July 3: Boxberger cleared waivers and is now a free agent, the Royals announced.
July 1: The Royals have requested release waivers on veteran reliever Brad Boxberger, per a club announcement. He had been designated for assignment recently.
It’s not surprising to see this move, as Boxberger’s $2.2MM salary never figured to hold much appeal after his messy performance to open the season. Had he shown enough of a spark to draw any trade interest, he’d likely have been held on the K.C. roster a while longer.
Boxberger worked to a 5.40 ERA in 26 2/3 frames, hardly the productivity the Royals were hoping for when they placed a value bet on the 31-year-old. He coughed up 5.7 free passes per nine, which is on the high side for his career but not totally out of character. Despite keeping an 11.3% swinging-strike rate that’s not too far off his career average, Boxberger has managed only 9.1 K/9 after retiring about a dozen per nine via strikeout over the past two seasons.
Beyond the outcomes, Boxberger has seemingly shown diminished arm speed. With his fastball velocity dropping significantly, he has tried to ramp up usage of a heretofore little-used slider.
That’s not to say that other organizations will turn up their noses. Boxberger has excelled after down stretches in the past and is still youthful. Even if the velo doesn’t return, he is a rather intriguing, low-risk bounceback candidate. Unless he’s claimed, which would rate as a surprise, the Royals will remain obligated for Boxberger’s remaining salary, less any pro-rated portion of the league minimum he earns if he makes it back to the majors.
used to be so good with the Rays… his career has pretty much gone downhill since.
The Rays are sure good at knowing when to jump ship. Boxberger, Longo, Archer in the last year alone.
Archer was always overrated
He was just as good or even better with the padres.
“Youthful” lol
Get him Mets! He can’t be worse than whatever junk were throwing out their currently
How about your Mets make a savvy trade by trading cash to the Cubs for Tony Barnette?
We were not going to hold onto him because we had to get rid of someone to activate Skoglund
Definitely better than some of the pitchers the padres have.
I’d like him on my team specifically for the emjoi jersey on MLB Player’s weekend.
That’s the only thing I’m missing out on with this release. The cool emoji Jersey
He can be a piece of a bullpen. The days when he was a consistent closer are gone. Maybe he can follow a flamethrower with that change up.
Or maybe kc messed him up having him throw pitches they felt where better for him throw but they were not.
KC has a reputation as being old school and largely hands off. Doubt this was the cause but maybe the reverse. Rays are basically the opposite so…
An opportunity for Friedman to go dumpster diving and prove how much smarter he is than everyone else.
Bye Felicia
High walk numbers but he’s good otherwise. Surprised they didn’t give him more time.
He’s been arguably the worst piece in an awful Royals bullpen all season and was barely even being used. We signed him to hopefully be a trade chip and clearly that wasn’t happening, so now any innings he pitches is just stealing work from younger players under team control which doesn’t make sense for a rebuilding team.