The Tigers have agreed to a minor league contract with free-agent infielder Jack Lopez, as first reported by former big league infielder Carlos Baerga (on Instagram). Evan Petzold of the Detroit Free Press tweets that Lopez has signed a deal and will head to the Tigers’ spring facility in Lakeland, Fla. for minicamp.
The 29-year-old Lopez won a Silver Medal as part of Team USA during last summer’s Olympics. He made his Major League debut with the Red Sox not long after returning, going 2-for-13 with a pair of doubles in a tiny sample of seven games. He split the rest of his season between Double-A (five games) and Triple-A (68 games), batting a combined .285/.355/.413 with four homers, 17 doubles, a triple and 15 steals (in 17 tries) over the life of 273 plate appearances.
Lopez, a 16th-round pick by the Royals back in 2011, has appeared in parts of nine minor league seasons and logged a collective .241/.295/.331 batting line in that time. The vast majority of his professional experience has come at the two middle infield slots, with more time at shortstop than at second base. Lopez also has more than 1200 professional innings at the hot corner, in addition to some more sparse work in the outfield.
Baseball America at one point ranked Lopez among the middle tiers of the Royals’ farm system, noting that his range, soft hands and solid arm gave him a chance to handle shortstop at the big league level. That was seven years ago, and the the bat obviously hasn’t panned out as hoped, but Lopez will give the Tigers some defensive value and versatility to stash in the upper minors.
Nice little pickup by the Tigers.
*Yawn* not a very exciting signing, but he did play for the Silver.
Living the dream.
At AAA Toledo the middle IF might be quite crowded with players like W. Castro, Kreidler and Clemens fighting for ABs plus an MLB promotion (even Paredes may have an option left). Thus Lopez could find himself playing for AA Erie quickly.
Gruß,
BSHH
Tigers adding again to the “organizational depth”. Not much else you can do at this juncture.
Al Avila is so….. amazing.
Already better than Zack Short.
.165 babip, I’m not giving up on him just yet.
But, he certainly didn’t take advantage of the opportunity last year.
No he didn’t. He wasn’t all that great defensively either.
Um.. why Baerga?
soft hands
screw that, why does a ballplayer need soft hands. let’s roughen them puppies up
scout talk is exhausting
I feel bad for these guys who linger around the minors for so long. If they happen to put it all together later in their careers (age 28-32) teams control them for 5+ years so they’ll be lucky to make $5M for their entire career in the majors, unless they can play into their late 30’s which is rare.
I do hope they add some sort of provision to the next CBA that once a player reaches age 30 (or 29.5), they can become free agents so they have a chance to make some money after being paid next to nothing for the 8+ years they’ve spent in the minors. This provision could be on top of the standard 6 years of control that teams get for players who come to the majors up earlier in their careers.
Isn’t Lopez a free agent already? While no MLB money, he hopefully gets a decent salary on this contract, unlike the younger minor leaguers (whose horrible lousy stipends are the most appalling scandal).
Gruß,
BSHH
Jack Lopez is not a MLB caliber player. Up to this point, his numbers show he’s prone to SO, doesn’t BB, low extra bases and low IF and OF range. Although he can SB, he’s not much of a run scorer.
He’s nothing like Zack Short. Short did show some potential but also had lapses. But that can be said about all the Tiger SSs back to Jose Iglesias and even Jhonny Peralta. I wish the Tigers would’ve played Short more.
Short had a good first week at the majors but quickly was out of his depth at the plate. I too don’t think you can give up on him.
…this career comes with steep competition for the limited jobs open in the majors. It’s the nature of the game and far more will fail than succeed.
like many things in life.
No tears for someone who can hang around until their late 20’s, playing baseball for a living…..
I’d say that’s lucky!
Yeah, wouldn’t we all???
The player’s union has already given in on that proposal and isn’t even negotiating it anymore