The Giants and left-hander Joey Lucchesi have agreed to a minor league deal, reports Jon Heyman of The New York Post. The CAA Sports client gets an invite to big league camp and will make $1.5MM if he makes it to the majors.
Lucchesi, 32 in June, has spent the past few years as a depth arm for the Mets. Acquired from the Padres in the three-team January 2021 trade that sent Joe Musgrove from Pittsburgh to San Diego, Lucchesi went on to toss 38 1/3 innings for the Mets that year. He allowed 4.46 earned runs per nine but with strong strikeout and walk rates of 26.1% and 7% respectively.
Tommy John surgery in June put him out of action for the second half and he didn’t make it back to the majors in 2022. For the past two years, the lefty has mostly been kept in the minors, only getting into nine big league contests in 2023 and just two last year. His 57 innings in those 11 starts resulted in a 3.32 ERA but less impressive numbers under the hood, as his 16.2% strikeout rate and 10.4% walk rate were both subpar. He also tossed 204 2/3 innings in the minors over the past two years with a 4.57 ERA, 19.3% strikeout rate and 11.1% walk rate. After two years of fairly middling results, and Lucchesi exhausting his final option year, the Mets decided to move on. He was outrighted off the roster at the end of last season and elected free agency.
For the Giants, there’s no real harm in bringing him aboard on a minor league pact to see if the lefty can get things back on track. He once looked like a solid rotation option for the Padres, logging 293 2/3 innings over the 2018 and 2019 seasons with a 4.14 ERA, 24.6% strikeout rate, 8% walk rate and 46% ground ball rate. He spent most of 2020 in the minors but put up fairly similar numbers in 2021 before his surgery.
The Giants have a good rotation on paper, though with plenty of uncertainty behind Logan Webb. Both Robbie Ray and Justin Verlander will be looking to bounce back after injuries prevented them from contributing much in 2024. Kyle Harrison has posted some solid numbers thus far but is still below 160 career innings in the majors. Jordan Hicks will once again be trying to carve out a rotation role after seemingly running out of gas last year.
The club also has some depth options, with guys like Landen Roupp, Hayden Birdsong, Mason Black and others on the roster, but Lucchesi will add to that depth in a non-roster capacity. If he gets back to the majors, he is out of options, but he has less than five years of service time. That means he could theoretically be retained via arbitration for 2026 if he’s holding a roster spot at the end of the upcoming season.
I always liked Joey. I hope he gets a shot and flourishes.
Me too. He was solid when he first came up with the Padres and then was derailed by injuries.
Lucchesi was a good soldier for the Mets. Saw him in 2024 for a start against Charlotte. He is one of those guys who has AAAA stuff, but when he’s really on, he can be really good in MLB, He’s another year away from his surgery and I hope everything finally comes together for him.
Nice. Love a good soldier.
I’ll be keeping an eye on Joey.
Any deferred?
He was once viewed as the ace of that Padres rotation; then James Shields came along.
Maybe this is some sort of joke, but the timeline here doesn’t add up. The Padres signed James Shields in 2015 and then traded him in 2016. Later that year they drafted Luchessi and he didn’t make it to the big leagues until 2018.
Luchessi was never really viewed as an ace for SD. He was a borderline top 10 organizational prospect in 2018 and he moved quickly through the minors to get to the big leagues because developmentally he was close to being a finished product, but he was always projected to be like a #3/4 SP if he reached his potential. He did have a pretty solid year in 2019 though with that funky/deceptive lefty delivery.
Oops, I mean Chris Paddack; he also has flamed out.
I remember picking Paddack up in my fantasy league his rookie year and I thought he was gonna be a future ace lol
Luchessi was the “ace” of the 2018 Padres. He had some solid runs. His first 6 starts were pretty dominant (2.76 ERA, 9.7 K/9, 0.630 OPS again). He was up and down with performance but he looked like a building block for a bit before he was packaged in the Joe Musgrove deal.
Oh no! A team putting their tremendous financial resources into the on-field product instead of pocketing it. Why won’t they think of the fans of poverty franchises that just line ownership pockets. They should play down rather than forcing other teams to play up.
If the dodgers have such financial resources, why are they avoiding 230+ million dollars in CBT fines over 10 years on the Ohtani deal alone?
Don’t they have the money?
Because they are smart?
Let me guess…you are a fan of one of the revenue sharing bottom feeders who’s owner pockets their yearly kick instead of putting anything back into their team.
Exactly like the Pirates and As
East Bay kid looking for a shot with the hometown team late in his career. Worst case he gets to pitch in Sacramento. Wishing him luck.
Even better. A hometown soldier getting a shot. I was hoping that trend would continue with Buster.
Mickey, read the headline again. MINOR league in nice big letters.
lol Stearns couldn’t even keep him? What a penny pincher
His market price is less than half of 1% of the Mets budget so likely not a financial decision; what’s the reasoning behind calling him a penny pincher?
We did it boys
I like it, creates competition, has he worked out the pen much before? Maybe that’s the move to keep his career going
Looks like a decent bounce back candidate.
Funky lefty is always worth taking a shot on.
Good luck Joey ! Go get em !
Paisan!
Terrible addition for the Giants. AAA players aren’t the key to being slotted for 4th place. Talent and spending is key. Dodgers seem to know what to do. Ohtani made LA millions in revenue for ticket sales and millions more off merch. Smart teams understand the importance of signing premium talent. Signing dook stain AAA players won’t fill seats
Please. Didn’t the Giants try to sign Ohtani? They even offered the same deal that the Dodgers did. Same with Judge and the Yankees. You make it sound like the Giants aren’t trying to sign top-flight talent. And the Giants are no different from a half dozen other teams that have money to spend, make competitive offers, only to see the guy sign elsewhere. You also make it sound like signing Ohtani was some sort of genius, out-of-the-box thinking by LA. Like the Dodgers were the only team to recognize the value of signing Ohtani. Really? What a weak ass take.