Twins Sign Cory Gearrin, Lane Adams

The Twins have signed right-hander Cory Gearrin and outfielder Lane Adams to minor league contracts, per an announcement from Triple-A Rochester director of communications Nate Rowan.

Gearrin has been invited to Major League camp in Spring Training. He could earn a $1MM salary in the majors, Bob Nightengale of USA Today tweets. It seems as though Adams will head directly to minor league camp.

Gearrin, 33, split the 2019 season between the Mariners and Yankees, pitching to a combined 4.07 ERA with 7.6 K/9, 4.1 BB/9, 0.81 HR/9 and a 44.8 percent ground-ball rate. That’s generally in line with the year-to-year results he’s posted across the past four seasons, although Gearrin’s 2017 campaign with the Giants is a notable outlier; that year saw him rack up 68 innings of 1.99 ERA ball — albeit with less encouraging secondary stats (8.5 K/9, 4.6 BB/9, 88 percent strand rate, 3.89 FIP, 4.65 xFIP).

Generally speaking, though, Gearrin has been a durable and serviceable middle relief option. He’s jumped from the Giants to the Rangers, A’s, Mariners and Yankees in that time but posted a cumulative 3.42 ERA (3.96 FIP) with 209 punchouts against 95 walks in 229 innings of work. He doesn’t throw hard, averaging about 92 mph on his sinker, but he’s typically done a good job keeping the ball in the yard since returning from 2014 Tommy John surgery.

As for Adams, the 30-year-old has appeared in parts of three MLB seasons (2016-18) and tallied a combined .263/.333/.467 slash in 154 plate appearances. However, Adams has struck out in 31 percent of his MLB plate appearances and 30 percent of his trips to the plate in Triple-A, where he carries a much more tepid .233/.306/.390 slash through 234 games. Still, Adams can handle any of the three outfield positions and offers some power and speed as a depth option in the upper minors.