Mets Claim Seth Elledge From Braves

The Braves announced that right-hander Seth Elledge has been claimed off waivers by the Mets. The righty had been designated for assignment last week. The Mets also announced the move, relaying that Elledge has been optioned to the minors and that left-hander José Quintana has been transferred to the 60-day injured list in a corresponding move.

Elledge, 27 next month, has a small bit of major league experience. In a strange coincidence, he tossed 11 2/3 innings for the Cardinals in 2020 and again in 2021, posting a 4.63 ERA in both years. He was outrighted after the latter of those two seasons, becoming a free agent.

He signed a minor league deal with Atlanta last year and pitched well. In 46 1/3 Triple-A innings, he had a 3.88 ERA, 33.7% strikeout rate and 8.6% walk rate. That latter figure was probably the most significant, as control has been an issue for him throughout his career. The only other time he had a lower walk rate at any level was the 7.1% rate he had over 15 A-ball appearances in 2017. Most of his other stints have seen him push towards or beyond double digits.

That performance wasn’t enough to get him a big league call during the season, but the club did add Elledge to their roster in November to prevent him from becoming a free agent again. Since he still had options remaining, they were likely hoping to utilize him as depth, shuttling him to the big leagues and back to the farm as needed. However, they’ve added a great number of players to their roster in the early parts of the season, with Kevin Pillar, Jesse Chavez, Ehire Adrianza, Jared Shuster, Dylan Dodd and Danny Young all getting added in recent weeks. Those moves all eventually led to Elledge getting nudged off the roster.

For the Mets, they had a roster spot that was essentially freely available. It was reported back in the middle of March that Quintana would need rib surgery that will keep him from returning until at least July. That made his transfer to the 60-day injured list an inevitable formality and allowed them to grab an intriguing player like Elledge. Their bullpen has been hit hard by injuries already this year, with Edwin Díaz, Bryce Montes de Oca and Sam Coonrod are all on the 60-day IL while Tommy Hunter and Stephen Ridings are on the 15-day version. Elledge will head to the minors for now but could be called upon whenever the big league club needs a fresh arm.