Red Sox to Select Wyatt Olds, Option Raymond Burgos in Corresponding Move

The Boston Red Sox plan to make a late roster adjustment by selecting the contract of right-hander Wyatt Olds, according to Alex Speier of The Boston Globe as reported by MLB Trade Rumors. The move is paired with a corresponding transaction that will send left-hander Raymond Burgos to the minors (optioned) so the club can keep its active roster at the appropriate size.

Roster management is especially tight in August, when teams balance bullpen usage, travel needs, and the desire to carry fresh arms into the season’s final stretch. Selecting Olds’s contract indicates the Red Sox intend to put him immediately into the mix, whether as a spot starter option, long relief depth, or a bullpen piece, depending on how the manager deploys pitchers on a given day.

Under the transaction described, Boston’s 40-man roster has three vacancies available, so adding Olds would increase the organization’s 40-man total. MLB Trade Rumors reports that the selection would take the Red Sox from 37 to 38 on the 40-man, indicating the club has room on the larger roster even as it makes an active roster change.

The corresponding option of Burgos is designed to offset the active roster spot created by Olds’s selection. In practice, this kind of paired move helps teams maintain roster balance, since teams generally cannot add a player to the active roster without making room for them. The Red Sox are effectively swapping one pitcher on the active staff for another, rather than adding to the total number of pitchers they carry at the major-league level.

For Olds, the selection represents a direct step back to the majors. For Burgos, the option suggests the Red Sox still view him as within their near-term plans, just not on the active roster at this moment. Optioning does not end a player’s opportunity to return quickly, but it does change daily usage, since minor-league assignment usually comes with different game opportunities and development routines than a major-league bullpen role.

This also fits the broader pattern of late-season roster churn around bullpen depth. Even when a team’s pitching staff is stable on paper, injuries, fatigue, and one-off strategic matchups can force quick changes. Olds’s selection and Burgos’s option point to Boston making that kind of targeted adjustment, aiming to ensure the active roster has the right mix of arms for upcoming needs.

What to watch next is the practical impact of the decision. Monitor how quickly Olds draws into a bullpen workload, whether he appears in middle innings or in higher-leverage situations, and whether Burgos remains in the organizational plans as a candidate to return to the active roster if roster needs shift.