2025 Rotation & Bullpen

Trading for a pitcher with only two years of controllability almost seems a waste of resources, so trading Mayer for Crochet almost seems a waste.

I really like the Yorke for Priester deal as well as trading for Fitts, Sandlin, and Rule 5 Slaten. If you stock up on young, controllable, low cost pitching, you are bound to hit on a few of them as rotation pieces. This rebuild has taken five years, but IMO it was the right way to build a young sustainably good playoff contender and not just for one or two years.

Look at how many players were out after each WS title or at least not present for the next title: 2004 - Pedro, Lowe, Millar, Bellhorn, Reese, Damon, Kepler, Cabrera, Nixon, Daubach, Arroyo, Foulke, Embree, on and on… roughly 80% team turnover between 04-07-13-18. As a Red Sox fan of 53 years, I went 33 years before seeing my first Red Sox championship, so a five year rebuild of 96% of the team for a sustainable run is worth it to me. It has also been gratifying to see the improvement in the players like: Houck, Duran, Crawford, Bello, Abreu, Casas, and the progress on the farm: Anthony, Campbell, Mayer, Teel,….

The base has been built and now is the time to add the final pieces, especially in the bullpen and a piece or two in the rotation! In 2025 the AL East will be ripe for the taking (especially if Soto leaves MFY land).

Too many times in my first 33 years as a Red Sox fan (without a title), the Red Sox would bring in some expensive players, but still have holes in their lineup or rotation and die in the playoffs year after year (Yankees 2010 to 2023). In 2025 it is looking like the Red Sox could put it all together if some pitching is added, so hopefully the FO will put the pieces in place.

Add him to the list of intriguing guys after the trio of Burnes/Fried/Snell. Personally I would prefer more of a sure thing but maybe he could fit in well to the rotation in Boston?

Doesn't seem like he would crack our top five based on what I am seeing

When is Bieber supposed to be back? Far as I remember he got TJ at the beginning of the season so probably around mid year? I wouldn't want Bieber on a one year deal very much unless it was dirt cheap. I'd rather go for something like 2 if not 3 years. Perhaps something in the mold of what the Rangers gave Mahle, which was two years 22M but only 5.5 in year one and 16.5 in year two. Buehler I'd be semi intrigued on a one year deal though, I'd have to trust Breslow and company's assessment there on if the plunge is worth it. 

So there is a lot of discussion about how to improve the Sox with a fair amount of consensus on how to go about it.
I happen to agree with RedSoxprospects.com's view for the 2025 rosters. We need to acquire an ace, 2 relievers and a catcher.
Now how we go about improving the roster during the off-season leaves me truly baffled that there isn't consensus on this, call me naive if you must and perhaps you are right however acknowledging that still leaves me flummoxed.
Regardless of whether the pieces or the order or priority of additions required, plan A should for this off-season begin and end with free agency (I'm including Roki Suzuki here) among at least 2 other aces. I'm going to include Burnes, Fried and even Snell for target #1. This is the rare case I say be willing to overspend because that's the price you pay for not developing one of your own and trading for one just is not the best way to go about it for multiple reasons some I will touch upon soon enough. We have the money to spend and we are below the Luxury tax and are on the verge of being a real player again AND we have a minor league bursting at the seems with multiple top prospects in all of baseball a step away most with some experience already in AAA. Tell me something I don't know already. Well it's going to be hard to predict who will be ready and when they'll be ready and don't be overly surprised if at least one or more does not make it up to Boston at all. My slightly educated guess based on results and team need only would have me guess two make it by the trade deadline and another is a Sept. call-up. This is my segui to catching. I see many talk about when he'll be ready from opening day to next year. I think my plan is better than yours and here's why, far too many here have failed to realize that even when he's called up he's not going to hit the ground running because the overwhelming number of players don't never mind as catchers. Catchers take longer to develop perhaps than any position in baseball and hit their peaks years later than most other players do. My best guess is he's a September call-up. Assume that's even roughly close why wouldn't we sign a player for 2 to 3 years? After all, should Teek develop quickly we can trade the acquired catcher or trade Wong. Perhaps we even keep all three because rookie catchers almost always take time to develop and nearly always are back-ups at the beginning of their careers AND/or Wong could by then be a backup player at several IF positions AND it would give the team a lot of pitching hitting opportunities late in games with that added flexibility at catcher.

Spend money first on filling holes in the roster then and ONLY then use trades for positions where the free agency avenue failed and/or use it during the season to cover for roster weaknesses that injuries expose or players underachieve, evaluations failed, etc. This also buys time to see players or prospects develop and gives you more time to evaluate them too. Regarding RH hitting I'd likely use the trade route during next season to fill it, let TON walk, and make an offer to Pivetta as you can never have enough pitching depth and in the extremely rare case we have good health next year we could trade him should we desire to and get back value as well.

Spend first, trade later to back up the spending failures. Find fault with that. I realize it's somewhat obscure but to many here want to trade first. Stack the deck first then trade with leverage in mind you can walk, that leverage makes deals more likely and/or trades more likely in your favor. The best leverage in any deal is the ability to confidently walk away.

Why wouldn't you be set on a top of rotation arm? When we are large market team so well below the cap and solid at nearly every roster spot so much so that we'd have to trade players to make room for 4 top 26 in all of baseball prospects. On top of that adding a TOR pitcher means all of our starters move down a spot and the rotation eats up more quality innings putting less pressure on the bullpen. Sign a relief pitcher and trade for one. Sign a quality veteran defensive catcher to a 2 year deal and in the unlikely chance Teel hits the ground running it allows you have the option to trade the FA catcher or Wong should they want to. 

It is kind of amazing the amount of talk concerning the starting rotation when the teams in the post season all have pretty "meh" rotations.

I am under the assumption the front office isn’t going to spend over the first threshold until they see a winner with World Series type aspirations, so given that constraint, my preference is to fill other holes, namely the bullpen, while continuing to trust the pitching dev to identify and set in place performance plans to get the most out of those players. Not having a #1 is not ideal, we are in agreement there, but they can’t possibly fill every hole unless they make a big dent in their farm system, or going over the first threshold. I’d rather not to do the first yet, while it seems Henry is quite against the second scenario. My priorities would be the bullpen, defense, and depth.

And my whole point is to not make any gaping holes in the roster for the big 4 to fill. They should have competent enough players in those spots that if any of them need the full year for development, it’s not a killer to the team like the Dalbec/Casas situation in ‘22. And even with that said, I don’t think any of them are blocked. Grissom/hamilton won’t stop Campbell, Rafaela/Yoshida aren’t blocking Anthony, and Wong/whatever defensive catcher they sign won’t be blocking Teel. Mayer is the most blocked, but the person blocking him has barely played a season full of games over the last 3 years, with Mayer having his own health concerns. And if those current MLB players over perform and any of the prospects do end up blocked, great! They have some good ammunition for the deadline. I would rather have too many competent players at a position than not enough. That, more than a lack of top of the rotation pitcher, has hurt the team these last few years. They have been plagued by a few positions over the last few years which has often led to the team’s downfall. Positions ranked 20th or lower by bWAR:

2022: RP, 1B, LF, CF, RF
2023: 2B, SS
2024: RP, C, 1B, 2B

SP bWAR rank the last three years: 19th, 8th, 11th.

Minimize those low spots and they likely make the playoffs a couple of those years even without a bonafide ace.

It was an observation, not an argument.

Yeah I think the takeaway is that all the playoff teams have better bullpens, not necessarily better rotations. If we pimp out our bullpen that might be better than getting one frontline starter