Mets Designate Richard Lovelady For Assignment

The Mets announced that Craig Kimbrel‘s minor league contract has been selected to the active roster, as reported earlier today.  To create space on the 26-man roster, the Mets have designated left-hander Richard Lovelady.

This is the ninth time Lovelady has been DFA’ed in his career, with five of those transactions coming from the Mets in a relationship that began when New York first signed the lefty to a big league deal last June.  Lovelady is out of minor league options, which is why the Mets and other teams have had to first expose him to waivers before outrighting him off a 40-man roster.

During the offseason, the Mets signed Lovelady to a split contract that pays him $1MM when on an active roster, and $350K while in the minor leagues.  Lovelady would have to give up this guaranteed salary if he clears waivers and declines an outright assignment in favor of free agency, which makes it more likely that he’ll stick around in the Mets organization.  It shouldn’t be assumed that Lovelady will clear waivers, however.  The Nationals claimed the southpaw last January after the Mets’ last DFA, but New York then claimed him back in March after the Nats also designated Lovelady for assignment.

After all of these comings and goings, Lovelady made the Amazins’ Opening Day roster and at least got himself a few weeks of time in the bigs.  Lovelady has a 3.68 ERA and a 54.5% grounder rate over 7 1/3 innings and six appearances for New York this season, with a modest 18.8% strikeout rate and 12.5% walk rate.  Most of the damage (.958 OPS) has come from right-handed batters, while Lovelady has limited left-handed batters to a .545 OPS.

Lovelady’s career splits are pronounced enough that it is worth wondering if he came along in the wrong time — Lovelady made his MLB debut a season before the league instituted the three-batter rule, basically ending the era of the lefty specialist.  The Mets clearly like what Lovelady offers as a depth arm for their ever-rotating bullpen, even if the team perpetually views him as an expendable roster piece.