The Cardinals on Friday signed right-handed reliever Josh James to a minor league contract giving the club another potential bullpen option with swing-and-miss qualities.
The minor league deal with James comes after the Cardinals added righties Nick Raquet and Joe Corbett on minor league contracts and plucked righty Ryan Fernandez from the Red Sox system during December’s Rule 5 draft.
James, 30, logged 106 2/3 big league innings with the Astros from 2018 to 2021. He’s posted a 4.64 ERA over that span. James hasn’t pitched in the majors since 2021.
Here are five things to know about the right-hander:
Strikeout success for Houston
Over 87 games since debuting for the Astros in 2018, James collected 158 strikeouts and struck out 34.2% of the hitters he’s faced in the major leagues. His most effective season in terms of strikeout success came in in 2019 when he fanned 100 batters over 61 1/3 innings. That season, James was in the 96th percentile in whiff rate (36.4%) and 98th percentile in strikeout rate (37.6%), per Statcast. The righty’s 37.6% strikeout rate was 10th-best among qualified MLB relievers that year, per FanGraphs. Along with the strikeout success, James has limited major league hitters to a .204 batting average and allowed a 13.2% walk rate.
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Injuries limitations since 2021
Left hip surgery in 2021, a lat strain in 2022, and surgery to repair the flexor tendon in his throwing arm in 2022 have limited James to 53 1/3 innings over the past two seasons. His last pitching appearance with an affiliated team came in September 2022 with Sugar Lang Skeeters, the Astros’ Class AAA club. James posted a 7.01 ERA and a 10.2 K/9 in 25 2/3 innings that minor league season. Before James’ injuries, he had three major league IL stints between the 2019 and 2020 seasons. He did not play anywhere in 2023 and will begin spring training in minor league camp.
High-powered velocity with a swing-and-miss slider
During his time in the majors, the 30-year-old displayed a four-pitch mix that consisted of a fastball, slider, changeup, and curveball. In each of his first three MLB seasons, James ranked in the 90th percentile or better for average fastball velocity, per Statcast. The right-hander’s fastball averaged 96 mph during his last full big-league season in 2020. His slider and changeup both led to whiff rates above 44% in the 2019 and 2020 seasons. The slider was James’ more frequently used secondary pitch between those two campaigns and produced a 50.7% swing-and-miss rate in 2019.
October experience with Houston
James’ exposure at the big league level includes 14 postseason outings with Houston — nine of which came in 2019 when Houston reached the World Series and lost to the Nationals. That postseason he appeared in each of Houston’s three postseason series and allowed six runs (four earned) over 6 2/3 innings for a 5.40 ERA. He collected 14 strikeouts. Four of the six runs charged to James that October came in Games 2 and 4 of the Fall Classic against the Nationals. For his career, James owns a 7.04 postseason ERA and has allowed a .306 average to opposing hitters. His last postseason outing came in 2020.
A sleep apnea diagnosis helped the former late-round pick
The Western Oklahoma State College product came into professional baseball as a 34th-round pick (1,006th overall) in the 2014 MLB draft. That round, and pick, in MLB’s first-year player draft currently do not exist as the process was shortened to five rounds in 2020 because of the coronavirus pandemic and has been limited to 20 rounds since 2021. Facing the challenges of being a late-round pick, the right-hander’s prospect stock took leaps in 2018 when his fastball velocity jumped to the upper 90s and showed flashes of 100 mph after he was diagnosed with sleep apnea and began using a continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) machine to get better sleep, per multiple reports including Baseball America’s scouting report of James in 2018. The strides he took in 2018 led to James’ first big league call-up in September of that season.