Recently non-tendered right-hander Al Alburquerque has changed agencies, MLBTR’s Tim Dierkes tweets. He’s now a client of Magnus Sports — the joint venture between Praver/Shapiro Sports Management and singer/actor Marc Anthony. The right-hander joins Aroldis Chapman and Yankees prospect Gary Sanchez as the fledgling agency’s newest additions.
Alburquerque was cut loose by the Tigers coming off a season in which he worked to a 4.21 ERA with 8.4 K/9, 4.8 BB/9 and a 48.3 percent ground-ball rate in 62 innings of relief work. Alburquerque has long shown a penchant for missing bats in the Majors, but he’s also struggled to control the ball. After averaging six walks per nine innings across parts of three seasons from 2011-13, he improved to a career-best 3.3 BB/9 rate in 2014 before taking a step back this most recent season. Alburquerque will turn 30 next June, and the hard-throwing right-hander comes with two years of club control before he reaches the requisite six years of MLB service time to again become a free agent.
The change has been updated in MLBTR’s Agency Database. If you see any notable errors or omissions, please let us know via email: mlbtrdatabase@gmail.com.
I wonder if changing agents will improve his control? .