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Angels Outright Three Players

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The Angels announced that three of their players have been outrighted to their Triple-A Salt Lake affiliate— right-handers Luke Bard and James Hoyt, and infielder Franklin Barreto. Of these three players, Barreto is the only one with more than three years of service time, a distinction that will allow him to elect free agency after this outright assignment should he choose to do so.

Bard has seen some action out of the Angels bullpen dating back to 2018 but, as today’s transaction indicates, has yet to establish himself as a reliable option. During this time, the righty has limited baserunners at an above average clip but has been undermined by a sky-high home run rate, allowing nearly two home runs per nine innings. The 30 year-old scarcely pitched in the big leagues the past two seasons, most recently owing to season-ending hip surgery this past May. He’ll look to shave some points off his career 5.05 ERA if he’s able to return to the Majors next year.

For the 35 year-old Hoyt, the outright is reflective of his recent career history, where he has been regularly shuttled on and off the Major League rosters of four different teams. While the 2021 season didn’t go as planned for Hoyt in the Majors, where he gave up six runs in eight innings, or the minors, where he put up a 9.42 ERA, his overall track record is much more encouraging. Prior to his time with the Angels, Hoyt had never pitched at the highest level with a strikeout rate south of 30% and just last year had a brilliant 20-game run with the Marlins, pitching to a 1.23 ERA (albeit with a too-high walk rate).

Acquired by the Angels in the deal that sent Tommy La Stella to the A’s last summer, Barreto comes with the highest pedigree of the bunch. The middle infielder regularly checked in on top prospect lists but has been unable to make much of an impact for either the Athletics or the Angels. Barreto has stepped to the plate just eighteen times as an Angel, owing to a number of surgeries including Tommy John surgery this past May. Now that he’s out of minor league options and can elect free agency, it’s quite possible that Barreto, owner of a .175/.207/.343 slash at the highest level, will look to establish himself elsewhere.

Dodgers Designate Edwin Uceta For Assignment

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The Dodgers announced they’ve designated Edwin Uceta for assignment. The move became necessary when the club selected the contract of utilityman Andy Burns to replace injured third baseman Justin Turner ahead of tonight’s Game 5 of the NLCS.

Uceta has generally been viewed as one of the better pitching prospects in the Dodgers system over the past few seasons. The right-hander posted strong numbers up through Double-A, working primarily as a starting pitcher up until this year. Both Eric Longenhagen of FanGraphs and Baseball America suggested Uceta could yet settle in as a capable back-of-the-rotation arm. While he has never thrown especially hard, public prospect evaluators have credited him with solid secondary offerings and control.

Selected to the 40-man roster last winter, Uceta split this season between Los Angeles and Triple-A Oklahoma City. He worked mostly in relief at both stops. Over 20 1/3 big league frames, Uceta pitched to a 6.64 ERA, offsetting a strong 27.2% strikeout rate with an elevated 13% walk percentage. It was a similar story with OKC, as he tossed 38 2/3 frames of 4.71 ERA ball with plenty of punchouts (29.5%) but a few too many free passes (10.1%).

The Dodgers will place Uceta on waivers over the coming days. Between his prospect pedigree, youth, and bat-missing abilities, Uceta could be an appealing flier for another club. He still has two minor league option years remaining, meaning any claiming team could shuttle Uceta back-and-forth between the majors and Triple-A through the end of the 2023 season if he sticks on their 40-man roster.

Rockies Outright Four Players

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The Rockies announced that four players — infielders Josh Fuentes and Rio Ruiz and right-handers Yency Almonte and Tommy Doyle — have cleared waivers and been assigned outright to Triple-A Albuquerque. The moves bring Colorado’s 40-man roster tally down to 35, although the Rox will have to reinstate four players from the 60-day injured list before the start of the offseason.

Fuentes has appeared in the majors in each of the last three seasons, garnering his most significant playing time in 2021. The 28-year-old tallied 284 trips to the plate this year, but he hit just .225/.257/.351 with seven homers despite playing his home games at Coors Field. Fuentes hasn’t performed well at the big league level, but he’s a career .291/.329/.489 hitter over parts of three years at Triple-A.

Ruiz, 27, was once a fairly well-regarded prospect. He’s gotten to the majors in each of the last six years but has never hit at a particularly high level. The left-handed hitter got regular run with the Orioles from 2019-21, opening this past season as Baltimore’s starting second baseman. But he managed just a .220/.292/.380 line with the O’s before being let go.

Colorado claimed Ruiz off waivers in May, and he stuck on the 40-man roster for the entire season. He only picked up 40 big league plate appearances, spending most of his time in Albuquerque. Ruiz is a .270/.337/.423 hitter in parts of five Triple-A campaigns, including a .304/.361/.496 mark with the Isotopes this past season.

Almonte, also 27, has pitched for Colorado in each of the last four years. He worked to a 2.93 ERA with a huge 56.3% ground-ball rate in 27 2/3 innings in 2020, but the wheels fell off this year. Over 47 2/3 frames, Almonte managed just a 7.55 ERA with worse than average strikeout (21.7%), walk (13.4%) and grounder (41.9%) percentages.

Doyle made his MLB debut in 2020, getting a three-game cameo. He didn’t pitch in the big leagues this past season, instead spending almost the entire year on the minor league injured list. The 25-year-old still has just 11 2/3 innings above A-ball in his professional career — 2 1/3 MLB frames in 2020 and 9 1/3 innings with Double-A Hartford in 2021.

Fuentes, Ruiz and Almonte have all appeared in seven-plus minor league seasons. They’ll all qualify for minor league free agency this winter, assuming the Rockies don’t pivot and reselect them back onto the 40-man. Doyle does not have the requisite service time to reject an outright assignment, so he’ll stick in the organization. He’ll presumably get a Spring Training invitation in 2022 and look to pitch his way back onto the roster.

Dodgers To Select Andy Burns, Remove Justin Turner From NLCS Roster

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The Dodgers will remove third baseman Justin Turner from the team’s roster for their ongoing NLCS against the Braves, manager Dave Roberts told reporters (including Juan Toribio of MLB.com). Turner suffered a hamstring injury in last night’s contest that’ll prove to be a season-ending issue. To replace him on the postseason roster, Los Angeles will select the contract of utilityman Andy Burns.

Injured players can be removed from a playoff roster mid-series with approval from the Commissioner’s Office. There’s not yet been any formal announcement, although there’s no reason to believe the Dodgers’ request to remove Turner won’t be granted. Doing so renders the injured player ineligible to return for the remainder of the current series and the following series, should the team advance. So even if the Dodgers erase their 3-1 deficit against Atlanta to advance to the World Series, Turner cannot return this year.

Even before the injury, it was a difficult postseason for Turner, who reached base in just six of his 38 playoff plate appearances. He offered the kind of consistently strong performance we’ve come to expect from the 36-year-old in the regular season, hitting .278/.361/.471 with 27 home runs over 612 plate appearances.

Burns briefly appeared on the active roster, getting into nine games in June. The right-handed hitter posted a .232/.361/.412 line with six homers and ten stolen bases over 216 plate appearances with Triple-A Oklahoma City during the regular season. He covered each of first, second and third base as well as both corner outfield spots. Roberts could deploy Burns as a late-game defensive sub at a few different positions or use him as a pinch runner off the bench.

Marlins Outright Four Off 40-Man Roster

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The Marlins have outrighted infielders Eddy Alvarez and Deven Marrero and right-handers Preston Guilmet and Andrew Bellatti off their 40-man roster, tweets Jordan McPherson of the Miami Herald. The Fish now have 36 players on the 40-man roster, but with seven players on the 60-day injured list, they’ll still need to clear three more spots to reinstate all of their injured players between now and the conclusion of the postseason. All four players will be eligible for minor league free agency.

Of the two infielders, Alvarez saw significantly more action in 2021, compiling a .188/.297/.328 line across 74 plate appearances. He also made a few headlines in both 2020 and 2021: first when he became the first Winter Olympic medalist to appear in a Major League Game (he won a silver medal in speed skating at the 2014 Sochi Games), then again when he became the third American to medal in both the Summer and Winter Olympics (he was a member of the silver-winning USA baseball squad in this summer’s Tokyo Games).

Marrero, a first-round pick of the Red Sox in 2012, put together a similar .188/.316/.375 line across just 19 PAs. He’s seen big-league action in six seasons (three with Boston, one with Arizona, and two with Miami) but has never managed to put together an extended run of production. Across a career-high 188 PAs for the BoSox in 2017, he managed only a meager .211/.259/.333 triple-slash. He hasn’t managed much more in the minors (he has a .623 OPS across 490 games in Triple-A) but remains a plus defender and could get a chance to catch on elsewhere.

Like Marrero, neither Guilmet nor Bellatti saw much time on the field for the Marlins. Guilmet covered only two innings (4.50 ERA) in two appearances, while Bellatti was roughed up (13.50 ERA) in a tiny sample of 3 1/3 IP in three trips to the mound. Guilmet’s track record is much longer, appearing with seven clubs across five big-league seasons, but he’s never seen more innings than the 10 1/3 he covered for Baltimore in 2014.

Bellatti’s brief run in 2021 was his first in the bigs since he posted a strong 2.31 ERA (albeit with a 5.23 FIP) across 23 1/3 innings for the Rays in 2015 before injuries derailed his career. He was out of baseball entirely in 2017 and ’18 before latching on with the Yankees Double-A affiliate in 2019 (after a single outing with the Atlantic League’s Sugar Land Skeeters) and ultimately getting the call from the Marlins this year.

Jose Quintana, Jake Jewell Elect Free Agency

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Giants lefty Jose Quintana and righty Jake Jewell have both elected free agency, per the MiLB.com transactions log. Both are largely procedural moves. Quintana would have been a free agent after the World Series anyhow based on service time. Jewell, meanwhile, was outrighted off the 40-man roster for the second time in his career earlier this month — and a second outright grants a player the right to reject in favor of free agency.

Quintana, 32 this offseason, was a waiver claim late in the year as the Giants looked for ways to stockpile pitching depth after the trade deadline. He posted an ERA north of 8.00 as a starter, mostly with the Angels, but notched a 4.18 ERA with a 28.3% strikeout rate and 7.5% walk rate in 28 relief innings. Some clubs may want to give the once-steady Quintana another chance to bounce back in the rotation, but that K-BB% in 28 bullpen innings could generate some interest as a reliever, given a fairly thin crop of lefty relief options on the market this offseason.

Jewell, too, is a former Angel — though his time with the Halos didn’t overlap with that of Quintana. The 28-year-old righty was a fifth-round pick by the Angels back in 2016 and was considered one of the organization’s more promising arms for several years. He’s yet to find success in the big leagues, though, pitching to a 7.75 ERA in 38 1/3 innings — including a 9.90 mark in 10 frames this year.

Jewell fared much better in Triple-A this season, splitting time between the Giants, Cubs and Dodgers organizations and working to a combined 3.40 ERA in 45 frames. He also fanned nearly 27 percent of his opponents and allowed just four homers in an offensively-charged environment, albeit with a somewhat bloated 10.2 percent walk rate. Jewell averaged a bit shy of 95 mph on his heater in his brief big league look this winter and will garner some interest as a depth option on minor league deals.

Royals, Dodgers Complete Danny Duffy Trade

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The Royals announced they’ve acquired right-handed pitching prospect Zach Willeman from the Dodgers. The move completes the clubs’ July 29 deal that sent left-hander Danny Duffy to Los Angeles.

Willeman, 25, is a former 19th-round pick by Los Angeles. A starter early in his minor league career, he worked exclusively out of the bullpen this past season with Double-A Tulsa. Over 47 2/3 frames of relief, he pitched to a 3.78 ERA with an above-average 28.2% strikeout rate but an elevated 11% walk percentage. The Royals will need to add Willeman to the 40-man roster or leave him exposed in the upcoming Rule 5 draft. If he earns a spot on the 40-man, he could be a bullpen option at the big league level at some point next season.

The Dodgers ultimately got nothing out of their low-cost flier on Duffy. The veteran southpaw was on the injured list with a flexor strain at the time of the deal. Expected to return a few weeks after the trade, Duffy unfortunately had a setback and was shut down for the season. He’ll be a free agent this winter.

Blue Jays Designate Jacob Barnes For Assignment

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The Blue Jays announced that right-hander Jacob Barnes has been designated for assignment (hat tip to Sportsnet’s Ben Nicholson-Smith).  The move creates roster space so Joakim Soria could be reinstated from the COVID-related injury list, a necessary procedural transaction before Soria hits the free agent market.

Toronto acquired Barnes from the Mets in June, as the Blue Jays were eager to find reinforcements for their struggling bullpen.  Barnes didn’t provide many answers, as he posted a 6.30 ERA over only 10 innings with the Jays before being DFA’ed in July and then outrighted off the 40-man roster in August.

While Barnes did have a 30.6% strikeout rate during his brief time with the Jays, he didn’t help his cause by posting a 12.2% walk rate — a reawakening of the control problems that have occasionally hampered Barnes at both the major and minor league levels over the last few years, though his career walk numbers are respectable.  Barnes did only allow one homer in a Blue Jays uniform, after surrendering six home runs over just 18 2/3 frames with the Mets earlier this season.

After posting some solid numbers out of the Brewers’ bullpen from 2016-18, Barnes has since posted a 6.58 ERA over 79 1/3 innings for five different teams over the last three seasons.  As per Statcast, Barnes has continued to post solidly above-average fastball spin rates throughout his career, but while his four-seam fastball continues to get positive results, he hasn’t had much success with secondary offerings.

Barnes is eligible for arbitration this winter, projected for a $1.2MM salary.  The DFA essentially looks like an early non-tender for the Jays, and since Barnes has over three years of MLB service time and has already been outrighted once this season, he can opt for free agency now rather than accept another outright assignment.

Pete Kozma Elects Free Agency

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7:58 pm: Kozma has officially elected free agency, per the team.

11:38 am: The A’s have outrighted veteran infielder Pete Kozma off their 40-man roster, according to MLB.com’s transactions log. Oakland has yet to formally announce the move, but Kozma will become a free agent now that he’s gone unclaimed on waivers.

Kozma, 33, was added to the Athletics’ 40-man roster for the season’s final weekend after Elvis Andrus suffered a season-ending leg fracture. He went 1-for-11 during that Oakland cameo — his first big league action since the 2018 season in Detroit. The rest of Kozma’s season was spent with Triple-A Las Vegas, where he batted .244/.307/.337 in 500 plate appearances and collected the 1000th hit of his minor league career.

Best known for his time with the Cardinals, Kozma was the primary for St. Louis in 2013 when the Cards fell to the Red Sox in the World Series. He hit just .217/.275/.273 in 448 plate appearances that season but graded out as a plus defensive infielder on a Cardinals staff that had the game’s second-highest ground-ball percentage.

That was the only season in which Kozma ever logged even semi-regular action. His 111 plate appearances with the 2015 Cardinals are the second-highest mark he’s reached in any of his eight big league seasons. In 825 plate appearances at the Major League level, Kozma is a .213/.276/.288 hitter. He’s a lifetime .235/.305/.340 hitter in the minors and could latch on as a depth option somewhere else in minor league free agency.

Cubs Designate Erick Castillo, Tyler Payne For Assignment

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The Cubs have designated catchers Erick Castillo and Tyler Payne for assignment, as relayed by Jordan Bastian of MLB.com (Twitter link). Additionally, Johneshwy Fargas, Tyler Ladendorf and Joe Biagini — each of whom were selected to the majors as COVID-19 replacements — have been removed from the 40-man roster and returned to Triple-A Iowa.

Castillo and Payne are both longtime organizational veterans who got late-season cameos with Willson Contreras dealing with a hip issue. Both 28-year-olds got their first big league calls in the last week of the regular season, with Castillo picking up a couple of hits. Neither player was regarded as a high-level prospect and neither has a strong offensive track record in the minors. It’s not surprising they were removed from the roster rather quickly, then, although both did at least get into an MLB game.

Both Castillo and Payne will go on waivers in the coming days. Should they pass through unclaimed, they’d each have the right to elect minor league free agency as players with seven-plus seasons of minor league experience. It wouldn’t be a surprise to see either player re-sign with the Cubs on a minors pact for 2022, as they’ve each only played in the Chicago organization throughout their pro careers.

Fargas, Ladendorf and Biagini are all soon to become minor league free agents themselves. That trio was brought up at the end of the year while the Cubs dealt with coronavirus spread in the clubhouse. Players selected as COVID replacements needn’t be passed through waivers to be removed from the 40-man, although they’ll all have the requisite minor league service time to test the open market this winter anyhow.

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