San Francisco Giants: Why Jose Mijares Claim Makes No Sense

According to the official Twitter feed of the San Francisco Giants, the team claimed lefty reliever Jose Mijares, late of the Kansas City Royals, off waivers on August 6.

"

The #SFGiants have claimed LHP Jose Mijares off of waivers from the Kansas City Royals.

— San Francisco Giants (@SFGiants) August 6, 2012"

The 28-year-old Mijares has had an unremarkable major league career thus far, having amassed 192.1 innings out of the bullpen for the Minnesota Twins and Kansas City Royals. I guess it goes without saying that Mijares has been unremarkable, since he was, after all, waived by the lowly Royals.

But, not every player who gets waived is without value. Mijares, despite some pretty average numbers overall, has proven he can do one thing quite well: get lefties out.

In his brief career, Mijares has held left-handed batters to a .209 batting average while allowing just six home runs to the 382 lefty hitters he's faced. That's excellent.

Get a righty in the batter's box against him, though, and he's not nearly as effective. Comparing the difference is particularly easy in Mijares' case because he's amassed a nearly identical number of innings against righties and lefties—96.1 innings vs. 96 innings.

Against righties, Mijares has allowed twice as many homers (12), 23 more walks and 30 more hits. Suffice it to say, it's probably best the Giants don't use him against right-handers.

And that's what makes the Giants' waiver claim of Mijares strange. The Giants' usual lefty specialist, Javier Lopez, is having a down year by his standards. But he's still murder on lefties. In 68 plate appearances against Lopez this year, left-handers have hit .210 with 16 strikeouts against six walks. And Lopez has been far better than that in his past years as a Giant.

Also, the Giants have another deadly weapon against left-handers: Jeremy Affeldt. The Giants' other lefty arm out of the bullpen has, especially lately, been excellent against batters from either side of the plate. But he's been absolutely dominant against lefties this year. In 77 plate appearances against Affeldt, lefties have only managed a .203 batting average with 19 strikeouts against six walks. Affeldt has not surrendered a homer to a lefty all year, either.

So, Mijares definitely has some value—he's proven that he can get left-handed batters out. But that value is basically wasted on the Giants, who already have two better options in that department.

It's possible the Giants envision using Mijares against righties as well. They could also expand the role of Affeldt to include more at-bats against right-handers while using Mijares in a third-tier lefty specialist role. Those are options, but neither seem plausible.

However they decide to use him, the Giants' claim of Mijares makes little sense because they don't need the one thing he does well.