Even after acquiring the top-of-the-rotation ace they have been missing since Chris Sale was shut down with an elbow injury that required Tommy John surgery after the 2019 season, the Boston Red Sox have made no secret of the fact that upgrading their pitching staff remains the team’s top offseason priority.
Boston on December 11 traded four highly regarded minor leaguers, including their fourth-ranked overal prospect catcher Kyle Teel, for Chicago White Sox lefty power-pitcher Garrett Crochet. They expect that the 25-year-old who struck out 12.9 batters for every nine innings pitched last year will anchor their rotation and take some pressure off Tanner Houck, Brayan Bello and the other Red Sox starters.
In 2024 the Red Sox starting staff ranked a respectable seventh in the Major Baseball when it came to ERA, posting a 3.81 figure that was actually good enough for fourth in the American League. But the Boston starters had quite a bit of trouble simply staying in the game. With 839 2/3 innings pitched, the Red Sox rotation placed a mediocre 16th in baseball for durability — an average of barely over five innings per outing.
Red Sox Need to Do Better With Starting Staff
In other words, the Red Sox need more and better starters, over and above Crochet. On December 10, a starter became available who immediately leaped to the top of the “most sought-after” list for the Red Sox, as well as the New York Yankees, Los Angeles Dodgers and several other franchises — even though he has never thrown an inning, or even a pitch in the Major Leagues.
That pitcher is 23-year-old Japanese fireballer Roki Sasaki, who pitched the last four seasons — the first four of his professional career — for the Chiba Lotte Marines of Japan’s Pacific League. In his four-year career at the top level of Japan’s pro baseball circuit, Sasaki has put together an ERA of 2.41 and a stunningly low WHIP of 0.833. His fastball has been clocked as high as 102 mph.
