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Esteury Ruiz

Dodgers Trade Esteury Ruiz To Marlins

By Anthony Franco | December 29, 2025 at 8:48pm CDT

8:48pm: The teams officially announced the trade, and Miami confirmed that Wagaman has been designated for assignment.

6:47pm: The Dodgers are trading outfielder Esteury Ruiz to the Marlins for minor league pitcher Adriano Marrero, reports Francys Romero. Miami reportedly plans to designate first baseman Eric Wagaman for assignment in a corresponding move. This drops L.A.’s roster count to 39.

Ruiz is best known for stealing an AL-leading 67 bases as a member of the Athletics in 2023. That’s the only season in which he has appeared in even 30 games at the big league level. Ruiz batted .254/.309/.345 with five home runs in 497 trips to the plate. He only walked at a 4% clip and, despite showing his plus speed on the bases, graded poorly as a center fielder.

It clearly wasn’t what the A’s had in mind when they chose Ruiz over William Contreras as the centerpiece of their return in the three-team Sean Murphy trade the previous offseason. He spent most of the ’24 season in Triple-A and underwent arthroscopic surgery on his right knee at year’s end. The A’s cut bait this past April, designating Ruiz for assignment and trading him to Los Angeles.

The 26-year-old has only taken 88 trips to the dish at the MLB level over the past two seasons. He’s coming off a big year in Triple-A, where he hit .303/.411/.514 while going 62-73 in stolen base tries. Ruiz has shown a more patient plate approach against minor league pitching than he did during his big league run a few seasons back.

Miami preferred Ruiz to Dane Myers, another righty-hitting backup outfielder whom the Marlins traded to Cincinnati last week. Myers is a superior defensive option in center but doesn’t have Ruiz’s upside as a base stealer. Ruiz is three years younger and has better career Triple-A numbers, as he owns a .315/.418/.505 line with an 18% strikeout rate at the top minor league level. Myers has fanned in 23% of his Triple-A plate appearances and owns a .295/.380/.440 mark in 98 games. Ruiz has played in more hitter-friendly settings, but the youth and superior contact skills make him a more intriguing depth piece. Both players are entering their final minor league option year.

The Dodgers making a roster-clearing move will fuel speculation as to whether they have anything imminently planned on the free agent or trade front. To this point, there hasn’t been any indication that Los Angeles has any kind of pending move lined up. DFA limbo is frozen between Christmas and New Year’s Day, so this presumably isn’t a move to accommodate a waiver claim.

Whether they have any follow-up moves on the horizon, the Dodgers add a lottery ticket arm to the farm system. Marrero is an 18-year-old righty out of Cuba. He pitched this year in the Dominican Summer League. Marrero wasn’t ranked among Miami’s top 30 prospects but signed for a decent $350K bonus. In September, Baseball America’s Ben Badler credited the 6’3″ hurler with a three-pitch mix (low-90s sinker, sweeper, and changeup) that gets promising lateral movement. BA ranked Marrero among the 20 most intriguing pitching prospects in this year’s amateur signing class.

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Los Angeles Dodgers Miami Marlins Transactions Esteury Ruiz

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Dodgers Designate Luken Baker For Assignment

By Steve Adams | August 8, 2025 at 2:57pm CDT

The Dodgers have designated first baseman Luken Baker for assignment, per a team announcement. He’d been claimed off waivers from the Cardinals just this past Monday. Baker’s spot on the 40-man roster will go to outfielder Justin Dean, whose previously reported promotion from Triple-A Oklahoma City is now official. Outfielder Esteury Ruiz was optioned to Triple-A to open an active roster spot for Dean.

Baker, 28, is a 2018 second-rounder who’s posted some big Triple-A numbers at times but has never gotten a real look in the majors. The Cardinals gave him brief auditions each year from 2023-25, but he’s never reached 100 plate appearances in a big league season. He’s totaled 189 trips to the plate and owns a .206/.317/.338 batting line in that time.

Though this year’s minor league production is down — .197/.311/.399 in 270 plate appearances — Baker slugged 32 home runs in 108 Triple-A games in 2024. A year prior, he drilled a whopping 33 home runs in only 84 Triple-A games while batting .334/.439/.720. The Cardinals still never found much of an opportunity for him — not with Paul Goldschmidt entrenched at first base and the combination of Willson Contreras, Alec Burleson and Nolan Gorman all seeing frequent time at designated hitter (in addition to occasional time there from Goldschmidt).

Baker has immense raw power but has typically hit for low averages, even in Triple-A (excluding that Herculean 2023 performance). He’s played in parts of five seasons at the top minor league level and turned in a .249/.334/.507 slash in that time. This is Baker’s final minor league option year, so while he can be shuttled from Triple-A to the majors freely for the remainder of the year, he’d need to stick on a big league roster beginning on Opening Day next year (unless he’s passed through waivers first). The Dodgers will place Baker on waivers within the next five days.

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Los Angeles Dodgers Transactions Esteury Ruiz Justin Dean Luken Baker

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Dodgers Acquire Esteury Ruiz

By Darragh McDonald | April 2, 2025 at 1:05pm CDT

The Athletics announced that they have traded outfielder Esteury Ruiz to the Dodgers for right-hander Carlos Duran. Prior to that official announcement, Alden González of ESPN reported that Ruiz was headed to the Dodgers. The outfielder was designated for assignment by the Athletics a few days ago. The Dodgers will option him to Triple-A. Right-hander Kyle Hurt has been transferred to the 60-day injured list to open a 40-man spot, per Fabian Ardaya of The Athletic. Hurt required Tommy John surgery in July and won’t be an option until later in the season.

Ruiz, now 26, long been known for his wheels but has always had questions about his bat. He burst onto the major league scene with the A’s in 2023, topping the American League by stealing 67 bases. At the plate, he slashed .254/.309/.345 for a wRC+ of 85. Despite his speed, his glovework received mixed reviews. He was credited with two Outs Above Average but -20 Defensive Runs Saved.

The stolen bases weren’t enough to get buy-in from the A’s. They optioned him to the minors early in 2024. He was recalled but then suffered a strained left wrist which kept him on the IL for months. He also underwent arthroscopic knee surgery in September. He was in camp with the A’s this spring but was optioned in mid-March and bumped off the 40-man when they claimed left-hander Angel Perdomo off waivers this past weekend.

The minor league offense has been better in recent years. Dating back to the start of 2022, Ruiz has a line of .337/.444/.535 on the farm. However, most of that was in his breakout 2022 season. He was in the majors in 2023 and mostly hurt in 2024. His minor league production was more middling prior to that. He slashed a combined .247/.318/.391 from 2017 to 2021 across various minor league levels for a 97 wRC+.

It’s been up-and-down overall. His huge 2022 showing got him a lot of attention. The Padres traded him to the Brewers that year as part of the infamous Josh Hader deal. Milwaukee then flipped Ruiz to the A’s as part of the three-team Sean Murphy trade. The A’s clearly were making a big bet on Ruiz at that time but apparently soured on him after his middling offensive performance in 2023 and then injury-marred 2024.

For the Dodgers, they effectively had a 40-man roster spot open due to Hurt’s surgery. There’s little harm in bringing Ruiz aboard to see how he looks after last year’s injuries. Even if the bat doesn’t come around, he could perhaps prove to be useful as a pinch-running specialist. Any offensive developments would be a nice bonus.

Duran, 23, has been working as a starter in the minor leagues with some decent numbers but health concerns. Despite primarily working as a starter in the minors, he’s never topped 81 innings in a season.

In March of last year, Eric Longenhagen of FanGraphs ranked him the #22 prospect in the Dodgers’ system, noting that Tommy John surgery wiped out his 2023 and he also had some shoulder troubles on his track record. He returned to the mound last year and gradually built up to toss 53 1/3 innings across 19 starts. He had a 3.71 earned run average, 29.4% strikeout rate and 12.9% walk rate. He reached Triple-A in the process and will give the A’s some non-roster pitching depth at the upper levels.

Photo courtesy of Kelley L Cox, Imagn Images.

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Athletics Los Angeles Dodgers Transactions Esteury Ruiz Kyle Hurt

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Athletics Claim Angel Perdomo, Designate Esteury Ruiz For Assignment

By Nick Deeds | March 30, 2025 at 12:57pm CDT

The Athletics announced this afternoon that they’ve claimed left-hander Angel Perdomo off waivers from the Angels. In a corresponding move, center fielder Esteury Ruiz was designated for assignment. The Angels separately announced that left-hander Jose Quijada as cleared waivers and been assigned outright to the minor leagues.

Perdomo, 31 in May, signed with the Blue Jays out of the Dominican Republic and made his pro debut back in 2012. He didn’t end up cracking the big leagues until the shortened 2020 season, however, at which point he was a member of the Brewers. Perdomo struggled badly across parts of two seasons in Milwaukee, with an 8.24 ERA and a 6.43 FIP in 19 2/3 innings of work across 22 appearances. While his 33.7% strikeout rate was nothing short of excellent, Perdomo was held back by a massive 23.5% walk rate.

The southpaw went on to spend the 2022 season in the Rays farm system, where he pitched quite well at the Triple-A level, before signing a minor league deal with the Pirates for the 2023 season. He pitched solid for Pittsburgh that year, with a 3.72 ERA and 3.01 FIP in 29 innings of work as he struck out a sensational 37.6% of his opponents. Unfortunately, elbow issues cut Perdomo’s season short and he ultimately required Tommy John surgery during the offseason. That led the Pirates to designate the lefty for assignment, at which point he was claimed by Atlanta and signed to a split deal for the 2024 season.

Perdomo ultimately did not pitch in 2024, however, and though he stuck with the club over the offseason he was ultimately traded to the Angels earlier this month. He was DFA’d by Anaheim prior to Opening Day, and now finds himself headed north to West Sacramento where he’ll get the opportunity to join the A’s bullpen if he can prove he’s healthy and effective. The southpaw’s Spring Training was something of a mixed bag, as he impressed with a 1.80 ERA but walked (6) nearly as many batters as he struck out (8). If he pitches as well as he did for Pittsburgh, however, Perdomo could wind up being a solid complement to Mason Miller from the left hand side in the late innings.

Making room for Perdomo on the 40-man roster is Ruiz. The center fielder is most famous for being the centerpiece of the return the Athletics received in a controversial three-team trade that sent franchise catcher Sean Murphy to Atlanta and promising young backstop William Contreras to Milwaukee. While Contreras has gone on to put himself on the shortlist for the title of best catcher in baseball with the Brewers, the return the A’s received for Murphy has largely failed to produce in the majors. That includes Ruiz, who appeared in 132 games in 2023 as the club’s regular center fielder and swiped a league-leading 67 bases in 80 attempts. Impressive as his wheels were on the basepaths, however, he was a pedestrian defender in center field and failed to hit enough to justify his everyday job, slashing just .254/.309/.345 in 497 trips to the plate.

The 2024 season saw Ruiz open the season with the club but get optioned to the minor leagues in fairly short order. Overall, he hit just .200/.270/.382 with five steals in nine attempts across 29 games with the A’s during their final season in Oakland before missing the majority of the season with a wrist sprain and ultimately undergoing knee surgery in September. Ruiz came into camp with a chance at a job with the A’s this year, but hit just .121/.171/.152 in Spring Training, leaving the club to option him to the minor leagues. Evidently, the A’s feel he no longer has much of a future with the organization following the emergence of pieces like Lawrence Butler and JJ Bleday. Going forward, they’ll have one week to work out a trade involving Ruiz or else he’ll need to be placed on waivers. Should he pass through waivers unclaimed, the club will have the opportunity to outright him to Triple-A to serve as non-roster depth going forward.

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Athletics Los Angeles Angels Transactions Angel Perdomo Esteury Ruiz Jose Quijada

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A’s Option Esteury Ruiz, J.T. Ginn

By Steve Adams | March 17, 2025 at 10:14am CDT

The A’s optioned several names to Triple-A Las Vegas last night, including outfielder Esteury Ruiz, rotation hopeful J.T. Ginn, infielder Darell Hernaiz, and righties Elvis Alvarado and Grant Holman. Infielder Alejo Lopez and lefty Matt Krook, both former big leaguers in camp on non-roster deals, were also reassigned to minor league camp. All of those cuts were announced by the team.

Ruiz, 26, was the Athletics’ primary center fielder in 2023 and swiped a gaudy 67 bases that season but did so while batting only .254/.309/.345 in 132 games (497 plate appearances). Though he was one of several key players acquired in the Athletics’ slate of rebuild-focused trades — regrettably coming over in a three-way deal that sent star catcher William Contreras, whom the A’s could’ve kept, to the Brewers — Ruiz has fallen a ways down the team’s depth chart since that original acquisition.

Injury played a role in his drop down the pecking order, as he missed the bulk of the 2024 campaign with a wrist strain. Ruiz logged 29 games and 65 plate appearances in the majors and delivered only a feeble .200/.270/.382 output at the plate. He hit .345/.425/.596 in 73 minor league plate appearances last year, but he’s long had eye-catching numbers in the upper minors that haven’t carried over to MLB, where he’s a .243/.297/.343 hitter in 598 plate appearances. Ruiz didn’t do himself any favors this spring, hitting .121/.171/.152 in 35 trips to the plate during Cactus League play.

The A’s locked Lawrence Butler up on a long-term extension and saw JJ Bleday turn in a breakout performance at the plate last season. That leaves two of their three outfield spots spoken for in the long-term. Bleday is miscast as a center fielder, so perhaps there’s room for Ruiz to work his way back into that role, but prospects like Colby Thomas, Denzel Clarke and Henry Bolte are all on the cusp of MLB readiness as well. At least for the early stages of the 2025 campaign, it looks like the A’s will go with a left field platoon of Seth Brown and Miguel Andujar.

In the rotation, Ginn heads back to Triple-A on the heels of a tough spring. The righty’s final outing was excellent — four innings of one-run ball with seven punchouts — but he still served up 13 runs (11 earned) in 13 innings while walking 12.5% of his opponents. The 25-year-old is a former second-round pick whom the A’s acquired in the trade sending Chris Bassitt to the Mets. He was hit relatively hard between Double-A and Triple-A last year but turned in a decent blend of strikeout, walk and ground-ball rates (21.2%, 8.8% and 54.1%, respectively). He held his own with a 4.24 ERA in his first 34 MLB frames last summer as well.

With Ginn being sent out, it increasingly appears as though the Athletics’ season-opening rotation will include Luis Severino, Jeffrey Springs, JP Sears, Osvaldo Bido and Mitch Spence. A late injury could always change that, and the A’s still have one possible rotation alternative in camp in the form of Joey Estes, who’s had a decent Cactus League run this spring.

Hernaiz, acquired in the trade of Cole Irvin to Baltimore, became a long shot for the roster after the A’s signed both Gio Urshela and Luis Urias to major league contracts this winter. Jacob Wilson and Zack Gelof are lined up in the middle infield, while Urias and Urshela can handle third base and move around to multiple infield positions. Hernaiz hit well in Triple-A last year (.331/.376/.493) but mustered only a .192/.261/.242 line in his first 135 MLB plate appearances. His spring output wasn’t much more encouraging — .194/.302/.306 in 43 plate appearances — so he’ll had back to the minors for more work.

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Athletics Alejo Lopez Darell Hernaiz Elvis Alvarado Esteury Ruiz Grant Holman J.T. Ginn Matt Krook

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Esteury Ruiz Undergoes Arthroscopic Knee Surgery

By Anthony Franco | September 24, 2024 at 8:51pm CDT

A’s speedster Esteury Ruiz underwent arthroscopic surgery to fix the patellar tendon in his right knee this afternoon. The team announced that Ruiz “will complete post-surgical rehabilitation in the offseason to prepare for 2025 Spring Training,” suggesting this shouldn’t impact his availability next season.

This was essentially a lost season for the 25-year-old outfielder. The A’s demoted Ruiz to Triple-A a few days into the season. While they recalled him a couple weeks later, he worked mostly in a bench role before suffering a left wrist injury that sent him to the injured list. Ruiz never made it back, as he battled renewed soreness in the wrist when he tried to ramp up on a rehab stint. The timing of the knee injury is unclear.

Ruiz was limited to 29 MLB contests — all of which came before the end of May. He hit .200 with 20 strikeouts in 65 plate appearances. It certainly wasn’t the step forward which the A’s had envisioned after Ruiz paced the American League with 67 stolen bases in 2023. That came with a middling .254/.309/.345 batting line and poor defensive grades in center field. Ruiz has yet to demonstrate he’s an especially effective all-around player, even if his speed makes him an elite baserunner.

The A’s built their return in the three-team Sean Murphy trade around Ruiz. Oakland looped in the Brewers as part of the deal, indicating they valued Ruiz more highly at the time than they did catcher William Contreras (who went from Atlanta to Milwaukee). Even with Shea Langeliers in the fold, that was an odd decision, since the A’s could have flipped Contreras elsewhere. It looks even worse in hindsight, as Contreras has developed into one of the game’s top catchers.

JJ Bleday has stepped up as the A’s primary center fielder. There should still be time for Ruiz to play his way back into center field work while pushing Bleday into a corner opposite Lawrence Butler. He’ll need to take steps forward on both sides of the ball to avoid falling into fourth or fifth outfielder territory.

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Athletics Esteury Ruiz

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Athletics Claim CJ Alexander

By Darragh McDonald | September 4, 2024 at 4:50pm CDT

The Athletics announced that they have claimed infielder CJ Alexander off waivers from the Royals and assigned him to Triple-A Las Vegas. Alexander was listed as released on the MLB.com transactions logs but it appears he was still on waivers. Outfielder Esteury Ruiz has been transferred to the 60-day injured list to open a 40-man spot.

Alexander, 28, was drafted by Atlanta back in 2018 but was one of three players who came to the Royals in the July 2022 trade that sent a Competitive Balance draft pick the other way. The Royals selected him to their roster this summer and he has a small sample of major league experience. He has been sent to the plate eight times with three strikeouts and one hit, a single.

The A’s are surely more interested in his larger sample of work in the minors. That includes 350 Triple-A plate appearances this year with 16 home runs and a line of .303/.352/.554. That production leads to a 130 wRC+, indicating that Alexander was 30% above league average even in the heightened offensive environment in the International League this year.

That production is likely propped up a bit by a .355 batting average on balls in play that will be hard for him to maintain. But even with a bit of regression, his bat could perhaps still be an asset and he also provides some defensive versatility as he is capable of playing all four corner positions. He will still have two option years remaining after 2024, so the A’s don’t need to add him to the active roster any time soon. He also has just a few days of major league service time, meaning he has plenty of cheap club control remaining.

The club effectively had a free roster spot due to the status of Ruiz. He landed on the 10-day IL back in May due to a strained left wrist, so he’s already been out well beyond 60 days already. He is eligible to be reinstated at any point, but that won’t be happening. He began a rehab assignment in July but was shut down due to continued soreness in the wrist. Manager Mark Kotsay said last week that Ruiz won’t be able to return this year, per Martín Gallegos of MLB.com on X.

Ruiz will stay on the 60-day injured list for the remainder of the season, collecting major league pay and service time. There’s no IL from five days after the World Series until the start of Spring Training, so Ruiz will need to retake a roster spot in the offseason.

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Athletics Kansas City Royals Transactions CJ Alexander Esteury Ruiz

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Athletics’ Luis Medina Being Evaluated For UCL Injury

By Steve Adams | July 22, 2024 at 4:04pm CDT

The A’s received a pair of unwelcome injury updates over the weekend, when righty Luis Medina was diagnosed with an injury to the ulnar collateral ligament in his right elbow and outfielder Esteury Ruiz was pulled back from a minor league rehab assignment due to lingering discomfort in his ailing wrist (links to X via Martin Gallegos of MLB.com). Medina is headed for a second opinion on his elbow. Ruiz’s wrist will be reevaluated by a doctor today.

The 25-year-old Medina came to the A’s alongside lefties JP Sears and Ken Waldichuk in the trade that sent Frankie Montas and Lou Trivino to the Yankees. As it’s turned out, four of the five pitchers involved in that swap — Medina, Waldichuk, Montas, Trivino — have incurred significant injuries since the deal came together. Waldichuk and Trivino both had Tommy John surgery. Montas underwent shoulder surgery. Medina is now facing a prolonged absence himself, in all likelihood.

Medina started 17 games for the A’s last season. He struggled to an ERA north of 5.00 on the season as a whole but was generally solid after a shaky start. In his final 80 innings last year, the hard-throwing right-hander posted a 4.39 ERA (3.82 FIP, 4.75 SIERA) with a 22.3% strikeout rate, 12% walk rate and 44.3% ground-ball rate. Command has been an issue for Medina in the majors and upper minors alike, but that decent stretch over the final three months of the ’23 campaign was enough to land Medina a rotation opportunity in 2024.

He missed the first two-plus months of the season after sustaining a Grade 2 sprain of the medial collateral ligament in his right knee during spring training, but upon returning, Medina looked similar to that June through September form from last summer. From June 2 through July 6, Medina pitched 35 innings of 4.37 ERA ball across seven starts. His strikeout rate (15.9%) was down, as was his velocity (only by about 0.4 mph), but neither seemed like a major red flag for a pitcher returning from a notable knee injury. He was pulled mid-inning after giving up six runs in five frames against the Red Sox on July 11, however, and placed on the injured list with an elbow sprain shortly thereafter.

A confirmed UCL injury and second opinion from an external source are never good signs for any pitcher. There’s no indication yet that Medina will require surgery, but a the majority of UCL sprains culminate in Tommy John surgery, an internal brace procedure, or a hybrid of the two. There are certainly cases of pitchers rehabbing a UCL sprain and never requiring surgery — Medina’s own teammate, Mason Miller, missed four months with a sprain last year and has been dominant since returning — but those are more the exception than the rule. If Medina ultimately requires surgery, it could knock him out for a year or more, but he and the A’s will be hoping he can emulate Miller’s path.

As for Ruiz, he swiped 67 bases in 132 games last season but did so with a well below-average .254/.306/.345 batting line. He posted an even rougher .200/.270/.382 slash in 65 plate appearances this season. The A’s optioned him to Triple-A on April 1, and he hit .326/.423/.581 with three homers and seven steals in 11 games before being recalled to the majors and continuing to struggle at the plate. He’s been out since May 22 with a left injury that apparently hasn’t healed all the way just yet.

Ruiz’s gaudy minor league numbers continue to impress, but he’s yet to establish himself as a viable big league hitter (.243/.297/.343) and has thus far looked more the part of a fourth outfielder than a starter. He’s been leapfrogged by fellow trade acquisition JJ Bleday on the center field depth chart. Bleday is hitting .233/.314/.432 (114 wRC+) with a dozen homers in 405 plate appearances.

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Athletics Esteury Ruiz Luis Medina

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AL West Notes: Evans, Seager, Tucker, Athletics

By Mark Polishuk | June 9, 2024 at 6:23pm CDT

A few players from the 2023 draft have already made their MLB debuts, and Mariners prospect Logan Evans could potentially be coming soon due to his recent move to relief pitching.  As Adam Jude of the Seattle Times writes, Mariners president of baseball operations Jerry Dipoto recently called Evans with the idea of shifting from the Double-A rotation to the bullpen, since the M’s are currently in the enviable position of having a loaded rotation.  Working as a reliever could put Evans on the fast track to the Show, and give the Mariners an extra hard-throwing arm in an injury-depleted pen.

A 12th-round pick out of Pitt, Evans has a sparkling 1.16 ERA over 54 1/3 innings for Double-A Arkansas this season, with a 23% strikeout rate, 7.4% walk rate, and a 53.6% grounder rate.  MLB Pipeline’s scouting report also notes that the Mariners received trade interest in Evans as early as last offseason, after he posted an 0.60 ERA in his first 15 pro innings.

More from around the AL West…

  • Corey Seager has now missed three straight games since leaving Wednesday’s contest with tightness in his left hamstring, though Rangers manager Bruce Bochy told MLB.com’s Kennedi Landry (X link) and other reporters that Seager is “making progress” and that an IL trip isn’t yet being considered.  Seager himself said he was feeling “fine” today but wasn’t sure if he would be back in the lineup Tuesday for Texas’ next game.  Between the scheduled off-days both tomorrow and last Thursday, Seager might’ve caught a break in having some rest built into the schedule, giving some hope he’ll be ready for Tuesday.
  • Astros star Kyle Tucker was placed on the 10-day IL earlier this week due to a shin contusion, and he expects to be fully off crutches within the next day or two, Tucker told The Athletic’s Chandler Rome (link to X) and other media.  From there, Tucker expects to restart baseball activities soon after, so he could conceivably be a candidate to be activated next week.  It seems as though Tucker and the Astros dodged a bullet in avoiding a more serious injury, which is a relief considering the MVP-caliber numbers Tucker has posted to date this season.
  • The Athletics provided MLB.com’s Martin Gallegos (X link) and other reporters with updates on several injured players, including the news that Ross Stripling and Paul Blackburn are expected to begin throwing within the next week.  Stripling has missed over two weeks due to a flexor strain his right elbow and Blackburn has missed over a month due to a stress reaction on his right foot, though Blackburn’s placement on the 60-day IL means he’ll be out until at least the All-Star break.  Kyle Muller also already started throwing this past week as he continues his recovery from a bout of shoulder tendinitis.  Among the injured position players, Esteury Ruiz (wrist sprain) and Darell Hernaiz (ankle sprain) will start strength programs this week.
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Athletics Houston Astros Notes Seattle Mariners Texas Rangers Corey Seager Darell Hernaiz Esteury Ruiz Kyle Muller Kyle Tucker Paul Blackburn Ross Stripling

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A’s Designate Jordan Diaz For Assignment

By Darragh McDonald and Steve Adams | May 23, 2024 at 12:35pm CDT

The A’s announced a series of roster moves Thursday, placing outfielder Esteury Ruiz on the 10-day injured list with a left wrist strain, selecting the contract of Daz Cameron from Triple-A Las Vegas and designating infielder Jordan Diaz for assignment to open 40-man space for Cameron.

Diaz, 23, was an international signing out of Colombia and eventually jumped onto Baseball America’s list of top 30 prospects in the Oakland system in 2019, the first of five straight years he was featured on that list. He was added to the club’s 40-man roster in November of 2021, keeping him out of the Rule 5 draft. That roster spot came to Diaz after he hit 13 home runs in 90 High-A games that year, slashing .288/.337/.483 overall.

Unfortunately, the results since then haven’t been quite as impressive. He’s hit ten home runs in his 344 major league plate appearances but walked just 5.5% of the time, leading to a line of .227/.276/.358. That production translates to a wRC+ of 79, indicating he’s been 21% worse than league average.

His minor league production was still strong in the past two years but has fallen off a cliff here in 2024. He hit .321/.363/.513 on the farm over 2022 and 2023 but his line is just .204/.288/.327 so far this year. His 9.9% walk rate in 2024 is actually an improvement for him but he has just two home runs in 111 trips to the plate and the batting average is clearly not ideal.

He is now in his final option year, so there was a sort of ticking clock in the background for him this year. Since he’s gotten out to such a poor start, the A’s have nudged him off the roster now in order to open up a spot. They will have a week to try to trade Diaz or pass him through waivers. Perhaps a rival club looking for infield depth will be interested based on his previous seasons. Diaz can play the three non-shortstop infield positions and has even received very brief looks at catcher and left field. He can be kept on optional assignment for the rest of the year and has less than a year of service time at the moment.

Bumping Diaz off the 40-man opens a spot for Cameron, who will replace Ruiz in the club’s outfield rotation. The 27-year-old Cameron signed a minor league deal with the A’s in the offseason and been playing very well in Triple-A this year. He has drawn a walk in 16.4% of his 165 plate appearances and also hit six home runs, leading to a .307/.424/.577 batting line. Even in the hitter-friendly Pacific Coast League, that’s still 46% better than league average. He’s also stolen eight bases in ten tries.

Cameron has impressed in the minors before but has struggled in his attempts to carry that kind of production over to the majors. He received 244 plate appearances with the Tigers over the 2020-22 period but hit just .201/.266/.330 in that time, striking out at a 31.6% clip.

He exhausted his option years in that time and has been in the minors since then, with the Orioles last year and with the A’s so far this year. If things click for him in the majors this time, he can be kept around by the A’s since he has less than two years of service time. For now, he’ll join the club’s outfield mix alongside JJ Bleday, Brent Rooker, Seth Brown and Tyler Nevin.

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Athletics Transactions Daz Cameron Esteury Ruiz Jordan Diaz

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