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Cody Ponce Signs With KBO’s Hanwha Eagles

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After a rough season in NPB, right-hander Cody Ponce is trying his luck in the KBO. The Hanwha Eagles announced that they have signed Ponce to join their pitching staff in 2025 (h/t to Dan Kurtz of MyKBO.net). His contract is a one-year deal worth $1MM in USD, and it includes a $200K signing bonus (per Jeeho Yoo of Yonhap News).

Ponce began his professional career in the Brewers organization, agreeing to a $1.108MM signing bonus as the 55th overall pick in the 2015 draft. While he was never a highly-regarded prospect, Baseball America ranked him at no. 9 in Milwaukee’s system entering the 2016 season and included him among the team’s top 30 in each of the next three years. His minor league numbers were typically solid if never especially inspiring; over 394 innings in the Brewers org from Rookie Ball to Double-A, he pitched to a 3.72 ERA and 3.62 FIP. He looked sharper after moving into a more regular relief role at Double-A Biloxi partway through the 2018 season, putting up a 3.29 ERA and 3.11 FIP in 82 IP.

The Brewers dealt Ponce to the Pirates in exchange for Jordan Lyles at the 2019 trade deadline. It was with Pittsburgh that the right-hander made his few big league appearances, pitching in 20 games from 2020-21. Over 55 1/3 innings, he allowed 34 runs (30 earned), good for a 5.86 ERA. He gave up 13 home runs and struck out just 19.6% of the batters he faced. While his 4.38 SIERA was a little more promising than the rest of his numbers, he failed to impress the Pirates brass. At the end of the 2021 season, the team granted him his release to pursue an opportunity in Japan.

Ponce spent the 2022 and ’23 seasons with the Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters. He looked solid with the Fighters, pitching to a 3.35 ERA over 83 1/3 innings in 2022 and a 3.66 ERA over 51 2/3 innings in 2023. However, things took a turn for the worse after he signed with the Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles for the 2024 campaign. Across 67 innings, he put up an ugly 6.72 ERA. His 3.50 strikeout-to-walk ratio was actually significantly better than it was in his first two NPB seasons, and his home run rate was only slightly higher than the league average. Nevertheless, he struggled badly to keep hitters off the bases and runs off the board. On the bright side, his numbers were much better with the club’s farm team in the Eastern League, with whom he pitched to a 2.25 ERA in another 60 innings of work.

As he heads from one Eagles club to another, Ponce will hope for better results on balls in play in his age-31 season. If he can perform more like he did in his first two NPB seasons, he has the skills to be a productive arm for the Hanwha Eagles in 2025.

Nationals Sign Konnor Pilkington To Minor League Deal

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The Nationals have signed lefty Konnor Pilkington and right-hander Clay Helvey to minor league deals, per a team announcement. Both will be in major league camp as non-roster invitees this spring.

Pilkington, 27, has pitched in parts of two seasons with the Guardians (2022-23) and carries a career 3.75 ERA in 60 innings. Fielding-independent metrics are more bearish thanks to worse-than-average rate stats, including a 19.5% strikeout rate, 12.4% walk rate and 39.9% ground-ball rate in that time. He sits just over 92 mph, on average, with his heater and complements the pitch with a low-80s slider and mid-80s changeup.

Though he’s worked both as a starter and reliever in his professional career, Pilkington has seen the bulk of his work come out of the rotation. He’s had a very rough go of it in Triple-A, thanks in part to a pair of seasons with the D-backs’ system and their extraordinarily hitter-friendly environment in Reno, though environment alone can’t explain away the southpaw’s 6.80 ERA in 209 frames at that level. He’ll get a chance to compete for a spot on the Nats’ staff, be it in the bullpen or rotation, and will otherwise head to Rochester to serve as depth.

Helvey, 28 in February, was a 22nd-round pick by the Giants in 2018. He’s spent his entire career in San Francisco’s system, most recently pitching 71 1/3 innings of relief with Triple-A Sacramento in 2024. He posted a 5.17 ERA in that span but also punched out a gaudy 30.5% of his opponents — albeit against an unsightly 11.1% walk rate. Missing bats has never been an issue for Helvey, who’s punched out 28% of his opponents in his pro career. Command has been a persistent struggle, however, evidenced by his lifetime 12.9% walk rate.

KBO’s Lotte Giants Sign Tucker Davidson

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The Lotte Giants of the Korea Baseball Organization announced they’ve signed left-handers Tucker Davidson and Charlie Barnes. Davidson receives an $850K salary with another $100K in incentives for his first season with the Giants. Barnes, who is headed into his fourth season with the club, receives $1.5MM (including incentives). The moves were relayed by Dan Kurtz of MyKBO.net.

Davidson heads to a foreign league for the first time in his career. The 6’2″ southpaw made one appearance in the major leagues this year. He tossed 4 2/3 innings out of the bullpen for the Orioles, picking up the win in a blowout victory over the Twins in the season’s final weekend. Davidson spent the rest of the year with Baltimore’s Triple-A club in Norfolk. He started 17 of 32 outings and worked to a 3.89 earned run average across 115 2/3 frames.

Baltimore waived Davidson shortly after the season concluded. He elected minor league free agency. Rather than accept another minor league deal, he’ll parlay his solid Triple-A numbers into the KBO opportunity. The 28-year-old has a 5.76 ERA over 129 2/3 major league innings across four teams.

Barnes, who pitched for the Minnesota Twins in 2021, has been a reliable piece of the Lotte rotation for the last three years. He owns a 3.42 ERA in a little more than 500 KBO innings. Barnes turned in a 3.35 mark with 171 strikeouts over 150 2/3 innings this past season.

Giants Re-Sign Ethan Small, Kai-Wei Teng To Minor League Deals

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The Giants brought back pitchers Ethan Small and Kai-Wei Teng on minor league contracts last month (h/t to Baseball America’s Matt Eddy). San Francisco had dropped both players from the 40-man roster at the non-tender deadline.

Neither player had been eligible for arbitration. The non-tender deadline allowed the Giants to cut them both loose before circling back with minor league offers. They’ll keep both in the organization without carrying them on the 40-man roster.

Small, a former Milwaukee first-round pick, landed with the Giants in a DFA trade in February. The 27-year-old southpaw spent most of the season on the injured list. He didn’t pitch in the big leagues with San Francisco. Small was limited to 13 minor league innings over three levels. His major league résumé consists of four MLB appearances in Milwaukee between 2022-23. During his most recent healthy year in the minors, he turned in a 3.18 ERA through 51 Triple-A frames two seasons ago.

Teng, 26, made his first four MLB appearances this year. He allowed 12 runs over 11 innings. The Taiwanese righty had a terrible ’24 season in Triple-A as well. Teng allowed nearly a run per inning across 75 1/3 frames. The 6’4″ righty posted strong strikeout and ground-ball numbers in the low minors but has struggled with his command throughout his career.

Rangers Designate Roansy Contreras For Assignment

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The Rangers designated right-hander Roansy Contreras for assignment. Texas needed to open a 40-man roster spot after finalizing their free agent deals with Jacob Webb and Nathan Eovaldi.

Contreras departs the Texas roster within six weeks. The Rangers grabbed him off waivers from the Angels in the opening days of the offseason. There was always a decent chance that he wouldn’t stick on the roster all winter. He’ll either be traded or, more likely, placed back on waivers within the next few days.

The 25-year-old was once regarded as one of the game’s better pitching prospects. Initially a Yankee farmhand, he was a key piece of the package that New York sent to the Pirates for Jameson Taillon. Contreras had a decent debut season with the Pirates in 2022, turning in a 3.79 ERA across 95 innings. He looked like a long-term rotation piece at the time, but his production has dropped sharply over the last two seasons.

Contreras struggled to an ERA near 7.00 across 68 1/3 MLB frames in 2023. He exhausted his last minor league option that year. The Pirates carried him in the season-opening bullpen in ’24. He pitched 12 times in medium-leverage spots before the Bucs took him off the roster. They dealt him to the Angels for cash in May. Contreras played out the year with the Halos in a long relief role, posting a 4.33 ERA with subpar peripherals in 37 appearances.

Since the start of the 2023 season, Contreras owns a 5.47 earned run average over 136 2/3 innings. His 18.5% strikeout percentage and 10.5% walk rate are worse than the respective MLB averages, as is his 1.4 home runs allowed per nine. The performance and the inability to send him to the minors without putting him on waivers could lead to him bouncing around the league. Contreras should still intrigue teams as a depth arm, as he sits around 95 MPH with his four-seam fastball and throws six different pitches.

Rangers Re-Sign Nathan Eovaldi

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Nathan Eovaldi is headed back to Texas. The Rangers finalized the right-hander’s three-year free agent deal on Thursday evening. It’s reportedly a $75MM guarantee for the ACES client.

The deal includes a $12MM signing bonus that’ll be paid in $6MM in installments after the 2026 and ’27 seasons. Eovaldi’s salaries for the next three years will be $18MM, $25MM and $20MM, respectively. The backloaded contract affords Texas some short-term payroll flexibility. Eovaldi also gets a full no-trade clause.

It’s a somewhat shocking contract for the right-hander in a hot pitching market that has exceeded expectations across the board. Eovaldi is the latest pitcher to beat early offseason projections, and his guarantee significant outpaces the two-year, $44MM pact that MLBTR predicted for the righty as part of our annual Top 50 MLB Free Agents list. The fact that the Rangers went to a third year in order to land Eovaldi is particularly noteworthy, as it’s just the third time since 2010 that a pitcher entering his age-35 season or later has landed a guarantee longer than two years according to MLBTR’s Contract Tracker. Rich Hill’s three-year pact with the Dodgers is nearly a decade old at this point, and good a pitcher as Eovaldi is, he’s not a Hall of Fame-caliber talent like Max Scherzer and Jacob deGrom before him.

On the other hand, it’s worth pointing out that deGrom’s aforementioned contract was signed just two winters ago by the same Rangers club that has now brought Eovaldi back into the fold. That could suggest that Chris Young’s front office is simply more willing to roll the dice on aging pitchers they believe in compared to other organizations. If that’s the case, it’s certainly understandable that they’d choose Eovaldi to place that bet on. In his first two years with the club, the veteran right-hander provided much-needed stability to the club’s rotation with a 3.72 ERA (110 ERA+) and 3.86 FIP in 54 starts.

While those numbers may not immediately jump of the page, Eovaldi’s underlying metrics suggest he’s still among the better front-of-the-rotation options available this winter even as he starts to age. His 95.6mph average fastball velocity is still strong, and he’s still limiting walks (7.0% with the Rangers) and generating grounders (49.5% groundball rate) at a high clip. Those strong peripherals come in addition to his phenomenal resume in key moments. Eovaldi offered the Rangers a dominant six-start performance in the postseason as he helped lead the Rangers to the first World Series championship in franchise history back in 2023, when he pitched to a 2.95 ERA and struck out 26.8% of opponents in 36 2/3 innings of work to add to an impressive postseason resume from his years with the Red Sox.

It’s that stability the Rangers hope Eovaldi will continue to bring to the front of their rotation going forward. The club has a number of interesting options, ranging from the elite but oft-injured deGrom to exciting but unproven youngsters like Kumar Rocker and Jack Leiter. With Eovaldi and Andrew Heaney both ticketed for free agency this winter, however, the Rangers were left with zero pitchers who made even 20 starts for the club in 2024. That made adding a stable source of innings a priority for the club, and they’ve now done so by bringing Eovaldi back into the fold where he’ll head a rotation that also figures to feature some combination of deGrom, Rocker, Leiter, Jon Gray, Tyler Mahle, Cody Bradford, and Dane Dunning. It’s possible they’ll continue to add to that rotation mix, as Bob Nightengale of USA Today reported in the aftermath of Eovaldi’s decision that the Rangers hope to add another starter in addition to bullpen help this winter.

Those pursuits could come amid a bit of a budget crunch for the club. Reporting early this offseason suggested that the club could look to duck under the luxury tax threshold this winter. With Eovaldi back in the fold, RosterResource projects the club for a payroll just north of $219MM for tax purposes in 2025. That leaves the club with around $21MM in breathing room before they go over the first threshold, which is set at $241MM. Adding multiple relievers and another starter in free agency could be a tall order with that limited budget room unless the club is willing to deal salary elsewhere, though the trade market could also represent a way to add pitching talent at a lower financial cost.

Turning to the pitching market as a whole, the majority of top free agent starters are off the market at this point. Right-handers Corbin Burnes and Jack Flaherty are still available in terms of potential front-of-the-rotation arms, while mid-rotation pieces Sean Manaea and Nick Pivetta also remain available. Of that quartet, only Flaherty isn’t encumbered by a Qualifying Offer that would force acquiring clubs to forfeit draft capital and international bonus pool money in order to sign him. For clubs looking to avoid signing another club’s qualified free agent such as the Orioles, whiffing on Flaherty (and, in the case of Baltimore specifically, Burnes) would leave them forced to resort to back-end veterans such as Heaney and Jose Quintana or reclamation projects such as Walker Buehler in order to add starting pitching talent.

Robert Murray of FanSided first reported the Rangers were re-signing Eovaldi. Jeff Passan of ESPN was first with the three-year, $75MM terms. Evan Grant of the Dallas Morning News reported that it was a backloaded arrangement with an $18MM salary in year one. Jon Heyman of the New York Post had the specific salary breakdown and the no-trade clause.

Braves Sign Wander Suero To Minor League Deal

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The Braves have signed right-hander Wander Suero to a minor league deal, reports Matt Eddy of Baseball America. The Rep 1 Baseball client will presumably receive an invite to major league spring training as well.

Suero, 33, signed a minor league deal with the Astros last winter. He was selected to the roster in April but was outrighted off the roster after just one appearance. He spent most of the year in Triple-A and had a good performance. He tossed 67 2/3 innings for the Space Cowboys, allowing 2.66 earned runs per nine. He was surely helped by a .238 batting average on balls in play and 85.8% strand rate, but his 24.8% strikeout rate was a strong mark.

He does have some experience as an effective major league reliever, though it’s been a few years now. He tossed 142 2/3 innings for the Nationals over the 2018 through 2020 seasons with a 4.10 ERA, 26.1% strikeout rate and 8.5% walk rate. He earned one save and 27 holds for the Nats in that time. But his ERA jumped to 6.33 in 2021 and he was non-tendered after that season.

Over the past three years, he’s mostly been limited to minor league work, with only six big league appearances in that stretch. But he had a 3.45 ERA in his 141 Triple-A innings for that time frame, striking out 23.1% of batters faced while walking 10.8%.

Atlanta might have a tight budget this offseason and the bullpen needs addressing. A.J. Minter, Jesse Chavez and John Brebbia just became free agents and Joe Jiménez recently underwent knee surgery that could keep him on the injured list for the entire 2025 season. Suero gives them a bit of extra non-roster depth and still has one option year remaining. That roster flexibility could work in his favor when it comes to getting a spot next year.

Rays Sign Danny Jansen

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The Rays have upgraded behind the plate. Tampa Bay announced they have signed free agent catcher Danny Jansen on a one-year deal with a mutual option for 2026. The contract reportedly guarantees the ISE Baseball client $8.5MM — taking the form of an $8MM salary and a $500K buyout on the $12MM option. Jansen reportedly declined multi-year proposals in order to return to the open market next winter.

Jansen, 29, is a longtime division foe, having spent his entire career to date with the Blue Jays and, briefly this summer, the Red Sox. He’s a rebound candidate looking to bounce back after a down year at the plate in which he slashed just .206/.308/.348 in 328 plate appearances. It was a rough year and a particularly rough finish for Jansen, but heading into the season he looked primed for a notable deal in free agency. From 2021-23, he slashed a combined .237/.317/.487 (121 wRC+) — including a huge .260/.339/.516 showing in 2022.

Any discussion of Jansen’s downturn at the plate should take note of the fact that he opened the season on the injured list due to a fracture in his wrist he suffered during spring training. Jansen raced out of the gate with a .295/.375/.533 slash through his first 120 plate appearances before falling into a prolonged slump from which he never really recovered. Jansen hit just .150/.270/.237 over his final 204 trips to the plate.

(Anecdotally, Jansen also became the first player in MLB history to play for both teams in the same game, starting for the Jays in a rain-suspended game against the Red Sox that was subsequently finished in the second half — after he’d been traded to Boston.)

Jansen still walked at a stout 12.7% clip in that time and fanned in a slightly lower-than-average 21% of his plate appearances. However, his quality of contact went into the tank (85 mph average exit velocity, 24.2% hard-hit rate). Jansen’s .172 average on balls in play during that span of just over 200 plate appearances was surely indicative of some poor fortune, but the lack of quality contact underscores that it wasn’t mere bad luck on its own.

The Rays will hope a healthier Jansen can help them solve a need behind the plate that has persisted for several seasons. Tampa Bay’s catchers last year were predictably among the least-productive in the league — as one would expect when opening the year with journeyman Alex Jackson and a defensive specialist like Ben Rortvedt as the big league catching tandem. By measure of wRC+, the Rays’ catchers were 33% worse than average at the plate. Only the Marlins and White Sox received less-productive output from the position. Tampa Bay catchers combined for a disastrous .194/.272/.291 slash on the season, though Rortvedt’s knack for drawing walks and strong glovework at least made things slightly more palatable.

Even if Jansen simply matches last year’s lackluster output, it’d be an offensive upgrade for the Rays. If he can recapture a portion of his 2021-23 form, it could be a massive improvement to the lineup. Defensively, he’s probably a step down, though there’s reason to hope for improvement in 2025. Jansen has typically rated as a solid but not elite defender. Statcast gave him plus grades for blocking pitches in the dirt and slightly below-average framing marks last year. Jansen has a career 20% caught-stealing rate but sits just over 13% in the past two seasons. However, he’s fractured the middle finger and the wrist in his throwing hand over those two seasons, either of which could have a subsequent impact on his throwing; Jansen’s average 1.99 second pop time is still right in line with where it sat in 2022 (1.98 seconds).

Jansen’s signing should push the Rays’ payroll into the $86MM range. That number could still change dramatically, however, as the Rays have received trade interest in veterans like Jeffrey Springs ($10.5MM in 2024), Yandy Diaz ($10MM), Pete Fairbanks ($3.666MM) and Zack Littell (projected $4.8MM) — among others. It’s not clear just how willing ownership is to spend in the wake of the hurricane damage that ruined Tropicana Field’s roof and forced the Rays to relocate to Tampa’s Steinbrenner Field (home of the Yankees’ Class-A affiliate). The Jansen deal, however, at least signals a willingness to spend modestly, even if the eventual plan is to balance things out by trading other veterans for young, controllable (and cheaper) talent.

Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times first reported the Rays and Jansen were nearing a deal. Ken Rosenthal and Sahadev Sharma of the Athletic reported that it would be a one-year contract. Robert Murray of FanSided reported the $8.5MM guarantee, as well as Jansen’s decision to decline multi-year offers. Topkin was first with the mutual option and salary breakdown.

White Sox Sign Dan Altavilla To Minor League Deal

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The White Sox announced Thursday that they’ve signed right-handed reliever Dan Altavilla to a minor league contract. The MAS+ Agency client will be in spring training as a non-roster invitee.

Altavilla, 32, has pitched in parts of seven big league seasons but frequently dealt with injuries that have limited his amount of time on the mound. Since making his MLB debut with the 2016 Mariners, Altavilla’s laundry list of injuries includes shoulder inflammation, a pair of UCL sprains (the latter resulting in Tommy John surgery), a forearm strain and a notable oblique strain that sent him to the 60-day injured list just this past season.

In his first three seasons from 2016-18, all coming with Seattle, Altavilla pitched a combined 79 2/3 innings with a 3.28 ERA, 25.3% strikeout rate and 10.7% walk rate. He’s managed just 40 big league innings since, working to a combined 6.53 earned run average along the way. It’s not as though Altavilla has been consistently healthy in the minors during that stretch, either; he’s totaled 84 1/3 minor league frames in that time, bringing him to a total 120 1/3 frames in a span of six years.

There’s little doubt that Altavilla is talented when his arm is right. Even with his recent injury-plagued seasons weighing down his career numbers, he carries a 4.36 ERA and 26% strikeout rate in the big leagues. He pitched just 3 2/3 MLB innings with Kansas City this past season but averaged a sizzling 96.8 mph on his heater. In 41 Triple-A innings for K.C., he logged a 3.51 ERA, albeit with a 22.2% strikeout rate and 12.9% walk rate — both pedestrian marks.

The rebuilding White Sox will have plenty of room for non-roster players to compete for bullpen jobs this coming spring. Right now, the only relievers with even a year of experience in the Chicago bullpen are Justin Anderson, Jared Shuster, Steven Wilson and Ron Marinaccio. If Altavilla cracks the roster, he could log some meaningful innings and will be controllable through the 2026 campaign, as he currently has only 4.153 years of MLB service.

Red Sox Acquire Garrett Crochet

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The long-awaited Garrett Crochet trade is finally here. The lefty will be swapping his White Sox for Red Sox, according to announcements from both clubs. Four prospects are going the other way: catcher Kyle Teel, outfielder Braden Montgomery, infielder Chase Meidroth and right-hander Wikelman Gonzalez.

Crochet, 25, was the eleventh overall pick in the 2020 draft and made his big league debut that same season with a six-inning cup of coffee. He was a key piece of the White Sox bullpen in 2021 with a 2.82 ERA and 2.80 FIP in 54 1/3 innings of work but missed the entire 2022 season and a portion of the 2023 campaign after undergoing Tommy John surgery. The lefty ultimately made just 13 appearances in the majors last year and struggled in 12 2/3 innings while walking more batters than he struck out during that time.

When the White Sox made the decision to not only move Crochet into the rotation but name him the club’s Opening Day starter back in March, the news came as something of a shock given his lengthy injury history. The move proved to be a fateful one, however, as Crochet went on to turn in a dominant season for Chicago to emerge as the club’s lone bright spot amid a brutal 121-loss season. Crochet pitched 146 innings across 32 starts for the White Sox this year, and in doing so posted a 3.58 ERA (115 ERA+) with a phenomenal 2.69 FIP. Among starters with at least 100 innings of work in 2024, Crochet led the sport in strikeout rate (35.1%) and SIERA (2.53) while also posting an elite 5.5% walk rate and a solid 45.1% groundball rate.

Those unmatched peripheral numbers paint a picture of Crochet as among the game’s very best starters on a rate basis, offering a rare combination of command and top-end velocity from the left side. That’s not to say Crochet comes completely without concerns, of course. He was quite prone to giving up hard contact with the White Sox this year, as evidenced by 14.4% of his fly balls leaving the yard for home runs and a 9.2% barrel rate that was in the bottom 15 among all MLB starters with at least 140 innings this year. While that proclivity towards lackluster batted ball results can be more than made up for with Crochet’s elite strikeout-to-walk ratios, the lefty’s lack of track record due to a substantial injury history is also sure to raise some eyebrows. His 146 innings of work this year represents the first time he’s thrown more than 65 innings in a season dating back to his college days in the SEC, and he threw even 90 pitches in just nine of his 32 starts this year.

Of course, it’s hardly a surprise that Crochet’s workload was closely managed given he more than doubled his previous career high for innings in 2024. Barring injury, it’s easy to imagine the Red Sox being able to stretch him out for larger workloads over the course of his two remaining seasons of team control, and perhaps even for as soon as the 2025 campaign. Ultimately, Crochet profiles as one of the most impactful arms in the entire sport on a per-inning basis, and that was clearly enough for a Red Sox club that has been on the hunt for an ace all winter to pull the triggers regardless of durability concerns.

The upside to Crochet’s limitations in previous seasons is that it has tamped down his earning power to this point in his career. He has accrued over four years of major league service time but since so much of that was spent either on the injured list or in the bullpen, he hasn’t been able to push his salary up terribly high. MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz projects him for just $2.9MM next year. He will be due another raise in 2026 before his slated trip to free agency but probably won’t even be able to get to eight-figure territory due to his modest starting point. Given the massive prices being paid for free agent starters this winter, Crochet’s situation gave him a huge amount of trade value.

In return for two years of Crochet’s services, Boston is giving up a massive prospect haul. Teel is the clear headliner, ranked by Baseball America as the #25 prospect in the sport and Boston’s third-best prospect behind only Roman Anthony and Kristian Campbell, both of whom reports have suggested the club regards as untouchable. A left-handed hitting catcher, Teel was the 14th overall pick in the 2023 draft and hit an excellent .299/.390/.462 in 84 games at the Double-A level this year before earning a promotion to Triple-A. The youngster rates as a solid defender behind the plate who is expected to have no issues sticking behind the plate, and with his 23rd birthday coming up in February it’s not hard to imagine him taking over as the everyday catcher for the White Sox in Chicago sometime in 2025.

In addition to Teel, the Red Sox are also dealing 2024 first rounder Braden Montgomery. The 12th overall pick in this year’s draft, Montgomery is a switch-hitting outfielder who has yet to make his pro debut but slashed .322/.454/.733 in 295 trips to the plate for Texas A&M this year. BA ranks Montgomery as the #59 prospect in baseball while MLB Pipeline ranks him as the #54 prospect in the sport, noting that he offers plus power and double-plus arm strength that should make him a good fit for right field. Meidroth and Gonzalez, meanwhile, are not considered top-100 prospects in the sport but are nonetheless well-regarded within Boston’s system. Per Pipeline, they ranked as Boston’s #11 and #14 prospects prior to the trade.

Meidroth was the club’s fourth-rounder in the 2022 draft and looked good in 122 games at Triple-A this year with a .293/.437/.401 slash line. The 23-year-old offers little power and profiles best as a second baseman in the majors but also has experience at third base and shortstop. Like Teel, he could impact the White Sox as soon as this year. Gonzalez, meanwhile, signed with the Red Sox out of Venezuela and made his pro debut back in 2019. He split his time between the rotation and bullpen at the Double-A level in 2024, posting a 4.73 ERA in 83 2/3 innings of work. His solid 25.6% strikeout rate at the level was overshadowed by a 12.8% walk rate. It’s possible Gonzalez could make an impact at the big league level out of the bullpen in the near-term, but given Chicago’s lengthy timeline for a return to contention it would hardly be a surprise to see the club opt to develop the 22-year-old carefully with an eye towards a future in the big league rotation.

With Crochet now in the fold, the Red Sox have checked the biggest box off of their offseason to-do list by adding a premium talent to the front of their rotation. What’s unclear, however, is the club’s next steps. Rumors percolated earlier this winter that the club may pursue multiple top-level pitching additions, and given the fact that the club reportedly prepared a formal offer for top free agent starter Corbin Burnes last night such an addition can’t necessarily be ruled out. A lower-level addition to supplement the rotation appears more likely at this point, however, given recent reporting expressing skepticism regarding Boston’s odds of landing Burnes. A reunion with Nick Pivetta or a pursuit of Walker Buehler have been floated as possible alternative free agent targets for the Red Sox and could allow the club to further build out depth for a rotation that currently projects to see Crochet joined by Tanner Houck, Brayan Bello, Kutter Crawford, and Lucas Giolito next year.

Aside from bolstering the rotation, the Red Sox still figure to explore the market for a right-handed addition to their lineup. Teoscar Hernandez and Alex Bregman have both received buzz as potential targets for Boston, with Hernandez theoretically joining a crowded outfield mix as a replacement for Tyler O’Neill while Bregman would slot into the club’s lineup as the everyday second baseman barring a decision to move Rafael Devers off third base. Now that Teel is headed for Chicago, bolstering the club’s depth behind the plate seems likely and finding a back-up such as James McCann to pair with Connor Wong could be a priority for the club.

Julian McWilliams of the Boston Globe (X link) first reported that the Red Sox were about to acquire Crochet with Teel going the other way. Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic (X link) first reported the other names in the deal.

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