Even More Minor-League Signs

The Nats’ stockpiling of free-agent pitchers continues with the latest transactions post from Baseball America:

• RHP Randy Consuegra
• RHP Deibi Yrizarri
• LHP Fernando Abad

Consuegra is another former Boston farmhand, signed after pitching for the Colombian WBC team. He’s been out of professional baseball for the past two seasons. The logical inference is that Yrizarri is also an international free agent; the only clear reference to him that comes up in web searches is in the BA post.

Abad is the sole pitcher among this group with major-league experience, albeit with the Astros. He’s appeared in 88 games the past three seasons with Houston with career marks of 1-11, 5.10 ERA and a 1.559 WHIP. Scouting site 60ft6in.com describes him as “a junk-balling left-hander with a high major league walk rate. He throws tons of soft changeups to RHs and sweeping curves to LHs. The Dominican would rather walk a batter than give in with his 90 mph BP fastball.”

Thus far, two Nationals farmhands have signed elsewhere — Jim Negrych with Toronto and Atahualpa Severino with Kansas City. Severino was one of the last remaining players left from the Expos era still with the organization, a list believed to be now down to two: Ian Desmond and Roger Bernadina.