FORT MYERS, Fla. -- His former teammate Craig Kimbrel remains unsigned. So, too, are Manny Machado and Bryce Harper.
Nathan Eovaldi, who was part of the same free agent class before agreeing to a four-year, $68 million deal in early December, wasn't about to let that happen.
"I told my agency,'' said Eovaldi, "even if it's not the best deal, I want to sign early because anything to me was going to be better than where I was at. I didn't want to have that pressure coming into spring training and being unsigned now. I wanted to get that out of the way and be able to focus with whatever team it would have been.''
As Eovaldi entered last season, knowing his own free agency was fast approaching, he spoke with some players in the game who had been frozen out in free agency following the 2017 season and were forced to take late, below-market deals.
"It's stressful, it's tough,'' said Eovaldi. "You don't know what team you're going to be helping, what your role is going to be and, you know, it makes it hard. I didn't want to deal with that. I wanted to get it out of the way and fortunately, I was able to come back to the Red Sox.''
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