Giants Agree To Minor League Deals With Luis Ortiz, Wei-Chieh Huang
The Giants have agreed to minor league contracts with free-agent right-handers Luis Ortiz and Wei-Chieh Huang, as indicated on the team’s official transactions log at MLB.com.
Both righties have a bit of big league experience, with Ortiz’s 2019 showing in Baltimore standing as the most recent. He’s tallied just 5 2/3 innings in the big leagues, all with the Orioles, and yielded eight runs on 11 hits and eight walks in that time. It’s not an especially impressive showing, but it’s a tiny sample of work for Ortiz, who notably ranked among the game’s top 100 prospects from 2016-17 in the estimation of Baseball America, Baseball Prospectus and MLB.com. He’s the second former top prospect added by the Giants in recent weeks, joining righty Jorge Guzman in that regard.
A former Rangers farmhand, Ortiz has been involved in a pair of notable trades — going from Texas to Milwaukee in the Jonathan Lucroy/Jeremy Jeffress deal before being flipped from Milwaukee to Baltimore as part of the return for Jonathan Schoop. At his prospect peak, Ortiz was praised for a mid-90s fastball, a plus slider and strong command, all of which gave him the upside of a mid-rotation starter.
Ortiz dealt with elbow and forearm troubles early in his pro career, however, and he’s only reached 100 innings in a single season (when he threw 102 between Double-A, Triple-A and Baltimore). He returned to the Rangers on a minor league deal for the 2021 season and worked primarily out of the bullpen in Triple-A Round Rock, where he posted a 4.60 ERA, a 23.4% strikeout rate and a 9.0% walk rate in 43 innings. Ortiz is still just 26 and has had solid results up through the Double-A level, but it’s been a rough go of it for him both in Triple-A and in the Majors.
Huang, 28, reached the bigs with Texas back in 2018 — albeit only for a brief 5 2/3-inning look. He held opponents to a pair of earned runs but also surrendered eight hits and five walks during that short-lived stint. Wang wasn’t with a Major League player pool in 2020, when there was no minor league season, and he didn’t pitch in affiliated ball last year either. However, he’s rattled off three perfect innings in the Dominican Winter League this year, fanning five hitters along the way. He’ll join the Giants org with a career 3.37 minor league ERA in addition to a strong 28.2% strikeout rate and an 8.7% walk rate.
Rangers Release Wei-Chieh Huang
The Rangers announced today that they have released right-handed pitcher Wei-Chieh Huang, who had been playing at the team’s alternate training facility.
Huang was a member of the Rangers’ 60-man player pool, though he was not on the 40-man roster. He was acquired in the 2018 trade that sent Jake Diekman to Arizona.
Huang appeared in four games for the Rangers last year, tossing 5 2/3 innings and working to a 3.18 ERA. He struck out just two batters while walking seven. That said, he has been a strikeout pitcher throughout his minor league career, averaging 12.6 K/9 across three levels of the minors last season.
He hit a bit of a wall at Triple-A in 2019, but the 26-year-old Huang is still relatively inexperienced in the upper minors: since debuting in affiliated ball in 2015, he’s played just 43 games at Double-A or above. With that in mind, the lack of a minor league season in 2020 might be especially costly to his development; this year would have been pivotal for Huang.
Nonetheless, Huang has two option years remaining and, as mentioned, is just 26 years old. He’ll likely get another shot as a depth option with another club who can offer him more exposure in the upper minors.
Rangers Sign Nick Ciuffo, Wei-Chieh Huang To Minors Deals
The Rangers announced that catcher Nick Ciuffo and right-hander Wei-Chieh Huang have been signed to minor league contracts. The two players and utilityman Rob Refsnyder (whose signing was reported last week) will all receive invites to the big league Spring Training camp.
Chosen 21st overall by Tampa Bay in the 2013 draft, Ciuffo has yet to deliver on that potential, with just a .248/.293/.344 career slash line over 1844 minor league plate appearances and 19 MLB games on his resume. That said, Ciuffo doesn’t turn 25 until March, and he has displayed a knack for throwing out baserunners and framing pitches. He represents a no-risk depth option for the Rangers, though Texas already has multiple glove-first backstops in Jose Trevino and Jeff Mathis.
Huang returns to the Rangers after being non-tendered earlier this week, a move that was more about clearing roster space than saving money since Huang isn’t arbitration-eligible for several seasons. The righty only just made his MLB debut in 2019, appearing in four games and tossing 5 2/3 relief innings. Acquired in 2018 as a player-to-be-named-later in the trade that sent Jake Diekman to the Diamondbacks, Huang has some interesting potential as a relief or swingman piece, though he exhibited severe control problems as he climbed up the organizational ladder in 2019. Huang issued 25 walks over 31 Triple-A innings, and five free passes over his brief time with the Rangers.