ARLINGTON, Texas — The Texas Rangers acquired first baseman/outfielder Sam Travis from Boston on Wednesday in a trade that sent left-hander Jeffrey Springs to the Red Sox.
The addition of Travis came on the same day the Rangers announced the signing of Todd Frazier, another right-handed hitter who can play first base. Texas plans to use Frazier primarily at third.
The 26-year-old Travis, who played 65 games for the Portland Sea Dogs in 2015, has spent all six years of his professional career with the Boston organization. He was a second-round pick in the 2014 amateur draft.
Travis made the Opening Day roster for the first time last year and appeared in a career-high 59 games over four stints with the Red Sox, hitting .215 with six home runs and 16 RBI. He made 20 starts at first base and 11 in left field.
The 27-year-old Springs was designated for assignment when the Rangers signed Frazier and catcher Robinson Chirinos. He made his major league debut in 2018 before appearing in 25 games over three stints last season. Springs has a 4.90 ERA in 43 career outings.
To make room for Springs, the Red Sox designated left-hander Bobby Poyner for assignment. The 27-year-old made 13 relief appearances over three stints with Boston in 2019. Like Springs, Poyner made his big league debut in 2018.
SIGN STEALING: The Yankees have said Carlos Beltran didn’t help them illegally steal signs or cheat in any way when he was a member of the front office in the 2019 season, according to a report from SNY’s Andy Martino.
Major League Baseball corroborates that, and also that it’s not investigating the Yankees, the report said.
A high-profile inference that Beltran might have been aiding the Yankees in extra-curricular terms resurfaced over the last couple of days.
When the Yankees and Red Sox faced each other in London in late June, then-Boston manager Alex Cora – who helped the Astros cheat in 2017 – said that Beltran was a their biggest “free agent acquisition.”
“I was joking with somebody that their biggest free-agent acquisition is Carlos Beltran. I know how he works. He’s helped them a lot,” Cora said at the time. “They’re very into details, and we have to clean our details. It was eye-opening, the last two days, from top to bottom.”
Unprompted, Cora brought up the idea of the Yankees using “devices” to aid them.”
“I’m not saying devices, all that stuff. It’s just stuff that the game will dictate. And we’ll scream at people, and it’s right there,” Cora said.
Beltran has been under fire for his involvement with Houston’s cheating scandal that has rocked baseball all offseason.
• CC Sabathia is saying what a lot of players throughout baseball are feeling: “We got cheated.” The now-retired Yankee lefty said he personally is wondering if the Astros cheated when he was on the mound for the 2017 American League Championship Series, when the report said Houston was still using its illegal system of electronically stealing and relaying signs to hitters. He’s now wondering out loud if they stole one of his last chances at a World Series.
He is also not sure the Red Sox cheated the Yankees again with Boston in the 2018 American League Division Series.
“As everything’s been coming out, and the more facts that we get, it’s getting frustrating, man,” Sabathia said, “to sit here and know that late in my career I could’ve had a title, maybe ’17 or maybe ’18, but we got cheated out of a team kind of doing something that’s not within the rules of the game.”
Sabathia, who will continue to work in the Yankees’ organization in some capacity, said he would have no problem with MLB “vacating” the Astros’ 2017 World Series title.
“Maybe, yeah. I mean, why not? … Vacate it,” Sabathia said. “I wouldn’t be mad at that.”
YANKEES-MARLINS: Left-hander Stephen Tarpley was traded from New York to Miami for third baseman James Nelson and cash.
Tarpley was designated for assignment by the Yankees on Saturday to clear a roster spot when outfielder Brett Gardner’s contract was finalized.
The 26-year-old Tarpley was 1-0 with two saves and a 5.88 ERA last year in one start and 30 relief appearances. He was acquired by the Yankees in the 2016 trade that sent right-hander Ivan Nova to Pittsburgh.
Nelson, 22, was a 15th-round draft pick in 2016 and hit .228 with 13 doubles, four homers and 36 RBI in 121 games last season for Class A Jupiter of the Florida State League.
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