Left-hander Foster Griffin has been eyeing a return to the majors after a strong three-year run in Japan. He’s received at least one multi-year offer, per MLB Network’s Jon Morosi.
The 30-year-old Griffin was a first-round pick, 28th overall, by the Royals back in 2014. He pitched in parts of two big league seasons between Kansas City and Toronto but totaled only eight innings. Griffin pitched well in the minors in 2021-22 and parlayed that into interest overseas, signing a one-year deal with the Yomiuri Giants.
Griffin re-signed with the Giants after a big first season and wound up spending three years in their rotation. He pitched to a sharp 2.57 ERA in 315 2/3 frames and fanned 25.1% of his opponents against a tidy 5.5% walk rate. Griffin still doesn’t throw particularly hard, sitting in the low 90s with his fastball, but he works with a deep arsenal. He primarily relies on a four-seamer, slider, cutter and changeup (in that order) but also mixes in a splitter, curve and two-seamer on occasion.
Griffin was on his way to another strong set of results in 2025 when he suffered a leg injury over the summer. He wound up pitching in only 14 games but totaled a terrific 1.62 ERA, 25.1% strikeout rate and 5.9% walk rate in 78 innings. (Griffin also tossed 11 minor league innings, bringing him to 89 on the season overall.) He’s healthy now and going through a normal offseason progression.
Sources told MLBTR that Griffin has spoken to around eight teams with varying levels of interest. His priority in free agency will be latching on with a club that has clear rotation openings and a path to seize a starting job next season. It’s an understandable approach for a pitcher entering his age-30 season. A one- or two-year deal would put him back on the market ahead of his age-31 or age-32 season. That’s still young enough to command a more notable free agent deal if he can spend the next year or two proving himself as a credible big league starter by incorporating some of the changes he’s picked up overseas.
Teams in need of top-of-the-rotation upgrades aren’t going to look at Griffin’s NPB work and think it can transfer over. But the 6’3″, 225-pound lefty ought to be a relatively low-cost option for a club looking to plug some stable innings with a tinge of upside into the back of its rotation.
Griffin doesn’t have the premium velocity and whiff rate of Cody Ponce, who signed a $30MM deal with the Blue Jays in free agency earlier this winter, but we’ve still seen some solid paydays for pitchers returning to North America in recent years. Drew Anderson ($7MM) and Ryan Weiss ($2.6MM) both signed one-year, major league contracts coming back from Asia this winter. Left-hander Anthony Kay signed for two years and $12MM with the White Sox last week. Bringing starters back over from Nippon Professional Baseball and the Korea Baseball Organization is an increasingly popular way for teams to seek budget innings at the back of the rotation, which should bode well for Griffin on the back of a trio of nice seasons.
