The San Francisco Giants agreed to a deal with outfielder Harrison Bader on Monday, and that means a few things. Most of those things are good — for instance, it means that the Giants will now have a watchable outfield defense, and also that they’ll probably be better this year than they would have otherwise been.
But not everything is good news. Notably, signing Bader to an already full 40-man roster, means that someone else in the organization is going to get the uncomfortable phone call that they’ve been designated for assignment, and, two weeks out from Spring Training, they’ll find their career in limbo. We haven’t yet learned who that player is, but there are a few candidates.
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Which brings us to the continued roller-coaster of Marco Luciano’s offseason. The former top prospect in the Giants system was, in a manner emblematic of his final few years with the organization, waived in December. He was claimed by the Pittsburgh Pirates, who eventually designated him for assignment. He was then claimed by the Baltimore Orioles, who also designated him for assignment. He stayed in the NL East though, after being claimed by the New York Yankees.
And on Tuesday, the Yankees became the fourth team this offseason to say goodby to Luciano, designating him — and pitcher Jayvien Sandridge — to make space for a waiver claim (pitcher Dom Hamel) and a free agent signing (star outfielder/first baseman Cody Bellinger).
It’s a sad merry-go-round, and hopefully one that comes to a stop soon. Presumably all of these teams are hoping to pass Luciano through waivers so that they can outright him to AAA and, who knows, perhaps the Yankees will be the team that succeeds at doing just that.