11:58PM: Rodriguez will be activated from the 15-day IL to take Brasier’s roster spot on Monday, The Athletic’s Jen McCaffrey reports.
10:12PM: The Red Sox have designated Ryan Brasier for assignment, as the right-hander himself told reporters (including Peter Abraham of the Boston Globe) tonight in the aftermath of a tough outing against the Cardinals. Brasier allowed three runs over 2 1/3 innings of relief in a 9-1 Red Sox loss.
No corresponding move is yet known, though manager Alex Cora told reporters over the weekend that Joely Rodriguez was going to be activated from the 15-day injured list on Monday, so the Sox could be clearing room for Rodriguez’s return. Rodriguez suffered a Grade 2 oblique strain in mid-March during Spring Training, and has yet to pitch this season.
Tonight’s performance inflated Brasier’s season ERA to 7.29 over 21 innings of work out of the Boston bullpen. There is some level of misfortune in that ERA since Brasier’s strand rate (52.8%) and BABIP (.344) are both skewed, and his FIP is a more moderate 4.38. That said, he has also posted below-average strikeout and walk rates, and Brasier is near the bottom of the league in hard contact.
The advanced metrics were much more favorable to Brasier last year, but the bottom-line results still weren’t there, as the righty had a 5.78 ERA over 62 1/3 innings in 2022. With the lack of results stretching into a second season, the Sox have opted to part ways with a reliever who has had his share of ups and downs over six years in Boston, but for the most part was a solid hurler prior to the start of the 2022 season.
After pitching with the Hiroshima Toyo Carp in 2017, Brasier returned from Japan to sign a minor league deal with the Red Sox, and ended up unexpectedly emerging as an ace reliever for the eventual World Series champions. Brasier posted a 1.60 ERA over 33 2/3 regular-season innings and then a 1.04 ERA in 8 1/3 postseason innings to help the Sox win the title.
Brasier’s 2019 season was a lot shakier, but he posted better results in 2020-21, with a 3.16 ERA albeit over only 37 innings. Brasier’s workload was limited by the shortened 2020 regular season, and then a 2021 campaign that saw him miss most of the year due to a calf strain and then a concussion after he was struck in the head by a line drive during a simulated game.
The 35-year-old is in his final year of arbitration eligibility, and is still owed roughly $1.5MM of his $2MM salary for the 2023 season. It doesn’t seem all that likely that another team will claim Brasier off DFA waivers, so the Red Sox will likely end up eating the salary if they end up releasing the righty, or they could simply outright him down to Triple-A. If Brasier is signed by a new team after being released, the new club will only owe the prorated portion of the Major League minimum salary, with Boston covering the remainder of the $1.5MM.