{"id":1670,"date":"2025-04-30T14:46:08","date_gmt":"2025-04-30T14:46:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/1670\/"},"modified":"2025-04-30T14:46:08","modified_gmt":"2025-04-30T14:46:08","slug":"guardians-acquire-matt-festa-from-rangers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/1670\/","title":{"rendered":"Guardians Acquire Matt Festa From Rangers"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Guardians announced Wednesday that they\u2019ve acquired right-hander Matt Festa<\/a> from the Rangers in exchange for cash. Festa isn\u2019t on the 40-man roster at the moment, although given the timing of the move, it\u2019s fair to wonder whether this trade was prompted by an opt-out or upward mobility clause in his minor league deal with Texas. If that\u2019s the case, he\u2019ll likely be selected to the major league roster in the next day or two.<\/p>\n

Festa, 32, has pitched in parts of five big league seasons between the Mariners, Mets and Rangers. He carries a career 4.60 ERA in 117 1\/3 MLB frames, during which he\u2019s punched out one-quarter of his opponents and issued walks at a 10.3% clip. Festa has shown promise at times, most notably with the 2022 Mariners, but he\u2019s yet to find consistency in the majors. Injuries have played a notable role, particularly a 2020 Tommy John procedure that wiped out his entire season and sidelined him for most of the 2021 campaign as well.<\/p>\n

Entering the 2024-25 offseason, Festa was on the Rangers\u2019 40-man roster. He lost his spot when Texas signed Chris Martin<\/a>. The Cubs picked him up in exchange for cash following that DFA. Chicago ultimately designated Festa for assignment as well, after which he cleared waivers, elected free agency and returned to the Rangers on a minor league deal.<\/p>\n

Festa is now Cleveland-bound and will head to the Guards on the heels of a dominant showing in Triple-A. The right-hander has rattled off 14 2\/3 shutout innings, striking out 32.3% of his opponents against an 11.3% walk rate. Festa has kept the ball on the ground at a hearty 47.1% clip and done a terrific job avoiding hard contact (85.9 mph average exit velocity, 23.5% hard-hit rate). He hasn\u2019t made any big changes to his arsenal or seen a noticeable change in velocity, but the results are impressive nonetheless.<\/p>\n

More to come.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Guardians announced Wednesday that they\u2019ve acquired right-hander Matt Festa from the Rangers in exchange for cash. Festa…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1671,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[5,1452,4],"class_list":{"0":"post-1670","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-matt-festa","10":"tag-mlb"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/114427460596554902","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1670","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1670"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1670\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1671"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1670"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1670"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1670"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}