Phillies right-hander Nick Pivetta sat down with The Athletic’s Meghan Montemurro for a candid interview about the difficulty of being optioned to Triple-A and the path he knows he needs to take back to the Majors (subscription required). The 26-year-old expressed disappointment in what he felt was “an early send-down,” though he made clear he respects the decision and understands what he has to improve upon to return. The Phils made no promises about the length of his minor league stay, Montemurro notes, suggesting that Pivetta’s fate is largely in his own hands. Perhaps most interestingly, Pivetta spoke about the emotional conflict of being sent to the minors and having his job taken by close friend Jerad Eickhoff. “That’s the brutality of what is baseball,” Pivetta explained. “Your best friends and guys that have really helped you out, they come up and they take your jobs and you can’t feel hardship against those guys because they’re your friends. … The road he had to come back is extraordinary and it’s a feat and it’s a great thing for him. So I’m not ever going to feel down about that.” The interview serves as a good reminder of the oft-overlooked human component of roster transactions we see on a daily basis.
Here’s more from the NL East…
- A demotion to Triple-A New Orleans could be looming for Marlins outfielder Lewis Brinson if he’s not able to quickly right the ship at the plate, writes Joe Frisaro of MLB.com. The former top prospect struggled through much of the 2018 season but gave Marlins fans hope with a huge Spring Training performance. However, he’s now mired in a disastrous 1-for-27 tailspin over his past 11 games, having punched out 16 times in that span. Even more troubling, as Frisaro points out, is the fact that Brinson has just one hit against a breaking pitch all season.
- The Nationals have assigned just-inked southpaw Dan Jennings to the club’s Double-A affiliate, Jesse Dougherty of the Washington Post tweets. Heading to the penultimate stop of the minors doesn’t mean that the 32-year-old is far from the majors; to the contrary, it puts him much closer to Nationals Park — in Harrisburg, PA instead of the club’s Triple-A outpost in Fresno, CA. Jennings owns a 2.96 ERA over 344 career innings in the majors; given the present state of the Nats’ pen, he figures to be called up in fairly short order.
- It still isn’t clear what’s going on in the inflamed elbow of Phillies righty Victor Arano. He’s due soon for an MRI, but first needs an ultrasound to assess what precise type of imaging to pursue, manager Gabe Kapler tells reporters including Scott Lauber of the Philadelphia Inquirer (Twitter link). The 24-year-old Arano had been off to an interesting start to the season, racking up seven strikeouts against two walks in 4 2/3 innings with an eye-popping 25.0% swinging-strike rate. It’s a small sample, to be sure, but nevertheless a promising development for a young reliever who already showed ample promise last year. He and the Phillies will obviously hope that the elbow issue turns out to be minor.
According to Chris Cote of the Dan Le Batard show, The breaking ball has been BrinDiesel’s weakness since high school. Send him down!!
The yelich trade is looking better every day for the brew crew
In all fairness even if Brinson was doing well the Yelich trade would still look great for the Brewers lol.
Wouldn’t Brinson’s ship need to have ever been “right” for him to “right the ship at the plate”? The guy hasn’t shown anything remotely close to being an MLB level hitter.
I don’t read it like that but this may be one of those existential questions that has no defined answer.
SIGH. Brinson has all the tools needed to be an all star but cannot hit to save his life. Wish they Marlins played more hardball in a return for Yelich. Should’ve gotten two top prospects and at least one more mid tier prospect.
Monte Harrison could end up being an okay player and Isan Diaz could as well but they will not come close to the value Yelich has.
Yelich was good at the time of the trade but he was not seen as an MVP caliber player. Maybe it was because he was playing with Stanton and Ozuna at the time. Since the trade he seems to have stepped it up. He did move to a top 3 hitter’s park from Marlins park which has always been ranked in the bottom 10.
The return was a little light but Brinson was a consensus top 15 prospect in all of baseball and Diaz was a top 100. I never really cared for Brinson going back to his days with Texas. I was surprised they took him over Ray who in my opinion was the better prospect. They were not far apart on the 80 scale but Brinson hits right handed and Ray is a lefty. I always value a lefty prospect over a righty.
There is still lots of time to see how this trade works out. I am sure nobody had any idea the beast Yelich was going to become.
Yelich wasn’t an MVP yet, but he always had batting champion level hitter written all of over him. Most people in the game knew that Yelich was going to improve greatly in the coming years, sure maybe not to the MVP he is now but everyone knew he’d be a stud.
It was such a bad trade from day one. Out of all the outfielders, Yelich had the great trade value. They’ll be lucky to get one MLB regular out of that deal at this point.
Brinson, always was a risky prospect and had bust written all over him for awhile too. Just a horrible deal for the Marlins.
“All the tools needed to be an all star but cannot got to save his life.”
Well there’s a problem in your comment there because the “hit tool” is one of all the tools and he sure as heck don’t have it.
Pivetta has a 5.50 ERA so quit crying.
When Jeter and Co. got to town and took over the Marlins I don’t think it’s possible to lose leverage in deals faster then they did being as desperate as they were to move salary. Sure, they had to move Stanton and his massive salary, but why not wait and gain some leverage with holding on to Yelich and Ozuna? No, they forced al the deals and took a weak return for Yelich (who was obviously not near his peak when
He was dear). That’s not hindsight either, most in baseball knee Yelich was close to unlocking his power. Just an awful deal for the Marlins.
Did he even actually “unlock” his power, or are balls just going out in Milwaukee that mostly wouldn’t have gone out in Miami? I saw something that all of his 13 or however many home runs have been at home. It’s an actual question.
Don’t forget about all the home runs last year in Milwaukee, or were those also all at home? It’s an actual question.
that is hindsight. part of yelich’s problem was always his low launch angle, which hovered around 4.5 degrees. That wasn’t clear the fences of marlins park, & still won’t. Even last year when he caught fire, it was around 8. Miller Park is inflating his stats greatly, everyone knew it would before he played a game there so let’s not act like he suddenly unleashed stanton-esque power.
jeez, if Arano can stay off the DL he can be a darn fine RP.
For those of us that watched Yelich daily it was apparent from day 1 he could hit.
Brinson is the exact opposite. He has a long swing, is unable to pick up breaking balls and is either unwilling to adjust or can’t.
We have all seen this film before:: baseball people like (Jeter and Hill) fall in love with the appearance of a player.
He looks like a star, like a horse that can fly, but at the end of day it is just a facade an illusion that is the equivalent of fools gold.
Bottomline Brinson can’t hit. While Yelich is a natural.
The most alarming factor is that Jeter and Hill thought he could and gave away Yelich.
The 26-year-old expressed disappointment in what he felt was “an early send-down..”
You got shelled kid. No two ways about it.
It should be clear to the Marlins and everyone else for that matter that Brinson is wrong for the Fish. First, he is definitely outside the Window for Miami and second, he needs a change of scenery to overcome his disappointment in being traded to the Marlins. I would suggest Brinson to Atlanta for a pitching prospect or high ceiling outfielder. Huscar Ynoa obtained from Minnesota in 2017, now in high A ball, or Izzy Wilson, promising outfielder in high-A as well.. n These prospects are timed closer to any hope the Marlins have of competing. Sending Brinson down only drops his value. Ynoa is on the 40-man.
I would argue that every day Brinson is in the big leagues drops his value more than sending him down.
I would agree.
At this point he has proven he can’t hit. Therefore he has no trade value.
All that is left is going down and hoping that he has a miraculous transformation.
I’d argue that his value is very low right now, and unless he proves he can hit at the big league level at some point, it’s not going back up.
Brinson isn’t eligible until free agency until 2024. 2025 if they hold him down long enough. When the hell is the window going to open up in Miami? You have to a couple established big leaguers to go along with a team full of rookies. There’s no sense in dealing Brinson unless you think this is all he is. His value couldn’t be any lower.