Rays, Evan Scribner Agree To Minor League Deal

The Rays and right-handed reliever Evan Scribner are in agreement on a minor league contract, reports USA Today’s Bob Nightengale (via Twitter). Scribner, a client of All Bases Covered Sports Management, will receive an $800K base salary if he makes the club. He’ll be in Major League camp as a non-roster invitee in Spring Training.

Scribner, 32, spent the past two seasons with the Mariners but was only healthy enough to toss 21 1/3 innings over the course of those two years due to lat and flexor strains in 2016 and 2017, respectively. Scribner bring so the Rays 169 innings of Major League experience, mostly with the A’s, for whom he pitched from 2012-15. In that time, he’s worked to a 4.15 ERA with 8.3 K/9, 1.5 BB/9 and a 37 percent ground-ball rate.

While Scribner won’t blow anyone away with a heater that has averaged just 90.1 mph in the Majors (89.3 mph last year in just seven innings), he has an uncanny level of precision on the mound. Over his past 93 big league innings dating back to 2014, Scribner has issued just six walks (one intentional) and hit four batters. Among pitchers with at least 90 innings thrown over the past four years, none come remotely close to Scribner’s 0.58 BB/9 mark. (Josh Tomlin is next at 1.04.) He also ranks first in the Majors with a 73.1 percent first-pitch strike rate in that time.

Scribner has four years, 127 days of Major League service time, meaning that if he makes the team and remains healthy, he’ll be controlled beyond the 2018 campaign by way of arbitration. He’d need 45 days in the bigs this year (active roster or disabled list) to reach five full years of service, at which point he’d be controllable through the 2019 season.