The Atlanta Braves bolstered their starting pitcher depth on Monday by signing 31-year old, Drew Smyly to a one-year, $11 million contract.
Smyly spent last season with the San Francisco Giants and went 0-1 with a 3.42 ERA in 26.1 innings pitched in seven appearances and five starts.
"We looked at him (Smyly) even last offseason as well," general manager Alex Anthopoulos said. "When he came back from the finger injury, his last four outings were really strong. The curveball is a real weapon for him. In our minds it's one of the best curveballs in the game."
Throughout his eight-year career, Smyly has also spent time with the Detroit Tigers, Tampa Bay Rays, Texas Rangers and Philadelphia Phillies, and has a 4.13 ERA and 35-35 record with 714 strikeouts in 710.2 innings pitched.
"When we're looking at starter options and so on, a lot of our mindset is do we think you can make a playoff start for us?," Anthopoulos said. "We signed him (Smyly) for his ability first and foremost, but we like what we brings to the team and the clubhouse as well."
The addition of Smyly will bring more pitching depth and a possible replacement for Cole Hamels, to a Braves rotation that suffered tons of injuries at the position last season despite advancing to the NLCS.
"We always would like to have as much depth as we can," Anthopoulos said. "All these guys got more experience and were trending up towards the end of the year but what we're doing is more specific than need specific. We have area we'd like to address."
After undergoing Tommy John surgery in 2018, Smyly had a bounce-back year with the Giants following a career worst 8.42 ERA with Texas in 2019 that led to his release.
Smyly would sign with the Phillies for the rest of the 2019 season and performed better, leading to a career-best strikeout rate of 37.8% per 9.0 innings (14.35) with San Francisco and held lefties to a 0.83 batting average (3-for-36).
"This is an upside play, no doubt about it," Anthopoulos said. "We'll obviously find out eight months from now how that worked out, but we think Drew has tremendous upside ...
"He's just about to really emerge and have the best years of his career. We made that determination and signed him to what we thought was a very healthy, strong deal."
