You know what they say.
Where there’s smoke, there’s fire…
There sure has been a lot of smoke connecting the Red Sox to baseball’s top prize of the offseason: superstar outfielder Juan Soto.
Reports of the Sox being “in” on Soto quickly progressed to Boston being one of only a handful of teams to land an early meeting with the four-time All-Star and five-time Silver Slugger. Now we have word that the Sox are going all out and making signing the 26-year-old their top priority.
What does it all mean? Again, not much if he doesn’t end up signing…
It would of course be encouraging if the Sox were again taking their job of building a competitive baseball team seriously. Yet it’s still hard to imagine that John Henry’s offer will wind up being the top one when all the dust settles.
I won’t give them any added credit for simply taking a meeting with a player like Soto, who has said he would consider an offer from anybody and everybody. And from Soto’s perspective, of course he would take a meeting with a team that has the ability to spend, even if they don’t do it the same way anymore.
When push comes to shove and Soto ultimately signs elsewhere, the only thing I’ll be interested in is what the Sox’s final offer to him was. Is it in the ballpark of the Yankees, Mets etc.? Or was the purpose of this entire venture to feign interest for the fan base and drive up the price tag for Henry’s competitors?
Remember, the Sox met with Yoshinobu Yamamoto last offseason, too. They didn’t come close to signing him, either.
If the Sox do wind up offering Soto market rate, or possibly even more than anybody else (doubt it), and he still signs elsewhere, then I’ll gladly toss them some credit. More than anything, I would be pleased with the fact that they were finally willing to spend again…
We’re still a long ways off from that point, nevertheless.
Adding to the ‘pen
The Sox’s offseason officially got underway with their first signing, and it addressed a major area of need.
Unfortunately, like the Sox’s moves a year ago around this team, it doesn’t appear to be a particularly impactful one.
Boston has inked left-handed reliever Justin Wilson to a one-year contract. It’s a move that feels more like a flier than anything on a 37-year-old journeyman reliever. But hey, the Sox have struck lightning in a bottle before with older relievers…
Wilson has pitched for six big league teams, including two nonconsecutive years with the Yankees. His 3.61 ERA across 587 games and 12 seasons is certainly respectable, but as is often the case, Father Time has gotten the better of him in his last two full seasons.
In 60 games with the Reds last season, he pitched to a 5.59 ERA. Prior to that, he pitched only five games for Cincinnati in 2022 coming off a rocky 2021 campaign split between the Yanks and Reds that saw him sport a 5.29 ERA.
So it doesn’t seem like this guy is going to be the answer to their pitching and bullpen woes, but maybe he could be part of the solution. More work to be done, for sure.
The Sox also added Chris Holt to the staff as the team’s new bullpen coach. The 45-year-old Holt is coming off a four-year stint in the Orioles’ organization, including three seasons as the team’s pitching coach from 2021-23.
The O’s liked him enough that when they moved on from him as pitching coach after 2023, they still kept him around in the organization. He served as the organization’s director of pitching from 2021 on.
Baltimore’s 3.89 team ERA ranked seven in the majors in 2023. It was an improvement from 2022 when the O’s ranked 17th with a 3.97 ERA, and a marked difference from 2021 when Baltimore ranked dead last in baseball with a 5.84 ERA. Quite the turnaround, I’d say.
The Maine native and former minor league pitcher drafted by the Pirates also has experience working as a minor league pitching coach for the Astros.
It seems the Sox are getting a solid and respectable coach who can help Craig Breslow and Andrew Bailey implement their pitching plan. No objections here…
All-Duran
Jarren Duran had one of the best seasons in baseball in 2024, so it’s only fitting he’ll be remembered as a member of the All-MLB Second Team.
Duran became the fourth Sox player to garner All-MLB team honors in the relatively new award’s history. Xander Bogaerts was the first in 2019 on the first team, followed by Mookie Betts on the second team in 2019 and Rafael Devers on the second team in 2021.
As the Sox press release points out, Duran’s 8.7 WAR (Baseball-Reference) ranked fifth in baseball behind only Aaron Judge (10.8), Bobby Witt Jr. (9.4), Shohei Ohtani (9.2), and Gunnar Henderson (9.1).
That’s not bad company, huh?
Now, Duran’s (rightful) inclusion on the All-MLB team doesn’t change the fact that the Sox were on the couch like the rest of us during the postseason. Nonetheless, it’s another cherry on top of a year that Duran and Sox talent evaluators alike should be proud of.
Much like Wilyer Abreu’s Gold Glove, this is another feather in the cap for Duran that should help increase his trade value should the Sox go that direction. It doesn’t sound like they’re going to go that route at the moment, even though I think that makes the most sense considering their outfield logjam…
