Nick Pivetta evidently believes he can do better than the one-year, $21.05-million offer guaranteed him by the Red Sox.
By declining the team’s qualifying offer and betting on himself, Pivetta is doing the Sox a huge favor.
The 31-year-old right-hander will now enter free agency seeking a larger deal than the fairly sizable one he had on the table from the Sox, and now a team will have to forfeit a compensatory draft pick on top of simply paying him.
Will it be worth it for Nick? It depends on what his priorities are. Maybe he’s looking for a longer deal that pays more overall with a lower AAV. Maybe he just really wants out of Boston, a market he’s never seemed well suited for.
As for the Sox? Pivetta’s decision is a blessing in disguise — or maybe just a blessing in plain sight.
Is he truly a $20 million pitcher? His 4.76 career ERA, 56-71 lifetime record and 1.32 career WHIP would suggest otherwise. Pivetta in his Red Sox tenure is 37-41 with a 4.29 ERA over 131 games and 107 starts.
Those certainly aren’t numbers of an ace, but no one was realistically suggesting he is one. Pivetta is best served as a No. 3 starter given his professional lifelong struggle with consistency. At his best, he’s got top-two starter stuff. At his worst, he looks like a fringe starter at best. That all averages out to that middle-of-the-rotation billing.
He belongs on a major league staff, but from a Sox perspective, I still maintain that $20-some million would be better spent elsewhere on other free-agent pitchers.
Credit should go to Craig Breslow here for accurately identifying a situation where he could maximize an asset like Pivetta, correctly gambling that he would not accept the team’s offer and will now get something in return for his seemingly inevitable departure.
John Henry and Sox fans alike should be grateful for this parting gift from Pivetta…
Sale’s Day
It’s a bit of a bittersweet day in Red Sox Nation.
On one hand, a World Series hero in 2018 is finally getting his day in the sun and being officially recognized as one of the top pitchers in the game with his long-awaited first Cy Young Award.
On the other, there’s no reason that Cy Young season couldn’t have taken place right here in Boston and probably pushed the Sox over the top and into the playoffs…
No matter the hand, Chris Sale is a Cy Young Award winner, and that’s pretty darn cool.
Chris Sale wins his first career Cy Young Award 🏆
— SportsCenter (@SportsCenter) November 20, 2024
A resurgent year for the lefty 📈 pic.twitter.com/pFpM7JfNUU
The lanky left-hander has been the personification of a competitor. His fiery approach and attitude have made him a fan favorite wherever he’s gone, including his six seasons with the Red Sox.
The 35-year-old deserves a ton of credit for being able to turn back the clock this season with his gem of a season: an 18-3 record, a 2.38 ERA, a 1.01 WHIP and 225 strikeouts.
Sale left Boston with a “damaged goods” reputation, and (unfortunately) rightly so after a handful of injury-plagued seasons to end his Boston tenure. He put on his cap, took the mound in Atlanta and proved everybody wrong.
It’s nice to see his hard work pay off like that.
I can’t imagine Sale will have another season like that in the back nine of his career, so it’s nice to see him capitalize on what may very well be be his final shot at baseball’s top pitching honor.
Now a Cy Young winner and a World Series champion, Sale is building himself a nice resume for Cooperstown…
Sasaki Sox
Last year, it was Yoshinobu Yamamoto. This year, it’s Roki Sasaki.
The latest prized Japanese pitcher making the jump to the majors is the 23-year-old right-hander from the Chiba Lotte Marines of the Nippon Professional Baseball league.
Unlike Yamamoto, who required a posting fee to sign and was subject to full market value, Sasaki is considered an amateur free agent who can only be signed using international bonus pool money.
That’s both good and bad news for the Red Sox. The good? Henry’s team wouldn’t need to outbid anyone to acquire Sasaki’s services as all top offers will be equal with a league-wide maximum of $7.6 million for 2025.
The bad? A level playing field will likely favor teams that are in win-now mode and closer to a championship. Perhaps the Red Sox are truly intent on returning to that status, but they aren’t there just yet.
However, as Jim Bowden reports, the Sox could still be an ideal landing spot for Sasaki, providing him with “a solid foundation” thanks to the pitching-minded brain trust of Breslow, Alex Cora and Andrew Bailey.
Where the Sox could give themselves a bit of an edge is, as Bowden suggests, through the enticement of endorsements in a major baseball market like Boston, which has an established history of success with Japanese pitchers including Hideo Nomo, Daisuke Matsuzaka, Hideki Okajima and Koji Uehara among others.
From a baseball perspective, Sasaki’s four-year totals with Chiba Lotte are plenty impressive: a 29-15 record, a 2.10 career ERA 505 strikeouts and an eye-popping 0.894 WHIP.
None of that came against primarily major league talent, of course, but his dominance was on full display — including the 16th perfect game in NPB lore, matching a single-game record with both 19 total strikeouts and 13 consecutive punchouts.
Not too shabby…
Now, the Japanese sensation is ready to take on bigger challenges. He’s gone as far as to say his goal is to “become the best player in the world.”
Why not do so in Boston?
Ultimately, there are better options for Sasaki if the goal is to win a World Series right away. But Boston is by no means a bad fit, and I think it’s entirely conceivable that the Sox could be a realistic landing spot.