Minor MLB Transactions: 3/22/17
Here are the latest minor moves from around baseball, with the newest transactions at the top of the post…
- The Braves released southpaw Matt Marksberry, according to the pitcher himself earlier this week on his Facebook page. Marksberry posted a 5.06 ERA, 7.8 K/9 and 1.35 K/BB rate over 26 2/3 innings with Atlanta from 2015-16. He suffered a severe health scare last fall when he was placed in a medically-induced coma following a seizure that caused a collapsed lung, though Marksberry appears to be recovering well from that terrifying situation.
- The Cardinals signed righty Josh Zeid to a minor league deal, as per Zeid himself via Twitter. Zeid pitched 48 1/3 innings out of the Astros bullpen in 2013-14, after joining the organization as part of the trade package sent by Philadelphia to Houston for Hunter Pence in July 2011. Zeid spent 2015 and 2016 in the minors with the Tigers and Mets, respectively, and he most recently pitched for Israel in the World Baseball Classic.
- Outfielder David Denson announced his retirement from baseball via a message on his Facebook page. Denson made history in 2015 when he became the first active player in affiliated baseball to publicly announce that he was gay, and he tells Tom Haudricourt and Todd Rosiak of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that “leaving the game has nothing to do with my coming out. That wasn’t a factor at all. This was a decision I made purely from a baseball standpoint.” Instead, Denson said that he simply lost his passion for playing the game. Denson was a 15th-round pick of the Brewers in the 2013 draft, and he hit .229/.338/.368 over 1269 career plate appearances, making it to the High-A level in Milwaukee’s farm system.
- The Blue Jays released outfielder Jacob Anderson, Baseball America’s Matt Eddy reports. Toronto picked Anderson out of high school with the 35th overall selection of the 2011 draft, though he only made it as high as A-ball in five pro seasons, managing a .204/.271/.302 slash line.
David Denson Becomes First Active MLB-Affiliated Player To Come Out Publicly As Gay
History was made recently when David Denson, a minor leaguer in the Brewers system, revealed his orientation to teammates. Now, after relaying his story to Tom Haudricourt of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, the first baseman is now the first active player in affiliated professional baseball to publicly reveal he is gay.
Denson had an impromptu coming out party just weeks after joining the Brewers’ rookie affiliate in Montana when a teammate jokingly referred to him using a derogatory term for a gay male. The teammate didn’t know that the 20-year-old was actually gay, but Denson decided right then to make his announcement, as Haudricourt writes. Soon, the crowd around Denson built to the point where he was addressing most of the clubhouse. By the end of his speech, his teammates offered their support.
“Talking with my teammates, they gave me the confidence I needed, coming out to them,” the California native recalled to Haudricourt. “They said, ‘You’re still our teammate. You’re still our brother. We kind of had an idea, but your sexuality has nothing to do with your ability. You’re still a ballplayer at the end of the day. We don’t treat you any different. We’ve got your back.’
Brewers president and GM Doug Melvin released the following statement earlier today regarding Denson, writing:
“David is a highly-respected member of the Milwaukee Brewers family, and he is a very courageous young man. Our goal for David is to help develop him into a Major League player, just as it is for any player in our system, and we will continue to support him in every way as he chases that dream.”
Denson, as detailed in Haudricourt’s article, went through bouts of depression before finally opening up to his teammates and members of the Brewers’ minor league affiliate. After coming out, Denson says that he is greatly relieved and hopes that his story will encourage others in a similar situation to take that same step.