It’s no secret the Boston Red Sox could use some pitching.
Neither the rotation nor the bullpen was considered a strength at the beginning of the offseason. And now, the Red Sox are left with just four starters in wake of trading David Price to the Los Angeles Dodgers alongside Mookie Betts this week.
It’s worth noting, too, there are significant questions surrounding the four remaining major league starters: Chris Sale is battling pneumonia, Nathan Eovaldi is coming off a 2019 plagued by injury and inconsistency, Eduardo Rodriguez needs to prove his breakout season wasn’t a fluke and newcomer Martin Perez is an unknown quantity given his rollercoaster results and lack of experience pitching in a pressure-packed market like Boston.
As such, Red Sox chief baseball officer Chaim Bloom acknowledged Thursday on WEEI’s “The Greg Hill Show” that he’s continuing to scour the market for arms, even as pitchers and catchers get to work at spring training in Fort Myers, Fla.
“It’s certainly a hole that we’ll need to fill, and we did spend the winter trying to acquire a lot of different depth options that we think have upside for us that we’re going to get a look at this spring — a lot of different guys that could fill in and give us innings,” Bloom said. “And we’re going to continue, we want to get a look at them and get our arms around what they can do, see how that shakes out in addition to the guys that were already on hand. And we’re going to continue to look around the game of baseball to see if we can add to this pitching staff.”
Boston obtained some financial flexibility by trading Betts and Price, so perhaps Bloom will use that to his advantage while pursuing options to fill Boston’s rotation. It’s a tough pond to be fishing in this late in the offseason though, so he might need to get creative in his pursuit of hurlers with legitimate upside.
