Just about every Juan Soto rumor that we’ve seen to date in the early stages of free agency has the Boston Red Sox in the mix for the superstar slugger. There’s too much smoke at this point to believe there’s not some fire to it. And to be sure, if John Henry and Sam Kennedy were willing to pony up $600 million to hand Soto, they’d be foolish to not do it if he wanted to come to Boston.

At the same time, though, the initial reports of the Red Sox pursuing Soto did come as a surprise to many fans. Part of that was the inaction of Boston in recent free agency periods and their lack of spending. However, it also felt like Soto was beyond even the wildest dreams that fans had coming into the offseason.

Having said that, going after Soto might actually be masking Craig Breslow’s master plan for the Red Sox offseason based on one insider’s recent discussion.

ESPN’s Jeff Passan appeared on the Baseball Tonight Pod with Buster Olney and spoke on Boston’s potential plight this offseason and floated the idea that the Red Sox’s biggest moves of the offseason could be quite splashy but instead to address the most glaring weakness, the roster’s lack of frontline starting pitching. How would they do that? By adding both Max Fried and Garrett Crochet, according to Passan:

“They have the opportunity and ability to do that [go add a frontline starter or two]. They could very easily go and sign Max Fried and then trade for Garrett Crochet. That is not an unrealistic possibility.”

That would certainly go a long way toward upgrading Boston in a huge way.

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To be clear, I don’t think Passan’s point is that the Red Sox are solely limited to landing Fried and Crochet this offseason. However, it does appear to me that it sounds like the point is emblematic of the aggressive plan to improve the starting pitching in Boston.

Whether it’s Fried and Crochet, Blake Snell and Crochet, Fried or Snell along with another trade candidate, or some other combination we might not yet be considering, it seems like the grand plan is for the Red Sox to leverage their willingness to spend and rich farm system where they need it most on the roster.

When you think about it like that, though, the Soto pursuit actually starts to make even more sense. Again, they would be foolish to not be serious about that look in free agency if Soto was also interested. However, it’s more indicative of the fact that this is a different Red Sox offseason that we’ve seen and is a message to players like Fried and Snell (and even Crochet, who will be eyeing an extension after any trade) that they’re serious about spending.

One thing’s for sure, though: The vibes couldn’t be more different in Boston this offseason than over the past half decade. It feels more likely than not that big things are coming and it may be more likely that those big moves are centered on pitching rather than Soto — though Soto would be nice too, of course.