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Dietrich Enns

NPB’s Seibu Lions Sign Dietrich Enns

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TODAY: Enns is heading to Japan to sign with the Seibu Lions, the team announced.

NOVEMBER 17: The Rays are in the process of finalizing an agreement to send left-hander Dietrich Enns to a team either in Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball, the Korea Baseball Organization or Taiwan’s Chinese Professional Baseball League, reports Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times (Twitter link). Enns will be placed on release waivers today and, upon clearing Friday, will be free to sign with his new club.

Moves such as this one generally benefit all parties and are, of course, made with full consent from the player in question. Whichever team held interest in Enns would first contact the Rays, who’d then gauge the player’s interest in the opportunity before proceeding to negotiate a release agreement. Tampa Bay will likely receive some financial compensation for releasing Enns, while the pitcher himself will receive a larger salary in NPB or the KBO than he’d have earned as a fringe big leaguer in 2022 — if he’d even stuck on the Rays’ 40-man roster.

Enns, 30, was quite effective in 22 1/3 frames for the Rays this past season, pitching to a 2.82 ERA with an impressive 28.4% strikeout rate against a strong 6.8% walk rate. That marked the first big league action for Enns since a brief four-inning cup of coffee with the 2017 Twins, however, and the lefty’s minor league track record generally isn’t as strong as this past season’s results. Enns did post a 2.64 ERA in 71 2/3 Triple-A frames, but he carries a career 4.26 ERA with pedestrian strikeout and walk rates in nearly 400 innings at that level.

The benefit to the arrangement for Enns could be twofold. In addition to securing a guaranteed salary of some note for the first time in an 11-year professional career, he’ll also set himself up for the opportunity to potentially return to Major League Baseball outside the constructs of the arbitration system.

Had Enns remained with the Rays, he’d have needed another three years on the roster before qualifying for arbitration eligibility as a 33-year-old (at least, as the arbitration system currently stands). However, by going to NPB, the KBO or the CPBL, Enns could impress for only a season or two and then return on a guaranteed Major League deal. Chris Flexen, Merrill Kelly, Josh Lindblom and Miles Mikolas are among the recent players to go this route, securing considerable salaries overseas before returning to the big leagues on guaranteed, multi-year contracts that typically allow them to become free agents upon completion (rather than remain under control via arbitration). It’s not a foolproof gambit, of course, but even if Enns struggles in his new environs he’d still likely come away with more than he’d have earned with a big league club in 2022.

With the removal of Enns, the Rays’ 40-man roster will have three open spots. Topkin suggests that the Rays may look to open another spot or two prior to Friday’s Rule 5 protection deadline.

Rays Select Evan Phillips

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The Rays announced Thursday that they’ve selected the contract of righty Evan Phillips. Lefty Dietrich Enns was optioned to Triple-A Durham to open a spot on the active roster. Tampa Bay had an open 40-man spot, so an additional corresponding move was needed.

Phillips, 26, recently inked a minor league deal with the Rays and will give the club a fresh arm to keep the bullpen fresh. He’s shown considerable strikeout potential in past MLB stints with the Orioles but has also given up far too many walks to remain effective. From 2019-20, Phillips pitched 42 1/3 frames with the O’s and fanned 28.7 percent of his opponents but also walked about 14.4 percent of them. Between that and a sky-high .398 average on balls in play, he was knocked around for a 5.95 ERA in that time.

This will be Phillips’ first big league stint of the season. He’s split the year between the Triple-A clubs for Baltimore and Tampa Bay, working to a 4.76 ERA in 28 1/3 innings. He’s spent parts of four seasons in Triple-A, compiling a 3.67 ERA with a 27.6 percent strikeout rate and a 10.7 percent walk rate. He averages just shy of 95 mph with his heater and also features a mid-80s slider and lesser used changeup (also clocked in the mid-80s).

Rays Select Dietrich Enns

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The Rays announced they’ve selected the contract of left-hander Dietrich Enns. Righty Chris Mazza was optioned to Triple-A Durham to open active roster space, while fellow righty Ryan Thompson was transferred from the 10-day to the 60-day injured list to clear a 40-man roster spot.

Tampa Bay signed Enns out of independent ball last August, and he’s now in line to make his team debut a little less than a year later. The 30-year-old has two career big league appearances under his belt, both of them with the 2017 Twins. He bounced between a couple affiliated organizations and independent teams before landing with the Rays.

Assigned to Triple-A Durham, Enns pitched his way back to the big leagues for the first time in four years with a very strong season. He’s made fourteen appearances (ten starts), totaling 59 innings of 2.44 ERA ball. Enns’ peripherals back up the elite run prevention, as he’s punched out a whopping 32.3% of batters faced against a tiny 6.5% walk rate. Those numbers are even more impressive when considered against the league’s hitter-friendly environment. Enns ranks 3rd in ERA, fourth in strikeout rate, and third in strikeout/walk rate differential among the 49 Triple-A East pitchers with 50+ innings pitched this season.

Thompson landed on the IL with right shoulder inflammation on June 30. He’ll miss at least sixty days from the date of that original placement, meaning he can’t return to the majors until the end of this month. The sidearming reliever has quietly worked to a 2.38 ERA/3.17 SIERA across 34 innings this season.

Minor MLB Transactions: 8/18/20

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The latest minor moves from around baseball…

  • The Cardinals announced before Tuesday’s game that they selected right-hander Jesus Cruz and optioned lefty Rob Kaminsky to their alternate training site. Kaminsky will remain on the Cardinals’ taxi squad. The 25-year-old Cruz is in his fourth season with the Cardinals organization. He has generally produced very good numbers at the lower levels of the minors, but his first stint with Triple-A Memphis last season did not go well. Cruz wound up with a 6.24 ERA and a 6.4 BB/9 in 57 2/3 innings, though he did punch out 12.33 hitters per nine.

Earlier:

  • The Rays have signed Dietrich Enns to a minor league contract, as announced yesterday by Enns’ independent league team in Joliet, Illinois.  Enns will report to Tampa Bay’s alternate training site and MLB.com’s Juan Toribio (Twitter link) adds that Enns has been added to the Rays’ 60-man player pool.  Originally a 19th-round pick for the Yankees in the 2012 draft, Enns compiled a 3.40 ERA, 2.48 K/BB rate, and 8.3 K/9 over 667 1/3 career minor league innings with the Yankees, Twins, and Padres.  His lone bit of MLB experience came in 2017, when Enns tossed four innings over two games with Minnesota.  Enns has mostly worked as a starter during his career and it isn’t out of the question that the Rays could deploy him in that role given how creative the club is with its pitching options, though it probably seems more likely that Enns will work as a reliever should he crack the big league roster.

Minor MLB Transactions: 12/21/18

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Here are the day’s minor moves:

  • The Phillies have a host of new additions to the team’s list of MLB Spring Training participants. In addition to a few we’ve already featured here at MLBTR, the Philadelphia club has announced the signings of southpaw Jeremy Bleich, backstop Rob Brantly, righty Josh Martin, utilityman Matt McBride, and infielder Gregorio Petit. Every one of these players has seen MLB time except for Martin, who’ll be looking for his first crack at the bigs after compiling a seven-season minor-league stat line with the Indians organization that features a 3.33 ERA and 9.2 K/9 against 2.6 BB/9.
  • Likewise, the Padres have announced a haul of camp competitors. Allen Craig will come back for another go, as will Alex Dickerson. Otherwise, southpaws Ryan Bollinger and Dietrich Enns have inked with the San Diego org, along with righty Tyler Higgins. On the position-player side, infielders Seth Mejias-Brean and Aderlin Rodriguez are joined by outfielder Jacob Scavuzzo. It’s the opposite situation from the one just discussed above, as all of the new additions excepting Enns — who’s compiled two MLB appearances — have yet to crack the majors.
  • A handful of new free agents are heading to the Rangers, too, per a club announcement. Lefty Jack Leathersich has seen action in a pair of MLB campaigns, but won’t get a camp invite. Fellow southpaw Miguel Del Pozo, righties, Ariel Hernandez and Phillips Valdez, and infielder Nolan Fontana will open their tenure in Texas on the MLB side of Spring Training. Hernandez and Fontana each have minimal experience in the bigs. Valdez worked to a 2.73 ERA in 135 upper-minors innings with the Nationals organization last year, with 6.9 K/9 against 3.1 BB/9; Del Pozo has averaged ten strikeouts per nine in his minor-league career.
  • The Red Sox have added another hurler on a minor-league pact, this time picking up righty Ryan Weber, per Michael Mayer of Metsmerizedonline.com (via Twitter). Now 28 years of age, Weber has thrown 73 2/3 innings of 5.01 ERA ball over the past four years, though the vast majority of those came in 2015 and 2016. He was rather effective last year at Triple-A in a swingman capacity, spinning 115 1/3 innings of 2.73 ERA ball with 6.5 K/9 and 1.8 BB/9.

Outrighted: Centeno, Ngoepe, Enns

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Let’s run through a few recently-designated players who have cleared waivers and been outrighted:

  • Rangers backstop Juan Centeno could have elected free agency but chose instead to take an assignment to Triple-A Round Rock, the club announced. The 28-year-old, a relatively rare left-handed-hitting catcher, has seen action in each of the past six MLB campaigns. He also has not shown much at the plate, with a cumulative .227/.278/.331 batting line.
  • Also clearing waivers was Blue Jays infielder Gift Ngoepe. This is the first time he has been outrighted; without significant MLB service time on his record, he had no choice but to head to Buffalo. Not unlike Centeno, Ngoepe is a useful fielder who perhaps will never fully come around with the bat. He had a particularly rough run in limited action this year in Toronto, striking out a dozen times in just 19 plate appearances.
  • Finally, the Twins will hang onto reliever Dietrich Enns after he, too, cleared waivers under the same essential circumstances as Ngoepe. Soon to turn 27, Enns is off to a poor start this year at Triple-A, where he has given out 11 free passes to go with 11 strikeouts in twenty innings. If he can get back on track, though, perhaps he’ll eventually present a depth option for the Minnesota organization. In his six prior professional seasons, Enns has never finished with an earned run average of over 2.94. In 136 Triple-A innings, he carries a sparkling 2.25 ERA with a more pedestrian combination of 7.1 K/9 and 3.4 BB/9.

Twins Place Miguel Sano On DL, Designate Dietrich Enns

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The Twins have announced a series of roster moves today. Star third baseman Miguel Sano is heading to the 10-day DL with a hamstring strain, with infielder Gregorio Petit replacing him on the active roster after his contract was selected.

To create a 40-man opening, the Minnesota organization has designated southpaw Dietrich Enns for assignment. The club also announced that previously DFA’ed righty Tyler Kinley, a Rule 5 pick, has been returned to the Marlins.

The Twins had hoped to avoid a DL stint for Sano. After all, the last thing the team needs is another key player out of action. But his injury evidently did not improve enough to forestall the placement.

Petit, 33, is obviously not going to make up for the loss of Sano’s power bat in the lineup. The veteran utilityman has compiled only a .249/.291/.353 lifetime slash in 426 MLB plate appearances. But he’ll help round out the roster for at least a few days’ time.

As for Enns, who is nearing his 27th birthday with just four MLB frames under his belt, it seems the Twins were not optimistic that he’d be a notable contributor in the near term. Acquired from the Yankees in last summer’s Jaime Garcia deal, Enns had worked to a 4.50 ERA with as many strikeouts as walks (11 each) in his twenty Triple-A frames this year. He has previously produced outstanding results in the minors, though evidently teams do not quite anticipate him carrying that effectiveness into the majors.

Twins Notes: Garver, Colon, Enns, Ervin, Rosario

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In the wake of Robbie Grossman’s fractured thumb, the Twins are turning to one of their top organizational prospects. Catcher Mitch Garver, who ranked ninth on Fangraphs’ summer edition of the team’s top prospects, is being called up to the Majors, the club announced. In addition to his work behind the plate, the 26-year-old Garver has played 14 games in left field this season, so he can serve as a third catcher as well as a spare outfielder or first baseman.  Garver’s bat also could be a nice addition to the team’s bench. In 372 Triple-A plate appearances, Garver has slashed .291/.387/.541 with 17 homers and 29 doubles.

A few more notes out of the Twin Cities…

  • Right-hander Bartolo Colon has enjoyed some success with the Twins after a terrible start to the season in Atlanta, and he tells John Shipley of the St. Paul Pioneer Press that he’s open to playing beyond the 2017 season. There was some brief talk of retirement for Colon, but the 44-year-old has turned in a solid 4.21 ERA in 36 1/3 innings with the Twins (albeit with more concerning peripheral metrics). Colon also tells Shipley that a phone call from former Angels teammate Ervin Santana may have been the tipping point in Colon signing with the Twins. The Mets were also pursuing a reunion with Colon, but the veteran righty said some urging from Santana, the Twins superior place in the standings and the opportunity to serve as a mentor for a number of young Twins pitchers all appealed to him. “…I thought it’s not only an opportunity for me to pitch, but an opportunity to teach other young players how to pitch and how to be big-leaguers,” said Colon.
  • The Twins placed lefty Dietrich Enns, who was only just acquired from the Yankees as part of the Jaime Garcia swap, on the 10-day disabled list with a shoulder strain yesterday. Enns missed more than two months of the season with a shoulder issue as a member of the Yankees’ Triple-A club, and Mike Berardino of the Pioneer Press suggests that the Twins could potentially seek additional compensation from the Yankees if Enns’ shoulder issue proves to be serious.
  • The Astros and Mariners have both showed plenty of interest in right-hander Ervin Santana this summer, Darren Wolfson of 1500 ESPN reports in his latest podcast (audio link, Twins talk starts up around the 45:00 mark). However, Minnesota has never shown any real willingness to deal him, and there’s no reason to expect that they’d change that mentality now with a Wild Card spot still in the crosshairs.
  • Minnesota GM Thad Levine joins Wolfson to discuss several Twins topics ranging from outplaying their run differential, to the performance of young players to the fine line between making short-term and long-term moves this time of year. Of surging outfielder Eddie Rosario, Levine notes that he and Twins chief baseball office Derek Falvey received quite a few inquiries from other clubs regarding Rosario. Many teams wanted to gauge whether the new front office duo valued Rosario (and others, though Levine doesn’t get into specific names) as highly as their predecessors. “We made it clear to them that we view this guy as part of the core, part of the future of this franchise,” said Levine of Rosario. The 25-year-old Rosario is hitting .297/.337/.500 with 16 homers, 25 doubles and a pair of triples this season.

Twins Activate Glen Perkins

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After spending more than 16 months on the shelf thanks to a shoulder injury that ultimately required surgery to reattach the labrum to the bone, left-hander Glen Perkins has been activated from the 60-day disabled list, the Twins announced. To make room on the roster, Minnesota put fellow lefty Dietrich Enns on the 10-day DL due to a shoulder strain. The Twins also announced that righty Aaron Slegers will make his Major League debut tonight as the 26th man in today’s doubleheader.

Perkins’ strong run as a setup-man-turned-closer seems longer ago than it actually was; the 34-year-old was an All-Star in each of the 2013-15 seasons, and he posted a 2.84 ERA with 9.8 K/9 against 2.1 BB/9 in 313 1/3 innings from 2011-15. The aforementioned shoulder injury, however, has limited Perkins to just two MLB innings since the conclusion of the 2015 season.

Perkins has spent the season rehabbing his shoulder and recently wrapped up a minor league rehab assignment in which he allowed five runs on six hits and five walks with 10 strikeouts in 7 1/3 innings. At his best, Perkins averaged 94.9 mph with his fastball, though Mike Berardino of the St. Paul Pioneer Press wrote yesterday that he sat 88-91 mph in his recent rehab outings and topped out at 93 mph.

It remains to be seen just how much Perkins can contribute down the stretch, though his return could be a boon for a Twins relief corps that has struggled for much of the season. It’s unlikely that he’ll step back into the ninth-inning spotlight early on, but he could still help a  Twins club that has been lacking a quality second left-hander behind sophomore setup man Taylor Rogers. Minnesota hoped veteran Craig Breslow could fill that role, but he was released earlier this summer. Fellow southpaw Buddy Boshers has had similar issues to Breslow; he’s dominated left-handed opponents but been clobbered by right-handed bats (.292/.375/.557).

As for Slegers, the 24-year-old make a spot start on the heels of a terrific season in Triple-A Rochester. The towering 6’10” right-hander has racked up 130 1/3 innings in Rochester, averaging 6.7 K/9, 1.9 BB/9 and 0.48 HR/9 with a 47.1 percent ground-ball rate en route to a 3.18 ERA. A fifth-round pick in 2013, Slegers is not ranked among Minnesota’s top 30 prospects over at MLB.com, but he’s now turned in very solid results over the past two seasons (3.41 ERA in 145 1/3 Double-A innings in 2016). Along with Perkins, he’ll fill one of two vacancies on Minnesota’s 40-man roster.

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