July 9: Boston has released Robles, per Pete Abraham of the Boston Globe (via Twitter). He is now a free agent.
July 5: The Red Sox are designating reliever Hansel Robles for assignment, reports Sean McAdam of Boston Sports Journal. The move frees an active roster spot for pitching prospect Brayan Bello, who will be recalled to make his major league debut tomorrow against the Rays. Boston’s 40-man roster tally will drop to 39.
Originally acquired from the Twins at last summer’s deadline, Robles spent the past couple months of the 2021 season in Boston. Despite erratic control, he was a generally serviceable late-game arm for manager Alex Cora. Through 25 innings, Robles posted a 3.60 ERA while striking out more than 30% of batters faced. After an offseason spent lingering on the open market, the right-hander returned to the organization on a minor league deal in Spring Training.
Robles made Boston’s Opening Day roster, locking in a $2.25MM salary in the process. He’s posting one of the worst seasons of his career, though, struggling to a 5.84 ERA across 24 2/3 frames. Robles has continued to battle spotty control, walking 12.6% of opponents. Yet the swing-and-miss promise he showed late last season has virtually evaporated, as he’s punched out under 19% of batters faced. Robles has also been tagged for five home runs, an issue with which he’s struggled in the past given his fly-ball propensity.
The 2022 season has generally been disappointing, and the extent of his struggles has apparently led the Sox to move on. The 31-year-old does have plenty of big league success on his resume, however. He posted a sub-4.00 ERA in four of his first five big league campaigns, including a 2.48 mark through 72 2/3 innings with the 2019 Angels. Before this season, Robles had generated swinging strikes and punchouts at an average or better clip in virtually every year of his career (aside from a downturn with the Mets in 2017). He still possess plenty of arm strength, averaging 96 MPH on his heater and just under 89 MPH on the slider that serves as his primary secondary pitch.
Robles’ combination of pre-2022 body of work and extant arm strength will surely attract the interest of other teams, although that’s likely to come after he clears waivers. He’s still due around half of this season’s salary (a bit north of $1MM). Any team that claims him off waivers would assume the remainder of that obligation, a development that seems unlikely given his underperformance through the first three months of the year.
If he clears waivers, Robles would have the right to refuse a minor league assignment in favor of free agency while still collecting the remainder of his salary. (That’s afforded under the CBA to outrighted players with five-plus years of MLB service time). At that point, another team could add him for just the prorated portion of the league minimum for any time spent in the big leagues. The Red Sox would remain on the hook for the rest of the sum.
Can I get a hallelujah?!
Yes sir!!
I give credit to the writers for always putting a more positive spin when sizing up player performance, but I had to chuckle with “generally disappointing”. Myself and most others would have leaned more toward “unmitigated disaster”.
This was another fail for Red Sox analytics, anybody who knew his WHIP and saw his tightrope performances last year realized he wasn’t worthy of a roster spot or that ML contract he got. So many times last year he gave up very long, hard hit outs on or near the warning track. Swing and miss rates are meaningless when you lose command of the strike zone as often as he did.
So props to Bloom for finally taking away Cora’s binky,
Hopefully Diekman and his 1.465 WHIP & 7.2 BB/9 are next, but with over $6M remaining on that ridiculous $8M contract I’m not holding my breath. That’s a lot of money for a guy that’s so unreliable he’s been used less than 10 IP per month. Bloom’s offseason bullpen acquisitions couldn’t have been much worse.
Amen
FG is a troll. Don’t feed the trolls.
Yes!
Amen!
About damn time!
Hahahah wow I’m so happy. I hate him
m1 – Why hate a guy just because he failed miserably? Hate the fact Cora kept putting him in high leverage situations, because he cared more about trying to make his BFF look good than he did about winning games.
Their Boston fans they probably just hate him because he’s Dominican
The comment was almost as dumb as your inability to use the word their properly
Do you follow baseball? Do you know where David Ortiz and Pedro Martinez are from?
That’s not called for
I know those welcoming Red Sox and there fans waited 12 yrs for the first black player to play on the team.
Impressively, you manage to use “there” wrong a second time. Also yes, the 1950s are totally related to a minor bullpen guy being demoted. What vendetta do you have?
Yes and it’s such a proud distinction for the Yankees that they bested Boston by 4 whole years to debut their first black player, a full 8 years after Robinson’s debut.
Hideki – That’s a really lame comment, especially considering Manny Ramirez, David Ortiz and Pedro Martinez are three of the most beloved players in Boston sports history.
There’s no they’re there
There there. Have a chill pill .
This is the greatest day in the history of the Boston Red Sox.
Jes, and Billy Corgan is wailing away, driving an ice cream truck .
Watch the Mets claim him
Nah Mets trade Shreve to BoSox for Robles. That would make a nice swap.
lol Jerry’s texting his agent right meow
Jerry is a sucker for a struggling reliever who throws 98+
Robles helped the Red Sox last year, but couldn’t get it together this year. Bello will probably be replaced by Sale.
Only problem is a 40 man spot needs to clear up for Sale, expect Danish next. Sale came off the 40 man when he was placed on the 60 day IL.
Also a problem if Paxton comes back, he is also on the 60 day IL
Bello will be sent back down for Sale. Unless, he is lights out and they want to keep him up. In that case, its a good problem to have. Paxton isn’t close, by that time, other options will arise.
They still have to clear the 40-spot for him though
The 40 man is at 39. Bello is already on. Sale would be 40
Phillips Valdez will be next for Paxton, but Tyler Danish could certainly go for Taylor’s return.
Diekman would make more sense than Danish to clear the spot for Taylor. Both are left handed and Diekman has only been slightly less awful than Robles to this point of the season.
Diekman has a 2 year contract I believe.
Paxton’s latest return date is “Mid August”. Lots will happen between now and then. There’s sure to be more injuries, and maybe a trade or two. Too early to play guessing game.
Thank God! See ya!
GTFO
On paper re-signing Robles last winter seemed like a good idea as he was a big part of the bullpen down the stretch last year but he just could not handle any sort of high leverage situation this season. Too many blown leads and thankfully Cora can no longer turn to him with the game on the line
This news brought a tear to my eye. I can breathe again.
The Horse can stay
Was performing like a Gretel.
A Robles(s) one lmao
Exponentiation by subtraction.
Robles is definitely one pitcher who, upon being called in, elicits an overall “Aww…NO!” from the crowd. The guy should have either never been signed or released months ago.
I’ve been watching baseball for 20 years and I literally don’t think there’s ever been a reliever I’ve been more confident would blow every lead than Robles. Every time he entered in the 8th or 9th in a close game, I just sighed and got ready for a loss.
Armando Benitez. Especially in the postseason.
you haven’t seen Emilio Pagan pitch?
It’s about time, guy was atrocious. Much worse than advertised. When he came into the 9th, you knew it was over.
“He’s posting one of the worst seasons of his career…”
Arte Moreno is telling Perry Minasian to snatch him up right now to save the Angels season.
Thank god
I’m Brayan Bello!
That bird’s crazy!
So many variables and moving parts to this game. Love it. One reason. The challenge for a GM year in and out to find reliever pitching depth. My example. After several years of struggles, the Orioles easily have an MLB top 10 pen this year and some analytics gurus have ’em even top 5.
What a head scratcher!!! Early April, Elias abruptly traded two serviceable relievers to the Marlins (Scott and Sulser). And who does he plug in (names don’t matter here)? Excluding closer Lopez at 1.5 million, it’s a bunch of guys all earning around $700k. I mean here Bloom is putting a 2.25 million reliever on assignment which, this year, is equivalent in salary to 3 Os relievers who arealing significant contributions. It’s a funny game, for sure. Don’t envy the life of a GM.
David Price has pitched 19 2/3 innings and will make $32,000,000 for the year. He will make approximately $800,000 per inning for the year (barring injury which would increase the amount per inning).
Price will make more in one inning than pre-arbitration players will make for the entire season.
#JC#1: wow & woah
I knew the minute they signed him that they would reGretel it.
I saw Robles August 25th last year at Fenway give up a 2 run homer and a 3 run homer, both in the 10th inning against the Twins. The sox scored 2 in the second half of the 10th and still lost 9-6.
Robles is a catastrophe of a pitcher
I hate to see people fail at their jobs, but that is exactly what Robles did. He failed and he’s paying the ultimate price for doing so. This is definitely addition by subtraction for Boston; now they need to deal with a couple more bullpen spots. Hopefully Whitlock comes back soon and can replace Danish in the pen. I’m also hoping that Josh Taylor can find his old form in AAA and come back to the parent club, but to add him back the Sox will need to deal one of their LH relievers (Strahm, Davis or Diekman). If Sale comes back to start then Rich Hill probably gets pushed to the pen too, or perhaps he gets traded to another team. The Sox are deep in pitching this year with all of their rookies so they can afford to look to move some pitchers if they can improve their club elsewhere. It should be a busy next 30 days or so for Boston as they try to dial in their roster for their playoff run. DFA’ing Robles is a great start for them. Let’s go Bello!!!
I don’t see Taylor as that much of an upgrade, but an opportunity to move another guy out. Taylor is generally a good 6th or 7th inning guy. Maybe Diekman goes. He seems to have trouble finding the plate sometimes.
Well, at least Hansel did win Male Model of the Year once along the way……..
So hot right now
Jacobim,
Is that you?
I mean as late as June 17th he had a 3.05 ERA, albeit against a much less flattering 4.57 FIP. He has had a horrific stretch of games starting on the 18th and we would have been better off just keeping Silvino Bracho instead of letting Robles stick around.
This ultimately means he will be heading back to the Angels. He will fit right back right in with the rest of the Halo bullpen..
I’ve heard of cow tipping but not roll bulls.
Probably time to put him out to pasture.
It seems like just yesterday Jacobim Mugatu was saying, “It’s that damn Hansel! He’s so hot right now!”
He’s awful but someone will pick him up, he throws hard
Hansel Robles was just DFA’d by Boston?! Classic Ross Atkins dumpster dive type reliever. Go get him Ross!
You forgot the part where the sheep praise the signing as a low cost/low risk brilliant depth move. Those folks always seem to crawl back in the woodwork when the pickup turns out to be the exploding cigar the rest of us knew it would be.
Ha! Fancy meeting you here, Chuck! Will you finally acknowledge me??
Rays will sign him.
Gretel move.