I was taking a trip down memory lane and came across Randy Ruiz. What happened there? He had great numbers in the minors and yet didn't debut with the Twins until 2008 (at 30). We released him that off-season and he signed with Toronto.

 

In 2009 he played in 33 games for the Blue Jays and had a line of: 313/385/635/1.019 while hitting 10 home runs. In 2010, Ruiz had a strong spring training and was kept on the 25 man roster but he didn't do so well in limited action. In 13 games he had 6 hits in 40 at bats (1 homer). After not see much playing time, Ruiz asked for his release in May to sign a bigger contract with the Tohoku Rakuten Eagles in Japan.

 

In 2012, he came back to the states on a minor league deal with the Arizona Diamondbacks. He played in 49 games for their AAA club, Reno. He launched 14 home runs and sported a 331/395/624/1.019 line.

 

Last season, after a short stint in the Mexican League, he signed a minor league deal with the New York Yankees and played for their AAA affiliate, Scranton. he batted 274/316/513/829 with 17 home runs.

 

You can see that he doesn't like to walk much with his near 3:1 k:BB rate in the minors and more than 4:1 rate in the majors. In his small major league sample size Ruiz walked 6.7% and struck out 28.2% of the time. In the minors, 8.7% BB and 23.9% K.

 

The Yankees released Randy on November 5th.

He changed his name to Chris Colabello?

That is what I was thinking when I was reading about him!

I was probably one of the biggest Ruiz fans and drove me nuts that the Twins had the likes of Tolbert and Buscher in the majors while Ruiz was in AAA putting MVP numbers. #FreeRandyRuiz

 

The Colabello comparison is spot on, but Ruiz has a more compact swing that did translate somewhat in the majors, can hit the curve but he is a DH all the way, worse fielder than Colabello and these days teams are trying to get more versatile on their bench. He has no position and that has been his problem.

I agree with you Thrylos. If we didn't have a Willingham/Doumit liability to hide at the DH it would be worth a thought to bring him in as a DH/pinch hit bat. Much like Thome, much of what he got a hold of was driven a long way.