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34 Players Become Free Agents

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The Wild Card round of the 2022 postseason begins today, but for the majority of teams and players, the offseason is now underway. With that will come plenty of roster formalities, including veteran players who’ve been outrighted off their respective teams’ rosters reaching minor league free agency. This week, there have been 34 such instances throughout the league, per the transactions log at MiLB.com.

None of these are a surprise, to be clear. Any player who is not on his team’s 40-man roster at season’s end but has three-plus years of Major League service time, multiple career outright assignments and/or seven-plus seasons in the minors has the right to elect free agency. Everyone in today’s group of players falls under that umbrella. The majority of the group will likely find minor league deals over the winter, although a few of the players in question could potentially find a big league deal as a bench piece or middle-inning reliever.

There will be several more waves of players of this ilk, and we’ll make note of them in bunches over the coming weeks as we await the launch of Major League free agency, when all unsigned players with at least six years of Major League service time will reach the open market. For now, here’s the first of what will likely be several waves of newly minted minor league free agents:

Catchers

Infielders

Outfielders

Pitchers

Outrights: Eickhoff, Evans

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A couple of updates on players recently designated for assignment…

  • Right-handed pitcher Jerad Eickhoff was outrighted by the Pirates earlier this week. As a player who had previously been outrighted in his career, he had the right to reject that outright assignment and elect free agency. However, Kevin Gorman of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review relayed last night that Eickhoff was with Triple-A Indianapolis, indicated he’s accepted. He started last night’s game for Indy, throwing five innings with two earned runs, seven strikeouts and one walk. He now has a 4.73 ERA at Triple-A on the year, but struggled mightily in his lone MLB appearance, allowing ten earned runs in 4 1/3 innings. He’ll stick around as depth for the club, who could potentially trade some arms between now and the August 2 deadline.
  • The Rangers announced that right-hander Demarcus Evans cleared outright waivers and has been outrighted to Triple-A Round Rock. Evans does not have three years of MLB service time and hasn’t previously been outrighted in his career, meaning he will head to Round Rock and try to earn his way back onto a roster spot. In 26 1/3 MLB innings this year, he has a 5.13 ERA with a strong 27.5% strikeout rate but worrisome 13.3% walk rate. In Triple-A, the control problems are even more pronounced, though in a small sample of just 12 innings. His ERA at Round Rock this year is 7.50, along with a 29.8% strikeout rate and 24.6% walk rate.

Pirates Designate Anthony Banda For Assignment, Release Heath Hembree

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The Pirates announced a series of roster moves Monday, reinstating utilityman Josh VanMeter from the injured list, recalling righty Miguel Yajure from Triple-A Indianapolis, optioning outfielder Cal Mitchell to Triple-A and designating lefty Anthony Banda for assignment. Pittsburgh also released righty Heath Hembree after he cleared waivers, per Jason Mackey of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (Twitter link) and assigned righty Jerad Eickhoff to Indianapolis after he cleared outright waivers.

Banda has been in Pittsburgh for a bit shy of a year, having been claimed off waivers from the Mets last August. He made 25 appearances down the stretch, tossing 26 1/3 frames of 3.42 ERA ball. That came with middle-of-the-road strikeout and walk numbers, but Banda was successful enough to hold his roster spot over the winter. He broke camp this season and went on to make 23 more appearances, but the 28-year-old didn’t have nearly as much success keeping runs off the board.

Through 19 2/3 innings, Banda owns a 6.41 ERA. He’s posted slightly below-average marks in both strikeout rate (22.4%) and swinging strike percentage (9.4%), although that’s come with career-best control. Banda has walked only around 5% of opponents, and he’s averaging a personal-high 95.3 MPH on his fastball. Opposing hitters have an unsustainably high .463 batting average on balls in play against him in spite of a general lack of hard contact.

Those better underlying traits could entice another club to roll the dice on Banda over the coming days. The Bucs will have a week to trade him or try to run him through waivers. He’s out of minor league option years, so any team that acquires him would have to keep him on the active roster or DFA him themselves.

Hembree heads to free agency after being designated for assignment himself last week (ironically to accommodate Eickhoff’s selection to the 40-man roster). That’s little surprise, as the veteran reliever is playing this season on a $2.125MM salary and is amidst a down year. He posted a 7.16 ERA with more walks than strikeouts in 20 appearances for the Bucs, but he’s only a season removed from punching out 34.2% of batters faced. That’ll at least generate some minor league interest now that Hembree’s back on the open market; a signing team would only owe him the prorated portion of the $700K minimum salary for any time he spends in the majors, with the Pirates on the hook for the rest of the money owed.

Eickhoff has the right to join Hembree in free agency, having been outrighted on multiple occasions in his career. He made just one MLB appearance, serving up ten runs in 4 1/3 innings against the Cubs. The veteran righty has otherwise spent the season in Indianapolis, tossing 48 1/3 frames of 4.84 ERA ball.

Pirates Designate Jerad Eickhoff For Assignment

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The Pirates announced they’ve selected reliever Austin Brice onto the MLB roster. Righty Jerad Eickhoff has been designated for assignment to open active and 40-man roster space.

Eickhoff, 31, appeared in just one game for the Pirates and was torched for 10 runs in 4 1/3 innings against the Cubs this week. Remarkably, that’s the second consecutive big league appearance in which Eickhoff has been tagged for 10 earned runs; he also yielded 10 runs (in 3 1/3 frames) to the Braves in his final outing of the year with the Mets last season.

Those two outings have combined to help balloon Eickhoff’s career ERA to 4.50 and mark the continuation of a recent decline in Eickhoff’s overall performance. While he was a solid rotation option with the Phillies from 2015-17, pitching to a 3.87 ERA over 376 1/3 innings during that time, Eickhoff has totaled just 87 2/3 Major League innings from 2018-22 and pitched to a collective 7.19 ERA along the way. The Pirates will have a week to trade Eickhoff, release him or attempt to pass him through outright waivers. He has enough service time to reject an outright assignment in favor of free agency if he chooses.

Brice, meanwhile, will join the big league bullpen on the heels of a sharp 3.04 ERA through 26 2/3 innings in Triple-A Indianapolis. He’s posted strong strikeout and ground-ball rates in Indy (27.2% and 50.7%, respectively), but has also issued a walk to 11 of the 114 batters he’s faced (9.6%) and plunked another three. Brice is a veteran of parts of six Major League seasons — the best of which came with the 2019 Marlins (44 2/3 innings, 3.43 ERA). Overall, he carries a lifetime 5.17 ERA in 162 big league innings.

Pirates To Select Jerad Eickhoff

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The Pirates will select the contract of right-hander Jerad Eickhoff, as first reported by Jarrod Prugar of DK Sports Pittsburgh (Twitter link). Jason Mackey of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette hears the same and takes a look at Eickhoff’s road back to the Majors after beginning the year in minor league camp during Spring Training. Pittsburgh’s 40-man roster is currently full, so they’ll need to make a corresponding move.

Eickhoff, 31, is a veteran of six big league seasons, most of which have come with the cross-state Phillies. He spent the 2021 season in the Mets organization and made a handful of spot starts for an injury-depleted rotation, serving up 19 runs in 19 2/3 innings. The majority of the damage against Eickhoff came in his final outing, though, when the Mets left him on the hill to take a 10-run shellacking in 3 1/3 innings versus Atlanta.

Prior to last year’s rough stint in Queens, Eickhoff had been a generally solid contributor in Philly. His numbers dipped in his final year with the club, but Eickhoff nonetheless notched a 4.15 ERA over the course of 459 2/3 innings as a member of the Phils, striking out 21.4% of his opponents against a strong 6.8% walk rate.

Those big league numbers with the Phillies fall closely in line with Eickhoff’s career marks at the Triple-A level (4.29 ERA, 22% strikeout rate, 7.2% walk rate). That includes a 2022 season in which he’s logged 48 1/3 innings foe the Pirates’ Triple-A affiliate in Indianapolis. In that time, Eickhoff has posted a 4.84 ERA with strikeout and walk rates close to his career norms. He’s made seven relief appearances and six starts so far in Triple-A, though he hasn’t topped 81 pitched or completed six innings in any single outing this year.

There’s no obvious 60-day IL candidate for the Pirates, who have a a full 40-man roster after acquiring Eric Stout from the Cubs earlier today. Pittsburgh also has infielder Tucupita Marcano and righty Duane Underwood Jr. on the Covid-related IL, and they’ll need a pair of spots once that duo is cleared for reinstatement. Based on Eickhoff’s forthcoming promotion and that pair of IL usages, it would seem there’s a decent bit of roster maneuvering on the horizon for the Bucs.

Pirates Sign Jerad Eickhoff

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The Pirates have signed right-hander Jerad Eickhoff to a minor league contract, according to his transactions log at MLB.com. He has been assigned to Triple-A Indianapolis.

Eickhoff was a capable back-of-the-rotation starter between 2016-17 with the Phillies, but he hasn’t pitched much over the past few seasons. The Indiana native logged 63 2/3 frames between 2018-19, then didn’t appear in the bigs during the shortened 2020 season. He bounced on and off the Mets’ big league roster a few times this year, ultimately working 19 2/3 innings over five outings.

That big league showing didn’t go well, as Eickhoff surrendered 24 runs, including a staggering nine homers, with 13 strikeouts and 10 walks in that limited time. His production with the club’s Triple-A affiliate in Syracuse was more respectable, as he posted a 4.86 ERA with solid strikeout and walk rates (23.9% and 6.1%, respectively), although he also struggled with the longball at the minors’ top level.

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 Select Akeem Bostick

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4:42 pm: New York has officially selected Bostick and designated Eickhoff for assignment to open active and 40-man roster space.

3:39 pm: The Mets are planning to select the contract of right-hander Akeem Bostick prior to this evening’s game against the Braves, reports Anthony DiComo of MLB.com (Twitter link). The 26-year-old will be making his major league debut if he gets into a game.

Bostick was a second-round pick of the Rangers back in 2013. The Astros acquired him in January 2015, and he spent the next few seasons in the Houston farm system. Bostick never made the majors with the Astros, though, and was let go in 2019. He signed with the Cardinals but didn’t make an official appearance with the St. Louis organization because of last year’s cancelled minor league season.

New York signed Bostick to a minor league deal in May. He’s spent the year with Triple-A Syracuse, tossing 37 2/3 innings of 6.21 ERA ball across ten appearances (eight starts). Bostick’s peripherals aren’t much better, as he’s struck out a below average 16.8% of batters faced while walking an elevated 13.3% of opponents.

It hasn’t been a banner season for Bostick, but he is at least stretched out. He’s worked up to five innings in a few starts for Syracuse. With the Mets pitching staff hit hard by injuries, New York has tried to patch things together on the mound in recent days. Jerad Eickhoff was re-signed to start last night’s ballgame but didn’t fare well, allowing ten runs in 3 1/3 innings.

Mets Select Jerad Eickhoff, Designate Roel Ramirez

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The Mets announced Tuesday that they’ve re-signed Jerad Eickhoff and selected him to the Major League roster. Right-hander Roel Ramirez has been designated for assignment in order to open a spot on the roster. Eickhoff is in line to start tonight’s game against the Braves.

It’s been a tumultuous year for Eickhoff with the Mets. He’s been designated for assignment twice and elected free agency both times — only to quickly re-sign a new deal with the Mets and return to the MLB roster. Tonight will mark his third stint and fourth start of the season with the Mets. To this point, he’s given then 16 1/3 innings of 4.96 ERA ball with nine strikeouts and five walks. Given the Mets’ current search for rotation options and the looming return of Carlos Carrasco, it’s possible this will be another short stint for Eickhoff.

Speaking of short stints, the 26-year-old Ramirez was claimed off waivers from the Cardinals just six days ago. He made only one appearance with Triple-A Syracuse, yielding a pair of runs in an inning of work. He was a depth pickup for the Mets but will now likely hit waivers again within the next week following today’s DFA (if he’s not traded prior to Friday’s deadline).

Mets Designate Jerad Eickhoff For Assignment

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The Mets announced they’ve designated right-hander Jerad Eickhoff for assignment. The move creates roster space for righty Robert Stock, who has been recalled from Triple-A Syracuse to start tonight’s game against the Reds.

It’s the second time this season New York has designated Eickhoff. The veteran starter was selected to the big league roster last month, re-signed with the organization after being passed through waivers, and was again brought back to the majors two weeks ago. Between his pair of stints, Eickhoff has tossed 16 1/3 innings of 4.96 ERA/5.71 SIERA ball. He’s thrown strikes at a strong rate, but Eickhoff hasn’t missed many bats and he’s been tagged for six home runs in his limited work.

The Mets will have a week to trade Eickhoff or expose him to waivers. If he clears outright waivers — as he did in June — he can reject a minor league assignment in favor of free agency.

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