The Royals have officially signed free agent lefty Mike Minor to a two-year deal worth a reported $7.25MM. After promising Minor $2MM for 2016 and $4MM for the following campaign, the contract includes a mutual option for 2018 that’s valued at $10MM with a $1.25MM mutual buyout.
The deal also includes extensive performance incentives, MLBTR has learned. Minor can earn $175K roster bonuses upon reaching 30, 60, 90, and 120 days of service for the coming season. He can also pick up $165K apiece upon hitting his 11th through 20th starts, and another $165K for every five innings tallied between 75 and 120. (Each of those provisions, in other words, could earn Minor up to $1.65MM.)
Minor can also reach incentives for 2017, though they’ll require him to be more active. He stands to earn $225K upon reaching his 12th start, with another $225K due for every other start thereafter (capping out with his 30th). And he gets $225K for every ten innings accrued between 110 and 200. As above, then, Minor can hit each of those paydays ten times apiece.
Add it all up, and Minor can take down up to $4MM for the coming season — $700K via service-time bonuses and $3.3MM based on starts and innings. And he can boost his 2017 salary by as much as $4.5MM, if he turns in at least thirty starts and 200 frames. The deal also includes award bonuses.
Notably, Minor will follow another injury-limited former Braves pitcher in seeking a rebound in Kansas City. Kris Medlen signed a similar contract before the 2015 campaign, successfully making his way back to the mound with the Royals. (The club did something similar with Luke Hochevar, as well.)
Like Medlen, Minor was non-tendered after arm troubles disrupted an extremely promising start in Atlanta. He was projected to earn $5.6MM in arbitration from the Braves, and seemed likely at one point to receive it. But reported setbacks in his recovery from shoulder surgery caused the team to change course, leaving Minor a free agent.
Kansas City will hope that Minor can follow players like Medlen, Hochevar, and Ryan Madson in reviving their careers and providing excess value in the process. The most recent results from the lefty weren’t promising, as he struggled to a 4.77 ERA in 145 1/3 innings back in 2014 before missing all of last season.
But the strong ceiling is evident. Originally taken with the seventh overall pick, Minor ran up 466 2/3 innings of 3.72 ERA pitching over 2011-13. Though he’s never had much velocity, Minor has managed to carry solid strikeout and walk rates when his shoulder has cooperated.
Jeffrey Flanagan of MLB.com tweeted the contract terms, with MLBTR’s Tim Dierkes clarifying the total guarantee on Twitter.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.
As a Braves fan, hope he can return to form.
Great move Royals. low risk, high reward signing. Was hoping my Cubbies would have took a chance on him.
henning. from chicago ??
from Elgin, but I live in tennesee now
went to school with twins henning in the 60s. just curious.
First medlen, now minor? Reclamation project via the braves just keep finding their way into royal uniforms
Medlen wasn’t a successful reclamation project, though at 58 innings/8 starts and a
4.01 ERA, it wasn’t really harmful either. I suppose you could argue the jury is still out on him and now they have another discarded Braves injured rotation piece.
Yes – too early to make that statement. The Royals made the signing knowing his best chance at contributing was 2016.
We will see how long the luck holds out for the Royals in these risky signings.
Like Medlen, Minor was non-tendered after a̶r̶m̶ penis troubles disrupted an extremely promising start in Atlanta.
The royals are grasping at straws here, but I guess they need rotation help where ever they can get it lol
They now have 8 starters (Volquez, Kennedy, Ventura, Vargas, Duffy, Minor, Young, Medlen) capable of providing 1.0+ WAR. I guess nobody knows what Vargas is going to provide coming off surgery but that’s still a lot of depth.
And that list of 8 doesn’t include Dillion Gee. While he certainly isn’t going to throw 200 innings of 3.00 ERA – it’s an under the radar move that adds good organizational depth.
Met fan here , that knows Gee well. While he is far from a “sexy” signing , he will certainly contribute to a team with a good defense behind him . He should have a leg up on a few of these guys as he’s healthy and won’t have any innings limits or restrictions . He’s very capable of providing quality starts each time out and could be a very good piece on virtually any club on the back of their rotation.
The problem with Gee is that he isn’t going to give you quality out of the bullpen. I don’t know if he was frustrated with the way the Mets handled it so he wasn’t motivated to pitch as a reliever or if his stuff just isn’t good out of the pen
But as a fan I wish him much success with the Royals. Would not surprise me if he won 15+ plus games or even made an All Star team . More than likely he will provide the Royals with 20 or so quality starts with an ERA somewhere around 4 and be a pretty good innings eater. That or AL hitting ends his career. That’s baseball. All the Best to Dillion and his family
Nope Jay’s fan, our rotation may not be the best but we don’t have someone leaning over the wall catching home runs for us either
your an idiot! wasn’t grasping for straws when we signed Chris young last year. you obviously have no baseball iq
This is one of the better minor deals so far this winter :)
I get it
Stop stealing our good injured pitchers, kc.
I’m gonna be both angry and happy if medlen returns to form this year.
As a Braves fan, having watched Minot pitch a lot, I can tell you that he had pretty good velocity for a lefty starter before he was hurt. Pitchf/x shows his range at 87-94, which is about what I recall. His problems tended to happen when he was throwing really hard and racking up K’s, only to run out of pitch count in the fifth inning.
Anyway, good luck to him in his recovery.
Bob
Minor, obviously. Sorry for the typo; can’t seem to get into it to edit