6:41pm: Boston announced the trade but has yet to reveal the corresponding move.
5:20pm: The Pirates are going to trade left-hander Joe La Sorsa to the Red Sox, reports Ari Alexander of 7News Boston. The Bucs will get cash in return, per Alex Speier of The Boston Globe. It was reported a few days ago that the southpaw was triggering an upward mobility clause in his minor league deal. Alexander says that La Sorsa will be with the Sox in New York tomorrow as they kick off a series against the Yankees. Boston will need to open a 40-man roster spot for La Sorsa.
La Sorsa, 28, will be appearing in his fourth straight major league season once he gets into a game with the Sox. From 2023 to 2025, he pitched for the Rays, Nationals and Reds, posting a 5.21 earned run average in 57 innings.
He signed a minor league deal with the Pirates in the offseason and has been pitching for Triple-A Indianapolis. He has thrown 26 innings with a 3.46 ERA. His 21.2% strikeout rate is around average while his 5.8% walk rate and 47.9% ground ball rate a few ticks better than par.
The lefty triggered an upward mobility clause in his deal at the end of spring training. The way such clauses work is that the player must be offered to the 29 others teams in the league. If any of them want to give the player a roster spot, the signing team has to either trade him or give him a roster spot themselves. If they all pass, he will stay with the signing team. La Sorsa stayed with the Bucs in late March, suggesting all clubs passed on him at that time. In this case, the Sox have signed up.
Boston has three lefties in the bullpen, though Aroldis Chapman is the closer. That leaves Jovani Morán and Danny Coulombe as the lefty options for situations before the ninth inning. Coulombe spent about three weeks on the injured list due to cervical spasms and has a 6.55 ERA around that IL stint. Morán has a much better 3.19 ERA but has gotten some help from a fortunate .197 batting average on balls in play and 85.2% strand rate. La Sorsa will give the Sox another option in the southpaw relief corps.
The Sox don’t have a lot of flexibility in their current bullpen mix. Of their eight relief arms, only Justin Slaten and Greg Weissert are optionable, but those are two of their two setup arms. La Sorsa himself is optionable but, as mentioned, he is expected to be with the big league club in the Bronx tomorrow. Perhaps Coulombe will be designated for assignment, as that would open up a spot on both the active and 40-man rosters for La Sorsa. Other options for that kind of move would be Tyron Guerrero and Ryan Watson, who both have ERAs north of 5.00 at the moment.
Photo courtesy of Thomas Shea, Imagn Images
Give them Bello
Bello is fine as long as they use an opener.
If he can’t start a game, he’s not a starting pitcher. And it makes no difference if he throws a perfect game in relief if they are already behind. When is the last time Sox won a game that Bello started or came in after an opener. Not in the last month for sure.
If Bello can pitch 6 scoreless innings after an opener starts the game, you just need to find the right pitcher to open. When he has an opener he has been one of the better pitchers.
Uncle – You are the voice of reason!
Why the hell do people get upset because Bello can’t pitch the 1st, even after he pitches brilliantly for 7 innings?
Get upset at the openers who can’t even pitch one decent inning!
I say put Weissert as the opener, he wouldn’t be inheriting any runners. Two birds with one stone.
They’re 2-10 in his appearances, including 1-3 with an opener; your assertion that it’s fine confuses me
Every time Bello has an opener they give up runs before he comes in. He would be fine if they can just find an opener that can get through one inning without getting behind.
Bello is fine when they use an opener, but the reliever they try to stick in that role hasn’t been. Red Sox don’t have the bullpen depth necessary to do openers.
Meow – They really need to try Weissert as opener.
It’s worth a shot, and I certainly prefer Weissert coming in with the bases empty, but he hasn’t exactly shone in high leverage situations. (I assume that the Leverage Index for an opener starting the game is low, but I feel like it’s a high-pressure situation in a human sense, so to me that’s high lowercase-l leverage.)
I’ll take Whitlock please?
Breslow will give them Abreu and Early.
I see our big bat has arrived
Management misunderstood when the cry was for the Sox to bring in guys resulting in runs crossing the plate.
Breslow putting the league on notice with all these garbage relievers he’s accumulating
LaSorsa may be an improvement over Coulombe, Guerrero, Weissert, Watson and Kahnle. If he improves one of those spots, the team is better for cash.
To a very marginal degree you’re probably right, but all I see here is a list of 6 guys who are very unlikely to provide many innings with an ERA under 5 so either way, whether it’s La Sorsa or Coulombe or Watson or whomever, it’s still not a guy you can trust in a leverage situation so in the end how much better off really are we? I’d rather see them let Samaniego run with this spot, he’s been the best of the bunch outside of Chapman/Whitlock/Slaten.
Its a couple thousand of Henry’s money that wasn’t otherwise being spent.
I dont see the problem?
GaSox – You know how when the couple are at the dinner table and the husband asks the wife to pass the salt, and the wife starts screaming at the husband and throws the salt at his head?
It’s not really about the salt.
Same thing with this latest reclamation project. Fans are sick and tired of Breslow making all these acquisitions instead of, ya know, actually acquiring a good reliever.
Fever – and if he paid the prices teams were demanding for that actual good reliever, they’d be screaming as well weouldnt they?
GaSox – I was thinking more about last offseason, when Breslow said he wanted to acquire a solid reliever. And instead he acquired Oviedo (injury prone) and Coulombe (signed barely above minimum salary for a reason) and Samaniego (27-year-old rookie) and Watson (28-year-old rookie with a 4.97 ERA in AAA) etc.
Talk about dumpster diving!
Fever – in fairness to the offseason process, we dont know the budget henry gave, and any increases he made to it.
We also dont know everyone Breslow checking in on, what offers were made, and, on the ‘priority chart’ how high adding that reliever was compared to other needs.
If there was money expected to be allocated a certain direction, thats another reason not to have pivoted earlier in the process.
Besides, the bullpen is fairly decent as is. Hopefully Tracy learns not to put weissert in with men on base as he gets used to handling game situations with this roster.
GaSox – Be honest, wouldn’t the $6M spent on IKF be better spent on one really good reliever or two decent relievers?
There’s others, but he’s the one that really was beyond unnecessary. Breslow bungled it by agreeing to a contract before he realized he could get Durbin & Monasterio & Seigler not to mention other infielders they already had.
Watson is perfect for Blowout games.Eats the innings that your main guys don’t pitch.My other thought is how many relief pitchers are great,year in year out.Some are good one year,crappy the next.
Fever, but again, in fairness, Breslow didnt necessarily know hed be able to acquire, say, Durbin, at the time IKF was signed either.
And, having signed IKF, the asking price for Durbin may have softened compared to what wouldve been asked when there was a glaring opening/need, and its possible that the demands when Boston had an open need rather than just seeking a potential upgrade wouldve blocked a deal from happening or requiring an absolutely ludicrous overpay.
I feel like the trade for Durbin already was a ludicrous overpay, I can only imagine what giving up more would have looked like.
The problem with trades, as far as what was given up, has to be viewed through the lens of his track record up till the trade.
There wasn’t a projection regarding this season’s offensive output that was an enormous red flag, such as a .410 babip in 2025 for durbin.
GaSox – That’s a good point about negotiating power softening, but in the end IKF was a panic move after losing Bregman and the trade made IKF a total waste of money. After the IKF agreement (not signing) Breslow should have rejected any trade proposals offering Durbin etc.
“Fever – and if he paid the prices teams were demanding for that actual good reliever, they’d be screaming as well weouldnt they?”
Not me, call me old fashioned but I think the Red Sox have enough financial resources to augment a roster they claimed to be serious about making a postseason run with an additional quality reliever or two.
GaSox – Strongly disagree on no red flags.
Durbin led MLB with a 17.9% Infield Fly Ball rate.
He had a horrible 85MPH Exit Velo.
He had an atrocious 27% Hard Hit Rate.
And on the road he had a pathetic .646 OPS
Fever, people have their own lines on whats a red flag versus as i put it ‘an enormous red flag’….. I don think any of those rose to the level of enormous, or, that thr coaching staff couldn’t have sat down and prepared a training regiment to help improve some of that before pulling the trigger.
Doesn’t mean it will work out. Also doesnt mean its ready to be called a failure either quite yet.
Durbin has been swinging a much better bat the last couple weeks. Hopefully this is a sign of legit improvement that he can build off of the rest of the way. If he can finish with a roughly league average bat or only slightly below after the monster hole he dug himself early on, that would be a huge win.
Bravo Brez!!! Season salvaged!!!
I wonder if they’re finally going to cut Columbe. They have a hard time looking at reality with some of these veteran guys and doing what needs to be done. Goes back before Breslow (Brasier).
Not sure how much better the guy they just got is going to be. They are throwing anything they can find against the wall and see if any stick.
True, but you still should throw out the trash, even if it ends up being for next year.
I keep hearing people complain about Coulombe. So, I look at his stats and 4 of his last 5 appearances he didn’t allow any runs. The appearance he did, he allowed 3 runs. So, Coulombe is actually pitching pretty well lately.
I looked little closer and Coulombe has allowed runs in 4 of his 16 appearances. In 2 of those appearances he gave up 3 runs which drove up his ERA. Here are his game logs:
baseball-reference.com/players/gl.fcgi?id=couloda0…
You can never have too many arms.
Whatever you can do to add to that depth and keep it in the system is a good thing. After you use up the borderline guys you can dfa and restock through the year like everyone else, if it comes down to it.
Not sure I even know what to say!?!?!
Im sure he’ll go through Bellinger, Rice, Chisholm and Grisham like a hot knife through butter….
Sad – People are blaming me for Judge missing this weekend’s series.
Hey I am not the one who puts the curse on opposing teams, I just point it out!
It’s a simple fact, the Sox typically face a team’s worst starting pitchers and one of the opponent’s star hitters gets injured shortly before they face the Sox.
Luck of the Irish?
I get reminded daily that Vaughn Grissom has more RBIs than Mayer or Durbin and is now batting 3rd in Angels lineup behind Trout. And a RH bat. We blew it giving up on him too soon.
Grissom isnt really that good.
He gets a couple hits and people toot his horn, then he goes on another hitless streak while playing subpar defense.
The place grissom grades neutral -not even an asset, just not a liability- is at 1B. Contreras is vastly superior to grissom at 1B, and no way grissom has the bat you want in a 1B..
Due to their defense, both Durbin and Mayer have higher bWARs than Grissom. I’m not sure that the RS having him makes the team better, probably worse.
Craig – As with many former Sox players, they NEVER would have improved if they stayed with the Sox.
Tibbs, Harrison, Priester, Pivetta, Springs, etc …. all got “fixed” by their new team.
One cannot have enough clowns in any circus 🎪 … 🤡
Stove is on but not quite a simmer
Who are we saying goodbye to; Coulombe or Guerrero?
Maybe Kahnle. He was lucky to get through his inning today. He walked a couple and had two balls hit hard, but right at people.
Just like Pivetta, as long as someone else opens, Bello is good. Can it be something as minimal as one inning (three batters)? So, today was a deliberate waste just to get him “back on schedule”?
fan – Pivetta? He hasn’t relieved since 2023 (and one game in 2024).
I’m not sure what mental block Bello is suffering from that makes his first innings utter disasters. Pivetta never was this bad starting a game
This is the big bat the Sox have been needing!
Wait what…
Nerd n and nerd (n-1) thought this is exactly the player that gets us back on track .. and who can argue with science..certainly not fans
Cash = fill the clubhouse coke machine.
Coulombe, huh?
Bello surprised you too
They also have Samaniego as a lefty option
A nobody, body filler, he’s been around the block a few times. Why not bring up the lefty Rivera who was here for a short time, he impressed. Why waste time spending $$$ on a lefty retread???? SMH
Because this guy won’t be long for the roster and they will send him down. Need a 5th starter which should be Bennett. No need to blow an option on a guy that you actually like.