Weekend BP: Giants claim Miguel Yajure off waivers

Dec 3, 2022 - 1:00 PM

Happy weekend, San Francisco Giants fans. There’s a pretty decent chance that Aaron Judge signs with a baseball team this weekend. And there’s a pretty decent chance that that team is the Giants.

Until then, we have a significantly smaller move. Significantly smaller. On Friday the Giants claimed right-handed pitcher Miguel Yajure off of waivers from the Pittsburgh Pirates.

The bad news about Yajure is that so far he’s been awful in the Majors. He’s made appearances in the Majors in three seasons — 2020 with the New York Yankees, and the last two years with the Pirates — and has a 7.58 ERA and 6.51 FIP in 46.1 innings. He has just 35 strikeouts in those innings, with 28 walks. He compounded it last year by being pretty darn awful in AAA, too.

The good news about Yajure is that he’s still just 24 years old and was a quality prospect, with a future value of 45, and four good pitches. So there’s clearly something in the arm for the Giants to like.

Don’t get too excited about Yajure, though. If there’s one thing we know about the Giants, it’s that offseason waiver claims will likely be designated for assignment within the week. So it goes.

In more notable MLB news, the first big free agent domino has fallen, with two-time Cy Young winner Jacob deGrom joining Bruce Bochy in Arlington, as he inked a five-year, $185 million deal with the Texas Rangers that includes a team option for the sixth year. At the start of the offseason, the Giants were seen as a potential landing spot for deGrom ... because the righty is 34 and oft injured, it was thought that he’d land a short-term, high-AAV deal, which seemed up the Giants alley, as they don’t really do long deals for pitchers. Instead, deGrom ended up with a long-term, high-AAV deal, which is good for him, but not anything the Giants were likely to have even considered.

Not only did the Giants not end up with deGrom, but this all but puts them out of the running for retaining Carlos Rodón, too. Rodón isn’t quite as good as deGrom, but he’s four and a half years younger, and threw more innings in 2022 than deGrom did in 2022 and 2021 combined, so it’s safe to say that Rodón is getting a Brinks truck spread over many, many years from some team, and it almost surely won’t be the Giants.

We now return to Judge watch.