Former MLB reliever Frank Herrmann joins Blue Jays’ front office

Former big-league reliever Frank Herrmann recently joined the Blue Jays’ front office, as first reported by David Laurila of FanGraphs (on Twitter). He’ll split his time between the scouting, player development and baseball operations departments.

Herrmann, 37, appeared in parts of four big-league seasons. He spent the 2010-12 campaigns with the Indians, with whom his time as a player overlapped with Blue Jays president Mark Shapiro’s and general manager Ross Atkins’ stints in the Cleveland front office. The right-hander spent the next couple seasons in Triple-A but returned to the bigs in 2016, making 14 appearances with the Phillies.

Over 135 1/3 MLB innings, Herrmann pitched to a 4.72 ERA. He punched out only 14.8% of batters faced but threw plenty of strikes (5.8% walk rate). After the 2016 campaign, Herrmann made the move to Japan. He signed with the Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles of Nippon Professional Baseball. He’d spend three years with the Eagles before catching on with the Chiba Lotte Marines, with whom he closed out his playing career with a final two seasons.

Herrmann was a productive reliever in NPB. Over his five seasons, he worked to a 3.02 ERA. That mark is inflated a bit by a 5.19 figure he posted last year, but Herrmann put up an ERA of 3.04 or lower in each of his first four seasons in Japan. A Harvard graduate, he’ll now transition to his post-playing days. Herrmann brings 16 years of professional playing experience to his role in Toronto’s baseball ops.