The Red Sox made a deal with the Padres on Friday night for closer Craig Kimbrel, and that had the very obvious effect of displacing Koji Uehara. Uehara has been a dominant closer for the Red Sox over the last three seasons, but he’ll turn 41 in April and suffered a non-displaced fracture in his right wrist back in August.
Uehara spoke with president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski and accepted the demotion, per MLB.com’s Ian Browne. Uehara said he is putting the team first and he wants to win a World Series. Since 2013, Uehara has 72 saves with a 1.86 ERA and a 228/26 K/BB ratio over 179 innings. Kimbrel, in that same span of time, has 136 saves with a 1.77 ERA and a 280/68 K/BB ratio over 188 innings.
