The veteran’s upward mobility clause means Chicago will be activating the former Red Sox star.
One of the neat veteran stories in Spring Training this year with the Seattle Mariners was the attempted return of veteran LHP Drew Pomeranz, whose last appearance in the major leagues came in 2021, prior to the debut of Julio Rodríguez. The 36 year old southpaw has started and relieved in his career, but was attempting a pure bullpen pathway to playing time at this point. With the Triple-A Tacoma Rainiers, he’s had some success, striking out 14 against six walks in 9.2 innings across nine appearances, for a 4.66/3.41 ERA/FIP. However, per Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic, Seattle is trading Pomeranz to the Chicago Cubs, presumably for cash considerations or a player to be named later of minimal note.
The trade is occurring because of a common feature in non-roster invitee deals signed by veteran big leaguers, wherein they will ink minor league deals to allow clubs to assign them to play in Triple-A (typically). Within these deals are often opt-out dates, at which point the player can choose to elect free agency and sign elsewhere unless they’ve been added to the club’s big league roster by that point.
A similar variation on such a thing is the “upward mobility clause,” which has triggered for Pomeranz here. In this case, at the assigned date, clearly within the last day or so, the Mariners are required to ask all 29 other clubs if they would promote Pomeranz to the big leagues. Pomeranz must be offered by trade to any ballclub who answers in the affirmative, as the Cubs clearly have done, and thus the trade means that Pomeranz will be activated swiftly and return to the bigs. While it would have been neat to see Pomeranz pitch for the M’s, the success of Gabe Speier and the necessity more heavily on length in their call-ups over oomph makes Pomeranz’s opportunity in Chicago more plausible.