Arizona Diamondbacks release trade deadline deal acquisition after DFA emerges with interest in the free agency
The Diamondbacks released reliever Dylan Floro after a weekend DFA, according to the MLB.com transaction log. Floro would almost certainly have declined a minor league assignment so a release was a formality once he was taken off the roster.
Arizona acquired Floro in one of the final moves of deadline day. The acquisition cost was modest, as they sent minor league signee Andrés Chaparro to the Nationals. (Chaparro has since made his MLB debut and is hitting .218/.273/.427 in 30 games.)
Floro wasn’t the most exciting addition but he’d pitched quite well for Washington. He carried a 2.06 ERA in 52 1/3 innings for the Nats. That success was built on plus control and decent ground-ball rates rather than power, but the Snakes hoped he’d add veteran stability to the middle relief corps.
Things went downhill almost immediately. Floro worked scoreless appearances in three of his first four outings. The Phillies tagged him for three runs on August 11, the first of a handful of times that he was hit hard. Floro allowed multiple runs on three more occasions, including a five-run drubbing at the hands of the Brewers in his final appearance with Arizona on Saturday.
He finished his Diamondback tenure with a 9.37 earned run average across 15 outings. His already modest 19.6% strikeout rate has nearly halved to 10.7% while the average velocity on his sinker has fallen to 88.4 MPH this month.
Floro is playing on a $2.25M base salary. He’ll collect the remainder of that money. He also unlocked $1.25M in bonuses based on appearances. He’d be ineligible for postseason play with another team, so he could sit out the final week and a half of this season.
Floro would be a free agent in the offseason even if he caught on somewhere in the next couple days.
Entering his age-34 season, Floro might be limited to minor league offers. His overall 3.80 ERA in 68 2/3 innings is decent production for a middle reliever, but his market will surely be adversely impacted by the dismal finish.
Washington signed him to a guaranteed deal coming off a lesser 4.76 ERA last winter, though his 2023 peripherals (23.4% strikeout rate, 54.4% grounder percentage) were better. Floro’s velocity is down more than two ticks relative to last season.
When Corbin Carroll launched his first of two home runs against Austin Gomber in a 9-4 win over the Rockies, he joined an elite club. He became just the third player in major league history to hit 45 home runs and steal 80 bases between his rookie season and the following season.
Current Royals superstar shortstop Bobby Witt Jr. barely missed out on joining this exclusive club, falling one stolen base short in 2023 with 50 homers and 79 steals.
The list is a particularly interesting one, as it has two very unique outcomes. Trout is most certainly headed to a 99% first-ballot Hall of Fame induction, despite injuries slowing him down of late, and Ramírez was a really good player who fell off the Hall of Fame track in his 30s. Looking at that exclusive club, Trout and Carroll are the only two to put up back-to-back 20/20 seasons to begin their careers. Jack Sommers points out that Carroll was one of 11 players to record multiple 20/20 seasons through their Age 23 season.
