Article: What Should the Red Sox Expect From Lucas Giolito and Garrett Whitlock?

[Alex Mayes]

Craig Breslow gave both pitchers a public vote of confidence last week, but coming off internal brace procedures, what will they be able to contribute in 2025?

Last week, Red Sox chief baseball officer Craig Breslow met with the media over Zoom to discuss the remaining items on the team's offseason to-do list. During the call, he mentioned that both Lucas Giolito and Garrett Whitlock should be available to pitch for most or all of the season, with Whitlock pitching out of the bullpen in a "leverage bulk role." This is undoubtedly good news, but both pitchers are coming off lost seasons and will need to work back up to full strength before they can be considered integral parts of the pitching staff. What can we expect their roles to be this season?

Lucas Giolito
The Red Sox signed Giolito before the 2024 season hoping that he could help anchor what was then a relatively young starting rotation. He never made it out of spring training, as an elbow injury required an internal brace procedure that kept him on the IL for the entire season. Still, Giolito spent time around the team and lent a veteran ear to those around him. Coming into 2025, Giolito himself says he is on track to have a full spring training and to go into the season ready to take on a starter’s full workload. Giolito struggled mightily in 2022 and 2023, combining for a 4.89 ERA and 4.70 FIP. However, from 2019 to 2021, those numbers were 3.47 and 3.54. It's unreasonable to ask Giolito to come back as the very best version of himself, but if he can bounce back to something approximating his old form, that would be a big win for the Red Sox. Even as he struggled over his past two seasons, he ran encouraging whiff and strikeout rates. We don’t know how his elbow will respond to a starter’s workload, and the team will try to manage his innings. Giolito should be one of many beneficiaries of the rumored six-man rotation, even though he has said he prefers preparing under the standard five-rotation schedule. Look for Giolito to slot in as a back-end starter for the Red Sox this season. If he fails to reach 140 innings in 2024, Giolito's contract gives the Red Sox a team option for 2026. He'll have a lot to pitch for this season..

Garrett Whitlock
What exactly is a "bulk leverage reliever?" On paper, it makes some sense for Whitlock. He has starting experience and should be used to throwing multiple innings, even out of the bullpen. In my opinion, though, that’s a waste of Whitlock's ability. He has proven to be a dominant reliever in the recent past. Whitlock has a career 4.29 ERA as a starter, compared to 2.65 as a reliever. Giving him a full offseason to work with Andrew Bailey and letting him prepare to be a reliever is the best way forward for the Red Sox here. Whitlock only has nine saves in his career, but he very easily could be the first person to take the mound in the ninth inning once the coaching staff decides that Liam Hendriks is not the closer they had once hoped he would be. Whitlock isn’t a flame-throwing, strikeout pitcher (though his career strikeout rate jumps from 22% as a starter to 28% as a reliever). He tends to pitch to contact, and with a renewed focus on infield defense and a healthy Trevor Story, that should be a more successful strategy in 2025. That should allow Whitlock to feel comfortable stepping to the mound with the game on the line in the ninth inning, and barring another injury, that’s the exact position the Red Sox should hope for him to be in at some point during the 2025 season.

It's not particularly comforting that the Red Sox are relying on so many pitchers with Tommy John surgeries or internal brace procedures in their recent past. All the same, Giolito and Whitlock have had enough success in recent memory that they're good bets to contribute as the team attempts to return to contention.

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[moonslav59]

TJS now means Tommy John Sox.

[5GoldGlovesOF,75]

14 minutes ago, moonslav59 said:

TJS now means Tommy John Sox.

Counting on anybody to be as good as new with post-surgery repairs, especially with an artificial body part (like a mesh patch, plastic knee or internal elbow brace) is risky. 

A guy who was good at something when he was young and supple is not guaranteed to regain that status when he's older and more brittle. 

It took one of the best pitchers of this generation -- Chris Sale -- half a decade to finally regain past glory, and everybody was surprised he lasted a full season.... but was anyone surprised he broke down before the postseason?

[moonslav59]

We certainly have a boatload of TJS returnees, as well as other injury recoveries going on...

Gio & Hendriks

Buehler & Whitlock

Sandoval and Chris Murphy likely to start 2025 on the 60 Day IL.

Even guys like Slaten, I Campbell and a few others missed some time or dealt with injuries in 2024. Those are just the pitchers!

Story is a story, all by himself. Devers missed time and played hurt for a while. Casas is close to the same as Story. Grissom had something going on. Yoshida and Ref couldn't even stay healthy as DHs.

[notin]

On 1/10/2025 at 8:22 AM, moonslav59 said:

We certainly have a boatload of TJS returnees, as well as other injury recoveries going on...

Gio & Hendriks

Buehler & Whitlock

Sandoval and Chris Murphy likely to start 2025 on the 60 Day IL.

Even guys like Slaten, I Campbell and a few others missed some time or dealt with injuries in 2024. Those are just the pitchers!

Story is a story, all by himself. Devers missed time and played hurt for a while. Casas is close to the same as Story. Grissom had something going on. Yoshida and Ref couldn't even stay healthy as DHs.

Lumping injured guys (Slaten, Campbell) in with the TJS crowd feels like piling on.  Every team has pitchers that got injured last years, and plenty of them.  But not all of those teams have as many rebuilt elbow ligaments as Boston does…

[moonslav59]

1 hour ago, notin said:

Lumping injured guys (Slaten, Campbell) in with the TJS crowd feels like piling on.  Every team has pitchers that got injured last years, and plenty of them.  But not all of those teams have as many rebuilt elbow ligaments as Boston does…

I did list those two in a seperate paragraph and mentioned they just missed a little time.

The first 6 I listed should be viewed very differently, indeed. Sandoval & Murphy were paired, because they will likely start 2025 on the 60 Day IL. Gio and Hendriks were paired, because both missed all of 2024 and should be ready b y opening day. Buehler and Whitlock were paired, because they both pitched in 2024, although Whitlock was out after April and may miss opening day. (He should not be out longer than 15-30 days, so maybe no 60 Day for him. (Gio says he is close to being at the same place in their rehab progressions,)

I admit, I have been piling on. I hate these types of signings: Buehler, Hendriks & Sandoval, but they do offer an enormous upside without a huge cost. $20M for Buehler is not cheap, nor is $18M for 1 to 1.5 seasons of Sandoval, but these guys can pitch better than that cost, and so can Hendriks.

I'm a big fan of Whitlock and think he is a lot better than some seem to think he is. He could make up for the loss of the 2024 Jansen and Martin combo, all by himself- not in IP, but in dominance. Our pen has a lot of potential, but I'm not optimistic enough RP'ers reach that potential and make our pen a plus or major plus. I'd love to see us add Scott, but Estevez or a couple others guys left might be enough.