White Sox Release Ryan Webb

The White Sox have released right-hander Ryan Webb, Baseball America’s Matt Eddy reports.  The 30-year-old reliever signed a minor league deal with Chicago in July after being released by the Rays earlier this season.

Webb signed a one-year, $1MM Major League deal with Tampa in February but wasn’t very effective in his brief stint as a Ray, posting a 5.19 ERA, 5.7 K/9 and 3.67 K/BB rate over 17 1/3 innings.  The peripherals numbers weren’t too far removed from Webb’s career marks, and there was certainly some batted-ball misfortune (.417 BABIP) that led to Webb’s inflated ERA.

It was certainly a step down from Webb’s usual performance, as the righty had posted a solid 3.35 ERA (with a 6.2 K/9, 2.15 K/BB and 56.5% grounder rate) over 376 innings from 2009-15 for the Padres, Marlins, Orioles and Indians.  His 2016 struggles continued at the Triple-A level, however, as Webb tossed only 2 2/3 innings (with a 13.50 ERA) for the top White Sox farm club.  He hasn’t pitched since July 20, so there could well be an injury at play, making it even more unlikely that another team would sign Webb for the September stretch run.