The Rangers have released right-hander Reyes Moronta and outfielder Joe McCarthy, tweets Evan Grant of the Dallas Morning News. The team has also informed non-roster invitees Clint Frazier and Yoshi Tsutsugo that they will not make the Opening Day roster.
Signing with the Rangers offered Moronta, previously a setup man with the Giants, the opportunity to reunite with former skipper Bruce Bochy. Spring training didn’t go as either Moronta or the team hoped, however, as he was roughed up for ten runs on nine hits and four walks with five punchouts in 5 2/3 innings.
The 30-year-old Moronta spent the 2022 season with the Dodgers and D-backs, working to a 4.30 ERA with a 23.6% strikeout rate and 11% walk rate in 37 2/3 frames. That was his healthiest season since 2019 surgery to repair a torn labrum in his shoulder. He missed the 2020 season and pitched in just 22 Triple-A frames in 2021.
Prior to that surgery, Moronta pitched 128 1/3 innings of 2.66 ERA ball with a huge 29.8% strikeout rate and a heater that averaged just over 97 mph. His velocity was down to 95.3 mph in 2022, however, nearly two full ticks below peak levels.
McCarthy, 29, appeared in 17 Cactus League games and batted .258/.343/.387 with a homer, a double, a stolen base, three walks and a dozen strikeouts. His candidacy for the left field job took a hit when the Rangers signed Robbie Grossman, who’s been the primary option in left this spring and will get a chance to run with a regular role there when the season begins.
Grossman’s arrival was also bad news for Frazier, who had a decent showing this spring, hitting .244/.311/.463 with a pair of homers, three doubles and a 14-to-4 K/BB ratio in 45 trips to the plate. The switch-hitting Grossman is much stronger from the right side of the dish than the left, which never seemed to bode well for the right-handed-hitting Frazier. The former top prospect, who had a nice run with the Yankees from 2018-20 when he hit .267/.351/.485 in 447 plate appearances, is still with the club for now and could open the season in Triple-A as a depth option.
Tsutsugo, 31, got a bit later of a start in camp. He appeared in 11 games and batted .240/.296/.400 with a homer, a double, two walks and eight strikeouts in 27 plate appearances. Tsutsugo was a feared slugger in Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball but has yet to acclimate to Major League pitching since signing with the Rays prior to the 2020 season. He’s a .197/.291/.339 hitter with 18 home runs in 640 Major League plate appearances. Like Frazier, he could be a depth option in Triple-A to begin the season.
I wonder if this means that Clint Frazier will go back to calling himself Jackson Frazier again.
Dude is 28, I would have guessed 38? Seems like he’s been around forever….
I thought he was younger. It’s only been a little over a year since he was a top 10 prospect in all of baseball according to Yankees fans.
He was a top 10 prospect in all of baseball according to basically every source lmao stop with the revisionist bias.
Not true. A little over a year ago he already well exceeded prospect eligibility. Only Yankees fans held him in such high regard in their fantasy land trade proposals. Lmao another clueless Yankees fan.
Good riddance!
It wasn’t all that long ago that Yankees fans were claiming Frazier was the 2nd coming of Mantle
He is still
Rob Refsnyder as well
Nobody thought that LOL
Instead, he turns out to be the first coming of Clint Frazier.
Literally no1 said that but go on
Not those exact words, but they said that the Yankees should not trade him for several different players that had put up 4-6 WAR. That is close enough.
Yankees fans are the most delusional about their prospects.
The thing about Frazier, and a lot of clubs do this, if a guy has perceived value and you’re not going to use him, TRADE HIM!
Yankees could have flipped Frazier for an area of need but didn’t. Not allowing him to play MLB when he was younger stunted him.
I think Nick Pratto is going to fall into this category for the Royals. He’s blocked at his only 2 positions of DH/1B and already 24. I realize he might not be a high ceiling guy but he is a well known prospect who has had success as he has moved up. Maybe he’s not a guy that fits the KC plans or ever is an everyday guy but never known until given a chance more than 200 at bats.
He did play. Been dealing with concussion issues since the beginning of 2018 and had established himself by 2020. Since then it’s been a disaster that has nothing to do with experience.
Like how the Rangers mismanaged Jurickson Profar being the (most laughable) top prospect in the minors.
They traded Kinsler for him to be the everyday guy in 2014 but missed the next 2 seasons with shoulder surgeries so they were going to give it to him. Then Odor came up and surpassed Profar on the depth chart but they realized he was subpar on defense and became stuck on what to do. Then at 25 they started him and gave him 146 games and he was solid but they decided to trade him after 2018. You can think he wasn’t a #1 prospect but his injuries didn’t help his development or how Texas was going to handle what position to play him. Getting out of Texas they gave him a place to play everyday. Rangers did get international signing bonus money and Brock Burke out of that deal.
Giants offered a few times for Frazier. Yanks had his value higher but it never materialized. But my own Giants did the same thing with Gary Brown. “Center fielder of the future” they never called up
Good thing Frazier’s made about $8.5 mill because he’s not even a AAA player right now. Hope he has a plan b for life ready because plan a is not looking good.
Uber driver
He’s been enough places he shouldn’t need a GPS. He must be a walking atlas by now.
Way too many concussions to trust him behind the wheel.
I will be watching for where Frazier ends up, because he is a requirement for any Mike Trout trade.
You beat me to it. Great minds think a like I guess. Only problem with Frazier though is he loses 98% of his value outside of the New York market.
Wonder if Hawkins will face National ridicule and pick up Frazier again? He took up space at Iowa all last year. Won’t know at least until tomorrow as the Cubs are playing 2 games today so their cuts will be Saturday I’m thinking.
Pirates should pick up Frazier. Then at the deadline they could trade him and Andujar for Ohtani.
Your trolling is boring and unoriginal. Come up with something fresh pls, or get sent to MUTE WORLD
Actually these never get old. Those were good times.
Squirrel!
No, he was never that great, and then the wall got him.
@YourDreamGM Yankee fans are still in denial about their awful trade proposals from a couple years ago. Tons of comments of “Frazier, Deivi Garcia, Miguel Andujar” for a teams superstar flooded the site and they act like that never happened
“I think (Andujar) is a hell of a player,” Cashman told Joel Sherman of the New York Post. “We have said ‘no’ to him (in trade talks) not just this year but from Double-A on up. I have not included him any deals and that should say how I feel about him.”
Cashman added: “We have been challenged many times to move him or coerced to move him. He is here because of what we think of him. And I mean ‘we.’ His makeup is off the charts. His work ethic is off the charts. His energy is off the charts. And his physical ability is off the charts. He is a major contributor, which is what we thought he’d be.”
Sherman reports that the Pittsburgh Pirates asked for Clint Frazier and Andujar in a package for Gerrit Cole during the offseason, but the Yankees rejected the offer and Cole was eventually dealt to the Houston Astros.
The Yankees had lots of trade interest for their prospects when their stock was high, but Cashman has this belief that every prospect that shows a slight glimmer of hope will be apart of the next core 4 that he has so longed to create.
Cashman does not know when to sell and when to hold. He is a bum and one of the 2 main reasons why the Yankees are winless. The other is the baby Steinbrenner who himself is an idiot.
Rememebr Dom Smith and JD Davis? Something about stones and glass houses…
@Pinstripes17 no Met fan ever said JD Davis (terrible defender, strict DH) and Dom Smith (one good season) for say Ohtani. Yankee fans use to say that Deivi Garcia, Sheffeild, Frazier, and Andujar could get any teams superstar
You can mute me but it will only make me more powerful.
I remember plenty of ridiculous Smith Davis trades. Most fans from all fan bases suggestion your good players for their awful ones. Can count on my hand the number of fair trades I seen suggested. Mets fans are the worst next to Yankee fans who are in a tier of their own. You can go back and look at any trade rumor and see their laughable trades. It’s a running punchline here, twitter, everywhere. Every fanbase does it but mostly just Yankees get poked about it. I don’t believe it’s from the hate of them outspending the rest of the league for long period. I believe it’s just because the trades are that ridiculous. I grew up in NY as a Yankee fan and noticed this then.
I predicted last year Garcia and Schmidt will be the new Frazier Andujar. Seen it a lot of times already but I think this year it really blows up. Next up Dominguez. He could be something but if he isn’t the once prized Martian will headline every trade for your teams all star.
All the best to Moronta. He was right there on the cusp of very good things before injury struck him down. One of those “what might have been” guys.
Clint is gonna be crying on Twitter about rangers not giving him a real opportunity
All to Oakland please!
“We’d like to hold on to him,” Cashman told the Daily News’ Mike Mazzeo on Frazier. “I know he’s someone that we’re going to get asked a lot about, and so far we’ve been able to say no and hand-check everything, but I’m a big Clint Frazier fan.”
Or how about when Cashman turned down Lance Lynn and Clevinger for 2 of Frazier, Garcia or Schmidt?
Cashman is an idiot.
Who, Steve Clevinger? =O
Clevenger***
I think I just bought a dozen tamales from Reyes in chicago . Maybe he has changed professions
Yankees did a job on Frazier.
The left field wall did a job on Frazier. He was never right after his concussion and hid his symptoms from the Yankees.
Clint Frazier aka Jackson Frazier aka Clint Frazier ain’t making the team….awww shucks
Yankee fans I know hated Frazier, including me.
He had an attitude problem. He had a maturity problem. He was a marginal player who thought he was a superstar. He alienated the Yankee radio team, two of the gentlest nicest people you could find.
He was marginal before his concussion excuse. Ditto his immature attitude.
He hid from the press when he made a bad play. Literally hid. The NY press has more coverage on spring training games than other markets have on playoff games. He couldn’t handle the heat. Much like Gallo and Greg Bird.
Yankees had/have a classy mature core. Frazier was a pimple on their collective asses.
I know most of you are Yankee haters but “your” teams are always picking through and signing our trash and then blaming their failures on the Yankees somehow holding them back when in fact they just suck.