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Anderson Tejeda

Cardinals Sign Anderson Tejeda

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The Cardinals announced they’ve agreed to minor league contracts with infielder Anderson Tejeda and right-hander James Naile. Both players will receive invitations to big league Spring Training. Additionally, St. Louis passed righty Ljay Newsome through outright waivers.

Tejeda has briefly appeared in the majors in each of the past two seasons, tallying 94 combined plate appearances with the Rangers. He’s hit just .220/.245/.385 in that time, and he’s coming off a tough season. The switch-hitting infielder posted just a .194/.266/.368 line over 318 plate appearances across three levels of the minors in 2021, leading Texas to outright him off their 40-man roster after the season. Tejeda had enough minor league service time to elect free agency.

It hasn’t been a great showing for Tejeda recently, but he’s still just 23 years old. Baseball America placed him among the top ten farmhands in the Texas system on three separate occasions, including entering this past season. He twice appeared on top 100 overall prospects lists at Baseball Prospectus. There’s little harm for St. Louis in taking a flier on a still young player to see if a change of scenery can yet unlock some of the power and middle infield defense that made him a highly-regarded prospect.

The Cards just claimed Newsome off waivers from the Mariners last month. He doesn’t have the requisite service time to elect free agency, so he’ll stick in the St. Louis organization as non-roster depth. The 25-year-old has twelve big league appearances (five starts) under his belt, with 30 1/3 innings of 6.53 ERA ball to show for it.

Newsome doesn’t throw especially hard or miss many bats, but he’s posted extremely low walk rates throughout his minor league career and can work as either a starter or multi-inning reliever. He underwent Tommy John surgery at some point this past summer, so it remains to be seen when he’ll be healthy enough to try to work his way back onto the 40-man roster.

Rangers Outright Ronald Guzman, Three Others

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Nov. 6: Ronald Guzman has elected free agency, per ESPN’s Enrique Rojas (via Twitter).

Nov. 5: The Rangers announced this afternoon that four players — first basemen Ronald Guzmán and Curtis Terry, infielder Anderson Tejeda and reliever Matt Bush — have cleared outright waivers. All four will be eligible for minor league free agency.

Guzmán came up as a well-regarded prospect and served as Texas’ regular first baseman for a good chunk of his first two MLB seasons. He didn’t hit for enough power to offset high strikeout rates, though, posting just a .229/.307/.415 line that checked in sixteen percentage points below the league average by measure of wRC+ from 2018-19. Guzmán hasn’t played much over the past couple seasons, missing almost all of the 2021 campaign after tearing the meniscus in his right knee in April.

Like Guzmán, Bush also barely played this past season because of injury. The 35-year-old suffered a flexor strain in April and missed almost the entire year, although he did return after a long rehab to pitch on the season’s final day. It has now been three years since Bush’s last extended action, as he also missed all of the 2019 and 2020 campaigns because of an elbow injury that required Tommy John surgery.

Tejeda and Terry are career-long members of the organization with scant big league experience. The former has tallied 94 MLB plate appearances over the past two years, spending most of this past season at Double-A and Triple-A. The latter earned a thirteen-game major league cameo at the end of 2021 after hitting .275/.349/.533 with the Rangers’ top affiliate in Round Rock.

Rangers Designate Greg Bird For Assignment, Select Derek Dietrich

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The Rangers announced a series of roster moves Tuesday afternoon, most notably adding recently signed Derek Dietrich to the Major League roster and designating first baseman Greg Bird for assignment (after first reinstating him from the injured list). Texas also selected the contract of lefty Wes Benjamin from its alternate training site and optioned right-hander Jimmy Herget and infielder Anderson Tejeda.

Designating Bird for assignment opened one of two requisite roster spots for Dietrich and Benjamin. The other looks to have come from placing right-hander Luke Farrell on the Covid-19 injured list. Texas merely announced that Farrell has been placed on the IL, but Evan Grant of the Dallas Morning News further reports that it is a Covid-19 IL placement due to Farrell coming into “close contact” with an individual who has tested positive. Farrell has tested negative to this point, per Grant.

Dietrich only just inked a minor league contract with the Rangers yesterday, but he’ll step in as an apparent first base and second base option in the wake of Bird’s departure. The longtime Marlins utilityman slugged a career-best 19 home runs last year, though the overwhelming majority of his production came in the season’s first nine to ten weeks. Dietrich experienced a precipitous dip in production after that point but will look to rebound in his latest setting after being unable to grab a big league spot on prior minors pacts with the Reds and Cubs.

The 27-year-old Benjamin is stepping onto a big league roster for the first time. He was clobbered in Triple-A in 2019 (5.52 ERA in 135 1/3 frames), but that’s true of most of the league’s pitchers after unprecedented levels of home runs that mirrored the Major League long ball surge. Prior to 2019, Benjamin had run up a sub-4.00 ERA in each of his professional seasons, topping out with a solid showing at Double-A in 2018 (3.62 ERA, 72-to-23 K/BB ratio in 79 2/3 innings).

As for Bird, the former Yankees first base hopeful will again be on the lookout for a new team. He’s shown in the past that he has all of the skill to be a strong offensive contributor in the Majors, but shoulder and ankle injuries have completely derailed his career to this point. It’s perhaps telling that he landed on the IL with the Rangers before taking his first plate appearance with the club.

Rangers Place Danny Santana On 10-Day Injured List

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Prior to this afternoon’s game against the Giants, the Rangers announced they’ve placed outfielder Danny Santana on the 10-day injured list, retroactive to July 30, with a right forearm strain. In his stead, they’re bringing up infield prospect Anderson Tejeda.

Four years removed from his previous quality season, Santana surprisingly broke out in Texas last season, hitting .283/.324/.534 (111 wRC+) with 28 home runs and 21 steals over 511 plate appearances. An elevated strikeout rate (29.5%) and below-average walk rate (4.9%) cast some doubt on the long-term sustainability of that strong output, but Santana has clearly established himself as an everyday option for manager Chris Woodward.

Tejeda, 22, is remarkably in position to make his MLB debut despite never having taken a high minors plate appearance. He’s topped out in the High-A Carolina League, putting up a solid but unspectacular .253/.327/.426 line in 703 plate appearances at that level. A switch-hitting middle infielder with power, Tejeda has a bright future but seems unlikely to get many MLB at-bats at this stage of his career.

AL West Notes: Astros, Bailey, Santana, Rangers

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Pitching is on the Astros’ mind as the AL West leaders approach the trade deadline, and both starters or relievers could be on the menu, GM Jeff Luhnow told The Athletic’s Jake Kaplan (subscription required).  “It all depends on whether or not we’re able to acquire a starter and what that means for the rest of the rotation and maybe when [Brad] Peacock’s going to come back and be healthy and all of that,” Luhnow said.  “So, there are a lot of variables.  But we’ve never ruled out looking at relievers.  In fact, several of the pitchers that we have on our wish list are relievers.”

As Luhnow mentioned, Peacock’s injury status adds another question mark to a rotation that was already in need of at least one more starter.  While Houston has been linked to any number of big-name starters on the rumor mill, acquiring a reliever would add pen depth, and also perhaps allow the Astros to experiment with using an opener and bulk pitcher for one of the rotation spots, rather than a full-time starter.  For the short term, Luhnow figured his team will have to get though something of a pitching crunch over the next few days, though “we talked to a couple clubs about some players who might fit in.”

More from around the division…

  • The trade that brought Homer Bailey from the Royals to the Athletics “came together kind of quickly this morning,” Oakland GM David Forst told MLB.com’s Martin Gallegos and other media, as Forst initially contacted the Royals about Bailey only “a few days ago.”  Bailey was actually scheduled to start today for Kansas City, and was only told of the deal while he was doing his pregame warmup pitches in the bullpen.  Bailey adds at least one veteran arm to Oakland’s pitching mix, and while the A’s hope to get some of their injured younger hurlers back soon, the club hasn’t closed the door on more trades.  “We’ll keep an eye on starters, but we have a lot of conversations going on for relievers right now,” Forst said.
  • Ryan Divish of the Seattle Times answered several Mariners-related questions as part of a reader mailbag, and in regards to a question about Domingo Santana, Divish opines that the M’s should be open to trade offers at the deadline or in the offseason.  After a rough 2018, Santana has regained his 2017 hitting form in Seattle, and he is also controlled through 2021 via arbitration.  With this in mind, Divish feels the Mariners should explore selling high on Santana, since he may not fit into the club’s long-term rebuild plans and doesn’t offer any defensive help.
  • Rangers prospect Anderson Tejeda will miss the rest of the season due to a shoulder injury, according to The Athletic’s Levi Weaver (Twitter link).  Tejeda was ranked as the 93rd-best minor league in the sport by Baseball Prospectus prior to the season, though Tejeda’s year at high-A ball was halted on May 29 after he hurt his shoulder while sliding into a base.  An international signing in 2014, the Dominican middle infielder has a .265/.332/.452 slash line and 45 home runs over 1672 professional plate appearances.  MLB.com ranks Tejeda as the third-best prospect in the Rangers’ system, citing his good glovework at shortstop and a “plus-plus” throwing arm.
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