Red Sox Designate Kevin Plawecki For Assignment
The Red Sox are designating catcher Kevin Plawecki for assignment, reports Chris Cotillo of MassLive (Twitter link). Boston has yet to formally announce the move, but their 40-man roster tally is slated to drop to 38.
Plawecki has spent the past three seasons in Boston, with much of that time backing up Christian Vázquez. The right-handed hitting backstop performed well in a limited role between 2020-21, but he’s had a rough go of things in 2022. Through 173 plate appearances, Plawecki carries a .219/.291/.290 line with one home run. He’s made plenty of contact, but he hasn’t made a huge impact from a power perspective.
Boston dealt Vázquez to the Astros at the trade deadline, but they also brought in the lefty-hitting Reese McGuire in a subsequent trade with the White Sox. McGuire and the right-handed Connor Wong have joined Plawecki on the active roster since the rosters expanded in September. Both McGuire and Wong are controllable for multiple seasons beyond this year, while Plawecki was headed for free agency. With the Red Sox playing out the final few weeks of what’s likely to be a last place campaign, they’ll devote more playing time to their controllable options while cutting Plawecki loose a bit early.
Plawecki will land on outright or release waivers in the next few days. In either event, he’ll hit the open market is he goes unclaimed. That seems likely, as any claiming team wouldn’t be able to carry Plawecki on a postseason roster since he wasn’t in the organization prior to September 1. Plawecki’s also making $2.25MM this season, and while the final few hundred thousand dollars of that deal aren’t onerous, it decreases the chance of another team adding him as a strictly a regular season depth option for the final two and a half weeks. In all likelihood, Plawecki will head to the open market a bit early and turn his attention to next offseason.
Jeurys Familia Elects Free Agency
Sept. 16: Familia cleared waivers and rejected an outright assignment in favor of free agency, tweets Cotillo.
Sept. 13: The Red Sox have designated reliever Jeurys Familia for assignment, the hurler himself told reporters (including Chris Cotillo of MassLive). The club has not officially announced the move. Boston’s 40-man roster tally drops to 39.
Familia spent around a month on Boston’s big league roster. He opened the season with the Phillies but was released by Philadelphia in early August after posting a 6.09 ERA across 34 innings. Within a few days, Familia signed a minor league deal with Boston and was quickly promoted back to the big leagues. He’s continued to struggle, though, allowing eight runs (seven earned) with seven walks and eight strikeouts over 10 appearances in a Boston uniform.
That included a tough outing during tonight’s matchup with the Yankees. Called upon in the tenth inning, Familia issued a leadoff walk to Aaron Hicks. After inducing a Marwin González double play and intentionally walking Aaron Judge, he unintentionally walked Giancarlo Stanton to load the bases. Familia then coughed up a three-run double to Gleyber Torres before recording the final out. He took the loss in a 7-6 Yankees win.
In the wake of that disappointing outing, the Red Sox elected to move on. The 32-year-old is headed for free agency at the end of the season regardless, and any faint hope the Sox had of making a playoff push a month ago has long since been dashed. Rather than continuing to devote a bullpen spot to a scuffling veteran, Boston will turn elsewhere. Cotillo reports that the Sox will go with 13 pitchers for the time being, with the recently-claimed Yu Chang taking the vacated active roster spot.
Familia will land on waivers in the next few days, but his struggles in both Philadelphia and Boston make it a virtual lock he’ll clear. With only a few weeks remaining on the schedule, he plans to turn his attention to the upcoming offseason and opportunities for 2023 (relayed by Jahmai Webster of NESN).
While Familia’s 2022 results have been subpar, he’s only a season removed from being an effective reliever. Familia posted a 3.94 ERA across 59 1/3 innings with the Mets in 2021, striking out 27.5% of batters faced that year. His strikeouts are well down this season, but he’s averaged north of 95 MPH on his fastball. At the very least, he figures to find minor league offers this winter as a result of his relatively recent success and extant arm strength.
Outrights: Mazeika, Davis, Arihara
An update on a trio of players who’ll remain with their prior organizations after being designated for assignment and clearing waivers…
Latest updates
- The Giants outrighted catcher Patrick Mazeika to Triple-A Sacramento, tweets Alex Pavlovic of NBC Sports Bay Area. Mazeika, who’d been DFA this week, didn’t make a big league appearance with San Francisco. Claimed off waivers from the Mets last month, he’s spent the past couple weeks on optional assignment to Sacramento. Mazeika hasn’t hit well there, but he’d posted solid numbers with New York’s top affiliate earlier in the season. Mazeika has never previously been outrighted and doesn’t have three years of MLB service, so he’ll stick in the organization for this year’s final few weeks. He’d reach minor league free agency over the offseason if he’s not added back to the 40-man roster.
Earlier
- Red Sox outfielder Jaylin Davis went unclaimed on outright waivers and was assigned to Triple-A Worcester, tweets Chris Cotillo of MassLive.com. The 28-year-old Davis has spent time with the Twins, Giants and Red Sox organizations over the past five years but has never carried his stout Triple-A production over to the big league level. Granted, none of those clubs has given him much of a look in the Majors; Davis has just 95 plate appearances in the big leagues, during which time he’s posted a tepid .207/.274/.299 batting line. Davis turned in a colossal .306/.397/.590 slash with 35 homers in 541 plate appearances between the Triple-A affiliates for Minnesota and San Francisco in 2019, but even his Triple-A output has deteriorated since that standout showing. He’s had 353 turns at the plate in Triple-A this season and hit just .211/.317/.343 with a 30.9% strikeout rate.
- Right-hander Kohei Arihara, designated for assignment by the Rangers this week, cleared outright waivers and has been assigned to Triple-A Round Rock, per the team’s transaction log at MLB.com. That’s not particularly surprising, given Arihara’s struggles and the fact that he’s still owed the balance of this season’s $2.6MM salary. It’s “only” about $286K, but given that Arihara has yielded 21 earned runs in 20 innings this season and carries a 7.57 ERA in 60 2/3 frames dating back to 2021, he was never likely to be claimed. Texas signed the now-30-year-old righty on the heels of a solid six-year run in NPB (3.74 ERA, 18% strikeout rate, 5.6% walk rate), hoping that he could provide some innings at the back of the rotation. That two-year, $6.2MM contract hasn’t panned out, however, and this is now the second time Arihara has been outrighted by the Rangers.
Reds Acquire Nick Northcut From Red Sox
The Reds announced Wednesday that they’ve acquired minor league infielder Nick Northcut from the Red Sox as the player to be named later in the deadline trade that sent Tommy Pham to Boston. Northcut hasn’t been on a Major League roster or injured list this season, so he’s eligible to be traded now even with the deadline having passed. That allows the Reds to get a late look at him in their system, rather than waiting until the offseason.
[Related: How to Acquire Players After the Trade Deadline]
It’s a homecoming for Northcut, a Cincinnati-area native and graduate of William Mason High School — which sits just 25 miles from Great American Ball Park. The 23-year-old Northcut was selected by Boston in the 11th round of the 2018 draft. However, he was considered a top-100 talent in that year’s draft and only lasted as long as he did because he was considered a tough sign who was likely to honor his commitment to Vanderbilt. Boston swayed him with a $565K bonus — roughly in line with late-third-round money. (Pick No. 99 that year, the 25th in the third round, carried a $564K slot value.)
The right-handed-hitting Northcut has appeared at the infield corners almost exclusively in his career, though he did log six innings at shortstop earlier this season (likely in something of emergency fashion). That’s been his lone appearance at any position other than either third base, where he has 1580 professional innings under his belt, or first base, where he’s played 605 frames.
Northcut has shown plenty of pop in the minors this season, swatting 30 home runs and 18 doubles in 428 plate appearances between High-A and Double-A. However, he’s also whiffed in 35% of his trips to the plate and turned in a combined .219/.276/.491 batting line. Northcut’s power is evident, but he’s drawn walks at only a 5.8% clip so far in 2022, which hasn’t been enough to offset the pronounced swing-and-miss in his game.
The struggles to make contact have increased in recent years and prompted Northcut to fall out of the top tiers of the Red Sox’ system; Northcut ranked 19th among Sox farmhands at Baseball America and 23rd at FanGraphs back in 2019 but has fallen off the radar on most prominent assessments of their system. He’ll add a project to Reds’ system, but one with local roots and power that draft-time scouting reports graded as high as 70 on the 20-80 scale.
The Pham swap has worked out reasonably well for the Red Sox, who’ve seen the veteran corner outfielder post a .262/.321/.416 batting line with five homers in 162 plate appearances to this point. That’s about six percent better than league-average, by measure of wRC+, but taking a broader look at the team’s deadline maneuverings as a whole, things simply haven’t panned out. Boston traded away catcher Christian Vazquez and veteran reliever Jake Diekman while bringing in Pham and Eric Hosmer and holding onto its most appealing trade candidates (e.g. Nathan Eovaldi). The Sox were 52-52 when the deadline hit but have played at just a 17-21 pace since that time, falling to 10.5 games out of the American League Wild Card chase.
Red Sox Claim Yu Chang, Designate Jaylin Davis
The Red Sox have claimed infielder Yu Chang off waivers from the Rays, according to Chris Cotillo of MassLive. Chang had been designated for assignment last week. In a corresponding move, outfielder Jaylin Davis has been designated for assignment by Boston.
Chang, 28, has been a fixture of transaction logs this year, now joining his fourth organization of the season. He began the year with the Guardians but was designated for assignment in late May. He got traded to the Pirates for cash considerations but was designated for assignment again after a month in Pittsburgh. The Rays claimed him off waives from the Bucs and have kept him around for the past two months.
Chang was a fairly well regarded prospect but hasn’t yet had strong results in the major leagues. Since he is out of options and can’t be sent to the minors, he’s been continually nudged off rosters all year, with some other club always stepping up to give him another shot. His overall batting line this year is .216/.280/.324 for a wRC+ of 77. He has been better in recent months with the Rays, however, hitting .260/.305/.385 for a wRC+ of 101. Whether Chang’s bat has turned a corner or not, he will at least provide defensive versatility, having spent some time at each of the four infield positions this year.
The Red Sox are 69-72 on the year, leaving them 10 games out of a playoff spot with just over three weeks remaining on the schedule. With their hopes of competing effectively dashed at this point, they can use their remaining games to evaluate players prior to the winter, with Chang now entering the mix. The club’s current infield picture includes Xander Bogaerts, Trevor Story, Rafael Devers, Triston Casas and Christian Arroyo, with Bogaerts expected to opt out of his contract and become a free agent this winter. The Sox make sense as a fit for a free agent shortstop to replace Bogaerts, though if they don’t succeed in signing one, they could also slide Story over and make Arroyo the everyday second baseman. That would give Chang a path to a job as a utility/bench infielder.
As for Davis, 28, the Red Sox claimed him from the Giants in April but passed him through waivers a couple weeks later. He was selected back to the roster in July. He has a great batting line in the majors though in a tiny sample of just 27 plate appearances. He’s hit .333/.407/.375 in the bigs this year despite striking out 40.7% of the time. He’s hit just .198/.315/.318 for Triple-A Worcester while going down on strikes in in 30.8% of his 305 plate appearances. Since the trade deadline has passed, the Sox will have no choice but to put him on outright waivers or release waivers in the coming days. Since Davis was previously outrighted, he’d have the ability to reject an assignment and elect free agency in the event he clears waivers again.
Anthony Varvaro Killed In Car Accident
Former big league reliever Anthony Varvaro died in a car accident this morning, according to multiple media reports. The 37-year-old Varvaro became a New York/New Jersey Port Authority police officer after retiring from baseball, and the car accident took place while he was heading for duty at the September 11th memorial service today in downtown New York City.
A Staten Island native, Varvaro’s pro baseball career began when the Mariners selected him in the 12th round of the 2005 draft. Varvaro made his big league debut with the Mariners in 2010, and then spent the next four seasons pitching with the Braves before tossing 11 innings with the Red Sox in 2015, his final MLB season.
Varvaro had some very solid numbers in the majors, posting a 3.23 ERA over 183 2/3 career innings. He emerged as a workhorse in Atlanta’s bullpen in 2013-14, with 123 appearances and 128 innings over those two seasons (with an impressive 2.74 ERA). The Red Sox acquired him during the 2014-15 offseason, though his work in 2015 and a would-be trade to the Cubs were both cut short by flexor tendon surgery. After pitching with Boston’s Triple-A affiliate in 2016, Varvaro then decided to retire at age 31, and pursue a new career in law enforcement.
A GoFundMe has been established for Varvaro’s family. We at MLB Trade Rumors send our condolences to Varvaro’s family, friends, and colleagues.
Red Sox Release Hirokazu Sawamura
The Red Sox have released right-hander Hirokazu Sawamura, per Pete Abraham of the Boston Globe. Sawamura asked for his release to pursue other opportunities, according to Chris Cotillo of MassLive.
Sawamura, 34, pitched in Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball for ten years before crossing the Pacific. He signed a two-year deal with the Red Sox prior to the 2021 season and had a solid debut that season. He threw 53 innings with a 3.06 ERA, 26.2% strikeout rate and 51.8% ground ball rate, though a very worrisome 13.7% walk rate.
His performance took a bit of a downward turn here in 2022, however, with his ERA jumping up to 3.73 and his strikeout rate dropping to 18.1%. He was designated for assignment in August, later clearing waivers and being outrighted to Triple-A.
Sawamura’s contract guaranteed him $3MM with a $1.2MM salary both last year and this year, as well as a $600K buyout on a club option for 2023. That club option came with $3MM base but a series of escalators based on the number of appearances Sawamura made. If the club declined their option, Sawamura would then have a player option that also had a value tied to appearances. He had already pitched enough to get the player option up to $1.9MM and would have made it an even $2MM with one more game before he was cut from the roster.
When Sawamura was outrighted, it was reported that the option was still active. However, Sawamura will collect the $1MM buyout and head to free agency instead. He only made a single appearance in Triple-A between the outright and today’s release.
Phillies Expected To Target Xander Bogaerts In Free Agency
Though there’s plenty left to be decided in the Phillies’ 2022 season, it’s never too early to speculate about what the club might have in store for the winter or for the 2023 campaign. To this end, Peter Abraham of The Boston Globe writes that “the Phillies will be eager suitors” for Xander Bogaerts, provided that Bogaerts (as expected) opts out of his contract with the Red Sox.
Reports already surfaced in June that Philadelphia would be targeting the shortstop position this winter, with the Phils looking to make a splash in a free agent class that is expected to include the likes of Bogaerts, Trea Turner, Dansby Swanson, and Carlos Correa. Bogaerts and Correa are seen as virtual locks to exercise opt-out clauses, and Turner and Swanson are both scheduled to hit the open market (though Swanson and the Braves are exploring an extension).
Bogaerts’ talent makes him a natural target for any team that wants a big upgrade at shortstop, and the Phillies are perhaps an even more logical fit due to the past ties between Bogaerts and president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski. After all, Dombrowski was Boston’s president of baseball operations when Bogaerts signed his current contract — a six-year, $120MM extension that included an opt-out clause following the current season. Bogaerts would be leaving three years and $60MM on the table to opt out, but is no doubt he’d easily top that number on the open market.
Of course, shortstop is not quite the problem position it was for the Phillies at the start of the season. After a very slow start in his rookie year, Bryson Stott has started to acclimate to the Show, hitting .305/.349/.488 with five home runs over his last 175 plate appearances. However, Stott has mostly split his time between second base and shortstop, with defensive metrics (albeit in a sample size of not even one full season) indicating that his glove plays better at second base. While Bogaerts’ own glovework at shortstop has been a question mark for years, he is currently enjoying the best defensive season of his career, with positive grades from the Outs Above Average, Defensive Runs Saved, and UZR/150 metrics.
If the Phillies were to sign Bogaerts and move Stott to second base, that leaves Jean Segura as the odd man out. The Phils hold a $17MM club option ($1MM buyout) on Segura for the 2023 season, and Segura is posting his typical level of offensive production, though he has only 301 plate appearances due to a fractured finger. Another option would be to retain Segura, and Stott and Segura at second and third base with Bogaerts as the new shortstop. This would displace the defensive-challenged Alec Bohm from third base, and Bohm could perhaps be tried at first base, and Rhys Hoskins — who is a free agent after 2023 — could become a trade chip.
There are lots of ways the Phillies could approach things this winter, and payroll will also be a factor in a pursuit of Bogaerts or any other top-flight shortstop. A lot of salary (Segura, Didi Gregorius, Noah Syndergaard, Zach Eflin, Corey Knebel, Kyle Gibson, Brad Hand, Jeurys Familia) could come off the books in the form of pending free agents and declined club options, but that also leaves a lot of roster holes to be filled. As per Roster Resource, the Phils are slated to pay the luxury tax in 2022, and thus they’d have to pay a higher penalty in draft pick compensation for signing a qualifying-offer free agent (i.e. Bogaerts).
Red Sox Select Abraham Almonte
5:30pm: The Sox have now made it official, per Chris Cotillo of MassLive. Almonte has been selected with Cordero going on the 60-day IL. He won’t be eligible to return this season.
3:50pm: The Red Sox are going to select outfielder Abraham Almonte to their roster for tonight’s game, according to Pete Abraham of the Boston Globe. Almonte isn’t yet on the 40-man roster, meaning corresponding moves will be required. It’s possible that outfielder Franchy Cordero will head to the 10-day or maybe even the 60-day injured list. Abraham reported yesterday that Cordero has a sprain on both sides of his ankle and could be done for the season.
Once Almonte gets into a game, it will be the 10th straight season of MLB action for the 33-year-old. He’s spent time with Seattle, San Diego, Cleveland, Kansas City, Arizona and Atlanta. In 440 career games, he’s hit .223/.302/.374 for a wRC+ of 83. This year, he signed a minor league deal with the Brewers and went to the Red Sox in a July trade. He’s been having a great year down on the farm, hitting .293/.417/.534 across 80 Triple-A games. That amounts to a 154 wRC+.
Despite his years of experience, he’s only accrued four years and 155 days of MLB service time. Should he carry any of that tremendous minor league production up to the big leagues with him, the Red Sox could keep him around for another season via arbitration. He’ll step into an outfield mix that includes Alex Verdugo, Tommy Pham, Enrique Hernández and Rob Refsnyder.
That mix won’t include Cordero for now, as he injured himself crashing into the wall at Tropicana Field on Monday, having to be carted off the field. The 28-year-old has gotten into 84 games on the season, hitting .219/.300/.397 for a wRC+ of 93. Like Almonte, he can be retained for 2023 via arbitration, should the Sox decide to tender him a contract.
Red Sox, Enrique Hernandez Agree To Contract Extension
The Red Sox have gotten a jump on their offseason business, reportedly agreeing to a one-year contract extension with utilityman Enrique Hernández. The deal guarantees the Wasserman client $10MM for the 2023 season.
Hernández had been slated to hit free agency this winter, but he’ll bypass that opportunity for a third season in Boston. The longtime Dodger first hit the open market over the 2020-21 offseason, when he signed a two-year, $14MM pact with Boston. It was a surprisingly strong multi-year arrangement on the heels of back-to-back down seasons at the plate, but it quickly looked like a coup for chief baseball officer Chaim Bloom and his front office.
The Puerto Rico native posted arguably his best season to date in 2021. He tallied a personal-high 585 plate appearances and connected on 20 home runs and 19 doubles with an overall .250/.337/.449 slash line. Hernández walked at a robust 10.4% clip, only struck out 18.8% of the time and made a strong impact from a power perspective. Altogether, by measure of wRC+, his offensive production checked in nine percentage points above league average.
Hernández paired that well-rounded hitting output with his typically strong defense. As he has throughout his career, Hernández proved willing to bounce between the infield and outfield. He spent the bulk of his time in center field and at second base, with public defensive metrics placing him among the league’s best at the former position. On the heels of that strong first season in Fenway, Hernández deservedly earned Boston’s Opening Day nod in center field this year.
The 31-year-old hasn’t managed to replicate last year’s production though. He slumped to a .193/.266/.325 line through the season’s first month and has never fully gotten back on track. While Hernández has improved upon that particularly tepid early-season output, he’s posted below-average numbers at the dish in each month when healthy. He also lost a bit more than eight weeks to a strained right hip flexor that sidelined him from early June until the middle of August. Altogether, Hernández has gotten into 68 games and tallied 304 plate appearances, compiling a meager .219/.283/.354 showing with just six longballs.
Some of Hernández’s underlying numbers have correspondingly gone in the wrong direction. His walks are down to a below-average 7.9% clip, while his rate of hard contact has plummeted from 43.2% to 34.4%. Perhaps the Red Sox are willing to attribute the offensive downturn, at least in part, to the hip issue through which Hernández was battling. Disappointing as his 2022 work at the plate has been, he has continued to rate as an above-average defensive center fielder. If he can recapture something resembling league average offense, Hernández would still be a valuable contributor — either as the regular center fielder or in a utility role that sees him bounce more frequently between the dirt and the grass.
Presumably, Hernández will get the first crack at an everyday outfield role again. The Sox don’t have much in the way of established in-house alternatives, with former top prospect Jarren Duran struggling to a .218/.269/.355 line with bottom-tier defensive metrics through his first 90 big league games. For a Red Sox team that is looking to immediately return to contention after a disappointing 2022 campaign, penciling the 26-year-old into the Opening Day lineup is probably too risky. If Duran plays his way into an everyday job, Hernández could slide into a superutility capacity.
One could argue Boston should’ve aimed higher than either Hernández or Duran and sought an external upgrade in center field. Re-signing Hernández doesn’t expressly rule that out, although it’d seem to alleviate the pressure on Bloom and his staff to dip into very thin waters at the position. Aaron Judge, of course, is the top free agent who’ll be available but looks likely to command a salary approaching or exceeding $300MM. Aside from Judge, Brandon Nimmo is the only clear above-average center fielder who’s slated to hit the open market. The Rays are certain to buy out defensive stalwart Kevin Kiermaier (with whom Bloom is plenty familiar from his time in the Tampa Bay front office), but Kiermaier’s coming off a shaky offensive season of his own and recently underwent season-ending hip surgery.
The trade market may not offer many solutions either. Teams are sure to try to pry Bryan Reynolds away from the Pirates yet again, but no team has been successful (or seemingly even come close) to doing so. The A’s will probably listen to offers on Ramón Laureano, but he’s arguably a cleaner fit in a corner outfield spot than up the middle. Other trade candidates include the Royals Michael A. Taylor and the Cubs Rafael Ortega, but it’s not clear either is an upgrade over Hernández.
It’s the start of what figures to be a busy offseason in Boston. The Red Sox are facing the potential free agent departures of Xander Bogaerts, J.D. Martinez, Nathan Eovaldi, Michael Wacha and Rich Hill, among others. Assuming Bogaerts opts out of the remaining three years on his current contract, the Sox are slated to enter the offseason with a bit more than $70MM in guaranteed commitments for 2023 after accounting for Hernández’s deal. Rafael Devers headlines an arbitration class that’s likely to push that tally north of $90MM.
That still leaves plenty of room for a club that opened this year with a payroll above $206MM, per Cot’s Baseball Contracts. They’ll need to overhaul the pitching staff, address a middle infield position if Bogaerts departs, and perhaps look for upgrades at catcher and in a corner outfield spot. There’s a lot of work to be done this offseason. Today’s agreement to keep around a familiar player whom the organization clearly expects to right the ship marks the first of many key decisions on the horizon.
Jeff Passan of ESPN first reported Hernández and the Red Sox were in agreement on a one-year, $10MM extension.
Image courtesy of USA Today Sports.