The Red Sox have released right-hander Dan Altavilla, per Chris Cotillo of MassLive. The righty will now head to the open market in search of his next opportunity.
Altavilla, now 30, signed a two-year minor league deal with the Sox going into last year. That was a reflection of the fact that he underwent Tommy John surgery in June of 2021 while with the Padres. He was outrighted by that club and became a free agent at season’s end but wasn’t likely to be able to provide too much in 2022, which led to the two-year deal with Boston. Such deals are somewhat common for players facing long rehabs, allowing the player to lock in some money and access team facilities while giving the club some longer control over their services.
The righty didn’t make it into any official action last year and began 2023 on the injured list as well. He finally began a rehab assignment over a month ago and made eight appearances in the minor leagues since then. He tossed 12 innings in those, allowing four earned runs for an ERA of 3.00. However, his 14.3% strikeout rate and 10.2% walk rate were both uninspiring in that small sample. It seems the Sox didn’t have much confidence in him providing much value to them down the stretch and have let him go.
He could still get chances elsewhere based on his pre-Tommy John track record. He made 119 appearances in the majors from 2016 to 2021, split between the Mariners and Padres. He had a 4.03 ERA in that time, with a high 12.1% walk rate but a strong 26.1% strikeout rate. He averaged around 97 mph on his fastball for much of that span and was able to touch triple digits at times. If he’s able to get himself back on track and earn a roster spot, he’ll have the potential to be retained for multiple years as his service time count is currently at four years and 63 days.
I had no idea he was even on the team
Deep down in the minors
Probably because he wasn’t.
“Under contract to the team”.
Better?
Who? Slow day
In other sad news, Daniel Murphy has re-retired 🙁
I came to the website to see if they posted anything about Angel Hernandez.
That bad ump is a sad chump.
Here you go:
apnews.com/article/angel-hernandez-umpire-lawsuit-…
Best of luck to Dan Altavilla. I saw him pitch many times in Seattle and he has an electric arm. If fully recovered, somebody will give him a shot.
Who?
Dan Altavilla
It was more or less a joke but thank you.
Less, definitely less.
@JoeBrady would like to have a word or two with you.
On totally different trivia topic…When was the last time the Red Sox and Yankees ended the season at the bottom of the division standings?
I looked back to 1970 and couldn’t find any season where they were both bottom dwellers. Let’s not make history so gotta root for the RS?
The release makes sense. Nobody is going to trade for him when they cab just sign him to minot league deal or very low-end mlb deal. And for the Sox, they can resign him if they want.
Good luck to the dude. He will probably sign somewhere in the off season. He has good history and his comeback wasn’t bad. He just needs to knock off the rust and get his arm strength back.
“He has a good history”
He does? What the 20 innings in 2018?
Altavilla will be 31 in Sept. He has only gotten as A+ in the minors for a total of 12 innings. He hasnt pitched in the pros since 2021, his career numbers (4.03 ERA, 1.32 Whip) arent good for a reliever.
Im not seeing what youre seeing. Its August, time to make room for younger kids.
I said the release makes sense, bro.
Youre right, I misread, thought you said “makes no sense”.
It’s all good, man. We all do it lol
He was
JC#1 – Still trolling hahaha get a life.
JC is one of the very few I’ve muted, it’s so nice that I can’t see what he writes but it’s also quite weird that I can see some responses to his posts.
Fever – Good choice. I too muted him for a long time along with the other auto trolls. Then one day I accessed the site prior to logging in and read some of the ugly comments being written even though I had them muted and wasn’t responding to anything they had said. That was enough for me to start building a file of all their comments, especially the ones where I had not commented on anything they had said. The file is huge and very damning. Someone in the core group knows the guy that runs the site so he allows it but at some point when the comments become offensive enough that a senior citizen should not be subjected to them, I’ll take the issue way up the ladder but I’d prefer not to. So I simply monitor and document for now.
It’s really great that most of the participants are normal people talking baseball so it’s worth it to read the comments daily. I always look forward to yours and many others. It’s unfortunate with the weakened roster, bad GM and bad manager most of the topics revolve around dumpster diving or dumpster purging but that’s going to be the case until something changes..
Please keep up your writings I look forward to them every day and I don’t have to even agree because I know that your comments are founded by your baseball experience which isn’t going to be the same as mine or anyone else’s so both your similar and dissimilar opinions are great to read.
Today’s big news. Yet another bad player has been DFA’d by a bad GM. Stop the presses!!!
Still waiting for the “Boston acquires a great player!!” headline.
It’s been 4 years coming!! Change is needed.
Fever Pitch Guy
Joe – Yeah, it does make sense because Bloom makes far more of those moves than most (if not all) of the other ML teams.
So why do you continue criticizing me and others for simply stating that fact.
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Because the last time you made this claim, the backup you supplied was almost all signings from the international draft. You so much wanted to post something critical of Bloom that you never stopped to think about whether or not adding 31 players to our AAA depth made any sense.