{"id":338988,"date":"2025-12-09T13:11:07","date_gmt":"2025-12-09T13:11:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/338988\/"},"modified":"2025-12-09T13:11:07","modified_gmt":"2025-12-09T13:11:07","slug":"braves-sign-james-karinchak-to-minor-league-deal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/338988\/","title":{"rendered":"Braves Sign James Karinchak To Minor League Deal"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Braves have signed right-hander <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/k\/karinja01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=www.mlbtraderumors.com&amp;utm_campaign=2025-12-09_br\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">James Karinchak<\/a> to a minors contract, <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/Ken_Rosenthal\/status\/1998231122623504598\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">The Athletic\u2019s Ken Rosenthal<\/a> reports.\u00a0 Should Karinchak make Atlanta\u2019s roster, he\u2019ll earn $840K in guaranteed money, as per <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/AriA1exander\/status\/1998232952967225823\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">7News Boston\u2019s Ari Alexander<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Best known for his days as a strikeout artist in Cleveland\u2019s bullpen, it has now been more than two years since Karinchak last pitched in a big league game.\u00a0 His 2024 workload consisted of just 6 2\/3 innings in the minors due to shoulder problems, and after the Guardians outrighted him and allowed Karinchak to enter free agency last winter, he landed with the White Sox on a minor league deal.\u00a0 Karinchak posted a 2.45 ERA and a 28.1% strikeout rate over 29 1\/3 innings for Triple-A Charlotte before he was released in June.<\/p>\n<p>Those seemingly strong numbers in Triple-A were undermined by a 16.5% walk rate, which is essentially the story of Karinchak\u2019s career.\u00a0 He owns an eye-popping 36.3% career strikeout rate over his MLB career, and he also posted a 3.10 ERA over 165 2\/3 innings with Cleveland from 2019-23.\u00a0 However, a 14.1% walk rate and some problems with the home run ball limited Karinchak\u2019s effectiveness, plus injuries like his shoulder woes or a teres major strain in 2022 provided further obstacles.<\/p>\n<p>The Guardians have one of baseball\u2019s more celebrated pitching development staffs, so the fact that the Guards chose to move on from Karinchak doesn\u2019t bode well for the possibility that he might solve his control problems.\u00a0 Still, Karinchak\u2019s strikeout potential is so tantalizing that it isn\u2019t at all surprising to see teams like the White Sox or Braves take minor league fliers on the righty to see if he can get things on track, or perhaps Atlanta\u2019s coaches think they might have a fix.\u00a0 Karinchak is still only 30 years old and he has two years of arbitration eligibility remaining, so there\u2019s hidden-gem potential for the Braves if Karinchak can manage even average control.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Braves have signed right-hander James Karinchak to a minors contract, The Athletic\u2019s Ken Rosenthal reports.\u00a0 Should Karinchak&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":338989,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[170547,363,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-338988","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-james-karinchak","9":"tag-mlb","10":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/338988","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=338988"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/338988\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/338989"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=338988"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=338988"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=338988"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}