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Chance Sisco

Twins Sign Ryan LaMarre, Chance Sisco, Grayson Greiner To Minor League Deals

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The Twins announced a slate of non-roster invitees to Major League Spring Training on Friday, with new additions including outfielder Ryan LaMarre, catchers Chance Sisco and Grayson Greiner, and righty Brock Stewart.

LaMarre, 34, has appeared in parts of six big league seasons, including a 14-game stint with the Twins back in 2019. He’s been a reserve outfielder for most of that time, hitting .232/.286/.350 over the life of 270 Major League plate appearances. Most recently, LaMarre had a strong showing with the Yankees’ Triple-A affiliate in 2022, batting .297/.409/.458 in 186 plate appearances. That was a continuation of a lengthy track record of strong performance at the top minor league level, as LaMarre is now a career .282/.359/.432 hitter in parts of nine Triple-A seasons.

The Twins are deep in left-handed-hitting outfielders but are lacking in righty-swinging options such as LaMarre — particularly after this week’s DFA of Kyle Garlick. Center fielder Byron Buxton and backup outfielder Gilberto Celestino are the only right-handed-hitting outfielders on the 40-man roster, while Minnesota has five lefty-hitting outfielders in the form of Max Kepler, Alex Kirilloff, Trevor Larnach, Matt Wallner and offseason signee Joey Gallo. LaMarre will give the Twins a potential right-handed-hitting option off the bench to complement that group.

Sisco, 28 next month, returns for a second straight season in the Twins organization. He’ll join recently signed veteran Tony Wolters to give the organization some experienced catching options in Triple-A. Sisco signed a minor league deal with the Twins last offseason and began the year in St. Paul, but a knee injury sustained in late April wound up limiting him to only 10 games, during which he batted .194/.297/.355 in 37 plate appearances.

Sisco once rated as one of the top catching prospects in baseball but, with the exception of a brilliant 10-game debut late in the 2017 season (.333/.455/.778), Sisco hasn’t had much extended success at the plate. He’s a career .197/.317/.337 hitter in 608 big league plate appearances but has a more solid .253/.343/.418 batting line in 964 plate appearances at the Triple-A level.

Greiner spent several seasons with the division-rival Tigers but was with the D-backs organization in 2022. The 30-year-old is a career .201/.275/.307 hitter in the Majors (485 plate appearances). A third-round pick in 2014, Greiner has a career .233/.315/.360 line in Triple-A and will give the Twins some further catching depth.

Stewart, 31, hasn’t pitched in the Majors since 2019. He’s tallied 105 2/3 innings at the big league level but struggled to a 6.05 ERA. Like Sisco, he was with the Twins in 2022 but hampered by injuries, which limited him to only 14 minor league innings. Coincidentally, he and fellow Twins non-roster invitee Jose De Leon were both once well-regarded pitching prospects in the Dodgers organization. The Twins reportedly targeted both De Leon and Stewart when discussing a trade of Brian Dozier with the Dodgers in the 2016-17 offseason. That deal never came to fruition, but Dozier wound up going to the Dodgers in a midseason trade a year and a half later.

Outrights: Godoy, Bazardo, Adolfo

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Twins catcher Jose Godoy has cleared waivers and been assigned to Triple-A. The 27-year-old made his Major League debut last season with the Mariners, stepping to the plate 40 times and posting a .162/.225/.189 line. Of course, a catcher’s contribution to a club can hardly to counted solely through a batting line. Gary Sanchez and Ryan Jeffers figure to handle the bulk of the catching responsibilities in Minnesota, but Godoy will compete with Chance Sisco, David Banuelos, and Stevie Berman to be the first call-up. Elsewhere around the sport…

  • Micker Adolfo has cleared waivers and been assigned to Triple-A Charlotte, per the White Sox. It’s just a little surprising that Adolfo wasn’t claimed, as there was thought to be some interest in the powerful righty bat. Adolfo displayed his typical power swing last year, slashing .245/.311/.520 in 405 plate appearances between Double-and-Triple-A. Health has been a bugaboo for Aldofo, so he will aim to stay in the lineup this year in Triple-A while awaiting an opportunity with the big league club.
  • Eduard Bazardo has cleared waivers after being outrighted to Triple-A, per the Red Sox. The 26-year-old appeared in two games for the Red Sox last season, and he’ll head to Triple-A to serve as bullpen depth. Like Adolfo, Bazardo has been stung with the injury bug in recent years, dealing with a lat strain that shut him down for much of last season.

Twins Sign Chance Sisco To Minor League Deal

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The Twins announced that they’ve signed catcher Chance Sisco to a minor league contract and assigned him to Triple-A St. Paul. He’ll replenish some of the catching depth they stand to lose with this morning’s DFA of Jose Godoy (though it’s possible Godoy will clear waivers and join Sisco with the Saints).

A second-round pick by the Orioles back in 2013, Sisco was long viewed as the heir-apparent to Matt Wieters in Baltimore. From 2016-18, Sisco was generally regarded as one of the sport’s 100 best prospects. His 2016 season, in particular, stood out as he reached Triple-A as a 21-year-old and batted a combined .317/.403/.430 in 497 plate appearances between Double-A and Triple-A. Sisco made his big league debut late in the 2017 season and went 6-for-18 with a pair of homers and a pair of doubles, and the future indeed seemed quite bright at that point.

However, Sisco struggled through subsequent seasons, and the O’s never really gave him a full season to audition for the everyday job behind the plate. He appeared in parts of five seasons with the Orioles but never reached 200 plate appearances. Strikeouts have been a huge problem for Sisco at the big league level (32.2%), though he’s also walked at a strong 10.2% clip. Overall, the now-27-year-old Sisco has had 608 plate appearances scattered across those five Major League seasons and posted a .197/.317/.337 line. He’s fared quite a bit better in Triple-A, where he has a .256/.345/.421 output in 906 trips to the plate.

The Twins are set to open the season with 24-year-old Ryan Jeffers (a former second-round pick and top-100 prospect himself) and offseason acquisition Gary Sanchez as their two primary options behind the plate. Based on Sisco’s experience, it seems likely that he would be the next man up in the event of an injury. That could change, depending on whether Godoy clears waivers and remains with the organization.

Mariners Release Chance Sisco

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The Mariners announced that catcher Chance Sisco has been released.  Between Sisco’s release and three players (George Kirby, Erick Mejia, and Sal Romano) assigned to the minor league camp, Seattle now has 34 players remaining in their big league spring camp.

Between Tom Murphy, Cal Raleigh, and Luis Torrens, the Mariners already have a fair bit of catching depth in place, and Joseph Odom is also in camp on a minor league deal.  Sisco might have simply been the odd man out, and he’ll now test free agency to see if he can catch on with another team.  With clubs always in need of experienced depth behind the plate, the odds are good that Sisco will land a new opportunity somewhere.

Sisco has played in 196 games with the Orioles and Mets since the start of the 2017 season, and he has batted only .197/.317/.337 over 608 plate appearances in the majors.  It seemed like his offense was trending up slightly in limited action with Baltimore in 2019-20, but he had only a .430 OPS over 83 PA last season.

Mariners Sign Chance Sisco To Minor League Deal

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The Mariners have announced that they’ve signed catcher Chance Sisco to a minor league deal with an invite to Major League Spring Training. They also announced the previously reported deal with Steven Souza Jr.

A second round pick of the Orioles back in 2013, Sisco got some attention from prospect evaluators as he worked his way towards the majors. Baseball America ranked him the #57 prospect in the league in 2017 and #68 the following year, with the expectation being that he would serve as a bat-first catcher in the majors. Unfortunately, his time in the big leagues hasn’t quite lived up to that hype just yet.

Since making his MLB debut in 2017, he’s played in 196 games and stepped to the plate 608 times, hitting just .197/.317/.337, wRC+ of 82. Evaluations of his defense haven’t been especially kind to him either. He was designated for assignment by the Orioles in June of last year and claimed by the Mets, getting DFA’d again in September when Noah Syndergaard returned from the injured list.

For the Mariners, there’s no risk in taking a chance on a backstop who was once considered one of the better prospects in the game. Sisco just turned 27 and has just over three years of MLB service time. There were also minor signs of hope last year, as Sisco dropped his strikeout rate to 25.3%, after being above 30% in each of his previous seasons. The club’s catching depth was dinged recently when Jose Godoy was claimed off waivers by the Giants. Tom Murphy projects to be Seattle’s first string catcher, with Cal Raleigh and Luis Torrens also on the 40-man and available for backup duty. However, Torrens played catcher less and less as last year wore on, making his last appearance behind the plate July 9th. Adding Sisco into the fold gives the club an experienced option in the minors who could step up should a need arise.

Players Recently Electing Free Agency

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With the regular season over, a series of players are closing in on free agency. The highest-profile will be available as major league free agents, those with six-plus years of MLB service time not under contract with a team. But there will be dozens of players in the coming weeks who qualify for minor league free agency and more quietly reach the open market as well.

Players can qualify for minor league free agency in a few ways. The most notable of these include: players with 3+ years of MLB service time who have been outrighted off their teams’ 40-man rosters this season, players who have been outrighted off a 40-man roster multiple times in their careers, and unsigned players not on a 40-man roster who have spent parts of at least seven seasons on a minor league roster or injured list.

Many of these players won’t officially reach free agency until the start of the offseason, but some were let go by their teams a few weeks early once the regular season concluded. Each of the following players has elected minor league free agency within the past week, according to the MLB.com and Triple-A transactions trackers:

Mets Reinstate Noah Syndergaard From 60-Day Injured List

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Noah Syndergaard is finally back in the majors, as the Mets have reinstated the right-hander from the 60-day injured list.  Syndergaard will start the second game of New York’s doubleheader with the Marlins today, and officially act as the 29th man for the twin bill.  Catcher Chance Sisco was designated for assignment to make room on the 40-man roster.

It was almost exactly two years ago that Syndergaard last pitched in a big league game, tossing seven innings in a 7-6 Mets win over the Braves on September 29, 2019.  The former All-Star then underwent Tommy John surgery in March 2020 and was initially projected to return around midseason, but a bout of elbow inflammation delayed Syndergaard’s return even further.

Now, the man they call “Thor” will only make a cameo appearance or two in the Mets’ final few games, though Syndergaard will surely feel comforted by getting some proper game action under his belt before another long offseason.  Syndergaard isn’t expected to work as a true starting pitcher, as he will serve as an opener today and could see work out of the bullpen for any other appearances.

Syndergaard’s extended absence was far from the only thing that went wrong for the 2021 Mets, and given how some pitchers don’t look quite themselves in their first outings back from TJ surgery, it isn’t any guarantee that a healthy Syndergaard would’ve provided a midseason boost even if he had met his projected recovery time.

Between a 2017 season that was limited to 30 1/3 innings due to injuries, and now the 2020-21 campaigns, Syndergaard has already endured three lost seasons in his brief MLB career.  When he has been able to pitch, Syndergaard has looked like a top-of-the-rotation arm, posting a 3.31 ERA, 26.4% strikeout rate, and 20.7 K-BB% over 716 innings from 2015-19.

It makes for one of the winter’s more intriguing free agent cases, as Syndergaard will hit the open market at the end of the year.  An argument can certainly be made that the Mets should issue a qualifying offer to Syndergaard, as a one-year contract in the $20MM range is a worthy investment for a frontline pitcher and Thor might be apt to take such a deal as a pillow contract to set himself up for a longer-term deal in the 2022-23 offseason.  Retaining Syndergaard would also provide some rotation depth in the event that Marcus Stroman leaves in free agency.

On the other hand, the Mets might have some natural reservation about committing $20MM to a pitcher who has missed essentially two full years.  With Robinson Cano’s contract returning to the books, the Mets will have less payroll space to either re-sign such noteworthy free agents as Stroman, Syndergaard, Javier Baez or Michael Conforto, or to acquire suitable replacements for the roster.  Then again, owner Steve Cohen might not consider the luxury tax threshold to be an impediment for the Mets’ to-be-determined next president of baseball operations, and Cohen might be more motivated to spend big after his club’s disappointing season.

From Syndergaard’s perspective, he’ll at least get a bit of a showcase to prove that he is healthy, even if a handful of innings won’t necessarily assuage the concerns of any interested teams looking to sign him this winter.  His free agent market could be hampered by the specter of draft pick compensation if he did reject the QO, but Syndergaard’s ceiling is high enough that an enterprising team could still be willing to take the plunge on more than one guaranteed year.

New York claimed Sisco off waivers from the Orioles in June, and the catcher appeared in only five games with the Mets at the big league level.  Sisco had some respectable numbers in part-time duty with the O’s over the last two seasons, but his defensive struggles and a big lack of production at the start of 2021 led the Orioles to part ways with the former top prospect.  For the season as a whole, Sisco is hitting only .149/.241/.189 over 83 combined plate appearances with New York and Baltimore.

Mets Activate James McCann

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The Mets have activated James McCann from the injured list, per MLB.com’s Anthony DiComo. No corresponding move is needed at this time, as he will serve as the 29th man for today’s doubleheader.

The move comes just at the right time, as Chance Sisco was involved in a collision at the plate in the ninth inning of yesterday’s game. He’s still being evaluated today, but it wouldn’t be a shock to see him involved in some kind of roster move tomorrow. McCann and Patrick Mazeika will split the catching duties in today’s twin bill.

McCann has been out for a little more than two weeks because of back spasms. Unfortunately for the Mets, even when healthy, he’s been closer to the Tigers’ version of McCann than the White Sox’ version from the past two seasons. In the first year of a four-year deal, McCann is hitting .240/.303/.357 in 337 plate appearances.

Mets Claim Chance Sisco

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The Mets have claimed catcher Chance Sisco off waivers from the Orioles, per team announcements from both clubs. The Orioles had designated him for assignment last week. The Mets moved J.D. Davis to the 60-day injured list to clear a roster spot for Sisco, who has been optioned to Triple-A Syracuse for the time being.

Today’s claim brings to an end Sisco’s tenure with the Orioles, who selected him in the second round of the 2013 draft. The left-handed hitting backstop raked up through Double-A over the next few seasons, eventually earning himself a place on top prospect lists. Baseball America ranked Sisco among the back half of the league’s top 100 minor league talents entering the 2017 and 2018 campaigns, with the expectation that Sisco would cement himself as a bat-first regular behind the dish.

To this point, however, Sisco hasn’t carried that offensive promise over to the highest level. He tallied 598 major league plate appearances with Baltimore over the past five seasons, managing just a cumulative .199/.319/.339 line. He’s popped sixteen home runs and walked at a strong 10.2% clip, but Sisco has become increasingly strikeout prone as he’s climbed to the highest level. He’s gone down on strikes in 32.3% of his MLB plate appearances. Advanced defensive metrics have panned his work behind the plate, which was also a concern for some scouts as he worked his way up the ladder.

While Sisco hasn’t yet proven a valuable big leaguer, there’s little harm for the Mets in placing a claim on an obviously talented player. He’s still just 26 years old and has a decent .264/.352/.421 slash line in 805 career plate appearances at Triple-A. As mentioned, he can also be optioned for the remainder of the year, so the Mets can keep him in Syracuse as high minors’ depth if he remains on the 40-man roster all season.

Davis’ transfer to the 60-day IL is largely a procedural move. It rules him out for 60 days from the time of his initial IL placement (May 3). He’ll be eligible to return on July 1. General manager Zack Scott told reporters (including Tim Britton of the Athletic) earlier this week that Davis could embark on a minor league rehab assignment within a week or two.

Orioles Designate Chance Sisco For Assignment

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1:40pm: The Orioles announced that Sisco has indeed been designated for assignment. The move was necessary to open a spot on the roster for right-hander Thomas Eshelman, whose contract has been selected from Triple-A Norfolk. Eshelman will take the place of lefty Bruce Zimmermann and start tonight’s game for the O’s, while Zimmermann is headed to the injured list due to tendinitis in his left biceps.

1:07pm: The Orioles have designated former top catching prospect Chance Sisco for assignment, reports Roch Kubatko of MASNsports.com (Twitter link). They’ll now have a week to trade him or attempt to pass him through outright waivers.

Sisco, 26, was a second-round pick back in 2013 and quickly played his way into top prospect status. Sisco raked at every stop through his first few minor league seasons, and Baseball America ranked him among the sport’s 70 best prospects in both 2017 and 2018. His 2016 season, in particular, was an impressive run through Double-A Bowie and Triple-A Norfolk, as Sisco combined to bat .317/.403/.430 with a 12.3 percent walk rate against a 17.7 percent strikeout rate. The O’s called Sisco up for a look late in the 2017 season, and he responded with a 6-for-18 showing that included a pair of homers and a pair of doubles. He looked very much like the organization’s catcher of the future.

That began to change in 2018, when Sisco received his first extended look at the MLB level. He played in 63 games for Baltimore that season and logged 184 plate appearances with just a .181/.288/.269 output to show for it. Sisco’s numbers improved to .211/.345/.389 in 2019-20, but he’s struggled mightily so far in 2021 both in the big leagues and down in Norfolk.

Sisco had a nice showing with Triple-A during the 2019 season, but he hasn’t consistently produced even at the sport’s top minor league level. He’s batting .205/.327/.341 through 52 plate appearances in Norfolk this season and carries an overall .264/.352/.421 slash there in parts of five seasons.

Those struggles have become more problematic as Sisco has gotten older and been unable to improve his ability to control the running game. Baseball America noted back in 2018 that Sisco would likely need “perfect footwork” to be a passable thrower from behind the dish, given bottom-of-the-scale pop times as he attempted to throw out runners on the bases. To his credit, he went 6-for-9 in thwarting thieves at the MLB level this season, but he’s also 1-for-16 in that department in Norfolk this year and has a career 21 percent caught-stealing rate in the minors.

Further complicating matters for Sisco is that he’ll be out of options next spring, meaning he’d need to either make the big league roster or go unclaimed on waivers. With his current struggles pushing him down the depth chart, that lack of future flexibility likely contributed to today’s decision to remove him from the 40-man roster.

Sisco’s status as a one-time top catching prospect who can be optioned for the remainder of the year could well hold appeal to another club, either via a small trade or a waiver claim. The most plausible scenario for him to remain with the Orioles beyond the current season would be one where he clears waivers and is later selected back to the MLB roster, but given today’s move, it may be likelier that another club takes a chance on the former top prospect.

With Sisco now in DFA limbo, the only catchers on the Orioles’ 40-man roster are Pedro Severino and light-hitting Austin Wynns. The club has an experienced option in Norfolk in the former of former Rays catcher Nick Ciuffo, but the organization’s hope at the position clearly shifted to Adley Rutschman the moment he was selected with the top pick in the 2019 draft. The switch-hitting Rutschman has utterly obliterated Double-A pitching thus far in 2021, hitting at a .287/.421/.554 pace with ten homers and five doubles through 171 plate appearances in what is typically a pitcher-friendly environment.

It’s not implausible that Rutschman could crack the Majors this season, although rebuilding clubs like the Orioles often seek to delay the arrival of their top prospects in order to gain an additional year of club control. Calling Rutschman up this season, or at any point in the first two weeks of the 2022 campaign, would give the Orioles’ control over him through the 2027 season. Waiting to call him up until 15 days of the 2022 season have elapsed would push that path to free agency back into the 2028-29 offseason.

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