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MLBTR Podcast: Injured Pitchers, Brayan Bello’s Extension, Mookie At Shortstop And J.D. Davis

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The latest episode of the MLB Trade Rumors Podcast is now live on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and wherever you get your podcasts! Make sure you subscribe as well! You can also use the player at this link to listen, if you don’t use Spotify or Apple for podcasts.

This week, host Darragh McDonald is joined by Anthony Franco of MLB Trade Rumors to discuss…

Plus, we answer your questions, including…

  • Who had the worst offseason and why is it the Angels? (25:15)
  • Fact or Fiction? The Red Sox are going to trade Masataka Yoshida. (28:50)
  • Considering the amount of effort the Tigers front office has put into fielding a major league team in the past 10 years, should Tiger fans feel slighted? “They can wait” seems to be the attitude. Should Tiger fans just stop buying Little Caesars pizza and encourage their friends to buy their pizzas elsewhere? I am sure franchise owners enjoy being associated with a cheap loser. (31:20)

Check out our past episodes!

The podcast intro and outro song “So Long” is provided courtesy of the band Showoff.  Check out their Facebook page here!

Rob Refsnyder Suffers Fractured Toe

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Red Sox outfielder Rob Refsnyder was hit by a pitch on his foot during yesterday’s Grapefruit League contest. He told reporters after the game that he had a “crack” in his pinky toe, per Ian Browne of MLB.com. Today, the club confirmed to reporters that Refsnyder has a fractured left pinky toe, with Pete Abraham of the Boston Globe among those to relay the news.

The club hasn’t provided a timeline for the recovery, but it seems certain that Refsnyder will begin the season on the injured list with Opening Day now just two weeks away. All injuries are different, but just for a point of reference, Joe Musgrove suffered a toe fracture in late February last year and returned to the club almost two months later in late April. Sean McAdam of MassLive estimates the injury could cost Refsnyder four to six weeks.

Refsnyder wasn’t going to be an everyday player for the Sox but was likely to be in the short side of a platoon. The righty swinger has drawn walks in 13.8% of his plate appearances against southpaws in his career, helping him produce a line of .270/.376/.380 and a 111 wRC+. That’s compared to an 8.4% walk rate, .219/.296/.308 batting line and 67 wRC+ against righties.

His lefty-mashing has been even more pronounced in recent seasons. He earned a free pass in 15.9% of his trips to the plate against lefties last year, compared to a 15.2% strikeout rate, and slashed .308/.428/.400 for a 133 wRC+.

The Sox have a number of left-handed hitters in their outfield and designated hitter rotation, including Jarren Duran, Masataka Yoshida and Wilyer Abreu. Righties Tyler O’Neill and Ceddanne Rafaela are in the mix as well but Refsnyder would have factored in on occasion when there was a tough southpaw on the mound. That won’t be option for manager Álex Cora early in the schedule as Refsnyder will be working his way back from this injury.

In the meantime, that could open up a bench role for someone else. C.J. Cron is in camp as a non-roster invitee while Bobby Dalbec is one the 40-man roster, but with one option year remaining. It was reported last month that the Sox were interested in adding a righty-swinging outfielder to help pair with Duran, Yoshida and Abreu. They later added Cron but he isn’t an option on the grass.

Given the club was already interested in a righty-swinging outfielder and Refsnyder is now set to miss some time, perhaps they will have a bit of increased urgency to get something done with a free agent before the season starts. Michael A. Taylor, Tommy Pham and Adam Duvall are still available, while free agent Robbie Grossman is a switch hitter who is better against southpaws.

Lucas Giolito Undergoes Internal Brace Procedure

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March 13: The Red Sox announced this morning that Giolito underwent an internal brace procedure to repair the UCL in his right elbow. That comes with a shorter recovery timetable than a full Tommy John surgery and will give the right-hander a chance to pitch the entire 2025 season if things go smoothly in his rehab. He’ll likely still miss the entire 2024 campaign, however.

March 11: Red Sox right-hander Lucas Giolito will undergo surgery on his right elbow tomorrow afternoon, per Pete Abraham of the Boston Globe and Sean McAdam of MassLive. It’s still unknown whether he will require a full Tommy John surgery or a brace procedure, but he’s ticketed for an extended absence either way.

It was reported last week that Giolito has a partial tear in his ulnar collateral ligament in his right arm as well as a strain of his flexor tendon. A decision had not yet been made on the path forward, with the club sending Giolito for a second opinion. After gathering further information, it now seems that it will be necessary for him to go under the knife. Giolito previously underwent Tommy John surgery as a prospect back in 2012.

It seems that some of the details of the procedure will be worked out on the operating table, as the medical team will assess the level of damage in his elbow once they get in there and then decide on the best path forward. Either way, Giolito seems slated to miss the entirety of the 2024 season. A brace procedure is a relatively new alternative to Tommy John that can come with shorter recovery times, but even those rehab windows are in the ballpark of a year.

It’s a devastating blow for both Giolito and the Red Sox. The righty posted excellent results from 2019 to 2021 with the White Sox, with a 3.47 earned run average in that time. He struggled in 2022, with his ERA bumping to 4.90, but seemed to be bouncing back in the first half of last year.

He had a 3.79 ERA through 21 starts as he approached the open market and seemed to be trending towards being one of the top free agents of the 2023-24 offseason. He was traded to the Angels but then saw his performance dip again. He had a 6.89 ERA in six starts for the Halos as that club fell out of contention and put him on waivers. The Guardians put in a claim but then Giolito had a 7.04 ERA in six starts for that club.

As recently as last summer, he seemed to be trending towards a nine-figure mega deal but instead limped into free agency with little momentum behind him. He settled for a two-year, “prove it” deal with the Red Sox, netting a guarantee of $38.5MM. He also secured an opt-out in that deal so that he could return to free agency if he posted better results in 2024.

That now won’t happen and Giolito will stay on Boston’s books through 2025. The club came into this winter looking to bolster their rotation but ended up being fairly inactive in that department. They did sign Giolito but also flipped Chris Sale to Atlanta for Vaughn Grissom, making it a sort of neutral set of moves for the rotation, depending on how the Sale/Giolito swapped was viewed.

With Giolito now set for an extended absence, the rotation is now the same as last year but without Sale. It’s possible that steps forward from their incumbent options of Nick Pivetta, Brayan Bello, Tanner Houck, Kutter Crawford or Garrett Whitlock could make that up somewhat, but it’s nonetheless unideal for the club’s big offseason splash to miss the entire season.

The club has been operating with a bit less spending capacity than in the past. Club president Sam Kennedy said last month that new chief baseball officer Craig Breslow has payroll “parameters” that he is operating under. RosterResource pegs this year’s payroll at $180MM, whereas the data at Cot’s Baseball Contracts shows the club has been as high as $236MM in the past. It appears the club doesn’t look favorably on its chances of competing in a competitive American League East and isn’t willing to spend gobs of money to chance a chance at contention that may be narrow.

Free agency still features big names like Blake Snell and Jordan Montgomery. The Sox have been frequently connected to the latter but without anything seeming close, at least partially due to those apparent budgetary concerns. If the club has interest in a more affordable option for eating some innings, guys like Michael Lorenzen, Jake Odorizzi and Noah Syndergaard remain unsigned.

For Giolito, he will be focused on his rehab for the foreseeable future. He will turn 30 years old in July and will turn 31 before his deal with the Sox expires and he returns to the open market after 2025.

Triston Casas Discusses Extension Talks With Red Sox

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The Red Sox recently signed right-hander Brayan Bello to a six-year, $55MM extension that extends their team control over the youngster by two years. That deal isn’t the only possible extension for a young potential cornerstone that Boston has pursued this winter, however, as first baseman Triston Casas confirmed to reporters that he and the Red Sox have discussed a possible extension as well. At the time, Casas indicated that while he would love to spend his entire career in Boston, the club had yet to present him with anything “enticing” to that point. In the wake of Bello’s extension, Casas recently discussed his own extension negotiations with the Red Sox, as relayed by Alex Speier of the Boston Globe.

In his comments, Casas reiterating that he hopes to play in Boston for “the rest of [his] career” while also providing an update on the discussions he’s had with Red Sox brass. Per Casas, the sides are still talking but there’s been “no numerical values” discussed to this point and that “nothing has really accelerated” to this point. Even as the 24-year-old makes clear he hopes to spend his entire career in Boston, it doesn’t seem as though he feels much urgency to get a deal done anytime soon.

“I think I have a lot of work to do before I feel like I can say I deserve that contract extension to be the long-term first baseman for the Boston Red Sox,” Casas said, as relayed by Speier. “…So if I don’t get that offer, I’m not upset at anybody in the organization. I’m not upset with myself.”

Although Casas claims to have not yet performed at a level that would warrant the extension he’s looking for, he certainly turned in a strong performance in his first full big league season last year. In 132 games with the Red Sox, Casas slashed an impressive .263/.367/.490 (129 wRC+) in 502 trips to the plate. That strong overall performance was bolstered by a torrid second half that saw Casas slash an incredible .317/.417/.617 in 54 games with a 175 wRC+ that was the fifth-best figure among all hitters with at least 200 plate appearances down the stretch, bested by only Shohei Ohtani, Matt Olson, Ronald Acuna Jr. and Mookie Betts. If the sides are unable to come to an agreement this spring, a 2024 campaign that even comes close to resembling his second half last year would surely improve Casas’s earning power considerably.

Chris Martin Dealing With Groin Tightness

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  • Red Sox righty Chris Martin was pulled from a live batting practice session earlier today after a pair of warm-up pitches, with Chris Cotillo of MassLive indicating that, per manager Alex Cora, Martin was suffering from groin tightness. Cora added that the issue had “nothing” to do with Martin’s arm and that the club figures to re-evaluate Martin in the coming days. The soon-to-be 37-year-old hurler is coming off a dominant season on the mound for Boston last year where he posted a 1.05 ERA in 55 appearances. Martin has found his name in the rumor mill this winter as a potential trade candidate, and while it’s possible that the veteran’s groin issue could be a cause of concern for potential suitors, he appears less likely to be moved following the deal that sent fellow set-up option John Schreiber to the Royals and instead seems likely to join fellow veteran trade candidate Kenley Jansen at the back of the Red Sox bullpen to open the year.

Latest On Jordan Montgomery, Red Sox

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The Red Sox have been continually connected to free agent Jordan Montgomery as he has remained unsigned throughout the offseason, but without a deal seeming close to fruition. Jon Heyman of The New York Post reports today that the two sides have stayed in contact but that the lefty is looking for a seven-year deal that the club is unwilling to give.

There are arguments for and against the Red Sox making a huge splash to improve the rotation at this point. From the start of the offseason, upgrading the starting staff has been a priority but the club hasn’t done it. They traded away Chris Sale and then signed Lucas Giolito, which amounted to something close to a lateral move, depending how one feels about those two pitchers. But it was recently reported that Giolito has a partial tear of his UCL and a flexor strain. The next steps still aren’t known but season-ending surgery is a possibility.

If Giolito is out of commission, then the Sox are essentially going into the season with the same rotation as last year but without Sale. Nick Pivetta struggled enough last year to get bumped to the bullpen, though he did finish the year strong. Brayan Bello had a decent year and the club clearly believes in him, since they just signed him to an extension, but he seemed to run out of gas late in the year and the low strikeout rate is still a bit of a concern. Kutter Crawford, Tanner Houck and Garrett Whitlock are talented arms to fill out the rest of the staff but those three are still not fully established as starters, with none of that trio having hit 130 innings in a big league season. Cooper Criswell, Brandon Walter and Chris Murphy are on the 40-man as depth but no one in that group has 50 big league innings pitched yet.

Adding someone like Montgomery would be a clear upgrade, both this year and in the future. He has thrown 524 1/3 innings over the past three seasons with a 3.48 earned run average. He tossed another 31 frames in last year’s postseason with a 2.90 ERA, forming a key part of the Rangers’ World Series championship club. Pivetta is slated for free agency after 2024, so the need for rotation help should be even greater a year from now.

But the flip side of the argument is that the Sox may want to wait to put another big contract on their books. They are considered by many observers to be the weakest club in the American League East. The club’s lack of activity this offseason suggests they may view things similarly. Perhaps they don’t want to commit a huge pile of money to Montgomery when they don’t have faith in their current squad.

When a club signs a player to a long-term deal, they generally expect to recoup the most value in the early years when the player is still relatively close to their prime, and clubs are also aware that the later years might be a bit more painful. If the Sox don’t think they have a path to contention right now, perhaps they don’t have much desire to get a deal done with the 31-year-old Montgomery.

Instead, they could use 2024 as a year to evaluate younger players like Ceddanne Rafaela, Wilyer Abreu, Vaughn Grissom, Kyle Teel, Nick Yorke, Marcelo Mayer, Roman Anthony and others. They could trade impending free agents like Pivetta, Kenley Jansen, Chris Martin and Tyler O’Neill this year to further stock up on young talent, then decide on the best time to make a big strike in the future. They could bolster the rotation in the short-term by signing someone like Michael Lorenzen or Jake Odorizzi.

RosterResource currently lists their competitive balance tax figure as $211MM, which is $26MM below this year’s base threshold of $237MM. They could fit in a big deal for someone like Montgomery without going over the line but it would be fairly close. Next year’s CBT number, on the other hand, is only at $133MM. That doesn’t include raises for arbitration-eligible players but the appetite for a giving out a big contract might be higher going forward than it is now.

For Montgomery, the fact that he is still unsigned as we approach the middle of March suggests that no club has met his asking price yet. It’s understandable that he is looking to maximize his guarantee here this winter, as he is coming off a great season and just helped the Rangers win the World Series.

This winter’s market has forced some other free agents to pivot to short-term deals, most notably Cody Bellinger and Matt Chapman. Those two, like Montgomery and Blake Snell, are all represented by the Boras Corporation. Boras clients have generally had a stronger willingness to wait out the market than players with other agencies. But Bellinger and Chapman didn’t find the long-term deals they were seeking and pivoted to shorter pacts with opt-outs that will allow them to return to free agency next winter or the one after that. Reporting has suggested Snell is willing to do the same.

Montgomery may be less inclined to do so, however, since he didn’t receive a qualifying offer at the start of this offseason. Players traded midseason are ineligible to receive a QO and Montgomery was flipped from the Cardinals to the Rangers prior to the deadline. That means he can currently be signed without the club forfeiting any draft picks or international bonus pool money. If he were to pivot to a short-term deal with opt-outs, he would be highly likely to receive a QO whenever he decided to return to the open market, which would put a damper on his earning power at that point. He would also obviously be older and therefore less likely to find a club willing to make a long-term commitment to him.

It’s theoretically possible that he could sign a short-term deal and then be traded at midseason again, though he wouldn’t be able to control that. Clubs are also fairly unwilling to acquire such contracts at the deadline, as they would be taking on the downside of being committed to the player for many years if they got hurt and decided not to trigger their opt-out.

With Montgomery seemingly sticking to his seven-year ask, it suggests he and his reps are perhaps aware that the he is a less viable fit for the pivot to a short-term pact than Bellinger, Chapman or Snell. But he hasn’t found the right deal yet and time will tell if he does end up getting it.

Red Sox Sign Brayan Bello To Extension

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The Red Sox announced they have signed right-hander Brayan Bello to a six-year extension with a club option for 2030. It will give the team an extra two years of control over the 24-year-old and reportedly has a $55MM guarantee. Bello had previously been controllable through the 2028 season, but the Sox have locked in one would-be free agent year and also secured a club option for a second season that’s said to be valued at $21MM. Bello is represented by ISE Baseball.

Chris Cotillo of MassLive was among those to relay the full breakdown. Bello will get a $1MM signing bonus and salary of $1MM here in 2024, followed by successive salaries of $2.5MM, $6MM, $8.5MM, $16MM and $19MM. There’s also a $1MM buyout on the $21MM club option. There are also bonuses and escalators based on Cy Young voting and All-Star selections.

Bello, 25 in May, was signed out of the Dominican Republic for a modest bonus of $28K. But he continued to find success as he moved up the minor league ladder, climbing prospect lists in the process. Baseball America had him in the 15-20 range of their list of the top 30 Red Sox prospects in 2020 and 2021, then vaulted him up to #5 going into 2022. That was based on a 2021 season wherein Bello tossed 95 1/3 innings on the farm with a 3.87 earned run average, 32.8% strikeout rate and 7.7% walk rate while also keeping about half of balls in play on the ground.

He was added to the club’s 40-man roster late in 2021 to keep him out of that year’s Rule 5 draft. In 2022, he posted a 2.76 ERA at the Triple-A level and also got to make a brief major league debut, tossing 57 1/3 innings. His 4.71 ERA in that time wasn’t especially strong but his 55.7% ground ball rate and .404 BABIP suggested at least some of that was misfortune.

Last year got out to a shaky start, as he began the year on the injured list due to some elbow inflammation. He returned in mid-April and had a couple of shaky starts before the Sox decided to option him to the minors. An injury to Garrett Whitlock led to a quick return for Bello and it was at that point that he put together a strong stretch of work that established him as a viable big league hurler.

From his April 28 recall through the end of August, he made 21 starts for the Sox with a 3.20 ERA. His 19% strikeout rate was below average but his 6.4% walk rate and 55% ground ball rate were very strong. He seemed to run out of gas at that point, as he allowed 22 earned run in 26 September innings. Between the poor finish and the rough start, Bello ended up with a 4.24 ERA on the year overall, but the middle section of the season clearly opened some eyes.

It’s obviously a bit favorable to Bello to exclude his worst results, but he was a bit banged up at the beginning of the year and the thud at the end could be chalked up to last year being his largest innings tally thus far. The Sox clearly believe he’s capable of taking a step forward if they are willing to invest in him. He’s already shown he can keep the ball on the ground and the strikeouts might come around eventually, as his 11% swinging strike rate in his career so far is right around league average and he’s punched out 28.9% of hitters faced in the minors.

The Sox have very little starting pitching certainty going forward. Lucas Giolito was signed to a two-year deal this offseason but he now seems to be facing a significant absence due to a partially-torn UCL and a flexor tendon strain. Nick Pivetta is slated for free agency after 2024. That leaves their long-term rotation mix consisting of Bello, Kutter Crawford, Tanner Houck and Garrett Whitlock. Those are talented arms, but each of Crawford, Whitlock and Houck are still somewhat unestablished, with none of them having tossed 130 innings in a major league season yet. On BA’s current list of the top 30 prospects in the system, only two of the top 10 are pitchers, with Wikelman Gonzalez at #7 and Luis Perales at #9. The latter has yet to reach Double-A and the former has less than 50 innings pitched at that level.

Given those options, it’s understandable why the Sox wanted to build around Bello. And from the player’s perspective, his small bonus means he has yet to bank meaningful earnings, unlike a top draft pick or hyped-up international player who may already have millions stashed away. Bello’s service time clock is currently at one year and 82 days, meaning he wouldn’t have even reached arbitration until after the 2025 season.

A deal has seemed like a strong possibility for some time now. Back in January of last year, the young righty expressed his openness to such an arrangement and reporting from July suggested the club would likely broach the subject at some point. A few weeks ago, further reporting indicated that the two sides were discussing a new deal and it seems they are now making some headway.

As shown in MLBTR’s Contract Tracker, Bello is just the fifth pitcher with between one and two years of MLB service time to sign an extension in the past eight years. The two most recent examples — Cincinnati’s Hunter Greene and Atlanta’s Spencer Strider — signed six-year deals worth $53MM and $75MM, respectively. Strider’s contract is a record for this service class and was never likely to be matched by Bello. But the Boston right-hander will settle in just north of Greene’s deal, which was surely a point of focus for Bello and his camp.

Extensions usually feature climbing salaries as the years progress, roughly mirroring the arbitration process. The Sox currently have little on the books that would coincide with the most expensive years of this potential extension. Rafael Devers is under contract through 2033, but no one else is guaranteed a contract beyond 2027. Trevor Story and Masataka Yoshida are the only players guaranteed a salary beyond 2026. Adding Bello to that mix will put another salary of note on the payroll and modestly add to the team’s luxury ledger, but the extension is nonetheless an affordable means of locking in some stability while giving the team some upside in the event that Bello takes his game to a new level.

Alex Speier of the Boston Globe first reported that the two sides were in “advanced” talks on a deal. ESPN’s Kiley McDaniel broke the news that the two parties had agreed on a six-year, $55MM deal.

Tanner Houck, Red Sox Have Discussed Extension

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The Red Sox have reportedly agreed to an extension with young right-hander Brayan Bello but seem to have at least some interest in hammering out another. Righty Tanner Houck told Rob Bradford of WEEI that he has discussed an extension with the club, though nothing is imminent. He had previously discussed the matter with the club a couple of years ago, with nothing developing at that time.

Houck, 28 in June, has posted some intriguing results in the majors but hasn’t yet fully established himself as a viable starter. He has thrown 256 innings over the past four seasons with a 3.86 earned run average. His 24.9% strikeout rate and 51% ground ball rare are both a few ticks better than par while his 8.8% walk rate is right around average.

But last year’s 106 innings pitched were a career high at the big league level, his first time getting over the 70 line. Missing time last year wasn’t his fault, as he was hit in the face by a comebacker and suffered a facial fracture. That injury required surgery and kept Houck on the injured list for over two months. That’s obviously fluky in nature but it still prevented him from getting to a full starter’s workload. In 2022, he also missed time due to lower back inflammation which required surgery, capping him at 60 innings for the year.

Beyond the fact that Houck hasn’t fully built up his workload, there’s also the fact that his results have been better out of the bullpen. For his career, he has a 4.17 as a starter but a 2.68 mark as a reliever, though the latter figure is in a fairly small sample size of just 53 2/3 innings and his peripherals are actually fairly close. His 25.9% strikeout rate as a reliever is just barely higher than his 24.6% clip as a starter, whereas his 9.5% walk rate as a reliever is actually higher than his 8.6% clip as a starter. The wide difference in the ERAs could be down to a bit of luck, as he has a .298 BABIP as a starter but a .274 out of the ’pen, in addition to having a 69.4% strand rate when starting games as opposed to 77.3% as a reliever. His 3.70 and 3.12 FIP as a starter and reliever respectively suggest the difference may not be so wide.

On the other hand, he has significant splits, with lefties having hit him at a .251/.343/.420 rate thus far compared to a line of .214/.282/.283 from righties. If that continues, he might be better served working in a bullpen role where he can be more easily protected from exposure to opposing lefty hitters.

Houck should get plenty of opportunity to prove himself in the rotation this year. The Red Sox came into the winter looking to upgrade the starting staff but haven’t done so. They traded away Chris Sale and signed Lucas Giolito, but the latter now seems like he may be slated for a significant injury absence due to a partial UCL tear and flexor tendon strain.

Assuming Giolito will at least miss the start of the season, the Boston rotation consists of Bello, Houck, Nick Pivetta, Kutter Crawford and Garrett Whitlock. Pivetta is an impending free agent and could wind up on the trade block if the Sox are out of contention this summer. Guys like Cooper Criswell, Brandon Walter and Chris Murphy are also on the 40-man roster but none of that trio has even 50 innings pitched in the big leagues yet.

Given Houck’s current status, it may be difficult to line up on a deal. Since he’s unproven as a starter over a full season, the club may not want to make a significant commitment to him. From Houck’s perspective, he may not want to take a low-ball offer at this moment. If he takes advantage of the open rotation in Boston and puts together a strong season in 2024, he could increase his earning power significantly.

He currently has two years and 100 days of service time. That means he is slated to qualify for arbitration for the first time after 2024 and is on pace for free agency after 2027, which will be his age-31 season. Looking to Boston’s long-term payroll picture, Rafael Devers is under contract through 2033, but no one else is guaranteed a contract beyond 2027. Trevor Story and Masataka Yoshida are the only players guaranteed a salary beyond 2026.

MLBTR Podcast: The Giants Sign Chapman, Zack Wheeler’s Extension, And Snell And Montgomery Remain

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The latest episode of the MLB Trade Rumors Podcast is now live on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and wherever you get your podcasts! Make sure you subscribe as well! You can also use the player at this link to listen, if you don’t use Spotify or Apple for podcasts.

This week, host Darragh McDonald is joined by Tim Dierkes of MLB Trade Rumors to discuss…

  • The Giants sign Matt Chapman (2:50)
  • Why do the Giants and other clubs keep giving players these opt-out deals? (6:45)
  • What is the logic with Chapman and Cody Bellinger settling for these short-term deals? (10:20)
  • What’s next for the Giants? Will they trade J.D. Davis? Go after Blake Snell or Jordan Montgomery? (13:50)
  • Why didn’t the Yankees or Mariners go after Chapman? (17:00)
  • Phillies sign Zack Wheeler to extension (18:30)
  • Should players focus more on guarantees or average annual values? (20:15)
  • Did Shohei Ohtani not push things forward enough for players? (22:15)
  • Was Wheeler not concerned about maximizing his guarantee? (25:10)
  • What does the future look like for the Phillies? (26:35)
  • What’s up with Snell and Montgomery now? Could the Orioles swoop in? (29:35)
  • Does the Lucas Giolito news spur the Red Sox to jump on Snell or Montgomery? (31:20)
  • What about other dark horses for Snell or Montgomery? (34:15)
  • The case for the Brewers being a dark horse (35:55)

Plus, we answer your questions, including…

  • Is the late signing by the Boras clients a result of just how the market played out or the strategy of holding out? How does Boras spin this? (39:15)
  • Are we seeing the end of the Scott Boras era? Especially with players more to their mid-30s. I’m not sure how you could objectively look at how the offseason has gone for his clients and think it was a win for them. (44:45)

Check out our past episodes!

  • How Cody Bellinger’s Deal Affects The Other Free Agents And Why The Offseason Played Out Like This – listen here
  • Finding Fits For The “Boras Four,” Which Teams Could Still Spend? And Rob Manfred In His Last Term – listen here
  • Jorge Soler, Veteran Catcher Signings and the Padres’ Payroll Crunch – listen here

The podcast intro and outro song “So Long” is provided courtesy of the band Showoff.  Check out their Facebook page here!

Lucas Giolito Diagnosed With Partial UCL Tear, Flexor Strain

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March 6: Giolito will receive a second opinion from Dr. Jeff Dugas, Cora said this morning (X link via McCaffrey). Cora conceded that surgery is indeed an option, but no final decisions will be made until the right-hander receives that second opinion.

March 5: Red Sox right-hander Lucas Giolito experienced discomfort in his right elbow after his most recent throwing session, manager Alex Cora announced Tuesday morning (X link via Jen McCaffrey of The Athletic). He’ll undergo additional testing, but ESPN’s Jeff Passan reports that the initial diagnosis is a partial tear of the right ulnar collateral ligament and a flexor strain. A determination on treatment won’t be made until Giolito receives additional opinions, but season-ending surgery is obviously now on the table.

It’s a brutal blow for the Red Sox, who signed Giolito to a two-year, $38.5MM contract that allows the right-hander to opt out following the 2024 campaign. Assuming additional opinions confirm the team’s initial diagnosis, Giolito’s decision on next year’s $19MM player option will be rendered a foregone conclusion before the season even begins. If he indeed picks up that player option, the team would be granted a $14MM club option for the 2026 season. Giolito could then convert that into a mutual option by pitching 140 innings in 2025.

Giolito, 29, signed his current deal in hopes of putting a rough couple years behind him and reentering the market in a stronger position. From 2022-23, the right-hander logged 346 innings but pitched to an ineffective 4.89 ERA between the White Sox, Angels and Guardians. A spike in Giolito’s home run rate contributed heavily to the downturn in performance, but he maintained a better-than-average 25.5% strikeout rate against a slightly higher-than-average 9% walk rate in that span.

The primary culprit in Giolito’s struggles was a spike in home run rate; metrics like xFIP (4.08) and SIERA (4.01) felt he was better over the past two seasons than his earned run average would indicate — but also still worse than he was in 2019-21 peak, when he fanned nearly 31% of his opponents against a stronger 8% walk rate.

Now, with Giolito’s entire season in doubt, any chances of rebounding could well be placed on hold for a year or more. At the very least, he’s in for a lengthy IL stint and will be absent to begin the season. That leaves Brayan Bello, Nick Pivetta, Tanner Houck, Kutter Crawford and Garrett Whitlock as the likeliest options to open the season in Boston’s rotation. Others on the 40-man roster include Brandon Walter, Chris Murphy and Cooper Criswell. The Sox have not yet added much in the way of veteran arms on non-roster deals to compete for jobs this spring, and they traded lefty Chris Sale to the Braves in the swap that brought second baseman Vaughn Grissom back to Boston.

A major injury to Giolito will undoubtedly fuel speculation regarding the top remaining arms on the market. Red Sox fans have clamored for Jordan Montgomery for much of the offseason. The team has spoken to him and shown interest at multiple points, including just prior to the start of spring training. The Boston connection for Montgomery is particularly strong, as his wife is doing her medical residency in the city. To this point, ownership and/or the front office have resisted meeting the 31-year-old’s asking price, but pressure to make some kind of move will only increase.

While fellow Boras Corporation clients Cody Bellinger, Matt Chapman and (reportedly) Blake Snell shifted from seeking long-term deals and instead pursued opt-out laden short-term deals, all indications regarding Montgomery to this point have been that he’s still seeking a long-term deal. The Red Sox will need to weigh that ask while determining whether they want to throw more resources at a team that appears poorly positioned to contend for a postseason spot.

Montgomery wouldn’t cost the Sox a draft pick or international money, as he didn’t receive a qualifying offer, and the Sox are about $35MM from the luxury tax threshold, so Montgomery wouldn’t push them to that point either. Snell did reject a QO and would thus cost the Sox their second-best draft pick and $1MM of space in next year’s bonus pool for international amateur free agency. There are, of course, alternative options who’ve also not yet signed. Michael Lorenzen and Mike Clevinger, for instance, are both still available and both performed reasonably well in the majors just last season.

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