Former Purple Sox nearer Matt Barnes, who was traded to the Marlins previous to the 2023 season and wound up present process season-ending hip surgical procedure in Might, threw for large league scouts final week and will land a cope with a staff earlier than spring coaching for many groups commences subsequent week, Alex Speier of the Boston Globe reports. Barnes remains to be constructing arm power however was within the low 90s together with his fastball.
An All-Star with the Purple Sox in 2021, Barnes has skilled a pointy decline lately, at the very least partially to a hip challenge that’s plagued him for a while. The best-hander saved 24 video games for the ’21 Sox however had all two dozen within the books by August 4. At that time, Barnes was sporting a pristine 2.25 ERA with a dominant 42% strikeout price towards a powerful 6.8% stroll price. He’d pitched like top-of-the-line relievers in baseball, and Boston rewarded him over the summer time within the type of a two-year, $18.75MM contract extension that stored him from reaching free company at season’s finish.
Barnes pitched nicely for the primary month of that contract, however issues went south shortly thereafter. Over his remaining 15 appearances, the right-hander was shelled for a ten.13 ERA with considerably worsened strikeout and stroll charges (26.7% and 15%). Barnes had walked solely 11 hitters and surrendered simply 4 homers by means of his first 44 innings however doubled that residence run whole and issued 9 extra walks in these remaining 10 1/3 innings.
It was a depressing approach to shut out the season, however Barnes’ observe report was sturdy sufficient {that a} rebound didn’t appear far-fetched. Even with that calamitous end to the season, his general numbers from 2017-21 have been sound: 3.82 ERA, 38 saves, 76 holds, 34.8% strikeout price, 11.1% stroll price.
To Barnes’ credit score, he rebounded from that end to at the very least some extent in 2022, pitching to a 4.31 ERA in 39 2/3 innings. Nevertheless, his 19.3% strikeout price was lower than half what it had been throughout his overpowering four-month run in 2021, and his 11.9% stroll price was nonetheless a transparent pink flag. He wound up lacking greater than two months of that ’22 season on account of shoulder irritation, and over the winter, the Purple Sox designated Barnes for project and flipped him to the Marlins in change for one more bounceback bullpen candidate: lefty Richard Bleier.
The commerce didn’t work out nicely for both celebration. Barnes pitched simply 21 1/3 innings of 5.48 ERA ball with Miami, sitting at a career-worst 93.6 mph together with his common fastball. His 20.2% strikeout price was solely marginally higher than his ugly mark the 12 months prior, and whereas he reduce his stroll price to 10.1%, that was nonetheless nicely north of the league common. Barnes underwent femoral acetabular impingement surgical procedure on his left hip in late July, and the Fish purchased out a membership possibility on the right-hander at season’s finish.
Barnes spoke with Speier in a full column for the Globe, talking in regards to the frustration of not having the ability to dwell as much as his personal expectations for himself over the previous couple years. “Trying again on it, I’m realizing now that the hip was such a limiting consider my capacity to get into my decrease half, subconsciously understanding that it was there,” Barnes advised Speier. “The character of the damage with the hip, it didn’t enable me to recover from my entrance aspect and really rotate and create energy.”
Time will inform whether or not Barnes can ever recapture the shape he confirmed from Opening Day by means of early August in 2021, although with a shoulder damage and notable hip surgical procedure separating present-day Barnes from that peak model, it appears like one thing of a protracted shot. However even when Barnes by no means will get again to fanning greater than 40% of his opponents, there’s a center floor the place he may be an efficient late-inning reliever. Nearly each membership in baseball is in search of low-cost, low-risk methods to beef up their bullpens this time of season. Barnes’ observe report ought to maintain enchantment in that regard, although the final word price ticket will come right down to how he seems in bullpen periods. Most golf equipment will doubtless wish to deliver him to camp on a non-roster deal, however a 40-man spot doesn’t appear out of the query if he seems promising sufficient in a exercise for golf equipment.
