The Giants announced Monday that they’ve designated right-hander Daulton Jefferies for assignment. His spot on the 40-man roster will go to right-handed pitching prospect Mason Black, whose previously reported promotion from Triple-A Sacramento is now official.
Jefferies, 28, went through two years of painstaking rehab to get back to the big leagues after undergoing both Tommy John surgery and thoracic outlet surgery. The former No. 37 overall draft pick’s Giants debut at the end of March was his first MLB appearance since May 2022 with the A’s.
Jefferies shined in spring training this year (2.57 ERA, 16-to-3 K/BB ratio in 14 innings) and has pitched quite well in four Triple-A appearances this season. In 18 1/3 frames with Sacramento, he’s notched a tidy 3.44 ERA while fanning 22.7% of his opponents against a sharp 6.7% walk rate.
However, in a pair of big league appearances, he’s lasted just 4 2/3 innings overall and been tagged for 13 runs (nine earned) on the strength of 14 hits (two homers) and a pair of walks. Jefferies has only fanned four of the 31 men he’s faced. He’s seen more than half the balls in play against him land for hits, which certainly hasn’t helped his cause, but he’s also paid the price for plenty of mistakes over the plate; in addition to the pair of homers, he’s surrendered six doubles and a triple.
Jefferies has had a fair bit of minor league success, but he’s yet to carry it over to the big leagues in a quartet of seasons where he’s seen mostly fleeting action. In 61 MLB frames, he carries an unsightly 6.64 earned run average, although his overall mark in six minor league seasons is nearly half that number, sitting at 3.88. Injuries have played no small part in his struggles; the previously mentioned Tommy John surgery in 2022 was actually the second of his career, and he battled nerve issues in his elbow for nearly a year before finally being diagnosed with thoracic outlet syndrome and undergoing that surgery.
The Giants will have a week to trade Jefferies, attempt to pass him through outright waivers, or release him. He’s in his final minor league option season, so any team that acquires him would be able to send him to Triple-A without needing to expose him to waivers. Jefferies has been outrighted once in the past, so even if he goes unclaimed on waivers, that prior outright assignment grants him the right to reject another outright assignment in favor of free agency.
Good thing they gave up Bart to make room for Jefferies.
Giants don’t need Bart when Reetz is OPSing 5.000 🙂
Bart was a lost cause in SF. He might well still be; time will tell.
He is hitting .200, so he appears to still be lost
Yeah, but .200 on the Pirates will get you a lot of playing time… and to be fair, 3 of his 7 hits are homers.
They were never going to carry three catchers full time
Whoa! didn’t see that coming….Jefferies had a solid 17.36 ERA.and FIP was only 8.30 it shows he played better than ERA suggests.
/s
Someone should take a chance on this guy
Ummm, you mean kinda like the Giants just did? At some point, you are who the back of your baseball card says you are unfortunately.
I got the Blue Jays claiming him
I feel bad for the guy after all he’s been through. Two Tommy John surgeries, plus thoracic outlet surgery. Players seem to have a much lower rate of success after TOS.
@Jean Matrac I think any pitcher who even has TOS surgery is just ending their career. Better off taking a year off of pitching than have a rib removed.
Find any other alternative!
Same surgery that doomed Matt Harvey
Wonder if he was named for Dutch Daulton or Dalton from Roadhouse?
Or maybe John Dalton, that guy was pretty cool too….
Don’t know, but I also didn’t know before today that his uncle is former big league reliever Blas Minor.
“The name…. is Dalton”
Now, it’s decision time for the Giants and the rest of the league. Will Jefferies find a new home? Will he be sent to Triple-A purgatory? Or will he take the path less traveled and explore free agency?
Stay tuned for the next episode of “Baseball’s Got Talent” as we witness the highs, lows, and curveballs of the MLB roster game. ⚾
Astros? Can’t be worse than Brown/Abreu/Hader/Pressly/Bielak/France/Urquidy
The next ones to be sent packing should be:
Slater
Flores
Yaz
Chapman
Ahmed
Murphy
Hjelle
Zaidi
Yaz and Chapman still have value, albeit replacement value and not much more. It feels too early to call it on Chapman, though, who is better than he has played so far.
I notice you didn’t include Soler on your list. His performance has been pretty underwhelming, too, especially given his salary. I hope he can start hitting dingers when there are guys on base.
Oops, just forgot Soler. He should be the 2nd one gone after Slater.
Flores has value especially at his price point of 6.5M (and player opt-out in 2025 option) his previous years show decent numbers with power potential more than Yaz.
Yaz is a declining value last few years, he has 1 more ARB year but he is getting 7.9M this year, and is not living up to it. since 2021 Yaz is sloping downwards and teams know this so there will be very little in return for him, he is more valuable to Giants than any other team.
All others on the list have little value in trade unless added as a complementary item.
Chapman is going no where. Murphy has nice track record and injured now, he has possibility to turn it around. inexpensive player – there is no C in system that could replace – Sabol is nice but Murphy is more value than him.
Datashark, Yastrzemski is one of the few Giants’ players that has been producing. As I responded to @TellItGoodbye, Yaz has a .927 OPS over the last 14 games.
sure right now, but lets look at bigger picture.
Yes, the bigger picture needs to be looked at, and things might look differently a few months from now. But these posts seem to be all about what these guys have done this season.
The season so far is still a small sample. So if someone is in favor of cutting loose guys like Flores and Yastrzemski, based on a small sample, then it has to cut both ways. And so far all we have is small samples.
But it’s not a small sample. Yaz has been going downhill and getting injured. I love Wilmer, and he’s cheap, I just wish we could find more exciting players who can actually steal a base.
The Giants have played 36 games. That is a small sample.
This is exactly what I’m talking about. Flores has value. Murphy has a good track record. Chapman is better than this. On and on. Meanwhile we’re sinking fast. All those players are past their prime and slow. Maybe Chapman just doesn’t have it anymore. The game has sped up. It was so painfully obvious playing the Phillies. We were like an over-50 men’s league compared to them. It’s not just age, it’s excitement for the game. Compare Brandon Marsh to Wilmer or Yaz. It’s like our guys are just going through the motions. We need speed and youth. There’s exactly one exciting position player on our team – Jung Hoo Lee, and he’s still adjusting.
Trade values on all those players listed is in the Sell low point, but outside of Murphy, and Flores
they are pretty much going to stay around this point.
Chapman is untradeable so that is not even a question to send packing.
The question is WHEN would be the best time to ship those players off or cut bait — being the farm system is still not showing players that can make an impact they are stuck and have been for many years now. Sure they have had diamonds or even cubic zirconia’s but other teams are doing laps around them.
Webb is the best player on team but I have seen him on the mound being more frustrated than previous years..
@Tellit Wow! That kind of managerial acumen is going to be the death of your lemonade stand!
Hey, I’m allowed to be grumpy after that series in Philly!! Go Giants!!
Was time to DFA Jefferies. Hopefully Black can add a much needed spark.
Zaidi is reaching a critical point where tough decisions have to be made to turn the Giants season around. Giants must have a winning record each month to have any chance of making the playoffs.
Giants not making playoffs will surely be Zaidi’s demise
TellItGoodbye, Since 4/18, 14 games, Yastrzemski has a .927 OPS. Yet Conforto isn’t on your list, and over that same span he has a .585 OPS. What a brilliant roster management suggestion.
Why pick from that arbitrary date? On the season Conforto is 100 pts better OPS.
It’s not arbitrary. It’s the last 2 weeks worth of games, and it illustrates how players are trending. Yastrzemski is trending up, Conforto is trending down. Looking at the season’s numbers doesn’t tell you much. Especially if one player gets off to a slow start, and the other a hot one.
Conforto only has better numbers on the season because he got off to a hot start. one week into the season he had a 1.192 OPS. Now it’s .737, a drop of 455 points. Yaz went from .273 to .630, a rise of 357 points.