Red Sox Predicted to Sign $12 Million All-Star Right-Hander to Solidify Bullpen

At the All-Star break last season, the Boston Red Sox stood at 10 games over .500, 53-43, and appeared playoff-bound, 1 1/2 games ahead of the Kansas City Royals for the American League’s third Wild Card spot. And then the wheels came off. In the 66 games after players returned from the four-day break, the Red Sox won 28 while losing 38, finishing the season at a definitively mediocre 81-81, five games out of a playoff berth.

What happened? The answers, as always, are complex. But if there was one villain that could be identified over all others it was the bullpen. In fact, according to research by Boston Globe baseball reporter Alex Speier, the Red Sox bullpen collapse post-All-Star break was the worst in team history.

Even Red Sox manager Alex Cora acknowledged that bullpen woes were the primary culprit when it came to taking Boston out of playoff contention.

“Five plays here, five pitches there, a game here and there, we’d be having a different conversation,” Cora told Speier. “We have struggled. We have struggled out of the bullpen. It’s real.”

Red Sox Have Already Bolstered Leaky Bullpen

Boston chief of baseball operations Craig Breslow has taken a couple of significant steps to upgrade the bullpen the offseason, adding flamethrower Aroldis Chapman as well as another lefty, Justin Wilson, who fanned 51 while walking just 13 in 46 2/3 innings for the Cincinnatti Reds last season.

But Breslow has admitted that at the offseason continues into 2025, he is still looking to add more to the Boston bullpen. In particular, Breslow has said that he values pitchers who can miss bats.

“The ability to generate swings and misses in the strike zone is kind of the time-tested, foolproof recipe for success, because you’re not influenced to a great extent by balls in play. So, kind of in a perfect world, we’ve got a host of pitchers who can generate swings and misses in the strike zone,” Breslow said at the outset of the offseason.

With Chapman and Wilson, he has followed through on the swing-and-miss priority. But both are lefties. Now, the Red Sox are predicted pursue a nine-year veteran, free-agent right-hander who posted a career year in strikeouts last season.

Jeff Hoffman May Command $36 Million Deal

That would be Jeff Hoffman, most recently of the Philadelphia Phillies, who fanned a career-high 89 while walking just 16 in 66 1/3 innings last season. His sparkling WHIP Of 0.965 was the second-best of his career, topped only by his 2023 number of 0.917, on his way to earning his first All-Star bid in 2024.

While the sports business site Spotrac sets Hoffman’s market value at $12.4 million over two years, Zachary Rymer of Bleacher Report predicted last week that the Red Sox would be the team that signs Hoffman, extending him a three-year deal worth $36 million.

The snag could be if Hoffman prefers to convert to a starting role, as ESPN senior baseball insider Jeff Passan projected that he would. That would explain why Hoffman is said to be seeking a deal in the same range as the one the New York Mets handed to former New York Yankees reliever Clay Holmes, paying him $38 million over three years to switch to starting.

Jonathan Vankin JONATHAN VANKIN is an award-winning journalist and writer who now covers baseball and other sports for Heavy.com. He twice won New England Press Association awards for sports feature writing. Vankin is also the author of five nonfiction books on a variety of topics, as well as nine graphic novels including most recently “Last of the Gladiators” published by Dynamite Entertainment. More about Jonathan Vankin