The Oakland Athletics have designated veteran reliever Fernando Rodney for assignment, their PR department announced. Wei-Chung Wang’s contract has been selected from Triple-A Las Vegas in a corresponding move.
This could spell the end of the road for 42-year-old Rodney, whose days of slinging arrows may be numbered after a 9.42 ERA in 17 appearances. Still, given the state of bullpens around the league, it would not be a shock to see Rodney hitch his cart to a different horse for another go-round. His 5.46 FIP isn’t all that far off the 4.52 mark he chalked up last season, and he’s striking out batters at just a slightly lower rate. On the flip side, his velocity is down a full mph, and his walk rate is up to 17.1 BB%, all of which and more has led to an ugly -0.6 rWAR mark on the year.
Rodney debuted as a 25-year-old way back in 2002 for the Tigers. He has twice led the league in games finished, while he took home the saves title with 48 for the Mariners as a 37-year-old. On the whole, he has appeared in 913 major league baseball games, thrown 899 2/3 innings, and struck out 908 professional baseball hitters at the game’s highest level. He sports a career 3.79 ERA and almost identical 3.77 FIP.
Wei-Chung Wang will make his first appearance in the majors since 2017 with the Brewers. This season in Triple-A he’s gone 1-1 with 16 appearances and a 3.75 ERA and 3.75 K/BB rate. The lefty spent last season with the NC Dinos of the KBO, going 7-10 with a 4.26 ERA across 25 starts.
YAY!!!!
Remember when the Marlins traded Chris Paddack for him?
and the White Sox gave up Tatis for Shields, SD been pantsing dudes out there lol
Easy to do when you commit to losing enough that selling off all of your major-league ready talent is allowed
Remember when the Padres traded Trea Turner for Wil Myers?
A sad day for all hitters around the league. there is no more Rodney to take batting practice on.
Rodneys 2013 with the Rays was a masterclass. Best wishes in what ever route he goes moving forward.
i believe you mean 2012
I do
Rodney is looking kinda chunky these days
He was always a bit hefty, but this year he’s looked like he’s been eating tires on a regular basis.
Will probably end up with Nationals.
Thank God!!!!!!
He should never play another MLB game. He blows chunks
That explains the look on Chunks’ face.
Favorite comment of the day
I’m ded
Please don’t tell dayton Moore. He likes picking up dumpster pitchers
Now they gotta trade out Hundley for Taylor, then Hermann, and also trade out Brooks for Blackburn, then Luzardo.
Blackburn looking sharp lately and has really only had 1 bad start out of 9 at AAA. No reason to keep him down if he’s going 7 strong at AAA.
Hundley keeps crossing up all the pitchers, he’s terrible at catching and hitting, he’s had enough rope, time to move onto to Beau Taylor and his .500 OBP.
Taylor’s not on the 40-man…they’re probably going to wait until Hermann’s back to DFA Hundley.
Taylor and Blackburn for Hundley and Brooks
even though I’m not too high on Blackburn, I’d be down to swap out those to any day!
And do what with Blackburn? We have a full rotation. Fiers, Anderson, Montas, Bassitt and Mengden.
Question is what will the A’s do if Bassitt and Mengden continue to pitch well with Cotton, Manaea, Puk, and Luzardo coming back.
Reinforce our dumpster fire Triple A rotation. Cotton, Manaea, Puk, Luzardo and Kaprielian will all be on innings limits. They could feasibly run 2 or 3 tandem rotations in Triple A if they feel Jefferies is as far along as those 5 guys.
Let them build their arm strength up without the stress of pitching in competitive games if we absolutely don’t need them. I do expect Luzardo to be up at some point, though. Mengden is walking way too many batters right now for me to feel comfortable about playing him against teams with good offense. Not sure how he was able to get away with 5 walks last night and only surrender a single run.
That is true. Mengden is the easy choice to let go.
He still has an option for this year, so we can stash him as depth. Gonna have to make a decision on him next year, or he’ll be immediately grabbed up by a bottom feeder team that sees his league minimum contract and take it in a heartbeat. *cough* Orioles *cough*
Everybody have fun tonight. Everybody Wei-Chung tonight.
Well I lol’d
Down a full mph, to what 97 mph?
I wonder if the Braves would take a chance on him?
Why would you say this out loud!? Management might hear you!
Brooks next please! followed by Grossman…
NY METS here I come……
Blue jays here i Come
Billy Beane & Co:
/has the best defensive INF in MLB
/trades for and then re-signs the one pitcher who isn’t affected by defense
First Casilla now Rodney? Do the A’s FO hate their fans or something?
They need to make it up to them by trading for the biggest most obvious trade match there is in MLB, and that’s for Marcus “groundball” Stroman. Stroman’s ERA would be 0.50 if he had Chapman, Semien, Olson, Laureano and Pinder behind him. Cashner is similar, but he might retire (?) if traded so Stroman really is the guy.
Stroman would be tempting, but I honestly think the A’s have too much pitching coming back and a bunch on the horizon to even facilitate a trade involving Stroman. He definitely wouldn’t be cheap.
Especially since it’ll take one of those pitchers coming back from injury to get him. Costs too much for guys whose ceilings are higher than his.
We don’t need and probably don’t want Stroman. He has a bad attitude and he’d cost us one of Puk, Luzardo or Murphy. All 3 of those guys should be untouchable right now, and we shouldn’t be trading for a potential #1 to anchor nothing.
Sorry, Stroman will play in California, but not in Oakland.
Oops, my post was meant for the post above yours.
Worst move of the off-season was picking up his option. You could see that at the time.
Straighten your damn hat before you come back.
Read why he does it then sit back down
You win worst yet most predictable comment!
Someone is racist.
I was surprised Wang was not on the active roster that went to Japan.
Never a Rodney fan until he pitched for my Padres for one of the best closer performances period. And obviously his deadline trade will make him a fan of the Padres for years to come.
rangers will take rodney
Was Rodney the oldest guy to play this year? Who is next oldest?
Rodney is the oldest active player (he’s still active until he gets released, at least to me he’s still active). He’s the only active player over 40. Next oldest is Albert Pujols, who turns 40 in January. There are a bunch of 39 year-olds: Nelson Cruz, Pat Neshek, probably a couple others I’m not thinking of.
Thanks for the info!
Red Sox should take a flyer on Rodney.
You guys are being too harsh. the dude is 42. The ending was coming sooner or later. in any resort, solid career for anybody to play 18 seasons at its highest level.
There is absolutely no reason to post sane and rational comments on the internet.
Useless but mildly interesting trivia: Rodney wore uniform #56 every year of his 18 year career except the part of 2015 when he was with the Cubs. Hector Rondon was already wearing 56 and having the best season of his career when the Cubs acquired Rodney, so I would guess that Hector didn’t want to give it up.
Nationals may be desperate enough
He seemed lost with the A’s. He is a effectively wild closer over his career. Pitching in mop up or non save situations isn’t good for him. He looked like he struggled with his overall focus and is checked out. He is likely done!!