8:48pm: The teams officially announced the trade, and Miami confirmed that Wagaman has been designated for assignment.<\/p>\n
6:47pm: The Dodgers are trading outfielder\u00a0Esteury Ruiz<\/a> to the Marlins for minor league pitcher Adriano Marrero<\/a>, reports Francys<\/a> Romero<\/a>. Miami reportedly plans to designate<\/a> first baseman Eric Wagaman<\/a> for assignment in a corresponding move. This drops L.A.\u2019s roster count to 39.<\/p>\n Ruiz is best known for stealing an AL-leading 67 bases as a member of the Athletics in 2023. That\u2019s the only season in which he has appeared in even 30 games at the big league level. Ruiz batted .254\/.309\/.345 with five home runs in 497 trips to the plate. He only walked at a 4% clip and, despite showing his plus speed on the bases, graded poorly as a center fielder.<\/p>\n It clearly wasn\u2019t what the A\u2019s had in mind when they chose Ruiz over\u00a0William Contreras<\/a> as the centerpiece of their return in the three-team<\/a>\u00a0Sean Murphy<\/a> trade the previous offseason. He spent most of the \u201924 season in Triple-A and underwent arthroscopic surgery on his right knee at year\u2019s end. The A\u2019s cut bait this past April, designating Ruiz for assignment and trading him to Los Angeles.<\/p>\n The 26-year-old has only taken 88 trips to the dish at the MLB level over the past two seasons. He\u2019s coming off a big year in Triple-A, where he hit .303\/.411\/.514 while going 62-73 in stolen base tries. Ruiz has shown a more patient plate approach against minor league pitching than he did during his big league run a few seasons back.<\/p>\n Miami preferred Ruiz to Dane Myers<\/a>, another righty-hitting backup outfielder whom the Marlins traded<\/a> to Cincinnati last week. Myers is a superior defensive option in center but doesn\u2019t have Ruiz\u2019s upside as a base stealer. Ruiz is three years younger and has better career Triple-A numbers, as he owns a .315\/.418\/.505 line with an 18% strikeout rate at the top minor league level. Myers has fanned in 23% of his Triple-A plate appearances and owns a .295\/.380\/.440 mark in 98 games. Ruiz has played in more hitter-friendly settings, but the youth and superior contact skills make him a more intriguing depth piece. Both players are entering their final minor league option year.<\/p>\n The Dodgers making a roster-clearing move will fuel speculation as to whether they have anything imminently planned on the free agent or trade front. To this point, there hasn\u2019t been any indication that Los Angeles has any kind of pending move lined up. DFA limbo is frozen between Christmas and New Year\u2019s Day, so this presumably isn\u2019t a move to accommodate a waiver claim.<\/p>\n Whether they have any follow-up moves on the horizon, the Dodgers add a lottery ticket arm to the farm system. Marrero is an 18-year-old righty out of Cuba. He pitched this year in the Dominican Summer League. Marrero wasn\u2019t ranked among Miami\u2019s top 30 prospects but signed for a decent $350K bonus. In September, Baseball America\u2019s Ben Badler<\/a> credited the 6\u20193\u2033 hurler with a three-pitch mix (low-90s sinker, sweeper, and changeup) that gets promising lateral movement. BA ranked Marrero among the 20 most intriguing pitching prospects in this year\u2019s amateur signing class.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"8:48pm: The teams officially announced the trade, and Miami confirmed that Wagaman has been designated for assignment. 6:47pm:…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":379752,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[558],"tags":[64,63,12214,591,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-379751","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-esteury-ruiz","11":"tag-mlb","12":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/379751","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=379751"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/379751\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/379752"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=379751"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=379751"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=379751"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}