Kyle Gibson opted out of his minor league contract with the Rays, reports Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic. The veteran righty had signed with Tampa Bay last month but didn’t have a clear path to a rotation spot.
Gibson couldn’t have pitched much better over his four starts at Triple-A Durham. He allowed only one run over 17 1/3 innings. Gibson struck out 22 of 65 opponents (nearly 34%) against six walks. He hasn’t allowed a run in any of his last three starts, all of which were in the 4-5 inning range.
It’s a marked turnaround from Gibson’s four MLB starts with the Orioles earlier in the year. Those could hardly have gone worse. He was bombed for a staggering 23 runs on 29 hits (seven of which cleared the fences) while managing just 12 1/3 innings. The O’s released him four starts into a $5.25MM free agent contract. Gibson didn’t sign until the back half of Spring Training. His velocity wasn’t any different than where it’d been last year with St. Louis, but his execution clearly wasn’t there. The atypical offseason presumably had something to do with that.
Gibson needed to settle for a minor league contract after Baltimore released him. He should have a stronger chance of getting an MLB deal this time around. The Triple-A production gives some hope that he can still be a solid fifth starter, as he was when he turned in a 4.24 ERA in nearly 170 innings a year ago. He’d also not cost a signing team anything other than a roster spot. They would pay him only the prorated $760K league minimum for whatever time he spends in the big leagues. Baltimore remains responsible for the rest of the salary, minus the minimum for however long he’s on another team’s MLB roster.
