Where does Red Sox starting pitching search stand ahead of Winter Meetings?
With MLB ’s Winter Meetings less than a week away, there’s already been some movement on the pitching market. Next week figures to be a busy one and if the Red Sox don’t capitalize within that window, it might be a long winter of playing catch-up.
With that in mind, it’s worth taking stock of where the Red Sox stand in their pitching search and where the breadcrumbs are leading ahead of an important week.
A team source indicated that at this point the Red Sox have had talks with agents of all of the top free-agent starters and know what their markets look like. Compared to previous years, this year has been a relatively busy early market with Aaron Nola , Lance Lynn , Kyle Gibson , Kenta Maeda , Sonny Gray and Luis Severino all signing new deals in the past week.
Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Blake Snell and Jordan Montgomery remain at the top of the market, followed by Lucas Giolito, Michael Wacha, Eduardo Rodriguez, Marcus Stroman, Shota Imanaga, Jake Flaherty and Seth Lugo among the other mid-to-back-end starters available.
As new chief baseball officer Craig Breslow’s tenure in Boston gets underway, his first big signing or two will have an obvious impact, not just on the roster, but on the club’s future payroll. So making the right moves — while not waiting too long — is paramount. Easier said than done. Meanwhile, Breslow will also want to pinpoint the starters he feels can grow within the pitching infrastructure he’s developing. At the big league level, pitching coach Andrew Bailey will lead that charge. Last week, in a Zoom call with the media, Bailey offered some insight into what he relies on when evaluating starters.
“Strikes are everything,” he said. “Stuff in the zone plays. Limiting walks, being aggressive and ahead in counts. Obviously there’s been a big change in stuff and swing-and-miss and velo and all that. There’s a handful of things, but identifying the KPIs (key performance indicators) that we can hold ourselves accountable for is really a priority.”
It’s worth keeping in mind that Bailey helped turn around the career of starter Kevin Gausman in San Francisco, helping to elevate him from a pitcher with a 5.72 ERA in 2019 to one who finished sixth in NL Cy Young Award voting in 2021. It’s certainly possible the Red Sox are looking for pitchers on the margins who fit their plans and who could benefit from working with Bailey. That process could produce good results, but if that’s the only method the Red Sox pursue in adding to their pitching staff, it seems like a risk that could once again leave them shorthanded in the rotation.
Some pitching notes ahead of the Winter Meetings:
• Despite little concrete information on which direction the team is leaning, MassLive had an interesting report this week that Montgomery has been living in Boston and working out at Boston College this offseason because his wife is a dermatology resident at a Boston-area hospital. The Red Sox met in person with Montgomery’s agent Scott Boras at the GM meetings and the left-hander is thought to be among the team’s top targets.
Montgomery turns 31 at the end of December and posted a 3.20 ERA in 188 2/3 innings for the Cardinals and Rangers this season, with a 2.90 ERA in 31 innings this postseason for Texas.
Though living in Boston this winter is thought to be strictly because of his wife’s residency, the proximity for the Red Sox’s purposes can’t hurt as they negotiate and Montgomery gets to know the area.
The Athletic projects Montgomery signing a five-year, $105 million deal while MLB Trade Rumors has him at six years, $150 million.
• The Red Sox have long had a strong scouting presence in Japan with vice president of scouting development and integration Gus Quattlebaum making several trips to Japan in recent years while a veteran Pacific Rim scouting contingent offers year-round feedback. That doesn’t always translate to acquiring the best players, but it still matters. Last winter, one Red Sox scout presciently predicted, well ahead of this year’s frenzy, that Yamamoto would be “the next big story” out of Japan. Unlike Masataka Yoshida , who signed the day he was posted with a contract he couldn’t turn down from the Red Sox, it sounds like Yamamoto is going to take his time deciding.
Yamamoto’s agent Joel Wolfe spoke with Japanese reporters last week on a call, noting: “This is by far the player with the most interested teams that I have ever seen at the beginning of free agency. It’s what we call a perfect storm, where you have one of the finest young pitchers in the world who also is just 25 years old. It’s generational. Something like this only happens once every 10 or 15 years.”
Yamamoto’s resume is exemplary, but his age is one of the biggest factors in the intense interest. Most pitchers don’t hit free agency until their late 20s because they are under team control for six years after debuting. Yamamoto, at age 25, is an outlier; several years in his prime are at stake.
But that also creates a lot of leverage for the right-hander. SNY’s Andy Martino reported recently that Yamamoto isn’t expected to sign until after the Winter Meetings. There will be a round of Zoom meetings taking place this week followed by a second round of in-person meetings in the United States likely set for after the Winter Meetings, which conclude Dec. 7.
That creates a tricky dynamic for the Red Sox, who need pitching. The Red Sox have money to spend, of course, with roughly $50 million before they hit the 2024 luxury tax threshold and they’ve indicated they’re not opposed to going over the threshold having reset this past year. They could attempt to sign either Montgomery or Snell in addition to Yamamoto. If they lose out on Yamamoto, they’d still have one of the other two top starters. But holding out for Yamamoto alone is a significant risk if he choses elsewhere.
How the Red Sox approach the next few weeks will likely have a huge impact on the rotation for the next few years.
(Top photo of Jordan Montgomery: Greg Fiume / )
