The Rays released Eloy Jiménez from his minor league contract, reports Marc Topkin of The Tampa Bay Times. Jiménez had been on the Triple-A injured list for the past 10 days.
This was the second IL stint of the season for the former Silver Slugger award winner. Jiménez appeared in 40 games with Tampa Bay’s top affiliate. He hit .278/.335/.397 and only managed three home runs across 167 plate appearances. His 43.5% hard contact rate is a little above the MLB average but not close to the huge exit velocities he posted during his best seasons with the White Sox. Jiménez’s career has been a on a sharp decline since he hit .295 with 16 homers in 84 games for Chicago back in 2022.
After a league average offensive showing in ’23, Jiménez was batting .240/.297/.345 at last summer’s deadline. The Sox needed to eat some money to ship him to the Orioles. The change of scenery did not turn things around. Jiménez hit .232 with a .270 on-base percentage and one homer in 33 games with Baltimore. The O’s bought him out and he was limited to minor league offers over the winter. He’ll very likely need to settle for another minor league contract if he stays in affiliated ball. Speculatively, Jiménez could be a target for teams in a foreign league like NPB or the KBO as well.
Biggest move in baseball history tbh
Why the sarcasm lol
Its crazy how fast Eloy fell off
Wonder if KBO ir NPB can help him
Like they’ve done for a few players
Yeah he’ll def make more money overseas than a minor league deal.
Not really that crazy. He’s never been the same hitter since he injured his shoulder in a fluke accident trying to catch a ball at the fence. White Sox tried to downplay the extent of the injury even though it required surgery. Similar to Kris Bryant’s injury with the Cubs
David Wright, and Scott Rolen also had sholder issues. Some can comeback others cant. He seemed like he was destined to hit 30 homeruns a year in 2019. I remember the injury Rolen played with his for years
KBO bound?
Crazy that his power has disappeared. He probably needs a trip overseas.
He needs a few trips to the gym.
Unless you hit more than 95 MLB homers, you don’t got room to talk about weight room.
“Unless you hit more”..We can’t hit 95 mph heaters or diving 12/6 curveballs and yet we talk about them every single day.
Why is mentioning that an athlete is out of shape and needs work suddenly off limits?
Is it possibly just another way of “canceling” opinions you don’t agree with or want to hear?
Ok thanks now I want a triple with xtra cheese and onions at Wendy’s!
Knowing him, he will trip on multiple things in the gym
He needs his roids again
Another White Sox player of what-could-have-been. What a waste.
Not a complete waste for Eloy. He got paid for 2 stints on an IL.
Meanwhile, KC trotted out three sub .190 hitters in tonight’s loss to the Mets. I’d call Eloy’s agent, have him come in for a workout, and get him in uni as soon as the ASB is over if there’s a shred of anything left.
Nope. Nothing left.
That’s what Tampa Bay did. Throwing good money at bad.
So putting 4 sub 190 hitters is the answer lmao wow that’s good going right there genius
Orioles tried it last year and TB this. Hes cooked. Had to be on something because his power vanished
Unmitigated disaster!
Could see AJ giving him a call.
No way. Another delusional fan. Lol
AJ Foyt?
Mr. Glass
How many of the guys who got locked up early say in the last 10 years have worked out?
If I’m a gm I go year to year and get the 6 best years out of these guys and let them go to free agency or trade them away the last year of control.
Congratulations, you’ve just reverse engineered the job description for Tampa Bay’s POBO
Mostly. TB extended Franco. Also once they extended Snell, he was mediocre next few years until closer to FA. Took his post as taking it to a higher level-which couldn’t agree more. If an initial top prospect or good start player is all that, they’ll make a fortune/way more in arb like Betts/Soto/Vlad Jr etc being productive and avoiding IL every season….goal alignment for player & club.
From there go get someone to pay the obscene $/years for mostly diminished performance and fair bit of IL time.
There’s obviously outliners like Sal Perez in kc and Acuna contract is working for the braves. But I want hungry motivated young players every year chasing the big bag. Just a unnecessary risk for teams to take to save a nominal amount of money on a star and that money you save towards the end of his deal you probably would have saved early anyway during arb so I feel like it would nearly balance out.
Too much year to year happens In baseball. This notion you can lock a young team up and create a dynasty in today’s game with injuries and egos seems to be far fetched. Too many good young cores have come and won and never even got close again. The cubs and braves I’m thinking of specifically.
Add the strategy of signing fringe/formerly successful free agents for 1 year contracts. You know they will at least give it their best so they can get back to free agency. Like Profar last year.
Then hold out for late big free agency big signings like Bregman.
“Come and won and never got close again” seems to be downplaying the “won” part. Isn’t that why we’re all here for the “won” part?
I used to disagree and as an Os fan watching these teams lock up the young stars infuriated me. Now im leaning your way. Best strategy seems to be keep them to FA or trade with some control left for stud prospects to repeat the process. No more Cals and Gwynns
We did that in SF the past five years under Farhan Zaidi. It’s called “perpetual motion players” and it was also the strategy of having a shuttle bus between SF and the minor leagues, as well as pinch hitting for a player in the second inning. It was also called “no fun baseball” because there was no consistency or regular players to cheer on. Now we know that the starting lineup is most likely going to be the dudes that finish the game. And the season.
You’ve won 3 rings in the last decade. I’m a Mariners fan. Big picture bud..
Acereros de Monclova calling ……
Doosan Bears
Time for a trip to the Mexican Baseball League…
And time to offer rum and cigar to Jobu so bat not afraid of ball.
Are you saying that Jesus Christ can’t hit a curve ball?
Only 27 should get another shot.
Eloy is 28… he’ll get another minor league deal
Honestly what happened in Chicago?
Tim Anderson, batting champion to trash
Louis Robert can’t hit a beach ball
Benny is terrible
Abreu went from MVP caliber to DFA in Houston
Grossman league average to trash
Pollock 3 WAR player to trash
Grandal couldn’t hit in Chicago
Eloy forgot how to hit.
Burger caught the Chicago curse after leaving as well
It just seems crazy to me that some good players went to the White Sox and completely stopped hitting. Young highly regarded prospects that had some success stopped hitting as well. What are the odds? And meanwhile no free agent, prospect, reclamation went to Chicago and had success. The only player who hasn’t became completely terrible is Tauchman
Have you seen what Andrew Vaughn has done since his call up to the Brewers? Amazing.
lol. 3 games. Vaughn will Vaughn.
It’s called Jerry Reinsdorf the ruiner of sports franchises.
Tim Anderson was always the 5th best SS in Chicago. Behind Addison Russell,Dansby Swanson, Javy Baez and Nico Hoerner. Not necessarily in that order.
You forgot Ozzie!
Eloy will sign with the Dodgers. Wouldn’t be surprised if Conforto is DA’d by tomorrow morning
He still has pop he just hits everything on the ground. TB probably figured they could fix his launch angle like they’ve done with others, but you can’t fix the lack of effort with this one so he’s gone
Simple enough to stop after the end of the first small paragraph…
….”on the Triple A injured list.”
That innate skill that he has is transferable to all levels.
He is still better than Max Kepler.
Eloy Jimenez needs to sign with the Astros we need the help more
Remember, boys and girls, Babe Ruth wasn’t a gym rat. Make sure to spend more time eating and drinking than being at the gym and you’ll have a better chance of being a superstar.
When Ruth played, none of the players were gym rats.
@stymeedone
Proved my point.
He’ll likely signs major league contract with the Pirates or Rockies by the end of the weekend.
Was this guy good or are the white Sox just that great at fluffing their of. Him colas and Robert like just wow. Unreal the fall it might be close to Ryan Howard.
Howard didn’t fall off. He ruptured his Achilles lol
I’d say that in regard to fielders situation vs Howard. Howard hit Rock bottom from his mvp days and was never the same injury or not.
@HEHEHATE
He was never good. Just more overhyped prospects.
I mean he was palka good I guess sapphic slumped and never bounced. Hitting 30 ain’t easy but it’s debatable on good in terms of say jiminez soler here
I didn’t even know he was on the Rays
He wasn’t. He was in their minors. Never made the MLB team.
I’d rather watch him than Jared young or jankowski on the Mets.
He’d be right next to winker on the IL so you’d have jankowski either way
Ha true
Teach him some launch angle and he will return to Eloy of old. Cat hits nothing but ground balls. Maybe stand him up and out of the weird crouch he gets into. Still young enough to be interesting.
I’m sure tampa was thinking that but this dude is clearly stubborn as hell
I have doubt he’s the age listed.
Eloy is a bust. One hot rookie season. Always hurt. He cant field. Maybe Japan?
The Sox ruined Jimenez & Robert smh……
Everyone knows that the Pirates need OF help and a hitter. This guy plays OF, owns a bat, and would cost next to nothing. That seems to be the Bucs entire checklist for players signed. After the Buccos trade all their players, as long as he brings his own bat and glove, he’d be an obvious fit.
Glad you included the fact that he needs to bring his own bat and glove. Can’t stress that enough. If you break that bat it is coming out of your next paycheck too.
@WadeBoggsWildRide
Agreed. Workers should pay for broken things out of their paycheck. You break the machine, you pay for it.
Juiced ball All Stars starting in LF: Elon Jiminez
Sounds like ICE might start looking for him soon
Is he a felon in his home country too?!
Lol. Maybe… Maybe he was feeling the heat from ICE and opened the door to get out of dodge. Maybe he is just bad. Maybe ICE will look at it and profile him as a target now that he has no value to American entertainment