Rangers claim Alfredo Figaro, Brewers outright Matt Pagnozzi

It was announced Thursday that Alfredo Figaro had been claimed off waivers by the Texas Rangers. The Brewers also outrighted catcher Matt Pagnozzi to Triple-A Colorado Springs.

The Brewers signed Alfredo Figaro as a minor league free agent before the start of the 2013 season. He actually saw quite a bit of playing time with the Brewers in 2013, but that was mostly due to injury. He pitched 75 innings, mostly out of the bullpen, but he did start 5 games. He put together a reasonable, if not awe inspiring, 4.14 ERA. He spent most of this year in AAA to mixed results.

I'm working on some articles about the arbitration eligible Brewers. Alfredo Figaro was the only one I was certain would not be with the Brewers next year so this move comes as no surprise. He has a big fastball, but his secondary offerings were always lacking. At 30 years old he still has some time to prove himself. Hopefully he'll be able to do that with the Rangers.

Matt Pagnozzi was signed as a minor league free agent before the start of this season. He spent the entire year in Triple-A before getting called-up in September. At the time I said he was only chosen to allow Ron Roenicke to pinch hit for one or with one of his catchers. The one inning and zero plate appearances proves I was correct.

Pagnozzi has bounced around with 7 different clubs since 2010. The Brewers don't have a ton of catching options in the minors and so it's possible they re-sign him in the offseason as org-filler. He's not a guy you expect to play a part on a successful major league team though.

These two transactions have cleared two spots off the 40-man roster leaving it at 38. Once the World Series is completed (October 29th would be Game 7 if it goes that far) there will be more spots opened. We'll go over that next week though.

Statistics courtesy of Fangraphs