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Retirement

Shane Victorino To Sign One-Day Contract, Retire As Member Of Phillies

By Steve Adams | July 3, 2018 at 12:33pm CDT

Shane Victorino hasn’t played since the 2015 season, but the 37-year-old has now formally announced his retirement as a player to Rob DeMello of KHON-TV (Twitter link with video). He’ll sign a one-day contract with the Phillies on Aug. 3 — the date of their Alumni Weekend — to retire as a member of the organization with which he established himself as a big leaguer, per Matt Breen of the Philadelphia Inquirer.

Shane Victorino | Photo by Elsa/Getty Images

The “Flyin’ Hawaiian” will officially wrap up his career as a two-time World Series champion and one of the more notable success stories in the history of the Rule 5 Draft. Originally a sixth-round pick of the Dodgers back in 1999, Victorino was twice taken in the Rule 5 — first by the Padres in 2002 and again by the Phillies in 2004. While the Padres returned Victorino after a rough stretch of 86 plate appearances, the Phillies stuck with him and were handsomely rewarded for their faith.

Victorino went on to make two All-Star teams, win three Gold Gloves and hit a postseason grand slam off CC Sabathia in 2008 that will forever be remembered by Phillies fans. He batted .279/.345/.439 in total over parts of eight seasons with the Phils, hitting 88 homers, 181 doubles and 63 triples along the way. Victorino was also both prolific and efficient when it came to stealing bases, swiping 179 bags in 218 tries as a member of the Phillies (82.1 percent success rate).

Victorino’s time with the Phillies came to a close in 2012, when he was traded back to the Dodgers just prior to the non-waiver deadline on July 31. That swap didn’t bring about a return to the postseason for Victorino, but the three-year, $39MM contract he signed with the Red Sox in the subsequent offseason did.

While some raised an eyebrow at the contract given Victorino’s pedestrian 2012 season, he more or less justified the entire investment in year one of the deal by turning in one of his best seasons and playing a significant role in Boston’s 2013 World Series championship. Victorino hit .294/.351/.451 with 15 homers and 21 steals for the Sox that season while playing some of the best outfield defense in all of baseball as Boston’s primary right fielder. And while he didn’t have an overly productive postseason that year, his bases-clearing double against Michael Wacha in the decisive Game 6 and a later RBI single played a huge role in sealing the victory.

Over the next two seasons, Victorino’s bat faded, and his final big league appearances came during a short run with the Angels following a trade in July 2015. He went on to play with the Cubs’ Triple-A affiliate in 2016 but hasn’t suited up in either the Majors or the Minors since that May.

In the end, Victorino will retire as a lifetime .275/.340/.425 hitter over the course of 12 seasons and 5164 plate appearances at the game’s top level. He hit 108 homers, stole 231 bases, scored 731 runs and knocked in another 489 as a big leaguer, taking home three Gold Gloves, two All-Star nods and a pair of World Series rings. Baseball-Reference pegs his career at a strong 31.6 wins above replacement, while Fangraphs credited him with 29.6 WAR. Along the way, Victorino earned more than $65MM while staking a legitimate claim to being the best position player to ever hail from his home state. Congrats to the Flyin’ Hawaiian on a terrific career and what will surely be a fitting way to formally bring it to a close.

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Jayson Werth To Retire

By Jeff Todd | June 27, 2018 at 1:48pm CDT

Veteran outfielder Jayson Werth tells Jon Heyman of Fancred Sports that he will retire. He had been with the Mariners organization on a minor-league deal.

Though Werth declined to describe the situation in precisely those terms, he told Heyman: “I’m done … whatever you want to call it.” That statement does not seem to leave much room for interpretation, so it seems fair to assume that Werth will not look to return from the hamstring injury that recently put him on the shelf at Triple-A Tacoma.

Werth, 39, had signed on with the Seattle organization after wrapping up a seven-year, $126MM contract with the Nationals. That monster contract marked one of several turning points over Werth’s long professional career.

Drafted 22nd overall by the Orioles in the 1997 draft, Werth did not exactly race to the majors. And he did not stick immediately upon reaching the game’s highest level. He bounced from the Baltimore organization to the Blue Jays and then on to the Dodgers, moving from behind the dish to the outfield along the way and receiving relatively meager opportunities in the majors.

Werth posted strong numbers in a partial season of work with Los Angeles in 2004, but ended up suffering a significant wrist injury during camp in the ensuing spring. He played poorly upon returning and the issue failed to dissipate. Werth ended up missing all of the 2006 campaign and being set loose by the Dodgers.

At that point, clearly, there was a high likelihood that Werth would simply never make good on his original promise. But he drew major-league contract offers and ultimately landed with the Phillies, as MLBTR’s Tim Dierkes explained at the time.

Needless to say, things turned up from there. Werth ended up slashing a robust .282/.380/.506 in over two thousand plate appearances over four seasons in Philadelphia, swatting 95 home runs and swiping sixty bags along the way. He was a key piece of the organization’s magical run in that span, including a 2008 World Series victory.

When free agency arrived, both team and player decided to make other plans — not that the Phillies fans ever forgave Werth for leaving. As MLBTR’s Zach Links wrote, it took an eye-popping number to convince him to head to D.C., a surprising decision for a Nationals organization that was then a perennial cellar dweller.

Werth’s first season with the Nats did not go according to plan. And he missed time with a wrist injury in the one that followed. But his play picked up quite a bit. And the tide soon turned in the division, with the Washington organization rising as the Phillies fell apart. From 2012 through 2014, Werth made good on his hefty salary, posting a cumulative .303/.394/.479 slash with 46 home runs. Unfortunately, that output — and Werth’s good health — would not last. Over the final three years of his deal with the Nationals, he managed only a .233/.322/.402 batting line in 301 games.

While postseason success wasn’t to be in D.C., Werth will be remembered well for his leadership role in an important time in the organization’s history. Now, he tells Heyman, he’ll head off to spend more time with his family — and, perhaps, take up some organic farming. Both sound like worthy pursuits, and we at MLBTR wish him the best of fortune.

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.

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Newsstand Seattle Mariners Transactions Jayson Werth Retirement

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Brayan Pena Retires

By Jeff Todd | June 19, 2018 at 8:29am CDT

Veteran backstop Brayan Pena is hanging up his spikes after a dozen seasons in the majors, with Pena tweeting confirmation. George Sipple of the Detroit Free Press recently reported on Twitter that Pena will manage a Gulf Coast League team for the Tigers.

Pena, 36, carved out a lengthy MLB career despite never producing much at the plate at the game’s highest level. Over 1950 total plate appearances, he produced a collective .259/.299/.351 slash line with 23 home runs.

It probably helped that Pena hits from both sides of the plate, something of a rare commodity for a backstop. He was particularly useful as a lefty bat, meaning he made for a solid platoon option for most regular catchers. And teams obviously believed in him behind the dish.

Pena broke into the majors back in 2005, kicking off a four-year run with the Braves during which he never once took fifty plate appearances in a given season. He was a more regular presence during a four-year run with the Royals, who picked him up via waiver claim, but saw his offensive productivity decline in each year in Kansas City.

After a nice bounceback season with the Tigers, Pena secured a two-year deal with the Reds heading into the 2014 season. He ended up receiving semi-regular playing time there due to injuries to other players, appearing in 223 games and producing a .263/.313/.339 slash. That showing led the Cardinals to give Pena a two-year, $5MM deal in the 2015-16 offseason, but he appeared in only nine games in 2016 due to a knee injury and was released after the season.

Pena had joined the Tigers organization in hopes of receiving a chance to continue playing, but primarily in order to work with the team’s young players, as Evan Woodberry of MLive.com reported this spring. With no real prospects of playing his way back to the majors in Detroit or elsewhere, it seems, the long-time receiver will turn his attention fully to the next phase of his baseball life. MLBTR wishes Pena the best of luck with his new career path.

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Kris Medlen Retires

By Connor Byrne | May 27, 2018 at 12:41pm CDT

Veteran right-hander Kris Medlen has retired, Zach Buchanan of The Athletic reports. He had been pitching in the minors with the Diamondbacks organization.

The 32-year-old Medlen only spent a few months with the Diamondbacks, who signed him to a minor league deal in January. He eventually worked his way back to the majors, earning a start in early May as the Diamondbacks dealt with injuries to Robbie Ray and Taijuan Walker. That May 4 outing didn’t go well for Medlen, who allowed seven earned runs on nine hits and four walks (with four strikeouts) across four frames in a loss to the reigning World Series champion Astros. Arizona then optioned Medlen to Triple-A, where he spent the final few weeks of his career.

Even though his last season didn’t go well, Medlen enjoyed an accomplished big league career. The California native went in the 10th round of the 2006 draft to the Braves, who initially used him solely out of the bullpen before he later worked as both a starter and a reliever with the club. Medlen debuted in Atlanta in 2009 and went on to turn in 512 2/3 innings of 2.95 ERA ball with the team through 2013, also notching 7.62 K/9, 2.12 BB/9 and a 46.2 percent groundball rate over 152 appearances (61 starts).

While Medlen offered high-end production in Atlanta, his arm health began to deteriorate with the club. Medlen missed the majority of the 2011 season after undergoing Tommy John surgery, which proved to the first of two TJ procedures he’d undergo in his career. Medlen went back under the knife prior to the 2014 campaign, bringing about the end of his first Braves tenure.

The Royals took a flyer on Medlen in the wake of his second surgery, inking him to a two-year deal, but he wasn’t able to regain his old form in Kansas City. However, in the better of those years – 2015 – Medlen pitched to a respectable 4.01 ERA over 58 1/3 innings (15 appearances, eight starts) and was part of the Royals’ first World Series-winning team since 1985. Neither Medlen nor the Royals could replicate that success the next season, leading him to exit and reunite with the Braves on a minor league deal entering the 2017 campaign. Medlen didn’t return to the majors with the Braves, instead spending the season primarily with their Triple-A affiliate.

Unfortunately, thanks to injuries, Medlen’s career didn’t reach the heights it could have. Nevertheless, he still registered a more-than-respectable 3.33 ERA in 599 1/3 major league frames. MLBTR wishes Medlen the best in retirement.

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.

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Arizona Diamondbacks Transactions Kris Medlen Retirement

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Kyle Lohse Likely To Retire

By Steve Adams | May 11, 2018 at 8:10am CDT

May 11, 8:10am: Lohse tells Tony Boone of the Omaha World-Herald that this is “probably it” for his career, though he left the door open slightly in the event that a team approached him with an opportunity (Twitter link). It doesn’t sound as though agent Scott Boras will be actively pursuing new opportunities for his client, though.

May 10, 11:25pm: Shortly after being released by the Royals this afternoon, veteran right-hander Kyle Lohse took to Instagram to suggest that he is retiring from baseball after spending parts of 16 seasons in the Majors.

“It’s been a hell of a ride,” Lohse wrote with a view from the stands at a minor league game. “Baseball, you’ve taken me a lot of places I’ve never thought or even dreamed of. The highs. The lows. The people I’ve met. The teammates I’ve had the pleasure of battling alongside. The guys on the other teams I’ve had the pleasure of battling against. Time to take it to the house knowing I gave it all I had each and every time.”

Lohse made a comeback bid with the Royals this year after not pitching professionally in 2017, signing a minor league contract on March 31 but ultimately being knocked around in a pair of Triple-A starts. That, apparently, was enough to set the 39-year-old’s mind at east as he rides off into the sunset following a long and successful playing career.

Originally a 29th-round pick of the Cubs in 1996, Lohse was never considered to be an elite prospect. He went from the Cubs organization to the Twins by way of 1999’s Rick Aguilera trade and found himself in the big leagues for an up-and-coming Twins team a couple years later in 2001. Lohse’s rookie campaign was hardly noteworthy (5.68 ERA in 90 1/3 innings), but he settled in as a durable workhorse for the Twins the following season.

From 2002-05, Lohse averaged 32 starts and 189 innings per season, pitching to a 4.61 ERA with 5.4 K/9 against 2.8 BB/9. That, of course, was a markedly different era of baseball, as evidenced by the fact that Lohse’s collective 4.61 ERA in those 754 1/3 innings translated to an ERA+ of 99 — meaning he was roughly a league-average starter for the Twins in a heightened offensive period for baseball.

Lohse was eventually flipped to the Reds in 2006 and would spent parts of the next two seasons in Cincinnati and Philadelphia before setting into the Cardinals’ rotation for half a decade. Lohse enjoyed some of his best seasons in St. Louis, including a 2011 season that saw him post a 3.39 ERA in 30 starts for the World Champion Cardinals and a 2012 season in which he posted a career-best 2.86 ERA in 211 innings. Lohse started the NL Wild Card game for the Cards in 2012 and took home the win in that game, setting up St. Louis for another run to the NLCS. In all, he posted a 3.90 ERA in 809 innings for the chief rival of the club which originally drafted and traded him.

Following his strong run with the Cards, Lohse inked a three-year, $33MM deal with the Brewers, remaining in the NL Central and again serving as a thorn in the side to two former organizations — at least for the first two years of his deal. Lohse signed late in Spring Training in 2013 but proved to be well worth the investment when he tossed 397 innings of 3.45 ERA ball for the Brewers in the first two seasons of his deal. He stumbled in the final season of that contract, however, losing his rotation spot and finishing the year in a bullpen as he limped to the finish line with a 5.85 ERA. Lohse threw just 9 1/3 innings in the Majors after that point — all coming with the 2016 Rangers.

Lohse never made an All-Star team and only received Cy Young votes once in his career — a seventh-place finish in 2012 — but will still go down as one of the best 29th-round picks in history (even if Ken Griffey Sr. can probably lay claim to the top spot). Few players selected that late in the draft approach the type of career that Lohse had. At a point in the draft when most players selected are organizational filler, he forged a 16-year playing career that saw him post a 147-143 record with a 4.40 ERA, 1615 strikeouts, 12 complete games and even nine shutouts over the life of 2531 2/3 Major League innings. Lohse earned more than $89MM in a career that was valued by Baseball-Reference at 19.6 wins above replacement and at 26.3 wins above replacement by Fangraphs. Best of luck to Lohse in his post-playing days.

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MLB Hires Chris Young As VP Of On-Field Operations

By Jeff Todd | May 10, 2018 at 12:19pm CDT

Former MLB hurler Chris Young has joined Major League Baseball as vice president of on-field operations, initiatives, and strategy, per a league announcement. It seems fair to presume, then, that his playing days are over.

Young, who turns 39 later this month, spent Spring Training with the Padres. But he was released after triggering his opt-out clause when the team decided he would not crack the Opening Day roster.

The towering hurler pitched in parts of 13 MLB campaigns, working to a 3.95 ERA over 1,297 2/3 total frames. He spent a plurality of his time with the Padres after debuting with the Rangers. Young also pitched for the Royals, Mets, and Mariners. His best overall season came in 2007 with the Padres, when he earned his lone All-Star nod and ended with 173 innings of 3.12 ERA ball.

While he dealt with some injuries along the way, the former third-round pick from Princeton ended up with a quality major-league career. He tallied 16.7 total rWAR in the majors — leaving him with a narrow lead in that regard over his still-active, like-named contemporary Chris Young (the outfielder).

In his new job, Young will have input in a variety of areas. Per the announcement, he’ll deal with “play on the field, including the application of playing rules and regulations, on-field standards and discipline, pace of play and other special projects.” The definition seems broad enough to suggest that Young’s role will likely take form over time.

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Stephen Drew To Retire

By Jeff Todd | April 2, 2018 at 11:05pm CDT

Veteran infielder Stephen Drew is hanging up his spikes, he tells Chelsea Janes of the Washington Post (Twitter links). The fifteenth overall pick of the 2004 draft, Drew ended up playing a dozen seasons in the majors.

Drew was in the Nationals’ locker room this evening to visit his former teammates. He ultimately finished out his career with two years in D.C. — a strong, bounceback effort in 2016 followed by an injury-plagued final go last season.

From the time he was chosen out of Florida State University by the Diamondbacks, Drew was on a fast track to the majors. He spent nearly half of the 2006 season in the bigs, turning in a productive debut effort that preceded several years of duty as the D-Backs’ regular shortstop. Drew’s output waned at the tail end of his time in Arizona, but he finished his stint there with over three thousand plate appearances of .266/.328/.436 hitting.

Dealt to the A’s in August of 2012, after a rough start to a season in which he was returning from a major ankle injury, Drew turned in a solid effort down the stretch. That led to a one-year free-agent deal with the Red Sox. After turning in 501 plate appearances of .253/.333/.443 hitting in Boston, Drew received and declined a qualifying offer.

The ensuing winter was one of note for the still-nascent qualifying offer system. Drew and Kendrys Morales each languished on the market after rejecting their offers, with organizations balking at the cost not only of salary but also of a top draft selection. With Drew prepared to wait until the June draft, at which time he’d have been freed of the compensation rules, he went back to the Sox on another one-year contract that promised him a pro-rated portion of the QO price (then $14.1MM).

Unfortunately, Drew’s second go with the Red Sox did not go as well as the first. He ended up finishing the 2014 season with the Yankees, moving to second base and then reprising that same role for the ensuing campaign.

When Drew hit the open market in the 2015-16 winter, he was coming off of a two-year stretch in which he slashed just .185/.257/.347 in his two stops. But he picked up a reserve utility role with the Nationals — whose GM, Mike Rizzo, had been the D-Backs’ director of scouting when Drew was taken — and rewarded the club with a .266/.339/.524 batting line and eight home runs in his 165 plate appearances.

Drew says his non-playing days will begin with a gig coaching his kids. MLBTR wishes him the best of luck in that and any future endeavors.

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Retirement Notes: Pelfrey, Capuano, Hinojosa

By Jeff Todd | March 6, 2018 at 11:51am CDT

We’ll use this post to round up some recent news from a few veteran hurlers whose playing days appear to be at an end:

  • Right-hander Mike Pelfrey appears to be moving on from his days on the mound, as Wayne Cavadi of NCAA.com reported recently (thanks to alert reader Alex Hudson for the tip). Pelfrey, who played at Wichita State University and is finishing up his degree there, has agreed to join the baseball coaching staff of another local school, Newman University. After a dozen years in the majors, the former ninth-overall pick says that teaching pitching was a natural progression. “After a couple of surgeries and I felt like the last couple of years that my abilities were declining, I got more into that mentor role,” says Pelfrey. Assuming this is indeed the end of the line, Pelfrey will finish his big-league run with 1,476 1/3 innings of 4.68 ERA pitching. After a long stretch with the Mets, the sinkerballer spent three seasons with the Twins before finishing things off with the Tigers and White Sox over the past two campaigns. The above-linked post features an extensive chat with Pelfrey and is well worth a look for those with interest in the big righty.
  • It seems that another dozen-year big-league veteran, southpaw Chris Capuano, is in the same boat. In an interesting chat with Garry Brown of The Republican earlier this year, the southpaw indicated that he’s finished with his pitching career. Instead of continuing the grind, as had previously seemed possible, Capuano plans to pursue a master’s degree and perhaps ultimately work with the MLB Player’s Association in some capacity. Like Pelfrey, Capuano tossed over fourteen-hundred frames at the game’s highest level. Even as he battled through injuries and bounced between six organizations, Capuano was a model of stability on the mound. He compiled a solid lifetime 4.38 ERA and rarely strayed too far from that level of pitching. Capuano will no doubt be best remembered for his six seasons with the Brewers; the lefty found early-career success in Milwaukee and finished his playing career there in 2016.
  • It seems that another former MLB hurler, Dalier Hinojosa, is also finished with his playing career, as he recently told Francys Romero of Ciber Cuba. Hinojosa, 32, long played for the Guantanamo entrant in Cuba’s Serie Nacional. He came to affiliated ball in 2014, reaching the majors in each of the next two seasons. While he only has thrown 35 2/3 MLB innings, most of them with the Phillies, Hinojosa will finish his brief MLB career with a shiny 1.51 ERA. Despite posting those solid numbers, bringing a fastball that sat at 94 mph, and getting swings and misses with about one out of every ten pitches, Hinojosa was outrighted by the Phillies after the end of the 2016 season and was later released. He did not appear in 2017 after shoulder issues arose.
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Transactions Chris Capuano Dalier Hinojosa Mike Pelfrey Retirement

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Andrew Bailey Announces Retirement

By Jeff Todd | February 26, 2018 at 8:03pm CDT

Reliever Andrew Bailey announced today (via Instagram) that he is hanging up his spikes in favor of a non-playing position with the Angels. Bailey will become the organization’s instant replay coordinator and coaching assistant, per Pedro Moura of The Athletic (Twitter link).

The 33-year-old Bailey ends his career with a 3.12 lifetime ERA over eight MLB campaigns. Of course, that hardly tells the tale of his winding journey through professional baseball.

A sixth-round pick from Wagner College, Bailey spent three years in the minors as a starter before debuting in the Athletics’ pen in 2009. He turned in an eye-opening campaign, racking up 83 1/3 innings of 1.84 ERA ball with 9.8 K/9, 2.6 BB/9, and just 5.3 hits per nine.

Bailey took hold of the A’s closing job that year and ended up with 75 saves over three years in Oakland. His final season there was his worst, but he managed to rebound from a forearm strain to throw 41 2/3 innings with a 3.24 earned run average.

That platform set the stage for a swap that sent Bailey to the Red Sox in exchange for Josh Reddick and others. (That trade had quite the butterfly effect, as MLBTR’s Steve Adams observed the following winter.) At the time, it seemed that Bailey would step into the closer’s role that had just been vacated by Jonathan Papelbon.

Things went south quickly in Boston, as Bailey opened the season on the DL due to a thumb injury and was tagged for a dozen earned runs in 15 1/3 frames upon his return. Though he bounced back to spin 28 2/3 frames of 3.77 ERA ball with 12.2 K/9 and 3.8 BB/9 in 2013, Bailey’s season was cut short by a significant shoulder injury that required surgery. He was non-tendered in advance of the 2014 campaign.

After enduring an obstacle-ridden rehab process, Bailey finally returned to the majors in September of 2015 with the Yankees. He made it unscathed through a 33-appearance opportunity with the Phillies in 2016, but limped to a 6.40 ERA and was released.

Bailey ended up catching on with the Angels at the tail end of the 2016 and turned in what was to be something of a last hurrah. Despite showing greatly diminished velocity, he saved six more games in a dozen appearances, earning a $1MM guarantee to return to Los Angeles for the 2017 season. Unfortunately, ongoing shoulder maladies kept Bailey to throwing four scoreless frames in the majors for the season.

Though Bailey did not have the kind of overall career that his first few seasons promised, he certainly had plenty of good moments and battled through quite a lot of injury-related adversity. (Among the many people he thanked in his message were “the countless athletic trainers, PT’s, strength coaches, surgeons and therapists.”) MLBTR wishes him the best of luck in his new pursuit within the game of baseball.

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A’s Notes: Parker, Maxwell, Rotation

By Steve Adams | February 13, 2018 at 5:56pm CDT

Former Athletics right-hander Jarrod Parker has officially decided to halt any comeback attempts and retire, he tells Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle. The now-29-year-old Parker was a promising building block for the A’s in 2011-13, posting a 3.68 ERA through his first 384 big league innings at ages 22 through 24.

Once the ninth overall pick in the MLB draft (Diamondbacks, 2007), Parker found his way to Oakland as part of the return that Arizona surrendered when initially acquiring a more established, controllable young righty: Trevor Cahill. Parker showed all the promise in the world, landing on five Top 100 lists from Baseball America and Baseball Prospectus after being drafted out of high school, and the fine early work in his career serves as a testament to what might have been had injuries not ruined a promising career.

Unfortunately for the talented young Parker, his elbow simply didn’t allow him to realize his considerable potential. The righty twice underwent Tommy John surgery before fracturing his elbow in his comeback attempt from that second Tommy John procedure. Unfathomably, Parker re-fractured the epicondyle bone in his elbow, necessitating a fourth elbow surgery. Parker’s former teammate Ryan Cook, A’s executive vice president Billy Beane and former A’s lefty Barry Zito are among the notable names who raved to Slusser about Parker’s raw potential and expressed sadness over never seeing how high his ceiling could have been.

Parker, now looking to the future, tells Slusser that he’d look to work in the health industry, potentially serving as a rehab coordinator for players returning from injury.

A bit more on the A’s…

  • Also via Slusser, Oakland catcher Bruce Maxwell did not reach a plea agreement in his recent settlement conference, thus prompting a second such meeting to be scheduled for April 13. Maxwell, who is facing charges of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and disorderly conduct after allegedly pointing a firearm at a delivery person back in October, is slated for an Aug. 9 trial if no plea agreement can be reached. Maxwell is still expected to serve as Oakland’s primary catcher in 2018 despite those struggles; Slusser adds (via Twitter) that GM David Forst cited the team’s long relationship with Maxwell as a factor in its decision to give him a chance as the starting backstop in 2018. Maxwell was the Athletics’ second-round pick back in the 2012 draft.
  • Jane Lee of MLB.com breaks down the rotation situation in Oakland, noting that only right-hander Kendall Graveman and left-hander Sean Manaea are considered locks to hold down a starting job at present. The final three spots are up for grabs in a race consisting of Andrew Triggs, Jharel Cotton, Daniel Mengden, Daniel Gossett and Paul Blackburn — assuming Oakland does not make any further additions to the staff. Lee adds, on Twitter, that manager Bob Melvin said Mengden’s strong finish to the season has him in the lead for the third spot in the rotation right now, but the A’s look to have a fairly sizable competition for rotation innings.
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Athletics Andrew Triggs Bruce Maxwell Daniel Gossett Daniel Mengden Jarrod Parker Jharel Cotton Kendall Graveman Paul Blackburn Retirement Sean Manaea

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    Padres To Sign Sung-Mun Song

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