Thursday Bantering: Jays sign LHP Ryan Feierabend

Keegan Matheson tweeted that the Blue Jays are signing Ryan Feierabend, pending physical. He is a left-handed pitcher who has been pitching in the Korea Baseball Organization for the past few years.

In 2017 he added a knuckleball, one of the very few lefties to throw a knuckleball and his numbers got much better. FanGraphs has a post on it here. He went from a 4.45 ERA in 2016 to a league leading 3.04 ERA in 2017, the major difference being the knuckleball which he threw 20.9% of the time, but used it more as an out pitch.

Last year his ERA was 4.30 in 27 games, 26 starts. He pitched 163.1 innings, allowed 186 hits, 141 strikeouts, 38 walks, and 24 home runs.

He’ll get a minor league contract with an amount he’ll be paid if he makes the major league team. More pitching depth.

This ought to be fun:

And the beat writers are telling us the starting rotation will be Stroman, Sanchez, Shoemaker, Clayton and the fifth spot will be a battle. I figured Borucki earned a spot with his work last year but I guess I was wrong.

The Jays are inviting catcher Alberto Mineo to camp. They need extra catchers during spring. Mineo. He hit .305/.387/.424 mostly in Dunedin last year, with 4 games in Buffalo.