The Pirates have announced that they’ve designated reliever Radhames Liz for assignment. The move clears space on the team’s roster for Charlie Morton, who will start tonight. Morton’s return bumps the out-of-options Vance Worley to the Pirates’ bullpen, and Worley will presumably be used mostly in long relief, so the Bucs no longer had much need for Liz, who they had used in a similar role.
The Bucs signed Liz to a one-year, $1MM contract last offseason after he spent 2014 in the Toronto organization and the previous three years in Korea. He showed good stuff, with a fastball that reached at times into the mid-90s, but was mostly unimpressive in the Pirates’ bullpen — he struck out 18 batters in 17 1/3 innings, but walked ten, continuing to struggle with control issues that have dogged him throughout his career.
Well, at $1 mil, it was a pretty low-risk gamble. So it goes.
That’s too bad. Liz was great in National Velvet and Cleopatra.