Red Sox, Nick Burdi Agree To Minor League Deal
ByAnthony Franco | at
The Red Sox have reached agreement with relieverNick Burdi on a minor league contract,reports Chris Henrique of Beyond the Monster.MassLive’s Chris Cotillo writes that the right-hander will go to minor league camp, as he did not receive a non-roster invite to MLB Spring Training.
Burdi, 32, is a former Twins’ second-round draftee and well-regarded bullpen prospect. His career has been beset by myriad injuries. He underwent Tommy John surgery early in his time in the Minnesota farm system. He landed with the Pirates as a Rule 5 pick, where he battled thoracic outlet syndrome. Burdi’s arm continued to bother him the following year, and he underwent another Tommy John procedure after the 2020 campaign.
The Louisville product didn’t return to the mound until 2023. Burdi landed with the Cubs in the Triple-A phase of the Rule 5 draft. Chicago called him up for three appearances, but he quickly went back to the injured list due to a bout of appendicitis. He didn’t return to the majors and the Cubs cut him loose at the end of the season.
Burdi inked a minor league deal with the Yankees last winter. He broke camp but went on the injured list within a few weeks because of a right hip problem. Renewed hip pain sent him back to the IL between May and August. New York outrighted him one month later, sending him back to minor league free agency at the end of the season.
Despite the latest injury-plagued season, Burdi established a career high with 12 MLB appearances for the Yankees. He fired 9 2/3 frames of two-run ball. Burdi fanned 12 with nine walks. It was a similar story in Triple-A, where he turned in a 2.65 earned run average through 17 innings. He struck out a third of opponents against a huge 15.3% walk rate.
The raw stuff remains intriguing. Burdi averaged 97.5 MPH on his fastball while sitting in the upper 80s with his slider. He doesn’t consistently harness that high-octane arsenal, but that could be tied to the stop-and-start nature of so many of his seasons. There’s no real downside for the Red Sox in bringing him to camp and sending him to Triple-A Worcester to open the year.
43 Comments
Let’s see if the Sox can unlock consistency in this reclamation project.
York – I’ll be the first to say it. “Low risk, high reward, additional depth, great signing, blah blah blah”.
Until one of these signings actually pans out, doesn’t get me excited.
At least they didn’t dump a couple million on him like Wilson.
low risk medium to high reward signing
I’d even go with no risk. He’s not getting a 40 man spot, and, won’t be eating reps at big league camp. Great extra depth move
No rewards until he actually pitches
“No rewards until he actually pitches”
Something that could be said about any pitcher thats ever pitched.
Dude! Blast from the past. I haven’t you here in ages. I still love the 1971 card. Is that graded?
Next year… Vlady jr.1B
Please no to vladdy Jr. Lets hope breslow has more sense than that.
GaSox – Agreed! Unless they trade Devers, then they should go for Vladdy.
Fever – did you see the leaked audio where Devers was recorded badmouthing the team and front office to Ortiz who basically said to him – sox leave things to the last minute, always have. Now let’s work.
The more I see of him the more it reinforces why I didn’t want him extended. And I see the same type of makeup problem with Casas.
GaSox – No I didn’t, I’ll have to look for it.
Well as you know I’ve gone on record pointing out off-the-field concerns with both Devers and Casas.
Devers is a very quiet, shy, easy going guy who is immature for his age. The facial expressions are priceless.
But you know what? When I support a team, all I care about is how they perform. MLB players are jocks, and jocks are not perfect. I think we got spoiled with fantastic guys like Mookie and Xander, while forgetting all the headaches that guys like Manny, Papi, Pedro, Damon, Millar, Lackey etc all brought. Heck Tito called Manny the worst person he ever met.
As an example like everyone else I obviously don’t care for Bregman as a person, but I will support him by cheering for him as long as he’s in a Red Sox uniform. Same thing with Buehler who I’ve heard is very similar to Lackey on the mound. That is because my team winning is what matters the most. They don’t give out trophies for the team with the nicest classiest most likeable group of guys.
BTW speaking of Bregman, how ironic is it he already has two errors in just 14 innings!! If Cora hadn’t cancelled the “competition”, Devers would be in the lead. LOL
Ironically, Bregman has acted the more professional and better team-first attitude of the two.
Think what you will of the HOU years and all the baggage that comes of that. Although, part of me wonders if the attitude comes from behind the scenes assurances he got from buddy Cora, or, how much is an act with an eye towards suitors if/when he chooses to opt out.
So there’s a lot at play there.
But, I am willing to take a slightly -key word slightly- less talented player and sacrifice a handful of wins over an entire season to get a solid group of guys I enjoy rooting for because they play hard, do things the right way, and act as professionals instead of narcissistic selfish jocks.
GaSox – Yeah with Bregman its all about context. He’s not gonna make demands immediately after joining a new team, plus he did say before signing the contract he’d play 2B. I still believe him and Cora are in cahoots, he knows 3B is his if Campbell or Grissom takes over 2B.
I respect your opinion, if the situation deteriorates I’m fine with trading Devers for a slightly lesser player.
Looking at it from a different angle, whenever there are children with behavioral issues it’s common to find problems with the parenting… right? Dr. Phil and countless other experts would always say they blame the parents for raising the children to be the way they are. Conversely great guys like Mookie gave all the credit to their Dad for raising them to be the way they are (although I know you thought Mookie was a narcissist for always wanting the most money).
Well Cora has basically failed Devers. He has managed him since Devers was just 21 years old and he never laid down the law with Devers, never forced him to improve his game, never allowed him to try other positions like 1B, it was always about letting Devers do whatever he wants just like with Casas. So without question Cora shares the blame for the situation we have today.
I also find it interesting Breslow is the 4th HOBO over Devers, and none of the prior 3 HOBO’s had an issue with Devers at 3B?
You have no idea what has gone on in Devers and Cora’s relationship.
Fever, I don’t recall calling mookie a narcissist for wanting the most money. Not sure if heat of the moment I mightve, but I don’t think it was me. If I *did* I’d certainly retract that shortly after, and certainly now. Although I’d have hoped for a touch of goodwill based on how they handled his later arb years and such after how some other things went in the org. I do remember saying the team sent the wrong message paying JDM as much as they did and not expecting Mookie and company to want to be better paid than he was by virtue of being better all around players with much more defensive value. Multiple times. And I recall making similar arguments about Bogey after Story got paid.
As for the 1st baseball ops front office, i think you start the clock when the player hits the majors and you see if the major league coaches and staff can finish your development and you evaluate what youve got. So i count 3 heads of baseball ops – DD, Bloom, and Breslow – on that capacity, and ignore times when the office was vacant.
Now, just my opinion, but, dombrowski gets a pass – he simply wasn’t around long enough after Devers was called up full time to know how he would’ve handled things. We know what the play was like the first full season, but, he didn’t make it through the second year. Who knows, maybe it was wanting to extend mookie and move Devers off 3b among other stuff that was all part of the difference in long term philosophy that’s been bandied around since. Maybe Henry and company didn’t want to extend sale yet, DD did it anyways, and then as it looked bad timing that furthered the rift. I wasn’t there, I dont know.
Bloom bungled every facet of managing the talent at the mlb level from letting guys walk for nothing, not supplementing the talent roster, churning piles of cash to bargain hunt that cost more than buying quality, blowing the cbt just barely in a year you knew QO comp was likely coming… even handling Bogey the way they did… I mean, I’m leaving so much out, I could ramble on and on. But, that doesn’t make his desire to leave Devers as is where is was a positive. Some of us believe the org was trying to tank without officially tanking to maximize draft position so on so forth and save some out of pocket (not cbt but actual) payroll money for a few years for FSG to expand in ither areas.
Breslow appears to have watched what he saw – and nobody knows what Devers was or wasn’t ever told or asked to work on either. I haven’t seen a quote yet from Devers saying nobody, not once, not ever, tried to work with me on improving defense. But, he watched for a year, saw an opportunity, and is making a move. Maybe. We done even know that.
I’m fine with your opinions on Devers, and, think you’re entitled to them. Heck, even most people I actually strenuously disagree with here like suit’s preference for cbt over actual expenditures to evaluate how cheap ownership is being…. I’m fine to respectfully agree to disagree and id support his right to advocate and maintain that position as far as he want to push it. It’s a different perspective, it doesn’t make it wrong or inappropriate.
Maybe that’s why I’ve only ever muted one or two accounts here where it was a new account, just made, where all it ever did was post personal attacks and made no effort to engage in baseball talk. But, like I said, thats just me. If people are respectful I support their rights to their opinions and trying to co Vince others of them, regardless of what I think about the ideas myself.
GaSox – Wouldn’t you agree the vast majority of a player’s development occurs while in the minors? I mean in terms of leaving High School or College to becoming an established MLB player. Typically the minors is where you experiment with players, trying them out at different positions to see where they are best suited. It’s uncommon for a player to play just one position throughout the minors, and yet Devers played only third base in the minors.
So the question is, what did Ben see in Raffy to keep him at 3B for 2014/2015? And what did Dave see in Raffy to keep him at 3B for 2016-2019? And what did Bloom see in Raffy to not only keep him at 3B for 2020-2023 but also give him that monster 3B contract extension? How could all of them be fooled into thinking he was an adequate 3B? I ask this only because I’m very analytical and I wonder how we got here.
Yes Bloom was totally inexperienced and downright incompetent at many POBO job functions, but wasn’t he supposed to be good at evaluating talent? Shouldn’t he have known by 2022, with the use of tons of advance metrics, that Devers was not the longterm solution at 3B?
Now I truly don’t understand what was the reason for your last two paragraphs? I didn’t mention anything close to that topic in my prior post. You are a fantastic poster, one of my favorites here, and not just because we agree on many things. The fact that you sometimes do disagree provides a different viewpoint that I always value. People disagree with me all the time, both here and in the real world …. and that is a good thing!
I’m thinking *perhaps* the following sentence of mine may have been misinterpreted: “I respect your opinion, if the situation deteriorates I’m fine with trading Devers for a slightly lesser player.”
To clarify … you have good reason for disliking Devers and I respect that, which is why I’ve never said to anyone that they are wrong for disliking him.
When I used the word “situation”, I meant the third base situation with Devers and how he will handle the transition to something else. If he becomes withdrawn and unhappy and it impacts his performance and the clubhouse, then that’s sufficient reason to trade him.
BTW – Nice first game for Yoshida today ;O)
Fever – last two paragraphs weren’t a critique against you. Just general consumption stuff for third parties. I’ve seen a bunch of bickering in some threads today and it just seemed an opportune moment to vent my philosophy that was pent up, so, any misinterpretation it mightve created, my apologies.
As to the rest of the crux of your argument, it’s not insincere of me, I just don’t feel the effort to out the effort in it would take to support that argument. But I’d think someone needs to look at everyone else who was in the minors at the time at 3b or 1b getting reps. And the major league rosters. And all the rest.
I don’t think they saw any defensive capability or promise, at all. As in zero. I think they saw a bat, with power. And you don’t push a player through the minors only in the dh slot, makes no sense. Even if they to play a position poorly, its better to *try* giving experience, hoping they make something of it. At they still maintain some emergency utility use on the field, or play somewhere just to keep the bat in the lineup. So your question might better be, why didn’t they give him 1B reps. And I think the answer there is they were blocked, when you look at other very highly regarded 1b/dh types in the system at the time.
Nobody is crazy enough to have Devers body type try out in the OF, or at C, or at 2B/SS. Regardless of how Chavis, how dalbec, how other guys ultimately turned out, you don’t drop them for how they did in the minors or their scouted potential to get Devers 1B reps. Big picture, they were trying to force a fit to find a place to play the bat. And the spot in the org that could be filled was 3B. I think that’s your answer.
Nothing Devers ever showed made anyone think he could be any long term 3B answer. But they were trying to hide his bat somewhere on the field.
Take a look at his draft notes:legacy.baseballprospectus.com/prospects/eyewitness…
“Baserunning/Speed30Well-below average speed; increased growth into frame will likely hinder speed.
Glove40Displays average range presently; footwork is inconsistent and can get choppy; works better around the base than in the open field; lacks the athleticism to make the difficult plays; body and athleticism is not conducive for a long term career at 3B; likely a 1B in the future.”
He was a 60 hit tool and a 60 power tool.
He was a bat they looked to hide, and, left in a position where there was a hole in the mlb level hoping to bide some time till the log jams resolved themselves.
GaSox – Thanks for the explanation, I appreciate it. There’s many posts I never see because of the few people I have muted, as those who reply to The Muted are also hidden. So I missed the bickering, which makes me happy :O)
I’m going to have to look up who was at first base in the minors with Devers, because off the top of my head (not saying much as it’s almost midnight) I can’t think of any big first base prospects at the time. Not Dalbec, he didn’t even make AA until 2018 which was the year after Devers made the majors. Isn’t that why they signed Mitchy Two-Bags, because they had no decent 1B in the pipeline?
But yes, poor outfielders usually shift to LF and poor infielders usually shift to first base.
Thank you for the draft notes!! I’ve had people say Devers was never suited at all for first base, those notes prove them wrong. And his height is not that big an issue, I’ve already listed several MLB first basemen who are the same height or shorter than him.
BTW – Interestingly the Red Sox did have Moncada play a fair amount of 3B in the minors even though his primary position was 2B.
Right now I hate to admit it but tonight my brain has been too fuzzy to recall what prospect was where and when and what roster options were vs who was locked in to mlb contracts so on so forth year by year back then. I should. I was going to futures games, I was going to 30-40 mlb games a season plus postseason games.
Brain fog is killing me, and, a lot of local drama is demanding time and attention – I help local homeowners/neighborhoods fight overreach and rezoning that’s killing quality of life with insider dealings and enrichment locally… a bunch of them have been begging help. Plus a bunch of other stuff handling for family.
So a lot of my baseball activity is off the cuff, with spotty memory – but the premises are as sound as ever LOL.
GaSox – I have the utmost respect and admiration for all you’re dealing with, and how well you’re dealing with it. You’re sharper than I.
At least you don’t have to worry about the wild fires in the Carolinas, I can’t ever remember that happening there before. I have a friend in Myrtle Beach and she said it’s only 4 miles away from her home ….. way too close.
Fever – appreciate the sentiments, honestly do, but I’m just another guy doing what I can in the world lol.
These days everything is just pro bono and ghost writing for regular folks trying to make their way. That, or, in cases like for the folks based around here at Ft Stewart or in the Nat. Guard that are put in touch with me, I do free wills/trusts/estate plans for them before they wind up going anywhere on duties in harms way so they have peace of mind for their families – while they do actual important work (unlike me.) Same thing I offer local sheriffs deputies.
Hope all goes well for your friend. We know a retired couple who moved to myrtle from Saratoga NY after retirement. Back in the 90s I lived in the foothills of the berkshires. In town we had what was called the shatterack mountain fire during a big drought. Rural New England, no real road access on steep rocky mountains. Mostly VFD they called in multiple towns to fight and took a long time. I’ll never forget how bad the air was, looked like a fog bank 24-7 but it was just smoke. Even had bits of ash drift down from time to time. Makes me feel for everyone who goes through one of those, even when the flame isn’t near the house, never-minding the stress, it’s a tough thing to live near it going down.
Great. Vlad and Devers. They can call them The Chunkettes.
no questioning his determination
hope he does well against everyone but the yankees
Would the Red Sox consider trading Rafael Devers? He doesn’t have a no-trade clause in his contract. It kicks in when he gets his 10 years in. If he is putting up a stink about moving off 3B, maybe it’s best to just trade him? He has value, so they will get something good in return. They have young positional players coming up, they will be able to cover 2B if Bregman moves to third. Maybe some really good pitching might get them interested in a deal?
Miami needs to add payroll… they have pitching… Alcantara and some prospects for Devers and Yoshida?
Melch – Nothing will happen until they decide how to use Devers. Could be platoon 3B, could be some time at 1B, 9r could be fulltime DH.His health will also be a huge factor, as will the 2B situation.
But those who assume Raffy will hit well as a full-time DH better think again. Jose Ramirez was dreadful when he DH’d last year.
I think everyone is tradeable but the red sox have one of the top farms in mlb..dont think prospects plural moves the needle since they have kids ready with no room but..if the marlins offered alcantara and max meyer to start that does
Im in for that! Bregman is better then him.. Devers can hit but after he give away the run wt hes glove! But trade him in Seatle Wood,Kirby, Gilbert… Alcantara have a TJ a
But trade him in Seatle Wood,Kirby, Gilbert…
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Devers will need a really big year to get anywhere near that type of haul. He’s still pretty expensive, though our payroll would be so low that we could eat serious money on any of our expensive contracts.
Melchez17
Would the Red Sox consider trading Rafael Devers?
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I’ve been waiting for the writers to raise this question, but I’ve seen nothing. In 2026, our lineup “could” be:
C-Wong
1B-Casas
2B-Campbell
SS-Arias (maybe 27)
3B-Mayer
LF-Duran
CF-Rafaela
RF-Anthony
DH-Abreu (Yes, I know he belongs in RF)
Bench-Hamilton, Grissom & Narvaez
If we moved Devers, Story and Yoshida, we’d still have a really good lineup, and $200M to spend on pitching. And even some of our current pitching is still cheap/under control
Who would take Devers’ contract?
Where all big money contracts go…the Dodgers.
Max Muncy’s contract has club option after this season. So, Devers would fit nicely into that lineup
I don’t see the Dodgers being interested in taking on that contract for a guy who is a bad 3B now and only going to get worse over time.
Have you seen Muncy play third base? Lol he’s a butcher
Muncy is being paid half what Devers gets for one more season. Committing 2x to 8-9 years of another butcher at 3B wouldn’t be a good idea. Dodgers are smarter than that.
Story has an opt out after 2025 if he plays well enough to have serious trade value he will opt out anyway
Yeah, Let’s go Trevor!! Have that opt-out kinda season.
The guaranteed money could be too irrestible, but I’d love for him to have a good enough season to have to consider it.
Story is not opting out.
Agreed. But it’s nice to dream
Burdi has always looked great when healthy, but he’s never healthy for very long. Thought he was going to take over the Pirates’ closing role a few years ago, then blew his arm out in a pretty horrific looking way in 2020.
He’s never healthy… period!
Always reminded me of Wild Thing from Major League
I’m rooting for Nick. So much talent such a heartbreaking injury.
Having seen him with the Pirates, he brings some serious heat, but just cannot stay healthy. If he could ever stay on the mound long enough, he looks like Ricky Vaughan with those specs.
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