Eric Lauer is a 30-year-old (31 in June, so this will be his age 31 season), left-handed pitcher. The Jays signed him to a minor league contract in December of 2024. He had been a Jays draft pick in 2013, but he elected to play college ball instead and then was drafted in the first round of the 2016 draft by the Padres.
Since then he’s been a Brewer, Pirate, Astros and pitched in Korea. He pitched in 53 games, 52 starts in 2018 and 2019 with the Padres and 67 games, 60 starts over 4 seasons with the Brewers. And then made 7 starts in the KBO with a 4.93 ERA.
In the majors, he had a 4.30 ERA with 230 walks and 567 strikeouts in 596 innings with a 3.7 bWAR. I really don’t understand why he couldn’t do better than a minor league contract.
Lauer made five starts for the Bisons (4.50 ERA in 24 innings) and then Max Scherzer went on the IL and Lauer was called up. He wasn’t put straight into the rotation, but made three relief starts (9 innings, 1 earned), made a couple of starts, back to the pen (9.2 innings, 0 earned), then to the rotation for 13 starts (the Jays won 11 of them) and then back in the bullpen for September.
If I had the time to look, I’d love to know if that was the best season ever for a guy the Jays signed to a minor league contract before the season, but I’m sure it has to be top five. 9-2, a 3.18 ERA in 104.2 innings. Baseball Reference has him at a 0.8 WAR, FanGraphs 1.4.
Last year he threw:
- Four-seamer 46.5% of the time averaging 91.7 mph.
- Cutter 20.5% of the time.
- Curveball 14.4%.
- Slider 10.6%.
- Changeup 8.0%.
And he didn’t have much of a left/right split, with lefties having a
He’s earned himself a nice raise, though we don’t know how much he’ll be paid yet. He and the Jays went to arbitration; he’ll either make $5.75 million or $4.4 million. We’ll likely find out within moments of when I hit publish, because that’s the way the universe works.
I was wrong….the Arbitrator picked the Jays number, Eric will earn $4.4 million this year.
His role this year is still up in the air. Bieber being out to start the season might open a spot in the pen. And unfortunately, things tend to happen during spring training. If he doesn’t get a starting role, he’ll be good to have as a long man/lefty in the pen.
Steamer sees him as a reliever, pitching in 51 games, 3 starts, 66 innings, with a 4.13 ERA.