Reds Release Ryan Raburn
The Reds have released outfielder Ryan Raburn, Zach Buchanan of the Cincinnati Enquirer writes (Twitter links). As Buchanan previously noted, Raburn was an Article XX(B) free agent, meaning that the team had until tomorrow to add him to their roster, and if they hadn’t, either offer him a $100K retention bonus or release him.
The Reds’ Opening Day roster seems likely to include a four-man bench. The team still has Desmond Jennings, Hernan Iribarren, Patrick Kivlehan and Tony Renda in camp competing for the bench spot Raburn might have occupied.
The Reds signed Raburn to a minor-league deal near the beginning of Spring Training. The 35-year-old was coming off a disappointing .220/.309/.404 season with the Rockies, although he batted .301/.393/.543 with Cleveland the previous season. He batted just .219 this spring, although he posted a .324 OBP and had a .500 slugging percentage and three home runs.
Nationals Release Joe Nathan, Matt Albers
Veteran closer Joe Nathan has been told he will not make the Nationals and has opted out of his minor-league deal with the team, according to tweets from various reporters, including Jamal Collier of MLB.com and Chelsea Janes of the Washington Post. The Nationals have announced that they’ve formally released Nathan, along with fellow righty Matt Albers. The Nats signed both pitchers to minor-league deals in late January.
The 42-year-old Nathan missed much of the past two seasons after having Tommy John surgery, though he fared well (albeit in a very small sample) in 6 1/3 innings with the Cubs and Giants last year. He’s now over three years removed from his last full, strong season in the big leagues — he posted a 1.39 ERA, 10.2 K/9 and 3.1 BB/9 while making the All-Star team for the Rangers in 2013. He has 377 career saves, but he’s not done — he hopes to latch on with another team, as MASN’s Mark Zuckerman tweets. Nathan did post a solid 3.86 ERA with nine strikeouts and three walks in 11 2/3 innings this spring, so teams in need of bullpen help could view him as a possibility.
The 34-year-old Albers is coming off a poor season with the White Sox in which he posted a 6.31 ERA, 5.3 K/9 and 3.3 BB/9 over 51 1/3 innings. He was effective in several consecutive seasons with various clubs before that, however, and seems unlikely to have trouble finding a minor-league deal elsewhere should he seek one.
Alejandro De Aza Opts Out Of Athletics Contract
MONDAY: De Aza has in fact opted out, Slusser tweets.
SUNDAY: Alejandro De Aza is expected to exercise the opt-out clause in his minor league deal with the A’s on Monday, Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle reports. De Aza is the second notable A’s veteran to opt out in as many days, after Ross Detwiler used his clause earlier today.
De Aza signed his deal with Oakland in January and would’ve earned $1.25MM if he had cracked the roster. Instead, it looks like the A’s will go with Mark Canha and Jaff Decker as their primary backup outfielders, though Slusser notes that Dacker could be on the outs if the Athletics decide on an eighth reliever rather than a fourth bench player. (Utilityman Adam Rosales can play a corner outfield spot in a pinch.)
De Aza, who turns 33 in April, is coming off a tough season with the Mets that saw him hit .205/.297/.321 in 267 PA. This was much less playing time than De Aza expected to receive when he originally signed with New York last winter, though after the Mets unexpectedly re-signed Yoenis Cespedes, De Aza fell behind Cespedes, Curtis Granderson, Michael Conforto and Juan Lagares on the depth chart.
From 2011-15, De Aza hit a solid .270/.335/.413 over 2324 PA and he owns a similar batting line in his career splits against right-handed pitching. Since De Aza is a left-handed bat who can provide passable defense at all three outfield spots, I’d guess that many of the teams linked to Angel Pagan (such as the Braves, Blue Jays, Phillies, Nationals, or Pirates) could potentially check in on De Aza’s services.
Minor MLB Transactions: 3/26/17
Here are the latest minor moves from around baseball, with the newest transactions at the top of the post…
- The Brewers have acquired catcher Tyler Heineman from the Astros, as per the Crew’s official Twitter feed. Houston receive cash or a player to be named later in return. Heineman, 25, was an eighth-round pick for the Astros in the 2012 draft and he has a .283/.361/.399 slash line over 1543 career minor league plate appearances. Heineman has been assigned to the Brewers’ minor league camp, and he looks slated to provide the Crew with some extra catching depth while Andrew Susac is on the DL with a trapezius issue. Manny Pina and Jett Bandy look to form Milwaukee’s catching corps on the Opening Day roster.
Rockies Select Mark Reynolds’ Contract
The Rockies have officially selected the contract of first baseman Mark Reynolds, as per a team announcement. In a corresponding move to create roster space, Chad Bettis has been placed on the 60-day DL as the right-hander continues his battle with testicular cancer.
Reynolds rejoined the Rockies on a minor league deal in February that guaranteed him a $1.5MM for making the MLB roster. The veteran slugger will have another $2MM more available to him through incentives.
With Ian Desmond sidelined for much of April due to a fracture in his left hand, the path was clear for Reynolds to win a spot as Colorado’s regular first baseman. Rookies Stephen Cardullo and Jordan Patterson are locked in an interesting battle over the backup first base job. Cardullo has been one of the Rockies’ best hitters in camp, though the club would have to create a 40-man roster space for him; Patterson is already on the 40-man and is a left-handed hitter, better complementing the righty-swinging Reynolds.
Reynolds hit .282/.356/.450 with 14 homers over 441 plate appearances for the Rockies last season, a good performance on paper that was aided by both a .361 BABIP and hitter-friendly Coors Field. Reynolds had been decidedly less productive over the previous three seasons, hitting .216/.303/.395 over 1369 PA with the Cardinals, Brewers, Yankees, and Indians. Still, if Reynolds has been somewhat revived by playing in the thin air, he provides an inexpensive veteran bat and pretty solid glovework as Desmond’s temporary replacement.
Braves Sign David Hernandez To Minor League Deal
The Braves have signed reliever David Hernandez to a minor league contract, the team announced. The right-hander hit the market when the Giants released him Friday.
[RELATED: Updated Braves Depth Chart]
The 31-year-old Hernandez would provide another experienced bullpen option if he were to make the Braves, who have fellow 30-something relievers on hand in Jim Johnson, Eric O’Flaherty and Josh Collmenter. Hernandez might have a legitimate shot to crack Atlanta’s roster, too, as Mark Bowman of MLB.com reported Saturday that righties Mauricio Cabrera and Armando Rivero are likely to open the season on the disabled list.
The Braves are the fifth major league organization for Hernandez, who debuted with the Orioles in 2009 and has registered a 4.10 ERA, 9.13 K/9, 3.83 BB/9 and a low ground-ball rate (31.6 percent) over 487 innings. He posted similar numbers to his career totals last year in Philadelphia, where he logged a 3.84 ERA with 9.91 K/9 against 3.96 BB/9 and a 37.3 percent grounder rate in 72 2/3 frames. Hernandez has typically helped offset his paltry ground-ball totals by inducing plenty of infield pop-ups (13.5 percent career rate), and he features a 94 mph fastball.
Yankees Release Jon Niese
12:37pm: Niese will take 24 to 48 hours to see if any other teams are interested in his services, per Sherman, but he’s “leaning toward” re-upping with the Yankees. Niese would then begin the year in extended spring training, where he’d work to increase the mid-80s fastball velocity he has flashed this spring (Twitter links).
10:42am: The Yankees have released left-hander Jon Niese, per a team announcement.
Niese worked almost exclusively from the rotation with the Mets and Pirates from 2008-16, an 1,189-inning span in which he logged 197 starts in 211 appearances and posted a 4.07 ERA, 6.92 K/9, 2.78 BB/9 and a 50.1 percent ground-ball rate. However, he totaled a career-high nine relief appearances between New York and Pittsburgh last year, when he endured the worst season of his career, and then had to settle for a minor league pact with the Yankees in February. That came toward the end of a quiet offseason for the soft-tossing Niese, who paired a bloated ERA (5.50) with a sky-high home run-to-fly ball ratio (22.1 percent) in 121 innings in 2016.
Although the Bombers are lacking experience in the rotation after Masahiro Tanaka, CC Sabathia and Michael Pineda, they didn’t consider Niese for a starting role. Instead, they gave him an opportunity to make their roster as a reliever, which he wasn’t able to accomplish. The Yankeees are open to keeping Niese in their system, tweets the New York Post’s Joel Sherman, who adds that there’s a “strong possibility” that he’ll head to their minor league camp to build up his arm strength.
Rays Sign Derek Norris
TUESDAY: Norris’ deal comes with $250K in incentives for 50, 75, 100 and 125 days on the big league roster, tweets Jon Heyman of FanRag. He’ll also collect $250K if the Rays trade him.
SUNDAY: To make room for Norris, the Rays have placed right-hander Kevin Gadea on the 60-day DL with elbow tendinitis, according to Topkin. If healthy, the Rays would have returned the Rule 5 pick to the Mariners (Twitter links).
SATURDAY: The Rays have officially announced the signing. A corresponding move to create a 40-man roster spot will come later today, Topkin tweets, with the simplest scenario being that Ramos would be placed on the 60-day DL.
FRIDAY, 3:40pm: Norris will earn $1.2MM and can add another $800K via incentives, Topkin tweets. That’ll be on top of the $688K or so he’s owed by the Nationals under the arb arrangement he had reached at the outset of his short-lived stint in D.C.
1:28pm: Free agent catcher Derek Norris will sign with the Rays, reports Tim Brown of Yahoo Sports. Norris chose the Rays over four other suitors (Twitter link). It’ll be a one-year deal, tweets Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times. The Rays could control Norris for two years, though, as he’ll be arbitration eligible for the last time in 2018.
[RELATED: Updated Rays Depth Chart]
The Rockies and Cardinals had also been mentioned recently in connection to Norris, who reached the open market when the Nationals released him March 15. That came after a failed attempt to trade Norris, who would have been due $4.2MM. Instead, he’ll presumably earn a significantly lower salary with the Rays. Norris picked Tampa Bay over other teams because he expects to receive more playing time there than he would have elsewhere, according to Brown.
The Rays signed a high-profile backstop, Wilson Ramos, in free agency over the winter, but after suffering a torn ACL last season, he probably won’t debut until May or June. Even when he is healthy enough to return, Ramos could break back in as a designated hitter. Thus, as opposed to going with the unexciting duo of Luke Maile and Curt Casali as their primary catchers, the Rays are adding Norris, who’s easily the most proven of the three.
The 28-year-old Norris isn’t without his flaws, having batted an ugly .186/.255/.328 with a career-worst 30.3 percent strikeout rate in 458 plate appearances with the Padres last season. However, Norris isn’t far removed from slashing a palatable .246/.336/.392 in 982 PAs with the A’s and Padres from 2012-15. Norris is also coming off his second straight season in which both Baseball Prospectus and StatCorner assigned him plus pitch-framing marks behind the plate. That surely added to his appeal from the Rays’ standpoint, as the organization is known to value framing.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.
Drew Stubbs Opts Out Of Twins Deal
Outfielder Drew Stubbs has opted out of his minor league contract with the Twins, according to Mike Berardino of the Pioneer Press (Twitter link). The Twins informed Stubbs on Sunday that he wasn’t going to make their big league roster.
The 32-year-old Stubbs will now look for an opportunity elsewhere, he told Berardino.
“Obviously, first and foremost, I’d want to be on somebody’s Opening Day roster,” Stubbs said. “If that opportunity’s not there, I’ll just have to reevaluate the situation and see where the best opportunity would be for me.”
The right-handed Stubbs has a history of faring well against southpaws, having slashed .272/.348/.444 in 952 plate appearances, which could have made him a platoon partner for one of the Twins’ lefty-swinging corner outfielders, Eddie Rosario or Max Kepler. Instead, the Twins could go with the switch-hitting Robbie Grossman as their fourth outfielder, as Jason Martinez of MLBTR and Roster Resource projects, and they also have the out-of-options Danny Santana on hand.
In addition to his quality track record versus left-handed pitchers, Stubbs has racked up 161 stolen bases in his career. However, the journeyman struck out in at least 40 percent of plate appearances in each of the two prior seasons, and he combined to hit a disastrous .207/.302/.365 during those campaigns.
Phillies Release Sean Burnett
The Phillies have released veteran left-hander Sean Burnett, according to a team announcement. The reliever, who had an opt-out in his minor league contract for Sunday, requested his release.
At his best, Burnett was a high-end bullpen option from 2009-12, when he combined for a 2.86 ERA and a 55.4 percent ground-ball rate with the Pirates and Nationals. Arm issues have derailed Burnett’s career since, however, as the two-time Tommy John surgery recipient didn’t throw more than 9 2/3 innings in any of the previous four major league seasons. After missing all of 2015, he returned to the bigs with the Nationals last year and allowed two earned runs on three hits in 5 2/3 frames. Burnett spent most of the season at the Triple-A level as a member of four different organizations – the Nats, Braves, Dodgers and Twins.
While spring training stats don’t carry any significance, the 34-year-old Burnett did fare decently in camp with the Phillies. In nine innings, he yielded two earned runs on six hits and two walks, though he didn’t record any strikeouts. That showing clearly wasn’t enough for the Phillies to hand Burnett a roster spot, and he’ll attempt to catch on with a different organization as a result.