Veteran reliever Andrew Kittredge will sign a one-year, $10 million deal to join the Baltimore Orioles, according to Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic. The right-handed reliever has spent eight seasons in the majors, most recently with the St. Louis Cardinals in 2024 and seven seasons with the Tampa Bay Rays before that. Kittredge is a valuable bullpen piece for the Orioles as they prepare for the 2025 season.
Free-agent reliever Andrew Kittredge in agreement with Orioles on one-year, $10M contract, source tells @TheAthletic. Kittredge’s guarantee includes $9M in salary and a $1M buyout on a $9M club option.
— Ken Rosenthal (@Ken_Rosenthal) January 10, 2025
Orioles Sign Andrew Kittredge to One-Year Deal
Kittredge Finally Gets to Pick His Own Team
The 34-year-old Kittredge is a first-time free agent. The Cardinals traded for Kittredge from the Rays in January of 2024. When the Cardinals declined the team option on Kittredge, it made him a free agent for the first time in his career.
The Cardinals are entering a soft rebuild. President of Baseball Operations John Mozeliak said the team’s decision to part ways with Kittredge had nothing to do with his performance.
“We’re certainly in a different spot than we were a year ago,” Mozeliak said this offseason. “But yes, those veteran guys [Kittredge, Lance Lynn, and Kyle Gibson] did everything that we had hoped for.”
Kittredge offers a strong bullpen asset for either middle innings or high-leverage late innings. The right-hander pitched in more games this season than any other season of his career. Kittredge pitched in 74 games and posted a 2.80 ERA. The ERA was better than his career average of 3.44. Kittredge pitched 70 2/3 innings and struck out 67 batters. He struck out more batters than he allowed hits, giving up just 60 base hits all year.
A Reliever with a Lot to Offer
Kittredge has a career ERA of 3.44 with a .657 winning percentage and a 3.59 strikeout-to-walk ratio. He hasn’t had many save opportunities outside of an All-Star 2021 campaign. However, Kittredge has had 52 holds in his career, including 37 with the 2024 Cardinals.
The right-hander is great at getting batters to chase out of the zone. Of pitchers who faced at least 250 batters last season, Kittredge drew swings on pitches out of the zone more than anyone else, a whopping 38.9 percent of his pitches out of the zone. He also drew a whiff on 27.8 percent of swings against him.
If there’s any knock on Kittredge, it’s been his ability to stay on the field. The 34-year-old has only managed to pitch more than 60 innings twice in his career, once more he pitched more than 40. In the seasons Kittredge has stayed healthy all year, however, he has been one of the league’s top relievers.
A Narrow But Effective Pitch Arsenal
The right-hander throws two pitches much more than any other. He throws his high-80s slider 49 percent of the time and his mid-90s sinker 38 percent of the time. Occasionally, Kittredge will throw a mid-90s fastball, but that only comes 12 percent of the time.
The slider finds the middle of the zone to the outside half of the zone the majority of the time. Kittredge’s effectiveness comes when he pairs it with the sinker, which runs up and inside on right-handed batters faster than his slider. Once batters have seen the sinker, the slider blows past them. Kittredge has a whopping 41.3 whiff percentage on his slider.
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