Tigers' Omir Santos Refuses Assignment, Now a Free Agent

Detroit Tigers catcher Omir Santos refused his assignment to Triple-A and will become a free agent, reports Rod Beard of the Detroit News. .

The 31-year-old Puerto Rican was designated for assignment to the Toledo Mud Hens on Wednesday to make room on the Tigers roster for Bryan Holaday, who has taken over as starting catcher with Alex Avila on the DL and Gerald Laird listed as day-to-day.

Santos has played parts of four big league seasons for three different teams, his largest cup of coffee coming in 2009 when he started 96 games at catcher for the New York Mets and hit .260/.296/.391. In the Tigers system since late 2010, Santos spent a majority of his time with the Triple-A affiliate, where he was hitting .310/.315/.417 through 23 games this year. In 14 games with the Tigers over the past two seasons, Santos hit just .200/.194/.200.

While Santos is not by any means an offensive juggernaut, it should be noted that his career OPS+ is 20 points higher than Jeff Mathis'.