The Twins picked up some pitching depth in the upper minors yesterday, as the club signed right-hander Austin Brice to a minor league deal, according to MLB.com’s transaction tracker, which also notes that Brice has been assigned to Triple-A St. Paul.
Brice, 31 in June, made his major league debut in 2016 as a member of the Marlins. He ultimately would pitch just 14 innings with the club before being sent to Cincinnati as part of the deal that sent Luis Castillo to Cincinnati. He would pitch out of the Reds’ bullpen for the next two season, posting a 5.40 ERA in 70 innings of work before a series of waiver claims throughout the 2018-19 offseason took him back to Miami, where he posted his best season to date with a 3.43 ERA in 44 2/3 innings of work.
Since then, Brice was traded to the Red Sox, with whom he struggled to a 6.21 ERA across parts of two seasons, and signed a minor league deal with the Pirates ahead of the 2022 season, though he made just four appearances with the club. Overall, Brice has a 5.12 ERA in 168 2/3 innings of work throughout his career with a 21.8% strikeout rate and a 9% walk rate. Home runs have primarily been Brice’s issue during his time in the majors, as the journeyman reliever has allowed a concerning 17.6% of all career fly balls to leave the yard.
Those issues with the long ball led him to settle for a minor league deal with the Diamondbacks this offseason, though his brief tenure as a member of the organization saw him allow twelve runs (eight earned) over just three innings of work. Now, Brice has caught on with the Twins, with whom he’ll act as pitching depth in the upper levels of the minor leagues alongside the likes of Patrick Murphy and Oliver Ortega.
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