The Nationals are signing free-agent reliever T.J. McFarland to a minor league contract, Chris Cotillo of MassLive.com tweets.
The 31-year-old McFarland spent last season as a member of the Athletics, with whom he logged a 4.35 ERA/4.56 SIERA in 20 2/3 innings. McFarland didn’t have control problems, as he issued walks to just 5.4 percent of batters, but he struck out a mere 9.8 percent of hitters. That’s not atypical for McFarland, who has combined for a 13.6 percent strikeout rate and a 7.6 percent walk rate in 401 innings divided among the Orioles, Diamondbacks and A’s. He owns a 4.08 ERA/3.83 SIERA since his career started in 2013, and has thrown 50-plus innings in five seasons.
McFarland will now compete for a spot in the Washington bullpen, which lost fellow lefty Sean Doolittle to the Reds in free agency. Before signing McFarland, though, the Nationals added southpaw Brad Hand on a guaranteed contract and LHP Luis Avilan on a minor league pact. It’s worth noting that McFarland has been much better versus lefties (.295 weighted on-base average) than righties (.352).
If the word LOOGY had a face.
The Orioles need to resign McFarland. Would be cheap and definitely would help the bullpen.
He’s going to give up a moonshot game tying homer to Anthony Rizzo at Wrigley on a sunny Sunday afternoon
Good depth move ! I think luis avilan gonna grab the last bullpen spot
This off-season has been replete with no-name signings and releases of players with 4-6 years of minimal or lackluster signings. It’s like watching a non-baseball fan try to play a dynasty building PC game.
Now here comes the routine fan-service stat hounds whining about crap like AAV, fWAR and other bits of hogwash.
I’m not saying that McFarland deserves a major league deal, but I still don’t see how Andrew Chafin got one over McFarland.
Its a left handed pitcher thing.
The concern is they were unretained by the mighty Diamondbacks.