Royals sign veteran pitcher Zach Davies to minor league contract

The right-hander has 200 career MLB starts.

The Royals announced they have signed veteran right-hander Zach Davies to a minor league contract and assigned him to Triple-A Omaha. The 31-year-old is a nine-year MLB veteran with the Brewers, Padres, Cubs, and Diamondbacks, with a career 4.36 ERA in 200 starts. He struggled last year with a 7.00 ERA in 18 starts for Arizona.

Davies was originally a 26th-round pick in 2011 by the Orioles out of high school in Arizona. He was traded to the Brewers for outfielder Gerardo Parra, and made his MLB debut with Milwaukee in 2015. In 2017, he won 17 games and was a 3.0 rWAR pitcher. He was traded to San Diego after the 2019 season, and he finished second in the National League in wins in the shortened 2020 season with a 2.73 ERA.

But he has struggled over the last three seasons with a 5.43 ERA and the 12th-lowest strikeout rate among starters. He signed a minor league deal with the Nationals earlier this year, but was released after he failed to make the MLB roster.

Davies has a fastball that doesn’t hit 90 mph on the radar gun, but relies more on his sinker and change up, throwing his four-seamer just 22 percent of the time last year, along with an occasional cutter and curve. He has a career 44.9 percent groundball rate, reaching 50 percent in his prime.

Davies also made headlines when his estranged wife made a post on Instagram, claiming he had ghosted her, leaving her without any communication.