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Ender Inciarte

Mets, Ender Inciarte Agree To Minor League Deal

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6:41pm: Inciarte will earn a prorated $1.1MM salary for any time he spends in the majors with the Mets, reports Mark Feinsand of MLB.com (on Twitter).

3:34pm: The Mets have agreed to a minor league deal with veteran outfielder Ender Inciarte, reports SNY’s Andy Martino (Twitter link). The longtime Braves center fielder spent the first portion of the season with the Yankees’ Triple-A affiliate but was released last week.

Inciarte has yet to crack the major leagues this season after signing a minor league deal with the Yankees over the offseason. He generally played well over his Triple-A time, posting a .252/.336/.408 line with four home runs and stolen bases apiece through 116 trips to the plate. Inciarte walked at a robust 11.2% clip while going down on strikes only 14.7% of the time, and his overall offensive output was about league average.

Continued passable production at the plate could eventually get Inciarte another look in the majors, as he’s a well-regarded defensive player. A three-time Gold Glove award winner with Atlanta, he’s capable of suiting up at all three outfield spots but has seen most of his time in either center or left field. Inciarte’s defensive numbers have fallen from their elite heights as he’s gotten into his 30’s, but he’s still rated average or slightly above with the glove in recent years.

The bigger concern is that Inciarte’s production at the plate had fallen sharply since the 2020 campaign kicked off. The lefty-swinger has never been a great hitter, but his .286/.338/.390 career line through 2019 was more than sufficient considering his defensive acumen. Between 2020-21, however, Inciarte managed only a .200/.267/.277 mark in 220 trips to the dish. That eventually resulted in his release from the Braves, and subsequent non-roster pacts with the Reds and Yankees haven’t resulted in an MLB opportunity.

The Mets have one of the game’s best outfields, with Mark Canha, Brandon Nimmo and Starling Marte suiting up on a regular basis. Backups Nick Plummer and Dominic Smith are better suited in the corners, and the center field-capable Travis Jankowski underwent hand surgery late last month. Inciarte adds some experienced depth to the upper minors alongside Khalil Lee, who presumably remains ahead on the depth chart by virtue of his spot on the 40-man roster.

Yankees Release Ender Inciarte

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The Yankees are releasing outfielder Ender Inciarte from his minor league contract, reports Conor Foley of the Scranton Times-Tribune (on Twitter). He’ll hit the open market and seek out additional opportunities elsewhere.

Inciarte signed with New York over the offseason, hoping to crack the big league roster after a rough 2021 season. He didn’t break camp with the team and was sent to Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre, where he ultimately appeared in 34 games. Inciarte hit .252/.336/.408 across 116 plate appearances, collecting four home runs and stolen bases apiece. The 31-year-old walked a strong 11.2% clip while only punching out in 14.7% of his plate appearances.

It was a respectable showing, but the Yankees nevertheless determined there wasn’t room on the active roster at this point. Aaron Judge is hitting at an MVP-level and has taken over as the primary center fielder, while both Joey Gallo and Aaron Hicks have started to heat up after slow starts to the year. With Giancarlo Stanton and Marwin González also capable of rotating into the outfield as needed, the 45-16 Yankees weren’t in a rush to shake up their position player group.

Since being released by the Braves last July, Inciarte hasn’t cracked the majors on successive minor league pacts with the Reds and Yankees. Nevertheless, he’s likely to attract interest from teams looking for non-roster depth. Inciarte is no longer the elite defender he was at his Gold Glove peak, but he’s still a solid gloveman at all three spots on the grass. He’s hit .200/.267/.277 in 220 plate appearances at the major league level since the start of 2020.

Roster Notes: Twins, Marlins, Pirates, Yankees, Cubs, Phillies

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With the season just a few days away, roster decisions around the game continue to trickle in. We’ll round up some notable non 40-man roster decisions here.

    • Twins pitching prospect Jhoan Duran has made the Opening Day roster, per a club announcement. He’ll initially work out of the bullpen. Ranked the #9 prospect in the Minnesota organization by Baseball America, Duran draws praise for an upper-90s fastball and a power splitter that have helped him run plus strikeout rates throughout his minor league career.
    • The Marlins have informed outfielder Roman Quinn he will not make the Opening Day roster, reports Craig Mish of SportsGrid (Twitter link). It comes as a bit of a surprise, as Quinn had seemed the favorite for a fourth outfield role after the Fish released Delino DeShields Jr. over the weekend. Presumably, that job will fall to utilityman Jon Berti early on.
    • Infield prospect Diego Castillo has made the Pirates’ Opening Day roster, tweets Jason Mackey of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Castillo, acquired in the trade that sent righty Clay Holmes to the Yankees, will make his big league debut the first time he gets into a game.
    • The Yankees announced they’ve reassigned outfielder Ender Inciarte and left-hander Manny Bañuelos to Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre. Inciarte has an opt-out clause in his minor league deal and tells ESPN’s Marly Rivera he hasn’t yet decided whether he’ll accept the assignment to Triple-A.
    • The Cubs informed pitching prospect Ethan Roberts he’ll be on the Opening Day roster, he informed reporters (including Maddie Lee of the Chicago Sun-Times). A fourth-round pick in 2018 out of Tennessee Tech, the right-hander is the #33 prospect in the organization according to Baseball America. The reliever posted an even 3.00 ERA over 54 innings between Double-A Tennessee and Triple-A Iowa last season. The Cubs reassigned non-roster invitees Jonathan Holder, Robert Gsellman, Steven Brault, Stephen Gonsalves and Ildemaro Vargas to Iowa, tweets Jordan Bastian of MLB.com.
    • The Phillies reassigned non-roster invitees Ronald Torreyes, Yairo Muñoz and Dillon Maples to Triple-A Lehigh Valley, tweets Todd Zolecki of MLB.com. Torreyes and Muñoz were competing for utility spots, while the hard-throwing Maples had been seeking a spot in the Philly bullpen.

 

Yankees, Ender Inciarte Agree To Minor League Deal

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The Yankees have a minor league deal in place with center fielder Ender Inciarte, according to the team’s transactions log at MLB.com (hat tip: Lindsey Adler of The Athletic, on Twitter). Their transaction log also indicates that right-hander Vinny Nittoli, outfielder Blake Perkins and infielder Wilkerman Garcia have signed minor league deals (or, in Garcia’s care, re-signed). Inciarte was able to sign a minor league deal because he did not finish the 2021 season on a team’s 40-man roster or 60-day injured list.

Inciarte is the most recognizable name of the bunch — a former All-Star center fielder and three-time Gold Glove winner with the Braves. Acquired by Atlanta alongside Dansby Swanson in the heist that sent Shelby Miller to the D-backs, Inciarte was outstanding in his first three seasons with the Braves, hitting at a .287/.342/.391 clip with elite defense and plus speed that provided plenty of value on the basepaths. His 2016 season was impressive enough that the Braves wasted little time in inking him to a five-year, $30.525MM contract extension that bought out all four of his arbitration years — Inciarte was a Super Two player — and one free-agent year, with an option for a second.

Unfortunately for both Inciarte and the Braves, by the midway point of the contract, things turned south — though not necessarily through any fault of Inciarte. While he largely replicated his 2016 production in 2017-18, Inciarte went down with a lumbar strain early in the 2019 season and missed more than two months while nursing that back injury. He returned from the IL in mid-July but was back on the shelf less than a month later, this time owing to a hamstring injury that kept him out for the final six weeks of the season.

Inciarte’s bat cratered in the 2020 season, and he didn’t rebound much in 2021 before another hamstring injury cropped up. Atlanta eventually designated him for assignment and released him this past summer, in what was the final year of that five-year extension. While Inciarte latched on with the Reds on a minor league pact, he didn’t return to the Majors last season. On the whole, since that strong run from 2016-18, Inciarte owns a meager .223/.306/.338 batting line through 450 trips to the plate at the MLB level.

The Yankees’ outfield mix is already rather crowded, with Joey Gallo, Aaron Hicks, Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton all locked into outfield/designated hitter time next season. It’s not certain whether Brett Gardner will return to the Bronx once again, but if he signs elsewhere or calls it a career, that’d greatly improve Inciarte’s odds of breaking camp with the Yankees and earning an Opening Day roster spot.

As for Nittoli, the 31-year-old righty made his MLB debut this past season after an eight-year odyssey that included stops in Seattle (where he was a 25th-round pick), the then-independent St. Paul Saints (now a Twins affiliate), the Blue Jays and the D-backs. Nittoli found his was back to the Mariners in minor league free agency last season, and while his call to the Majors was exceedingly brief — just one game and one inning — it nevertheless marked the type of feel-good story of hard work paying off that so many sports fans love to see.

Nittoli returned to the Saints after being cut loose by the Mariners, this time as a member of the Twins’ Triple-A affiliate rather than a team in the independent American Association. He did not, however, end up pitching in the big leagues with Minnesota. Nittoli was quite home run prone in 2021, leading to a bloated 5.05 ERA in Triple-A, but he also posted an outstanding 51-to-10 K/BB ratio in 41 innings. Overall, he carries a career 4.61 minor league ERA with a 25.2% strikeout rate and a 7.3% walk rate.

Perkins, 25, was one of three players sent from the Nationals to the Royals in 2018’s Kelvin Gutierrez trade. The former second-round pick (2015) never really found his footing in the Royals organization and became a free agent after a 2021 season that saw him hit .202/.319/.332 in 280 Double-A plate appearances.

Garcia, 23, has spent his whole career in the Yankees organization and batted .234/.288/.318 in the low minors. He spent the 2021 season on the minor league 60-day injured list and hasn’t played in a game setting since 2019, when he spent the bulk of his time in Class-A Advanced.

Reds Sign Tommy Milone, Release Ender Inciarte

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Catching up on a pair of minor league moves from late August, the Reds signed left-hander Tommy Milone to a minor league deal and released outfielder Ender Inciarte.  According to MLB.com’s Mark Sheldon (Twitter link), Inciarte opted out of the minors contract he signed with the Reds in early August.

Milone has already pitched twice for Triple-A Louisville as the veteran looks to work his way back to the majors.  Milone made it an 11th MLB campaign when he suited up for the Blue Jays earlier this season, tossing 14 innings and posting a 6.43 ERA.  Shoulder inflammation then resulted in a trip to the 60-day injured list, and Toronto released Milone last month after he began a rehab assignment.

Should Milone appear in a big league game with the Reds, it will mark the 10th different team of a journeyman career for the 34-year-old.  Working mostly as a starter over his career, Milone offers Cincinnati some depth as a potential fill-in starter or perhaps as a long reliever out of the bullpen.  It has been some time since Milone has been a truly effective hurler, as he has been plagued by the home run ball.  Since the start of the 2016 season, Milone has a 5.83 ERA over 308 2/3 innings, with an 18.4% home run rate over that stretch.

The Braves released Inciarte in late July, ending a six-year run in Atlanta that included the highs of a 2016 All-Star nod and three Gold Gloves, plus the lows of an offensive swoon.  Inciarte’s defense declined and his already below-average bat completely cratered, resulting in only a .200/.267/.277 slash line in 220 plate appearances since the start of the 2020 season.  Inciarte is in the final guaranteed season of the five-year, $30.525MM extension he signed with Atlanta back in December 2016, so any team that signs Inciarte and adds him to their active roster for the remainder of the season will only owe him the prorated portion of a minimum salary (with the Braves footing the rest of the money owed).

Reds Sign Ender Inciarte To Minor League Deal

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The Reds signed Ender Inciarte to a minor league deal, according to a club announcement. The outfielder was recently designated for assignment and then released by the Braves. He will now report to the Triple-A Louisville Bats and attempt to earn his way back up the show.

That seems to be a somewhat unlikely scenario at this point, given that the Reds already have superior outfield options such as Nick Castellanos, Jesse Winker, Tyler Naquin and Aristides Aquino. The return of Nick Senzel, who is currently on a rehab assignment, would only further crowd the picture and make it harder for Inciarte to barge his way in.

Inciarte’s offence was near league average for the first six years of his career. From 2014 to 2019, his wRC+ was never higher than 100 and never lower than 86 in a given season. Combined with his excellent defence, that made him a valuable player, contributing 14.2 fWAR in that time. But since then, his production has fallen off a cliff, with a wRC+ of 48 since the start of the 2020 season.

This is a no-risk move for Cincy because Inciarte’s salary is being paid by Atlanta as part of the five-year extension they signed with him after the 2016 season. Even if Cincinnati eventually calls him up to the big leagues, they will only have to pay him the prorated league minimum, with that amount being subtracted from what Atlanta pays.

Braves Release Ender Inciarte

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The Braves announced Thursday that they’ve released outfielder Ender Inciarte. He’d been designated for assignment earlier in the week.

Inciarte, 30, came to the Braves alongside Dansby Swanson in the deal that sent Shelby Miller to Arizona, and he quickly solidified himself as a quality top-of-the-order presence with standout defense. His first pair of seasons in Atlanta produced a .298/.350/.397 batting line and a pair of Gold Gloves, and while his bat slipped a little in year three, he was still a solid hitter in what proved to be a third straight Gold Glove-winning campaign.

Atlanta inked Inciarte to a five-year, $30.525MM extension following his first season with them, and while the early returns on the deal were a bargain, the commitment now looks rather regrettable. Inciarte’s best years in Atlanta were the ones in which he’d have been controlled anyhow, and he’s now batted just .223/.306/.338 in the past three seasons, which would’ve been his second arbitration year, his final arb year and his first free-agent season.

Inciarte is earning $8MM this year in that would-be free-agent campaign, and he’s also owed a $1.025MM buyout on a 2022 option for a second free-agent year that is obviously a moot point. The Braves have tried, to no avail, to move Inciarte’s contract at various points in the past couple of years, and they’ll now simply cut bait on the contract and pay the remainder of the freight.

Now that he’s a free agent, Inciarte will be free to sign with any club seeking some outfield depth. He’d be owed only the prorated league minimum for any time spent on the Major League roster with another club, and that sum would be subtracted from the amount owed to him by Atlanta. The Braves are otherwise on the hook for the remainder of his 2021 salary as well as his option buyout.

Braves Designate Ender Inciarte For Assignment

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The Braves have reinstated Ender Inciarte from the injured list and designated him for assignment, per Gabe Burns of Baseball America (via Twitter).

This was Inciarte’s sixth season in Atlanta, but he slashes just .215/.276/.316 in 89 plate appearances. He missed time with a strained hamstring and then, more recently, was placed on the COVID-related injured list.

Given the Braves’ current need in the outfield, it certainly speaks volumes to DFA Inciarte at this time. That said, given his $8.7MM contract for this season, there’s a pretty good chance he makes it through waivers and could remain in the organization. Atlanta holds a $9MM club option for Inciarte next season.

Braves Activate Alex Jackson From Injured List

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The Braves announced they’ve reinstated catcher Alex Jackson from the 60-day injured list and optioned him to Triple-A Gwinnett. Space on the 40-man roster was created when Atlanta placed outfielder Ender Inciarte on the COVID-19 injured list earlier this week. A corresponding 40-man transaction will be necessary once Inciarte returns.

Jackson has picked up 50 MLB plate appearances over the last two seasons. He hasn’t played well, but the right-handed hitter has a massive .269/.337/.667 line over 104 trips to the dish with the Stripers this year. For now, Jackson will serve as high minors’ depth behind the veteran catching duo of Stephen Vogt and Kevan Smith. He had been out since early May due to a left hamstring strain.

Atlanta placed Inciarte on the IL on Monday. The team announced at the time that he’d tested negative for the virus, suggesting he’d either been a close contact of a person who’d tested positive or had been experiencing viral symptoms.

Braves Place Cristian Pache On IL, Activate Ender Inciarte

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The Braves have placed Cristian Pache on the 10-day injured list with a hamstring strain and activated fellow outfielder Ender Inciarte from the IL, manager Brian Snitker announced Thursday (via David O’Brien of The Athletic).

This is the second IL placement of the year for Pache, who previously missed time with a left groin injury. When healthy, it has been an abysmal season for the highly touted Pache, who has batted .111/.152/.206 with one home run in 68 plate appearances.

Inciarte, who suffered a strained hamstring April 16, has appeared in 12 games and logged a meager 20 trips to the plate this year. The once-reliable starter hit a horrid .190/.262/.250 with one home run in 131 PA last year, though he slashed a much better .294/.368/.353 before his IL trip this season.

The Braves’ best option in center this year has unexpectedly been Guillermo Heredia, but he has been on the IL since April 30 with hamstring inflammation. The absences of Pache and Heredia should clear the way for Inciarte to take over in center for the time being.

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