Tuesday was a day of fast and furious roster moves across Major League Baseball, and a well-respected Houston Astros veteran was caught up in the squall.
Houston had a Rule 5-eligible prospect, right-handed pitcher Miguel Ullola, that it didn’t want to risk losing. On Tuesday, the Astros added Ullola to the 40-man roster, but that meant someone had to pay the price.
Though the Astros traded for him at the deadline just under four months ago, the player who drew the short straw was Gold Glove infielder Ramón Urías, who Houston evidently believed to be redundant on its roster with the presence of José Altuve, Jeremy Peña, Isaac Paredes, Carlos Correa, and Mauricio Dubón.
On Tuesday, Urías was designated for assignment, according to the transactions log on his official roster page. He would be eligible for arbitration if a team claimed him, so the most likely scenario is the six-year veteran passing through waivers and electing free agency.
The Astros traded right-handed pitcher Twine Palmer to the Baltimore Orioles to acquire Urías on July 31. The 21-year-old had a 4.35 ERA in 62 innings at the Low-A level this year.
In 35 games as an Astro, Urías slashed .223/.267/.372 with three home runs and 10 RBIs. His defensive versatility was what Houston coveted at the deadline, especially with Paredes injured. He wound up playing 25 games at second base and 10 at third.
Urías’s excellent glove will almost certainly earn him a spot on a major league bench next season. It just will have to be with a team that doesn’t have as tight a logjam as the Astros, and it also will likely cost him a few million bucks that the arbitration process would have secured him.
