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Blue Jays Release Craig Breslow, Outright Matt Dermody

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Left-hander Craig Breslow has been granted his unconditional release by the Blue Jays, per a club announcement. The club has also outrighted fellow southpaw Matt Dermody to Triple-A Buffalo.

During Breslow’s best years, he was an incredibly effective lefty reliever. He never had a fantastic strikeout ability, but he had a penchant for limiting hard contact; a skill which seemed to help him outperform his peripherals virtually every year. That includes a 2013 season during which he managed to post a 1.81 ERA across 59 2/3 innings out of the Red Sox bullpen despite striking out just 4.98 batters per nine innings.

Recent years haven’t been as kind to Breslow, though. After playing below replacement level in 2014 and 2015, he only earned a spot on the mound 15 times during the 2016 campaign. He posted an ERA north of 5.00 and a WHIP north of 1.50 in 35 1/3 innings last season between the Twins and Indians, and spent time on the DL with what was described as rib cage soreness. He allowed five runs in 7 1/3 spring innings, and will cede a chance at a roster spot to the other non-roster invites still in camp.

Dermody, 27, was a late-round pick of the Jays back in 2013. He’s made 28 appearances out of Toronto’s bullpen between the 2016 and 2017 seasons, tossing 25 1/3 innings of 5.33 ERA baseball. While he’s not particularly good at striking batters out (7.11 career K/9), he’s generally proved effective at limiting walks (1.78 career BB/9), and should be able to help the Jays at some point this season.

Indians Release Carlos Torres

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The Indians have granted right-hander Carlos Torres his unconditional release, Jordan Bastian of MLB.com tweets.

Over the past four seasons, only Dellin Betances has topped Torres’ 304 2/3 relief innings. In other words, he’s been a reliable workhorse out of the bullpen for the Mets and Brewers during that time. However, he was informed today that he won’t make the Tribe’s bullpen, as the seventh spot will go to fellow right-hander Matt Belisle.

Torres owns a 4.00 ERA and 7.88 K/9 at the major league level, most of that coming in relief. Last season, however, his K/9 figure dropped below 7.00 for the first time since his rookie season, and his walk rate ballooned to 4.06 per nine. While his 4.21 ERA doesn’t seem disastrous, ERA estimators such as FIP, xFIP and SIERA suggest that his true talent was close to that of a 5.00 ERA pitcher.

Diamondbacks Acquire Deven Marrero

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The Diamondbacks announced that they’ve acquired infielder Deven Marrero from the Red Sox in exchange for a player to be named later or cash considerations. Marrero was out of minor league options.

A former first-round pick by Boston, Marrero hasn’t been able to live up to his pre-draft billing. The 27-year-old righty hitter owns a career slash line of just .208/.259/.309, earning just 258 plate appearances at the big league level across the past three seasons. He’s struck out well over 30% of the time during that span.

Even in the upper minors, Marrero hasn’t shown a whole lot of promise. He hit .240/.266/.361 at Tripe-A Pawtucket last seasons with a meager 3.1% walk rate and a wRC+ of just 69. Only once in the minors has he managed to exceed a .375 slugging percentage, and though he managed to steal at least 25 bases in each of his first two minor league seasons, that hasn’t translated to the upper minors or at the MLB level.

The Sox have played Marrero at second base, shortstop and third base throughout his major league career, but the club had no real need to hold onto both him and fellow utilityman Brock Holt. The Diamondbacks, however, were in need of an outfielder following a recent pectoral injury to Steven Souza Jr., and with a particular urgency since they’re rumored to be considering optioning outfielder Yasmany Tomas to the minors. While Marrero has no experience in the outfield, his presence on the roster should allow Chris Owings to shift to the outfield for the time being.

 

Twins Claim Kennys Vargas

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The Twins have claimed Kennys Vargas off waivers from the Reds, says Dan Hayes of The Athletic. The Reds had claimed the first base/DH type off waivers from the Twins just two days ago, but it’s possible that they designated him in order to make room for infielder Cliff Pennington, who was added to the roster just earlier today, and possibly reliever Kevin Quackenbush.

The intriguing transaction puts Vargas right back with the organization with whom he’d spent his entire career up until Thursday. As MLBTR’s Jeff Todd noted at that time, it was difficult to see how Vargas would make Cincinnati’s roster, since he’s out of options and can only play first base (where Joey Votto will be firmly entrenched on a daily basis). Though he’d have made an interesting pinch-hitting option, it seemed as though the Reds might be able to use the roster spot more efficiently.

Still, it seems as though many around the league believe there to be some upside for the 27-year-old Vargas, who hit .253/.314/.444 last season. He has some reasonable power upside; Vargas homered 10 times and made hard contact at a 41.7% clip in 177 plate appearances during the 2016 campaign. He also owns a walk rate over 15% in his career at the Triple-A level, though the Twins are still waiting for that to translate to the MLB level at which he owns a .311 career OBP.

Phillies Release Francisco Rodriguez

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The Phillies have released Francisco Rodriguez from his minor-league contract, according to the club’s media account on Twitter. “K-Rod” would’ve earned a $2.5MM salary if he made the club out of spring training.

The 36-year-old righty reliever has a storied career as a closer. He’s got 437 saves notched into his legacy, including a whopping 62 during his 2008 campaign with the Angels. That puts him fourth on the list of all-time saves leaders in baseball history. He’s also played for the Mets, Orioles and Tigers during his 16 MLB seasons. The righty owns a sterling 2.86 lifetime ERA and 10.53 K/9.

Last season with the Tigers, however, wasn’t reflective of prime K-Rod. He struggled to a disastrous 7.82 ERA, leading to his June release. In camp this spring, Rodriguez put up a 5.40 ERA with five strikeouts in 6 2/3 innings. However, he’s just a season removed from a 2016 campaign during which he accumulated 44 saves for the Tigers while pitching to a 3.24 ERA.

Rangers Release Bartolo Colon

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The Rangers have released Bartolo Colon from his minor-league contract, TR Sullivan of MLB.com reports. Colon was in camp competing for a starter or long relief job, but evidently his performance this spring didn’t convince the club to add him to the MLB roster at this time. However, Sullivan reports in a separate tweet that the Rangers are interested in trying to keep Colon around for Triple-A depth, and that the two sides are still discussing a way to make that happen.

Cole Hamels, Matt Moore, Doug Fister and Mike Minor were already locks to make the club’s rotation, so Colon had to beat out a lot of competition (including Tim Lincecum and Jesse Chavez) in order to win the final job. However, with Martin Perez expected to return on April 5th, the club wouldn’t seem to have an immediate need for the 44-year-old Colon.

Colon has seen playing time in parts of 20 MLB campaigns, including a Cy Young-winning 2005. Though he sat out 2010 (which would have been his age-36 season) due to shoulder damage, a stem-cell treatment revived his career and helped him post at least 2.4 fWAR in six consecutive seasons. A 6.48 ERA showing last year caused him to settle for a minor-league deal, but as a fan favorite, “Big Sexy” would still seem to have a shot at cracking the Rangers’ rotation at some point this season if he indeed agrees to start the year at Triple-A Round Rock.

Royals Release Michael Saunders, Ricky Nolasco

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Jeffrey Flanagan of MLB.com tweets that the Royals have elected to release outfielder Michael Saunders and right-hander Ricky Nolasco from their respective minor-league contracts.

The Royals will become the second team to release the 31-year-old Saunders this offseason, as the Pirates did so earlier in the winter after acquiring Corey Dickerson from the Rays. Saunders hit just .202/.256/.344 last season across 234 plate appearances between the Phillies and Blue Jays. He was in camp competing with some other non-roster invitees a chance to play some outfield for the Royals, but even a .356 on-base percentage during spring training apparently wasn’t enough wipe injury and production concerns from the minds of the club’s front office.

As for Nolasco, he allowed eight earned runs in just 3 2/3 innings this spring, and has long been an average starter at best. Though he’s managed to throw at least 180 innings in each of the past two seasons (which would seem to present some appeal to a rebuilding Royals club), he sports a 4.66 ERA during that span with just 6.82 strikeouts per nine. Entering his age-35 season, Kansas City evidently didn’t see enough upside to pay Nolasco the $1.5MM he was promised if he made the major league roster.

Nationals Release Ryan Raburn

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According to Chelsea Janes of the Washington Post, Ryan Raburn was seen shaking hands with teammates and walking out of the clubhouse with a duffel bag. This likely means that the Nationals have elected to release him rather than add him to the major league roster or pay him a $100K retention bonus.

Washington re-signed Raburn to a minor-league pact after he hit .262/.304/.431 last year across 69 plate appearances. He logged just 69 plate appearances due to a strained trapezius in his age-36 season while playing average defense in the outfield.

Used largely in a platoon capacity as a lefty-crusher over the past six seasons, Raburn has managed a wRC+ as high as 153 (with the Indians in 2015) while being mostly shielded against right-handers. Raburn had told his teammates he was likely to retire if he didn’t make the team, so a .080/.179/.259 showing in camp has likely put a fork in a career as a slugger that struck fear in the hearts of opposing left-handed pitchers.

Red Sox Extend Christian Vazquez

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The Red Sox have signed catcher Christian Vazquez to a three-year contract extension that’ll run through the 2021 season, as Pete Abraham of the Boston Globe was first to tweet (Vazquez was already set to receive $1.425MM this season after his first trip through the arbitration process). According to Jason Mastrodonato of the Boston Herald, he’s set to receive $2.85MM in 2019, $4.2MM in 2020, and $6.25MM in 2021. The extension also comes with a club option for 2022, valued at $7MM; that option comes with a $250K buyout, and can increase to $8MM if he manages to accrue at least 502 plate appearances in each of 2020 and 2021. Mastrodonato also tweets that Vazquez has offered to make an annual donation to the Red Sox foundation as part of the agreement. He’s represented by MDR Sports Management.

Over the course of his career, Vazquez hadn’t received much attention for anything other than his defensive prowess behind the plate. That changed a bit, however, when the now-27-year-old hit .290/.330/.404 across 345 plate appearances for the Red Sox in 2017. While a .348 BABIP suggests that those numbers could regress significantly, the combination of an offensive breakout and a stellar defensive reputation apparently convinced the team that he’s worth keeping in the fold through his age-30 season (and possibly his age-31 season as well).

Vazquez will receive $13.55MM in new guarantees from the pact, including the buyout of his option. As for the Red Sox, they’ll receive cost certainty across the catcher’s final two arbitration seasons in addition to delaying his free agency by a year, and possibly two. The pact is somewhat similar to the extension given to Indians catcher Roberto Perez just last season, who’s also a client of MDR Sports Management.

While Vazquez spent last season in a nearly-equal time share with fellow backstop Sandy Leon, the terms of the option (and indeed the extension itself) seem to hint that they’d like to give the lion’s share of at-bats and defensive innings to the former. Considering he’s been worth 31 defensive runs saved in just 1,668 innings behind the dish over the course of his career, more playing time for Vazquez would likely end up paying dividends for Boston.

A largely unheralded ninth-round pick by the Red Sox back in 2008, Vazquez has never known another major league organization. It took him six years to crack the MLB club, and even then he didn’t seem to be a core piece of the team right away. Vazquez owned a .309 career slugging percentage prior to last season, and missed all of 2015 after undergoing Tommy John surgery. However, the Red Sox will hope that last year’s 1.6 fWAR showing is more indicative of his talent moving forward.

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images

Tigers Release Alexi Amarista

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The Tigers have granted infielder Alexi Amarista his unconditional release, the team’s PR account has tweeted. According to MLB.com’s Jason Beck, Amarista had said just yesterday that he’d wait until the end of camp before “weighing his options”, but something seems to have changed in the past 24 hours or so. The 28-year-old had signed a minors deal with Detroit late in January.

Amarista finished the 2017 season on the Rockies’ roster, with whom he hit just .238/.269/.351 across 176 plate appearances. While he filled in at many different positions around the diamond, defensive metrics rated him poorly at each one of them. Overall, fWAR, bWAR and WARP agree that he played about a win below replacement level, which is notable considering he accrued under a third of a season’s worth of plate appearances. As such, the club decided to pay him a $150K buyout rather than pick up his $2.5MM option.

The decision for a rebuilding Detroit club to release Amarista doesn’t come as much of a surprise. It’s likely that said decision was influenced by the desire to keep number one overall Rule 5 pick Victor Reyes on the 25-man roster. The club would also probably like to give Niko Goodrum and JaCoby Jones a chance to prove themselves at the major league level.

Amarista owns just a .231/.275/.323 slash line across career 1,901 plate appearances with the Angels, Padres and Rockies. While his bat obviously doesn’t provide any value, his ability to play both middle infield positions (in addition to third base and the outfield) has kept him working at the MLB level since his 2011 debut.

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