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Sam Haggerty

Mariners Designate Steven Souza Jr., Select Sam Haggerty

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The Mariners are making a series of roster moves today, per Ryan Divish of the Seattle Times. Infielder Abraham Toro is heading to the 10-day injured list. He had hurt himself in a collision with Adam Frazier during last night’s game. The club’s announcement of the moves describes his injury as a left shoulder sprain. Also leaving the roster is outfield Steven Souza Jr., who has been designated for assignment. To fill those two holes on the active roster, the club has recalled utility player Sam Haggerty and outfielder Taylor Trammell.

With the recent demotion of Jarred Kelenic and injury of Mitch Haniger, the Mariners turned to the veteran Souza as another outfield option. He had been off to a great start to the year in Triple-A, hitting .267/.417/.533 for a wRC+ of 140. Unfortunately, he hasn’t been able to carry that production into the big leagues, as he’s hit .158/.158/.158 over six games since his promotion. The club will now have a week to trade the 33-year-old or put him on waivers.

Taking his spot on the 40-man roster is the 27-year-old Haggerty. Over 59 career games between the Mets and Mariners, he has a batting line of .207/.265/.321, wRC+ of 66. Last year, he went on the IL in May with a shoulder injury and never returned. He was outrighted by the M’s at the end of the season after clearing waivers. He seems to have recuperated and gotten things back on track this year, as he’s hitting .304/.378/.512, 123 wRC+ through 32 Triple-A games so far. The club will now see if he can sustain that in the big leagues. He’s played exclusively at second base so far this year, though he’s previously spent time at third base, shortstop and all three outfield positions. He’ll likely fill the utility role that was previously filled by Toro, who had spent time at first, second and third base this year.

As for Trammell, he will be the club’s latest attempt to get some kind of production out of its corner outfielders. Julio Rodriguez has played well in center but hasn’t gotten much help from those on his flanks. Kelenic and Souza struggled enough to get demoted and designated for assignment, respectively, with Haniger only able to play nine games on the year so far. Jesse Winker has slumped to a line of .216/.310/.304, 89 wRC+ on the campaign. Dylan Moore has technically been above average with a wRC+ of 104, though in a very uneven fashion. He’s popped a couple homers and walked in 14.6% of his plate appearances, though he’s also struck out 27.1% of the time and is hitting .154.

Trammell suffered a hamstring strain in April and has been gradually working his way back to health, though he hasn’t even begun a rehab assignment before today’s recall, having been in extended Spring Training until now. He played 51 games last year and hit just .160/.256/.359, 73 wRC+, though his Triple-A numbers were much better.

Mariners Outright Shed Long, Four Others

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2:55pm: In addition to Long, the Mariners announced that infielder/outfielder Sam Haggerty, righty Darren McCaughan, outfielder Marcus Wilson and righty Ryan Weber were all outrighted from the roster. Weber was able to immediately declare free agency, as this is the second outright of his career. Long and Wilson will be free agents after the postseason concludes.

Haggerty had a nice season in 2020, but in a limited sample of just 13 games and 54 plate appearances. In 2021, he got to the plate 94 times but produced a meager .186/.247/.291 line, then went on the IL at the end of May with a shoulder injury but never returned. He’ll now look to get back to health and regular playing time in the minors in order to earn his way back to the bigs.

McCaughan made his major league debut this season but only got into two games. In Triple-A, he logged 115 1/3 innings over 20 starts with an ERA of 4.53. His strikeout rate was subpar at 20.9% but his walk rate was an excellent 3.6%. He’ll remain in the organization as depth.

Wilson was claimed off waivers from the Red Sox in August but was stashed in Triple-A and has yet to make it to the show. Between the two organizations, he got 437 Triple-A plate appearances in 2021, slashing .240/.364/.421 for a wRC+ of 110.

Weber is the most experienced of the bunch, with 167 big league innings to his name, with an ERA of 5.28. In 2021, he bounced between Boston, Milwaukee and Seattle but got the most action with Tacoma, Seattle’s Triple-A team. He logged 60 1/3 innings there over 10 starts, with an ERA of 3.58, strikeout rate of 25.1% and miniscule walk rate of 0.9%.

2:05pm: Long underwent a second surgery to repair the stress reaction in his shin last week, agent Nate Heisler tells Divish (Twitter link). The bone is expected to be healed over in one to two months’ time, which should afford Long enough time to be ready for Spring Training.

1:52pm: The Mariners are performing some early roster maintenance in advance of the offseason and are set to announce that infielder/outfielder Shed Long Jr. has been outrighted from the 40-man roster, per Ryan Divish of the Seattle Times (Twitter link). That he’s being assigned outright off the roster means he’s already cleared waivers, and Long will now be able to become a free agent this offseason.

It’s been a tough couple of seasons for the 26-year-old Long, whom Seattle acquired in the three-team swap that sent Sonny Gray from the Yankees to the Reds and outfield prospect Josh Stowers from Seattle to New York. Long played much of last season through a stress fracture in his leg before ultimately undergoing season-ending surgery. The detrimental impact of that injury lingered into 2021, ending his season on Aug. 2 and helping to limit Long to just 34 games and 121 plate appearances at the MLB level.

At the time of his acquisition, Long was a well-regarded prospect seen as a potential everyday option for Seattle at second base or perhaps in left field. He looked the part of a possible regular in his rookie campaign in ’19, posting a .263/.333/.454 batting line with five homers, a dozen doubles, a triple and three steals through 168 trips to the plate. Unfortunately, in the two years since, he’s cobbled together a paltry .184/.250/.325 output through 249 plate appearances while struggling through that pair of leg injuries.

While Long was sidelined, the ever-active Mariners front office, led by president of baseball operations Jerry Dipoto, acquired a slew of players who have now left Long as something of an odd man out in the organization. Abraham Toro and Ty France are getting regular at-bats in the infield, while the future outlook in the outfield is quite promising with Mitch Haniger, 2020 Rooke of the Year Kyle Lewis, Jarred Kelenic, Julio Rodriguez, Taylor Trammell and Jake Fraley all in the mix. The Mariners are also expected to further add to that infield mix this winter, perhaps in significant fashion, as the team looks to turn the final corner and emerge from an abbreviated rebuilding process on the heels of a surprising 90-win season

Long will hit the free-agent market at just 26 years of age and search for a new opportunity with an organization that can offer a clearer path to playing time. He’ll still have a minor league option remaining in 2022, but the fact that he went unclaimed on waivers could well mean that Long is ticketed for a minor league pact in free agency.

Mariners Option Jarred Kelenic

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The Mariners announced that they have reinstated infielder Shed Long from the 60-day injured list, optioned outfielder Jarred Kelenic to Triple-A Tacoma and transferred infielder/outfielder Sam Haggerty to the 60-day IL with right shoulder inflammation.

Kelenic, one of the game’s most touted prospects, reached the majors for the first time in the middle of May. Unfortunately, the 21-year-old could only produce an .096/.185/.193 line over his first 92 plate appearances in the bigs, punching out at a 28.3 percent clip along the way. Kelenic drew walks at a solid 8.7 percent clip, connected on a pair of homers and went 3-for-3 in stolen base attempts, but it was still far from the debut most hoped to see.

Of course, it’s easy to forget that even the most-hyped prospects in the sport don’t hit the ground running all the time. Kelenic in particular was rather aggressively pushed through the minors, perhaps in part due to former Mariners president Kevin Mather rather blatantly broadcasting the organization’s plans to hold him in the minors for service time purposes, regardless of performance in Spring Training or early in the season.

Kelenic played just 21 Double-A games in 2019, and while he was with the club’s alternate site in 2020, he didn’t actually play in competitive games against other organizations last year. The delayed start to the minor league season meant more of the same intra-squad action for Kelenic to begin the 2021 campaign, and while that certainly carries some developmental value, it’s not the same as actual competition against other clubs. He utterly destroyed Triple-A pitching when the minor league season finally got underway in May, but he only played in six games before being summoned to the Majors.

The service time issue raised by Mather shined a spotlight on Kelenic’s ascension to the Majors, so it’s worth looking at just how a return to Triple-A will now impact his service clock. Kelenic was already guaranteed to finish the season shy of one year of service, so it’s unlikely his path to free agency will be further delayed by this demotion. He was always going to finish this year with between zero and one year of service, finish the 2022 season between one and two years, the 2023 season between two and three years, and so on, up until the completion of the 2027 season.

Kelenic accrued 26 days of Major League service time in his first run through the big leagues. In order for that free-agent calculus to change, he’d need to spend fewer than 146 days in the Majors between 2021 and 2022 combined. That seems decidedly unlikely, barring an untimely major injury or injuries sustained while playing at the minor league level. What today’s demotion could do, however, is impact whether Kelenic eventually qualifies as a Super Two player who’d be eligible for arbitration four times (assuming the arbitration system as we know it remains intact in the next collective bargaining agreement, which isn’t a given).

Super Two designation is awarded to the top 22 percent of players (in terms of service time) who have between two and three years of service in a given season. Generally speaking, prospects who are called up in mid-to-late June and stick in the big leagues end up falling just shy of Super Two status. Kelenic’s early-May promotion had him on track for Super Two status, but if he were to spend another four to six weeks in the minors, he could fall into a more traditional arbitration schedule.

There’s obviously no indication as to how long the club plans to keep him down for at the moment, and he’ll probably control his own fate to some extent. If he immediately takes the Pacific Coast League by storm and continues hitting near the .370/.414/.630 pace he did in his brief Triple-A showing earlier this year, his stay in the minors could prove brief. If Kelenic’s struggles persist in Tacoma, however, it’s feasible that the early struggles could cost him one trip through arbitration.

With Kelenic now back in Tacoma and Kyle Lewis facing a prolonged absence due to another knee injury, the Mariners’ promising young outfield has a much different look. Fellow top prospect Taylor Trammell is back for a second look after dominating Triple-A himself (the exact path the Mariners no doubt hope Kelenic will travel in the coming weeks). He’ll handle center field. Mitch Haniger has been excellent in right field all season and should remain the primary option there, though he’s also a logical trade candidate, particularly if the Mariners slip further below .500. (They’re currently 30-31.) Seattle also recently got 26-year-old Jake Fraley back from a notable hamstring strain, so he could step into Kelenic’s spot in left. Utilityman Donovan Walton could see some occasional time there, and Long has logged time in left field in the past as well.

Speaking of the now-25-year-old Long, he’s now set for his 2021 debut after spending months working back from the surgery he underwent on his right tibia last September. The former Reds prospect impressed in his first major league action in 2019, when he batted .263/.333/.454 with five home runs and three stolen bases in 168 plate appearances, but he was unable to build on that in 2020 as he attempted to play through a stress fracture that eventually led to that September surgery.

Long took 128 plate appearances last summer but posted a disastrous .171/.242/.291 with three homers and four steals before landing on the injured list. It’s admirable that he tried to gut things out, but the injury was clearly hindering him at the plate. He’ll now get a fresh chance, presumably at full health, to prove he’s more the 2019 version of himself than the 2020 version.

Mariners Activate Casey Sadler, Place Sam Haggerty On IL

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The Mariners have added Casey Sadler to their active roster. Sadler was claimed off waivers from the Cubs a couple of days ago. In a corresponding move, Sam Haggerty has been placed on the 10-day IL, per a team release.

Sadler has bounced around in his professional career, suiting up for the Pirates, Rays, Dodgers, and Cubs prior to the Mariners. Last season was the busiest of his career: he made 33 appearances between the Rays and Dodgers with a 2.14 ERA/4.39 FIP across 46 1/3 innings. He was less effective for the Cubs this year as he struggled to find the plate (7.7 BB/9). He came out of the Cubs’ pen 10 times this year, finishing with a 5.79 ERA/6.58 FIP before being placed on waivers.

Haggerty was another waiver claim made by the Mariners this past January. The Mariners snagged the utlity man from the Mets, who had in turn acquired him from the Indians along with Walker Lockett for catcher Kevin Plawecki.

The 26-year-old Haggerty can play all over the field, but he mostly settled into left field for the Mariners this season. The switch-hitter held his own with a triple slash of .260/.315/.400 over 54 plate appearances, racking up 0.4 rWAR. The Mariners are flush with multi-positional athletes who can take the at-bats that otherwise would have gone to Haggerty. Dylan Moore will see time in left as could Dee Strange-Gordon or Shed Long Jr., who appeared in 16 games in left last season, though he has yet to play there this year.

Mariners Claim Sam Haggerty

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The Mariners have claimed utilityman Sam Haggerty off waivers from the Mets, the Seattle club announced. He had recently been designated for assignment.

Haggerty has only minimal MLB experience and has actually only played in 19 games at the highest level of the minors. Through 643 plate appearances at Double-A over the past two campaigns, he owns a .250/.371/.378 batting line.

Mets Release Sam Haggerty

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The Mets announced Wednesday that they’ve released infielder Sam Haggerty, who’d been designated for assignment last month to open roster space for right-hander Dellin Betances. Clubs typically must resolve a player’s DFA status within seven days, but as was the case with the Tigers and Brandon Dixon earlier today, it seems that the holidays delayed the resolution of this particular DFA.

As MetsMerized’s Jacob Resnick points out (Twitter link), because Haggerty was selected to the 40-man roster after Aug. 15 and would’ve been Rule 5-eligible, he wasn’t able to be outrighted off the Mets’ roster. He’ll now have the opportunity to talk with other clubs as a result of that technicality, but it’s certainly plausible that he’ll return to the Mets on a new minor league pact.

The 25-year-old Haggerty saw his first MLB action this past season but appeared in only 11 games and tallied only four plate appearances. A 24th-round pick by the Indians back in 2015, he came to the Mets alongside Walker Lockett last winter in the trade that sent catcher Kevin Plawecki to the Indians.

Haggerty has played primarily second base in the minors but has experience all over the infield and outfield as well. He’s a .250/.371/.378 hitter in 155 games of Double-A ball and has batted .271/.358/.424 in a much smaller sample of 19 games in Triple-A.

Mets Designate Sam Haggerty For Assignment

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The Mets announced Tuesday that they’ve designated infielder Sam Haggerty for assignment in order to open a spot on the 40-man roster for newly signed reliever Dellin Betances.

Haggerty, 25, made his MLB debut in 2019 but appeared in just 11 games and tallied only four plate appearances. A 24th-round pick by the Indians back in 2015, he made his way to the Mets alongside Walker Lockett last winter in the trade that sent catcher Kevin Plawecki to the Indians. Haggerty has played primarily second base in the minors but has experience all over the infield and outfield as well. He’s a .250/.371/.378 hitter in 155 games of Double-A ball and has batted .271/.358/.424 in a much smaller sample of 19 games in Triple-A.

Notable September Callups

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We’ll track the flurry of notable callups as roster expand on September 1.

Latest Moves

  • The Mets promoted left-hander Daniel Zamora and right-hander Tyler Bashlor from Triple-A, and also selected the contract of second baseman Sam Haggerty.  (The club posted a fun video on its Twitter account of the players receiving the news.)  A 24th-round pick for Cleveland in the 2015 draft, Haggerty came to the Mets last winter part of the trade that sent Kevin Plawecki to the Indians.  Haggerty began the year at low-A ball and worked his way up to the Show after posting a .907 OPS over 49 plate appearances at the Triple-A level.

Earlier Updates

  • The Diamondbacks announced a slew of callups today. Most notably, the club has selected the contract of outfielder Abraham Almonte and recalled right-hander Jon Duplantier. Almonte, 30, has logged time as a reserve each of the past six seasons, to the tune of a career .237/.294/.367 slash (79 wRC+). Duplantier, one of the club’s top pitching prospects, has battled injury issues in recent years but offers a high-upside bullpen piece for the stretch run.
  • The Rays’ September additions include a number of notable players, with Nate Lowe headlining a group of five call-ups. He’ll be joined by Peter Fairbanks and Daniel Robertson, among others.
  • The Braves announced they’ve recalled utilityman Johan Camargo. Camargo was optioned after the club signed Adeiny Hechavarría to replace the injured Dansby Swanson at shortstop. Swanson’s back now, and Hechavarría is still on hand, so it’ll be a tough climb for Camargo, who’s mired in a dreadful season. He’s only a year removed from a productive age-24 campaign, though.
  • The Padres will select the contract of right-handed reliever David Bednar, reports Jon Heyman of the MLB Network (via Twitter). The 24 year-old gets a little lost among the Padres’ loaded system, but he boasts a pair of plus offerings in his fastball and curveball, opine Kiley McDaniel and Eric Lognenhagen of Fangraphs. Despite a less-than-stellar reputation for his command, Bednar has dazzled in the Texas League this season, pitching to a 2.95 ERA with elite strikeout (35.8%) and walk (7.5%) numbers.
  • The Indians announced today they have selected the contracts of Ryan Flaherty and James Hoyt. They’ve also recalled Eric Haase. Flaherty’s solid Triple-A work this year has earned him his seventh consecutive big league season, where he’ll serve as infield depth for the club down José Ramírez. Hoyt logged 72.2 innings with the Astros from 2016-2018 and offers right-handed bullpen depth, while Haase, 26, is a power-hitting catcher with contact issues.
  • The Yankees announced they have selected left-hander Tyler Lyons. The veteran reliever just signed a minor-league contract with the organization a few weeks ago and adds depth to a loaded bullpen. Right-hander David Hale was transferred to the 60-day injured list to clear 40-man space. The Bombers also recalled right-handers Ryan Dull and Chance Adams and outfielder Clint Frazier.
  • The Cardinals have selected catcher Joe Hudson, per a team announcement. The 28 year-old got into eight games last year with the Angels. He’s had a tough season offensively with Triple-A Memphis, slashing .223/.293/.411. Outfielder Lane Thomas was transferred to the 60-day injured list with a season-ending wrist injury. Anne Rogers of MLB.com tweets that veteran backstop Matt Wieters is day-to-day with a calf strain, so the club elected to bring Hudson and Andrew Knizner aboard to bolster their catching depth.
  • The Brewers announced they have selected the contract of first baseman Tyler Austin. A former Yankee, Twin and Giant, Austin has a strong minor-league track record and brings some right-handed power, but has mustered only a .220/.288/.451 line in 556 career MLB plate appearances thanks to untenable strikeout rates.
  • Top Astros prospect Kyle Tucker isn’t up yet, but he will be shortly, tweets Chandler Rome of the Houston Chronicle. Houston’s additional reinforcements will be announced tomorrow, Rome adds. The 22 year-old corner outfielder has again laid waste to the Triple-A Pacific Coast League and has nothing left to prove at the minor-league level, but opportunities have been few and far between in the Astros’ loaded lineup.
  • Just-acquired first baseman Ryan McBroom will be selected to the Royals’ active roster shortly, tweets Jeffrey Flanagan of MLB.com. As Flanagan notes, the 27 year-old was likely to be added to the 40-man this offseason to protect him from the Rule V draft regardless, so there’s little harm in giving him his first taste of MLB action in the meantime. The former 15th-rounder has put up strong offensive numbers throughout his minor-league career, culminating in a .315/.402/.574 line in the Triple-A International League this season.
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