Kyle Gibson opted out of his minor league contract with the Rays, reports Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic. The veteran righty had signed with Tampa Bay last month but didn’t have a clear path to a rotation spot.
Gibson couldn’t have pitched much better over his four starts at Triple-A Durham. He allowed only one run over 17 1/3 innings. Gibson struck out 22 of 65 opponents (nearly 34%) against six walks. He hasn’t allowed a run in any of his last three starts, all of which were in the 4-5 inning range.
It’s a marked turnaround from Gibson’s four MLB starts with the Orioles earlier in the year. Those could hardly have gone worse. He was bombed for a staggering 23 runs on 29 hits (seven of which cleared the fences) while managing just 12 1/3 innings. The O’s released him four starts into a $5.25MM free agent contract. Gibson didn’t sign until the back half of Spring Training. His velocity wasn’t any different than where it’d been last year with St. Louis, but his execution clearly wasn’t there. The atypical offseason presumably had something to do with that.
Gibson needed to settle for a minor league contract after Baltimore released him. He should have a stronger chance of getting an MLB deal this time around. The Triple-A production gives some hope that he can still be a solid fifth starter, as he was when he turned in a 4.24 ERA in nearly 170 innings a year ago. He’d also not cost a signing team anything other than a roster spot. They would pay him only the prorated $760K league minimum for whatever time he spends in the big leagues. Baltimore remains responsible for the rest of the salary, minus the minimum for however long he’s on another team’s MLB roster.
Wouldn’t be surprised to see Baltimore pick him back up to be honest…
forealforeal: He might just be a AAAA pitcher.
AAAA implies he didn’t have a long and successful MLB career.
For the love of God, please no. Stick a fork in him.
If Baltimore picks him back up, technically it’s free?
Did the Rays not have a way to trade him? If Gibson gets a ML contract he owes the Durham bulls pitching staff a thank you card.
Likely rolling opt-out where they had chance to add him before he triggered it.
Blue Jays need Gibson and Dick Mountain!
So if the O’s pick him back up, do they have to pay him the league minimum
He’s a free agent, so he can sign with any team, for any amount. If he signs with the Orioles, it’s a new contract. I’d be like getting a bounes on top of the 5 million the Orioles already owe him. As far as I know anyway.
The orioles would be liable for the original contract minus the prorated league minimum so it would be flush with their original agreement.
I think he can only sign for the pro-rated min. No double-dipping.
To the best of my knowledge, one part of this is inaccurate. If Gibson signs an MLB deal, the team that signs owes him only the MLB minimum while the Orioles are on the hook for the remainder of what they signed him for back at the beginning of the season. But if he returns to the O’s they owe him nothing extra because, in theory, they become the team paying both the remainder of his previous contract “plus” the MLB minimum. Therefore they just pick up the entire bill again and they’re back where they were before the O’s released Gibson.
Yes. Gibson can’t earn any more than his original $5.25M deal this season regardless of whichever team(s) he plays for.
When a player is released, the player is still guaranteed his contract pay.
The team which releases the player is responsible for any shortfall between the new team and the original contract so there is literally no reason for the new team to sign the player to anything over the league minimum.
Original contract $10MM
New Team pays $760k
Old team pays $10MM – $760k (pro rated) = $9.24MM
Player earns $10MM
New Team pays $9MM
Old team pays $10MM – $9MM (pro rated) = $1MM
Player earns $10MM
In the same way a player could renegotiate with a team on a new contract which bumps their current year pay, there’s no reason I could see why a player couldn’t negotiate a greater amount than their original contract when signing for a new team, technically. There’s no reason for this to ever happen, though. If a player had that much surplus value, they’d have been traded.
It’s to prevent players from sandbagging their current team. Let’s say a player is coming off an injury-marred season. Signs with new team for $1.5M plus incentives up to $3M total pay. He has a great spring training and feels fully healthy. He then wings it early in the regular season to force a DFA to later secure a bigger incentive-laden deal with another team.
Twins reunion makes sense
Ehhhhhh, I don’t know about that. He’d have to immediately slot into the rotation, and I don’t know how much better Gibby is than the guys at the back end right now.
Gibson is unlikely to put up a performance better than a 4.50 ERA type of deal at the MLB level. Certainly a durable innings eater, but from a performance and value perspective, there’s not a lot of surplus.
Respectfully, check the their SPs ERAs beyond Ryan the past month and then see what you think. Eating innings @ 4.50 era would be a breath of fresh air.
He’s better than SWR. SWR has sucked this year as has Paddack. Gibson would be better than both
Here come the Incel comments with Bauer and Dick Mountain.
Here comes the 14 year old girl using the tired, obligatory term “incel”.
Is that similar to Duracell?
Apparently there wasn’t a Ray of hope.
The White Sox should consider giving him a shot. With Cannon currently out, Martin with the often ominous forearm strain, Perez likely gone for the season, on top of Burke and Smith in their first year of an attempted full starters season work load… they need inning coverage. Their minor league affiliates don’t have much of anyone who they could call up. Sure, they’ve got a couple of excellent pitching prospects. However, none of the healthy arms are ready. I’m certainly not enamored with Gibson. Yet, the White Sox are thin on options to cover an MLB season of innings.
Yeah, if Gibson has no desire to compete or play on a winning team
Why not?
Arizona needs starting pitching now…
Cubs
Nice career, but he is beyond DONE!!
Mediocre* career
sign me up for a $73 million dollar mediocre career
Get it done AA
Please, No!
Mets could use a starter, so could the Braves
White Sox
I would like to see the Reds take a flyer. I know tons of young talent at the brink but sometimes that does not go well. No such thing as too much pitching, even older pitching.