The White Sox announced that left-hander Bryan Hudson has been designated for assignment. That’s the corresponding move for the Sox to add outfielder Austin Hays, whose signing is now official.
Hudson, 29 in May, seemed to have a breakout with the Brewers in 2024. He gave Milwaukee 62 1/3 innings that year, allowing just 1.73 earned runs per nine. His 26.8% strikeout rate and 7.4% walk rate were both strong figures, while his 41.2% ground ball rate was around par. He averaged just over 91 miles per hour on his four-seamer while also throwing a cutter and a sweeper.
That ERA was at least slightly misleading as Hudson’s .148 batting average on balls in play allowed and 94.2% strand rate was both unsustainably lucky. But even advanced metrics felt he deserved decent results, as he had a 3.60 FIP and 3.22 SIERA on the year. He had enough trust in Milwaukee to rack up 14 holds.
He wasn’t able to maintain that in 2025. He struggled in the first few months and got sent to the minors a couple of times, before being designated for assignment at the trade deadline. A few days later, the White Sox grabbed him off waivers. Between the two clubs, he posted a 4.80 ERA in 15 innings. He still struck out 25.3% of batters faced but gave out walks at an awful 17.3% clip. He also logged 31 2/3 Triple-A innings with a 5.97 ERA, 22.5% strikeout rate, 10.1% walk rate and 51.6% ground ball rate.
Over the course of that rocky campaign, Hudson exhausted his final option season, meaning he’ll be out of options going forward. That’s going to make it harder for him to hold a roster spot and has presumably contributed to the Sox bumping him off today.
The Sox will now have one week of DFA limbo to work with. The waiver process takes 48 hours, so they could take as long as five days to field trade interest. If Hudson were to clear waivers, he would stick with the Sox as non-roster depth. He doesn’t have a previous career outright and his service clock is shy of three years, meaning he wouldn’t have the right to reject an outright assignment in favor of electing free agency.
If that’s an outcome the Sox are hoping for, then they will probably put Hudson on waivers sooner rather than later. Most clubs have full 40-man rosters at the moment but the 60-day injured list comes back next week, which will open up some greater flexibility for fringe roster moves.
Photo courtesy of Eakin Howard, Imagn Images
between every hudson peak lies a hudson valley
Cardinals have an open spot. He’s been solid before.
White Sox fans, you wanted Hudson gone. He is.
I was thinking Hill or Lee would be designated a while ago.
I don’t think Kendall Gravemen for Korey Lee worked out for anybody particularly well. Gravemen got injured and missed pretty much all of the time, Lee hasn’t really panned out.
It’s a shame that Lee got hurt last year because he was having a good year at the plate. I still think he has some trade value.
I don’t think Lee will get DFA’d since it’s always good to have a 3rd C in reserve. Of course, I thought they’d DFA him before Romo since they can stash Romo in the minors, so I guess that shows what I know.
Incredible to have a 2.5 WAR in a Season for a guy who is as close as you can get to a Lefty Specialist these days.
And that’s with being shut down/sent to AAA for the last month and a half of the season! What he did the first 2/3rds of the ‘24 season was HUGE for The Crew, I hope his arm isn’t ruined because of it, that’d be a bad problem..
I’m sure someone will pick up Hudson, but this is okay. White Sox have other relievers they can work with.
lefty reliever, MLB experience? Yep, getting grabbed!
Could be a nice Matt Blake project for the Yankees.
Not even sure it would take too much work. Dude was solid just a season back.
what happened to him? He was so good for the Crew in 2024
Relievers are so notoriously inconsistent year to year that it wouldn’t surprise me if he bounced back for his next team. I think someone will take a chance on him. Even going by his ’24 peripherals, that’s a solid season. If someone can get that on the cheap and have a roster spot (or one they’re willing to open up), why not?
Well, the White Sox have designated another left handed reliever that turned out to be a steal for the other team. Guess who it is
(It’s not long ago)
You guessed it…Frank Stallone!
In ‘24 with the Crew, maybe it was mid aug-early sept sometime, but the crew optioned him and Murph just seemed to feel real bad about it and kept emphasizing it was just because they’d given him such a high workload and that it was a chance for him to essentially recover to be ready for the playoffs, that was my understanding at the time but it really seemed to bother Murph, anyways that was essentially the end of him in MIL and not sure if he got burned out or what happened but it looks like he went from walking almost nobody the first half of ‘24 to last year walking something like a batter per inning, the Crew had obviously saw something or he’d said something there in ‘24 that essentially let to him being shut down and he’s never been the same since, it’s been a year and a half, hoping he can find more success in baseball, between him/Koenig being so dominant seemingly out of nowhere that ‘24 season, that was fun to watch, also he helped win a lot of the games early in ‘24 and early in Murphs tenure when things could’ve gone a whole lot different for the Crew, but he was one of the many guys that seemingly came out of nowhere to keep The Crew winning and calm the “waters” and he certainly helped build this mega confidence that just seems to ooze from Murph and his clubhouses now…. Anyways looking at his career numbers and what he did for The Crew that ‘24 season, it’s just a real shame for him to be getting DFA’d by the “southsiders”…. Hopefully it’s another opportunity for a re-breakout but geez..I know I must’ve heard it somewhere before, but it just makes u wonder, what’s a guy gotta do for a lil respect…. I suppose not walking nine per nine would help but again geez, just seems kinda rough is all…..
He’d be worth a minor league deal with an invite at the very least.