The Nationals announced Wednesday that they’ve signed 27-year-old lefty Sam Clay to a Major League contract. The 2014 fourth-rounder has spent his entire career prior to this point in the Twins organization but has yet to appear in the Majors. Clay’s contract comes with a $575K guarantee, tweets Jesse Dougherty of the Washington Post. Clay is represented by the Ballengee Group.
While Major League deals for minor league free agents who have yet to make their Major League debut are admittedly rare, there’s a handful of them every winter. The Nationals, in fact, fared well in exactly that type of signing just one year ago when they inked longtime Athletics farmhand Kyle Finnegan to a Major League deal. He went on to toss 24 2/3 frames of 2.92 ERA ball out of the Washington ’pen in 2020. They’ll hope for similar success with Clay in 2021.
Because of the lack of a minor league season in 2020, Clay has just 22 2/3 innings of work at the Triple-A level under his belt. He’s pitched to a 4.37 ERA in that time but logged a much more impressive 26-to-10 K/BB ratio and a 60.6 percent ground-ball rate. Clay’s sinker has consistently generated ground-ball rates north of 55 percent, including a ridiculous 77 percent mark through 46 2/3 frames at the Double-A level in 2019.
Past scouting reports on the 6’2″, 190-pound lefty have also touted an above-average curveball, and it should be noted that because of his extreme ground-ball capabilities, he’s surrendered just six home runs in 405 1/3 minor league innings. To further emphasize the eye-popping nature of that stat, consider that Clay has faced 1814 batters in that time.
Clay was never selected to the Twins’ 40-man roster at any point in his career to date, which also means he’s never been optioned to Triple-A. As such — much like Finnegan — he still has three minor league option years remaining, so he doesn’t need to crack a spot on the Nationals’ Opening Day roster by any means. He’ll give the Nats some much-needed lefty depth in their bullpen mix, where Ben Braymer had previously stood as the only southpaw bullpen piece on the team’s 40-man roster.
Good for him!
they struck gold with Finnegan, maybe they can again
Why don’t I just go eat some hay? I can sign Sam Clay, or lay by the bay, I just may! What do you say?
A+ comment right here
Nay.
Is that you, Dr. Seuss?
I think it’s George Carlin.
Did you ever notice that you never saw George Carlin and Dr. Seuss in the same room? I wonder…
Clay will be an important part of the foundation.
Hopefully they can mold him into greatness
So time consuming going frame by frame to get the mechanics to look right on his delivery.
The only reason he was good was because it was his first year in the bigs. He is going to be one of the worst guys on the roster if he can stay on the team the whole year.
Nats fan here, we needed a lefty. So this is good hoping at least for a good left on left pitcher
Seth Romero should be healthy, so with Braymer, Clay, and Romero in the mix, the lefty “thingy” should be covered..
Romero or Braymer have to prove themselves in spring training first
#Truth
$575k is what he would make in the majors, not his guarantee. If he is in the minors he would make less than that
it doesn’t seem like a split contract though
I don’t think that’s true… that’s the case for minor league deals. But when you sign a guy to a ‘major League contact’ I’m pretty sure the whole thing is guaranteed. It doesn’t mention anything about being a split contract or anything like that… and I actually think that $575K is below the major League minimum. So if that’s the case — he’s obviously going to make the full $575K whether he’s on the Ml roster or not — and if he does spend the whole year in the majors, and it’s a 162 game season, I believe he’d actually wind up making slightly more than $575K as the league min is like $582K I believe.
Oh looks like I was mistaken (about the ML minimum) apparently it’s only $562K — but still I do believe, unless there’s more reporting about this being a split contract or something like that — that a ‘Major League Contact’ should mean that he’s guaranteed the whole amount whether he’s in AAA or the majors.
Correct, Jeff. He is guaranteed this salary no matter if he pitches in the majors or the minors. Great deal for Clay; I hope he ends up paying dividends for the Nationals too. There is a lot of major league talent trapped down in the minors, some of whom never get the chance to show it. Clay hit the MiLB lottery.
Here we have Sam Clay. He is your average Caucasian male.
he seems to have a solid ammount of hair. the average dude would pay to have that.
“While Major League deals for minor league free agents who have yet to make their Major League debut are admittedly rare, there’s a handful of them every winter.”
Between him and Jason Vosler, we’ve had two in a one-week span. With teams trying to find value this winter, I imagine we’ll see more of these.
Even better news CANO BUSTED AGAIN.
No, every PED bust is bad for baseball. It’s a stain. “Better news” will be “Last PED Bust Ever.”
I think it’s official who the two best second basemen of that generation were with a clear-cut third…Pedroia and Utley. Then Kinsler… then maybe cano
Nice move
Maybe with the minor leagues being scaled back, we’ll see more of these. Although it’s not a split contract, it’s like a bridge contract. It becomes more affordable since the costs of operating the minor league system will be going down.