Athletics, Trevor Rosenthal agree on one year deal

It wasn’t that long ago that Trevor Rosenthal was among the more feared relievers in all of baseball while manning the back end of the Cardinals’ bullpen. However, once he had Tommy John surgery in 2017, he turned into a bit of a journeyman. His return from the injury with the Nationals did not go well and his entire 2019 season ended up adding up to -0.3 fWAR and an unsightly 13.50 ERA in a decidedly small sample.

However, 2020 was a different story as his time with the Royals and Padres went very well and positioned him to be rewarded nicely this offseason in free agency. It took a while for him to get a deal that he wanted, but Oakland decided to pull the trigger and snag him.

After the horror show of a 2019 season that Rosenthal had, its nice to see him bounce back and end up getting paid in free agency as it is never great to see an injury torpedo a guy’s career. For Oakland, this is a substantial investment given their payroll limitations, but they did have to replace Liam Hendriks who ended up signing with the White Sox and few teams are as well-informed when it comes to personnel decisions as Oakland.

In 23.2 innings last season, Rosenthal posted a 1.90 ERA with a career high strikeout rate of 14.45 K/9.