Guardians Outright Pedro Avila
By Anthony Franco | January 29, 2025 at 10:41pm CDT

The Guardians have sent reliever Pedro Avila outright to Triple-A Columbus, according to the transaction log at MLB.com. Cleveland had designated him for assignment a week ago when they signed Paul Sewald. Avila has been outrighted once before in his career, which gives him the right to elect minor league free agency.

Avila, 28, was a bullpen workhorse this year. He took the ball 54 times and tossed 82 2/3 relief innings between the Padres and Guardians, fourth in the majors behind Ryan Yarbrough, Derek Law and Luke Weaver. While most of Avila’s work came in low-leverage relief, he managed solid results. Avila turned in a 3.81 earned run average with a decent 23.2% strikeout percentage and 45% grounder rate. The righty had a slightly higher than average 10.2% walk rate, but he was generally an effective bullpen piece for skipper Stephen Vogt. He added four scoreless innings during the postseason.

That was Avila’s second straight decent year. He provided San Diego 50 1/3 innings of 3.22 ERA ball while striking out nearly a quarter of opponents in 2023. That makes it somewhat surprising that he didn’t attract any interest on the waiver wire. Avila is out of minor league options, though, so any team that claimed him would’ve needed to keep him in the MLB bullpen or designate him themselves. Apparently no team was willing to commit him a roster spot.

As mentioned, Avila now decides whether to stick with the Guardians or test the market. That he went unclaimed on waivers suggests he’d probably be looking at a minor league deal with a non-roster Spring Training invite if he elects free agency.