Phillies release Ronny Cedeno

This whole meaningful baseball thing is getting kinda real, guys.

The Phillies have released infielder Ronny Cedeno. Cedeno was a non-roster invitee to Phillies camp this spring, and showed everyone why: he went 4-for-22 with two walks, good for a .182 average. Non-roster invitee fever -- catch it!

Up until his release, Cedeno had been a candidate to fill the bench spot recently vacated by the ailing Freddy Galvis.(Get better, Freddy!) But if you combine his spring performance with this, from Marc Narducci's article on Philly.com:

If the Phillies didn't add Cedeno to the roster by Tuesday, they had to offer him a $100,000 bonus to send him to Triple A.

You can see why the Phillies elected to release him into the wild.

There are now just two candidates for that bench spot: young Cesar Hernandez, and less young Reid Brignac. I was struggling to find something to say until our own David S. Cohen posed this question to your blog lords this morning: was Reid Brignac's stint with the Yankees last year worse than Michael Martinez's stint with the Phillies? The fact that he even asked that question means that it's possible.

In 2013, Michael Martinez went 7-for-40 with 12 strikeouts and no walks, good for a round .175/.175/.175 triple slash. Reid Brignac went 5-for-44 with the Yankees, with one walk and 17 strikeouts, which earned him a .114/.133/.136 triple slash. Wow. Sometimes you just run out of words. Brignac also spent some time in Colorado last year, and had a total 2013 line of .185/.219/.261 in 98 PAs.

It's important to remember that like Satan, Michael Martinez can appear to us in many forms. And all of them are not very good at baseball.