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Seth Martinez

Marlins Outright Seth Martinez

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The Marlins assigned reliever Seth Martinez outright to Triple-A Jacksonville, according to the MLB.com transaction log. That indicates he cleared waivers after being designated for assignment on Wednesday. Martinez lost his roster spot when the Fish acquired righty Tyler Phillips from the division rival Phillies.

Martinez bounced around the league over the offseason. The Astros waived the out-of-options righty early in the winter. Arizona claimed him and kept him on their 40-man roster for the bulk of the offseason. They designated Martinez for assignment when they signed Kendall Graveman in February. Miami claimed him, lost him on waivers to Seattle a couple weeks later, then claimed him back halfway through Spring Training.

For all the roster shuffling, Martinez hasn’t thrown a big league pitch with anyone other than the Astros. He spent parts of four seasons in Houston’s middle innings group. The 30-year-old worked to a cumulative 3.93 earned run average over 137 1/3 innings. He posted a 3.59 mark across 52 2/3 frames last season. That came with a career-worst 16.2% strikeout rate and a well below-average 8.9% swinging strike percentage. Martinez has subpar velocity for a reliever, averaging 91 MPH on his fastball.

Miami will keep Martinez in the organization as non-roster bullpen depth. He doesn’t have the previous outright or three years of service time necessary to elect free agency. He’ll head to Jacksonville and try to work his way into the big league bullpen.

Marlins Designate Seth Martinez For Assignment

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The Marlins announced Wednesday that right-hander Seth Martinez has been designated for assignment. His spot on the 40-man roster goes to righty Tyler Phillips, whom Miami acquired from the Phillies in exchange for cash today.

It’s another DFA in a whirlwind season for Martinez, who spent the 2021-24 seasons with the Astros organization but has now changed hands four times this offseason alone — and potentially now a fifth. The D-backs claimed Martinez off waivers back in November, and he’s since bounced to Miami, Seattle and back to Miami via waiver claims. The Marlins will have five days to trade Martinez or place him on outright waivers. If placed on waivers, that’d be another 48-hour process. His DFA will be resolved within a week’s time.

Martinez is a soft-tossing righty with a decent, if unspectacular track record as a multi-inning reliever. Over the past three seasons, he’s worked to a combined 3.68 ERA in 134 1/3 innings. The path to that cumulative earned run average was a bit uneven, as Martinez logged a 2.08 mark in 2022 but a 5.23 and a 3.29 in the two subsequent seasons. Collectively, Martinez has posted a 20.8% strikeout rate, 8.9% walk rate and 39.8% grounder rate while averaging 90-91 mph on his sinker and four-seamer during that time.

On top of the solid big league work, Martinez carries a 2.66 ERA in 105 frames across parts of four Triple-A seasons. He’s fanned more than 31% of his opponents in Triple-A over the years. That strong minor league track record, coupled with his recent major league work, could earn him a look from another team. However, Martinez is also out of minor league options, so any team claiming him or acquiring him via trade would need to plug him directly into its big league bullpen.

Marlins Claim Seth Martinez

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The Marlins have claimed right-hander Seth Martinez off the Seattle waiver wire, as announced by the Mariners.  It wasn’t known that Martinez had been designated for assignment, and Martinez only joined the Mariners on another waiver claim from Miami less than two weeks ago. The Marlins went on to announce that left-hander Andrew Nardi was placed on the 60-day injured list with low back inflammation to make room for Martinez’s return to the 40-man roster.

Martinez, 30, was drafted by the Athletics in the 17th round of the 2016 draft but has spent his entire MLB career in an Astros uniform. The right-hander made his big league debut in 2021 for an ill-fated cup of coffee where he surrendered five runs across three innings of work, but provided solid middle relief work for the Astros since then. Martinez’s 2022 season was particularly impressive, as he dominated to the tune of a 2.09 ERA across 38 2/3 innings of work with a 24.5% strikeout rate against a 9.0% walk rate. That production wasn’t entirely supported by more advanced metrics, but his 3.32 FIP and 3.56 SIERA still suggested even his underlying performance was that of a quality relief arm.

Unfortunately, Martinez has not been able to maintain that level of success in the years since. The right-hander’s 2023 campaign was something of a disaster, as he struggled to a 5.23 ERA with a 4.42 FIP in 43 innings of work. While his ERA was inflated by a below-average strand rate and a more than 100-point jump in BABIP, his walk and home run rates both crept upwards as well to make the struggles more than simple bad luck. While the luck-based factors in Martinez’s 2023 season reversed in 2024, allowing him to post a solid 3.59 ERA in 52 2/3 frames for Houston last year, his skills took a major step backward as his strikeout rate plummeted to just 16.2% while he surrendered the most home runs of his career.

Those struggles led the Astros to designate Martinez for assignment back in November, and he’s been riding the waiver wire ever since. The right-hander was first claimed by the Diamondbacks and spent most of the offseason with Arizona, but was DFA’d once again to make room for veteran hurler Kendall Graveman on the Snakes’ 40-man. He was picked up by Miami shortly thereafter and since then has been shipped to Seattle, and now will land back in Miami as a potential bullpen arm for a Marlins club with plenty of interesting rotation arms but very little certainty in their relief corps.

Things are even more unsettled in the Miami bullpen due to Nardi’s placement on the shelf. The southpaw entered camp behind schedule but the club provided little information about his situation, instead only noting that he had “some stuff flare up in the offseason.” Evidently, Nardi’s back issues are serious enough that the club does not anticipate him being ready to pitch before the end of May, an unfortunate development regarding one of the club’s better relief arms. The lefty posted an ugly 5.07 ERA in 2024, but underlying metrics suggested his performance was much stronger than that. He struck out a whopping 33.3% of opponents faced, walked just 8.6%, and kept hard contact to a minimum en route to a 2.76 xERA, a 2.77 SIERA, and a 3.33 FIP.

All of those figures were much more in line with the production Nardi posted in 2023, when he pitched to a 2.67 ERA in 57 1/3 innings of work. Given his excellent peripherals last year and previous success, Nardi seemed to be a likely candidate for a late-inning role with the Marlins this year. This injury will put that on hold for at least the season’s first couple of months, and perhaps longer depending on Nardi’s timetable for a return to action.

Mariners Claim Seth Martinez

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The Mariners announced that right-hander Seth Martinez was claimed off waivers from the Marlins.  Righty Jackson Kowar was placed on the 60-day injured list in Seattle’s corresponding roster move.

Miami designated Martinez for assignment earlier this week, and today’s move makes it four different organizations in a little under four months’ time for the 30-year-old reliever.  After spending his first four MLB seasons with the Astros, Martinez was designated for assignment in early November and claimed by the Diamondbacks.  He then went to the Marlins on another waiver claim on February 20 before being DFA’ed again a week later, and now Martinez finds himself back in the AL West.

Martinez is out of minor league options, which somewhat explains his carousel of an offseason.  With teams prizing flexibility within their bullpens, Martinez’s status makes him something of the proverbial 26th man, while also still having enough value that several teams are interested in having him on their rosters.

Over 111 appearances and 137 1/3 innings with Houston, Martinez often worked as a multi-inning reliever, so the Mariners would deploy him in that same capacity if he ends up on the Opening Day roster.  Martinez has a career 3.93 ERA, though his strikeout rate fell rather sharply from 23.1% in 2023 to just 16.2% last season.  Between that dropoff and other uninspiring Statcast metrics, the Astros felt comfortable in exposing Martinez to DFA waivers, leading to his busy winter of changing teams.

An innings-eating reliever always carries some usefulness, even on a Mariners team with an unusually durable starting rotation.  A good Spring Training performance might help Martinez break camp with the team, or he might find himself on the waiver wire yet again before Opening Day.

Kowar underwent a Tommy John surgery almost exactly one year ago, so he was expected to miss some time at the start of the 2025 season as he finishes up his rehab.  The 60-day IL placement means that Kowar won’t make his 2025 debut until late May at the earliest.

Marlins Claim Brett de Geus, Desigate Seth Martinez For Assignment

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The Marlins announced that they have claimed right-hander Brett de Geus off waivers from the Pirates. The latter club designated him for assignment last week. In a corresponding move, the Marlins designated fellow right-hander Seth Martinez for assignment.

de Geus, 27, has never pitched for the Pirates. They acquired him from the Blue Jays in a cash deal last month. Though when they were able to sign Andrew Heaney last week, de Geus was the roster casualty.

He has bounced around the league quite a bit, pitching for the Mariners, Marlins and Jays last year. His major league work to this point hasn’t been great, as he has a 7.48 earned run average in 61 1/3 innings. His 16.6% strikeout rate and 10% walk rate are both poor marks, but he has generated ground balls on 52.5% of balls in play.

Those grounders are likely why he keeps garnering interest from so many clubs, despite the poor run prevention. He also tossed 39 Triple-A innings last year with a 5.31 ERA, getting grounders at a 56.6% clip.

The raw stuff is also intriguing. de Geus averaged 96.4 miles per hour on his sinker last year and 98 mph on his four-seamer, in addition to throwing a knuckle curve, cutter and splitter. He didn’t translate that arsenal into good results last year but clubs clearly think it’s possible, including the Marlins, as they claimed him off waivers in August. They bumped him off the roster a month later, with de Geus claimed by the Jays, but the Fish have now taken the chance to bring him back into the fold again.

He still has options and therefore won’t need to be guaranteed a roster spot. He also has just a bit more than a year of service time, meaning he can theoretically be affordably controlled for years to come if things click for him.

Martinez, 30, was himself just claimed off waivers a week ago. He is out of options and therefore has less roster flexibility than de Geus. With the quick claim and DFA, it’s possible the Marlins claimed Martinez with the plan to put him right back on waivers in short order. He has less than three years of service time and no previous career outright, so he would stick with the Marlins as non-roster depth if he can be passed through waivers unclaimed.

The righty tossed 137 1/3 innings for the Astros over the past four years with a 3.93 ERA, 20.7% strikeout rate and 9.2% walk rate. Over that same timespan, he also threw 105 innings in the minors with a 2.66 ERA, 31.5% strikeout rate and 10% walk rate. He got put on waivers at the end of last season, getting claimed by the Diamondbacks, though the Snakes put him back on waivers when they signed Kendall Graveman.

The Fish will now have one week of DFA limbo to figure out what’s next for Martinez, whether that’s a trade or another trip to the waiver wire. The waiver process can take as long as 48 hours, so any trade interest would have to be explored in the next five days.

Marlins Claim Seth Martinez

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The Marlins announced that they have claimed right-hander Seth Martinez off waivers from the Diamondbacks. The latter club had designated him for assignment earlier this week. To open a roster spot, the Marlins transferred right-hander Eury Pérez to the 60-day injured list. Pérez is recovering from Tommy John surgery and isn’t expected back until around the All-Star break.

It’s the second waiver claim of the offseason for the 30-year-old Martinez. The Astros put him on waivers at the start of November, just as the offseason was getting going. The Snakes claimed him and kept him for a few months, but he got nudged off their roster when they signed Kendall Graveman a few days ago.

His entire big league track record has been with the Astros thus far. That club added him to their roster late in 2021. He got a cup-of-coffee MLB debut that year, then spent the past three seasons as an up-and-down depth arm for Houston. From his initial selection to the 40-man until being put on waivers, the Astros optioned him 12 times.

In between those trips to Sugar Land, he threw 137 1/3 major league innings for the Astros, allowing 3.93 earned runs per nine. He struck out 20.7% of opponents and gave out walks 9.2% of the time, marks just a bit worse than league average.

His minor league numbers have been a bit more intriguing. He logged 105 innings on the farm over the past four years with a 2.66 ERA. His 10% walk rate in that sample was still a tad high but he paired it with a strong 31.5% strikeout rate.

However, he exhausted his final option year in 2024, meaning he could no longer be freely shuttled to Triple-A and back. That’s why he has twice been put on waivers in the past few months and why he has been claimed today.

The Astros and Diamondbacks are clubs with competitive aspirations, so keeping Martinez in a big league spot would be a bit more tricky. The Marlins should find it far easier, however. As part of their rebuild, they have aggressively sent out players with big league experience, with the bullpen being no exception. Tanner Scott, A.J. Puk, Bryan Hoeing, Huascar Brazobán and JT Chargois were traded at last year’s deadline. Anthony Bender is now the only reliever on the roster with even three years of big league experience.

Before this move, Andrew Nardi was the only other guy over the two-year service mark, but Martinez now joins him in that camp. Though he’s out of options, Martinez could hang onto a spot in Miami’s bullpen if he’s pitching semi-effectively, given the lack of proven options. Most of the other guys in the relief mix are optionable. He should get a chance to post numbers more in line with his minor league track record. If he holds a spot all season, he can theoretically be retained via arbitration through 2028.

Diamondbacks Designate Seth Martinez For Assignment

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The Diamondbacks announced that right-hander Seth Martinez has been designated for assignment. That’s the corresponding move for their signing of fellow righty Kendall Graveman, which is now official.

Martinez, 30, has never suited up for the Snakes. He was just claimed off waivers from the Astros in November, shortly after the World Series. He lasted on the roster through most of the winter but has been nudged off today.

All of his major league experience has been with Houston thus far. He was added to that club’s roster late in 2021 and spent several years as a fringe member of the bullpen, getting optioned to the minors 12 times since getting that roster spot.

Around those trips on the shuttle, he tossed 137 1/3 major league innings for the Astros, allowing 3.93 earned runs per nine. His 20.7% strikeout rate, 9.2% walk rate and 39.6% ground ball rate to this point are all close to average but a bit worse than the mean. He also tossed 105 minor league innings over the past four years with more intriguing numbers. He had a 2.66 ERA in that work, along with a 31.5% strikeout rate and 10% walk rate.

He exhausted his final option year in 2024, which means he’ll be less valuable from a roster flexibility standpoint going forward. That likely played a role in the Astros bumping him off their roster. The Diamondbacks were presumably intrigued enough by his minor league strikeouts to claim him and hang onto him for a while but he’s been squeezed off a roster yet again.

Martinez will now be in DFA limbo for a maximum of seven days. He will likely be put back on waivers, which is a 48-hour process, so the Diamondbacks could explore trade interest for the next five days. If any club acquired Martinez, he has a bit more than two years of service time, meaning he still hasn’t qualified for arbitration and can be theoretically controlled for four seasons. However, his aforementioned out-of-options status will give him a bit of a challenge in sticking somewhere.

Diamondbacks Sign Kendall Graveman

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February 17: The Graveman signing is now official, with righty Seth Martinez designated for assignment as the corresponding move.

February 14: The Diamondbacks are reportedly in agreement with veteran reliever Kendall Graveman on a one-year, $1.35MM deal. The signing is still pending a physical. Graveman, a client of Sports One Athlete Management, will earn $1.25MM this season and has a $100K buyout on a $5MM mutual option for the 2026 season. The deal includes another $1.95MM in performance bonuses. Arizona will need to create a 40-man roster spot when the deal is finalized.

Graveman, 34, missed the 2024 season while recovering from shoulder surgery but had a strong run between the Mariners, Astros and White Sox across the three prior seasons. The former starter moved to a relief role late in the 2020 season after returning from Tommy John surgery and found fast success in a high-leverage role. From 2021-23, Graveman pitched 187 1/3 innings with a 2.74 ERA, 51 holds, 24 saves, a 24.5% strikeout rate and a 10.4% walk rate.

Though last season was lost to shoulder troubles, Graveman was cleared to begin throwing late last summer. He progressed through a normal offseason throwing and conditioning program and is ready for spring training.

When he’s been healthy, Graveman has relied upon a power sinker sitting north of 96 mph, pairing that offering with an upper-80s slider and a lesser-used changeup that sits 89-90 mph. That heavy sinker has allowed him to consistently post ground-ball rates comfortably north of 50%. The right-hander lost a bit of life on all those pitches in 2023 and saw his command erode considerably in the season’s second half, following a trade from the White Sox back to the Astros.

It’s possible shoulder issues contributed to both those red flags, of course. It’ll be telling how he looks early in camp and early in the season. If Graveman is back to 96-98 mph with his sinker and can get his walk rate back down to the 9% range — it was at 12.4% in 2023 — he’ll be a formidable piece in what should be a strong Diamondbacks bullpen.

D-backs general manager Mike Hazen has been open about his desire to add a closer this offseason. While Graveman may not be handed the role out of the gate, he adds a talented and experienced option for manager Torey Lovullo to consider. If he can get back to 2021-23 form, it’s easy to see Graveman factoring into the ninth inning. Prior to this agreement, the Snakes appeared likely to lean on some combination of A.J. Puk, Justin Martinez and Kevin Ginkel in save opportunities.

The addition of Graveman pushes the Diamondbacks’ payroll a bit north of $195MM, per RosterResource. That’s a franchise-record mark by a wide margin, shattering the previous highwater mark of $163MM, set just last year. Prior to the 2024 season, the D-backs had never opened the season higher than $132MM. They’ve been heavily involved in both the trade and free agent markets in each of the past two offseasons, however, with no bigger strike coming than the club-record $210MM investment in newly signed ace Corbin Burnes.

Since Graveman only bumps the payroll by $600K over a league-minimum player, it’s at least feasible that the D-backs could remain engaged in the market for additional bullpen help. David Robertson and Kyle Finnegan both remain unsigned and have ample closing experience. Craig Kimbrel and Hector Neris are both still out there as well and looking to rebound from shaky 2024 campaigns, while Daniel Bard is an even more extreme rebound candidate as he looks to rebound from flexor tendon surgery that cost him all of the 2024 campaign with his 40th birthday looming in June. The trade market presents additional possibilities, of course, but Hazen said just yesterday that any forthcoming bullpen acquisitions would likely be made via free agency.

ESPN’s Jesse Rogers first reported the D-Backs and Graveman had a one-year deal. MLB.com’s Steve Gilbert was first with the $1.35MM guarantee. Rogers reported the maximum $3.3MM value after incentives, while Nick Piecoro of the Arizona Republic reported the mutual option/buyout.

Diamondbacks Claim Seth Martinez

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The Diamondbacks announced that right-hander Seth Martinez was claimed off waivers from the Astros.  It hadn’t been publicly reported that Martinez had been designated for assignment, but the 30-year-old reliever will now change teams for the second time in his career.

Selected away from the Athletics in the 2020 Rule 5 Draft, all 137 1/3 of Martinez’s career big league innings have come in a Houston uniform.  The righty has a career 3.93 ERA, 20.7% strikeout rate, and 9.2% walk rate, and his 2024 numbers included a 3.59 ERA, 16.2K%, and 8.1% walk rate in 52 2/3 frames.  Martinez spent most of the season on the Astros’ big league roster, though after the All-Star break, Houston shuttled him back and forth from Triple-A on multiple occasions.

Martinez is now out of minor league options, which probably tied into the Astros’ decision to put the right-hander on waivers.  Though he hasn’t yet reached arbitration eligibility and is under team control through 2028, the Astros felt comfortable moving on from Martinez, leaving Arizona able to pick up a controllable reliever for its bullpen mix.

There’s no risk for the D’Backs in taking a look at Martinez during Spring Training, and for now the club at least has a placeholder of a reliever in place as they look to remake their bullpen.  Arizona’s relief corps was a weak link for the team in 2024, and Martinez represents the type of lower-cost reliever that GM Mike Hazen has tended to target during his time running the Diamondbacks’ front office.

Astros Place Tayler Scott On 15-Day Injured List

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The Astros announced that right-hander Tayler Scott has been placed on the 15-day injured list due to a thoracic spine strain.  The placement is retroactive to September 18.  Seth Martinez was called up from Triple-A in the corresponding move.

Signed to a minor league contract last winter, Scott has been an underrated gem of an acquisition for Houston’s front office.  The righty has a 2.23 ERA and 25.2% strikeout rate over 68 2/3 innings, as well as an elite 3.5% barrel rate.  While he has had a lot of problems avoiding the free pass (12.4% walk rate), Scott has unexpectedly emerged to make the third-most appearances of any Astros pitcher this season.

These numbers were even better before Scott ran into difficulties over his last five outings, with a 6.35 ERA amassed in those 5 2/3 innings of work.  It seems quite possible that his injury contributed to this recent downturn in form, and the spinal strain has now ended his regular season.  More will be known about Scott’s status later today when manager Joe Espada meets with the media, but it certainly seems possible that Scott’s readiness for the Astros’ postseason rosters could be in jeopardy.

His first career playoff appearance would be the icing on the cake for the 32-year-old Scott, who has now established himself in his fourth Major League season.  Scott had only a 9.00 ERA in 46 career MLB innings prior to this year, all amassed with six different teams during the 2019, 2022, and 2023 seasons.  (Scott pitched for the Hiroshima Carp of Nippon Professional Baseball in 2020-21).  Despite his age, Scott doesn’t have enough MLB service time to qualify for salary arbitration until the 2025-26 offseason, and the Astros control his rights through the 2028 campaign.

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