{"id":10334,"date":"2024-11-19T20:25:49","date_gmt":"2024-11-19T20:25:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportnews.azontree.com\/?p=10334"},"modified":"2024-11-19T20:25:49","modified_gmt":"2024-11-19T20:25:49","slug":"three-takeaways-from-red-soxs-reported-interest-in-starting-pitchers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportnews.azontree.com\/?p=10334","title":{"rendered":"Three Takeaways From Red Sox&#8217;s Reported Interest In Starting Pitchers"},"content":{"rendered":"<article id=\"post-1965417\"><!--?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ??--><!--?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ??--><!--?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ??-->Juan Soto has understandably dominated offseason headlines so far, but getting a head start on the pitching market might be most beneficial for a team like the Red Sox.<\/p>\n<p>Ultimately, the Red Sox should be in the Soto hunt because he\u2019s one of the three or four best baseball players on the planet. If you can convince him to join your team, you do it and figure out the other stuff afterward.<\/p>\n<p>That being said, it sounds like the generational slugger is most likely to land in New York. If that happens, the Red Sox undoubtedly should take some of that money they earmarked for Soto and invest it in the starting rotation.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe know we need to raise the ceiling of the rotation,\u201d chief baseball officer Craig Breslow told reporters earlier this month at the GM meetings. \u201cI think there are a lot of ways to do that, but we\u2019re going to be really, really open-minded.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Since then, we\u2019ve learned more about Boston\u2019s offseason plans through various reports. Here are three big takeaways so far:<\/p>\n<div>\n<p>Story continues below advertisement<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<figure><\/figure>\n<p><strong>1. Swing-and-miss is a priority<br \/>\n<\/strong>Red Sox starters ranked 19th in the big leagues in 2024 in swing-and-miss. As a staff, they ranked 26th. Of the 14 playoff teams, only two of them finished below Sox starters in swing-and-miss. That adds some context to perhaps the most surprising offseason decision so far, with the Red Sox electing to give Nick Pivetta a qualifying offer. Pivetta was the only Boston starter to average more than 10 strikeouts per nine innings, and it wasn\u2019t really that close for anyone else. The Red Sox are reportedly in on two-time Cy Young Award winner Blake Snell. Only two starters \u2014 Spencer Strider and Tyler Glasnow \u2014 have a higher strikeout rate than Snell since the start of 2020.<\/p>\n<p>Even Shane Bieber, coming off Tommy John surgery, has produced some big strikeout numbers throughout his career, and it makes him an interesting buy-low option.<\/p>\n<p>It might also be a reason there hasn\u2019t been a lot of talk (at least not yet) about Corbin Burnes, whose 8.38 strikeouts per nine innings were the worst of his career as a starter.<\/p>\n<p><strong>2. What \u201creally, really open-minded\u201d might actually mean<br \/>\n<\/strong>When Breslow said the Red Sox should be \u201copen-minded\u201d about their desire to improve the rotation, many assumed that meant exploring every avenue to improve the rotation. Makes sense, right? That might still be the case. It should be the case. But what about improving things around the starting pitching? Leaning heavy into the bullpen to shorten the game could certainly help, and the Red Sox have already started retooling the relief corps.<\/p>\n<div>\n<p>Story continues below advertisement<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>How about the defense, too? Only Miami committed more errors than the Red Sox. Boston finished 23rd in UZR last season. In Statcast\u2019s fielding-run value metric, Boston finished 23rd there, too. Alex Cora certainly would sign off on the idea. There is truth to the notion the 2024 season could have gone much better had the club just played league-average defense. Finding a way to improve that part of the game could certainly help the pitching staff. That seems like an ideal option, if Max Fried is a true option in free agency. Fried doesn\u2019t strike out batters as often as someone like Snell or Garrett Crochet, and if you\u2019re going to make that sort of investment, you should do everything you can to set the player up for success.<\/p>\n<figure><\/figure>\n<p><strong>3. Why stop at one?<br \/>\n<\/strong>That the Red Sox have been connected to a handful of arms probably speaks to due diligence more than anything else. But maybe Boston wants to add multiple starters. There\u2019s a way to do it without investing $300 million on Fried <em>and <\/em>Snell, too. How about this? If the Red Sox can\u2019t offer the best package to land Crochet from the White Sox, their collection of young talent probably can\u2019t be decisively beaten. He\u2019s left-handed, under team control, gets swings and misses and fills up the strike zone. It sure looks like a great fit. Then, after letting the dust settle, how about diving into the second wave of free agency for a reunion with Nathan Eovaldi? He can certainly pitch in Boston. His age (35) is a concern, but he\u2019s been more durable than you might expect (at least 25 starts in three of his last four seasons). While he doesn\u2019t log huge strikeout numbers, he gets a good deal of swings and misses, and he fills up the strike zone. If Pivetta ends up getting a massive deal somewhere else, Eovaldi on a short-term deal is an extremely logical replacement.<\/p>\n<\/article>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Making sense of the reports that the Red Sox have already been connected to a handful of starting pitchers on the market.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":10335,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10334","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mlb"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Three Takeaways From Red Sox&#039;s Reported Interest In Starting Pitchers - NEWS USA<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/sportnews.azontree.com\/?p=10334\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Three Takeaways From Red Sox&#039;s Reported Interest In Starting Pitchers - 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