San Francisco Giants add lefty reliever Jose Mijares

The San Francisco Giants were awared a waiver claim of left-handed relief pitcher Jose Mijares from the Kansas City Royals.

Then the Royals did something odd. They simply let Mijares go.

The Royals could have pulled the pitcher back from waiver, then would have had three days to work out a deal with the Giants.

But they decided it was better simply to let Mijares leave, much in the same way the Giants acquired Cody Ross in 2010.

It left many Giants’ beat writers and bloggers puzzled as to why the Royals did that.

The 27-year-old was having a solid season for the Royals, going 2-2 with 2.56 ERA, 37 Ks and 13 BBs in 38.2 innings. He was especially tough on lefties, who were hitting .212 against him. Righties were hitting .295.

He was making $925,000 this season with two more seasons under team control.

So why would the Royals let him go?

“Maybe he has really terrible B.O.” surmised NBC Sports Matthew Pouliot.

Maybe. That might explain why every American League team passed on him, as did 10 NL teams with worse records than the Giants.

Mijares has struggled of late. After seeing his ERA drop to his lowest point since mid-April at 1.54 on July 15, Mijares has allowed four runs in his last inning of work over four outings.

Mijares will be due to make between anywhere between $1.3 million and $2.5 million in arbitration next year. The Royals tried to trade the pitcher. But when those efforts failed they let him go.

“Jose did a perfect job for us,” Royal GM Dayton Moore said. “We just felt that after some opportunities to move him fell through, we needed to give those innings to other pitchers that potentially are going to be a part of our future.”

Pouliot offered one other possible explanation:

“Mijares was a real problem in the clubhouse. That was part of why the Royals dropped Yuniesky Betancourt on Sunday, and Mijares has long been viewed as something of a headcase. The Royals obviously didn’t think he’d be worth keeping around in 2013, so they figured they might as well let him go now.”

Mijares was added to the 40-man roster, and will be added the 25-man active roster when he arrives to the club. The candidates to be moved off the roster include Shane Loux or Brad Penny.

We’d expect Loux to be sent to Fresno.

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