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Tucker Barnhart

Rangers Re-Sign Tucker Barnhart To Minor League Deal

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The Rangers announced that catcher Tucker Barnhart has been re-signed to a minor league deal. He had just elected free agency yesterday after clearing waivers. He’ll presumably report to Triple-A Round Rock in the coming days.

Though the Rangers just bumped Barnhart off their roster, they are likely happy to have him back in a non-roster capacity. At the big league level, they have Jonah Heim and Kyle Higashioka splitting the catching duties but they don’t have any other backstops on the 40-man.

Barnhart, 34, signed a minor league deal with the Rangers and came into the year as the top depth option at the position. That got him to the majors when Higashioka suffered a hamstring injury. He didn’t get much playing time, however. In over a month on the roster, he got into eight contests and made 15 plate appearances with a .231/.333/.231 line.

If either Heim or Higashioka heads to the injured list later this year, Barnhart will have a good chance of coming back up to the majors since he has over a decade of big league experience. He’s never been a huge threat at the plate, with a career .241/.318/.351 line and 78 wRC+, but he has received lots of praise for his glovework over the years.

Photo courtesy of David Butler II, Imagn Images

Tucker Barnhart Elects Free Agency

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The Rangers announced that catcher Tucker Barnhart has elected free agency. That indicates that he has passed through waivers unclaimed after being designated for assignment over the weekend.

Barnhart, 34, signed a minor league deal with the Rangers in the offseason. He was called up to the big leagues at the end of April as Kyle Higashioka battled a hamstring injury, replacing Higashioka as the backup to Jonah Heim. Higashioka was on the injured list for most of the first half of May. Barnhart stuck on the roster even once Higashioka was reinstated, giving the club three catchers for a while.

Naturally, that didn’t lead to a lot of playing time for Barnhart. Though he spent over a month on the roster, he only got into eight games and stepped to the plate just 15 times, producing a .231/.333/.231 line in those.

As a veteran with years of big league experience, Barnhart can’t be sent to the minors without his consent, so the Rangers bumped him off the 40-man. His experience also gives him the right to reject an outright assignment and elect free agency, so he will now look for his next opportunity.

The fact that he cleared waivers suggests there isn’t a major league job available for him right now but he should have no trouble finding a minor league offer if he wants one. He has now appeared in 924 major league games dating back to his 2014 debut. His .241/.318/.351 line translates to a wRC+ of 78 but he has a strong reputation for his work while donning the tools of ignorance.

Photo courtesy of David Butler II, Imagn Images

Rangers Place Nathan Eovaldi On Injured List, DFA Tucker Barnhart

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The Rangers are placing right-hander Nathan Eovaldi on the 15-day injured list, according to a report from Shawn McFarland of the Dallas Morning News. Right-hander Codi Heuer is being selected to the big league roster to replace Eovaldi on the pitching staff, while catcher Tucker Barnhart was designated for assignment to make room for Heuer on the 40-man roster. It’s not yet clear who will replace Barnhart on the active roster.

Eovaldi has been utterly dominant in his age-35 campaign, with a 1.56 ERA through 12 starts this year. His last start on May 27 was abbreviated due to fatigue in his right triceps, and his departure from that game was initially labeled as precautionary. Losing him for any amount of time is a brutal blow to an already struggling Rangers club, but the good news is that manager Chris Young told reporters (including McFarland) that this IL stint is still largely out of precaution; Eovaldi isn’t dealing with any structural damage, but the team is just hoping to get the veteran additional time to heal up. His IL stint can be backdated to May 28, meaning that Eovaldi could return as soon as June 12 against the Twins. Eovaldi’s spot in the rotation is expected to be taken by Kumar Rocker, who Young suggested will come off the injured list on Wednesday.

In the short-term, Eovaldi’s spot on the roster will go to Heuer. The right-hander turns 29 next month, but hasn’t pitched in the majors since 2021. He excelled with the White Sox out of the bullpen during his rookie season in 2020 and then was included alongside Nick Madrigal in the trade that sent Craig Kimbrel from the Cubs to the White Sox at the 2021 trade deadline. At the time of the deal, Heuer looked like a future high-leverage arm and posted a solid 3.14 ERA in 28 2/3 innings of work down the stretch for the Cubs.

Unfortunately, Heuer underwent Tommy John surgery in Spring Training of 2022. He missed that entire season, and then missed all of the 2023 season as well when he suffered an elbow fracture while rehabbing from that surgery. The devastating sequence of injuries led the Cubs to non-tender Heuer following the 2023 season. He signed a minor league contract with the Rangers prior to the 2024 season and has remained in the organization ever since. He finally made it back to a professional mound earlier this year and has pitched quite well at Triple-A, with a 3.27 ERA in 22 innings of work to go with a 26.3% strikeout rate. Heuer will now have an opportunity to re-establish himself as a potential late-inning arm in the majors for a Rangers club that could use additional help in the bullpen with top setup man Chris Martin on the shelf.

As for Barnhart, the journeyman catcher is in his 12th season as a big leaguer. After winning two Gold Glove awards in his seven seasons as the primary catcher for the Reds from 2015 to 2021, Barnhart signed with Detroit for the 2022 season and appeared in 94 games but has bounced around the league as a part-time player ever since. After stints with the Cubs and Diamondbacks in 2023 and ’24, Barnhart was serving as a third catcher for the Rangers this year while Kyle Higashioka was getting more regular reps at DH. He made it into just eight games with the club in total, however, and now the Rangers will have one week to either trade Barnhart or attempt to pass him through waivers. If Barnhart clears waivers, he’ll have more than enough service time to reject an outright assignment in favor of free agency.

Rangers Select Tucker Barnhart, Designate Dane Dunning For Assignment

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6:12pm: Texas officially announced the Barnhart selection and Dunning’s DFA. They did not place Higashioka on the injured list tonight.

4:45pm: The Rangers are going to select catcher Tucker Barnhart to their roster, reports Evan Grant of The Dallas Morning News. That will give them some help behind the plate as Kyle Higashioka battles hamstring tightness. Right-hander Dane Dunning will be designated for assignment as the corresponding move. This will give the active roster a 14/12 split in terms of position players and pitchers, at least for now.

Higashioka played last night but it appears he hurt his hamstring in the process. Per Kennedi Landry of MLB.com and Jeff Wilson of DLLS Sports, an injured list stint is possible but the MRI results are still pending. Whether he goes on the IL or not, it seems he might be unavailable for a day or two, so the club has brought up another backstop to support Jonah Heim.

Barnhart, 34, signed a minor league deal with the Rangers in the offseason. He has been playing for Triple-A Round Rock thus far, hitting .246/.354/.391 in 20 games for that club. He appeared in each big league season from 2014 to 2024, so this will be his 12th straight campaign if he gets into a game.

Broadly speaking, he’s been a glove-first catcher. He has a career .241/.318/.351 batting line, production which translates to a wRC+ of 78. He has tapered off a bit in recent years, with a .208/.286/.255 line and 58 wRC+ since the start of 2022, which is why he had to settle for a minor league deal.

Defensively, his framing marks have been subpar for his entire career, but better recently. With both Baseball Prospectus and Statcast, his early-career framing was considered poor, but closer to average over the past six years. His blocking and throwing have been more consistently strong. He’ll step in as Heim’s backup until Higashioka is ready to return to action.

Dunning, 30, was only added to the roster on Monday. The Rangers are in a patch of playing 13 straight games, leading to heavy use of the pitching staff. Caleb Boushley tossed two innings on Sunday, so the Rangers swapped Dunning in to take over as the club’s long man. Dunning entered last night’s game with the Rangers up 12-0 after six innings, relieving starter Jacob deGrom. Dunning absorbed the final three frames as they went on to win 15-2. He allowed two earned runs on four hits and two walks.

He’ll now head into DFA limbo and will likely be placed on waivers. Back in March, he was passed through outright waivers unclaimed, which allowed the club to keep him as non-roster depth and bring him back this week.

He and the club avoided arbitration in November, agreeing to a salary of $2.66MM this year. No club was willing to claim him and take on that salary just over a month ago, not too surprising since he had a 5.31 earned run average last year. He posted a 5.40 ERA in five starts for Round Rock before being called up this week. Since he has more than three but less than five years of service time, he will have the right to elect free agency if he clears waivers again. However, doing so would mean forfeiting what’s left of that money, so he would likely accept as he did last month.

Most clubs operate with the 13-pitcher maximum at all times but the Rangers should be okay at 12 for a short spell. Since Dunning was the only reliever to pitch last night, the rest of the bullpen got a night off. Perhaps another pitcher will be added if Higashioka goes on the IL. Or if he avoids the IL, Barnhart might be bumped off the roster for a fresh arm.

Photo courtesy of Joe Camporeale, Imagn Images

Rangers Release Nick Ahmed, Re-Sign Hunter Strickland To Minors Deal

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The Rangers announced this evening that they’ve released shortstop Nick Ahmed. In addition, they’ve re-signed right-hander Hunter Strickland to a minor league deal after Strickland was himself released by the club yesterday. The news comes not long after president of baseball operations Chris Young told reporters (including MLB.com’s Kennedi Landry) that a group of eight non-roster veterans had been informed they would not be making the Opening Day roster. Aside from Ahmed, that list includes Adrian Houser, JT Chargois, Joe Barlow, David Buchanan, Tucker Barnhart, Chad Wallach, and Matt Festa. While the specific contract situations aren’t known for all of those players, Jeff Wilson of DLLS Sports writes that the Rangers won’t block any non-roster invitee from pursuing a big league opportunity elsewhere should they so desire.

So far, Ahmed appears to be the only player in that group to take the Rangers up on that and seek his release. The 35-year-old veteran spent the first ten seasons of his career in Arizona, winning two Gold Glove awards during that time and serving mostly as a capable glove-first option at shortstop for the Diamondbacks. Ahmed began to struggle with injuries and ineffectiveness later in his tenure with the club, however, and appeared in just 89 games with a .216/.258/.332 (58 wRC+) slash line in 264 trips to the plate between the 2022 and ’23 seasons. That led Ahmed to hit the open market for the first time in his career last winter, and he ultimately spent the 2024 campaign bouncing around the other contending NL West clubs with 52 games in San Francisco, 17 with the Dodgers, and two as a Padre.

Ahmed’s numbers at the plate last year were once again lackluster, as he hit a paltry .229/.267/.295 overall with a 59 wRC+, though he provided steady defense in L.A. and San Diego amid injuries to incumbent shortstops Mookie Betts and Ha-Seong Kim. If a club suffers an injury at shortstop, it wouldn’t be difficult to imagine him finding a role with a big league club as a glove-first placeholder, though it’s also possible he’ll simply search for a minor league opportunity with a club that’s less settled at shortstop than the Rangers, for whom Corey Seager is entrenched as an everyday player.

As for Strickland, the veteran of ten MLB seasons has had an up-and-down career. The righty debuted in 2014 with the Giants and dominated out of the bullpen with a 2.64 ERA and 3.15 FIP over his first four years in the big leagues, but things took a turn for the worse after that. In three seasons split between the Giants, Mets, Mariners, and Nationals, Strickland posted a brutal 4.68 ERA and 4.92 FIP, both well below league average figures. He enjoyed a bit of a renaissance in 2021, pitching to a solid 2.61 ERA across 57 appearances for the Rays, Angels, and Brewers, but struggled for the Reds in 2022 and did not pitch in the majors the following year. He returned to the big leagues for Anaheim last year and posted a solid enough 3.31 ERA, though his 4.45 FIP and issues with the long ball (ten homers allowed in 73 1/3 innings) both left much to be desired. Now that he’s back in the fold, he’ll stick with the Rangers as a non-roster depth option headed into the season.

As for the other players besides Ahmed told they will not be making the team today, the most notable among those is Houser, who appeared to be in the mix for the club’s rotation after injuries sidelined Cody Bradford and Jon Gray. The club signed Patrick Corbin to a big league deal so he could serve as rotation depth, but with Corbin not expected to be ready for Opening Day the exclusion of Houser from the big league rotation would seemingly leave the final two rotation jobs behind Nathan Eovaldi, Jacob deGrom, and Tyler Mahle for youngsters Jack Leiter and Kumar Rocker despite uneven spring performances from both former first-round picks.

Rangers Sign Tucker Barnhart To Minors Contract

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The Rangers have signed catcher Tucker Barnhart to a minor league contract, FanSided’s Robert Murray reports.  The deal includes an invitation to the Rangers’ big league Spring Training camp, and Barnhart will earn $1MM if he makes the Texas roster.

Barnhart is the second veteran catcher the Rangers have acquired in the last two weeks, after inking Kyle Higashioka to a two-year, $13.5MM deal.  Jonah Heim is still the starting backstop in Arlington, but Heim’s struggles in 2024 left the Rangers looking for more depth, so Higashioka is expected to get more playing time than a normal backup.  With these two locked into catching duties on the MLB roster, Barnhart and Sam Huff could be Triple-A depth unless an injury emerges.

A two-time Gold Glover from his days as the Reds’ starting catcher, Barnhart’s glovework helped paper over some only serviceable numbers at the plate.  However, Barnhart’s once-modest offensive production has continued to sharply decline, while his glovework dropped to below-average in the view of Defensive Runs Saved (-2) and Statcast’s Catcher Runs metric (-3).

It should be noted that these numbers came in a limited sample size, as Barnhart appeared in only 31 big league games with the Diamondbacks last season.  Even when starter Gabriel Moreno was injured, the D’Backs preferred Jose Herrera for a lot of playing time, and Barnhart was the one designated for assignment and ultimately released after Moreno returned from the injured list.  Barnhart landed with his old team in Cincinnati on a minors deal in August, but his return to the Reds didn’t result in any MLB playing time.

Barnhart has a .241/.318/.351 slash line in 3088 plate appearances across 11 seasons with the Reds, Tigers, Cubs, and Diamondbacks.  Presumably his contract includes the standard veteran opt-out clauses, so Barnhart could end up back on the open market again if he doesn’t see a clear path to playing time on the Rangers’ roster prior to Opening Day.

Reds Sign Tucker Barnhart To Minor League Deal

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The Reds have signed catcher Tucker Barnhart to a minor league deal, per Jon Heyman of The New York Post on X. Barnhart was released by the Diamondbacks almost a month ago. He will presumably report to Triple-A Louisville at some point in the coming days, though he may also report elsewhere for a tuneup after having a few weeks off.

Barnhart, now 33, returns to the organization that he has spent most of his career with. He was drafted by the Reds in 2009 and played in the big leagues with them from 2014 to 2021. He got into 744 big league contests in that time, hitting .248/.324/.371 for a wRC+ of 82. He generally received strong grades for his blocking and work with the running game. His framing grades were poor early in his career but improved significantly starting in 2019.

Since leaving Cincinnati, his offense has fallen off from what was already a fairly low baseline. He was traded to the Tigers going into 2022 and hit .221/.287/.267 that year for a 61 wRC+. Despite that lackluster performance at the plate, the Cubs signed him to a two-year deal with a $6.5MM guarantee going into 2023. He hit .202/.285/.257 with the Cubs for a wRC+ of 53 and was released by August. He joined the Diamondbacks this year, with the Cubs still on the hook for the second year of his deal, but slashed .173/.287/.210 for a 51 wRC+ and got released last month.

All told, Barnhart has hit .208/.286/.255 in 527 plate appearances since the start of 2022 but his defensive work continues to get decent grades. There’s no real cost to the Reds, as the Cubs are still paying him for the latter portions of that two-year deal, so the Reds would only have to pay him the prorated portion of the league minimum salary for any time he eventually spends on their roster.

The club has Tyler Stephenson and Luke Maile as their catching duo at the moment but lost a bit of depth recently. Austin Wynns has been the club’s third catcher for much of the year and he was recently up with the Reds while Maile was on the IL, but then Wynns himself hit the IL with a lat strain. Eric Yang was briefly added to the roster to cover for Wynns but then Maile came off the IL and Yang was outrighted.

With Wynns hurt, Stephenson and Maile are the only two healthy catchers on the 40-man. Barnhart will join Yang and P.J. Higgins as non-roster depth options who could be called upon if either Stephenson or Maile need to miss time again.

Diamondbacks Release Tucker Barnhart

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The D-backs have released veteran catcher Tucker Barnhart following last week’s DFA, per the team’s transaction log at MLB.com. He’s now a free agent.

Barnhart, 33, signed a minor league deal with the Snakes back in January. He’s technically in the second season of a two-year, $6.5MM contract signed with the Cubs in the 2022-23 offseason. Chicago released him from that contract last August after he hit just .202/.285/.257 in 123 plate appearances. The Dodgers quickly scooped him up on a minor league deal but didn’t bring him to the majors before season’s end.

Things didn’t go much better for Barnhart in Arizona. He received a comparable number of plate appearances (96) but also posted comparable results: .173/.287/.210. Meanwhile, 27-year-old Jose Herrera posted a .260/.351/.362 batting line in Triple-A Reno this season, leading the D-backs to go with the younger switch-hitting Herrera as the preferred backup to Gabriel Moreno.

Barnhart was a regular with the Reds from 2015-21 and for a few years graded as one of baseball’s premier defensive catchers. The two-time Gold Glove winner has never been a strong offensive performer, but his bat has dwindled to the point where the benefit from his glove is no longer a a clearly worthwhile trade-off. Barnhart batted .249/.327/.380 during that lengthy run with the Reds but has produced a .208/.286/.255 slash in 527 plate appearances between three teams (Tigers, Cubs, D-backs) since leaving Cincinnati.

Any team seeking catching depth can now sign Barnhart with virtually no risk. He’d only be owed the prorated league minimum for any time spent on a new team’s major league roster/injured list. The Cubs are on the hook for the remainder of this year’s $3.25MM salary.

Diamondbacks Place Jordan Montgomery On Injured List

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The D-Backs shook a few things up in advance of their series with the Dodgers. Arizona reinstated catcher Gabriel Moreno from the 10-day injured list and designated backup Tucker Barnhart for assignment. (Nick Piecoro of the Arizona Republic reported those forthcoming moves over the weekend.)  The Snakes placed starter Jordan Montgomery on the 15-day injured list, retroactive to June 29, on account of right knee inflammation. Arizona also optioned young infielder Blaze Alexander to Triple-A Reno. Center fielder Alek Thomas is back from the 10-day IL, while the D-Backs recalled righty Gavin Hollowell to take a spot in the bullpen.

Montgomery has had a nightmarish season. The veteran southpaw agreed to terms on a $25MM pillow contract just before Opening Day. As with fellow late signee Blake Snell, he has had significant struggles with that abbreviated ramp-up. Montgomery agreed to head to Reno for a few starts as a tune-up. He was recalled in mid-April but hasn’t found anything close to his typical form.

Over 13 starts, Montgomery carries a 6.03 ERA in 65 2/3 innings. He’s striking out a well below-average 15.1% of opposing hitters. Montgomery had punched out more than 21% of batters faced in each of the previous three seasons. He allowed fewer than four earned runs per nine in each year while combining for a 3.48 ERA over 94 starts. The average velocity on his sinker is down from its customary 93 MPH range to 91.7 MPH.

It’s impossible to know how much of Montgomery’s struggles are attributable to the unconventional start to the season. It seems fair to presume that has played some role. Whatever the primary cause, Montgomery hasn’t provided anything close to the kind of production Arizona envisioned. The D-Backs hoped he’d step in as a mid-rotation replacement after Eduardo Rodriguez suffered a Spring Training lat strain. Instead, he’s been arguably the weakest point in a starting staff that remains the team’s biggest question mark.

Arizona recently welcomed Zac Gallen back from the injured list. They’re still without Rodriguez and Merrill Kelly. Righty Brandon Pfaadt has been solid, but the D-Backs haven’t gotten much out of Slade Cecconi and Ryne Nelson. They’ll need to find a fifth starter this week, as Arizona doesn’t have another off day until the All-Star Break. That might be righty Cristian Mena. Alex Weiner of AZ Sports tweets that Mena is with the big league club in Los Angeles, though he’s not yet on the roster. Acquired from the White Sox for Dominic Fletcher over the winter, the 21-year-old Mena has a 4.90 ERA with a 24.4% strikeout rate in 16 Triple-A starts. Joe Mantiply will kick off a bullpen game tonight; Montgomery had been slated to start tomorrow’s contest.

On the position player side, Moreno and Thomas draw back into the lineup. The former had a minimal IL stay with a thumb sprain. He’ll return to his role as the primary catcher. Barnhart’s DFA means the D-Backs will stick with José Herrera in the #2 catching role. Thomas has missed the bulk of the season because of a hamstring strain. He played in only four games before going down. That pushed Corbin Carroll into center field. Carroll should move back to right field, which could cut into the playing time for Jake McCarthy and Randal Grichuk.

It pushes Alexander off the MLB roster for the time being. The 25-year-old logged a good chunk of playing time at shortstop while Geraldo Perdomo was on the shelf. Upon Perdomo’s return, manager Torey Lovullo suggested he’d get Alexander more playing time at third base while cutting into Eugenio Suárez’s workload. Alexander got regular run for about two weeks but fell into a slump, hitting .138 without an extra-base knock in 33 plate appearances. Suárez has started five of the past six games at the hot corner. With Kevin Newman playing reasonably well as a utility option who cannot be optioned, the D-Backs send Alexander back to Reno for more consistent playing time.

Diamondbacks To Designate Tucker Barnhart For Assignment

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The Diamondbacks are designating catcher Tucker Barnhart for assignment, according to Nick Piecoro of the Arizona Republic. Piecoro indicates that the move will clear space on the club’s roster for Gabriel Moreno to be activated from the injured list prior to the club’s next game against the Dodgers on Tuesday.

Barnhart, 33, made Arizona’s Opening Day roster as the primary backup to Moreno over Jose Herrera. The veteran has struggled mightily this year, however, slashing just .165/.283/.190 in 94 trips to the plate with the Snakes this season. That line includes a surprisingly strong 13.8% walk rate, but those decent on-base skills are outweighed by his massive 33% strikeout rate and complete lack of power (as evidenced by an ISO of just .025). When Moreno went on the IL with a sprained thumb, Herrera was called up to the big leagues to join Barnhart in the catching tandem, and evidently the club has decided that they’d prefer to leave the 27-year-old in the backup role once Moreno returns from the injured list on Tuesday.

The veteran backstop has struggled to be productive at the plate throughout the majority of his career, as evidenced by a career 78 wRC+ and a 68 wRC+ over the past five seasons. Barnhart has generally made up for that lack of offensive production with a strong glove behind the plate, even winning two Gold Glove awards during his tenure with the Reds. That aspect of his game has dried up in recent years, however. After regressing defensively during his time with the Cubs last year, Barnhart was below average by all three of Statcast’s defensive metrics for catchers: Blocks Above Average, CS Above Average, and Framing. Given that reality, it’s easy to see why Arizona would turn to Herrera, who is similarly limited on offense but appears to be a superior defender as compared to Barnhart at this stage of his career.

Taking Barnhart’s place on the roster will be Moreno, who last suited up for the Dbacks on June 21 and has been nursing a thumb sprain since then. The 24-year-old youngster is in his second season with Arizona after coming over alongside Lourdes Gurriel Jr. in the Daulton Varsho trade during the 2022-23 offseason. Moreno has performed solidly behind the plate in 172 games with the Diamondbacks, slashing .265/.330/.385 with a roughly league average 97 wRC+ and strong grades for his defense at catcher.

Once Barnhart’s DFA becomes official, the Diamondbacks will have seven days to either work out a trade involving the veteran or attempt to pass him through waivers. If he goes unclaimed on waivers, Arizona could attempt to outright him to the minor leagues as a non-roster depth option, but the 11-year MLB veteran has more than enough service time to reject such an assignment and test free agency.

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