The American League is there for the taking. Will the Red Sox spend enough to take it?
Over half of the top free agents have now signed and the offseason has had the feel of an arms race in the National League. As the likes of Joe Kelly said in no uncertain terms, the Dodgers felt they were far more tested in the earlier rounds of the playoffs than they were in the World Series by the American League’s representative, the New York Yankees. And since that Game Five collapse, NL teams have continued to add.
Let’s take a look at MLBTR’s top 12 free agents this offseason as well as some key players who have moved in trades. I’ve included the unranked Roki Sasaki, who was an uncertain posting at the time the list was made.
MLB Trade Rumors
Conclusion: The National League is still stacked, and it’s getting better by the day.
We’re coming off a postseason that already featured star players of varying levels in the National League, including hitters like Shohei Ohtani, Mookie Betts, Freddie Freeman, Francisco Lindor, Fernando Tatis, Bryce Harper, Jackson Merrill, Kyle Schwarber, Teoscar Hernandez, Trea Turner, Matt Olson, (an injured) Ronald Acuna, Austin Riley, Manny Machado, and William Contreras. Pitchers like Zack Wheeler, Dylan Cease, Michael King, an injured Shohei Ohtani, an injured Chris Sale, Aaron Nola, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, and Ryan Brasier (just making sure you’re still with us).
The Dodgers, Mets, and Phillies have continued to load up. The Braves will get healthy and should join that group again. The Padres aren’t going away. And, well, someone has to represent the NL Central, so the Cubs traded for Kyle Tucker to make a run in 2025. In case you forgot about the 2023 NL Pennant winners, the Diamondbacks signed the best free-agent pitcher on the market in Corbin Burnes and traded for 27-year-old Josh Naylor, who casually popped 31 and 108 a year ago. They should be back, and the Giants won’t go down without a fight.
Photo by Keith Birmingham/MediaNews Group/Pasadena Star-News via Getty Images
As I look around the American League, I see a whole group of… decent teams. The Yankees are the betting favorites to win the pennant but with Soto gone, it’s hard to make the case that they’re any better. The Yankees staying as the favorite assumes health on a historically injury-prone roster. After that, there are only two teams that are better than 12:1 odds to win the AL: Baltimore and Houston. The Orioles got worse on paper with Burnes leaving, and the Astros may or may not be in a mini-rebuild after trading Tucker, and letting Bregman and Kikuchi walk.
Texas, Seattle, Cleveland, Minnesota, Detroit, Kansas City? These are all flawed teams. Therefore, now is the time to strike for the Boston Red Sox in free agency.
Thankfully, we started to hear some rumblings that this would happen. From Sam Kennedy:
“Even if it takes us over the CBT,” said Kennedy, referring to the first threshold of the competitive balance tax that stands at $241 million next year. “Our priority is 90 to 95 wins, and winning the American League East, and winning the division for multiple years.”
“Is that possible? If that’s what it takes, yeah, absolutely,” Kennedy said. “We are investing more than we did last year. We intend to invest going forward.
“There is an extreme urgency internally to be competing for the American League East Championship and to set ourselves up for a deep postseason run in 2025 without question. The goal is to win 90 plus games to not be worrying about a wild-card spot.”
Craig Breslow, your thoughts?
“In a perfect world. We’re getting elite-level production from a right-handed bat out of the middle of the lineup,” he said. “I think it stretches out the lineup. It balances out guys like Jarren and Raffy and Triston and Masa and others.
An elite-level bat! An extreme urgency to compete! Even if it takes us over the CBT! Sounds great. But they haven’t.
Many of us have criticized the Red Sox management team for their lack of participation, and in some years non-participation, in free agency. Here is a reminder of what has occurred over the previous five years of free agency, right after moving on from Dave Dombrowski and choosing to tear down a championship roster.
2020: Traded Mookie Betts and David Price. Signed Martin Perez and Kevin Pillar.
2021: Signed Hunter Renfroe, Enrique Hernandez, Garrett Richards.
2022: Let Kyle Schwarber and Eduardo Rodriguez walk. Signed Michael Wacha, an injured James Paxton, and Trevor Story so they could…..
2023: ….. let Xander Bogaerts walk, along with Nathan Eovaldi, Michael Wacha, and J.D. Martinez. Signed Justin Turner, Kenley Jansen, Adam Duvall, and (Opening Day Starter) Corey Kluber.
2024: Signed Lucas Giolito, Liam Hendriks, and Michael Fulmer, who threw a combined zero innings last season.
Outside of Story, none of these free agent signings were in any of the first few tiers of free agents, and, as mentioned, Story was simply a pre-emptive Xander Bogaerts replacement.
Two months into free agency, a matter of hours away from entering the year 2025, the Red Sox have not done anything different in their approach this offseason.
If you look at the predictions on that MLB Trade Rumors piece, you’ll see that, of their four writers, two of them predicted Corbin Burnes (FA Rank #2) would land in Boston and the other two predicted Blake Snell would(FA Rank #4). They also all predicted a top reliever signing here (two Tanner Scott, one Jeff Hoffman, one Clay Holmes), which is still possible.
What the Red Sox have done so far is sign just one of the top 50 free agents. That was the 37th ranked player, Walker Buehler, to a 1-year, $21M deal (MLBTR Projected 1/$15M). They’ve also signed a player from the “Honorable Mentions” section (Ranked 51-68) in Aroldis Chapman to a 1-year, $10.75M deal. And they followed that up with a player from the “Unlisted Players” section, presumably ranked lower than 68th, in Patrick Sandoval for 2 years, $18.25M. Those three players will count for $40.93M against the team’s payroll this year. Call me “old school”, but I personally would’ve just given all of that money to a #1 pitcher like Corbin Burnes or Max Fried, or a combination of any two impact hitters on the open market this offseason.
Of course, they have done more to compete in 2025 than they did in any of the past five off-seasons, by trading for a front-of-the-rotation starter, Garrett Crochet, but sent out two significant assets from the minor leagues in return.
Has anyone heard a thing about Theo Epstein since he was hired in an “advisory role” in Fenway Sports Group last February? It would be great if Theo looked at the landscape in the American League, the looming stud prospects that will be up in 2025, and “advised” ownership to sign one of the top 30 free agents that are still on the market this offseason. Maybe even two of them. The division and pennant can be grasped sooner than you think.
The offseason is not yet complete but it sure feels like the same old story. Happy New Year.