Major League Baseball teams often need starting pitching help at this stage of the season, when nagging injuries tend to worsen and players routinely land on the injured list.
The assumption — usually safe — is that teams in need of help will either promote a deserving pitcher from the minor leagues or acquire one from outside the organization before the deadline. Rarely do teams have viable options lingering on the free agent market into June.
Matthew Boyd presented an exception. On June 7, it was reported that an audience of representatives from 17 major league teams attended a free agent workout to see Boyd, who’s started 160 games in a career that began in 2015 but hasn’t pitched since June 2023 while he rehabbed from Tommy John surgery.
Only one of the 17 teams needed enough interest in Boyd to bring him back for his 10th MLB season. On Thursday, one did.
The Cleveland Guardians signed the left-handed pitcher to a major league contract, according to multiple reports.
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Boyd, 33, averaged nearly six innings per start while pitching to a 4.48 ERA (103 ERA+) for the Detroit Tigers from 2018-19. He’s been plagued by injuries and ineffectiveness ever since.
During the COVID-shortened 2020 season, Boyd led the league in earned runs (45) and home runs allowed (15), going 3-7 with a 6.71 ERA in 12 starts. In 2021, injuries limited Boyd to 15 starts, though he had a respectable 3.89 ERA when healthy.
Boyd signed with the Giants as a free agent in March 2022 but he never pitched for them as he recovered from flexor tendon surgery. In August of that year, he was traded to the Seattle Mariners and went 2-0 with a 1.35 ERA in 10 relief appearances for the M’s down the stretch.
After re-signing with Detroit in Dec. 2022, Boyd made another 15 starts with the Tigers before requiring Tommy John surgery on his left elbow at the end of June.
Outside of Tanner Bibee and Ben Lively, the Guardians have had few starting pitchers they can rely on, instead racing out to first place in the American League Central behind a surprising lineup.
Boyd should add depth to a rotation depleted by the loss of Shane Bieber to Tommy John surgery earlier in the year. Holdovers Triston McKenzie (3-4, 4.66 ERA) and Logan Allen (8-3, 5.72) have struggled, while 37-year-old Carlos Carrasco is showing his age (3-6, 5.27) in his return voyage to Cleveland.
The Guardians hold a 7.5-game lead over the second-place Minnesota Twins and will visit the surprising Kansas City Royals to kick off a four-game series Thursday.
Uncommon Knowledge
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.