Tigers Sign Colin Poche To Minor League Deal
The Tigers are signing veteran reliever Colin Poche to a minor league contract, as first announced by the training facility Driveline Baseball. Chris McCosky of The Detroit News reports that the ISE Baseball client will not receive an invite to big league camp.
Poche pitched in the big leagues as recently as last June. He made 13 early-season appearances with the Nationals and had a one-game cameo with the Mets on June 28. Opponents tagged him for 14 runs (13 earned) on 12 hits and 14 walks in just 9 1/3 innings. Poche also had a rough year with the Mets’ Triple-A affiliate and was released in August.
The 32-year-old pitched in the Puerto Rican Winter League this offseason. He gave up six runs on eight hits and seven walks over 6 2/3 innings. Poche has had a very tough time finding the strike zone of late. That hadn’t been a huge issue for the southpaw before last season. Poche had a 3.63 ERA with an unexceptional 9.2% walk percentage in 208 1/3 MLB frames with the Rays from 2019-24. He struck out 27% of batters faced.
The extent of Poche’s recent struggles will keep him from getting a look in Spring Training. He’s not on the radar for an Opening Day job and should begin the season at Triple-A Toledo. If he can get the strike-throwing back on track, he could put himself in the mix for a midseason middle relief spot. Poche has never had huge velocity, but he has an extreme over-the-top arm angle and a backspinning fastball that can be tough to track at the top of the strike zone. At his best, he missed bats and induced a lot of easy pop-ups by running the four-seamer above barrels.
Mets Re-Sign Colin Poche To Minor League Deal
The Mets have signed left-hander Colin Poche to a minor league deal, reports Will Sammon of The Athletic. The southpaw was on the club’s roster less than a week ago but was designated for assignment and then elected free agency.
The injury bug has been gorging itself on the Mets of late, which has led to a great deal of roster churn. They now have 13 pitchers on the injured list, seven of those hitting the shelf in the past three weeks. Poche was briefly on the roster as a part of that churn. He got into one game, allowing two earned runs in two thirds of an inning before being cut.
That wasn’t an especially impressive performance but it’s easy to understand why the Mets brought him back. There’s no real harm in a minor league deal, for one thing. Poche also has a strong track record. He tossed 156 2/3 innings for the Rays over the 2022 to 2024 seasons with a 3.27 earned run average, 24.5% strikeout rate and 9.2% walk rate.
The Mets have also been particularly hamstrung when it comes to left-handed relievers. They came into the year with A.J. Minter and Danny Young as their primary southpaws but both were felled by season-ending surgeries. Since then, they have cycled through pitchers like Poche, Génesis Cabrera and José Castillo. As of today, Richard Lovelady is the only lefty in the bullpen, with Brandon Waddell scheduled to make a start this weekend.
The club will likely look for a more permanent upgrade at the deadline. They also have Brooks Raley working his way back from Tommy John surgery. For now, Poche gives them some experienced non-roster depth.
Photo courtesy of Charles LeClaire, Imagn Images
Colin Poche Elects Free Agency
Veteran reliever Colin Poche elected free agency after being outrighted by the Mets, relays Laura Albanese of Newsday. Fellow southpaw José Castillo also went unclaimed and was outrighted off New York’s 40-man roster, according to the MLB.com transaction log. Castillo has the right to elect free agency as well, though it’s unclear if he intends to do so.
Poche and Castillo are part of a revolving door of Mets’ lefty relievers. That role has been in flux since the A.J. Minter and Danny Young injuries. They’re now operating with Richard Lovelady and Brandon Waddell in that capacity. Poche, who signed a minor league contract in early May, was only on the MLB roster for a few days. He made one appearance, retiring two of six batters faced and giving up a pair of runs. Poche spent the first month of the season with the Nationals, allowing 12 runs with more walks than strikeouts in 8 2/3 innings.
This has been a frustrating season for the 31-year-old in both MLB and (to a lesser extent) at the Triple-A level. He was a decent middle reliever for the Rays as recently as last year. Poche turned in a 3.86 ERA across 37 1/3 frames with Tampa Bay in 2024. The Mets could look to bring him back on a new minor league contract given their lack of depth from the left side.
Castillo landed in Queens in a DFA trade with the Diamondbacks. He got a longer run in Carlos Mendoza’s relief corps than Poche had. The 29-year-old made 13 appearances and allowed five runs (three earned) across 11 1/3 innings. He punched out 14 but issued six walks and plunked another four hitters. This has been Castillo’s first significant stretch of MLB action since he made 37 appearances during his 2018 rookie season with the Padres, largely because of various intervening injuries.
Mets Sign Richard Lovelady To Major League Deal
The Mets announced a pair of roster moves this morning. Southpaw Richard Lovelady has signed with the club on a one-year deal. Lefty Colin Poche was designated for assignment to create room for Lovelady on both the 40-man and active rosters.
Lovelady returns to the Mets after being designated for assignment by the club last week and electing free agency shortly thereafter. The 29-year-old has pitched in parts of six MLB seasons but has not yet had an extended period of substantial success. A career 5.35 ERA pitcher in 102 2/3 innings, Lovelady’s surrendered six runs in 3 1/3 innings of work with the Blue Jays and Mets this year with four walks and four strikeouts. It’s not an especially inspiring profile, but Lovelady has long been viewed as an intriguing, high-ceiling arm given his quality stuff from the left side. He’s shown flashes of that potential in the past, most recently when he pitched to a 3.77 ERA in 28 2/3 innings of work for the Rays last year.
Making room for Lovelady on the roster is Poche, who is not too far removed from substantial success as a member of the Rays organization himself. He posted a strong 3.27 ERA in 156 2/3 innings of work for Tampa during the 2022-24 seasons, though he posted pedestrian peripherals in two of those three years. His 2023 was utterly dominant, as he posted a sterling 2.23 ERA with a 24.8% strikeout rate and a barrel rate of just 5.6%, though he did walk opponents at an elevated 9.8% clip. Those peripherals regressed last year, however, and the Rays non-tendered him over the offseason as a result.
Since being non-tendered, Poche has signed with both the Nationals and the Mets but has struggled badly with both teams. Poche made 13 appearances in D.C. but left the nation’s capital with 12 runs (11 earned) allowed in just 8 2/3 innings that saw him walk (12) as many batters as he struck out (10). His stay with the Mets was much briefer, as he made just one appearance and surrendered two runs in two-thirds of an inning of work while walking two and striking out one. The Mets will now have one week to either work out a trade involving Poche or pass him through waivers, at which point he would have the option to either accept an outright assignment to the minors or elect free agency. Perhaps Poche’s past success with the Rays will keep getting him attention from big league clubs despite his deep struggles with his command this year, but it seems likely he’ll remain limited to minor league deals until he can turn things around.
Griffin Canning Diagnosed With Ruptured Achilles
3:40pm: Canning underwent surgery this morning, Mendoza tells reporters (via Laura Albanese of Newsday). Tidwell is indeed available out of the bullpen tonight, but the plan moving forward will eventually be for him to step into Canning’s rotation spot.
2:32pm: The Mets announced that right-hander Griffin Canning has been placed on the 60-day injured list with a ruptured left Achilles. They also optioned right-hander Austin Warren and infielder Jared Young. To fill those three spots, infielder Mark Vientos has been reinstated from the 10-day IL, righty Blade Tidwell has been recalled and left-hander Colin Poche has been selected to the roster. The Mets added that lefty Richard Lovelady, who was designated for assignment earlier this week, has cleared waivers and elected free agency. Outfielder Jose Azocar, who recently elected free agency himself, has been re-signed to a new minor league deal.
The Canning news is devastating but not surprising. He had to be helped off the field last night, clearly unable to put weight on his left leg. It immediately appeared to be an Achilles injury and manager Carlos Mendoza admitted after the game that the club suspected as much.
The Mets haven’t yet relayed an expected timeline but it’s fair to conclude Canning’s season is over. An injury like this can often take a full year to recover from. Given that half the 2025 season is already in the books, Canning is surely going to miss the remainder and likely part of the 2026 campaign as well.
It’s a terrible break for the 29-year-old Canning, a former second-round pick and top prospect with the Angels. He’d looked on the cusp of establishing himself as a regular rotation member in Anaheim back in 2019-20 before a stress reaction in his back wiped out most of his 2021 season and all of his 2022 campaign. He returned with solid numbers in 2023 before crashing with a 5.19 ERA in 31 starts last season. The Halos traded him to the Braves for Jorge Soler in a swap of unwanted salaries following the 2024 season, and Atlanta ultimately non-tendered him.
The Mets brought a fresh start for Canning, and he looked to be taking full advantage. The right-hander has started 16 games and pitched 76 1/3 innings of 3.77 ERA ball, fanning 21.3% of his opponents with a huge 50.9% grounder rate — albeit against a less-encouraging 10.7% walk rate. Canning was terrific up through early June (2.90 ERA) but in the three starts prior to his injury had been tagged for 13 runs in 14 1/3 frames.
Even with that rough stretch, Canning looked well on his way to positioning himself for a nice multi-year deal on the open market. He could still command a two-year deal, in theory, but it’d be small in scale with a backloaded salary structure to reflect the uncertainty surrounding the first year of his contract — similar to the one former Angels rotation-mate Patrick Sandoval signed with the Red Sox.
As for the rest of the Mets’ transactions, a couple were expected. Vientos said yesterday that he was told he’d be activated today. He’ll return after a nearly monthlong absence due to a hamstring strain and hope to get back on track. The 26-year-old broke out with a .266/.322/.516 batting line (133 wRC+) and 27 home runs in just 111 games last year, seemingly cementing himself as a fixture at one of the infield corners for years to come.
That may still be the case, but Vientos hasn’t looked the part so far in 2025, slashing just .230/.298/.380. He’s actually cut his strikeout rate and improved his walk rate while continuing to hit the ball hard, however, creating good reason to be optimistic about a turnaround. The Mets have been waiting for some combination of their long-vaunted quartet of infielders — Vientos, Brett Baty, Ronny Mauricio, Luisangel Acuña — to seize spots around the infield, and that’s yet to happen. A return to form for Vientos would be a step in that direction and a boon for a Mets lineup that has struggled in recent weeks.
Tidwell was reported to be joining the Mets last night as well. The Mets’ second-round pick in 2022, he’s regarded as one of the system’s most promising young arms. His two starts earlier this year didn’t go well (eight runs in 7 1/3 innings), and the 24-year-old is coming off a tough start in Triple-A, where he served up six runs to the Yankees’ top affiliate. Prior to that ugly outing, he’d rattled off a 3.55 ERA with a 28.9% strikeout rate and 8.6% walk rate in 45 2/3 innings across eight starts. He’ll be in the bullpen for now, per SNY’s Andy Martino, which makes sense with David Peterson, Paul Blackburn and Frankie Montas lined up for weekend starts against the Pirates and an off-day on Monday.
Poche, 31, signed a minor league deal with the Mets back in May. He opened the season with the division-rival Nationals but was rocked for 11 runs in 8 2/3 innings before being cut loose. The Mets themselves contributed to that damage, tagging him for a run in two-thirds of an inning during a late-April meeting.
Ugly as that brief stint was, Poche had a nice track record in four prior seasons with the Rays, pitching to a combined 3.63 ERA with a 27% strikeout rate and 9.2% walk rate in 208 1/3 innings. Since signing with the Mets, he’s pitched 12 2/3 innings down in Syracuse, logging a 4.26 ERA with an uncharacteristic and alarming 17.9% walk rate.
If Lovelady’s tenure with the Mets is any sort of indication, it could be a brief stay on the big league roster for Poche. The 29-year-old opted out of a minor league deal with the Twins earlier this month, signed a big league deal with the Mets and was designated for assignment after just one appearance (two runs in 1 2/3 innings). Lovelady was excellent in Triple-A with Minnesota and has a nice track record at that level. He’s shown consistent ability to generate grounders, miss bats and limit walks at passable levels, but he’s struggled with men on base in the majors and limped to a 5.35 ERA in 102 2/3 innings across parts of six seasons.
Azocar, also 29, appeared in a dozen games with the Mets earlier this year and hit .278/.350/.278 in 20 plate appearances. He’s a righty-swinging, glove-first outfielder with good speed who can handle left, center and right on any given day. The former Padre is a career .244/.290/.319 hitter in 418 major league plate appearances.
Mets Sign Colin Poche To Minor League Deal
The Mets announced today that they have signed left-hander Colin Poche to a minor league deal. He will report to Triple-A Syracuse and provide the club with some non-roster lefty depth for the bullpen.
Poche, 31, started the season with the Nationals on a minor league deal. He cracked the Opening Day roster but had an awful tenure as a Nat. He logged 8 2/3 innings over 13 appearances, allowing 11 earned runs, leading to an 11.42 ERA. He walked 12 opponents, a horrendous 26.1% rate in that small sample. The Nats signed Andrew Chafin him to replace Poche in the bullpen and designated the latter for assignment. He cleared waivers and elected free agency.
Despite that rough showing, it’s understandable that the Mets would give him a shot to bounce back. For one thing, there’s no real harm on a minor league deal. On top of that, the club’s lefty relief situation has taken a few unfortunate turns recently. The club started the year with A.J. Minter and Danny Young as the southpaw contingent of the bullpen but both are now done for the year, Minter due to lat surgery and Young due to Tommy John surgery.
They recently added Génesis Cabrera to the roster, though he’s less than ideal to be a club’s top lefty reliever. He has shown some strikeout stuff at times but has been inconsistent in that regard, while control has been an ongoing issue, as shown in his 11.4% career walk rate.
The Mets will see if they can help Poche recover his previous form in Syracuse. With the Rays from 2022 to 2024, he tossed 156 2/3 innings with a 3.27 ERA, 24.5% strikeout rate and 9.2% walk rate. However, the punchouts declined over that stretch. He sent 26.1% of opponents back to the dugout in 2022 but that figure dropped to 24.8% and 21.6% in the two subsequent campaigns. That led the Rays to non-tender him heading into 2025 and Poche had to settle for a minor league deal, as mentioned.
Photo courtesy of Rhona Wise, Imagn Images
Colin Poche Elects Free Agency
Left-hander Colin Poche has elected to become a free agent rather than accept an outright assignment to the Nationals’ Triple-A affiliate, as the Nats announced earlier tonight. Washington designated Poche for assignment earlier this week and he cleared waivers, but he had the ability to opt into free agency since he has more than five years of MLB service time.
Poche inked a minor league deal with the Nationals back in February and made the team’s Opening Day roster, but the results weren’t pretty. The southpaw had an 11.42 ERA over 13 games and 8 2/3 innings with D.C., with more walks (12) than strikeouts (10). With that rough month in the books, the Nats decided they’d seen enough, and DFA’ed Poche to make room for another veteran lefty reliever in Andrew Chafin.
While a small sample size, Poche’s struggles are a marked departure from the solid numbers he posted with the Rays from 2022-24. He had a 3.86 ERA over 37 1/3 innings in 2024, but Tampa Bay chose to non-tender Poche rather than pay him $3.4MM in a projected arbitration salary. While the Rays’ always-tight budget was certainly a factor in the decision, Poche’s strikeout rate has been on the decline (21.6% last year), and he spent time on the injured list with both shoulder and back problems in 2024.
The 31-year-old Poche will now search the market for a fresh start and another minor league contract. Despite his poor numbers this year, he seems likely to catch on somewhere given his still-recent success in Tampa, and the ever-present need around baseball for left-handed pitching.
Nationals Sign Andrew Chafin To Major League Deal
6:15pm: Chafin’s contract with the Nationals guarantees him $1MM, according to Spencer Nusbaum of the Washington Post.
5:45pm: The Nationals announced that they have signed left-hander Andrew Chafin to a one-year major league deal. Fellow lefty Colin Poche has been designated for assignment as the corresponding move. Chafin was with the Tigers on a minor league deal but had an opt-out in that pact. Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic reported that Chafin was signing with the Nats prior to the official announcement.
Chafin, 35 next month, is a veteran with over a decade of solid relief work. He has logged 508 1/3 innings for various clubs, allowing 3.42 earned runs per nine. He has struck out 25.9% of batters faced, given out walks at a 10% clip and kept the ball on the ground at a 48.1% pace. He had a strong performance in 2024, with a 3.51 ERA between the Tigers and Rangers. His 12.6% walk rate was quite high but he also bumped his strikeout rate up to 28.5%.
Despite those good numbers, he lingered unsigned through the winter and somewhat surprisingly had to settle for a minor league deal with Detroit in late February. It still seemed like the Tigers would add him to the roster at the end of camp but that didn’t come to pass.
Chafin was an Article XX(b) free agent this winter, which is any player with at least six years of major league service who finished the previous season on a major league roster or injured list. Such players get uniform opt-out dates on minor league deals, provided they sign more than ten days prior to Opening Day. The opt-outs are five days prior to Opening Day, May 1st and June 1st.
Though he didn’t break camp with the club, Chafin decided to report to Triple-A Toledo. He put up great numbers for that club, tossing 12 2/3 innings with a 2.13 ERA, 31.5% strikeout rate, 7.4% walk rate and 51.6% ground ball rate. That’s obviously a small sample of work but, as mentioned, Chafin also has a lengthy résumé of big league success.
Despite that strong performance, the Tigers never called him up. They are seemingly content with their lefty relievers Tyler Holton, Brant Hurter and Sean Guenther. Chafin apparently triggered his opt-out and landed with a club that has a greater need for his services. The Nationals have used Poche and Jose A. Ferrer as their southpaw relievers this year, with disastrous results so far. Poche has an 11.42 ERA through 8 2/3 innings, with Ferrer at 7.36 through 14 2/3.
The Nats aren’t really expected to contend this year, currently sporting a record of 13-18. Regardless, Chafin can give them a veteran lefty presence in the bullpen for now. If he performs well for the next few months, they will be able to trade him for a prospect or two at the deadline.
Poche should end up on waivers in the coming days. As mentioned, he has had a rough start to the season. He has walked 12 batters faced already, an awful rate of 26.1%. Given those struggles, he’s likely to clear. He had to settle for a minor league deal in the offseason and obviously hasn’t improved his stock since cracking Washington’s Opening Day roster.
He will likely be able to find a minor league deal somewhere based on his previous track record. With the Rays from 2022 to 2024, he tossed 156 2/3 innings with a 3.27 ERA, 24.5% strikeout rate and 9.2% walk rate.
Photo courtesy of Steven Bisig, Imagn Images
Nationals Select Colin Poche To 40-Man Roster
The Nationals announced that they have selected the contract of left-hander Colin Poche. The veteran reliever signed a minor league deal with Washington last month, and he’ll now be a part of the team’s Opening Day roster.
Poche has pitched in four of the last six MLB seasons, as a Tommy John surgery shelved him for the entirety of the 2020-21 campaigns. He returned from that long layoff in pretty good form, posting a 3.27 ERA over 156 2/3 innings out of the Rays’ bullpen over the course of the 2022-24 seasons. His strikeout rate has declined over those three years, however, bottoming out at a modest 21.6% rate last year. Some back and shoulder injuries also sent Poche to the injured list, limiting him to 37 1/3 innings in what ended up as his final season in Tampa Bay.
The Rays opted to non-tender Poche rather than pay him a projected $3.4MM salary in what would’ve been his final season of arbitration eligibility. The terms of his deal with Washington aren’t publicly known, but the southpaw will now lock in a guaranteed salary as a result of making the team.
Jose A. Ferrer is the only other left-hander slated to be part of the Nats’ bullpen, so there was clearly an opening for Poche to step in as a second lefty even though Poche’s spring numbers haven’t been impressive (a 7.71 ERA in 4 2/3 innings). Amongst other southpaws on the 40-man roster, MacKenzie Gore and Mitchell Parker will be part of the starting rotation, and the Nationals yesterday optioned Shinnosuke Ogasawara and DJ Herz to Triple-A, where they will act as starting depth. Konnor Pilkington is also in the organization on a minor league deal, but it stands to reason that Washington might look to add another lefty or two as other teams make their final camp cuts.
Nationals Sign Colin Poche To Minor League Deal
The Nationals announced Friday that they’ve signed left-handed reliever Colin Poche to a minor league contract with an invitation to major league spring training. He was non-tendered by the Rays earlier in the winter.
Poche, 31, has spent his entire big league career with the Rays to this point. He’s pitched in parts of four seasons, logging a collective 3.63 ERA with a sharp 27% strikeout rate, a 9.2% walk rate and a 30% ground-ball rate. His best season came in 2023, when he tossed 60 1/3 innings of 2.23 ERA ball while fanning about one-quarter of his opponents and issuing walks at a 9.8% clip.
Strong as Poche’s track record is, the 2024 season clearly wasn’t his best. He spent time on the injured list due to back and shoulder troubles, ultimately pitching only 37 1/3 innings. Poche’s 3.86 ERA was still solid, but his 21.6% strikeout rate was a career-low mark, while his 1.69 HR/9 rate was the highest of his career.
Poche’s four-seam fastball, which averaged 92.9 mph in his first three big league seasons, sat at just 91.2 mph in 2024, further suggesting that he wasn’t right physically. His slider was down about 1.5 mph from peak velocity, too, sitting at an average of 83.1 mph. Unsurprisingly, given the reduced stuff, he allowed more contact, recorded a career-low swinging-strike rate and saw opponents produce career-best exit velocity and hard-hit rates against him. The always cost-conscious Rays opted to move on a year early rather than pay Poche a projected $3.4MM salary in his final season of club control.
If Poche is back to full strength, he should have a good chance to not only make the Nationals’ bullpen but pitch in a key role. He’s been a high-leverage setup man for Kevin Cash in Tampa Bay throughout his career, logging 81 holds and a dozen saves in 225 career appearances (208 1/3 innings). Washington’s bullpen is lacking in experienced lefties — and, more broadly, just experienced relievers in general. Jorge Lopez and Derek Law are the only two Nats relievers with even two years of MLB service. Only one other, Jose A. Ferrer, even has one full year of service time.