The Rays have signed right-hander Aaron Slegers to a minor league contract that runs through the 2022 season. The deal contains an invitation for Slegers to attend the team’s big league Spring Training camp.
The signing reunites Slegers and the Rays after the righty pitched for Tampa Bay during the 2019-20 seasons. The Rays dealt Slegers to the Angels last February, and he struggled to a 6.97 ERA over 31 innings out of the Los Angeles bullpen. The Halos outrighted Slegers off their 40-man roster earlier this week but he elected to become a free agent rather than remain in the Angels organization.
Slegers has a 5.46 ERA over 89 career MLB innings with the Twins, Rays, and Angels, but he achieved success over his two years in Tampa, with a 3.41 ERA over 29 frames (26 of those coming during the 2020 season). Slegers’ resume includes one start and one appearance as a bulk pitcher, though he mostly worked as a multi-inning reliever over his previous stint with the Rays.
For his career, Slegers has only a 15.3% strikeout rate, as he has relied on a 51% grounder rate to deliver outs. Home runs have been a consistent problem for Slegers apart from his 2020 season — he only allowed one homer in 26 innings last year, and 13 homers in the other 63 frames of his big league career. The long ball was a particular issue for Slegers with the Angels, with six homers allowed in his 31 innings in an Anaheim uniform.
The two-year contract indicates that the Rays see enough in Slegers to give him a bit of added security heading into the offseason, not that there is exactly much time remaining in the 2021 campaign. While Slegers hasn’t pitched well this year, he can’t be ruled out as a candidate for any sort of usage for the rest of this year or even into the postseason, given how flexible the Rays are with their arms. Slegers saw action in three of Tampa Bay’s playoff games last October, with a 1.80 ERA over five total innings in the ALDS and ALCS.
“Watch, he’ll be all-star now”
-every comment when the Rays sign a pitcher.
the Rays, of one all star (a catcher) this year
And kitteridge
And Wendle.
1 ≠ 3
Beat me to it
Angels bullpen has been getting stronger this week. No more Quintana or Slegers. Jake Petricka and James Hoyt should be next… SF and Tampa, they are all yours!
Angels bullpen, aside from Iglesias, is just shockingly bad. That team has a massive amount of work to do on their pitching staff if they want to legitimately compete while Ohtani and Trout are still in their prime.
I feel like the Angels approach to pitching has become just throwing their hands up in the air and giving up. Never seen a “good” team with such awful pitching and constant injuries to rotation members.
If I recall, The Rangers were a long time sufferer of great offense and terrible pitching..
It’s no shock the Angels bullpen is bad. It’s 100 percent expected.
You can sign multi year minors deals?
Who would have thought Slegers would command a multi-year contract…
The Angels have the perfect mix….
Of bad coaching AND bad player evaluations.
Seriously, good teams like the Giants, Rays, Braves, Dodgers, Brewers, A’s, etc., find a way to gain surplus value on short-term, cheap free agent deals through stellar coaching and great player evaluation. The Angels find a way to turn good deals into overpayments, they find a way to kill careers, or to reset the market so that the aforementioned good teams can benefit. It’ll happen here, and it will happen with Quintana in San Francisco, and it’ll happen with whoever signs Bundy, and whoever signs next season’s Angel Pitching Failures.
The Angels can do nothing right when it comes to pitching.
Imagine if this guy had signed with the RS. There would’ve been 200 comments already.
I agree Joe.
Agreed buy imma qualify with a lot of news coming out around right now distracting the heavy commenters
I’m not sure I have ever seen a player signed to a multi-year minor league deal…Slegers must not feel too confident in his ability
The Rays have done it a few times before, but they were situations where the player was going to be rehabbing the full first year.
I wonder if someone under this circumstance is still Rule 5 eligible? I remember many years ago when the Orioles signed a minor league free agent before the season ended and the someone grabbed him in Rule 5, creating a bit of a kerfuffle and I think the pick was eventually invalidated.