Rockies right-hander John Curtiss went unclaimed on waivers and was assigned outright to Triple-A Albuquerque, per the team’s MLB.com transaction log. He has the right to reject that assignment in favor of free agency. If he accepts, he’ll stick with the Rox organization in Triple-A but no longer occupy a spot on the 40-man roster.
Curtiss signed a minor league deal with Colorado over the winter, was selected to the big league roster in May, and rejected an outright assignment after being designated for assignment. He’s since returned on an additional pair of minor league deals — opting out once along the way — and was selected back to the big league roster in late July. He’s pitched 2 1/3 MLB innings this year and been tagged for four runs. His Triple-A work has been vastly better. In an extremely hitter-friendly setting, he’s posted 38 innings of 4.03 ERA ball with a sub-par 18.5% strikeout rate against a strong 7.4% walk rate.
The Rockies are the seventh big league team for which the journeyman Curtiss has pitched. He’s amassed 108 2/3 innings in the majors and sports a lifetime 4.06 ERA with a roughly average 22.7% strikeout rate and sharp 7% walk rate. He was at his best in 2020-21 when he pitched 69 1/3 frames with a 2.86 earned run average, 24.1% strikeout rate and 5.2% walk rate between the Rays, Marlins and (much more briefly) Brewers. Milwaukee acquired Curtiss from Miami at the 2021 trade deadline, but he pitched just 4 1/3 innings before requiring Tommy John surgery.