{"id":376630,"date":"2025-12-30T05:29:08","date_gmt":"2025-12-30T05:29:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/376630\/"},"modified":"2025-12-30T05:29:08","modified_gmt":"2025-12-30T05:29:08","slug":"marlins-designate-eric-wagaman-for-assignment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/376630\/","title":{"rendered":"Marlins Designate Eric Wagaman For Assignment"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Marlins are designating first baseman\u00a0Eric Wagaman<\/a> for assignment, reports Kevin Barral of Fish On First<\/a>. That\u2019ll open the 40-man roster spot to accommodate the acquisition<\/a> of outfielder\u00a0Esteury Ruiz<\/a> when that trade is finalized.<\/p>\n

Wagaman, 28, signed with Miami on a split contract last winter after being non-tendered by the Angels. He wound up starting more than half the club\u2019s games at first base. The right-handed hitter held an MLB roster spot all year and tallied 514 plate appearances. His .250\/.296\/.378 slash line with nine home runs wasn\u2019t enough to cut it as an everyday player at a bat-first position. FanGraphs and Baseball Reference each rated him as a little worse than replacement level.<\/p>\n

First base was probably Miami\u2019s biggest weakness<\/a> entering the offseason. One can argue that\u2019s still the case, though it seems they\u2019re planning to give Christopher Morel<\/a> the job after signing him to a $2MM free agent contract. Morel is coming off two consecutive replacement level seasons himself. He\u2019s a better athlete with flashier tools than Wagaman brings to the table, though, and he has a couple 20-homer seasons on his r\u00e9sum\u00e9.<\/p>\n

Wagaman has better bat-to-ball skills but limited power potential. He has some flexibility in that he can play all four corner spots, though his middling speed and arm strength make him a fringe defender. Wagaman probably fits best as a bench bat who can do some damage in favorable platoon settings. He hit .283\/.321\/.462 with five homers, 14 doubles, and a triple in 184 plate appearances against left-handed pitching this year. Miami\u2019s first base\/DH mix with Morel, Agust\u00edn Ram\u00edrez<\/a> and Heriberto Hern\u00e1ndez<\/a> already skewed right-handed.<\/p>\n

A team that is heavier on left-handed bats could take a flier on Wagaman via small trade or waiver claim. He still has a full slate of minor league options and won\u2019t be eligible for arbitration for at least two years. Teams ordinarily have five days after a DFA to trade a player or place them on waivers. The clock is frozen between Christmas and New Year\u2019s Day, so Wagaman probably won\u2019t learn where he\u2019ll end up until the second week of January. He would not have the service time to refuse an outright assignment if he goes unclaimed on waivers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Marlins are designating first baseman\u00a0Eric Wagaman for assignment, reports Kevin Barral of Fish On First. That\u2019ll open…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":376631,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[435],"tags":[49,48,160792,462,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-376630","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-eric-wagaman","11":"tag-mlb","12":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/376630","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=376630"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/376630\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/376631"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=376630"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=376630"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=376630"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}