Red Sox ‘Rival’ Views This As Final Piece To Building Contender

If you've watched any more than eight pitches of Boston Red Sox baseball in 2023, you'd know what their biggest need moving forward is.

It's pitching.

Boston has had unbelievably bad luck on the pitching side over the last two seasons, with 2023 representing a year of unrecognized promise. The Red Sox have gotten tremendous contributions from James Paxton, Brayan Bello and Kutter Crawford, but injuries to Chris Sale, Garrett Whitlock and Tanner Houck, and early-season struggles for Nick Pivetta and Corey Kluber left them riding a three-man rotation for the majority of the season.

That's not to say things can't improve moving forward, but relying on oft-injured pitchers to no longer get injured isn't a recipe for success. So, yeah, they need to add pitching over the course of the coming months.

Don't believe us? How about a "rival" evaluator?

"That's the final piece there, I think," the evaluator told Sean McAdam of MassLive. "They've done a pretty good job building up the roster and they've got some others coming. But there's nothing in their system in the upper levels that can be counted on for (the rotation) next year, so that means they'll either to spend (in free agency) or trade for pitching."

The Red Sox are locked in with Bello, but things are shaky beyond that. Sale, Whitlock and Houck have shown an inability to stay healthy when in the rotation, while Crawford is a back-end/fringe rotation arm. Paxton would be welcomed back with open arms, but he'll likely hit free agency after the season.

Bello is a recent success story of Boston's farm system, but there aren't any legitimate starting options that are expected to be ready by 2024. You know where we're going with this, don't you?

There are a wealth of free agent arms that should be available at the end of the season, and the Red Sox have the ability to make a play at almost any one of them. The big fish are big, with Shohei Ohtani, Blake Snell, Julio Urías, Aaron Nola and Eduardo Rodriguez all expected to land nine-figure deals. There's also Japanese pitcher Yoshinobu Yamamoto, who might just be the best pitcher of the bunch.

The Red Sox could also look to make a trade, with George Kirby, Logan Gilbert, Mitch Keller, Shane Bieber and Dylan Cease all looking like they could be moved.

There are plenty of options if Boston agrees with its rival evaluator and believes it needs to add starting pitching.