Foster Griffin’s baseball journey is not done yet. After only seven major league appearances across the 2020 and 2022 seasons with the Royals and Blue Jays and Tommy John surgery that knocked him out of the 2021 season, the former first-round pick took a chance at playing in Japan.
Signed with the Yomiuri Giants of Nippon Professional Baseball in 2023, the left-hander thrived overseas. He went 6-5 with a 2.75 ERA and 1.074 WHIP in 20 starts during his first season in Japan. He then followed that up with a 7-6 record and 2.93 ERA in 24 starts in his second season abroad.
Griffin’s third campaign in Tokyo was his best. He finished 6-1 with a 1.53 ERA and 0.966 WHIP in 17 starts, earning a selection to the NPB Central League All-Star Game. And perhaps most impressively, he allowed only one homer over 89 innings.
Across three seasons in Japan, he went 18-10 with a 2.57 ERA, 1.033 WHIP, 9.1 strikeouts and 2.0 walks per nine innings in 54 games.
That earned him the opportunity to return to the major leagues on a $5.5 million deal, plus incentives, with the Nationals that was made official on Monday. And with that new contract, comes the opportunity to be a starter again, this time in the bigs.
“I learned how to be a starter again,” Griffin said Tuesday of his experience in Japan during a Zoom introductory call with reporters. “And to encompass that, I learned how to do scouting reports a lot better. I learned how to take the data that I have versus the data of the hitter and compare those two things together, and then strategize my scouting report based off of that heading into a start. On top of that, I feel like I learned how to navigate a lineup, if that makes sense. So base open on two outs, I don't have the best matchup in front of me, but the guy on-deck I have a better matchup against. So I don't necessarily have to try and get this guy out that's at the plate at the moment. I can kind of see if he'll nibble at a bad pitch, maybe I'll get out of the inning. But I'm more trying to focus on the guy on-deck. So I was able to strategize as the starter a little bit more, especially with guys in scoring position.
“I just got a little bit more mature, I guess, if you will, as a starter, instead of just trying to get everybody out. There might be a key situation where you don't want to give up that run with runners in scoring position. You have a better chance at that guy on-deck based off of your scouting report or what it may be. So it's a little bit of a long-winded answer, but I would say just the development as a starter is the main thing.”
Moving to Japan wasn’t the first time Griffin made a change to take a chance on himself in his career.
After being selected out of high school by the Royals with the 28th-overall pick in the 2014 MLB Draft, Griffin came up through Kansas City’s system as a starter. But after his Tommy John surgery in 2020 and rehab in 2021, he pitched the idea of moving to the bullpen to the Royals to increase his chances of reaching the big leagues. And it worked.
Griffin was credited with the win as a reliever in his major league debut against the Tigers on July 27, 2020, his 25th birthday, but felt pain in his elbow right after that.
Two years later, he was back in the majors, making five relief appearances for the Royals and one with the Blue Jays before being released by Toronto that November.
But the goal was always to return to the majors as a starter, something not a lot of pitchers who make the move to a reliever, have Tommy John and go overseas get the chance to do. With the success he had in Japan – thanks to the additions of a splitter, sweeper and two-seam fastball to his arsenal – he’s now getting that chance to return to a big league rotation with the Nationals.
“I just feel like that's what I've been my whole life, if that makes sense," Griffin said. “And I don't feel like I have the high-octane fastball or wipeout breaking pitch. Most of your relievers here in the big leagues have that really high velo fastball, as well as some wipeout secondary pitch. And I felt like the arsenal that I had in my back pocket was more of a starting pitcher arsenal. And I felt like that was kind of my wanting to get back to that. I just felt like I may not have a long-term career as a reliever with the arsenal that I had. And I felt like I had a better shot of a long-term career as a starter.”
Griffin knows he’ll get a chance to compete for a spot in the rotation in spring training. As for any more in-depth conversations with the Nats about his role and future with the team, he said it’s still too early for those, especially around the holidays. But the 30-year-old is excited to join a Nationals organization that is young and moving in a different direction.
“I haven't gotten that in depth yet as far as role,” he said. “We're kind of around Christmas time, so it's been here and there. And things just became official (Monday), so there haven't been a ton of conversations, as far as that goes. But as far as choosing the Nats, like I said, I just feel like there's great opportunity here, as well as this young wave of players and a lot of ability, a lot of natural talent that I see on the roster. As well as the front office changes. I think everything's moving in a great direction. There's a lot of talk about how young the front office is and the coaching staff is. But I think beyond that, I think it's more of just they found the right guys that fit the mold and culture that they're trying to put forward. And I think that's something that's something that's very exciting to be a part of.”
There is still plenty of time to add to Griffin’s baseball story. But he is certainly proud of his journey so far, from the United States to Japan and back, and from rotation to bullpen and back.
“Very much so. And I feel like the Nationals approached me with a great opportunity to come back and be that starter,” he said. “I'm hoping it all pans out. I'm hoping that the things that I've developed and the things that I've learned over the last three years in Japan will hopefully translate. And I'm looking forward to getting with the pitching coaches here with the Nats and the analytic department, and seeing if there's anything that they've seen from my report that they think I can even change a little bit more to get that much better.”