Brandon Glick

Rumors have been swirling around the third baseman in recent weeks, but the Red Sox haven't been mentioned all that often. Are they still in the running for Bregman? View full video

Three players made the Hall of Fame this year. Next year's ballot isn't looking as promising. View full video

Alex Bregman remains available in free agency. It feels like the Red Sox should do whatever they can to change that. View full video

This is a work of satire. Please enjoy. The Boston Red Sox came into this offseason with a clear mission: improve the starting rotation. Though the team finished the 2024 season tied for seventh in rotation ERA (3.81), their FIP (4.10) ranked in the middle of the pack. It was clear to any onlookers that, outside of breakout right-hander Tanner Houck, the team lacked impact talent. Well, thus far, the team has accomplished its goal, trading for Garrett Crochet and signing free agent pitchers Walker Buehler and Patrick Sandoval. With Lucas Giolito set to return from injury in 2025, the rotation is both deeper and more talented. Dig a little deeper, however, and you'll notice a common characteristic among the new arrivals: all four have undergone Tommy John surgery in the last three seasons. While that isn't that uncommon in a day and age where it seems that everyone and their mother is taking a ticket and waiting for their number to be called to get the privilege to go under the knife, it is peculiar that the Red Sox seem to be exclusively targeting starters with scarred elbows. It applies to relievers like Liam Hendriks and Justin Wilson. I caught up with chief baseball officer Craig Breslow during our monthly book club meeting — this month's book was the Merriam-Webster dictionary, chosen by Breslow himself — and asked about the reasoning behind the club's apparent predilection. He pulled me aside, saying nothing, and merely pointed at a humongous poster of famed surgeon Dr. James Andrews on his wall. Intrigued, I decided to investigate the matter further. I visited Dr. Andrews' home and was greeted at the door by Theo Epstein, architect of curse-busting teams in both Boston and Chicago. Epstein escorted me inside, and I bore witness to a poker game between Epstein, Cubs POBO Jed Hoyer, and Dr. Andrews. Tommy John, the 26-year MLB veteran, was dealing the cards. There was a fifth chair at the table, but no executive seated in it. As he played with "his boys," Andrews explained to me that the empty seat usually belonged to Breslow. Apparently, Breslow lost a rather high-stakes hand of poker in December 2020. "It was the middle of the pandemic," said Andrews, "so you have to understand that everyone was getting desperate. The Winter Meetings were canceled that year. Craig just got promoted by these two buffoons," he cackled, pointing at Hoyer and Epstein, "and he was so excited to finally get in on our little game here. I knew his reputation as a wunderkind, so I took him for a ride. He's still paying off the debt." I asked the good doctor whether it wasn't enough to be a world-renowned surgeon. Did he really have to grift the Cubs' assistant general manager too? The entire table, except for Tommy John, laughed. "I took no pleasure in resurrecting any of those careers," Andrews explained. "Fixing knees and elbows was just a job. But drawing to a full house and forcing Craig to spend his entire career signing only pitchers with a Tommy John on their chart? Now that was fun." Processing this new information, I started to ask whether Breslow's debt was officially paid, now that he'd signed half a dozen such pitchers and Andrews was retired from his "just a job." Tommy John must have sensed it coming, though, because he shook his head and escorted me out the front door before I could say another word. In other news, next month's book club assignment is Roget's Thesaurus. View full article

The Red Sox have had a productive offseason, but have they done enough to compete in an ultra-competitive AL East in 2025? View full video

The Yankees and Red Sox have mirrored each other’s moves this winter, with no clear winner between them, yet. Let’s get this out of the way up front: New York and Boston haven’t had identical offseasons. The Yankees actually lost Juan Soto, whereas the Red Sox merely failed to sign him. And the Bronx Bombers have also added to their offense, acquiring Cody Bellinger in a swap with the Chicago Cubs, whereas the Red Sox have only brought in backup catcher Carlos Narváez to replace the departing Kyle Teel…in a trade with the Yankees. Besides that, though, these two longtime rivals have mirrored each other closely in how they’ve chosen to operate this winter. The Red Sox signed Aroldis Chapman (before Soto’s deal became official) and traded for Garrett Crochet, while the Yankees signed Max Fried and traded for Devin Williams. Both franchises have added an ace and a closer, though they’ve done it through different means. Are one side’s acquisitions clearly better than the other? Let’s start with the acquisition costs. The Red Sox only surrendered money to sign Chapman, giving him a one-year, $10.75-million contract. As for Crochet, Boston dealt four top-15 prospects — Teel, outfielder Braden Montgomery, infielder Chase Meidroth, and pitcher Wikelman Gonzalez — and they’ll have him under team control for his final two years of arbitration. The Yankees, on the other hand, gave Fried a whopper of a contract: $218 million over eight years. They paid a comparatively smaller price in their trade, losing out on just one season of Nestor Cortes Jr. and second base prospect Caleb Durbin in exchange for one year of Williams. Starting with the relievers, Williams is obviously better than a 37-year-old version of Aroldis Chapman, but they’re not being brought in to fill the exact same roles. Williams will be the unquestioned closer in New York. Over the last three seasons, he’s run a 1.66 ERA and 2.29 FIP in 141 innings, with a 39.5% strikeout rate and 48.3% groundball rate. Just take a look at his Statcast page, and you’ll start getting sick of the number 99. Chapman, meanwhile, has only racked up 20 saves over the past two seasons, with numbers that are more “great” than “best in the league. He's run a 3.45 ERA and 2.78 FIP, with a 39.1% strikeout rate but a sky-high 14.6% walk rate. With both relievers under contract for one year, the Yankees are going to get more juice for their squeeze, but does that offset the larger cost they paid? You could probably argue that it does, especially since their bullpen was in flux after losing Clay Holmes in free agency. Still, Chapman is no pushover, nor is he a stranger to the ultra-competitive AL East. As for the starters, Crochet and Fried exist on a similar tier. Fried has a longer track record of success, but he’s never had the putaway stuff the 25-year-old Crochet possesses. The former Atlanta Braves starter is a master of inducing soft contact and groundballs. He throws seven different pitches, and can retire a batter with any of them. On the other hand, Crochet's sinker is one of the very best in baseball, and his 35.1% strikeout rate was the best among all starters in 2024. However, he’s susceptible to giving up hard contact, doesn’t have a deep repertoire of pitches, and has never exceeded 150 innings pitched in a season (something Fried has done four times). Fried’s deal is fascinating because he’ll turn 31 before it even starts and he'll spent the rest of his career in New York. Crochet won’t even be 26 until the middle of next season, but the Red Sox will have to pay handsomely if they want to keep him beyond the 2026 season. Is one pitcher significantly better than the other? Despite pitching very differently, they get similar results, but would you rather be paying a 38-year-old Fried $27.25 million in 2030, or would you rather watch Crochet walk away before he’s even really in his prime? Perhaps the more interesting takeaway from all of this is that both of these teams pivoted to pitching after losing out on Soto. The Red Sox were always going to have to reinforce a pitching staff that lacked impact talent, but the Yankees chose to pivot in this particular direction hard. If you believe what's been reported, they effectively stole Fried from Boston by offering him an eighth year. Their pitching staff will be among the league's best in 2024, but they may find it challenging to score runs with an offense that consists of Aaron Judge, Cody Bellinger, Giancarlo Stanton, and a whole bunch of question marks. If nothing else, this offseason has breathed new life back into baseball’s oldest rivalry. Only time will tell which side made the better calls, but next season should offer a prominent look into which side is pulling ahead. View full article

The Red Sox got their ace in left-handed starter Garrett Crochet. The price they paid, though, may prove to be steeper than initially feared. When the Red Sox lost out on Juan Soto, fans couldn't do much but chuckle at the size of his contract. When they missed out on Max Fried, it stung a bit more because he signed with the Yankees, but the Yankees were always going to do something inane as a reaction to losing Soto to their crosstown rivals. When it became clear that teams like the Cubs and Phillies had put in enticing bids for White Sox ace Garrett Crochet, Boston finally sprang into action, dealing a package headline by top prospect Kyle Teel to secure the flamethrower. Crochet is a 25-year-old stud with some more unrealized potential on top of the 2.38 xFIP he produced in 2024. He was always going to cost a lot, and the Red Sox will be a demonstrably better team in 2025 because he’s on their roster. The only issue facing the Red Sox now is that they might not have anyone capable of catching him. Teel, the 25th-best prospect in baseball according to MiLB.com, has an excellent arm (he caught 38% of attempted basestealers in his final season in college) and possesses improving framing skills. It would have taken some time, of course, but there was a world in which Teel learned to work in harmony with the staff in Boston, deftly handling all the duties of a starting catcher while swinging an above-average bat. Now, his future lies in Chicago and Boston’s future at catcher is nowhere to be found. Connor Wong is the holdover starter from the 2024 campaign, and while his bat is impressive for a backstop — he ran a .280/.333/.425 slash line, good for a 110 wRC+ — his defensive metrics are anything but. He ranked in the ninth percentile in framing last season, and according to Statcast's Fielding Run Value, he was worth a hideous -10 runs -10 run over 878 1/3 innings behind the plate. In about 2,000 career innings, he’s accrued -14 FRV. Suffice it to say, Wong is a nice player to have on the roster, but he shouldn’t be the team’s leading man at catcher. It’s promising that he was worth 1.1 fWAR despite his terrible work in the field, but that only further cements the notion that he should be getting more reps at DH and serving as an emergency third catcher when needed. Luckily, the Red Sox appear to have found their backup backstop in another, lesser-publicized trade from last week, securing Carlos Narváez from the Yankees in exchange for Elmer Rodriguez-Cruz, along with some international bonus pool space. Rodriguez-Cruz is now the 12th-best prospect in the Yankees’ system, which highlights how highly Boston views Narváez. The 26-year-old catcher posted a .782 OPS (108 wRC+) in 96 games at Triple A, and he’s well-regarded behind the dish, especially for his strong arm. But, again, he’s a backup until proven otherwise. And both he and Wong (28) are in or approaching their late 20s. Neither is going to replace what Teel projects to bring to the table. Where else can Boston turn for their catcher of the future? Well, you can forget the free agent market. Danny Jansen (Rays), Carson Kelly (Cubs), Travis d’Arnaud (Angels), Kyle Higashioka (Rangers), and Gary Sanchez (Orioles) have all signed already, and they, along with every notable free agent catcher still available, are in their 30s. As a short-term fix, perhaps a defense-first option like Tucker Barnhart or (gulp) offensive black hole Martin Maldonado could make for a good band-aid, but that doesn’t solve the larger problem in the organization now that Teel wears the wrong color Sox. The trade market does hold better prospects, if only by default. The Pirates are loaded with high-upside options — former top prospect Joey Bart, former first overall pick Henry Davis, well-regarded youngster Endy Rodríguez — but none are proven options and all come with serious warts. The Cardinals would surely love to get out from under Willson Contreras’s contract, but his already-meh defense is only declining as he ages. Would the Braves be willing to move Sean Murphy for a huge return? Maybe the Phillies will make J.T. Realmuto available, though he’s already 33 and will hit free agency after next season. The point of this exercise is not to paint a doom-and-gloom picture of the long-term situation behind the dish in Boston. It’s simply to demonstrate that Teel, though no sure thing himself, is immensely valuable precisely because of how rare it is to find a legitimate two-way catcher. The cost for Crochet was always going to sting, and the White Sox were smart to target a player who can be their answer at catcher for the next half-decade or longer. How the Red Sox respond to losing him could define not just their 2025 season, but the foreseeable future in Boston. View full article

Still in need of a catcher and more pitchers, the Red Sox can't afford to stop adding reinforcements to their roster now. View full video

Boston finally has its ace, though it paid an incredibly large price to land him. View full video

The Red Sox have only had glimpses of the mile-high slugger Trevor Story used to be, much to the chagrin of the Fenway faithful. Despite what our intuitions may tell us, hope is not yet lost. Earlier this week, @Davy Andrews laid out a pretty strong case for why Trevor Story — who has half of his original six-year, $140-million deal remaining — just isn’t going to live up to that massive contract. Story's bat has fallen off a cliff in recent years, especially in terms of strikeout rate and exit velocity. He’s getting slower, and at 32 years old, coming off three consecutive injury-shortened seasons, he isn’t going to magically regain the footspeed that allowed him to swipe 27 bags per 162 games between 2018 and 21. His defense is excellent, but his throwing arm and declining range will eventually force him to move off shortstop. And, of course, he simply just can’t stay healthy, having played in just 163 games since coming to Boston. Wait, where was I going with this again? Oh yes — despite all those worrisome trends and issues, Story needn't have a tragic ending. Story’s story is far from being completely written, and it’s not like anyone expected his contract to be a fairytale anyway. At this point, the narrative is what it is, and all Story can do now is forge ahead and write a new chapter. I have so many more puns, but I have to stop or Davy won’t let this paragraph see the light of day. [Editor's Note: Yup.] To start, let’s tackle that first (and most pressing) point: Story’s bat is in rapid decline. From his debut in 2016 to his final year in Colorado, Story averaged an .863 OPS (112 OPS+, which is park adjusted), 4.5 WAR, and 26 home runs per season. In 2019, which was arguably his best season, he ranked in the 82nd percentile in average exit velocity and the 86th percentile in hard-hit rate, and was above-average in xwOBA, xBA, xSLG, and barrel percentage. Coors Field may have helped boost his numbers, but Story was a certified star in his prime, and the altitude didn't magically make him hit the ball harder. Fast-forward to 2024, and everything but Story's walk rate was pretty much in the gutter. However, it was an incredibly small sample size, just 106 plate appearances, and he got hot down the stretch, hitting for a 119 wRC+ and .790 OPS in September. Take things back a year or two, and you’ll see that Story still has the skills that made him a menace in the batter’s box. His max exit velocity in 2022 was 113.4 miles per hour, which ranked in the 92nd percentile; his average launch angle has consistently remained incredibly around his career average of 17.7 degrees; and, against fastballs, he is still deadly, batting .294 with a .471 slugging percentage in 2024. Story's strikeout rate has ballooned since coming to Boston, but the injuries shoulder a huge portion of the blame for that. It’s hard to get into a rhythm at the plate without consistent reps, and Story’s huge 11% walk rate in September is an encouraging sign that he may finally be getting comfortable with his plate approach again. He may not be the hitter he was with the Rockies, but the profile of a starting-caliber shortstop is still there. Assuming his bat can make something of a comeback, Story still needs to account for his slowing speed. In 2019, his sprint speed ranked in the 95th percentile in all of baseball. In 2022, it ranked 80th. And in his limited action last year, his sprint speed fell all the way to the 70th percentile. Speed is the first thing to go as athletes age, and Story’s injury history means that he may lose it faster than most. Still, being an above-average sprinter means his speed hasn't completely evaporated yet, and his elite baserunning instincts should only improve with age. In every season of his career, Story has been above-average in Statcast’s Baserunning Run Value (a metric designed to use data to evaluate the performance of baserunners in taking extra bases). He’s consistently been in the 75th percentile or higher for that metric, and he peaked at the 96th percentile in 2020. He may not steal as many bases as he once did, and he may not be the best bet to advance from first to third on every single to the outfield, but you can be sure Story won’t run himself into outs. That, by itself, is a valuable skill. Lastly, let’s take a look at his defense. His arm has always been a huge weakness, peaking at the 37th percentile in 2020. That isn’t going to improve any time soon. However, he’s always been a stellar shortstop in terms of range and instincts, and that should continue at least through the life of his deal in Boston. Statcast's Fielding Run Value metric thought Story saved the Red Sox two runs, which was impressive considering how little time he got to spend at the position. In his last full season in 2019, Story was worth an outstanding 14 runs, a top-10 mark among all players. Perhaps a move over to second base would help mask his weak arm, but his glove remains a net positive. Now, admittedly, this is a pretty optimistic take on a guy who is nearing his mid-30s and can’t seem to stay on the field. Story does have an opt-out on his contract after this season, but he’s a virtual lock to remain with the Red Sox for the final two years and $46 million on his contract. Boston could void that opt-out by exercising a $25 million club option that would tack on a seventh year to the original contract, but Story would need to have one of the greatest seasons ever in 2025 to make that even a remote possibility. Once upon a time, Story was meant to be the final piece in an infield puzzle that also included Xander Bogaerts and Rafael Devers. W ith the former now in San Diego (on his own mess of a contract) and the latter potentially shifting to first base, Story isn’t going to fix all that ails the Red Sox. However, if he can finally beat the injury bug and finally get into a rhythm, Boston will have one less position to worry about in 2025. View full article

Less than a week out from the Winter Meetings, the Red Sox find themselves in the thick of many rumors. What will the team actually do in Dallas come December 9? View full video

As they find themselves further entrenched in Juan Soto rumors, the Red Sox have pivoted to signing a controversial closer. With the understanding that Kenley Jansen would walk away in free agency after two mostly solid years in Beantown, the Red Sox were in the market for some new blood in the back end of their bullpen. Well, calling him “new blood" may be a bit generous as he heads into his age-37 season, but Aroldis Chapman will likely get first crack at filling the closer role in Boston after signing a one-year, $10.75 million deal with the Red Sox on Tuesday. Chapman isn’t the same pitcher who once routinely hurled 105 MPH lightning bolts, though his average fastball velocity still ranked in the 98th percentile in 2024 with the Pittsburgh Pirates. With a 3.79 ERA and 3.04 FIP over 61 2/3 innings, Chapman isn’t a surefire shutdown closer anymore, but yet 14.3 strikeouts per nine innings were right in line with his career norms. On and on the same analysis goes. In totality, it all means that Chapman has fallen from the legendary heights he once occupied, but he’s still a pretty darn good pitcher compared to his contemporaries. Of course, his off-the-field issues can’t be ignored, but purely from a baseball perspective, his addition makes plenty of sense for a team that desperately needs help in the bullpen. That relief crew is filled with a lot of question marks and few answers. Liam Hendricks was an elite closer for a while, but he’s thrown just five innings total since his cancer diagnosis in December 2022. He’s now cancer free, though he required Tommy John surgery immediately after returning to the mound last year, which knocked him out for the entirety of the 2024 season. His track record is strong and he is such an easy guy to root for, but relying on him to be anything in 2025 is a fool’s errand. Justin Slaten (2.93 ERA in 55 1/3 IP) and Greg Weissert (3.13 ERA in 63 1/3 IP) both had strong campaigns this year, though the former was a rookie and the latter struggled in previous cups of coffee with the Yankees. That is to say: they may be solid relievers, but their track records are perilously thin. Beyond them, it’s a barren wasteland out in right-center field at Fenway Park. Justin Wilson (5.59 ERA in 46 2/3 IP) was an unmitigated disaster this past season. Brennan Bernardino (4.06 ERA in 51 IP) and Josh Winckowski (4.14 ERA in 76 IP) were merely average. Michael Fulmer also missed the entire 2024 season with his own UCL injury. Add it up, and you have the makings of a bullpen that looks bad on paper, and only marginally better with Chapman at the helm. The southpaw's still-elite swing-and-miss stuff — his 37.1% strikeout rate ranks in the 99th percentile and his 32.3% whiff rate ranks in the 91st percentile — adds a lot to a group that is losing Jansen’s 28.4% strikeout rate, but it isn’t going to salvage it single-handedly. As long as Chapman is the first of many moves that chief baseball officer Craig Breslow makes to patch up his relief crew, this is a solid signing. If it’s the only thing he does, the late innings may be a nightmare in Boston next season. View full article