The Orioles have acquired reliever Yohan Ramírez from the Mets for cash, the teams announced. New York had designated the righty for assignment on Monday. Baltimore’s 40-man roster now sits at capacity.
Ramírez spent a couple months in the New York organization. The Mets acquired him from the White Sox in a cash deal in December. He held his spot on the 40-man roster for the rest of the offseason and broke camp. A pair of rough outings quickly squeezed him off the big league team, though. After recording one out in a scoreless appearance in his season debut, he allowed seven runs on nine hits over his next five innings.
The 28-year-old has played for five teams over the past four-plus seasons. Ramírez has tallied 129 1/3 innings at the highest level, turning in a reasonable 4.31 ERA. He has punched out a decent 23.1% of batters faced, yet he’s also struggled to throw strikes consistently. Ramírez has walked over 12% of big league opponents. The sinkerballer induced grounders at a huge 58.4% rate last season but has posted more pedestrian ground-ball numbers in every other year.
While his stuff has clearly intrigued a handful of teams, Ramírez’s scattershot command has made him something of a volatile middle reliever. Perhaps more importantly, he’s also out of minor league options. Teams can’t send him to Triple-A without first running him through waivers, which no club has yet achieved.
Baltimore entered the day with a pair of openings on the 40-man roster. They snagged infielder Livan Soto off waivers this afternoon before their evening bullpen pickup. Neither move comes at much cost, although the O’s will need to devote an MLB bullpen spot to Ramírez once he reports to the team.
The Orioles already have four relievers on the active roster who can’t be sent down: Craig Kimbrel, Mike Baumann, Danny Coulombe and Jacob Webb. They’re not likely to send down any of Yennier Cano, Keegan Akin or Dillon Tate, while Jonathan Heasley is working as a long reliever. That’s a tough bullpen for Ramírez to crack, so it’s not out of the question that Baltimore tries to sneak him through waivers themselves in the next few days.
Yes
Had to look at his baseball-reference.com page…anyone know the “unknown compensation” the Pirates sent to Cleveland for him???
They sent a half-eaten pastrami and cheese from Primanti Brothers and a $5 gift certificate to Sheetz.
Sounds abouts right
Not joking, they acquired him for $1 in cash considerations.
I think the sheetz gift card would’ve been better…
Also, where’d you find that? Is there something more in depth than baseball-reference?
$1 deals are not uncommon. If you can’t find a dollar value, it was probably $1 or close to it. No reason to let a guy feel like he’s worth only $1.
One of the reasons the generic phrase cash considerations is used instead of specific dollar amounts is because there’s a whole lot more 1 dollar deals than thousands of dollars deals. It’s usually because the team that dfa’d the player is trying to help the guy stay on a big league roster.
Yeah. I’ve seen the “cash considerations” line before. But I was referring specifically to the “unknown compensation”, which is how it’s worded in his transaction.
They must’ve been impressed by the beating he got in Cincy.
He started with Houston when Os GM Elias was “tending the farm” for the Stros.
#Jeff
should have known. lol. Elias would bring Pete Best back to the Beatles if he could. He loves the “let’s bring the band back together again” move.
I trust his ability to vet the scrap heap, he has a pretty incredible ability to find the parts he needs.
Sounds like Johan has the stuff; it’s harnessing it that is the challenge. Orioles will be 7th team since 2019 to try to crack that control code. Hmm. Oh, injury history seems miniscule. A plus!
At his best Yohan is groundball machine. That pairs pretty well with the O’s infield considering they have four legit shortstops in Henderson, Mateo, Westburg and now Holliday to play three positions. If he keeps the ball down and close enough to the strike zone when trying to hit the edges then it could be a very good waiver claim.
It is just a game of musical chairs for the relief pitchers who are out of options. Yohan is just another of the many.
You are a major leaguer until you either 1) blow up an inning, or 2) the injured player you were called up to replace comes off the IL..
And then some other team will take another chance on you until scenarios 1 or 2 above happen again.
We used to refer to those transactions as being “traded for a bag of balls”.
Look at Adam’s era . Should have kept him.
This is at least the third time Ramirez has been traded straight up for cash. Guardians bought him in May 2022 from the Mariners, then two months later sent him to the Pirates for “unknown compensation”. The Mets bought him from the White Sox back in December and now they’re selling him to the Orioles.
Now just imagine if Stearns could do this with Narvaez
If i were mets i would have traded him for a box of cracker jack just to get rid of him
DON’T YOU MEAN THE MUTS???!!!???!!!
OR i woulda traded him for some nathans fries
boy do i miss those crinkle cut fries in coney island with mustard on top
Is that an old school thing? I’ve done mayo but mustard? Any good?
Holliday 0-7. lol
Clown comment
What else would you expect?
Gotta be a sneak through waivers play here. Can’t see him making the pen right now.
Cole Irvin probably won’t finish the season as an Oriole if Bradish and Means come back healthy.
hope you’re right, BStrow. I hadn’t been paying attn to how Heasley was doing but looks like from his line that he’s the pitching version of Ryan OHearn. Royals Zombie from the recycling bin. I’m all for this. If we need to take some UCL’s off of some of the waiver claims and stitch them into the rostered guys, that’d be great entertainment during the 7th inning stretch.
Another trash pickup. Plenty of trade capital to acquire a real bullpen piece later in summer. The team can’t rely on kimbrel to close out games.
& we likely will grab a guy for the pen later but there’s just about no one available right now. Nothing wrong with trying. Jacob Webb came in the same way. He’s been useful thus far.
Even Coulombe was a cash pickup.
Webb has been surprisingly cromulent but bullpen pieces are remarkably flighty. Even more surprising to me, Akin has been solidm I’d have bet (& lost) a stack of cash that he’d be DFA’d long ago. I’m happy to admit that he’s proven me wrong recently.
Thank you Orioles! I always try to see the positive in players since they are also people, and not trash them like far too many visitors to this site, but I didn’t understand why the Mets thought that they could fix him. Good luck in the future Yohan! You are a Major League Baseball player, which is something that has somehow eluded all of the negative clown commenters here.
Traded for crab cakes anyone?
I’d take a couple of orders of Boog’s barbeque!
Don’t mess with the Yohan!