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.
