The Mets announced a pair of roster moves this morning. Southpaw Richard Lovelady has signed with the club on a one-year deal. Lefty Colin Poche was designated for assignment to create room for Lovelady on both the 40-man and active rosters.
Lovelady returns to the Mets after being designated for assignment by the club last week and electing free agency shortly thereafter. The 29-year-old has pitched in parts of six MLB seasons but has not yet had an extended period of substantial success. A career 5.35 ERA pitcher in 102 2/3 innings, Lovelady’s surrendered six runs in 3 1/3 innings of work with the Blue Jays and Mets this year with four walks and four strikeouts. It’s not an especially inspiring profile, but Lovelady has long been viewed as an intriguing, high-ceiling arm given his quality stuff from the left side. He’s shown flashes of that potential in the past, most recently when he pitched to a 3.77 ERA in 28 2/3 innings of work for the Rays last year.
Making room for Lovelady on the roster is Poche, who is not too far removed from substantial success as a member of the Rays organization himself. He posted a strong 3.27 ERA in 156 2/3 innings of work for Tampa during the 2022-24 seasons, though he posted pedestrian peripherals in two of those three years. His 2023 was utterly dominant, as he posted a sterling 2.23 ERA with a 24.8% strikeout rate and a barrel rate of just 5.6%, though he did walk opponents at an elevated 9.8% clip. Those peripherals regressed last year, however, and the Rays non-tendered him over the offseason as a result.
Since being non-tendered, Poche has signed with both the Nationals and the Mets but has struggled badly with both teams. Poche made 13 appearances in D.C. but left the nation’s capital with 12 runs (11 earned) allowed in just 8 2/3 innings that saw him walk (12) as many batters as he struck out (10). His stay with the Mets was much briefer, as he made just one appearance and surrendered two runs in two-thirds of an inning of work while walking two and striking out one. The Mets will now have one week to either work out a trade involving Poche or pass him through waivers, at which point he would have the option to either accept an outright assignment to the minors or elect free agency. Perhaps Poche’s past success with the Rays will keep getting him attention from big league clubs despite his deep struggles with his command this year, but it seems likely he’ll remain limited to minor league deals until he can turn things around.
This revolving door is getting embarrassing. Not anyone’s fault really. Mets had the deepest starter situation and still wasn’t enough with them all getting hurt. Minter getting hurt stung. Nunez not getting into form hurt. Abusing Garrett and brazo the first third of the season hurt but jeez, they need this all star break to come quick! Get rest. Reset. Get senga and manaea back and let’s take off from there. It’s been a rough second half of June for sure.
The next Collective Bagaining agreement should address this Options/Designated For Assignment issue. It is not to a fringe player’s benefit to be up and paid, then out the door and unpaid, then aigned to a minors deal, then selected, then DFA’d again.
The transactions page changes so much even THIS column can’t keep up with these in a timely manner.
Why is this a problem except for the fans? Fringe AAAA players, regardless of age or experience, get their shot to earn a big league paycheck. If the practice is disallowed, most of them would never get the chance to get out of the minor leagues because teams would opt to promote more sure bets since they’ll be required to keep them for longer periods.
I agree, the only people happy with this are the seamstresses. Maybe we need to raise the roster limits to 45, but between rule 5, universal DH, platoon situations being more common and now some teams going to a 6 man rotation, middle relievers are getting squeezed in a big way.
Seamstresses? A lot of people who manage clubhouses, uniforms et al are men.
Well whatever the hell the male version is, seamsters? I’m just saying, there’s a lot of middle relievers changing teams all the time and they need their name sewn on each new uniform. What does it matter whether the person sewing is a man or woman?
Trotski: Great question, which is why I wondered why you used a gender-specific term like seamstresses.
findingnimmo: Who’s getting embarrassed? Nobody I know.
If you’re feeling embarrassed, you should ask yourself why since it has nothing to do with you.
Ahhh! The old boomerang move!
The ladies are gonna love this.
But not their husbands or boyfriends, that’s for sure
I think the late, great Lou Rawls said it best about Richard Lovelady:
‘My lady love, you’ve been with me
Through all of my ups and downs
And my crazy turn-arounds
My lady love, you got the love I need
So stay around
Heaven sent my lady love’
I thought the man had requested to be known as Dicky Lovelady going forward.
That’s what they call him on the MLB app
Little Dicky Lovelady…
I’m sure he’d prefer that you call him Big Dicky Lovelady….
Yes, he puts them away with the high hard one.
I’ve understood the 1 appearance usage revolving door for the bullpen, it’s a little chaotic but I guess I get it. This article makes it seems like they are committing more than one or two appearances tho
An MLB paycheck is an MLB paycheck. Not an International league paychrck nor a Pacific Coast League paycheck. An any team offering one when others aren’t, even if it’s the team that just let you go, is where you sign.
With the combination of first and last name, I don’t care about stats he needs to be in MLB
Will he play for all 30 teams this year?
No
Say. His. Name.
I don’t really understand all the fascination (and non-pithy comments) about his name, but the real question here is why does this guy keep getting signed? His “intriguing” arm has done very, very little at the ML level, yet he keeps getting ML deals. Even those somewhat solid numbers at TB are a bit misleading (he was never one to come through in a big situation).
Anyone who can throw 90+ from the left side will continue to get chances.
Sideline Redwine: it’s every guy’s inner 11-year-old. Not that hard to understand.
Dicky!!!!!
“Can’t buy me love”
For the amount of money Stearns has spent on these multiple reclamation projects, we could have gotten a quality arm in the offseason instead that would have provided more value then all these bums combined. Can someone tell me for the pen, who has Stearns developed thats been a game changer? The answer is no one. Reed Garrett, who is mediocre, was signed by Billy Eppler. I was told that David Stearns had an eye for talent and was a master with the bullpen. He has signed about 15 different reclemation projecr type relievers and not one has showed any meaningful results. There is a reason that their former teams DA them, they stink. Stearns is way too full of himself. At this rate, the team is going nowhere
LFGMets: How do you know how much he’s spent?
Dicky Lovelady up.