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Drew Anderson

Drew Anderson Re-Signs With KBO’s SSG Landers

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Right-hander Drew Anderson has re-signed with the SSG Landers of the Korea Baseball Organization, per a club announcement (h/t to Dan Kurtz of MyKBO). Anderson will earn $1.2MM in 2025, with $50K available in incentives.

Anderson, 30, last played in the majors back in 2021. A 21st-round pick by Philadelphia in the 2012 draft, the righty made his big league debut in 2017 and spent the next half-decade bouncing between the major and minor leagues with the Phillies, White Sox, and Rangers organizations. In that time, he struggled to a 6.50 ERA in 44 1/3 innings of work at the big league level despite decent peripherals, including a 4.35 FIP. During the 2021-22 offseason, Anderson was released by the Rangers and opted against searching for a new stateside deal. Instead, he headed to Japan to pitch for Nippon Professional Baseball’s Hiroshima Carp on a $1MM deal.

The right-hander ultimately spent two seasons in NPB, and pitched quite well during that time. Anderson posted a 3.05 ERA in 115 innings across 34 appearances for the Carp in total, striking out 20.7% of opponents while walking just 8.4%. That was enough to earn him some stateside attention during the 2023-24 offseason, and Anderson landed with the Tigers on a minor league deal back in January. The right-hander failed to make Detroit’s Opening Day roster, however, and after just nine appearances with Triple-A Toledo the Tigers agreed to release him so he could head to South Korea and play for the Landers.

Anderson slotted into the Landers’ rotation alongside former big leaguers Kwang Hyun Kim and Roenis Elias and pitched fairly solidly in his first year of KBO play. While the right-hander’s 3.89 ERA was hardly exceptional, his 115 2/3 innings of work was his most in a season since 2018 and and he struck out an excellent 31.9% of opponents faced. That massive uptick in strikeout rate came with an elevated 10.7% walk rate, but that firepower makes it easy to imagine Anderson finding greater success with the Landers in 2025 and potentially getting the attention of MLB clubs once again next winter.

Should Anderson wish to make it back to the big leagues, there’s certainly reason for optimism that he’ll be able to do that. The KBO has served as a proving ground for other hurlers who struggled in their first taste of big league action in the past. Merrill Kelly is one standout example of a player who pitched in the KBO before returning to stateside ball to make a name for himself, and right-hander Erick Fedde landed a $15MM guarantee from the White Sox just last offseason after a dominant 2023 campaign in South Korea.

Tigers Release Drew Anderson To Sign With KBO’s SSG Landers

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The Tigers have agreed to release right-hander Drew Anderson to sign with the SSG Landers of the Korea Baseball Organization. The Landers send cash to the Tigers in return. According to Jeeho Yoo of Yonhap News (X link), Anderson will make a $570K salary.

Anderson, 30, was in the Detroit organization after signing an offseason minor league deal. He’d been pitching in long relief at Triple-A Toledo, tossing 14 innings across nine appearances. Anderson punched out 16 hitters with a 3.86 ERA in a solid stint that caught the attention of the Landers. He would have had a tough time securing a spot in a Detroit bullpen that has been one of the game’s best, so the Tigers were content to let him pursue the KBO job.

This will be Anderson’s first stint in Korea. He pitched in Japan with the Hiroshima Carp between 2022-23, working to a cumulative 3.05 ERA over 115 innings. Anderson last appeared in the big leagues in 2021, throwing a career-high 22 innings with a 3.27 ERA for the Rangers. The former third-round draftee has also had brief stints with the Phillies and White Sox and played in parts of five MLB campaigns overall.

In a corresponding move, the Landers released right-hander Robert Dugger. KBO teams are only allowed to carry two foreign-born pitchers on their roster. Signing Anderson meant they had to move on from either Roenis Elías or Dugger. While Elías has a pedestrian 4.63 ERA over four starts, Dugger had a very rough showing. The right-hander was rocked for a 12.71 ERA in his six KBO appearances.

A former 18th-round pick of the Mariners, Dugger pitched to a 7.17 ERA with four MLB teams between 2019-22. He spent all of last season in Triple-A with the Rangers, where he posted a 4.31 ERA over 29 starts in an extremely hitter-friendly Pacific Coast League setting.

Casey Mize, Reese Olson Win Rotation Spots With Tigers; Matt Manning Optioned To Triple-A

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The Tigers announced Friday that they’ve optioned right-hander Matt Manning to Triple-A Toledo. That puts an end to the three-horse race for the final two spots in manager AJ Hinch’s rotation. Right-handers Casey Mize and Reese Olson will open the season on the starting staff behind lefty Tarik Skubal and righties Kenta Maeda and Jack Flaherty. Detroit also reassigned non-roster right-hander Drew Anderson to minor league camp.

Detroit’s talented trio of right-handers didn’t make the decision easy — at least not in terms of spring results. Each of Mize, Olson and Manning pitched between 14 2/3 innings and 16 innings this spring, and none posted an ERA north of Olson’s 3.68. Olson posted the best blend of strikeout and walk rates in camp (22.6% and 6.5%, respectively). Mize notched the lowest ERA but the highest walk rate. Manning was perhaps done in by the six home runs he yielded in 16 innings.

While Manning won’t open the season in the rotation, it’s likely that he, Mize and Olson will all make their share of starts in Detroit this season. Mize is in his first full season back from Tommy John surgery and back surgery. He’ll be on an innings limit of some degree. Injuries in the rotation are also a virtual inevitability. Even with Manning opening the year in Toledo, it wouldn’t be a shock to see him start 15-plus games in the bigs.

Mize, 27 in May, was the No. 1 overall pick in the 2018 draft. He showed plenty of promise in 2021, tossing 150 1/3 innings of 3.71 ERA ball with a below-average 19.3% strikeout rate but a strong 6.7% walk rate and similarly encouraging 48.1% ground-ball rate. That looked to set the stage for Mize to seize a long-term spot in the Detroit rotation, but he unfortunately suffered a UCL tear early in the 2022 season. He wound up undergoing Tommy John surgery and, while he was rehabbing that procedure, underwent surgery to address a nagging back issue that had been plaguing him for some time. He’s still under club control for three seasons.

Olson, 24, made his big league debut with Detroit last season and quickly impressed. In his first 103 2/3 MLB frames, he turned in a 3.99 ERA with average or better strikeout (24.4%), walk (7.8%) and ground-ball (42.8%) rates. Olson supported those rates with solid marks in swinging-strike and opponents’ chase rates as well. The Tigers control him all the way through 2029.

The 26-year-old Manning was Detroit’s first-round pick back in 2016. He’s pitched in parts of three big league seasons, logging a 4.37 ERA with a 16.1% strikeout rate, 7.8% walk rate and 41.6% grounder rate. Manning hasn’t missed bats at the levels expected throughout his time as a top-ranked prospect, but he’s shown solid command and kept the ball in the yard nicely to this point in his career. He’s also had frequent bad luck with injuries, including a 2023 season in which he incredibly broke his foot on two separate occasions upon being struck by a comeback line-drive. He’s under club control through 2027 and will remain a notable piece of the Tigers’ rotation puzzle in the foreseeable future, even if he starts this season out in Toledo.

Tigers Sign Drew Anderson To Minor League Deal

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The Tigers have signed right-hander Drew Anderson to a minor league deal, reports Evan Woodbery of MLive. It’s unclear if the righty will be in major league camp with the Tigers.

Anderson, 30 in March, got scattered major league time from 2017 to 2021. He suited up for the Phillies, White Sox and Rangers, appearing in five straight seasons but never making more than nine appearances in any individual campaign. He threw a combined 44 1/3 innings in 19 games over that stretch, allowing 6.50 earned runs per nine frames. His 8.3% walk rate was around average but his 14.7% strikeout rate was well below.

After that run, he headed overseas to join Hiroshima Carp of Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball. Over the past two years, Anderson tossed 115 innings in 34 games for the Carp, with a 3.05 ERA in that time. He struck out 20.7% of batters faced while giving out walks at an 8.4% clip.

On the heels of those solid results in Japan, Anderson now returns to North America and will join the Tigers. He has worked both as a starter and a reliever in his career and it’s unclear which role the Tigers have in mind for him, but he would seem to have a steep climb towards a starting role.

The club has Tarik Skubal, Kenta Maeda and Jack Flaherty in the rotation, with Matt Manning, Casey Mize, Reese Olson and Sawyer Gipson-Long likely batting for the spots at the back end. Other options on the roster include Alex Faedo, Mason Englert, Joey Wentz and Keider Montero. Top prospects Wilmer Flores, Ty Madden and Jackson Jobe are getting close to their major league debuts, with Flores having already secured a spot on the 40-man.

Nonetheless, as the cliches say, you can never have enough pitching depth and there’s no such thing as a bad minor league deal. For Anderson, he will get a chance to show himself to MLB scouts after a couple of years abroad and try to get back to show.

Drew Anderson Signs With Hiroshima Carp After Rangers Release

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10:18PM: Anderson will join the Hiroshima Carp of Nippon Professional Baseball, according to a report from Yahoo Japan (Japanese language link).  Anderson receives a $300K signing bonus and a $700K salary for the 2022 season.

NOVEMBER 3, 5:45PM: The Rangers have officially announced the move, with team executive VP of communications John Blake (Twitter link) adding that Anderson will be signing with a team in Asia.

OCTOBER 30: The Rangers have released right-hander Drew Anderson, according to the transactions page at MLB.com. Signed to a minor league deal in the winter, he had his contract selected at the end of July to provide an extra arm for the team’s staff after they traded Joely Rodriguez, Ian Kennedy and Kyle Gibson at the trade deadline.

The 27-year-old has seen limited MLB action in five straight seasons now. Coming into this year, he had 22 1/3 big league innings over 2017-2020, and then added 22 further innings in 2021. Despite a miniscule strikeout rate of just 9.9%, he still managed to keep his ERA down to 3.27 over those 22 innings this season. In Triple-A this year, he logged 70 2/3 innings with an ERA of 3.06, strikeout rate of 29.9% and walk rate of 10.1%.

In the offseason, there is no longer any injured list and players on the 60-day IL have to take up a roster spot once again. With the release of Anderson, as well as players heading into free agency and those coming off the IL, the Rangers will have 42 players on their 40-man roster, per Jason Martinez of Roster Resource. That means the Rangers will surely have to do more roster scrubbing in the coming days.

Rangers Place Three On Covid-19 List

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The Rangers have placed infielder Brock Holt and right-handers Drew Anderson and Mike Foltynewicz on the Covid-19-related injured list, per a club announcement. Lefty Wes Benjamin and first baseman Curtis Terry are up from the taxi squad to fill spots on the active roster, but the Rangers will play today’s game with a 25-man active roster. Texas has also scratched catcher Jonah Heim due to Covid protocols and will start Jose Trevino behind the dish instead, per an additional announcement. Heim has not yet been placed on the Covid-related injured list.

Today’s placements come just days after Charlie Culberson was placed on the Covid IL. They’ll leave the Rangers with a rather short-handed bench and likely result in some additional roster machinations in the days to come. However, while the Rangers are down a pair of third basemen — Holt and Culberson — Evan Grant of the Dallas Morning News tweets that a promotion of top third base prospect Josh Jung is “not in the plans” for the team. Yonny Hernandez and Andy Ibanez will split time at the hot corner while Holt and Culberson are away from the team.

The Rangers now have four open spots on the 40-man roster and will be able to promote players from Triple-A — even those not on the 40-man roster — as replacements without needing to subsequently pass them through waivers in order to return them to Round Rock once Holt, Anderson, Foltynewicz and Culberson make their returns.

Deadline Day Roster Moves

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After what was arguably the wildest trade deadline in years with dozens of deals around the league, multiple teams made follow-up roster moves. Trades end up squeezing some players off of rosters, or creating holes that need to be filled. This post will itemize the many 40-man roster moves that teams made after a dizzying array of blockbuster deals earlier in the day.

AL East

AL Central

  • Pablo Sandoval was released by the Indians. This was just hours after he was acquired in the Eddie Rosario trade. Based on his release, it’s clear that he was only included as salary offset.
  • The Tigers selected the contract of reliever Ian Krol. The left-hander is back after being designated for assignment earlier in the week.

AL West

NL East

NL Central

NL West

  • The Diamondbacks claimed outfielder Jake Hager off waivers from the Mariners. This will be Hager’s fourth club on the season, having been previously designated for assignment by the Mets, Brewers and Mariners. Arizona also selected the contracts of infielder Drew Ellis and left-hander Miguel Aguilar.
  • The Dodgers announced that they claimed catcher Chad Wallach off waivers from the Marlins. Wallach was recently designated for assignment when Brian Anderson was reinstated from the IL.

Rangers Sign Drew Anderson To Minor League Contract

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The Rangers have signed free-agent right-hander Drew Anderson to a minor league contract, the team announced. The deal includes an invitation to major league spring training.

Anderson began his career with the Phillies, who chose him in the 21st round of the 2012 draft, but the organization moved on from him toward the end of the 2019 season. He spent some of last season with the White Sox, but they released him in early September after the 26-year-old threw just 1 1/3 innings in their uniform.

In all, Anderson has totaled 22 1/3 major league innings of 9.67 ERA ball and posted an 18.6 percent strikeout rate against a 9.7 percent walk rate. Anderson does, however, possess a far more respectable 3.52 ERA through 486 minor league frames.

White Sox Outright Ryan Goins, Release Drew Anderson

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The White Sox have outrighted infielder Ryan Goins to their alternate site, James Fegan of The Athletic reports. Goins is now a member of their taxi squad. Additionally, Chicago released right-hander Drew Anderson.

The White Sox designated Goins for assignment on Monday, which came just over a month after they re-signed him to a minor league pact and selected his contract. The 32-year-old Goins took 14 trips to the plate as a member of the White Sox this season before they designated him, and he went hitless during that span. Of course, offense has never been a strong suit for Goins, who has combined for a .228/.278/.333 line across 1,690 plate appearances among the White Sox, Blue Jays and Royals.

The 26-year-old Anderson, formerly with the Phillies, was a minor league offseason pickup for Chicago who made just one appearance with the team this year. It went rather poorly for Anderson, who gave up six earned runs on four hits (including two homers) and two walks in 1 1/3 innings of an Aug. 8 loss to the Indians. The White Sox outrighted him shortly after that.

White Sox Outright Drew Anderson

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The White Sox have outrighted hurler Drew Anderson to their alternate training site, James Fegan of The Athletic was among those to report. The club designated the right-hander for assignment over the weekend.

Formerly a member of the Phillies, with whom he entered pro ball as a 21st-round pick in 2012, Anderson joined the White Sox on a minor league contract last offseason. He made his debut with the White Sox on Aug. 8, but it couldn’t have gone much worse. The 26-year-old yielded six earned runs on four hits (including two homers) and two walks in a loss to the Indians, leading Chicago to drop him from its roster.

Thanks in large part to his one ugly appearance this season, Anderson’s now the owner of a woeful 9.67 ERA (albeit with a far more palatable 4.78 FIP) across 22 1/3 major league innings. He has been much better in Triple-A, though, having logged a 4.34 ERA with 7.4 K/9 and 3.3 BB/9 over 159 2/3 frames. Anderson will now stay in the White Sox organization and try to work his way back to the bigs.

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