Roansy Contreras has had quite a busy offseason to this point. The righty started 2024 with the Pirates but was traded to the Angels in a small deal in early May.
He threw 52 innings with LA this past year but was designated for assignment in October and has been bounced around a number of organizations since then.
Contreras was first claimed by the Rangers, but he was DFA’d shortly thereafter and wound up with Cincinnati. After the Reds ditched him in early January, the Orioles scooped him up and we assumed he’d be a potential bullpen arm vying for a spot in spring training.
That wasn’t meant to be, as Contreras was once again DFA’d after the Orioles had claimed former Dodgers prospect Jacob Amaya roughly a week after the initial claim for Contreras.
The Orioles hoped to slide Contreras through waivers but he’s now been claimed again, this time by the AL East rival Yankees.
Interestingly enough, the Yankees were the team Contreras initially got his start with. The Yanks signed him as part of their 2016 international free agent class and by 2019, he’d scraped his way into New York’s top-10 prospects list.
Orioles recently DFA’d righty Roansy Contreras claimed off waivers by NY Yankees
Contreras was derailed a bit by the COVID season.
He likely would have made his major league debut that year, had we not gone through a shortened major league season, and an entirely cancelled minor league one.
The righty never wound up pitching for the Yankees in the majors. He was traded to Pittsburgh in 2021 as part of the package for Jameson Taillon, and the Pirates eventually promoted him to the majors for a very brief period later that year.
In total, Contreras has thrown 234.2 major league innings, struggling to a 4.72 ERA with a just as discouraging 4.80 FIP.
His sub 20% strikeout rate doesn’t inspire a ton of confidence and it’s more likely than not that he’ll have to work out of the bullpen full time, as he did in 2024, if he wants to stick around in the majors.
It’s possible that the Yankees and their pitching development machine can get his career back on track.
They’ve had success in that regard previously, considering that guys like Luke Weaver and Ian Hamilton have mostly come out of nowhere to provide strong innings for the Yanks’ bullpen.
It’s easy to argue that this move won’t come back to bite the Orioles, and odds are that Contreras doesn’t amount to much in 2025 and beyond.
But it would be peak Yankees if they can take this guy and turn him into a shutdown reliever. It’d be all the worse after the Orioles DFA’d him without giving him a proper chance to prove himself.
