The Mariners announced they’ve designated right-hander Mike Baumann for assignment. The move opens a spot in the bullpen for southpaw Gabe Speier, who is back from the 15-day injured list. Baumman is out of options, so Seattle couldn’t send him down without taking him off the 40-man roster.
Seattle acquired Baumann from the Orioles for Triple-A catcher Blake Hunt a couple months ago. The O’s had designated him for assignment despite a decent 3.44 earned run average at the time, projecting his middling strikeout and walk profile to lead to regression. That has been the case in Seattle, as Baumann allowed 11 runs across 16 1/3 innings. He punched out 16 against eight walks while surrendering four home runs. Between the two teams, the former third-round pick now carries a 4.41 ERA over 34 2/3 innings. His 20.8% strikeout percentage, 11% walk rate and 1.56 homers per nine are all on the wrong side of league average.
Baumann was a solid piece of Baltimore’s middle relief corps a year ago. The Jacksonville product worked to a 3.76 ERA with an average 22.3% strikeout percentage while logging 64 2/3 innings. This season hasn’t gone to plan, but he hasn’t lost any velocity off a fastball that sits north of 96 MPH.
Seattle has five days to try to trade Baumann. If they don’t find a taker, they’ll place him on waivers. Any claiming team would need to install him directly into the big league bullpen. Baumann has never cleared outright waivers and has less than three years of MLB service, so he wouldn’t have the ability to decline an outright assignment if he goes unclaimed.
It’s good they have Speier back. The Seattle bullpen is now as close to full strength as they can get without external additions.
Great to have Gabe back alongside the recent addition of Santos. Good reinforcements.
Thank god we don’t have to have baumann or Cody Bolton or Collin snider or Kirby Snead in the 8th and 9th inning anymore
I’m sure someone like Jed Hoyer will pick up Baumman. He’s likely better than some team’s 8th man in the pen.
They ALWAYS get better when they leave… ALWAYS!!!
Beat the Astros!!!
Back to Baltimore, Mike!
Crap, Voth should have been the one to go
WTF? Do you even watch?
We gave the orioles hunt for nothing now lol
Mike Hunt?
And Jack Goff as the player to be named later!
Both Hunt and Tatem Levin are both currently outmatched by South Atlantic league pitching, not much reason to be panicking here.
White Sox turn him back into a starter. Could they lose any more games?
Irrelevant move. An arm for an arm and they still can’t hit a newborns weight.
He just married my cousin over the winter. Nice guy. Surprised Balt traded him to begin with.
he genuinely seemed like a good guy in Baltimore from all reports, Os just have to have optionable pieces in the Pen. seemed like the mgr and team were bummed about the realities of baseball rosters and didn’t want to have to let him go.
Or as the article covers his strikeout and walk ratio were regressing
Have you tried armwrestling him
Nope lol
He had cpl teammates at wedding as well. It’s easy to forget (compared to, say NFL) how fit & strong most MLB players are. Wasn’t hard to decipher which guests played pro ball.
Didn’t talk to him overly much; it was a huge frickin wedding, like 300 ppl, mostly stuck with my family and friends.
One of the big name free agents in the off season should have signed with the Mariners. However all of them were idiots. People harpingon the Mariners ownership for being cheap don’t realize that mlb players are the exact same way.
To be fair who wants to play in the top corner of the country with high taxes and bad weather and an inconsistent team
That means we typically overpay players to come here (see: Robinson cano) but still, ownership cares more about adjusting to inflation and not even get near the record payroll
This is happening to the Red Sox now and I hate it
Um, Washington has no sales tax.
Washington State most definitely has a sales tax. it doesn’t have a state income tax.
There is no income tax (yet)