The Reds introduced Monday that they’ve re-signed right-handed reliever Derek Law to a minor league contract and invited him to large league camp this spring. Cincinnati non-tendered him again in November.
Law spent the ultimate two months of the 2022 season with the Reds group after spending a lot of the yr with the Tigers’ Triple-A affiliate, the place he’d pitched to a 3.23 ERA in 39 innings. The 32-year-old righty pitched to a 4.08 ERA with a 19% strikeout fee, 8.9% stroll fee and 49.1% ground-ball fee in 17 2/3 innings for Cincinnati after being chosen to the large league roster in August.
This previous season was the sixth by which Law, a ninth-round choose by the Giants again in 2011, has frolicked within the Majors. He debuted with a sensational 2.13 ERA, 23.4% strikeout fee, 4.2% stroll fee and 50.3% grounder fee in 55 innings with the 2016 Giants, although he’s but to copy that standout efficiency in any of his subsequent MLB efforts. In 201 innings as a giant leaguer, Law carries a 4.21 ERA with strikeout and stroll charges which might be a bit worse than league-average (21.9% and 9.8%, respectively).
Law’s 2022 season had a minimum of one substantial change from his prior work, as he leaned on a newly applied cutter as his main pitch. Nearly half of Law’s pitches have been cutters although he’d by no means thrown the pitch throughout a Major League outing earlier than the 2022 season. He’ll proceed to hone that new providing in his return to the Reds, hoping to parlay that into one other alternative within the Cincinnati ’pen.
The Reds ought to have ample alternative for Law and different non-roster invitees this spring. Alexis Diaz is locked in because the workforce’s nearer, with righties Lucas Sims, Tejay Antone, Tony Santillan and Buck Farmer and lefty Reiver Sanmartin among the many choices behind him. However, each Santillan and Sanmartin posted ugly numbers on the season. Antone missed the whole 2022 marketing campaign following Tommy John surgical procedure, whereas Sims was restricted to only 6 2/3 innings attributable to a again harm. Law will be a part of names like Alex Young, Tayron Guerrero, Silvino Bracho and Alan Busenitz as non-roster invitees hoping to pressure their approach into the large league bullpen image.
