Peter Moylan has re-signed with the Braves, the popular Aussie sidearmer returning for a third stint with the team where his major league career began.
The right-hander signed a one-year, non-guaranteed contract with a $575,000 salary that escalates to $1.25 million if he makes the opening-day roster.
Moylan, 39, came back from a second Tommy John elbow surgery and staged a career revival the past two seasons with the Royals, posting a 3.46 ERA in 129 appearances over that span including 79 appearances to tie for the major league lead in 2017.
“Speaking to people in this organization, he’s loved top to bottom in this organization,” Braves general manager Alex Anthopoulos said. “Everyone he’s been around feels so strongly about him, what he brings to the club, what he is as a human being, as a competitor.
“From a baseball operations standpoint we just love the fact that (facing right-handed batters), ground balls, tremendous year last year. Especially with some of the big right-handed bats in the NL East, he’s someone who can certainly play a key part in our pen. That being said, the way the contract is set up he’ll still have to earn a job.”
To open a spot on the 40-man roster, the Braves designed for assignment the contract of hard-throwing but walk-plagued young reliever Mauricio Cabrera, who spent the entire 2017 season in the minors with control problems.
Moylan had a 3.49 ERA and stingy .189 opponents’ average in 2017 with 46 strikeouts in 59-1/3 innings. His 1.096 WHIP (walks-plus-hits per inning pitched) was his lowest in a full season since 2007, when he posted a 1.067 WHIP as a 28-year-old Braves rookie.
Moylan had a 1.80 ERA in 90 innings and 80 appearances that year in his first full season in the big leagues.
He was a workhorse who made 80 or more appearances three times in a four-year span from 2007 through 2010 with the Braves, the only exception in 2008 when he missed most of the season recovering from his first Tommy John surgery. Moylan came back from that to make a career-high 87 appearances the next season (2009).
He had a 2.44 ERA over 259 appearances in a four-year span through 2010.
The groundball specialist was coming back from his second TJ surgery when he signed a unique two-year minor league deal with the Braves during 2015 spring training. That deal was designed to allow Moylan to use the first season rehabbing, pitching in the minors and serving as a player-coach for the Braves’ Danville rookie-league team.
His rehab progressed quicker than expected and when the Braves needed help in their bullpen in 2015, Moylan was fast-tracked to the big leagues by late summer instead of Danville. He pitched in 22 games for the Braves, the major league call-up effectively voiding the second year of the minor league deal and making him a free agent.
After signing with the Royals, Moylan earned a spot in their bullpen in May 2016 and had a solid 3.43 ERA in 50 appearances, which he hoped would be enough to draw a major league offer or two in the offseason. That didn’t happen, likely because of age and medical history – shoulder and back surgeries in addition to elbow procedures -- and Moylan settled for a non-guaranteed deal to return to the Royals in 2017.
With a slimmed-down physique and vast experience, he showed how durable and effective he still could be last season and drew interest from several teams including the Braves in the fall. Major league offers he was expecting again didn’t come to fruition for a few months, but ultimately the Atlanta resident ended up back where he hoped to be, with the Braves.
The Braves were the team that first gave him a chance to re-start his career when they signed Moylan after scouting him in the 2006 World Baseball Classic, when a then-pharmaceutical salesman was pitching for his native Australia -- nine years after last pitching in North American pro ball for a Twins rookie-league team.
