The Orioles announced that they have selected the contract of infielder/outfielder Nick Maton. To open a spot on the 40-man roster, right-hander Tyler Wells was transferred to the 60-day injured list. Outfielder Kyle Stowers was optioned to Triple-A Norfolk to get Maton onto the active roster.
The move is seemingly related to the injury of Jordan Westburg. While fielding a grounder last night, Westburg collided with Juan Soto of the Yankees, who was trying to run from second to third base. Manager Brandon Hyde said after the game that Westburg is day-to-day with a left hip contusion, per the MLB.com injury tracker.
The Orioles have been splitting the playing time at second and third base between Westburg, Jorge Mateo and Ramón Urías. If Westburg is out of action for a few days, that means Mateo and Urías need to be in the lineup.
That scenario would have left them with no backup infielder while Westburg is hurt, so they have selected Maton. The 27-year-old was acquired from the Tigers in a cash deal in the offseason but didn’t make the club’s roster out of Spring Training. Since he’s out of options, the O’s put him on waivers and were able to pass him through unclaimed, outrighting him to Norfolk.
He has played 41 games for the Tides this year with good results. He has seven home runs and has drawn a walk in 12.5% of his 168 plate appearances. He’s hitting .294/.387/.483 overall for a 126 wRC+. He has done that while spending time at all four infield positions and a brief showing in right field as well.
That solid performance will get Maton back to the majors, at least for now. Since the O’s haven’t put Westburg on the IL and didn’t call up a notable prospect like Connor Norby or Coby Mayo, perhaps they only envision needing coverage for a few days. If that is indeed the case, Maton is out of options and would have to be designated for assignment again if they want to remove him from the roster. But if he manages to hold his spot, he has less than two years of service time and could be cheaply retained in future seasons.
As for Wells, it was reported about three weeks ago that he would require season-ending surgery of some kind on the ulnar collateral ligament in his throwing elbow. The O’s announced two days ago that the procedure had been completed, describing it as “right elbow revision ulnar collateral ligament surgery with UCL repair and internal brace augmentation.” He’ll be out for the rest of this year and likely part of the 2025 season as well.
Marvelous, the Secret Ingredient has arrived!!!
I would’ve thought they would bring up Norby instead.
Lefty – don’t waste an option for Norby for what might be a few days and Maton has been hot. Really smart move to add a left handed bat to infield depth. Stowers was not getting enough at bats
Options aren’t counted per call-up. Once you use an Option in a year, that counts as an Option Year. Since he’s already been called up, he can be called up and down this year without impact there. At this point, it’s only moreso a consideration for the 40-Man and Rule V Draft in Dec.
You guys know way more about this stuff than I do. I’m jealous, but not so jealous as to study up lol.
Not completely true. If a player is returned to the minors and recalled a number of times it does add up during a season. After a 5th attempt of optioning a player back to the minors he must be exposed to waivers after the 5th time in a season. Being sel;ected as 27th man for a DH does not count.
Norby was sent down on the 11th. Not eligible to be called up for 10 days unless replacing an injured player. But they optioned Stowers did not IL Westburg. So that’s why they didn’t recall Norby
…..but he would have been replacing an injured player.
Maton is fungible token.
Sitting a Maton for long stretches (till Westie returns) beats taking Norby out of his PAs in Norfolk.
Not an NFT guy, but I get your drift. lol
Thought you had a lot on the ball in previous posts I read.
MacGromit;
At least 90% of the audience you’re posting to here think that late night TV hosts are smart, knowledgeable, witty, and informative.
Be careful.
wait, they’re not the pinnacle of intellect in our culture? I better update my report to our robot overlords. they’ll want to know that for the Skynet invasion.
Skynet invasion? Is that this week? Dangit!
Thumbs down on sending Stowers back down. He should be a part of the Outfield rotation. I understand he will get more at bats at Norfolk but is he better than a few other outfielders? I say he’s at least as good as a few.
I think this is just a temporary roster crunch. With Jordan Westburg day to day the Orioles would have no bench infielders which would put us in a crunch if Soto runs into anyone else.
Yeah, agree with the poster below. This is clearly temporary on a roster with zero room.
Stowers might be an important trade chip for this year. So he needs ML playing time. This is maybe not the best series for that though anyways. He is likely going to be facing more RHPs, and some choice flipped split pitchers.
If they decide to IL Westburg they can recall Stowers to replace him . And Norby can replace Maton in 2 days. So this could be temporary
Phil Maton’s brother
I’d prefer Phil. Think the Rays would swap brothers w us?
Gladly. With the games Phil has lost for us, we would give you him for free.
People laugh at these moves but he’s an ok hitter and doing well in the minors. Can’t always be Barry bonds
well, you can get as big as Bonds but you’ll need the help of some pharmaceuticals.
They don’t want Norby being a bench player in the bigs it looks like so here’s Maton for a week
Poor Orioles fans
Wait
[Insert joke about Maton’s whiffs cooling off the fans like a fan haha how witty]
Secret weapon to use against the Yankees?
No just an expendable body for Soto to run into.
@Os1995
LOL!
I hope that the Orioles for the rest of this series don’t hit any more Yankees players or it is going to get ugly. I mean they have stars as well.
Yankees hit way more batters than the Orioles and pitch inside more as well. The Orioles didnt cry about it when the Yankees hit Gunner in April.
@alumno
thoughts and prayers to Judge or Verdugo and the rest of the Yankees. I’ll light a candle for them.
Like when Sabathia broke Markakis’ hand right before their playoff series in 2012? Nestor is throwing at people’s heads and then has the gall to clutch his pearls.
The Os have been hit, and accidentally hit batters in other games all season. Just this weekend vs the Phillies, Gunnar had a 100 mph FB aimed at his head. Only in NYC does it turn into a media story. I say this as a longtime NYCer myself.
Suarez walked 5, and was wild all night long. Even in ABs where he got outs, he was missing by a lot. Maybe like a foot or two. The talk of it being intentional is just the media trying to drum up a narrative of a tense rivalry and get more eyeballs. As the Os get better and better, I expect these kinds of stories to get more and more hyped.
The Yankees have hit 40 batters this season, tied for 4th most in the majors. The Os are tied for 3rd fewest.
@Darragh: This piece gets it wrong. Norby was not an option to be called up unless someone was put on IL since he was sent down less than 10 days ago.
Ah good point. The time restriction didn’t expire on Norby yet. In which case, this means that the injury isnt serious enough to put Westburg on 10-day IL. That’s a good sign.
The Tigers optioned Maton to AAA on 6/25 of last year after hitting .173 with 8 HR’s, 32 RBI’s and a .593 OPS in 249 AB’s. If he put up those same numbers for the Tigers this season, he’d be one of our best hitters.
Wolfie is back!
He kills in AAA… the majors is a big step for him.
Other former Tigers Scottie Harris has DFA’d… Spencer Turnbull, Jamier Candelario, Wilis Castro, Andre Lipcius… let’s see how Wolfie does.
You hated him last year so don’t bandwagon if he does well 😉
The guy has some real coaches who have a track record of improving players… He could never amount to anything with the Tigers… they have no coaching. But the Orioles… I would not be surprised if he shows improvement.
Not bandwagoning… just pointing out the obvious.
I was only joking.
I like Maton…power, walks. He just had that big old hole in his swing. If someone fixes that he’d be a good player.
The Tigers have a lot if young players to deal with this year. I’ll judge them more harshly best year if those players don’t improve. Others have been doing pretty well though.
Tiger prospects have been doing quite well… Jung, Jobe, Clark, McGonigle… things are looking very good so far. They need to marinate at each level because it seems like they are rushing these guys and they start off very slowly. Let them master AAA before they come up to the majors.
I like Maton also… again, I felt he should have been at AAA to start the season and then call him up when he was doing well. Instead, they had him on opening day. They should have kept Candelario… or picked up a major leaguer to fill that gap.
Oh well… what do I know?
100% agree with you.
I agree with you and Stymedone on keeping Candy. He would have been the better stopgap and they could have worked Maton in slower.
You had a good call on Perez. I like him and think he’s a keeper. Vierling has worked out well too.
My big thing with them right now is Baez. I loved Javy when he was with Chicago but he needs to go. No clear replacement in the minors (unless McGonigle sticks at SS which the experts are saying he won’t) . They need to get a young stud SS who can hit and field and dump Baez or at the bare minimum bench Baez and let the batboy or mascot hit.
Ha-Seong Kim is a free agent this fall. I wouldn’t mind seeing him picked up for short if it’s a decent deal. Move Baez to super utility until they can DFA him.
I was a big fan of Keith and Jung… the more I see of them, they stink as fielders. They don’t hit enough to be DHing. Colt might make a decent 1B… maybe Jung in left?
They need to address the offense… maybe if they can grab a couple position players this trade deadline. Then maybe sign a free agent like Kim for SS.
Trade bait should be Flaherty, Maeda, Olsen, Manning, Ibanez, Canha, Urshela and maybe Kelly. Bullpen arms… pretty much anyone they can get a decent return on.
They should be able to grab a couple solid prospects that are close.
They are saying the Tigers should be able to get a boatload for Flaherty. I’d like them to trade him and then circle back in the offseason; not make the same mistake they did with Lorenzen. If a guy likes Detroit and is comfortable there then keep him in the fold. Unless they get a ton for Olsen I think they should keep him.
Kim would be a great add. I never think of him as a SS since SD has 8 million middle infielders on the team.
I agree on who should get shipped out and if the deal was right I’d include Mize and Tork on that list.
If they can scoop Bregman in the offseason I’d be good with that too. There was talk of both Jung and Keith ending up in the outfield at one point. I think if they look at an outfielder it needs to be an impact bat since there are already some good young players there like Carp and Greene.
A young catcher would be nice too, unless Dingler shows something. Briceno is not going to end up staying behind the plate and the only one I see in the system I really like the looks of is Cernowyk.
Was hoping to see Mayo finally. These guys are getting old on AAA.
Maton needs only 9 more hits for 100 in his career