The Rays announced they’ve selected righty Jimmy Yacabonis onto the big league roster. Fellow righty Kevin Herget has been designated for assignment in a corresponding move.
Tampa Bay has operated a revolving door with its last bullpen spot in the past few days. In rapid succession, the Rays have selected and designated each of Cristofer Ogando, Easton McGee and now Herget, whose most recent call-up came just yesterday. Yacabonis will now step into the bullpen as the Rays juggle low-leverage innings headed into the postseason.
The Rays nabbed Yacabonis off waivers from the Marlins in early August. He spent two weeks in the big leagues with Tampa Bay, appearing four times out of the bullpen. The 30-year-old allowed five runs (four earned) in 3 2/3 innings, striking out four while issuing a pair of walks. He was designated for assignment and cleared waivers before accepting an outright assignment to Triple-A Durham.
Yacabonis has appeared in parts of five big league campaigns, suiting up with the Orioles, Mariners and Marlins in addition to his time in Tampa Bay. He owns a 5.92 ERA in 117 MLB innings, coming out of the bullpen for 57 of his 70 outings. He’s pitched to a 3.21 ERA in 33 2/3 Triple-A frames this year, and he’ll offer skipper Kevin Cash a potential multi-inning option for the last two games of the regular season. Yacabonis is technically postseason-eligible, although it’s unlikely the Rays will carry him on any of their playoff rosters.
Herget loses his roster spot after soaking up 4 1/3 innings in relief of Tyler Glasnow during yesterday’s loss to the Red Sox. The righty threw 77 pitches and certainly wouldn’t have been an option to appear in either of the next two games. With the Rays not planning on carrying him on the playoff roster, it’s not a surprise they promptly designated him for assignment. It nevertheless has to be a tough pill to swallow for the 31-year-old rookie, who has been DFA on three occasions dating back to mid-August.
In each of the past two instances, Herget went unclaimed on waivers and was sent back to Durham. He’ll land on the wire again in the next few days. Herget had a very impressive Triple-A campaign, working to a 2.95 ERA with a solid 24.4% strikeout percentage and a minuscule 3.9% walk rate over 97 2/3 frames. Even if he goes unclaimed on waivers and hits free agency — either via immediate rejection of an outright assignment or at the end of the year — that should draw him a fair number of minor league offers this winter.
Are these type of “day transactions” more common this year down the stretch than in prior seasons?
They are just trying to organize their 40 man roster for the off-season
The Rays are outstanding about swapping out guys quickly when they’re not performing. They usually have so much depth that they can afford to keep throwing stuff at the wall & seeing if it sticks.
Rays are planning for their opening WC series & are setting up their pitching staff with proper rest. All these recent pitchers are at least getting game(s) day pay & getting some mlb innings under their belt.
Herget threw almost 70 pitches in relief last night so his season is over, Rays need a fresh arm for the next couple of games
Another way of looking at it is that the Rays had him throw 70 pitches so they could remove him and cost him service time. The Rays are gaming the system and they are doing it well, but the people that are getting hurt are these fringe guys that are only getting 2-3 days of service time instead of the 20-30 days they would get on other teams’ roster.
A lot of these pitchers were also bouncing around team to team for many seasons already. On top of that of many we’re DFA’d already by another team this season.
The Rays are using pitchers that they probably won’t resign in the off-season initially (outside of minor league deals) to rest & setup their pitching staff for the WC playoff series. They are not gaming the system since they are one of the top teams with player injuries during the season.