The Rays have signed right-handed reliever David Carpenter to a minor league deal, the club told reporters, including Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times (Twitter link). Roger Mooney of the Tampa Tribune tweets that Carpenter, who split last season between the Yankees and Nationals, will be in big league camp.
Carpenter, 30, was a huge part of the Braves’ bullpen in 2013 and 2014, pitching to a combined 2.63 ERA with 10.0 K/9, 2.6 BB/9 and a 37.9 percent ground-ball rate in 126 2/3 innings of work. That impressive performance was enough to pique the Yankees’ interest, prompting the club to part with left-hander Manny Banuelos to acquire Carpenter and left-hander Chasen Shreve on a New Year’s Day swap in 2015. Carpenter is no stranger to trades, having been sent from the Cardinals to the Astros in exchange for Pedro Feliz before joining the Blue Jays in the 10-player J.A. Happ/Francisco Cordero trade in July 2012. Toronto traded him to the Red Sox along with manager John Farrell in exchange for Mike Aviles a few months later, and he eventually made his way to the Braves via waiver claim, where he finally broke out as a quality reliever.
Inflammation in his right shoulder cost Carpenter a huge chunk of the 2015 season, however, limiting him to 24 2/3 innings and perhaps contributing to a lackluster 4.01 ERA when he was healthy enough to take the mound. Carpenter’s K/9 rate dipped to 5.5, though he didn’t see a marked decline in his fastball velocity (still averaging 95 mph) or his swinging-strike rate. The Rays will hope to land the 2013-14 version of Carpenter, though it’s worth noting that he’s already been released by the Braves this spring (albeit after throwing just one scoreless inning). If Carpenter is able to re-establish himself with the Rays, the club will be able to control him through at least the 2017 season, as he’s accrued only four years, 16 days of Major League service time and would thus be arbitration eligible following the season.
Wow, talk about desperation, the awful Rays BP just stayed at the exact same level of ineptitude with this signing.
first of all its a minor league signing, second I wouldn’t be talking your red soxs are a joke and will finish at the bottom of the division again
A Red Sox fan saying anything about anyone else’s pitching? ROFLMAO.
Price will throw 200 innings this year and 50 of those will be bad. Kimbrel and Carson together another 120 or so.
Who pitches the other 1150+ innings for the Sox? Buchholz (snicker), Joe Kelly (giggle). Tazawa (laugh). Uehara if he wakes up from his nap (guffaw) Barnes (belly laugh) and on and on. Better hope NOBODY has a slump all year long and that Fat Doper can still get around on a ML fastball. Otherwise, the O’s might have someone to keep them out of last place.
Hopefully for you this signing can put you in fourth place, just above the Red Sox
Huh?
minor league signing….enjoy your 1 man roation
Not feeling any sox love today.
Sox fans are, in general, ignorant troll morons. Hard to love ignorant troll morons.
David Carpenter must be a real pain for baseball writers. There’s two of them, they’re both getting signed and released all the time, and they’ve both been in the Braves org most recently. For that matter, it looks like the Braves released one David Carpenter in November just to sign this one a few days later, and then released him too.
Plus, a few years ago we had Chris Carpenter and Cris Carpenter both actively pitching in the big leagues, didn’t we? Seriously, enough with the Carpenters!
There was another Chris Carpenter that played in the 80’s-90’s for the Cardinals. The ironic thing about the Chris Carpenter’s is that one was born in 1965, another in 1975, and the other in 1985.