Mariners claim OF Phil Ervin off waivers from Reds

Wendell Cruz-USA TODAY Sports Why does Phil Ervin sound like a golf player to me? Such a golf name.You know what Jerry Dipoto loves? A former first-round pick. This time it’s 28-year-old outfielder Phil Ervin, claimed off waivers from the Reds. Ervin, a first-round pick back in 2013, is out of options, and the Reds are out of roster space, and the Mariners—as we expect to see them do over the next few months—made themselves the beneficiaries of that.

Ervin was batting a mere .086 when he was DFA’d, but he’d been a productive hitter in the minors throughout his Reds career and performed...average, if not particularly well, over about 500 PAs in the bigs scattered between 2018 and 2019. The…