The White Sox announced today that right-hander Sean Burke has been recalled from Triple-A Charlotte. In a corresponding move, fellow righty Dan Altavilla has been designated for assignment.

It’s a bit of a rude belated birthday present for Altavilla, who just turned 33 on Monday. He signed a minor league deal with the Sox in the offseason. He opted out of that deal, re-signed and then opted out again, but was eventually put on the major league roster at the end of May.

His numbers on the season look good until you check under the hood. He has thrown 29 innings with a 2.48 earned run average. However, his 17.5% strikeout rate and 12.5% walk rate are both subpar figures. His 51.3% ground ball rate is pretty good but he has largely benefitted from a .197 batting average on balls in play and 89.5% strand rate. His 5.45 FIP and 4.78 SIERA suggest that good luck has kept his ERA down about two to three runs relative to where it should be.

For the Sox, they have little reason to wait for regression to kick in. As mentioned, Altavilla is now 33 years old. He can technically be retained for 2026 via arbitration but the Sox weren’t planning on doing that. For a rebuilding club playing out the string on another losing season, it makes more sense to give innings to younger guys who are hopefully developing into future contributors. Since Altavilla is out of options, he’s been bumped off the 40-man entirely.

With the trade deadline having passed, he’ll have to be placed on waivers. He won’t have too much appeal, given his underlying numbers. He also won’t be postseason eligible for any claiming club, since it’s now beyond the September 1st deadline. Though it is possible some team which has recently suffered a number of injuries needs a healthy and available arm for the short term.

If Altavilla clears waivers, he will have the right to reject an outright assignment and elect free agency. There won’t be a lot of opportunities at this stage of the calendar, so perhaps he would decide to report to Triple-A Charlotte, or he could just go into offseason mode a few weeks early.

Photo courtesy of Patrick Gorski, Imagn Images