The Orioles announced this afternoon that minor league righty Noah Denoyer went unclaimed on waivers. He has been outrighted to Triple-A Norfolk.
Denoyer was designated for assignment a week ago. That ended what proved a fairly brief initial stay on the 40-man roster. Baltimore selected his contract over the offseason to keep him out of the Rule 5 draft. The 25-year-old has spent the entire season on optional assignment to Norfolk, working mostly as a multi-inning reliever. He has pitched to a 5.04 ERA across 30 1/3 innings, striking out an average 23.3% of batters faced against a huge 15.1% walk rate.
He’d been much more effective at throwing strikes last season. Denoyer walked only 5.6% of opponents with a massive 35.4% strikeout rate in Double-A a year ago. He hasn’t managed to find that form so far in 2023.
Denoyer had never previously cleared waivers and has yet to make his MLB debut. He doesn’t have the ability to decline an outright assignment in favor of free agency. He’ll stick in Norfolk and look to recapture last season’s level to put himself back on the radar for an MLB bullpen job.