The Brewers recently signed outfielder Roman Quinn to a minor league deal, per his transactions tracker at MLB.com. He’s already reported to the Triple-A Nashville Sounds and played in a couple of games for that club.
Quinn, 30, was once a highly-rated prospect with the Phillies as his speed and defense gave him a very high floor. While he also hit well in the minors, he hasn’t yet found success against major league pitching. Going back to his debut in 2016, he has a career batting line of .226/.303/.348 in 599 plate appearances, striking out at a 30.4% rate.
He stayed with the Phillies through the end of 2021 but lost his roster spot at the end of that year and has gone into journeyman mode since then. He jumped to the Marlins and then back to the Phillies on minor league deals in early 2022. He got back to the big leagues with the Phils for a time but wound up back on the free market after a little more than a month. That led to another minor league deal with the Royals and then a major league deal with the Rays, though he landed on the injured list after about a month with Tampa and wasn’t able to return.
He lost his roster spot at the end of last year and signed a minor league deal with the Guardians this winter. Unfortunately, he hit just .176/.391/.235 in 15 Triple-A games before getting released, which is what allowed him to join the Brewers on yet another minors deal.
The Brewers have dealt with some issues in their outfield this year, particularly in center. Garrett Mitchell was expected to be the everyday option up the middle but he required shoulder surgery in April that could potentially keep him out for the remainder of the year. Prospect Sal Frelick also isn’t an option as he’s still rehabbing from April thumb surgery. That’s left the position in the hands of Joey Wiemer, who has provided excellent defense and stolen nine bases but is hitting just .199/.261/.348 on the year.
Quinn will give the club some experienced non-roster depth while trying to get into a good groove at the plate. Should he eventually earn his way back to the big leagues, he is out of options but could be retained for future seasons via arbitration since he has just over four years of major league service time.
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