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Niko Goodrum

Orioles Sign Niko Goodrum, Burch Smith To Minor League Deals

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The Orioles announced the signing of utility player Niko Goodrum and reliever Burch Smith to minor league contracts. Both players hit free agency last week — Goodrum after clearing outright waivers by the Pirates, Smith upon being released by the Marlins.

Goodrum is on his fifth organization of the season. He has bounced between the Twins, Rays, Angels and Pirates going back to Spring Training. The switch-hitter has appeared in 13 big league contests split between Tampa Bay and Los Angeles. He’s hitting .103/.188/.103 with 10 strikeouts and three walks. Goodrum has logged 75 Triple-A plate appearances with a far superior .270/.387/.444 slash. He has drawn 11 walks with three home runs in that limited sample.

The 32-year-old Goodrum has appeared in parts of seven MLB campaigns. He’s a career .224/.297/.383 hitter over nearly 1600 big league plate appearances. Goodrum played a portion of the 2023 season in Korea, turning in a .295/.373/.387 batting line in 201 trips to the plate. He provides a depth option at virtually every position outside of catcher and center field.

Smith, 34, pitched 29 2/3 innings with the Marlins this year. The right-hander was in camp with the Rays on a non-roster contract before leveraging an upward mobility clause into an MLB look in Miami. Smith pitched in mostly low-leverage situations out of Skip Schumaker’s bullpen. He turned in a 4.25 earned run average behind a solid 47% grounder percentage. He didn’t miss many bats, though, striking out 17% of batters faced with a meager 8.6% swinging strike rate.

That stint in Miami was Smith’s first big league action in three years. He also had a brief stay in Korea last season but only made one start before suffering a shoulder injury. His velocity returned this season, as he averaged a solid 94.4 MPH on his four-seam fastball. He’ll head to Triple-A Norfolk and try to pitch his way into a middle relief role at Camden Yards.

Niko Goodrum Elects Free Agency

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Utilityman Niko Goodrum elected free agency after the Pirates designated him for assignment last week, tweets Alex Stumpf of MLB.com. Goodrum went unclaimed on outright waivers and had sufficient service time to explore the market.

The 32-year-old didn’t appear in a game with the Pirates. Pittsburgh claimed Goodrum off waivers from the Angels on June 10 before squeezing him off the roster four days later. The Bucs were his fourth organization of the 2024 season. Goodrum spent Spring Training with the Twins on a minor league deal. He had brief MLB stints with the Rays and Halos before his stopover in the Steel City.

Goodrum hit just .103/.188/.103 in 33 MLB plate appearances. He’d hit well for Tampa Bay’s Triple-A team in Durham, running a .316/.422/.605 slash in nine games. Goodrum had excellent numbers (.280/.448/.440) with Boston’s top minor league affiliate a year ago and continued to hit well as a member of the KBO’s Lotte Giants. He shouldn’t have an issue finding another minor league contract.

Pittsburgh also granted infielder Jake Lamb his release from Triple-A Indianapolis, tweets Noah Hiles of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Lamb evidently had an opt-out deal in the minor league contract he signed over the winter. The 33-year-old hit .289/.380/.416 with a strong 12% walk rate and an 18.4% strikeout percentage through 234 Triple-A plate appearances.

Lamb had started the season on a huge hot streak and once looked like a candidate to supplant Rowdy Tellez as a left-handed first base option. His bat has tailed off in June, though, and the Bucs decided to let him explore other opportunities rather than giving him an MLB shot.

Pirates Designate Niko Goodrum For Assignment

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The Pirates announced they’ve selected left-hander Josh Fleming onto the MLB roster while placing reliever Hunter Stratton on the 15-day injured list due to a triceps strain. To open a spot on the 40-man roster for Fleming, Pittsburgh designated Niko Goodrum for assignment. The Pirates also announced that reliever Ben Heller accepted an assignment back to Triple-A Indianapolis following today’s outright.

Goodrum’s stint with Pittsburgh could last less than a week. The Bucs claimed him off waivers from the Angels on Monday. Skipper Derek Shelton didn’t get him into a game before the need for another pitcher squeezed him off the roster. The 32-year-old utilityman is on his fourth organization of the season. Goodrum initially signed a minor league deal with the Twins. He leveraged an upward mobility clause to secure a 40-man roster spot with the Rays late in Spring Training before bouncing to Los Angeles and Pittsburgh on waivers.

The left-handed hitter appeared in 13 games between the Rays and Angels, hitting .103 with 10 strikeouts and zero extra-base hits. Goodrum had fared well in 17 contests with Tampa Bay’s Triple-A club in Durham, turning in a .270/.387/.444 slash with a trio of home runs. He’ll very likely wind up back on waivers in the next couple days.

Fleming, another former Ray, is back for his second stint of the season. Over the winter, Pittsburgh signed the southpaw to a split deal that pays him at an $850K rate for time spent on the major league roster. Fleming occupied a long relief role early in the year but was tagged for 16 runs over 19 innings. The Bucs ran him through outright waivers in May.

The 28-year-old accepted the minor league assignment and has spent the past month in Indy. His results there haven’t been much better. Fleming has allowed eight runs over 12 2/3 Triple-A frames, striking out five of the 55 batters he’s faced. He’ll work as a multi-inning arm out of Shelton’s bullpen for the time being. Fleming is out of options, meaning the Bucs would again need to run him through waivers if they want to send him back to Triple-A.

Pirates Claim Niko Goodrum From Angels

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The Pirates have claimed infielder Niko Goodrum off waivers from the Angels, per announcements from both clubs. The Pirates optioned Goodrum to Triple-A Indianapolis. To open a 40-man spot, right-hander Ben Heller was designated for assignment. There wasn’t any previous indication that Goodrum had been removed from the Angels’ roster, so their 40-man count will drop to 39.

Goodrum was only with the Angels a short time. He was claimed off waivers from the Rays about a month ago and only got into four games with the big league club, as they kept him on optional assignment for the most part. In his 15 big league plate appearances, he drew two walks but didn’t get a hit and struck out four times. In Triple-A Salt Lake, he hit a tepid .200/.333/.200 in 30 plate appearances.

Now 32, Goodrum was once a solid regular for the Tigers. He slashed .247/.318/.427 over 2018 and 2019 for a 98 wRC+, indicating he was just barely below average at the plate for that time. He also stole 24 bases in that stretch while bouncing around to all seven positions outside of the battery.

But things have been a struggle since then, as he’s slashed .190/.267/.321 in 582 major league plate appearances over the past few years. There were some encouraging signs pointing towards a bit of a bounceback lately, though Goodrum hasn’t been able to maintain them. He .280/.448/.440 for Boston’s Triple-A club and then hit .295/.373/.387 in the KBO last year, leading to a minor league deal with the Twins for 2024. He was acquired by the Rays just before Opening Day and didn’t perform in the majors but hit .316/.422/.605 in Triple-A Durham before the Angels claimed him and his performance dipped again.

It’s been quite the up-and-down stretch for Goodrum but the Bucs evidently are intrigued enough to give him a roster spot and bring him aboard for some extra depth. Even as he has struggled more generally, he has drawn walks here and there. He has a 14.7% walk rate in the minors this year and had a 23.1% rate with Worcester last year before going to Korea, then walking in 11.4% of his plate appearances over there.

The Pirates have several position players struggling this year, with guys like Jack Suwinski, Rowdy Tellez, Edward Olivares, Jared Triolo and Michael A. Taylor having posted fairly lackluster numbers. Since Goodrum can move all around the diamond, he could be a viable replacement if the Bucs decide to make any kind of move with anyone in that group or if someone hits the injured list. He also has less than five years of service time and could be kept around for next year via arbitration, the Bucs are so inclined.

Heller, 32, signed a minor league deal with the Pirates in the offseason. He posted a 4.91 earned run average and 10.1% walk rate in Triple-A before being selected to the big league roster last week, though his 43% strikeout rate was certainly enticing. He tossed two innings for the Pirates in the past week but allowed an eye-popping 11 earned runs.

The Pirates will have a week to trade Heller or pass him through waivers. His career numbers are naturally much better than the 49.50 ERA he currently has in the 2024 season. In 52 frames going back to his 2016 debut, he has a 4.85 ERA, though he missed much of the 2018 to 2022 seasons due to injuries. The major league results have obviously been poor this year but it was just two outings after he struck out a bunch of guys in Triple-A. If any club were to claim him, Heller is out of options but less than four years of service time.

Angels Claim Niko Goodrum

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The Angels announced Thursday that they’ve claimed utilityman Niko Goodrum off waivers from the Rays, who’d designated him for assignment earlier in the week. In a corresponding move, the Halos recalled righty Kelvin Caceres from Triple-A and placed him on the major league 60-day injured list.

Goodrum appeared in nine games with Tampa Bay but tallied only 18 plate appearances, during which he collected a trio of singles, walked once and struck out three times. He hit .316/.422/.605 with three homers in 45 plate appearances down in Triple-A Durham.

A second-round pick by the Twins in 2010, the now-32-year-old Goodrum has played in parts of seven MLB seasons (this year included). The best stretch of that seven-year span came with the 2018-19 Tigers, who gave Goodrum regular playing time and saw him enjoy a .247/.318/.427 slash while playing quality defense at multiple positions. For a time, Goodrum served as the Tigers’ everyday shortstop. He logged 964 plate appearances over those two seasons and belted 28 homers in addition to swiping 24 bags.

Goodrum’s bat wilted in subsequent seasons. He split the 2023 campaign between the Red Sox’ Triple-A affiliate in Worcester, batting .280/.448/.440, and the Lotte Giants of the Korea Baseball Organization, for whom he turned in a .295/.373/.387 line.

The switch-hitting Goodrum has experience at all four infield positions and in the outfield corners. He’ll give the Halos some depth at a time when Anthony Rendon was just transferred to the 60-day IL and when each of Miguel Sano, Michael Stefanic and potentially Brandon Drury — who exited yesterday’s game with a hamstring issue — are unavailable. Sano and Stefanic are both on the injured list already, and Drury could soon join them. The Angels also acquired Luis Guillorme in a morning trade with the Braves. Goodrum and/or Guillorme could eventually push current bench players Cole Tucker and Ehire Adrianza off the roster; neither has hit much in his first eight games with the team.

Rays Designate Niko Goodrum, Select Edwin Uceta

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The Rays made several roster moves today, as relayed by Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times on X. They selected right-hander Edwin Uceta to the roster while optioning left-hander Jacob Lopez and designated infielder/outfielder Niko Goodrum for assignment in corresponding moves. The club also activated outfielder Josh Lowe from the injured list and optioned infielder Curtis Mead.

Goodrum, 32, signed a minor league deal with the Twins this winter but was flipped to the Rays just before Opening Day. Tampa was about to start the year with a number of position players on the injured list, including Lowe, Taylor Walls, Jonathan Aranda and Jonny DeLuca. Since the season started, Brandon Lowe also went on the IL, further thinning their position player depth.

But Goodrum wasn’t able to take advantage of the opportunity, though it was quite limited. He received 18 plate appearances over nine games at the big league level, hitting .188/.235 /.188 in those. He’s spent more time on optional assignment in Triple-A, where he has performed much better. He stepped to the plate 45 times over nine games for the Bulls and hit .316/.422/.605, but that wasn’t enough to hold onto his roster spot.

The Rays will now have a week to trade Goodrum or pass him through waivers. He was a solid regular for the Tigers back in 2018 and 2019 but his production tailed off in the following three seasons. He hit .247/.318/.427 over 2018 and 2019 with 24 steals, but he then hit .196/.271/.334 over the following three campaigns.

There’s been some encouraging results in the past year-plus. He hit .280/.448/.440 for Boston’s Triple-A club last year before going to Korea, where he hit .295/.373/.387 for the KBO’s Lotte Giants. As mentioned, the results weren’t there at the big league so far this year but the Triple-A production was good. Since he still can be optioned to the minors, perhaps he will intrigue a rival club who would like to option him to the minors.

The Rays leaned heavily on their bullpen yesterday as starter Ryan Pepiot was hit by a comebacker and had to depart after just two innings. The club then used six relievers to cover eight innings, as the game eventually went 10 frames. The Rays only have two pitchers that are on the 40-man and on optional assignment rather than the injured list: Jacob Waguespack and Yoniel Curet. The latter has yet to even reach Double-A. The former tossed five innings on Thursday and may be needed to cover Pepiot’s spot in the rotation, depending on how he feels in the coming days.

All that led the club to go for a non-roster option in Uceta. He signed a minor league deal with the club back in December and has been pitching in Triple-A. He has thrown 18 innings over 10 outings with an unimpressive earned run average of 7.00, but with better peripherals. His 23.9% strikeout rate and 9.1% walk rate are both close to par, with a .370 batting average on balls in play and 55.6% strand rate pushing extra runs across the board.

He has 40 1/3 innings of previous major league experience with a 5.80 ERA, striking out 23.3% of opponents against an 11.9% walk rate. He is out of options and can’t be easily sent back down to the minors. But he has just over a year of service time and could be cheaply retained for future seasons if he manages to hold his roster spot through the end of the year.

The return of Lowe should also provide a boost to the club’s offense. He hit .292/.335/.500 for the club last year while also stealing 32 bases, but he suffered an oblique injury in Spring Training and started the season on the injured list. He was set to return just over a week ago before some hamstring tightness delayed him, but he will now finally make his 2024 debut.

With the various injuries in the club’s position player mix, Mead got plenty of playing time in the past few weeks but couldn’t capitalize on it. He hit .218/.269/.276 in his 94 plate appearances, only hitting one home run and only drawing walks at a 4.3% clip. He’ll now head down to the farm and try to get back on track.

Rays Select Alex Jackson, Option Rene Pinto, Designate Colby White

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The Rays announced Friday that they’ve selected the contract of catcher Alex Jackson from Triple-A Durham, reinstated outfielder Jonny DeLuca from the 10-day injured list, and optioned catcher Rene Pinto and utilityman Niko Goodrum to Triple-A. Right-hander Colby White was designated for assignment to open a spot on the roster for Jackson.

Pinto, the team’s Opening Day backstop, has posted a .214/.292/.429 slash with a pair of homers in 49 plate appearances. That’s technically 9% better than average, by measure of wRC+, but nearly all of Pinto’s production this season came in a single game. Pinto homered twice for the Rays back on April 14 but has batted .125/.300/.188 since. He’s since ceded the lion’s share of playing time to Ben Rortvedt, whom the Rays acquired from the Yankees just prior to Opening Day. Rortvedt is out to a strong start, batting .333/.419/.389 in 62 plate appearances (albeit with the benefit of a sky-high .500 average on balls in play).

The 28-year-old Jackson is a former top-10 draft pick — No. 6 by the 2014 Mariners — and longtime top prospect who’s played in parts of four big league seasons but hasn’t yet found any success. He’s a career .141/.243/.227 hitter with an enormous 48.1% strikeout rate in 185 big league plate appearances.

Jackson has generally hit well in the upper minors, particularly in 2021 with the Braves and in his current run with the Rays. He’s opened the season with a stout .282/.344/.612 slash in 93 trips to the plate, swatting seven homers, five doubles and a triple along the way. He’s only walked at a 7.5% clip and has struck out in 25.8% of his plate appearances. That walk rate is right in line with his career mark in parts of six Triple-A seasons. The strikeout rate is about par for Jackson since 2021 and marks an improvement over his earlier Triple-A seasons, when he would fan in around a third of his turns at the dish.

White, 25, was Tampa Bay’s sixth-round pick in 2019. He missed the 2022 season and much of the 2023 campaign due to Tommy John surgery but returned late last season to pitch 22 frames across three minor league levels en route to a 1.64 ERA. Impressive as that number appears, it came in spite of an alarming 19.5% walk rate that cast significant doubt on White’s ability to replicate his run-prevention numbers moving forward.

Regression, indeed, has come in abundance for White this season. He’s pitched 7 2/3 innings but been tagged for a whopping 15 earned runs on 10 hits and 10 walks. He’s issued a base on balls to nearly 22% of his opponents and plunked another pair as well. Command wasn’t an issue for White in 2021, when he notched a 1.44 ERA across four levels, striking out a superhuman 45% of his opponents against a tidy 6.4% walk rate.

Baseball America ranked White 15th among Tampa Bay farmhands prior to the 2022 season, but his injury and the astounding nature of his command issues has clearly dropped his stock. The Rays will have a week to trade him or attempt to pass White through outright waivers. If he clears, he’ll remain in the organization and continue to work to get his command back in the wake of his 2022 surgery.

Rays Place Brandon Lowe On Injured List

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April 12: The Rays have now made it official. They announced that Lowe has been placed on the 10-day IL, retroactive to April 9, with a right oblique strain. Infielder/outfielder Niko Goodrum has been recalled as the corresponding move.

April 10: The Rays will place second baseman Brandon Lowe on the 10-day injured list, writes Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times. The veteran infielder was diagnosed with a Grade 1 strain of his right oblique after undergoing an MRI this morning.

Lowe missed a couple games last week after experiencing some discomfort in his left side. The current issue is seemingly unrelated, as he suffered the oblique strain on his right side while taking warm-up swings yesterday. Lowe last played on April 7, so the Rays will be able to backdate the IL stint to Monday.

That’s probably immaterial, as oblique strains typically lead to multi-week absences. A Grade 1 strain is the lowest severity, but any oblique issue is going to affect a hitter’s ability to rotate through his swing. While this is the first time that Lowe has been sidelined by an oblique injury, he has spent a fair bit of time on the IL in recent years.

Back inflammation and a season-ending knee fracture shelved him in 2023. A stress reaction in his back had led to an extended absence in the previous season. He has also had IL stints for a triceps contusion and a bone bruise in his lower leg within the past five years. Lowe has only reached 450 MLB plate appearances in a season once, connecting on 39 homers over 149 games back in 2021.

Around the injuries, the Maryland product has been one of the game’s top offensive second basemen. Lowe has turned in above-average rate production in every year of his career by measure of wRC+. He hit 21 homers with a .231/.328/.443 slash line over 436 trips to the dish last season. Lowe was out to a slow start this year, collecting just five hits in his first 27 at-bats.

Lowe will join Taylor Walls, Jonathan Aranda, Josh Lowe and Jonny DeLuca as position players on the injured list. Curtis Mead has gotten the nod at the keystone in each of the last three games. He’ll probably assume the bulk of the playing time in Lowe’s absence. Amed Rosario has plenty of middle infield experience and is on hand as an option off the bench, although the Rays have deployed him mostly in right field in the early going.

Rays To Acquire Niko Goodrum, Select Him To 40-Man Roster

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The Rays are acquiring utilityman Niko Goodrum from the Twins and will add him to their 40-man roster, reports Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times. The Rays’ interest in Goodrum was first reported yesterday afternoon.

Goodrum had an upward mobility clause in his minor league deal with Minnesota. He triggered that clause, which requires the Twins to gauge interest around the league and see whether another club would be willing to add Goodrum to the 40-man roster. Tampa Bay, in need of infield depth due to injuries, felt it had space and will presumably send cash back to the Twins to acquire Goodrum’s rights and add him to the 40-man roster. Goodrum has a pair of minor league option years remaining, so it’s not a sure thing he’ll go directly onto the Rays’ major league roster.

Goodrum, a veteran switch-hitter who can play just about any position on the diamond, fits the Rays’ typical mold of versatility. His acquisition was surely spurred by injuries to Taylor Walls (recovering from hip surgery) and Jonathan Aranda (who fractured a finger fielding a grounder this week) — to say nothing of the ongoing legal situation surrounding shortstop Wander Franco, whose MLB future is in doubt.

The 32-year-old Goodrum has played in parts of six big league seasons between the Tigers, Astros and Twins — who originally made him a second-round pick back in 2010. Goodrum returned to Minnesota on a minor league pact this winter but didn’t make the Opening Day roster after stumbling to to a .129/.270/.161 slash in 37 spring plate appearances. That ugly performance didn’t deter the Rays, who are surely looking at Goodrum’s versatility, defensive chops and broader track record in making this acquisition.

From 2018-19, Goodrum was a regular with the Tigers. He posted a solid .247/.318/.427 slash in that time while playing solid defense at multiple positions, and for a time he was even Detroit’s primary shortstop. Over those two years, Goodrum tallied 964 plate appearances and swatted 28 homers while swiping 24 bases. His bat tailed off in the three subsequent seasons before a resurgent 2023 showing between the Red Sox’ Triple-A affiliate (.280/.448/.440) and the Korea Baseball Organization’s Lotte Giants (.295/.373/.387).

Goodrum seems likely to claim a bench spot in Tampa Bay. The Rays had previously looked to be whittling down the competition for their final two spots, but Topkin reported earlier this week that they were mulling some outside acquisitions for a backup infielder and backup catcher. Goodrum, it seems, was part of those deliberations and will now add some optionable depth who can be controlled through the 2025 season via arbitration if he makes a good impression on his new club.

Rays Interested In Niko Goodrum

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The Twins announced today that infielder/outfielder Niko Goodrum has been reassigned to minor league camp, indicating he won’t be on the club’s Opening Day roster. Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times reports that Goodrum has triggered an assignment clause and that the Rays have interest in him.

Goodrum signed a minor league deal with the Twins in December. An assignment clause, also known as an upward mobility clause, requires the signing team to offer the player to the other 29 clubs. If any of those clubs expresses interest, the signing club has to decide between adding the player to their roster or trading them to the interested club. If none of the clubs are interested, then the player would stay with the original signing club.

The Rays are known to love versatility and Goodrum can certainly provide that. He is a switch-hitter and can move all around the field, having played each of the seven positions outside of the battery. He’s also stolen 46 bases in 59 attempts in his career. But it’s been a while since Goodrum looked to be a viable hitter in the big leagues, which makes the interest from the Rays somewhat surprising.

Goodrum hit .247/.318/.427 for the Tigers over the 2018 and 2019 seasons, good enough for a wRC+ of 98. That means he was still slightly below average, but that was solid production for a guy who can bounce all around, doing multiple things. However, his offense has been nowhere near as good since. He hit .203/.282/.350 over 2020 and 2021, 74 wRC+, then produced a dismal line of .116/.156/.163 in 2022.

He settled for a minor league deal with the Red Sox last year and had a solid .280/.448/.440 line in 65 games for their Triple-A club. He opted out of that deal in the summer and signed with the KBO’s Lotte Giants, slashing .295/.373/.387 in 50 games for them without hitting a home run, buoyed by a .389 batting average on balls in play. In Spring Training with the Twins, he has a line of .103/.257/.138  in 35 plate appearances.

The Rays have lost a few position players lately, thinning their depth. They knew long ago that Taylor Walls wouldn’t be an option due to his offseason hip surgery but spring injuries will also lead to Josh Lowe, Jonathan Aranda and Jonny DeLuca starting the season on the IL.

The projected lineup is heavily right-handed, with Brandon Lowe and Richie Palacios the only lefties who seem likely to get regular playing time. Goodrum is a switch-hitter but he’s actually been better from the right side in his career. He has a line of .303/.369/.447 against southpaws for a 121 wRC+ but a .199/.274/.369 line against righties, which leads to a wRC+ of just 72.

That makes him less than an ideal fit for a club that already has plenty of right-handed bats but perhaps the Rays are nonetheless interested in adding him as a versatile bench piece to move around as needed. Though he hasn’t had a great showing this spring, he did draw walks in 17.1% of his plate appearances. That generally aligns with the 23.1% walk rate he had in Triple-A last year and the 11.4% walk rate he had in the KBO.

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