Athletics re-hired right-handed Yusmeiro Petit to a one-year contract, reports Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic (Twitter link) The deal will be made official as soon as Petit passes the physical exam. Steve Adams of MLBTR reports that Petit will earn $ 2.55 million in guaranteed money, with another $ 450,000 available in incentive bonuses. Petit is represented by Godoy Sports.
Petit returns for his fourth season at Oakland, a term that has been nothing but success for both parties. Petit has an ERA of 2.73 in 197 2/3 innings in an A uniform, and has been a workhorse out of the bullpen – 154 appearances in 2018-19 and then 26 appearances during the short 2020 season .
Petit is far from the statcast darling and does not register many strikeouts, as evidenced by his below average K% over the past three years. However, Petit’s 4.14% hike rate on that same stretch is elite, and he doesn’t allow much strong contact. Overall, Petit has continually outgrown its peripherals; its 2018-20 3.89 SIERA is above its real ERA for the past three seasons.
Not that many free agents have attracted much attention this winter, but there has been little public fanfare about Petit, perhaps due to his advanced metrics and age (36). The A’s were the only team known to have an interest in Petit, so a reunion was perhaps in a sense inevitable, although Petit has lowered his previous salary. The righty previously struck a two-year, $ 10 million deal with Oakland in November 2017 that ended up being a three-year deal, $ 14.5 million after Athletics exercised their club option at Petit for the 2020 season.
Between Petit and new acquisitions Sergio Romo and Adam KolarekOakland suddenly added a lot of bullpen reinforcements in the past three days. Substitute pitching was a major strength for A’s in 2020, but it was a position that needed to be addressed since Liam Hendriks and Joakim Soria left in free agency.