BOSTON — Right-hander Connor Seabold was traded by the Boston Red Sox to the Colorado Rockies on Tuesday for a player to be named or cash.
The 26-year-old Seabold was designated for assignment last week to clear room on the 40-man roster following the signing of Corey Kluber to a $10 million, one-year contract.
Seabold spent most of last season with Triple-A Worcester, going 8-2 with a 3.32 ERA and 89 strikeouts. He made six career major league appearances with Boston, allowing 25 earned runs in 21.1 innings with 19 strikeouts.
CUBS: The Chicago Cubs claimed pitcher Julian Merryweather off waivers from the Toronto Blue Jays.
Merryweather appeared in 26 games for Toronto last season, going 0-3 with a 6.75 ERA. The 6-foot-4 right-hander struck out 23 in 26 2/3 innings.
To make room for Merryweather on the 40-man roster, right-hander Manuel Rodriguez was designated for assignment. Rodriguez went 2-0 with a 3.29 ERA and four saves in 14 relief appearances for Chicago last year.
METS: Having failed to land Carlos Correa, Mets GM Billy Eppler says he is satisfied with New York’s offense heading into spring training.
“We have a strong and deep lineup,” Eppler said during a news conference to introduce catcher Omar Narvaez and reintroduce reliever Adam Ottavino. “I’m confident in our group’s ability to score runs but, look, this goes without saying, and I think I’ve said in the past relating to any one of the areas of the organization: You can always be better.”
Correa agreed to a $350 million, 13-year contract with the San Francisco Giants on Dec. 13. After the Giants became concerned about a 2014 ankle injury, the Mets reached a $315 million, 12-year deal on Dec. 21.
New York then had similar concerns and offered to guarantee only $157.5 million, prompting Correa to stay with the Minnesota Twins for a $200 million, six-year contract that could be worth $270 million over a decade.
“I’m not going to go into any detail there just out of privacy reasons as well out of respect to Carlos,” Eppler saId. “I’m not going to elaborate on it.”
The Mets were fifth among the 30 teams in runs last season in their first season under Manager Buck Showalter and second in on-base percentage. When they first reached agreement with Correa, Mets owner Steve Cohen told the New York Post: “We needed one more thing, and this is it.”
Correa would have played third base for New York, which lost to San Diego in the first round of the playoffs. Eduardo Escobar remains the incumbent after hitting .240 with 20 homers and 69 RBI. Rookie Brett Baty made his big league debut in August after Luis Guillorme got hurt, and Baty had two homers and five RBI in in 11 games.
“These will be conversations that Buck and I’ll have with the staff as kind of camp goes on,” Eppler said. “I will remind people that Escobar had a really strong year last year. Brett’s callup was borne out of necessity last year. … I don’t want to kind of forecast what will come at the end of March.”
Ottavino, a 37-year-old right-hander, joined the Mets ahead of last season. The side-armer had a 2.06 ERA in 66 relief appearances with 79 strikeouts and 16 walks in 65 2/3 innings.
He became a free agent and returned for a $14.5 million, two-year contract. He gets a $7.75 million salary this year, of which $4 million is deferred, and the deal includes a $6.75 million player option for 2024, of which $4 million would be deferred. The deferred money wouldn’t be fully paid until 2035.
“Ultimately got to a number that I thought was a little more representative of my value,” Ottavino said. “Have to wait a little while to collect on all of that, but that’s perfectly fine.”
Narvaez agreed to a deal paying $8 million this year and that includes a $7 million player option for 2024. Narvaez, who turns 31 in February, was an All-Star in 2021 with Milwaukee before batting just .206 with four homers and 23 RBI in 84 games for the Brewers last season.
ATHLETICS: In beautifully spoken English, Shintaro Fujinami formally introduced himself then asked that everyone simply call him “Fuji.”
“Like Mt. Fuji,” he explained. And, nope, he’s never been.
In Japan, he is more formal, going by Shintaro, but he figures this will make it easy on everybody as he embarks on his U.S. baseball career after 10 years playing back home.
The lanky right-hander joined the Oakland Athletics after signing a $3.25 million, one-year contract. He smiled as he finally got the final button of his No. 1 jersey to cooperate before posing for photos alongside Manager Mark Kotsay, GM David Forst and agent Scott Boras.
“I didn’t realize we brought Mt. Fuji to the Bay Area. We’re moving mountains, I guess,” Boras said. “Today marks a very special time for him, it really does.”
The A’s showed Fujinami the sights in his first visit to Northern California. He toured San Francisco in recent days and went out for a nice seafood lunch, expressing how loved the weather despite unprecedented rain and even shared that his favorite stop was at the dilapidated Oakland Coliseum, where he will play.
The hard-throwing Fujinami even got a workout in at the nearby University of California in Berkeley, where former A’s reliever Mike Neu is coach and worked the pitcher in with others throwing side sessions Monday.
Fujinami will fly back to Japan on Wednesday to wait for his visa then fly early to get acclimated at spring training in Mesa, Arizona, with the A’s pitchers and catchers scheduled to report Feb. 15.
Fujinami is eagerly looking forward to facing two-way Japanese star Shohei Ohtani of the Angels in the same AL West division. They are from the same 2012 draft class.
“There’s no doubt about it, I’m very excited,” Fujinami said. “We’re the same age. Obviously, he’s one of the best players in the world. For the Japanese fan it will be very exciting for us to play against each other.”
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