The Red Sox signed Alfredo Aceves to a Major League deal, the team announced. Aceves will earn $650K and could earn $100K more in incentives, according to ESPN.com's Buster Olney (on Twitter). Agent Tom O'Connell represents Aceves.
Boston takes on limited risk, since Aceves has two options remaining, according to Peter Abraham of the Boston Globe (on Twitter). The Red Sox see Aceves as a starter, rather than a reliever, according to Alex Speier of WEEI.com. Speier notes that the deal is a split contract that would pay Aceves $200K in the minors. The Mets also offered Aceves a Major League contract, tweets Jon Heyman of SI.com, but Aceves preferred to play for Boston.
A lower-back injury limited Aceves to just ten games last year. He was a workhorse in 2009, when he logged 84 innings in 43 appearances for the eventual World Champions. The 28-year-old right-hander has a 3.21 ERA with 6.2 K/9, 2.1 BB/9 and a 38.6% ground ball rate in 126 career innings.
Red Sox GM Theo Epstein has added high-profile relievers (Bobby Jenks, Dan Wheeler) and others (Dennys Reyes, Matt Fox, Hideki Okajima, Rich Hill, Lenny DiNardo, Matt Albers, Jason Bergmann, Brandon Duckworth and Andrew Miller) in his offseason-long effort to improve the team's bullpen. Check out our Transaction Tracker for the details.
Peter Abraham and Nick Cafardo of the Boston Globe first reported the deal.
Wow! This is actually a pretty good signing.
Isn’t he supposed to be on the DL all year? I’m guessing this is more of a long term rehab project.
Projected to come back in June if all goes well. This really bothers me because the Yankees have a history of reclaiming injured players from other organizations, paying them, rehabing them, using them briefly and then letting them go. Aceves has proven his worth and talents. I thought he was worth the investment. He could very well come back to haunt the Yanks.
Until he has surgery for that hernia, not likely.
Hadn’t heard about the hernia. I knew about the recovery from the back surgery and the broken clavicle, but now a hernia? Looks as if Yankees gambled that no one would be interested and lost.
He didn’t have surgery, but the widely-held opinion is that he will eventually need it. Hernias don’t just heal on their own.
As a Yankees fan that bothers me a lot. Aces is a damn good pitcher and will help the Sox, if his recovery goes well. Versatile, good stuff, fearless and knows how to pitch. Best of luck except when he pitches against the Yanks.
Me too.
Yeah, Ace was money in ’09. I knew we weren’t going to get him once we got Pedro Feliciano. They’re essentially the same pitcher! Like you said, best of luck to him except against the Yanks.
Not true at all. Feliciano is a Loogy while Aceves pitches to both sides, long relief, and can spot start. That’s what makes his loss painful.
Ok, what the hell is a loogy? It gets thrown around this place a lot…
LOOGY is a term for a lefty specialist
I have no idea where it came from or if it is an acronym for something but I’m pretty sure it is what people like to call a lefty specialist.
To be honest, I forget the entire meaning. I recall it as a Lefty-one-out per game.
Lefty One Out GuY
The other guys have already said it (it’s a lefty specialist) but the letters stand for “Lefty One-Out Guy”.
Why there’s a Y at the end as opposed to just using LOOG I don’t know.
Yep. Thanks
Yea I usually just ignore it…lol
Yeah I’m a Yankee fan too, and I’m hurt, now I have a baseball signed by a Red Sock. Anyway you’re right he was so good in 2009.
Yea, I was big on Aceves after the way he pitched in 2009, he was huge for us. I’m not sure when he is supposed to recover but apparently after trying to rehab late last season he was not throwing well at all. If he can bounce back and pitch well again I am sure us Yankee fans will be missing him :(.
They’ve been linked to him for a little while now. Glad they got him, suprised it’s on a Major League deal, though.
Yeah strange it’s a major league contract for sure, but like others said as a Yankees fan this sucks
Figure with everyone they’ve added, him coming off an injury, etc, it would be a minor league deal. Oh well. Doesn’t make too much of a difference.
Not that strange. If it’s a rehab prospect then they put him on the 60-day DL which wouldn’t affect the 40-man roster.
The Sox bullpen is stacked. Aceves, Papelbon, Bard, Jenks, Wheelar Okajima, Doubront…
Plus spelling errors!
lol one mistake. bfd.
actually 2
where’s the 2nd one?
Aceves was spelled wrong and Wheeler is still spelled wrong.
that’s what the mets said when they signed K-Rod.
I know you can never have too much pitching, but it seems like there will not be enough innings to go around. Jenks always seemed better when he got lots of work.
6-9 are set with Wheeler, Bard, Jenks and Paps. Other than that, you’re right. We still are going to have a couple lefties thrown in the mix.
Probably only one lefty to start. My bet is Francona is going to have a 7-man bullpen: Paps, Jenks, Bard, Wheeler, and Wake with Atchison, Okajima, Reyes, Hill, and Miller fighting for the last 2 spots. Atchison and Okajima are probably the favorites.
Taylor Buchholz is not a recent pick-up for the BoSox. He’s a Met. Poor guy.
Just about to make the correction.
big deal. If the Yanks really thought he could come back , does anyone realy believe that they would have let him go?
yes.
Apparently there’s too much quality on the Yanks staff for him to have a shot.
Yeah, nobody has ever been released from a team and gone on to do well elsewhere.
Yes, there are oodles of reasons good players are let go, creating roster space being just one of them. He is only 28 and has a few options remaining, so he has plenty of time to recover from the injuries he’s been dealing with and a few chances to prove his worth. He was a damn good reliever before the injuries, so signing him for less than a million has a good risk-reward ratio for the Red Sox.
To make room for those 2 rule 5 picks with a cold day in somewhere to make the team of course for NY.. That is why they let him go huh.. Or was it because he was making right at the minimum salary, misdiagnosed a back problem, let him go and simply made a mistake to save some coinage thinking he would miss most of the 2011 season?
All teams make boners like this and it looks like this is one of the Yank’s. Nothing major.
I like this a lot if he gets healthy he could be big for us. Really surprised the Yanks didn’t re-sign him. Thank you Theo.
Isn’t Taylor Buchholz a Met?
Doesn’t the WEEI report seem a little unlikely, as he signed a deal with incentives for 35-50 appearances?
Cashman thinks Bartolo Colon is better? Oiy vay. This bridge (year) is worse than the Minneapolis, Minnesota I-35W Mississippi River bridge.
If you’re gonna do yiddish then do it right: “Oy vey”
And this is much of a bridge year for the yanks as last year was for the Sox.
I was going Popeye.
….maybe Jacko.
It’s also a split deal, there is a MLB deal and a Minor League deal from what I understand.
Haha I woulda gone with Sarah Palin’s Bridge to No Where in Alaska. But either way it works.
Low risk, high reward. I would have signed him in Theo’s place. The Sox just need to remember to put a clause in his contract forbidding him from riding on bikes. :O)
that was my point. Very minimal risk. If he doesn’t work out it cost a quarter of a million. If it works out even better.
Good signing. If he gets back to his 2009 form, this will be a nice reward for a low price.
i love how this is such a great “low risk, high reward” but when the yankees sign jones and a garcia or colon its considered “cashmans poor answer to the sox and an example of the yankees desperation” what a joke, i cant wait for this season to startnow that the sox have been deemed WS champs in february for the 100th consecutive year..ha
this very well could turn out to be a great signing for the sox when healthy aceves can be very effective
While you make a somewhat valid point about all unfair crap that’s thrown at Cashman and the Yanks. This signing is different in that the Sox have a solid rotation as well as a good bullpen and this is a depth signing. Colon and Garcia is a stop gap move in order to buy time and possibly get lucky. They’re really not similar.
i also dont see how the sox starting pitching is so solid and the yankees is the worst if you compare the two they are very similar
CC – Lester -true aces of the staff
AJ – Beckett- great stuff dont know what your gonna get
Hughes – Bucholtz- young, talented have to prove they can repeat
garcia – dicek- stats from 2010 are scary 150’s ip, 4.60+ era,80 and 81 ER, identical whip and so on…
insert scrap here – lackey
the difference in the two staffs is the difference between lackeys performance and the “stop gap” the yankees use be it colon nova or mitre there was nothing impressive about lackey 2010 performance
my comments about the unfair crap was a side note to the fact aceves could be a good pick up for the sox.
i believe both bullpens should be very good and as i said earlier im just excited to get this underway and find out off the paper what the teams will do
I wouldn’t mind if Hughes and Buchholz add another 1+ on their era. If that happens Buchholz would still be good and Hughes would be mediocre.
Look Hughes is a year younger than Buchholz. If you compare Hughes to Buchholz two years ago its a different story. Just think, the Jays had a young Halladay and Carpenter years ago. It’s too early to rank these pitchers, now Lester and Price that’s another story!
My point about the Aceves signing is that it is a signing to add depth, a signing that did not need to be done. The Red Sox rotation is better than the Yankees because they are all established starters that have a proven track record.By no means do I think they’re lights out, but after Sabathia, Hughes and Burnett, the next three spots for the Yankees are all question marks. You don’t know who’s going to win the next two slots and who ever does win those spots won’t be any better than the Red Sox counterpart. As a Yankees fan I hate thinking that, but you have to be fair about the situation.
Pitching never works out the way it is projected. Last year Vasquez and Beckett were rated in the top 20 Chone and Fangraphs projections. How’d that turn out!
Not sure would call John Lackey “scrap” there and still a bit tainted equaling Burnett with Beckett. I highly doubt that if those 2 players were not on the NYY and Boston (hypothetical scenario) and offered for trade for each other (see old Rick Wise for Lefty Carlton scenario) that a team would swap Beckett for Burnett and both have pretty much equal salaries. Beckett has been a staff leader throughout his career, while Burnett has been the opposite and not trying to dice on Burnett here.
I would lay odds this coming year that beckett will come back and at least put up his 2009 season and really.. You never know what were going to get out of Burnett when he was healthy or not
It has nothing to do with desperation. The market for worthwhile SP is horrible, the only logical move is to sign a couple low risk guys. This is why I never understood the criticism behind Theo signing Smoltz & Penny, sometimes thats what you gotta do. And as for being considered WS Champs before the season started I can think of many situations where it wasnt the Sox. Detroit after getting Cabrera, Yanks after getting CC, Tex, and AJ to name a couple.
and ace does add depth to the bullpen as andruw adds depth to the outfield those are depth signings low risk high reward..i agree the yankee pitvhing pickups are stop gaps to a trade at some point
leonard im just going off whats seems to be a general concensus of sox fans that the yankees moves have been desperation and an attempted answer to certain moves by the sox.. i for one saw the basis behind the smoltz, penny and even the sox attempt with colon ..sometimes its the best or the only option
my comment about the spring champs was just b@ll busting
The Sox have done a good job upgrading the pen over the winter, but I would take the A’s pitching over anybody. I would be a little leary of Papelbon as the closer after last year, and the Sox shopping him over the winter. I would still think the Yanks are the best in the late innings.
From everything I’ve read the Sox want to rebuild Miller as a reliever.
It’s ok, they’re going to get a lot of innings when Dice K starts.
Funny, everything I’ve read says they want him starting.