Aug. 7: The Rockies announced that Goudeau has cleared waivers and been outrighted to Triple-A Albuquerque. He will remain in the organization as depth but without occupying a spot on the 40-man roster.
Aug. 5, 1:00pm: The Rockies announced the claim of Lamet, adding that right-hander Ashton Goudeau has been designated for assignment in order to create roster space.
12:46pm: The Rockies have claimed right-hander Dinelson Lamet off waivers from the Brewers, Adam McCalvy of MLB.com reports (Twitter link). Lamet, whom the Brewers acquired alongside Taylor Rogers and prospects Esteury Ruiz and Robert Gasser in Monday’s surprising Josh Hader trade, was designated for assignment just 48 hours after being acquired.
At the time of Lamet’s DFA, Brewers president of baseball operations David Stearns told reporters that Lamet “has a good arm and was included in the trade to help balance out the deal” but that “subsequent transactions” made him a tougher fit on the roster. The Brewers added right-handers Matt Bush and Trevor Rosenthal in separate trades one day after acquiring Lamet.
Still, the quick DFA makes it fair to wonder how prominently Lamet ever truly factored into the plans. The 2020 Cy Young candidate has been beset by injuries since late in that truncated season and has yielded 14 runs in just 12 2/3 innings this season. His fastball, which averaged 97 mph in 2020, has averaged 95.3 mph this season. Of particular note for the Padres, who are barreling toward a second straight season paying the luxury tax, Lamet is earning $4.775MM in 2022. Including him in that trade meant not only jettisoning a player who had ostensibly been squeezed out of a roster spot but also who’d have a non-zero impact on the team’s luxury ledger. Stearns’ usage of the phrase “balance out the deal,” then, could be interpreted as referencing talent or in more fiscal terms.
Regardless, the Rockies now stand to potentially benefit from both their division-rival and the NL Central leaders feeling their rosters lacked space for Lamet. As recently as 2020, the 6’3″, 228-pound Lamet looked like a foundational piece in San Diego. He made a full slate of 12 starts during that pandemic-truncated campaign, pitching to a brilliant 2.09 ERA with a 34.8% strikeout rate, 7.5% walk rate and 36.9% ground-ball rate. That showing was good enough to land Lamet, then having just turned 28 years old, a fourth-place finish in National League Cy Young voting.
However, Lamet’s 2020 season also ended with him heading to the injured list with a biceps injury sustained in his final outing of the season. He’d go on to miss the 2020 postseason, and his 2021 season was limited to just 47 innings on account of a forearm issue that twice sent him to the injured list.
Those injuries, coupled with this year’s poor showing, have resulted in a grisly 5.46 ERA in the now-30-year-old Lamet’s past 59 1/3 Major League innings. In addition to the diminished fastball, he’s seen his strikeout rate plummet from that 34.8% mark to 26.9%, while his walk rate has spiked from 7.5% to a dismal 11.4%. Lamet may have had some bad luck in 2021, posting a .344 batting average on balls in play despite allowing hard contact at well below-league-average levels, but that’s not been the case at all in 2022. Yes, his .412 BABIP is through the roof, but so too is his opponents’ average exit velocity (a blistering 93.1 mph) and his 50% hard-hit rate.
For a pitching-needy team like the Rockies, however, there’s little harm in taking a relatively low-cost look at Lamet. They’ll be owed the prorated portion of his salary — about $1.6MM between now and season’s end — but can also control him via arbitration this winter if he impresses down the stretch. Viewed through that lens, there’d have been a case for any of the clubs higher on the waiver priority (e.g. Nationals, A’s, Tigers, Royals, Pirates) claiming Lamet, but despite the right-hander’s obvious talent, not every club is going to be bullish on his chances to rebound (or on taking on that extra chunk of cash at this point in the season).
Goudeau, also 30, has pitched 20 1/3 innings in this, his second stint with the Rockies, for whom he made his MLB debut back in 2020. He’s been tagged for a 7.08 ERA with a 17% strikeout rate and 10.6% walk rate, however, both well worse than the league average. His work in Triple-A Albuquerque has been even rougher, evidenced by 43 earned runs allowed in just 37 innings of work (10.46 ERA).
Feels like the Buccos dropped the ball here. Potential worth the low risk and no one could be worse than the occasional Bryce Wilson start.
He’d be Pittsburgh’s third highest paid player.
That’s fine. It’d be a move for next year more than this. They eventually have to pay people.
I’m confused. Are the Rockies actually trying to win?
They’ve been trying to win for years and outwardly said as much. They’re just not especially good at it. But, outside of alienating Nolan Arenado and trading him when the relationship became irreparable, pretty much everything they’ve done in recent years has signaled an intent to win. They routinely hold onto their best trade assets (Story, Gray, Cron, Bard), extended half their roster (Senzatela, Freeland, McMahon, Diaz, Bard, Cron, Marquez), signed Kris Bryant in free agency, etc.
Their actions have been ineffective, but their intentions have been pretty clear.
They aren’t trying to win. They’re trying to stay above .450. They will do just enough to seem like they are trying. When is the guess for the next .500 season? The Red, A’s and Nats get hammered for trading off, but all of them will get to .500 before the Rockies.
Lamet was still a good pickup for them.
Good team in a tough division. Kind of like Baltimore in AL East.
Dinelson Lamet is a power pitcher who depends on his wicked slider to get outs. His slider hasn’t been sliding since he partially tore his UCL 2 years ago. Now he is taking his broken slider and busted arm to Colorado? I foresee problems.
Actually Rockies are good at developing sliders. Not really changes ups or movement or control, but they’ll be damned if they can’t get somebody throwing a decent slider.
You’re reasonably confused because of the bizarre Kris Bryant signing compared with the Rockies’ other roster acts.
‘Inexplicable’ describes that one. Will never grasp that deal.
What is confusing? Taking on a high upside arm that increases payroll?
What exactly is your issue with this trade?
If he sucks…it just cost money. If he’s back and healthy…you’ve got an elite arm you can flip for BP pieces…or it could help you win.
This is an easy call for a team actually trying to win.
its almost as if the pirates don’t care about winning
Did the Pirates have a chance to claim him? I’m not sure what the waiver list was before this claiming.
PIT has a worse record than COL so they passed on him
Does a team need an 40-man vacancy to make a waiver claim? If so, some of the teams with worse records may not have been able to make a claim.
Nope, they can make a corresponding move, no need to have a spot immediately at the time a player is going through waivers.
Haha I love it!
Can’t believe KC would pass on Lamet, as hungry as they are for pitching.
They might have put a claim in, but NL teams get first dibs since he was DFA’d by the brewers.
Actually that changed. It’s now strictly by record regardless of division.
@southpaw is that current record or last year’s record that determines the claim?
@DickieThon- current record dictates waiver claim status unless its the first month of the season, then last year’s record applies.
League-specific waiver priority only applied to revocable August trade waivers, which no longer exist. The Royals passed on him.
The Brewers gave up on him. Then again they also have up on Hader
My mistake guys. Thanks for the correction.
Wonder what part of the deal WAS got for taking Lamet because it just cost them nothing.
Should be MIL
Lamet had value still, it’s not like they got anything for taking him as if he was a negative asset. San Diego would’ve just DFA’d him themselves rather than pay someone else to take him when it was obvious to everyone that he would get claimed.
You have to assume the value is very minimal given the number of teams that passed on him for free.
Why would they agree to take Lamet if they were just going to assume the remaining salary and eat it? It’s the same as sending cash. Just because COL claimed him doesn’t mean they would have actually traded an asset for him. Eating the contract is what sealed the deal for the prospects MIL wanted.
Yup. A trade I was not real pleased about until I saw Glasser pitch.
That kid looks like he’s got something. Steans moves look bad a week in, but IF they’re right and Rosenthal is close to pitching…and he was throwing 98 in his workout and if Bush and Rogers can just pitch like they have been, they’ll have a deeper pen.
Still baffled why they’d let Lamet go for nothing rather than at least give him a shot over Jake McGee who looks like nothing special, but…oh well.
Wow. That must mean that every team with a worse record than them passed on Lamet. I don’t understand why the Cubs wouldn’t have wanted him, for example.
I mean theres a very clear likilihood hes cooked.. but I get it
Maybe, but I’d much rather watch him start games as opposed to some of the trash the Cubs have been trotting out there.
Well.. for one.. he’s been a reliever all year
I agree… I would rather have seen the cubs claim him vs trotting out 30 year old rookies for spot starts.
Not sure the Cubs would want that. Should be stacking up losses at this point and he doesn’t really factor into their rebuild
Trying to have Lamet start games this year would probably aid with stacking losses.
He would have been a good guy to see if you could re-gear and flip next season for very little cost. I’m not a scout so maybe the Cubs saw other, just my two cents.
I agree on the losses. I couldn’t care less if the cubs won another game all year… I just want to see some “key” guys moving in the right direction such as Steele today.
Legitimate question, what makes you think that’s possible and do you mean as a starter or a pen arm? He’s not going to keep running a 400+ babip and with that his LOB% should probably normalize a bit, but he still walks way too many and has very obvious injury concerns.
The strikeouts are nice, but he’s not going to be that cheap next season, relatively speaking, especially with the durability and bb problems making his chances of being a SP grim, Other than, “he was good in 2020”, I really don’t see much that points to him being a good investment for a team in 2022/2023.
Good luck Dinelson, prepare for lopsided Home/Road splits.
Not sure Colorado is the best place for a struggling pitcher to recapture his form.
That’s a very incorrect statement. League average or below-average pitchers who sign with Colorado actually go onto have some of the franchise most interesting seasons.
Shawn Estes
Darren Oliver
Kevin Ritz
Brian Bohannon
Pedro Astacio
Josh Fogg
Joe Kennedy
Morgan Freeman
Tyler Chatwood
Jorge De La Rosa
All of these pitchers were average or worse; each one of them have gone on to have either career years or close to career years with Colorado despite their ERA’S skyrocketing.
De LA Rosa even established himself as one of the NL’s best Left Handed starters, and the franchise all-time leader in wins with 86.
You named 10 guys. How many pitchers get worse there? I’m talking about a majority not minority.
And we are talking about an individual pitcher here in Lamet, so majority or minority do not matter AT ALL. He is one man. He will either do well or he will not. What happened to Bill Swift in 1996 or the late Joe Kennedy in 2005 does not affect Lamet at all.
We just ignoring Morgan Freeman orrrr
Depends on whether you’re getting Red or God
He meant Marvin Freeman I am sure. Better pitching arm…worse voice.
Re-reading this entire post in Morgan Freeman voice and loving it.
nice one
Wow, that’s a veritable hall of wot
Morgan Freeman??
Dinelson, you’re better off in Japan than Denver.
The smartest thing Colorado has done in a decade, probably.
way to go Stearns… ffs seen this coming from miles away maybe not the claim but him not being with the brew crew
I assume the plan was to take Lamet and the 4-ish million he’s owed to improve the trade haul and then let someone else take that financial strain by claiming him on waivers. Only way this makes any sense to me.
Yup. Straight out salary dump. Sort of like a hockey move- doing the Pods a solid. Bet the Pods didn’t forsee him going to a division rival.
Part of the Rockies rotation in 2023. Wish we still had him in San Diego. Best of fortune to him.
I really don’t think he’s at a point where he would be tendered a contract for 2023. He’ll make like $5M in Arb and that’s way too much considering his current performance.
Rockies are so poorly run though that they might do it anyways.
I was gonna say, it’s the Rockies we are talking about. One of the few teams that will happily pay that if he bounces back the remainder of the season.
I see that too. I will pay attention to see if they keep him and Rockies luck out with a back end starter.
Too expensive for A’s, Royals and Pirates; Nationals clearly could have had him in the Soto trade if they wanted but didn’t, so it makes perfect sense for the Rockies to get him.
Suddenly their “trade deadline” was a success, this was a worthwhile investment for a pitching starved organization.
Lamet was traded to MKE before the Soto trade was affirmed.
Could be that the multiple forearm injuries are a precursor to TJ surgery. I thought he was a guy that had the surgery previously.
He has and he needs it again. He’s been trying the other routes first that rarely seem to work.
No more waiting for Goudeau
The last place any pitcher wants to go! Sure he is thrilled.
I don’t understand why the Nats claimed a 30 year old relief pitcher with a walk an inning track record rather than Lamet. With the worst record in baseball, they should have had first pick.
They didn’t claim Sadzek.. they signed him to a MILB deal.. They and others… simply passed on Lamet because he’s likely broken… Two teams just dumped him.. If WSH wanted Lamet.. he’d probably have been in the Soto trade
He was already traded prior to the Soto trade. Hader went first. Soto went the next day.
Either Rizzo knows something about Lamet that no one else knows or he truly just missed a chance to get a pitcher in his rotation that has serious upside for pennies on the dollar (all considering the contracts they have presently for Stras and Corbin). As a Nationals fan, my gut says Rizzo took a long look at Lamet while teams were pursuing Soto and received some inside knowledge that not all is well.
However if he just totally missed on a guy with 15+ win upside, it’s time for the Nats to start looking elsewhere for a GM.
Probably ends up being an ace in Denver.
For a middling Rockies team that hangs onto him through the 2023 trade deadline before losing him to free agency.
He’s got a slider that works in Coors, however, I think he should look at lowering the speed of his FB in Coors and he should have some decent success as with Kuhl. A low spin, fairly high velocity FB works great there.
Walking 6/9ip doesn’t work well in COL.
Rockies picked up another Range Rover.
Which looks great besides Yugo ownership.
The Rockies have done ok with Chad Kuhl and Jose Urena, maybe they get lucky with Lamet as well
I’ve got a gut feeling this whole Lamet fiasco is going to somehow come back to bite Milwaukee in the butt.
Sort of like the two walk off losses already have?
How? They took on his salary to improve their trade haul, then turned around and let someone else pay it that has the roster space and time.
I”m not saying I like how this all went down, but I really dont think Lamet is going to bite them in the butt.
(sweat beads on Marv Albert’s forehead)
Don’t quite understand throwing that guy away. Is he hurt? That guy has potential to be good now.
Glad Al Avila joined the conversation. Go Tigers!
Why the Angels passed on giving this guy a shot is beyond me.
Worth a roll of the dice
I know Lamet does not have a high salary however I wonder if this was one of those deals where the Padres were trying hard to get Soto , and said no matter what you do you need to take some salary back. Plus Soto was heavily rumored to possibly go to the Cards, so the Brewers took players they did not want . In all reality Lamet has had one good short season and is prone to injury . However with that said I would much rather see Lemat than Rosenthal.
David Sterns: A swing and a MISS!
This is absolutely dumbfounding. How in the world did he go from one of the most electrifying young starters not even two seasons ago and looked to be a Franchise building block to being used as a salary dump/equalizer and then immediately DFA’d?
I honestly thought he was the impressive part of the package Milwaukee got back for Josh Hader. Did they intend to waive him all along?
That’s a safe assumption since he never pitched for the Brewers.
The Brewers opted to keep a low life on their team in Matt Bush and pass on a potentially talented arm for the future.
Rockies picking Lamet up is like a doomed role, COL stadium ain’t going to help his confidence or outlook
The Rockies keep building on their juggernaut threatening to run away with the Division and National League pennants in five years.. Baseball should be awed by the tremendous deals the Rockies have made guarantying them to compete with the Detroit Tigers for years to come.
Don’t get what the Brewers are doing lately but Lamet is pretty good. Not used properly in San Diego which at has too much and doesn’t know what to do with it.