A former Boston Red Sox reliever has signed with his second team of the young 2025 season, and his eighth since leaving the Red Sox in 2018.
Craig Kimbrel on June 10 signed a minor league deal with the Texas Rangers. It's his second minor league pact of the year — he signed with the Atlanta Braves organization during spring training and made just one appearance for the big league club before it designated him for assignment on June 7.
Kimbrel spent the first months of the season working up to join the Braves. He posted a 2.00 ERA with 23 strikeouts and eight walks over 18 innings between Double-A Columbus and Triple-A Gwinnett. He pitched one scoreless inning on June 6 before Atlanta DFA'd him after it decided his stuff isn't what it used to be.
That's been a running theme in the later years of Kimbrel's career. His struggles began in 2021 when the Cubs traded him to the White Sox to take over as their closer before the trade deadline. He posted a 5.09 ERA and collected one save in 23 innings. He signed with the Dodgers the following season and was eventually removed from the closer role. Kimbrel earned an All-Star nomination during his stint with the Phillies in 2023, but blew Games 3 and 4 of the NLDS, which the Phillies went on to lose to the Diamondbacks. In 2024, he posted a 5.33 ERA with the Orioles before he was DFA'd in September.
Former Red Sox closer Craig Kimbrel signs minor league deal with Rangers days after being DFA'd by Braves
Kimbrel was a perennial All-Star at the beginning of his career, and mostly lived up to that hype with the Red Sox. He pitched to a 2.44 ERA with 108 saves over his three seasons in Boston from 2016-18, and was an All-Star in each of those years.
While Kenley Jansen was on the Red Sox from 2023-24, he and Kimbrel often traded places on MLB's all-time saves leaderboard. Since Kimbrel really started struggling, though, Jansen has taken a firm hold of fourth place (below Mariano Rivera, Trevor Hoffman and Lee Smith, in that order) with 461 saves in his career. Kimbrel ranks fifth all-time with 440 saves. He'll get another chance to climb up the list and extend his career if he breaks into the major leagues with the Rangers.