We’ll track the latest outright assignments here…
- The Reds announced that they have outrighted Willie Harris to Triple-A (Twitter link). The utility player has appeared in 19 games this year, but has just three hits and two walks.
- The Tigers outrighted first baseman/designated hitter Brad Eldred to Triple-A, according to MLB.com’s transactions page. Eldred hit .388/.444/1.013 with 13 homers in 90 Triple-A plate appearances to start the season and the Tigers called him up for five games. In parts of eight Triple-A seasons, the 31-year-old has a .260/.327/.536 line.
I am absolutely shocked… that someone is still paying Brad Eldred to play baseball.
I’m more shocked at the fact not one team decided to take a chance on a guy hitting over .400 with 13 HR’s in 20 games at AAA. For having to give up nothing it would have been worth the risk.
The Pirates, desperate for a power bat, gave up on Brad Eldred when it became apparent that he could not (and never would) be able to hit major league pitching. Sorry, but Brad Eldred may forever stay a minor league talent, but a major league bust.
Yeah, might as well not take a chance on him, since he can’t seem to step through the magical corridor between AAA and the Major Leagues. As we know, it’s an entirely different ballgame that can be as foreign to players as if you asked them to suddently start excelling at cricket. Better off sticking with Delmon Young, who knows how to play the game of Major League baseball. I mean, he plays it really, really BADLY, but at least he no Brad Eldred, who we all agree never deserves another chance no matter what he does in the International League, EVER.
^^^^^ THIS
He’s a good AAAA player.
Every Org. needs some to do just what he just did.
Unlike a lot of AAAA players Eldred at least appears to have been given some chances to prove he can hit at the major league level. At his age its not likely things are going to click for him either. For every Nelson Cruz and Brain LaHair there are twenty or so players like Eldred.
Sure, but when the player he’d be replacing has demostrated that he can’t hit in the majors, what is the harm of giving him 100 AB’s, just to see what happens? The Tigers have been throwing crap out there at DH all season long, and players like Delmon Young aren’t any better than Eldred and are almost certainly worse, actually. If you send Delmon Young to AAA, he’s not going to hit 13 homers in 20 games. Eldred may have figured something out, and even if he hasn’t there’s almost no way he’s as bad as some combination of Young, Don Kelly, etc. It never ceases to maze me the way team will let a medicore known quantity who is supposedly a “proven” major leaguer just be godawful for months on end, but if a guy who deserves a shot goes 2-12 he gets sent down and is said to be “not ready”.
I see your point. Young though at least has something of a track record and has had some success at the major league level. He has also done all he can to get himself released. I think someone like Eldred would have a easier time sticking if he were more then a 1B/DH. Tough to keep players like that on the roster if they aren’t starting. However if Young keeps hitting below .250 with a sub .700 OPS I can’t see why you’d run him out there with his OF defense either. Eventually that top prospect shine has to be tarnished.
Young has had little actual success at the major league level. He is PERCEIVED to have had success, mostly. Much of what makes him a bad player is of the “hidden skill” variety. He does one thing well, and it’s the loudest and most conspicuous of skills, home run power. He does NOTHING else well, and as a matter of fact, he does every other thing very poorly. Horrendous fielder, bad base runner, and he is without plate discipline. He’ll hit his 20-25 homers, however, with a decent number of RBIs (if he’s lucky enough to have good hitters in front of him, which he usually does because of the perception, again, that he is a good, powerful hitter), but he’ll do so while grounding into a bunch of double plays and otherwise making a ton of quiet outs where a player (maybe even Brad Eldred) would draw a few more walks. Young is a garbage ballplayer who is horrific to watch, and now that we know he like to stay out late, get drunk and make ethnic slurs, that should be enough for any smart organization. The Tigers aren’t smart. They have money, but it often takes them forever to figure out that a player they’re in love with just is not good. How long does it take them to decide that Eldred doesn’t have what it takes? 17 plate appearances. Put yourself in Eldred’s shoes. What does he have to do? His numbers in the high minors have by and large been quite good, and he hit 13 homers in his first 20 games this year, not in the Pacific Coast League, not in Colorado Springs, Salt Lake, Albuquerque or Las Vegas, but in the International League. No wonder players take PEDs.
I’m with you on being a bit baffled about why the Tigers re-signed Delmon Young (especially when they already have a guy seemingly almost exactly like him: Ryan Raburn — both can hit with some power, but prone to long stretches of ineptitude and are horrid fielders).
And I’d love to have seen the Tigers give Eldred a legitimate shot to be the everyday DH — similar poor fielding players like LaHair, Cust, etc., have all excelled only when given a legitimate shot (not just the “well, he’ll have to hit well to keep his job” nonsense that of course managers like Leyland rarely apply to other AAAA goons like Ryan Raburn), and some hitters need a few auditions to figure out how to hit MLB pitchin before it “takes” — see Carlos Pena, Nelson Cruz, etc. I can’t think of any downside to have given Eldred regular ABs for a month or two, given his minor league numbers over his entire career, and given how hideous the Tigers’ DH production has been (0 HRs!).
But one thing you seem to be forgetting about Delmon Young (apart from his actual stats — he’s not really known as a home run hitter: 72 lifetime HRs in 750 games) is that he is still only 26 years old.I don’t know what you were doing at age 26. I personally was getting hammered every other night and still doing well at work. Yes, the racial slurs were indefensible. But again: 26 = stupid mistakes. Hopefully he won’t ever do something that idiotic again, and hopefully the experience will push him to realize that he shouldn’t take baseball for granted (although he could have just asked his older brother about that).But the point is, if it’s either/or, giving a 26 year old with Young’s offensive upside a second chance at the expense of a 31-year-old journeyman’s fourth chance is a necessary part of the game from a business standpoint. It’s not just about how the player produces at the MLB level, it’s about potential value; if Young goes on a hot streak and the Tigers wanted to trade him, they could likely get a decent prospect or a MLB player in return. For Eldred? Even if he hit as well in the MLB the rest of this year as he was in the minors, the Tigers could only get a bag of socks and a Slurpee for him, and the Slurpee would be one of those terrible flavors, like Arctic Burst.
Oops, sorry MLBTR. Got carried away with that last post. Out of line, and I apologize. Got all worked up.
Good points, but I think you are wrong about one big thing. Young does not have an offensive upside. I know 26 seems young to you, and it does to me, too, in other contexts (such as getting hammered every other night, which I still do, except now I call myself a “wine enthusiast”), but 26 is not young for a player to have offensive upside. It’s old, actually, especially when a player has been handed as many AB’s as Young has. He has come to the plate more than 3000 times and drawn a grand total of 130 walks. That he has hit 72 homers is a point in my favor here, as that is not a great number either, but I stand by my assertion that it is his best attribute as a hitter. That is scary. Go find me another ballplayer that walked 1 out of every 23 or 24 plate appearances, didn’t bring ANYTHING else to the table, but carved out a nice career anyway….no, don’t look, because you’re not going to find one. He doesn’t hit for a good enough average to be good. He can’t field (at 26!). He can’t run the bases competently (at 26). He doesn’t walk. He brings NOTHING to the table. My point is that, when you combine that with ethnic slurs (sorry to be all high and mighty, but I wasn’t going to do that while 21 and hammered, let alone at 26 and wine-appreciating), there is every reason to cut him loose and go with someone who MIGHT be good. Eldred won’t hit for average, probably won’t draw a ton of walks (unless he did turn into Jose Bautista or something), and won’t give you much on defense either, but there is some legitimate hope that the power will translate, especially given the show he was putting on in AAA. Find out what you have in Eldred. You already know what you have in Young: A bad baseball player.
Eldred has been given a grand total 299 plate appearances over 4 separate seasons — 208 of those plate appearances coming 7 years ago when he was 24.
Yeah. It’s weird how he hasn’t been given more of a chance. 208 PAs over the final two months of 2005 amounts to the sum total of the only real shot he has ever been given. With only a half a season at AAA under his belt, he got called up in late July and, yes, hit .221 with 77 Ks, but also had 12 homers — the same number that Daryl Ward, the guy he replaced, had in more than 400 PAs. In fact, from August 3 to Sept. 25 that season, Eldred was pretty good — he hit all 12 of his HRs during that eight-week stretch and batted .262/.306/.572 (OPS .878).
He might have been given another look based on that 42-game run, but he got hurt at the start of 2006 and missed most of the season. He made the Pirates roster in 2007, but wasn’t given regular PAs — just 47 over two months, and rarely multiple games in a row (not surprising, considering that Adam LaRoche/Xavier Nady/Jason Bay were blocking him at 1B and the corner OFs).What no one really seems to bring up is that, except for one season at Charlotte (2008, a year when the White Sox DH/1B/corner OF spots were stacked with Thome/Konerko/Dye/Quentin/Swisher), Eldred has only ever played in the farm systems of NL clubs until this season. Not a great fit when you’re known as a good hitter/poor fielder — ask Jack Cust. He really just needs a situation like the one LaHair kind of stumbled into this year, where there’s not really anyone blocking him. It’ll probably never happen, but you never know.
It’s about time Harris was released.
This is HILARIOUS!!!!
Detroit Tigers’ fans are complaining about Brad Eldred being old and worthless. Then you look at his age, what he did in the Minors this year, his MLB triple slash line so far and his contract (a Minor League deal) and compare THAT to Willie Harris.
Not only is Harris older, has less power and getting paid more but his triple slash line in the Majors is beyond horrible – .086/.135/.143 with an OPS of, wait for it, .278. Oh yeah, his OPS + is a NEGATIVE 24.
Another in a long line of scrap heap players that Toothpick Baker just HAD to have.
He was one of Dusty’s “boys” just like Corey Patterson.
Yep, Dusty Baker was hired and then -GM Wayne Krivsky was told to “do whatever it takes” to sign Patterson.
Ever since then, whatever Baker wants, he gets, no matter if the player is horrible. This is going to continue until Ca$htellini figures out Baker is NOT a good judge of talent and stops listening to him.
Did they extend baker? Hopefully not.
Nope … he is in the last year of his contract. I think Louisville Bats manager David Bell is being groomed to take over for DB next season
Patterson had his one decent (half) season during Baker’s first year with the Cubs, so I can see why Dusty was attached to him. On the other hand, it doesn’t look to me like Harris ever played for Baker – how did it come up that Dusty wanted to sign him?
Delmon Young has gotta go, but I guess he sits around until they can at least turn him into something. I don’t know if Eldred was an answer, but I do know I am sick and tired of most of my life the Detroit Tigers using the DH like a visiting NL team in an interleague ball game. Using it to give one of their stars a random 1/2 day off, some AAAA scrub with a little pop some ABs. I want an everyday real threat to DH for the Tigers. The Tigers had that last season once VMart could no longer back up catch. I got fooled into thinking maybe Delmon could be that guy this season by the month he had in 2011.
Cut Delmon, and Raburn sign Carlos Guillen (for DH only) until VMart gets back or Guillen gets hurt probably the ladder.
Agree 100%. You could also try to trade the two for Orlando Hudson to play 2B and give a little added average to the lineup. Start Dirks and Boesch in the outfield and yes try to sign Guillen for the DH only unless they believe that he is too much of a risk to sign, since he like the DL (remember the lancing trip to the DL?)