TRADE: Red Sox trade Alex Verdugo to Yankees for three pitchers
As the chief baseball officer of the Boston Red Sox, Craig Breslow has completed his first significant transaction.
Richard Fitts, Greg Weissert, and Nicholas Judice are right-handed pitchers who the Red Sox acquired in exchange for right fielder Alex Verdugo, who was transferred to the rival Yankees.
On the last day of the 2023 season, Verdugo talked about the chance for being traded. MLB Trade Rumors projects that he will receive $9.2 million in salary arbitration before he becomes available for free agency following the 2024 season.
In 2023, Verdugo played in 142 games (602 plate appearances), hitting.264 with a.324 on-base percentage,.421 slugging percentage,.745 OPS, 13 home runs, 37 doubles, five triples, 54 RBIs, and 81 runs. With nine defensive runs saved, he led all Red Sox players.
In his first 357 major league games (1,313 plate appearances) from 2017–21, Verdugo batted.290 with a.348 on-base percentage, a.444 slugging percentage, and a.791 OPS. Over the last two seasons, he has played in 294 games (1,246 plate appearances) and has a line of.272/.326/.413/.738.
Fitts, a twenty-one-year-old Auburn product selected by the Yankees in the sixth round of the 2021 draft, finished the previous season with a 3.48 ERA in 27 starts for Double-A Somerset, going 11-5 overall. After being promoted to High-A late in the season in 2022, he started to pitch well.
“The improvement was due in large part to a delivery alteration that allowed him to keep his front side firm so he could better drive the ball down in the zone,” Baseball America noted, ranking him as New York’s No. 16 prospect.
Additionally, the adjustment increased his velocity and sharpened his slider. His four-seamer averaged 2,439 revolutions per minute, hit 96 mph, and hovered at 93 mph. Fitts supported the four-seamer with his usual nasty slider, which flashed plus potential and sat in the low 80s and peaked at 88. He finishes off his toolkit with a changeup in the upper 80s that, with continued use, might become mediocre.
This past June, the Yankees selected 22-year-old Judice out of Louisiana-Monroe in the eighth round of the draft. His career debut has not yet occurred. He weighs 230 pounds and is classified as 6-foot-8.
For the Yankees in ’23, Weissert, 28, had a 4.05 ERA in 17 bullpen appearances. In his 29 career bullpen appearances, he has a 4.60 ERA.
The transaction was first reported by Jeff Passan of ESPN.
