April 2: Tomas has cleared waivers and accepted an outright assignment to Triple-A Reno, the team announced Monday.
March 31: The Diamondbacks have placed outfielder Yasmany Tomas on outright waivers, Nick Piecoro of the Arizona Republic reports. The move will open up a spot on Arizona’s 40-man roster, which had been at capacity.
A former star in Cuba, Tomas has been a letdown since immigrating to the majors on a six-year, $68.5MM guarantee entering the 2015 season. With around $46MM of that money still coming his way, the 27-year-old Tomas is a strong bet to clear waivers. Given that he has three years of service time, Tomas could refuse an outright assignment in favor of free agency, but as Piecoro notes, he’s unlikely to do so because it would mean vacating the contract.
The Diamondbacks previously optioned Tomas to Triple-A entering the season, even though they had just lost starting outfielder Steven Souza Jr. to the disabled list with a pectoral strain. That was clearly a damning sign for Tomas, who has struggled mightily in both the offensive and defensive facets of the game during his Diamondbacks tenure.
While Tomas did belt 31 home runs 563 plate appearances back in 2016, he still wasn’t far above the league average as a hitter that year, evidenced by a 109 wRC+. On the whole, the right-hander has slashed just .268/.307/.462 (98 wRC+) with 48 long balls in 1,169 PAs. He has been significantly worse in the field, meanwhile, having posted minus-30 Defensive Runs Saved and a minus-23.3 Ultimate Zone Rating.
Tomas’ combination of underwhelming offense and horrid defense has led to a sub-replacement level career fWAR (minus-1.4) and likely a stay in the minors for the foreseeable future.
Wow
Club really doesn’t want him… He mashed Spring Training.
Wow what?
Owen Wilson – wow
Wow
About time, writing was on the wall once Souza was brought in. RIP all that money.
Whoa.
I remember when he was supposed to be the next cespedes lol
injured a lot?
TRUUUU
Ouch.
Maybe some team takes a flyer on him. Defense is atrocious but he did hit 30 HR in 2016. Then again, Mark Reynolds hit 30 in 2017 and he doesn’t have a job…..
No shot. Nobody is touching that contract. He will go the way of rusney Castillo and toil away in AAA.
I’m pretty sure he meant if he became a free agent.
Right. When he is released, any team can sign him for the minimum and DBacks are on the hook for the rest of the money.
Obviously a team would take a flyer on him if he became a free agent because they could sign him for dirt cheap and low risk high reward…
He isn’t going to be a free agent because he won’t vacate the 46 million still owed to him so that’s a moot point.
I’m pretty sure he meant waivers which is the only way a team could take a flyer on him since he won’t be a free agent……
He’s not likely to be released, the dbacks will put him in the minors
If he chooses free agency, he forfeits his current contract, so they wouldn’t owe him anything in that scenario. Of course, he won’t forfeit all that money, so it’s a moot point
If the DBacks release him, he becomes a free agent but still gets paid the money from the contract. He was already in the minors. The DBacks probably need his 40-man roster spot, so the yes, he probably will be released. The DBacks have to pay him unless a team claims him on waivers. That will not happen.
“Tomas’ combination of underwhelming offense and horrid defense has led to a sub-replacement level career fWAR (minus-1.4) and likely a stay in the minors for the foreseeable future.”
“Teams can also “outright” a player, which means sending a player to the minors and removing him from the 40-man roster.”
He started the year at AAA so this was a move to clear up a roster spot on the 40-man apparently. Not sure if this means they will release him or not.
It’d be surprising if they release him. The money is already spent. He is solid depth in case someone else in the OF goes down. I’m sure they’ll let him play in the minors for awhile as long as he isn’t a huge distraction.
no, if he elects to become a free agent he gives up the money owed. the Dbacks will be off the hook. he will elect to accept his assignment and get paid handsomely
If they release him, he has no choice but to become a free agent. He does not get to “elect” anything
Agreed. Scratch my other comment. Too bad. I’d love to have seen the expensive but stuck in the minors outfield.
He won’t be released.
No, he won’t be released because they can stash him in Reno if he’s not claimed and doesn’t opt out of his contract to become a free agent and lose 42M.
He might become tradeable if he shows improvement there, although the team would most likely have to absorb a good deal of his remaining contract.
Quick straw poll: who wins an even-money Yasmany-for-Rusney trade?
Good idea
Rusney seems like he can play. While being overpaid, his recent minor leagues production would have given him an MLB opportunity if it wasn’t for his contract being grandfathered into the last CBA whereas Yasmany’s isn’t. This means Castillo’s salary does not count against the tax threshold unless he’s back on the 40 man roster. Thus he will probably not get another chance until it expires.
Jays will give you Tulo and Morales for him… does that help either side?
Morales is an AL only player. If the DBacks are truly desperate the Jays should inquire about him and throw in Pearce, recall Teoscar Hernandez. That would allow JD, Travis, Granderson and eventually Tulo to DH once in a while. Doubt the Jays would entertain the idea of Tomas and his contract.
I bet the Yankees will try to get him with all the injuries they have had in the outfield. Does anyone agree?
no
they have options in the OF and most of their injured are only injured for a short period of time. Bird and Frazier are the only long term injuries so far. Dunno bout McKinney but Hicks and Ellsbury are close to returning. That said, they still have 3 OF and multiple platoon guys like Wade and Drury who could play at the corners. No need to panic sign Tomas
His glove is a joke, no chance they want no part of him.
Ridiculous for the Yankees because of their other options. After he clears, would love for Boston to get him. Not to play at Fenway but it would probably be the most expensive minor league outfield in history if he joined Rusney Castillo.
He’s sunk cost at this point. He’ll sign with an AL club, on a minors deal.
Let the my team should get him commence!
Funny. not one person said that.
That isn’t true. Someone already laid out why the Yankees should get him. Lol
Has he ever played 1B?
Well I mean Goldy is entrenched there, but really that’s where he should be playing if not DH.
Don’t you have to be able to hit to DH?
Another huge waste of money towards a Cuban player who’s never proven they can hit in the bigs. You would think teams would be more cautious after there have been way more guys like this than there has been guys like Cespedas.
The thing is, he could never hit nor catch in Cuba neither.
belting 30 HR isnt proving he can hit? His main problem is his defense sucks so much that the bat he does bring isnt enough
No, it does not. He has a career wRC+ of 98
I didnt say a great hitter, only that he can hit at the MLB level
His career Off is -11, so again, no.
He is a low OBP power hitter. His last full season of ABS in the bigs he was a slightly above average hitter. That kind of player doesn’t carry much value especially since his fielding is atrocious. His defense is what is keeping him out of the big leagues though. If he could play average D he’d still be a diamondback.
Chesteraarthur, cherry picking stats to troll your points is a sign of weakness and a true lack of intelligence. No one can take you seriously. You didn’t the assigned numerical positions on a baseball field. That’s baseball 101. Ur annoying, drop it
I’m not a sabre fan but the basic fact is Arizona is eating a lot of money which seems to speak volumes. No?
So basically he is a major league average hitter in terms of run production. That is pretty good.
He’s -11….as an OF. That is not pretty good…
Yeah, cherry picking stats like offensive value- to talk about someone’s ability to hit. Learn common sense before you attempt to insult me.
For the big money deals it’s been pretty much split. Cespedes, Gurriel, and Abreu worked out extremely well. Moncada is too early to tell but one would assume that deal also works out. Tomas, Olivera, and rusney Castillo did not. Maybe I forgot someone but it seems to be pretty much a coin flip. I do remember Tomas was always considered a lesser talent than Jose Abreu but the way Abreu came over and performed probably influenced Tomas’ deal in some way. Abreu looked like an absolute bargain and has proved to be. Tomas was the next guy up after him and as we’ve seen ended up getting more than Abreu and obviously more than he should’ve.
Guerrero with the Dodgers didn’t work out so well either. I’m sure there are more as well .
Teams have changed their evaluation process overall in case you haven’t noticed. The talent pool risk v. reward of players from Cuba seems pretty much on par with other baseball players. Cespedes is the ultimate high risk/high reward player. Remember, Boston after two months had enough of him and Detroit which after trading him to the Mets, decided against bringing him back as a free agent. Abreu is so far the best team player we’ve seen in this new wave of Cuban players.
good points
Any AL team should take a shot at him and DH him with occasional field play.
Any AL team? No. Perhaps the Orioles or another second wild card hopeful team or maybe a rebuilding team will trade for him with AZ paying some salary. If he then shows some thump, he can be flipped (with his contract now subsidized).
What AL teams are in need of a league average hitter at DH?
Tomas was never a star in Cuba, his contract was absolutely ridiculous.
You sure about that? You can’t go anywhere in Cuba without hearing the name Tomas all the time
I’m going to assume this was sarcasm, but i’ll bite either way. The cuban league has no pitching, everybody and their mother is aware of that. Hitters have to hit at least .330 to be considered “good” not great, and Tomas’ best avg was .301 in 5 seasons. He wasn’t even a top 4 batter in his own Industriales team.
I’m Cuban btw, the only time you heard people talk about Tomas was when he signed that contract, because everybody knew it was highway robbery. After he got that much money a lot of youngsters started deserting because they figured they could make a ton of easy money if a guy like Tomas was getting that much.
Welcome to AAA jail. Enjoy the dough. Thankfully he didn’t kill anyone on the 101.
I don’t understand how anyone can think Tony Clark should keep his job.
Tomas, Castillo and Moncada alone signed for more than all 30 MLB teams are now allowed to spend on all of their (non-veteran) international free agent signings each year COMBINED thanks to the hard cap he agreed to give the owners.
Ohtani got a $2 million deal instead of a $200 million deal.
In order to avoid an international draft he agreed to have each team pay out less to ALL of their international signings than the #1 overall pick alone gets from being drafted and signed.
He is Manfred’s dream union head.
Hopefully the next round of talks results in pools based on age and not where they’re from. I understand JoshBellTolls concerns but why should a loophole have allowed international
players to have been paid more than others to begin with? Part of the problem has been the players association’s unwillingness to consider a cap with a floor.
Only way to have a floor on spending is to have 100% revenue sharing. Not likely the Dodgers and Yankees will say yes to that.
The reason goes far beyond the Yankees and Dodgers. A major aspect to be considered is the fact that RSNs are dying. Beyond that the most pressing realization would be that a 100% splits would benefit no one. It’s sounds weird but with the structure now the bottom 15 in rev collect a heck of a lot more than they would in 30 team split. Even the biggest contract in the Dodgers has a major % taken out annually due to the debt they incurred by buying the team. MLB is a regional sport more so than other sports like the NBA and NFL.
Another Ben Badler “can’t miss superstar” Cuban ballplayer that is making mega millions for production well below expectations showing his actual talent level barely above the minor league level.
Yes, defense does count also, which apparently he doesn’t exactly excel at.
Also probably 5 years older than the 27 age as reported.
When will major league GM’s learn that playing against inferior talent just doesn’t translate to the Major Leagues regardless of those wonderful “showcases” they put on.
31/81/.272/.820 ops? What happened to 2017? Mlbtr will be all over him for this 2016 numbers!
Geez
He will never get rave reviews for his defense!
It lives!
Knowing that the D-Backs owe him that money either way and clearly don’t want any part of him … there’s a few AL clubs that should take a flier on him. I do believe you can get 30+ HR’s out of him and he can be an even better hitter than he was in 2016. He’s still kinda young and only has 2 full seasons of at bats in the majors. If you make him a full time DH and take his glove away, then that will eliminate his negative and perhaps he could produce a positive WAR and be a valuable contributor with just the bat. As someone pointed out though, there has already been a huge devaluation of these types of players
( Mark Reynolds) but Tomas might still have some offensive upside even beyond his 2016 numbers. I’d say it’s worth a shot. Give a little prospect and maybe 15 mil to the D-Backs and plug Tomas into DH. Just a thought.
As mentioned above, he loses his guaranteed money by electing free agency due to his service time. Same as Castillo. Thus, a team would have to trade for him as no one will just pick him up off waivers due to that contract. AZ would have to absorb a huge part of it.
Isn’t there some sort of mechanism That Castillo Could use in a grievance against the Red Sox for suppressing him?
I doubt there is and either way, he’s not going to forfeit the 72 million. The way out would include losing the money.
They wouldn’t have to elminate his glove if they could elminate his over eating
Bring him to Texas I say. I think he could do well here–especially if they can get him cheap.
After he clears, they can trade him for Rusney Castillo. He could probably hold down a roster spot, so the D’backs could use him and the Sox will never bring him up because they’d have to pay the luxury tax. Since the money is essentially a sunk cost for the D’backs, assuming they come close to evening out whatever the difference is in the contracts, it’s a way to create value where there wasn’t any before so both teams can win.
Of course he took the assignment to AAA. He is going to make $46 million to play in the bus leagues for a few years. He would not have received that kind of money as a free agent.
But will he ride the bus?
In other news the Twins just realized Lance Lynn sucks lol. Lets go back to the post where he signed and look at all the posts giving praise haha.
It was 1 game! Damn ! Tough room!
Jays will give you Tulo and Morales for him… does that help either side?
Not at all, especially without a DH in the NL. KMo is strictly a DH at this point in his career. As sad as it sounds, Tulo is probably done playing above average defense and I cant see him playing anywhere but 1st or DH given his injury issues. Blue Jay side, I dont think it makes sense to add Tomas when you have better options in Grichuk and Teoscar who both play better defense.
I doubt there is and either way, he’s not going to forfeit the 72 million. The way out would include losing the money.
It seems like if they ate most of the contract KC or Oakland would take a flier on him for DH. May even get a lottery ticket prospect out of the deal.