A’s Claim Hunter Bigge, Designate Taylor Rashi

The Athletics have claimed right-handed reliever Hunter Bigge off waivers from the Rays, per a club announcement. Fellow righty Taylor Rashi was designated for assignment to open a spot on the roster.

Originally a 12th-round pick by the Cubs back in 2019, Bigge landed with the Rays as part of Tampa Bay’s return in the trade that sent Isaac Paredes to Chicago. It’s one the Rays would probably like to have back. Bigge and righty Ty Johnson were secondary pieces behind ostensible headliner Christopher Morel. Neither Bigge nor Morel — non-tendered last winter — is still in the organization. Johnson entered the season ranked 16th among Cubs farmhands at Baseball America. He’s had a nice season between the rotation and bullpen in Triple-A and just made his big league debut a few days ago. Paredes was traded to the Astros in the Kyle Tucker deal a few months after landing with the Cubs and has slashed .257/.356/.439 with 39 homers, 40 doubles and a pair of triples in just over 1000 plate appearances with Houston.

Bigge, 28, has pitched 51 2/3 innings in the majors — all coming out of the bullpen. He has a career 4.18 ERA but a 6.98 mark in 19 1/3 innings this season. He’s lost a mile off his average fastball velocity this season — though it’s still averaging a hearty 96.5 mph — and has walked the same number of batters that he’s punched out (14). The former Harvard right-hander’s minor league work hasn’t inspired any more confidence; through 29 1/3 frames in Durham, Bigge has a 6.14 ERA with a strong 27.4% strikeout rate but a woeful 14.8% walk rate. He’s allowed seven long balls in those 29 1/3 Triple-A innings.

Bigge throws hard, but his slider has been hammered by opponents this season and he doesn’t have a real third pitch. He’s experimented with a curveball and a splitter but has only thrown 41 of the former and 18 of the latter in his big league career. He’s been far too prone to hard contact, with opponents averaging 90.8 mph off the bat against him with a bloated 46.2% hard-hit rate. He also missed the bulk of last season with a lat strain, which makes this year’s velocity dip and diminished command all the more concerning.

For a contending Rays club with a loaded 40-man roster, it’s difficult to carry too many projects. That’s not at all the case with the A’s, who have plenty of bullpen uncertainty and can afford to roll the dice on talented but yet-unproven arms of just this nature. Bigge will have a minor league option remaining beyond the current season and can be controlled all the way through 2031 via arbitration if he can put things together in green and gold.

Rashi, meanwhile, will wind up spending just over one month on the Athletics’ 40-man roster. The A’s claimed him from the Twins not long after the trade deadline, and Minnesota had only picked him up from the D-backs in exchange for cash a couple months prior to that.

The Twins never called Rashi to the majors. He pitched decently for their Triple-A affiliate, but the entirety of the right-hander’s big league work has come as a Diamondback or an Athletic. That entails only 22 innings overall (20 in Arizona, two with the A’s). Rashi has a 5.32 ERA in his limited big league work but a 3.35 ERA in 123 2/3 Triple-A innings to this point in his career. Despite that quality run prevention at the top minor league level, the 30-year-old Rashi has never gotten a real major league look. The UC-Irvine product sits at just 90 mph with his four-seamer, which has undoubtedly worked against him as today’s front offices skew increasingly toward high-velocity arms.

Rashi will now head to waivers. He hasn’t been outrighted in the past, so if he goes unclaimed he’ll head to the Athletics’ top affiliate in Las Vegas for the remainder of the schedule. However, Rashi does have enough experience to become a minor league free agent after the season, if he’s not on a 40-man roster at that point.