A’s Designate Daniel Coulombe, Release A.J. Griffin

The Athletics have designated left-hander Daniel Coulombe for assignment and released right-hander A.J. Griffin, Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle tweets. Coulombe’s DFA clears space on the 40-man roster for today’s acquisition of Jed Lowrie, whereas Griffin’s release serves as resolution to his own DFA from last week.

Coulombe, 26, split the 2015 campaign between the Dodgers and A’s, logging 16 total innings with a 5.63 ERA and an 11-to-9 K/BB ratio. He showed a greater penchant for strikeouts at the Triple-A level, whiffing 41 hitters in 41 1/3 innings, but his control problems existed in Triple-A as well, as evidenced by his average of 5.2 walks per nine innings there in 2015.

Griffin’s name is a more familiar one for fans from Oakland and around the league in general. The now 28-year-old spent a season and a half in the Athletics’ rotation from 2012-13, recording a 3.60 ERA with 7.5 K.9 against 2.3 BB/9 in 282 1/3 innings. Though Griffin surrendered an alarming 36 homers in 2013, he threw exactly 200 innings of 3.83 ERA ball and looked to be settling into Oakland’s future as a back-of-the-rotation starter. However, Griffin underwent Tommy John surgery in Spring Training 2014 and returned for just 14 1/3 minor league innings this season before going down to a shoulder injury.

If he can demonstrate his health, Griffin represents a somewhat intriguing buy-low candidate — particularly for a team with a large home park, which would help to offset some of the right-hander’s extreme fly-ball tendencies.