Braves To Sign Pedro Florimon
The Braves have reportedly agreed to a minor-league pact with veteran infielder Pedro Florimon. Roster Roundup had the news recently on Twitter, with Jon Heyman of Fancred tweeting today that a deal is in place.
Florimon, who’ll soon turn 32, has found his way onto a MLB roster in each of the past eight seasons. He has only twice reached triple-digit plate appearances, though, and hasn’t done so since a 2013 campaign in which he received semi-regular time with the twins — but hit just .221/.281/.330.
In the intervening years, Florimon has carved out a role as a handy depth infielder. He cracked the Opening Day roster of the Phillies last year, but missed much of the season with a broken foot. He doesn’t seem to have much of a path onto the Braves roster awaiting him in camp, though he could certainly be the first man up if a need arises in the infield.
Phillies Outright Pedro Florimon
The Phillies announced that infielder Pedro Florimon has cleared waivers and been sent outright to Triple-A Lehigh Valley. He’ll become a free agent in the coming days now that he’s been removed from the 40-man roster.
Florimon, 31, hit .225/.276/.423 with a pair of homers, six doubles and a triple in 76 plate appearances for the Phils this season. The veteran has seen action at the MLB level in each of the past eight seasons due primarily to his standout glovework at shortstop. Never much of a threat with the bat, Florimon is a career .211/.270/.319 hitter through 867 plate appearances split between the Orioles, Twins, Pirates and Phillies.
Phillies Designate Jesmuel Valentin
The Phillies have designated infielder Jesmuel Valdin for assignment, per a club announcement. The move was made in order to clear room for Pedro Florimon, who was activated from the 60-day disabled list.
Valentin, originally drafted by the Dodgers, has been with the Phillies organization since 2014. He’s played both second and third base in the minor leagues, and earned his first taste of MLB action this season after batting .240/.346/.341 at Triple-A Lehigh Valley. That batting line came with a pair of homers and a trio of steals.
His debut hasn’t gone well. Valentin has struck out at a 27.0% clip across 89 major-league plate appearances and mustered only a .177/.258/.304 line. Fangraphs doesn’t care much for him defensively, either, as evidenced by his -1.7 rating in that area of gameplay. With little value in the field and a 52 wRC+ during his first MLB showing, Valentin will enter the waiver wire and be available to be claimed by any rival club.
Phillies Select Trevor Plouffe, Designate Hoby Milner For Assignment
The Phillies announced a series of roster moves today, revealing that in addition to the previously reported promotion of right-handed pitching prospect Enyel De Los Santos, they’ve selected the contract of Trevor Plouffe. In order to create space for both De Los Santos and Plouffe on the 40-man roster, the Phils designated left-hander Hoby Milner for assignment and moved Pedro Florimon from the 10-day DL to the 60-day DL. Additionally, outfielder Dylan Cozens was optioned to Triple-A Lehigh Valley to create 25-man roster space.
Plouffe, 32, turned in the worst season of his career between the A’s and Rays last season, hitting just .198/.272/.318 in 313 plate appearances. However, the long-time Twins third baseman has shown signs of a rebound this season in Triple-A, hitting a combined .242/.371/.488 with a dozen homers and 15 doubles through 256 PAs between the Rangers and Phillies organizations. Plouffe has extensive experience at both infield corners, and his right-handed bat has long been a thorn in the side of left-handed pitching.
As for Milner, the lefty will be either traded, placed on outright waivers or released in the next week now that he’s been designated. The 27-year-old allowed four runs in 4 2/3 MLB innings this season but was considerably better in Triple-A, where he’d worked to a 2.39 ERA with 9.6 K/9, 4.8 BB/9 and 0.68 HR/9 with a 46.8 percent ground-ball rate. Milner has a pretty solid track record in Triple-A over the past three seasons and has multiple minor league option years remaining, so it wouldn’t be a surprise to see a club in need of a left-handed bullpen option take a look.
Phillies Place Pedro Florimon On DL With Broken Foot
The Phillies will place infielder Pedro Florimon on the 10-day DL with a broken foot, as Matt Gelb of The Athletic was among those to tweet. It is not yet known who’ll take his place on the roster.
Details of the injury are not available at this time, so his anticipated timeline remains a mystery. Florimon, a talented defender, has spent most of his time this season at shortstop. The Phils do still have two players on the active roster — Scott Kingery and Jesmuel Valentin — capable of playing that position defensively.
The 31-year-old Florimon won a reserve job in camp and has ended up being quite a useful asset thus far. He’s slashing a healthy .268/.328/.500 through 61 plate appearances, which is quite a bit more output than he customarily produces.
An eight-year MLB veteran, Florimon has only twice taken more than one hundred plate appearances in a given season — the 2012 and 2013 seasons, which he spent with the Twins. Despite strong offensive numbers over the past two seasons in Philly, in limited opportunities, Florimon carries a meager .213/.273/.322 career batting line in 852 career trips to the dish.
Phillies Select Contract Of Pedro Florimon, Designate Eliezer Alvarez
The Phillies announced Friday that they’ve selected the contract of infielder/outfielder Pedro Florimon and designated infielder Eliezer Alvarez for assignment in order to clear a spot on the 40-man roster. The move seemingly indicates that Florimon will head north with the Phils as a utilityman to open the season, as he’s out of minor league options and now cannot be sent back to Triple-A without clearing waivers.
Florimon, a 31-year-old switch-hitter known for his glove at shortstop, spent the 2017 season with the Phillies organization and hit .348/.388/.478 in a tiny sample of 49 plate appearances with the big league club. That’s not representative of his skills at the plate over a larger sample, though, as he’s a lifetime .209./269/.308 hitter in 791 plate appearances between the Orioles, Twins, Pirates and Phils. Florimon has a gaudy +23 Defensive Runs Saved in 1808 career innings at shortstop, but he’s begun to move around the diamond more in recent seasons; the Phils gave him 79 innings in the outfield last year — his first big league action away from the infield.
The 23-year-old Alvarez hit .248/.318/.390 in 236 minor league plate appearances last season, most of which came at the Double-A level. He’s been primarily a second baseman in the minors, though he’s also seen a couple hundred innings of work at shortstop. Philadelphia acquired Alvarez from the Cardinals in the rare September trade that sent Juan Nicasio to St. Louis, and while he ranked 25th on the team’s top 30 prospect list this winter (via Baseball America), he’ll now likely be made available to all 29 other clubs via waivers or trade.
BA’s scouting report on Alvarez (subscription link) notes that he’s a contact-oriented hitter who projects to hit eight to 12 homers per season and has some question marks about his footwork on the defensive side of things. He did rank as high as No. 10 on the Cardinals’ top 30 prospects back in the 2016-17 offseason.
Phillies To Re-Sign Pedro Florimon
The Phillies have agreed to a minors deal with utilityman Pedro Florimon, according to Matt Gelb of the Philadelphia Inquirer (via Twitter). Florimon may well have the “inside track on a bench job,” Gelb adds.
Philadelphia evidently liked what it saw from Florimon, who’ll turn 31 in December. He only took 49 plate appearances at the MLB level, but recorded 16 hits — as well as 16 strikeouts. In 353 trips to the plate at Triple-A, Florimon slashed a palatable .265/.347/.410.
There’s a broader history to consider here, of course. Florimon has seen some action in each of the past seven major-league campaigns, posting a cumulative .209/.269/.308 batting line in 791 plate appearances. That said, he’s valued mostly for his glove. Long considered a quality defender at short, Florimon has also shown more recently that he can be a plus fielder in the outfield.
Outrighted: Twins, Phillies, Rays, Cardinals, Padres, Dodgers, Pirates
A variety of teams cleared 40-man space today. Some of the moves are reflected elsewhere on the site, but we’ll round up the others right here:
- The Twins have outrighted catcher Chris Gimenez and left Ryan O’Rourke, as MLB.com’ Rhett Bollinger tweets. Gimenez could have been retained for a projected $1MM arbitration salary, but Minnesota elected not to commit that much cash (and a roster spot) despite Gimenez’s 225 plate appearances of roughly league-average hitting in 2017. He tells Mike Berardino of the St. Paul Pioneer that he’ll likely elect to return to the open market, but would be open to a return (links to Twitter). As for O’Rourke, he was said to be exploring ways of hastening his return from Tommy John surgery, but Minnesota isn’t willing to gamble on the lefty’s recovery at this time.
- Infielder Pedro Florimon and righty Jesen Therrien are now free agents after being outrighted off of the Phillies 40-man, per a club announcement. The 30-year-old Florimon has made his way onto a major league roster in each of the past seven seasons, compiling a .209/.269/.308 slash in 791 plate appearances but providing enough with the glove to keep earning return trips. The 24-year-old Therrien was knocked around in 15 relief appearances for the Phils this year, but did turn in 57 1/3 frames of 1.41 ERA ball (with 10.2 K/9 and 1.4 BB/9) during his time in the upper minors.
- The Rays outrighted catcher Curt Casali, outfielder Cesar Puello, and righty Shawn Tolleson, as Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times tweets. Casali played a bigger role on the 2016 MLB outfit and posted only a .698 OPS at Triple-A. The 26-year-old Puello has bounced around of late and struggled in a brief go at the bigs, but did manage a productive .327/.377/.526 slash in 379 plate appearances at the highest level of the minors (none of which came with a Tampa Bay affiliate). Tolleson required Tommy John surgery in May, so he’ll likely be looking for an organization to rehab with.
- Departing the Cardinals‘ 40-man were infielder Alex Mejia and catcher Alberto Rosario, according to MLB.com’s Jenifer Langosch (via Twitter). Mejia struggled mightily in the bigs as a 26-year-old rookie, but slashed .291/.341/.413 in his 475 plate appearances in the upper minors. As for Rosario, who is thirty years of age, there just hasn’t been much opportunity for time behind the MLB plate.
- Backstop Hector Sanchez and righty Tim Melville took free agency from the Padres after clearing outright waivers, per AJ Cassavell of MLB.com (Twitter link). Sanchez, a 28-year-old switch-hitter who has seen action in each of the past seven MLB seasons, will surely be targeted as a depth acquisition by other organizations. Melville, who’s also 28, worked to a 2.95 ERA with 8.5 K/9 and 3.9 BB/9 in 76 1/3 Triple-A innings — his best results in the minors — but was bombed in brief MLB time.
- The Dodgers outrighted first baseman/outfielder O’Koyea Dickson, as J.P. Hoornstra of the Southern California News Group tweets. Dickson, 27, briefly touched the majors in 2017 but spent the bulk of his time at Triple-A for the third-straight season. After putting up big numbers there in 2016, Dickson managed a career-best 24 home runs over 458 plate appearances in his most recent campaign, but slipped to a .328 on-base percentage.
- Finally, the Pirates outrighted lefty Dan Runzler, MLB.com’s Adam Berry reports on Twitter. He’ll head back to free agency after refusing an assignment. Runzler, 32, made it back to the majors after a four-year absence, but only saw four innings in eight appearances. He pitched to a 3.05 ERA in 41 1/3 Triple-A innings, managing only 7.8 K/9 against 4.8 BB/9 but also generating typically strong groundball numbers.
Phillies Designate Pedro Beato, Select Contract Of Pedro Florimon
The Phillies have designated righty Pedro Beato for assignment. He’ll make way for the activation of infielder Pedro Florimon, who is joining the active roster.
Beato made just one appearance for the Phils before landing on the DL, though he did return to the majors for the first time since 2014. He had spent each of the two prior years pitching at Triple-A with the Orioles organization, producing sub-3.00 earned run averages in each season. And Beato was similarly effective in his 46 1/3 innings this year at the Phillies’ top affiliate, posting a 2.72 ERA with 7.0 K/9 and 3.5 BB/9.
As for the 30-year-old Florimon, this move puts him in the majors for the seventh consecutive season. He owns a meager .200/.261/.297 slash over 742 career MLB plate appearances, though he keeps earning opportunities due to his highly regarded glovework. Florimon has been useful at the plate this year at Lehigh Valley, batting .265/.347/.410 and even hitting ten home runs.
Phillies Sign Pedro Florimon, Acquire Mario Sanchez From Nationals
The Phillies announced that today that they’ve acquired minor league right-hander Mario Sanchez from the Nationals as the player to be named later in last month’s Jimmy Cordero swap. They also announced minor league deals for Pedro Florimon, Sean Burnett, Daniel Nava and Hector Gomez, each of whom will be invited to Major League Spring Training. (The signings of Nava and Burnett were reported last week by the Philadelphia Inquirer’s Matt Gelb and SB Nation’s Chris Cotillo, respectively.)
Sanchez, 22, spent the 2016 season with Washington’s Class-A Advanced affiliate, where he pitched to a 3.46 ERA with 7.2 K/9, 2.5 BB/9 and a 43.1 percent ground-ball rate in 78 innings of work. The Venezuelan-born righty didn’t make any starts but made 12 relief appearances of at least three innings, including one six-inning relief performance to close out the season. He didn’t rank among the Nationals’ top 30 prospects, though given the rather low-profile nature of the trade that is sending him to the Phillies, that shouldn’t be a big surprise.
Florimon, who turned 30 two days ago, spent the 2015-16 seasons as a member of the Pirates and saw sparse time with the big league club, hitting .149/.200/.255 in just 50 plate appearances. Prior to that stretch, the entirety of Florimon’s big league time had come with the Twins, for whom he served as the primary shortstop in 2013, hitting .222/.281/.330 with nine homers and 15 steals. Florimon has never hit much in the Majors or minors, but he’s a terrific defender at shortstop and could function as a Triple-A depth option for the Phillies. He’s a career .253/.320/.368 hitter in 1222 Triple-A PAs, so his bat certainly has played a bit better at that level than in the Majors.
Gomez, 28, spent the 2016 season playing with Korea’s SK Wyverns, where he hit .283/.326/.493 with 21 homers, 31 doubles and 16 stolen bases in 484 trips to the plate. The versatile infielder spent the 2014-15 seasons with the Brewers, batting a combined .177/.209/.306 in 155 PAs. He comes with a very solid Triple-A background, having batted .298/.341/.512 in 150 games (although those numbers have likely been aided by the hitter-friendly nature of the Triple-A Pacific Coast League), and he also brings experience at shortstop, second base and third base to the Phillies organization.