The Orioles announced today that they’ve designated right-hander Odrisamer Despaigne for assignment in order to clear a spot on the roster for lefty reliever Brian Duensing, who has been activated from the 60-day disabled list.
[Related: Updated Baltimore Orioles Depth Chart]
The 29-year-old Despaigne was acquired in an offseason trade that sent Class-A righty Jean Cosme to the Padres. Despaigne totaled just 27 1/3 innings for the Orioles at the big league level, pitching to a 5.60 ERA with 5.6 K/9, 4.9 BB/9 and a 38.2 percent ground-ball rate. His work at the Triple-A level was considerably better, as the Cuban-born righty tossed 88 1/3 innings with 3.87 ERA, 7.1 K/9 and 2.8 BB/9. In total, Despaigne has a 4.84 ERA in 249 1/3 innings between the Orioles and Padres as a Major Leaguer.
Duensing, 33, hasn’t pitched since June 19 due to inflammation in his left elbow. The longtime Twin signed a minors pact with the O’s earlier this season and pitched just 6 2/3 innings before going down with his elbow ailment. Duensing will give manager Buck Showalter four lefties to choose from in his bullpen, as he’ll join brilliant closer Zach Britton, rookie Donnie Hart and Jayson Aquino in the relief corps. The former third-round pick carries a significant platoon split in his career, so he’s best deployed as a situational lefty. He’s held same-handed opponents to a .238/.289/.329 slash in 935 career plate appearances.
WHITE SOX SHOULD PICK HIM UP AND LET COOPER WORK WITH HIM
LIKE HE WORKED WITH JOSE CONTRERAS
Love the Orioles bullpen. Britton deserves the AL Cy Young award.
Chris Sales will won it if he wins his last starts
He better not. If the AL Cy Young is anyone but Fulmer, Sanchez or Hamels it will be the biggest travesty ever.
Tanaka, Happ and Kluber are all more deserving than the 3 you mentioned. I guess since I have disagreed, you are going to throw a fit and call me a moron now. Look at Hamels peripherals and tell me he is more deserving than Happ.
Aaron Sanchez’s ERA is MILES below all the guys you mentioned! And Happ has a 3.34. You’d have to have a pretty bad season for pitchers for that to be good enough to win the Cy Young hahaha.
No pitcher who throws 70 innings should win the CYA
Disagree
So you think the CY winner should pitch 69 innings or less? Because all of the rest of them have pitched 70 innings.
I just think a reliever doesn’t have any way to compile even remotely enough innings to be the best pitcher in the league. I disagree with the Gagne selection too, and even the Eck and Willie Hernandez selections. There’s so much more value in 200 good innings than 70 great ones. Britton is, I believe 13th in the AL in pitcher WAR. Modern closer usage just doesn’t allow a reliever to amass any real value. Blame that on the manager or the system or whatever, but there’s just no way Britton is the best pitcher in his league.
I understood what you meant, I was just making a joke. I won’t say that a reliever should NEVER win, because in 1992 every starter in the AL had a bit of a flaw. Keep in mind that this was pre-WAR so it was just wins, strikeouts, and ERA being looked at. Jack Morris had the most wins, but his ERA was over 4.00. Roger Clemens and Mike Mussina had great ERAs, but they didn’t 20 games and Cy Young winners back then needed 20. Jack McDowell had 20 wins and is probably the best argument for a winner over Eck. That being said, I have no problem with Eck winning that year.
Although I will say that a pitcher, especially a reliever, should never win the MVP. Kirby Puckett deserved the award in 1992 instead of Eck. If a hitter can’t win the Cy Young Award, then a pitcher shouldn’t win the MVP.
Britton is being asked to go out there and throw an inning every other night while guys like Hamels, Kluber, etc are going out there and throwing 6-7 innings (if they do well) every fifth day. It’s obvious they have more work to do than Britton. I’d like to see Britton get on the mound and start and see how he does now – we all know how it turned out before…
I feel the pirates have another reclamation available (although not really reclamation since he wasnt really good to start)
I dunno what they could really do with him. I saw him as a Padre (I’m a giants fan) and his stuff just isn’t great. Poor control low strikeout totals just won’t cut it in the big leagues.
He’s a junk baller and those guys just can’t really cut it anymore.
They should really award a new expansion franchise to Havana Cuba. They can call them the Cuban Flops. They’d just about have a whole team right now.
Probably have about as much competition as a team called the American Flops or the Dominican Flops, right?
No not really. At least not percentage-wise. Besides, Americans, Dominicans, Japanese, and Koreans rarely get the type of money that the Cubans were handed. Cespedes and Abreu are about the only Cubans that have really done well. I guess you could count Puig for a year or two, but his fall has been so great that it almost overshadows the rest.. Either way, there have been many big money flops coming from Cuba.
They have had quite a few solid players though. Yunel Escobar, Yasmani Grandal, Raisel and Jose Iglesias, aledmys Diaz, adeinny hechavria and Kendrys morales are all good not great big leaguers. I’m not sure how hyped they were, but they’ve turned out to be good. And chapman is defiantly a good one, but you could maybe call him a bust due to the fact he couldn’t start
How much more badly do Wade Miley and Gallardo have to pitch to become designated also?
Miley has been AWFUL! Gallardo has had a few good games. I think the O’s should have kept Eduardo Rodriguez and Zach Davies instead of trading them. Bundy and Gausman have been showing signs of a positive future though.