Chicago Cubs bring relief pitcher Shawn Camp back – MLB News
The bullpen gets another boost as the Chicago Cubs on Monday, Nov. 19, announced that the club and reliever Shawn Camp have agreed to a one-year contract, worth $1.35 million. Included in it, as was pointed out, is $200,000 in possible incentives.
The move was highly expected given the experience and the power this reliever brings. The fact that he had career-high 80 relief appearances the past season proved he will be a dependable source in the bullpen.
His just over 77 relief innings ranked fifth in the National League. With 80 appearances, Camp became the ninth Cubs' pitcher to achieve this milestone. The last time any Cubs' reliever did so was back in 2010 when Sean Marshall had 80 appearances.
The Cubs were previously looking for a few additions to the rotation. Free-agent pitcher Scott Baker was brought in for a year with a contract signed with him. Now that Camp is also back, rotation and bullpen are comparatively stronger than the last season.
Camp was a free-agent reliever. He was signed last year during the closing days of Spring Training. It was Theo Epstein, the Chicago Cubs' president of baseball operations, that had made the move last year.
Being a veteran, Shawn Camp made appearance on the Opening Day and added to the bullpen’s strength.
It really paid off as could be witnessed during the season. With 3.59 ERA that he posted, he retired 57 of his first 80 batters with a career-high 18 holds.
Chicago Cubs are well aware of the insurmountable challenges looking them in eyes as far as pitching is concerned. Starting from rotation to bullpen, if history is anything to go by, they will need to have a supposedly impregnable defence to overcome the rivals.
There have been rumours that the Cubs are interested in Jeremy Hellickson. Whether any such move is made is only a matter of conjecture at the moment.
However, what is certain is the Cubs intent to bring in a bunch of quality pitchers to practically reorient the Cubs' pitching, making it better than the one they had this past season, losing over 100 games.
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