No WBC for Pivetta, Phillies get Song
Pitcher focused on season prep
FORT MYERS, FLA. >> Nick Pivetta won’t join Team Canada for next month’s World Baseball Classic after all, Red Sox manager Alex Cora announced on Wednesday.
“He feels like it’s going to be a challenge to get there and perform the way he wants to,” Cora explained.
Pivetta recently had Covid for the third time and was unwell last week. He said this third bout was “way worse” than the previous two, with “a lot of body aches.”
He made the decision to step away after his most recent bullpen session.
The 30-year-old Canadian participated in the last WBC in 2017. Dropping out was “a really difficult decision,” he says, “I take great pride in playing for that team and playing for that country.”
“That was really important to me,” Pivetta said. “Unfortunately, I haven’t been recovering the way I like to.
“I have to focus here on what I need to do here for this team.”
Pivetta “was way ahead” of schedule before, and should still be ready for the start of the season, Cora said. He’ll throw an up-and-down on Saturday and the Red Sox will go from there.
Pitching positives
The Red Sox “feel pretty good” about James Paxton and Chris Sale, two of their veteran arms attempting to mount comebacks this season.
Paxton missed the entire 2022 season, his first under contract with the Red Sox, due to Tommy John recovery and then a lat tear.
Sale’s 2022 campaign began late due to a rib stress fracture and ended prematurely, when a line-drive comebacker from Aaron Hicks fractured the southpaw’s finger in the first inning of his second start in July. He then broke his wrist in a bicycling accident, ending his season for good.
On Saturday, Sale will throw to live hitters for the first time since then.
Noah Song to report to Phillies camp
A little more than two months after the Phillies scooped him up in the Rule 5 Draft, the Navy has transferred Noah Song from active duty to selective reserves, enabling him to play ball.
The Red Sox fourth-round pick in the 2019 draft, Song will report to Phillies camp in Clearwater on Thursday. He’ll reunite with the man who drafted him, now-Phillies president of baseball operations, Dave Dombrowski.
“I knew him at the time (of the 2019 Draft),” Dombrowski told MLB in December, “We loved him. We thought he was a No. 1 Draft choice; we thought he might be the best starting pitcher in the country. We took a gamble at that point because we thought maybe he wouldn’t have to serve, but he ended up having to do that. Being available like this, we really had nothing to lose.”
If not for his military commitment, Song likely would’ve been drafted higher than the fourth round, so there’s a risk this could come back to hurt the Red Sox eventually.
But is this a bad look for the Red Sox or their chief baseball officer, Chaim Bloom, who could’ve added him to the 40-man roster to protect him from the Rule 5 last fall?
Not yet, there are too many individual and organizational factors at play.
From a roster standpoint, Song won’t count against the 40-man until Opening Day. If he doesn’t make the team out of spring training, the Phillies can trade him or place him on waivers; if he clears waivers, they can offer him back to the Red Sox, who wouldn’t even have to keep him on the 40-man roster.
If he makes the team, the Phillies have to keep him on the 26-man roster (injured list, if hurt) for the entire season. He can’t be optioned.
It’s unclear what a 25-yearold who has 17 professional innings in Low-A Lowell under his belt, none since 2019, can even do at this point. Being truly big-league ready, or even worth a roster spot, by March 30 would be a speedof-light development.
Even Dombrowski called him “a long shot by all means” after the Rule 5.
As defending National League champions hoping to return to the postseason for the second consecutive October, the stakes might be too high for the Phillies to carry Song for the entire season. And if they’re willing to trade him, the Red Sox might not be missing out, anyway.
Something to worry about later.
Spring training tidbits
Jorge Alfaro hasn’t had a haircut in three years, he told Christopher Smith of MassLive. His ‘Aquaman’ nickname is spot-on.
Bobby Dalbec hasn’t started taking grounders at shortstop yet, Cora says.
Yu Chang, whom the Red Sox re-signed to a majorleague contract, won’t report to camp until after the WBC.
In a Crestline survey of 1,000 baseball fans across the United States, Red Sox fans were voted 2nd most annoying (Yankees 1st), 2nd most arrogant (also Yankees), 3rd worst-behaved (Yankees again), and the 3rd most likely to complain about MLB’s new rule changes (Yankees 1st, Astros 2nd). No qualms about losing this one to the Yankees.