{"id":42146,"date":"2025-08-04T05:52:10","date_gmt":"2025-08-04T05:52:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/42146\/"},"modified":"2025-08-04T05:52:10","modified_gmt":"2025-08-04T05:52:10","slug":"phillies-release-oscar-mercado-mlb-trade-rumors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/42146\/","title":{"rendered":"Phillies Release Oscar Mercado &#8211; MLB Trade Rumors"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Outfielder <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/m\/mercaos01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=www.mlbtraderumors.com&amp;utm_campaign=2025-08-04_br\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Oscar Mercado<\/a> enacted an opt-out clause in his minor league contract with the Phillies, <a href=\"https:\/\/bsky.app\/profile\/adams-steve.bsky.social\/post\/3lvk6exvxo22p\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">MLB Trade Rumors\u2019 Steve Adams<\/a> reports.\u00a0 The Phils have subsequently released Mercado, who now returns to the open market after inking his deal just at the start of Spring Training.<\/p>\n<p>A veteran of five Major League seasons, Mercado hit .237\/.289\/.388 over 973 plate appearances with the Guardians, Phillies, and Cardinals from 2019-23.\u00a0 Most of his success remains limited to his impressive 2019 rookie year in Cleveland.\u00a0 Mercado then struggled to stay productive at the MLB level, and now has gone over two years since his last appearances in a big league game.<\/p>\n<p>Subsequent minor league stints with the Padres, Dodgers, Tigers, and Phillies haven\u2019t led to any more playing time in the majors, though Mercado\u2019s .252\/.373\/.385 slash line over 378 PA at Triple-A Lehigh Valley in 2025 is respectable, and he has stolen 35 bases in 43 attempts.\u00a0 The right-handed hitter has also mashed lefties to the run of a .941 OPS this season, but didn\u2019t get a call-up since the Phils opted to stay with in-house right-handed outfield options until landing <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/b\/baderha01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=www.mlbtraderumors.com&amp;utm_campaign=2025-08-04_br\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Harrison Bader<\/a> at the trade deadline.<\/p>\n<p>It could be that Bader\u2019s acquisition inspired Mercado\u2019s decision to opt out, as his path to Philadelphia\u2019s roster got even more crowded.\u00a0 The post-deadline roster landscape could mean more openings for the 30-year-old Mercado, if trades have opened up some roster holes and created some teams in need of outfield depth.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Outfielder Oscar Mercado enacted an opt-out clause in his minor league contract with the Phillies, MLB Trade Rumors\u2019&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":42147,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[558],"tags":[64,63,591,36994,85],"class_list":["post-42146","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-mlb","tag-oscar-mercado","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42146","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=42146"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42146\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/42147"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42146"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42146"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42146"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}