Red Sox Target Kyle Schwarber Gets Contract Offer, NL Contender Lurks

The Hot Stove is heating up and if Boston Red Sox chief baseball officer Craig Breslow doesn’t make a move soon, he could end up getting scorched in free agency.

The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal reports the Pittsburgh Pirates have made Philadelphia Phillies designated hitter Kyle Schwarber a four-year contract offer. According to Rosenthal, “the offer almost certainly is for more than $100 million.”

“The Pirates remain a long shot to sign Schwarber, whose most likely landing spot remains his previous team, the Philadelphia Phillies,” Rosenthal adds. “The Boston Red Sox are among the other big-market clubs with known interest in him.

“The Cincinnati Reds, Schwarber’s hometown team, also are making a push. Schwarber is from Middletown, Ohio, about 35 miles north of Cincinnati,” Rosenthal says.

“The competition for Schwarber, who turns 33 in March, could push the Phillies to give him a fifth guaranteed year,” Rosenthal notes. “Schwarber not only is coming off a career-high 56 homers, but also is considered one of the best leaders in the game. He is expected to make his decision within the next two weeks.”

But wait, there’s more intrigue, according to ESPN’s Buster Olney.

“The juiciest rumor I heard this week was the notion that the Mets could push the Phillies for Schwarber, and there are a lot of reasons this could make sense,” Olney reports. “Beyond Schwarber’s power and on-base capability — can you imagine pitchers working to get through Schwarber and Soto in the same inning? — he is known as someone who works to pull players together. And hell, even if the Mets don’t believe they can beat the Phillies in the bidding for the slugger, they could push Philadelphia’s cost by being involved, as the Braves did with Aaron Nola two winters ago.”

That’s echoed by MLB.com’s Manny Randhawa.

“It would be a tremendous coup for the Mets to not only add a massive left-handed bat to the lineup but also to poach him, so to speak, from the division-rival Phillies,” Randhawa writes.

“If stalwart first baseman Pete Alonso leaves in free agency, Schwarber — who, like Alonso, played in 162 games last season — would be a worthy replacement in the Mets’ lineup,” Randhawa adds.

MLB.com’s Paul Casella reports that right now, the free-agent market is waiting on Schwarber,.

“It feels as if the Phillies could be at a bit of a standstill until this situation gets worked out,” Casella said.

That echoes what Passan reports.

“When does the Kyle Schwarber dam break? Several teams’ fortunes — from Philadelphia to Cincinnati to Pittsburgh to Boston to Baltimore to the New York Mets — depend on where Schwarber goes,” Passan says.

“The belief among teams is that it will take five years to secure the 32-year-old, and once that happens — perhaps sometime during the meetings — teams will start pivoting, and the action will pick up demonstrably,” Passan adds.

“The contract offers are likely to bump Schwarber’s average annual value to more than $30 million a year, and the winning team won’t be getting a one-dimensional player. Schwarber has among the best plate discipline in the game, and beyond that, he has evolved tremendously,” Passan notes.

“The bidding for the likes of (Pete) Alonso and Kyle Schwarber has yet to even get underway, but it’s easy to anticipate those deals spiraling ever upward with the interest from a handful of big market teams (Phillies, Mets and others) all positioning themselves for one of the sluggers,” Masslive.com’s Sean McAdam reports.

Heading into free agency, here were some of the contract projections for Schwarber:

MLB Trade Rumors: Five years, $135 million.

USA Today’s Bob Nightengale: “A four-year deal in excess of $120 million.”

MLB.com’s Mark Feinsand: “Among those we spoke to, the consensus is that Schwarber should land a deal of four or five years for at least $30 million per season.

ESPN’s Kiley McDaniel: Four years, $119 million.

A three-time All-Star, Schwarber led the National League with a career-high 56 home runs this season.

Schwarber, who helped the Chicago Cubs win the 2016 World Series, spent part of the 2021 season in Boston as a midseason acquisition and helped the Red Sox reach the American League Championship Series.