The Orioles announced that they have claimed outfielder Forrest Wall off waivers and optioned him to Triple-A Norfolk. He had been designated for assignment by the Marlins earlier this week. To open a 40-man roster spot for him, right-hander Dillon Tate has been designated for assignment.
Wall, 28, fits the classic speed-and-defense mold that contending clubs tend to acquire this time of season. He gives the Orioles a bench option down the stretch in September and perhaps into the postseason, if they’re willing to dedicate a roster spot to what’s effectively a pinch-running specialist and potential late-game defensive replacement.
Selected 35th overall by the Rockies in 2014, Wall has played in a pair of big league seasons, suiting up for the Braves last year and for Atlanta and Miami this season. He has only 50 MLB plate appearances under his belt, with a .311/.380/.432 slash to show for it. That’s strong production, of course, but it bears mentioning that Wall is only a .269/.355/.380 hitter in parts of five Triple-A seasons; he’s not likely to sustain that small-sample big league production over a lengthier period.
Be that as it may, the Orioles won’t be counting on him to do so. Baltimore has a stout lineup as is, but Wall offers 93rd percentile sprint speed. That’ll be his carrying trait for the Orioles for however long they carry him on the roster down the stretch. We’ve seen plenty of clubs successfully employ this tactic with expanded September rosters and into the postseason in the past — the 2015 Royals and Terrance Gore come to mind. Baltimore, for all its offensive prowess, lacks this type of premium speed at the moment. Jorge Mateo is even faster than Wall, but he’s on the 60-day IL due to a subluxation in his shoulder. Cedric Mullins leads the club with 23 steals but isn’t nearly as fast as Wall.
Baltimore’s claim of Wall will bring to an end a lengthy Orioles tenure for Tate. The 30-year-old righty and former No. 4 overall draft pick came to the O’s back in 2018 as the former front office regime kicked off the rebuild that led to the development of the Orioles’ current impressive core. For several seasons, Tate was a staple in the Baltimore ’pen, but injuries have set him back.
From 2020-22, Tate pitched 158 innings with a 3.65 ERA, 19.1% strikeout rate, 6.8% walk rate and huge 57.9% grounder rate. He looked to have solidified himself as a quality late-inning piece for manager Brandon Hyde, but a flexor strain wiped out Tate’s entire 2023 season. Since returning, he’s shown diminished velocity with lesser strikeout and grounder rates: 15.5% and 50.9%, respectively. He’s been tagged for a 4.59 ERA in 33 1/3 innings this season, although Tate sports a 2.16 ERA, 21.7% strikeout rate, 4.3% walk rate and 40.4% grounder rate in 16 2/3 Triple-A innings as well.
With the trade deadline behind us, the Orioles will have no choice but to place Tate on waivers. Given his track record, modest $1.5MM salary and additional club control, it’s possible Tate will be picked up by another club. The new team would only owe Tate the prorated portion of that salary — just $250K through season’s end. A new club could also retain him for another two seasons via arbitration. While Tate entered the season with 4.048 years of MLB service, he won’t spend enough time on the big league roster this season to cross five years. As such, he’ll be controllable through the 2026 campaign if another team wishes to claim him.
In the event that Tate goes unclaimed, he’d have enough service time to reject an outright assignment in favor of free agency. However, since he doesn’t yet have five years of service, doing so would require forfeiting the remainder of this year’s $1.5MM salary. As such, he’s likely to accept a minor league assignment if he’s not claimed. In that scenario, Tate would be eligible to become a free agent at season’s end unless he’s added back to the 40-man roster prior to that point.
Interesting how the O’s haven’t regained trust in Tate for any leverage innings this year, shame as he was a key part of the pen in the past. Maybe Mike and Eve find another Felix or Columbe.
I agree – meanwhile Kimbrel gets chance after chance. Hoping his latest failure is enough to get him released – his career is over – he’s not going to suddenly start pitching well
Especially considering the bullpen has been pretty bad this year. I’m surprised he’s the one they’d choose to cut bait with.
He’s sickening key situations. It’s one thing to put up numbers in mop up time or with leads. It’s another thing to blow leads on a a regular basis. Got to watch the games. The basic stats don’t tell the whole story.
Have you actually watched games – it doesn’t seem so. First when was the last time he pitched in a “key situation”. Second when he’s stated innings he’s be ok – but his big issue has been a lot of soft contact. You must be thinking about Kimbrel – it’s an easy mistake
Apparently his velo dropped nearly 10%,must be something injured or a mechanical problem. He was once the 4th overall pick for the Rangers. DriveLine this off season if he wants to save his career. He’s going to have to learn to pitch with less power.
The Orioles have found Forrest Wall!
I think Gump is as good!
Perplexing. Tate was THE setup guy before Cano…
Him and Bautista were a lethal set up duo to get to closer Lopez in 2022. Lopez is traded to the Twins. Bautista goes to closer. Cano yet a known quantity; Tate is only viable option to get to Bautista. That off season the flexor thing is made known as an issue. Bummer.
If you bothered to read the post. or do any research, you’d
see that Tate was quite good and quite successful — as was written in the post you’re responding to.
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I think the problem here is that C Yards Jeff has played baseball and watches the games. He don’t bow at the
alter of spreadsheets. He knows what he’s writing about.
Liked “Nobody was responding to Jeff?” The story of my life in one sentence. LOL!
Orioles future is a little overrated. Rutchman can’t hit that well, little pitching, hitting prospects haven’t done anything. Henderson is the only sure star
Nonsense. Rutschman was crushing until the ASB. He was an excellent hitter last year. Cowser is a rookie, and Westburg is an all star in his first full year. Kjerstad hadn’t gotten steady playing time and 20 year-old Holliday is still very green. Mayo hasn’t had more than a cup of coffee. On the pitching side, sure, they need more – in the bullpen. But they have plenty of good rotation pieces. They just have a whole rotation on the IL. “Hitting prospects that haven’t done anything” = fool’s talk
Bunch of bullcrap, injuries have been devastating, and they are still going to make the playoffs!
Local media is saying Rutschman has been playing through a back injury for awhile now.
Irrelevant to my point.
@froggy
That’s why they play 162. We’ll see, nobody has a crystal ball but I feel fine about their young bats and maybe if Baltimore can clear the plague of injuries they’ll get their rotation and pen worked out next year. Still, I wouldn’t want to bet against them even this year with their flat post All Star 0.500 ball. They can throw up a lot of runs in a hurry.
Rutch will be fine, he’ll likely have a better career than whichever catcher is starting for whatever team you pull for.
Hey Frog, if you’re talking to me, injuries are known to effect performance.
C Yards Jeff;
You seem to have picked up a few trolls.
Check out Amazon. I think they have a deal on ‘Troll Spray’.
Samuel; it’s all good. The staff here puts out a lot of daily well researched stories. And they let me comment without being censored. Grateful.
Fellow posters (troll types) that give out derogatory commentary towards another poster is part of the posting game. I accept this reality.
Those Guardians you turned me on to back in 2022 have hit a rough patch. Are they gonna be ok?
“Those Guardians you turned me on to back in 2022 have hit a rough patch. Are they gonna be ok?”
C Yards Jeff;
Yes and no.
Their bullpen is overworked and has hit a wall. The starters have to go deeper into games, and they can’t. Simply don’t have enough decent ones, although Boyd has pitched like an All-Star.
Additionally, their offense seems to consist of Jose Rameriz and Steven Kwan, with Josh Naylor somehow now around 100 rbi. Andres Gimenez is a solid 2-way player, and does a lot of things offensively like getting home a runner from 3B with less than 2 outs on a long fly ball or moving runners along. But he’s not hitting as well as he was – which is sad as he should be improving. The rest of the offense depends on the manager trying to find a hot hand for a few days. They simply aren’t scoring runs the past 2-3 weeks.
Looking ahead to 2025, they had the 1st pick in the draft and took Travis Bazzana from Oregon State – where both Rutschman and Kwan played college ball (great program). If Bazzana – now 22 – can do what a few high picks have done the past few years and get to the majors quickly, it will allow Gimenez to move back to SS (where they’re getting next to no offense). Bazzana is a power hitting 2B, and that’s exactly what they need to take the pressure off Rameriz offensively.
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On another issue: Am incredibly impressed with Jackson Merrill of the Padres, who comes from the Baltimore area. As I’m sure you know, they moved him from SS to CF. He plays it at a GG level. But it’s his hitting that knocks me out. He reminds me so much of Bryce Harper, in that he can not only pull for power, but he knows how to put a power inside-out swing on outside pitches and drive the ball either to the LF-CF gap, or (at times) over the LF fence. It took Harper years to do this. Merrill is doing it in his first ML year at age 21.
What I’m wondering is this: With Kim leaving in FA (he won’t be worth the money he’ll get) will the Padres move Merrill back to SS? Along with Gunner (23), MLB has 2 unbelievable young stars.
So, fair to say Guardians are on a path similar to that of the 23 Rays minus the off field ugliness that surrounds their SS (former SS)? Depletion of arms and fading sticks.Yes?
Bazzana. Sounds like like an interesting cat. He’s now on my radar. I thought the Guards had the steal of that previous draft a year or 2 back when they got DeLauter (sp?) mid first round. He dropped because of injury concern which is still concerning but worth the investment.
Jackson Merrill
Jackson Merrill. I truly believe we are all born with purpose (for a reason). Me, on the back end of life, am still searching for it. LOL. Thank goodness Mr. Merrill has figured his out early. IE Baseball player that entertains the masses. Stay healthy young fella. The game needs you!
Actually, this just clicked. This means Mateo is done for the year and they think Webb & Coulombe will be enough to shore up the pen whereas the bench is weak.
Toot my own horn I will
Another DDDD disaster trade from the 2018 deadline!
Duquette and Showalter had their hands tied by the owner. Oriole nation knew 2017 was the year to trade off assets not 2018. The 5 year window of winning model that small market teams follow was over after 2016.
What happened? Owner Angelos’s age and ill health was in play. He didn’t have time to go through another rebuild so he kept the gang together plus made the ill fated decision to bring in a damaged Alex Cobb. 2018 = disaster.
Duke could’ve snagged some further off prospects instead of a lot of the AAA trash he took back in trades. Kremer was the only real piece though Tate had a few nice seasons.
Agree to an extent. Again, 2017 was the year to move pieces not 2018. The haul would’ve been much healthier. In particular, I remember local talk show hosts and callers in 2017 practically screaming to move Machado then.
No doubt. Time kills value. It’s just that Yusniel Diaz was the big prize of that deal and he was a lower ceiling (supposedly high floor) prospect. We got a lot of other high minors guys in deals that didn’t work out when it always made more sense in my mind to target younger prospects given that a rebuild was just about to begin. Machado still had substantial value
Not fair to grade him like Elias though. Elias (who I think is way better) has actually been given a full set of resources internationally.
Oh man. I forgot about Yusniel. Oopsy.
Elias. Patient decision maker that trusts in his staff for feedback on direction of club. Have I been skeptical of some of their moves? Absolutely. But wow, look what’s happened since 2019. And done with a mix of talent from the old FO, drafting, waiver claims and trades. Again, wow!
To those who think Elias somehow doesn’t know what he’s doing, you should probably post your comments elsewhere. Tate and Vespi DFAs tell us that the O’s don’t see either one contributing to the playoff run based on their velo, and then don’t factor much next year because of velo and age. This is why we haven’t seen Baker DFA’d yet – because he throws 97 98 consistently.
Run, Forrest, Run!!!
I know it’s unrelated to baseball but Jenny was the true villain in that film.
Also hope Tate can find consistency at some point.
For the Orioles especially, I am puzzled by the amount of emphasis on this strategy. At least they’ve started walking more (were nearly last in the AL in BB until the past few weeks, now 8th). But I’d rather have someone who can get on, stands on 1B, and then jogs around the bases to give a high 5 to the guy behind him hitting a HR (Orioles #2 in HR) rather than the rally killer who can’t hit no matter how fast he is and has a .267 OBP.
Earl Weaver didn’t go for small ball and stolen bases, and he was in a much less power-oriented era. He wanted guys to get on and then a 3 run HR.
It takes a right handed hitter to hit a moonshot to the leave the yard. I expect Ryan Mountcastle will double his HRs when he puts on a different uniform.
Wall makes sense if he’s used appropriately. Speed and D are very useful off the bench in October.
I was a bit surprised about this move, but I understand the long term. Gonna need a lot of 40 man slots this offseason.
Forrest making outs on the bases Wall got a job!!! For a guy that was supposed to be a professional pinch runner he sucked at it in Atlanta. Need an out made a 3rd, call Forrest Wall!
Smacky continues his rant and rage against Wall. All I can say is don’t believe it, check his stats. The only thing that sucks for the Braves is Smacky’s trolling. Stuff a sock in it Smacky, and find a different player to have a hard on for.
it isn’t enough that the Orioles lost a slew of pitchers to Tommy. John. now Jorge Mateo also needed TJ with the brace on his non-throwing arm. snakebit