The seemingly endless pipeline of “former Yankees arms to Red Sox bullpen contributors” has added another member to the parade. And, based on our experience last season, the best of him may be quite good, but is unlikely to last long-term.
There’s a chance that Nick Burdi works out for the Red Sox. That chance seems very similar to the one the Yankees took last year, when they promoted Burdi and his hard fastball/dancing breaking stuff to break camp with the team for Opening Day.
2024 certainly featured Burdi’s best regular-season results of his big-league career. He carried a 1.86 ERA. He struck out over 11 batters per nine innings. He also never appeared in an MLB game after May 23 against Seattle, and that might be the easiest “per nine” rate stat to calculate in baseball history, considering he only threw 9 2/3 innings total on the season.
Red Sox promote Nick Burdi after injury-plagued season with Yankees
Burdi suffered through two separate injury absences last year, which was especially depressing considering the long route he took to reach the bigs. The righty, still only 32 years old, has undergone Tommy John surgery twice — once in 2017, and again after desperately trying to avoid it after the 2020 season ended. He rejoined the majors with the 2023 Cubs, but was felled by an emergency appendectomy after just a handful of appearances. Last season in the Bronx, he missed about a month with a hip injury before returning, then landing on the 60-Day injured list with further inflammation in the same joint.
Burdi sparkled on the surface, but his 5.44 FIP and 1.448 WHIP indicated he was likely to head in the wrong direction if he’d been allowed to continue. This season, he’s sparkling again with the WooSox, putting up an eye-popping 0.54 ERA and 25 Ks in 16 2/3 innings. Maybe his magic will be harnessed in Boston uninterrupted. That tends to happen there rather than here, after all.
Whether the move is successful or not, the Red Sox deserve credit for their creativity here. Burdi has earned another shot, and they’ve shuffled things around to make sure he received one.
They also deserve to be dinged for plundering the Yankees yet again. It’s getting old. Best of luck to Burdi, though, as well as Garrett Whitlock, Richard Fitts, Aroldis Chapman and Greg Weissert.
