3 Major Questions Surrounding the Boston Red Sox as Spring Training Begins

2. Who Fills in the Rotation?

With the aforementioned departures of Sale and Paxton, a starting rotation which already struggled in 2023 got thinner.

Returners include Brayan Bello, Nick Pivetta, and Kutter Crawford, all of whom posted ERAs above 4. The only addition is Lucas Giolito, who himself posted a 4.88 ERA over 33 starts.

The fifth spot (and potentially a sixth) is very much up for grabs - Cora expects Tanner Houck, Garrett Whitlock, and Josh Winckowski to battle for it. 

The issue here is none of those options are necessarily any good. Every starting pitcher on the roster has some serious question marks around them. Bello is only in his second year, Pivetta is inconsistent, Crawford is a doubt to go more than five innings on any given night, and Giolito is coming off an unimpressive season. Houck has been poor as a starter, Whitlock is inexperienced, and Winckowski's underlying numbers suggest using him as anything more than a reliever is a bad idea.

The farm isn't exactly teeming with major league pitchers, either; only Worcester's Richard Fitts projects to have any chance of starting games in the majors this season.

If the Sox (somehow) end up contending for a playoff spot, will they trade prospects for, say, Shane Bieber to flesh out the rotation? Will they try to fetch a young starter in a potential Jarren Duran deal? There's a lot of uncertainty, but one thing appears to be true. The Sox won't end 2024 with the same rotation they started it with.