As the Oakland Athletics gear up for spring training, we start to hear more of the projected roles for the upcoming season> While Oakland has three of the starting spots likely locked up with Sonny Gray, Sean Manaea and Kendall Graveman< the door remains open for two pitchers to join the Athletics rotation.
One of the favorites for the fourth starter gig is Andrew Triggs. The 27-year-old righty performed decently in limited action last season with a 4.31 ERA across 56 1/3 innings, he appeared in 24 games with six of them starts. He showed signs for a promising future though with a 8.79 K/9 with a 0.80 HR/9 and 3.20 FIP, greater indicators of a pitcher who showed some quality stuff in limited time.
Last season was the first time that Triggs not only made a major-league start, but started more than one game in a season. Oakland was able to stretch him out to eat up more innings and now with an offseason of training and a focus on being a starter, Triggs should be well prepared and in even better shape to handle a larger workload over the course of a season. He could make for a sneaky pitcher in deep leagues and is a great late-round draft pick in AL-only leagues.