The Rangers have agreed to a minor league pact with free agent righty Austin Pruitt, reports Evan Grant of the Dallas Morning News. The Texas native will be in big league camp as a non-roster invitee this spring.
Pruitt, 34, spent the past two seasons in Oakland, where he pitched to a combined 3.65 ERA in 103 2/3 innings — primarily working out of the bullpen. Pruitt’s 16.2% strikeout rate with the A’s was well below the league average, but he also posted an excellent 5% walk rate during his stint in green and gold.
The 2022-23 seasons were Pruitt’s fifth and sixth at the MLB level. He’s previously spent time with the Rays, Astros and Marlins since debuting with Tampa Bay back in 2017. Overall, he’s logged 310 2/3 innings at the big league level and notched a 4.43 earned run average with comparable marks from fielding-independent metrics like FIP (4.33) and SIERA (4.27).
Pruitt doesn’t throw particularly hard, averaging 91.8 mph on his heater, but he’s kept the ball on the ground at close to league-average levels and has generally limited hard contact well (career 88.3 mph exit velocity, 33.8% hard-hit rate). Oakland outrighted him off the 40-man roster following the season; he’d have been eligible for arbitration, given his five years of MLB service, but a forearm strain in August ended his season and the A’s opted not to keep him on the 40-man roster.
If Pruitt makes the big league roster in spring training, he’d likely open the season in the bullpen, as Texas currently has Nathan Eovaldi, Jon Gray, Dane Dunning and Andrew Heaney locked into starting jobs. With both Max Scherzer and Jacob deGrom recovering from injury, southpaw Cody Bradford currently figures to hold down the final spot.
Pruitt has 17 big league starts under his belt and has often worked as a multi-inning reliever, so he’d at least be a candidate for the five spot with a strong spring. The Rangers, however, could also make some additions to the starting staff before the offseason is up. Doing so would push Bradford, Pruitt and other eventual rotation candidates down the depth chart while lessening the need to rush prospects like Owen White, Cole Winn, Jack Leiter and Zak Kent, all of whom could benefit from some additional seasoning in the upper minors.
Dude had a solid showing in Oakland last year. Maybe he can build off of it.
Minor? He pitched well enough for major
He’ll be better than Will Smith was….
We still need an arm from the top of the market.
But would the Rangers have won it all without the Will Smith effect? I think not.
As long as he stayed in the bullpen, the Rangers were marked safe from Will Smith.
Yes!!!!!!!!
Isn’t Austin already in Texas?
So is Pruitt.
Very solid season last year…
This is a good move. And he’s a DFW native, so he’ll love it here.
“3.65 ERA in 103+ innings”…A good agent would probably get this guy a Major League deal, but good for Texas on scooping him up on a Minor League deal.
Agreed. The papers and FO in STL would be bragging about all the depth they had pulled into the 40 man if they had signed him to a ML deal.
Beats the Red sox papers. The owners bought the newspapers so nothing bad is ever written and now we have to hear about how great Nick Yorke is
Probably but he did finish the year on the injured list with an elbow or forearm strain, depending on what website you read it on.
True that. Putting up decent numbers on what’s essentially a defensively atrocious Oakland A’s AAAA club is especially impressive.
Rangers have like 4 guys that are going to be added to the 60-day IL as soon as ST starts. An understanding of “minor-league deal for now so we have flexibility for our 40 the next few weeks” is likely. Assuming they brought Pruitt in by letting him know he has a really good chance of breaking camp with the big league club. Plus, with Heaney, Dunning, and Bradford projected for SP3, SP4, SP5, there might’ve been the added incentive for Pruitt to go to Texas for a chance to start.
Almost a lock to make the big league roster out of spring, chance to compete for a spot in the rotation, and signing to a contender after spending 2 years on a terrible team. Doesn’t sound terrible.