OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) — Right-hander Mike Fiers is staying put with the Oakland Athletics, finalizing his agreement Tuesday on a $3.5 million, one-year contract.
Fiers, whose six wins were a team-best in 2020, reported to the club's spring training facility in Mesa, Arizona, on Tuesday and passed a physical.
The pitcher is an important experienced starter in the rotation for manager Bob Melvin. The group that includes young lefties Jesús Luzardo and A.J. Puk, who missed the shortened 2020 season with a shoulder injury that required surgery.
Fiers, who pitched his second career no-hitter in 2019, just completed a $14.1 million, two-year contract that he signed with Oakland in December 2018. He earned $3 million in prorated pay over the abbreviated 60-game schedule last season from his $8.1 million salary.
Fiers was acquired by the A's in August 2018 and a year later became the whistleblower in the sign-stealing scandal involving his former Houston Astros club when he provided details to The Athletic in November 2019. The 35-year-old Fiers spent part of the 2015 season and all of 2016 and ’17 playing for the Astros.
In 2019, Fiers went 15-4 and pitched a no-hitter May 7 against the Reds to begin a 21-start unbeaten stretch in which he went 12-0. But Melvin went with left-hander Sean Manaea to start the AL wild card game and Oakland lost to Tampa Bay, a year after the New York Yankees eliminated the A's in the knockout game.
The AL West champions beat the White Sox in last year's best-of-three wild-card round to snap a nine-game losing streak in winner-take-all postseason games, a major league record that dated to the 1973 World Series. The A’s had lost six straight playoff series since sweeping Minnesota in the 2006 Division Series only to get swept by Detroit in the Championship Series.
But the season ended at the hands of rival Houston in a four-game AL Division Series.
Fiers pitched the most innings for the Astros in 2017 but was left off the postseason roster after compiling a 5.22 ERA. He signed with Detroit as a free agent that offseason.
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