A's Fishing for the Next Sam Moll?

The A's made their signing of Jake Fishman to a minor league contract official on Tuesday

Jake Fishman has left the Marlins for greener pastures, signing a minor league deal with the Oakland Athletics. 

Fishman is far from a household name, having pitched a total of 11 innings in the big leagues to the tune of a 4.09 ERA. The A's saw something they liked in those seven games, though, and it could be that they see a little bit of Sam Moll in him. 

For starters, both are lefty throwers and operate with just a slider and a sinker. When Moll was originally with the A's back in 2017, he was also mixing in a four-seamer and a changeup, but those had fallen to the side by the time he returned to Oakland in 2021.

Moll was purchased by the A's from the Arizona Diamondbacks in May of 2021 and had a 7.06 ERA in Reno for the D-Backs Triple-A affiliate. He threw 13 2/3 innings for the A's in Las Vegas, totaling a 2.63 ERA in the same league he'd been in, before getting the call up to Oakland where he got into eight games and had a 3.48 ERA. 

In 2022 Moll had an even better season, putting up a 2.91 ERA in 43 1/3 innings and was one of the A's most reliable pitchers out of the bullpen. He has plenty of team control left and still isn't arbitration eligible, but with bullpen arms, teams always have to have backup plans because relievers are volatile from year-to-year. 

Enter Jake Fishman. 

Last season in the minors, Fishman held a 2.25 ERA in Triple-A across 33 appearances spanning 56 innings. 

The Fish Man doesn't throw as hard as Moll does, averaging just 88 miles an hour (Moll sits 93) from the left side, but the miles per hour difference between his sinker and his slider is nearly the same as Moll's, a 11.7 miles per hour variance to Moll's 11.6. 

Moll also ranks in the 97th percentile in fastball spin, while Fishman is in the 5th percentile. Being at either extreme plays, and having one of each is an interesting development. 

One change we could see fairly quickly is with a pitch selection from Fishman more similar to Moll's, where his slider is tossed 55.4% of the time while his sinker is used 44.6%. In limited innings, the former Miami lefty was at 60.2% with his sinker, and 39.8% with his slider. He doesn't have to do exactly what Moll does, but a few more sliders are probably in store. 

Of the pitchers that threw at least 50 sinkers in 2022, Fishman ranked 15th in vertical movement with 6.0 inches vs. the average, and his slider gets 2.7 inches of vertical movement vs. the average, while Moll's gets 2.3 inches. The big difference here is that Fishman's slider doesn't have the horizontal movement that Moll's does--yet. 

In his cup of coffee in the big leagues, Jake Fishman didn't walk a single batter, though he did hit three guys. His walk rates the last two seasons in Triple-A have been 2.7 BB/9 and 3.2. The 27-year-old is a little bit better at limiting walks than Moll, who has walked 4.4 and 4.6 per nine in his last two seasons with the A's. 

The goal here could be to recreate Sam Moll with Jake Fishman, but to limit the walks. This is a minor league signing, but one worth keeping an eye on. 

Reunited: Both Zach Logue and Jake Fishman were drafted by the Toronto Blue Jays and they have been teammates at various stops in the Jays' system. Zach Jackson was drafted in 2016 along with Fishman (Logue was a year later) but it appears that they missed each other at most stops along their journeys up the organizational ladder. Kirby Snead, another Jays 2016 draftee, has been in the same bullpen as Fishman at numerous stops. 

Kevin Smith, a 2017 draftee, spent 2019 with Fishman in Double-A New Hampshire.