The A’s have signed veteran righty Justin Grimm to a minor league deal, according to Tim Hayes of The Bristol Herald Courier (Twitter link). Grimm was eligible to sign during the lockout due to his status as a minor league free agent, as his previous minors deal with the Mariners expired at the end of the season.
Grimm posted a 4.37 ERA over 47 1/3 innings with Triple-A Tacoma last season, with a very impressive 33.6% strikeout rate but also a 9.8% walk rate and 11 home runs allowed over that small sample size. It wasn’t enough for the Mariners to give him a call-up, and thus Grimm has now only seen MLB action in one of the last three seasons. Grimm’s last big league exposure was a four-game stint with the Brewers in 2020 that saw him struggle to a 17.36 ERA over only 4 2/3 innings.
With some rough numbers in 2017-18, it has been some time since Grimm has been an effective member of a Major League bullpen. Best known for his work with the Cubs, Grimm posted a 3.36 ERA and 28% strikeout rate over 171 1/3 frames from 2014-16, providing Chicago with a durable and largely effective relief arm. After the high point of the Cubs’ 2016 World Series championship, however, Grimm began to decline, in large part due to an increase in walks and homers allowed.
There’s no risk for the Athletics in giving Grimm a look in Spring Training to see if he can recapture his old form at age 33, or if Oakland coaches can make a tweak to help the right-hander get back on track. With the A’s perhaps still figuring out how to best manage payroll cuts without fully tearing things down, it has been a pretty quiet winter on the transactions front for Oakland, but the bullpen is an obvious area of need — Andrew Chafin, Yusmeiro Petit, Jake Diekman, and Sergio Romo are all free agents. Given the Athletics’ budget crunch, they seem likely to target lower-cost options rather than invest heavily in relief pitching.
I hope his nickname is “The Reaper”.
It’s a Grimm situation when “The Reaper,” takes the mound!
Comeback is a Fairy Tale.
The puns run strong with you sir.
There’s a rather low correlation between how much money you spend and the effectiveness of your bullpen. Lack of consistency, injuries, misuse, all contribute to the randomness.
There are a few expensive ‘sure things’ that some teams can deploy from their bullpen (i.e. Hendriks) but for the most part, there is a lot of luck that goes into building an effective bullpen. The best bullpens always seem to have 1 or 2 pitchers who are having career years. This is why we’re seeing a lot of minor league deals for borderline pitching talent. The strategy seems to be to sign 7 or 8 pitchers to minor league deals and hope that 1 or 2 find their form and become a ‘surprise’ contributor to the major league pen. If none of them do then the cost of signing them is negligible and teams can pursue upgrades via the trade market. It’s a better strategy, cost wise, than offering a bunch of $1M – $2M guaranteed contracts and see who performs well out of that group.
Teams that understand and maximize their pitching seem to have the most “luck” with bullpens each year.
More than any other component part on a team, bullpens are developed as the year goes on. Roles change for the players as the coaching staff and manager work with them. Pitchers impacting the bullpen can be on the ML roster; called up from the minors; acquired on waivers or via trade. The successful teams know what they’re looking for – the sorts of hitters the available pitchers can potentially be effective against, and work to that end.
So it’s just a crapshoot. A numbers game. Throw a bunch of guys up against the wall and see what sticks. LOL
In MLB today a teams record is only as strong as the weakest links in their bullpen…..because that’s what their opponents are trying to get at each series (as they set things up) and each game.
Idk.puns are a good idea post Christmas
I still have PTSD from him blowing games with the Cubs… and I’m not even a Cubs fan..
Ham n eggs
Grimm signing is precursor to Oakland fire sale.