Left-handed Foster Griffin‘s Major League resume includes seven games and eight innings of 6.75 ERA ball with the Royals and Blue Jays during the 2020 and 2022 seasons. Looking for a change of scenery, Griffin signed with the Yomiuri Giants prior to the 2023 season, and Jon Heyman of the New York Post reports that the 30-year-old left-hander is now looking to return to North American baseball after three successful years in Japan.
While Griffin hadn’t shown much in his few cups of coffee in the majors, he posted a 2.10 ERA, a 27.1% strikeout rate and a 7.1% walk rate over 51 1/3 relief innings with the Triple-A affiliates of the Royals and Blue Jays in 2022. Griffin had started almost all of his professional games before the 2022 campaign, but the move to full-time bullpen work seemed to fall through. unlock something for Griffin after a while inconsistent results as a starter.
Injuries also played a role in Griffin’s career. Griffin’s tore his UCL in his very first big league game in 2020, resulting in a Tommy John procedure and a lengthy stint on the shelf. His good numbers in 2022 seemed to indicate that he had recovered well from his surgery, but his decision to go abroad may have been motivated by a desire to start over.
The decision to bet on himself seems to be paying off. Griffin had a 2.57 ERA, 25.07% strikeout rate and 5.52% walk rate over 315 2/3 innings and 54 games with the Giants. His debut year in 2023 was so impressive that the Giants proposed him a two-year extension, which is notable because foreign-born players in the NPB are typically only given one-year contracts. Griffin’s work helped the Giants reach the postseason in each of the last two NPB seasons.
Robert Murray of FanSided mentioned back in July that MLB teams had taken note of Griffin’s numbers in Japan, so now that his contract with the Giants has been finalized, it’s not surprising that Griffin is looking to return to the bigs. Merrill Kelly or Erik Fedde are among the recent examples of pitchers who have reinvented themselves in foreign leagues and returned to take on multi-year free agent commitments, and the same could be true for Griffin, despite his lackluster track record in the Show. Teams are constantly looking for starting pitching, and Griffin is an interesting, cheaper option for any club in need of rotation help.
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