The Red Sox might be on the verge of seeing another one of their better players from the 2022 season leave Boston.
The club already watched the likes of Xander Bogaerts, Nathan Eovaldi, J.D. Martinez and Rich Hill cut ties with the organization through the Major League Baseball open market. Potentially joining that list is free-agent pitcher Michael Wacha, who is drawing interest from the Minnesota Twins, per The Athletic’s Dan Hayes and Aaron Gleeman.
The Twins could stand to shore up their pitching staff at finishing last season in the bottom half of the big leagues in team ERA. Wacha isn’t a Cy Young candidate by any stretch, but he’s a reliable arm who seemingly flirts with a quality start every fifth day. That certainly was the case with Boston last season when he collected an 11-2 record — his highest win total since 2017 — to go along with 3.32 ERA over 127 1/3 total innings.
A prior offseason move made by the Twins might sway Wacha toward Minneapolis as well. The franchise stabilized its situation behind the plate by signing catcher Christian Vázquez, who worked with Wacha in Boston last season before he was traded to the Houston Astros before the deadline.
As far as a potential contract is concerned, Wacha is in line for a bay bump after pitching at an above-average level on a $7 million base salary last season.
