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.