Headlines

Go To Pro Hockey Rumors
Go To Hoops Rumors

Marlins Rumors

Outrighted: Hurst, Paulino, Morimando

By | at

A trio of players have been passed through outright waivers:

  • Cardinals outfielder Scott Hurst will remain at Triple-A Memphis after he cleared waivers. Hurst made his first five big league plate appearances in April but he’s spent the past few months with Memphis. It’s been a difficult season for the lefty-hitting Hurst, who has just a .186/.289/.270 line over 251 plate appearances with the Redbirds.
  • The Phillies have sent right-hander David Paulino to Triple-A Lehigh Valley. The former Astro and Blue Jay was selected to Philadelphia’s big league club last week. He got into a major league game for the first time since 2018, allowing two runs in as many innings during a loss to the Reds before being designated for assignment. The 27-year-old Paulino has spent the bulk of the year with the IronPigs, working to a 4.35 ERA over 51 2/3 innings.
  • Marlins left-hander Shawn Morimando has been outrighted to Triple-A Jacksonville, according to the MLB.com transactions tracker. He has the right to elect free agency but has seemingly accepted the assignment, as he’s listed on the Jumbo Shrimp active roster. That’s not especially surprising, as Morimando had twice previously accepted outright assignments after being waived earlier in the year. The 28-year-old southpaw has a 9.58 ERA over 10 1/3 innings with the Fish this season.

Marlins Designate Deven Marrero For Assignment

By | at

The Marlins announced they’ve designated infielder Deven Marrero for assignment. Outfielder Jesús Sánchez is being reinstated from a stint on the COVID-19 injured list in a corresponding move. Miami already had a vacancy on the 40-man roster, but Marrero is out of minor league options, meaning he had to be placed on waivers in order to be bumped from the big league club.

It wouldn’t be surprising to see Marrero pass through waivers unclaimed, seeing as he’s already done so three times this season. Despite having only eleven MLB plate appearances in 2021, the 30-year-old has rather remarkably been selected and designated for assignment on four separate occasions. Each time before, he’s accepted an outright assignment to Triple-A Jacksonville in lieu of free agency.

Marrero, who’s also seen big league time with the Red Sox and Diamondbacks, has gotten more extensive playing time with Jacksonville this year. The right-handed hitter has compiled a .252/.327/.397 line across 150 plate appearances with the Jumbo Shrimp.

Marlins Activate Elieser Hernandez, Designate David Hess For Assignment

By | at

Elieser Hernandez has been reinstated off the 60-day IL and is starting today’s game for the Marlins, per Jordan McPherson of the Miami Herald. In a corresponding move, David Hess was designated for assignment, also per McPherson.

Hernandez is one of a stable of interesting young hurlers in the Miami rotation but has only been able to make a couple of starts this year because of biceps inflammation and a quad strain. Those setbacks came after the righty seemed on the verge of a breakout in 2020. In 25 2/3 innings over six starts last year, he had an ERA of 3.16, strikeout rate of 32.1% and walk rate of 4.7%. He’ll now look to get back on track over the final weeks of the season before heading to arbitration for the first time this winter.

As for Hess, he was acquired from the Rays on July 3rd and logged 18 innings in 14 games with the Marlins, primarily out of the bullpen. Unfortunately, the results haven’t been there for him. He has an unsightly ERA of 8.00, with a strikeout rate of 18.4% and walk rate of 11.5%, both of which are worse than league average. But he had much better numbers in Triple-A before the trade, throwing 32 innings with an ERA of 2.81. The strikeout and walk rates were also excellent, at 28.9% and 3.9%, respectively. Some other club could claim him and give him a shot at transferring that kind of performance to the big leagues. If he goes unclaimed, he will be able to refuse an outright assignment since he has previously been outrighted in the past.

Marlins Designate Shawn Morimando, Place Zach Pop On 10-Day Injured List

By | at

The Marlins have designated left-hander Shawn Morimando for assignment and placed righty Zach Pop on the 10-day injured list.  Right-hander Jorge Guzman and left-hander Sean Guenther were called up from Triple-A to take the two spots on the active roster.  (MLB.com’s Christina De Nicola was among those to report the moves.)

Pop has been sidelined with soreness in the middle finger of his throwing hand, interrupting a very respectable rookie season for the 24-year-old.  Over his first 43 1/3 innings in the majors, Pop has a 4.36 ERA/4.05 SIERA, plus a 58.1% grounder rate that has continued his reputation from the minors as a groundball specialist.  The Marlins landed Pop via the Rule 5 Draft (acquiring the right-hander from the Diamondbacks after Arizona drafted him out of the Orioles’ organization), and Pop has certainly pitched well enough to remain on the MLB roster for the entire season, so Miami will retain his rights going forward.

This is the second time the Marlins have DFA’ed Morimando this season, with the first designation resulting in an outright assignment to Triple-A for the southpaw.  After making his big league debut with Cleveland in 2016, Morimando didn’t receive another MLB opportunity until this season, when he posted a 9.58 ERA over 10 1/3 innings for the Marlins.

Marlins Sign Dustin Fowler

By | at

The Marlins have signed outfielder Dustin Fowler to a minor league contract, according to an announcement from their Triple-A affiliate in Jacksonville. The 26-year-old made his first appearance as a Jumbo Shrimp this evening.

Fowler began his career in the Yankees system, emerging as one of the better outfield prospects in the league within a few years. He reached the big leagues as a 22-year-old midway through the 2017 season. Unfortunately, Fowler ruptured his right patellar tendon in a bizarre collision with an exposed electrical box at Chicago’s Guaranteed Rate Field during his MLB debut. That ended his season, and he was traded to the A’s as part of the return for Sonny Gray not long thereafter.

Oakland gave Fowler a bit of run in 2018, but he hit just .224/.256/.354 over 203 plate appearances. He didn’t appear in the majors in either of the next two seasons, instead spending both years on optional assignment — 2019 in Triple-A, 2020 at the alternate training site. Oakland traded him to the Pirates for cash in February.

Fowler opened the year on Pittsburgh’s big league roster but was designated for assignment after a rough eighteen games. The lefty-hitting outfielder cleared outright waivers and only appeared in thirteen Triple-A games before being released last weekend.

Obviously, Fowler hasn’t yet found any success at the big league level. He’s still relatively young and not too far removed from his days as a high-end prospect, though, and there’s no real harm for the Marlins in bringing him aboard as high minors depth. Fowler is a career .294/.342/.508 hitter over parts of four seasons at Triple-A.

Marlins’ Jose Devers Undergoes Shoulder Surgery

By | at

Marlins infielder Jose Devers underwent surgery yesterday to repair a labrum tear in his right shoulder, tweets Jordan McPherson of the Miami Herald. He’d been on the injured list since mid-June and will now miss the remainder of the 2021 season.

Devers, 21, entered the season ranked tenth among Marlins farmhands at Baseball America and made his big league debut back on April 24. He appeared in 21 games but tallied just 46 plate appearances, batting .244/.304/.317 along the way. It was an aggressive jump for Devers, who played just 33 games at Class-A Advanced in 2019, didn’t have the benefit of a minor league season in 2020, and made his debut before the Triple-A campaign even kicked off in early May. Devers did play in a dozen Triple-A games in between a pair of big league stints, hitting .231/.250/.308 in 41 plate appearances at the top minor league level.

Acquired in the Giancarlo Stanton trade with the Yankees, Devers has never been viewed as a likely offensive force. He’s a fleet-footed, contact-oriented hitter with no real power of which to speak and strong defensive skills up the middle. Devers has hit just one professional home run, which came as a 17-year-old with the Yankees’ Gulf Coast League affiliate back in 2017, and has a .071 career ISO (slugging percentage minus batting average).

Between that lack of pop and the presence of Jazz Chisholm and Miguel Rojas in the middle infield, Devers’ role in 2022 (and likely moving forward) could be that of a utility infielder. The Marlins will probably want to get him some more minor league playing time next season, given his general lack of experience in the upper minors.

Marlins Outright Austin Pruitt

By | at

AUGUST 10: Pruitt has cleared waivers and been sent outright to Triple-Jacksonville, according to the MLB.com transactions tracker. As a player with more than three years of MLB service, Pruitt had the right to reject an outright assignment in favor of free agency. Doing so would’ve meant forfeiting the remainder of his $617.5K salary, though, and he has indeed accepted an assignment to Jacksonville, where he made his first appearance this evening. If he’s not selected back to the 40-man roster before the end of the season, Pruitt will qualify for minor league free agency this winter.

AUGUST 5: The Marlins are designating right-hander Austin Pruitt for assignment in order to open a roster spot for lefty Braxton Garrett to be recalled from Triple-A, tweets Christina De Nicola of MLB.com.

It’s a bit of a surprise, given that Miami just acquired Pruitt alongside outfield prospect Bryan De La Cruz in the trade that sent right-hander Yimi Garcia to Houston. Then again, Pruitt himself was in DFA limbo at the time of that swap, having recently been designated by the Astros. It was clear at the time that De La Cruz was Miami’s target in that swap, and today’s move only further underscores that reality.

Pruitt, 31, did appear in one game with the Marlins and toss a scoreless inning. He’s pitched just 3 2/3 innings so far in 2021, allowing a pair of runs on four hits with no walks and a strikeout in that short time. That marks Pruitt’s first action since the 2019 season; he missed all of the 2020 campaign with an elbow fracture that required surgical repair — a procedure that also sidelined him well into the 2021 season.

Prior to that injury, Pruitt had spent parts of three seasons with the Rays, working to a 4.87 ERA and 4.28 FIP in 199 2/3 frames. Pruitt didn’t miss tons bats in that time (17.2 percent strikeout rate, 9.9 percent swinging-strike rate), but he excelled at keeping the ball on the ground, inducing weak contact and limiting walks. Pruitt’s 5.8 percent walk rate in that three-year stretch was considerably better than the league average, and he also posted a healthy 48.9 percent grounder rate while getting opponents to chase out of the strike zone at a hearty 34.2 percent clip. Those traits, plus elite spin rates on his curveball, all surely appealed to Houston when trading for Pruitt in the 2019-20 offseason.

With the deadline to trade big league players behind us, Pruitt will be placed on either outright waivers or release waivers. Any of the other 29 teams will have the opportunity to claim.

Garrett, the No. 7 overall draft pick in 2016, returns to the Majors on his 24th birthday. He’s tossed 22 1/3 innings for Miami already this season, working to a 4.37 ERA with a below-average 20.2 percent strikeout rate and a 9.1 percent walk rate.

Marlins Select Deven Marrero, Shawn Morimando

By | at

The Marlins are selecting infielder Deven Marrero and left-hander Shawn Morimando to the big league roster, relays Christina de Nicola of MLB.com (Twitter link). Second baseman Jazz Chisholm is landing on the COVID-19 injured list. Chisholm has been suffering from virus-like symptoms and stayed behind in Denver, where the Fish just wrapped up a series against the Rockies.

Both Marrero and Morminado have been yo-yoed on and off the roster this season. Miami has rather remarkably selected Marrero’s contract four times, designating him for assignment and passing him through outright waivers shortly after each of his first three calls. Most recently, Marrero was selected and DFA’d just last week — incidentally while Chisholm was on the COVID-19 IL for a day after not feeling well. The 30-year-old has only picked up seven plate appearances over his various big league stints; he’s hitting .252/.327/.397 this year with Triple-A Jacksonville.

Morimando is up for the third time. He’s made two appearances, allowing four runs in just two-thirds of an inning against the Phillies on May 24 but tossing five scoreless frames against the Braves on July 9. The 28-year-old has a 4.43 ERA over 63 innings with Jacksonville this season.

Marlins Designate Deven Marrero For Assignment

By | at

AUGUST 4: Chisholm has been reinstated from the IL, suggesting he’s tested negative for the virus. Marrero was designated for assignment in a corresponding move (via McPherson).

AUGUST 3: The Marlins announced they’ve placed middle infielder Jazz Chisholm on the COVID-19 injured list. Infielder Deven Marrero has been selected to the roster to replace him.

Chisholm has been experiencing virus-like symptoms, reports Jordan McPherson of the Miami Herald (Twitter link). There’s no indication that he’s actually tested positive for the virus at this point. The 23-year-old is hitting .254/.317/.430 with eleven home runs across 307 plate appearances so far this season.

Marrero has been on and off the roster a few times, picking up seven plate appearances. He has spent most of the season with Triple-A Jacksonville, hitting .252/.327/.397 with the Jumbo Shrimp.

Marlins Sign Bryan Mitchell

By | at

The Marlins signed right-hander Bryan Mitchell to a minor league contract last week. He’s been assigned to Triple-A Jacksonville, where he made his first appearance over the weekend.

Mitchell pitched in the big leagues every year from 2014-18, spending the first four years with the Yankees before logging his most significant seasonal workload (73 innings) with the Padres in 2018. He flashed some intriguing raw stuff but generally struggled from a results perspective, managing a 5.15 ERA/5.20 SIERA across 171 1/3 cumulative innings. He hasn’t pitched in the majors since, bouncing between a few organizations on minor league deals.

The 30-year-old signed a non-roster pact with the Phillies over the offseason. He spent the year with Triple-A Lehigh Valley, tossing 28 1/3 frames of 6.04 ERA ball with worse than average strikeout and walk rates (15.7% and 12.6%, respectively). The Phils released him a couple weeks ago. Mitchell has worked exclusively out of the bullpen this season but has vast starting experience and offers the Marlins a high minors multi-inning relief/swing option for the stretch run.

Show all

MLB Trade Rumors is not affiliated with Major League Baseball, MLB or MLB.com

Do not Sell or Share My Personal Information

hide arrows scroll to top