{"id":622104,"date":"2026-03-13T18:29:24","date_gmt":"2026-03-13T18:29:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/622104\/"},"modified":"2026-03-13T18:29:24","modified_gmt":"2026-03-13T18:29:24","slug":"rangers-designate-alexis-diaz-for-assignment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/622104\/","title":{"rendered":"Rangers Designate Alexis D\u00edaz For Assignment"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Rangers announced Friday that right-hander Alexis D\u00edaz<\/a> has been designated for assignment. His spot on the roster goes to veteran lefty Jalen Beeks<\/a>, whose previously reported one-year contract<\/a> with Texas is now official.<\/p>\n

D\u00edaz, 29, signed a major league contract of his own with the Rangers earlier in the winter. The former Reds All-Star is bring paid $1MM this year but has struggled immensely in spring training after a discouraging 2025 showing. D\u00edaz has appeared in three official spring games and walked four of the 13 hitters he\u2019s faced. He\u2019s plunked another. Considering he walked 14.1% of his opponents in the majors last year and more than 16% of his Triple-A opponents, continued command problems of this magnitude stand as a notable red flag.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s possible that for the Rangers, attempting to pass D\u00edaz through waivers at some point was the plan all along. It\u2019s become increasingly common for teams to sign free agents who have fewer than five years of service time to major league contracts with modest salaries and then pass them through waivers. (D\u00edaz has 3.088 years of service.) Those players aren\u2019t able to retain the remainder of their guaranteed salary upon rejecting an outright assignment. If D\u00edaz goes unclaimed \u2014 which seems likely given last year\u2019s struggles and his poor command this spring \u2014 he\u2019ll very likely accept an outright assignment and give the Rangers some depth and a reclamation project with which to work at the Triple-A level.<\/p>\n

Early in his career, D\u00edaz looked to be following in the footsteps of older brother Edwin D\u00edaz<\/a> in a march to stardom. He finished fifth in 2022 NL Rookie of the Year voting after pitching 63 2\/3 innings with a 3.07 ERA, 10 saves, 13 holds and a gaudy 32.5% strikeout rate. His 12.9% walk rate was an eyesore, but D\u00edaz offset the free passes with a glut of strikeouts. His velocity and strikeout rate have dipped in each subsequent season, however, and D\u00edaz\u2019s struggles reached a tipping point last year.<\/p>\n

The Reds optioned D\u00edaz to Triple-A on May 1 after he was rocked for eight runs in his first six innings (during which he walked five men and hit another two). Four weeks later, he was traded to the Dodgers. Los Angeles called him up mid-July and gave him nine innings, during which he was tagged for five more runs. D\u00edaz was designated for assignment in early September and claimed by the Braves, who gave him another 2 2\/3 innings during which he served up three more runs. D\u00edaz finished the season with an 8.15 ERA in 17 2\/3 big league innings. He logged a 5.61 ERA in 25 1\/3 Triple-A frames.<\/p>\n

D\u00edaz is a recognizable name with plenty of track record, but at this point he\u2019s more than two full years removed from his last campaign as a high-end reliever (2023). The Rangers can spend the next five days trying to trade him before he has to be put on waivers, though he can be waived at any point in the interim as well. Any team that claims D\u00edaz would be on the hook for that $1MM salary. As previously noted, if D\u00edaz passes through waivers unclaimed, he\u2019ll surely remain in the organization by accepting an outright assignment, as rejecting would mean forfeiting that $1MM guarantee.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Rangers announced Friday that right-hander Alexis D\u00edaz has been designated for assignment. His spot on the roster…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":622105,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2290],"tags":[1096,5,657],"class_list":["post-622104","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-baseball","tag-alexis-diaz","tag-baseball","tag-jalen-beeks"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116223289857608583","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/622104","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=622104"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/622104\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/622105"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=622104"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=622104"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=622104"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}