The Red Sox have outrighted right-hander Hirokazu Sawamura to Triple-A Worcester, according to Chris Cotillo of MassLive. He had been designated for assignment on the weekend but passed through waivers unclaimed. He will remain with in the Red Sox organization but without taking up a spot on the 40-man roster.
After a ten-year stretch of pitching in Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball, he came over to North American by signing a two-year deal with the Red Sox prior to the 2021 season. He pitched fairly well last season, registering a 3.06 ERA over 53 innings, along with a 26.2% strikeout rate and 51.8% ground ball rate. However, he did give away free passes at a 13.7% rate, much higher than last year’s 9.8% average for relievers.
His performance has taken a step backwards here in 2022, with his ERA increasing to 3.73, his strikeout rate dipping to 18% and his walk and ground ball rates not moving much. Based on that downturn in performance, the Red Sox cut him from the roster on the weekend.
There might have also been a financial motivation to the decision, given Sawamura’s contract structure. His deal guaranteed him $3MM with a $1.2MM salary both last year and this year, as well as a $600K buyout on a club option for 2023. However, there were also escalators in the deal, as MLBTR’s Anthony Franco recently explored. Sawamura had already pushed the value of his player option to $1.9MM and would have increased it to an even $2MM after appearing in his 50th game. The Red Sox designated him for assignment after his 49th. Despite losing his roster spot, Cotillo relays that Sawamura’s option is still active.
Sawamura hasn’t previously been outrighted in his career and also has less than three years of MLB service time. That means he does not have the ability to reject this assignment and must report to Worcester to try to get back on track in Triple-A.
After looking at Anthony Franco’s Baseball Reference page. Red Sox need to sign him.
Obviously the Sox pitching is a total cluster. Why haven’t they gotten rid of Brasier?? An even better question may be why not change pitching coaches? Clearly Bush is worthless.
After serving up a grandslam to Nick Gordon last night i don’t know how Cora can turn to him in a high leverage situation anymore. Problem is Schreiber/Whitlock/Barnes can’t pitch every game
Barnes has been frustrating. Sure he’s pitching better but with the team out of it, who cares? When the team has needed him, he’s simply not dependable for long stretches, the mark of a great reliever.
Barnes?
I love Daniel Norris.
But, if winning is paramount, how does he hold a position over pitchers like Hirokazu Sawamura and Wily Peralta?
I like Daniel Norris as a person, not so much as a ballplayer. Are you suggesting that the Tigers should have claimed Sawamura or kept Peralta rather than Norris? If they were competitive, the answer would be “none of the above.”
Yes, to both.
Ideally, if they were more competitive, wouldn’t you go Peralta or Sawamura over Norris?
The post states Sawamura could not refuse the assignment, so he must report to AAA or forfeit the contract money. No team was going to claim him as the escalators have already reached $3,700,000 for next year. Bloom designated Sawamura knowing it was almost a sure thing he would not be claimed!
I bet if the Red Sox DFAed Brasier, he would not be claimed either, but it would be just because he is bad. Brasier make $1,400,000 this year and is arbitration eligible (can be released, or better stated, simply not offered a contract in 2023).
He’d probably be claimed. He’s got a 55% strand rate so he’s been really unlucky with runners on base. Aside from giving up too many homers his rate stats are good.
…Aside from too many HRs……
….my wife used to say, “If money were not an issue….”
Brasier gets hit too hard….HRs are an issue, and you can not blame poor defense when the ball lands over the fence!
How disappointing, I thought the Orioles would have made a claim or scooped him up or something
Bloom is a train wreck. Dude has no clue how to build a bullpen. I’m still not convinced he’s back next season.
Mike – Bloom made a number of mistakes this year that management could hold him accountable for….(no starting RF, no LH platoon 1B (Shaw was lame), at least 2 bullpen arms). Bloom has added to the farm and stayed competitive (2021 ALCS), but if he can pull the trigger on top free agents to compete in 2023, he will be gone. We want no more Sandoval, Hanley, Rusney,…. There is a lot of payroll flexibility, but a ton of holes to fill.
They’re in a restructuring and sorting out players.
Kennedy already announced that he and the owners are happy with Bloom and Cora and that the organization in on course with their business plan.
So many of you are judging the FO, manager and coaches as if the team is all in to win in 2022…..or else. Those are not the people that have no clue. It’s like judging Mark Shapiro’s moves his first few years with the Blue Jays. Among other things a top priority is to get that payroll down.
Samuel – I agree with nearly 100% of your posts. Sam Kennedy already said he supports both Bloom and Cora (nice article on Masslive), and I agree with Kennedy’s assessment, but he will need to make good choices in 2023. Red Sox FO fired DD after the three year playoff run in 2016, 2017, 2018 culminating in a WS. Major missteps in 2019 and DD was gone!
Samual – I have muted KD, AL34, and nearly 20 other trolls. You, Joe and a handful of other are the voice of reason. Keep posting
The reason Dombrowski was fired was because of his renitence to build a sustainable contender that didn’t involve throwing piles of money at every problem that came up and gutting the farm system. DD cannot succeed without torching the farm system and spending money, it’s his MO and it’s playing out in Philly too.. Thankfully the Red Sox got a world series out of his time at Fenway but just go back and look at what happened over the later 2/3s of his tenure in Detroit. They still haven’t recovered from it.
Everything is well said. I wish we had reasonable threads like this more often here.
Dombrowski has traded one guy (a Catcher) out of the Phillies farm system, and got back a young starting CF which was badly needed as he was left no one that could play the position.
He’s turned both the ML team and the organization around in less than 2 years.
He’s won everywhere he’s been.
DD traded Pivetta and Seabold to Red Sox for Workman and Hembree. Seabold was in the minors.
…except for the last 5-6 years he was in Detroit. Those were a disaster, He’s also traded a lot more than one minor league catcher. it’s not like what he is doing is all that hard to do either. all he does is outspend everyone else and empty the farm system for veterans. It works in the immediate short term but unless you capitalize on those early 2-3 years and win a world series you’re destine for a return to the cellar one in which the Tigers still haven’t recovered from.
Just to be clear I have no problem with teams spending money but I do have a problem with them spending money foolishly and eschewing having a good player development system. DD does have a history of doing both.
Clearly, they fear him exercising next year’s option. Keeping it as low as possible lessens the financial blow. Maybe he takes the buyout and tests FA
Maybe the pitch clock will get him back on track. He seems to do better when he works faster
210million payroll for medocrity and junk ?? Cora has few horses to run.. just medocrity = 4th place! Trading for medocrity = 4th place !
Failure of henry mgmt at the MINORS to produce well drilled fundamentally sound players to replace major league turnover…. poor coaching and grooming of medocrity.. lack of focused drilling of skills… playing games is not drilling fundamentals! U play the games as u drilled the fundamentals…
Mr henry needs a new mgmt team in MINORS to drill fundamentals and produce ready for prime time players instead of garbage…. unprepared players trying to learn skills in the majors is RIDICULOUS!!!
When you trade away this many prospects in 4 years:
mlbtraderumors.com/2020/04/revisiting-dave-dombrow…
Almost every trade depletes the farm, without any replenishing. Of course there’s going to be a void of talent reaching the majors, 3 years later. This really isn’t rocket science, nor should it be a surprise.