The Mets and free-agent lefty Richard Lovelady are in agreement on a big league contract, reports Robert Murray of Fansided. He opted out of a minor league deal with the Twins last week.
Lovelady has pitched in parts of six different major league seasons, working 101 innings between the Royals, A’s, Cubs, Rays and Blue Jays. He’s posted an ugly 5.26 earned run average in that time despite generally solid rate stats. He’s punched out 21.2% of his opponents, issued walks at an 8.7% clip and kept 50.2% of batted balls against him on the ground.
The 29-year-old hasn’t been plagued by home runs (1.07 HR/9) or an outlandish average on balls in play (.301). However, Lovelady has struggled a fair bit to prevent the runners he does yield from crossing home plate; Lovelady’s 65% strand rate is about seven percentage points worse than average and goes a long way toward explaining the gap between his 5.26 ERA and fielding-independent metrics like FIP (4.32) and SIERA (4.05).
With the Twins, Lovelady was in the midst of a strong run in Triple-A. He’d pitched 20 2/3 innings for their St. Paul affiliate, logging a pristine 1.31 ERA with a 26.5% strikeout rate, an 8.4% walk rate and a 60.4% grounder rate. He’s not a hard-thrower, sitting just 91.7 mph with his average heater, but Lovelady sports a career 2.67 ERA, 27% strikeout rate and 6.8% walk rate in parts of seven Triple-A seasons.
These types of additions often result in short stays with the big league club, but if Lovelady gets out to a nice start and solidifies a place in the Mets’ relief corps, he can be retained via arbitration this winter and controlled for an additional three seasons. The Mets have lost southpaws A.J. Minter and Danny Young to season-ending surgeries. At the moment, DFA pickup José Castillo is the lone southpaw in their bullpen. Lovelady will join him and hope for an extended opportunity not dissimilar to the one that Young parlayed into a more solid spot in Carlos Mendoza’s bullpen. However, Lovelady is out of minor league options, which could work against him in that regard.
A rich a dick and lovelady walk into a bar….
Swing and a miss Chapo. Stick to tunnels and blow.
His pitching coach was Dick Pic Callaway
A loss for the Twins. He performed well at AAA. He’d probably be a better option than some of the current Twins arms, given how they’ve performed lately…
Like that lefty Wentz !!
That guy needs to be catapulted to another team…
How long of a leash will he have? Raley started rehab and the Mets probably will need to move someone to the pen when Manea joins mlb roster eventually as well.
@NYMETSHEA Raley was bad before his injury. I can’t even imagine how bad he is after the TJ. Waste of money signing. No ballplayer gets up at the plate vs. Raley and thinks “This guy is unhittable, I don’t have a gameplan”
Not sure why this is a question. How much leash does any DFA pickup have? Its just the state of the game today for pitchers to be churned like this. That said, Zuber, Devenski, Nunez, and Brazoban all have options remaining, so there are still multiple ways for Stearns to manage the openings – if Lovelady warrants one.
The more relevant question at the moment, NYMETSHEA, is who are they cutting to make room for him – and Montas, who is getting activated tomorrow. There are a couple of “elbow strains” on the 15-day IL. Could one of them being moving to the 60-day?
geofft, could they move Winker to the 60-day? He’s been on the 10-day since May 5th and according to a report last week, he’s still ‘weeks away’ from returning. 60-day would be early July for his return. I wonder how serious Megill’s injury is as well.
Well, the Mets have answered our question by moving Siri to the 60-day.
Yes, but moving Siri was to make room for Travis Jankowski. I overlooked the fact that they had an opening on the 40 for Lovelady.
Someone will still have to be removed to make room for Montas now. You may be right about Winker.
Rumor is he is secretly dating Patty Loveless….
At this point, teams are signing him just for his name (Hi David Stearns if you’re seeing this!)
Mets just wanted some love from the lady killer!
Just what we needed, another reliever with a 5+ ERA who has never been any good. I wonder how many toothpicks David Stearns goes through a day, because he thinks hes a genius. Don’t worry David, I’m sure your mom thinks that this was a great move! I’d think in Harvard they would teach him how to count. David, I’m no professor but a 5 ERA is higher than a 4, 3, 2, 1, etc. ERA. You want low ERA’s if you want to win games. I guess they never taught him that in college
This dick been getting around
Anyone care to wager which day this week the Mets will DFA him?
Whatever day they activate Montas.
No way they signed R.A. Dickey again!
Curious, why would his strand rate explain an ERA that was higher than his xFIP or SIERA? The runners on base that are scoring wouldn’t be charged to him, so it’s shouldn’t affect his ERA. I could understand if the argument that follows is that he’s allowing these guys to score and then his own runners are also scoring, but that should be seen in the rest of his rate stats.
Does this guy throw a backdoor slider? Asking for a friend.
Wonder if he even likes his parents.
He also made it known that he prefers to be called, Dicky.
Dude! Dude! Mets sign Dick Lovelady.
Apologies Aerosmith
They need to let him enter games to Back in the Saddle and introduce him as Dicky Lovelady or its a fail. No I do not care that entrance songs are usually reserved for closers.