The Mariners and righty Tyler Cloyd have struck up a minor league deal, as first reported by Mike Curto, who calls games for the Mariners’ Triple-A affiliate in Tacoma (Twitter link). He’ll start tomorrow’s game for the Rainiers.
Cloyd, 32 next month, spent Spring Training with the Rays organization and allowed a pair of runs in seven innings of relief. He’s no stranger to the Mariners organization, having spent the bulk of his 2017 season there. Cloyd made one big league appearance for Seattle in ’17 (a scoreless inning of relief) and moved onto the Marlins organization in 2018. Cloyd logged 85 1/3 innings with Miami’s Triple-A club and another 17 2/3 frames at the MLB level, though he struggled in both stops (5.17 ERA in Triple-A, 8.66 in the Majors). In all, he has a 6.35 ERA in 112 big league frames but a more encouraging 3.96 mark in 568 2/3 innings of Triple-A work.
Cloyd will step into a Rainiers rotation that includes top prospect Justus Sheffield, former big leaguer Tommy Milone and fellow journeyman Christian Bergman. Per Curto, he’ll take the place of former White Sox prospect Tyler Danish, who has been reassigned to extended Spring Training for the time being. Right-hander Erik Swanson, the other key prospect who came to the Mariners alongside Sheffield in this winter’s James Paxton swap, had been starting in Triple-A as well but was called up to the big league rotation in place of injured lefty Wade LeBlanc.
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