Marlins designate Junichi Tazawa for assignment

The Marlins have designated veteran reliever Junichi Tazawa for assignment, as SiriusXM’s Craig Mish tweeted first following Miami’s loss to the Dodgers on Thursday:

The 31-year-old Tazawa looked like a bad signing basically from the get-go when he joined the Marlins last winter. Despite the fact that he had posted ERAs above 4.00 in the two prior seasons before he signed with Miami, Tazawa earned a two-year, $12 million deal from the Marlins, presumably because of his durability and the fact that he’d previously had significant success with the Red Sox.

Tazawa continued to struggle after joining the Marlins, though, posting a 5.69 ERA and 1.39 WHIP over 55 appearances last year, then throwing for a disastrous 9.00 ERA and 2.05 WHIP over 22 outings this season, the latest of which came Thursday afternoon, when he allowed three runs on four hits (including a Yasiel Puig home run) and a walk over one inning.

Tazawa is just the latest high-priced veteran the Marlins have parted ways with since the new ownership group took over last fall, following Giancarlo Stanton, Marcell Ozuna, Dee Gordon, and Christian Yelich. Obviously, the chances of them actaully saving any money by dumping Tazawa are much lower than they were with the previously mentioned players, as there’s virtually no chance Miami will find a trade partner over the next seven days. Unless he’s dealt, Tazawa will be released and will have the opportunity to join another club for the pro-rated major-league minimum, with the Marlins paying the remainder of the money left on his contract. Since his deal was backloaded — it paid him $5 million last season and $7 million this year — Miami still owes him about $5.25 million.