THE Dishes are recruiting a right-handed pitcher Canned Griffin to a one-year contract, according to multiple reports.
The Canning deal will be worth $4.25 million, as first reported by Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic.
Canning, 28, who started his fifth big league season last year, allowed an American League-leading 99 earned runs in 171.2 innings pitched for a 5.19 ERA (5.26 FIP ) with 66 walks for a WHIP of 1.398 in 32 games (31 starts).
Of course, he still managed to strike out 130 batters this year. But for Canning, it was a rough year in that department, as 6.8 strikeouts per nine innings represented a career low. After an injury kept him from playing for the entire 2022 season, he pitched to a 4.32 ERA and 1.236 WHIP the following year in 24 games (22 starts) and accumulated 139 strikeouts in 127 innings for a 9.9 K per nine rate in 2023.
The move bolsters the Mets’ depth in the back of the rotation with José Butto, Paul Blackburn And Taylor Megill all candidates must be starters or headed to the bullpen.
During the MLB Winter Meetings in early December, the president of baseball operations David Stearns said the club would ask the above trio to expand this offseason before potentially landing in bullpen roles.
“For guys like Jose, the easiest thing in the offseason is to prepare…like they’re going to be laid up,” Stearns said at the time. “Once you’re lengthened, we can always make you shorter.” And so, Jose is going to stretch… We’ll probably stretch him a little bit once he gets to camp and then we’ll see how our roster shapes up.
Three pitches make up the majority of Canning’s offerings with a four-seam fastball (averaging 93.4 mph) accounting for 37.6 percent of his pitches, followed by a changeup (88.6 mph) at 26, 7 percent and a slider (87.7 mph) at 24 percent. He used his fourth pitch, a curveball, a little less in 2024 than the year before, at 10.3 percent.
Canning’s most effective pitch over the past two seasons has been his changeup, with a 28.8% whiff rate and .318 weighted on-base average in 2024.
He pitched for the Los Angeles Angels his entire career before being traded to the Atlanta Braves following the season. Jorge Soler. The Braves non-tendered him and allowed him to enter free agency.
Overall, Canning pitched to a 4.78 ERA and 1.333 WHIP in 508 innings in 94 starts (with five other appearances out of the bullpen) during his career. He struck out 483 batters to 183 walks (2.64 ratio).
He won the AL Gold Glove in 2020, his second season in the majors.
