It seemed relatively certain that Alex Avila had played his final game in a Detroit Tigers uniform.
Wednesday, that became official, as the former Tigers catcher – and the son of new general manager Al Avila – signed a one-year, $2.5 million deal with the Chicago White Sox.
CBS Sports’ Jon Heyman was the first to report the signing.
“Alex gives us a veteran presence behind the plate who provides solid defense and a productive left-handed bat,” White Sox GM Rick Hahn said in a tweet by the team’s official Twitter account.
Al Avila said at his introductory press conference that a situation like his, with his son as an employee, “sometimes it runs its course,” and in his end-of-season news conference said that of the Tigers’ free agents, Alex was probably the one least likely to return.
“I would think,” Al Avila said, when asked if there would be knocks on Alex’s door. “He was saying his good-byes like he was not coming back at all. Which, in reality, I would say it would be probable, but just because he will probably get something out there which might be more beneficial to him. But if you really look at most major league clubs that have a right-handed hitting catcher, they’re all looking for a left-handed hitting catcher, and that is a hard thing to find. Probably not the hardest, but one of the more difficult things to find in baseball.”
And Alex knew that his final home start in September was likely meaningful.
“As far as it being strange or anything, that’s not strange. But what I’m thinking about is that this could be my last game as a Tiger. As much as I would like to come back, I don’t know what’s going to happen,” Alex Avila said.
“I would love to be back here, but at the same time I think that’s a decision that will partly be mine, but it depends on what other teams view me as. What role they see me playing for them. If there’s teams out there that see me as playing a majority of the time, platooning, getting a majority of the time, that’s an opportunity I would have to look at. It has nothing to do with my feelings toward anyone. A player just wants to play baseball.”
Alex caught 633 games in a Tigers uniform (he played in 683 total), helping guide a pitching staff that was the driving force in four straight American League Central Division titles (2011, 2012, 2013, 2014).
“The history we … have, as a teammates. The success that we’ve been able to have here, not only individually but as a team,” Avila said. “Tigers is all I know. For me, that’s been six of the best years of my life. The memories that I have here I’ll never forget.”