Feb. 19: The A’s have officially announced the signing. Oakland opened a 40-man roster spot by placing right-hander Frankie Montas on the Covid-19 related injury list. A’s manager Bob Melvin revealed this week that Montas had tested positive for Covid-19 (link via Shayna Rubin of the San Jose Mercury News). He’s been dealing with symptoms and will be delayed in his arrival to Spring Training.
Feb. 14: The Athletics have re-signed right-hander Yusmeiro Petit to a one-year contract, The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal reports (Twitter link). The deal will be official once Petit passes a physical. MLBTR’s Steve Adams reports that Petit will earn $2.55MM in guaranteed money, with another $450K available in incentive bonuses. Petit is represented by Godoy Sports.
Petit returns for his fourth season with Oakland, a tenure that has been nothing but successful for both parties. Petit has a 2.73 ERA over 197 2/3 innings in an A’s uniform, and has been a workhorse out of the bullpen — 154 appearances in 2018-19 and then 26 appearances during the shortened 2020 season.
Petit is far from a Statcast darling and doesn’t record many strikeouts, as evidenced by his below-average K% over the last three years. However, Petit’s 4.14% walk rate over that same stretch is elite, and he doesn’t allow much hard contact. All in all, Petit has continually outperformed his peripherals; his 3.89 SIERA from 2018-20 is over a run higher than his actual ERA over his past three seasons.
Not that many free agent relievers drew a ton of attention this winter, but there wasn’t much in the way of public buzz about Petit, perhaps due to his advanced metrics and his age (36). The righty previously inked a two-year, $10MM deal with Oakland in November 2017 that ended up being a three-year, $14.5MM pact after the Athletics exercised their club option on Petit for the 2020 season.
Between Petit and new acquisitions Sergio Romo and Adam Kolarek, Oakland has suddenly added a lot of bullpen reinforcement over the last three days. Relief pitching was a major strength for the A’s in 2020 but it was a position that needed to be addressed since Liam Hendriks and Joakim Soria departed in free agency.
lol.
Lol? What does that mean? Petit was great earlier in his career and has been very solid late in his career. Wish the Giants had kept him. Why is that funny?
Glad he got a decent deal for the year!!
I lol when I look at the Cubs team this year compared to the Cards, Brewers and sadly even the Reds.
Yes, if I were a cubs fan I’d be keeping very, very quiet for a few years.
An embarrassment to cub fans
I have to ask the same question. What is so funny about this? Petit has been – I kid you not, probably the best FA signing the A’s have made in the past 2 decades. When he enters the game, you never feel any need to worry. Nine outta ten times you know that you’ll get at least three innings out of him and it’s highly unlikely he’ll allow a run to score. He’s a total workhorse as well as a leader who is very popular in the clubhouse..
Oh and there’s also the fact that Jesus Luzardo looks to Petit as his mentor mainly Petit wouldn’t have been my first or even second guess as someone Luzardo would choose to look up to but upon hearing it – my first thought was “perfect.” He’s been invaluable to the A’s and re-signing him, even going into his what? age 36 season? – was a VERY good move on their part. I was ecstatic. The guy has been straight up HELLA SOLID for three straight seasons!
If anything I would assume MORE teams would have wanted him – he’d be a fit for a number of teams – maybe they did, idk?. But I’m pretty sure he lives in the area, as noted he’s a popular guy on the team – why bother going elsewhere if you’re happy where you are and it’s later in your career?
Anyway, that wasn’t really my point. My point was …. just curious what was with the LOL??? I don’t find it funny & even agree with a Giants fan on this one (which is highly unusual for me – LOL! – that LOL actually works because it’s extremely rare that I find myself in that position – no offense to @giantsphan12 – just a true story!)
I don’t know how it took him this long to sign he’s such an underrated reliever
Money, he was probably asking for a lot more than that. It’s always about the money.
Yea, I find it hard to believe that the A’s were the only interested team.
He’s lived in the Bay Area for quite some time. This might have been the case of a player really wanting to stay where he is and waiting for the team to set its budget.
He was lights out with the Angels a few years ago and has continued that into Oakland. I’m not on the phone with these guys obviously, but he seems an obvious fit for many teams (including the Halos). That’s a nice contract for the As.
@halos. @dirk above – agree entirely. Difficult to forget his role in the 2014 post season. I don’t see the Giants winning it all without him.
One of my all time favourite A’s – turns up – incredibly durable – does his job – goes home. A managers dream…
The guy continues to perform. Good signing by the A’s.
Useful signing. Be curious to see the cost. We’re into the bargain-rate signing portion of the season.
Petit!!! So happy he is coming back to Oakland! Yusmeiro is a work horse and will continue anchoring a promising A’s relievers corp! Yay!
This signing made me smile, I’m not even and As fan. Just always like seeing him picked up. Dare I say the new colon?
Solid move to bring back Petit. Solid veteran arm.
Idk why but Petit just seems like a good guy
He’s thrown me and my kid multiple balls during batting practice, seems very friendly and well liked by teammates.
Dude’s real good. I thought the Yanks would money-whip him, but there’s not a lot of whipping going on in the Bronx these days.
I thought this was where the Phillies were going to make their moves this winter, building a solid pen with some low-cost signings.
He is.
But Yanks are in on Justin Wilson right now. They’ve a pretty tight 40 man roster so I think it comes down to one or the other.
& I think Wilson is the right call.
We have some pretty good options for that multi-inning role. Cessa (though much maligned) has been decent. Keeps getting better every year. Warren was brought back. He’s an option, too. Perhaps Loaisiga finally earns his Fangraphs love as the “next Josh Hader”.
Yanks can squeeze one more reliever in on a guaranteed deal & still get under $210 MM (with some breathing room). So anyone else will have to be on a MiLB deal.
I like Petit. But, for the Yanks pen I like O’Day & a lefty more.
Solid get, he keeps on ticking. You never know what year father time catches up, good gamble here thou.
Great signing! Welcome back Yusmeiro!
His back 9 has been impressive.
As a Giants fan, I miss having him in the pen, was always a solid arm. The guy holds the mlb record for most consecutive batters retired and was one out away from throwing a perfect game, arguably the most underrated reliever in all of baseball. A’s are lucky to retain him.
Loved him as a Giant. Wish we would have kept him.
Add a Romo, petit, and that dodgers lefty. Desperately needed experienced relievers. Now hope deikman deikman can handle closer role. The6 really need a healthy AJ Puk even if it’s just reliever innings
AJ Puk in a Chris Sale-style RP this season in his first full year, then moving to SP in 2022, seems the best route for him (which means the A’s definitely won’t do it).
OK, I bet you that they will do it this way. I’ll talk to you about it in about 14 months, hopefully.
Totally agree with you even if it hurts as a Phillies fan first an a religious fan of the A’s going back to ’00. Def don’t want to feel the sting of losing Hendriks too much but I kinda gave up on Diek in Philly years ago. Well he showed some stuff in Texas so I think it’s doable to get 32+ saves with <8 BS. Rambling post I know
Might be one of the only RPs out there who can still pitch half the games played and be good the whole time. Really underrated reliever.
He always makes me nervous out there, like his stuff looks so slow and hittable compared to others, yet he is somehow consistently effective.
Yusmeiro has been quietly one of the most underrated of bullpen arms the past several years. Great deal for the Athletics
A’s solidifying their bullpen over the last few days
Doesn’t this guy have the record for most consecutive outs by a reliever or something like that?
I remember his almost perfect game with the giants. And his dominance in the 2014 playoffs
A good reliever and a good dude nice decision for both parties
Angels should have resigned him and never let him go to Oakland. But that would have made too much sense.
This is no small feat.
Colome and Petit have been the best 2 values imo in the Rp market this year
I almost wonder if front offices are using “sophisticated advanced civilization metrics” against them at the bargaining table ; or maybe its just fear of the Big Bad SIERA Monster
Either way, there might be a tiny sliver of a market inefficiency here to exploit moving forward- Great ink
Oh well… I wanted my Mets to sign this guy
Definitely would have been a good addition, especially at $2M.
I think he was one of the guys that the Mets traded for Delgado years ago, along with Mike Jacobs, to the Marlins?
Yea he came up with the Mets and then was included in that trade.
Whenever a player’s statistics outperform the analytics, it makes me wonder what the analytics folks are missing. I wonder if they wonder what they’re missing. They clearly are missing something also when the player’s statistics underperform the analytics. It makes me wonder. Maybe the analytics need a little more work. I know that you can collectively estimate better than individually estimate performance but there should be some recognition of players who consistently miss the analytics on the high side or the low side.
i don’t think they have any way to measure deception or how the hitter sees the ball. that and pitchability seem like the two things advanced metrics discount. kyle hendricks is one of those guys too who constantly outperforms metrics
Extension & tunneling are two metrics that actually do address deception & how hitters see pitches.
They do not wonder, it would make them too insecure with the time invested in the their new pseudo science
This is how basic humans think tho on most matters, anything we invest time, capital and resources in the brain is not going to question it to provide a nice little safe space in our heads thats tells us everything is in order
lucky break for AJ Puk
How long does one stay on Covid list? Is there a time restriction? I forget. Not used to seeing someone added to 40-man roster by moving someone to the Covid list, that’s for sure. I don’t want to get used to it either.
they did that last year. id also assume the two negatives over 24 hours apart rule carries over seeing as there werent any clear issues with that in 2020.
Covid is such a strange bird. Really and truly effects everybody so differently. The A’s need Montas to revert back to his ’19 form
The Phillies should have offered him one of those standard 1 year $3 million deals. This dude consistently puts up 60+ innings of mid 3 ball. Innings are so valuable this year and he is legit one of the best middle relievers there is. It’s baffling that he did not have more of a market.
On the 2021 line for YP’s baseball-reference entry, his service time is listed as slightly above 10 years 10.016. Is that 10 years on the books already or does it indicate what the time will be at the end of the season?