Garrett Whitlock

Red Sox Notes: Refsnyder, Whitlock, Pivetta

By Nick Deeds | September 28, 2024 at 10:15pm CDT

Back in August, Red Sox outfielder Rob Refsnyder seemed uncertain about whether he wanted to continue his playing career in 2025 or begin working towards his post-playing goal of moving into a front office role somewhere in the sport. MassLive’s Chris Cotillo reported this evening, however, that Refsnyder now appears to have made up his mind to continue playing in 2025.

“I’ll be 34 in spring training. I could see myself playing for a couple more years honestly, if the situation is right,” Refsnyder said, as relayed by Cotillo. “Especially if I’m here.”

Refsnyder has made his desire to remain in Boston abundantly clear, and it seems all but certain his wish will be granted at least for next season. The Red Sox hold a $2MM club option of the 33-year-old for next year, a bargain price considering his excellent production with the club this season. In 307 trips to the plate across 93 games played this year, Refsnyder has slashed an excellent .283/.359/.471 (130 wRC+) in his part time role as a backup outfielder and platoon bat against left-handed pitching. Overall, Refsnyder has posted a solid .278/.367/.427 slash line (121 wRC+) with 18 homers and 10 steals in 727 plate appearances since he first donned a Red Sox uniform back in 2022.

Refsnyder’s likely return will place him in the midst of what is sure to be a very crowded outfield mix next season. While Tyler O’Neill figures to become a free agent this winter, Jarren Duran and Wilyer Abreu both appear poised to return to the club. Meanwhile, Ceddanne Rafaela has split time between the outfield and infield this year but is best suited to playing center field, where he excels defensively. That leaves the club with a full outfield before even considering the fact that top prospect Roman Anthony is banging on the door to the majors and figures to be ready for big league action as soon as early 2025, and it’s even possible that the club could look to re-sign O’Neill or a similarly capable right-handed slugger this winter. The DH offers little help in breaking up the logjam in Boston either due to the presence of Masataka Yoshida, who remains under contract through the end of the 2027 season.

Given the glut of outfield talent available to the Red Sox for the moment, it would hardly be a shock to see the club pursue a trade this winter, perhaps leveraging that outfield depth in order to bolster the club’s pitching staff. The rotation in Boston has been quite good with a 3.77 ERA that ranks top five in the majors this year, but a bullpen that posted a lackluster 4.44 ERA this year and figures to lose both Kenley Jansen and Chris Martin in free agency is an obvious place for potential improvement. With that being said, it’s also possible the bullpen could get some internal reinforcements headed into next year.

Right-hander Garrett Whitlock underwent an internal brace surgery on his right elbow back in May and has been working his way back to the mound ever since, with Cotillo among those to note that he threw a baseball for the first time since going under the knife recently. As Whitlock works his way back in hopes of a healthier 2025 season, Cotillo notes that after years of both the righty and the Red Sox believing he was a long-term rotation piece for the club, Whitlock is now more focused on staying healthy.

“Honestly, I’ve told them, whatever can keep me healthy (is the best role),” Whitlock said yesterday, as relayed by Cotillo. “That’s where I’m at. We’re going to dive in with medical and see where that goes.”

If Boston brass and Whitlock believe that a move to the bullpen could help keep the righty healthier going forward, that would add a potential high-leverage arm to the club’s mix that could help them to make up for the impending losses of Jansen and Martin. The right-hander sports a strong 3.39 ERA overall for his career, but that figure plummets to a sparkling 2.65 when looking only at his 132 2/3 innings of work out of the bullpen. Combined with his 28.1% career strikeout rate out of the bullpen, it’s easy to imagine Whitlock becoming one of the game’s most fearsome relievers if he fully committed to the role.

A move to the bullpen for Whitlock would leave the club with a hole in the rotation, however, and that would only be further exacerbated by the impending departure of veteran righty Nick Pivetta. It’s been a solid year for the 31-year-old hurler, as he’s posted a 4.14 ERA with a 4.06 FIP in 145 2/3 innings of work that should make him an attractive option for clubs in need of help towards the back of their rotation this winter. That’s a description that fits the Red Sox, who currently have only Tanner Houck, Kutter Crawford, and Brayan Bello penciled into their rotation. Lucas Giolito figures to return from elbow surgery at some point next year, and the club has solid depth options like Quinn Priester, Richard Fitts, and Cooper Criswell available as well, but there’s plenty of room in the club’s starting mix another addition.

Even so, it’s unclear if a return to Boston is in the cards for Pivetta next year. The right-hander told Alex Speier of the Boston Globe recently that there have been no talks between he and the front office about extending their relationship beyond this season, though he did express an openness to returning to Boston next year. With that being said, after a disappointing season that’s seen the club finish in the vicinity of .500, it’s possible that the club could look to improve its rotation by signing a more impactful free agent than Pivetta. Former Red Sox hurler Nathan Eovaldi and left-hander Sean Manaea are among the mid-rotation arms that figure to be available this winter who would likely represent an upgrade over Pivetta for Boston.

Red Sox Select Jamie Westbrook

By Nick Deeds | June 2, 2024 at 10:38am CDT

10:38am: Cora told reporters (including MassLive’s Christopher Smith) this morning that Gonzalez’s trip to the shelf figures to be close to the ten day minimum. While the injury doesn’t appear to be a particularly serious one, Cora noted that he was likely to need “a few days” and that the club was likely to need the roster spot in the wake of Grissom’s injury.

9:09am: The Red Sox announced a series of roster moves today, including their expected placement of second baseman Vaughn Grissom on the 10-day injured list with a right hamstring strain. Joining Grissom on the 10-day IL is utility infielder Romy Gonzalez, who was shelved with a left hamstring strain. Grissom and Gonzalez will be replaced on the club’s active roster by infielder Bobby Dalbec and utility man Jamie Westbrook. Making room for Westbrook on the club’s 40-man roster is Garrett Whitlock, who was transferred to the 60-day IL.

With Grissom and Gonzalez both joining Triston Casas on the injured list, the infield mix in Boston has been almost completely overhauled. Dominic Smith and Garrett Cooper figure to continue holding down first base in the absence of Casas, while superstar third baseman Rafael Devers will remain in his regular role at the hot corner with the club. Up the middle, the Red Sox now have Westbrook as a backup option at both shortstop and second base, where David Hamilton and Enmanuel Valdez figure to be the club’s primary options, respectively. Dalbec has primarily been a corner infielder throughout his career but has made brief cameos at the big league level at both second base and shortstop, making him a possible emergency backup option for the Red Sox.

That makeshift infield mix has produced mixed results so far this season. Smith and Cooper have both struggled to hit much at first base, with Smith’s .202/.287/.286 slash line slightly beating out Cooper’s .182/.250/.255. Dalbec appears unlikely to help bolster that first base mix very much after he hit just .132/.207/.170 in a 22-game stint in Boston earlier this year, though his .860 OPS in 115 trips to the plate at the Triple-A level since then could provide some reason for optimism about his ability to contribute.

Things have looked a bit better for the Red Sox up the middle, where Hamilton has shown himself to be an able replacement for Trevor Story in 34 games as the club’s fill-in shortstop. In 102 trips to the plate this season, Hamilton has slashed an above-average .269/.333/.398 while playing passable defense at shortstop. Unfortunately, Valdez has struggled to hit to this point in the season at the keystone, slashing just .179/.206/.358 in 31 games with the club.

That could create a path to semi-regular playing time for Westbrook while Grissom is on the shelf, as the Massachusetts native owns a career .281/.375/.457 slash line at the Triple-A level including a .267/.364/.436 in 198 plate appearances this year. If the minor league journeyman, who will celebrate his 29th birthday later this month, can hit anything close to that in his first taste of big league action, he should have the opportunity to establish himself as a firm piece of the club’s infield mix going forward.

As for Whitlock, the right-hander’s placement on the injured list is hardly a surprise after he underwent an internal brace procedure on his right elbow that ended his season last week. Grissom and Gonzalez both figure to be back in action at some point, though specific timetables for return are not known. Grissom’s hamstring strain was described as “mild” by manager Alex Cora last night, and little is known regarding Gonzalez’s injury beyond the diagnosis provided by the Red Sox alongside his placement on the shelf.

Garrett Whitlock To Undergo Internal Brace Procedure

By Anthony Franco | May 30, 2024 at 3:50pm CDT

MAY 30: Whitlock will indeed have the internal brace procedure today, Cora tells reporters. Chris Cotillo of MassLive was among those to relay the news on X.

MAY 25: Whitlock is tentatively set to undergo an internal brace procedure, he told The Athletic’s Jen McCaffrey and other reporters. The details will be confirmed after more testing this coming week. Assuming the surgery takes place as planned, Whitlock will miss roughly 11-12 months in recovery, as opposed to the longer 13-15 month timeline associated with Tommy John surgeries.

MAY 20: Garrett Whitlock has suffered ligament damage in his throwing elbow, Red Sox manager Alex Cora announced to reporters (including Chris Cotillo of MassLive). The Boston right-hander will go for further evaluation tomorrow to determine whether he can avoid surgery.

This was the outcome which the team and its fans feared last week. Whitlock reported elbow soreness coming out of a rehab start for Triple-A Worcester on Wednesday. He’d been working back from an oblique strain that had shelved him since the middle of April and had been hoping to return to the MLB team in the coming days.

Instead, there looks to be a good chance that his 2024 season is over. If Whitlock does need surgery, it would threaten his ’25 campaign as well. Whitlock has already undergone a Tommy John procedure in his career. That came back in 2019 when he was pitching in the Yankees farm system. Whitlock also had two elbow-related injured list stints in 2023, the latter of which cost him five weeks between July and August. Neither of those involved any ligament damage, but this injury unfortunately appears to be more serious.

The 27-year-old hasn’t had a full season as a starting pitcher since his time in the minors. He was an excellent multi-inning relief weapon for his first two MLB campaigns. Boston gave him 10 starts last year before his July injured list placement. Whitlock worked out of the bullpen after returning. The Sox moved him back into the starting staff to open this year. He allowed only four runs in 18 1/3 innings prior to the oblique injury.

Cooper Criswell has stepped into the rotation behind Brayan Bello, Nick Pivetta, Kutter Crawford and Tanner Houck. Signed to a $1MM contract last winter after being non-tendered by the Rays, Criswell has been quietly excellent through his first 29 1/3 frames for the Sox. He owns a 2.76 ERA with a solid 23.3% strikeout percentage and a tidy 5.8% walk rate.

Criswell, who will take the ball tomorrow against his old team in Tampa Bay, should hold a rotation spot for the foreseeable future. Starting pitching could be an area that first-year chief baseball officer Craig Breslow and his staff look to address around the deadline, assuming they hang in postseason contention. Boston blanked the Rays this evening to pull back to .500 at 24-24. They’re long shots to stick with the Yankees and Orioles at the top of the AL East but are firmly in the Wild Card picture.

While Boston’s rotation has been a surprising strength thus far, their front five is light on experience. Pivetta is the only member of the group who has ever started 30 MLB games in a season. He and Bello are the only ones who have surpassed the 130-inning threshold at the big league level.

That lack of volume is a big reason that Boston signed Lucas Giolito, who had been one of the league’s most durable pitchers, to a two-year free agent deal. Giolito immediately down with a partially torn UCL in Spring Training. He underwent an internal brace procedure and will miss the entire season.

Even if Whitlock is able to avoid going under the knife, he’s certainly in for a long-term absence. The Sox will move him to the 60-day injured list when they need a 40-man roster spot. Whitlock, who signed an extension back in 2022, is playing this season on a $3.25MM salary. He’ll make successive salaries of $5.25MM and $7.25MM over the next two seasons. Boston holds a $10.5MM option on his services for the 2027 campaign.

Red Sox Shut Down Garrett Whitlock Due To Elbow Soreness

By Anthony Franco | May 17, 2024 at 11:01pm CDT

The Red Sox are pausing Garrett Whitlock’s throwing program after the right-hander reported elbow soreness, manager Alex Cora told reporters on Friday (link via Chris Cotillo of MassLive). He’ll head for imaging over the weekend to determine the severity.

Whitlock has spent exactly one month on the injured list, but not for an elbow problem. A left oblique strain knocked him out of action after four starts. He made a rehab appearance at Triple-A Worcester on Wednesday. Whitlock looked good in that outing, tossing 4 2/3 scoreless innings with five strikeouts. Cora indicated he felt fine during the appearance before experiencing the elbow discomfort the following day.

Boston expected that Whitlock would return to the MLB rotation at the start of next week. That’s no longer the case. The test results will determine how long he’s out of action. Whitlock had two elbow-related injured list stints in 2023, the latter of which cost him five weeks between July and August. Back in 2019, he underwent Tommy John surgery while a prospect in the Yankee organization. Ironically, that procedure is likely a big reason Whitlock ever landed in Boston, as it presumably contributed to New York’s mistake of leaving him off their 40-man roster before the 2020 Rule 5 draft.

Whitlock hasn’t had a full season as a starting pitcher since his time in the minors. He was an excellent multi-inning relief weapon for his first two MLB campaigns. Boston gave him 10 starts last year before his July injured list placement. He worked out of the bullpen after returning. The Sox moved him back into the starting staff to open this year. He allowed only four runs in 18 1/3 innings prior to the oblique injury.

Red Sox Notes: Grissom, Pivetta, Bello, Yoshida

By Anthony Franco | May 3, 2024 at 6:57pm CDT

Vaughn Grissom will make his Red Sox debut tonight against the Twins. Boston reinstated the young infielder from the 10-day injured list, optioning Bobby Dalbec to Triple-A Worcester in a corresponding move. Grissom gets the nod at the keystone and is hitting seventh against Chris Paddack.

Acquired from the Braves for Chris Sale, Grissom entered camp as Boston’s expected second baseman. Groin and hamstring issues (plus a recent bout with the flu) kept him off the field for the first five weeks. That paired with a season-ending injury to Trevor Story to leave the Sox very shorthanded in the middle infield. They moved Ceddanne Rafaela in to handle shortstop.

It’s been more of a revolving door at second base, where no one has produced. Boston second basemen are hitting an MLB-worst .179/.202/.299 over 125 plate appearances. Enmanuel Valdez and Pablo Reyes took the majority of those reps. Valdez was recently optioned, while Reyes has been designated for assignment.

Grissom, 23, brings quite a bit more offensive upside. He’s coming off a .330/.419/.501 line in Triple-A in the Atlanta system. The Braves’ loaded infield limited him to 64 big league contests over the past two seasons, but he turned in a solid .287/.339/.407 showing. Grissom collected 10 hits (eight singles and two doubles) over nine games on his minor league rehab stint.

Manager Alex Cora provided positive updates on a handful of injured pitchers this evening (link via MassLive’s Christopher Smith). Nick Pivetta is expected to return to the rotation during next week’s series in Atlanta. The righty tossed three innings in a rehab start with Worcester yesterday. While the results weren’t good — he allowed four runs on three hits and four walks — the Sox don’t feel he needs another minor league appearance. Pivetta dominated through two starts before a mild flexor strain sent him to the IL on April 9.

Brayan Bello and Garrett Whitlock are a bit further behind, but both are set to take steps in their respective recoveries. Bello, who went on the shelf on April 21 with lat tightness, will make one rehab start at Double-A Portland and could return to Boston by the end of next week. Whitlock is set to throw a bullpen session tomorrow, his first mound work since an oblique strain knocked him out on April 17.

Despite the injuries, the Red Sox’s rotation has been fantastic. Boston starters enter play Friday with an MLB-best 2.03 ERA. They’re ninth in strikeout rate and sixth in strikeout/walk rate differential. Kutter Crawford and Tanner Houck have each logged around 40 innings of sub-2.00 ERA ball. Bello, Whitlock and Pivetta were each performing well before going on the IL. Depth arms Cooper Criswell and Josh Winckowski have stepped in effectively in their respective trio of starts.

The news wasn’t universally positive for Boston, however. Designated hitter Masataka Yoshida is heading for a second opinion after his recent IL placement, tweets the Boston Globe’s Pete Abraham. The Sox initially announced his injury as a left thumb sprain. It’s not entirely clear what the initial evaluation suggested, but news of a second opinion is at least somewhat alarming.

Yoshida started the season slowly but had begun to find his form before the injury. He’s hitting .275/.348/.388 over 89 plate appearances for the year. Injuries to Yoshida and Triston Casas led the Sox to go outside the organization for Garrett Cooper and Dominic Smith to split playing time between first base and DH.

AL East Notes: Kimbrel, Irvin, Kahnle, Whitlock

By Mark Polishuk | April 28, 2024 at 5:55pm CDT

Craig Kimbrel blew a save and was charged with the loss in the Orioles’ 7-6 defeat to the Athletics today, but the veteran closer’s health may be of greater concern. Kimbrel walked Darell Hernaiz and was then visited by the team trainer on the mound, but stayed in the game and allowed a homer to Kyle McCann. That prompted another trainer’s visit and Kimbrel’s departure, and manager Brandon Hyde told reporters (including MASNsports.com’s Roch Kubatko) postgame that Kimbrel was dealing with some upper back tightness. The right-hander was still receiving treatment and it isn’t yet known if a trip to the injured list might be in order.

Kimbrel has failed to convert either of his last two save opportunities, marking his first blown save since his first appearances of the season. In between, he reeled off seven saves and a perfect 0.00 in 10 innings of work, and even today’s outing only boosts his ERA to 3.18 for the season. Overall, the 35-year-old has performed as expected after signing a one-year deal worth $13MM in guaranteed money last winter, as Baltimore was looking for a ninth-inning specialist after Felix Bautista was lost to Tommy John surgery. If Kimbrel needs some recovery time, Yennier Cano or Danny Coulombe are the likeliest candidates to move into closer duties, which would then necessitate another arm being shuffled into the bullpen. One possible relief candidate might be starter Albert Suarez, who is out of minor league options but has pitched so well in fill-in starter duty that the O’s likely don’t want to expose him to waivers in order to move him back to Triple-A. With Kyle Bradish and John Means nearing returns from the IL, the Orioles are in the enviable position of having too many good starters, yet as we’ve potentially seen with this Kimbrel situation, injuries have a way of quickly solving any surpluses.

Red Sox Place Garrett Whitlock On Injured List Due To Oblique Strain

By Darragh McDonald | April 17, 2024 at 4:30pm CDT

The Red Sox announced to reporters, including Jen McCaffrey of The Athletic, that right-hander Garrett Whitlock has been placed on the 15-day injured list due to a left oblique strain. Left-hander Joe Jacques has been recalled to take his spot on the roster for now.

Whitlock, 28 in June, exited last night’s game with some tightness in the oblique. Per manager Álex Cora, as relayed by McCaffrey in the tweet above, Whitlock fought the club to stay on the active roster but the Sox made the decision for him, not wanting him to make the injury worse.

That perhaps suggests that the issue is minor and that Whitlock will be back in a couple of weeks, but it’s a tough blow for the Red Sox nonetheless. He was off to a strong start to the season, having posted an earned run average of 1.96 through his first four starts, though he wasn’t going to maintain a .265 batting average on balls in play nor an 87.4% strand rate.

Still, the Sox are facing a number of challenges in the rotation. Lucas Giolito and Chris Murphy are out for the year due to elbow surgeries while Nick Pivetta is currently on the shelf with a flexor strain. With Whitlock now out of action as well, the rotation is down to Brayan Bello, Kutter Crawford, Tanner Houck and Cooper Criswell. They will need to find someone else to replace Whitlock but Cora didn’t tip his hand to McCaffrey about who that would be.

Veteran Chase Anderson is with the big league club and could be an option since his first two appearances were three innings each, though his last outing was just one inning and the previous appearance was just two. Naoyuki Uwasawa is on the 40-man roster but has a 6.30 ERA through his first two Triple-A starts. Wikelman Gonzalez is on the 40-man but he’s in Double-A and didn’t make it out of the first innings in his most recent start at that level.

Jacques tossed 26 2/3 innings for the Sox last year with a 5.06 ERA. He’ll give the Sox another lefty in their bullpen for the time being but perhaps find himself optioned back out in the coming days when the club decides on the move to replace Whitlock in the rotation.

Craig Breslow Discusses Red Sox’s Outfield, Rotation

By Anthony Franco | January 16, 2024 at 11:59pm CDT

The Red Sox are open to adding another right-handed hitter to their outfield mix, chief baseball officer Craig Breslow tells Pete Abraham of the Boston Globe. To that end, Abraham reports that Boston remains in contact with free agent outfielder Adam Duvall’s camp.

Duvall had a solid, if volatile, 2023 season. Signed to a one-year, $7MM contract over the offseason, he was arguably the best hitter in MLB for the first couple weeks. Duvall ran a .455/.514/1.030 line over his first 37 plate appearances before fracturing a bone in his left wrist while diving for a fly ball. The injury cost him two months.

He was mired in an extended slump upon coming off the injured list, limping to a .175/.253/.313 showing through the All-Star Break. Duvall found his stride again coming out of the Break, raking at a .293/.349/.654 clip through the end of August. The year ended on a dismal note, as he struck out in over 40% of his plate appearances while hitting .149/.177/.324 from September 1 on.

Despite the extreme peaks and valleys, Duvall’s overall offensive production was well better than average. He hit 21 homers with a .247/.303/.531 slash in 353 plate appearances. Boston’s decision to give him nearly 500 innings in center field predictably didn’t work out well, as he rated between three and five runs below average by Statcast and Defensive Runs Saved. Duvall has been a plus defender in left field throughout the course of his career though. Between the strong corner outfield defense and 30-homer upside, he’s a valuable player despite high strikeout totals and subpar on-base marks.

The Angels are the only other team that has been publicly linked to Duvall this offseason. At age 35, it seems likely he’ll sign another one-year pact, although there’s an outside chance he lands a second guaranteed season.

Breslow wasn’t with the Sox when they signed Duvall last January. Yet the front office has sought right-handed power in the outfield throughout his first offseason at the helm. Boston already swung a trade for Tyler O’Neill. They were linked to Teoscar Hernández before he signed a one-year, $23.5MM pillow contract with the Dodgers. Duvall would be significantly cheaper.

Even as the Sox pursued Hernández, they’d pointed to the rotation as their biggest priority. Boston took a rebound flier on Lucas Giolito. Not long thereafter, they subtracted Chris Sale in the trade to add Vaughn Grissom from the Braves. While Giolito seems a safer bet than Sale to log a full workload, the pair of moves leaves the Sox with the same number of starters they had at the beginning of the winter.

Breslow told Abraham the current rotation consists of four pitchers: Giolito, Brayan Bello, Kutter Crawford and Nick Pivetta. That’d leave Garrett Whitlock, Tanner Houck and Josh Winckowski competing for the final spot. Offseason acquisitions Cooper Criswell and Max Castillo are among the depth options on the 40-man roster.

Of course, that’s not necessarily the mix they’ll take to Spring Training. Breslow conceded their efforts to add rotation help have thus far “been a challenge” but said they’re “still engaged in conversations with free agents and teams via trade.” The Sox have been loosely tied to top arms Blake Snell and Jordan Montgomery (more so the latter) during the offseason, but more recent reports indicated they were looking at the next tiers down. With mid-level arms like Shota Imanaga and Marcus Stroman recently coming off the board, the free agent supply is dwindling beyond Snell and Montgomery.

That hints at payroll questions that have hung over the offseason. The Sox opened the 2023 season with a player payroll in the $181MM range, according to Cot’s Baseball Contracts. That ranked 12th in the majors, their first time outside the top 10 this century. Roster Resource projects their 2024 payroll in a similar range, a little under $178MM. They’re almost $40MM away from next year’s base luxury tax threshold.

An offseason headlined by Giolito and trade pickups of Grissom and O’Neill presumably isn’t what many in the fanbase envisioned. That’s especially true after team chairman Tom Werner vowed in early November the organization would go “full throttle” to put their two straight last place finishes behind them.

Werner walked that phrasing back in a conversation with Sean McAdam of MassLive this afternoon. “Maybe that wasn’t the most artful way of saying what I wanted to say, which is that we’re going to be pressing all levers to improve the team,” he said. “In the end, nobody’s happy with our performance the last few years. Some years, we go after somebody who is about to be a free agent, or was a free agent, as it pertains to Trevor Story or Raffy Devers.”

After noting the organization made an unsuccessful run at Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Werner added the Sox “certainly aren’t happy with the current roster as it was at the end of last year, so if I was going to say it again, I would say that we’re going to be pressing all levers and weren’t going to be happy with just one (method) — that includes free agency, trades or talent from Triple and Double A. … In the end, we don’t have a line in terms of our payroll that we look at as much as trusting that Craig is going to deliver on his assurance that we’re going to be competitive.“

Red Sox Prioritizing Starting Pitching Help

By Darragh McDonald | November 8, 2023 at 6:19pm CDT

The Red Sox are going into their first offseason with Craig Breslow as chief baseball officer and he is setting his sights on upgrading the club’s rotation, though he isn’t specifying exactly how many pitchers he plans on bringing in. “I think we need to be open-minded,” Breslow said, per Christopher Smith of MassLive. “Starting pitching is certainly a priority for us. But to kind of try and forecast exactly a number or anything kind of more specific than that probably doesn’t make sense.”

It’s not an especially surprising pursuit for the Sox, since the rotation was a weak spot for the club in 2023. Their starters as a whole put up an earned run average of 4.68 for the year, which placed them 22nd out of the 30 clubs in the league. There are some talented names on the roster but each has concerns around health or inconsistency or both, with Chris Sale, Nick Pivetta, Brayan Bello, Kutter Crawford, Tanner Houck and Garrett Whitlock the candidates for rotation jobs right now.

Sale hardly pitched from 2020 to 2022 due to various injuries. He was able to log 102 2/3 innings in 2023 but with an ERA of 4.30. Pivetta struggled enough to get bumped to the bullpen but finished in good form, whereas Bello was stronger in the first half but faded down the stretch. Crawford had a 4.04 ERA this year with good peripherals, though it’s unclear if that’s sustainable since he’s never been a highly-touted prospect. Houck has shown some potential, but injuries have continually kept him in the range of 100-120 innings. The same is largely true for Whitlock, though he hasn’t even reached 100 frames since 2018.

Though they theoretically have six options for five rotation spots, there are arguments for skepticism with each one. Breslow says that Houck and Whitlock will still be stretched out, per Alex Speier of the Boston Globe, but they could be pivoted back to the bullpen later. Both pitchers have had better results as relievers, with Houck having an ERA of 2.68 out of the ’pen and Whitlock a 2.65 in his career, whereas they have starting ERAs of 4.17 and 4.76 respectively. That doesn’t necessarily mean they can’t be effective starters in the future, but it stands to reason that the club might not be willing to bank on them.

Smith adds that the club spoke to the representatives of free agent lefty Jordan Montgomery, though it might be best not to read too much into that. For one, Montgomery is represented by Scott Boras, who also reps a great number of other players. Secondly, Breslow tells Pete Abraham of the Boston Globe that it’s fair to assume they will talk to every agent who represents a starting pitcher and every team that could trade one.

It seems all options are on the table, including players who received a qualifying offer. “It’s a consideration like the host of other variables that you need to consider when you make a decision around these players,” Breslow says in Smith’s report. “So I think we need to look at the totality of the situation in order to figure out how much of a consequence it is for one over another.” Blake Snell, Sonny Gray and Aaron Nola were the three traditional starters to receive QOs, as well as two-way player Shohei Ohtani, who won’t pitch in 2024. Signing one of those players would require the Red Sox to forfeit their second-highest pick in the upcoming draft and $500K of international bonus pool money, but it sounds like that’s not off the table.

Elsewhere, it sounds like the club is leaning towards adding a right-handed hitter who can play second base, though they won’t be strictly limiting themselves in that search. “I think positional versatility helps,” Breslow said, per Jen McCaffrey of The Athletic. “I don’t think it makes a ton of sense to kind of typecast that to a right-handed bat who can only DH. But I think we have to be open-minded about the ways to improve the team. Given that we’re pretty left-handed, it makes sense to set our sights on somebody who can hit right-handed.”

The club’s lineup does indeed skew to the left side, with regular at-bats slated for players like Rafael Devers, Jarren Duran, Triston Casas, Masataka Yoshida and Alex Verdugo, though Breslow earlier admitted that Verdugo’s name has come up in trade talks. Some righty bats include Teoscar Hernández and Jorge Soler, though the Sox might be a better fit for a second baseman than an outfielder. The market is fairly limited there but Whit Merrifield and Amed Rosario are a couple of right-handed bats that likely won’t cost much. Speaking of Casas and Duran, who both finished the season on the injured list, Breslow provided updates on the progression of both players to Abraham. Casas has progressed to weight-bearing exercises in his recovery from turf toe surgery. Casas, who was hampered by shoulder inflammation, has healed and is now close to starting a hitting program.

Catcher could theoretically be another place to add but it sounds like the Sox feel good about Connor Wong there. “Very comfortable,” Breslow said about Wong. “We feel good about the catching situation. That’s not to say that we should be closed-minded about opportunities to improve the team. But I think we’re all really happy with him.” Wong got the bulk of the playing time in 2023 and hit just .235/.288/.385 but there were some encouraging defensive grades. It doesn’t sound like an addition here is totally off the table but the pitching is clearly a bigger focus.

Red Sox Place James Paxton On 15-Day Injured List

By Mark Polishuk | September 10, 2023 at 10:20am CDT

The Red Sox announced that left-hander James Paxton has been place on the 15-day injured list (retroactive to September 7) due to right knee inflammation. In other transactions, Boston called up right-hander Nick Robertson from Triple-A Worcester and activated righty Garrett Whitlock from the bereavement list, while left-hander Joe Jacques has been optioned to Triple-A.

The timing of the IL move means that Paxton’s 2023 campaign is over, as Red Sox manager Alex Cora told The Boston Globe’s Alex Speier and other reporters that Nick Pivetta will take Paxton’s place in the rotation for the remainder of the season. Paxton will finish the year with a 4.50 ERA over 96 innings, as well as a 24.6% strikeout rate and 8.0% walk rate that were both above the league average.

Considering that injuries (including a Tommy John surgery) limited Paxton to only six games and 21 2/3 total innings between the 2020-22 seasons, just getting onto a mound and making it almost the entire way through the 2023 season counts as a significant achievement for the southpaw. A Spring Training hamstring injury delayed Paxton’s debut until May 12, but he pitched well over his first four months before seemingly starting to wear down during August. Paxton was tagged for 16 earned runs over his last three starts and 9 2/3 innings, putting a sour end on what had been a solid year.

The Sox had already planned to push Paxton’s next start back a few days, but since Cora implied that Paxton’s knee had been bothering him, the team has opted to shut the lefty down rather than risk any further injury. While Paxton hadn’t been contributing much in his last few outings anyway, the IL decision also seems to hint how the Red Sox might be slowly turning to look towards 2024 rather than the wild card race, as Cora implied in today’s meeting with reporters. Boston is seven games back of the last AL wild card slot, and with just a 72-70 record, finishing above .500 is no guarantee for the Sox, let alone a playoff berth.

The outcome might lead to some hindsight about Boston’s decision to keep Paxton at the trade deadline, as the Rangers (and likely several other teams) had interest in the left-hander prior to August 1. For the second straight season, Sox chief baseball officer Chaim Bloom opted to both buy and sell at the deadline, though this year’s Red Sox club was closer in the race than the 2022 edition. The very streaky nature of this year’s club also makes it understandable why Bloom didn’t swing too hard in either transactional direction at the deadline, and since the Sox were already hurting for pitching, it makes sense why the team would’ve wanted to keep Paxton as a key piece of whatever late-season push might have been in store.

With Paxton’s 2023 now over, it is possible he has also thrown his last pitch in a Red Sox uniform. He is set to hit free agency this winter, and it will be interesting to see what kind of deal Paxton could land as he enters his age-35 season and on the back of a year that saw mostly good results when healthy. Assuming this knee problem doesn’t develop into anything serious, Paxton could have a case for a multi-year agreement, though teams will likely prefer a one-year deal with vesting/club options (maybe similar to his previous deal with the Red Sox) given his lengthy health history.

Load More Posts

Show all

Headlines

Garrett Whitlock

Navigation

MLBTR INFO

Connect