Elephant Rumblings: A’s ink righty Joel Kuhnel to Minors Pact

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Morning A’s fans and congratulations on making it to Friday!

Yesterday the A’s continued to bolster their relief depth with their sixth minor league signing of the offseason, signing right-handed reliever Joel Kuhnel to a minor league contract for the coming season:

More depth is always a good thing. Kuhnel is more experienced than some of the other guys the team has brought in on minor league deals this winter.

That could be a double-edged sword though. He could be an under-the-radar add that yielded huge results, but he’s also not an unknown anymore as we’ve all seen him in big league action before, to sub-par results.

The righty has pitched across five major league seasons making it into 82 big league contests with three separate teams. Most of his action in the majors came a few years back when he pitched in 53 games for the Cincinnati Reds in 2022, though during that span he put up an ugly 6.36 ERA with a career 5.89 mark.

That being said, the soon-to-be 31-year-old has a big fastball and a great sinker that helps him keep the ball on the ground. With the A’s playing in a hitter’s haven right now in West Sacramento finding guys that can generate ground balls could be a massively to any success the A’s pitching has next year. It also doesn’t hurt his chances of making the Opening Day roster that he is out of minor league options and can reject a demotion to Triple-A. If Kuhnel has a solid spring and demonstrates his ability to keep his infielders busy he has as good of a shot of cracking the bullpen come next season. Keep an eye on him when games start getting going in March.

Also of note: late last night one of the top remaining free agent relievers signed with a team not named the Athletics. Right-hander Shawn Armstrong, who expressed a desire to remain with the Texas Rangers, instead signing an extremely affordable one-year, $5.5 million contract with the Cleveland Guardians. The free agent market for relief pitching continues to dwindle and any options remaining will come with major question marks. It’s continuing to look like if the A’s want to beef up the ‘pen, they’ll need to make a trade for it.

Have a great weekend all!

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