To be sure, it's still ridiculously early in baseball's offseason. Thanksgiving remains more than two weeks away, the winter meetings aren't until next month and no team anywhere has yet signed a single free agent of consequence from another team.
That said, it's not too soon to make some generalizations about what the Red Sox have in store for their pitching staff for 2023. In all likelihood, despite all the attention paid to Xander Bogaerts, it will be pitching which determines the success of the ballclub on the field next season.
* For now, there seems to be a strange willingness to assemble a 2023 rotation that looks suspiciously like last year's.
At the start of last year, the Red Sox had envisioned a rotation that would eventually include Chris Sale, Nathan Eovaldi, James Paxton, Michael Wacha, Nick Pivetta, and Rich Hill.
Sale's season was sandbagged in February with a broken rib. Paxton's rehab from Tommy John involved a few setbacks before a lat tear ended it for good in mid-August. Otherwise, Eovaldi, Pivetta, Wacha and Hill combined to make 102 of the team's 162 starts.
For now, Sale, Paxton, and Pivetta are under control for 2023, and the Sox await word on whether Eovaldi will accept their qualifying offer and also return to the rotation. But the Sox reportedly made a multi-year offer to Eovaldi before extending the QO, evidence that their offer isn't just designed to get them an extra draft pick in next summer's amateur draft.
A reunion with Hill cannot be ruled out either, as both sides have expressed a willingness to get an affordable one-year deal done.
Obviously, Sale and Paxton will have the opportunity to make far bigger impacts this time around. Sale was limited to just 5.2 innings last year, which was 5.2 more than Paxton provided.
It's easy to imagine them being far more significant (and successful) contributors in 2023, since that's a mighty low bar to clear. But both are now in their mid-30s and have combined for 70 innings over the last three seasons. They can hardly be taken for granted.
There are other candidates already on the roster. Brayan Bello, with all of 11 big league starts to his resume, and Garrett Whitlock, with nine starts at the major league level, are in the mix and both have considerable potential. But when attempting to predict what the Sox will get from the pair, a great deal of projection is involved, but very little in the way of track record.
There are additional depth options, too, including Josh Winckowski, Connor Seabold and Kutter Crawford. Each has some experience, but not much in the way of sustained success.
Bottom line: there's still a lot of work to do on the rotation if the Red Sox are to become contenders in 2023. Mostly running it back with a group that was here last year won't be nearly sufficient.
* If Whitlock and perhaps Tanner Houck are to moved to the rotation, the Red Sox have a lot of work to do with the bullpen.
General manager Brian O'Halloran said at the GM Meetings in Las Vegas this week that Whitlock is being told to prepare to start. The same message has been given to Houck, with the proviso that he could shift back to a relief role if the Red Sox acquire other starters.
No matter what roles Whitlock and Houck fill, there's a degree of uncertainty. But in an admittedly small sample size, Whitlock has been far more effective in relief than he has as a starter. Out of the bullpen, Whitlock has pitched to a 2.24 ERA and a WHIP of 0.994; as a starter, he has an ERA of 4.15 with a WHIP of 1.256.
That doesn't mean that Whitlock can successfully make the transition to the rotation, and as a general rule, a quality starter carries far more value than a quality reliever, capable of supplying an additional 100 innings - or more -- in the course of the season.
The same goes for Houck -- 2.68 ERA when starting; 3.22 when relieving.
But as much as the rotation could surely use an upgrade, I'd be in favor of keeping both Whitlock and Houck in the bullpen for 2023. Shifting them to the rotation would leave a gaping hole in the pen.
For now, outside of Whitlock and Houck, the Red Sox currently have two dependable relief arms: John Schreiber and Matt Barnes, and even Barnes is hardly a lock, given his inconsistency in the first half of last year and the second half of 2022. Zack Kelly, Kaleb Ort, Franklin German and others offer promise, but can hardly be viewed as established.
The free agent market includes an almost endless list of options, but given how much unpredictable performance is for even top relievers, offers little in the way of certitude.
The Sox would be better off keeping Houck and Whitlock as multi-inning high-leverage weapons, with Schreiber and Barnes in key roles, augmented by one foray into the market.
(The signing of Rafael Montero, who remained with the Astros, was a warning to other teams as free agency got underway -- quality bullpen help will not come cheap, as Montero's three-year, $34-million deal proved).
Hoping to replace both of them in one offseason carries with it enormous risk.
Perhaps by 2024, the Red Sox will be better positioned to move them to the rotation. By then, they will know more about what they can get from the likes of Kelly, Ort and German. For now, Houck and Whitlock are too valuable in relief to tinker with their roles.
* Could the Sox justify a big splurge on a veteran starter?
We know that the Red Sox value flexibility when it comes to resources. We also know that free-agent pitchers 30 and older represent big gambles for any team. As pitchers age, they're more subject to injury and performance downturns.
With all of that in mind, would it make sense for the Red Sox to get into the bidding for the likes of Justin Verlander and Jacob deGrom?
Verlander will be 40 by spring training and deGrom 35 next June. Verlander is a little more than a year removed from Tommy John surgery and deGrom has been plagued by shoulder woes and limited to just 26 starts the last two years. As such, they're not in position to demand long-term deals.
Verlander might be had for one year with an option, while deGrom, dominant as he can be, is probably looking at a two-year guarantee.
Of course, the AAV on these deals will be sky-high. Teams can expect to start the bidding at $35 million and go from there.
So, yes, there would be enormous risk associated with both. A deal for deGrom, for instance, could easily run $80 million over two seasons, with no assurance that he would hold up physically for the next two seasons. But as a short-term fix, while the Red Sox wait for Bello to blossom and Bryan Mata and others to arrive at the big league level, either one could serve as a bridge and front-of-the-rotation piece, a placeholder until the Sox either develop their own ace, or trade for one with a package of prospects.
* Is there a case to be made for the Sox to find a solution to their rotation in Japan?
One free-agent starter somewhat off the radar is Kodai Senga. Senga has been one of the top-performing starters in Japan for a number of years.
He has two plus-plus pitches -- a fastball between 99-100 mph and a splitter/forkball that is his chase pitch. The quality of his breaking ball, meanwhile, is subject to some debate, but if it's merely fringe-average, that would seem sufficient.
One other potential red flag is control, as Senga has a tendency to issue walks. But his walk rate isn't that much higher than the average MLB rate, and with a slightly different strike zone here vs. the one in Japan, it may not be a concern at all.
One benefit to signing Senga -- he wouldn't cost the Red Sox any compensatory draft pick, the way Rodon, deGrom and others would.
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No matter how much the Red Sox say that keeping Bogaerts is a top priority, they'll likely face stiff competition for his services now that he's on the open market.
Start with the obvious: the three other teams who stand to risk losing their own elite free agent shortstops: Atlanta (Dansby Swanson), the Los Angeles Dodgers (Trea Turner) and Minnesota Twins (Carlos Correa).
The Braves are perennial contenders, just a year removed from a title, and if they can't retain Swanson, they'll surely look at someone similarly talented to man such a critical position. The Dodgers have been the game's biggest spenders for a number of years and won't cut costs if Turner signs elsewhere.
Then there another handful of contending teams, most of them with the wherewithal to spend: the St. Louis Cardinals, Chicago Cubs, San Francisco Giants, Seattle Mariners, and Philadelphia Phillies.
The Cardinals, Mariners and Phillies all made the postseason, but ultimately came up short of the top prize, and could all make the case to ownership that a premier player in the middle of the diamond could be the difference-maker. At the same time, the Giants and Cubs are big-market teams who finished out of the playoffs and need a star to excite their fan base.
Don't think that Dave Dombrowski, whose team fell just short of a championship earlier this month, wouldn't love to land Bogaerts. Not only would Bogaerts fill an obvious need, but it would also be shot across the bow of John Henry, for whom there is no love lost after Dombrowski's surprise dismissal just 10 months after helping deliver the Sox' last championship.
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On the subject of owners, Jim Crane has emerged as one of the more volatile and least likable figures in the game.
There's no arguing with the success the Astros have enjoyed under Crane: in the last six years, they've reached the ALCS every time, won four pennants and two World Series. In many ways, the Astros have, for all the controversy attached to them from the 2017 sign-stealing scandal, become a model franchise.
But Crane, who is as hands-on as any owner in MLB, somehow claimed to be totally ignorant of the sign-stealing that was going on in his own ballpark, then acted with outrage in firing both GM Jeff Luhnow and manager A.J. Hinch. The Astros were fined $5 million and stripped of two draft picks, but Crane himself was spared any discipline.
In the last two years, Crane has let manager Dusty Baker (three postseason appearances in three tries, two pennants and a title) twist in the wind after each of the last two seasons before rewarding him with a one-year extension.
This past week, Crane offered GM James Click just a one-year deal, days after the championship parade was held in downtown Houston. Some reward. Click turned down the meager offer, and days later, was fired, along with one of his handpicked assistant GMs.
The Astros have done a phenomenal job developing pitching and have re-stocked their major league roster with the likes of Jeremy Pena, who was named the ALCS and World Series MVP in his rookie season. But Houston is about to hire its third head of baseball operations in the last five years, and despite the on-field success, it may become difficult to attract top talent to the front office if Crane continues to exert himself in such an aggressive manner.