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Seth Martinez

Astros Designate Pedro Baez For Assignment

By Steve Adams | April 26, 2022 at 3:59pm CDT

The Astros have designated right-hander Pedro Baez for assignment and recalled righty Seth Martinez from Triple-A Sugar Land, the team announced Tuesday.

Baez, 34, is just weeks into the second season of a two-year, $12.5MM contract that also contained a club option for the 2023 season. He missed the majority of the 2021 season due to shoulder troubles, however, pitching just 4 1/3 innings. He’s been limited to 2 1/3 frames thus far in 2022, during which time he’s been clobbered for six runs (three earned) on five hits and three walks with two punchouts. Baez’s fastball, which averaged nearly 98 mph at its peak and sat at 96 mph as recently as 2019, has averaged just 90.2 mph so far in 2022.

Houston will technically have a week to trade Baez or place him on outright waivers, but that’s a generally moot point. Another team isn’t going to take on the remainder of this season’s $5.5MM salary or the $2MM buyout he’s still owed on next year’s club option — not with his recent shoulder troubles and alarming velocity dip. Even if Baez were to be passed through outright waivers, he could reject an outright assignment to a minor league affiliate, elect free agency and retain his salary based on the level of big league service time he’s accrued.

The most likely outcome here is that the Astros will eat the remaining $4.91MM on Baez’s salary, as well as the $2MM buyout on next year’s option and simply release him. Baez would be free to sign with a new club, at which point that team would only owe him the prorated league minimum for any time he spent in the Majors. That sum would be subtracted from the $6.91MM the ’Stros otherwise owe him.

Disheartening as Baez’s brief time with the Astros was, he was a well-regarded late-inning arm for the Dodgers in the years leading up to his free agency. From 2014-20, Baez tallied 356 innings of 3.o3 ERA ball with 100 holds, three saves, a 25.3% strikeout rate and an 8.2% ground-ball rate. He tacked on another 29 1/3 innings of 3.99 ERA ball in the playoffs, and if you set aside a rough showing in the early stages of his career (2014-15), Baez notched a 2.70 mark in 26 1/3 postseason innings from 2016-20.

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Houston Astros Newsstand Transactions Pedro Baez Seth Martinez

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Astros Activate Jake Odorizzi, Option Seth Martinez

By TC Zencka | September 26, 2021 at 12:49pm CDT

The Astros activated Jake Odorizzi to start today’s game against the A’s. To clear a roster spot, Seth Martinez has been optioned to Triple-A, per Jake Kaplan of the Athletic (via Twitter).

Odorizzi’s postseason role is not yet clear, but he can nonetheless provide value here in the waning days of the regular season. He should have two more starts to audition for playoff usage. The 31-year-old has tossed 96 innings with a 4.22 ERA/4.60 FIP, 21.3 percent strikeout rate, 7.7 percent walk rate, and 35.8 percent groundball rate.

Though the Astros have lost three in a row, they should clinch the AL West sometime in the next couple of days. They could clinch as early as today with a win over the A’s and a Mariners loss. Houston can begin to think ahead to setting up their playoff rotation for an ALDS showdown with the White Sox.

Martinez, 27, had just a cup of coffee, making three appearances this past week. After a pair of scoreless outings, Martinez was tagged for five earned runs his last time out against Oakland on Friday.

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Houston Astros Transactions Jake Odorizzi Seth Martinez

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Astros’ Prospect Freudis Nova Undergoes Knee Surgery

By Anthony Franco | September 23, 2021 at 5:20pm CDT

SEPTEMBER 23: Nova underwent surgery to repair the ACL injury, Jake Kaplan of the Athletic was among those to relay. He’s expected to miss the first half of the 2022 season. The Astros will need to reinstate Nova from the injured list over the offseason, but they can place him back on the 60-day IL at the start of next season to reopen 40-man roster space. Nova will receive major league salary and service time as long as he’s on the major league 60-day IL.

SEPTEMBER 20: The Astros are selecting reliever Seth Martinez to the MLB roster, relays Chandler Rome of the Houston Chronicle. Peter Solomon has been optioned to Triple-A Sugar Land in a corresponding move. To clear space for Martinez on the 40-man roster, minor league infielder Freudis Nova has been recalled and placed on the major league 60-day injured list.

Martinez is up for his first major league action. The right-hander was selected by the division-rival A’s in the 17th round of the 2016 draft coming out of Arizona State University. He spent the next four seasons in the Oakland system, topping out at Double-A. The Astros snagged him in the minor league phase of last winter’s Rule 5 draft and gave him an opportunity at the minors’ top level.

In his first crack against Triple-A hitters, Martinez has found plenty of success working in a multi-inning relief capacity. He’s soaked up 56 2/3 frames over 35 appearances with the Skeeters, posting a 2.86 ERA despite the generally hitter-friendly Triple-A environment. Martinez has backed that run prevention up with fantastic peripherals, striking out a huge 33.5% of opposing hitters while issuing free passes at an 8.8% rate. The 27-year-old has impressively gotten better at missing bats as he’s faced higher-level opponents. After posting just a 20% strikeout rate in Low-A in 2017, he’s successively improved his strikeout percentage year by year (25% at High-A in 2018, 29% at Double-A in 2019, 34% this season in Triple-A) to earn himself a big league look.

Nova, who was added to the 40-man roster last offseason to keep him from selection in the Rule 5 draft, has spent the 2021 season with High-A Asheville. The 21-year-old suffered a torn ACL in his left knee last week. Obviously, he won’t play again this year and it wouldn’t be a surprise if the issue affects his early-season availability in 2022. (The team didn’t provide any sort of timetable on his recovery).

It’s a disappointing development for one of the Astros’ more promising infield prospects. A high-profile amateur signee out of the Dominican Republic in July 2016, Nova quickly rose near the top of the organization in the eyes of some evaluators. His stock has slipped thanks to disappointing performances in recent seasons — including a .224/.301/.335 line in 282 High-A plate appearances this year — but he still checked in 27th on Baseball America’s midseason update of Astros’ farmhands.

In a bit of a silver lining in an otherwise frustrating situation, Nova will at least pick up his first big league service time and pay for the season’s final two weeks. Players on the minor league injured list don’t accrue MLB service or pay but do continue to count against a team’s 40-man roster. In order to open the 40-man spot, the Astros will give Nova a bump in salary for the rest of the regular season.

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Houston Astros Transactions Freudis Nova Seth Martinez

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