{"id":704213,"date":"2026-05-20T19:21:14","date_gmt":"2026-05-20T19:21:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/704213\/"},"modified":"2026-05-20T19:21:14","modified_gmt":"2026-05-20T19:21:14","slug":"rockies-designate-blaine-crim-for-assignment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/704213\/","title":{"rendered":"Rockies Designate Blaine Crim For Assignment"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Rockies announced Wednesday that first baseman Blaine Crim<\/a> has been designated for assignment. His 40-man roster spot goes to veteran righty Keegan Thompson<\/a>, whose contract has been selected from Triple-A Albuquerque. Colorado placed right-handed reliever Victor Vodnik<\/a> on the 15-day injured list due to ulnar nerve inflammation in his right arm.<\/p>\n

Crim joined the Rockies last August when they claimed him off waivers from the Rangers. He went on to rip five homers in only 15 games and 61 plate appearances, though his .295 on-base percentage and huge 36% strikeout rate both tamped down reason for optimism. This season\u2019s .265\/.339\/.449 slash in Triple-A looks solid at first glance, but in the ultra-hitter-friendly Pacific Coast League, it\u2019s about 13% worse than league-average (by measure of wRC+).<\/p>\n

The 29-year-old Crim has played in parts of five Triple-A seasons, slashing a combined .281\/.370\/.479 in 1882 trips to the plate. It\u2019s about 11% better than average, and Crim has turned in encouraging strikeout and walk rates of 18.4% and 11.5%, respectively, along the way. Crim, however, has well below-average speed (21st percentile in 2025, per Statcast) and is limited to first base and designated hitter. He\u2019s been passed over in multiple Rule 5 Drafts and has now been designated for assignment twice in the past eight months, so it seems many big league clubs are skeptical of his ability to carry that production over to the majors.<\/p>\n

The Rockies might have had an opening for Crim at first base this year, but offseason acquisitions of TJ Rumfield<\/a> (from the Yankees for reliever Angel Chivilli<\/a>) and Edouard Julien<\/a> (from the Twins for prospect Jace Kaminska<\/a>) pushed him down the depth chart.<\/p>\n

Crim\u2019s solid track record in the upper minors could potentially hold appeal to other clubs in need of some right-handed punch and\/or help at first base\/designated hitter. He\u2019s in the second of three minor league option years, so a new club wouldn\u2019t need to carry him on the major league roster right away. He\u2019ll be traded or placed on waivers within the next five days, and we\u2019ll know the outcome of his DFA within a week\u2019s time.<\/p>\n

The 31-year-old Thompson, another waiver claim (from the Reds), cleared waivers earlier this season but now joins the big league roster after a nice run in Albuquerque. He\u2019s appeared in 11 games, five of them starts, and posted a 3.34 ERA in 32 1\/3 innings. He\u2019s only struck out 13.1% of his opponents, which is a concern, but his 7.1% walk rate is strong and his 43.6% ground-ball rate is a hair north of average.<\/p>\n

Thompson has pitched in four big league seasons, all with the Cubs. He owns a career 3.64 ERA, 23% strikeout rate and 11.3% walk rate in 227 2\/3 major league innings. He\u2019s sitting 92.2 mph on his four-seamer this season, down from his 93.9 peak as a rookie in 2021.<\/p>\n

Thompson adds some length to a Rockies bullpen that could use extra innings. Starters Chase Dollander<\/a> and Ryan Feltner<\/a> are both on the injured list, which has pushed Tanner Gordon<\/a>, at least in effect. Gordon hasn\u2019t started a game but has worked behind an opener his past couple times out. He\u2019s sitting on a 6.59 ERA in 27 1\/3 frames this season, however. Looking up and down the rest of Colorado\u2019s rotation, Tomoyuki Sugano<\/a> is the only starter who\u2019s averaged even five innings per start. Michael Lorenzen<\/a>, Jose Quintana<\/a> and Kyle Freeland<\/a> are all averaging about 4 2\/3 frames per trip the mound, underscoring the need for a reliever like Thompson who can work several innings at a time.<\/p>\n

As for the 26-year-old Vodnik, he started the season well, yielding only two runs in his first nine innings. He\u2019s been rocked over the past month, however. In his past 10 appearances, he\u2019s totaled only nine innings and been shelled for 14 runs on 15 hits and nine walks with 11 strikeouts. The flamethrowing righty has been far better in the past couple seasons, logging 124 1\/3 innings of 3.76 ERA ball.<\/p>\n

Vodnik doesn\u2019t miss as many bats as one might expect for a reliever who averages nearly 99 mph on his heater, but he\u2019s a clearly talented righty who\u2019s been in the Rox\u2019 late-inning mix since 2024. If a trip to the injured list helps him right the ship, he\u2019ll likely factor back into the closer committee alongside Antonio Senzatela<\/a> and Juan Mejia<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Rockies announced Wednesday that first baseman Blaine Crim has been designated for assignment. His 40-man roster spot…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":704214,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2290],"tags":[5,1709,27451,5046],"class_list":["post-704213","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-baseball","tag-baseball","tag-blaine-crim","tag-keegan-thompson","tag-victor-vodnik"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116608531412969199","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/704213","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=704213"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/704213\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/704214"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=704213"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=704213"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=704213"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}