Oliver Drake earned an unusual spot in the record books upon making his Twins debut on Saturday, as the right-hander became the first player in history to pitch for five different MLB teams in a single season. After three waiver claims and a trade, the well-traveled Drake has now taken the hill for the Twins, Blue Jays, Angels, Indians, and Brewers since the start of the 2018 campaign. “It’s definitely been a long year,” Drake told MLB.com’s Rhett Bollinger and other reporters. “It’s always a good thing to be wanted in this game. My wife definitely would appreciate being a little more settled. She’s been moving around a lot with me, and it’s kind of chaos. But it’s all part of it, it’s the lifestyle we live, and we’re just making the best of it.” Drake had already taken a long journey of a different sense just to reach the Show, as he was a 43rd-round pick for the Orioles in the 2008 draft and didn’t crack the big leagues until 2015. Ironically, Drake had a pretty stable run for much of his pro career, as he was a member of Baltimore’s organization until he was dealt to Milwaukee in April 2017.
Here’s more from around the AL Central…
- Also from Bollinger’s piece, Michael Pineda will officially begin his rehab assignment with the Twins’ Gulf Coast League affiliate today. This will mark the right-hander’s first action since undergoing Tommy John surgery in July 2017. Minnesota signed Pineda to a two-year, $10MM contract last winter, with $8MM of that deal owed in 2019 as the team sees him as a potential rotation contributor when healthy. If all goes well in his rehab, Pineda is slated to get some Major League innings under his belt when rosters expand in September.
- Indians GM Mike Chernoff talks to The Athletic’s Zack Meisel (subscription required) about how a front office prepares for the trade deadline, as well as managing the hectic, last-minute flurry of calls and messages from other teams on deadline day itself. Cleveland had already acquired Brad Hand and Adam Cimber to reinforce the bullpen earlier in July, leaving the team with one less positional target to worry about as July 31 approached. “There have been times at the deadline where we’ve had multiple needs and you’re juggling a lot of different things at the same time….Because we addressed the bullpen much earlier in the process, we could really shift our focus to, ’How do we help the outfield?’ “, Chernoff said. The piece is well worth a full read for an insight into the many factors that every team must juggle as it looks to make any trade, let alone multiple deals at the busiest time of the year for transactions.
- Rosell Herrera’s rookie season has seen him go from the Reds to the Royals on a waiver claim, though now the 25-year-old looks to be shaping into a useful asset for his new club, the Kansas City Star’s Maria Torres writes. Herrera hasn’t shown much at the plate (.257/.291/.358 over 159 PA with Cincinnati and Kansas City), though he has displayed some versatility, lining up at second base, third base, and all three outfield spots this season. Torres details how Herrera, once a top-100 ranked prospect coming up in the Rockies’ system, first started playing the outfield since Colorado already had Nolan Arenado and Troy Tulowitzki on the left side of the diamond, and how wrist problems slowed his ascent through the farm system.
- The trade that sent J.D. Martinez to the Diamondbacks in July 2017 was the first of six major deals made by the Tigers as they began their rebuilding process, and MLive.com’s Evan Woodbery looks back on the prospect haul that Detroit has collected in those swaps. While it will obviously be several years before the impact of these deals can be fully assessed, the trade that sent Justin Wilson and Alex Avila to the Cubs at the 2017 deadline is already “a big win for the Tigers” since Jeimer Candelario has become a lineup regular.
I think Herrera is more of a bench player. Seems to be playing great though as a fill in for the Royals. Stinks the Reds dumped him because I think he’d be a great asset for any whole the have in the field.
Just more proof that fans put way too much stock in those top 100 lists. This is a guy who was a top prospect and his future is likely as a utility guy (a good one from what we’ve seen from him as a Royal).
For the sake of argument, because that is half the fun of baseball: Injury marred his development time as a prospect and he was forced to learn a new position, namely he was moved away from shortstop where he looked like he could have been a solid defender to the outfield where his bat wouldn’t have played as well. As a SS he was a solid prospect. As an outfielder/third basemen, not as much. Top 100 is a stock watch. The list itself can’t be taken as gospel and a lot can happen to players (and not just prospects, look at Chris Tillman and other MLBers who fell off a cliff from injury or other issues) but you can get an idea of the potential of a player, not the future of a player from their prospect rank.
Five teams in one season shows that teams love the Drake.
Oliver Drake reference – Do major leaguers get travel/moving expense money when they get traded or claimed, or is it more of a “you should be glad you got claimed” situation for the DFA players.
If traded their moving expenses are paid based on distance. If they are traded from, lets say, the Dodgers to the Angels there is not payment.
ARTICLE VIII—Moving Allowances page 34
mlbplayers.com/pdf9/5450407.pdf
I’d never thought much about that but it’s an interesting question
Jeimer Candelario has a .729 OPS and has hit under .200 since May 2nd aka “a big win for the Tigers.”
He’s still got at least 4-5 years of control left. That’s not a bad starting point
He’s fine. Not an everyday by an stretch of the imagination at this point of his career. His ceiling is basically above-average-ish hitter with a good arm, meh defensive skills. Peredes is the key to that deal. “A big win for the Tigers” is a wild statement, is all.
Does anybody have any idea how much Oliver Drake will make this season? I know he’s getting paid to play a game, but It’s got to be quite a impact mentally to have to move around so much and having such an unstable life outside of baseball.
$554,300
Is that if he’s in the minors too?
It’s the pro rated portion of days he spent on a mlb roster. If he’s in the minors and on the 40 man he’s earning the pro rated portion of a little over 80K. Every time he gets DFA’d he’s in essence taken off the 40 man roster right away. It’d be difficult to calculate right now but just a given range is ~80k to ~550K.
lol what? Candelario can’t hit, especially for a corner infielder. Calling it a “big win” is a bit biased.
For both the Tigers and the Cubs, the trade was mutually beneficial Jeimer Candelario was blocked in Chicago but took over 3B in Detroit. Alex Avila and Justin Wilson were not part a long term plan but improved the Cubs in the short term. Isaac Paredes is in poor shape for a teen and will likely never play MLB.