Atlanta Braves Bring Back Right-Handed Relief Pitcher Blaine Boyer
By Fred Owens
Define Journeyman: Boyer
The D’Backs used him often over the next two seasons – 84 appearances and 94 innings – but nontendered him after that season and he signed with the Mets in January. The Mets released him in April and from that point through 2011 Boyer bounced around the league. The Cardinals finally released in August and he was out of baseball completely until signing with the Royals in January of 2013.
It looked like a repeat of his previous history as KC released him in May and he ended up in Japan for the remainder of that year. He apparently made some corrections in Japan that improved his performance because since returning he’s been a solid if unspectacular reliever.
He spent 2014 with the Padres, 2015 with Twins and 2016 with the Brewers. Over that time he appeared in 161 games, threw 171 1/3 innings, struck out 88, walked 44, posted a 3.31 ERA – 3.73 FIP – and 1.284 WHIP. That boiled down to an ERA+ of 121, a significant improvement to his pre-Japan performance.
His performance is indeed better but still it’s not exactly eye-popping leading Travis Sawchik at Fangraphs to try to figure out why teams keep hiring him – aside from him being inexpensive of course. Sawchick described him this way.
"(Boyer) had the lowest strikeout percentage – 9.2 % – in all of baseball . . .(is) one of two pitchers to throw at least 50 innings last season and strike out fewer than 10% of batters faced. . . Since 2014, Boyer has the eighth-lowest strikeout percentage. . .(isn’t) an elite ground-ball pitcher.. . (or) command-and-control artist. . .(and) fastball velocity, and modest strikeout rates, have declined three straight seasons. . ."