The Blue Jays have claimed lefty Brad Mills off waivers from the Athletics, reports Ken Rosenthal of FOX Sports (via Twitter). Mills was designated for assignment on July 7 to make room for trade acquisition Jason Hammel.
In his first MLB action since 2012, Mills allowed eight earned runs in 16 1/3 frames while striking out 14 batters and issuing seven free passes. Before his acquisition by Oakland, Mills had impressed at Triple-A for the Brewers, compiling 75 innings of 1.56 ERA ball with 9.2 K/9 against 2.2 BB/9.
Toronto does not have rotation space for the out-of-options Mills unless it sends one of its younger arms (Drew Hutchison or Marcus Stroman) to the pen or the minors or pushes out J.A. Happ (another lefty). The Jays could presumably utilize Mills in a relief role, though the club has enjoyed reasonably effective performances from fellow southpaws Aaron Loup (3.20 ERA) and Brett Cecil (3.68 ERA), the latter of whom is also out of options.
Here is your stat, although more research would be needed to truly confirm that Happ is an effective K pitcher vs. lefties, and certainly against tough lefties we’d have to go batter by batter.
The MLB leader in Ks, David Price, has struck out about 27% of the batters he’s faced. Happ has struck out about 25% of the lefties he’s faced this year. So it seems like he’s a pretty good strikeout guy vs lefties in general. Anecdotally on the “tough hitter” question, he’s struck out Aaron Gordon 25% of the time (1/4), Hosmer 50% (2/4), Josh Hamilton 33% (1/3), David Ortiz 33% (1/3), Votto 33% (1/3), Loney 100% (1/1). So he’s got a decent number of Ks against these guys, who are all varying degrees of tough hitter. The sample size is ridiculously small, though.
Thanks for the civil and informative reply. We could use more of that here.
The sample sizes are brutally small, but if you lump them all together, it’s not so bad. Still, with a bullpen lefty, you have to be seriously tough – like Loup was last year, and isn’t so much this year.
Just not sure about him in the ‘pen, even more so with him being rampantly against it to start.
Early in Happ’s career, there was talk about moving him to closer. In retrospect, that might have been his best career arc…
I did not think there was anyone left on waivers, Jays had already claim them all
this is a good pickup for the jays, a lhp with experience;
but
i wonder if cecil is being offered up in exchange for a decent
infielder who can and does play the outfield, a switch hitter, a player
excruciatingly needed by the jays, even when the top guns do return?