In no uncertain terms, Red Sox chief baseball officer Craig Breslow identified one of Boston’s main needs this winter as a starting pitcher who can “pitch at the front of a rotation,” “pitch alongside or slot in behind Garrett (Crochet)” and “start a playoff game” for the club if needed.

Is Sonny Gray that guy?

That question was one Breslow wouldn’t answer directly Tuesday night, hours after swinging an early-offseason deal to net Gray (and $20 million in cash) from the Cardinals for young pitchers Richard Fitts and Brandon Clarke. Asked repeatedly if he would characterize Gray as his No. 2 starter, Breslow largely deflected, speaking about the importance of open-mindedness at a time when the free agent and trade markets have barely moved.

“I don’t know how much sense it makes, in November, to put a number (rotation slot) on a guy,” Breslow said. “I think Sonny is a very talented major league pitcher. The seasons that he’s put up, pretty consistently, indicate that to be the case. That said, we still intend to improve our team. Exactly what that looks like, we don’t know right now, but we’ll continue to explore opportunities and figure out where that takes us.

“I don’t want to paint ourselves into a corner here,” he later added. “We felt like there was an opportunity to upgrade our rotation in 2026 and so we did that. It’s early in the offseason. There are still opportunities that I anticipate materializing. We’re not going to close off any chance to make the team better.”

It would be unwise for Breslow to come out and say that Gray will be his club’s big-ticket rotation addition for the winter considering how many top free agent and trade options remain available and the uncertainties surrounding their markets. But the early sense people around the league are getting is that the Gray move makes the Red Sox less likely to pursue another big-name starter this winter considering the need to commit significant resources to the lineup before Opening Day.

“I think the focus shifts to an impact bat but another pitching acquisition isn’t out of the question,” said one source with knowledge of the club’s plans.

In the Gray trade, the Red Sox conceded significant resources both in terms of players and salary. In addition to parting with Fitts and Clarke, the club is committing $21 million to Gray in 2026, making the 36-year-old the third-highest paid player on the roster next season (behind Crochet and Trevor Story). That’s no small commitment and one that dips into the pool of available resources to make further moves. The Red Sox — as usual — have not given any indications about their willingness to exceed CBT (competitive balance tax) thresholds in 2026, but they’re already projected to be within $25 million of their 2025 payroll, with at least one big hole (power bat) still to be filled.

Adding a big bat, as expected, plus a top free agent starter like Framber Valdez, Dylan Cease, Ranger Suárez, Michael King, Tatsuya Imai or Zac Gallen, would require a rather large payroll bump and is much less likely now than when the day started. The appeal of making a trade for an available starter like Minnesota’s Joe Ryan, Washington’s MacKenzie Gore, Milwaukee’s Freddy Peralta or Miami’s Sandy Alcantara is likely lessened, even if those players would certainly make the Red Sox better. The Red Sox are not signaling, either publicly or privately, that Gray is simply just the start when it comes to rotation additions. They know there’s a chance they will go into the season with him as their No. 2 option behind Crochet but also know, with the offseason in such early stages, that it’s possible another upgrade might materialize.

In Gray, though, the Red Sox see a pitcher whose predictive indicators and under-the-hood stats look more attractive than a 4.28 ERA in 2025 would suggest. That he has averaged 177 innings in the last three seasons is attractive. So is a three-year FIP (3.11) that suggests his ERA in that span (3.63) is inflated by poor defense. Gray doesn’t have elite velocity and he doesn’t avoid hard contact at one of the league’s highest rates. But he does have the ability to miss bats and control the baseball, as evidenced by his National League-leading strikeout-to-walk ratio (201-to-38 last season). Those numbers, plus Gray’s long track record of success, which includes three flirtations with the Cy Young award over an 11-year stretch, are enough for the Red Sox to believe they got a pitcher who is better than the back of his baseball card might suggest.

“Two out of the last three years, he’s thrown 180 plus innings with what I would call impeccable command,” Breslow said. “This guy is sitting on a 5% walk rate for each of the last two years. There’s not just the 200 strikeouts and the swing-and-miss, there’s also limiting free passes as well.”

Another reason why the Red Sox might be hesitant to extend themselves for another high-end starter is a willingness to give runway to young, talented options on the roster. Even with Fitts now out of the mix, the Red Sox have a stable of high-upside options behind Crochet, Gray and Brayan Bello that includes Payton Tolle, Connelly Early, Hunter Dobbins, Kyle Harrison, Luis Perales and the duo of Kutter Crawford and Patrick Sandoval, who are both returning after missing all of 2025. It’s a reason why Breslow said the club wasn’t in the market for No. 4 or No. 5 starters this winter at the GM Meetings earlier this month. On Tuesday, he once again said he feels comfortable with the depth on his roster.

“Nobody will sit in this chair and say they have enough starting pitching,” Breslow said. “Our job is to continue to develop that and to try and create this internal pipeline and understand who are the guys that we need to be cornerstones of this team and who potentially are pitchers that we could use in trades to address other needs on the roster.”

As Breslow and his lieutenants re-calibrate over the Thanksgiving holiday, they’ll be able to do so knowing they have one big item already checked off their offseason to-do list. Ahead of the Winter Meetings in Orlando in two weeks, it’s clear adding slug in the form of Pete Alonso, Kyle Schwarber, Alex Bregman or another standout offensive player is the top priority. Further rotation moves are on the back-burner — at least for now.

“We had been pretty transparent about our desire to add to the rotation and our desire to add a bat on the position player side,” Breslow said. “It’s impossible to know exactly what the order of operations will be. So we’ll continue to look for opportunities to improve the team, but I wouldn’t say we’re going to exclusively focus on one thing at the expense of the other. We want to be open minded. And so I don’t think this is a close off all opportunities and look exclusively at position players, but I also think that there’s a chance that that comes into focus now over the next couple of weeks.