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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.
Roster Moves:
— Amy Gutierrez (@amygmultimedia) June 4, 2021
Nick Tropeano optioned postgame last night to AAA Sacramento and was designated for assignment.
Scott Kazmir reinstated 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.
Tropeano was designated for assignment; he'd had an out as of June 2 had he not been up, perhaps the team is honoring that though he's been up and down numerous times.
— Susan Slusser (@susanslusser) June 4, 2021
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.