The Mariners have re-signed lefty Jhonathan Diaz to a minor league contract, reports Ryan Divish of the Seattle Times. He’s already in camp and will be a non-roster invitee this spring.
Diaz was designated for assignment earlier this month. The M’s ultimately placed him on waivers, and the southpaw rejected an outright assignment in favor of free agency upon going unclaimed. He’s now back with the Mariners to vie for a job in camp or, likelier, to head to Triple-A Tacoma as a depth option early in the event of injuries in the big league rotation.
The 28-year-old Diaz has pitched in parts of four big league seasons — from 2021-23 with the Angels and with the Mariners in 2024. He’s totaled 45 MLB frames and carries a pedestrian 4.80 earned run average in that time. The soft-tosser has fanned just 15% of his big league opponents against an unsightly 12.6% walk rate, though his 45.7% ground-ball rate and 0.80 HR/9 mark are both solid.
While the Mariners didn’t need to lean on in-house rotation depth much in 2024 thanks to good health from Luis Castillo, George Kirby, Logan Gilbert, Bryce Miller and (to a lesser extent) Bryan Woo, Diaz still provided them a decent option in the upper minors. He started 22 games in Triple-A Tacoma and tallied 117 2/3 innings with a 4.36 ERA there. Diaz’s strikeout and walk rates in the majors have been ugly, but he whiffed 22.9% of his opponents in Tacoma last year against a 9.9% walk rate. That’s a roughly average strikeout rate and a still worse-than-average walk rate, but both are a far sight better than his MLB rates.
Diaz probably won’t be the first man up in the event of a rotation injury. Former No. 6 overall pick Emerson Hancock was the most frequently called upon reserve last year, and Seattle added righty Blas Castano to the 40-man roster earlier this winter. Top prospect Logan Evans and journeyman Casey Lawrence are also non-roster invitees this spring and could land in the Tacoma rotation to begin the year. Diaz will be in the mix though, especially if the Mariners at any point find themselves in need of multiple starters.
Mariners making their moves, errr, sorry, move. Ahahahahaha!
CHEAP IS GOOD! GOOD IS CHEAP!
Stanton’s on his shiny new mega yacht cruising for the Caymans as we speak.
World Serious!
Oh Thank God and I didn’t think we were going to make any difference making moves this off season…….
Why, why?!! He stinks, we don’t need a batting practice pitcher!
Now they need to sign Yonathan Daza just to confuse everybody.
Life is much richer
When you’re a left-handed pitcher.
Tommy Milone was busy
Makes sense that he would want to re-sign with the Mariners. The Seattle Mariners are the team to watch in the AL.
Mariner’s are the team to watch? You must mean the Mariner’s are the team that’s just been watching.
There’s no apostrophe in Mariners.
Just another soft-tossing lefty groundball pitcher. They miss Marco Gonzalez that much.
Still flabbergasted that Dipoto Shipped off our only real 3rd baseman on a 13M deal to Arizona for FREE!!! While Bregman out here getting 40M per!!! He needs to Go!!!
The Seattle Mariners will suck once again.
Jeez, Adams’ writing is a disaster. “He’s now back with the Mariners to vie for a job in camp or, likelier, to head to Triple-A Tacoma as a depth option early in the event of injuries in the big league rotation.” There shouldn’t be a comma before “likelier,” which is a bad choice of words anyway. “More likely” makes much more sense.
I’m an editor and a publisher. A comma before “likelier” in that sentence is perfectly acceptable. Don’t throw the first grammar jab if you don’t know what you’re talking about.
(It would be advisable, in my opinion, to focus the thought. Maybe make this into 2 sentences. But that’s a deeper copyedit.)
I too am an editor, and I definitely know what I’m talking about. An overabundance of commas is a hallmark of poor writing, and there is no reason to have a comma before “likelier.” “Perfectly acceptable” doesn’t mean it’s necessary, and bogging down a sentence with commas just makes it more cumbersome to read.
Also, I did put the thought into two sentences, so maybe you’re the one who doesn’t know what I’m talking about.
I’m like many passionate Mariners MLB fans on here (some more than others) I’m excited about ST, Cactus League Games TOMORROW. I can’t wait for our Sports National Holiday – Opening Day 2025. As bad as this Offseason has been, and its been a colossal failure, each day closer to OD25 that disappointment. Its the nature of the Sport – to start fresh, to have another chance….
One of the stories that captivates me this year is the possibility/ chance that Brandyn Garcia could take some of J Diaz’s LHRP multi-inning duties. You never know how a young Top Pitching Prospect will handle their first few appearances, nevermind their MLB debut! However its not hard to see BG giving us a better option from the Left Side than what JD did in his time up in SEA. BG has better stuff than JD and you can’t really have too many overpowering LHRP’s! I can’t wait to see the boys from the farm tomorrow GOMS
Woops….missing a couple words!
“As bad as this offseason has been ….each day closer to OD25 the frustration and resentment begin to fade a wee bit.”