Can Barry Zito Bring Career Back from the Dead with Oakland A's?

Back when Barry Zito was Barry Zito—the guy who won 23 games and a Cy Young Award in 2002—his signature pitch was the curveball.

It was a physics-defying hook that beguiled even the most disciplined hitters, looping hopelessly high and wide before plummeting into the zone with pinpoint precision.

In a way, that's a good metaphor for where Zito stands now. The left-hander, who will turn 37 in May, hasn't pitched in the big leagues since 2013, when he posted a 5.74 ERA in 133.1 innings with the San Francisco Giants.

By all appearances, Zito's career is floating high and wide. The question now: Can he drop back into the zone?

He's got a shot, albeit a tenuous one—a minor league contract with the Oakland A's, the franchise that drafted him 16 years ago.

At the very least, it has to feel good for Zito to strap on the green and gold again. Oakland is where he came up, and it's where he spent his salad days. 

In seven seasons with the A's, Zito went 102-63 with a 3.55 ERA and made three All-Star teams. That pedigree earned him a seven-year, $126 million deal with the Giants, the biggest contract ever given to a pitcher at the time.

Zito's tenure in San Francisco contained more hairpin twists than Lombard Street. He had his moments, most notably in the 2012 postseason. During the Giants' championship run, he twirled 7.2 shutout innings in a must-win Game 5 of the National League Championship Series and authored a victory in Game 1 of the World Series. 

Jeff Chiu/Associated Press

But overall, his performance didn't match his paycheck, and the Giants sent him packing after 2013 with a $7 million buyout.

Now, Zito is back to his East Bay roots with nothing guaranteed and everything to prove.

He'll have to prove a lot to crack an Oakland rotation that's anchored by shoe-ins Sonny Gray and Scott Kazmir, plus contenders Jesse Chavez, Drew Pomeranz, Chris Bassitt, Kendall Graveman, Jesse Hahn and Sean Nolin. 

If Zito doesn't break camp as a starter, he could still stick with the big club as a reliever, according to manager Bob Melvin. 

"He's up for anything," Melvin told John Hickey of the San Jose Mercury News. "We'll see where it goes."

Early in spring, it's going back to basics. Zito, Hickey reports, is ditching the cutter he began throwing late in his first tour with Oakland. 

Zito blames the pitch, in part, for the drop in velocity that turned his heater into a batting-practice meatball.

"The more I threw the cutter, the less feel I had for the curve, the less spin I had on my fastball," he told MLB.com's Jane Lee. "I think the cutter messed a lot of things up."

Zito was never a flamethrower, but by 2013, the speed of his average two-seam fastball was a pedestrian 82.6 miles per hour, according to FanGraphs. In turn, that made his offspeed pitches less effective.  

Zito is also tweaking his mechanics, returning to the delivery he employed in his ace-level heyday.

"My body is more efficient now, and I feel like I have a little more life on the ball," Zito told Hickey. "More than anything, the spin on the ball is back. It's not something they talk about a lot, but they're going to be talking about it."

Spoken like a man with confidence—a quality that sometimes eluded the laid-back, cerebral southpaw during his struggles in San Francisco.

OK, now the obligatory disclaimer: Spring is brimming with feel-good stories; everyone's in the best shape of his life and ready to turn the corner in February.

Let's get real. Zito can tinker with his windup and pitch repertoire all he wants. The list of hurlers who have resurrected careers in their late 30s is short.

Zito's old Oakland rotation mate, 37-year-old Mark Mulder, recently abandoned his own comeback attempt. 

Odds are Zito will be a Cactus League novelty and a non-factor once the games start to count.

Then again, these are the Oakland A's, a club that's built a legacy on uncovering and polishing diamonds in the rough. 

Wouldn't it be exactly like "Moneyball" general manager Billy Beane to wring the dominant, cost-controlled years out of Zito, let him go across the bay for a massive overpay and then bring him back on a flier and squeeze out a few more drops of value?

Stranger things, as they say, have happened. 

All statistics courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com unless otherwise noted.