Red Sox Free Agents

Sorry — I meant our own free agents. Like JT, Duvall, Chris Martin, et al.

Will anyone be making those decisions before free agency begins?

Meanwhile, how will they leverage the 15 day exclusive signing period after the W.S. without a POBO? Or does Kennedy/Werner/Henry really think they'll have someone on board by then?

Or does it even matter with this rather weak crop of FAs on the team? I say this firmly believing Turner and probably Duvall are eager to test the open market, especially given how few bats are out there.

There are any number of easily accessible websites that can help you figure out who is a free agent and who is not.

The best resource in my opinion is Cot's Contracts.

You are currently on one such website

www.soxprospects.com/40man.htm

0% he is not eligible

For me, no Paxton, he's pretty much done (9.39 ERA, .983 oOPS on regular rest).

No Duvall, he'll attract a lot more interest than last winter and I don't like the odds of him catching lighting in a bottle again. As hyper-streaky guys like him age, the hot streaks get shorter and the cold streaks longer.

Maybe Mondesi on a minor league deal if he's healthy but there's nothing particularly special about him and the club's middle-IF depth has improved. His game is speed and he'll be coming back from a freshly repaired wheel.

If the Sox are comfortable with Paxtons medicals, I would not be opposed to him getting a Q.O.

Yes, he has not looked great down the stretch. The same thing could have been said about Wacha last year posting a 5.57 ERA in his final 6 starts.

Paxton has pitched 96 innings this year after 0 last year and more than he has in 4 years. I think one can reasonably say he may be fatigued, and if medically speaking is fine, then it's fair to assume that in his second season back and after a full offseason he could go further and still be effective.

Is it a risk? yes, but I'd like to see it in conjunction with 2 big-time guys signed as well.

If the Sox plan on going over the luxury tax next year, and they're comfortable with his medicals, then sign me up.

If I had to guess I'd say maybe they go 15-20M over the LT in 2024 which would put the payroll ceiling at about $255M. Do we really need to be allocating 20M of that to Paxton? No thanks, it's not as if the 2024 Red Sox are going to operate like the NYM last offseason and have seemingly unlimited money. That money would be way better off spent elsewhere, heck throw $20M on a one year deal to Giolito or someone like that if they want to take a one year higher dollar flier on a pitcher. 

Fighting for a Paxton Q.O. isn't exactly a hill I'm willing to die on here, but allow me to half ass a defense for him before moving on. 

Has Henry ever gone above the second threshold before?
not sure the argument can be made to do so with this team as is, but if he has...it's just one year.  In that scenario, the money is there

If he is not, I'm inclined to change my stance.  Committing $20 million to Paxton probably means you can only sign one from the (Yama, Snell, Nola,Ohtani) camp (if you want to go the FA route for pitching, I do).  And I think the team can use two of those guys.  Not saying they will get two premium guys but it would really fill in the roster nice by beefing up the rotation and putting good talent permenantly into the bullpen. 

If the firing of Bloom is an indication that Henry wants to spend money and doesn't trust Chaim to be the guy to do it, this isn't that unrealistic at all.  Of course saying Bloom was fired to bring in a guy who can sign free agents is conjecture on my part admittedly. 

But if so, the money is there, or the willingness, it's just one year.  If Paxton can put together a year in which he can throw 130-150 innings like he did around  2017-2019 he's likely well worth it.  If I was a betting man I wouldn't be highly confident in it, but I'd be optimistic he can in 2024.  

If Giolito would take a one year $20 million deal, I'd be very cool with that. 

Maybe just maybe Justin Turner says he just loved Boston and opts in. I don't think so because he should make more by opting out but if he does it messes up roster construction for next year too.

To me, a Paxton QO would be madness. The QO is the 125th highest salary in the league, right? There's no way that he merits that (on average a team's 4th highest salary). As I wrote above, he was hopeless on regular rest this year, he has a long and eclectic injury history, and he will be one year older.

Perhaps the biggest problem the Sox had this year is that they went into the season with a bunch of injury-history question marks in the starting rotation (mostly because they were "bargains"). Predictably, many of those, including Paxton, got hurt again and when they were "healthy" couldn't go more than a 4-5 IP and/or needed extra rest between starts. Ipso fatso, the bullpen was burnt out and the pitching depth burned through.

Bringing back Paxton in any capacity would be a big misstep, IMO. Give me horses. Paxton would just be in the way.