The Boston Red Sox acquired a pair of starting pitchers in separate trades less than two weeks apart in Sonny Gray and Johan Oviedo.
ESPN MLB expert David Schoenfield praised the Red Sox’s Thursday deal to land Oviedo from the Pittsburgh Pirates, giving Boston a B- for the move and said the big right-hander has “obvious upside.”
Schoenfield, who gave the Red Sox a B+ for their November acquisition of Gray, also called the two newcomers “sort of the polar opposite” of each other.
“Oviedo is sort of the polar opposite of Gray, other than the fact that both are right-handers: Oviedo is 6-foot-6 and 275 pounds with a fastball that touches 98 mph while Gray is 5-10 and doesn’t throw hard; Gray has been reasonably healthy while Oviedo missed all of 2024 with Tommy John surgery; Gray pounds the strike zone while Oviedo’s control problems have always limited his value (in nine starts in 2025, he averaged 5.1 walks per nine),” the senior writer said. “There is obvious upside here, especially if the better results against left-handed hitters in 2025 are for real. In his two years as Red Sox pitching coach, Andrew Bailey has extracted improvement from the likes of Tanner Houck in 2024 (although he got hurt in 2025) and Brayan Bello and Lucas Giolito in 2025, so it will be interesting to see what Bailey can do with Oviedo.”
The 36-year-old Gray quickly won over some of his new teammates during a Zoom interview on Tuesday when expressing his mostly negative feelings toward Boston’s biggest rival, the New York Yankees.
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The 27-year-old Oviedo was solid across nine starts in 2025, going 2-1 with a 3.57 ERA, 1.21 WHIP and 42 strikeouts against 23 walks covering 40 1/3 innings pitched.
Featured image via Jordan Godfree/Imagn Images
