The Rockies have designated lefty Yohan Flande for assignment, the team announced. His roster spot will go to righty Kyle Kendrick, whose signing was also announced.
Flande, 29, threw 59 innings of 5.19 ERA ball last year in his first big league stint, generating a healthy 58.2% groundball rate. He struck out 5.2 and walked 2.4 per nine over ten starts and six relief appearances.
The southpaw has never posted a sub-4.00 ERA over a full season in the upper minors, but ERA estimators all valued his work in the bigs at or below that mark last year. Nevertheless, Flande is probably best characterized as an organizational depth piece at this stage of his career.
