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Nomar Mazara

Padres, Nomar Mazara Agree To Minor League Deal

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The Padres have signed corner outfielder Nomar Mazara to a minor league contract with an invitation to major league Spring Training, reports Chris Cotillo of MassLive (Twitter link). Mazara was eligible to sign a minors pact during the lockout because he didn’t finish the 2021 season on a club’s 40-man roster or major league injured list, having been released by the Tigers in June.

San Diego president of baseball operations A.J. Preller was a high-ranking member of the Rangers’ scouting staff in 2011, when Texas signed Mazara as an amateur out of the Dominican Republic. The left-handed hitter’s big power potential made him a coveted signee, with the Rangers doling out a bonus just under $5MM to secure his services.

For a while, that looked to be a great investment. Mazara posted big production over his first few minor league seasons. He continued to impress scouts along the way, emerging as one of the sport’s top 25 overall prospects by 2016 (in the estimation of Baseball America). He made his MLB debut as a 20-year-old that April and looked to have a good chance of emerging as a long-term lineup fixture in Arlington.

Mazara hit .266/.320/.419 with 20 home runs over 568 plate appearances as a rookie. Those aren’t world-beating numbers, but it was nevertheless a promising debut showing for a player the age of a typical college junior. Mazara remained the Rangers’ regular right fielder over the next three seasons, but his awaited breakout simply never arrived. He hit between 19 and 20 homers every year, posting slightly below-average offensive numbers in each season. For a bat-first player whose glovework in the corner outfield hasn’t rated highly, that wasn’t much more than replacement level production.

Texas moved on from Mazara after 2019, trading him to the White Sox for outfield prospect Steele Walker. Mazara had a rough 149 plate appearance showing in Chicago during the shortened 2020 season, and the Sox cut him loose that offseason. The Tigers took a low-cost flier last winter, but he hit only .212/.276/.321 over 181 plate appearances in Detroit before being released. He didn’t latch on with another club the rest of the season.

Preller has brought numerous former prospects with whom he’s familiar from Texas over to the Padres. On a minor league deal with a non-roster invite, there’s no downside for the Friars in getting a look at Mazara in Spring Training. San Diego has plenty of uncertainty in the corner outfield mix, with Tommy Pham hitting free agency and seemingly annual speculation about the possibility of Wil Myers coming up in trade talks.

Mazara, still only 26 years old, could have a good opportunity to crack the roster with a strong showing in exhibition play. Yet his days as a top prospect continue to get further in the rear-view mirror as he’s struggled to handle big league pitching. Over parts of six MLB seasons, he’s a .255/.315/.418 hitter, production that checks in around 12 points below the league average by measure of wRC+.

Tigers Release Nomar Mazara

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JULY 21: Detroit has requested unconditional release waivers on Mazara. He’ll almost certainly clear after 48 hours, at which point he’ll be free to sign elsewhere.

JULY 16: The Tigers announced Friday that they’ve designated outfielder Nomar Mazara for assignment and optioned infielder Willi Castro to Triple-A Toledo. Outfielder Derek Hill and infielder Isaac Paredes are up from Toledo in a pair of corresponding roster moves. Detroit has also appointed lefty Miguel Del Pozo as the 27th man for today’s doubleheader against the Twins.

Still just 26 yeas old, Mazara once ranked as one of baseball’s elite prospects, entering the 2016 season as one of the consensus 25 most promising minor leaguers in the sport. He looked the part when he made his MLB debut that season, too, hitting .266/.320/.419 with 20 home runs in 145 games. It wasn’t a dominant showing, of course, but Mazara was just 21 years old at the time and was making the jump with only 23 Triple-A games under his belt. It was an impressive showing, and it was reasonable to expect that he’d only improve with more reps against big league pitching.

That, however, never really proved true. Mazara spent the next four seasons as the primary right fielder in Texas but more or less just kept repeating his 2016 season. He posted a 93 OPS and 91 wRC+ as a rookie in ’16 and, from 2017-19, posted collective marks of 94 and 92 in those same respective categories. He hit exactly 20 home runs again in 2017 and 2018 before hitting 19 in 2019. Essentially, he’d settled in as a slightly below-average hitter with well below-average defensive grades. The Rangers trade him to the White Sox during the 2019 Winter Meetings.

At that point, Mazara was a highly interesting change-of-scenery candidate. He’d plateaued in Arlington, to be sure, but he was a former Top 25 prospect who was heading into his age-25 season with two years of club control remaining. For the White Sox, it was a sensible enough roll of the dice to see if they could help Mazara take the next step. Instead, he turned in a career-worst .228/.295/.294 batting line with just one home run and a career-high 29.5 percent strikeout rate through 149 plate appearances last summer. Chicago non-tendered him in the offseason.

Mazara took a chance with his second AL Central club, landing with the Tigers on a one-year, $1.75MM deal late in the offseason. Things have gone a bit better in Detroit than in Chicago, but only by a slight margin. Mazara’s strikeouts are down a bit and he’s shown a little more pop. However, his overall .212/.276/.321 batting line through 181 plate appearances so far simply wasn’t enough for the Tigers to keep giving him at-bats over more controllable players who are hoping to emerge as long-term fits in Detroit.

The Tigers will have a week to trade Mazara, attempt to pass him through outright waivers, or place him on release waivers. Mazara has more than five years of service time, so even if he does go through outright waivers without a claim, he can reject an outright assignment to the minor leagues and retain the entirety of his remaining salary. It’s unlikely that another club would claim that salary, given his poor showing at the plate. The likeliest outcome is that Mazara becomes a free agent, whether via unconditional release from the team or via rejecting an outright assignment. At that point, he’d be free to sign elsewhere for only the prorated league minimum. That amount would be subtracted from the roughly $753K the Tigers still owe him through season’s end.

Hill, 25, is a former Tigers first-rounder who has had some sparse big league looks but hasn’t yet had a lengthy audition. He’s hitting .320./.373/.508 in 133 Triple-A plate appearances, however, and he’ll now return to Detroit for his second stint of the 2021 campaign.

The 22-year-old Paredes has been ranked among the Tigers’ better prospects since coming to the Tigers alongside Jeimer Candelario in the 2017 trade that sent Justin Wilson and Alex Avila to the Cubs. He hasn’t hit much in 145 prior MLB plate appearances, but his .261/.357/.412 slash in Triple-A will net him a look over the struggling Castro — another infield prospect who has stumbled to a .214/.278/.341 slash through 280 plate appearances with the big league club so far in 2021.

Tigers Option Isaac Paredes, Keep Zack Short On Active Roster

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After splitting today’s doubleheader with the Astros, the Tigers announced that they are keeping 27th man Zack Short on the active roster and optioning Isaac Paredes to Triple-A. Paredes, 22, was given an opportunity to fill in for Niko Goodrum when the latter was placed on the injured list.

With a 17.1 percent walk rate and 14.3 percent strikeout rate in a small sample of 35 plate appearances, Paredes has shown a solid, contact-first approach. The bottom line results haven’t been there yet, however, as he slashed .143/.286/.321 in that time. His .130 BABIP suggests some poor luck, and his batted ball numbers (such as exit velocity, hard-hit percentage, and barrel rate) are a touch below average. Paredes will head back to the minors with hopes of producing more solid contact in regular playing time at Toledo.

Short, 26, is having a stellar season at the plate, both in Triple-A (.132 wRC+ in 124 plate appearances) and with the parent club (143 wRC+ in 16 plate appearances). The former Cubs’ farmhand can play all over the infield while filling Paredes’ role as a right-handed complement to switch-hitting infielders Jeimer Candelario and Willi Castro. Short may not have the long-term promise that Paredes does, but he has impressed in short-run samples this season, earning himself an opportunity.

Moving to the outfield, the Tigers have another roster decision coming soon, writes Evan Woodbery of Mlive.com. With Derek Hill and Victor Reyes close to returning from the injured list, the Tigers will have a surplus of outfielders. The most obvious move would be to activate Hill and option Reyes back to Triple-A, but Woodbery wonders whether Detroit might find this the right time to cut ties with Nomar Mazara.

Though still just 26, Mazara is seemingly running out of chances to prove himself a Major League hitter. After struggling through the shortened season with the White Sox, Mazara has put up similar production this year. Slashing .201/.273/.317 through 154 plate appearances, Mazara doesn’t have any trade value, and on a one-year, $1.75MM contract, he can be cut loose without significant financial consequence.

If the Tigers don’t see Mazara as a part of their future, there’s certainly some logic to allocating his playing time elsewhere. The Tigers can pull from a pool of outfielders that includes Robbie Grossman, Akil Baddoo, Daz Cameron, Hill, Reyes, JaCoby Jones, Christin Stewart, Jacob Robson. Infielders Castro and Goodrum (when he returns from the injured list) are also capable of playing the outfield.

Tigers Activate Nomar Mazara From Injured List

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The Tigers activated Nomar Mazara from the injured list today, optioning Victor Reyes to Triple-A to create the roster spot, per the team. Mazara returns to the lineup carrying a .237/.275/.395 line from 40 plate appearances prior to his injury. Reyes didn’t fair any better, however, slashing .143/.169/.238 in 65 plate appearances.

Erasmo Ramirez has also been placed on the 10-day injured list with a right pectoralis strain. Ramirez warmed up in the bullpen yesterday, but he ultimately did not enter the game, notes MLB.com’s Jason Beck (via Twitter). In fact, he has not appeared in a game yet this season. For his career, Ramirez owns a 4.31 ERA/4.56 FIP over 655 innings with the Mariners, Rays, Mets and Red Sox.

In his place, Joe Jimenez has been recalled from Triple-A. Jimenez walked seven and allowed five earned runs in just one full innings spread out between two appearances before being optioned to the minors.

Quick Hits: Odorizzi, Posey, Miggy, Mazara, Rays

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Jake Odorizzi was linked to the Mets last winter, though in a recent podcast appearance alongside former Twins teammate — and current Met — Trevor May on The Chris Rose Rotation, Odorizzi indicated that the team’s initial interest was generated by team president Sandy Alderson.  (Mike Puma of the New York Post has an account of Odorizzi’s comments.)  Once Jared Porter was hired as the Mets’ GM, however, the interest dissipated, and the situation didn’t reignite after Zack Scott took over the job after Porter’s resignation.  “Early on, I thought I was going to be a member of a certain team, then some people took over that team and they pretty much hated me, so it fell through.  It was Trevor’s team,” Odorizzi said.

Odorizzi reportedly drew interest from several teams beyond only the Mets, but he didn’t end up finding a new club until early March, when he signed a two-year deal with the Astros worth $23.5MM in guaranteed money.  The long wait didn’t sit well with the right-hander, who described his free agent stint as “the single most frustrating time I’ve had in baseball.  At certain points you think you are going to be a member of a certain team and then it falls through or whatever maybe and it’s like, ’All right, now what?’ And it’s March and I am still sitting at the house.  It’s like, ’What the hell is going on right now?’ ”

More from around the baseball world…

  • X-rays were negative on Buster Posey’s left elbow after the Giants catcher was hit by a pitch during the seventh inning of tonight’s game with the Marlins.  Posey remains on the basepaths after being hit, but was replaced by Curt Casali at catcher in the bottom half of the inning.  Manager Gabe Kapler told reporters (including NBC Sports Bay Area’s Marcus White) that Posey suffered an elbow contusion.  Casali was already likely to start tomorrow’s game, though if Posey needs a bit of recovery time short of an proper IL stint, the Giants might have to call up Chadwick Tromp or Joey Bart so they aren’t shorthanded behind the plate.
  • Tigers manager A.J. Hinch provided Chris McCosky of the Detroit News and other reporters with some updates on injured players.  Miguel Cabrera (left biceps strain) will be on the injured list beyond the 10-day minimum, as Hinch said the veteran slugger wouldn’t be available for the Tigers’ series with the Pirates from April 20-22.  However, Cabrera is making progress with baseball activities, taking grounders and hitting in an indoor batting cage.  Hinch said the plan is for Cabrera to take on-field BP during that Pirates series, “and once he does that for a few days, then we will make an assessment on what’s next for him after that….We’re going to go series by series with him.”  As for Nomar Mazara, the Tigers outfielder hit the 10-day IL last Thursday due to a left abdominal strain.  Hinch also expects Mazara’s IL stint to last beyond 10 days, estimating “a couple of weeks” but noting that the nature of the injury makes it difficult to project a specific timeline.
  • Yoshi Tsutsugo is off to a rough start, with only a .154/.214/.179 slash line over his first 43 plate appearances of the season.  This performance has already cost Tsutsugo playing time, and Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times wonders if it might lead the Rays to part ways with Tsutsugo altogether, maybe as soon as May when Ji-Man Choi is off the injured list.  It would essentially be a punt on the $7MM salary Tsutsugo is owed this season, and while the low-payroll Rays would be loath to eat that much money, Topkin writes that “the Rays may decide Tsutsugo is a lost cause.”  The terms of Tsutsugo’s two-year, $12MM contract prevent him from being sent to the minors without his permission.  Tsutsugo was pretty average (98 wRC+, 99 OPS+) over 158 PA in his first Major League season in 2020, with the obvious caveats that he had to deal with the pandemic on top of the difficulties of adjusting to a new league.

Quick Hits: Rodon, Bellinger, Graterol, Mazara, Stripling

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Carlos Rodon was perfect through 8 1/3 innings tonight against the Indians. A backfoot slider skipped off the top of Roberto Perez’s right foot, ending his bid for a perfect game. Rodon managed to complete the no hitter, however, with a masterful 114-pitch complete game shutout. Coming into this season, the former third overall pick was in a battle for the fifth starter job in the White Sox rotation. But tonight, the burly southpaw routinely hit 97 mph on the radar gun (hitting as high as 99 mph in the ninth inning). Certainly, Rodon wasn’t all that high up on the list of pitchers likeliest to throw what would have been the first perfect game in the Majors since 2012: He hasn’t posted an ERA under five since 2018, and he was designated for assignment this winter. Yet, tonight’s start marked the culmination of an arduous journey through numerous injuries and multiple arm surgeries. Congrats to Rodon on throwing the 20th no-hitter in White Sox franchise history. Now, let’s check in on some players still making their way back from injury…

  • Cody Bellinger and Brusdar Graterol will both join the Dodgers on their forthcoming road trip, but neither is a guarantee to be activated. Belligner is still experiencing some swelling in his calf, and he’s yet to run the bases as full speed, per Juan Toribio of MLB.com (via Twitter). Bellinger has been out since April 5th. As for Graterol, he’ll be added to the taxi squad, per Jorge Castillo of the LA Times (via Twitter). It’s not entirely clear why Graterol wasn’t ready to start the season, but it’s only a matter of time until he becomes available out of the bullpen for manager Dave Roberts.
  • Nomar Mazara left Wednesday night’s game with a left abdominal strain, per Evan Petzold of the Detroit Free Press. There’s no timetable for his return. In the meantime, JaCoby Jones and Victor Reyes should have more opportunities in the starting lineup. Both outfielders have seen their playing time cut both by the offseason acquisition of Robbie Grossman and the early-season breakout from Akil Baddoo. Both Reyes (30 wRC+) and Jones (-10 wRC+) are off to slow starts through their first week of games.
  • Ross Stripling is dealing with forearm tightness, but the Blue Jays don’t have any information beyond that, per Scott Mitchell of TSN Sports (via Twitter). The former Dodger has been tagged for seven earned runs on 13 hits and three walks over 8 1/3 innings so far.

Tigers To Sign Nomar Mazara

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The Tigers are closing in on a deal with free-agent outfielder Nomar Mazara, Cody Stavenhagen of The Athletic reports. It’s a major league contract that will pay Mazara $1.75MM plus incentives, per Jon Heyman of MLB Network.

Mazara was a much-ballyhooed prospect in his younger days, as he entered the pro ranks with a whopping $5MM bonus from the Rangers when he signed out of the Dominican Republic in 2011. He topped out as Baseball America’s No. 21 overall prospect in 2016, when he debuted in the majors and played his age-21 season. Mazara got off to a nice start then relative to age, hitting .266/.320/.419 with 20 home runs in 568 plate appearances, but hasn’t progressed much since then.

From 2017-19 as a Ranger, Mazara hit .259/.320/.440 with 59 homers and just 1.2 fWAR across 1,621 trips to the plate. The Rangers decided to part with Mazara after the last of those seasons, sending him to the White Sox for outfield prospect Steele Walker prior to 2020.

Chicago was obviously hoping the proverbial light bulb would go on for Mazara in its uniform, but that didn’t happen. He wound up slashing a disastrous .228/.295/.294 with a single HR and a microscopic .066 isolated power number in 149 PA. The White Sox saw enough and elected to non-tender Mazara in lieu of paying him a projected $5MM-plus in arbitration in 2021.

Mazara is still only 25, so the Tigers will follow the division-rival White Sox in hoping he’ll be able to tap into his potential sometime soon. The left-handed-hitting Mazara has typically had a terrible time against same-handed pitchers, though he has offered league-average offense versus righties. He could at least emerge in Detroit as a platoon partner for fellow corner outfielder Victor Reyes, who has had trouble against righties during his career.

AL Notes: Red Sox, Odorizzi, Tigers, Grossman, Duvall, Mazara, Orioles, Sulser

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The Red Sox are showing “serious interest” in right-hander Jake Odorizzi, Mark Feinsand of MLB.com tweets. This isn’t the first link between the two sides, who were connected in the rumor mill just a few weeks ago. Odorizzi endured a subpar, injury-shortened 2020 with the Twins, but he is an accomplished starter who has ties to Red Sox chief baseball officer Chaim Bloom. The hurler pitched in Tampa Bay from 2013-17, when Bloom was part of the Rays’ front office. Odorizzi had a good run with the Rays during those years and continued to pitch well in Minnesota from 2018-19. Based on what the 30-year-old Odorizzi has done so far, he would be a welcome addition to a Boston rotation that’s in dire need of help. Elsewhere…

  • The Tigers signed Robbie Grossman on Tuesday, but fellow outfielders Adam Duvall and Nomar Mazara were on their radar before then, Jason Beck of MLB.com tweets. Both Duvall and Mazara became available when their respective teams (Braves, White Sox) non-tendered them last month. Neither player performed as well as Grossman did in 2020, however. Grossman’s tool aren’t flashy, but he’s a smart player who takes what he’s given. He owns a .359 OBP across the last six seasons, a skill he flashed again last season with a solid 10.9 percent walk rate. He also avoids mistakes in the field: as Beck points out, Grossman’s 231-game active errorless streak ranks second among outfielders. It should be noted, Grossman’s total package brings a decidedly different skill set from either Duvall or Mazara, both of whom are known more for their power.
  • The Orioles have reason to believe Cole Sulser can return to form as the guy they installed as their early-season closer in 2020, writes Roch Kubatko of MASNsports.com. The 30-year-old Sulser was a casualty of a roster crunch in Tampa, and the Orioles benefited by claiming him off waivers. The season started well for Sulser as he became a multi-inning weapon for manager Brandon Hyde, but in a freak accident at home, Sulser broke some toes on his right foot. It wasn’t enough of an injury to keep him from the diamond, but perhaps it should have been as he struggled with his command the rest of the way. Sulser finished with a 5.56 ERA/4.91 FIP/5.87 SIERA and an unsightly 17 percent walk rate. Back at full health, the Orioles expect Sulser to once again be a weapon for them out of the pen.

White Sox Non-Tender Nomar Mazara, Carlos Rodon

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The White Sox announced that they won’t tender contracts to outfielder Nomar Mazara and left-hander Carlos Rodon. This isn’t surprising news in either case, though it does continue a fall from grace for two players who were regarded as standout prospects during their younger days.

Mazara, formerly with Texas, joined the White Sox in a trade last December. While Mazara didn’t live up to the hype as a Ranger, the White Sox were surely hoping a change of scenery would help him reach his potential. Instead, the 25-year-old hit a miserable .228/.295/.294 with one home run in 149 plate appearances during his lone year in Chicago. The White Sox decided to cut Mazara in lieu of paying him $5MM-plus in arbitration.

Rodon was the No. 3 overall pick of the White Sox in 2014, though he never turned into the ace the team thought it was drafting. He was a pretty successful starter earlier in his career, but serious arm injuries (including issues that required shoulder surgery and a Tommy John procedure) slowed him over the previous couple of years. Rodon threw just 34 2/3 innings in 2019 and 7 2/3 this past season, combining for 5.74 ERA (and a much better 3.85 FIP) alongside 11.06 K/9 against 4.25 BB/9 in the process. The White Sox would have owed the 27-year-old more than $4MM in arbitration had they tendered him.

AL Notes: Rays, Phillips, White Sox, Encarnación, Vaughn, Rodon, Gonzalez, Mazara

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The Rays and Astros have roster decisions to make before their 10am deadlines. Both teams plan on adding a pitcher for the ALCS. For the Rays, Josh Fleming, Jose Alvarado, Ryan Sherriff, or even Brent Honeywell look like the top candidates to join the roster, per Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times. Brett Phillips, meanwhile, could be the odd man out now that Austin Meadows is back in the lineup. On the other hand, if the Rays choose to decide the roster spot by dance battle, Phillips should be safe. The former Royal and Brewer has appeared in four games this postseason, largely being used as a defensive replacement.

Now, lest we spend the entire evening on the postseason alone, let’s check in on a team that hopes to have these kinds of decisions to make in years to come…

  • The White Sox have some options pending after their most successful season in over a decade, and the Athletic’s James Fegan provides a rundown. One of the easier calls will be declining the $12MM club option on designated hitter Edwin Encarnación. It’s true that Encarnación didn’t exactly dazzle this year with a triple slash of .157/.250/.377, but more telling is GM Rick Hahn’s comment about #3 overall draft pick of the 2019 draft: Andrew Vaughn. Per Fegan, Hahn said, “Given his makeup and given his tools, it’s hard to look at him and rule him out of being able to help a team in the not too distant future.”
  • Like ships passing in the night, just as one #3 pick could soon embark on his White Sox career, another in Carlos Rodon could be nearing an end. The big lefty will be due at least a nominal raise on his $4.45MM contract, and there’s a decent chance that’s too rich given his inability to stay healthy. The White Sox will be looking for stability for their rotation now that their contention window has firmly opened. With that in mind, it’s likely they decline Gio Gonzalez’s $7MM option as well.
  • Perhaps the most surprising tidbit in the group is Fegan’s suggestion that Nomar Mazara is heading for a DFA. Not so shocking when considering his 42-game .228/.295/.294 line he put up across 194 plate appearances this year. But taking the long view, this certainly isn’t where the 25-year-old appeared to be heading when he made his debut in Texas as a 21-year-old.
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