As it stands now, the Boston Red Sox will begin the 2020 season with three legitimate starters. That’s obviously not ideal.
It’s seemed all along the Red Sox would use an opener for their fifth starter role, then build the front of the rotation with Chris Sale, Eduardo Rodriguez, Nathan Eovaldi and Martin Perez. But Sale effectively is two weeks behind due to a bout with pneumonia, so it’s already been announced he’ll begin the season on the injured list.
So, what now?
The Red Sox do have a few internal options for a fourth starter. The organization really seems to like Ryan Weber, so maybe they try him out in that role. They also could cross their fingers that a guy like Hector Velazquez finds his 2018 form as a back-end starter in a pinch. Though Velazquez and Brian Johnson didn’t make the postseason roster, they were pivotal to the regular-season success of that World Series-winning team.
But say the Red Sox would prefer to look outside the organization, what are the options? As you would imagine on March 2, not a bunch, but here are a few.
Andrew Cashner (2019 stats: 11-8, 4.68 ERA, 150.0 IP) — Red Sox fans are plenty familiar with Cashner since he was Dave Dombrowski’s only addition at the 2019 trade deadline. While he wasn’t great as a starter in Boston, he did fare much better as a reliever, which could boost his value to the Red Sox if they signed him, as they could use him in that long reliever/spot starter/opener role with everyone in the rotation healthy.
Cashner also did pitch well as a starter at the beginning of 2019 while with the Baltimore Orioles, going 9-3 with a 3.83 ERA. Bringing him back on a cheap deal might not be the worst idea, and probably is the best option of guys who still are free agents.
Jason Vargas (2019 stats: 7-9, 4.51 ERA, 149 2/3 IP) — There are a lot of miles on the 37-year-old’s arm, so durability has been an issue the last few seasons. That said, he did contribute a hefty enough workload between the Mets and Phillies in 2019, and his strikeouts per nine innings (7.5) wasn’t too bad. His time in Philadelphia down the stretch was worse than his time in New York, so the more recent history doesn’t inspire much confidence. Nonetheless, he still was good for productive innings last campaign.
Matt Harvey (2019 stats: 3-5, 7.09, 59 2/3 IP) — For the last few years, teams have unsuccessfully been gambling on being the club that Harvey finally finds his old stuff with (the Cincinnati Reds in 2018 were the closest). He signed a minors deal with Oakland late last season after being cut by the Angels, who he made a dozen big league starts for.
The upside indeed is tantalizing, probably more so than any other pitcher available, but he’s been just too much of a mess to be considered a wise bet.
Clay Buchholz (2019 stats: 2-5, 6.56, 59.0 IP) — What a fun blast from the past this would be. Unsurprisingly, the issue here, for the most part, is health. Last season with the Toronto Blue Jays, he was on the 60-day injured list from May 10 to August 25. But during April, he largely was steady enough to give the Jays a chance to win, and he was really solid in 16 starts with the Arizona Diamondbacks in 2018 (7-2, 2.01 ERA).
No question the 35-year-old’s best days are behind him, but there actually are a couple of semi-recent samples that show his arm might still be a bit useful.
An obvious issue in all of this is that spring training already is underway, so it’s unclear how ready a pitcher picked up now would be, especially since the Red Sox would benefit from someone who could contribute right out of the chute. Furthermore, all of the aforementioned hurlers have massive question marks, whether it’s around their health, effectiveness or both.
So the best situation for the Red Sox probably would be someone from within the organization panning out. But if they do want to look externally there are options, though they’d probably need to act relatively soon.
