{"id":533797,"date":"2026-01-23T03:40:20","date_gmt":"2026-01-23T03:40:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/533797\/"},"modified":"2026-01-23T03:40:20","modified_gmt":"2026-01-23T03:40:20","slug":"mets-designate-richard-lovelady-for-assignment-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/533797\/","title":{"rendered":"Mets Designate Richard Lovelady For Assignment"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Mets designated lefty reliever\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/l\/lovelri01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=www.mlbtraderumors.com&amp;utm_campaign=2026-01-22_br\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Richard Lovelady<\/a> for assignment. That\u2019s the corresponding 40-man roster move for utility player\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/b\/brujavi01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=www.mlbtraderumors.com&amp;utm_campaign=2026-01-22_br\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Vidal Bruj\u00e1n<\/a>, whom they <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.mlbtraderumors.com\/2026\/01\/twins-trade-vidal-brujan-to-mets.html\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">acquired<\/a> from Minnesota tonight.<\/p>\n<p>Lovelady signed a split deal at the beginning of the offseason. He secured a spot on the 40-man at the time of signing but knew there was a decent chance he\u2019d be dropped from the roster over the winter. The contract pays Lovelady a $1MM salary for time in the majors and a $350K rate in the minor leagues. He\u2019s out of options, so the MiLB salary only becomes relevant if the team gets him through waivers at some point. Lovelady would have the right to elect free agency if he\u2019s outrighted but would lose his salary, so the deal is structured to incentivize him to report to Triple-A.<\/p>\n<p>The 30-year-old southpaw made eight appearances for the Mets and pitched twice for the Blue Jays last season. He combined for 11 2\/3 innings and gave up 11 earned runs. Lovelady struck out 12 but issued 10 free passes \u2014 six via walk and four hit batters. That elevated his career earned run average to 5.35 across 111 innings.<\/p>\n<p>Lovelady had a much better season in the minors. He tallied 38 innings of 1.66 ERA ball while striking out 26.3% of batters faced in Triple-A. The Mets like him as a depth option, so they\u2019ll hope he clears waivers and sticks around in a non-roster capacity. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/m\/minteaj01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=www.mlbtraderumors.com&amp;utm_campaign=2026-01-22_br\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">A.J. Minter<\/a> and\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/r\/raleybr01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=www.mlbtraderumors.com&amp;utm_campaign=2026-01-22_br\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Brooks Raley<\/a> are slated to be the pair of southpaws in Carlos Mendoza\u2019s season-opening bullpen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Mets designated lefty reliever\u00a0Richard Lovelady for assignment. That\u2019s the corresponding 40-man roster move for utility player\u00a0Vidal Bruj\u00e1n,&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":533798,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[5,4,24906],"class_list":{"0":"post-533797","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-mlb","10":"tag-richard-lovelady"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/115942341201144678","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/533797","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=533797"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/533797\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/533798"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=533797"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=533797"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=533797"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}