Early November Waiver Claim Highlights

Long-time followers of my work know I’m a nut for moves that are largely irrelevant, such as all these off-season waiver claims. Rather than attempt to cover all of them, I’m going to try and touch on the more interesting ones. Whether anyone else is interested or not is beyond me, but here we go:

SEA claims RHP Yusmeiro Petit from ARZ
WAS claims LHP Doug Slaten from ARZ

Arizona loses some pitching depth, although neither figured to contribute much heading forward. Slaten is a typical lefty reliever and Petit is a back-of-the-rotation arm with lackluster stuff and statistics.

TB claims RHP Ramon A. Ramirez from CIN

Ramirez has split time between the pen and rotation over the last two years. His change-up seems a bit interesting, although that is drawn from small sample sizes in the Majors. Probably Triple-A bound, whether it’s the rotation or bullpen is to be seen.

TOR claims SS Mike McCoy from COL
TOR claims INF Jarrett Hoffpauir from STL

McCoy moves to his fourth org in four years. He’s a short (5’9”) utility man – pretty much the textbook Toronto infielder. He’ll be 29 not too deep into next season and has six career plate appearances at the Majors. Meanwhile Hoffpauir has hit well throughout his Triple-A career: over 1,100 plate appearances resulting in a .285/.362/.428 line. He’s 26 years old and got a cup of coffee last season for the Cardinals.

Worst case is ending up playing significant time in the majors. Best: both providing an extra padding of depth in the high minors.

BAL claims RHP Armando Gabino from MIN

Gabino actually started a game for the Twins last season. He found little success in his brief major league stint, but his minor league track record is generally decent. His fastball sits in the low-90s and he favored a slider over a change-up per our pitch data. His strikeout totals have never been too impressive either, but they have been consistent level-to-level.