1:24pm: The deal includes a July 1 opt-out date, SB Nation’s Chris Cotillo tweets.
11:21am: Catcher Wil Nieves has agreed to a minor league deal with the Braves, Baseball America’s Matt Eddy reports on Twitter. Nieves opened the year as the Padres’ backup receiver, but elected to become a free agent rather than accepting an outright assignment with the club.
Nieves, 37, contributed just one hit and one walk in 14 plate appearances before being designated by San Diego. Obviously, he never received much of a chance to make an impact, with Derek Norris receiving the lion’s share of the playing time while the club waited to see whether prospect Austin Hedges was ready. Hedges, of course, displaced Nieves.
Over a dozen seasons of big league action, Nieves owns a .241/.280/.317 slash. Nieves, who has averaged just over 100 plate appearances per season in his time in the bigs, has obviously been valued more for his defense. Last year, he rated as one of the better overall defenders, according to Baseball Prospectus.
not sure why, but ok
Never hurts to have depth. That and I doubt Aj can hold up an entire season
Braves AAA catcher: Braden Schlehuber .203/.257/.250
He was the primary option if CB or AJP got hurt.
I’d imagine this is to send down Bethancourt to AAA to get more at bats and make Nieves the backup catcher to AJ
Or that ^
Wil Nieves, the Rasputin of backup catchers.
There could be a number a reasons for this but at worst, Nieves is just catching depth at AAA. And seeing what’s already down there, he’s a significant improvement over the guys Gwinnett already has.
Braves preparing for trades down the road.If AJ stays steady he’s sure to be traded by the deadline
That makes a lot of sense, actually. Teams always need catching, even if it comes with Pierzynski’s baggage.
Pierzynski’s SWAG
JMO
More than likely given how bad the Braves have played lately.
Nieves is a pretty good choice to have around, if only because he offers at least a little offense and pretty good defense. With most backup catchers, it seems like it’s always all of one and none of the other.
Wil Nieves will be 38 before the season is over, but he did a good job for Phillies in 2014, and should be a capable backup, especially with the shortage of good catchers.
The Phils could have saved themselves $26 million by just letting this guy do the catching while they “rebuild”. I’m not seeing that he’s any worse than Ruiz at this point, and what would it matter if he was?
I’m pretty sure that logic did not get discussed in the fall of 2013 when the Phils signed the 2 catchers.
You’re right, but it should have been. Looked like a short sighted contract then, looks even worse now.
Phillies need players. If they had that $26M back, it wouldn’t help them in any way.
How could it ever be a good idea to throw away money? Of course it could have helped them. Maybe they could have put it towards signing somebody like Moncada or Castillo. Maybe they could have used it to start an overhaul of their scouting and player development.
The hindsight of saving money as it’s own virtue doesn’t help the Phillies put a better product on the field today, or get back to the playoffs any sooner.
With Halladay uncertain, Cliff Lee, and Cole Hamels still being paid royally, signing Nieves to be the primary catcher [instead of] Ruiz wasn’t something they were going to do, nor do I think they believed was throwing money away. Sometimes you buy something you wind up not needing.
There is no evidence that the money spent on Ruiz prevented them from spending anywhere else. Phillies were seen as longshots to sign Castillo or Moncada.
Ruiz $26M contract is the least of Phillies problems. Something that only makes partial sense in hindsight is just that. Interesting, but it is entirely an academic exercise as you yourself point out by offering only generalities at the benefits.
It really isn’t hindsight at all, as most people outside of the Phillies front office thought it was a foolish contract at the time. The suggestion of the possibility of having better utilized the resources for the specific players and/or organizational departments I mentioned is the opposite of a generality. If you don’t see that handing out long term contracts to aging veterans was one of the primary causes of the catastrophic and completely avoidable collapse of this team, I think you have lost the plot.
It wasn’t the Ruiz contract that got them into trouble. The Ryan Howard contract and Cliff Lee contract on top of the Jonathon Papelbon contract, Jimmy Rollins contract, Chase Utley contract and Cole Hamels contract that got them into a pickle.
Carlos Ruiz could have slid into a part time role while mentoring a young catcher sometime during the deal. Signing a 37 year old journeyman catcher with a lifetime -2.2 WAR on his 7th ML club to be your everyday catcher for the next 3 years instead of your 34 year old 20.0 WAR longtime catcher to handle your $100M pitching staff seems ludicrous.
Every team has overpaid useful veterans without problem. Every large market team overpays some players period. It’s only when it get’s out of hand, that you have a problem.
LA Angels just paid $26M/yr for 3 years just to move Josh Hamilton, and you believe that paying Carlos Ruiz $26M OVER 3 years after delivering an average WAR of 3.2 from 2009-2014 is one of the primary reasons for Phillies decline, then you have lost the plot.
Allow me to share a secret with you. The decline of the Phillies is primarily due to the lack of impact players making the ballclub from their farm system from 2009-2015. Contracts can be moved or eaten. You cannot create impact rookies out of thin air.
Did he receive a $1 signing bonus?
“Who??? Wil Nieves!” – Moustache guy from 2012 MASN commercial.