The Orioles have claimed left-hander Walter Pennington off unconditional release waivers, reports MLBTR’s Steve Adams. The Rangers had designated the lefty for assignment last week. His transaction tracker at MLB.com listed him as released by the Rangers over the weekend but the O’s put in a claim. The Orioles had an open 40-man spot and won’t need to make a corresponding move.
Pennington, 27, made his major league debut with the Royals last year but was flipped to the Rangers in July as part of the Michael Lorenzen trade. Between those two clubs, he tossed 18 innings in the big leagues last year. He allowed 3.00 earned runs per nine, with a 20.2% strikeout rate, 13.1% walk rate and 45.3% ground ball rate. He has posted some strong minor league numbers in recent years. Over the 2023 and 2024 seasons, he logged 134 innings on the farm with a 2.69 ERA, 28.6% strikeout rate, 10.2% walk rate and grounders on more than half of the balls in play he allowed.
This year, Pennington hasn’t pitched in any official action. The Rangers optioned him to Triple-A Round Rock on March 9th. Per his transactions tracker, he was transferred to the club’s Arizona Complex League affiliate on March 28th. MLBTR has learned that he is healthy and has been working on some mechanical stuff in extended spring lately.
The O’s had an open roster spot and are intrigued enough to bring him into their system, with the southpaw likely reported to Triple-A Norfolk soon. The Orioles aren’t hurting for lefty relievers, as they currently have Keegan Akin, Gregory Soto, Cionel Pérez and Grant Wolfram on the big league squad. Still, clubs always like to add more pitching depth when they can and both Pérez and Wolfram have poor numbers at the moment.
Photo courtesy of Joe Camporeale, Imagn Images
This should be the difference maker for this horribly run franchise.
Where are all the Elias apologists now, all the ‘fans’ (King Floch, Samuel, many others) who lost their minds when I suggested they should trade Mayo, Kjerstad, etc for some actual high level pitching (like Cease or Crochet) when they had prospect cache in abundance.
Now, instead, they have a worse run differential than the White Sox. Yikes.
Orioles looked really bad against Detroit. Then again Tiger pitching can do that and the aggressive running style will push a defense. When Detroit gets a couple of guys back from the Dl they will really press the opposition.
They’re GM is from the schrubbs,what ya expect
Been awhile since we’ve had a Walter in MLB.
RIP Walter Young!
Dude has the perfect name for a butler.
No more half measures, Baltimore.
Can this please mean the end of Cionel Perez?
A name like Walter Pennington sounds like he should be selling insurance.
Pennington, sight unseen, has to be better than Cionel Perez. Cionel prob need to see if he can change into OF who catches balls on his cap. Cromulent lefty pen piece seems to have eluded him this season.
Check out this guy’s bio at MLB. He went to the Colorado School of Mines and got a degree in mechanical engineering. Baseball is probably just a hobby for this guy. Holy smokes
Best nickname and logo in college sports…
I really like this dude. Traded 1-1 for Michael Lorenzen at the deadline. Surprised to see the Rangers release him when he’s healthy.
Something happened between him and the Rangers brass this spring. Or he did something bad. No one’s talking.
While he didn’t have a great spring he wasn’t even put on the AAA team. He’s healthy. He has shown to be at least a good AAA rp and good enough to be on the mlb shuttle, but was assigned to the complex team. And left behind, and no one would say why.
The rangers didn’t have to release him, they had already gotten him through DFA waivers.
They simply didn’t want him back for some reason.
Maybe we’ll find out?
I mean, the article says he was still at camp to work on mechanics. If you buy that.
His spring at times was messy but that happens from year to year. Especially with RPs. He didn’t have enough service time to refuse an outright assignment off the 40. That means they just gave up on a guy that was good last year at AAA and serviceable at mlb. It’s not like the Rangers have too many pitchers and can just throw away a guy who seemed on an upward trajectory last year. Last year they were talking him up quite a bit because he was all they got back for the Lorenzen trade. Who knows? The Rangers are a tight lipped organization.
The Rangers announced last hour that Pennington was infact never put on release waivers as they initially announced but was a simple DFA claim by the Orioles. None of the Ranger beats know what’s going on. I don’t think it’s them. The Rangers usually aren’t this dysfunctional. But they still haven’t explained Pennington’s earlier strange assignment. So everyone is left guessing. I guess we’ll never know.
More dumpster diving.
Akin is currently the only competent lefty in the pen. Soto will certainly get it back, but he doesn’t have it now. This guy could be just what they need to meet one need anyway.