The A’s announced Thursday that they’ve released veteran right-handed reliever Santiago Casilla, whom they’d recently designated for assignment.
The 37-year-old Casilla had a solid surface-level ERA, pitching to a 3.16 mark through 31 1/3 innings of relief. However, he’s issued 20 walks, hit four batters and thrown four wild pitches in that time while striking out just 22 hitters. The righty’s 92.9 mph average fastball velocity was the lowest mark of his career, and his nine percent swinging-strike rate is his lowest full-season mark as well.
Casilla is earning $6MM in 2018 — the second season of a two-year, $11MM free-agent deal he signed with the A’s in the 2016-17 offseason. He’s still owed about $2.35MM of that sum through season’s end. As a free agent, he’ll be able to sign with any club, and a new team would only owe him the pro-rated portion of the league minimum through season’s end. The Oakland organization will remain on the hook for the rest of that salary.
While the 2018 season hasn’t been a good one for Casilla, he pitched to a 2.66 ERA with much better marks of 8.4 K/9 against 3.5 BB/9 in 435 2/3 innings between San Francisco and Oakland from 2010-17.
Braves should take a gamble on him
Angels new closer lol
Another one of Billy’s great signings.
It was a signing out of necessity, and didn’t really cost us a lot of money. But hey, if you want to hate Billy Beane irrationally, you do you bud.
It’s wasn’t a necessity to sign Casilla when there were better relievers available for much cheaper.
Just remember, more goes into signing than just the final dollar and/or years. Addison Reed wanted to be close to home for example. With Beane’s history of trading players and tearing down or the A’s not looking like contenders heading into the season maybe they didn’t have many options who were willing to sign.
There were better relievers on the market, but that doesn’t always mean available.
Putting a contract in front of someone isn’t guaranteed to get their signature – the player has to actually want to play there.
By that logic we can criticize any signing at a position of need…
Why are we assuming no one would sign with Oakland anyway? Yeah it’s possible, but it doesn’t seem likely.
And they all wanted to sign with the A’s
Didn’t cost a lot of $$? No other team was going to pay him what Billy paid him, just like the Butler signing.
The Madson signing and Doolittle extension was great. Netted us All Star Treinen and top prospects in Luzardo and Neuse. Great signings billy
Come to the cubs
No
now do the same with Hatcher and call up Wahl already
Wish I could RT this
came to post
Pretty neat to see this guy has played for as long as he has, is a three time World Series Champion, and has never left the Bay Area. He should be like a local hero.
Bye Jairo
Jerry your up!
Casilla should take a minors deal somewhere and get his control straightened out
Decent Era but tons of walks? At worst he’d fit in perfectly on the Braves, but at best… Could be an awesome pickup on the cheap. Go get him AA!
Walking nearly 6 batters per 9 with the lowest swinging strike rate of his career… not a recipe for success no matter who he plays for.
His entire career has been about whether or not he’s had a good defense behind him or not. His FIP’s were always pretty high for a RP. Bad sign then, bad sign now. His previous 3 years he had a 3.58 FIP, which isn’t good for a reliever, and his contract ends up with 90 innings of 3.89 ERA, 4.28 FIP baseball for $11M.
Casilla is being released to make room for…..?
Is there a trade in the works to bring several players over?
He was released because he was DFA’d
Minor league deal with NYM in his future.
Shocked Atlanta has no sprung into action yet, this fits the dumpster diving model perfectly. Cheap, no prospects lost, if he fails who cares, move on to the next reject.
Good point. I think the Braves and CLE (until today) pretty much proved this year that bullpen-by-waiver-wire approach is rarely, if ever, effective. Low risk + low cost = great probability of little or no reward.
Baltimore should grab him on a minors deal- send him to AAA, call him up after Brach and Britton are traded and try to get a lottery ticket A baller in an August waiver deal assuming he puts up reasonable results.
needless to say, to sum up all of these comments, the guy is by no means finished and will probably land a minor league deal somewhere at the least, no matter what his peripherals are saying about him
I only know him as Jairo
Could have been a hall of famer if he figured his control out.
Watch, the Giants will probably sign him back on a minor league deal. Lol