With pitchers and catchers officially reporting to Spring Training next week, free agent right-hander Johnny Cueto is preparing to pitch and hopes to sign with a club for the 2024 season, per Jon Morosi of MLB.com.
Cueto is nearing his 38th birthday, which will be on Thursday next week, and last year wasn’t a great showing for him. He signed a one-year, $8.5MM deal with the Marlins, in the form of a $6MM salary and $2.5MM buyout on a 2024 club option. The Marlins were hoping he could provide some veteran innings to their youthful staff and replace some of the workload lost by trading Pablo López to the Twins as part of the Luis Arráez deal.
Unfortunately, Cueto departed his first outing of the year after just 30 pitches due to right biceps tightness, going on the injured list in the first week of April and not returning until July. He was eventually able to get some work in and finished the year with 52 1/3 innings over 10 starts and three relief appearances, but the results weren’t pretty. He allowed 6.02 earned runs per nine frames, striking out just 17.9% of opponents and allowing 17 home runs in that brief showing.
The Fish had a $10.5MM club option over Cueto for 2024 but made the easy decision to turn that down and take the $2.5MM buyout, sending him back to the open market. Given his age and rough campaign, it would have been fair to wonder if he was hanging up his spikes but he seems to be planning on another go. The interest will obviously be low after a season like that and Cueto hasn’t been connected to any specific clubs this winter. But it’s perhaps worth pointing out that he has come back from struggles in the past.
He posted an ERA of 4.38 for the Giants from 2017 to 2021, going on the injured list in each full season of that stretch. He stayed healthy in the shortened 2020 season but had a 5.40 ERA in that campaign. Going into 2022, he was a free agent and had to settle for a minor league deal with the White Sox, though one that came with a $4.2MM salary if he cracked the big leagues. He ended up making good on that deal, tossing 158 1/3 innings for the Sox with a 3.35 ERA, parlaying that into his deal with the Marlins.
The free agent market still features plenty of arms, with big names like Blake Snell and Jordan Montgomery still out there, as well as guys like Mike Clevinger, Michael Lorenzen and Jakob Junis. Cueto will be part of a veteran contingent featuring guys like Hyun Jin Ryu, Rich Hill and Zack Greinke.
Cueto has appeared in parts of 16 MLB seasons to this point, having racked up 144 victories and 1,851 strikeouts while posting a 3.50 ERA in 368 games.
Wow
THANK YOU, BUSTER OLNEY.
Easy, Craven. It’s a comment section not an advice column
It’s either going to be a very busy week and a half, or a lot of guys are missing at least part of Spring Training.
I’m already prepared to pitch. I have a 110 mph 4SFB, a 98 curve, 99 knuckleball and a 95 cutter. Sadly, MLB seems to have me on some blacklist to hire me.
NPB on line 2
I was also that good and could club 100 dingers, steal 200 bases, and walk 200 times but playing 2K Baseball isn’t real!
and how, York, do you get movement on your knuckler when throwing it 99 mph? huh?
Probably because they look for 10 to 15 mph separation off the fastball downward in your offerings…keep tossing it off the bounce back spring loaded orange strike square…you got this!
Maybe a reunion with the Reds?
I would love to see that if he’s healthy. Johnny Basebol is one of the most beloved Reds in recent times. His work ethic would be a great example to the Reds young arms.
A hearty NO to reunion with Reds. We have plenty of young arms that need to pitch. Montas, Greene, Ashcroft, Lodolo and Abbot. Williamson, Petty, Phillips and Lowder to follow in case of injuries. Look forward.
Petty and Lowder are at least two years away, and all five of the guys in that fivesome have not pitched a full healthy season with the Reds.
Just some realism.
Cueto might get an incentive heavy contract. I don’t see him getting much in guaranteed money.
I feel like Cueto could average 85 on his fastball and still get guys out. He’s got the shimmy shimmy ya shimmy yah shimmy yeah.
Give him the ball and he will put ‘em away?
First they’ll need to break him out of the Brooklyn Zoo.
Feels like a Dodger to me
Hi Patrick, this is your dad. I know you’re trying to get ready for the Super Bowl but I just got another DWI cause our whole family is filled with scumbags.
No phone call in prison, but access to MLBTR sounds about right. I hope Pat is checking baseball rumors preparing for the Big Game®.
Already bonded out. I’m sure Pat paid for that too. Maybe out of the brothers defense fund.
Average JimmyCatfish W
Feel better dude. Totally irrelevant comment.
Seems like a front of the rotation guy for Chaim Breslow and the cheap Red Sox. Pays to be patient….as Johnny C. may fall right into their lap.
This has Pirates written all over it. No team tries to revive circling the drain SP’s like the Bucs.
@ Scott Kliesen
Just like drying the paper towel from the garbage to save some cash.
The Pirates call it being environmentally friendly.
I can hear their fans chanting for that now.
Just what I was thinking. They have great young pitchers coming probably year away.
I think the Pirates will sign one of the pitchers in the guys who should probably just retire group of Cueto, Ryu, Rich Hill and Greinke. I’d prefer Ryu because there’s slightly more potential and the Bucs would practically have a monopoly at the trade deadline for the rental, veteran, lefty, inning eater market if Ryu, Marco Gonzales and Martin Perez all work out in the first half of the season.
But I’d love to go to Cueto’s first home game at PNC Park and start a “CUE-TO, CUE-TO” chant just to be a jagoff. So there’s that too.
I looked up Cueto’s stats and was actually surprised to see that he hasn’t already been a Pirate; it seems like a foregone conclusion that he would be one.
Yeah. Syndergaard. Keuchel. This guy. I almost expect them to sign one of these guys, if not more, and then see the obligatory “”A+ signing” from DreamGM
Matt Arnold, Johnny is waiting on line 2. He says he can be as impactful on the team as Julio Teheran was this past season.
Can I do this just once, please?
Borderline Hall of Famer
There. Thank you very much.
You would also be gearing up for the upcoming season if your 2023 WHIP was 1.2.
That about right, Bartolo?
Given that the pirates still could use another arm to hold them over to at least for a couple months I’d love to get Cueto for the fun.
He or Grenkie could be reasonable pickups. I’d like them better than the other guys they got. At least these two have actually had more than a handful of good seasons that couldn’t be written off as a fluke.
Still would like a “splash” signing but realistically not going to happen.
SD for 1 mil and a bunch of incentives.
He’ll get an invitation around the time pitchers and catchers report, I’ll guess.
Well ain’t that a kick in the head.
Jason is that you..?
Twins should give him a minor league deal and invite him to SP to see if he’s got anything left in the tank.
Slightly related to the topic; Whatever happened to Michael Pineda?
Royals should bring him back, he’s good enough to be a starter there even after all of the signings they made.
Oakland signed the only viable veteran SP in Hill. Wish Marlins would’ve done so.
I mean there’s a few teams that could pick him up on a cheap, incentivized deal. Pirates, Angels, Yankees, Red Sox. Those are my guesses for landing spots.
Just the sort of old, cheap, oft injured heartbeat John Henry’s stingy “full throttle” wallet can afford as We, Redsox Nation Boycott for 2024! Excellent stuff here…I await the announcement to Fenway Park