Athletics Claim Andy Ibañez

The A’s have claimed infielder/outfielder Andy Ibañez off waivers from the Dodgers, Francys Romero of BeisbolFR reports. Los Angeles signed Ibañez to a one-year, $1.2MM deal last month and then tried to pass him through waivers in order to stash him in Triple-A as a depth option. Instead, the A’s will pick up that $1.2MM bill and add the versatile lefty masher to their infield mix.

Ibañez, 32, is out of minor league options, so when the Dodgers signed him to a low-cost deal despite a crowded infield/bench group, it always seemed possible that they could try to sneak him through outright waivers to keep him as non-roster depth. Ibañez doesn’t have the service time needed to reject an outright assignment in favor of free agency and retain any guaranteed money on his contract, so if he’d passed through waivers he would surely have accepted the assignment.

That won’t be the case. He’ll now head north to West Sacramento and call the Athletics’ hitter-friendly temporary digs at Sutter Health Park his home park. The A’s don’t have a clear answer at third base, so Ibañez will compete for at-bats there while also providing a credible backup around the diamond.

In parts of five major league seasons, Ibañez is a .254/.304/.389 hitter. That includes sub-par work in right-on-right situations, but he’s feasted on lefties, hitting them at a .280/.372/.452 clip. He’ll compete with Darell Hernaiz, Brett Harris, Max Schuemann and (the other) Max Muncy for time at third base, but Ibañez has 5300 professional innings at second base, 724 at first base, 242 at shortstop and 186 in the outfield corners. He’s also the only member of that group of infield candidates who is out of minor league options, so he’s very likely to crack the Athletics’ Opening Day roster.

It’s still possible the A’s will make another move to bring in a third baseman. They had an agreement in place to acquire Nolan Arenado from the Cardinals, but Arenado (who had a full no-trade clause) preferred to go to the D-backs, with whom St. Louis had also been negotiating. There aren’t many third base options left on the market, but someone like Luis Rengifo might feel Sutter Health Park is a good place to try to rebound. The trade market also still has a few viable options (e.g. Mark Vientos, Alec Bohm), and any number of less-proven names could find themselves on waivers this spring as teams make final tweaks to their rosters.

Ibañez has 3.133 years of major league service time, making him controllable via arbitration for another three seasons. He’ll need to rebound from last year’s down showing at the plate for the A’s to keep him around long term, but he’s landed in a better hitters’ environment with a club that has a clearer path to playing time than he’d have had in Los Angeles.