The Phillies have claimed outfielder Jake Cave off waivers from the Orioles, per announcements from both teams. The addition of Cave brings Philadelphia’s 40-man roster to a total of 38 players.
Cave, who’ll turn 30 on Sunday, never suited up in a game for the Orioles. Baltimore had claimed him off waivers from the Twins earlier this season and apparently tried to sneak him through waivers themselves in hopes of keeping him without allocating a 40-man roster spot to the longtime Twins backup.
Cave has appeared in parts of five big league seasons, all coming with the Twins, who acquired him from the Yankees in a 2018 trade that sent Luis Gil to New York. Cave was an outstanding fourth outfielder for the Twins in 2018-19, appearing in 163 games, taking 537 plate appearances and batting .262/.329/.466 with 21 homers, 27 doubles and four triples.
In 2020, Cave’s production fell off, however, and he’s never regained his form. Over the past three seasons, he’s turned in a tepid .206/.252/.352 batting line while punching out in 32.4% of his plate appearances. As is so often the case, injuries are at least partly to blame for the downturn in production; Cave landed on the injured list with a fracture in his lower back in May of 2021 and missed multiple months as a result of the injury.
Cave was arbitration-eligible this offseason, but the Orioles proactively signed him to a split Major League contract for the 2023 season. That contract, which contains different rates of pay for time in the Majors versus time in Triple-A, was surely signed by the Orioles with an eye toward getting Cave through waivers and keeping him as a depth piece. The O’s opted for the same tactic with catcher Anthony Bemboom and had success with it, passing him through waivers mere weeks after agreeing to terms on a 2023 contract. It (clearly) did not work that way in the case of Cave.
The general idea behind such a move is seemingly to offer slightly larger rates of pay that both discourage other teams from claiming depth options the Orioles value and hope to stash in the upper minors and to also encourage those players to accept outright assignments. Both Bemboom and Cave have previously been outrighted and thus are thus able to refuse outright assignments, but the larger rates of pay on the split deal serve as incentive to instead accept the outright. (Since neither player has five years of Major League service, refusing the outright assignment in favor of free agency would mean forfeiting any money owed to them on that split deal, and a new contract with a new team would likely come at a lower rate.)
Instead, for Cave, things will work out even better, as he’ll land on a team that perhaps has greater designs on carrying him on its MLB roster. He’s capable of playing all three outfield spots, has some power and will give the team a potential late-game defensive option in lieu of sluggers Kyle Schwarber and Nick Castellanos when both are in the lineup and starting in the outfield corners. It’s possible the Phillies will try to pass Cave through waivers themselves or designate him for assignment if they acquire someone they deem to be a better option as a backup outfielder, but for now, Cave appears likely to occupy a spot on manager Rob Thomson’s bench in 20223.
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