The Athletics are set to designate right-hander Aaron Brooks for assignment, Martin Gallegos of MLB.com was first to indicate (Twitter link). His 25-man roster spot will go to closer Blake Treinen, who’s set to return from a short stay on the injured list.
Brooks has been a regular for the A’s pitching staff this season, having amassed 50 1/3 innings in 15 appearances (six starts). However, the results have been underwhelming. Brooks has only managed a 5.01 ERA/5.67 FIP, in part because he has surrendered home runs on 19.4 percent of fly balls. On the other hand, the 29-year-old has logged decent overall strikeout and walk rates (7.69 K/9, 2.5 BB/9) and racked up almost a K per inning as a reliever.
Brooks is in his second stint with the Athletics, who acquired him from the Brewers last September in a minor trade. He was previously a member of the A’s in 2015 when they landed him and Sean Manaea from the Royals in a deal for Ben Zobrist. Brooks didn’t pitch for the A’s that year, though, and wound up going to the Cubs in a February 2016 trade for Chris Coghlan.
In a combined 111 career innings for the A’s, Royals and Cubs, Brooks has notched a 6.65 ERA/5.39 FIP with 6.81 K/9 and 2.68 BB/9.
Hopefully Treinen doesn’t blow any more saves like the one he blew for Las Vegas. But to be fair, Brooks isn’t helping them either.
People are pissed they didn’t designate Brian Schlitter for assignment after only 2 appearances to keep Brooks. Brooks has had ample opportunities to prove he’s at least passable as a long reliever. He is not. A team will pick him up and learn the same thing or he’ll be outrighted to Triple A to figure it out. Or not. That’s really up to him.
Treinen can still figure it out, and he likely won’t be used in stressful situations now that Hendriks has cemented himself as the de facto closer.
And to the surprise of absolutely no one, relievers are volatile
To be fair, any “bad” pitching that happens in that corny all-offense league where entire teams OPS are .900 needs to be taken with an extreme grain of salt, as do all the supposed big offensive numbers generated there.
MLB needs to step in here, the PCL is making it impossible to tell if hitters are good enough for MLB or just taking advantage, and its making all pitchers look bad when they probably aren’t.
I do think the humidor has done it’s job of making up for how the ball travels at elevation, but it doesn’t solve the problem of how elevation affects the spin of the ball. Even with ball that has been in a humidor all day, the ball doesn’t break the same way at elevation as it does close to sea level.
That’s why front offices don’t give a crap about pitching numbers in the Cactus League unless a pitcher is absolutely dominating. You get fewer degrees of break, and that affects sinker ball pitchers very heavily.
Brooks to the M’s. Make sense and can’t do worse with what they have now.
Brooks did pitch for the A’s in 2015. Had a great first start or two and went downhill from there.
Watch Brooks head to Dodgertown..