Mets Designate Bryce Conley For Assignment

The Mets announced a series of moves to fill in their roster after their deadline sale. Most of them were previously reported. In an additional move, right-hander Bryce Conley was designated for assignment. The Mets also announced resolutions for right-hander Joey Gerber, righty Kevin Herget and outfielder MJ Melendez, who were all recently designated for assignment. Gerber has been released while Herget and Melendez have both been outrighted to Triple-A Syracuse.

Conley, 31, was just added to the roster on Sunday. The Mets didn’t use him in that day’s game and then had an off-day yesterday. That means Conley is now at risk of being a phantom ballplayer, as he has been bumped off the roster before making an appearance.

He probably wasn’t expecting a long stint in the big leagues. The Mets have been cycling players through the final spots of their roster all year. Conley is a longtime minor leaguer who got called up to the majors a few weeks before his 32nd birthday. Still, even if he had reasonable expectations, it probably stings a bit to not make one jog to the mound. With the trade deadline now in the past, he will be on waivers in the coming days. He has a 5.89 earned run average in the minors this year.

Gerber, 29, was designated for assignment a couple of days ago. He was on the minor league injured list at the time. Injured players can’t be placed on outright waivers, so a release was the logical conclusion for his situation. He will head to the open market with a 3.81 ERA in 28 1/3 big league innings. Interest in him will naturally depend on the nature and severity of his injury.

Herget, 35, was recently added to the roster. He was able to make one appearance, tossing a scoreless inning, before he was designated for assignment. He now has a 4.13 ERA in 56 2/3 big league innings. He has been outrighted previously in his career and therefore has the right to reject this assignment and elect free agency, though the Mets didn’t indicated whether or not he would do so.

Melendez, 27, also has the right to elect free agency but almost certainly won’t exercise that right. Players with three years of service have the right to head to the open market but need to have five years of service to also keep their salary commitments in place. Melendez is in that three-to-five window. He is making $1.5MM this year, leaving a little under half a million still to be paid out. Unless he wants to leave that on the table, he will accept.

He was once a promising catching prospect with the Royals but his poor defense got him moved to the outfield corners, where he hasn’t hit enough to justify playing time in that spot. He has a .213/.298/.385 line in 1,796 major league plate appearances. If he is not added back to the roster by season’s end, he will become a free agent, as is the case for all outrighted players with three-plus years of service.