Ask and you shall receive.
A mere one day after I declared it “crunch time” for the Boston Red Sox’s offseason, we have our first major free agent signing of the Craig Breslow era.
Finally.
Lucas Giolito, welcome to Boston. The one-time All-Star right-hander has reportedly agreed to a two-year, $38.5-million deal to join the Red Sox with an opt-out clause after year one and conditional options for the 2026 season.
Right-hander Chris Flexen and the Chicago White Sox are in agreement on a one-year, $1.75 million contract, a source tells ESPN. White Sox continue to fill out their rotation with the 29-year-old veteran. @BNightengale had the agreement first.
— Jeff Passan (@JeffPassan) December 29, 2023
Full throttle? If it’s Giolito alone, then no. But you have to start somewhere, and Breslow should be commended for bringing in the first of what will hopefully be several significant upgrades to the rotation for 2024.
But what exactly are the Red Sox getting in the 29-year-old former first-round pick who is entering his ninth major league season? Let’s dig in…
Giolito then, Giolito now
On the whole, Giolito has proven to be a decent major league pitcher. He’s a lifetime .500 starter (61-62) with a 4.43 ERA (a little high for my liking) and 1.254 WHIP who has eclipsed the 200 strikeout plateau three times and logged north of 160 innings five times. The record should be taken with a grain of salt given that he spent seven of his eight big league seasons pitching on the South Side of Chicago...
In his 18 games (16 of which were starts) not spent with the White Sox, though, he is 2-10 with a 7.02 ERA (65 earned runs in 83 1/3 innings). Eighteen games is not a big sample size, so that isn’t overly concerning. What is concerning about those none-White Sox numbers is that a majority of them came last season after he was traded by Chicago to the Los Angeles Angels (who themselves were trying to go “full throttle” in an attempt to win with the soon-to-be departed Shohei Ohtani) last July.
Giolito only lasted six games with the Angels, going 1-5 with a 6.89 ERA in six starts, before being waived and claimed by the Cleveland Guardians, where he compiled a 1-4 record with a 7.04 ERA in six starts. Those are not pretty numbers, to say the least.
Looking at his first five full seasons as a starter (including his lone All-Star season in 2019) from 2018 through 2022, the numbers are more encouraging: 50-43, a 4.38 ERA and 1.243 WHIP, 828 strikeouts for an average of 166 per season and 762 2/3 total innings, good for an average of 153 per season.
His All-Star campaign saw him post a career-high in victories at 14-9 with a 3.41 ERA, a 1.064 WHIP, a career-high 228 strikeouts opposite 57 walks across 176 2/3 innings, the second-highest inning total of his career.
Those are the numbers the Red Sox will be hoping for (and likely banking on) Giolito to reproduce. He’s shown he can be a top-end starter, and that season certainly qualified as an ace — he finished sixth in American League Cy Young Award voting.
There’s prime Giolito, and then there’s recent Giolito. His past two seasons saw him post ERAs of 4.90 in 2022 and 4.88 last season — hey, I guess he’s consistent? He went 11-9 in 2022 before posting a career-worst 8-15 mark in 2023 (but again, when you’re pitching for the White Sox, Angels and Guardians, that shouldn’t be overly harped on). Over that two-year span, Giolito is 19-24 with a 4.89 ERA and 1.37 WHIP with an average of 190 strikeouts and 173 innings pitched.
Terrible? No. But a definite drop off from his All-Star peak.
So the big question is: which Giolito are the Red Sox going to get? A pitcher who is about to cross the 30-year-old threshold is more likely to replicate his recent numbers (well, duh) than his prime form. If the Red Sox are bringing in Giolito to be a top-two starter, that would feel like a reach to me. It’s not realistic to expect a return to form from five years ago. Reasonably, I think Giolito slots in nicely as a No. 3 starter on a team that is a contender.
But as of now, Giolito is probably the Red Sox’s second-best starter (and no, I’m not factoring in Chris Sale, who still pitches well when he pitches, except… he do that very often anymore). Giolito is more proven at this point, but Brayan Bello gets my vote as the team’s best current starter entering 2024.
The contract
Giolito’s contract will pay him an average annual value of $19.25 million (excluding the potential 2026 options). Per Jeff Passan at ESPN, Giolito will make $18 million in 2024 and $19 million the following season (if the team does not buy him out for $1 million after 2024).
Giolito’s deal with Boston gives him an $18M salary in 2024 and a $1M buyout if he opts out. If not, the salary for 2025 is $19M. There is a conditional option for 2026 — $14M club option if he throws under 140 innings in 2025, $19M mutual option for 140+, with a $1.5M buyout.
— Jeff Passan (@JeffPassan) December 29, 2023
Then there’s the 2026 option: the Red Sox can bring him back on a club option for just $14 million if he pitches fewer than 140 innings in 2025. However, if he tops the 140-inning plateau in two years, the option becomes mutual at $19 million with a buyout of $1.5 million for 2026.
Now, let’s take a look at the “value” of the deal. Interestingly, Spotrac had placed Giolito’s market value at $11.8 million per season. It’s not surprising to see him get more as teams engage in bidding wars, but that represents a significant pay raise from the $11-some million he made a season ago.
Is Giolito a pitcher worthy of a roughly $7 million annual raise when he’s already started to show signs of decline?
If Andrew Bailey and the Red Sox’s pitching staff are able to turn back the clock and help Giolito return to his peak form, then it’s certainly good value for the team. But if Giolito continues to slip as he has in recent seasons, which in all reality seems more likely than the former, it might be a bit of an overpay. Only time will tell.
First Giolito, then…?
As previously mentioned, the Giolito signing isn’t all that huge of a needle mover. It is certainly a step in the right direction for a team that’s been in desperate need of starting pitching help ever since 2018.
If Giolito is the only significant starter the Red Sox sign this winter, well… the angry mobs would be justified to resume. Giolito in 2024 is not a No. 1 starter on a contending team — and it’s a bit of a stretch to say he’s really a No. 2 starter at this point, either.
But if the plan now is to bring in Blake Snell (less likely) or Jordan Montgomery (more likely), two pitchers who are legitimate No. 1 or No. 2 starters, to pair with Giolito, then the Red Sox are in better shape. While I would certainly prefer Snell over Montgomery alone, it feels like the most likely next step for the Red Sox will be signing Montgomery. Once they do that, which has felt inevitable for a while, I would expect them to close the book on signing any more free agent starters this offseason.
There is still the possibility that they can improve the rotation via trade after that, but I would imagine the Red Sox would be content with a rotation that included Bello, Montgomery, Giolito, Sale and Garrett Whitlock (if they don’t plan to keep moving him back and forth between the rotation and bullpen, that is…) or Nick Pivetta. Is that a particularly sexy rotation? Not really. But it’s a respectable one, and certainly better than the rotation the Red Sox had one day ago before adding Giolito.
Here’s hoping the Giolito signing is the first of a few more significant moves to come…
