Chairman of the Boston Red Sox, Tom Werner, announced on November 2 that the team would run a “full throttle” offseason under new CBO Craig Breslow.
The largest acquisition they have made thus far is the two-year, $38.5 million contract that free-agent starting pitcher Lucas Giolito signed. His first pitch for the Red Sox has not yet been thrown by him. But during the MLB trade deadline in 2024, might he already be a target for teams in contention?
Zachary D. Rymer of Bleacher Report offered ten much too early predictions for the forthcoming season. In his initial forecast, he said Giolito will return to his Cy Young-level play and be in high demand on trade deadline day.
In 2023, the 29-year-old righty threw 184.1 innings, which was a career high. He achieved it while playing for the Cleveland Guardians, Los Angeles Angels, and Chicago White Sox. But it was the second year in a row that he had trouble reaching the same level of performance as he did in 2019 and 2021.
Giolito has a 29-21 record in 427.1 innings over that time, along with a 3.47 ERA and 1.08 WHIP. Alongside this, there were three consecutive top-11 results in the American League Cy Young Award voting. With a 19–24 record in 346 innings, he has generated a 4.89 ERA and 1.37 WHIP between 2022 and 2023.
Prior to being moved to the Angels at the 2023 trade deadline, Giolito whizzed around a 3.79 ERA in 21 starts with Chicago. That’s when he started to struggle more. With Los Angeles, he made six starts and recorded a 6.89 ERA. After that, Cleveland had another six starts with an ERA of 7.04.
Giolito leads Boston’s starting staff in terms of rotation composition right now. They also deducted from this group when they dealt shortstop Vaughn Grissom to the Atlanta Braves in exchange for Chris Sale (as well as cash).
Thus, the hope is that Giolito can get back on track and take the lead in manager Alex Cora’s rotation—that is, until the Red Sox sign starting pitcher Jordan Montgomery. On January 4, Julian McWilliams of The Boston Globe said that the pitcher has been honing his mechanics this winter.
On January 18, Eno Sarris of The Athletic announced that Kyle Boddy of Driveline Baseball will be joining Breslow’s team this season as a special advisor.