Morning all! Our victim for today\u2019s Season In Review series is a brand new name who just joined the organization. Right-handed reliever Eduarniel Nu\u00f1ez was one of the more intriguing players that the A\u2019s acquired in the Miller\/Sears trade and was the only one to make his debut with the Green & Gold. What will the rookie righty have in store for the coming season?<\/p>\n
Originally an international free agent signing by the Chicago Cubs, Nu\u00f1ez spent eight years in their system before hitting free agency at the end of the 2024 campaign. He inked a minor league deal with the Padres and impressed enough that he eventually made it to the big leagues on July 1st of this past season, his first call up to the majors. He\u2019d only make four appearances for San Diego before he found himself on the move at the deadline as part of the Padres\u2019 package for closer Mason Miller and starter JP Sears, joining Leo De Vries, Braden Nett and Henry Baez as the newest Athletics youngsters.<\/p>\n
What Were The Expectations?<\/p>\n
When Nunez arrived to his new organization he was immediately brought up to the big leagues to take Miller\u2019s seat in the bullpen. At the time he\u2019d been looking good in Triple-A with the Padres and with a strong fastball the hope was that maybe he could be the next hidden gem that the front office discovered. And perhaps he could even take over for Miller at the backend of the bullpen down the line given enough time and coaching.<\/p>\n
Nunez\u2019s first two appearances with the A\u2019s went about as bad as one could imagine. He allowed a couple hits, a couple walks and a home run in his first appearance in the Green & Gold (but miraculously only allowed one run) before getting torched for four earned runs in his next outing. That prompted a quick demotion back to Triple-A where Nunez could get some more work done in a less pressurized environment.<\/p>\n
He only made four appearances for the Aviators during his first stint with them, allowing two runs in five innings of work but also displaying his strikeout ability with 10 punchouts. That got him another shot with the big league squad as the A\u2019s brought him back up near the end of August. His second stint went better than the first but he was still getting knocked around a bit and would find himself back in Vegas by the end of the month. Nunez then spent the rest of the year with the Aviators. He finished his season with a 2.51 ERA across 39 minor league outings but posted an ugly 9.00 ERA across six big league contests with the A\u2019s.<\/p>\n
One of the main goals from the front office this offseason has been shoring up the depth in the bullpen. That was a major problem for the A\u2019s last year and it\u2019s been a priority so far this winter. They\u2019ve only made one major league addition to the bullpen so there\u2019s still spots but they\u2019ve made lots of other additions to bring in competition. Nunez is more likely ticketed to start the year with the Aviators now at this point. That\u2019s not to say that the team won\u2019t eventually bring up the fireballer but the 26-year-old looked like he needed some more seasoning in the minors. At #15 he\u2019s the top-ranked relief prospect in the organization and as one of the return pieces for Miller we should all have high hopes that Nunez can make an impact for the team this coming year and down the line.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Morning all! Our victim for today\u2019s Season In Review series is a brand new name who just joined…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":482599,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2391],"tags":[44003,537,5,4,3226],"class_list":{"0":"post-482598","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-athletics","8":"tag-as-commentary-and-analysis","9":"tag-athletics","10":"tag-baseball","11":"tag-mlb","12":"tag-mlb-athletics"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/115739115103986372","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/482598","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=482598"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/482598\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/482599"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=482598"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=482598"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=482598"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}