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Jarrett Parker

Mets Sign Jarrett Parker, Max Moroff

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The Mets have signed outfielder Jarrett Parker and infielder Max Moroff to minor league deals, the team announced.  Parker and Moroff will both be invited to the team’s Major League spring camp.

Parker, who turns 31 on New Year’s Day, was a second-round pick for the Giants in 2010 who only developed into a part-time option for San Francisco over 135 games from 2015-17.  After sitting out the 2018 season entirely, Parker signed a minors contract with the Angels that resulted in a .266/.394/.535 slash line and 24 homers over 424 Triple-A plate appearances, plus five MLB appearances.  The left-handed hitting Parker can play center field in a pinch and saw some action at first base for Triple-A Salt Lake in 2019, though the bulk of his experience has been as a corner outfielder.

Moroff brings added defensive versatility, as he has extensively played both middle infield spots as well as third base and even some work in both corner outfield positions.  While the 26-year-old Moroff hasn’t been able to offer is much hitting, as he has only a .183/.277/.319 slash line over 244 Major League PA with the Pirates and Indians since 2016, and also hasn’t done much at the plate at the Triple-A level.

Outrighted: Mac Williamson, Jarrett Parker

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We’ll use this post to cover the day’s minor moves, both involving a pair of former Giants outfielders …

  • The Mariners announced today that they’ve outrighted Mac Williamson after he cleared waivers. Williamson was designated for assignment following a dreadful run in Seattle — which, in turn, came on the heels of an even worse stint in San Francisco. Williamson carries a .156/.250/.258 slash line on the year and just hasn’t made use of his MLB opportunities over the past five seasons, sporadic though they have been. He is a .266/.344/.488 hitter through over a thousand plate appearances at the Triple-A level, however.
  • Meanwhile, the Angels have announced the same exact move for Jarrett Parker. At times, it seemed that Parker might join Williamson as a part of the regular Giants outfield mix, but he was released after the 2017 season. Parker has shown some renewed life this year at Triple-A with the Halos, where he has slashed a hefty .296/.424/.604 and launched 19 long balls. The 30-year-old didn’t get much of a shot at the MLB level, but it bears note that he went down on strikes eight times in just 15 plate appearances.

Angels Activate Matt Harvey, Designate Jarrett Parker

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The Angels have activated right-hander Matt Harvey from the injured list and designated outfielder Jarrett Parker for assignment, the team announced.

The 30-year-old Harvey is returning after missing almost two months because of an upper back strain. Signed to a one-year, $11MM contract in the offseason, the ex-Met and Red started this season with a nightmarish 7.50 ERA/6.22 FIP and 6.56 K/9 against 3.94 BB/9 in 48 innings before going on the IL.

Harvey will start for the Angels on Saturday against the Mariners, though he’ll have an extraordinarily difficult act to follow. The Angels’ pitchers, honoring fallen left-hander Tyler Skaggs, threw a combined no-hitter versus the Mariners on Friday in what will go down as one of the greatest team efforts in baseball history.

Parker, 30, didn’t last long on the Angels’ 40-man roster. They selected the former Giant’s contract from Triple-A Salt Lake on July 3, but Parker only collected 15 plate appearances as a Halo before losing his spot. Parker has slashed an outstanding .296/.424/.604 with 19 home runs in 283 PA with Salt Lake this year, however. Furthermore, although Parker had to settle for a minor league contract with the Angels last winter, he owns a solid .249/.330/.441 line with a 107 wRC+ and 15 home runs in 397 trips to the plate in the majors. Most of Parker’s success in the bigs occurred from 2015-16, though.

Angels’ Tommy La Stella Likely Out Eight To Ten Weeks

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Angels infielder Tommy La Stella has been diagnosed with a fractured tibia in his right leg, the team announced today. He’s expected to miss the next eight to ten weeks of action. The injury, sustained last night when fouling a ball into his shin, will cause La Stella to miss the All-Star Game. Meanwhile, outfielder Brian Goodwin, who exited last night’s game after being hit by a pitch, has been diagnosed with a contusion. Both have been placed on the 10-day injured list.

In a pair of corresponding roster moves, the Angels have selected the contracts of corner infield prospect Matt Thaiss (as had been previously reported) and former Giants outfielder Jarrett Parker. Additionally, right-hander Jaime Barria is up from Triple-A Salt Lake to start tonight’s game.

The loss of La Stella stings both for the team and for La Stella himself. A longtime reserve infielder who at one point was undecided as to whether he wanted to continue his career, La Stella has thrived in a near-regular role in 2019, hitting at a .300/.353/.495 clip in 312 plate appearances. La Stella’s 16 home runs are more than he had in his entire career (947 plate appearances) heading into the season, and his brilliant showing drew enough fan recognition to earn the 30-year-old a starting nod in the aforementioned All-Star Game.

From a team standpoint, it’s another disheartening setback in what has become one of the most difficult seasons in franchise history. The Angels were (and are) still reeling from the gut-wrenching death of left-hander Tyler Skaggs when La Stella had to be helped off the field. Watching La Stella suit up for the All-Star Game could’ve served as a brief respite from the unyielding grief felt in the Angels’ clubhouse, but La Stella himself will now be a spectator for the Midsummer Classic.

In his absence, the Halos will get their first look at Thaiss, a 2016 first-rounder who has begun to tap into his power since reaching Triple-A in 2018. Thaiss was a catcher at the time of his draft but widely expected to move to first base in pro ball. He’s done just that, for the most part, but Thaiss has played more third base (391 innings) than first base (191) in 2019. The Angels could potentially shift David Fletcher over to second base and continue the Thaiss experiment at the hot corner, thus adding a left-handed bat to help replace La Stella. In 372 plate appearances in Salt Lake, Thaiss was hitting .274/.390/.477 with 14 home runs.

As for Parker, the 30-year-old will return to the big leagues for the first time since 2017 with today’s promotion. He spent parts of the 2015-17 seasons in San Francisco, hitting a combined .257/.335/.456 with 15 homers in 382 plate appearances. Most of his production came early in his MLB tenure, though, and he mustered a lackluster .247/.294/.416 slash through a career-high 177 plate appearances in his final season on the MLB roster. So far in 2019, Parker has turned in a terrific .296/.424/.604 slash with 19 home runs in just 283 plate appearances. He’s fanned at a fairly high 27.2 percent clip but helped to offset those whiffs with a 17.3 percent walk rate.

Minor MLB Transactions: 12/7/18

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Here are the day’s minor moves from around the league…

  • The Brewers announced a minor-league deal with catcher Tuffy Gosewisch. He’ll receive an invitation to MLB Spring Training as part of the arrangement. The 35-year-old has seen sporadic MLB action over five seasons, but has never hit enough (.190/.228/.271) to hang onto a job. He spent last year at Triple-A in the Nationals organization, where he batted .219/.310/.335. It’s conceivable that Gosewisch will compete in camp with fellow journeyman Erik Kratz, though the latter surely has the inside track to a big-league job. Of course, the club still could add another player to pair with Manny Pina behind the dish.
  • Former Giants outfielder Jarrett Parker has inked a minor league pact with the Angels, Fancred’s Jon Heyman reports (on Twitter). Parker, who’ll turn 30 on New Years Day, hasn’t appeared in the Majors since a 2017 season that was cut short by a broken collarbone. However, he has at times looked like a potentially productive corner outfielder, compiling a career .257/.335/.456 slash with 15 home runs in 382 MLB plate appearances — the majority of which have come in the vast expanses of San Francisco’s AT&T Park. If he makes the Angels’ roster, he’ll give the team a much-needed lefty bat off the bench.
  • Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times tweets that left-hander Hoby Milner accepted an outright assignment from the Rays after being removed from the 40-man roster and will be in Spring Training as a non-roster invitee. Milner was outrighted late last month but did have the option to reject his assignment in favor of free agency. Instead, he’ll vie for a bullpen spot in 2019. Soon to turn 28, Milner has an appealing 3.03 ERA in 38 2/3 career innings, but that’s accompanied by a lofty 4.9 BB/9 mark and an 86.2 percent strand rate that isn’t sustainable over the long run. Fielding-independent metrics suggest his ERA should be well north of 5.00. If Milner were to be used as a strict lefty specialist, though, he could likely find plenty of success. Left-handed opponents have hit just .177/.292/.277 against him in 98 big league plate appearances.

Giants Release Jarrett Parker

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The Giants have released outfielder Jarrett Parker after he cleared waivers, Alex Pavlovic of NBC Sports tweets. He had been designated for assignment recently.

It’s somewhat surprising to hear that the San Francisco organization is parting with Parker entirely after deciding not to keep him in the majors. The 29-year-old has at times been seen as a potentially useful MLB asset, but it seems the club just didn’t have the space available at Triple-A and decided to allow Parker to explore other possibilities.

Parker did go down on strikes twenty times in his 48 plate appearances this spring, but also ended up posting a healthy .561 slugging percentage. He’s a .274/.368/.503 hitter at Triple-A and has hit at better than a league-average rate in his 382 career MLB plate appearances, so there’s little question that Parker will draw some interest from other organizations.

Giants To Designate Jarrett Parker, Select Derek Holland

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The Giants have designated outfielder Jarrett Parker for assignment, per John Shea of the San Francisco Chronicle (via Twitter). His roster spot was needed for the addition of lefty Derek Holland, who’ll make the rotation after signing over the winter as a minor-league free agent.

Parker, 29, has seen 382 total MLB plate appearances over the past three seasons and generally acquitted himself well. He has also been rather productive at the highest level of the minors and had a strong showing this spring, with a .220/.333/.561 slash (though also twenty strikeouts in his 48 plate appearances).

Still, the Giants elected to risk losing Parker rather than carrying him on the Opening Day Roster. It seems the organization will instead keep veteran Gregor Blanco as its lone left-handed-hitting outfielder to open the season, unless it goes instead with youngster Steven Duggar.

As for Holland, it has been clear for some time that he was destined to earn a job in San Francisco this year. As the Giants lost several rotation pieces, Holland worked 15 solid spring innings, over which he allowed seven earned runs and recorded 18 strikeouts against five walks. He’ll earn a $1.5MM salary with as much as $2.5MM more in incentives.

Jarrett Parker Suffers Broken Clavicle

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SUNDAY: Parker will undergo surgery to repair his broken clavicle, but it won’t end his season, writes Chris Haft of MLB.com. Bochy estimates that Parker will need eight weeks to recover.

SATURDAY: Giants left fielder Jarrett Parker suffered a broken right clavicle during the team’s 5-0 loss to Colorado on Saturday, reports Henry Schulman of the San Francisco Chronicle (Twitter link). The injury occurred when Parker crashed into the left field wall on a fourth-inning catch, forcing him to leave the game. Unsurprisingly, Parker will “miss some time,” manager Bruce Bochy told reporters, including Alex Pavlovic of NBC Sports Bay Area (video link). Bochy added that he’ll have more information on Parker’s status Sunday.

The 28-year-old Parker entered the spring with only 204 major league plate appearances under his belt, but a strong showing in camp helped him win a starting job. Parker then opened the regular season slashing just .143/.217/.238 prior to the injury, though he has posted those numbers over a microscopic sample size (23 PAs). Other Giants who have seen action in left this year, Aaron Hill, Chris Marrero and Gorkys Hernandez, haven’t fared any better. Parker and those three went into Saturday with a combined .119/.194/.226 line in 93 PAs.

Parker is now the second left fielder on the shelf for the Giants, joining Mac Williamson, who has been dealing with a quadriceps injury since March and is currently on the disabled list. Aside from Hill, who replaced Parker on Saturday, Marrero and Hernandez, other organizational left fielders include prominent minor leaguers in the newly signed Melvin Upton Jr. and Mike Morse. Upton isn’t ready yet, however, tweets Pavlovic, while Morse is rehabbing a hamstring injury.  Justin Ruggiano, Drew Stubbs and Kyle Blanks represent a few more familiar minor leaguers, while Pavlovic cites Kelby Tomlinson and Orlando Calixte as possible Triple-A options who are already on the 40-man roster. If it’s not content with anyone from that group, San Francisco could venture outside to replace Parker, perhaps with free agent and longtime Giant Angel Pagan, though that’s only speculation.

Notable Roster Decisions: Friday

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As Spring Training draws to a close, the final determinations about each team’s roster will be continue to come into focus. Here are some of the day’s more notable roster decisions…

  • Prized righty Tyler Glasnow will take the final spot in the Pirates rotation, Stephen Nesbitt of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports on Twitter. He had been competing with Trevor Williams, who’ll head to the bullpen, Adam Berry of MLB.com adds on Twitter. With southpaw Wade LeBlanc also taking a job, that seems to set the stage for Rule 5 pick Tyler Webb to hit the waiver wire.
  • The Giants have nailed down their bench and rotation, as Alex Pavlovic of NBC Sports Bay Area reports. Aaron Hill and Chris Marrero will round out the bench. The veteran Hill figures to share the infield reserve duties with Conor Gillaspie, while Marrero will surprisingly open the season as a part of a left field platoon with the left-handed-hitting Jarrett Parker. Meanwhile, Matt Cain will keep a rotation spot, though Ty Blach will also make the club as a reliever — where he could often spell Cain in lengthier outings.
  • With injuries and young arms entering the picture, the Rockies’ pitching plans were interesting to watch this spring. As Nick Groke of the Denver Post tweets, the team will roll with lefty Kyle Freeland and righties Antonio Senzatela and German Marquez to fill out their starting staff. It seems likely that the former two will open the year in the rotation, with Marquez heading to the pen and staying on hand if a need arises.

Click to read earlier updates …

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NL Notes: Cubs, Mets, Pirates, Marlins, Giants

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As of now, 38-year-old Cubs right-hander John Lackey doesn’t expect the 2017 season to be his last. “At this point, I think I’m more likely to pitch next year than not pitch,” Lackey told Patrick Mooney of CSN Chicago. “But we’ll see at the end of the season.” Lackey will be a free agent next winter, and while the Cubs unsurprisingly aren’t ready to commit to bringing him back as a 39-year-old, they’re keeping the door open. “It’s not a decision that you make right now,” said general manager Jed Hoyer. “But certainly we love having him. I think his edge, his swagger is fantastic for our team. And we’re certainly glad that we signed him last winter.” In 2016, the first season of a two-year, $32MM deal, Lackey recorded a 3.35 ERA, 8.6 K/9 and 2.53 BB/9 over 188 1/3 frames for the World Series champions.

The latest on four other National League teams:

  • All three of the Mets’ fifth starter candidates – Robert Gsellman, Zack Wheeler and Seth Lugo – have fared well this spring, leaving the team with “a pleasant puzzle to solve” by Opening Day, writes Mike Puma of the New York Post. “It’s a great problem to have,” manager Terry Collins said. “We came into this camp knowing we have depth in the rotation. We didn’t know where Zack was going to be, but we felt with the other four guys and Robert and Seth, we had some depth here. And they have stepped up and shown us we weren’t wrong.” Wheeler hasn’t pitched in the majors since 2014 because of March 2015 Tommy John surgery, but he ran his fastball up to 97 mph on Wednesday. That “certainly” got the Mets’ attention, Collins noted. It’s possible Wheeler will open the season in extended spring training or the bullpen, though, as the Mets try to limit his workload. Lugo, meanwhile, is “a strong candidate” to begin the year in the bullpen, sources told Puma.
  • Pirates third baseman Jung Ho Kang remains in South Korea, where’s waiting to obtain his United States visa, per Stephen J. Nesbitt of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Kang, who received an eight-month suspended prison sentence on March 3 stemming from an offseason DUI in South Korea, is working out on his own, but he hasn’t faced live pitching. “He’s going to need some work, some game at-bats,” GM Neal Huntington told Nesbitt. “We can set up some sim games, we can set up a lot of at-bats for him in a short period of time. But it’s hard to say until we get him here.” Because the Pirates placed Kang on the restricted list last week, he’s not currently occupying a roster spot; further, he won’t receive pay for any regular-season action he might miss.
  • Marlins third baseman Martin Prado suffered a Grade 1 hamstring strain during Venezuela’s loss to Team USA in the World Baseball Classic on Wednesday and is likely to miss some regular-season time, per Joe Frisaro of MLB.com. While that’s disappointing, Prado is relieved that he didn’t receive a far worse diagnosis. “I was not sleeping,” he informed Frisaro. “I was like, so worried about myself, worried about the team, worried about the future and everything. After I talked to the doctors, it was a big relief for me.” Until Prado comes back, Miami will turn to Derek Dietrich and Miguel Rojas at the hot corner.
  • The Giants entered the spring without a clear No. 1 option in left field, but Jarrett Parker has separated himself from Mac Williamson in the battle for the role, observes Andrew Baggarly of the Mercury News. “Coming into this spring, he knew what was at stake and he’s doing the job,” manager Bruce Bochy said of the 28-year-old Parker, who the skipper believes is “maturing as a hitter” and “playing well on defense, too.” Last season was Parker’s first extensive action in the majors, and he batted an above-average .236/.358/.394 in 151 plate appearances.
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