Nick Tropeano designated for assignment

The San Francisco Giants made a slightly surprising roster move on Friday, designating right-handed reliever Nick Tropeano for assignment. Tropeano had been optioned after Thursday’s series opener against the Chicago Cubs, to clear room on the active roster for left-handed starting pitcher Scott Kazmir, who starts Friday’s game after being activated from the Restricted List.

Tropeano’s usage had been a little bizarre all year. Despite a brilliant 2020 with the Pittsburgh Pirates, in which he had a 1.15 ERA and 2.55 FIP, with 19 strikeouts to just 4 walks in 15.2 innings, the 30 year old didn’t make the Giants Opening Day roster.

He did, however, get called up and optioned three separate times, all in a short span. He made 4 appearances, pitching 6 innings and allowing 4 hits, 2 walks, and 1 earned run, while striking out 2. It seemed apparent that, despite recent success, the Giants were not all that high on Tropeano.

Still, DFA’ing him is pretty surprising, since there was no corresponding 40-man roster move. According to Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle, Tropeano recently passed a contract opt-out date, so perhaps the Giants are honoring the spirit of the law rather than the letter of it.

Perhaps we’ll find out more in the coming days.

Either way, “Giants DFA Nick Tropeano and reinstate Scott Kazmir” is certainly not a sentence you would have expected to read when the season began. But then again, nothing about the Giants 2021 season has been what you expected.

Best of luck to Tropeano wherever he ends up.