The Orioles have signed veteran left-hander T.J. McFarland to a minor league deal, per MLB.com’s transactions page. McFarland was designated for assignment by the Mets earlier this month to make room for left-hander Jose Quintana on the 40-man roster.
The deal represents a homecoming for McFarland, who made his MLB debut with the Orioles back in 2013. Over his first two seasons in the majors, McFarland posted a solid 3.58 ERA and 3.59 FIP in 133 1/3 innings of work. He struggled over the following two seasons, however, mustering just 65 innings with a disappointing 5.68 ERA. That downturn in production led Baltimore to release him prior to the 2017 season.
Since then, McFarland has played for the Diamondbacks, Athletics, and Cardinals in addition to the Mets. In 275 2/3 innings of work with those clubs, he’s managed a 4.05 ERA that’s 6% better than league average by measure of ERA+ along with a 4.33 FIP. He’s thrown just 1 2/3 innings in the majors this year, though he sports a 2.76 ERA in 32 2/3 innings of work at the Triple-A level with the Mets’ affiliate in Syracuse.
In returning to Baltimore, McFarland joins a stacked Orioles relief corps that leads the majors with 5.0 fWAR thanks to an MLB-best 3.58 FIP. That being said, the club’s bullpen has covered 355 innings so far this season, the 12th highest figure in the majors. Given that, McFarland could still prove to be valuable depth that helps bear the load as the club enters the second half.
McFarland figures to join the likes of Nick Vespi and Eduard Bazardo as depth options in the upper minors for the Orioles going forward. Vespi and McFarland, in particular, seem likely to get consideration if the struggles of Cionel Perez, who sports a 4.73 ERA (89 ERA+) and 4.49 FIP in 32 1/3 innings of work, prompt the club to look into other left-handed options to pair with Danny Coulombe in the bullpen.
?? TJ returns for minor league depth? I guess he’s backfilling for Easton Lucas.
Yep. Lucas’ replacement. TJ probably won’t crack the club unless things go way wrong.
I don’t necessarily think it would necessarily mean that things went way wrong. It just might mean that they got tired of Cionel.
Or when rosters expand but I think another reliever may be added. We’ll see what what Fujinami does after he spends some time w the coaches
Same with TJ. He may be long in the tooth, but the Orioles staff may see something and have a tweak they would like to suggest.
I think Fuji was a smart acquisition. We’ll all see if it works out. But the arm is so live, it is wise to gamble on it.
The two are not at all correlated.
Not sure what you are claiming. Both players are relief pitchers who have been acquired recently by the Orioles. That is the definition of correlation.
It could be that the Orioles staff has identified ways to help them improve, either through release point, sequencing or another change.
@Ra yeah.
If it doesn’t work out—we only threw away a depth reliever from the system. That’s a gamble you have to like for a contending ball club. We’ll see if we can iron Fuji out.
Did I accidentally open my flip phone? Is this 2009?
9 days from the deadline. This is a good team. And these are the kind of moves you are making????
This reminds me of the deadline a couple years ago. No action at all. The teams that wanted to be good aren’t playing good and the teams playing good are too cheap to care.
I am in a bad mood the Cardinals just lost their 2nd in a row due to bad umpires and Jordan Walker being the worst defensive player on the planet.
I wish teams that were playing well acted like they cared. I really wish my team was playing well but whatever
You worked the cardinals into an idiotic post about the minor league signing of a depth reliever by the O’s. Greeeeeaaaat work!
And then you showed up to reply to it. Who’s the idiot?
Trick question?
First place for the Orioles. What will they do?
Probably not much…..
He can’t help himself, he always has to be that person. For being a Cardinals fan he sure is all over all of the Orioles posts.
The Orioles are a very frustrating team. I like the Orioles I went to a game once when Camden Yards first opened and I have always liked them because of that. They have gone through a tough rebuild and are finally coming out of it. But the cheapskate owner isn’t spending to make the team better and that bothers me. You don’t have to sign guys to 8 year deals but do something. Last offseason it was Kyle freaking Gibson and that was pretty much it. This year they are now in first and no moves nothing. I want them to succeed.
PS the fans seem obnoxious too. Talking about how they are playing for the future while in 1st place in the toughest division in baseball. It doesn’t last forever kids. When you got a chance you gotta go for it.
It seems like the O’s are following the Astros model. Both Mike Elias and Sig Mejdal were in the Astros front office during their mid-2010’s rebuild. During the Astros rebuild, this was the stage where they started to spend more and more money on the major league roster. I imagine that’s what Elias wanted to do this past offseason, but he wasn’t willing to shell out 6 years/$162 million for Carlos Rodon, for example. We’ll see if they decide to spend more in free agency this upcoming offseason, but let’s also acknowledge that building a team through strong drafting and player development is a much more sustainable way to mold a consistent winning team than through spending outrageous amounts of money on aging stars.
At this point, the O’s are at the beginning of their window. They have ample time to supplement their young core with strong veteran players. There’s no need for them to go all-in this year. I agree that chances like this are hard to come by in the AL East, but selling the team’s future for a year of contention is not an effective strategy for sustained success.
You don’t have to go all in. There is a giant chasm of difference between going all in and an offseason where Kyle Gibson is your best free agent signing.
You’re absolutely right. But for every Nathan Eovaldi there’s a Sean Manaea. And frankly, it’s hard to argue with the results thus far. The O’s starting rotation is below average, but it’s been getting the job done because the players the organization has drafted and developed have put up 5 runs per game.
What I’m arguing here is that spending big on free agents can shorten a team’s window. Arguably, the last big free agent signing the O’s made–Chris Davis–almost singlehandedly took the team out of contention, since it moored them to an aging, expensive, underperforming player.
You go into the playoffs with the same team you won’t get far. Good teams who want to win make deals at the deadline to get better. Maybe you will learn this over time.
Last year, almost all of the big deals occurred in the last 2 days. We can give them an honest grade on their acquisitions in 2 weeks. There’s no sense in judging them on this acquisition.
I don’t see how they are following the “Astros’ model.” Just because two people worked for the astros doesn’t mean they’re operating this franchise like Luhnow did the Astros. To date, they don’t appear to be following any team’s model.
Evidently we’re talking about two different things here. I’m for the O’s going after a starter and another reliever at the deadline (trading for them). I’m not for the O’s signing aging players to long, expensive contracts over the offseason (signing them). I’d much rather them spend that money internally to extend players already on the roster.
That said, trading away every top prospect we have for rentals this season seems a bit shortsighted. I appreciate the condescension, but having the team’s long-term trajectory in mind is important (maybe this is something you will to “learn over time”).
Perhaps I overstated this a bit, but it does seem like the O’s have mirrored the Astros strategy of tanking for a few years to acquire high draft picks, investing heavily in developing those draft picks, and investing heavily in the international market. Ideally, the O’s will follow up with investing money into the players they’ve developed like the Astros did.
I wanted Nathan. But that would have meant losing a top draft pick. I had a feeling Elias wasn’t going to give up a pick for him. I can’t say that I disagree with his strategy.
I think there are plenty of teams that have tanked. That’s the simple part. What’s far more important is what you do after the tanking. So far, the Orioles haven’t done anything to emulate the Astros’ approach except for the tanking.
This is a depth signing–MLB teams do this all the time. A few days ago, the Braves signed 32-year-old Mike Morin to a minor league deal like this one. No reason to freak out!
We should be seeing some trades by now that’s really my point. I know why the Cardinals haven’t done anything but come on some of these teams are clear buyers or sellers.
major trades can more quickly destroy a good team’s chemistry and momentum than anything I can think of – that RARELY works. The point is to win, not to acquire big stars; big stars rarely conduce to additional winning.
Right, but we still have over a week until the deadline. It’s not clear what teams like the Padres are going to do, for example. I’d imagine Elias wants to have a better idea of who’s available on the market before making any big moves.
I’m afraid you’re going to have to wait until August 1.
Dude…….didn’t you guys get Verlander at the deadline????
yes, we did – and we once got Randy Johnson at the deadline, also. Both those moves turned into gold.
Was the Verlander trade a good trade or not?
I would have to see evidence of major trades that destroyed a clubhouse’s chemistry. I can’t think of one.
“Conduce!?” Get thee to a dictionary.
I guess that Mike Morin signing proves the braves aren’t trying to win. /s
I feel your pain, King of Cards.
King of Cards: I can top that. My team is the WSox. I would like to nominate Elvis Andrus as the worst defensive player in all of bb. He dropped two throws yesterday and one today resulting in two SBs and a failed, easy force out at 2b. That’s why, as a Sox fan, I’m really pulling for the O’s, Dbacks and Angels to make the PO. Unlike the Sox, at least they’re trying.
White Sox and Cardinals seem to have a lot in common. The Sox have spent money but not wisely. Their defense is terrible from what I understand sounds like Andrus is doing his part. The White Sox really need to sell imo because they don’t have a good farm system.
Nobody has made a big move yet. Relax cupcake
Dammit you make me mad in one lost and crack me up with the next one….
Post*
Great Googly Moogly
The well traveled T.J McFarland has probably seen over 75% of American cities.
I got Os. In different area codes.
“Vespi and McFarland, in particular, seem likely to get consideration if the struggles of Cionel Perez, who sports a 4.73 ERA (89 ERA+) and 4.49 FIP in 32 1/3 innings of work, prompt the club to look into other left-handed options to pair with Danny Coulombe in the bullpen.”
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I thought that too and posted a comment the other day to that effect as I’d given up following Cionel as he was awful early in the season.
But I was watching the O’s-Rays game the other day listening to the Rays radio broadcast (they’re exceptional). They pointed out that while Perez sucked constantly during the first 2-3 months, in
his last 7-8 appearances he’s done extremely well. ESPN shows 7 appearances in the last 30 days for 8 innings giving up 2 earned runs. Tonight he came in to face Brandon Lowe during an 8th inning Jays rally where they’d tied the game and had a runner in 1B with 2 out. He fanned Lowe and go the win when the O’s scored in the 9th.
Fact is, the O’s coaching staff has been extremely good the last 2-3 years in working with bullpen pitchers. Both the Manager and the FO are patient with the pitchers. It appears that Perez is back in sync and is pairing with Coulombe as lefties out of the pen (they can use another for the stretch run and playoffs).
Now the coaches have to go to work on Shintaro Fujinami whose average pitch speed is 98 mph, but is wild and doesn’t sequence his pitches well. He’s made 2 shaky appearances with them so far – leaving the coaches a (miserable) starting point to begin working with him.
Hyde said he was going to try and put him in low pressure situations to start. So much for that! Go get David Robertson and Josh Hader and the bullpen will be set!
CurtBlefary;
If the O’s got Robertson or Hader as a gift from their current team, they couldn’t afford to pay their salaries for 2 months. Hader is making $14m for the year, Robertson $10m. Those guys pitch between 60-70 innings a year. A MLB team pitches around 1,400 innings a year. The O’s entire payroll for the year is $69m.
They’re looking for a few more middle inning relief pitchers (they have 2 back-end guys). They’ll continue to concentrate on finding guys that are doing poorly, can be had cheap, and who the O’s analysts and coaches can turn productive.
Astros Hot Takes;
Cionel never did much with the Astros in 3 years – a total of 27 innings pitched, and had a 6.38 ERA in 24 innings with the Reds in 2021. He looked great with the O’s in 2022, but for the first few months in 2023 he was awful. For now he’s squared way.
They can afford their salaries for two+ months. Cano is struggling. One of them could bump him as setup man and of course be our closer when Felix goes back-to-back days. Which is quite often!
The O’s are going to be a playoff team. Starters in playoff games often go five innings. Do you want Baker and Fugi pitching the 6th and 7th?
Another thing. It’;s the time of the year where you don’t have time to groom reclamation projects. You need guys who can produce results now.
The Orioles could easily add 8 million in payroll for two stud relief pitchers.
I saw that, and thought you were a bit hard on Cionel – kinda like Montero with the Astros this year; we KNOW they can excel, as they did so as recently as last year. And we’re talking about two of the smartest orgs in MLB.
Middle inning RP is a need, agreed. It’s the high leverage late innings where things look dire. Cano needs help. And it ain’t happening in house.