by The Mets sign a right-handed pitcher Griffin Canning According to several reports, there will be a one-year contract.
Canning’s deal will be worth $4.25 million, as first reported by Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic.
The 28-year-old Canning, pitching in his fifth big league season last year, scored 99 earned runs in 171.2 innings while pitching with a 5.19 ERA (5.26 FIP) in 32 games (31 starts). 66 walks for a WHIP of 1.398.
Of course, he still managed to strike out 130 batters that year. But it was a bad year for Canning in that regard, as 6.8 strikeouts per nine innings were a career low. After missing the entire 2022 season due to injury, he pitched with a 4.32 ERA and 1.236 WHIP in 24 games (22 starts) the following year and recorded 139 strikeouts in 127 innings in 2023, a rate of 9 .9 Ks per nine equals .
The move bolsters the Mets’ depth at the back end of the rotation Jose Butto, Paul Blackburn And Tylor Megill All candidates are starters or go to the bullpen.
President of Baseball Operations at the MLB Winter Meetings in early December David Stearns said the club will let the aforementioned trio rest this offseason before potentially landing them in bullpen roles.
“For guys like Jose, the easiest time to prepare is in the offseason… like they’re stretched out,” Stearns said at the time. “Once you’re stretched out, we can always shorten you. And so Jose is going to wear himself out… We’ll probably wear him out a little bit once he gets to camp and then we’ll see how our roster develops.”
Three pitches make up the majority of Canning’s offerings, with a four-seam fastball (93.4 mph average) accounting for 37.6 percent of his pitches, followed by a changeup (88.6 mph) at 26.7 percent and a slider (87.7 mph) at 24 percent. He used his fourth pitch, a curveball, in 2024 at 10.3 percent, slightly less than the year before.
Canning’s most effective pitch over the past two seasons has been his changeup, with a 28.8 percent whiff rate and a .318 weighted on-base average in 2024.
He played for the Los Angeles Angels throughout his career before moving to the Atlanta Braves after the season Jorge Soler. The Braves did not tender him and allowed him to hit free agency.
Overall, Canning has posted a career ERA of 4.78 and a WHIP of 1.333 over 508 innings in 94 starts (with an additional five appearances out of the bullpen). He struck out 483 batters to 183 walks (2.64 ratio).
He won the AL Gold Glove in 2020, his second season in the majors.
