The Red Sox have designated left-hander Joe Jacques for assignment, with Chris Cotillo of MassLive among those to relay the news. His roster spot will go to Cam Booser, whose promotion was reported yesterday.
Jacques, 29, was first added to Boston’s roster last year. To this point, he has thrown 28 1/3 innings in the majors with a 5.08 earned run average. His 16.8% strikeout rate is subpar but his 7.6% walk rate is solid and his 64.8% ground ball rate is very strong.
His production in the minors has been fairly similar, though with a few more punchouts. He tossed 39 Triple-A innings last year with a 2.54 ERA, keeping the ball on the ground at a 60.4% rate. He struck out 21.6% of batters faced while walking 8%.
The Sox seemingly prefer to get a look at the fireballing, late-blooming Booser, as opposed to the soft-tossing Jacques. The latter throws his sinker, which averages just over 90 miles per hour, roughly two thirds of the time. Booser, meanwhile, can get his fastball up into the high 90s.
Boston will now have a week to trade Jacques or pass him through waivers. There’s often demand for lefty relief and Jacques still has options, meaning he wouldn’t need an active roster spot if any team were to acquire him.
About darn time!
Agreed. 1 gone who shouldn’t have made it thru the winter on the 40 man roster, still a few more wasting space of -0- use left.
john – At this point all we can do is look at the lineup and just laugh.
Refsnyder, who had just a .466 OPS against RHP last year, is batting THIRD against a righthanded starting pitcher!
Can wait to relive this unforgettable season next year on Netflix.
Yep …. they didn’t need to spend any money on Turner, Duvall, Soler, etc.
Hit a HR against that RHP, knocking him out of the game…
Wouldn’t have been my choice, though, so not making fun of you. 🙂
I actually like Refsnyder & believe he is a productive & appropriate team guy & has always provided better than average bench strength…….Absolutely ZERO reason to bag on this guy. –
It’s not bagging on Refsnyder. Look at who typically fills the 3 hole in a lineup. It is not someone who hits like Refsnyder or Reyes. That’s just the cold hard truth.
I like Refsnyder, but he has shown at exactly 0 points in his career he is a 3 hole hitter, and he isn’t known for hitting RHP. Those are also facts. I’m glad he hit the HR today though, I was afraid he was rushed back.
TFF – All good my friend. I wasn’t criticizing Ref being in the lineup, I was laughing at the fact he was the best option available with O’Neill and Devers unavailable. The only other bench guys were McGuire, Hamilton and Pablo, that’s how thin the lineup is right now. Other than Casas and Duran, who else has been hitting this season? I could understand Cora saying screw it and putting Ref in there.
Luckily Priester has sucked this season, so there was magic in the air. Who would have thought all in the same game:
Ref goes deep against a RHP
Rafaela homers
Dalbec gets a hit
I do expect Abreu to break out offensively. Hey the Pirates just got swept by the Mets, so I don’t see why the Sox can do the same thing.Just don’t ask me about Cleveland next week!
Franklin – I liked Ref 2 years ago, but it seems you didn’t follow the team last year.
Here’s his overall 2023 numbers:
.248/.365/.317/.682
Here’s his 2023 numbers against RHP:
.159/.271/.195/.466
You usually make good points in your posts, but ignoring his performance against RHP is kinda silly … especially considering 75% of all pitchers are righthanded.
Joe – Excellent post, thank you!
Refsnyder is good in a limited role, as a platoon 4th corner outfielder (nice complement to Abreu in that). Not sure I love his defense in RF, but we’ve seen worse. At least he will usually throw to the right base.
Many more players around the game who are good in a limited role than there are who can hold down a starting job, and there are many more of those who can hold a starting job than there are that can do everything well. So for 99% of all players there are going to be obvious warts mixed in with the strengths.
I figured that was just a formality.
Single-use plastic…
They didn’t even bother putting Story on the DL to open up a spot. At the point you are no longer willing to use a player in the majors, there is no reason to keep him on the 40. Have a few others who could follow – if they can find anybody better on the waiver wire.
Story was move from the 60 day IL, looks like late yesterday.
Thanks for the correction, saw after I posted. Story was put on the 60 day DL to add Gutierrez. An equally bad ML record, but maybe they think they can fix him?
Joe – Story with one arm might be better than what’s been attempting to play shortstop lately.
Rafaela with yet another error, his 4th of the season, this time on the easiest of ground balls to shortstop. Dude is a mess, both offensively and defensively. How long do they allow this to go on.
He is mostly pretty good defensively in CF. I am skeptical of the move to SS, as it takes a lot of reps to polish defense up to ML standards — and he hasn’t been playing infield regularly in a while. Total of about half a season of play in the last four years, split between 2B, 3B, and SS.
TFF – I totally agree with everything you wrote! I think it’s simply a matter of the Red Sox being embarrassed by the awful defense at shortstop and finally realizing there’s enough OF depth with Duran in CF to move Rafaela to the infield. His biggest value right now is his versatility.
@FPG, any idea why Casas left? Maybe he got tired of being the only truly legit slugger in the lineup? (Not to knock Duran, but he doesn’t have a fraction of the power.)
How often do you get to see Refsnyder and Reyes batting #3 and #4 in the lineup?
TFF – I really hope it’s a minor injury, but right now it sure seems ominous. He was really swinging the bat well.
On a positive note, my man Yoshida is really swinging a hot bat!
This guys has always been terrible.. about time.. Buyslow (Breslow) should follow him out the door!
Not sure you’re going to find anyone that can do the job with their hands tied at this time.
You mean Chaim Breslow? Think we should still give him a chance as it’s clear it’s not all his fault
You’re a big picture guy apparently.
Hey! Joe made the show as a 33rd round 23 year old senior sign.
Not too shabby!
Addition by subtraction.
Wait, wut?
But we need him to make Joely look good.
DBH – Never in my life have I witnessed a Red Sox team with just one legit LHP on the entire staff …. until now.
IM – Joely looks so bad, when he was born the doctor slapped his mother.
Agree – he’s the next to go!
Why does Fever Pitch Guy hate the Red Sox so much?
lol
along with praising other people’s posts who he agrees with.
He is a Troll — IGNORE FPG.
Ignoring him doesn’t really work. He’ll just keep trying to engage you and it’s way more fun to just dunk on him
I tried banning him and that didn’t really work because of secondhand posts… then he banned me so I guess I trash talk and he can’t even see it. Not my problem. Someone needs to take care of that because he’s ruined the forum for any new people coming. He’s basically a disgruntled old man from what I infer.
He may just need a good pitching lab…. Maybe a 40 spot with Milwaukee on a minor deal??? It’s not like Boston is known for developing pitchers…. Take sale as an example
I take your point about poor development but Sale is a terrible example. The White Sox developed Sale nit The Red Sox. And Sale’s problem was injuries not development.
stash – The Red Sox have a whole new pitching team led by Breslow, Bailey, and Boddy.
They look like they will have a LOT more success than prior regimes.
Agreed. People need to remember they weren’t going to fix the Sox pitching problems over night. The problem is the pitching staff was already terribly thin so every injury and struggle is more pronounced than it would be on a deeper staff
in with one BBB and out with another
What about cleveland they develop pitchers from the organization and from other teams.
Think there was an error that inning as well… Needs to be a team effort.
Dalbec got a hit!!!!!!!!!!
Wow.
hayzee – And he got a walk too!
8-year contract extension incoming.
sanch – I don’t think very many active players read comments here. Sure they come to MLBTR for news, especially at the trade deadline and during the offseason, but players typically tune out fan opinion …. and rightfully so.
Bello is starting to pitch better, albeit against a cold team. And Booser got to toss an inning. I remember getting to pitch the ninth inning of a 10-0 game in the Tournament of Champions. It was a men’s baseball league and we wound up winning the next game and being state champions. I was the oldest guy on the team except for the manager who played as well. I actually pitched a nice tidy 1-2-3 inning. One of my top 5 moments in my 8 year “career”. Ah, glory days, right Bruce? Except, I couldn’t throw the speedball by too many college kids deep into my thirties. So I tantalized them with my slow ball.
Beantown designating every Joe, Jim and Harry it would seem.
Guy Lafleur says hi!
“Meanwhile” can’t come in the middle of the sentence between commas, MLBTR. It has to START the sentence.