The Red Sox went out and added to the rotation this offseason while bringing back most of the names from last year’s staff. The lone notable subtraction was Nick Pivetta, who joined the Padres just before spring training began. Garrett Crochet provides a level of stuff that’s been missing from the rotation for several years, while Walker Buehler and Lucas Giolito bring veteran presences to the group. Let’s run through each of the pitchers in line for a rotation spot to start the season. There are plenty of depth options as well, so keep an eye out for part two where I highlight some of the depth options you’ll see throughout the season when injuries inevitably occur.
Tier One: Pig
Oink oink.
Crochet on the mound.
What a sight.
Garrett Crochet
2024 in a few words: Crochet was dominant in his first season as a starter but was limited down the stretch.
I’ve already covered Crochet at length this offseason (here and here). He’s very good. That’s all you need to know. Moving on. Just kidding, I can’t help myself.
I’m as guilty of getting caught up in the metrics as anyone. With Crochet, all you need to know is that he’s a massive lefty who throws 100 MPH fastballs. He lives in the zone, and it doesn’t matter. He can, and has, got by with just his four-seam and cutter, but he added a sinker at the end of 2024 just to make things that much harder on hitters. He can also pull the string with an 84 MPH slider, because why not?
If there’s cause for concern with Crochet, it’s durability. The White Sox managed Crochet’s workload during the second half of last season—credit to them for not pushing him more than necessary. After 146 innings in 2024, he should be set up for 180ish in 2025. If we see Crochet’s velocity fall off late in the summer, there may be some cause for concern with his ability to handle a starter’s workload. I don’t think it will be an issue, but I wouldn’t blame you if you did.
Tier Two: Steady Rotation Pieces
Photo by Maddie Malhotra/Boston Red Sox/Getty Images
Brayan Bello and Tanner Houck make up the next tier because they’ve shown the ability to pitch deep into games. While there are still concerns about both pitchers’ future performance, they each have shown an ability to handle 30 starts a year and have a floor of a starting pitcher.
Brayan Bello
2024 in a few words: A poor start to the season tanked his year-long numbers, but there’s more to the story.
Coming into 2024, I wanted to see Bello’s slider become more consistent to complement his already good sinker/changeup combination. The good news is it did. He finally settled on a shape after trying about five different versions in 2023, and it paid off for him. His 2024 slider saw increases in just about every meaningful metric. The bad news is he took steps back in other places and was inconsistent all season.
Fortunately, Bello’s stuff is as good as ever. While pitching models such as Stuff+ don’t love his arsenal, three of his four pitches have been effective at times. His sinker is hard, reaching 100 MPH and generating plenty of ground balls. His slider proved to be an effective pitch when he commanded it. He tried the high four-seamer with two strikes as well which wasn’t incredibly effective, but it may have helped keep hitters honest.
The key for Bello in 2025 will be remastering his changeup. In 2023 it was his best pitch, but it regressed last season. If you watched Bello pitch, you saw outings where the changeup was as good as ever and others where he had no feel for the slow ball at all. It’s not a question of stuff, but command. Hopefully, another year of experience will provide more consistency, though Bello may just be a volatile pitcher going forward.
I will note, there was an element of “bad luck” with Bello. Despite a very high groundball rate with his sinker, hitters still managed a .351 batting average on balls in play. His slider had a similar situation. He could do a better job keeping the ball down, but improved defense with Trevor Story and Alex Bregman in the middle of the infield should also greatly benefit Bello.
Tanner Houck
2024 in a few words: Houck started the season red hot and made his first career all-star appearance, but cooled off in the second half of the season.
Houck was the biggest surprise of the 2024 rotation. Before the season, I even wrote that he was best suited to a bullpen role. He responded (figuratively) by putting in a great first half and being selected to the 2024 all-star team as a starter. It was in large part thanks to his splitter, which was vastly improved over the 2023 version of the pitch. In 2023, his splitter was only in the zone about 25% of the time, which left Houck susceptible to left-handed hitters (10.4% BB%, .896 OPS). He made some tweaks in the offseason to the pitch which helped him get the ball in the zone and keep lefties off balance.
While the season-long numbers look great for Houck, the second half of 2024 was suspect and makes me wonder how much of his breakout was thanks to hitters not catching up to changes in his arsenal. After the all-star break, he ran a 4.23 ERA over his final eleven starts. Before the break, Houck threw his slider in the zone over 50% of the time, and hitters let them go for called strikes. After the break, hitters were more aggressive and didn’t watch sliders in the zone, which in turn caused Houck to go outside the zone, relying on batters to chase. The same was true of his sinker, to a lesser extent. Going forward, Houck will have to continue to adapt to keep his walk rate down and go deep into games. If he can’t, he’s still a solid fourth or fifth starter with a high ceiling.
Tier Three: High Ceiling, Low Floor
The next tier is three pitchers who have questions going into 2025. While each pitcher has shown high-level ability, they haven’t proven they can consistently perform at that level, and the lower end of their projected outcomes isn’t very useful for a major league team.
Walker Buehler
2024 in a few words: Buehler struggled through injuries in his first season after Tommy John surgery. He also closed out the World Series for the Dodgers and is a certified dog.
Walker Buehler is a weird one. He was dominant from 2018 to 2021, struggled in 2022 before having Tommy John surgery and missing all of 2023 and part of 2024 with more injuries. This will be his first healthy offseason in several years as well as his first offseason outside of Los Angeles.
At his best, Buehler used a fastball-heavy approach and complemented it with a cutter, curveball, and slider. While his fastball was just okay, it was serviceable and set up his other pitches. This past season, his four-seamer was bad. The vertical movement was down from his best seasons, leading to some serious regression. The pitch got fewer called strikes, fewer whiffs, and got hammered. Against righties in particular, his four-seamer was particularly ineffective which contributed to a career-high walk rate against them.
In the postseason, Buehler’s fastball was vastly improved. The vertical movement was similar to his peak, but it’s such a small sample it may be due to environmental changes or even pushing the limit of sticky stuff allowed. Andrew Bailey doesn’t like throwing pitches for the sake of throwing them. He may determine the best course of action is to ditch the four-seam and opt for additional sinkers and cutters. His sinker was great against right-handed hitters last season and could replace his four-seam as a strike-getting pitch to get to his secondaries.
There are a lot of questions surrounding Buehler. He probably won’t return to his pre-injury self, but he could become a solid second or third starter with the right adjustments. I’m a little bit concerned with his fastballs. The four-seamer isn’t what it was, and his sinker’s movement may be too average to work as a primary fastball. He’s always had solid command, but that isn’t enough to succeed on its own.
Lucas Giolito
Photo by Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images
2024 in a few words: Giolito didn’t pitch due to injury. He seems like a nice guy though.
Lucas Giolito is in a similar boat to Buehler, but his boat is totally lost at sea. He’s a complete mystery at this point. He missed the entirety of 2024 after undergoing an internal brace procedure on his elbow, whatever that is. He’s expected to be ready for opening day, but how he performs to begin the year is anyone’s guess.
I have two major questions about Giolito. The first is how hard will his fastball be. When Giolito was receiving Cy Young votes, his fastball accounted for about 45% of his pitches and sat at 94 MPH. In the two seasons where he struggled, he lost a tick of velocity, coming in closer to 92.5 MPH. 92 MPH isn’t the end of the world. He gets nearly seven feet of extension, compensating for the lower velocity. He also got by in the first half of 2023 with low velo thanks to good command. Regardless, if he enters 2025 throwing 94 MPH, everything else becomes a little bit easier.
My second question is will he have a feel for his changeup? Giolito’s changeup is what makes him who he is. His changeup shape is very abnormal. Unlike most changeups, Giolito’s doesn’t have significant drop. He also throws it in the zone a lot more than most pitchers. The pitch gets whiffs both in and out of the zone and racks up the strikes. If Giolito still has a feel for his changeup, he’ll have a solid floor for 2025.
He has a slider as well that’s effective against righties. It’s nothing extraordinary, but it helps round out his arsenal and give him a pitch that moves to the glove side. Adding a cutter could help take some of the burden off his fastball, but “just add a cutter” is cliched advice, so forget I even said that. Unless it happens, in which case feel free to publically praise me for that idea.
Kutter Crawford
Photo by Maddie Malhotra/Boston Red Sox/Getty Images
2024 in a few words: Kutter Crawford had his moments, but the home run ball and blow-up innings got him into trouble too often.
Kutter Crawford, currently battling a knee injury, is the last of the pitchers on the roster fighting for a spot in the rotation. After many (myself included) picked him to break out in 2024, he turned in a somewhat disappointing campaign. He started the season red hot, but hitters soon caught up to him and he struggled through the summer. He led the league in home runs allowed (34), and saw his strikeout rate fall from 2023.
Looking closer, his fastball saw a decrease in performance. While he still got plenty of strikes with his heater, the swinging strike rate dropped and it was hit much harder. That may be in part due to a velocity decrease, among other things. He reportedly dealt with knee soreness all season, which could be to blame. Regardless of the cause of the dip, additional velocity would go a long way for Crawford’s effectiveness.
On a brighter note, his cutter is still very good. He commands it well against both sides of the plate, and batters have a hard time doing damage against it. It’s a great pitch that can help him get through a lineup once or twice.
Where Crawford struggles is going deeper into games. The third time through the order, his batting average allowed was .260 compared to .217 in his first. He struck out fewer hitters and walked more later in games as well. While going through a lineup three times is difficult for most pitchers, that challenge is only exacerbated by Crawford’s lack of a consistent breaking ball. Last season, he opted to use a sweeper as his primary breaking pitch. It performed well early in the season, but he had issues with it later in the year. After the month of April he couldn’t land the pitch in the zone as frequently for called strikes and opponents started making more contact. Without a quality breaking ball, hitters could hunt for fastballs and were able to do damage against them. Thirteen of the home runs he allowed came against his four-seam fastball. The first one happened on June 4.
I already made some Kutter Crawford content this offseason and offered some suggestions for how he may be able to improve on his 2024 campaign. If you don’t want to watch a short video where I go into more detail, the gist is that if Crawford goes back to his old slider, he may find some success. Again, it’s not a surefire way to fix him, just one idea from a guy who kinda knows what he’s talking about. If he can find a consistent breaking ball, I like his outlook for 2024. If he can’t, he may be better suited to a high-leverage bullpen role where he can lean on his fastballs and see his velocity jump in shorter outings.
Fangraphs Projections
Around the Division
Ranking the rotations in the division is very difficult. The Red Sox, Yankees, and Rays are clearly a step above the Blue Jays and Orioles in my opinion, but you could rank the top three in any order. The Yankees have incredible potential, but little depth. The Rays are young and have great stuff, along with depth, and the Red Sox are a solid mix of ceiling, floor, and depth. Here’s a little (a lot) more information on some of the arms you’ll see around the division this season.
Yankees
Photo by New York Yankees/Getty Images
This rotation is unfortunately very solid. They have a very high ceiling, and the floor is safe as well. Depth is the issue here, as there isn’t much past these six, and Stroman is already causing a stink about being in the bullpen, which makes keeping him on the roster difficult.
Gerrit Cole – He’s really good. He’s also scared of Rafael Devers and probably also mirrors after being clean-shaven for so long.
Max Fried – Max Fried is probably going to have a good season. He’ll have an ERA in the threes with average strikeouts, and low walks. He’ll also get totally burned by a groundball to DJ LeMahieu or Paul Goldschmidt in a big moment and we’ll collectively laugh at him.
Carlos Rodon – I wish I had more mean things to say about Rodon because he’s just so hateable. He’s, unfortunately, a very good third option in any rotation, but will likely have some blow-up innings thanks to his approach. There’s some injury concern as well given his age and track record.
Luis Gil – You can convince yourself Gil will figure out how to consistently throw strikes if you’re stupid. He won’t. (God he better not because he would quickly become a problem if he did)
Clarke Schmidt – If you like pitchers who can go four innings at a time then Schmidt is the guy for you. Schmidt should be better than he is with a solid cutter to attack lefties, but he doesn’t have much outside of that. His sinker location chart looks like a Jackson Pollock. He’s also dealing with a “cranky back” which won’t help him find an early groove.
Marcus Stroman – Marcus Stroman is just Cooper Criswell with a better reputation and bigger personality. He had a 16% strikeout rate last season in 154 innings. He’d be a great option if he had minor league options and was a depth starter, but instead of an option, he has an ego and an $18 million salary.
Rays
As always, the Rays have pitchers. McClanahan has a case for best pitcher in the division, and Pepiot, Baz, and Bradley all have high ceilings. They probably have seven other pitchers you’ve never heard of who are ready to baffle hitters for five innings before going back to their jobs as carpenters or bank robbers or whatever.
Shane McClanahan – McClanahan is elite. He’s going to be very annoying to have in the division for the next two or three seasons before the Rays send him to the Dodgers
Taj Bradley – Bradley is the type of pitcher I would convince myself on if he were on the Red Sox. He’ll have his days, but I don’t think his command is consistent enough to be a truly great pitcher.
Ryan Pepiot – Pepiot is awesome, unfortunately. He has a really good fastball that he located better in 2024, and two solid secondaries to complement it. Where do the Rays find these guys?
Zack Littell – A soft-tossing command merchant with bad fastballs. Another one who will have his days but his ceiling is capped thanks to low strikeouts.
Shane Baz – Where do the Rays find these fastballs? Baz has another good one that he commands well and a good curveball to go with it. If he figures out his slider he’ll be another very frustrating pitcher to face.
Blue Jays
Photo by Julio Aguilar/Getty Images
The Blue Jays rotation is okay. Gausman, Berrios, and Bassitt are all fairly average, consistent pitchers, but they don’t feel like guys who will win you a playoff series. Max Scherzer and Bowden Francis are interesting, although I wouldn’t want to rely on them for a full season.
Kevin Gausman – He’ll give you 180 pretty solid innings. He’s a fastball/splitter guy, but the splitter took a step back last year leading to some regression. He can be a good pitcher, but he’s not someone I’m overly worried about facing three or four times a season.
Jose Berrios – Jose Berrios has been consistently average to above average for the last several years. He doesn’t strike anyone out, and he doesn’t walk anyone either. Again, a good lineup can hit Berrios, so I’m not worried.
Chris Bassitt – Bassitt throws like twelve different pitches and none of them work against lefties. He’s an inning-eating, strike-throwing arm, but another guy I’m not at all afraid of.
Max Scherzer – You all know who Max Scherzer is. There’s a chance he’ll be good if he’s not hurt, but there’s a good chance he’ll be hurt.
Bowden Francis – I can’t get a read on Francis. His fastball was really, really good with fairly average characteristics. He did a good job suppressing hard contact, I’m just not sure he’ll be able to repeat that.
Orioles
Coming into the season, I don’t have high hopes for the Orioles rotation. They could get better when Kyle Bradish, Tyler Wells, and Trevor Rogers return from injury, but I’d still rank this group last in the division.
Zach Eflin – Eflin is fine. He’s not who I would choose to lead my rotation, but he’s a steady presence thanks to his strike-throwing ability.
Grayson Rodriguez – Rodriguez has the tools to be nasty. He just hasn’t put them together yet. Let’s hope he doesn’t figure it out this season.
Charlie Morton – He’s 41 years old and his already bad fastball is losing velocity. He’s not someone I’d want to rely on every five days.
Dean Kremer – I don’t think I would take Kremer over a single pitcher in the Red Sox rotation. I just don’t see a whole lotta upside here.
Tomoyuki Sugano – I’m not going to pretend to know much about Sugano. I doubt he’ll be very good though.