April 20: Just one day after opting out of his deal with the Dodgers, Pomeranz has re-signed with the club on a fresh minor league deal according to Triple-A Oklahoma City’s broadcaster and communications director Andrew Freedman. Freedman adds that Pomeranz will remain at the Triple-A level for the time being.
April 19: Left-hander Drew Pomeranz has opted out of his minor league deal with the Dodgers, per Fabian Ardaya of The Athletic, and is now a free agent again.
Pomeranz, 35, is attempting to get back to the majors after two lost years. He signed a minor league deal with the Angels in February and was in Spring Training with that club. He tossed eight innings with five earned runs allowed, striking out six while walking three.
He was able to opt-out of that deal if he didn’t break camp with the club and the Halos released him a few days before Opening Day. He got another minor league deal, this time with the Dodgers, and has been pitching for Triple-A Oklahoma City. He has tossed five innings for that club, allowing six earned runs but striking out seven opponents while giving out just one walk.
As of a few years ago, Pomeranz was one of the better relievers in the league. The Brewers acquired him in 2019 and moved him from the rotation to the bullpen, with great results. The lefty tossed 26 1/3 innings for Milwaukee with a 2.39 earned run average, striking out 45% of batters faced.
The Padres made a bet that Pomeranz could continue performing in that manner, signing him to a four-year, $34MM deal going into 2020. That deal was working out great for the first two years, as Pomeranz made 47 appearances with a 1.62 ERA for the Friars. He walked 11.4% of batters faced but struck out 33.7%.
Unfortunately, he required flexor tendon surgery in August of 2021 and hasn’t pitched in a big league game since. Over the past two years, repeated attempts to get healthy have seen him continually hit setbacks, including a “cleanup surgery” in May of last year.
The lefty will surely get a new opportunity elsewhere in the coming days. He hasn’t been preventing runs of late but the fact that he’s healthy and striking out opponents is a good sign. Given the excellent results he posted in the past, he should be fielding plenty of calls from clubs who will dream of benefitting from a bounceback.
He has not lost since 2019. Dude is a beast!!!
Hasn’t even given up a run in 5 years! GOAT
He realized that they’re probably not going to win it this year so might as well go somewhere else that will.
lol dude pitched one game in AAA, went 5 innings and gave up 6 ER. Last year in AAA for San Diego he had an ERA north of 30, Yeah 30, not 3.0, He’s washed.
I’m assuming if it was 30 he probably didn’t pitch that many games
He’s given up 6 earned runs in 5 innings pitched across 5 relief appearances so far this season. He’s made no starts…
Small enough sample he could still have some juice left for someone to squeeze. But I would not expect to get more than fifteen to twenty innings before he is injured again.
Or 14.29. There’s literally a link to his stats.
MikeD,
Facts get in the way of some people’s narratives.
That’s a huge sample size
Go get him Red Sox!!
grnmtn – You beat me to it!
Goodbye Booser, hello Pomeranz!
Bring back one of the players on the 2018 Red Sox championship team! And the 2017 Red Sox division champions that got royally screwed by Cora’s cheating!
Pomeranz was on THREE Red Sox Division Champion teams! Who else on the Red Sox right now can say that? Not even Devers!
fever – henry has already sent an email to Breslow, “Craig, is there any way you and Andrew can get this guy back on track? Even if it’s just for an outing or two? I could really use a win right now. Your BOSS, John Henry”
grnmtn – I’m with you! John Henry is probably getting daily advance ticket sales updates on his iPhone while out shopping and then he’s turning to Linda and saying “Honey, you don’t need another pair of Gucci shoes, the ones you are wearing now make you look so beautiful.”
ERA of 10.80 in AAA with the Dodgers, yep he’ll fit right in…
Apparently Fever Pitch has too much fun badmouthing the Red Sox.
He did look good in the first week of spring training.
Sure, but that was before he started pitching.
@blueskies it was three appearances maybe four. After that the wheels fell off
He’s coming home to Cleveland
Surprised he didn’t wait it out for another week or two. With the way the Dodgers are cycling through pen arms, he’d surely have gotten the call and the inevitable dfa….
My understanding is command is the hardest thing to get back. As a left hander with a best history of success prior to injuries he would be worthy of a minor league contract as it be like a lottery pick. Some team that is going miss the playoffs should give him a minor league contract; see if he can be fixed. If he throws okay to good chance he could be flipped at deadline. If he isn’t throwing good could still be useful for a non competing team to eat some innings
Padres fans KNEW it was a bad contract. A classic overpay by AJ Preller… He wasn’t good for long before his big deal.
Your “facts” are always so misplaced that we need Airtags just to find them, Crikey. Pom was awesome for about 2 years into his big contract but then his arm issues settled into being the main narrative.
Might be time for Drew to call it a career.
Angels?
Nope. If he’s been that bad, we need someone better than the current pile of garbage being rolled out from the bullpen. He’s not that.
Angels had him, and released him already.
He opted out
Hard to imagine he’ll be offered a majors contract after not exactly killing it in the minors. So what’s he going for, a minor league contract with a different team?
Perhaps
or perhaps not, as it turns out!
This guy is a beast, needs TLC and some nurturing, a good pitching coach and he’s off the charts, I could see the Reds taking him, he’s old but could also mentor young talent and have a yr left in the tank
Why opt out? You know you gotta pitch in the minors awhile and get some success after missing two years before any team calls you up why not stay?
Alter the terms, change money or opt out dates, or see if there are teams more bullish on his mlb return. Even if not, maybe there were other minor league locations he preferred.
So weird.
interesting. Dodgers must think they will face more “injuries” because this deal gives him the right to opt out if he is not on the major league roster on May 1st. 11 days from now.
39 comments generated by a story about a washed up lefty reliever which moves zero needles. The definition of who cares. The internet is a mysterious place, yet here I am, contributing nothing.