Adding Giolito will fortify rotation
By the end of 2023, one could imagine a Shakespearean thought bubble floating from Alex Cora’s head.
“Innings! Innings! My kingdom for five innings!”
Or something like that.
On Friday evening, in the first multiyear deal of new chief baseball officer Craig Breslow’s Boston tenure, Cora and the Red Sox got one of the more reliable providers of innings in baseball. According to major league sources, the team reached agreement with freeagent righthander Lucas Giolito on a two-year, $38.5 million deal that includes a player opt-out after the 2024 season and a conditional option — either a $14 million team option or $19 million mutual option, depending on the number of innings thrown — for 2026.
In Giolito, the Sox are getting a pitcher who performed at an All-Star level with the White Sox from 2019-21 (29-21, 3.47 ERA, 31 percent strikeout rate and 8 percent walk rate, 1.2 homers per 9 innings) before struggling over the last two years (19-24, 4.89 ERA, 26 percent strikeout rate, 9 percent walk rate, 1.7 homers per 9 innings). Even during his struggles of the last two years — with an off-the-rails second half in 2023 (2-10, 7.13 ERA) that coincided with a period of off-field turmoil including a divorce and two changes of teams — Giolito continued to post.
Since 2018, the 29-year-old ranks eighth in the big leagues with 139 starts of at least five innings. In the same span, he ranks 12th in the big leagues with 96 outings of at least six innings.
At the least, the Red Sox seemingly landed a pitcher who can solidify the back of their rotation by supplying innings — an important attribute for an organization that had a gruesome 64 starts of fewer than five innings last year, fourth most in the big leagues. And, if Giolito returns to a level he’s performed at as recently as the first half of 2023 (6-5, 3.45 ERA, averaging nearly 6 innings per start), it’s possible the righthander could raise not just the floor of the rotation but also its ceiling.
Of course, there are no guarantees associated with a bounceback — which is why Giolito represents a starting point for the offseason reshaping of the rotation rather than a conclusion of that effort. The team now has Giolito, Chris Sale, Brayan Bello, Kutter Crawford, and Nick Pivetta as rotation candidates, along with Garrett Whitlock and Tanner Houck as additional options who are getting stretched out. (The team also signed righty Cooper Criswell as a depth starter/swingman.)
Moreover, with Sale, Pivetta, and potentially Giolito (if he opts out) all potentially eligible for free agency after this season, the Sox’ longer-term rotation picture beyond 2024 remains sufficiently unsettled that the team seems likely to continue to look for longerterm additions — perhaps in the form of a trade for a controllable starting pitcher.
And according to major league sources, the Sox have continued to explore trades involving their group of young outfielders — they currently have lefthanded hitters Masataka Yoshida, Jarren Duran, and Wilyer Abreu, as well as righthanded hitters Tyler O’Neill, Rob Refsnyder, and Ceddanne Rafaela. If the Sox deal from that group to add a pitcher, they could then return to the free-agent market to add a bat such as slugger Teoscar Hernández, in whom the team remains interested even after signing Giolito.
As of Friday evening, it was unclear whether the Sox remained engaged on the better known free-agent starters who remain on the market — a group that includes previously discussed options such as lefties Jordan Montgomery, Shota Imanaga, and James Paxton.
But it’s hard to imagine that the Sox would view Giolito alone as a sufficient offseason upgrade to a rotation that was one of the worst in baseball, finishing with a 4.68 ERA (22nd in the big leagues) as well as 774‚ innings (27 th) — particularly since such a sequence would mean that the team wasn’t bringing back Paxton (7-5, 4.50 ERA in 19 starts — including dominance through his first 16 outings, before a knee injury marred his final line).
All the same, the addition of Giolito represents a building block for the Sox offseason. Breslow and the team now know that they won’t be completely sidelined on the starting pitching market. The likelihood of a mind-numbing succession of bullpen games and openers diminished. Now, with a more solid foundation, it’s time to see how the Red Sox build up the rest of their roster — and whether they can create something that withstands the gusts of the huffing and puffing wolves of the American League East.