Barry Zito returns to Oakland Athletics on minor-league deal
Barry Zito’s comeback attempt is taking him back across the San Francisco Bay to where his career began.
According to Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle, the 36-year-old left-hander has signed a minor-league contract that includes an invite to spring training with the Oakland Athletics:
Jon Heyman of CBS Sports adds that the deal is for $1 million with $175K in possible incentives while MLB.com’s Jane Lee reports that Zito has to be on the major league roster to receive that money.
Zito didn’t pitch at all in 2014, but he made it known earlier in the offseason that he wanted another opportunity to show he can still play at the highest level.
And it’s the team that took him in the first round back in 1999 that’s going to give him a shot. Zito was a three-time All-Star in Oakland and won the AL Cy Young in 2002, but he left the A’s after the 2006 season to sign a seven-year, $126 million deal with the cross-town Giants. At the time it was the largest contract ever handed out to a starting pitcher.
He never duplicated that success in San Francisco, posting a 63-80 record and a 4.62 ERA over seven seasons, but did still walk away with two World Series rings.
Behind Sonny Gray and Scott Kazmir, the rest of Oakland’s rotation is full of question marks. Zito joins Jesse Chavez, Drew Pomeranz, Jesse Hahn, Kendall Graveman, Chris Bassitt, and Sean Nolin in the competition to claim the starting spots that remain. Jarrod Parker and A.J. Griffin, both recovering from Tommy John surgery, are expected to return to the Athletics sometime in the first half of the season.
While it’s going to be a challenge for Zito to beat out all those younger arms, having him back on the mound wearing green and gold would be quite the story.
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Israel Fehr is a writer for the Yahoo Sports blogs. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter. Follow @israelfehr
