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Sean Manaea may be the most improved pitcher in the second tier of pitching free agents. He changed his delivery this season in New York after watching Chris Sale. He dropped his arm slot from a 28-degree angle in the first half of the season to an 18-degree angle in the second half and saw incredible results. He will be a highly sought-after pitcher on the open market, even after he declined the qualifying offer the Mets extended. Any team that signs Manaea will have to give up draft capital.
There are many pros to signing someone like Manaea to the Red Sox roster. He shows six pitches but concentrates on his sinker, sweeper, and change-up. He uses a four-seamer in conjunction with his change-up, but it sits at the same average velocity as his sinker, so it doesn’t play up unless he’s featuring it behind his off-speed pitches. He went 12-6 on the season with 15 quality starts. On the season, Manaea had a 24.9% strikeout rate and an 8.5% walk rate. Compared to the top three starters in the rotation last year; Tanner Houck (20.8%/6.2%), Brayan Bello (21.8%/9.1%), and Kutter Crawford (23.1%/6.7%) Manaea has a higher strikeout rate than all of them but walks more batters than all but Bello. As currently constructed, the Red Sox could use a reliable left-handed starter in their rotation.
However, the lefty may not make sense for the Red Sox to sign for a handful of reasons. To start, declining the Qualifying Offer may already take him out of the running. Sure, when Nick Pivetta signs elsewhere, the Red Sox will receive a compensatory pick, so the argument could be made that Manaea would be worth giving up a pick to sign, but typically, that’s not how the Red Sox have operated. There are few players that the Red Sox should consider giving up draft capital to sign, and Sean Manaea could easily be on the bubble of that list. He could be the final piece should the Sox trade for Garrett Crochet but miss out on Blake Snell, Max Fried, or Corbin Burnes.
On top of that, his spray chart at Fenway Park doesn’t look great. Long fly balls that turned into outs suddenly turned into home runs. The Green Monster will knock some of those fly balls down into singles and doubles, but it could potentially take a pitcher who has figured things out and inflate his numbers exponentially.
If we look at the numbers over the last five seasons, some potentially concerning trends begin to emerge. I hopped on Baseball Savant and pulled Manaea numbers against the 20 qualified right-handed hitters with the highest pull rates since 2020. Specifically, I was looking at strikeout rate, walk rate, on-base percentage, and wOBA. From 2020 to 2023, those batters had a .419 wOBA and struck out 21.8% of the time. However, it seems as though Manaea may have turned the corner in 2024 after lowering his arm slot. This past season his strikeout rate went up to 33.3%, and his wOBA clocked in at an exceptionally low .160. Those 20 righties batted just .083 against him. Despite a small sample size, those are encouraging numbers.
Sean Manaea could be a great fit in Boston next year. Changing his arm slot seems to have unlocked a new level of dominance for him. However, it remains to be seen if that arm slot change sticks past one season. Look for Manaea to get a multi-year contract, but the Boston Red Sox probably won’t be interested in his services unless they strike out on the top-tier starting pitching free agents.
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