Pennington, 34, inked a minor league pact with the Yankees back in early April shortly after Miguel Andujar and Troy Tulowitzki both landed on the injured list. He appeared in 29 games with New York’s Triple-A affiliate in Scranton/Wilkes-Barre, hitting .196/.306/.413 with five long balls, three doubles and a triple in 112 plate appearances. Pennington himself landed on the minor league injured list in mid May due to a hamstring strain. Foley tweeted that he was fielding grounders at shortstop earlier this week, and the Yankees formally activated him from the IL before cutting him loose.

The switch-hitting Pennington is known more for his glove than his bat. He’s a lifetime .242/.309/.339 hitter in 3142 trips to the plate over parts of 11 Major League seasons. The majority of those at-bats came with the Athletics, but he’s also spent three seasons with the D-backs, two with the Angels and partial seasons with both the Reds and Blue Jays. He has nearly 5000 Major League innings at shortstop, more than 1600 at second base and another 325 at the hot corner.

Pennington, 34, was with the Athletics in Spring Training and traveled with them to Tokyo as a non-roster player, but Oakland cut him loose at the end of March. Pennington split the 2018 season between the Reds and Rangers organizations, appearing in 16 games with Cincinnati and tallying 34 plate appearances. The rest of his season was spent between the two clubs’ top minor league affiliates. Prior to that, Pennington had been playing with the Angels on a two-year contract, primarily serving as a utility infielder.

That utility role is one that Pennington has settled into over the course of an 11-year big league career. He’s shown plenty of versatility, with nearly 5000 innings at shortstop, 1600 innings at second base, 350 at third base and some brief work in the corner outfield. In that time, he’s drawn excellent reviews for his glovework at second base and solid marks for his defense at shortstop. A switch-hitter, Pennington is a lifetime .242/.309/.339 hitter in 3142 trips to the plate.

The veteran Pennington will provide the injury-plagued Yankees with some depth all over the diamond. New York opened the season without shortstop Didi Gregorius, who is recovering from  Tommy John surgery, and has since seen both Miguel Andujar and Troy Tulowitzki land on the injured list. The former of those two injury situations is particularly troubling, as Andujar has been diagnosed with a small tear in the labrum of his right shoulder. While Andujar is currently opting for physical therapy and rehab, the possibility of surgery looms.

This release ends Pennington’s second stint as a member of the Athletics, with whom he initially spent time after they chose him 21st overall in the 2005 draft. Pennington saw major league action with the team from 2008-12, during which he hit .249/.313/.356 with 24 home runs and 69 stolen bases over 1,954 plate appearances. Pennington has since racked up another 1,188 PAs with the Diamondbacks, Blue Jays, Angels and Reds. In all, the switch-hitting 34-year-old has slashed .242/.309/.339 with 36 homers and 84 steals.

While Pennington’s offensive numbers are nothing to brag about, he has performed well defensively. Pennington has earned positive marks from Defensive Runs Saved and Ultimate Zone Rating in extensive action at second base and shortstop, and has been a playable option at third base. Pennington’s defensive versatility wasn’t enough to keep him with Oakland this year, though, and he’ll now seek a new employer after spending the majority of last season with the Rangers’ Triple-A affiliate.

Pennington, 34, split the 2018 season between the Reds and Rangers organizations, appearing in 16 games with Cincinnati and tallying 34 plate appearances. The rest of his season was spent between the two clubs’ top minor league affiliates. Prior to that, Pennington had been playing with the Angels on a two-year contract, primarily serving as a utility infielder.

That utility role is one that Pennington has settled into over the course of an 11-year big league career. He’s shown plenty of versatility, with nearly 5000 innings at shortstop, 1600 innings at second base, 350 at third base and some brief work in the corner outfield. In that time, he’s drawn excellent reviews for his glovework at second base and solid marks for his defense at shortstop as well. A switch-hitter, Pennington is a lifetime .242/.309/.339 hitter in 3142 trips to the plate.

Pennington had opened the season with the Reds organization, but was optioned and then outrighted off of the 40-man roster after initially making the team out of camp. He was released earlier today to pursue other opportunities, which turned out to be a brief stay on the open market.

While he has rarely been much of a hitter, Pennington is amply experienced in the middle infield. He could help the Rangers weather the absences of Elvis Andrus and Adrian Beltre, which have left the club relying upon a slate of light-hitting players — Jurickson Profar, Isiah Kiner-Falefa, and Hanser Alberto — on the left side of the infield.

Pennington, 34, has been a fixture in the majors since he debuted back in 2008, though he has not been a regular since wrapping up his time with the A’s after the 2012 campaign. In recent seasons, he has functioned as a utilityman with the Diamondbacks, Angels, and (briefly) Blue Jays.

Over the years, Pennington has compiled ample experience at short and second, while also lining up a fair bit at third base and seeing limited action in left field and at first base. (And, yes, he has also taken the mound.) Despite a marginal .242/.309/.339 career batting line, Pennington has rarely struggled to find work due to his respected glove.

Last winter, though, it proved impossible for Pennington to land a MLB job. He won a spot on the Cincinnati roster to open the year, but managed only four singles and five walks (with 13 strikeouts) in his 34 plate appearances. Now, he’ll head back onto the open market in hopes of finding another organization that can offer a path back to the big leagues.

Other news out of the NL…

• Pirates infielder Jung Ho Kang won’t receive any discipline from MLB, nor will the team dole out any punishment, Rob Biertempfel of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports on Twitter. Kang was denied a U.S. visa for all of last year due to multiple DUI-related arrests. He’s finally able to return to the Pirates as of Thursday.
• Today, the Giants reinstated Chris Stratton from the paternity list, optioning outfielder Austin Slater to Triple-A Sacramento in a corresponding move. Within hours, however, the club reversed its reported stance on Mac Williamson’s status, placing him on the seven-day concussion DL. The move allowed the Giants to recall Slater, who’s directly replacing Williamson. Stratton sports an impressive 2.32 ERA and 2.69 FIP across five starts this season, though the fact that he hasn’t allowed any homers despite a 37.8% hard contact rate suggests he might have been a bit lucky in that regard. Stratton will take his scheduled turn through the rotation today against the Dodgers.
• In other Giants news, second baseman Joe Panik has been placed on the disabled list with a sprained left thumb. The club correspondingly purchased the contract of second baseman/outfielder Alen Hanson, who leads the Triple-A Pacific Coast League with a .403 batting average. The club moved Mark Melancon to the 60-day DL in order to clear room on the 40-man roster for Hanson.
• The Braves have reinstated left-hander Luiz Gohara from the disabled list and optioned him to Triple-A Gwinnett, David O’Brien of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports. Gohara suffered a sprained ankle during a spring training outing, and had exhausted the maximum amount of time allotted for rehab starts. He’ll likely make a couple more starts in the minors before returning to help the Braves at the major league level. Gohara had figured to be a prominent part of Atlanta’s rotation before the season began.
• The Reds announced that infielder Cliff Pennington has cleared waivers and accepted an outright assignment to Triple-A Louisville. Pennington, who signed a minors deal in the offseason, made the club out of spring training camp as a bench player. However, he’s struck out in nearly 40 percent of his plate appearances thus far and has yet to sock an extra-base hit.

Suarez had been rehabbing a fractured thumb that put him on the shelf after just eight games of action. He’ll look to pick up where he left off after opening the season on a .296/.424/.630 tear after signing a long-term extension over the winter.

Also coming to the MLB roster is Herrera, a 25-year-old switch-hitter who once rated as a significant prospect with the Rockies. He’ll get his first shot at the majors after joining the Reds organization on a minors deal last fall. Herrera was off to a strong start at Triple-A, posting a .311/.373/.607 slash in 68 plate appearances.

Ervin and Pennington will head down to Louisville while holding onto their 40-man spots for the time being. The former has been viewed as a quality prospect in the past but will need to wait for another opportunity after struggling with his brief chance this year. As for Pennington, who limped out of the gates after being added to the roster out of camp, it’s not immediately clear whether he has accepted the assignment. An 11-year MLB veteran, he’d have the right instead to choose free agency.

Additionally, the Reds placed left-hander Brandon Finnegan and righties David Hernandez, Michael Lorenzen and Kevin Shackelford on the 10-day disabled list. Meanwhile, closer Raisel Iglesias will open the year on the paternity list. The Reds have recalled lefty Cody Reed and righty Jackson Stephens from Triple-A.

The oblique issue is the latest in a long series of injuries that has kept DeSclafani off a big league mound since the 2016 season. An oblique issue in 2016 and a sprained ulnar collateral ligament in 2017 have combined to limit the talented young righty to just 123 1/3 innings since the beginning of the 2016 season. When healthy, of course, DeSclafani has looked every bit the part of a quality young long-term piece; in 308 innings with the Reds in 2015-16, DeSclafani worked to a 3.74 ERA with 7.5 K/9 and 2.5 BB/9 over the life of 51 starts.

The 33-year-old Pennington spent the past two seasons with the Angels, where he batted a combined .232/.287/.320 through 405 plate appearances. Offense has never been a calling card for Pennington, a switch-hitter with a career .243/.310/.341 hitter through 3108 plate appearances, spanning 10 seasons. But, he’s a versatile defender capable of providing average or better glovework at shortstop, second base and third base, which makes him a nice utility option to have on hand — particularly for a Reds team that has yet to see Jose Peraza establish himself as a big leaguer.

Free agents who qualify for this distinction are those who have at least six years of Major League service time and had a Major League contract expire at the end of the previous season, but signed a minor league deal ten or more days prior to Opening Day.

The deadline for teams to decide on these players is today at 11am central time. By the deadline, teams with these players in camp need to decide whether to:

1. Add the player to their 25-man roster or Major League disabled list (or agree to do so in writing).
2. Pay the player a $100K retention bonus to keep him in the organization beyond the deadline and send him to the minors.
3. Grant the player his outright release from the minor league contract so that he may pursue opportunities with other teams.

We’ll use this post to keep track of the Article XX(B) free agents whose respective teams have elected option one or two; in other words, players who won’t be released for the time being. The most recent updates are on top.

• Miguel Montero has been informed that he’ll make the Nationals as the club’s backup catcher, according to Jamal Collier of MLB.com. He’ll earn a $1.3MM base salary, as outlined in the details of the pact he signed with the club on February 1st. Montero beat out young backstop Pedro Severino in a camp battle for the role.

Earlier…

• Right-handed reliever Fernando Salas will make the Diamondbacks’ opening day roster, Zach Buchanan of The Athletic reports. He’ll join a relief crew that seems somewhat thin behind Archie Bradley, Brad Boxberger and Yoshihisa Hirano. The 32-year-old pitched to a 5.22 ERA across 58 2/3 relief innings last season between the Mets and the Angels. In a related move, the team has designated Rule 5 pick Albert Suarez.
• Indians manager Terry Francona announced today that reliever Matt Belisle will be the seventh member of the club’s opening day bullpen (hat tip to Jordan Bastian of MLB.com). Belisle had been competing with Carlos Torres for the final relief job; he pitched to a 4.03 ERA while saving 9 games for the Twins last season.
• Danny Valencia has been added to the Orioles’ roster,  Eduardo A. Encina of the Baltimore Sun tweets. Valencia stated a while back that he had no plans to go to the minors if he didn’t make the big league club, so adding the corner infield to their roster was Baltimore’s only path to retaining him. He’ll prove a right-handed-hitting complement to first baseman Chris Davis.
• The Reds have informed middle infielder Cliff Pennington that he’ll make the major league club, John Fayman of the Cincinnati Enquirer reports via Twitter. He’ll serve as a bench player for a rebuilding Cincinnati club while top prospect Nick Senzel gets more seasoning at the Triple-A level. Pennington hit .253/.306/.330 for the Angels last year.

The 33-year-old Pennington spent the past two seasons with the Angels, where he batted a combined .232/.287/.320 through 405 plate appearances. Offense has never been a calling card for Pennington, a switch-hitter with a career .243/.310/.341 hitter through 3108 plate appearances, spanning 10 seasons. But, he’s a versatile defender capable of providing average or better glovework at shortstop, second base and third base, which makes him a nice utility option to have on hand — particularly for a Reds team that has yet to see Jose Peraza establish himself as a big leaguer.

Here are a few more injury notes from around the game:

• Mets catcher Travis d’Arnaud could head out on a rehab assignment this weekend, Rubin reports. His return could provide a big boost to a New York club that has suffered some notable health issues of late. Fellow young receiver Kevin Plawecki has struggled at the plate in d’Arnaud’s stead and could end up being demoted, per Rubin, who says that the team is pleased with what it’s getting from veteran Rene Rivera behind the dish even if he, too, isn’t hitting much.
• There was good news also for the Indians, who expect to start righty Carlos Carrasco on Thursday, as Ryan Lewis of the Akron Beacon Journal tweets. It seems that Carrasco will be limited to around eighty pitches in his first outing back, but will obviously be expected to ramp up from there. The 29-year-old allowed just six earned runs in his first 22 frames on the year before suffering a hamstring injury.
• The Twins will place third baseman Miguel Sano on the 15-day DL after he suffered a left hamstring strain. As MLB.com’s Rhett Bollinger reports on Twitter, Sano is hopeful that he won’t be out any longer than the minimum, though we’ve certainly seen hamstring issues linger and the organization will want to ensure it doesn’t turn into a bigger issue. Prospect Max Kepler will return to the majors to take his roster spot.
• The Angels appear to have lost infielder Cliff Pennington to an aggravation of his own left hamstring injury, as Jeff Fletcher of the Orange County Register reports, with a DL stint seemingly likely. That could means that Kaleb Cowart or Brendan Ryan will be headed back to the big league club, though the former was just sent down and the latter requires a 40-man spot.

8:17am: The Angels will designate shortstop Brendan Ryan for assignment today, Pedro Moura of the Los Angeles Times tweets. The move will clear space for fellow infielder Cliff Pennington, who is set to return after a brief DL stint due to a hamstring strain.

Ryan signed a minor league deal with the Nationals in February, then headed to the Angels in a small trade earlier this month. With Andrelton Simmons and Pennington on the shelf, the Angels had a need for a shortstop, but even with both those players on the DL, they frequently played Gregorio Petit at short. Overall, Ryan collected 12 plate appearances, during which he failed to reach base.

The 34-year-old Ryan has hit .233/.293/.314 in parts of ten seasons in the big leagues, contributing the vast majority of his value with terrific defense. In addition to the Angels, he’s played for the Cardinals, Mariners and Yankees.

• It’s possible Aaron Sanchez could start the season in the minors, MLB.com’s Gregor Chisholm writes. If Gavin Floyd or Jesse Chavez wins the last spot in the rotation, but the Jays feel Sanchez and the team would best served by having him continue to develop as a starter rather than as a reliever. That path could make sense, given Sanchez’s age (he’s still just 23), former top prospect status, and his control problems while serving as a starter in both the Majors and minors. Last year, he allowed 37 walks in 66 innings as a starter. He has also walked over four batters per nine innings in both Triple-A and Double-A, and he was mostly used as a starter in his stints there.
• Earlier today, we learned about longtime first baseman Dan Johnson trying his hand as a pitcher with the Rays. But Johnson isn’t the only position player to attract recent interest as a pitcher. New Angels infielder Cliff Pennington attracted a bit of interest as a pitcher this offseason after making a relief appearance with the Jays in the playoffs last year, reports MLB.com’s Alden Gonzalez. “In talking to some teams about straight utility, there was maybe some talk about maybe pitching a few innings to save a bullpen guy here or there throughout the course of a year,” says Pennington. “Nothing more than six, seven innings in a year. It never was anything that was talked about with the Angels.” Such a role would, obviously, be unusual, and only a handful of players in recent memory — Brooks Kieschnick and Micah Owings being two — have really split time between pitching and another role. Pennington threw 90 MPH in the ALCS last year, though he only retired one of the three batters he faced.

Pennington, 31, split the 2015 season between the D-Backs and Blue Jays, batting a combined .210/.298/.281 in what was the worst offensive season of his eight-year Major League career. However, Pennington entered the 2015 season with a lifetime .248/.315/.350 batting line, giving hope that he can rebound to an extent at the plate while continuing to delivery sound defensive value by way of run prevention and positional versatility.

Pennington can competently play second base, shortstop and third base, grading out as an average or better defender at each infield position according to Ultimate Zone Rating and Defensive Runs Saved. He’s a switch-hitter that has typically fared better from the larger (left-handed) side of the platoon, and while his speed hasn’t been as apparent in recent years, he averaged 19 steals per season in 2010-12 and has generally been a positive all-around contributor on the basepaths.

Pennington can provide the Angels with a backup plan to newly acquired Andrelton Simmons, as the team’s only backup option at shortstop had been Taylor Featherston, who is probably ticketed for Triple-A to open the 2016 campaign after surviving 2015 as a little-used Rule 5 utility option. The Angels currently have uncertainty at both second base and third base, so bringing Pennington into the fold gives them a bit of depth on the Major League roster, though they’ll almost certainly look to upgrade at one of the two spots. Johnny Giavotella handled second base duties in 2015 but is a poor defender with limited offensive upside, and the Angels may not want to count on Kyle Kubitza or Kaleb Cowart to immediately step into the picture at third base given their lack of experience.

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.