Boston Red Sox have too many starting rotation questions
As the days continue on going into the new year, the Boston Red Sox are still trying to salvage a decent off-season for themselves. They lost Xander Bogaerts to San Diego earlier this month. Now, they’ve lost two veteran starting pitchers.
Nathan Eovaldi signed a two year deal with the Texas Rangers and Rich Hill signed a one year deal with the Pittsburgh Pirates. Eovaldi’s contract is for $17 million a year while Hill’s deal is for eight million.
Now with two veteran pitchers elsewhere, there’s one thing that Red Sox fans and analysts aren’t talking about. What is going on with this rotation? Let me tell you something Red Sox fans, there are too many questions with this Red Sox rotation?
The Boston Red Sox have an injury-prone Chris Sale
The first big question that the Red Sox have to address is this: what are the expectations for Chris Sale?
We can’t expect that Sale will go back to five or six years ago when he was realistically competing for Cy Young awards. In his prime, the lanky left-handed starting pitcher was a dominant force. He was a strikeout pitcher that could go six or seven innings and accumulate 10 strikeouts in those outings.
Now? He’s a guy that you pray doesn’t get injured on a freak accident. His luck has been horrible, with falling off his bike and getting a line drive back to the hand. You can’t make this stuff up!
So that’s a huge question mark heading into the 2023 season.
The Boston Red Sox have an unproven Brayan Bello
Brayan Bello is a guy that’s young and has a ton of upside. He’s even been working with Pedro Martinez this off-season. But can he produce at a high level for a whole MLB season?
We saw flashes of how dominant Bello can be in this rotation, particularly in September. But we need to know that Bello can do this in April, May, and throughout the rest of the regular season.
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The young right-handed pitcher has an explosive fastball and wipeout changeup. This is a solid basis to build off of in 2023. But will he continue to develop his pitches and get even better? That’s a legitimate question going into next season.
The Boston Red Sox have issues with the other starters
It’s easy to say that the other Red Sox starters have their issues as well.
Nick Pivetta is a guy that can be really good at times. He also can be REALLY bad at other times. So you don’t know which guy you’re getting on any given day.
Garrett Whitlock is coming from the bullpen to the starting rotation. He’s a great reliever. But can he prove that he can be just as dominant in a starting role?
The Red Sox literally just signed Corey Kluber to a one year deal.
Right-hander Corey Kluber and the Boston Red Sox are in agreement on a one-year contract with a club option for 2024, sources familiar with the agreement tell ESPN.
— Jeff Passan (@JeffPassan) December 28, 2022
How good will he be at the age of 37? Can he give you legitimate innings as a three or four starter? That remains to be seen.
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This rotation has too many questions that need answers. They better get answered quickly too. Otherwise, we could be looking at 2020 results from the rotation, all over again!