1:00 pm: The Rockies announced Lamet’s claim and added this right-hander Ashton Goudeau was designated for assignment to create roster spots.
12:46 p.m.: The Rockies have claimed right-handers Dinelson Lamet Brewers waivers, reports MLB.com’s Adam McCalvy (Twitter link). Lamet, which the Brewers acquired on the side Taylor Rogers and perspectives Esteuri Ruiz and Robert Gasser surprise on Monday Josh Hader Trading, was determined to be commissioned only 48 hours after purchase.
At the time of Lamet’s DFA, David Stearns, the Brewers’ president of baseball operations, told reporters that Lamet “has a good arm and was included in the deal to balance the deal,” but that “later transactions” made him a more difficult candidate for made the list. The Brewers added right-handers Matt Bush and Trevor Rosenthal in separate stores a day after acquiring Lamet.
Nevertheless, the fast DFA leaves the question of how prominent Lamet really was in the plans. The 2020 Cy Young nominee has been plagued by injuries since the end of this truncated season and has hit 14 runs in just 12 2/3 innings this season. His fastball, which averaged 97 mph in 2020, has averaged 95.3 mph this season. Particularly notable for the Padres, who are heading for a second straight season and paying the luxury tax, is that Lamet earns $4.775 million in 2022. Including him in that trade meant not only discarding a player who was said to have been forced out of a roster spot, but also who would have a non-zero impact on the team’s luxury book. So Stearns’ use of the phrase “balance out the deal” could be interpreted as a reference to talent or in a tax sense.
Regardless, the Rockies can now potentially benefit from both their division rivals and the NL Central leaders, who feel there is no place for Lamet in their rosters. As recently as 2020, the 6’3″, 228-pound Lamet looked like a staple piece in San Diego. He made a slew of 12 starts during that pandemic-cut campaign, notching one with a 34.8% strikeout rate, 7.5% walk rate and 36.9% ground ball rate brilliant ERA of 2.09. That performance was good enough to earn Lamet, who had just turned 28 at the time, a fourth-place finish in the National League Cy Young vote.
However, Lamet’s 2020 season also ended with him being put on the injured list with a bicep injury sustained in his last game of the season. He would miss the 2020 postseason, and his 2021 season was limited to just 47 innings due to a forearm problem that sent him onto the injured list twice.
Those injuries, coupled with this year’s poor performance, have resulted in the now 30-year-old Lamet’s grisly 5.46 ERA in the last 59 1/3 innings of the major leagues. In addition to the reduced fastball, he has seen his strikeout rate drop from that 34.8% mark to 26.9% while his walk rate has increased from 7.5% to a dismal 11.4%. Lamet may have had some bad luck in 2021, averaging a .344 on balls in play despite allowing hard contact well below the league average, but that wasn’t the case at all in 2022. Yes, his .412 BABIP is through the roof, but so is his opponents’ average exit speed (a staggering 93.1 mph) and his 50 percent hit rate.
However, for a pitch-needy team like the Rockies, there’s little harm in taking a relatively cheap look at Lamet. They’re owed a prorated portion of his salary — roughly $1.6 million by the end of the season — but they can also arbitrate him this winter if he impresses on track. Seen from that perspective, there would have been a case for every club with higher waiver priority (e.g. Nationals, A’s, Tigers, Royals, Pirates) claiming Lamet, but despite the right-hander’s obvious talent, not every club will be optimistic in terms of his chances of recovering (or taking on that extra amount of money at this point in the season).
Goudeau, also 30, has served 20 1/3 innings in this, his second stint with the Rockies, for whom he made his MLB debut in 2020. He was marked for a 7.08 ERA with a 17% strikeout rate and 10.6% walk ratio, both significantly below the league average. His work in Triple-A Albuquerque was even rougher, evidenced by 43 earned runs allowed in just 37 innings of work (10.46 ERA).