A’s To Designate Austin Wynns For Assignment

1:30pm: The Athletics have now formally introduced these strikes.

12:58pm: The A’s will designate catcher Austin Wynns for immediately project when Shea Langeliers returns from the paternity checklist, reports Martin Gallegos of MLB.com. Langeliers and the not too long ago reacquired Jonah Heim will cut up catching duties in the interim.

Wynns has been with the Athletics since final June, once they picked him up in a money swap following a DFA by the Reds. The 35-year-old has appeared in 36 video games with the A’s and brought 110 plate appearances whereas slashing .167/.204/.304. It’s a far cry from the outlier .400/.442/.700 line he delivered in 43 plate appearances with Cincinnati, though Wynns was by no means going to maintain the .520 common on balls in play that propped up his Reds output.

In elements of eight main league seasons between the Orioles, Giants, Dodgers, Rockies, Reds and A’s, Wynns has come to the plate 826 occasions and recorded a .231/.276/.347 batting line with 19 dwelling runs. The journeyman backup does not have significantly sturdy framing grades in his profession, however Statcast considers his blocking abilities common and he is nabbed a superb 30.2% of runners who’ve tried to steal on him in his profession.

Wynns’ poor efficiency on the plate will ship him to the waiver wire in all chance, though it is doable one other membership swings a money swap to plug him in as a short-term backup. Wynns has greater than 5 years of massive league service time, so even when he clears waivers, he can reject an outright project, elect free company and retain the rest of this yr’s $1.1MM assure. Even when Wynns has cleared waivers up to now, he is discovered one other massive league alternative pretty shortly. Clubs clearly worth his expertise, his defensive chops and his work with pitchers — therefore his five-plus years of main league service between six golf equipment regardless of perennially subpar offensive output.