TODAY: The Sox announced that Altavilla has cleared waivers and been released.
SEPTEMBER 10: The White Sox announced today that right-hander Sean Burke has been recalled from Triple-A Charlotte. In a corresponding move, fellow righty Dan Altavilla has been designated for assignment.
It’s a bit of a rude belated birthday present for Altavilla, who just turned 33 on Monday. He signed a minor league deal with the Sox in the offseason. He opted out of that deal, re-signed and then opted out again, but was eventually put on the major league roster at the end of May.
His numbers on the season look good until you check under the hood. He has thrown 29 innings with a 2.48 earned run average. However, his 17.5% strikeout rate and 12.5% walk rate are both subpar figures. His 51.3% ground ball rate is pretty good but he has largely benefitted from a .197 batting average on balls in play and 89.5% strand rate. His 5.45 FIP and 4.78 SIERA suggest that good luck has kept his ERA down about two to three runs relative to where it should be.
For the Sox, they have little reason to wait for regression to kick in. As mentioned, Altavilla is now 33 years old. He can technically be retained for 2026 via arbitration but the Sox weren’t planning on doing that. For a rebuilding club playing out the string on another losing season, it makes more sense to give innings to younger guys who are hopefully developing into future contributors. Since Altavilla is out of options, he’s been bumped off the 40-man entirely.
With the trade deadline having passed, he’ll have to be placed on waivers. He won’t have too much appeal, given his underlying numbers. He also won’t be postseason eligible for any claiming club, since it’s now beyond the September 1st deadline. Though it is possible some team which has recently suffered a number of injuries needs a healthy and available arm for the short term.
If Altavilla clears waivers, he will have the right to reject an outright assignment and elect free agency. There won’t be a lot of opportunities at this stage of the calendar, so perhaps he would decide to report to Triple-A Charlotte, or he could just go into offseason mode a few weeks early.
Photo courtesy of Patrick Gorski, Imagn Images
Why? Why now of all times?
Because Getz orchestrated a slapdash trade deadline. Even if holding onto Robert Jr. was widely anticipated, there was seemingly no attempt to deal Civale. Ownership was willing to eat salary to get rid of Benintendi, but he also stayed. Trading them for literally whatever they could get would have been preferable to waivers.
Just all around terrible roster management. Instead of adding even a couple prospects to the back end of their top 30 organizational rankings and some payroll savings for next season, they get nothing.
Idk about that, Civale and the rest you pointed out had very little chance of getting traded in the first place. Yeah it’s easy to criticize Getz, but we have no idea what the offers were on the table. Robert and Beni aren’t blocking a prospect whatsoever.
Thank You for saying what I was gonna say, but Ill add that it really doesn’t matter what Getz (name another GM here) does it’ll never be good enough. If some of the people here don’t see the improvement with Venable as manager plus the improvement as a whole of as these uohng guys…well nothing will ever be good enough even if they lifetime Sox. Plus he must not have read that the nes part of ownership has stated some money will be spent to further improve rodter…
Civale was a reliable #4 starter up until August, when he had a 7.46 ERA. Even if he doesn’t make a playoff rotation, a SP who keeps a team in the game every 5 days has value to say, a wildcard hopeful. Benintendi has a 106+ OPS. The Royals shipped out a prospect for a negative value outfielder in Randal Grichuk. Not to mention that he he’s blocked Brooks Baldwin in LF.
All of these players had potential value to the right team, just not a White Sox team trying to develop a young core There’s also a lengthy track record of teams overpaying, particularly for pitching, at the trade deadline. IMO, given that many less productive players were dealt at the deadline, it’s unlikely that all of Altavilla, Civale and Benintendi were untradeable.
I get that the team sees itself as a dark horse WC team in 2926 and wants a set lineup heading into the off-season. That will require improving in several categories, most importantly there bottom 5 defense. Since Benintendi routinely grades out as a defensive liability by DRS, there should be no harm in giving Baldwin reps and attempting to mold him into a league average glove. There’s arguably no place on the roster for Benintendi going forward.
Its nothing more complex than stating contending for a WC next season will require another 20 something win improvement. Since improving a bottom 5 team defense will have a positive spillover on the pitching staff, they may as well try to replace any negative value defenders, including Benintendi. They’ve had some success tweaking the infield alignment but they’re going to need across the board improvements to start turning some of those blown leads and 1 and 2 run losses into wins.
Also, the team has 60 prospects with a future value of 50 or higher in the entire organization. They shouldn’t be passing up on any opportunities to deepen the farm system.
You don’t know what you’re talking about. Getz did fine at the deadline. There was nothing to be had of value for those players and his decision to keep them contributed to this nice second half and the improvement of the young talent on the team.
It’s easy to criticize Getz for some operational things–but he has added an incredible amount of very good young talent through trades–the kind of top-tier prospects most other GMs seem to have trouble prying away. You know their names–they are up with the Sox NOW and contributing significantly to what is ALREADY a good team, well ahead of schedule. Yes, I know that Septembers can be deceiving–but I submit the 2026 Sox will be a serious postseason contender, at least. Getz has done good.
It’s possible that these bubble teams looked into a lot of White Sox players, doing deep dives into their stats, and decided that they aren’t good enough to trade for. Why send prospects and spend more money on some mediocre at best talent when your AAA depth is just about as good for a fraction of the cost?
@TheGreatOne: Look at the way they’ve played lately. You’re right, they have to prove it over a full season, but the bones are already there.
I don’t think you’re delusional, btw. I think you’re REALLY REALLY NICE. Sure would like to get to know you better!
@TheGreatOne: True, but a lot of the current young players were not on the team earlier in the season, when it “banked” most of those losses. Not only have some players gotten better, but the team has gotten (brought up) some better players.
They are not going to lose 100, for what that’s worth.
We don’t really disagree: Of course they have to prove it over a full season. But it takes a willful blindness not to see how much better the Sox have gotten, and with young talent.
Nobody was picking up the remaining $40 million on Benintendi. Nobody was picking up even half the remaining $40 million on Benintendi. He just needs to be released, but the owner is human garbage.
Any amount, even $5 million give or take, would have allowed them to start Baldwin and spend slightly more in free agency. Not huge, but it absolutely moves the needle.
What a bunch of whiny, ill-informed nonsense.
Come home to the Mariners, Dan.
Absofreakinlutely, I hope JDP is paying attention to the waiver wire.
He can’t be much worse than Legumina and maybe on a milb deal I’d kick the tires, but I don’t trust Altavilla to maintain this success. The underlying stats show his 2.48 ERA is propped up on a house of cards, and he’s been very lucky in a small sample size this season.
Good to hear, he deserves a shot to start.
I always think Dan Altavilla is a catcher for some reason.
Some pretty meh advance numbers.
As far as all these older players Sox have really know hey playing for another shot somewhere. Sox never had intent on keeping them. Its also pretty funny that no one mentioning how the Crochet trade has thus far turned out pretty dang hood.
It’s a fabulous trade for the White Sox. I’m sure the Bosox are happy, too.
“Hey, this guy shouldn’t be doing as well as he is, let’s release him now so that there is more room for guys who do as poorly as advance metrics say that they should do.”
He will be a Brave by Saturday. Book it.
AA is on the phone right now
He will win tonight!!
What I find amusing is that Burke had to go back to the minors to work on his pitching.. Not sure why their Major league Pitching coach (Katz) could not do this.. I mean, he is on the team to do this type of work, isn’t he?
You don’t get why a pitcher goes down to the minors to work on things instead of getting lit up and knocked in the second inning of games and stresses the team’s bullpen in the process?
Him going back down minors is another way of monitoring his pitch counts. He only threw 68 pitches in today’s game.