Jonathan

Lucroy

Lucroy hasn’t played in the majors this season and appeared in just seven games last year between the Braves and Nationals. The 36-year-old two-time All-Star steps away after a 12-year career that included stops with the Brewers, Rangers, Rockies, Braves, Red Sox, Athletics, Angels, Cubs and Nationals.

Lucroy will hit the free agent market once again after rejecting an outright assignment to Triple-A Gwinnett last week. The 35-year-old veteran backstop has appeared in seven games at the major-league level this season as an emergency stopgap for the Nationals and Braves.

Lucroy was designated for assignment last week and passed through waivers unclaimed. He had appeared in only two games for Atlanta prior to the move.

The writing was on the wall after the Braves swung a trade for veteran backstop Stephen Vogt on Friday evening. Lucroy wound up appearing in only two games at the big-league level for Atlanta this season. It’s possible he could find another opportunity if another organization finds itself hit by injuries at the catching position.

Lucroy replaces William Contreras on the roster. The former All-Star has been fantasy irrelevant over the last few years, and he’ll likely split time behind the plate with Kevan Smith for the time being.

The Braves plan to evaluate Lucroy at Triple-A Gwinnett to see if he can be trusted as a backup if anything were to happen to William Contreras or Jeff Mathis. The 34-year-old catcher was designated for assignment by the Nationals in April and elected to become a free agent.

Presumably those offers are of the minor-league variety, since Murray also added that Lucroy continues to seek a major-league deal. He also mentioned that the Yankees and Blue Jays would make sense as potential fits. The 34-year-old veteran backstop appeared in five games for the Nationals earlier this month.

The veteran catcher was designated for assignment by the Nationals on Monday after appearing in only five games for the team. Lucroy’s short stint with Washington -- and the subsequent DFA limbo -- got him to 10 years of major league service time, which means he is now fully vested into the MLB pension program.

The Nats went with three catchers for a few days after Yan Gomes and Alex Avila returned, but now they’re down to two. Lucroy filled in admirably in picking up five hits in 14 at-bats. The Nationals would probably like to keep him at their alternate training site, but it’s unclear whether Lucroy would be amendable to that.

Lucroy just latched on with the Nats after being released by the White Sox and now he’s on the Opening Day roster in the wake of the team’s COVID-19 issues. The 34-year-old had a nice spring, but hasn’t done much of note in recent years and shouldn’t be fantasy relevant here.