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Oliver Drake

Indians Acquire Oliver Drake From Brewers

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Right-hander Oliver Drake, whom the Brewers designated for assignment on Tuesday, has been traded to the Indians for cash considerations. The move was announced by Milwaukee via its Twitter account. The Indians have yet to announce a corresponding move.

On the surface, it’s not difficult to understand why the Brewers designated Drake for assignment; he sports an alarming 6.70 ERA on the season while walking a whopping 8 batters in just 12 2/3 innings on the young season. But while the walk rate is certainly a valid concern, the bloated ERA can be blamed in part on an absurd .400 batting average on balls in play against the righty. That’s been one contributing factor towards a 59.1% strand rate; league average usually sits around 70-72%, while Drake’s career average comes in just under that range at 67.7%. In short, he certainly has nobody to blame but himself for the runners he put on base via free passes, but he’s also suffered from some considerably poor fortune as far as those runners crossing the plate.

The positive signs offer some encouragement for Drake’s outlook with his new club. His 10.66 K/9 so far is a career-high mark, about a batter per nine above his career rate of 10.11. He’s also induced ground balls from 52.9% of opposing hitters this season, which sits just outside the top 25% of qualified relievers in MLB. And while Drake’s 6.70 ERA on the year is an eyesore, his 2.70 FIP is a much more palatable figure and suggests he’s likely to make some improvements in the run-prevention arena.

If he can just improve his control a bit, it’s certainly possible the Indians could end up with another surprise diamond in the rough, as they did last year with both Nick Goody and Tyler Olson. That would be a welcome sigh of relief for a club that’s feeling the pains of losing relief ace Andrew Miller to the DL; their bullpen sports an ERA north of nine in his absence and has shuffled through a small army of relievers in the past four days alone (as MLB.com’s Jordan Bastian recently noted). Regardless of whether Drake can perform at a high level, it’s a low-risk move for a club in desperate need of some stability in its relief corps.

Brewers Select Wade Miley’s Contract, Designate Oliver Drake

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The Brewers announced that they’ll formally select the contract of left-hander Wade Miley prior to tomorrow’s game and designate right-hander Oliver Drake for assignment to open a spot on the 40-man roster. Miley, who signed a minor league deal with the Brewers but opened the season rehabbing a groin injury, will be added to the Brewers’ rotation now that his rehab assignment has been completed.

The 31-year-old Miley has made three rehab starts with Milwuakee’s Double-A affiliate, totaling 11 2/3 innings and allowing four earned runs on a dozen hits and two walks with 14 strikeouts. The former D-backs/Red Sox/Mariners/Orioles southpaw is coming off a dreadful stint with the O’s, having limped to a 5.75 ERA  in a season-plus in Baltimore, but he’s posted a 35-to-10 K/BB ratio in the Brewers organization between Spring Training and his rehab stint (31 2/3 innings).

[Related: Milwaukee Brewers depth chart]

He’ll join a Milwaukee rotation that includes Chase Anderson, Zach Davies, Jhoulys Chacin and Junior Guerra for the time being as they await the return of Jimmy Nelson from shoulder surgery. Miley is stepping into the rotation spot of fellow southpaw Brent Suter, who has already been moved to the bullpen in advance of the widely anticipated addition of Miley to the starting mix.

Drake, meanwhile, has gotten off to a miserable start to his 2018 season, yielding nine runs on 14 hits and eight walks in 12 2/3 innings. To his credit, he’s punched out 15 hitters in that time and induced grounders at a well-above-average 52.9 percent clip while not allowing a home run. The righty has totaled 102 1/3 innings in the Majors between the Orioles and Brewers, averaging better than 10 strikeouts per nine innings with solid ground-ball tendencies, though he’s been haunted by shaky control and a strand rate that falls quite a bit below the league average.

Brewers Acquire Oliver Drake From Orioles

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The Brewers have acquired right-hander Oliver Drake from the Orioles in exchange for a player to be named later or cash, the teams announced. This is the second swap between the two teams tonight, as Milwaukee shipped recently designated right-hander Damien Magnifico to the O’s in exchange for an international bonus slot just minutes ago. The acquisition of Drake needn’t be accompanied by a 40-man roster move in Milwaukee, because the Brewers also designated right-hander David Goforth for assignment within the past hour.

Drake, 30, was designated for assignment by the Orioles earlier this afternoon — a seemingly innocuous move at the time that set off this moderately dizzying sequence of transactions for the two clubs. In 37 Major League innings, Drake has a 3.89 ERA with 10.0 K/9, 4.6 BB/9 and a 50.5 percent ground-ball rate. Drake doesn’t have minor league options remaining, so he’ll have to be inserted directly into the Milwaukee bullpen. The Brewers could quickly try to run Drake through waivers once again themselves, thus allowing him to be optioned to Triple-A, though in doing so, they’d risk losing him to another club.

Orioles Designate Oliver Drake For Assignment

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The Orioles have designated right-hander Oliver Drake for assignment, the team announced on Thursday. The move clears a spot on the roster for 25-year-old right-hander Stefan Crichton, whose contract has been selected from Triple-A Norfolk.

Drake, 30, has appeared in parts of the the 2015-17 seasons for the Orioles, logging a collective 3.89 ERA with 10.0 K/9 against 4.6 BB/9 in 37 innings as a Major League reliever. The Naval Academy product has generated grounders at a 50.5 percent clip to this point in his big league career and averaged 90.6 mph on his fastball, though it’s perhaps worth noting that he’s averaged 91.8 mph in this season’s very brief sample (3 1/3 innings of relief across three appearances). Drake is out of minor league options, so any club that claims him off waivers would have to add him directly to its 25-man roster.

As for Crichton, the former 23rd-rounder is only 4 2/3 innings into his first taste of Triple-A action, but he’ll quickly jump to the Majors. The righty posted a 3.73 ERA in 72 1/3 innings with Double-A Bowie last year and has fairly consistently posted mid-3.00s ERA marks with solid control throughout his minor league tenure. He owns a career 3.58 earned run average with 7.8 K/9, 2.0 BB/9 and a 57.2 percent ground-ball rate across 223 2/3 innings of work since being drafted in 2013. MLB.com rates him as the organization’s No. 30 prospect, praising his 94-96 mph fastball and the sink he can generate on the pitch.

Notable Roster Decisions: Friday

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As Spring Training draws to a close, the final determinations about each team’s roster will be continue to come into focus. Here are some of the day’s more notable roster decisions…

  • Prized righty Tyler Glasnow will take the final spot in the Pirates rotation, Stephen Nesbitt of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports on Twitter. He had been competing with Trevor Williams, who’ll head to the bullpen, Adam Berry of MLB.com adds on Twitter. With southpaw Wade LeBlanc also taking a job, that seems to set the stage for Rule 5 pick Tyler Webb to hit the waiver wire.
  • The Giants have nailed down their bench and rotation, as Alex Pavlovic of NBC Sports Bay Area reports. Aaron Hill and Chris Marrero will round out the bench. The veteran Hill figures to share the infield reserve duties with Conor Gillaspie, while Marrero will surprisingly open the season as a part of a left field platoon with the left-handed-hitting Jarrett Parker. Meanwhile, Matt Cain will keep a rotation spot, though Ty Blach will also make the club as a reliever — where he could often spell Cain in lengthier outings.
  • With injuries and young arms entering the picture, the Rockies’ pitching plans were interesting to watch this spring. As Nick Groke of the Denver Post tweets, the team will roll with lefty Kyle Freeland and righties Antonio Senzatela and German Marquez to fill out their starting staff. It seems likely that the former two will open the year in the rotation, with Marquez heading to the pen and staying on hand if a need arises.

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Orioles Reliever Oliver Drake Clears Outright Waivers

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The Orioles will likely assign right-hander Oliver Drake to Triple-A after he cleared outright waivers, according to Rich Dubroff of PressBoxOnline.com (via Twitter). Drake entered the spring out of options, meaning he had to make the active roster to keep his 40-man spot.

Drake, 30, has shown some swing-and-miss ability in 33 2/3 MLB innings over the past two seasons, and has been quite productive in the upper minors. Indeed, he has compiled a 13.5% swinging-strike rate in the majors with his intriguing forkball.

While it seemed Drake had a reasonable shot at cracking the O’s pen, he struggled quite a bit this spring. He allowed 13 earned runs on 23 hits over 13 1/3 innings, though he did record 13 strikeouts to go with just three walks.

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