
Davis has continued to post solid power numbers in Triple-A, but he’s never replicated that 2019 production — even in the minors. He hit .230/.317/.503 with the Giants’ top affiliate last year and is out to a .257/.282/.446 start between the Triple-A clubs of the Red Sox and Giants so far in 2022. Strikeouts have become an increasing issue for Davis over the years, as evidenced by last year’s 31.7% punchout rate and this year’s mark of 32.1% in 78 plate appearances.
The reincarnation of Chad Mottola?
Since Chad Mottola is still alive, I’d guess no probably not.
Another stellar pickup from the dumpster diving Chaim Bloom along with Martinez who was released the other day. Keep climbing into that Dumpster Chaim.
Are you expecting high end pickups on the waiver wire?
AL34 is waiting for Trout and Soto to be put on waivers.
Then he’ll and certain others will complain how there’s no money left for their pending free agents. As for Davis, was the minor league ball also juiced in 19?
Being the premier dumpster diver that he is, if Zaidi has already discarded him, Davis may just be a dead horse at this point.
I think we’re going to have to call players like this Covid Kids. Players who were coming up and moving up then suddenly told they can’t play for a year, year and a half, two years… all because of lockdowns/shutdowns from covid.
I think we’re going to see a part of a generation who were permanently derailed in pro sports because everything was covid cancelled. It’s too bad. His career looked promising
Davis has had his chances but injuries last year are what hurt his MLB chances, not Covid so much as he was up and down with the Giants in 2020. He DH’ed a lot in AAA Sacramento last year because of his knee.
He’s still young enough to get a chance in MLB, especially if the Red Sox wave the white flag early and select his contract. It’s good for Boston they could run him through waivers and reassign him, gives them extra time to evaluate. He’s a good comp for Tommy Pham, a power/speed guy who strikes out a bit too much.
That’s my take as well. If they claim him, run him thru waivers, and someone else grabs him, then we’re spinning our wheels. But if we can outright him, then we have someone in the minors that might come in handy should Covid wipe us out like last year.
It is the game GMs play……select a guy off waivers (must have a 40-man spot open), play them a game or not, then outright them to AAA. Kyle Tyler was select and outrighted 5 or 6 times by the Angels, Red Sox, and either Tampa or Toronto all in the span of several weeks.
After watching him with the Giants, he was never going to be a starting outfielder, maybe a 4th or 5th option at best. The Giants took a flyer on home when the squired him from the Twins. He’s not even good enough to play overseas. Strikes out way to much for the overseas type of game.
… or we could just keep calling them AAAA players. He’s certainly not the first player to have raked in AAA but soon floundered in the majors.
Never heard such a big deal made out of a complete game than the announcers did with Pivetta’s. One would think he pitched a no-hitter or perfect game. He pitched 9 innings…. It’s not as common, obviously, but goodness, it wasn’t even a shutout.
He was 2 pitches away from a perfect game, so it was an elite pitching performance. They made a big deal out of it because it was Nick Pivetta who did it and not Walker Buehler, Justin Verlander, Pablo Lopez, etc. Also, the game started with a 10 pitch at bat to Altuve that resulted in a lead off HR, so it seemed improbable that he would pitch a complete game after that at bat, let alone retire the next 26 out of 27 batters. I watched most of the game and it really was a truly dominant performance against an excellent offensive team in Houston. He was throwing 95-96 in the 9th inning too, so the early season concerns about arm strength and velocity for Pivetta should be put to rest for a while anyways.
How often do Sox or any team’s starters complete games today? Mostly every team’s announcers would be over the top in such a situation today. Pivetta pitched a gem and deserves the recognition. I still say MLB blew it by not negotiating that by 2023, teams would be limited to 11 pitchers on the roster. The only way the game will change is to force them to stop overthrowing and learn how to command/control the strike zone.
dewey – I’d give your comment 10 thumbs up if I could.
Cora has a history of pulling starters too early, even when they have been pitching great and have a reasonably low pitch count. Pivetta especially has had no-hit stuff deep into games, only to get yanked early because Cora has no common sense. Like last year in Tampa, Nick had a no-no with 2 outs in the 7th and he was pulled right then despite being at just 100 pitches (of course the bullpen lost the game).
Same thing in Toronto last year, 6 shutout innings and just 2 hits but he was still pulled despite only 76 pitches. And oh yeah, they lost THAT game too.
The reason last night’s game was such a big deal is it represented a huge change in philosophy. The front office likely told Cora to cut the crap, let starting pitchers who are cruising on a low pitch count stay in the game, screw the matchups, and play to win rather than play to get every freakin’ reliever in the damn game.
And guess what you tunnel-visioned robotic brainwashed stats geeks out there, Pivetta faced six hitters 3 times and two hitters 4 times and NO he didn’t get hammered 3rd time through the lineup and NO his arm didn’t fall off because he went over 100 pitches.
Just further proof that all the “pull him after 18 BF or after 100 pitches” is 100% crap.
Yeah, those are great points, & I agree with all of what you guys said. Recognizing the guy himself for the game he pitched? Absolutely! But he was talking about the CG itself. That’s not nearly as impressive as everything else you delineated, imo.
FPG: I love the way you phrased this. You should’ve been on the hot mic with that take! Thats something I could listen to & get behind! That’s an awesome perspective on this whole ordeal, & one that needs to be ever present in this game. Dewey recognized the RSox pitchers never do as well, I guess. I can see it from that standpoint.
Plus, I do understand he’s not the long-term, high-innings ace, but again, 120 pitches or whatever it ended up being isn’t so uncommon today that {that itself} warrants the recognition.
I guess, my point is, he recognized the wrong side of this too much. “When is this ever done today?”, and other such comments are quite a bit over the top….. it’s done every single season, multiple times per season, by a variety of pitchers.
It’s similar to another game I watched (I don’t recall which one last week), where they were going crazy for their respective team’s player who hit something like 105mph off the bat. They played it up like it was 120. I dunno, man, just an observation.
Hopefully he will continue to pitch really well for you guys. Respect you guys a bunch, you prove that there are 3 (exactly 3) good RSox fans in the country …. Lol
Clip – Great post and thanks for the kind words. I’m actually way too mild mannered in the real world for radio, think Ben Affleck in “The Accountant”. LOL
I agree that performances often get overhyped, I think the fact CG’s are so rare for the Red Sox is why Pivetta got so much hype. Last year they were one of only four teams to not have a CG, and two of the other three teams were 100+ game losers.
Here’s the thing about pitch counts, how are pitchers supposed to learn how to pitch effectively at over 100 pitches if they are never given the opportunity to do so? And how would they be able to build up the endurance if they never get pushed to throw more than a 100 pitches? That’s why I always say, look behind the numbers.
FPG: You are so right. I think that’s why they are approaching SP so poorly. They’re contributing to the problem by what they believe is protecting their assets.
Anyway, “ think Ben Affleck in “The Accountant”.”
Really? So you’re, ya know, for hire? For the right price, of course….
think Ben Affleck in “The Accountant”
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I appreciate that you watched my autobiography.
That said, I think the era of CGs is over. I think the era we are about to embark on is one that Bloom invented. I’m thinking that we will have maybe 2 7-inning SPs, maybe even #1 types, and the rest of the rotation will be stackables. I think the Houck outing will be the perfect example. Guys like Houck, and maybe Seabold, Winckowski, maybe Darwizon, will be developed to pitch 3-4 innings maybe 5x a month.
Hill and Wacha have obviously out-performed, but if they revert to nothing more than decent 4- or 5-inning pitchers, if you have some stackables in your BP, you can win a lot of them.
I think that’s why they are approaching SP so poorly.
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I don’t have the data for it, but the “new” system seems very intuitive. Instead of developing 7-inning and 1-inning pitchers, develop 3-4 inning pitchers. Throw harder, but for less pitches, and you flip the lineup. Last night, Seattle stacked the lineup with righties. Hill was pulled because he was bad, but it would still have made sense to pull him for a righty after 2-3 innings.
Clip – Yes I am, only as an independent contractor and I will only work remotely.
Never heard such a big deal made out of a complete game than the announcers did with Pivetta’s.
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To me, the fascination is about how bad a player can be, and how quickly they can become this good. An ERA of 7.84 for 5 games, and an ERA of 0.82 in the past three. This is what makes baseball the greatest sport ever.
Man, it must be a hard life for the Jaylin Davis’s of the world (and there are a lot of them) bouncing around from club to club, getting called up for a few at bats every season, and then either sent back down, traded or released. I’m not sure what his minor league salary is but it’s certainly a far cry from the $700K+ league minimum. At this point, it seems like this is going to stay the same for the rest of his baseball career. He seems like a candidate for an overseas team though (KBO, Japan, Taiwan). I’d like to see him go over to the KBO, find some success and perhaps finish his career in MLB. The guy has worked his tail off to get to where he is; it’s just doesn’t seem to be quite good enough to stay on an MLB roster.
Dorothy, see my above comment. There is no strategy to today’s game when the bench is just three hitters. A lot of back up/role playing jobs are now middle reliever roster spots.
There is very little strategy in a three outcome game…strikeout, walk, HR.
With 11 pitchers does the league think they are forcing teams to pitch each pitcher longer outings, and causing shorter games. IMO all that will happens is more bullpen burnout and more injuries. Matt Barnes 2.0
It’s mainly in my view because they overthrow and never learn the art of pitching. Even with the DH, teams bunted, double-switched, hit and ran, etc. AL teams up until the late 80s to early 90s had 10 or 11 pitchers on a 25 man roster. 75 WS with no DH, Sparky Anderson used a 9 man staff.
That is ‘used to be that way’ doesn’t mean it should be that way. When I grew up, FB had 40-man rosters. Almost everyone played every down, except for maybe swapping out RBs on passing plays. Now we have interchangeable parts for every defensive position. I liked it better in the old days, but I also recognize that the new alignments are smarter football.
Football is different. I grew up with Tony Sparano who played both offense and defense. In high school homeroom one day he suggested I go out for the team. I asked why, to be a practice dummy? Was shocked he died a few years back. RIP Tony.
Probably a lot harder working in a factory.