Vidal Brujan Goes Unclaimed on Waivers After Mets DFA. What That Says About the Market.
Vidal Brujan is officially Triple-A property again. The Mets designated the infielder/outfielder for assignment last week, and after his time on waivers, no team claimed him. He’s now headed back to Syracuse.
The lack of claims is the interesting part. Brujan is 28, has Major League experience, has speed, and can play multiple positions. On paper, he’s exactly the kind of player a contending team would pick up off waivers as bench depth. Nobody bit.
What it tells you is that the league’s view of Brujan has settled into a clear consensus. He’s a Quad-A player. Good enough to dominate Triple-A pitching. Not quite good enough to consistently produce at the big league level. The phrase has been around forever for guys like Brujan. He’s the textbook example.
The Mets gave him a real look earlier this year. They needed infield depth after some injuries and called him up for an extended stretch. He hit about .180 with limited pop, and once the regular guys got healthy, he was the obvious roster casualty.
Brujan was a top Rays prospect back when the Rays prospect machine was the best in baseball. He had real five-tool potential as a kid. The bat just never developed at the major league level, and now he’s running out of organizations willing to give him a long look.
Triple-A Syracuse is where the Mets stash this kind of player. He’ll get regular at-bats, the team will keep him on the depth chart for emergencies, and if some other team has a midseason crisis at second base, Brujan becomes a phone call away from a trade.
The waivers process is one of the quieter information leaks in baseball. When a player clears waivers, every team in the league has essentially voted “no thanks.” There’s no real argument left for Brujan as a starter. He’s officially a depth piece, and the league has agreed.
For the Mets, this clears a 40-man roster spot and gives them flexibility for any midseason additions. The team has been competitive in the NL East all year, and they’re going to need to be active before the deadline.
Brujan’s situation also says something about the broader infield market. Teams are not desperate enough to pick up bench guys off waivers, which means the deadline market for utility players is going to be thin. If you’re a contender looking for help at second or short, you’re going to have to actually trade for somebody, not just wait around for waiver gifts.
For Brujan personally, the path forward is to put together a few weeks of real production at Syracuse and force the Mets or someone else to give him another shot. He’s done it before. He’ll likely do it again. The talent is real, even if the major league results haven’t been.
The Mets have a recent history of finding utility help in unexpected places, and there’s a non-zero chance Brujan resurfaces in their lineup before September. Stranger things have happened in this clubhouse.
For now, he’s back in Triple-A, taking ground balls and waiting for his next opportunity. The grind never really ends in pro baseball.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.
