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Wei-Chung Wang

Pirates Exercise Options Over Archer, Marte; Outright Four Players

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The Pirates announced a series of roster moves today. In addition to exercising club options over Chris Archer and Starling Marte — moves that were all but a given — the club has outrighted four players. James Marvel, Alex McRae, Yefry Ramirez and Wei-Chung Wang were all dropped from the Pittsburgh 40-man roster.

The Pirates don’t have a general manager at the moment — assistant GM Kevan Graves is filling that role on an interim basis — though it was still undoubtedly easy for their front office to pick up Archer and Marte at their 2020 tabs. Archer has been surprisingly below average since the Pirates acquired him from the Rays in a July 2018 trade that’s looking like one of the most regrettable deals in Pittsburgh history. Nevertheless, as someone who’s due an affordable $9MM in 2020, it’s worth keeping Archer around and hoping for a bounce-back season or trying to shop him during the winter.

Marte, who’s owed $11.5MM next year, looks like an even more obvious trade candidate than Archer. The 31-year-old Marte’s fresh off yet another strong campaign, one in which he totaled at least 3.0 fWAR for the sixth time since his first full season since he debuted in 2013. However, Marte’s down to his last two years of team control, so if the Pirates don’t expect to push for contention during that span, putting him on the block may make sense. That’s all the more true when considering the lack of appealing center field alternatives on the free-agent market.

Of the players the Pirates outrighted, Wang worked the largest slate of innings in 2019. While he only tossed four frames for the Buccos, the 27-year-old logged another 27 innings with Oakland prior to landing in Pittsburgh. On the season overall, Wang posted a solid 3.77 ERA, though he did so with a grisly 18-to-14 K/BB ratio in those 31 innings of relief. He held lefties to a lowly .220/.298/.280 batting line through 57 plate appearances but was tagged for an .823 OPS by righties. Wang, McRae and Ramirez will all have the option to elect free agency.

Pirates Claim Wei-Chung Wang

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The Pirates have claimed left-handed pitcher Wei-Chung Wang off waivers from the Athletics, according to an official Athletics announcement. Wang was designated for assignment on Friday. It’ll be something of a reunion for the 27-year-old, who joins the same Pirates organization that signed him as a free agent in 2011 to make his professional debut.

Pitching in the Majors for the first time since 2017, Wang’s performance in Oakland was fine, at least on the surface. He’s sporting a nice 3.33 ERA through 27 innings of work, though in that stretched he has mustered a meager 16:11 K:BB ratio. For that reason, along with other peripheral indicators that suggest Wang is unlikely to maintain his current level, Oakland felt more confident in its other lefty options, a deep group that includes new arrivals Jake Diekman and A.J. Puk.

If Wang gets a chance in the Pittsburgh bullpen, he’ll join fellow southpaws Francisco Liriano and Felipe Vazquez. On the whole, the Pirates’ bullpen has been a strong unit, though it’s a bit of a top-heavy one. There should be an opportunity for Wang to sneak into a role as a low-leverage option for the Bucs and audition for a heightened role.

Wang is in his last option season, meaning that his Pirates tenure could very well be a short one. If he wants to continue his Pittsburgh career beyond this year, he’ll need to crack the 2020 Opening Day roster, otherwise he’ll be subjected to waivers out of spring training.

 

 

 

Athletics Designate Wei-Chung Wang For Assignment

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The Athletics announced Thursday that they’ve designated left-hander Wei-Chung Wang for assignment and placed designated hitter Khris Davis on the paternity list. Wang’s spot on the 40-man roster will go to infield prospect Sheldon Neuse, whose previously reported promotion to the big leagues is now official. Davis can be on the paternity list until Sept. 1, and at that point rosters will expand, so it’s likely that Neuse will be with the MLB club through season’s end.

Wang, 27, has pitched to an aesthetically pleasing 3.33 ERA through 27 innings with the A’s this season, but he’s also managed just a 16-to-11 K/BB ratio with a 30.5 percent ground-ball rate in that time. His success has been propped up by a .231 average on balls in play and an 84.5 percent strand rate — neither of which seems particularly sustainable over a larger sample. Oakland isn’t short on lefty options in the ’pen, either; Ryan Buchter has been a constant in the bullpen for much of the past two seasons, and he’s joined there by deadline acquisition Jake Diekman and recently promoted top prospect A.J. Puk. That depth had relegated Wang to Triple-A Las Vegas, where he’s logged a 4.78 ERA with 24 strikeouts, eight walks and five homers allowed in 26 1/3 innings.

Although this season’s performance has been mixed both in Triple-A and at the MLB level, Wang does sport a career 3.20 ERA with 7.8 K/9 against 1.7 BB/9 in 115 2/3 innings of Triple-A pitching. If he goes unclaimed on outright waivers, he’ll have the right to reject an assignment to the minors in favor of free agency by virtue of the fact that he’s been outrighted off a 40-man roster in the past.

Even if Wang is claimed by another club, the former Rule 5 pick is in his final option season, thus hurting his chances of sticking with a team into the 2020 season. Any club could take a flier on Wang via outright waivers and give him a September bullpen audition, but because he’ll be out of options in Spring Training, he’d need to either break camp with a club or once again be placed on waivers.

A’s DFA Fernando Rodney, Select Wei-Chung Wang

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The Oakland Athletics have designated veteran reliever Fernando Rodney for assignment, their PR department announced. Wei-Chung Wang’s contract has been selected from Triple-A Las Vegas in a corresponding move.

This could spell the end of the road for 42-year-old Rodney, whose days of slinging arrows may be numbered after a 9.42 ERA in 17 appearances. Still, given the state of bullpens around the league, it would not be a shock to see Rodney hitch his cart to a different horse for another go-round. His 5.46 FIP isn’t all that far off the 4.52 mark he chalked up last season, and he’s striking out batters at just a slightly lower rate. On the flip side, his velocity is down a full mph, and his walk rate is up to 17.1 BB%, all of which and more has led to an ugly -0.6 rWAR mark on the year.

Rodney debuted as a 25-year-old way back in 2002 for the Tigers. He has twice led the league in games finished, while he took home the saves title with 48 for the Mariners as a 37-year-old. On the whole, he has appeared in 913 major league baseball games, thrown 899 2/3 innings, and struck out 908 professional baseball hitters at the game’s highest level. He sports a career 3.79 ERA and almost identical 3.77 FIP.

Wei-Chung Wang will make his first appearance in the majors since 2017 with the Brewers. This season in Triple-A he’s gone 1-1 with 16 appearances and a 3.75 ERA and 3.75 K/BB rate. The lefty spent last season with the NC Dinos of the KBO, going 7-10 with a 4.26 ERA across 25 starts.

AL Injury Notes: Andujar, Eloy, Rangers, Jays, Royals

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The Yankees will open a seven-game homestand May 3, at which point injured third baseman Miguel Andujar could rejoin their lineup, manager Aaron Boone said Friday (via George A. King III of the New York Post). Whether that happens will depend on how Andujar fares in extended spring training and minor league rehab games over the next several days. For now, though, Boone is “cautiously optimistic” about Andujar’s torn right labrum, which looked like a potential season-ending injury when he went on the IL on April 1.  The 24-year-old is one of a whopping 15 Yankees who have landed on the injured list this season, but the reserve-laden club has weathered the storm with a 15-11 start. Third base subs DJ LeMahieu and Gio Urshela have performed well along the way, helping to ease the burden of Andujar’s absence.

  • White Sox left fielder Eloy Jimenez exited Friday’s game with a right ankle sprain and was wearing a walking boot afterward, per James Fegan of The Athletic (subscription required). X-rays on Jimenez’s ankle came back negative, but he’ll undergo an MRI on Saturday. An IL stint seems like a distinct possibility for the 22-year-old phenom, who’s just 85 plate appearances into his career.
  • Rangers lefty Taylor Hearn endured a rough debut start. Now, he’s headed to the 10-day IL with elbow tightness. That’s not how the club drew things up when it called upon one of its most promising young pitchers to join the MLB roster. Hearn’s outlook isn’t yet known. That was just one of several moves, as fellow hurler Jeffrey Springs and infielder Patrick Wisdom were optioned out. Second bagger Rouned Odor was activated from the IL while pitchers Ariel Jurado and Wei-Chieh Huang were called up to provide some fresh arms.
  • Standout Blue Jays infield prospect Bo Bichette is down with a broken left hand, but general manager Ross Atkins said Friday he won’t require surgery, as Scott Mitchell of TSN tweets. The Jays expect a four- to six-week recovery time for the 21-year-old Bichette, who’s regarded as one of the game’s premier prospects.
  • The Royals have placed first baseman Lucas Duda on the 10-day IL, retroactive to April 24, and recalled third baseman Kelvin Gutierrez from Triple-A Omaha, according to Pete Grathoff and Sam McDowell of the Kansas City Star. Duda’s dealing with a lumbar strain, which continues a rough start to the season for the 33-year-old. The free-agent pickup has hit a miserable .174/.304/.326 in 56 trips to the plate. Meanwhile, Gutierrez batted an impressive .333/.443/.439 in 79 PA prior to his promotion, and he’s now in line for his first major league action. The Royals acquired Gutierrez, 24, from the Nationals last June as part of a deal centering on reliever Kelvin Herrera. Gutierrez currently ranks as KC’s 14th-best prospect at MLB.com.

Minor MLB Transactions: 2/2/2019

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We’ll use this post to track some of the smaller moves made around the MLB today…

  • The Oakland A’s will bring lefty Wei-Chung Wang to spring training as a non-roster invitee, per the Athletic’s Melissa Lockard (via Twitter). Wang spent last season in Korea, where he earned a 4.26 ERA in 25 games for the NC Dinos of the KBO. He made brief appearances at the major league level for the Brewers in 2014 and 2017, but both cups of coffee returned disheartening results – a combined 11.09 ERA across 18 2/3 innings – including a somewhat noteworthy 2017 in which he recorded only 4 outs across 8 outings. Wang pitched well in the upper minors as recently as 2017, however, when as a then-25-year-old, he turned in a 2.05 ERA in 47 appearances out of the pen for the Brewers’ top affiliate.

Brewers Release Wei-Chung Wang To Pursue KBO Opportunity

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TODAY: NC Dinos has announced the signing (hat tip to MyKBO’s Dan Kurtz).  Wang will receive $900K, with $200K coming in the form of a signing bonus.

YESTERDAY: The Brewers have cleared a spot on the 40-man roster by granting left-hander Wei-Chung Wang his release, tweets Adam McCalvy of MLB.com. The move also creates a roster spot for Lorenzo Cain, who was re-introduced to Milwaukee at a press conference earlier today.

Wang will be pursuing an opportunity with a team in the Korea Baseball Organization. Sung Min Kim of River Ave. Blues recently tweeted that Wang had agreed to a deal with the NC Dinos. He’ll be the first Taiwanese-born pitcher to appear in the KBO, Kim adds.

Wang, 25, was originally signed by the Pirates back in 2011 but wound up in the Brewers organization via the 2013 Rule 5 Draft. Milwaukee carried him for the entire 2014 season despite the fact that he’d never pitched above the Rookie-level Gulf Coast League. Unsurprisingly, the lefty didn’t fare well in limited action that year, pitching to a 10.90 ERA in just 17 1/3 innings of work.

Though he didn’t return to the Brewers’ big league team until 2017 (when he tossed just 1 1/3 innings), Wang pitched quite well at Triple-A over parts of three seasons. Despite pitching his home games in an extremely hitter-friendly setting (Colorado Springs), Wang posted a 2.73 ERA with 7.7 K/9 against 1.4 BB/9 through 89 innings across parts of three seasons for the Brewers’ Triple-A affiliate.

NL Notes: Dodgers, Phillies, Brewers

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The Dodgers’ oft-ridiculed offseason strategy of acquiring depth looks increasingly smart in retrospect, Ken Rosenthal of FOX Sports writes. The Dodgers’ front office has taken flak for the better part of a year for acquiring large numbers of solid players rather than acquiring or retaining stars like Cole Hamels, Zack Greinke and Andrew Miller. But the team is currently just one game back in the NL West, and leads the NL Wild Card race, despite making a ridiculous 26 DL placements this year. The Dodgers have gotten solid contributions from somewhat lower-profile additions like Kenta Maeda, Chase Utley, Joe Blanton and Louis Coleman, not to mention players like Adam Liberatore, Grant Dayton, Andrew Toles and Josh Fields, who arrived in moves that were downright minor. Here’s more from the National League.

  • The Phillies could promote outfield prospects Roman Quinn and Nick Williams, but are less likely to promote top prospect J.P. Crawford, CSNPhilly.com’s Jim Salisbury writes. Quinn is already on the team’s 40-man roster, while Williams must be added this offseason anyway in order to protect him from the Rule 5 Draft. Quinn has hit well this season for Double-A Reading (.297/.370/.420) and Williams has held his own at Triple-A Lehigh Valley (.281/.311/.462), so they could at least be September callups, although, as Salisbury notes, it will be difficult for the Phillies to balance playing time for Quinn, Williams, Aaron Altherr, Odubel Herrera, and several other outfield options. Crawford is more highly rated than Williams or Quinn (MLB.com ranks him the third-best prospect in all of baseball), but it will be tricky for the Phillies to promote Crawford before the end of the season, since they have a variety of prospects to protect on their 40-man roster this offseason and Crawford doesn’t need to be added.
  • The Brewers have announced that a pair of prospects have inched closer to the minor leagues, with lefty Wei-Chung Wang moving from Double-A Biloxi to Triple-A Colorado Springs and righty Devin Williams heading from Class A Wisconsin to Class A+ Brevard County. Wang was only 20 and had never played above the Gulf Coast League when the Brewers selected him in the Rule 5 Draft in 2013. He predictably struggled in big-league action the next year and looked like he might become a cautionary tale about how the Rule 5 Draft can derail a player’s development if he isn’t ready for the big leagues. Since then, though, he has since worked his way back through the Brewers’ system to reestablish himself as a prospect, posting a 3.52 ERA, 7.6 K/9 and 2.8 BB/9 in 107 1/3 innings with Biloxi this season. The 21-year-old Williams, the Brewers’ first selection in the 2013 draft, posted a 3.61 ERA, 9.2 K/9 and 4.2 BB/9 in 72 1/3 innings for Wisconsin.

Minor Moves: Wang, Wilson, Ramirez, Crabbe

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

  • Brewers lefty Wei-Chung Wang cleared outright waivers and has been assigned to the club’s Class-A affiliate, the team announced. Milwaukee carried Wang all last year on its major league roster to keep him trough the Rule 5 process, but needed a 40-man spot when third baseman Matt Dominguez himself became a 40-man casualty of the Astros. Wang’s struggles at the High-A level (5.93 ERA in 60 2/3 innings) led the club to expose him to an outside claim.
  • Rays backstop Bobby Wilson has accepted an assignment with the club after being outrighted, Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times tweets. The veteran defensive stalwart played in 24 games for the big league club earlier this year, and figures to be a good bet to return at some point. He has never produced much at the plate, and this year was no different: Wilson has slashed just .145/.203/.145 in 59 plate appearances.
  • Right-hander J.C. Ramirez cleared outright waivers after being designated for assignment and has been outrighted to Triple-A Reno by the Diamondbacks, tweets Zach Buchanan of the Arizona Republic. Removed from the roster to create a spot for Allen Webster, the 26-year-old Ramirez had worked to a 4.11 ERA with an 11-to-4 K/BB ratio out of the Arizona bullpen this season. This marked his second stint with the big league club and his first since 2013. In 39 1/3 career innings at the Major League level, Ramirez has a 6.18 ERA. He’s worked to a 3.82 ERA in 125 Triple-A innings.
  • The Diamondbacks also dealt righty Tim Crabbe to the White Sox for cash or a player to be named later, the club announced (via MLB.com’s Steve Gilbert, on Twitter). Crabbe, 27, has spent all of the past three years in the upper minors and has recently converted to relief pitching exclusively. He owns a 5.50 ERA over 34 1/3 innings this year at Triple-A, with 8.7 K/9 but a rough 6.0 BB/9.

NL Central Notes: Cards Investigation, Dominguez, Wang, Schwarber

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Commissioner Rob Manfred told reporters that it’s too soon to know how the league will handle today’s stunning news that the FBI is investigating the Cardinals for possible involvement in last year’s Astros computer system breach. As Evan Drellich of the Houston Chronicle was among those to report, Manfred declined to wade into the details of the matter and stressed that the federal government, not the league, was conducting the investigation. “To assume that the investigation is going to produce a particular result with respect to the Cardinals, let alone to jump to a word like cyber attack, we don’t know that those are the facts yet,” he said. “There is an ongoing investigation. We’ve been fully cooperative. Obviously any allegation like this, no matter how serious it turns out to be, is of great concern to us but it’s just too early to speculate on what the facts are going to turn out to be and what action, if any, is necessary.”

Here’s more from the NL Central:

  • Adding Matt Dominguez through a waiver claim gave the Brewers options at third base both now and in the future, writes Tom Haudricourt of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel. The 24-year-old has an impressive pedigree, of course, and certainly has some upside for a team that’s all but out of it in 2015. But there is a more immediate concern, too: Aramis Ramirez could be dealt this summer, notes Haudricourt, and he’ll need a replacement if moved. Of course, the club also is in need of a future replacement with the veteran set to retire, and a look at the controllable Dominguez certainly makes sense.
  • Of course, adding Dominguez meant that the Brewers had to expose lefty Wei-Chung Wang to waivers, which Haudricourt explains was a tough move to make. Milwaukee carried Wang on the active roster for all of 2014 just to take a shot on his future, but he was struggling badly this year at the Class A level. As Haudricourt explains, Wang is earning a relatively robust $300K salary (a larger salary cut from his 2014 MLB earnings was not permissible), which may be a deterrent — as is the fact that a claiming team would need to dedicate a 40-man spot (though Wang does have options).
  • Cubs prospect Kyle Schwarber is expected to have a very short first taste of the big leagues, in large part because he is likely not ready to spend regular time in the field. But that’s probably also a good thing in the long term, given that Chicago continues to give Schwarber time behind the plate rather than giving up and choosing instead to acclimate him to the corner outfield. In fact, as MLB.com’s Carrie Muskat tweets, president of baseball operations Theo Epstein says the club is increasingly bullish on Schwarber’s chances at sticking as a backstop. “We’re more convinced now than ever that he’s going to catch and catch a long time in the big leagues,” said Epstein.
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