Athletics Release Billy Butler
The Athletics have released first/baseman designated hitter Billy Butler, according to Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle (Twitter link). Slusser reported Friday that Butler would not return to the A’s in 2017, so their decision to cut ties with him now isn’t a complete surprise.
[RELATED: Updated A’s Depth Chart]
In a move that looked questionable at best from the get-go, low-payroll Oakland signed Butler to a three-year, $30MM contract in free agency after the 2014 season. The longtime Royal was coming off his worst season since 2008, having hit .271/.323/.379 with nine home runs in 603 plate appearances, and he wasn’t any better during his nearly two-year stint with the A’s. Butler, 30, combined to bat an underwhelming .258/.325/.394 with 19 homers in 843 trips to the plate with Oakland. Thanks to the package of below-average offense, defense and base running he provided to the A’s, Butler accounted for minus-1.2 fWAR with the club, tying him for the majors’ 18th-worst mark among position players since last season.
In addition to his on-field difficulties with the A’s, Butler was involved in a clubhouse altercation with teammate Danny Valencia last month. The two engaged in a verbal dispute after Butler made comments that may have interfered with an endorsement deal for Valencia. It escalated to the point of physical contact before Valencia struck Butler with one or more punches. Butler reported being fine afterward, but he then began exhibiting nausea and vomiting. While the A’s fined the pair undisclosed amounts, general manager David Forst said Sunday that the confrontation didn’t factor into Butler’s release (Twitter link via Slusser).
All told, Butler’s tenure in Oakland was an unmitigated disaster for a player who enjoyed a five-year stretch of solidly above-average offense with Kansas City from 2009-13. During that period, the 2004 first-round pick slashed a terrific .302/.372/.469 with 99 homers in 3,370 PAs. That half-decade showing ultimately led to his deal with the A’s, who will now eat the $10MM-plus remaining on his contract.
Rangers Activate Colby Lewis, Designate Michael Roth
The Rangers have activated right-hander Colby Lewis from the 60-day disabled list and designated left-hander Michael Roth in a corresponding move, according to the team’s executive vice president of communications, John Blake.
Lewis, out since late June with a lat strain, was highly effective for the Rangers during the season’s first two-plus months. The 37-year-old registered a 3.21 ERA, 5.6 K/9 and 1.74 BB/9 in 98 innings for a club that had been without ace Yu Darvish for a significant portion of time. Lewis, who will start Sunday against the Angels, will now join Darvish and Cole Hamels atop the Rangers’ rotation as the team moves toward clinching the American League West. At 85-58, Texas holds a 9 1/2-game lead in its division and owns the best record in the AL.
Roth, 26, has spent the vast majority of this year as a member of the Rangers’ Triple-A affiliate, Round Rock, with which he logged an impressive 2.97 ERA over 145 1/3 innings. He has thrown 3 2/3 frames with Texas this year, giving him a career 38 major league innings with the Rangers, Angels and Indians. The 2012 ninth-round pick has recorded an 8.50 ERA, 7.25 K/9 and 4.0 BB/9 over that limited sample size.
Rockies Release Brandon Barnes
The Rockies have released outfielder Brandon Barnes, SB Nation’s Chris Cotillo tweets. They had outrighted him early last month after David Dahl‘s arrival in the big leagues made him expendable.
Barnes would have been eligible for free agency following the season unless the Rockies had again added him to their 40-man roster, at which point he would have become eligible for arbitration. It’s little surprise, then, that they’re willing to part ways with him.
The 30-year-old Barnes has been useful in the past due to his ability to play solid defense at all three outfield positions, but his career seems to have hit a wall of late. He batted a meager .220/.250/.320 in 109 plate appearances this season, well below his career mark of .242/.289/.356. He also wasn’t terribly impressive in the good hitting environment of Triple-A Albuquerque, batting .282/.323/.416 in 255 plate appearances there this year.
Dodgers Designate Casey Fien, Activate Andre Ethier
The Dodgers have announced that they’ve designated righty Casey Fien for assignment. The move clears roster space for outfielder Andre Ethier, who has been reinstated from the 60-day DL.
[Related: Updated Los Angeles Dodgers Depth Chart]
The Dodgers claimed Fien from the Twins in May after four-plus years in Minnesota. He pitched 25 2/3 innings for his new team, posting a 4.21 ERA, 8.1 K/9 and 2.5 BB/9 while showing a slight increase in his velocity from previous seasons. His season was marred somewhat by a late-summer DL stint due to elbow tendonitis, however, and he allowed eight home runs. He’s making $2.28MM this season, and is eligible for arbitration again this winter. The Dodgers have evidently decided they can risk exposing him to waivers.
The 34-year-old Ethier has missed the entire season to this point after a foul ball broke his leg in March. He’s coming off a strong .294/.366/.486 season in 2015. News of his return broke earlier this week, with Dodgers manager Dave Roberts saying (via Andy McCullough of the Los Angeles Times) that the team would initially use him primarily as a pinch-hitter and spot-starter. As McCullough notes, the Dodgers currently have plenty of outfielders, with Joc Pederson, Howie Kendrick, Josh Reddick, Yasiel Puig, Andrew Toles and Rob Segedin also on hand.
Rangers Claim R.J. Alvarez From Cubs
The Rangers have announced that they’ve claimed right-handed reliever R.J. Alvarez off waivers from the Cubs. They’ve optioned him to the Class A+ High Desert Mavericks. To clear space on their 40-man roster, they’ve moved righty Lucas Harrell (groin strain) from the 15-day DL to the 60-day DL. The Cubs designated Alvarez for assignment earlier this week.
The 25-year-old Alvarez has spent the entire season in the minors, posting a 7.00 ERA, but with 11.7 K/9 and 4.0 BB/9, in 27 innings split between three levels in the Cubs and Athletics organizations. He spent the early part of the season recovering from arthroscopic elbow surgery.
Alvarez has also struggled in parts of two seasons in the Majors, posting a 7.39 ERA, 10.3 K/9 and 5.8 BB/9 in 28 total innings. It’s easy to see why he keeps generating interest after previously going from the Angels to the Padres in the Huston Street deal and from the Padres to the Athletics in the Derek Norris trade, however. Alvarez possesses mid-90s velocity, and he has an outstanding 12.6 K/9 in five career minor league seasons. He also has minimal service time, so the Rangers can keep him in their organization for the next several years if they choose.
Phillies Designate Taylor Featherston For Assignment
The Phillies have announced that they’ve designated infielder Taylor Featherston for assignment. They also selected the contract of lefty Joely Rodriguez and recalled outfielder Cody Asche and righties Luis Garcia and Phil Klein. The moves come in the wake of the end of Triple-A Lehigh Valley’s season last night.
The Phillies acquired Featherston in a minor trade with the Angels in February, and the 26-year-old played sparingly in the big leagues in 2016, collecting just 28 plate appearances. He spent the bulk of the season at Lehigh Valley, where he hit .254/.311/.428 with 13 homers in 439 plate appearances while playing third base, second base and shortstop. Featherston, who made his Major League debut in 2015 after the Angels selected him from the Rockies organization in the Rule 5 Draft, has a career .156/.207/.233 line in 120 big-league games, many of which he entered as a defensive replacement.
Cuban Pitching Prospects Norge Ruiz, Cionel Perez Declared Free Agents
The MLB commissioner’s office has declared Cuban hurlers Norge Ruiz and Cionel Perez free agents, leaving them free to sign with any team, according to Baseball America’s Ben Badler. Both will remain subject to international bonus pool restrictions.
As Badler notes, both players required long waits to obtain their clearance to sign. Both Ruiz and Perez left their home island way back in May of 2015 (see here and here), but only just reached eligibility. Clearly, there is still a long ways to go smooth the transition for players seeking to jump from Cuban ball to affiliated organizations.
The right-handed Ruiz, now 22, is seen as one of the top recent pitching prospects from Cuba. Badler has suggested that he’s ready for the Double-A level, with an advanced mix of pitches that he generally mixes and commands well. With mid-rotation upside, he’s a highly intriguing target.
And Perez, a 20-year-old southpaw, has also shown promise during his work in the Serie Nacional. His stuff isn’t as polished, per Badler, but he is working on refining secondary offerings to go with a low-nineties heater. Perez isn’t considered prepared for an aggressive assignment in the upper minors, but seems to be a rather intriguing young pitcher in his own right.
Both players are slated to pitch in the Dominican winter league in a few months’ time, rather than relying simply upon showcases. That figures to afford major league organizations a long and valuable look at how they stack up against high-quality competition.
Rockies Outright Ben Paulsen, Rafael Ynoa
The Rockies announced last night that first baseman Ben Paulsen and utility man Rafael Ynoa have been outrighted off the 40-man roster after being designated for assignment earlier in the week. Both players have the requisite minor league service time to qualify as free agents this winter.
The 28-year-old Paulsen mashed at a .284/.329/.479 clip in 420 plate appearances from 2014-15 with the Rockies, though those numbers are inflated by Coors Field and by the fact that his left-handed bat was largely shielded from left-handed pitching. This season, he batted just .217/.258/.304 in 97 PAs with the Rox and posted a fairly pedestrian .278/.331/.434 in the hitter-friendly Triple-A Pacific Coast League.
Meanwhile, the 29-year-old Ynoa went hitless in five plate appearances with Colorado’s big league club this year. He saw quite a bit of time in the Majors last season, slashing .260/.277/.339 in 131 PAs. Ynoa has nearly 1900 innings of experience at shortstop in the minors in addition to more than 4900 innings at second base. He’s also logged time in the corner outfield and at third base in both the Majors and minors. He’s a lifetime .274/.344/.364 hitter in the minors.
Rays To Sign Alexei Ramirez
The Rays have signed veteran shortstop Alexei Ramirez, who was recently released by the Padres, according to Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times (via Twitter). The signing of Ramirez comes less than a week after the news that shortstop Matt Duffy would likely undergo season-ending surgery to alleviate a nagging Achilles injury.
The 34-year-old Ramirez inked a one-year, $4MM contract with the Padres on the heels of a disappointing 2015 season — albeit one that saw him finish with a strong .282/.329/.426 in the season’s final three months — but received woeful results from the longtime White Sox infielder. Ramirez batted just .240/.275/.330 through 444 plate appearances with the Friars, and while he’s long graded out as a plus defender at short, Defensive Runs Saved pegged him at -17 this season, with Ultimate Zone Rating offering a similar assessment (-15.1).
Furthermore, Tampa Bay’s decision to sign Ramirez rather than bring the recently demoted Tim Beckham back to the Majors sends a strong message to the former No. 1 overall pick (as Topkin tweets). Beckham was demoted for a trio of baserunning blunders just prior to roster expansion, two of which directly stemmed from a lack of hustle. While the 26-year-old showed some improvement at the dish this season, hitting .247/.300/.434 in 215 plate appearances, he’s yet to justify his elite draft spot or even cement himself as a viable long-term option for the Rays.
Details on Ramirez’s contract aren’t yet clear, but it’s presumably just a one-year Major League pact, meaning it would run only through the end of the 2016 season. The Rays, then, would be on the hook for nothing more than the pro-rated portion of the league minimum. While that’s a fairly negligible investment, it’s still something of a mildly unexpected bonus for the Padres, who will save about $70K due to the Rays’ unexpected expenditure.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.
Mets Sign Tim Tebow To Minor League Deal
The Mets have signed outfielder Tim Tebow to a minor league contract, according to a team press release. He’ll head to the team’s instructional league at their Spring Training site in Port St. Lucie, Fla. Tebow is represented by CAA’s Brodie Van Wagenen.
The “outfielder” label, of course, is relatively new for the former NFL quarterback. Tebow’s most recent baseball experience came all the way back in high school, as he went on to star at the University of Florida in an extremely successful college career that saw him win the 2007 Heisman Trophy before being drafted 25th overall in the 2010 draft by the Denver Broncos. Tebow became an unlikely hero early in his NFL career, leading the Broncos to a number of late-game comebacks in his second NFL season, including a dramatic overtime win over the Pittsburgh Steelers. However, his overall performance was middling, at best, and Tebow would appear in just one more NFL season (2012 as a member of the Jets). He signed contracts with the New England Patriots and Philadelphia Eagles as well in 2013 and 2015 but appeared only in preseason contests for the two teams, ultimately settling in as an analyst at ESPN before recently announcing his desire to pursue a baseball career.
It goes without saying that the 29-year-old Tebow is a phenomenal natural athlete, though that certainly doesn’t guarantee any form of success in his move from professional football to professional baseball. Tebow worked out in front of scouts for 28 of Major League Baseball’s 30 teams last week — the Cubs and A’s did not attend — and was met with, at best, mixed reviews. Tebow was average or slightly above average in his 60-yard dash time and impressed scouts with his raw power, but his throwing arm drew considerably weaker reviews. And of course, Tebow will have to adjust to facing professional pitching on the fly. To this point, he’s worked out with former MLB catcher Chad Moeller and hit against free agent reliever David Aardsma, who pitched in the Majors as recently as last season. Still, even for an athlete of Tebow’s caliber, the learning curve will be substantial from this point forth.
While it has to be characterized as an extreme long shot that Tebow will ever be a meaningful contributor for the Mets (or even reach the Majors, for that matter), there’s little downside in at least rolling the dice on an athlete of his caliber that at least showed some degree of promise in a showcase. Braves GM John Coppolella offered similar sentiments just two nights ago, stating that there’s “no risk” to signing Tebow and admitting that Atlanta was exploring the possibility of signing Tebow to a minor league deal. And Tebow drew at least some degree of interest from at least eight teams, including the Blue Jays, Ken Rosenthal of FOX Sports reported last night (links to Twitter).
ESPN’s Adam Schefter first reported the signing (via Twitter).
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.