The Mets have selected the contract of right-hander Cole Sulser and designated fellow righty Yohan Ramírez for assignment, with Tim Healey of Newsday Sports among those to relay the transactions.
Ramírez, 29 next month, was acquired by the Mets from the White Sox in a December cash deal. He’s made three appearances for the club so far this year but allowed seven earned runs in 5 1/3 innings. He struck out six opponents but also gave out four walks. His outing on Saturday was particularly rough, as he entered the game in the bottom of the seventh with the Mets up 5-4 on the Reds. Ramírez pitched a scoreless frame but came back out for the eighth and then allowed five earned runs on four hits and two walks.
It seems that performance will get the righty bumped off the active roster and off the 40-man as well, since Ramírez is out of options. The Mets will now have a week to trade him or pass him through waivers. He could garner interest based on his work in previous seasons, as he has a career earned run average of 4.31 in 129 1/3 innings with the Mariners, Guardians, Pirates, White Sox and now the Mets. His career walk rate of 12.6% is on the high side but his 23.1% strikeout rate and 44.2% ground ball rate are both solid and he’s generally done well at limiting hard contact.
As pitching injuries mount around the league, perhaps some club will be willing to take a chance on him. Ramírez has under three years of service time and therefore comes with years of potential club control. But if he were to pass through waivers unclaimed, he would stick with the Mets as non-roster depth. He doesn’t have the service time or the previous career outright that would allow him to elect free agency instead of accepted an outright assignment.
His spot will go to Sulser, 34, who signed a minor league deal with the Mets in the offseason. He appeared to be in good form during the spring, tossing six scoreless innings while striking out ten opponents without issuing a walk. He’s made one Triple-A appearance since then, allowing an earned run while striking out one and walking one.
He has 132 2/3 innings of big league experience with a 3.87 ERA, 25.6% strikeout rate and 11.1% walk rate. Injuries have often played a role in limiting him from taking on larger workloads. He tossed 63 1/3 innings for the Orioles in 2021 with a 2.70 ERA but was held back by shoulder strains in each of the two subsequent campaigns. He still has an option remaining and could be sent back to the minors at a future date without being exposed to waivers.
Is bartolo available?
Imagine if the mets spent that money wisely in 2022 off-season.they would be the third best team in mlb
Again with the pitching injury mounting thing. Of course pitchers like athletes in every sport get hurt when they start playing but there is nothing abnormal about it other than maybe the media really has nothing to write about. Stop crying that the sky is falling just because athletes get injured.
Except that fans pay to see healthy players, play, not pay to see the players get injured
Yohan Ramirez is the guy who threw one behind Rhys Hoskins after Hoskins hit a HR earlier in a game last month. Ramirez was ejected and got a 3-game ban, reduced to 2 on appeal. Now he’s been DFA’d.
LOLmets endures.
I thought he dropped the appeal after pitching three innings in a game since he wasn’t going to be available anyway?
I can’t recall a season in the 50 years I’ve been watching when so many pitchers have gone down this early. The problem is that these players don’t ever stop, and let their bodies heal. Used to be that players had to get an offseason job, and didn’t workout all year long. Spring training was used to get guys into baseball shape, not arriving that way.
Players muscles are too tight these days. Pitching is built on power and not movement nor diversity of pitches, and they are taught to throw as hard as possible on every pitch. UCL’s and Shoulders aren’t meant to take the strain, snd it seems every club now has one or two guys on the payroll rehabbing for 16-18 months after Tommy John Surgery.
This is baseball in the current era.
Same with batters and Oblique muscles. Not a TJ recovery period, but they can lose 3-5 months.
Tell the players to take more yoga classes. Stay loose and flexible. Drop the weights. Pick up a mat.
Tell scouts it’s ok to scout pitchers who can drop a 12-6 curveball over the plate as an out pitch. Then his 91 mph fastball looks that much faster.
Something has to give. The injured list, especially the 60-day ( almost ) done for the season list, begins to look like the All-Star teams from the year 2017-2021.
Very astute observations. Pitchers being trained to throw from the stretch without a windup, puts a tremendous amount of torque on their arms because they’re not using their legs in the follow through. I remember seeing Nolan Ryan using an exercise bike after a start saying to an interviewer,” If you have a leg problem, you’ve got an arm problem”. Plus I’ve noticed so many MLB pitchers over the last 5+ years carrying so much extra weight.
Thank God! Ramirez was an arsonist! He looked awful in that game on Saturday.
one outing and gone. So much for spring training results