The Red Sox have claimed right-hander Phillips Valdez off waivers from the Mariners, reports Chris Cotillo of MassLive. To clear a spot on the 40-man roster, Dustin Pedroia was placed on the 60-day injured list.
Valdez, 28, had been designated for assignment on Friday following the Mariners’ claim of Taylor Williams, another right-handed reliever. He debuted with Texas last year and was claimed off waivers by Seattle in November, but was unable to stay on the roster for the entirety of the offseason. In his brief Major League stint last year, he tossed 16 innings of 3.94-ERA ball, striking out 18 batters. He was deployed exclusively as a reliever after spending the majority of his minor-league career as a starter. We’ll have to wait and see how the Red Sox view his future role, but evidently they like Valdez enough to give him a shot with the team.
Pedroia’s placement on the 60-day IL isn’t reflective of any new developments in his recovery from left knee complications: after suffering a “significant setback” this winter, Pedroia targeted late May or June as the most optimistic date for his return to the field, meaning that those first 60 days were always out of the question. And with Pedroia having only appeared in nine games over the last two seasons, Boston surely hasn’t been planning around a sizable contribution from the former MVP.
Pedroia is done
He was done four years ago.
Four years ago? Four years ago he batted over .300 and played in more than 150 games.
Lmao ok, Chief. 3+ years ago then.
If we go back 3 years, he was still batting close to .300 after over 100 games but his ability to play was intermittent and ultimately shortened due to……….
the infamous Manny Machado slide.
If we go back two years, that means you don’t even want to give him a chance to rehab and comeback.
Last year and this year, I can understand.
Until Machado spiked his knee
You are racist dynamite. If I say Puig is washed up am I racist?
Either way, I respect his hustle and fight.
I used to. Now I view him as selfish. He needs to retire, clear some salary space and allow the team to completely move on. I once saw Dustin as a future manager and a good one. Now I see he’s a “me first” guy and I wouldn’t hire him to cut the grass at Fenway.
Lmao Pedroia was BORN a me first guy. He’s had to me in order to thwart the odds and succeed. Jesus you guys make Homeric heroes out of some of the lousiest people.
Because I’m SURE that you would retire and leave millions of dollars on the table, right, Milt?
I would had I made millions already, Can’t teach honor and respect.
He signed that long-term contract at small money as an MVP and Rookie of the Year guy. He chose long-term security which is paying off now, versus a shorter-term deal and the hopes of bigger bucks later. The Red Sox are actually benefiting because his salary could have been way higher than it is now.
He still gets the money if it’s medical. Don’t let facts get in the way though.
Worst take of the day
Hey Milt, You are a Jackazz not baseball fan…He took an incredible hometown discount.signing for 8 years at $110M while Cano took the highest bid for 10/$240 and you think Pedroia is selfish…now You Feel he should not be paid the balance of his remaining contract… Even though he was injured while standing on 2nd turning double plays while getting run over by guys 8 inches taller and 100lbs heavier. Playing his heart out and never missing a game.
You want selfish?…
Find a Mirror.
carrigansghost –
Honor and respect? What a pretentious statement to make when it’s not even your own money. And think about who’s money you’d be giving back —> John Henry and The Fenway Sports Group. Collectively, they’re worth $6.6 Billion and the Red Sox are only one of their cash ventures.
So say your a player in the organization and next week, your team is found guilty of cheating by the MLB investigation. Because of your code of honor and respect, are you giving back your post-season shares or donating them to charity since you didn’t earn them? Why not your whole yearly salary since it was shown you cheated that year to? Or maybe the past couple years?
With the amount of surgeries and rehab Dustin has endured, he has earned that money.
“Be happy for a brother and never count another man’s bread.”
– Dame Lillard
Are you kidding me? He deserves every penny he’s owed. He signed a team friendly deal and got hurt playing the game. If anything machado should pay his contract off.
He was the heart and hustle for so long of that team. I may be a Dodgers fan, but I can’t believe some of these motherf*ers on here say he’s not worth it.
I get what you’re saying it would be great for the Sox salary tax wise if he retired. But come on… they signed him to that contract – he’s more than entitled to collect the money he was promised. If there was a way to make some sort of deal with him to give him his $ but get his salary off the books I’m sure both sides would consider it. But in the MLB it’s just not something that can be done. He can retire and forfeit all of the $ owed to him… But come on… that would just be stupid on his part.
Low-life gutter-head and born losers who get on the web to smear people remind me once again that the USA is a nation of opportunity to make a complete ass of oneself. Neither Pappas or DDIM are worthy of eating Pedroia’s daily septic load.
Yes!! My thoughts exactly.
Shakespeare wrote about this … nothing new… his flaws drive him to greatness and yet lead to his dowfalls. .. all hero’s are complex with good and bad…
Thanks Gary. Perfect explanation.
Ted. Loved the response.
exactly this. there’s gotta be a way to make this happen. he got inured on the job! pay him, but take him off the books
He doesn’t deserve to make the money he has EARNED? Why would ever side with a team? You’re worried about Pedroia, you know how much money John Henry made last year?
Hmmmm
WE GOT HIM!!!
We got Vikram!
Shame to hear more bad news for Pedroia. Kind of expecting to read a retirement announcement before spring training is over.
Forget him retiring he isn’t going to leave $25M+ on the table.
They could do what the Rangers did with Prince FIelder, just leave him on the IL (Disabled List back then), so he can still paid despite not being able to play anymore.
That’s what is happening, except they are leaving the door open. He will count against the lux tax no matter where he is. People who are so bent about this don’t understand now it works.
Indeed. There are a lot of ignorant haters on this thread. Facts are:
1) Pedroia was consistently on team-friendly long term deals.
2) If you take the WAR estimates for free agents and look at his salary vs. his career performance, it’s like $200m in surplus value. Huge. Even if 4 lost years and a $45m loss the Red Sox come out way ahead from all those monster years where he was only paid about 8-10m each.
3.. The salary just isn’t that expensive! It’s 13m and 12m. Not great to lose, but we’re talking the kind of money that will get you a couple years of Avisaíl García or Tanner Rourk.
4. The guy obviously wants to come back and is rehabbing hard.
5. The player’s union would through a *super* hissy fit if players started forfeiting their contracts since it would encourage teams to pressure players to do so. The best you could do as a player would be to get the team to donate your salary to charity.
So don’t throw stones, I’d say.
Not more bad news. That came weeks ago. This was expected once the team found someone considered worthy.
He has to collect those checks.
No; the team has to honor its agreement.
I think most fans don’t realize teams have taken out insurance just for these situations…
But does his salary count against the luxury tax? If not, stash him on IL forever.
Not all contracts are insured. I read that less then 10% are insured. Pedroias may not be. And he wont walk away from the money owed to him.
It counts against the cap regardless of insurance or not or active or not
Pedroia’s isn’t
Is it really OWED if he hasn’t yet earned it. I love Dustin too, but in my lifetime (68 yrs.) I’ve grown weary of the obscene salaries players are getting. How great of an injustice is it if he has to walk away from a few more million while politicians can’t even work up the balls to pay America’s labor force a decent wage?
Not to mention business owners.
Do thousands of people pay approx. $100/ game to watch normal people work? The Red Sox make about a lowball estimate of $35 million / game played…and that is just for those people that go to Fenway. That is $283.5 million just from butts in the seats. Forget all the other fun stuff like local and national TV money, local & internet radio, plus all the other revenue streams like signage and apparel revenue. So does Pedroia really make things difficult for the Red Sox to operate?? Ummm no, they just want to try and stay below the cap line so they do not have to pay the tax.
Bernie is that you?… Politicians don’t pay labor wages… Your employer does. If it’s not enough, ask for more or find another job.
America’s labor force doesn’t generate the revenue an athlete does. If they don’t get it, then the billionaires keeping from paying America’s labor force controls it, and as we’ve seen… they are not keen to reinvest in their employees
I doubt it is about the tax. Money isn’t a big deal to teams like the Red Sox, Yankees, Dodgers, etc. The bigger problem is the loss of international bonus money, draft picks, etc that affects their long term competitiveness, especially when teams like that have a down year and are due to have a decent draft position. If it was just money,I doubt they would care.
Right, which means he has to keep playing this never ending rehab charade to collect those checks.
So you would walk away from the money that is owed to you?
Just last year David Wright showed he wouldn’t have to forgo the cash, and that was the Mets of all teams
No reason he isn’t retiring, while still collecting his money owed, other than him holding onto a fantasy. Would still count against cap if he did retire however
Do you know the pain he has every day trying to come back from this? So tired of this garbage on every Pedroia post.
darkstar, one of the personality traits that got Pedroia to the majors in the first place is his tenacity & work ethic (if you haven’t noticed, he’s lacking in the “physical tools” category). Now you want to tell a guy that is wired like that to stop trying to continue his dream?
I’m sure he appreciates you planning his life out for him, though. We definitely need more fans telling players what to do with their lives.
Maybe you need a timeout Baines03….Darkstar’s comment wasn’t particularly nasty….and saw no reference to him “planning out his life”……Pedroia may be a god in Boston, but not all baseball fans feel the same way…at least respect their opinion in addition to yours!
David Wright didn’t retire. He was released, then worked with the Mets to restructure the payout of his remaining money.
forbes.com/sites/jerrybeach/2019/01/09/what-does-d…
Moreover, Wright’s salary still counts against the CBT. Pedroia’s would too if he is released.
spotrac.com/mlb/new-york-mets/payroll/
David Wright retired. What you are citing is just the way it was decided it should be put on the books to ensure the best financial outcome for all. If Pedroia were to decide to retire, the official record would likely look near identical
And yes, that is literally what I said – that his salary would still count against cap
Well thank you for that, Rocky, although sad someone had to point that out. Ironically, I hadnt even given an opinion in ant way. Some get the vapors over the oddest of things
Lucky, I can only imagine what kinda pain both physical n mentally he goes through every moment. No one plays harder then he did n I’d deserving of every penny he gets, n I don’t think the ownership regrets one cent of it.
Get well, get well soon, we want you to get well!
GLC must live on!!
The Red Sox should make Pedroia a coach and let him retire.
Why do people keep saying this? Pedroia has not shown any leadership ability. He’s a brash, arrogant and generally unpleasant person who has utilized these traits to succeed, and that is admirable. But he’s not once shown he knows any more about leading a clubhouse than so many others. In fact he’s been around quite a few clubhouses that have listed off the coast of respect for the management of the team and he’s done nothing.
People continually just assume white scrappy hard nosed players will make good “coaches”. Flummoxing.
I always thought of him as more pesky than scrappy.
Perhaps but it’s tough to build a resume in Boston as a pesky player as the name has already been taken by the pole.
“People” keep assuming scrappy, hard nosed white people make good coaches? Is that what you are saying southern lion is saying or are those people just some disjointed, unidentified mob pf white people in general?
Also, you have a lot of negative things to say about Pedroia. You have a link to validate it or are we supposed to take your word for it?
Gums gotten mintier lately, have you noticed?
I guess crack smoking Ron washington, who was just the opposite in every way then is your idea of the prototype leader?
U just proved what is wrong in all sports and the younger generation in general with this country.
You are a racist pos.
Poor Pedroia. Dude could’ve been an all time great had he stayed healthy.
He’s assuredly a Sox all time great, and is on the cusp of # retiree status. He was never going to be an “all time great” or a HOFer.
He was on pace for the HOF. Obviously the injury keeps that from happening. Go review his stats and awards and let me know where he underperformed.
He was healthy for the most part before Machado spiked him with a dirty slide.
Are you talking about the same dirt bag who tried to trip Jesus Aquilar in the 2018 NLCS? The dirtiest piece of scum the game has been subjected to for a long time.
Was waiting for Machado comment to come up.
Then I guess you haven’t been wasting your time.
That’s not actually true, but at the same time I will never forgive Machado for that (like he cares). His knee was already bad, and that slide was the proverbial nail in the coffin.
Peddy hasn’t played more than a couple games since the Machado slide.
This site is missing the real news out there, the new look of the Phanatic due to an ongoing legal dispute with the costume creators.
Even if he retires, the club still pays his salary under the contract until it completed and I believe it does count against the luxury tax. So there wouldn’t be much to gain by retiring but a roster spot.
If a player retires, he no longer gets paid. Playing – or making the effort to get on the field via rehab, as Pedroia is doing – is part of the player’s contractual obligations. Otherwise, someone like Gerritt Cole could retire today and still receive his $300+M.
Its unfortunately an unceremonious end to an otherwise solid career. Maybe at some point at the end of his contract Dustin can have a Last weekend of the season hurrah and walk away.
Retire Dustin enough already, 9 games played in two years. Enough come on already!!!!
I wonder if he still “loves” Manny Machado …
If there was one single player who should get an Aroldis Chapman fastball to the face, it’s Machado. He’s a dirty player that has injured others and maybe even ended Pedroia’s career and at the very least significantly harmed it. The guy is garbage.
You people need university level help. Seriously, it frightens me that you people exist in society, who so eagerly wish for significant and lift altering injury to a complete stranger over something so minuscule as sports. You salivate over it.
You’re the people we see in the news who end up murdering someone over a traffic altercation.
If this is how it ends, that’s really unfortunate.
Money talks…
Chris Tucker was robbed of an Oscar, I tell ya.
Hey, Geraldo?! Oh you’re not gonna do nothin? Alright, I’m gonna get your a…..
Pedroia stays on IL 60-day from February to October and 40 man until the first Spring training game using up a roster spot……oh well
Players on the 60-day IL do not take up a 40-man slot.
You can’t have a player on IL list during the off-seaon.
So your choices are carry him on the 40-man during the winter or release him. Which leads us to the real question . . .Why haven’t they released him, or asked him to retire?
Probably because they feel he’s owed better than that and no matter how fruitless we all may perceive a life recovery and comeback attempt, they organization respects his choice to continue trying.
Are we SURE that if Pedroia retires, he counts against the tax? Doesn’t seem to make much sense to me if that is the case. I honestly don’t know.
In other words, couldn’t Pedey retire, and remain with the Sox in the FO? At a similar rate? No one can tell ya what to pay your FO guys.
Of course the Sox would never do anything like that since we KNOW they ALWAYS operate within the rules of MLB…….
Again, why does everyone assume/want him to stay? He should get a horse and go live in the mountains, quit bothering people.
You don’t know anything about baseball rules, but you “KNOW” the Red Sox cheat. What are you adding to this conversation?
Bob – Baseball won’t allow a player to retire and get paid a similar amount as a coach or team consultant. If he were to retire and take a front office job, his salary would need to be in line with industry standard rates; otherwise MLB would count the difference towards their CBT calculation.
If Pedey does decide to retire, he’d work with the Red Sox on a buy out number (50-60% +) of what he is owed and that amount would count towards their CBT levels. I really don’t think this is a greed play by Pedey. He’s one of the most competitive players to ever put on a MLB uniform and he doesn’t want his career to end this way. He’s trying every possible type of rehab, surgery, etc. to get back on the field and go out on his terms. I do believe if he’s unable to come back at all this year then he finally might get to point where he has to admit his career is over and maybe work with the team on a buy out. He gave his heart and sole to this team, along with his health so he shouldn’t just walk away from money still owed to him; if you ask me he’s already earned it. But if zero progress is made this year then he will most likely throw in the towel and get his knee replaced so he can live a normal, pain free life post baseball.
I hope Machado suffers a career threatening injury as karma
What an awful scumbag thing to say
“Pedroia targeted late May or June as the most optimistic date”
Can you be more specific, and give a year?
Do thousands of people pay approx. $100/ game to watch normal people work? The Red Sox make about a lowball estimate of $35 million / game played…and that is just for those people that go to Fenway. That is $283.5 million just from butts in the seats. Forget all the other fun stuff like local and national TV money, local & internet radio, plus all the other revenue streams like signage and apparel revenue. So does Pedroia really make things difficult for the Red Sox to operate?? Ummm no, they just want to try and stay below the cap line so they do not have to pay the tax.
If Machado makes it to the Hall of Fame, put Dustin as a casualty on his plaque. And if Dustin’s number is retired by the Red Sox, Machado should be the one unveil the number on the stadium wall.
Mr Bloom strikes again. The guy is a GENIUS. We {Sox} now have cast-off pitchers from the Marlins, Tigers, Mariners, and Mets. Way to build up the pitching Mr Bloom.
Valdez has had a rather weird minor league career trajectory. After being more or less effective as a reliever very early in his career… he seems to have been converted to a starter where his effectiveness significantly dropped off. And he has remained a starter despite that fact (until obviously pitching exclusively in relief in the majors last year) — will be interesting to see what the Sox do with him. He looks like he could potentially be effective as a reliever… at least based on his early career/low-minors success in the role. But who knows maybe he can also be successful as a ‘spot starter’ or ‘swingman’ type depth arm. Just seems like an odd career progression… usually guys starts as a SP and transition to the pen when they fail as a SP… not the other way around.
Pedroia was never as good as Joe Morgan, Ryne Sandberg, or Roberto Alomar, or Craig Biggio. Making a HOF case for him is silly. I thought he was a good player, though.
Hall of Fame…definitely not. Hall of very good…absolutely.
Rookie of the Year, MVP, 4 time all star, 3 World Series rings (though he only actually played in 2). Pedroia definitely accomplished a lot in his career but Cooperstown is not waiting.
If there was a HOF for guys who played the game right and gained people’s admiration by the way they exemplified or modeled “grittiness”, then yes, Pedroia would be overqualified for that one.
He never learned to get the f*** out of the way when turning two. People trash talk RBs that run out of bounds instead of running into 3 guys for an extra yard or two, or 2B that don’t bother turning two so that they can protect their knees, but at some point Bobby Abreu being afraid of the OF wall > Aaron Rowand running into it 5 times a year and giving himself CTE.
Anyone that says Pedroia should retire needs to know that’s silly. He’s disabled from the view of medical practitioners, the Insurance co. and the CBA.
If he retires the insurance co. would love it; he’s no longer insured as a player. Truth be told would any naysayer in their right mind give a gift to the insurance company of over $20 M??
Would that be smart and good for your family?
Exxon Valdez