The Texas Rangers and veteran right-handed reliever Seth Maness have agreed to terms on a minor league deal. Maness has not pitched in the majors since 2017, but does have a career 3.21 ERA across parts of five seasons. He's mainly a middle-relief pitcher with a little closing experience. Maness will head to Triple-A, but it shouldn't be too long before we see him in Arlington. He's unlikely to have much fantasy value at all if he makes it to KC.
The Kansas City Royals cleared space on their roster Saturday by designating relief pitcher Seth Maness for assignment. Maness came into the season as a short reliever with a specialty for drawing ground balls, but he was demoted to Triple-A after surrendering runs in five of his first eight appearances. Since Maness was recovering from a ground-breaking type of elbow surgery, the trip to the minors was seen as an extended rehab stint as opposed to a permanent situation. Thus, even though Maness was in Omaha, he still held an active spot on the major league roster. However, with the Royals facing a double-header on Saturday, they had to make room for rookie Luke Farrell. This left Maness out in the cold. With the league-wide injury onslaught continuing, it's likely that he will be picked up by another club.
Kansas City Royals reliever Seth Maness was optioned to Triple-A Omaha in a corresponding move with the call-up of starter Jake Junis on Tuesday. Maness had been tagged as a possible successor to closer Kelvin Herrera in the late innings, but he's only thrown three clean innings in eight appearances this season. He's also posted a ridiculously low strikeout rate of just 3.72 per nine innings. It hasn't been announced yet if Junis will be staying with the big league club, but either way, Maness will need to become more dependable if he intends on getting back into the closing mix in the future.
