A's Sign Another Contact Bat
Baseball America is reporting that the A's have signed Pablo Reyes, 29, to a minor league contract. Reyes has played parts of the last four full seasons in the big leagues, totaling 147 games played and hitting a combined .238 with a ,307 on-base and a 79 OPS+ in 323 plate appearances.
He spent the last two seasons with the Milwaukee Brewers, getting into a combined 58 games (53 in 2021 and 5 in 2022) and hit .258 with a .330 OBP, four steals and an 85 OPS+ in just over 100 plate appearances.
Reyes has played all around the diamond, but has seen the most action in pro ball at second base (418 games), shortstop (204), third base (129), and in left field (119). He has also logged time in center and right field, and even pitched a scoreless inning for the Brewers in 2022.
In 2021 his arm strength ranked in the 17th percentile, so second base could be the logical landing spot for Reyes, who batted .275 with a .349 OBP in 99 games with Triple-A Nashville this past season.
One of the main reasons that he had to be on the A's radar was his ability to make contact. In his four stints in the big leagues he has struck out 17.5%, 22.9%, 17.2%, and most recently 12.5% of the time. Granted we don't have large sample sizes against big league pitching to work with here, so that could go up a bit as he gets more exposure. In the minors he struck out 15.5% last season.
Add Pablo Reyes to the mix of guys contending for second base/utility spots on the A's roster alongside Tyler Wade and Yonny Hernández. Only Hernández is currently on the A's 40-man roster, however. The A's still have 37 players on their 40-man roster since the Reyes signing was a minor league deal.
Baseball America also mentioned the A's had signed Rico Garcia, a right-handed reliever that has had some big-league time with the Colorado Rockies, San Francisco Giants, and most recently with the Baltimore Orioles.
He's only thrown 24 innings in the Majors, and has had a tough time having his strikeout rate, which has been roughly a batter an inning in the minors, translate to the big league level where he has a 4.1 strikeouts per nine innings, including 2.3 K/9 in eight innings with Baltimore.
His overall walk rate is ballooned by his time in Colorado, particularly in his big league debut, where he walked five batters in five innings pitching at Coors Field. Since that start, he has walked seven in 19 innings in The Show, good for 3.32 BB/9, which is in line with the 3.6 BB/9 he posted in the minors in 2022.
Garcia averaged 96 on his fastball with the O's and ranks in the 83rd percentile in fastball spin, but his extension lags behind in the 20th percentile. His pitches all tend to move well below average, so the plan here has to be either to work on Garcia's extension, or introduce new pitch grips that give him some added movement. In addition to his fastball, he also throws a changeup and a curve.
The final signee that BA is reporting is outfielder Trenton Brooks, not to be confused with Brent Rooker, whom the A's also scooped up. Brooks is currently teammates with Pablo Reyes on the Tigres del Licey in the Dominican Winter League.
If you're an avid reader of Inside the A's, you already know where I'm going next.
Brooks has been in pro ball since 2016 and his highest strikeout rate has been 20.6%, which he's done twice--in 2017 in his first taste of A Ball, and again in 2021 in his first taste of Triple-A. He was in Triple-A again in 2022 and his walk rate went from 9.5% to 12.1%, and his strikeout rate dipped from 20.6% to 16.2%. He also hit .273 with a .367 OBP as a 26-year-old.
Brooks is a lefty bat that has stronger platoon splits against righties, batting .286 against them compared to .226 against southpaws. He hit 11 home runs in 2022, a new career high for him, having previously maxed out at nine homers in 2019.
None of these moves is particularly splashy, but the A's have had success in the past of finding guys that just needed a chance to show what they could do on a regular basis, and if there is one thing the A's have plenty of, it's playing time for those that have earned it.