Tag: cam booser

Red Sox trade lefty reliever Cam Booser to White Sox for pitching prospect Yhoiker Fajardo

The Red Sox simultaneously created a 40-man roster spot and added a young pitching prospect to the organizational pipeline by connecting on their second trade in as many weeks with the White Sox on Saturday evening.

In exchange for left-handed reliever Cam Booser, who forged a 3.38 ERA in 43 relief appearances (42 2/3 innings) as a 32-year-old rookie this past season, Boston acquired right-hander Yhoiker Fajardo from Chicago.

Fajardo, 18, made his professional debut in the Dominican Summer League this year after signing with the White Sox for $400,000 as an international free agent coming out of Venezuela in February. The Villa de Cura native earned DSL Mid-Season All-Star honors en route to posting a 3.91 ERA (2.50 FIP) with 64 strikeouts to eight walks in 13 starts (50 2/3 innings) for Chicago’s rookie-level affiliate. Opposing hitters batted .260 against him.

Among the 19 Dominican Summer League pitchers who eclipsed the 50-inning mark in 2024, Fajardo ranked first in FIP and xFIP (2.33), third in strikeouts per nine innings (11.37), strikeout rate (30.2 percent), and swinging-strike rate (43.4 percent), and fourth in walks per nine innings (1.42), walk rate (3.8 percent), and groundball rate (55.6 percent), per FanGraphs. He also produced the highest BABIP (.365) of that group, which suggests that luck may not have necessarily been on his side.

Listed at 6-foot-3 and 181-185 pounds, Fajardo has been described by Baseball America’s Ben Badler as “a good athlete with an easy delivery that he repeats well from a consistent release point on all of his pitches.” The projectable righty still has plenty of room to grow physically but currently sits between 90-95 mph with his fastball while mixing in a low-80s slider and an occasional hard changeup.

Barring a surprise, Fajardo — who does not turn 19 until next October — will likely open the 2025 season in the Florida Complex League.

(Picture of Cam Booser: Maddie Malhotra/Boston Red Sox/Getty Images)

Red Sox sign left-hander Cam Booser to minor-league deal

The Red Sox have signed free agent left-hander Cam Booser to a minor-league contract, per the club’s transactions log on MLB.com.

Booser, 30, spent the first half of the 2022 season in the Diamondbacks organization after signing a minors pact with Arizona last February. The lefty posted a 6.48 ERA and 6.60 FIP with 30 strikeouts to 22 walks in 19 relief appearances (25 innings) for Double-A Amarillo before being released by the Sod Poodles in July.

Less than a month after getting cut loose by the Diamondbacks, Booser latched on with the Lancaster Barnstormers of the independent Atlantic League. He appeared in 13 games for Lancaster down the stretch and pitched to a 4.63 ERA with 15 strikeouts to six walks over 11 2/3 innings of work.

A native of the Seattle-area, Booser has had an interesting journey in professional baseball. He originally attended the esteemed Oregon State University, but he underwent Tommy John surgery after his freshman year and missed the entirety of his sophomore season as a result.

After transferring to Central Arizona College as a junior, Booser was passed over in the 2013 amateur draft. He then signed with the Twins as an undrafted free agent and made his pro debut in the Gulf Coast League that August. Booser did not graduate past the rookie-ball level until the onset of the 2015 campaign.

In 32 appearances for Class-A Cedar Rapids that year, Booser forged a 3.72 ERA and 3.57 xFIP to go along with 64 strikeouts to 40 walks across 46 2/3 innings of relief. He was named a Midwest League All-Star for his efforts, but that success did not carry over into 2016. Booser instead struggled to an 8.53 ERA (6.24 FIP) in 21 total outings (25 1/3 innings) between Cedar Rapids and High-A Fort Myers.

The following June, Booser was handed down a 50-game suspension for testing positive for a drug of abuse for the second time (he was previously suspended for testing positive for marijuana in 2015). Over the course of the 2017 season, Booser pitched in just three games. He elected to retire from baseball that November.

“I needed a break,” Booser told The Athletic’s Zach Buchanan back in April. “I needed, for my own mental side, to get away and figure out who I was off the field.”

And so Booser returned home to join a carpenters union. He worked construction around northwest Washington state and gave baseball lessons on the side.

In late 2020, Booser got the itch to pitch again and began throwing off a mound at a local facility. He started to work with current Mets pitching coordinator and former Driveline Baseball instructor Kyle Rogers before landing a contract with the Chicago Dogs of the independent American Association in July 2021.

Booser impressed with Chicago (1.93 ERA in 21 1/3 innings) and leveraged his performance there into a minor-league deal with the Diamondbacks as soon as he was officially released by the Twins last winter. During his time with Arizona’s Double-A affiliate, the 6-foot-3, 225-pound southpaw sat in the high-90s and topped out at 100 mph with his four-seam fastball. He also works with a low-90s cutter and mid-80s slider.

Booser, who turns 31 in May, has been assigned to Double-A Portland. He should provide Sea Dogs manager Chad Epperson with another left-handed relief option to complement the likes of Skylar Arias and Brendan Cellucci, among others.

(Picture of Cam Booser: John E. Moore III/Getty Images)