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The Phillies signed a veteran outfielder Matt Joyce on a minor league contract, baseball operations president Dave Dombrowski told reporters on Wednesday (Twitter link via Athletic’s Matt Gelb). The ACES client will be competing for a job in Spring Training.
Joyce, 36, saw a noticeable drop in power with the Marlins in 2020 but remained a strong threat on base, as is typical for the 13-year-old Big League veteran. In 148 home plate appearances with the Fish, Joyce hit .252 / .351 / .331 with one pair of homers and four doubles. A career-worst 27.7% take-out rate creates some concern, but it came in a small sample and punchouts were never too big of an issue for Joyce.
Dombrowski knows Joyce well, having selected him in the 12th round of the 2005 draft, developed him with the Tigers (where he made his MLB debut) and traded him to the Rays (in exchange for those who have also traveled a lot. Edwin jackson while both were still in their mid-twenties). The pair will reunite with a Phillies club which is largely located in the outfield, where Andrew McCutchen, Adam haseley, Bryce harper, Roman quinn and Scott kingery are all options. (Dombrowski said on today’s call that the club have not decided whether Odubel herrera will be invited to spring training.)
Joyce, however, can give the Phils the quintessential “professional” bat off the bench. He walked to a 13.5 percent clip last season and hasn’t posted a 10.6 percent walk south rate in any year since 2011. He’s a .253 / lifetime hitter. 355 / .448 against the rightists.
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