How A’s Record-Breaking Contract Impacts Red Sox Offseason

On the surface, the Oakland A’s decision to give Luis Severino a record-breaking contract doesn’t directly affect the Boston Red Sox. In hot stove season, though, just about everything is connected.

The A’s shocked the baseball world, at least in very relative terms, when they reportedly agreed to a three-year, $67 million contract with Severino. As ESPN’s Jeff Passan, who broke the news of the agreement, noted, the Severino agreement “exceeded industry expectations.”

Part of that is because the A’s were the ones handing over that money. Oakland seemingly loathes spending money, a notion reinforced by the fact that the club’s $67 million investment is the largest guaranteed contract in franchise history. In some eyes, it might be a bit of an overpay, too. MLB Trade Rumors projected Severino to land a three-year, $51 million deal. Quite the difference.

So, what’s it mean for the Red Sox?

For starters, it’s another sign the starting pitching market, in which the Red Sox are active, is strong for the players. The Severino deal comes on the heels of the Los Angeles Angels reportedly shelling out $63 million over three years for Yusei Kikuchi. Frankie Montas reportedly got $17 million per season from the New York Mets, too. That’s a very strong foundation for a market that also includes Max Fried and Corbin Burnes at the top. Their numbers might have just gone up a bit, too.

That doesn’t even include the $182 million the Dodgers forked over for Blake Snell, a five-year investment that came in more than $20 million higher than projections.

If the Red Sox are serious about signing Fried, Burnes or even Jack Flaherty, the price today is probably slightly higher than it was when the fall begun.

Then again, maybe Craig Breslow and the rest of the Fenway Park front office was out in front of this the whole time. The decision to give Nick Pivetta a qualifying offer looks like a very good read of the market. Severino also got the qualifying offer from the Mets and still outperformed projections. As such, the Mets will get a compensation draft pick for losing Severino.

If the Sox can’t retain Pivetta, they’ll get a pick of their own after tagging him. Given how the market is evolving, that seems like a good bet. Pivetta has been more reliable over the last handful of years, averaging 156 innings per season in four full seasons with the Red Sox. He has been roughly a two-win player (Baseball Reference) over that same time. Severino had a solid 2024, but he exceeded 150 innings just once over the same four-year span and has been good for 2.1 fWAR combined over that time.

By most metrics, at least outside of age, Pivetta has been better than Severino (or Montas or perhaps even Kikuchi), and he’ll likely be compensated as such.

But that also puts more pressure on the Red Sox to fill a potential void left by Pivetta, and that clearly won’t come cheap.