Sports Time Radio

The one and only trade deadline in Major League Baseball has come and gone. There wasn’t as much movement as the experts predicted there would be and a lot of the bigger name teams didn’t even make any deals.

You might think this is the end of players being able to change teams as there are no more waivers to put players through, but there still is a way a lot of people didn’t think of. I noticed that very soon after the trade deadline teams started to designate players for assignment. Now when a player is “designated” their team has 10 days to either trade or release them. Well since being traded is no longer an option these players will become free agents and can sign with the team of their choosing. A designated player can also accept a minor league assignment, but with the veteran player that I’ve seen get the designation tag they won’t be headed to the minors.

The first veteran player that I saw get the designation tag was Jonathan Lucroy of the Los Angeles Angels. Lucroy signed a one year $3.35 million dollar deal with the Angels this past off season. He played in 74 games this season and was hitting .242. That is a low batting average for Lucroy, but as a catcher he brings other things to the game as he’s a solid defender behind the plate and is very good at handling a pitching staff.

The Angels seem to think that they’re a better team with Max Stassi as their catcher. Stassi was acquired from the Houston Astros at the trade deadline for two minor leaguers. Stassi appeared in 31 games for the Astros this season and was hitting .167. In his major league career Stassi is a .217 hitter.

I’m not sure how those numbers added up for the Angels, but they save themselves some money. Lucroy’s name had came up in some trade rumors before the deadline, but no deal was able to be worked out. Now Lucroy is free to sign with the team of his choice.

Asdrubal Cabrera now formerly of the Texas Rangers was another veteran player who found himself DFA’d after the trade deadline.

The Rangers signed Cabrera this past off season for one year at $3.5 million dollar and he was expected to take over at 3rd base for the retired Adrian Beltre. Cabrera played in 93 games this season and was hitting .235 with 12 home runs.

While Cabrera has exclusively played 3rd base this season in his career he’s spent time at 2nd and short; so I would expect that wherever he signs he’ll be used as a utility player.

While it was a bit of a surprise to see Lucroy and Cabrera get DFA’d I was even more surprised when the Pittsburgh Pirates decided that to designate Jung Ho Kang for assignment.

Kang has really struggled this season. He was hitting .169 in the 65 games he played in, but he had hit 10 home runs.

After what was considered a surprising rookie season in 2014 where he finished 3rd in the Rookie of the Year balloting Kang followed with a solid 2015. Then after the 2015 season Kang who is a from South Korea got into some legal trouble and was permit to travel to the United States for the 2016 season. He did manage to resolve his legal issues; so he could play last season, but he appeared in just 3 games for the Pirates.

Out of the three players that found themselves DFA’d Kang looks to be the only one that might accept a minor league assignment if offered, but I’m not sure the Pirates will make that offer.

It will be interesting to see if there’s another major league team out their that would be willing to take a look at Kang or if he’ll head back to South Korea and possible find a team in the Korean Baseball Organization to play for. Kang spent 9 seasons in the KBO before joining the Pirates in 2015.

Will designating players become the new waiver deal in baseball or are these just three teams moving on from veteran player with one year left on their contracts? I guess time will tell as will have to see if there are anymore veteran players that meet this fate.

At UFC 240 Cris “Cyborg’ Justino defeated Felicia Spencer by unanimous decision, The win improved her MMA record to 21-2-1, but it also appears that it was her last fight for UFC.

On Friday UFC President Dana White appeared on the company’s YouTube channel and stated that the UFC is “out of the Cyborg business”. White went on to say “I’m going to release her from her contract and I will not match any offers. She is free and clear to go to Bellator or any of these other promotions and fight these easy fights she wants. Done; done deal. I will literally, today, have my lawyer draft a letter to that she is free and clear.

Justino originally signed with UFC in 2013. She was signed to fight in the all female promotion Invicta FC. Justino made five appearance in Invicta before moving over to UFC in 2016.

The boat started rocking earlier this week when Justino was on Ariel Helwani’s MMA show and demanded an apology from White for what she described as ‘bullying” earlier in her career. She also mentioned that this damaged her brand. Now even before this Justino had said that she was going to test free agency and would be taking offers from other promotions. Now with White’s announcement she is free to do that.

It’s unclear where Justino will end up. There had been some talk of her possible following Ronda Rousey into professional wrestling, but that has died down as of late. There was also a mention that she might be interested in a professional boxing match. I’m not sure if there’s enough interest or an opponent that could draw attention to a Cyborg boxing match, but I guess it’s possible.

It’s disappointing that we’re not going to get to see a rematch between Justino and Amanda Nunes. Nunes handed Justino her 2nd career loss with a quick 51 second knockout at UFC 232 and it was always expected that they’d fight again. Of course when it comes to UFC I guess you can never really say never; so maybe we’ll get that rematch at some time.

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