The Rays designated righty Ernesto Frieri for assignment after last night’s ballgame, Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times was among those to report on Twitter.
Frier, 29, signed a one-year, $800K deal to join the Rays this winter. He could have picked up a $50K bonus had he reached thirty appearances, with other escalators also available, but he’ll have to be content with earning his base guarantee at this point.
Frier worked to a 4.63 ERA over 23 1/3 innings for Tampa Bay, striking out 7.3 and walking 4.2 batters per nine. That K rate is a far cry from the double-digit numbers he ran up during his run as the Angels closer, and ERA estimators suggest he may be lucky that the results have not been worse.
There could be room for improvement if a team can figure out the cause for Frieri’s significant loss of fastball velocity. After averaging about 94 mph over recent years, Frier’s heater has dipped into the 91-92 mph range in 2015.
if the pirates couldnt fix him, i doubt too many other teams could
Greatest name in baseball
Arquimedes Euclides Caminero begs to differ
So does Rock Shoulders.
I was gonna say Adonis Garcia but I think Rock Shoulders wins.
I would consider Ernesto Frieri
In other words, he needs to learn how to “pitch”. A lot of pitchers who rely on their mid 90’s fastball to blow hitters away start to lose velocity as they approach 30. They have to learn new pitches to get hitters out with. Frieri hasn’t done that. So, effectively his career is over as a major league pitcher unless he can re-tool his arsenal.