Several weeks ago, I was speaking with Red Sox chief baseball officer Craig Breslow about various scenarios this winter. When the subject came to the qualifying offer, I tried to get a sense of whether the Sox might be considering a QO for free agent outfielder Tyler O’Neill.

Breslow mostly spoke in generalities and said decisions like that hadn’t yet been finalized.

Then, he added: “One thing you have to remember — if you give a QO, you’d better be prepared for it to be accepted.”

I thought about that late Monday afternoon when it was reported that the Sox were’t going to give a qualifying offer to O’Neill — I thought all along that such a strategy had been a distinct longshot — but were instead giving one to Nick Pivetta, which I had barely considered as a possibility.

After all, there’s no way Pivetta would come anywhere close to an AAV of $21.05 million on the free agent market. Most salary projections had Pivetta landing a three-year deal with an AAV of somewhere around $15-16 million. Yes, Pivetta has (mostly) been durable, averaging a tick over 155 innings in the last four seasons. And yes, he’s a decent back-end option. But in that four-seasons stretch, Pivetta is 35-41 with a 4.33 ERA and a 102 ERA+. That fairly screams: league-average!

Should Pivetta accept the qualifying offer, he would be a serviceable piece for their staff next year. He represents depth, versatility and has already shown the ability to compete in Boston. But a rotation that already had Lucas Giolito, Tanner Houck, Brayan Bello and Kutter Crawford didn’t need Nick Pivetta. It needed — and needs — a front-of-the-rotation type.

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The worry among Red Sox fans is that if Pivetta accepts, the Red Sox will have spent about $40 million on two starters who aren’t close to being No. 1 starters. Giolito, as expected, last week chose to exercise his 2025 option for $19 million. But Giolito is coming off major elbow surgery, missed all of last year and it’s uncertain how much of a workload he can assume in 2025.

Then there’s Pivetta, who has never posted an ERA under 4.04 and never won more than 10 games in a season, who only two years ago pitched himself out of the Boston rotation and landed, quite unhappily, in the bullpen for the middle part of the season.

Is that all there is?

That remains to be seen. Having committed $40 million to the duo, do the Red Sox have the stomach — or the budgetary room — to pursue a true front-of-the-rotation starter like Corbin Burnes or Max Fried?

And if they don’t go the free agent route, are they willing to give up multiple young players to acquire a starter via trade? Does Pivetta’s potential return signal a willingness to trade away more inexpensive rotation options like Houck or Crawford? Time will tell.

Most free agents have traditionally declined qualifying offers, and Pivetta may join that list. At 31, he may want some multi-year security. Or, he may find $21.05 million too much to pass up, in which case the rotation is already crowded, and frankly, not much better than it was a year ago.

Perhaps there’s a method to the Red Sox’ madness. It’s possible that Breslow and Co. correctly anticipated the cost of starting pitching to skyrocket on the free agent front, and in anticipation of Pivetta receiving offers higher than previous anticipated, they’re confident he’ll reject the QO, thus guaranteeing the Sox an additional draft pick in compensation.

After all, of the 13 players given qualifying offers Monday, six were starting pitchers. Other than Burnes, Fried and Pivetta, Sean Manaea, Luis Severino and Nick Martinez were also recipients.

It would have made more sense had the Sox given O’Neill the qualifying offer instead of Pivetta. That, too, would have represented an overpay. But at least O’Neill would have filled an obvious need — that of a righthanded run producer. He led the team in homers with 31 last year and his .511 slugging percentage was just behind Rafael Devers’ team-best .515.

True, O’Neill is a risk because of his injury history (he’s played more than 100 games only twice), but a one-year deal would have greatly limited the team’s liability.

Now, somehow, the Red Sox must find someone to balance out a lefty-heavy lineup.

But first they have to address the team’s primary need: adding an elite starter. Nick Pivetta doesn’t fit that description, or least hasn’t to date. The odds of him transforming into that for 2025 are, frankly, slim. Worse, if he accepts the qualifying offer, the Red Sox will have $21 million less in resources to fill that necessity.