Minor MLB Transactions: 12/13/16
Here are the latest minor moves:
- Righty Ryan Webb has joined the Brewers on a minor-league deal, the team announced. He’ll come to MLB camp next spring in hopes of earning a spot in the Milwaukee pen. The 30-year-old allowed 10 earned runs on 27 hits in his 18 appearances last year with the Rays, but otherwise maintained the same sort of peripherals that have allowed him to compile nearly 400 innings of 3.43 ERA ball as a big leaguer.
Earlier Updates
- The Red Sox have added third baseman Matt Dominguez on a minor-league deal, 1500ESPN’s Darren Wolfson reports on Twitter. Dominguez receives an invitation to MLB camp next spring. Still just 27, Dominguez had a short return to the majors last year with the Blue Jays but hasn’t seen substantial time at the game’s highest level since a disappointing 2014 campaign with the Astros. He posted a .269/.315/.421 batting line with 18 long balls at Triple-A last year with the Toronto organization.
- Infielder Emmanuel Burriss is heading to the Nationals on a minors pact, Jon Heyman of Fan Rag tweets. He, too, gets a spring invite, Chelsea Janes of the Washington Post adds on Twitter. The 31-year-old is a D.C. native who spent the 2014 and 2015 seasons with the Nats organization, only briefly cracking the majors. He struggled in brief time in the bigs last year with the Phillies, and hit .263/.296/.309 over his 187 plate appearances at Triple-A.
- Japan’s Orix Buffaloes have added three former major league hurlers, per Yahoo Japan (h/t NPB on Reddit, on Twitter). Lefty Phil Coke will join righties Matt West and Gonzalez Germen in Nippon Professional Baseball. West has the least major league experience of the bunch, but put up a 2.33 ERA with 7.4 K/9 and 1.6 BB/9 over 46 1/3 innings last year and only just turned 28. Coke, 34, is a hard-throwing southpaw who has spent a fair bit of time in the majors — and on the pages of MLBTR. He threw ten major league frames last year, continuing a streak of appearing in nine-straight MLB campaigns. The 29-year-old Germen had posted solid results upon arriving with the Rockies in the middle of the 2015 season, though his peripherals did not support the 3.86 ERA. He came back to earth in his 40 2/3 innings in 2016, posting a 5.31 ERA with 7.1 K/9 and 5.5 BB/9.
Dodgers Release Randy Choate, Matt West
The Dodgers released left-hander Randy Choate and right-hander Matt West at the start of the month, Eric Stephen of the True Blue LA blog reports. Neither pitcher appeared in the big leagues in 2016, with Choate tossing 17 2/3 innings at three levels of the Dodgers’ farm system while West threw 46 relief innings for Triple-A Oklahoma City.
Choate posted a 7.13 ERA, 10.2 K/9 and 2.5 K/BB rate this season, though that inflated ERA is somewhat misleading. Choate has been strictly a lefty specialist for years in the bigs, yet in the minors, he actually faced more right-handed batters (who had a whopping 1.143 OPS against him in 43 PA) than he did left-handed batters (who managed just a .578 OPS in 41 PA).
It’s probably unlikely, though not totally out of the question, that a team looking for southpaw bullpen depth down the stretch could sign Choate with an eye towards using him in his old LOOGY role. Choate signed his minor league deal with the Dodgers in June after he was released by the Blue Jays in Spring Training, and (this is purely speculation on my part) Toronto stands out as one contender who has struggled to find effective left-handed relief pitching this season. If Choate does manage to catch on somewhere and appear in a big league game, the 41-year-old will have officially played in parts of 16 Major League seasons.
West, 27, had a strong year at Triple-A, posting a 2.33 ERA, 7.4 K/9 and 4.75 K/BB over his 46 frames. A second-round pick for Texas in the 2007 draft, West converted from infielder to pitcher in 2011 and has a 3.54 ERA over 203 2/3 career innings in the minors. He had cups of coffee with the Rangers (three games) in 2014 and the Dodgers (two games) in 2015.