The Diamondbacks are close to wrapping up a deal with free-agent reliever Noe Ramirez, reports Zach Buchanan of The Athletic (Twitter link). He elected free agency just two days ago rather than accept an outright assignment with the Angels, who’d designated him for assignment.
Ramirez, 31, was traded from the Angels to the Reds over the winter as part of Cincinnati’s Raisel Iglesias salary dump. He returned to the Halos after the Reds cut him loose late in Spring Training, avoiding the bulk of his arbitration salary in the process. Ramirez allowed a pair of runs in 3 1/3 innings with the Angels this year before being designated for assignment.
Prior to that odd Anaheim-to-Cincinnati-to-Anaheim volley, Ramirez was a fairly steady middle reliever for the Halos. From 2017-20, he pitched 180 1/3 innings of 4.04 ERA ball while recording a 26.4 percent strikeout rate and a 10.5 percent walk rate. Unlike most pitchers in today’s game, Ramirez is a soft-tosser, sitting in the 89-90 mph range with his fastball. Ramirez relies primarily on a changeup to generate swings and misses; he’s finished off 344 plate appearances with that pitch in the big leagues, and opponents are hitting just .195/.227/.289 in those instances. His slider was a decent pitch for him earlier in his career but has been hit hard in recent seasons.
Ramirez hasn’t yet reached four years of big league service time, so in the event that he reaches the Majors and returns to form, he’d be controllable via arbitration through the 2023 season. As Buchanan further notes, this may not be a “minor league” deal for all that long, as the D-backs’ bullpen has struggled to perform while being hit with some injuries as well. Tyler Clippard has yet to throw in 2021 due to a shoulder strain, while Chris Devenski is said to be weighing surgery at the moment. Young righty J.B. Bukauskas just hit the IL due to a flexor strain as well.
Diamondbacks relievers rank 29th in the Majors with a 5.61 ERA, 27th with a 4.81 FIP and 26th with a 4.16 SIERA. They also have the game’s third-lowest collective strikeout rate (21 percent) and sixth-highest homers-per-nine mark (1.49).
From a bad bullpen to a worse bullpen… feel free to interpret that phrase as you see fit.
I mean how bad could it REALLY be to add a veteran who has had some decent seasons?
What, Noe good?
Dbacks should of been like nancy reagen here and just said Noe to Ramirez
Noe one should be like Nancy Reagan.
Or any Reagan.
You prefer people to be ignorant? Good for you!
LOL Reagan was one of our greatest presidents, you are completely anonymous…and unknown.
He was? Based on what metrics?
He was probably the worst president of all time, right next to the second Bush. Grow up and do some research, stop being ignorant.
Gee, I guess tax cuts, a great economy, forcing Russia to tear down the Berlin Wall, the freeing of our hostages in the Middle East, lowering unemployment to new lows since the depression etc.
Hey MLBTR Admins and Staff? Perhaps a warning system could be implemented for off-topic comments of these types?
I’ve seen forums and “thread sites” that use such methods to keep things in line. They are generally issued to all involved with starting and continuing discussions that have nothing to do with baseball (let alone the post topic) regardless of intent or that take the conversation away from baseball.
Just a suggestion.
And maybe go door to door and take away everyone’s guns .
There. Now we’ve taken care of two of the bill of rights.
naturally a dog! 1st amendment doesn’t apply to private domain. the owner of this site can block anyone from posting anything. and if you could read, you have to belong to a ‘well organized militia’ which in present day is the national guards to keep and bear arms. a bunch of dogs are not a well organized militia, you know?
It spoils the jokes, but his first name has two syllables: no-AY.
We know…ay.
Ramirez was a typical Angels pitcher who they hung on to for too long because he had flashes of decent pitching. Now we need to gut the rest of the bullpen except for Rodriguez and start over. Bringing up Peters with a career 5.83 ERA and 5.85 FIP is not the answer to the Angels’ bullpen woes.
He’s got to change his name, he’s committed 2 errors in his career!
Tony LaRussa for MLB Commissioner!
The savior of baseball lol
D-Backs assets for sale anyway. Might as well get ahead of Rockies in a rebuild as Padres and Dodgers not going away any time soon!
Why? The guy is a dumpster fire.
I guess the Dbacks are about to find out the hard way. They’ll DFA him within 2 weeks