The Giants have agreed to a minor league deal with right-hander Matt Carasiti, per their official transactions log. He’ll give them some bullpen depth in the upper levels of their system heading into the 2022 season.
Carasiti, 30, has appeared in parts of two Major League seasons: the 2016 campaign with the Rockies and the 2019 season with the Mariners. This will be Carasiti’s second stint with the Giants organization, as he’d signed on for the 2020 season on this same type of minor league arrangement. However, the right-hander’s elbow gave out in an early-March appearance during Spring Training (just a week or so prior to the Covid-19 shutdown), and he wound up requiring Tommy John surgery.
Last offseason, Carasiti joined the Red Sox on a minor league pact, but he was still on the mend from that Tommy John procedure when camp opened. He was quickly reassigned to minor league camp and placed on the injured list in Triple-A when the season began. However, he never made it back to the mound to pitch for one of Boston’s minor league affiliates.
Carasiti and the Giants will hope for better health this time around, and if he’s able to match his career output at the Triple-A level, he could well earn a ticket back to the big leagues. A sixth-round pick by the Rockies back in 2012, Carasiti carries a lifetime 3.15 ERA, 26.2% strikeout rate, 9.9% walk rate and 49.4% grounder rate in 100 Triple-A frames. He’s averaged 95.4 mph on his sinker in both of his relatively brief MLB stints, though it remains to be seen if he can recapture that velocity post-Tommy John.
In 25 1/3 Major League innings between Colorado and Seattle, Carasiti has a 7.46 ERA — albeit with a sky-high .429 opponents’ batting average on balls in play. He’ll need to sharpen the shaky command he’s shown in the big leagues (16 walks, three hit batters) if he’s to replicate his minor league success, but given his strong results between Triple-A and Double-A, it’s not hard to see why multiple clubs have been intrigued by bringing him to Spring Training in recent years.
Looks like a worthwhile flier.
He definitely looks worthy of a minor league deal. If his arm is healthy he could be a good bullpen arm or at the least a guy they call up when they need to shore up a taxed pitching staff. If he’s healthy he’ll probably log something like a mid 3 era – there’s a lot worse you could do, and the large outfield in the Giants stadium should help him as well. Not a bad depth signing.
This isn’t the agreement I was looking for.
Patience grasshopper… The lockout will end one day.
Day? Or year? It’s already almost February.
I guessed 02/22/2022 on the lockout prediction –
If FZ likes him, he’s gotta be a 15-20 game winner in 2022.
Throws hard. Had a good season in Japan in 2018. Needs to cut down on walks. Taking a risk free flyer. Farhan rocks.