The Orioles announced a couple of roster moves, with left-hander John Means being reinstated from the 60-day injured list and outfielder Yusniel Diaz clearing outright waivers and being assigned to Triple-A Norfolk.
Diaz, 26, was once a high-profile prospect out of Cuba. He signed with the Dodgers in 2015 on a $15.5MM deal but was traded to the Orioles as part of the Manny Machado deal at the 2018 deadline. He was added to the club’s 40-man roster in November of 2020 in order to protect him from being selected in the Rule 5 draft.
The past few years haven’t been especially kind to Diaz. He split 2021 between Double-A and Triple-A, getting into 65 games but hitting just .161/.233/.265 while striking out 32.4% of the time. In 2022, he spent most of his time at Triple-A, getting into 70 games there with a slash of .251/.346/.360, wRC+ of 93. He also made his MLB debut but struck out in his only plate appearance. Diaz has seven years of minor league experience and is therefore eligible to elect minor league free agency today, though it’s unclear if he has indeed chosen to do so.
The move for Means is a formality since the injured list goes away today and doesn’t come back until Spring Training. He underwent Tommy John surgery in April and will likely be out of action until some point in 2023, depending on how his rehab proceeds.
Still wondering why there wasn’t a quick post like this about Hanser getting his option declined by the Dodgers.
mlbtraderumors.com/2022/11/dodgers-to-decline-club…
Toptimrubies, Wow. I have been looking for the article on him and had yet to see it. My apologies to the writers. My mistake! Thanks for keeping up in the loop. Hanser is one of my favorite players. TopTim, thanks for the correction!
He was fun in an Uribe kind of way, although Uribe was really good in years 2/3 in LA.
**keeping me in the loop
Hahaa A good friend of mine told me right after they got him that he was “Uribe Jr.” Funny you saw it too.
I thought Hanser was gonna be a good piece for LA as he is the perfect complimentary piece. Sounds like he was still great in the clubhouse and a team guy but couldn’t hit even a little. He’s never been a high obp guy but gave a lot if tough at bats usually ending in a single.
Surprised he wasn’t claimed. This early in the off season when spots are available for a lot of teams. The Os seemed to have soured on him for sure. It seems he gets hot then gets hurt and then takes a while to get hot again
He hasn’t shown anything in years and he’s pretty old for a prospect.
He brings vitality and vigor to the clubhouse. He is a good player. He’ll get a shot somewhere. Expect him to be starting come opening day..
So much for the return on the Manny Machado trade.
Kremer looked pretty solid this year. Even if he never becomes anything more than a #4/5 innings eater type, there is value in that.
Yordan Alvarez is really the only Dodgers prospect traded away that’s been anything decent
This goes to show just how hard armature scouting is. 15 mil (Dodgers blowing cash like a rich kid in a frat) to guy that is likely to never produce meaningfully in The Bigs.
Honestly the Dodgers as a whole are a prime example of your point.
Before the current international free agent restrictions were in place, they paid huge money for Diaz, Yadier Alvarez, Alex Guerrero, Hector Olivera, and Erisbel Arruebarrena — and they all turned into pretty bad players. At least they signed Yordan Alvarez but they’re not even the ones benefitting from it.
Those guys were signed under Colletti, though, right? It seems like Friedman has a much better scouting staff in place, considering how many great prospects the organization has produced in that time.
Honestly that was my assumption at first too, but Friedman was hired at the end of 2014 and most of those guys were signed in 2015-16. But yeah, I’m surprised too.
Bummer that it worked out this way with Diaz since he looked like a promising prospect at the time of the Manny trade. At least Kremer looks like he might salvage the deal so that the Orioles didn’t end with absolutely nothing whatsoever to show for Machado.
O’s should have signed Manny. He is a generational talent. The owner is cheap and team was burned bad by the big oaf Davis contract. Manny would have followed in Cal’s footsteps. Besides he wanted to stay in Baltimore, but never received on offer.
Why would Manny have signed a long-term deal with a team about to enter a lengthy rebuild? Why would a team about to enter a lengthy rebuild sign a $30 million dollar player?
They can bring him back in a year, if they want.
They absolutely should have, and they did try. They reportedly offered Machado an eight year deal worth $64 million before he ever got to arbitration, but the rumor was his agent wanted something in the 70m+ at the time. Hindsight being 20/20, they should’ve ponied up the extra 10m dollars over the 8 years. They botched that negotiation badly.
At the time of the trade, they were never going to be able to sign him though. As you said, he’s a generational talent. They didn’t have the pieces around him to compete then however because their core was nearing the end of it’s run. It would’ve been a tough sell to get him to sign on for a rebuild. The trade was the right decision then.
That certainly doesn’t absolve Angelos of any blame. The team reached that point because of it’s ridiculous physicals, long-standing refusal to acquire pitching and odd aversion at that time to participate in the IFA market.
Their aversion to participate in the international market resulted from the Korea debacle, where the team and its scouts were kicked out of the country for signing a high schooler. They were very active in the Caribbean and SE Asia prior,
The opportunity to sign Manny was when he was getting the second knee surgery.
Those physicals saved them from Grant Balfour, so not ridiculous.
They did sign Ubaldo and Cobb to big money contracts though both signings blew up in their faces. Even spent bib bucks on Gallardo, which was stupid from the get go.
Lastly, “it’s” means “it is” only. “Its” is the way to spell the possessive of the word, “it,” Maybe they were voice-to-text errors. All the best.
The Orioles may have been active in Korea/SE Asia but ended up being just as unsuccessful as they usually are. (Why were they in that market and not regular players or IFA? Because it was CHEAPER at the time).
Wei Yin Chen was the only name of consequence out of that foray. Out of Taiwan, Chen gave them 3 pretty average and 1 very good year as a starter, going 46-32 at the height of the Orioles’ success in the last decade. Of course at about $4M a year that was good, but they let him sign a big deal with Miami after that.
Tsuyoshi Wada? Orioles gave him 2 years and he never threw a pitch for them. The Cubs picked him up – there was a decade or so when the Orioles would only talk to 1 other team – and he pitched 100 innings for them over 2 years. He had one great start in that time – against the Orioles.
Then Hyun Soo Kim, hyped as the best deal the Orioles ever did in terms of money for a sure fire starter. Ended up playing 2 years as a platoon guy in the OF with very little power.
And that was it. The Orioles returned to a strategy where they felt they could build a complete team in the Rule 5 draft.
The Orioles were very active in the Caribbean and Central America before the Korea debacle. Your Oriole-hate agenda is boring and your statements are usually factually wrong, like this one.
Most prospects fail; that’s the nature of the game.
More proof how inept Dan Duquette was a GM