In need of pitching depth, the Tampa Bay Rays inked a minor league deal with right-hander Chase Anderson on Monday. Anderson most recently opted out of a minor league pact with Detroit earlier in the month and will now head to Triple-A Durham.
The 34-year-old right-hander is an eight-year veteran pitched to a 4.20 ERA and 4.66 FIP, with a 20.1% strikeout rate, a 7.9% walk rate, and a 37.6% ground-ball rate across 938.2 big-league innings dating back to his 2014 MLB debut in Arizona. He’s scuffled the past two seasons, being tagged for a combined 6.94 ERA in 81 2/3 frames between Toronto and Philadelphia. He also missed more than a half of the truncated 2020 season due to COVID-19.
Prior to that, though, Anderson was a solid fourth starter for the Diamondbacks and Brewers for several seasons. From 2014-19 he started at least 25 games and pitched to a combined 3.94 ERA. While he was never a workhorse/innings eater, averaging about 5.1 innings per start, Anderson was an effective member of both pitching staffs.
He began this season with the Tigers’ Triple-A affiliate in Toledo and pitched well more often than not. While his overall 4.63 ERA and a 5.55 FIP across 70 innings aren’t eye-popping, it’s belied by one really bad outing in which he surrendered five runs while only recording five outs. After that, however, Anderson allowed just seven runs over his final 25 Triple-A innings and posted a 4.8 K/BB along the way.
Anderson relies primarily on a 78 mph 12-6 curveball with exceptional bite, a 92 mph four-seam fastball, and an 83 mph circle change that has obvious arm-side fade, while also mixing in an 89 mph cutter, and a 92 mph sinker that has little sinking action as compared to other sinkers.
The acquisition comes as a low-risk, high-reward move by a team that has been able to successfully rehab more than a few pitchers that were thrown on the trash heap. It could be assumed, should he be promoted to the big-league squad, that he will pitch behind an opener, and pitch twice through the order at most.