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Roster moves
The Arizona Diamondbacks made the following roster moves:
- Recalled OF Jake McCarthy from Triple-A Reno.
- Optioned OF Pavin Smith to Reno following last night’s game.
Renders the meme I posted in the comments yesterday, all the more sardonic, I suspect. Admittedly, hard to say McCarthy had done anything wrong. He had merely won Pacific Coast League Player of the Week honors for back to back selection. According to the press release announcing the latest honor, “Over the past two weeks, the University of Virginia product leads the PCL in runs (19), hits (25), total bases (47), home runs (4), and SLG (.797) while sharing the league lead in doubles (6), triples (2), and RBI (13). Since August 25th, the Scranton, Pennsylvania native has been riding a 15-game hitting and RBI streak. During that span, he has posted a .458 batting average (33-for-72) and drove in 22 RBI.”
Smith hadn’t exactly seen a lot of playing time, since being called up on September 1st, when rosters expanded. Of the eleven games played, he had started in only two, and mustered a total of only eleven PA. He went 1-for-7 with three walks and a hit by pitch, giving Pavin the interesting line for this callup of .143/.455/.143. I suspect we may not see McCarthy getting an awful lot more playing time down the stretch, but we’ll see how Torey Lovullo chooses to shuffle the deck. Meanwhile, Jace Peterson and his 53 OPS+ over thirty games since coming to the D-backs continues to occupy the bench. I guess the lack of options is the equivalent of +4 plate armor or something.
You do wonder if it might be the end of Smith’s time as a Diamondback. This has been an ugly season for him, his OPS declining for the third straight season since his 102 OPS+ in Smith’s rookie campaign of 2020. He has been worth -0.8 bWAR this year, driving his career tally below replacement. I’m not sure what his arbitration status is. Baseball Reference has his as arb eligible, but shows him with less than two years going into this season. Maybe they were expecting him to be Arb-2 eligible, but given the amount of time he has spent in Reno this season, that would seem questionable. But with the plethora of outfield choices available to the team, Smith’s status would appear to be on thin ice for 2024.
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