A's Sign Former St. Louis Cardinals Reliever
The Oakland Athletics have signed right-handed reliever Seth Elledge to a minor league deal and assigned him to the Arizona Complex League. The righty was selected by the Seattle Mariners in the fourth round of the 2017 MLB Draft, then traded to the St. Louis Cardinals in July of 2018.
Elledge debuted with the Cards in 2020, racking up 11 2/3 innings and posting a 4.63 ERA. He had the exact same ERA in the same number of innings in 2021, though his WHIP went up slightly to 1.71 after allowing 13 hits and walking seven. He was released in March of 2022 and has spent time in the minors with the Atlanta Braves, New York Mets, Detroit Tigers, and then back to Atlanta before signing with the A's.
Back in 2021 he was primarily a sinker ball pitcher, tossing it at a 69% clip, while mixing in a slider the rest of the time. In his last outing in Triple-A last year, he was still utilizing the sinker for the majority of his pitches (71%), but he had dropped the slider for a sweeper. The outing itself wasn't great, with just 10 of his 25 pitches landing in the strike zone, which led to five runs allowed in 2/3 of an inning.
Given that Elledge has been assigned to the Complex League, the A's will be giving him time away from game action to work on some stuff that they'd like to see him do. That could be a tweak to his mechanics to get him in the zone a bit more, a new grip on his pitches that leads to better results, or perhaps even adding a new pitch altogether. There are a number of options here.
At 27 years old, there is still plenty of time for the righty to make it back to the big leagues, and the A's have always been a team that provides opportunities when they're earned.
JASON BURKE
Jason is the host of the Locked on A's podcast, and the managing editor of Inside the A's. He's a new father and can't wait to take his son to his first baseball game at the Coliseum.