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Padres Sign Jason Heyward

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February 11: The Padres have officially announced the deal. Per Kevin Acee of the San Diego Union-Tribune, Heyward is guaranteed $1MM with another $250K available via incentives. Jon Heyman of The New York Post provides details on those incentives, with Heyward getting $50K for getting to 200, 250, 300, 350 and 400 plate appearances.

February 7: The Padres have reached agreement with Jason Heyward on a free agent deal, reports Dennis Lin of The Athletic. Lin indicates that Heyward is expected to split time in left field with San Diego’s other recent free agent pickup, Connor Joe. Terms are unreported, but it seems likely to be a one-year major league deal for the Excel Sports Management client. The Padres have four openings on the 40-man roster and can accommodate Joe and Heyward without any corresponding moves.

Heyward is headed into his age-35 season. He has spent the past two years as a left-handed platoon bat in the corner outfield. That role suited him quite well in 2023. Heyward caught on with the Dodgers after being released by the Cubs before what would have been the final season of his eight-year contract. He had his best offensive showing in some time, hitting .269/.340/.473 with 15 homers across 377 plate appearances.

The Dodgers brought him back on a $9MM contract early last offseason. He was unable to match the previous year’s production. Heyward missed six weeks early in the season rehabbing a lower back injury. He hit fairly well immediately upon his return but suffered a bone bruise in his left knee at the beginning of July. That knocked him out of action for another three weeks. He fell into a slump upon coming back from that injury. The Dodgers designated him for assignment towards the end of August.

Heyward was sitting on a .208/.289/.393 line when the Dodgers cut him. He quickly landed a big league deal with the Astros, where he fared a bit better in a small sample. Heyward hit four homers in 24 games with Houston, posting a .218/.283/.473 slash across 61 trips to the plate. He cracked the playoff roster and got the start in left field for Game 2 of Houston’s Wild Card series loss at the hands of the Tigers.

Between the two teams, Heyward finished the year with a .211/.288/.412 slash over 258 plate appearances. He posted roughly average strikeout and walk rates while showing a bit of power, connecting on 10 homers in around a half-season’s worth of playing time. He hit a lot of ground-balls to the pull side, though, an approach that wasn’t conducive to strong ball in play results. His .226 average on balls in play was a career low; only seven hitters with 250+ plate appearances had a lower BABIP.

Heyward has only taken 50 plate appearances against left-handed pitching over the past two seasons. He’s hitting .188 with a .220 on-base percentage in that tiny sample. The Padres will limit him to almost exclusively facing right-handers. He had a .214/.298/.422 line with the platoon advantage last year and is two seasons removed from a strong .276/.347/.471 showing against righties. It’s unlikely that he’ll get back to the ’23 level, but he can potentially turn in slightly above-average numbers with the platoon advantage. Joe, a right-handed hitter, had a .251/.353/.418 line against left-handed pitching over his two seasons with the Pirates.

The Friars used David Peralta as a lefty platoon corner outfielder last season. He hit .273/.329/.431 across 234 plate appearances in that role — strong work for a player who joined the team on a minor league deal in the middle of May. Peralta remains unsigned, while the Friars didn’t make a serious effort to retain Jurickson Profar because of payroll limitations. A Heyward/Joe platoon is going to be a significant step down from Profar’s unexpected .280/.380/.459 performance. They were inevitably going to downgrade at the position. Profar played last season on a $1MM salary, making him the biggest bargain signing of last offseason.

Neither the Joe nor Heyward terms have been reported, but they’ll each be modest deals. They join Elias Díaz’s $3.5MM signing as San Diego’s free agent acquisitions this winter. RosterResource calculates their competitive balance tax payroll around $247MM (pending the Joe and Heyward deals). That puts them about $6MM above the luxury tax threshold; they ended last season with a CBT number in the $228MM range. A late-offseason trade to clear payroll and add affordable help to the back of the rotation remains a possibility.

Image courtesy of Imagn.

Marlins Claim Ronny Henriquez, Designate Xzavion Curry For Assignment

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The Marlins announced that they have claimed right-hander Ronny Henriquez off waivers from the Twins. The latter club had designated him for assignment last week. To open a roster spot, the Marlins have designated right-hander Xzavion Curry for assignment.

Henriquez, 25 in June, came up through the minors as a starter but has been kept mostly in a relief role for the past two seasons. To this point in his career, he has thrown 31 innings in the big leagues over 19 appearances, including one start. He has allowed just 2.90 earned runs per nine in that small sample. His 18.2% strikeout rate is subpar but his 6.1% walk rate and 53.1% ground ball rate are both strong numbers.

He made 34 Triple-A appearances last year, just three of those being starts, logging 55 innings overall. In that time, he had a 3.44 ERA, 24.9% strikeout rate, 7.2% walk rate and 53.8% ground ball rate.

That was a pretty decent season on the farm but he exhausted his final option year, meaning he’s now out of options going into 2025. That got him squeezed off the Minnesota roster when the Twins needed to make space for their signings of Danny Coulombe and Harrison Bader.

For the Marlins, they are clearly not targeting a competitive year in 2025. Their offseason has mostly focused on subtractions, as they have traded controllable players like Jesús Luzardo to the Phillies and Jake Burger to the Rangers.

Their bullpen is fairly wide open. They traded Tanner Scott, A.J. Puk, Bryan Hoeing, Huascar Brazobán and JT Chargois at last year’s deadline. Now Anthony Bender is the only reliever on the club with more than three years of service time and Andrew Nardi is the only other guy over the two-year line. In short, Henriquez has much better odds of sticking on the roster in Miami than he did with a competitive club like the Twins.

If he manages to hold onto a spot, he’ll be affordable and controllable for quite a while. He has less than a year of service time, meaning he’s still at least two years away from arbitration and six years from free agency. Though of course, that all depends on him performing well enough to avoid another DFA from his new club.

Curry, 26, was claimed off waivers from the Guardians in August. He has 147 innings of big league experience with a 4.35 ERA, 15.7% strikeout rate and 6.9% walk rate. He tossed 60 2/3 minor league innings last year with a 6.97 ERA, 18.5% strikeout rate and 9.6% walk rate.

The Marlins will now have a week of DFA limbo to figure out what’s next for Curry, whether that’s a trade or some fate on waivers. He was once a notable prospect in the Cleveland system, which could intrigue some clubs. Over 2021 and 2022, he tossed 219 2/3 innings in the minors with a 3.28 ERA, 28.7% strikeout rate and 6.5% walk rate. He was then kept in the big league bullpen in 2023 before struggling last year.

Curry still has an option remaining, so he could be kept as minor league depth if any club is willing to give him a 40-man spot. If he passes through waivers unclaimed, he would provide the Marlins with some non-roster depth. He has less than three years of service time and doesn’t have a previous career outright, meaning he won’t have the right to reject an outright assignment.

Braves Sign Jake Diekman, Dylan Covey To Minor League Deals

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The Braves have added three more pitchers to their list of non-roster invitees, as relayed by Justin Toscano of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. They are left-hander Jake Diekman as well as righties Dylan Covey and Chad Kuhl. MLBTR covered the Kuhl deal last week.

Diekman, 38, has a long track record of walking a tightrope with a lot of strikeouts but also a lot of free passes. In 602 1/3 innings of relief dating back to his 2012 debut, he has allowed 3.91 earned runs per nine. His 28.7% strikeout rate in that time is a few ticks above average and his 46.9% ground ball rate around par, but his 13.4% walk rate is definitely on the high side.

He’s coming off a down year. He signed a $4MM deal with the Mets but was released in early August. He had a 5.63 in 32 innings. His 27.6% strikeout rate was near his usual range but his 16.6% walk rate was high, even for him. Among pitchers with at least 30 innings pitched last year, only youngsters Nick Nastrini and Joe Boyle had higher walk rates. He didn’t sign anywhere else for the final two months of the season.

Upgrading the bullpen has been a priority for Atlanta this offseason. They lost guys like A.J. Minter, Jesse Chavez and others to free agency at season’s end. In early November, it was reported that Joe Jiménez might miss all of 2025 while recovering from knee surgery.

Seemingly operating with a tight budget, they haven’t been too active in pursuing upgrades to the relief mix. Anderson Pilar was brought in via the Rule 5 draft and is arguably the most notable addition to this point.

They don’t specifically need a lefty, as they already have Dylan Lee, Aaron Bummer and Angel Perdomo in the mix, but Diekman doesn’t have huge splits regardless. Lefties have a .229/.344/.311 line against him in his career whereas righties have hit .210/.329/.357. He’s not coming off a great season but he adds some experienced depth for cheap, and without taking up a roster spot for now.

Covey, 33, is coming off a mostly lost season but had some intriguing results the year prior. After spending 2021 and 2022 pitching for the Rakuten Monkeys in Taiwan’s Chinese Professional Baseball League, he split 2023 between the Dodgers and Phillies. He logged 43 innings between those two clubs with a 3.77 ERA. His 15.7% strikeout rate was low but he got grounders on 54.3% of balls in play.

A shoulder strain kept him on the shelf for most of 2024. He didn’t pitch in the majors at all and was limited to 20 1/3 innings on the farm. 15 of those innings were at the Triple-A level with intriguing results in a small sample. He had a 1.20 ERA at that level, 27.6% strikeout rate, 12.1% walk rate and 71.4% ground ball rate.

The Phils had outrighted him off their roster in August and he elected free agency at season’s end. He signed a split deal with the Mets but was recently outrighted off that club’s roster and elected free agency. Like Diekman, he’ll give Atlanta some cheap rotation depth without taking up a roster spot for now.

Yankees Claim Brent Headrick, Designate Owen White For Assignment

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The Yankees announced they have claimed left-hander Brent Headrick off waivers from the Twins. Right-hander Owen White has been designated for assignment in a corresponding move. There wasn’t any previous indication that Headrick had been bumped off Minnesota’s roster, so their 40-man count drops to 39. Phil Miller of the Minnesota Star Tribune reported the claim prior to the official announcement.

It’s possible that the Twins made this move on account of the calendar. Teams around the league can start using the 60-day injured list to open roster spots once pitchers and catchers report to camp. That means it will be harder to pass a player through waivers unclaimed in the coming days, as all clubs open their respective camps. The Twins seemingly tried to open a roster spot just ahead of that unofficial deadline but didn’t succeed.

Headrick, 27, will now join a new club for the first time in his career. He was selected by the Twins in the ninth round of the 2019 draft and worked his way up to the majors. He was added to the club’s 40-man roster in November of 2022 to keep him out of that year’s Rule 5 draft.

His 2024 was largely wiped out by injury. After just two Triple-A appearances, he landed on the minor league injured list with a forearm strain. He didn’t start a rehab assignment until late August. He finished the year with 19 1/3 innings tossed on the farm and another three in the majors. Prior to that, he seemed like a viable rotation depth option. Over 2022 and 2023, he logged 183 1/3 innings in the minors, mostly as a starter. In that time, he had a 3.88 ERA, 28.8% strikeout rate and 6.7% walk rate.

After his mostly lost season, the Twins tried to pass him though waivers but the Yankees are intrigued enough that they have grabbed him. It’s possible that they will want Headrick to focus more on relief work. That would be a reflection of his injury-marred 2024 but also the situation in the Bronx. The Yankees have a crowded rotation and are reportedly trying to trade Marcus Stroman. But their bullpen has just one lefty in it right now: 35-year-old groundballer Tim Hill.

Headrick does still have one option remaining, so the Yanks don’t need to guarantee him an active roster spot. But if he’s healthy and pitches well, he could come up and fill a clear need in the bullpen.

White, 25, was just claimed off waivers last week. Once a notable prospect in the Rangers’ system, he was designated for assignment by that club in December. He went to the Reds in a cash deal before then going to the Yankees via waivers.

The past two years have been rough for him. He has a 16.71 ERA in his tiny sample of seven big league innings. His 4.90 ERA in the minors over 2023 and 2024 was better but not great. That was in the hitter-friendly Pacific Coast League but his 18.3% strikeout rate and 11.3% walk rate in that time weren’t great numbers.

Prior to that, White had been one of the top pitching prospects in the league. Over the 2021 and 2022 seasons, he tossed 115 2/3 innings in the minors with a 3.42 ERA, 34.1% strikeout rate and 7.5% walk rate.

The Yankees will have to trade him or put him on waivers in the coming days. White still has an option year remaining and less than a year of service time. Given his past prospect pedigree and the aforementioned opening of the 60-day IL, some club will likely find a spot for him. DFA limbo can last a week but the waiver process takes 48 hours, so any trade talks would need to come together in the next five days.

Angels Claim Michael Petersen, Designate Kelvin Cáceres For Assignment

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The Angels announced that they have claimed right-hander Michael Petersen off waivers from the Blue Jays. The latter club had designated him for assignment last week. To open a roster spot, the Angels designated fellow righty Kelvin Cáceres for assignment.

Petersen, 30, made his big league debut with the Dodgers last year, pitching 14 innings with a 6.43 ERA. He went from Los Angeles to the Marlins via waivers late in the year and tossed another five innings for Miami. Overall, he finished with a 5.95 ERA, 15.6% strikeout rate and 12.2% walk rate in his first 19 2/3 innings in the majors.

The U.K.-born Petersen spent his career prior to last season with the Rockies and Brewers organizations. He’d joined the Dodgers on a minor league pact and posted lights-out numbers in Triple-A: 1.64 ERA, 35.2% strikeout rate, 6.4% walk rate in 33 innings. Petersen’s towering 6’7″ frame only makes his 97 mph heater and upper-80s cutter play up. That power arm, last year’s huge numbers in the minors and multiple minor league option years have combined to make a popular waiver target. The Angels will be his fourth organization since September.

Cáceres, 25, missed the entire 2024 season after undergoing surgery to repair a torn lat. He made his MLB debut with the 2023 Angels but pitched just 1 1/3 innings in that brief cup of coffee. He’s posted solid numbers in the minors with the Halos, most recently working to a combined 4.12 ERA with a 34.8% strikeout rate and 13.1% walk rate in 54 2/3 innings across three levels. That included a dominant 10-inning run in Triple-A, where he allowed just one run on five hits and five walks with 11 strikeouts.

Cáceres sits 95-96 mph with his heater and couples the pitch with a curveball and changeup. He still has multiple minor league options remaining, so perhaps another club will be intrigued by the optionable power arm and place a claim or work out a small trade. His health outlook remains murky for now, but an optionable 25-year-old with a power arm and a history of missing bats is the type of prospect teams love to speculate on if they have the roster space.

Reds, Josh Staumont Agree To Minor League Deal

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The Reds and free agent reliever Josh Staumont have agreed to a minor league deal, per the team’s transaction log at MLB.com. He’ll be invited to major league camp this spring. The right-hander is represented by Excel Sports Management.

Staumont has spent his entire career to date in the AL Central, pitching for the Royals from 2019-23 before spending the 2024 season with the Twins. The former Kansas City second-rounder showed some breakout potential early in his career when he pitched to a 2.93 ERA in his first 110 2/3 innings, punching out 27% of his opponents along the way. That ability to miss bats was keyed in large part by a fastball that sat north of 98 mph and often climbed into the triple digits.

Command troubles have long been an issue for Staumont, however, and his location issues were compounded by injury problems as his career progressed. He walked more than 15% of his opponents in 2022-23 while arm troubles limited him to 57 2/3 innings. His average heater “dipped” to a still-strong 96.2 mph. In 2023, Staumont was eventually diagnosed with symptoms concurrent with thoracic outlet syndrome. He underwent season-ending surgery that July.

The Twins signed Staumont to a one-year deal worth $950K last winter, hoping that he could recapture some of his early-career form. His bottom-line 3.70 ERA in 24 1/3 innings wasn’t bad by any means, but Staumont sat at a career-low 94.3 mph with his four-seamer and 95.1 mph with his sinker. His once-excellent strikeout rate fell to a well below-average 17.6%, and he walked a weighty 13.7% of his opponents. He was designated for assignment prior to the trade deadline and released in early August. Staumont signed a minor league deal with the Cubs but wasn’t called to the majors. He pitched in just two Triple-A games for the Cubs’ Iowa affiliate, facing nine batters and walking five of them.

At this point, Staumont is a project and depth piece for the Reds. He’ll need to regain velocity (or learn to succeed with diminished stuff) and scale back his increasingly worrisome walk rates if he’s to get back into his 2019-21 form. There’s no risk bringing him aboard on a minor league deal, however. He’ll compete for a spot in a bullpen that just added the former Royals closer for whom Staumont served as a setup man: Scott Barlow. Cincinnati’s bullpen will include Barlow, Alexis Diaz, Taylor Rogers, Sam Moll, Brent Suter and Tony Santillan, health permitting, but there should be at least a pair of relief jobs up for grabs this spring.

Astros To Sign Luis Guillorme To Minor League Deal

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The Astros and infielder Luis Guillorme have agreed to a minor league deal, reports Brian McTaggart of MLB.com. The MVP Sports Group client also gets an invite to big league camp, per Chandler Rome of The Athletic.

Guillorme, 30, is a glove-first utility guy. He was able to produce offense around league average in the 2020 to 2022 seasons, which made him a useful player for the Mets. Unfortunately, his bat fell off in 2023, so the Mets non-tendered him.

That sent him into journeyman mode last year. He started the season with Atlanta and eventually bounced to the Angels and Diamondbacks. He produced a line of .205/.301/.273 between those three clubs, his second straight poor season at the plate. His combined line over 2023 and 2024 was .213/.296/.295 for a wRC+ of 68, indicating he was 32% below league average.

As mentioned, he was better before that. He slashed .278/.367/.344 over the three previous seasons, leading to a 107 wRC+. He didn’t provide much pop, with just three home runs in 559 plate appearances, but he walked at a 12% rate and only struck out 15.4% of the time. When combined with his glovework, FanGraphs credited him with 3.1 wins above replacement in 201 games over that three-year period.

Defensively, Guillorme has 1,339 1/3 innings at second base, 604 at third and 229 1/3 innings at shortstop. Both Defensive Runs Saved and Outs Above Average have given him a grade of +7 at the keystone in his career, while his work at the other two spots has been considered close to average.

The Astros have a question mark at second base for the first time in years. Jose Altuve has had that position locked down since he debuted in the summer of 2011. He’s never been a great defender and the metrics have soured on him further recently. Since he’ll turn 35 years old in May, the club is reportedly considering a move to left field for Altuve.

Those reports originally surfaced in connection with rumors that they were still considering re-signing Alex Bregman, which would push Isaac Paredes from third to second. However, it has since become clear that Altuve could be moving to left field with or without Bregman involved. If Bregman signs elsewhere and Altuve ends up on the grass, the club will need solutions at second base.

Mauricio Dubón is on the roster but would ideally be deployed in a super utility role, playing infield and outfield. Shay Whitcomb and Zach Dezenzo are on the 40-man but neither has more than 20 games of MLB experience, and Dezenzo is more of a corner infielder regardless. The Astros signed Zack Short to a minor league deal last month for some extra non-roster depth and now Guillorme gives them another candidate to look at in camp.

The fact that Guillorme hits from the left side probably helps as well, since that has been a focus of the club this offseason. Yordan Alvarez is the only lefty hitter that seems locked into an everyday role at this point. Ben Gamel was signed as a possible outfield addition, though his deal isn’t fully guaranteed and he could be squeezed out if Altuve ends up in left. Guys like Jon Singleton and Taylor Trammell are also lefty swingers who could be on the bench, with Guillorme possibly joining them.

Yankees Sign Ronaldo Hernandez To Minor League Deal

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The Yankees signed catcher Ronaldo Hernández to a minor league contract, per a team announcement. He’ll be in major league camp as a non-roster invitee.

Hernández, 27, was once a highly-regarded prospect. The Colombian-born backstop ranked among Baseball America’s top 100 prospects entering the 2019 season. He slotted among the top 10 farmhands in the Tampa Bay system through 2020. The Rays dealt him to the Red Sox during the 2020-21 offseason in what turned out to be a lopsided trade that landed Jeffrey Springs. While Springs broke out as a productive starter with the Rays, Hernández stalled out in the upper levels of the Sox’s system.

The Sox called Hernández up for a pair of brief stays on the MLB roster in 2022. He didn’t make it into a game and was outrighted off the 40-man during the ensuing winter. Hernández remained in the Boston system until last offseason, when he joined the Diamondbacks on a minor league deal. He hit 11 homers with a strong .311/.357/.507 showing over 63 games for their Triple-A club in Reno but didn’t get a major league call.

Austin Wells will get the bulk of the playing time behind the dish in the Bronx. New York traded Jose Trevino to Cincinnati for reliever Fernando Cruz and dealt depth catcher Carlos Narváez to the Red Sox in a minor trade in December. Aside from Wells, J.C. Escarra and Jesus Rodriguez are the only catchers on the 40-man roster.

The 22-year-old Rodriguez hasn’t played above Double-A and won’t be in consideration for the Opening Day roster. Escarra, who turns 30 in April, had a solid season in the upper minors last year. He probably has the leg up on the backup catcher job going into camp, but he has yet to play in the majors. Alex Jackson, acquired from Cincinnati in the Trevino trade, joins Hernández as a non-roster invitee to Spring Training.

Marlins Sign Janson Junk To Minor League Deal

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The Marlins announced that right-hander Janson Junk has been signed to a minor league deal. The Beverly Hills Sports Council client will be in major league spring training as a non-roster invitee.

Junk, 29, spent 2024 bouncing around the league. He started the year with the Brewers as a depth arm, getting frequently recalled and optioned back down to the minors. The club designated him for assignment in late July when Devin Williams came off the 60-day injured list. Junk was put on waivers and claimed by the Astros, then went to the Athletics via another waiver claim about a month later. The A’s outrighted him off their roster shortly thereafter and he was able to elect free agency at season’s end.

Around those transactions, he was only able to toss eight innings in the majors. He also got limited big league work in the previous three campaigns, so he now has a 6.75 earned run average in 40 innings in his career overall. His 18% strikeout rate in that time is subpar but his 5.8% walk rate has been good and his 44.3% ground ball rate around average.

His minor league track record has naturally been larger and more impressive. Over the past four years, he has tossed 367 innings on the farm with a 3.83 ERA, 20.5% strikeout rate and 7.2% walk rate. That includes 60 1/3 Triple-A innings in 2024, working both out of the rotation and bullpen, with a 3.58 ERA, 21.3% strikeout rate, 8.3% walk rate and 46.3% ground ball rate.

The Marlins have a fair amount of uncertainty on their pitching staff. In the rotation, they recently traded Jesús Luzardo and lost Braxton Garrett to season-ending surgery. Eury Pérez will return from his surgery this year, but probably not until the All-Star break. As of now, Sandy Alcántara, Ryan Weathers, Edward Cabrera and Max Meyer project as the front four, with guys like Valente Bellozo, Adam Mazur and others in the mix for back-end jobs.

In the bullpen, the Marlins traded away Tanner Scott, A.J. Puk, Bryan Hoeing, Huascar Brazobán and JT Chargois at the deadline. They current have no relievers with more than four years of service time, with Anthony Bender the only one over the three-year mark and Andrew Nardi the only other one beyond the two-year line. In short, it’s wide open.

Since Junk has pitched both as a starter and reliever, he’ll give the Fish a bit of extra depth in both departments. If he makes it to the majors, he is out of options, which will limit his roster flexibility. If he does get a roster spot, he has less than a year of service time, so he can be cheaply retained for the foreseeable future.

Yankees, Tyler Matzek Agree To Minor League Deal

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The Yankees are in agreement with free agent reliever Tyler Matzek on a minor league deal, reports Chris Cotillo of MassLive. There’s presumably a non-roster invite to MLB camp for the PSI Sports Management client.

Matzek held a showcase for teams last month. He evidently showed enough for the Yanks to give him a look in Spring Training. Matzek is looking to rebound after injuries limited him to 11 big league appearances in 2024 — none of which came after May 4.

The veteran southpaw began the year in the Braves’ bullpen. Opponents tagged him for 11 runs over 10 innings. Atlanta placed him on the injured list with elbow inflammation during the first week of May. Matzek remained on the shelf for more than three months. Atlanta dealt him to the Giants as a salary offset in the Jorge Soler deadline acquisition.

San Francisco released Matzek rather than plug him into the MLB bullpen when he was healthy. Atlanta circled back to re-sign the 34-year-old to a minor league deal. He pitched four times with Triple-A Gwinnett and didn’t earn a call up. He qualified for free agency at season’s end.

Elbow issues have derailed Matzek in consecutive seasons. He underwent Tommy John surgery during Atlanta’s postseason run in 2022. That cost him the entire ’23 campaign. He’d had a strong three-year run for the Braves between 2020-22. Matzek combined for a 2.92 earned run average while striking out more than 27% of batters faced in 135 2/3 innings. His fastball had sat in the 94-96 MPH range during that time. The velocity ticked down ever so slightly in his return from surgery; he averaged 93.6 MPH on the heater last year.

There should be a decent opportunity for Matzek to break camp if he impresses in Spring Training. New York only has one lefty reliever on their 40-man roster: the recently re-signed Tim Hill. Aside from Matzek, they’re bringing two southpaws to camp as non-roster invitees. Brandon Leibrandt has seven MLB appearances, while Jayvien Sandridge has yet to reach the majors.

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