5:47pm: Balfour confirms that he has indeed inked a new deal with the Rays, Topkin tweets.
5:41pm: The Rays may be in the process of re-signing struggling righty Grant Balfour to a minor league deal, Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times reports on Twitter. Tampa Bay released Balfour on Tuesday and remains on the hook for his $7MM salary this year.
Balfour, 37, inked a two-year, $12MM deal to join the Rays before the 2014 season, and to say he has been a disappointment would be an understatement. Over 66 2/3 total innings in his second stint with the club, he has posted a 5.00 ERA with 7.7 K/9 against a troubling 6.1 BB/9.
Things got even worse this year, as Balfour failed to notch a strikeout while permitting four free passes in his first 4 1/3 innings of the season. His fastball was down about two full ticks as against last year, and he had already lost velocity from his prior years’ work.
Over a dozen years in the league, Balfour has worked to a 3.49 ERA while averaging 9.5 K/9 and 4.2 BB/9. Tampa’s plan to bring him back to (or, at least, near) that level of productivity would be to send him to Triple-A for a few weeks, says Topkin, in an effort to get him back on track.
This is one of the weirdest things to happen in MLB in a bit.
Besides the whole empty stadium in Baltimore thing.
That had to be a bit of an awkward phone call.
Maybe they just wanted his roster spot. So are they paying him the pro rated sum if he gets called up? Obviously there is no money to be saved! 7 million to pitch in the minors.
Welcome back, Grant….again.
Not bad. You’re already paying the guy anyway. Might as well see if he can figure it out in the minors if not oh well.
Baffling, because once he cleared waivers, they could have sent him down, then. Since they released him, are they now liable for his entire contract, plus whatever they agreed to for playing in the minors? I doubt he would have walked away from the money if they had sent him down.