Catcher Jorge Alfaro has opted out of his minor league deal with the Brewers, per a team announcement relayed by Curt Hogg of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. The backstop is now a free agent and free to sign with any club.
Alfaro, 32, has appeared in eight big league seasons. He has a well-established profile as a guy who can hit home runs but with subpar walk and strikeout numbers and poor defense. In 82 Triple-A games this year, he continued to perform in that manner. His 3.4% walk rate and 36.5% strikeout rate with Nashville were bad numbers but he did put the ball over the fence 15 times. That led to a .244/.285/.430 line and 87 wRC+.
His path to big league playing with the Brewers wasn’t great. They have one of the best everyday guys in the league in William Contreras. For much of the year, they’ve had Eric Haase as the backup. Ahead of the deadline, they acquired Danny Jansen from the Rays, which bumped Haase off the roster and down to Triple-A. They also have one of the top catching prospects in the league in Jeferson Quero, who is on the 40-man and playing for Nashville.
That essentially put Alfaro fifth on the depth chart, so he’ll use the clause in his contract to look for a better situation. For his career, he has 48 home runs in 1,710 plate appearances, a 4.2% walk rate, 34% strikeout rate, .253/.302/.393 line and 86 wRC+.
Photo courtesy of Rick Scuteri, Imagn Images
This changes everything…lol
So I guess he wanted September off?
There goes his World Series share.
Alfaro is a dead end. If you are a catcher and cant get a call, your career is DEAD. He mostly strikes out. Fielding must be terrible as well these days.
I’ve followed Alfaro’s career a bit because he came up through the Phillies organization.
I thought both he and Sixto Sánchez (Remember him? He was becoming a bit of an injury risk — so I recall thinking maybe the Phillies were willing to move him due to that concern creeping up), were a nice return for J.T. Realmuto at the time.
Sanchez’s talents were said to be so high that I felt any injury concerns were still worth it for the Marlins.
It’s easy to see how that has turned out now..
As for Alfaro, I’m surprised he’s been given as many opportunities as he’s already had. There haven’t been many — if any — overall positive scouting reports about him since he’s been in the MLB. All he has is a bit of power. But there are far too many negative aspects about his game for that to matter.
I guess he didn’t want to get checked.