The Diamondbacks announced Wednesday that they’ve acquired infielder Ildemaro Vargas from the Pirates in exchange for cash. Infielder Domingo Leyba was designated for assignment to clear a spot for Vargas, who is returning to the club that originally gave him his first Major League opportunity.
Now 29 years old, the switch-hitting Vargas made his MLB debut with the Snakes back in 2017. He was an up-and-down utility piece for them up through the 2020 season, when Arizona designated him for assignment and flipped him to the Twins for cash. That kicked off a series of team changes for Vargas, who has since ridden the DFA carousel from Minnesota to Chicago (Cubs) to Pittsburgh before today’s return to Arizona.
Vargas batted .257/.287/.387 in 265 plate appearances with the D-backs from 2017-20 but has struggled in limited action since that time. He’s tallied 70 plate appearances between the Twins, Cubs and Pirates but managed only a .167/.214/.292 output. Now back with the Diamondbacks, he’ll likely serve as a bench option and provide some depth at second base, third base and perhaps in the outfield corners.
The 25-year-old Leyba came to the Diamondbacks in 2014’s three-team swap that sent Robbie Ray to Arizona, Shane Greene to Detroit and Didi Gregorius to the Yankees. The addition of Ray obviously proved to be of great benefit for the Diamondbacks, but Leyba hasn’t panned out as they hoped. He’s just 7-for-47 with a 29.6 percent strikeout rate in 54 MLB plate appearances — including an 0-for-22 showing so far in 2021.
To his credit, Leyba has hit well in parts of two Triple-A seasons, slashing a combined .311/.361/.547 in 535 plate appearances. He’s also out of minor league options, generally light on power and is not regarded as a top-tier defender anywhere in the infield. He has experience at shortstop, second base and third base. A club with room on its big league bench could take a shot on Leyba, but neither FanGraphs nor Baseball America ranked among the organization’s top 30 prospects heading into the 2021 season.
And after all that, he’s back where he started.
Love this
Imagine a team living in your head so large they get incorporated into your screen name.
That’s how it is with some Sox fans. And they only play the Cubs 4-6 games per season!
Mom- Starts in grade school and snowballs from there. Been like that my whole life. And cub fans got their licks in too and still do. Couldn’t imagine it any other way. It’s fun and funny. At least with the group of friends I have.
I think we’re both old enough to have a good number of years being fans before there was interleague play. And it made even less sense back then!
I’ll save it until August when the Crosstown Classic approaches.
It has been awesome. You missed it. Anyway, remember the annual charity game Sox and Cubs played? Everything stopped that day for that one. The whole world was on the line for that game. Great stuff.
Yes, I was at the game where they brought up MJ to play. Jordan tied the game with a double and it fittingly finished in a tie after 10 innings because I don’t think anyone really cared who won. They were there to see Michael play baseball.
I believe you are right about the Michael Jordan game.
Crosstown Classic I think it was called but not sure.
When Jordan played AA ball at Birmingham I heard he bought the team a new bus that had all the luxuries of the day.
Wow. Leyba 0-22 while Vargas looks like Tony Gwynn by comparison with a robust .118 batting average…
Looks like the Snakes are merely rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.
He’s a switch-hitter so he actually gets two chances to hit poorly.
Bob Brenly is some kind of stupid, isn’t he? Cuz some people in Murica keep trying to tell certain other people what to do. Enough already.
Yeah that was a bit cringe-worthy. I appreciated that his broadcast partner basically ignored him other than segueing into another subject.
Not to defend what was a completely idiotic statement, but the management firm I worked for used Brenly’s conversation with (I think; need a refresher) Byon Yun Kim after he had given up a crucial home run….along the lines of (not verbatim). “Don’t hang your head. You gave it your best. Never hang your head when you do that”. Failing at something doesn’t mean you didn’t try hard enough; that was the gist of it.
But ya, that was just dumb.
I don’t think that was such a bad thing to say. Kim gave up a HR in two WS games that lost the games. He had been lights out all season. He was damn dejected.
Seriously true. I don’t see how a 67-year-old broadcaster, who knows more about baseball than Stroman knows about anything, can be allowed to make one cringe-worthy comment for every 500 hours of live sports he comments on. It’s an absolute travesty, it makes every aspect of living in this country worse than it needs to be, and this one anecdote certainly speaks to the way America is functioning at its most basic level of average human interactions.
That is, unless anyone would like to tell Brenly what to do. There would be room for that, obviously.
Cey Hey- Brenly said nothing wrong and you know it. It has been called a do-rag for over 60 years to my knowledge. Turn the TV off and talk to people instead of memorizing the garbage spit out on you from the television set. Form your own opinion. You sound like a parrot. Embarrassing
Traded for cash . . . The phrase that’s music to Bob Nutting’s ears.
Mario crosby… You are an idiot troll. Not many big spending teams are winning. Now take your stupid remarks and slither back under your rock
THIS is the 2030 NLCS.
Leyba looks like a good option for the Hanuwa Eagles to consider if they get fed up with Ryon Healy and his lackluster hitting.
Traded for cash!!! That is Bob Nutting’s ( Pirates Owner) favorite transaction. Pirates not build for the future, they are building for Bob Nutting’s bank account. Terrible ownership!!!!
Frustrated and Mario-Do you really think that the Pirates are going to get a player for Vargas who has been on the waiver wire for over a year?
They are both just dumb trolls
Hopefully they will start to try to be constructive or be like Elvis and leave the building.
You should learn better grammar
Kyle Freeland is most asked about Rockie next to Story.. LH and had a good ’20 and top 4 CY in ’18… you missed on that name..