Just two days after opting out of his minor league deal with the White Sox, righty Dan Altavilla is back with the club — this time on the big league roster. The Sox announced Friday that they’ve signed Altavilla to a major league contract that’ll pay the MAS+ client a prorated $1MM base salary. Fellow righty Miguel Castro has been placed on the 15-day injured list to open a spot on the active roster. Castro suffered a season-ending knee injury while covering first base on a grounder earlier this week, which the Sox have now confirmed as a torn patellar tendon. Chicago already had a 40-man roster vacancy, and Altavilla’s signing now brings them to capacity.
At the time Altavilla was granted his release, it seemed odd that the Sox had passed on giving him a look in the majors. He’s tallied 21 2/3 innings with a strong 2.49 ERA with Triple-A Charlotte this season and had just rattled off a run of 11 2/3 shutout frames. The righty’s 19.8% strikeout rate and 11% walk rate were both worse than average, but he’s averaged 96.1 mph on his heater and held opponents to an awful 24.6% hard-hit rate. Considering the general state of the rebuilding White Sox’ big league bullpen, he seemed like a natural candidate to get an opportunity.
Whether this was always the plan or was borne out of Castro’s unfortunate injury, Altavilla will now get that chance in the majors. This will be his eighth season logging time in the big leagues. He’s previously suited up for the Mariners, Padres and Royals, combining for 119 2/3 innings of 4.36 ERA ball.
Altavilla did his best work early in his career with the Mariners. From 2016-18, he pitched to a tidy 3.28 earned run average with a 25.3% strikeout rate and 10.7% walk rate over 79 2/3 frames. Persistent injuries have limited his time on the field, however. He’s managed only 40 total big league innings since that early run with Seattle.
Flexor strains in both 2018 and 2019 shortened two of Altavilla’s seasons with the Mariners. He struggled to a 5.52 ERA in the latter campaign and in 2020 was included alongside Austin Nola and Austin Adams in the lopsided trade that sent Andres Munoz, Ty France, Luis Torrens and Taylor Trammell from San Diego to Seattle. Altavilla then underwent Tommy John surgery in 2021, which wiped out nearly all of his 2021-22 seasons.
With the White Sox, there should be plenty of innings available over the final four months. The Sox would be thrilled if Altavilla could approach his minor league run-prevention levels in the majors, but even if he can simply replicate his career norms, it’d be a help for a bullpen that’s pitched to a 4.53 ERA on the season — ninth-highest in MLB. Even that pedestrian number is a bit misleading, however, as it includes two “relief” appearances from starter Jonathan Cannon, who followed an opener on those days. Cannon pitched 13 2/3 innings with a 1.98 ERA in those two outings. Subtracting that from the equation, White Sox relievers have a 4.70 ERA on the year.
This makes more sense since pretty much their entire current bullpen is bad. They could justify continually swapping out 3 to 4 big club spots with minor leaguers until enough can demonstrate command and avoid anxiety attacks when they have a close late lead in 7th/beyond.
This guy is a 32 year old… not a young minor leaguer.
I rather they bring up one of their own AA P’s!!
The 4th piece of Crochet trade (W. Gonzalez) may get a shot soon if he can harness his command. For now revolving door of vets/whoever has composure is needed….BP guys are not making most of opportunity to stick and should be demoted as such.
I don’t want him up yet. Sox have time and this year is wasted already. Let him really harness his command. Bring up guys without a real future on this team, like Altavilla.
I also think they should bring up Teel, though perhaps they should give him reps in LF first.
I disagree. Keep the young arms down in AA where they can practice and get better so they will be ready to go to the major League level. Throwing them in now when they’re not ready could mess up their whole development.
Gonzalez is in AAA-that’s why mentioned he might get brought up. Not necessarily an advocate unless he improves the walk rate.
Couple of their HS trio draft picks a few years ago that were struggling big time are in AA getting better in BP roles if they progress for next year (Dalquist, Kelley).
I would think W Gonzalez is the future closer of the White Sox!!
On another topic, White Sox management is utterly shameless: they are willing and eager to monetize even the Pope. The Sox are sometimes good and sometimes bad, but they are always tacky and no-class.
The pope gimmick is a brilliant idea. This is something that Bill Veeck could only have dreamed of.
That is another no class cub comment..
The Pope, endorsing the team owned by Satan. You can’t make this stuff up.
And the Getz transactional ‘Hokey Pokey’ continues…
My white sox are really in a mess . How many one run games have the white sox were leading going in to the 9 inning . So what do you do about that ?
And they lost of those games in the late innings
They young kids are trying for sure many