8:28am: Devenski’s contract is a minor league deal, tweets Nick Piecoro of the Arizona Republic. The right-hander would earn a $1MM salary in the Majors with the opportunity to pick up an additional $350K via incentives for appearances and games finished.
7:34am: The Diamondbacks have agreed to a deal with right-handed reliever Chris Devenski, tweets Mark Feinsand of MLB.com. The ALIGND Sports client underwent arthroscopic elbow surgery in September and elected free agency after clearing waivers in October.
Devenski, 30, has spent his entire Major League career to date with the Astros organization. Originally a 25th-round pick of the White Sox back in 2011, he found himself traded to Houston just 14 months after the draft, as part of the deal sending Brett Myers to Chicago.
It wasn’t that long ago that Devenski looked to be an emerging bullpen weapon for the ’Stros. “Devo” finished fourth in American League Rookie of the Year voting back in 2016 after racking up 108 1/3 innings of 2.16 ERA ball with a 3.23 SIERA, a 25.5 percent strikeout rate and a minuscule 4.9 percent walk rate. He was similarly effective in 2017, tossing 80 2/3 frames with a 2.68 ERA/2.99 SIERA and what still stands as a career-best 31.6 percent strikeout mark.
Devenski took a step back in 2018-20, however. Although his strikeout and walk numbers remained generally solid, he began giving up hard contact at increasing rates and became exceptionally homer-prone, averaging 1.73 long balls surrendered per nine frames in that time. Statcast measured his 2016-17 hard-hit rate at just 26.7 percent, but his 2018-19 mark jumped all the way to 35.2 percent.
Prior to this past September’s elbow surgery, Devenski threw just 3 2/3 innings, having spent the rest of the year on the injured list. In that small sample of work, his once-94.8 mph average fastball had dipped to 92.9 mph.
There’s plenty of upside for the D-backs in signing Devenski, who’ll add an experienced arm to a largely untested group of Arizona relievers. In terms of service time, right-hander Yoan Lopez (2.011) is the most experienced reliever on the Diamondbacks’ 40-man roster. Arizona also added veteran southpaw Ryan Buchter on a minor league contract just yesterday, and it stands to reason that GM Mike Hazen and his staff will continue to hunt for affordable bullpen help in the weeks ahead.
Very talented, nasty changeup but the Astros couldn’t help him get back on track.
Hopefully he gets back on track. He can be nasty at times
Good little pickup by the Dbacks and the right team for this type of move.
I find it interesting that his HR/9 went up after allegations of the baseball being doctored started happening.
Watched Devo the whole time. He only had the fastball and the change-up. Once hitters figured out it was one or the other, they’d foul off the fastball and sit on the change, which he’d leave over the plate. He never developed a passable 3rd pitch. When he was on, though…
I once had an argument in an AL fantasy draft back in 2017 over Chris Devenski. It was a rare show of emotion by me when I only had $4 left and the other guy (who bought his name up) went to $5. It was rare for me to admit that I was wrong. I hope the D’Backs can get him back on track. His stuff was nasty during his first 2 seasons (2016-2017) when he had an 0.93 WHIP and a 204/46 K/BB in 189 IP. If the price is right this could be a sneaky good signing.
I remember the old days, in certain leagues, I could construct an ace SP by cobbling together three really good & really cheap RPs. He was one of those guys.
Surprised he signed for such a low salary.
Nice low-cost pickup.
Has a HR issue but he also knows how to strike out really well. Get his finger issue settled and he’ll be a solid SU man for Arizona
Yes again another good pitcher that has escaped from the Orioles ugh