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
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.
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