The Yankees have agreed to a minor league contract with reliever Michael Feliz, the Leones de Yucatán of the Mexican League announced yesterday (Twitter link). According to the MLB.com transaction tracker, Feliz has first been assigned to the organization’s Florida complex. After some time there building up, he’s likely to head to Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre.
Feliz had signed with Yucatán over the offseason. He pitched nine times and tallied 8 1/3 innings in the Mexican League, allowing just one run with an excellent 13:2 strikeout-to-walk ratio. Along the way, the 29-year-old impressed Yankees’ scouts to get another look in the affiliated ranks.
No stranger to affiliated ball, Feliz has appeared in parts of 12 minor league campaigns. He was a prospect of some regard in the Astros’ farm system and made his major league debut with Houston in 2015. The righty was on and off the MLB roster for the next few seasons before being dealt to the Pirates as part of the Gerrit Cole trade return. He had the best season of his career with Pittsburgh in 2019, tossing 56 1/3 innings of 3.99 ERA ball while punching out 30.6% of opposing hitters.
The past few seasons haven’t been as effective. Feliz has struggled to throw strikes consistently and bounced around the league in journeyman fashion. He’s suited up for Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Boston (on two separate occasions) and Oakland going back to 2021. He’s thrown a total of 31 MLB innings over the last three-plus years while bouncing around on waivers.
Feliz’s only major league work last season was a 3 1/3-inning relief outing for the Red Sox. Feliz otherwise spent the year in Triple-A, splitting the season between Boston’s and Minnesota’s affiliates. He worked to a 2.74 ERA over 49 1/3 combined innings, striking out a solid 26.4% of batters faced against a 9.6% walk rate.
This 1 makes sense!
Feliz Navidad
I’m all adither.
…As Ryan Weber starts packing his bags and finds his pen to sign his next minor league contract again.
I wanna wish the Yankees a merry Christmas
I bet that makes Feliz happy
After squandering all his good pitching prospects on a series of failed trades, the GM for Life is DESPERATE to find a few warm bodies to serve as “insurance” at AAA.
Who’s pitching “good” from those trades?
Or it’s just a routine minor league depth signing.
Sad, picking up the Red Sox cast offs now
He has been cast off by several teams. One of those guys who looks like an all star and your next closer one moment then can’t seem to find the strike zone the next. When he does find the zone the ball heads out of the yard.
So other than walks and hard contact he’s good to go!
He could give the Yankees hitters a boost of confidence during BP.
Meanwhile, Clarke Schmidt gets away with cheating. Wait until next time he’s caught. Apparently, Yankees pitchers get mulligans.
Hmmm. Wasn’t it the RS who were investigated, convicted, and fined for cheating? Get off that high horse. You’re embarassing yourself. And living a sad life every single day of your retirement.
“It is our discretion,” O’Nora said. “[Third-base ump Nestor Ceja] checked him. He noticed something just a little tacky. He called the whole crew down. It wasn’t shiny. It wasn’t dark like pine tar. It was that fuzz from the inside part of his glove, I think. As a crew, we told him to go wash it off. He washed it off, nothing was on his hand. It wasn’t sticky, and it wasn’t a foreign substance.”
– from Mlb.com
Umpires checked Yankees pitcher Clarke Schmidt for sticky substances before the bottom of the fifth inning. They felt something suspicious and told him to go wash his hands instead of ejecting him from the game.
Reds manager David Bell couldn’t believe the umpires let Schmidt come back out to pitch despite initially failing the sticky stuff test and took an ejection as a result.
Now Schmidt is the one with questions to answer.
Are those Apple watches with the Red Sox logo sold in stores?
):^)