Juan Soto has understandably dominated offseason headlines so far, but getting a head start on the pitching market might be most beneficial for a team like the Red Sox.
Ultimately, the Red Sox should be in the Soto hunt because he’s one of the three or four best baseball players on the planet. If you can convince him to join your team, you do it and figure out the other stuff afterward.
That being said, it sounds like the generational slugger is most likely to land in New York. If that happens, the Red Sox undoubtedly should take some of that money they earmarked for Soto and invest it in the starting rotation.
“We know we need to raise the ceiling of the rotation,” chief baseball officer Craig Breslow told reporters earlier this month at the GM meetings. “I think there are a lot of ways to do that, but we’re going to be really, really open-minded.”
Since then, we’ve learned more about Boston’s offseason plans through various reports. Here are three big takeaways so far:
1. Swing-and-miss is a priority
Red Sox starters ranked 19th in the big leagues in 2024 in swing-and-miss. As a staff, they ranked 26th. Of the 14 playoff teams, only two of them finished below Sox starters in swing-and-miss. That adds some context to perhaps the most surprising offseason decision so far, with the Red Sox electing to give Nick Pivetta a qualifying offer. Pivetta was the only Boston starter to average more than 10 strikeouts per nine innings, and it wasn’t really that close for anyone else. The Red Sox are reportedly in on two-time Cy Young Award winner Blake Snell. Only two starters — Spencer Strider and Tyler Glasnow — have a higher strikeout rate than Snell since the start of 2020.
Even Shane Bieber, coming off Tommy John surgery, has produced some big strikeout numbers throughout his career, and it makes him an interesting buy-low option.
It might also be a reason there hasn’t been a lot of talk (at least not yet) about Corbin Burnes, whose 8.38 strikeouts per nine innings were the worst of his career as a starter.
2. What “really, really open-minded” might actually mean
When Breslow said the Red Sox should be “open-minded” about their desire to improve the rotation, many assumed that meant exploring every avenue to improve the rotation. Makes sense, right? That might still be the case. It should be the case. But what about improving things around the starting pitching? Leaning heavy into the bullpen to shorten the game could certainly help, and the Red Sox have already started retooling the relief corps.
How about the defense, too? Only Miami committed more errors than the Red Sox. Boston finished 23rd in UZR last season. In Statcast’s fielding-run value metric, Boston finished 23rd there, too. Alex Cora certainly would sign off on the idea. There is truth to the notion the 2024 season could have gone much better had the club just played league-average defense. Finding a way to improve that part of the game could certainly help the pitching staff. That seems like an ideal option, if Max Fried is a true option in free agency. Fried doesn’t strike out batters as often as someone like Snell or Garrett Crochet, and if you’re going to make that sort of investment, you should do everything you can to set the player up for success.
3. Why stop at one?
That the Red Sox have been connected to a handful of arms probably speaks to due diligence more than anything else. But maybe Boston wants to add multiple starters. There’s a way to do it without investing $300 million on Fried and Snell, too. How about this? If the Red Sox can’t offer the best package to land Crochet from the White Sox, their collection of young talent probably can’t be decisively beaten. He’s left-handed, under team control, gets swings and misses and fills up the strike zone. It sure looks like a great fit. Then, after letting the dust settle, how about diving into the second wave of free agency for a reunion with Nathan Eovaldi? He can certainly pitch in Boston. His age (35) is a concern, but he’s been more durable than you might expect (at least 25 starts in three of his last four seasons). While he doesn’t log huge strikeout numbers, he gets a good deal of swings and misses, and he fills up the strike zone. If Pivetta ends up getting a massive deal somewhere else, Eovaldi on a short-term deal is an extremely logical replacement.
