The M's have the day off today, and what better way to spend a day off than by finding out you're off the team?
- Dustin Ackley - cut. He's been optioned to AA West Tennessee, where he'll be the only person in Tennessee keeping a daily eye on Jose Lopez. We talked about this in the podcast, but for the sake of getting maximum exposure, don't be concerned if Ackley doesn't start hitting right away - he's in the process of learning a position, and much as is the case with catchers, it can be difficult to hit up to your potential when you're concentrating so much on your work in the field. Ackley is going to be fine, and he's going to be a really good player in time, but he may not be really good immediately, and that's okay. And if he is really good immediately, that's amazing.
- Ezequiel Carrera - cut. Optioned to AAA Tacoma. I love this skillset for some reason. When I used to play High Heat Baseball, custom Jeff - when not a soft-tossing pitcher - would be a slap-hitting contact outfielder with a good eye and lots of contact. It's easy to just sit there and slug home runs all the time. It's way more annoying to go up there and take every single borderline pitch and ground a bunch of 3-2 fastballs in the hole for infield singles. Carrera has a very low ceiling, as he picked up all of 18 extra-base hits a year ago and doesn't play elite-level defense, but he's also a safe bet to have a career, at least as a role player.
- Dan Cortes - cut. I can't believe we got this guy for Yuniesky Betancourt. I can't believe we got anything for Yuniesky Betancourt. Literally, anything. I can't believe the Royals didn't think their generous offer to just take him off of our hands was enough.
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Edward Paredes - cut. Paredes allowed two runs in 0.1 innings, and let's be real, that just isn't going to cut it.
- Ricky Orta and Anthony Varvaro - cut. I'm putting them together because they were considered distant but possible sleepers for a bullpen job out of camp. This obviously isn't going to happen, as Varvaro's off to AA to try to learn command and Orta's off to AA to try to, I dunno, learn to get better too. They'll both be hanging around in the minors, so they could conceivably come up at any time if their performance warrants it, but for the time being, the pool of candidates for those final two bullpen spots is getting narrowed down. Although, man, there's still a lot of guys in camp. Interesting that both Kanekoa Texeira and Mike Koplove currently lead the time with five appearances each - seems like the coaching staff wants to get a real good feel for what those guys can offer before they have to make a decision.