A’s roster moves: Ginn recalled, Perdomo DFA’d

Today’s starting pitcher, everyone

The A’s on Saturday morning announced what we all already knew, that right-handed rookie starting pitcher J.T. Ginn was being recalled from Triple-A to make the start this evening against the New York Mets:

The rookie right-hander will be making his season debut tonight after starting the season in Triple-A with the Aviators. And he’ll be doing it against the team that drafted him in 2020 before trading him to the Athletics in March of ‘22. Fitting how baseball works sometimes.

The 25-year old Ginn made a quick ascent through the minor leagues and has already gotten his feet wet in the majors after a quick cup of coffee at the end of last season with the A’s. After a shaky first start to end August Ginn impressed over the month of September, making 5 starts and posting a 3.91 ERA in 25 ¹⁄₃ innings to help the A’s wrap up the season. During that time Ginn, a Tommy John survivor, also racked up 21 strikeouts compared to just five walks while demonstrating his ability to keep the ball on the ground at a high rate.

That performance down the stretch put him on the radar for a starting spot entering the winter, though with offseason additions his path to the rotation became more narrow as the team added veteran reinforcements. He came to Spring Training as a candidate for the rotation but a difficult camp that saw him yield six earned runs in 13 innings doomed any already small chance he had at breaking camp with the team. Instead the club elected to go with fellow right-handers Osvaldo Bido and Joey Estes, the latter of whom Ginn will now replace in the starting five after just two turns through the rotation.

The former 2nd-round pick has earned this latest shot as well. Ginn started Opening Day for the Aviators and looked like a different pitcher than the one that was at camp. He fired off five innings of one-hit ball and racked up eight strikeouts against zero walks. His second outing was just as dominant as he allowed a pair of runs in six innings with 11 K’s compared to just one free pass. It was hard for the organization to look past how well Ginn was performing while seeing Estes struggle with the big league squad.

How long Ginn will be in the starting rotation will depend on him. The team hasn’t gotten out to a great start so far in their first season in Sacramento and are still trying to figure out if any of their young starting pitching is going to take a step forward this year. This will also answer whether the A’s will have gotten anything out of the Chris Bassitt trade with these Mets several years ago as Ginn was the second piece of the return package, along with the since-departed Adam Oller. The club will give Ginn a chance to stick in the rotation for a while and hope he never has to look back.

With this move the club is also electing not to give right-hander Mitch Spence a chance to reclaim a spot in the starting five. After Estes’ most recent implosion Spence came on in relief and saved the bullpen by going five innings and pitching into a sixth. With the addition of another long man in Jason Alexander the early expectation was that the team would simply move Spence into Estes’ rotation slot but that won’t be the case. Instead Spence will resume his long man duties out of the ‘pen and await another opening in the rotation, if and when it happens.

To make room on the active roster for Ginn the club elected to designate left-hander Angel Perdomo for assignment. The lefty only just joined the organization a couple of weeks ago when the team claimed him off waivers from the division-rival Angels. The 30-year old gave up a pair of runs in his first outing with the team but that was against the Cubs last week when Chicago was hitting anything and everything. He’s made three scoreless outings since then without allowing a run over two innings. The club now exposes him to waivers and will hope that no one claims him because having left-handed bullpen depth is important. They will then have to hope Perdomo elects to return to Triple-A, or otherwise he would become a free agent and likely depart for another big league opportunity.