By CJ Carlson
The Boston Red Sox have been in the market for a big-name free agent and luckily for them, there’s still multiple that have been left unsigned. Among the main ones are Blake Snell, Cody Bellinger, Matt Chapman, and Jordan Montgomery. However, the team is certainly leaning more towards Montgomery as opposed to the others.
Boston has been looking at Montgomery for a while now, but they aren’t willing to match the current price that he’s looking for. It was recently reported that the Red Sox are hoping to wait on Montgomery to lower his asking price before making an aggressive push to sign him. Ironically, all of those names mentioned above are players represented by the same group, Boras Corporation. So, there might be a connection there as to why they are all unsigned, their asking prices are a little high right now. It is worth noting though that the team has remained in contact with Montgomery’s agent throughout the offseason, just to see if the price has changed.
Red Sox Will Face Competition
Now, while this sounds great for the Red Sox, it’s not that simple. If Montgomery happens to drop his price at all, it won’t be a slam dunk for Boston to swoop in and grab him. The market would likely significantly heat up for his services, and many other teams would be competing to acquire him. That price drop might never come, but if it does, Boston would face steep competition.
The problem that the Red Sox have faced is that they just haven’t addressed the starting pitcher position, their biggest area of concern heading into this offseason. They signed Lucas Giolito to improve there, but then countered that by shipping away Chris Sale and putting them back to square one. To make matters worse, Boston hasn’t really aggressively spent money on bigger names in the open market, while other teams like the Los Angeles Dodgers have gone above and beyond. The Red Sox still have quite a bit of space remaining to make a splash, they just haven’t done so.
Let’s say that Boston refuses to wait for Montgomery and understands that they desperately need pitching depth. There are other pitchers to go after. Snell, Michael Lorenzen, Rich Hill, Zack Greinke, Mike Clevinger, etc. It seems more than likely that they will sign one of these aforementioned players, because signing one pitcher to trade away another won’t fix the issue. That’s the case even if Giolito ends up being slightly better statistically than Sale. Boston remains patient with Montgomery, but one will wonder if the patience is just a little too much for a team that is in dire need of help on the mound.
