Rangers Claim José Buttó, Outright Michael Helman

The Rangers claimed righty José Buttó off waivers from the Giants and assigned infielder/outfielder Michael Helman outright to Triple-A Round Rock after he went unclaimed on waivers, per a team announcement.

Buttó had been on the Giants’ 60-day injured list, but with the club facing an extreme roster crunch, it elected to move on in the wake of a lost year. After throwing just two innings, Buttó underwent surgery on a blood clot in his pitching arm in mid-April and did not return. However, he is expected to go through a normal offseason and return for Spring Training, per San Francisco’s injury tracker at MLB.com.

Buttó debuted with the Mets in 2022 and became a regular in their bullpen for a couple of years. In his best season, 2024, he fired 74 innings of 2.55 ERA ball with a strong 26.9% strikeout rate. Buttó’s ability to generate strikeouts helped him overcome a 12.9% walk rate, which is right in line with his career average. He hasn’t replicated that success since, however, and the Mets ended up trading Buttó to the Giants in the teams’ Tyler Rogers deal ahead of the 2025 deadline. The sinkerballer recorded a career-best 48.1% ground-ball rate in 67 innings between the Mets and Giants that year, but a much lower strikeout rate (20.4%) helped lead to a less impressive 3.90 ERA.

The 28-year-old Buttó is out of minor league options, meaning he will end up back in limbo if he is unable to hold a roster spot with Texas. For now, though, he represents a potential option for a team whose relievers finished 23rd in ERA and strikeout-walk percentage in 2026.

Helman, 30, spent time with the Minnesota and St. Louis organizations before the Rangers claimed him off waivers from the Cardinals in May 2025. Across 155 major league plate appearances, Helman has hit .223/.278/.424 (95 wRC+) with six home runs. After playing just 16 games with the Rangers this past season, he suffered multiple hand fractures on a hit by pitch in a loss to Boston on June 13 and didn’t take another at-bat in the bigs. He returned in mid-September to play five games with Round Rock.