Adam Ottavino on the trade that sent him from Yankees to Red Sox

For current New York Mets reliever Adam Ottavino, the 2021 trade that sent him from the New York Yankees to the Boston Red Sox is still a head-scratcher.

In only the sixth trade between the bitter American League East rivals since the Divisional Era began in 1969, Ottavino was sent from the Bronx to Boston along with pitching prospect Frank German and cash to cover part of Ottavino’s contract in exchange for a player to be named later. Ottavino had signed with the New York Yankees prior to the 2019 season after a successful seven-year run with the Colorado Rockies. In his two seasons with the Yankees, Ottavino lowered his ERA to 2.76 while working 84.2 innings over 97 games.

“My dream was to play on the Yankees,” said Ottavino, who was born in Brooklyn and grew up as a Yankees fan. “As soon as I knew they were interested, it was hard for me to even consider any other team. It was just something that had to happen.”

However, while Ottavino flourished in his first season in the Bronx, he struggled in the pandemic-shortened season of 2020, with his ERA ballooning to 5.89 (3.52 FIP).

But those numbers had little to do with the reason why Ottavino was sent the following offseason to Boston in a January trade. Yankees general manager Brian Cashman called it a “payroll flexibility maneuver” when he made the decision to trade Ottavino to the Red Sox.

For Ottavino, the trade itself wasn’t a complete surprise, but being sent from the Yankees to the Red Sox was.

“It was a crazy turn of events being on the Yankees one second and the next second being on the Red Sox. It was just weird,” Ottavino said while in Denver as part of the New York Mets bullpen this past weekend. “It was really hard. I was really tight with a lot of the Yankees guys and I was really on board with what was going on there. The next thing I know, I’m on the rival team.”

Ottavino pitched one season in Boston, appearing in 62.0 innings over 69 games and logging a 4.21 ERA/3.96 FIP/1.452 WHIP while registering the second-highest number of saves (11, behind the 24 earned by Matt Barnes).

With the trade to Boston came the return trips to New York. Ottavino changed dugouts and, of course, noticed a change from the fans as well.

“The Yankees fans flipped on me quick. I struggled in the 2019 playoffs (posting an 11.57 ERA in five ALCS appearances as the Yankees fell to the Houston Astros) and they were already on the fence about me. Then I had one bad game in 2020 and they were out on me,” Ottavino said. “But when we (Red Sox) went to Yankee Stadium last year, it was kind of split down the middle. Half the Yankees fans would tell me they missed me and wished I was still there while the other half telling me I couldn’t handle it there and they were glad that I was out of town.”

Ottavino said the trade added a new and tougher dimension to taking the mound any time he did against the Yankees, a team he faced eight times in 2021. In the 6.2 innings going against his old club, Ottavino had a 9.45 ERA as the Yankees slashed .308/.457/.539 against him.

“It was a big moment for me to come in and not only deal with the extra distractions, but get past them,” Ottavino said of New York batters knowing his pitching style so well. “It added to the difficulty of the game.”

One thing that stayed the same about his time in New York and Boston was that the Astros ended both seasons in the ALCS, keeping Ottavino from his dream of pitching in the World Series. He hopes to make that dream a reality this season with the Mets.