The Giants are currently in a position to take a chance on anyone who has (or had) potential. Look no further than the team’s signing of Pablo Sandoval for proof that there’s plenty of room in the minors for possible big league contributors. Saturday, San Francisco made another move to acquire a once-promising player who hasn’t found much MLB success.
Casey Kelly, a 2008 first-round pick of the Red Sox who was one of the prominent pieces in a 2010 trade that sent Adrian Gonzalez to Boston from San Diego, has signed a minor league deal with San Francisco and will report to AAA Sacramento.
Kelly most recently pitched in the bigs with Atlanta last season after shuttling between the minors and majors with the Padres from 2012 to 2015. He has a career ERA of 6.39 in 62 big league innings as both a starter and reliever. This year with the Cubs’ AAA affiliate in Iowa, Kelly made 11 starts and went 5-2 with a 4.65 ERA before being released last week. It appears as though the River Cats will continue to utilize Kelly as a starter for the time being.
#SFGiants signed former Red Sox 1st-rounder RHP Casey Kelly after he was released by Cubs last week. He'll start for #RiverCats tonight
— Giant Potential (@giant_potential) July 29, 2017
Kelly was on Baseball America’s Top 100 prospect list from 2009 through 2012, and was San Diego’s top prospect for much of that time. Tommy John surgery in 2013 caused him to miss a year though, and he never quite bounced back to the previous success he’d found in the minors. At Sacramento, the 27-year-old Kelly will get the chance to show he deserves a September call-up and possibly audition for a spot in the Giants’ 2018 bullpen. In 10 career relief appearances, he has a 5.79 ERA.
