The Red Sox announced a series of roster moves Friday morning, revealing that they’ve placed Eduardo Nunez on the 10-day injured list (retroactive to April 18) due to a mid-back strain). Additionally, Boston has designated righty Erasmo Ramirez for assignment and recalled infielders Tzu-Wei Lin and Michael Chavis from Triple-A Pawtucket. It’ll be the MLB debut for Chavis, a former first-round pick who is currently ranked as the game’s No. 75 overall prospect by MLBPipeline.com.
Nunez will join fellow second basemen Dustin Pedroia and Brock Holt on the injured list. There’s no word yet on long he’s expected to be sidelined. The loss of that trio facilitated the promotion of Chavis for his first look in the big leagues as well as the return of the versatile Lin, who has been up and down with the Sox dating back to the 2017 season. While Chavis has been primarily a third baseman in his minor league career, he’s played 47 innings at second base in 2019 and has experience at shortstop in the past, as well. He seems likely to step up at second base for the time being with Boston’s other options on the mend.
Selected with the 26th overall pick in the 2014 draft, Chavis posted modest numbers in his first two and a half professional seasons before breaking out with a .282/.347/.563 batting line between Class-A Advanced and Double-A in 2017. He followed that up with a similarly impressive .298/.381/.538 slash across three levels in 2018 (topping out in Triple-A but spending the bulk of his time in Double-A), though it should be pointed out that Chavis’ 2018 campaign was shortened by an 80-game PED suspension.
This season, he was off to a .250/.354/.600 start in Pawtucket. Chavis is a bat-first prospect, drawing the most praise for plus raw power and a solid hit tool. Strikeouts are part of his game but haven’t been a huge problem for him, and he’s shown improved plate discipline in recent years as well.
Ramirez’s stint with the Sox will go down as a brief and forgettable one. The veteran right-hander made only one appearance with the Boston organization, allowing four runs on four hits (including a pair of homers) and a walk with one strikeout in three inning of relief. The Red Sox will have a week to trade him, release him or pass him through outright waivers; Ramirez would be able to reject an outright assignment in favor of free agency anyhow, so this move seems quite likely to end his tenure with the Red Sox organization.
Though he had a poor year with the Mariners in 2018, Ramirez isn’t far removed from a three-year stretch (2015-17) in which he logged a combined 3.97 ERA with 7.0 K/9, 2.3 BB/9 and 1.2 HR/9 in 385 1/3 innings between Tampa Bay and Seattle. He has extensive big league experience as both a starter and reliever, and a club looking at adding some depth in either area could take a look at the righty, who won’t turn 29 until early next month. The Braves are known to be on the lookout for potential bullpen arms, for instance, while the Rangers haven’t been secretive about their desire to add rotation depth.
Omg yes! Hoping Chavis can lock down 2B for the foreseeable future. He can rake. I’m thinking his ceiling is Daniel Murphy.
I think Chavis’ upside with the bat could be greater than Murphy. Murphy hits for a high average, but I think Chavis could become a premier power hitter
Let’s not get carried away he has power but there will be a lot of swing and miss in his game probably. Interesting to see how he does my guess is he will be overmatched by big league pitching at least initially.
If he can stay clean.
He doesn’t play 2B though…
He does now..
Wow that was quick, thanks for coming Erasmo
*DL
It’s not called the DL anymore, which is probably because MLB thinks it’s offensive to disabled people, however, I think that’s a poor excuse, despite the fact that I feel bad for disabled people.
Being injured isnt a disability, its debilitating. The old name was dumb.
Semantics fight!
Let me contribute. While DL might seem offensive to some, the term dis-abled is fairly inoculous. Granted it has become more distinctive over time, but originally the coinage was hardly a slight.
Right!
It’s a list for injured players. Just call it the Injured List and move on…
1) MLB “thinks it’s offensive to disabled people” because disabled people told them it was.
2) I’m not an expert on disability, nor am I disabled beyond a tendency toward treatable depression, but I think most disabled folks would not want you to “feel bad” for them. For example: link to blog.cds.udel.edu
I am disabled and it doesn’t offend me. I am pretty hard to offend though.
Well, sounds like there might be more to pedroia’s malady than expected to need more than lin coming up.
Question now is, devers was supposed to be a bat first 3B, and now we have a bat first 2b who is playing out of position.
Errors and missed plays might be a concern
Fortunately, nobody else in the division can play IF defense either. Rays WERE OK, but Wendle/Duffy are definitely missed.
And let’s face it, the Sox IF was kind of bereft last year too. It matters less now, with the super ball and all the upper cutting, and at least they have the OF to cover some of the mistakes.
They should pick up Brad Miller
having a vacuum cleaner holding a bat is a better option at the plate than brad miller
Brad’s horrendous anywhere defensively except 1B, where he’s merely putrid. But the LH bat with a little pop, and willingness to play anywhere and darn the manager’s socks, makes him a possibility. I can see it……
It’s amazing how bad he is at defense with him coming up as a SS, you’d think he’d be athletic enough to play somewhere half decent.
Package ramirez and swihart to Atlanta for a depth piece perhaps?
Atl has a plethora of young catchers in the minors where the sox are now thin. I’d say try to get a reliever or sorts, problem is, most of the bravos’ young arms have more upside than ramirez and swihart are likely worth.
Rich in both departments anyways.
The sox are deep behind the plate in terms of major league ready depth.. Juan Centeno and Oscar Hernandez are both quality AAAA guys
What makes you think that Atlanta is going to give the Sox anyone for two guys that couldn’t stay on the Sox 40 man roster. All they have to do is wait a couple of days and get them just the cost of a contract
The 40 man wasn’t the problem, it’s the 25 man.
And the Yankee/BoSox race to the all-time roster moves in a season continues. Who knows the record, but my guess is they are on pace to shatter it.
go away injury bug. this team don’t need you, this is exactly how great teams and dynasty’s fall apart. you’re nothing but a bad omen. shooo-beat it!
This was Seattle a couple years ago except it was almost all pitchers. Ramirez was like the 2nd best pitcher for us at the end of the year. That really sucked.
Dombrowski calls Chavez an important part of RedSox future! That’s what we thought about Swihart!
Who was similarly rushed to the show as a potential bat that needed to work on the rest as he went. Sounds familiar, and not unlike what they did with devers
Let’s hope that Chavis shows a little promise for however long he is up here as he is really the Sox’ only offensive prospect (except maybe for Dalbac who also plays 3rd) who will be ready to contribute at the major league level over the next 2 seasons. Would love to see Chavis hit his way into a full time role on this team. Could be just what the disability doctor, excuse me, the injury doctor ordered!
Based on Devers averaging 6 errors a month, we need a new 3B and they must be cheap. Let’s try Chavis and any other minor league player who does not make 6 errors per month at 3B. Devers swings for the fences on every pitch so when he does connect he hits a decent amount of HRs. Would I trade that for a guy who makes contact and moves runners, absolutely!! That’s how we won last year. Homers are flashy but opposite field hits with men in scoring position are far better. Devers has proven that he can’t provide that and he can’t field. So let’s fix the problem by trying Chavis and if he doesn’t work pick the next best minor league player with potential and give them a chance. As long as they do not make 6 errors every month and can hit around .250 they are better than Devers!!
So, give Chavis a chance, move, sit or trade Devers and lets start winning again with better hitting, much better defense and better pitching.
Yay