White Sox Designate Former Yankees Reliever Ron Marinaccio For Assignment

In order to free up space on the 40-man roster for free agent acquisition Martín Pérez, the Chicago White Sox dumped Ron Marinaccio just four months after claiming off waivers from the New York Yankees.
Jul 23, 2023; Bronx, New York, USA; New York Yankees relief pitcher Ron Marinaccio (97) reacts after getting the final out against the Kansas City Royals at Yankee Stadium.
Jul 23, 2023; Bronx, New York, USA; New York Yankees relief pitcher Ron Marinaccio (97) reacts after getting the final out against the Kansas City Royals at Yankee Stadium. / John Jones-Imagn Images

The Chicago White Sox have designated relief pitcher Ron Marinaccio for assignment, the team announced Tuesday afternoon.

Chicago needed to free up a spot on their 40-man roster in order to officially sign free agent starting pitcher Martín Pérez, with whom they agreed to a deal on Jan. 8. On top of the $5 million he will make in 2025, Pérez also cost the White Sox a promising 29-year-old reliever in Marinaccio.

In the next seven days, Marinaccio will either get traded, claimed off waivers, released or outrighted.

Marinaccio never threw an inning for the White Sox, who claimed the righty off waivers from the New York Yankees in late September.

Over the course of his three seasons in the Bronx, Marinaccio went 6-5 with a 3.22 ERA, 1.186 WHIP, 10.8 strikeouts per nine innings and a 1.8 WAR. His most successful campaign came in 2022, when he posted a 2.05 ERA, 1.045 WHIP, 11.5 strikeouts per nine innings and a 1.2 WAR across 40 appearances as a rookie.

Marinaccio went 1-0 with a 3.86 ERA, 1.200 WHIP, 9.6 strikeouts per nine innings and a 0.2 WAR in just 16 big league outings in 2024.

Those numbers were inflated by Marinaccio's two shaky performances in September, when he rejoined the MLB roster and allowed five hits, one walk and four earned runs in 2.0 innings pitched. Before that, Marinaccio had a 2.53 ERA, 1.031 WHIP and .181 batting average against on the season.

The Yankees had Marinaccio stashed in Triple-A for most of this past year. He wound up going 1-3 with a 2.04 ERA, 0.983 WHIP, 9.3 strikeouts per nine innings and eight saves, taking the mound 35 times for Scranton/Wilkes-Barre.

It seemed like Marinaccio would compete for a spot on the White Sox's Opening Day roster, but the front office apparently didn't think as highly of him as his stats would suggest.

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Sam Connon
SAM CONNON

Sam Connon is a Staff Writer for Fastball on the Sports Illustrated/FanNation networks. He previously covered UCLA Athletics for Sports Illustrated/FanNation's All Bruins, 247Sports' Bruin Report Online, Rivals' Bruin Blitz, the Bleav Podcast Network and the Daily Bruin, with his work as a sports columnist receiving awards from the College Media Association and Society of Professional Journalists. Connon also wrote for Sports Illustrated/FanNation's New England Patriots site, Patriots Country, and he was on the Patriots and Boston Red Sox beats at Prime Time Sports Talk.