Just a few days after signing Jeurys Familia to a minor league contract, the Red Sox have selected the veteran right-hander to the big league roster. In corresponding moves, right-hander Kaleb Ort was optioned to Triple-A, and Chris Sale (who recently underwent season-ending wrist surgery) was moved to the 60-day injured list.
Familia is looking for a new beginning after posting a 6.09 ERA over 34 innings with the Phillies this season. Philadelphia signed the righty to a one-year, $6MM this past offseason, but ended up releasing Familia last week. In signing Familia and promoting him to the MLB roster, the Red Sox now owe him just the prorated portion of the minimum salary, while the Phils are responsible for the remainder of that $6MM total.
It’s been a rough season for Familia, who has posted below-average walk and strikeout rates while allowing more hard contact than almost any pitcher in baseball. Familia is still averaging 95.7mph on his fastball, but that has been the only one of his pitches that has still been effective, as per Statcast’s metrics. Batters have been teeing off on Familia’s sinker, which has been his primary pitch for the majority of his career (and he still throws the sinker over 50 percent of the time).
Still, at least a couple of Familia’s metrics are more favorable, as his 3.91 SIERA and an eye-popping .408 BABIP indicate some level of bad luck, despite all of that hard contact. There isn’t much risk for the Red Sox in seeing if Familia can still contribute at the big league level, or at least provide a fresh arm within what has been a pretty middling Boston relief corps.
Does the sinker still sink? Is it a location thing?
Unfortunately, it’s currently more of a stinker still stinking.
So his sinker has turned into a skunker
The sinker does in fact, not sink
By this move, it shows how far the Sox have fallen…
Also shows they hate their fans. Cruel and unusual punishment.
No. He has been up in the zone all year with it
It’s been up in the zone all year unable to sink. His only success has been when he had great location with the fastball. The 6.09 era doesn’t lie
LOL good luck with that one.
Phillies will regret letting this stud go. Go get ‘em Jeurys.
You a real troll if you think that. All the other Mets fans here think he stinks too.
Sarcasm.
Stud!?
Dust.
I don’t think Timmy The Trumpet is going to lead Jeurys entrance
Ha. Ha. HA!
The Jeurys still out on whether or not this is a good move.
Care to explain?
I’m not Familia with the reference.
@raisinsss His name is Jeurys which sounds like Jury
You Ort to pay more attention to the punchline…
It’s funny how someone can pick the first one and completely miss the second one.
Desperation.
It’s beyond that, more like filling in voids because our pitchers are injured and our bullpen is trash.
Filling in voids because Bloom has done a horrible job with organizational pitching depth. All he does is keep grabbing other teams’ rejects to throw against the wall, hoping some will stick.
I knew the Jeurys was still out on him
I was pleased when the Phillies implemented it’s Jeurys Familia Separation Policy.
Robles redux.
He has to be better than Hernandez.
I’m better than Hernandez and so are you
The biggest concern is he has a couple of good outings out of the gate and becomes one of “Cora’s guys” and starts coughing up leads like the last former Mets reliever we had
I long for simplier times, when players were judged for what they did on the field, not whether or not they were perceived to a “Cora Guy” or a “Bloom Guy” or a “DD Guy”.
Agreed, and to that end, Jeurys has performed very poorly on the field. 1.85 WHIP, 4.88 FIP, a whopping 48.6% balls hard hit, and 6.09 ERA bad. It’s really difficult to imagine that the Red Sox do not have a single arm in Worcester that would be better to put out on the mound in Fenway than Jeurys Familia.
Clearly, you completely missed my point. those stats dont make him a “Cora guy”, nor do a few good outings.
Well, the Sox can afford to make big signings like this with all the money they saved by trading JD, Eovaldi, Bogaerts, and…. oh, wait….
If they had traded those players, who would they have signed right now?
Not surprised he’s up with Cora at the helm.
Because things can’t get worse?
You can’t polish a turd
When you start every batter 2-0 and usually walk the first one you need to drop that sinker right in the strike zone to get out of a bad count. His problem is he can’t throw strikes. When you always pitch behind you will be hit no matter how good your stuff is.
It is a place where unloved or unwanted players are collected by a rookie GM, who brings the players to Fenway where they can stay until new owners and new fans can fix all the broken and defective players with love and hope. Oh wait! That’s the story of the Island of Misfit Toys in Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer from 1964. I hope for Red Sox Nation that this Bumble does bounce! Let’s keep the guessing to a minimum- does anyone know what’s happening here?
Poor, poor, Red Sox nation. Having to deal with a sub .500 team once a decade, please hold my tissues. Try being a Reds fan.
Oh man, my bad. I take it back. To all Reds fans: I feel your pain. I used to feel it for the Cubbies, but now it’s a mix of teams- Reds, A’s (those 70’s WS wins seemed like they didn’t happen), and how about San Diego? I’d mention the Mets but 1986 ruined that. But we all have to admit that the Red Sox set the bar pretty high for baseball, and then sizzled off the pan in a flash. That’s the shock that we , the spoiled and seemingly entitled RSN feel.
The pirates have had it the worst since the start of the 1990s 13 straight loosing seasons…. 13 straight
The good news here is that Ort has finally been sent back to AAA. He was horrible out of the pen for Boston. There’s no way Familia can be worse than Ort’s 10+ ERA he posted in Boston. Next on the list is to either get Strahm back or call up Frank German and option Darwinzon back to the minors or maybe even just release him. Darwinzon had so much hype when he was called up but he too has been a complete disaster for the Red Sox. Boston has a lot of work to do next year to rebuild this pen. Their first move needs to be to re-sign Schreiber to a multi-year contract. Then they need to sign a legitimate closer too.
Jeurys only needs about 30 days of mlb service time to fully vest his pension, as he is currently sitting at 39 of 40 credits.
Hopefully he hits it, and the soon to be 33 year old won’t have that hanging over his head anymore. He’s had a good career and made some great scratch in return.
… $56 million in career earnings. He’s rich & terrible – another reach by Bloom.
The Green Monster just shat itself
The Green Monster just left the building
I liked the shat itself take better
Ol Jerry Family was nasty for a time. The sinker could be unhittable if he was feeling it on a given day.
But those days became fewer and fewer as a Met, and it was a good call to let him walk. He doesn’t appear to have much left in the tank.
You just know this is going to be like throwing gasoline on a existing dumpster fire that is the 2022 Red Sox season.
Watched Familia all summer until the Phillies finally said, “Enough is enough!”. In general, Dombro’s moves have been good. But the $6 million he gave to Familia is money down the drain.
Hope he does better in Boston and the Red Sox make the playoffs. In the AL, the playoffs without Boston is like the NL playoffs without the Dodgers. Some teams just belong in the bright lights, and the bright lights ain’t so bright without them.
I mean, can you imagine a WS featuring the Brewers and Twins? Who the hell would watch?
Bart Harley Jarvis would watch.
Boston must want to lose late in games