The Tigers have selected the contract of southpaw Nick Ramirez, per a club announcement. He’ll take the place of the optioned Zac Reininger. The club had an open 40-man slot to work with.
Ramirez will be joined imminently by fellow lefty Gregory Soto. As Tom Reisenweber of the Erie Times-News first reported on Twitter, the 24-year-old is slated for a call-up. He’s expected to start tomorrow.
It has been a long and winding road to this point for Ramirez, who reaches the majors for the first time just before his 30th birthday. A fourth-round pick in the 2011 draft, the Cal State Fullerton product had to switch from hitting to pitching in order to finally break through.
Though Ramirez’s move to the mound showed promise at times with the Brewers, his original organization, he didn’t show enough of a spark to force his way up. He ended up landing in the Detroit organization on a minors pact over the offseason.
Ramirez has had an intriguing start to the season. He’s working as a starter for the first time and showing newfound strikeout potential. Through 23 1/3 innings (covering two Triple-A and three Double-A starts), Ramirez carries a 2.31 ERA with 11.6 K/9 against 1.9 BB/9.
As for Soto, he has thrown just three games above the High-A level, all coming this year at Double-A. He’s a power pitcher who needs to hone his command, which he has done in the early going this year. Soto is hardly the class of this farm system’s impressive crop of hurlers, but he did get top-30 organizational billing from MLB.com. Since he’s on the 40-man roster already, the Tigers will make use of him for a spot start, though it seems likely he’ll be sent back down thereafter.
Hell ya Nicko! Represent.
Good for Nick , he deserves this a darn good hard worker. Any Brewer fan would wish him the best and hopes he succeeds
It’s guys like these that need to take advantage of this opportunity and claim a spot on the major league roster. We have given enough opportunities to Carpenter, Hall, Baez, Reininger, Hardy and Verhagen. They can’t cut it. Next will be Burrows and Funkhouser. Let’s see what they can do. Then next year, Mize, Manning and Faedo. Hopefully Boyd, Norris and Turnbull are the real deal and if they are, we would have an amazing pitching staff.
I agree besides Baez & Matt Hall. They haven’t pitched more than 15 innings a piece. If that was the bar, Boyd would’ve been gone a long time a go. I don’t understand how Jacoby Jones is still on this team. We let players like Iggy & McCann walk; yet Jacoby Jones can’t get on base .250 in 3 years. Enigma
Boyd was a little different. He would pitch a great game or two and then he would be mediocre. Then a couple more really good games and then a major clunker. He showed he could do it, just not every time out.
The Tigers, as you noted, have a lot of players that have proven to be AAAA players. The organization is still extremely thin on talent at AA and AAA. It seems we’ve got a surplus of AAA ceiling talent to sort out. Even some of the better prospects, like Daz are looking to be only serviceable major leaguers. Other than the very promising arms in the system, I really don’t see a whole lot to be excited about. We need to acquire some positional player talent in the worst way. Won’t be contending in 2021 at this rate.
Position players is a huge void for this team in the minors and majors. Jake Rogers is starting to hit. But other than that… not much. Castro as a shortstop, he’s hitting decent. I think Lugo too. But no outfielders, no corner infield. Nothing at all.
Yeah…I’m really happy Jake is starting to hit, especially his power. Starting to see why he was ranked as highly as he was. Paredes is struggling a bit at the moment, hoping he will continue to grow. Paredes might also be the real deal. King is another young, promising infielder. But where the hell are the OF and corner guys?!? By the way…I pray they don’t retain Nick unless it’s for considerably less than what he’s making now.
Any chance that Gardy will do a first base flip with Ramirez where he has him pitch to a couple of left handers, move him to first while someone else comes in to pitch to the right hander(s) and then put him back on the mound for more lefties?
No. Just no.
This Tiger team sure has sputtered. There is no offense at all. There’s no sense in pointing out just one player. The back up players are all better than the regulars.
Soto and Ramirez pitched tonight. Soto 4 innings 9 hits 2 walks and 7 earned runs. Ramirez 4 innings 6 hits 1 walk and 1 earned run. Ramirez may have benefited from the Twins getting tired out running around the bases. Both were very bad and both will probably be sent back down by morning.