Left-hander Eric Lauer exercised an out clause in his minor league cope with thee Pirates and has been granted his launch, tweets Kevin Gorman of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Evaluation. He’s as soon as once more a free agent.
Lauer, 29 in June, pitched properly for many of his time in Indianapolis, although his ERA ballooned from 3.95 to five.52 after he was tagged for six runs by way of simply two innings in his ultimate look there. He’d signed a minor league contract on March 7 after being non-tendered by the Brewers earlier within the offseason.
Although Lauer seemed properly on his technique to a breakout with the Brew Crew in 2021 after including a slider to his arsenal, his 2023 marketing campaign was a catastrophe. From 2021-22, Lauer pitched to a 3.47 ERA in 277 1/3 innings, displaying robust strikeout and stroll charges alongside the way in which — notably after incorporating that new breaking ball into his repertoire. Nevertheless, final 12 months noticed the southpaw publish a grisly 6.46 ERA in 46 2/3 innings. The Brewers optioned him to Triple-A Nashville in hopes of getting him proper, however he served up a 5.15 ERA there as properly.
Lauer incurred each shoulder and elbow accidents from 2022-23, so it’s actually attainable he wasn’t pitching at full power throughout that depressing 2023 marketing campaign. He misplaced greater than two miles per hour off his heater final 12 months, dropping from a 93.3 mph common in 2022 to simply 91.2 mph earlier than he was optioned.
Whereas that ugly ultimate outing in Indy skewed Lauer’s 2024 ERA, he fanned a pointy 29.1% of opponents in his transient stint with the Pirates group, coupling that mark with a strong 8.7% stroll charge. Even when he doesn’t get all the way in which again to his 2021-22 type, Lauer has a 4.30 earned run common in almost 600 huge league innings — a 4.11 mark if excluding final 12 months’s powerful displaying. He additionally solely has 4.111 years of huge league service time, so if a workforce indicators him and brings him to the majors in some unspecified time in the future, he could be managed by way of the 2025 season by way of arbitration (and even by way of 2026, if his MLB promotion comes with 60 or fewer days remaining on the season’s calendar).
