The Red Sox on Friday announced an octet of minor league signings, revealing that they’ve added catcher Jett Bandy; outfielder John Andreoli; left-hander Mike Kickham; corner infielder Jantzen Witte; first baseman/outfielder Nick Longhi; and right-handers R.J. Alvarez, Domingo Tapia and Robinson Leyer as non-roster invitees to Spring Training. Each of Bandy, Andreoli, Kickham and Alvarez has some MLB experience.
Bandy, 30 in March, was once viewed as a potential long-term option behind the dish for the Angels but hasn’t panned out as such. He’s logged 156 games in the big leagues between Anaheim and Milwaukee, posting a .218/.282/.365 batting line through 492 plate appearances. He’s adept at shutting down the running game (32 percent career caught-stealing rate) but has drawn more questionable marks for his framing efforts.
Andreoli, 29, has only collected 67 plate appearances at the MLB level but has been an on-base machine in Triple-A, where he’s put together a .262/.375/.416 batting line across parts of five seasons (2465 plate appearances). The right-handed-hitting veteran has seen ample time at all three outfield spots since being selected in the 17th round of the 2011 draft by the Cubs.
The 31-year-old Kickham hasn’t pitched in the Majors since 2013-14 with the Giants and has allowed more runs than he has completed innings pitched in his short MLB career (37 runs, 30 2/3 innings). But Kickham has displayed strong control and pitched reasonably well in a tough pitchers’ environment with the Marlins’ Triple-A club in each of the past three seasons in addition to a strong winter ball showing in Mexico (1.96 ERA in 41 1/3 innings). He’ll give the club some depth that has experience working as both a starter and a reliever.
Alvarez, 28, hasn’t pitched in the big leagues since 2015 and was also with Miami’s Triple-A affiliate in 2019. His bottom-line results in parts of five Triple-A seasons don’t immediately jump out, but he’s averaged nearly 12 strikeouts per nine innings pitched throughout his minor league career. Control has been an issue as well, however, evidenced by the fact that he’s yielded nearly five walks per nine frames en route to his lifetime 4.22 ERA in Triple-A.
Congrats on returning to the Sox organization to Nick longhi. Liked him when saw handful of AB’s when 1st signed and played with them in GCL several years back and was sad when he was sold off to cinci for IFA slot cash.
Maybe he can show some more and make it with the team as a 4th OF eventually. The bat has never been bad, only lacked much game power.
I want to know if they will bring back the Brockstar!
Depends on a price or betts trade happening before he signs.
Generally I think bloom has moved on. They signed a scrub for 3m + incentives instead of putting that money towards brock.
Thays probably all you need to know right there about their intentions
My guess is either Holt or Shaw. The fact that Holt’s name hasn’t been mentioned anywhere else suggests to me they been talking and perhaps are waiting to clear payroll before announcing anything. I realize my comments seem to flip-flop but like you Pashka, I’m hoping. Thus I’m probably looking for signs that aren’t actually there. I just realized I’m a fan acting like a fan…
chaaaaammpionshiiip
Could I be the first numpty to say… Great Job, how come we didn’t get Donaldson, Cole or trade for Haniger. Then I could get uptight when someone explains roster depth?
Keep up the good work MLBTR.
When you’re broke ….
Strange thing to say when the Globe announced today that The Fenway Sports Group is worth over $6B, the third highest of any conglomerate owner.
because only cheap teams make minors signings.
Crazy to think that Jett F’ing Bandy is now our second best catcher lol.
can’t be any worse than Sandy Leon, I don’t see what the issue is.
i disagree, Jett Bandy is REALLY bad
This is kind of cool for Andreoli — he grew up in Worcester MA. it could be especially cool if he winds up sticking around in AAA and ends up playing for the “WooSox” when the AAA team relocates to Worcester. I know those are some significant “If’s but it would be very cool for a kid I actually played against when I was in high school! haha
i guess being spoiled in 15 years with 4 championships a rebuild/salary dump was coming, wont be easy, but im just looking forward to a season from now after they are under the luxury tax how much better they will get, i was watching the Mlb network and they had a trade proposal including price and mookie better to the dodgers for aj Pollock and a bunch of other guys, while the return for boston would have been minimal, it would have 100% free the sox of all penalties and got them way below the threshold, makes sense even though thats a hard sell to the fans to be like ‘ok, were gonna be bad for awhile so hang with us’ of course we arent talking about a disgraced franchise like Baltimore or Miami, they will bounce right back and be good really soon.
Come on everyone these are HUGE signings and it PROVES that Mr Bloom IS actually still working this X-Mas season.
He must be doing what I just did on EBay. 10% bonus bucks back so I just completed my shopping before it expired at midnight yesterday.
plus look at Houston, they went from loosing 100 games every year and now look at them.
Why do I want to look at cheaters? After Boston getting caught with the watches, you would have thought everyone would have shut down efforts that were so close to the Pesky Pole. Foul on Houston for continuing to cheat.
Houston also had a really good farm and weren’t starting with some of these massive contracts. Boston’s farm might not be as bad as most people say but it certainly isn’t very strong (aka Bergman 2.0 isn’t hanging out down there ready to make a huge impact for minimal money). I’m not sure Boston’s turn around is as quick as you think it is unless they are able to make some exceptional trades to get price off the books and bring in a few talented prospects at the same time (which will be tough to do if you’re trying to convince the team to take on most of Price’s salary). And you have to hope sale and eovaldi are healthy, which in eovaldis case we can pretty much assume he won’t be…
Longhi are good. rest are bleh.
It’s like a basic bandaid across a ton of body hair.
Bloom is making painful moves letting guys walk and sitting on the sidelines signing garbage to fill 25-man openings. None of those moves came even close to fixing the cbt issues. If the sox are going to stink for a year, and the support pieces chaim has put on the 25 man openings say that is exactly what to expect, he needs to quit this slow painful pull bit by bit, and just rip that bandaid off.
Dump price/betts even if the return isn’t optimal so we can at least start working towards a good 2021.
So he’s not allowed to sign guys to minor league contracts? Jeez Louise let the man do his job. No need to burn down the house when you’re just trying to lower your property tax a little bit.
If you read, I was talking about the plugging into the 25 man he did last week, only somewhat followed by a huge round of dumpster diving here. Minor league contracts are fine, but you cannot claim there is anything inspiring or promisimg about his handful of major league deals so far, all have been significant downgrades without making marked progress against the cbt.
There are still some significant free agents available. My guess is that you will see trades after Ryu and Keuchel sign.
There is still quite a bit of time before the start of the season if the Red Sox don’t trade anyone and don’t reset by the start of the season then you can criticize the moves Bloom has done. My guess it’s just a matter of time before the bigger trades start happening. I’m sure Bloom has an idea I’m mind. It’s time to be patient.
None really has much upside left and only Longhi has age on his side.
In case you didn’t know.. EVERY team last couple of decades fills out AAA roster with 10+ retreads who are non prospects. AA level has been where teams choose to pretty much develop from now and use AAA level as an old retreads home for some reason. i don’t like it either, but organizations prefer having these washouts there for emergency.
Agree with poster and Leyer’s blazing FB. Tapia gets his up there also on occasion to 97-8mph range, but like leyer? it’s all over the place. Probably why both have been around longer than the energizer bunny.
I’m happy to see reliever Robinson Leyer brought back. Big fastball up to 100. Has as much promise as any other young guy with high velo but lacking polish. Would love to see reliever Anyelo Gomez return, too. He was real prospect material (for the NYY!) a few years ago, then lost momentum through injury and was selected in the Rule 5 by another club (Detroit, I think) who flipped him to BOS–same story as Andrew Schwaab, whom the Sox have re-signed.
I can’t believe how boston is crying cheap. I wonder what changed
Just need to reset the luxury tax rate. Yanks had to do the same thing. Annoying but the Sox’ll be spending again shortly…
Well that’s one way to rebuild the farm system.
Played with Andreoli growing up in Worcester, pumped to see him get a chance with home town team, hope he can get into some games at some point
As a Sox fan I am contented with 4 World Series wins since 2000. The Sox had to go through somewhat of a cleansing at some point. I would be happy with 30-40 pitchers invited to Spring Training; competition never hurt any team.
Vazquez, Devers, Boggie, Benny, JBJ, Betts and JDM–7 pretty capable DH & position players.
Their starting pitchers are question marks. They will be fine.
Pen: Barnes. Brasier, Hembree, Hernandez, Walden, Workman–is a start.
If they trade Betts and get Pederson and a couple of prospects I’d be happy.
If they renegotiate a 3 yr. deal with JBJ for $20 M perhaps with incentives I’d be happy.
Chavis and Dalbec are Major League Ready to compete for jobs.
Since LAD loves to make a run for it getting Betts and Price makes sense. Let’s see what they offer?
Funny to see that Tampa (Bloom) philosophy of buying cheap and playing the probabilities for a winner on the trash heap. Refreshing after years of blpwing money. The new direction will be a winner for Boston going forward. Glad to see it. Know the fans won’t be. LOL