Rockies Outright Jorge Alfaro

The Rockies have sent catcher Jorge Alfaro outright to Triple-A Albuquerque, per his transactions tracker at MLB.com. That indicates he cleared waivers after being designated for assignment last week. He has the right to reject this assignment in favor of free agency but it’s not publicly known if he has done so.

Alfaro, 30, began the year on a minor league deal with the Red Sox. He mashed for the Triple-A club, hitting .320/.366/.520 in 191 plate appearances. He opted out of that deal and landed with the Rockies, who added him to their major league roster a few weeks ago. Unfortunately, he slashed just .161/.188/.387 in his 32 trips to the plate and was cut from the roster last week.

This has been a frustrating pattern for Alfaro, who has continually shown promise in the minors and then floundered in the majors. His career batting line in the big leagues is .254/.302/.396 whereas his Triple-A line is a much stronger .270/.317/.434. Since he’s generally considered a subpar defender behind the plate, that mercurial offensive performance has led to him continually bouncing on and off of rosters.

Since Alfaro has more than five years of major league service time, he has the right to reject an outright assignment while retaining his salary. He’ll therefore have to decide between reporting to Albuquerque and hoping for another shot with the Rockies or returning to the open market to see if there are other opportunities waiting for him. Since every club in the league just passed on the chance to grab him off waivers, he would probably be limited to minor league offers.