The Giants have designated right-hander Dereck Rodriguez for assignment, Kerry Crowley of the Mercury News was among those to report. They also selected outfielder Joey Rickard and optioned righty Shaun Anderson.
Rodriguez, the son of legendary catcher Ivan Rodriguez, made an immediate mark on the Giants when they first promoted him in May 2018. The former outfield prospect improbably emerged as one of the majors’ most effective rookies that year, in which he threw 118 1/3 innings of 2.81 ERA/3.74 FIP ball and notched 6.77 K/9 against 2.74 BB/9.
After Rodriguez’s first-year success, the Giants were no doubt hoping they had a long-term rotation cog on their hand. Instead, though, Rodriguez has failed to justify a roster spot dating back to last season. Since 2019, the 28-year-old has recorded a 5.94 ERA/5.89 FIP with 6.38 K/9 and 3.41 BB/9 across 103 innings and 30 appearances (16 starts). However, as someone who has a pair of minor league options remaining and isn’t on track to reach arbitration until after 2021, Rodriguez could be attractive to some teams as a reclamation project.
Rickard, 29, is now in line to appear in the majors for a fifth straight season, though the ex-Oriole has never offered much on the offensive side. He’s just a .247/.301/.373 hitter with 20 home runs and 20 stolen bases in 978 plate appearances between Baltimore and San Francisco.
Rays
Miami would make more sense… he grew up there
The Giants. What a mess
Giants live in your head rent free kinda embarrassing for you
Damn… disappointing to see him go from one of most exciting young players in his rookie season to a DFA
That’s the way she goes.
sometimes she goes sometimes she doesnt… fuccnwayshegoes
It’s all water under the fridge now
Yeah, I really liked this guy and was hoping he’d find a way back to the flashes he showed a couple of years ago.
For sure, I’d hoped he mature into a long term option. Apparently his head is not in the game. Sad!
Rodriguez’s peripheral stats and advanced metric of his 2018 season told the whole story
He was a small soft tossing RHP that was lucky.
He’s not a big league pitcher
exactly…plus he couldn’t command his pitches to get enough swing and misses. he’s the kind of pitcher who does well in AAA but can’t make the jump
I loved watching him as much as the next guy, but that rookie season was pretty fluky.
Rodriguez couldn’t strike guys out at a high rate (6.6 K/9), he didn’t have a bunch of velocity (91.7 mph average FB), and couldn’t avoid hard contact (36%).
Combine that with an xFIP that was 1.75 runs higher than his ERA in his rookie season, I just don’t see what the hoopla was all about.
The guy just doesn’t have anything would get a GM excited to throw out on the mound.
Rangers
Shaun Anderson could be good if he can work on his control
If you mean control of his machismo, yeah.
Guy’s a DB, just like Hunter Strickland was.
Strickland was the only player on my ‘own’ team I ever heckled. And I did it at games – standing for more effect
I was a little surmised by this move. He does need a little more seasoning. I know he never attempted to throw that close to anyone to inflict injury, but he’s dangerous in his current form. We need him back, soon!
Just please get a decent left fielder, Farhan!!!
With the pitching as bad as it is that’s your biggest concern?
Ruf/Dickerson is fine for now, with as good as the rest of the lineup has been hitting
What they need is a few pitchers they can rely on beyond Watson
fine if .200 average and .250 OBP is ok with you…
Refsnyder is the answer to your prayers….
They just added Rickard, what more do you want?
Can the Rangers please have Pudge’s son on the squad? If we can turn around random veterans’ pitching careers, I’d imagine we could fix D-Rod.
So the Padres can tee on another rangers pitcher? Padres own him
How often to pads play the rangers?
If IL time counts toward service time Rickard is going to get a pension. I wish his heart was in his game. It wasn’t while he was in Charm City.
Iván is not pleased
D-Rod joins the “wtf happened” club, featuring Chris Heston and Chris Stratton.
so true, ad eric surkamp and mike kickham to that list
i think Kickham was just never that good to begin with
I’m not sure if he’s technically still considered a minor leaguer, but if so, way to Kickham when he’s down.
Kickham is amazingly still in baseball. I thought he was going to be good.
In some fairness to Stratton, he’s been pretty decent in his relief role in Pittsburgh. An uptick in velocity and a huge jump in strikeouts… he may have found that squeaky wheel.
But the previous regime really loved soft-tossing righties who couldn’t strike guys out. There’s a reason the moment Zaidi came around that D-Rod wasn’t getting innings.
I blame the Giants coaching. some of these guys had real talent but the Giants organization either gives up on them too early or does nothing to develop them….
Red Sox need pitching and young arms. Comon Red Sox wake up
All the best to Derek.
This is about the team and the Giants are transitioning back to a winning club. 40 man roster spots are precious and Derek wasn’t justifying his presence there.
Farhan has something brewing…might not be big but there’s a trade or two coming soon.
Zaidi needs to sell everything that isn’t nailed down.
Belt his on a hot streak. I’m not a Farhan fan but standing O for unloading Melancon’s salary. Though unlikely, maybe he’ll get lucky with Belt
your optimism is admirable but not rational…
The timing was everything with the trading deadline a few days away. DRod will almost certainly be traded. He did hit 95mph in his first game this year. He only hit 92 last year after regularly hitting 95-96 in 2018.
He wasn’t hitting 96 regularly in 2018 tho? His 2018 average FB velo was 91 MPH.
Mets need to put in a claim. He has more talent than Lockett or Oswalt
If he has two minor league options left, why did they DFA him? Did they just want him off their 40 man roster? Why not just option him to the minors and see if he can work things out? At 28, he’s definitely young enough for some team to take a chance on him. Maybe Boston will take a flier on him if he’s cheap enough.
They needed a roster spot for Joey Rickard, so they had to DFA someone. And if not D-Rod, who? Rico Garcia might be the other (and I’d wager he’s next).
Unfortunately, Rodriguez was the closest to the fire.