According to MLB.com's Jamal Collier, 33-year-old pitcher Scott Baker has agreed to a Minor-League deal with the New York Yankees for the quickly-approaching 2015 season. If Baker ends up finding a way to make the Major League roster coming out of Spring Training, he will earn a salary of $1.5 million throughout the year. At the moment, the righty is just looked at as starting pitching depth for the Bronx Bombers while they continue to work with a rotation that has been injured, but if he pitches anything close to his pre-Tommy John form, he could end up having a pretty solid role on the 2015 Yankees.
Since having Tommy John surgery back in the start of the 2012 season, Scott Baker has not pitched very much in neither the Minors nor Majors.
Baker joined the Chicago Cubs prior to the 2013 season with the hope of making a comeback and showing that he could still bring some value to a team. In three starts for the Cubs in September, he pitched like he did back in 2011, posting a solid 3.60 ERA. Before appearing in the Majors in 2013, Baker compiled an ugly 5.46 ERA across eight starts while working his way back from the surgery down in the lower Minors.
Baker next appeared in the Majors in 2014 with the Texas Rangers, where he pitched in 25 games, starting eight of them, and being caught up in their disasterous pitching staff. In 80.2 innings, Baker registered an ugly 5.47 ERA, struggling in multiple roles for a team that was drowing in injuries on the mound. He had originally started the year down in AAA, but after posting a strong 3.32 ERA across six starts, he was called up for immediate help. It seemed that the only reason he stuck on the Major League team from May on was because the team did not really have any other better options to throw out there on a consistent basis. However, even though Baker went through a rough season, he showed that after coming back from Tommy John surgery he could stay healthy while handling a legitimate workload.
Prior to the surgery, Scott Baker had been a solid back-of-the rotation guy for the Minnesota Twins for multiple years, playing a part in helping them reach the playoffs more than once. Across seven different seasons in Minnesota, he posted a 4.15 ERA, getting the job done pretty well for the most part after they took him in the second round of the 2003 draft. He was never that top-of-the-rotation guy who got out there and dominated everyone, but he also was never that guy who went out there every five days and got hammered game in and game out. He was consistent, something many athletes across all sports struggle with from year to year.
It will be interesting to see whether the righty can ever return to his pre-Tommy John form before his career comes to an end. In all reality, there is a good chance he could get the opportunity this year if injuries continue to plague the Yankees' pitching staff. Moving to a very hitter-friendly ballpark , though, may not be great for Baker since he pitches a lot to contact and has had home run issues in the past, but even if the contract does not end up working out, the Yankees will not be affected since it is just a Minor-League deal.
As Spring Training continues to get closer, it is likely that many more deals like this will continue to be made between players and teams with the hope that one of them may work out and quickly better a team before Opening Day of 2015.