A’s roster moves: Butler and Nevin up, Brown outrighted, Davis DFA’d

A flurry of moves before the Royals series

The A’s announced a series of roster moves just hours before kicking off their home stand with the Kansas City Royals:

A few of these moves have been a long time coming. The move to outright Seth Brown off the roster probably should have happened a long time ago. In 195 trips to the plate the lefty swinging is hitting just .189/.251/.306 with five home runs. Brown has had a tough couple of years and this has been easily his worst. Since he was outrighted the entire league had a chance to claim Brown and his salary but instead he’ll report to Triple-A. It’s a big fall from grace for Brown, who looked like a budding slugger not too long ago.

Also leaving the A’s is JD Davis, who was reported to be designated for assignment last night. That move comes as somewhat of a surprise but the club will go in a different direction, moving on from their Opening Day third baseman after just two months.

Taking their roster spots are Lawrence Butler and Tyler Nevin. Butler, one of the A’s brighter young players, started the year with the big league squad but struggled during his inconsistent playing time. Still, he was swinging the bat well and making nice contact, as underlying metrics suggested he was just getting a bit unlucky. He went down to Vegas for a bit and has been hitting well there for the Aviators. The hope is this time Butler will return to the A’s permanently and lay claim to a job.

Nevin will also return to the club for the second time this year. Nevin joined the Athletics organization at the end of March after being claimed off waivers from the Mets. He got off to a hot start with the club but eventually cooled off hard and lost most of his playing time to other players. He was designated for assignment and spent the past month-plus down in Vegas. He’s done solid for the Aviators in June, hitting .296 with four home runs in a small sample of 14 games. We’ll see if Nevin can find that hitter that he was in his first week with the team. Both he and Butler are in tonight’s starting lineup against the Royals.