The Boston Red Sox promised fans that they’d take a “full throttle” approach to this offseason in an effort to improve their struggling roster. Fast forward to the beginning of March and their promises appear to be as empty as ever for a team that’s finished last in the AL East in 3 of the last 4 years.
The star addition of the offseason was supposed to be RHP Lucas Giolito, who was pencilled in as the team’s opening day starter after inking a 2 year, $38.5M contract with the club. However reports indicate that not only is the righty in danger of missing opening day, but he could be on the shelf for considerably longer.
After reporting pain in his throwing arm toward the end of his start on Friday, initial imaging showed damage to Giolito’s right elbow. Damage that’s significant enough to consider surgery.
“I felt something in my elbow which is never fun to deal with,” Giolito told reporters after his spring training outing. “It’s not the first time. We deal with stuff as pitchers all the time with our elbows and shoulders.”
“We’re still trying to figure out the next steps,” he added. “Obviously it’s early and stuff is happening in real time so we’re working through all that.”
Boston believes Giolito is dealing with a partially torn UCL in addition to a flexor strain which, if he were to go under the knife to correct, would likely cost him the entirety of the 2024 campaign. With fellow addition Liam Hendriks also expected to miss most of the season after undergoing Tommy John surgery, that leaves only RHP Cooper Criswell, and his 37.2IP of career experience at the MLB level as the only addition to the Red Sox lineup for 2024.
So much for “full throttle”…
Boston was already dealing with a precariously thin rotation to begin with. A matter made even more glaring following the trade of LHP Chris Sale to the Atlanta Braves. While Vaughn Grissom is a tremendous get for the club, and a long term piece they can build around, it does little to address the most obvious weakness the team has been dealing with the past several years: quality starting pitching.
Assuming Giolito does indeed miss the 2024 season, Boston would enter the year with a starting rotation of Brayan Bello, Nick Pivetta, Kutter Crawford, Garrett Whitlock, and Tanner Houck. Not exactly a murderer’s row of arm talent.
With their AL East opponents loading up this offseason with additions such as Juan Soto (Yankees), Corbin Burnes (Orioles), and the never ending barrage of unknown future All-Stars that Tampa Bay is seemingly able to pluck out of thin air, Boston fans have every right to feel frustrated with ownership. A sentiment that’s been simmering for the better part of the 2020’s amidst the Fenway faithful, and has now spilled over to the clubhouse as well following Rafael Devers recent candid interview.
“They need to make an adjustment to help us players to be in a better position to win,” he told reporters via a translator. “Everybody in this organization wants to win. We, as [players], want to win. I think they need to make an adjustment to help us win.”
“I’m not saying that the team is not OK right now, but they need to be conscious of what are the [weaknesses] and what we need…Everybody knows what we need. You know what we need, and they know what we need. It’s just there’s some things that I can’t say out loud. But everybody that knows the organization and knows the game knows what we need.”
Not exactly a ringing endorsement from your franchise third baseman.
However this may be just the kick in the pants that the Red Sox front office needs. Unless they’re already willing to concede that 2024 is another lost season, then they truly have no choice but to bite the bullet and either offer up the term that Jordan Montgomery wants, or the value that Blake Snell’s group is after. At this point, it may not be a bad idea to roll the dice with both of them given the team’s precarious pitching state.
For a team that was once regularly amongst the top payrolls in the league, for them to currently sit in the middle of the pack salary wise is frankly insulting to the team’s rabid fanbase.
Craig Breslow and the rest of the Red Sox front office need to make a move at this point. And while there may have been previous iterations of this team where fans had a justifiable reason to be upset at some of the term or value handed out to free agents on the wrong side of 30, this isn’t one of those times. At this point, fans could likely stomach some “overpays” as a gesture of good faith from management that they’re at least trying to address the roster deficiencies that don’t require decades of scouting experience to see.
If they don’t, expect to see whole lot more Red Sox ticket bundles on sale at a Costco near you.
-Kyle Skinner
Twitter: @JKyleSkinner
Photo: Ian D’Andrea. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license.