A's Add Right-Hander From Minnesota Twins

Apr 13, 2017; Detroit, MI, USA; Minnesota Twins hat and glove in the dugout during the game against the Minnesota Twins at Comerica Park. Mandatory Credit: Rick Osentoski-Imagn Images | Rick Osentoski-Imagn Images

The Athletics offseason of adding pitching depth continues rolling right along. After adding Mark Leiter Jr. last week to serve as a late-inning option for the green and gold, they also went out and signed Joel Kuhnel to a minor-league deal after he spent time with the New York Yankees last season.

According to his player page, the A's have also signed 31-year-old right-hander Brooks Kriske, who spent two seasons playing in NPB in 2022 and 2023 before returning stateside in 2023 with the Kansas City Royals, and subsequently bouncing around from the Reds, to Baltimore, to the Cubs in 2025 and then the Twins in August of this year.

Now he's entering the 2026 season as a member of the A's Triple-A affiliate in Las Vegas. Since returning from overseas, he has racked up 24 2/3 innings in the big leagues, sporting a 6.57 ERA (5.11 FIP) with a 1.703 WHIP.

This past season he earned 18 of those innings (six with Chicago, 12 in Minnesota) and held a 7.50 ERA with a 4.36 FIP. The big reasons for the discrepancy are his high BABIP, which sat at .352, and his low home run to fly ball rate of just 5%.

One interesting note here is that in his six innings with the Cubs, three of those came at home at Wrigley Field, which is the ballpark that players and managers have compared the A's Sutter Health Park with. In those three innings, Kriske allowed just one hit, no runs, walked two, and struck out three, facing the Boston Red Sox and Kansas City Royals.

It's a small sample size and doesn't mean a ton, but it's interesting nonetheless.

He relied on his split-finger 54% of the time in the bigs this past season, and followed that up with his four-seamer 35% of the time, accounting for most of his pitch mix. He also worked in an occasional cutter to right-handers and a slider two times out of 100.

In looking at his heat maps, that four-seamer was thrown right down the middle quite a bit, which led to a .500 batting average against and a .399 expected batting average. Being able to locate that pitch a little better could lead to some decent results overall, given that his split-finger had a BAA of .216 and an xBA of .227.

Kriske also spent some time in the minors with the Cubs, accumulating 31 2/3 innings in Triple-A while holding a 3.13 ERA and a 2.99 FIP. On top of that, he was striking out a ridiculous 39.4% of the batters he faced, which is Mason Miller territory. Obviously, that didn't translate once he made it to the big leagues.

He'll be entering his age-32 season in 2026, and will be a depth option for the A's, but he has some pieces to his game that could be interesting for the A's to take a look at in Sacramento should an opportunity arise.