Why Monday Marks Important Start To Red Sox’s Offseason Heavy Lifting

It’s been over a month since the Red Sox played their final game of the 2024 season, so they’ve had plenty of time to plot their path forward before a critical winter.

That said, Monday marks an important date on the calendar for Boston.

MLB clubs need to decide by 5 p.m. ET on Monday (five days after the conclusion of the World Series) whether to extend a qualifying offer to any of their impending free agents. The Red Sox’s class of free agents includes outfielder Tyler O’Neill and Nick Pivetta, among others.

This year’s price tag for the one-year qualifying offer reportedly is $21.05 million, calculated by averaging the 125 highest salaries in MLB.

Players who are extended such an offer have until 4 p.m. ET on Nov. 19 to accept. Teams that extend a qualifying offer receive a compensation draft pick if the player instead signs elsewhere in free agency.

(Couple of side notes: Players are ineligible to receive a qualifying offer if they previously received one, and players can’t receive a qualifying offer if they didn’t spend the entire 2024 season with the same team.)

Most of the top free agents each offseason receive a qualifying offer, provided they’re eligible, and reject it to pursue a more lucrative, longer-term contract on the open market. So, expect to see the likes of Juan Soto, Alex Bregman, Pete Alonso, Corbin Burnes and Max Fried, for instance, turn down qualifying offers from their respective teams over the next couple of weeks.

Some players’ situations are more complicated, though, because it’s not readily apparent how their market will materialize this offseason. There have been several examples of players rejecting qualifying offers, only to then have trouble landing a comparable salary over multiple years.

The Red Sox, in theory, could extend the one-year, $21.05 million qualifying offer to Pivetta, 32, in an effort to maintain some rotation stability. But O’Neill, 29, seems a more likely candidate to receive the offer based on his 2024 production and Boston’s need for a right-handed bat (with or without him in the lineup).

O’Neill totaled 31 home runs and 61 RBIs along with a .241/.336/.511 slash line. He feasted on left-handed pitching and proved a good fit in Boston. The question is whether earmarking north of $20 million for a player with his profile — a power hitter with defensive limitations and an extensive injury history — is the best use of the Red Sox’s resources.

If the Red Sox want to make the offer in the hopes of O’Neill rejecting it and Boston ultimately recouping draft-pick compensation, well, there’s some risk to that strategy, too, given the unpredictability surrounding his market. O’Neill, who said publicly he enjoyed his time in Boston, could choose to accept the offer. It’s a tricky case, for sure.

All told, the Red Sox’s offseason heavy lifting is about to begin. Boston already exercised a 2025 contract option on one veteran leader Monday morning.