The Red Sox have released veteran third baseman Jhonny Peralta, per a club announcement. He had been playing with the team’s Triple-A affiliate after signing a minors deal.
Peralta, 35, was released by the Cardinals earlier this season partway through the fourth and final season of the $53MM pact he inked with the team in the 2013-14 offseason. While Peralta was excellent in St. Louis for the first two seasons of the deal, he missed significant time with a thumb injury in 2016 and hasn’t been productive when healthy enough to take the field in 2017. Through 58 PAs with the Cards, he hit just .204/.259/.204.
His work in the minors this season hasn’t been much better, as he’s batter .237/.246/.373 in 61 PAs between Class-A Advanced and Triple-A. Tim Britton of the Providence Journal tweets that the Sox and Peralta’s camp had an understanding at the time of his signing that the team would make a decision on whether or not to promote him during the All-Star break. Peralta’s play didn’t impress the team enough to dislodge Deven Marrero and Tzu-Wei Lin for the time being, so Peralta will head back to the open market. It’s been rumored that Rafael Devers is on the verge of moving up to Triple-A, as well, and this will clear more playing time for him at that level once that move takes place.