Veteran left-hander Amir Garrett has signed a minor league contract with the Angels, in keeping with the staff’s transaction log at MLB.com. The Beverly Hills Sports activities Council shopper has been assigned to the Triple-A Salt Lake Bees.
Garrett spent spring coaching with the Giants as a non-roster invitee. After an up-and-down 2023 season, he was going to want to impress this spring to earn a spot on the Opening Day roster. As an alternative, he gave up 9 runs in 6 1/3 innings of labor, permitting 13 hits, seven walks, and two dwelling runs whereas hanging out solely three of the 38 batters he confronted. He was launched final week.
The 31-year-old Garrett spent the 2022-23 seasons in Kansas Metropolis, working to a mixed 4.39 ERA in 69 2/3 innings of labor. The hard-throwing southpaw fanned precisely 1 / 4 of his opponents in every of his two seasons as a Royal, however his longstanding command points escalated to new heights. He walked 16.9% of his opponents with the Royals — together with a sky-high 17.9% mark in 2023. Garrett routinely managed to navigate that highwire act, logging a 3.33 ERA in final 12 months’s 24 1/3 innings, however he was launched over the summer time and didn’t make it again to the massive leagues after signing minor league offers with each the Guardians and the Giants (who re-signed him simply earlier than camp opened).
Previous to his time in Ok.C., Garrett was a mainstay within the Reds’ bullpen. From 2018-20, he notched a 3.60 ERA with 49 holds, a save, an enormous 30.2% strikeout charge and a bloated 11.6% stroll charge. There’s little doubting Garrett’s uncooked capability to overlook bats. His profession 12.6% swinging-strike charge is properly above common, and his 15.1% mark throughout his peak run with Cincinnati borders on elite. At this level, there are 325 1/3 innings of massive league work displaying his command to be properly beneath common, nonetheless. It’s unlikely he’ll ever get to the purpose the place he has plus command, but when he may even get again to the degrees he had with the Reds, versus the alarming stroll points he displayed in Kansas Metropolis, he might reemerge as a high quality setup man.
In the meanwhile, Garrett will function depth for an Angels membership that devoted the majority of its offseason to remaking the bullpen. The Halos signed Robert Stephenson, Matt Moore, Luis Garcia, Jose Cisnero, Adam Cimber and Adam Kolarek to huge league offers over the winter (although Kolarek was later outrighted to Triple-A). Anaheim additionally acquired righty Guillermo Zuñiga from the Cardinals and inked veteran Hunter Strickland to a minor league deal.
