The Rangers have designated right-hander Nick Mears for assignment, the team announced. Texas needed a 40 man roster spot after signing Nathan Eovaldi to a two-year, $34MM deal tonight. Mears spent less than a week with the team, having been claimed off waivers from the Pirates on December 23.
Mears, 26, tossed 30 1/3 innings of relief for the Pirates over the past three years, working to a combined 4.75 ERA. He’s shown solid strikeout stuff, punching out batters at an almost perfectly league-average 22.7% clip. Walks were a problem though, as Mears worked to a well below-average 14.9% walk rate over the past three seasons.
Originally signed as an amateur free agent by the Pirates back in 2018, Mears came through their system posting big strikeout numbers as a reliever in the lower levels of the minor leagues. He struggled a bit once he reached Triple-A though, maintaining a good strikeout clip but seeing the walks rise. Over the past few seasons at Triple-A, Mears has worked to a 4.98 ERA over 43 1/3 innings of work.
Mears has just over one year of service time, and still has a minor league option remaining, so it wouldn’t be a surprise to see a team with 40-man roster space put in a claim for him as a bullpen depth piece.
Here comes Chaim
And the strategy to get 8 or 9 guys becomes clear. Let your MLBers walk and claim whoever needs to get waived by the signing teams.
“Rock, paper, scissors?” – Farhan Zaidi
Wouldn’t work. Chaim will throw out a made up fourth sign because he doesn’t understand that game either.
So why designate Eli White for assignment when this guy wasn’t really a main guy they even wanted?
Because they felt Eli White needed to be designated assignment regardless. The question is why did they bother to sign Nick Mears?
They didn’t sign him; they claimed him off waivers.
You never know if you’re going to be the team that successfully passes him down to the minors and off the 40man. Why not take a shot?
Interesting to see the Pirates called up an undrafted, community college pitcher after 50 minor league innings. They promote them fast in Pittsburgh.
Some people prefer cucumber to pickle.
Ahhhhhhhhh………
Sign this many veteran pitchers, some with past injury issues. Use a six man rotation to take the strain off the older arms.
The Nick Mears era in Texas comes to an end….
Now they dfa Mears and hope to pass him thru waivers. The guy just got claimed. It’s really tough for these guys, I hope they figure out a better system then this merry go round the dfa/waiver game is for these guys.
The 40 man needs to be bigger. Maybe 44. Covid really hurt teams with good farm systems. A year of not playing but still counted as time.