Jon Niese

The Yankees are bringing back left-hander Jon Niese on a minor league contract, reports George A. King III of the New York Post (Twitter link). New York released Niese on Sunday, but the expectation was that he’d quickly rejoin the organization if he couldn’t land a major league deal elsewhere.

Niese’s new pact comes with the same salary figures as the minor league accord he signed with the Yankees in February, as he’ll earn a $1.25MM base salary and could make $750K in incentives if he cracks the majors, per Chris Cotillo of SB Nation. The agreement also comes with a May 15 opt-out (Twitter links).

The 30-year-old Niese had been working to earn a bullpen role with the Yankees prior to Sunday, and it stands to reason he’ll resume those efforts. In order to get back to the majors, though, it’s likely Niese will have to regain his fastball velocity, which was only in the mid-80s range before the Yankees cut him. Niese typically sat in the high-80s with the Mets and Pirates from 2008-16.

A full-time job as a reliever would be uncharted territory for Niese, who has worked almost exclusively as a starter to this point. Of Niese’s 211 career appearances, 197 have come from the rotation. Niese has largely served as a competent starter, having logged a 4.07 ERA, 6.92 K/9, 2.78 BB/9 and a 50.1 percent ground-ball rate in nearly 1,200 innings. However, he picked up a personal-high nine relief outings (out of 29 appearances) between New York and Pittsburgh last year amid the worst season of his career. After recording a 5.50 ERA and a 22.1 percent home run-to-fly ball ratio across 121 frames in 2016, Niese was unable to take advantage of a weak class of free agent pitchers and land a guaranteed contract over the winter.

12:37pm: Niese will take 24 to 48 hours to see if any other teams are interested in his services, per Sherman, but he’s “leaning toward” re-upping with the Yankees. Niese would then begin the year in extended spring training, where he’d work to increase the mid-80s fastball velocity he has flashed this spring (Twitter links).

10:42am: The Yankees have released left-hander Jon Niese, per a team announcement.

Niese worked almost exclusively from the rotation with the Mets and Pirates from 2008-16, an 1,189-inning span in which he logged 197 starts in 211 appearances and posted a 4.07 ERA, 6.92 K/9, 2.78 BB/9 and a 50.1 percent ground-ball rate. However, he totaled a career-high nine relief appearances between New York and Pittsburgh last year, when he endured the worst season of his career, and then had to settle for a minor league pact with the Yankees in February. That came toward the end of a quiet offseason for the soft-tossing Niese, who paired a bloated ERA (5.50) with a sky-high home run-to-fly ball ratio (22.1 percent) in 121 innings in 2016.

Although the Bombers are lacking experience in the rotation after Masahiro Tanaka, CC Sabathia and Michael Pineda, they didn’t consider Niese for a starting role. Instead, they gave him an opportunity to make their roster as a reliever, which he wasn’t able to accomplish. The Yankeees are open to keeping Niese in their system, tweets the New York Post’s Joel Sherman, who adds that there’s a “strong possibility” that he’ll head to their minor league camp to build up his arm strength.

7:55pm: Niese can earn a $1.25MM base salary if he cracks the roster, per Ken Davidoff of the New York Post (Twitter links). The deal also includes $750K in potential incentives, with separate packages that would allow him to earn to that amount whether he’s functioning as a starter or reliever. Manager Joe Girardi says that Niese will enter camp battling for a pen role, MLB.com’s Bryan Hoch notes on Twitter.

5:26pm: The Yankees are poised to sign left-hander Jon Niese to a minor league contract, Joel Sherman of the New York Post reports (Twitter link).  The deal will become official when Niese passes a physical.  Niese is represented by O’Connell Sports Management.

A fixture in the Mets rotation from 2010-15, Niese is coming off a rough, injury-plagued 2016 campaign.  The Mets dealt Niese to the Pirates in a swap for Neil Walker last winter and the southpaw didn’t see much success in the black-and-gold, posting a 4.91 ERA, 6.5 K/9 and 1.87 K/BB rate over 110 innings as a Pirate.  Niese was then dealt back to the Mets in August in exchange for Antonio Bastardo and pitched only 11 innings in his second stint with the Amazins before undergoing season-ending arthroscopic surgery on a torn left meniscus.  The Mets declined Niese’s $10MM option for 2017, instead paying him a $500K buyout.

[Updated Yankees roster at Roster Resource]

Thirteen teams attended a workout Niese held earlier this month to demonstrate his health in the wake of his knee injury, and the Marlins also expressed some interest in Niese earlier this winter.  Given his track record as a fairly steady and durable starter (3.86 ERA and 171 innings per year from 2010-15), it isn’t surprising that Niese drew a lot of looks as a potential bounce-back candidate.

Sherman reports that the Yankees see Niese as a candidate to both start or come out of the bullpen, and the 30-year-old could fill a need for New York in either department.  Luis Severino, Chad Green, Luis Cessa, Bryan Mitchell and Adam Warren will be in competition for the fourth and fifth spots in the Yankees’ rotation this season, and Niese adds a more experienced element to that battle.

If used as a reliever, Niese would join Tommy Layne as the top left-handed options out of the pen, with closer Aroldis Chapman obviously being saved for end-game scenarios.  The Yankees were linked to such notable lefty relievers as Boone Logan and Jerry Blevins earlier this offseason, though Niese comes at a lower price tag — both Logan and Blevins will earn $6.5MM in guaranteed money in 2017, with the potential for more if the Indians and Mets respectively exercise club options on each southpaw.

While Niese has never been much of a strikeout pitcher over his career, he does own an impressive 50.1% ground ball rate, which would serve him well pitching at Yankee Stadium.  Of course, Niese’s problems in 2016 were largely caused by the long ball, as he saw his home run rate spike to a whopping 22.1% last season.  While such a giant increase could’ve been an aberration, Niese’s home run rates have been on the rise in each of the last four seasons.