The Pirates have agreed to a minor league deal with lefty reliever Eric O’Flaherty, Tim Brown of Yahoo Sports tweets. He’ll receive an invitation to MLB camp.
It has become cliche at this point, but the Bucs do have a record of helping to turn around once-productive pitchers. And O’Flaherty certainly fits the general mold of past refurbishment projects.
The 31-year-old was at one time rather dominant for the Braves, running up a 1.99 ERA over nearly 250 frames from 2009 through 2013. He averaged a pedestrian 7.2 K/9 in that span, but limited the free pass (2.5 BB/9), got a ton of easy outs (58.3% groundball rate), and was plenty useful even against right-handed hitters.
Things weren’t so rosy last year, his first full campaign back from Tommy John surgery. He ended with an abysmal 8.10 ERA, which only got worse after a mid-season trade from the Athletics to the Mets. And the peripherals weren’t great either, as O’Flaherty ended with 6.3 K/9 against 5.4 BB/9. He was able to generate grounders right at his career rate, and there are indications he suffered some bad luck (.388 BABIP, 57.6% strand rate), but clearly he has some work to do to get back on track in the coming spring.
I remember how nasty the Venters/O’Flaherty/Kimbrel back end was in Atlanta when the former two could stay healthy. Probably would give the recent Royals bullpen at their best a run for their money, if not even better.
Man the pitching in total that Atlanta had at that time was amazing. Injuries to all those young arms derailed the potential of Atlanta. Would bet had Minor, Beachy, Venters, and others been healthy, they would not be in the rebuild they are now.
Not the lefty I was hoping for but zero risk that I’m sure includes an opt out if he doesn’t make the roster out of ST
And the Twins couldn’t give this guy a minor league shot when they are in desperate need of left handed relief? This kind of bums me out. Hope he makes the team in Pittsburgh.
They may have, but he might’ve preferred Pittsburgh. Their track record with reclamation projects makes them very attractive to players looking to rebuild their value.
Absolutely. I highly doubt the Pirates were the only team to offer him a minor league deal.
He can’t accept everyones offer.
Definitely not tanking. look how much better our roster is this year from last. Our line up, our bullpen. If we were tanking we wouldn’t had been interested in acquiring Inciarte, or Aybar or Krol. We wouldn’t had signed the relievers we’ve signed. We could’ve gotten no body in last years draft, no one in this years draft and still be contenders year in year out for year after 2016. Tanking is what teams do for draft choices. And right now I’d be completely fine with my team if we had no picks in the draft with how this teams future looks. You might RIP braves right now but after this year you’ll be hopping right back on the bandwagon
That’s a bit rough. His time in SEA were his rookie year onwards – and two of those three years were a total of 17 innings.
He pitched a total of 41.1 innings in OAK across two seasons – one of those seasons he had a 2,25 ERA.
It’s not really his fault he was so good in the NL – that doesn’t dictate an inability to pitch in the AL. In fact, his small sample size in OAK in 2014, he had better raw numbers (H/9, BB9, K-BB ratio) than his lights out 2011.
Just because no one has done so yet, and it seemingly can’t be a proper MLBTR post about a minor-league signing without one…
*insert rant about “this is the best they could do for a lefty reliever, what a lousy offseason” here*
I kid, of course… great value signings of both O’Flaherty and Luebke. This is especially true because, although it would be great if both pan out, and nice if even one of them makes the team and contributes, the Bucs still have a pretty solid bullpen if both of them flop.