The Minnesota Twins have traded Oswaldo Arcia to the Tampa Bay Rays
The Oswaldo Arcia situation has been resolved with the Minnesota Twins sending him off to the Tampa Bay Rays for a PTBNL (player to be named later) or cash.
The @Twins have traded Oswaldo Arcia to the Tampa Bay Rays for a player to be named later or cash. #MNTwins
— Dustin Morse (@morsecode) June 24, 2016
Arcia was designated for assignment back on June 16th and the Twins had 10 days to trade him or attempt to outright him. With two days to spare before the ten days were up, the Twins found a suitor in the Tampa Bay Rays.
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The return was never going to very high for a DFA’d player. The other teams knew he’d soon be available on the waiver wire if he wasn’t traded. Most teams were apparently willing to wait or weren’t interested at all. Tampa was willing to pay the minor cost of a PTBNL or cash to prevent him from being claimed by a lower ranked team.
Tampa Bay has often been a place that readily welcomes reclamation projects and they’ve had a good deal of success with squeezing productivity out of castoffs.
Arcia has compiled a .658 OPS and a -0.4 WAR with the Twins this year in 114 plate appearances.
With his bat performing under par, Arcia was often pushed to the bench in favor of more competent outfielders such as Byron Buxton and Max Kepler. The surprisingly shrewd addition of Robbie Grossman further squeezed out Arcia and with Danny Santana returning from the disabled list, something had to give.
Arcia was out of options and was odd man out with the Twins opting to keep Kepler and Buxton in the big leagues for now.
The Twins will now roll with Byron Buxton, Max Kepler, Danny Santana and Robbie Grossman in the outfield at least until Miguel Sano comes back from injury.
It’s been quite a fall from grace for Arcia who was once a top 100 prospect, tore apart the minors and showed flashes of brilliance in the majors. At 25, he’s still young and the Rays have severely depleted outfield currently so Arcia will get his chances. Perhaps he’ll make the most of them and begin to realize his potential.