The Mariners announced they’ve designated reliever Jackson Kowar for assignment. That opens a 40-man roster spot for catcher Jhonny Pereda, whom they acquired from the Twins in exchange for cash considerations. Minnesota had designated Pereda for assignment last week when they signed free agent catcher Victor Caratini to a two-year contract.
Kowar, 29, is a former supplemental first-round pick of the Royals. He allowed 79 runs in 74 innings over parts of three seasons with Kansas City. They swapped him to the Braves for injured starter Kyle Wright over the 2023-24 offseason. Kowar’s time with the organization lasted less than a month, as the Braves flipped him to Seattle as part of the multi-player deal that sent Jarred Kelenic to Atlanta.
It was a change-of-scenery sequence involving a number of former high draft picks, but none of the players involved performed as hoped. Kowar blew out during his first Spring Training as a member of the Mariners. He underwent Tommy John surgery and was out of action until May ’25. He was on and off the active roster for the next few months until suffering a season-ending shoulder impingement in August.
Kowar has ultimately made just 15 appearances in a Seattle uniform. He allowed eight runs over 17 innings, walking seven while recording 15 strikeouts. The Florida product gave up nine runs (five earned) across 16 Triple-A innings. He has an 8.21 earned run average with a 20.3% strikeout rate and elevated 13.1% walk percentage across 91 MLB innings.
Primarily a fastball-changeup pitcher earlier in his career, Kowar cut back on the change while ramping up his slider usage last season. It resulted in a few more whiffs in his Triple-A time, though his control remains an issue. He sits around 97 MPH with the fastball and could intrigue teams based on the arm speed and his draft pedigree despite the grisly MLB numbers. He’s out of options, so he’d need to break camp or again be designated for assignment if another team is willing to give him an offseason 40-man spot.
Pereda is a well-traveled depth catcher who has divided his 48 major league games between three teams. He debuted with 20 appearances for the Marlins two seasons ago and combined for 28 games between the A’s and Minnesota last year. The 29-year-old (30 in April) has hit .241 without a home run in 118 major league plate appearances. He has a strong upper minors track record, batting .296/.392/.419 in just shy of 1000 career Triple-A plate appearances.
The Venezuelan-born Pereda has a good arm and a generally solid defensive reputation. He also has a minor league option, so the M’s can send him back to Triple-A for the 2026 season. They signed Andrew Knizner to a $1MM free agent deal to work behind Cal Raleigh. Trading Harry Ford had left them without any other catchers on the 40-man roster. Pereda has a leg up on non-roster invitee Nick Raposo as the top depth option in case either of their MLB catchers suffer an injury. Knizner is a career .211/.281/.316 hitter, so it’s not out of the question that Pereda outplays him for the backup job during the season.
Seems like he could be a good bullpen piece.
Hey, the Twins need arms for the pen. How about an old-fashioned waivers trade?
I think the Twins should just claim him.
Some pitchers figure it out a little later in their careers. He’s a live arm who sits upper 90s. Rebuilding teams claim those types a lot. If he sucks/breaks, DFA him. If he pulls it together, you have a good reliever for cheap.
He’ll likely be claimed. No options make it tough. Probably see the Orioles try to sneak him through waivers. They put a claim in for most discarded pitchers
Cardinals, couldn’t hurt
Wonder if Pete Alonso will put in a good word for his fellow Gator teammate with the Orioles front office.
Would he tell the Orioles to trade for Jonathan India?
The Mariners might be done with him, but he’s still the Kowar
of the county!
Derek Law to the D-Backs on a minor league deal per MLB Daily Transactions.
White Sox need to claim him. Would make sense to add another vet to the pen. Only down is he is right handed. They another a few more lefties in camp at the very least.
You mean there are people actually working at the Mariners offices? Never would have guessed, what with the deafening silence over the last few weeks.
That’s because they been next door with the Seahawks.
They did just about everything they needed to right away. Could use one more solid bat though. Geno at 3B/DH hitting dingers and helping mentor the rookies would be neat.
I had such high hopes for Jackson. It made me upset when he was traded. And then the braves traded him to the Mariners and I saw that he had to have Tommy John. And I thought maybe he already was getting the symptoms with the Royals and that’s why he did so terribly.
Wow. Dude has a career negative war.
I mean, good for him for making it to the show and all, but he surely can’t last?
He is a pitcher, with an arm. He will keep getting minor league deals.
Those could be tough to recover from. And the cleanup is a chore.
Well, there goes the division title..
This made me think of Jhonny Peralta
Why didn’t the M’s sign Caratini when he was a free agent? What was his contract?
Signed a 2 year $14M deal w/the Twins. Probably more than the M’s want to pay for a Raleigh backup—-and Caratini got cheap starter money from the Twins..
Yeah. Caratini wanted to play, he likely would’ve gotten less than 35 games of playing time.
Mitch Garver played 87 games for the M’s last year. Backup catchers play a lot, especially when your starting catcher needs to hit everyday.
If only that were correct, the Dumper played more innings at catcher than anyone. Garver was used as a DH a lot because they didn’t have any other good options to go against LH pitching. A back up catcher behind Cal isn’t playing much unless they have other things to offer. Garver was in no way stealing innings from Cal behind the plate.
Mitch Garver started 43 games for the M’s in 2025. He was terrible, and the M’s had the best C in baseball, and they STILL started him 1/4 of he season. Why in the world do Mariner fans think backup C is a rarely-used position?
Geez, even google says they play 50-70 games per year on average, or approx 1/3 of a season. That’s a higher percentage of innings played than most bullpen arms.
Is Cal Raleigh an average catcher?
Heck! That’s a higher number of innings played than every starter since the Wilbur Wood era!
Overall yes, back up catchers do play a lot-but of all the average catchers in the league play-they play less in Seattle behind Cal. 43 starts is ranked what in the league for a number two catcher?
I will wait for your answer.
Realmuto made 132 starts. Austin Wells started 121 behind the plate. William Contreras made 128. Kirk 118.
Raleigh started 121 @ C.
Raleigh’s unique because he’s the rare catcher that you want to DH so his AB’s are so much higher. Backup C still gets time in SEA. 42 games is below avg. But not an insignificant amount of games.
For Caratini it is.
Exactly.
Yeah, so we agree.
Absolutely, it was copperpot that made the statement that a back up catcher would play more because Cal needs to hit everyday. That is simply not true and laughable.
What’s with the name Jhonny (pronounced Honny) ? Why not just name the child Juan? Or if you’re going to go with the English name Johnny, why spell it wrong? My guess is there’s a famous soccer player that we’ve never heard of named Jhonny.
Shows the state of the game and the watered down talent. No offense to the guy but 79 runs in 74 innings?
Yikes.