Free agent lefty Matthew Boyd threw for representatives of 17 of MLB’s 30 clubs yesterday, as reported by Jon Heyman of the New York Post. Boyd remains unsigned just under one year after he underwent Tommy John surgery last June, prematurely ending his 2023 campaign with the Tigers.
Boyd, now 33, has long intrigued teams thanks to his ability to post high strikeout rates as a left-handed starter. The southpaw struck out a whopping 30.2% of batters faced for Detroit in 2019 while posting roughly league average run prevention numbers (104 ERA+), but has not completed a wire-to-wire 162-game season since then thanks a variety of injuries, including both flexor tendon surgery and the aforementioned Tommy John surgery.
Those injury woes have limited him to just 163 innings of work in the majors since the start of the 2021 season, but the results were those of a decent back-of-the-rotation arm despite the injury woes: he posted a 4.36 ERA and 4.12 FIP across 40 appearances (30 starts), both of which were roughly league average figures during that period. He struck out 22.1% of batters faced while walking a slightly elevated 8.1% and allowing 10.3% of is fly balls to leave the yard for home runs. That’s generally consistent with his performance even dating back to the 2018 season, with the shortened 2020 campaign standing out as Boyd’s only performance in his past half decade of work that fell below his roughly league average standard.
That sort of back-end rotation help would surely be greatly appreciated by a number of clubs as teams around the league have found themselves ravaged by starting pitching injuries this season. It’s not clear which teams were at Boyd’s showcase, although the Astros, Giants, Padres, Red Sox, Brewers, and Diamondbacks are among the many clubs that have multiple key pieces of their expected rotation currently on the shelf. For clubs in that situation, the idea of bringing Boyd in as a potential depth option on a low-deal deal is surely appealing particularly at a time when trade season is unlikely to begin in earnest for several more weeks.
Of course, it’s possible that clubs will view Boyd with caution thanks to his lengthy injury history and difficult 2023 season; prior to his surgery last year, the southpaw posted a lackluster 5.45 ERA in 15 starts with Detroit. It also remains unclear how close Boyd is to being able to impact a big league pitching staff, although Heyman notes that the southpaw was throwing in the 92-93 mph range during his showcase yesterday. That’s a tick above Boyd’s career 91.8 mph fastball velocity in the majors, which would seem to indicate that he’s fairly far along on the road to recovery.
Even if he’s nearly ready to return to pitching in games, however, the lefty would surely need time to build up his pitch count in the minor leagues before he could be a realistic option to start games at the big league level. Despite those potential question marks, it would hardly be a surprise to see a pitching-hungry team take a shot on Boyd with a minor league deal in hopes of shoring up their rotation depth ahead of the second half.
That latter number was boosted by a strong 30.2% strikeout rate in 2019, which was among the top 10 among qualified pitchers that year. With the Tigers enduring a miserable season, Boyd was frequently mentioned in trade rumors but the club never found an acceptable deal and held onto him. There was no real rush to secure a deal as they still had years of control over Boyd’s services. However, his performance nosedived in the shortened 2020 season, as the lefty posted a 6.71 ERA over 12 starts that year. He posted better results in 2021 but then dealt with arm injuries that eventually led to flexor tendon surgery in September.