Red Sox bring back Josh Osich

Tuesday night, a little more than 24 hours after the Red Sox had non-tendered him, it was reported that Marco Hernández was coming back on a split contract. Wednesday morning, the deal was officially announced. Along with said official announcement, we also learned left-handed reliever Josh Osich — also non-tendered on Monday — was coming back as well.

As with Hernández, Osich will be on a split deal. His base salary for his time in the majors is $850,000, which is $150,000 less than he was projected to make in arbitration.

As a reminder, a split contract means he will only be paid this much (and thus only count against the luxury tax for this amount) while he is on the major-league roster. It means, in essence, the non-tendering of both of these players was mostly an accounting move.

Osich is on the bubble for making the Opening Day roster at this point, and honestly is probably on the outside looking in. Claimed off waivers from the White Sox at the start of the offseason, the southpaw is coming off a solid season in which he was mostly league-average thanks to a major improvement with his control. Over his career, he has been much better against lefties (though not always consistently year-to-year), though this is less important with the new rule forcing pitchers to face at least three batters in each appearance within the same inning.

Osich is now added back to the 40-man roster, and with him and Hernández back aboard the roster is back up to 36 players.