The Giants announced Thursday evening that they’ve released veteran reliever Amir Garrett from his minor league deal (X link via Shayna Rubin of the San Francisco Chronicle). He had been in camp as a non-roster invitee but wasn’t going to make the Opening Day roster.
That’s not a surprise given the left-hander’s numbers this spring. Garrett allowed nine runs over 6 1/3 innings. He surrendered 13 hits and issued seven walks while recording three strikeouts. The Giants could use lefty relief help, but Garrett simply hadn’t performed well.
The 31-year-old should nevertheless find interest on a minor league deal elsewhere. His fastball sits in the mid-90s and he has an above-average 26.4% strikeout rate over 325 1/3 career innings. Garrett fanned a quarter of batters faced with a 3.33 ERA in 27 appearances for the Royals last season, but Kansas City cut him loose because his walk rate had jumped to a near-18% clip. He finished the year in Triple-A with the Guardians, where he struggled in a very small sample. While Garrett is unlikely to get a season-opening opportunity in a major league bullpen, he’s a sensible target for teams looking for upper minors relief depth based on his velocity and bat-missing ability.
San Francisco only has one left-hander who is a lock for their bullpen: Taylor Rogers. They optioned Erik Miller earlier in camp, while Ethan Small is headed to the injured list after straining his right oblique. There are no other lefty relievers on the 40-man roster.
If the Giants want a second left-hander, non-roster invitee Juan Sanchez has seemingly pitched his way to the top of list. The 23-year-old has punched out 11 against two walks with a massive 60% ground-ball rate over nine innings in camp. He has allowed four runs, two of them earned.
Cya king
Lacked control big time.
Big guy, big arm, but ineffective.
Wouldn’t say ineffective. He was good last year.
I’m just going off what I saw this spring.
The article states how he “misses bats” but he was missing plates, and even catchers at times. When he was in the zone he got hit pretty hard. So for that reason, I’m out.
Couldn’t agree more. Saw him pitch in person vs Royals on Tuesday night and his stuff was unrecognizable. Dude’s cooked. Too bad – he was terrific for the Reds a few years ago but he’s no longer the same pitcher.
Maybe if you go solely off of ERA and K/9. He walked 20 guys in 24 innings and his WHIP was almost 2
Do you mean he lacked self control? Also big head as well as big arm
I just don’t understand
He is a future White Sox Pitcher. No way they can resist another former Royals Player.
I’d love him on a minors deal.
@halosheavenJJ -As long as he stays in the minors. And nobody is stuck watching him from here on out. The important part isn’t the contract, it’s the lack of control and better use of a roster spot.
Are we just going to ignore that he was solid last year?
Except for the times that he’s walking guys. Which is a lot.
I just wrote a long response to why power pitchers get the advantage over soft tossers just purely based on ability to throw fast but I do want to defend Garrett a bit, at least why I think it was dumb that KC let him go last year.
Blake Snell, who, coincidentally, is also at the Giants’ camp for about a day or two with Garrett, walked a lot of batters last year. Yet he won the Cy Young. It would seem that walking a lot of batters doesn’t necessarily mean a pitcher is not effective.
I understand that lots of walks can be alarming. It can indicate a possible problem in the future. However, what I don’t get is the idea of jettisoning a player because some underlying metric suggests he won’t sustain effectiveness. If the guy is getting batters out when it is crucial, who cares if the batters who do get on do so by walking? I’d rather have a pitcher give up two walks in an inning than a guy strike out the side, but give up a double and single, scoring a run, in the process.
I don’t know who KC replaced Garrett with (didn’t look it up) but I do wonder if that player walked fewer batters but gave up more hits. Isn’t that more dangerous? Walks only guarantee one base but hits can be for multiple bases.
Baseball77, The trouble with raw walk numbers is there’s no way to tell what the circumstances were. Take for example two guys that each have two walks in an inning.
One guy walks the lead-off hitter, and then also walks the guy hitting in front of the other team’s best hitter. The other guy employs the unintentional intentional walk once, and just misses with a slider, which the hitter has trouble with.
Suppose both guys get out of the inning without giving up a run, so their numbers look identical. But the first guy clearly has command issues that spell future trouble, and the other guy has mitigating factors, that make his walks excusable.
Thanks for the response. I don’t really look at walks as an underlying stat. I think it’s a pretty crucial stat. Of course, as you said pitchers can get around that. You gave Snell as an example, which is true. However, I think walks from starters are more tolerable than walks from relievers, who tend to come into tighter situations with a lot less margin for error. Just a personal preference of mine but I do not want relievers in my bullpen that walk guys.
Yeah, it’s a very good point not all walks anre created equal. Absolutely. But when I look at the rate of walks from this guy, there had to be walks in all sorts of situations. Just my personal preference, but I want my relievers with better control than that. Especially in tight games. Those walks will kill you.
Miken31, Yeah, I agree. In general, walks just aren’t good to see from your pitchers. But if you look at the walk numbers in relation to other stats, it gives you a better idea of the bad walk/reasonable walk ratio. A guy like Snell, with a lot of walks, but good overall numbers, would appear to be using walks tactically, at least in some situations.
This is the second strait article where “his fastball sits at…” is the first analysis of the player. Speaks volumes to what is wrong with developing pitching. The article is of course right, his velo is intriguing, but so many of these guys are wil-o-the-wisps forever leading one to believe in them just to disappoint, while guys who know how to pitch hardly get the call once because of their lack of high K rates. At best they are sent to the pen where their stuff may “play up” (in other works their K rate and velo).
I think we should give teams more credit than to think they would knowingly pick a harder thrower over someone who they truly thought would get better results. This is the same pen that employed both Doval and Tyler Rogers, after all, so the Giants know that there’s more than one way to close out a game.
I’m speaking in general, not this example. Of course they wouldn’t pick a hard throwers over someone they thought would be better. Problem is they don’t think highly of you if you don’t throw hard
Yes, to the Giants’ credit, they regularly deploy Tyler Rogers late in games. However, he almost didn’t even get a chance to pitch in the big leagues. For two years, he dominated AAA hitting but the Giants refused to call him up because they thought his stuff wouldn’t work at the big league level and he’d get knocked around. They finally gave in and gave him a shot after his third year of pitching well in AAA (although, it was his worst of three seasons in AAA, which I find what most would call ironic).
Further, compare Tyler to his hard throwing brother, Taylor. Tyler pitched for DII school. Taylor pitched for an SEC school. Tyler, despite good numbers in college, got drafted in the 10th round of the 2013 draft., after his senior year. Taylor, however, despite some poor numbers, got drafted in the 11th round of the 2012 draft, his junior year. Tyler, despite dominating throughout this minor league career, didn’t make his big league debut until his age 28 season. Taylor, however, was completely rushed through the minors, with only decent results, making his big league debut at age 25.
What is my point? Soft tossers can be successful at the big league level, and teams do eventually give them chances to do so, but they have a lot more challenges to even get to the big league level. Why? Probably because they don’t have “dominant stuff” and get overlooked, despite doing their jobs well at the minor league level. Thus, you have guys that Garrett get long looks in spring just purely based on their heat.
Again, I find it really hard to believe that a team genuinely suppressed what they believed were their chances of success because of a gun reading. In the case of Rogers, yeah, he found a niche thanks to his style, but for every one of him, there’s going to be several more whose stuff is not going to play at the big league level that fans that don’t follow the team are never going to hear about.
And besides that, there are dozens of minor league flamethrowers who won’t get the call because of unsustainable walks, so this evaluation goes both ways.
These articles are speaking to the fans. We like velocity and power. Of course they’re going to highlight how hard he throws. It’s not what the teams and coaches are focused on though.
Not surprised, he got a shot but wasn’t too great this spring
He is the type of player team who a rebuilding need to Take on in hopes to trade him. And if not no lose
See ya, wouldn’t wanta be ya.
You would have loved to make the majors.
I love when teams use a small sample size over a career worth of stats. If his velocity hasn’t changed, and there is no sign of injury, sure, ignoring the bigger numbers that intrigued you to sign him makes so much sense.
I like when he tried to fight a whole team.
That was classic ….
@eddie that is also what has probably helped keep his career earnings down.
Can’t see his name without picturing him charging the Pirates dugout. That was no fake baseball “hold me back” fight.
I guess the Pirates are out!!
Yanks have interest, but no way signing.
Remember that time he fought the entire pirates dugout. Classic.
It would be interesting if the Pirates or Cubs picked him up!
A constant thorn in the side of his teammates and regarded as one of the more evil human beings in the game.
Once an opponent knows they can get under your skin, they keep doing it. Definitely a weakness exploited throughout his career. You have to learn to master yourself and your temper.
But is he the master of his domain?
I met the young man at a kids clinic in his home town where he appeared as a volunteer and nothing could be further from the truth. He’s a good dude that doesn’t deserve to be dissed by guys that don’t know him. I’m friends with one of his former teammates who knows that Garrett is a solid guy and a good teammate.
I never heard anything bad about Garrett as a reammate during his time in Cincy. But I did hear opponents constantly tried to get in his head because of his tendency to lose his temper.
Lefties are gold at this point. Giants have no choice but to roll with Sanchez, and why not, good gamble based on his Spring numbers. Who else? Wisenhunt? Probably not. Joely Rodriguez when he walks later today. Naw. Trade? Teams may want too much to let go of a left option. Or roll with another RHP until someone returns (Small) from the injured list.
Trade is best option but don’t know which team has lefty relievers to spare. SFG should try hard to find a match. Hopefully another team needs Conforto (plus cash), Bart, and maybe an interesting prospect.
Big wish, but is what needs to be done..
Miller is still an available option. Melvin said so himself
I do wonder why the Giants didn’t give Erik Miller a longer look. He wasn’t great in his three outings but, with so many open spots in their bullpen, and Miller being a lefty, one would think that they would have given him a couple more weeks to either sink or swim before optioning him to minor league camp.
Why?: Because Juan Sanchez.
I’m a fan of Miller too. I think he’s earned it and deserves it
Pirates will pick him up on the cheap hoping to flip him for a prospect they can control for the next several years.
The Tigers had a prospect through the 00s in Ian Ostlund. He was successful throughout MiLB. He had outstanding control but didn’t throw high heat. He never got a chance. Dave Dombrowski wanted his guys and wanted him hard throwers.
I don’t see the pirates taking a look at him lol
Some of you kill me. “small sample size” “has a ML track record” Yada Yada. It’s a 26 man roster. Not 36. Sanchez has clearly earned the spot. They let Garrett go now because he won’t make the 26 man AND they’re giving him a chance to sign a ML deal with another. Obviously he wants to be on a big league roster. Miller has options and walks too many, and that’s obvious as well. Same people that want Bart to stay cuz of his great spring don’t want to lose players who had a bad spring. Thats contradictory. Btw, Bart ALWAYS has great springs.
About Bart, shhhhhh. (You’re right)
We’re trying to get him traded this spring.
He obviously finally figured it all out.
Great value for a team needing a young backup guy with upside.
Actually Bart’s been our best catcher. Bailey’s been flailing. He’s batting .143 after getting a 1-4 today, to break his streak of consecutive 0-fer games, in between striking out and letting a passed ball go by. Bart’s batting over .400. If it’s truly about performance, like Melvin says, Bart’s earned the starting job. Bailey has options. Murphy ain’t lookin so great either and Sabol is not good behind the plate at all.
Bailey struck out at a higher rate than Bart last year, led the league in errors in only 3/4 of the season, didn’t have the stamina to play the whole season. You can look all of that up, it’s facts. And Bart was hitting over .300 consistently last year, before getting hurt and it dragging down his performance. Until they IL’d him and called up Bailey. Of course Farhan favors his own 1st round draft pick more, he’s made that clear
Craig Breslow enters the chat
He has Dodgers or Reys written all over him. He will have a career year with either with a sub 2.5 era and a sub 1 whip. Then he will get a multi year deal, with the Angels, only to revert back to being an inconsistent reliever.
Just like every club knows that Bart is out of options and the #3 catcher, everyone knows the Giants need LH pitching. Don’t expect clubs to give the Giants a deal. How long would it take to convince and get someone like Grienke , Keuchel or MadBum ready to throw an inning or two? Jarlin Garcia – he hasn’t pitched in a year – his arm is fresh.
Bart’s been our best catcher this spring. Bailey’s been struggling. He’s hitting .143, after he managed to get a hit today, in between striking out and letting a passed ball go by. Bart’s hitting over .400. If it’s really about performance, as Melvin says it is, Bailey has options…