Red Sox Underrated Offseason Acquisitions: T.J. Sikkema

[Nick John]

Baseball action is finally back, and the Boston Red Sox's roster looks largely complete. However, when you take a look at the bullpen, it's clear the team still has some moves to make prior to Opening Day.

If the season were to start today, the only guaranteed left-handed reliever would be Aroldis Chapman. With Chapman slotted to be the closer once more after a historically great season in 2025, that would leave the Red Sox without a left-handed option for earlier in the game. Jovani Morán is a likely case to break camp with the team as he is out of minor-league options, though necessity doesn't always equal preference.

It seems that the team would want a second left-handed option to pair with Morán for the middle innings. Earlier in the offseason, you could argue that the Red Sox had plenty of left-handed options in Brennan Bernardino and Chris Murphy also on the 40-man roster, but they were both traded. Shane Drohan could have been another option to be a reliever for the team but he too was shipped off.

Thus, the team must turn to a dark horse candidate. Drafted by the New York Yankees in the first round of the 2019 Draft, T.J. Sikkema has spent a lot of time in the minor leagues since. After making four starts in 2019, he would not pitch again until 2022, where he would be part of a package by the Yankees sent to the Kansas City Royals for Andrew Benintendi.

Sikkema would become a minor-league free agent after the 2023 season and would find himself pitching in the Cincinnati Reds’ organization; in 2025, he finally managed to make it to Triple-A. While it was only five appearances, he still garnered decent results, tossing 23 1/3 innings while walking just eight batters and striking out 16. Most impressively, he only allowed opposing batters to barrel up his pitches 1.4% of the time. For good measure, he walked batters at a reasonable 8.1% rate.

Sikkema doesn’t come without his own issues, however. He isn’t a big strikeout guy, nor does he generate a ton of chases or whiffs. Again, it was during a small sample, but it demonstrated that Sikkema has never really been someone who overpowers or tricks batters.

And yet, Sikkema threw a live bullpen in Sox camp on February 18, going up against Roman Anthony, Caleb Durbin, Nate Eaton, Masataka Yoshida and Tsung-Che Cheng. Of the five hitters, Sikkema managed to get Anthony out twice on weakly hit balls including a broken bat and struck out Yoshida. While spring is still early, it’s a positive sign of a pitcher who may just force his name into the bullpen conversation.

Sikkema relies on a fastball-slider combination, though the slider is the better of the two pitches. Sikkema isn’t the hardest thrower as his fastball averages 88 to 91 mph, but he has managed to get it into the mid-90s on occasion. With an offseason of working in the Red Sox's pitching lab, it's not unreasonable to suggest that he could add some more punch to his heater, which would make him a far more intriguing candidate for the bullpen.

At this point, whoever the Red Sox bring in as a left-handed reliever will lead to divisiveness, but the options are what they are. Sikkema may never reach the majors with Boston, but there's a reason the team signed him with a non-roster invite attached. He may be a longshot, but opportunity has come knocking.

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