6:27pm: Seabold will break camp, manager A.J. Hinch tells Evan Petzold of The Detroit Free Press.
5:00pm: The Tigers announced that they have signed right-hander Connor Seabold to a split contract worth $800K at the big-league level. It hasn’t been reported what he would make if sent to the minors. To open a 40-man spot for Seabold, fellow righty Beau Brieske has been placed on the 60-day injured list with a left adductor strain.
Seabold, 30, quickly finds a new landing spot. He was in camp with the Blue Jays on a minor league deal but triggered a release clause in that deal and was cut loose a couple of days ago. Now he has landed a new deal and also gets a roster spot, at least for the moment.
He is out of options and can’t be easily sent to the minors. If he were to be passed through waivers, he would have the right to elect free agency since he has a previous career outright. However, he doesn’t have enough service time to both elect free agency and keep his salary commitments in tact. Since this is a split deal, it’s possible the minor league salary is notable enough that Seabold wouldn’t want to walk away from it.
Seabold’s track record to date isn’t especially impressive. He has thrown 119 innings, allowing 7.79 earned runs per nine. However, a decent chunk of that sample was at Coors Field, as Seabold pitched 87 1/3 innings for the Rockies in 2023.
It’s possible the Tigers are betting on a recent velocity spike. As reported by Arden Zwelling of Sportsnet, the Jays were hoping to have Seabold serving in a multi-inning kind of role this year until his velo ticked up early in camp. He has averaged 92 to 93 miles per hour in his big league career but was suddenly hitting 96, with good induced vertical break to boot, so the Jays pivoted to considering him for a bullpen gig. The Jays also helped him add a slider. He faced 33 batters during official spring action and struck out 13 of them, a 39.4% clip.
It’s obviously a small sample and Seabold also walked four batters, hit three more and posted a 6.75 ERA. The Jays weren’t impressed enough to give him a roster spot even though they could have made it work. But perhaps there’s something to be unlocked with the extra life. If not, the Tigers are only committed to paying him barely above the league minimum for as long as he holds a roster spot.
As for Brieske, injuries wiped out most of his spring training. He was initially held back by some rib cage tightness. He overcame that issue and got back on the mound about two weeks ago but then a groin strain pulled him off again.
His exact timeline isn’t clear but his adductor strain is evidently serious enough that the Tigers don’t expect him back before late May. Since he effectively missed spring training, only making three appearances, he will presumably take some time to ramp up once he is healthy. Exceptions are sometimes made for guys recovering from UCL surgery but rehab assignments for pitchers are usually capped at 30 days.
Photo courtesy of Kim Klement Neitzel, Imagn Images
Where is that clown that wanted to continuously argue that I hated professional ball players when I said Giolito was a terrible teammate and not getting signed by anyone?
Maybe you’ll find him on a thread about Lucas Giolito.
Clowns are downright scary. Beep beepsoxfan1 😉
I have been mortally afraid of clowns since I was 7 or 8
More depth is a good thing.
I am expecting Dejesus to get the last spot, but a RH makes sense.
(I haven’t thought it through too much, so there could be ludicrous ramifications…) but, maybe in the next cba they should allow deals where players like Seabold can agree to another option year, so they can sign these type of deals, without having to be placed on waivers. It *seems* like it would be better for both the player & org.
Low 90’s fastball and zero out pitches. For the Tigers sake hopefully Hinch only uses him in mop-up duty
article specifically states that the guy throws up to 96 now with vertical break. Added two more pitches to boot, though the use of additional pitches as short reliever might be less impactful.
Its a long season. We need depth. Seabold took a split contract so he seems amicable to going back and forth between Toledo and the bigs. Nothing to get excited about here.
Interesting. Something the Tigers liked for them to have pounced on him like that and put him on the 40.
ERA when he played for the Rockies was worse away from Coors FWIW.
The Tigers have lost a lot of pitchers already.
It’s very surprising that Seabold made the team out of ST. I always rooted for him to do well but unfortunately he has never done so in the majors. I’ll be very surprised if he makes it through the month of April on the 40-man roster. He throws way too many hittable pitches and HRs as well.
Maybe the extra velocity and a couple new pitches will serve him well and he’ll show that he finally belongs. For his sake, I hope that’s the case but history is not on his side.