The White Sox released Brandon Drury from his minor league deal, according to the MiLB.com transaction tracker. He has been on the injured list since May 8.
Drury hasn’t played a game for Triple-A Charlotte since April 26. Their manager, Sergio Santos, told Jeff Cohen of Future Sox last week that Drury had injured his wrist on a hit-by-pitch. At the time, Santos said that Drury was able to field without issue but experienced soreness when he was taking swings. He’d only been able to appear in 10 games before the injury. The veteran infielder hit .179/.319/.282 with one home run across 47 trips to the plate.
The Sox signed Drury to a minor league contract shortly before the opening of Spring Training. He looked well on his way to breaking camp when he raked at a .410 clip through 13 exhibition contests. That was scuttled when he broke his left thumb in the final few days of Spring Training. Chicago granted him his release but brought him back on a new minor league deal in mid-April once he’d returned to health.
There aren’t many specifics on his latest injury, but it stands to reason that Drury will find renewed minor league interest whenever he’s healthy. He won a Silver Slugger in 2022 and remained an above-average hitter as recently as ’23, when he hit .262/.306/.497 with 30 doubles and 26 homers for the Angels. The wheels fell off last season. His bat cratered to a .169/.242/.228 showing across 360 plate appearances, limiting him to minor league offers.
What a complete reversal for Drury.
When the White Sox aren’t willing to keep you around on a minor league deal it speaks volumes.
It doesn’t speak volumes. It says he’s injured, and they won’t be able to trade him at the deadline.
Which is basically why the Sox sign anyone with a good past and lousy present.
Now that they have promoted Tim Elko, any playing time at DH that Brandon Drury would have taken will be taken by an Elko/Andrew Vaughn rotation between 1B and DH. Miguel Vargas may DH a few games as well when a backup infielder needs some playing time.
Brewers would be wise to do what essentially is a DFA swap, giving their part up already in Vinny Capra, with the follow up move being to sign Drury to a MILB deal. Our 3B play is atrocious, if less so now that Durbin has been brought up.
Drury would be a good add for the Brewers, he was raking in the spring for the White Sox, Im surprised they let him go.
I think that swap was already completed with the Brewers taking Dalbec and the White Sox taking Capra.
On a side note; since joining the Brewers system in Nashville Dalbec has gone 0-14 with 6 K’s in 3 games…
Dalbec being true to himself.
Now a days a player has to hit around .200, field 6 positions with a -40drs, and be injured half the season.
He hits over .250 and can pop out over 20 hrs a year…
No way an analytics department okays this guy to be signed! His career is over
The Reds got a huge, unexpected season out of him a few years ago. Someone will sign him hoping for lightning to strike twice. That’s what they always do.
That’s unfortunate, was hoping he’d be a possible trade chip at the deadline, but yeah those numbers at Triple A are terrible. The wrist injury is clearly affecting him.
Unless the wrist injury is on the more serious side, this is whole tenure has been a little odd. Drury appeared to back to his 22-23 form in the spring, which should have earned him some patience from the Sox when he got injured. Thumbs generally don’t take all that long to heal. And of course, he was fine a few weeks later, and the Sox brought him back…only to release him again after another likely short-term injury? Maybe there was some lingering weakness from the thumb injury, which translated to his lackluster numbers in Charlotte, and then the wrist injury compounded his struggles to get back to form anytime soon?
Obviously, no other team grabbed him after the Sox release, but I would think about 29 teams would be willing to sign him to at least a minor league deal. At worst, he’d be great organizational depth. At best, he’s an .800 OPS guy with infield versatility who could give a playoff contender a little boost.
Have you tried gripping a bat after breaking your thumb?
Have you looked at hitting stats of players returning from a thumb injury?
He’ll be a Dodger in about 3 hours. Even at his worst he’s certainly better than Conforto or Taylor.
I really hope his nickname is The Muffin Man.
Marlins!
Oh how the mighty have fallen