The Mariners have claimed right-hander Kaleb Ort off waivers from the Red Sox, reports Chris Cotillo of MassLive. It was reported earlier this week that Ort had been placed on outright waivers. The M’s will need to make a corresponding move to make room for Ort on their 40-man roster.
Ort, 31, tossed 23 innings for the Red Sox this year with a 6.26 earned run average. His 22.4% strikeout rate and 8.4% walk rate were both fairly close to average, but he allowed six home runs in that time. He landed on the injured list in July due to right elbow inflammation and never returned. The Sox were going to have to reinstate him from the 60-day injured list soon since it doesn’t exist between the World Series and Spring Training, but they decided instead to put him on waivers.
It seems the Mariners are intrigued enough to take a chance, despite the ERA. Ort has generally fared better in the minors, including a 3.09 ERA in his 131 Triple-A innings. The Mariners will see if they can help him have better results at the major league level, perhaps with their pitcher-friendly ballpark helping minimize the home run issue. The righty also has an option year remaining and has yet to reach arbitration.
And the offseason of cheapness begins.
Only way a team can regularly trade away its top bullpen arms again and again is by backfilling it with bargains of pitchers with club control who couldn’t find a footing in the majors and then have been cast off by their former teams. The Mariners have a special lighthouse to guide these poor souls toward them.
Not all of them will be successful, but the betting is some percentage of them turn it around and there’s always more wayward relief pitchers to bring in each year.
At this point that is the one thing I wouldnt question them too hard on, how they fill out the pen. That’s been their biggest strength under Dipoto.
That’s the important thing in this kind of acquisition.
My first knee-jerk reaction was cheapness like Dogham says above.
Dipoto and staff do pretty well.
We only missed the playoffs by a gnat’s eyelash. We mustn’t forget that.
It’s not even the offseason yet. I’ll wait until January or so before making that judgement. It wouldn’t surprise me if they go cheap, but this move isn’t proof they are doing that yet. Also he fits the Dipoto mold for relievers, an older live arm type they grab off waivers who throws a ton of sliders. They have turned quite a few pitchers like that into solid arms.
Come on. They can’t make trades right now, free agency isn’t open, and you’re complaininh about making a waiver claim when the only alternative is doing nothing?
Under Dipoto, the M’s have consistently filled their pen with projects who they turn around (Sewald, Steckenrider, Taylor Williams, Topa, Speier, Thornton, Saucedo just to name a few), so why should we even assume this is a bad move?
Dogham – It is not ‘cheapness’! There are 30 teams x 13 roster spot for pitchers = 390. If you allow for injuries and pitchers recovering from injuries, you are closer to 500 pitchers, and there are nowhere remotely close to 500 MLB quality pitchers in the entire MLB. There might be around 250 pitchers who should be there, and 150 boarder line. That leaves 100 roster spots for pitchers who really are not good enough to be in the MLB, but are there out of necessity.
So, again, it is not cheapness. It is that a lot of athletes that used to make their income in baseball have gone to other sports that were not around in the 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, 2000s, when there seemed to be far more ‘quality’ arms available.
The other factor is expansion! When I started watching baseball there were only 12 teams per league. The 6 extra team x 13 = 78 MLB pitchers who would be in AAA. This would lower the above poor quality pitchers in the MLB by 75%.
Every team now claims pitchers off waivers and plunks them into their MLB bullpen (other team’s rejects). This never used to happen with the frequency it does now!
It’s not just pitchers though. Teams are doing the waiver circuit way more for all backup type players and notal wll of them are AAAA or worse many players that are more subaverage than replacement are getting tossed around rhe waiver wire/DFA circuit. I also doubt Ort makes it through the offseason unless they outright him or really do see something in him. If this is the kind of moves they make this winter, its being cheap, but this move doesn’t indicate that at all.
This is a bit off-base. When my college roommate dreamed of playing Major League Baseball, he had an 85 MPH fastball. He knew if he could get up to 90, it would be above average and he’d have a good shot. Now, the minors are littered with guys who throw 96-100, and still aren’t good enough because they don’t have enough movement, or their pitches don’t tunnel well together. up and down guys today are better than 7th or 8th inning guys from 30 years ago.
There is more to pitching than velocity!
Max effort on every pitch is now why there are so many injuries!! It is also why you do not see pitchers throwing 130 pitches per game or pitching 230+ innings per year.
In 1984 the Red Sox had 41 complete games. This year I do not recall a single one.
When the offensively challenged Mariners needed production, all too often Dylan Moore, Josh Rojas or Sam Haggerty came to the plate to quell a rally.
Every team has those (even the ones in the postseason).
This is true but you want to avoid that as much as possible.
All three had wrc+ above league average. It’s hard to expect more from your bench guys. The problem was the underperformance of Suarez, France, Teoscar (and Pollock, Wong, LaStella), not Moore, Haggerty, Rojas, Caballero.
Mariners fans don’t deserve to be treated like this
Oh well, gets his salary off the books
Million dollar arm with a nickle head!
Never question or doubt a no-name Dipoto bullpen acquisition!
shy – I for one wouldn’t be surprised if Ort turns it around in Seattle, it happens a lot when pitchers leave the Red Sox.
Look at his minor league numbers. This guy has “Jerry and Pete project” written all over him
These comments Ort to be good…
Good luck with Ort- was bad for the Sox.
Have you noticed all the relievers that were “bad for [insert team here]” who the M’s turned around the past 4 or so seasons?
Then there were guys who pitched bad for the Mariners who ended up pitching bad for the Yankees.
I guffawed when the Red Sox finally cut bait on Ort. Now the jokes on me as my favorite team just landed him. It all comes full circle eventually I guess. As John Lennon said: “Instant Karma gonna get you/Knock you right in the head”
The Mariners have a way of finding guys who have great numbers in AAA but in stints in the majors haven’t produced, and then they get decent years out of them. Flexen, Sewald from previous seasons, and Saucedo this past year. Kaleb Ort was for a year one of the top 2 closers in the IL but couldn’t bring the same to Boston. Gave up too many homers, as Sewald did for the AAA Mets.
Good luck to Jerry finding a other one of those guys with Ort.