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Rangers Release Reyes Moronta, Joe McCarthy; Clint Frazier, Yoshi Tsutsugo Will Not Make Club

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The Rangers have released right-hander Reyes Moronta and outfielder Joe McCarthy, tweets Evan Grant of the Dallas Morning News. The team has also informed non-roster invitees Clint Frazier and Yoshi Tsutsugo that they will not make the Opening Day roster.

Signing with the Rangers offered Moronta, previously a setup man with the Giants, the opportunity to reunite with former skipper Bruce Bochy. Spring training didn’t go as either Moronta or the team hoped, however, as he was roughed up for ten runs on nine hits and four walks with five punchouts in 5 2/3 innings.

The 30-year-old Moronta spent the 2022 season with the Dodgers and D-backs, working to a 4.30 ERA with a 23.6% strikeout rate and 11% walk rate in 37 2/3 frames. That was his healthiest season since 2019 surgery to repair a torn labrum in his shoulder. He missed the 2020 season and pitched in just 22 Triple-A frames in 2021.

Prior to that surgery, Moronta pitched 128 1/3 innings of 2.66 ERA ball with a huge 29.8% strikeout rate and a heater that averaged just over 97 mph. His velocity was down to 95.3 mph in 2022, however, nearly two full ticks below peak levels.

McCarthy, 29, appeared in 17 Cactus League games and batted .258/.343/.387 with a homer, a double, a stolen base, three walks and a dozen strikeouts. His candidacy for the left field job took a hit when the Rangers signed Robbie Grossman, who’s been the primary option in left this spring and will get a chance to run with a regular role there when the season begins.

Grossman’s arrival was also bad news for Frazier, who had a decent showing this spring, hitting .244/.311/.463 with a pair of homers, three doubles and a 14-to-4 K/BB ratio in 45 trips to the plate. The switch-hitting Grossman is much stronger from the right side of the dish than the left, which never seemed to bode well for the right-handed-hitting Frazier. The former top prospect, who had a nice run with the Yankees from 2018-20 when he hit .267/.351/.485 in 447 plate appearances, is still with the club for now and could open the season in Triple-A as a depth option.

Tsutsugo, 31, got a bit later of a start in camp. He appeared in 11 games and batted .240/.296/.400 with a homer, a double, two walks and eight strikeouts in 27 plate appearances. Tsutsugo was a feared slugger in Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball but has yet to acclimate to Major League pitching since signing with the Rays prior to the 2020 season. He’s a .197/.291/.339 hitter with 18 home runs in 640 Major League plate appearances. Like Frazier, he could be a depth option in Triple-A to begin the season.

Rangers, Joe McCarthy Agree To Minor League Deal

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Outfielder Joe McCarthy is signing a minor league deal with the Rangers, reports Robert Murray of FanSided (Twitter link). He’ll receive an invitation to big league Spring Training.

It’s the second consecutive offseason in which McCarthy and the Rangers lined up on a minor league pact. Texas granted him his release a couple weeks into this past season, paving the way for the University of Virginia product to sign with the Orix Buffaloes of Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball. The lefty-hitting outfielder appeared in 59 games with the Buffaloes, hitting .225/.344/.343 with four home runs through 212 trips to the dish. Strikeouts proved problematic, as he punched out in 27.4% of his plate appearances.

While it wasn’t a great NPB stint, McCarthy is an accomplished Triple-A hitter. He posted a quality .306/.384/.542 mark in 74 games with the Giants top affiliate in Sacramento in 2021. That brought his career line at the top minor league level to .255/.355/.464. McCarthy has a robust 12.1% walk rate at the level, striking out 24.2% of the time in the process.

McCarthy, the older brother of Diamondbacks outfielder Jake McCarthy, has just four games of MLB experience. Those came with the Giants during the abbreviated 2020 season. He’ll look to carve out a longer big league look in his age-29 campaign. McCarthy is primarily a corner outfielder whose best position is left field, an area in which the Rangers are searching for upgrades. Texas surely won’t cease a pursuit of targets like Michael Conforto because they’ve added McCarthy, but the signing adds some extra depth at a questionable position while giving him an opportunity to compete for a roster spot next spring.

Rangers Release Joe McCarthy To Pursue NPB Opportunity

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The Rangers released outfielder Joe McCarthy this week, according to his transactions log at MLB.com. Evan Grant of the Dallas Morning News tweets that McCarthy was granted an out after agreeing to a deal with a team in Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball. Last week, Sports Hochi in Japan reported McCarthy had agreed to terms with the Orix Buffaloes. The team has yet to announce the move, but it seems the 28-year-old will head to the Osaka-based club, which has started the season 10-12.

McCarthy, the older brother of D-Backs outfielder Jake McCarthy, is a former fifth-round draftee of the Rays. Traded to the Giants at the 2019 deadline, he played in four games and tallied 10 plate appearances with San Francisco in 2020. McCarthy otherwise spent his Giants’ tenure in the minors, including a 2021 campaign where he posted an impressive .305/.384/.542 mark with 15 homers in 74 games with Triple-A Sacramento last season.

After electing free agency at the end of the year, the University of Virginia product signed a minor league deal with Texas. Despite an 8-14 showing in Spring Training, he didn’t crack the Opening Day roster. Rather than head back to Triple-A, McCarthy will make the jump to Japan’s highest level.

It’s not uncommon for players on minors deals or even at the fringes of an MLB 40-man roster to explore opportunities in other pro leagues. McCarthy’s salary has yet to be reported, but he’ll certainly make more with the Buffaloes than he would’ve spending the entire season with the Rangers’ top affiliate in Round Rock. McCarthy doesn’t have much big league experience, but he’s a career .255/.355/.464 hitter in three Triple-A seasons. If he performs well in NPB, it stands to reason he could again draw interest from MLB teams a year or two down the line.

Rangers, Joe McCarthy Agree To Minor League Deal

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The Rangers have signed corner outfielder Joe McCarthy to a minor league contract, reports Conor Foley of the Scranton Times-Tribune (on Twitter). Evan Grant of the Dallas Morning News adds that he’ll receive an invitation to big league Spring Training. As a minor league free agent, McCarthy was eligible to sign a non-roster pact during the ongoing lockout.

McCarthy, the older brother of D-Backs outfielder Jake McCarthy, has the briefest of MLB experience. He appeared in four big league games with the Giants during the shortened 2020 season, going hitless in ten at-bats. The left-handed hitter has otherwise spent the entirety of his seven-year professional career in the minors.

Originally selected by the Rays in the fifth round out of the University of Virginia in 2015, McCarthy was flipped to San Francisco as part of a rare prospect-for-prospect swap at the 2019 trade deadline. The Giants were no doubt intrigued by his huge minor league walk rates, including a massive 16.2% mark at Double-A in 2017 and a 15.9% figure during the first half of the 2019 season in Triple-A.

McCarthy struggled with the Giants’ top affiliate down the stretch in 2019, though. Due to the cancelation of the 2020 minor league season, he couldn’t log any action on the farm and wound up being outrighted off San Francisco’s 40-man roster following his big league cup of coffee. He rebounded to put up an impressive .305/.384/.542 line with 15 homers, a 10.2% walk percentage and a lower than average 19.4% strikeout rate in 315 plate appearances with Triple-A Sacramento last season. That still wasn’t enough to earn another big league call to a 107-win team, and the Pennsylvania native elected free agency at the end of the year.

While McCarthy has essentially no big league track record, there’s no harm for the Rangers in giving him a look in Spring Training. He’s a .255/.355/.464 hitter in parts of three Triple-A campaigns, and Baseball America slotted him among the top 30 prospects in a perennially strong Tampa Bay farm system every year between 2017 and 2019. With a solid showing in Spring Training, he might be able to work his way into a corner outfield mix that includes Kole Calhoun, Nick Solak, Zach Reks and Eli White.

Giants Designate Dany Jimenez, Option Jaylin Davis

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The Giants announced a series of roster moves Thursday, as they optioned outfielders Jaylin Davis and Joe McCarthy to their alternate training site, designated Rule 5 right-hander Dany Jimenez for assignment and recalled Steven Duggar. Meanwhile, corner infielders Brandon Belt and Evan Longoria were activated from the injured list.

Jimenez, 26, was selected out of the Blue Jays organization in December’s Rule 5 Draft, but his brief time with the Giants didn’t go particularly well. He allowed a run in 1 1/3 innings of work and walked three of the eight batters he faced. Jimenez threw only 37 pitches with the Giants, and fewer than half of those offerings were strikes. The righty was certainly impressive in the minors last year — albeit against younger competition. In 59 2/3 innings between Class-A Advanced and Double-A, Jimenez notched a 2.59 ERA with 14.2 K/9 against 3.2 BB/9.

Jimenez will be put through waivers now, and if he’s claimed by another club, he’d retain his Rule 5 status with the new team. If Jimenez goes unclaimed, he’ll be offered back to the Blue Jays. The two clubs could also work out a trade that’d allow the Giants to retain Jimenez’s rights as a non-roster player who’d no longer be tied to Rule 5 roster limitations.

It’s a bit of a surprise to see Davis sent down, as the Giants appear high on the 26-year-old slugger. Acquired from the Twins a year ago in the Sam Dyson swap that proved quite regrettable for Minnesota — Dyson had a shoulder injury he’d not disclosed to the Giants or Twins that required surgery — Davis has gotten out to a slow start. He’s appeared in four games and gone just 2-for-12 with a solo home run and six strikeouts. Today’s move notwithstanding, the Giants will surely want to take a longer look at Davis after he decimated minor league pitching to the tune of a .306/.397/.590 slash last year. It seems likely that he’ll be up again in the not-too-distant future, but for now he’ll work at the team’s alternate site while Duggar gets another go-around at the MLB level.

Giants Notes: Ruf, Pence, Dubon

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Darin Ruf’s loud bat is making a play for a roster spot in San Francisco, per John Shea of the San Francisco Chronicle. Ruff, 33, made major-league appearances for five consecutive seasons for the Philadelphia Phillies from 2012 to 2016, totaling 833 plate appearances. He was mostly used as a pinch-hitting option off the bench while seeing time at first base and in both outfield corners. The Giants are pretty settled at first base with veteran Brandon Belt, but there’s room for Ruf to make a play for an outfield spot where Michael Yastrzemski, Alex Dickerson, Austin Slater, Joey Rickard, Joe McCarthy, and Hunter Pence are his top competition.

  • Pence, of course, will line up as the regular designated hitter, assuming he can stay healthy. After missing some workouts due to pain in his right foot, Pence underwent an MRI but results returned nothing more serious than inflammation, per Henry Schulman of the San Francisco Chronicle. He’s not expected to miss a significant amount of time. The fan favorite returned to the Giants this year just in time to resume his role as a designated hitter, a role in which he thrived last season for the Texas Rangers. Pence enjoyed a real resurgence in 2019, making the All-Star team and hitting .297/.358/.552. the 36-year-old outfielder was limited to 83 games, however, and it’s safe to assume he’ll be a part-time player moving forward. That should leave plenty of at-bats for a crowded veteran infield or any of the names above to snag some extra ABs from the DH slot.
  • In preparation for a hectic season, Giants manager Gabe Kapler is encouraging players to cultivate as much flexibility as possible, per Kerry Crowley of the Mercury News. Joe McCarthy is spending more time at first, Yastrzemski, Austin Slater and others are seeing time in centerfield, and former Brewer Mauricio Dubon has moved all over the diamond, from second to center to right to first. When Dubon was acquired from the Brewers, there was some question as to exactly where he’d fit in, given the veterans stocked in the Giants’ infield. Well, the answer is anywhere and everywhere.

Giants Acquire Joe McCarthy From Rays

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Outfield prospect Joe McCarthy will head from Tampa to San Francisco, tweets ESPN’s Jeff Passan. Lefty Jacob Lopez will head to the Rays in the swap, per Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times.

Tampa’s well-publicized 40-man crunch attracted no shortage of sharks from around the league, with the super-active Giants the latest to take a bite. McCarthy, who checked in at #14 on a comically-deep Rays list at FanGraphs this offseason, has struggled tremendously in the homer-happy International League this season, slashing just .196/.335/.385 in what’s been his first extended professional slump thus far (the 6’3 lefty had destroyed AAA pitching in a short stint last season before his campaign was cut short by back and hand injuries). Still, encouraging signs remain – the ever-patient lefty is still walking in nearly 16% of his at-bats while running an unsustainably low .256 BABIP. The former University of Virginia product “may be this decade’s Nick Johnson,” per the site, which heralds his “exceptional” secondary skills and ability to handle either outfield corner in addition to first base.

It’s the latest in a series of low-risk, high-reward moves for the Giants, who also today acquired Triple-A masher Jaylin Davis in the Sam Dyson deal with the Twins and picked up Scooter Gennett from Cincinnati for a next-to-nothing return. President of Baseball Ops Farhan Zaidi’s longstanding affinity for the platoon should eventually make room for both Davis and McCarthy at a corner spot, where they’ll look to follow in the ever-enlarging shoes of comparably overlooked pickups Alex Dickerson, Mike Yastrzemski, and Donovan Solano.

Lopez, 21, is a 6’4 lefty who’s yet to make it to full-season ball. In 41 2/3 innings for Short-Season Salem-Keizer, Lopez’s set down 39 men and walked just seven. He doesn’t crack the team’s top 30 prospect list at any major outlet.

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