The Twins have released outfielder Ryan Sweeney, the team announced. Sweeney signed a minor league deal in December that would’ve paid him $750K had he made Minnesota’s roster.
Sweeney sat out the 2015 season in order to get healthy from a series of nagging injuries that had plagued his career. The well-regarded defender was hoping to win a job as a backup outfielder for the Twins, and he’d been hitting well (.294/.400/.412) over 40 Spring Training plate appearances. The 31-year-old has a .276/.333/.380 slash line over 2338 career PA with the White Sox, A’s, Red Sox and Cubs over nine years in the bigs, most notably as a starter in Oakland in the late aughts.
Hopefully he invested the 2MM he got from the Cubs for sitting out the rest of the season last year wisely. Hopefully someone in the lg can use a bench player who mashes righties to the tune of .285 over 606 PA’a with 21 of his career 23 homers coming against RHP.
I believe he has a recently purchased home in the Phoenix area and can avoid the Cedar Rapids winters now.
A lot of his value has been defense dependent. He does hit righties decent, but you’d want more power out of that bench guy.
Still don’t know why the Cubs gave him two years. I realize it was minimal money, but he wasn’t deserving of that…even at the time.
I could not agree more. At the time they signed him to that contract, the Cubs had two other defensive minded outfielders and a slew of minor lg possibilities. Glad he is set up well financially. For some reason, I just see him as that guy like Reed Johnson where you look up and he is on someones team every year.
Goodnight, my sweet angel.
Good luck Ryan. Still rooting for you.