The Red Sox are known to be on the lookout for starting pitching, having already been connected to arms like Mitch Keller and Dylan Cease. Rob Bradford of WEEI reports that they have also shown interested in Zac Gallen and Merrill Kelly of the Diamondbacks. Francys Romero of BeisbolFR adds that the Sox have been monitoring Sandy Alcantara of the Marlins.
All three pitchers are seen as likely candidates to be traded before the deadline. The Diamondbacks have already started selling players approaching free agency. They flipped first baseman Josh Naylor to the Mariners and outfielder Randal Grichuk to the Royals. They will likely trade third baseman Eugenio Suárez as well.
Like all of those players, Gallen and Kelly are impending free agents and both should have value. With Gallen, 29, the question will be how much other clubs put stock into this year’s struggles versus his better numbers in the past. He came into this season with 815 1/3 career innings, having allowed 3.29 earned runs per nine. He had a 26.6% strikeout rate, 7.8% walk rate and 43.8% ground ball rate.
This year, however, his strikeout rate has fallen to 22.1%. That has been part of the reason his ERA has climbed to 5.60. There’s also a bit of bad luck in there, as his 64% strand rate is to the unfortunate side, as is his 16.3% home run to fly ball rate. His 4.75 FIP and 4.14 SIERA are a bit more optimistic than his ERA but still point to him not quite being the same pitcher this year.
Still, there’s a lack of clear ace types on the trade market this year. There have been some rumors surrounding pitchers like MacKenzie Gore and Joe Ryan. However, a trade of either of those guys still seems like a long shot. Perhaps there are clubs out there who see a way to get Gallen back on track. He is making $13.5MM this year, which is notable but still below market for a solid starter. He’s already been connected to the Blue Jays and now Red Sox but his market surely extends to plenty of other clubs.
Kelly doesn’t have ace upside but his profile is more steady and he’s having a better year. The 36-year-old has a 3.74 ERA in his career, along with a 22.1% strikeout rate, 7.4% walk rate and 45% ground ball rate. He had a 3.37 ERA in 2022 and a 3.29 mark the year after. His ERA spiked a bit last year as he battled injuries settling at 4.03. This year, he’s back down to 3.22. His 23.5% strikeout rate, 7.4% walk rate and 45% ground ball rate this season are all better than average. He’s only making $7MM this year, basically half of Gallen.
Alcantara, like Gallen, would be more of a bet on past performance. Alcantara won a Cy Young award in 2022 but missed 2024 recovering from Tommy John surgery and his return from that procedure has not been smooth. In 109 innings this year, he has a 6.36 earned run average. His 45.6% ground ball rate is still above league average but he was regularly above 50% in previous seasons. His 16.8% strikeout rate is a huge drop, as he was in the 22-24% range in his best years.
It’s a tricky spot for the Marlins to be in. They are rebuilding and surely want to cash in Alcantara for young talent. However, given his performance, they might not get their asking price and could decide to hold. Alcantara is under contract for next year with a $17MM salary, then there’s a $21MM club option with a $2MM buyout for 2027. If Miami can’t find a deal to its liking, they could try in the offseason or at next year’s deadline. Though the current market conditions might prompt some club to take a chance on Sandy.
For the Red Sox, they have Tanner Houck, Kutter Crawford, Patrick Sandoval and Hunter Dobbins all on the injured list. Their healthy rotation has Garrett Crochet at the front but then things get dicey after that. Walker Buehler has a 5.72 ERA. Lucas Giolito has a 3.80 ERA but a 4.19 FIP and 4.16 SIERA. Brayan Bello has a 3.32 ERA but a 4.26 FIP and 4.37 SIERA. There’s room to upgrade.
Payroll wise, Roster Resource has the Sox right up against the competitive balance tax. However, club decision makers expressed a willingness to pay the tax this year. In fact, their CBT number was over the line before they traded Rafael Devers to the Giants. That suggests they could have some ability to take on a bit of money in order to bolster their roster for the stretch run.
Photo courtesy of Jacob Reiner, Imagn Images
No duh!!! Everybody knows that already
Yes on Kelly, no on Gallen, and while Alcantara has only allowed 4 ER in his last 3 starts I’d have to say pass as I’m not sure the Sox can give him 5 or 6 starts to figure it out while working with Bailey
bailey has a spotty record so far when they hired him he sounded like a transformative addition
Rsox – Something is going on with Crochet. They just announced he won’t be pitching at all until next Monday or Tuesday. This after throwing just 100 pitches on July 26th, he hasn’t thrown more than 100 pitches since June 24th and he’s thrown only 398 pitches for the entire month of July. It’s understandable to give him SOME extra rest, but this much rest is highly questionable. Hope he’s okay.
Hopefully it’s nothing more than extra rest and realizing he’s already over 140 innings and not something exponentially worse
Rsox – It’s reminiscent of last year when Houck had a “dead arm” in September.
I’ve also heard chatter when he does pitch he won’t go more than 5 innings each game for the remainder of the season. I haven’t been able to find a link though.
Sounds like it was preplanned he leads the league in innings pitched just giving him a few extra days. I have heard no chatter that they are going to limit him to 5 innings I think that’s bs.
FPG making stuff up again. There is zero chatter about limiting his innings per start.
Bruin – I found something, check out yesterday’s game thread #594 where somebody mentions Tom Caron said 5 innings the rest of the season.
Unfortunately MLB.TV was having issues during the pregame and I didn’t catch any of the pregame show today, so I cannot confirm Caron said it.
I’d ask if anyone here heard it on today’s show, but seems like hardly nobody here ever watches NESN! LOL!!
“somebody mentions” something a NESN sportscaster said, but youre not sure.
Yep that makes it official.
that’s not “Chatter” and if you can’t confirm that on your own it’s pure speculation on your part or downright lies.
I think he’s fine but even with the White Sox, he was aware of that “number.” Concerning Innings pitched, etc. he was pretty adamant about not going over a number if they weren’t going to extend him.
He said, he appreciates management looking out for him, and for some reason, he’s paid attention to that number more than anyone on the face of the planet.
Good for him though because he has his contract. He has his money and he’s still looking out for himself.
I would take that as a good thing. Heck, not going to the All-Star game was a good thing too. He cares about himself and he cares about the Red Sox and he cares about winning in Boston.
There are a bunch of articles and reporting that said the sox worked this out with Crochet to allow him more rest. Crochet and management discussed this and Crochet said that instead of having one game where they limit his pitches, they decided to push his start back. This is more FPG spreading false information.
he obviously doesn’t care about winning if he doesn’t want to pitch every 5th day. more concerned about his stats.
goat: that’s not what Crochet said at all. Weak job trolling on that one.
Gary – Wouldn’t it make more sense if he conserved energy by throwing maybe 80 pitches per game and going with just the one extra day of rest that the Thursdays off provide the entire staff?
And if this latest 9-10 days between starts was planned in advance, you’d think it would have been publicized so opponents don’t believe the Sox are desperate for a starting pitcher.
Time will tell, but the red flags are definitely there. Shorter outings make a lot more sense than forcing the team to have bullpen games, even after a pitcher is acquired to take Biff’s turn in the rotation.
Read the reports FPG. They literally presented that scenario and Crochett said that it was better for him to push the start back vs just throwing 80 pitches.
Acell:
Crochet is 2nd in the league with 2,086 pitches Of course they’ll start limiting his pitch count.
FPG thinking a limit of 100 pitches is a small amount is very uninformed. If he’s 2nd in all of baseball in number of pitches, how often are others pitching over 100? FPG’s math aint mathin.
Goatfax: troll alert
Shorter outings tax the bullpen. We saw it this week. The only option was Jordan Hicks to come back after cooling down and losing the game in fact.
Today was a perfect example of needing the starter to go deep into the game. Thank goodness Murphy didn’t implode and he’s actually been pitching well lately. Same with Giolito last night. Beautiful outing saved the bullpen.
Gary:
Crochet is second in the league in pitches thrown, and thats not enough? Why isnt every other team making their aces go longer? Do we pitch him until he breaks, like Sale?
Gary – Crochet’s health is not publicly known so I have no opinion on it. That’s why all I state are facts.
Fact is he leads MLB in both Innings Pitched and Strikeouts, and that’s because he’s thrown a lot of pitches at max effort. If this was all pre-planned long ago, then why let him pitch all those innings at max effort for more than half a season and then suddenly now dial his starts way back?
Either the “it’s all according to our plan” excuse from Cora/whomever is a load of crap, or the Sox are horrific at planning. Because no real plan goes from leading MLB in innings/strikeouts in the first half to throwing 100 pitches every 8-9 days.
Heading into the season both Crochet and Cora insisted “no restrictions”, seems like they lied as usual.
Gary – Of course shorter outings tax the bullpen, but not as much as having bullpen games. If Criswell can give at least 5 quality innings every time as a spot starter, then great. If the Sox can acquire a dependable spot starter on top of a replacement for Biff, then great. Otherwise instead of the bullpen covering an extra inning or two here and there, they will have to cover an entire game on a regular basis ….. which is obviously far worse.
FPG: or maybe things change or perhaps they didn’t bother to inform you of what their process was. Everyone can engage in wild speculation but you turn it into an art form. Instead of tripling down on your bad take just own up to the fact that it is your opinion and all you’re doing is speculating.
No, we rest him. We definitely watch him as he’s going to be over his career inning high next outing right, or close ?
I’m all for skipping a start in July and August so he can pitch in September October. 100%.
I think he’s a trooper. He’s not being lazy sorry.., everything I said about it is that he’s team first, Boston first.
Gary – Can’t tell who you’re responding to, but hopefully not to me as nowhere did I say he was being lazy.
My issue is not with Crochet. Either he suddenly developed health concerns, or he’s being horribly mismanaged.
Crochet is a warrior, he’d throw 120 pitches every 5 days if they allowed him to. It’s up to the team to manage his workload effectively, and so far they haven’t.
He already got paid my friend. He is not worried about stats. Also the club understood going in that they would have limit his innings manually if he was healthy all year. I doubt Crochet has any say in the matter, frankly.
Having watched the replay of today’s Sox game against the Twins the subject was brought up that this was pre-planned, Crochet was on board because he would rather get the extra rest rather than be limited to a pitch/innings count. So no hidden injury or conspiracy, just pushing him down a few days. They mentioned the possibility of Harrison being called up to start on friday as that is his next scheduled start at Worcester. Fitts was also sent down and Cooper Criswell was recalled and he could possibly take the ball friday night as well. Of course there is also the possibility of a trade acquisition so that makes tomorrow that much more interesting
Rsox – Cora, Kennedy etc have been so dishonest over the years it would be foolish for me to believe them on this, and like someone else said here it wouldn’t be Crochet making the decisions.
If the Red Sox were honest and transparent, they’d be making these proclamations well in advance. Crochet didn’t even know the one time against the Mets when he was pulled with a low pitch count.
They are simply not gonna publicly state Crochet is suffering from fatigue, it wouldn’t be a good idea for obvious competitive reasons. But as always, actions speak louder than words.
And BTW he’s pitched with extra rest for 15 of his 22 starts, and when he has more than 5 days rest his numbers are considerably worse. Not opinions, facts.
They are just pushing back his start to preserve him a little…. nothing more than that.
Coop – He went from averaging 38 innings a month to 26 innings in July.
And you’d think by pitching less in July he’d perform better, right?
Nope ….. K/9 dropped from 12.3 down to 10.7
K/W dropped from 6.88 down to 5.17
WHIP shot up from 0.992 to 1.308
Numbers matter, facts matter ;O)
There’s nothing all that questionable about it. They stated over a month ago they wanted to limit his workload a bit, and then went on a stretch where they had him throw 100 or more pitches in 7 of 11 starts since the end of May. He’s thrown just under 2200 pitches so far this year after throwing a career high of 2391 last year. All this bump back is is the team trying to find ways to limit how far over that 2391 mark he goes this year.
And isn’t it about time pitchers were tracked by pitches thrown and not innings pitched considering the wide variance in number of pitches a pitcher can throw in any given inning?
Watching his last start, hitting 99 mid game multiple times, I can’t see him all of a sudden having a big issue. Maybe his recovery was longer than usual, and they are being very careful. I hope there’s nothing really going on, but 99 isn’t dead arm.
Dude he’s already at his career high in innings and they knew this would happen well ahead of time. It’s no mystery. No need to call in the Hardy Boys. They’re managing his innings. You can’t take a pitcher from 140 to 240 innings in a single year. Simple
My understanding of it is their plan to trade for a pitcher and slide him into that spoy
not a red sox fan but bloom struck me as extremely indecisive. wonder if breslow believes the future is now or if the org will continue to say wait til next year when we promise the window will open
Those are sometimes the most interesting parts of a deadline. To get an Alcantara (or whoever) might help or not, but it speaks to the mindset of the front office. A few more affordable arms seems like the prudent choice here, but the division is still wide open.
dasit – Some believe Bloom had too many constraints. He did have a small payroll budget to work with, and he was ordered to build up the farm system so the Sox wouldn’t have to spend a lot on free agents or contract extensions.
Let’s put it this way, he definitely had very little autonomy.
Gallen and Alcantara would be classic Red Sox not trying to spend too much at the deadline, so they will probably massively overpay for Alcantara and he will get hurt which will end his season early. But hey, he might be good in 2026.
why would he get hurt? what evidence suggests that besides your projection?
Just how it goes for the Sox. Look no further than Paxton last year, or the multitude of pitchers they sign to rehab from TJ and don’t pan out.
I don’t want him to get hurt, that’s just what I feel would happen.
well thank goodness you’re not a GM or the Sox would still be running out 45 year old Lester, lackey, and Beckett because theyre workhorses
the key part with those TJ signings is that they’re signings so it’s pretty doubtful the sox would overpay in prospects for any of those players.
Man Buehler, Giolito, Sandoval, and Hendricks have been great this season! Oh wait they haven’t been.
Giolito: 7-2, 3.80 ERA, 1.25 Whip
Whats wrong with that? Red Sox have a playoff position and are 11th in the league in ERA. Do they need another starter? Absolutely, but this team is doing just fine.
Oh and you left out Crochet and Bello for some reason.
Gio has been pitching pretty well, and Sandoval was signed for 2026.
Why can I totally see them blowing up the farm for Edward Cabrera
This is the move
Cabrera would crumble in fenway. he has horrible makeup and can’t handle the pressure. sandy is a proven commodity and big game pitcher, which is what the staff needs, a mentor for houck, crochet, bello, etc. Sandy’s ask is also at all time low right now, Cabrera the contrary
Not sure where you get your info on Cabrera. It’s not like MIA has been in any meaningful games since he’s been in the league. And I wasn’t aware that he wears make-up.
He’s controllable and has great stuff. And not coming back from TJ surgery. I wouldn’t be disappointed w Sandy, but I’d love to see Cabrera slotted in behind Crochet.
I would want to get more info on Cabrera but I would be cautiously optimistic for his immediate future say next 2- 3 years.
Could a decent package of 3 prospects convince MIA to trade him?
Cabrera is rather inconsistent and injury prone. It’s doubtful that the Marlins would only want him for 3 decent prospects and for that reason I wouldn’t bother.
You only blow up the farm for Mackenzie Gore. Cabrera if it doesn’t cost us top pitching prospects. This team is set positionally for a few years. We can trade and should trade them.
Probably trade Duran for peanuts like devers.
Likely trade Chapman for a mid level prospect
When we actually need to keep Chapman. Trade Duran for Suarez in SD. Or get Abel and painter from PHIL
duran for Suarez. lmfao.
and then you woke up
You’re babbling. I just thought you’d like to know that.
Stop being interested and start trading. Time is wasting and we’re bored
Get all three!
You get a car..and you get a car..and you get a car!!!..Oops wrong thing
Sandy may be a stagecoach right now.
I wouldn’t be against Alcantara as long as they don’t overspend for him. Still think they should have been trying to get Joe Ryan from the Twins with a Duran package.
In terms of prospects, the future is already here. Obviously, Anthony, Mayer and Campbell won’t go.
I’d hate to see someone like Abreu go, but I’d have to assume he’s on the table. IMO, most likely to go is The Password.
A starting pitchers is a must if the organization believes in a playoff run this year.
Im fully on board for getting Sandy. He’s been much better recently and is not quite all the way back still from the injury. Plus, its fun to think about Crochet and him as a 1-2 for all of next year.
except sandy is a #4 right now, he wouldn’t even make the playoff roster today
Be patient! Keep Duran, “Password,” and move Anthony to first base in the off-season. It is too much of a crap-shoot to make trades at this time. Save your chips and win next season and beyond! I’ve been a RS fan since 1955 and have endured much over the years. The RS have the right position players and just need to have the right pitchers to mature in the minors for an extended run!
moving anthony to 1B is a complete waste. They’re better off signing a 1B in the offseason than doing that.
They are not trading Duran…. stop with all the BS trade suggestions.
Cooper – And as I’ve been saying for months, it’s not a coincidence that Duran has been awesome since they assured him he wouldn’t be traded. The trade rumors put a lot of pressure on him that obviously negatively impacted his performance. It’s the silver lining from Mayer’s injury.
They probably won’t now but I wish they would. They need to sell high in this guy.
So He’s getting hot at the right time though and that will really help the team.
But I don’t see this guy doing it five years from today. That’s the contract you’re going to have to give him eventually.., unless you trade him when he’s 31 and get peanuts at that time instead of a great player or two now.
Gary: at worst they will move Duran in the offseason but if some team blows them out the water with an offer the Sox would move them.
Gary – Haven’t you ever heard a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush ;o)
Interesting Fact:
The San Francisco Giants have the worst record in all of baseball since they traded for Devers.
Red Sox dodged a huge bullet.
And during that time frame…. the Giants have scored the least runs in all of MLB.
That is truly amazing. Welcome to GMing Buster!
Lately I’ve been wondering, Duran played second base, why don’t we slot him into first base this offseason. He’s not that strong in terms of his arm, and he continues to be the guy we can pull out of the outfield. Haven’t seen this brought up by anyone, but was just thinking of a way to fix the logjam without trading any of these 4 outfielders.
You don’t put a centerfielder at first base to fix a log jam.
You could trade a centerfielder and get a first baseman plus a starting pitcher. You put guys at first that can’t play anywhere else.
He’s not a center fielder on this team, and his control over 3 years and output makes him very attractive handling that position. It creates an all athletic team.
What first baseman is really available that isn’t in their mid 30s?
Buehler needs to step up and they could use fifth starter. Maybe a veteran righty bat with power. And a couple more relievers. Not a lot needed.
They are 5 games out of first and trending positive. Hop on boys.
hard pass on Gallen, Kelly, and Sandy. If you are gonna go after someone, go after Keller, or stand pat at the deadline.
I’m expecting no movement. I think we are going to bring what we’ve got. I agree on Keller though..but at what cost?
Does BOS trade any of their young OFs I think I like Raffy and Abreu more than Duran but I’d like to know more about their mental approach/maturity, discipline etc.
Unless get overwhelmed I think they may keep them all. Then somebody gets traded this offseason
I’d rather not touch the ML roster unless it was for Gore. They’ve all come up together, they have a blast playing and they’re a fun team to watch. I think any of them would keep growing if they’re traded.
I’m not seeing it.
Rafaela is starting to look like a great bargain signing.
Abreu is still just in his second full season, more potential to unlock. Already a great player, especially if he hits LHP better.
Duran is the nucleus of the whole ball club, and the most athletic guy on the team. He’s a throwback to the dirt dogs. He’s that guy, and still getting better.
I just can’t see these guys getting traded, I don’t see a return worthy personally.
We need to see if Campbell rebounds too.
Password I think could be on the move, or Blaze Jordan.
I don’t think any of these options get them across the finish line and the cost will be too high. Why not get Mays or go for Skenes somehow?
Skenes is untouchable.
There is no coming back from that trade for the franchise. Maybe in a few years, but now.
You’d have riots in Pittsburgh.
Not now*
Good point no matter what the haul Pitt wouldn’t recover