The Giants are selecting the contract of left-handed reliever Matt Gage, reports Jon Heyman of the New York Post. They’ll need to open spots on both the 26-man and 40-man rosters to make his promotion official.
Gage, 32, signed a minor league deal with San Francisco early this month after he elected free agency following an outright by the Tigers. He’s tossed 5 1/3 shutout innings with the Giants’ Triple-A club — a nice follow-up to the 5 2/3 shutout innings he delivered for Detroit’s big league club this season. Gage has pitched in parts of three MLB campaigns but has only 25 1/3 innings under his belt despite a tidy 1.42 earned run average in that time. He’s fanned 22.5% of his opponents against a 10.8% walk rate.
With Erik Miller on the injured list due to an elbow sprain, the Giants have veterans Joey Lucchesi and Scott Alexander as lefty options in skipper Bob Melvin’s bullpen. Lucchesi has pitched well, holding opponents to three runs in 10 innings. Alexander has pitched just 1 1/3 innings through two appearances and allowed one run. The Giants just added him to the roster shortly before the break.
Gage is out of minor league options, so he’ll need to either stick in the big league bullpen or else be designated for assignment and placed back on waivers. The Giants have a clear need for some left-handed bullpen help, so he should have an opportunity, though president of baseball operations Buster Posey and general manager Zack Minasian could also look to the trade market in the next two weeks to bring in a more established left-handed bullpen presence.
“He’s fanned 22.5% of his opponents against a 10.8% walk rate..67 ERA, a 22.8% strikeout rate and a vastly improved 3.3% walk rate.”
Needs an edit.
Not sure where to discuss this and since the Giants will have to DFA someone to make room for Gage, this thread fits.
The MLBPA is looking to include a clause in the CBA that limits the number of times a player can be DFA’d to 3 in one calendar year and that a claimed player must remain on the 40-man roster for a minimum of 30 days.
This season there were players claimed and DFA’d that many times before the season started. Many teams have claimed players only to DFA them after as little as 1 day in the majors. 4 teams have claimed and DFA’d 7 or more players that have spent 10 days or less on the roster.
What do you think of that ask by the MLBPA?
Its a tough ask to have them kept on the roster for 30 days, but asking for them to get 30 days of ML pay whether up or not, should be achievable.
Go well, Matt.
Now it all gets serious. May the luck be with the Giants.