Report: Feldman Activated; O'Day Optioned, Martin Perez To AAA

Per Jeff Wilson. Whoa. Additionally, left-hander Zach Phillips has been designated for assignment to clear space on the 40-man roster for Feldman.

Curiously, Yoshinori Tateyama gets the benefit of the doubt, as it's the other right-handed sidewinder who ends up being shipped back to Round Rock. I'll be curious to see how long O'Day remains down in AAA-ball.

The bigger development from a long-term perspective, however, is that Martin Perez is now also in Round Rock. The Professor wrote not even a week ago that Perez would "taste Triple-A at some point this season," but it turns out that some point is less than a week after his appearance in the Futures Game. Perez had logged a 3.16 ERA and 83 strikeouts against 36 walks and six home runs in 88.1 innings with Double-A Frisco this season, and just today had been ranked as the 10th-best prospect in all of baseball by ESPN.com's Keith Law, who wrote the following:

His stuff is intact and still slightly ahead of results, but lefties with this kind of velocity and plus changeup are extremely valuable. 

Richard Durrett suggests that the Perez promotion is part of the ripple effect of Feldman rejecting his outright assignment, which would seem to suggest that Perez is now somewhere down there in the pecking order of players who would be summoned to Arlington if the starting pitching depth suddenly become exceptionally thin. That said, this promotion was also very much motivated by performance, and I'll be surprised if the Rangers drop him back to Frisco if he shows that he can hold his own.

Jamey says that Perez will be the youngest player in the Pacific Coast League by a full year.