Chicago Cubs claim pitcher Anthony Varvaro off waivers

On Sunday afternoon, the Chicago Cubs claimed right-handed pitcher Anthony Varvaro off of waivers from the Boston Red Sox, as reported by ESPN. In a corresponding move, the Cubs have designated Joseph Ortiz for assignment in order to make room on the 40-man roster for Varvaro.

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Varvaro is a veteran arm for the bullpen with mixed results throughout his major league career. In his six-year career, he has played for the Seattle Mariners (drafted by Seattle in 2005), the Atlanta Braves, and the Boston Red Sox.He has played in 166 major league games and has posted a stat line of 7-9, 20 holds, a save, 150 K’s, 1.27 WHIP and a 3.23 ERA.

The 30-year-old reliever was designated for assignment by the Red Sox on April 29 after he was acquired in a trade involving Aaron Kurcz back in mid-December. During his time with Boston, he pitched 11 innings with a 0-1 record, five earned runs, and a 4.09 ERA.

Varvaro has four pitches in his repertoire, a four-seam fastball, a curve, changeup, and a sinker. He mainly relies on his fastball that runs in the low 90’s, while his curveball is considered his secondary pitch which ranges around 80 MPH and generates a good deal of grounders. The change-up hits the mid 80’s and causes a lot of fly balls.

He does have a sinker, but according to brooksbaseball.net – he’s only thrown it 15 times this season. Varvaro does his best work against left-handed hitters – holding them to a .201 batting average, but righties find success against him with a .268 batting average.

Boston Red Sox manager John Farrell recently spoke to the Boston Herald about the direction in which their bullpen was going while mentioning a strength of Chicago’s newest reliever, saying:

"“We’re trying to get a number of guys on track. To single any one person out, any one pitcher out is probably not the right approach given the work we have with the group of guys here. Again, Anthony’s strength has been against left-handed hitting in the past. The fact that we’ve got three left-handers in the bullpen, the fit was to go the direction we are.” Farrell via the Boston Herald."

Like Jon Lester, he’ll be reunited with catcher David Ross, who he played with for two seasons as members of the Atlanta Braves. With Ross, Varvaro pitched 19 1/3 innings, had a 3.72 ERA while holding batters to a .181 batting average.

As for Joseph Ortiz, he made eight appearances with Triple-A Iowa while holding a 0-1, one save, and a 3.38 ERA. Ortiz is also a reliever that was claimed on waivers by the Chicago Cubs in 2014 after spending the majority of the year on the disabled list and in the minors with the Texas Rangers.

Varvaro will add some more experience to the Cubs’ bullpen and hopefully a new team and pitching coach Chris Bosio will be able to get him back on track so he can become a valuable addition to the pen that could use some help with the amount of injuries they’ve had to deal with thus far.

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