Left-hander Foster Griffin’s Main League resume consists of seven video games and eight innings of 6.75 ERA ball with the Royals and Blue Jays through the 2020 and 2022 seasons. On the lookout for a change of surroundings, Griffin signed with the Yomiuri Giants previous to the 2023 season, and the New York Submit’s Jon Heyman stories that the 30-year-old southpaw is now trying to return to North American baseball after three profitable years in Japan.
Whereas Griffin hadn’t proven a lot in his few cups of espresso within the majors, he posted a 2.10 ERA, 27.1% strikeout fee, and seven.1% stroll fee over 51 1/3 aid innings with the Royals’ and Blue Jays’ Triple-A associates in 2022. Griffin had began virtually all of his professional video games previous to the 2022 marketing campaign, however the transfer to full-time bullpen work appeared to unlock one thing for Griffin after some inconsistent outcomes as a starter.
Accidents additionally performed a task in Griffin’s profession. Griffin’s tore his UCL in his very first huge league recreation in 2020, leading to a Tommy John process and a protracted stint on the shelf. His good numbers in 2022 appeared to point that he’d coated nicely from his surgical procedure, however his resolution to go abroad might have been impressed by a need to get one other crack at beginning.
The choice to wager on himself appears to be like to have paid off. Griffin had a 2.57 ERA, 25.07% strikeout fee, and 5.52% stroll fee throughout 315 2/3 innings and 54 video games with the Giants. His debut yr in 2023 was so spectacular that the Giants inked him to a two-year extension, which is notable since foreign-born gamers in NPB are normally given simply one-year offers. Griffin’s work helped the Giants attain the postseason in every of the final two NPB seasons.
FanSided’s Robert Murray talked about again in July that MLB groups had taken discover of Griffin’s numbers in Japan, so together with his contract with the Giants now accomplished, it isn’t shocking that Griffin is aiming to get again to the bigs. Merrill Kelly or Erick Fedde are among the many latest instance of pitchers who reinvented themselves in international leagues and returned to land multi-year free agent commitments, and the identical could possibly be true for Griffin regardless of his skinny observe file within the Present. Groups are ceaselessly wanting so as to add beginning pitching, and Griffin is an attention-grabbing lower-cost choice for any membership in want of rotation assist.
