In preparation for the Rule 5 draft, where teams can steal players from other teams who they think are ready, as they would need to be on the 25-man roster for the 2018 season, teams have tidied up their 40-man roster, placing guys on that they are afraid of losing and DFA-ing player they are not as afraid of losing.
The Giants added RHP Tyler Beede, C Aramis Garcia, RHP Tyler Herb, and LHP D.J. Snelten.
The Giants DFAed two middle infielders, Micah Johnson and Orlando Calixte, as well as RHP Dan Slania (who has cleared waivers; the news is at this link right now, but will be pushed down as other news comes in)
ogc thoughts
These are not all that surprising, other than perhaps Herb. Beede is our top pitching prospect. Garcia is our top catching prospect. Snelten is our top left-handed reliever. Herb, which appears to originally be the PTBNL in the trade for Heston, but then ended up as a cash purchase (not sure of details), had a 3.09 ERA between Seattle's AA and the Giants AA teams, good 2.83 K/BB but pedestrian 7.5 K/9. Not that great but I guess good enough for the Giants to have him take up a valuable 40-man spot.
Orlando Calixte we had up in the majors for a while, but I guess he did not show enough to hold a 40-man spot. Micah Johnson was picked up after the season, if I recall right, after some other team dumped him. So he was dumped again. I assume the Giants will try to retain him in minors if he goes through waivers.
Slania has already fallen through waivers so he was assigned to AAA, which is not too surprising, as he was hammered in AAA after doing nicely in AA (3.59 ERA, thought of as a pitcher's league, though not as much as some might say, based on research I had done a few years back).
Giants Pick Second in Rule 5 Draft
It will be interesting to see what the Giants do with the second pick of the Rule 5 Draft, which is the impetus for all the teams adding and dropping people onto the 40-man. Generally there is someone good enough that a team will take a chance on them with a 25-man spot, but with the Giants at a full 40-man roster, they will have to DFA someone if they were to pick up anyone with their spot. They might be able to get away with drafting someone and then trading them to another team for other considerations (lower level prospect that don't require 25-man or 40-man spot, IFA money, or just plain money).
Micah Johnson was claimed today by the Rays, but Orlando Calixte cleared waivers and was outrighted to AAA Sacramento. Makes sense, Johnson has already been claimed twice before this off season, and Calixte had a bad time in the majors.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/katohs-guide-to-the-2017-rule-5-draft/
ReplyDeleteThis gives good rundown of interesting players available in the Rule 5 draft. Herb was accidentally added and he was rated at 1.9 WAR, or about average, so no wonder the Giants protected him, potential average player are very valuable too.