Why Walker Buehler Wanted ‘Prove-It’ Deal With Red Sox

Walker Buehler’s deal with the Boston Red Sox didn’t come with an extended amount of job security.

The 30-year-old right-hander agreed to just a one-year deal with the Red Sox worth a reported $21.05 million. A more long-term, lucrative offer on the free-agent market probably wasn’t available to Buehler due to how he performed this past season.

Buehler struggled coming off Tommy John surgery and posted a 1-6 record with a bloated 5.38 ERA and a 1.553 WHIP — by far his worst numbers as a pro since becoming a full-time starter in 2018. But with the Dodgers making a run to a World Series title, everything clicked once again for Buehler. The two-time All-Star tossed 10 scoreless innings to finish off his postseason and closed out the World Series on the mound at Yankee Stadium.

That got Buehler to this point with the Red Sox and also gave him a chance to show that he could harness his stellar talent again for an entire season. And if that happens, Buehler could line himself up for a much bigger payday next offseason. It’s all on his shoulders to make that happen, though. But that excites him.

“The confidence that I’m going to be one of those guys in the major leagues that is super successful,” Buehler said Friday in Zoom call with reporters about what his playoff performance did for him. “I’ve done that for a decent stretch of my career and then these past two years have been rough. Without the last six weeks of the seasons, I don’t know if we’re in the same spot in terms of how I was thinking or the offers I was getting. So, I think when a season has gone kind of as poorly as it can and luckily, you wrap a bow on it at the end, I think trying to go and prove it to myself as well as 29 other teams is something that is appealing.”

This offseason was the first time Buehler tested free agency in his career. It certainly didn’t go how he envisioned it would when he first made it to the Dodgers in 2017.

Buehler had to wait his turn for the starting pitching market to play out. Blake Snell, Max Fried and Corbin Burnes all came off the board before Buehler. And Buehler signed for peanuts compared to the deals that trio received. But he felt he found a “good fit” with the Red Sox.

“When you’re a rookie, you think free agency is going to be 30 teams calling and telling you exactly what they think and giving you an offer every day and raising that offer every other day and whatnot. But, that’s just not the way it goes,” Buehler said. “There’s a lot of talented players in this year’s class and I kind of understand that. Also, there’s some different ways to look at my situation that our team and I kind of looked at. Do we do a multi-year (deal)? Do we do a one-year (deal)? Do we go somewhere we really want to? Do we go somewhere and try and help build it?

“For me, the one year in Boston and joining a winning franchise and a historical franchise and a team that has a real chance to win, I think, was the best option for me.”

Playing for the Red Sox offers Buehler something different than the Dodgers. He’ll be counted on more in Boston’s new-look rotation than he was in the Dodgers star-studded starting staff. He’s also the only member of Boston’s rotation to pitch in a World Series.

Buehler understands that the next steps of his career will be determined by how well he pitches on the mound in a Red Sox uniform. But perhaps it was all supposed to work out this way for Buehler.

“It’s one of those places you feel a little more tied to than others,” said Buehler, who pitched in the Cape Cod Baseball League in 2014. “And for about three or four weeks before I ended up signing, I thought that was probably where I was going to go and happy it worked out that way.”