The Marlins have sent right-hander Shaun Anderson outright to Triple-A Jacksonville, according to his transactions tracker at MLB.com. That indicates he cleared waivers after being designated for assignment last week. He has the right to elect free agency but it’s not clear if he’s chosen to do so.
Anderson, 29, began the year with Olmecas de Tabasco in the Mexican League but made one start of seven shutout innings and quickly landed a minor league deal with the Rangers. After about a month in Triple-A, the Rangers called him up to the big leagues in the middle of May. He was designated for assignment just over a week later and sent to the Marlins for cash.
The righty has largely been kept on optional assignment this year. Between the Rangers and Marlins, he has made five big league appearances, mostly in mop-up fashion. He hasn’t performed especially well in those outings, to put it mildly, allowing 15 earned runs in 14 innings. He hasn’t been helped by a .452 batting average on balls in play or his 48.6% strand rate, but he also only punched out 11.8% of batters faced.
His performance in the minors has been far better. Between the two organizations he has pitched for this year, he has thrown 48 1/3 Triple-A innings with a 2.42 earned run average, 23.2% strikeout rate and 5.7% walk rate. But that wasn’t enough to get him claimed by one of the other clubs in the league.
Anderson has been previously outrighted in his career, which gives him the right to reject this assignment and elect free agency. If he decides to stay, he’ll provide non-roster depth to a fairly snakebitten Miami rotation. Each of Sandy Alcántara, Eury Pérez, Ryan Weathers, Jesús Luzardo, Braxton Garrett and Sixto Sánchez are on the 60-day injured list, with each of Alcántara, Pérez and Luzardo done for the year.
The rotation is now down to Max Meyer, Edward Cabrera, Roddery Muñoz and Valente Bellozo. The Marlins have a few off-days scattered through the rest of their schedule which could perhaps allow them to run that four-man rotation with occasional bullpen days. They have Adam Mazur, Darren McCaughan and Xzavion Curry on optional assignment and Yonny Chirinos as a non-roster depth option. If Anderson sticks around, he can join Chirinos in the veteran non-roster camp. Anderson has 149 2/3 big league innings of big league experience but with a 6.19 ERA in that time.
Baseball needs to get back to be a game for tough guys, not a revolving door of mediocrity! Boring!
Maybe it’s just safer for teams to not draft University of Florida pitchers in the early rounds.
Look how amazing it worked out for the Royals with Kowar and Singer.